%-r Protestant and Catholic Civilization Compared, THE FUTURE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. AN ESSAY CONTRASTING PROTESTANT CATHOLIC EFFORTS FOR CIVILIZAXbtflWX&ZdTj BY BARON DE HAULLEVILLE, WITS PREFATORY NOTES BY CARDINAL MANNING, CARDINAL DECHAMPS, AND PIC'S IX., AND AN APPENDIX CONTAINING NOTES FROM VARIOUS AUTHORITATIVE SOURCES. NEW YORK: HIGKBT Co., PUBLISHERS OF "THE VATIOAK LIBRARY," 11 BARCLAY STREET. STACK Copyrighted by HICKEI fc CO., in tte years 1876 and 1878, /Mr PREFACE. has long been a battle ground of Eu- -*-* rope. Nations have contended for its commanding position and have at last guaranteed its independence and neutrality, to prevent it falling a prize to their rivals. But there is no neutrality and no cessation in the eternal conflict between light and darkness, be- tween Catholic truth and progress and anti-Catholic misrepresentation and retrogression. Hence, while the Catholic people of Belgium have, in their long peace, won nearly all the rewards which their Catholic vir- tues, their industry, their activity, their honesty and constant self-restraint deserved, they have had to fight, foot by foot, for the possession of the most pre- cious of their treasures, the faith preached to them by Saint Eleutherius. The secret societies of Europe have devoted their energies to the corruption of this people and to the destruction of their faith, em- ploying there, as elsewhere, with powerful energy, the immense power of the press to circulate errors. As may be supposed, they have not had a clear field, for Belgium is fortunate in possessing Catholic sons, of the highest talents and acquirements, and of the greatest zeal. Among those who have already reached a foremost position in this conflict, on the side of Catholic truth, is the illustrious Baron de Haulleville, editor of the Revue Generale, of Brussels, and author of numerous 403 IV PREFACE. Catholic works of great value and erudition, who has encountered, and always with success, some of the principal literary antagonists of the Church, not alone in Belgium, but in Germany and France. One of his most useful books, is that which is given to the American public in the following pages, The Future of Catholic Peoples. This was a series of essays, written originally in reply to specific allegations of M. Laveleye and to the general accusations of the universal secret society press, that human progress and the Catholic Church are so far in- compatible that a Catholic people must fall in the scale of nations, and that by a kind of " survival of the fittest," the great races of the present are, and in the future will continue to be, Protestant and anti-Catho- lic. This calumny, so opposed to history, to common sense, and even to the teaching of an Ecumenical Council and to the Divine promises, Baron de Haulle- ville examined with great perspicuity, and refuted with abundant facts. At the solicitation of the Pri- mate of Belgium, Cardinal Dechamps, Archbishop of Malines, Baron de Haulleviile collected these essays in a volume. Having sent a copy of this book to the editor of The Catholic Review, New York, early in the Centennial Year 1876, at a period when new oppor- tunities were afforded for the contrast of the work of Catholic and non-Catholic races, on a quasi neutral soil, it was determined to translate it and re- produce it in the columns of The Catholic Review, for the benefit of American and Eng- lish speaking readers, especially, as at that PREFACE. V time, through the instrumentality of Mr. Gladstone, some faint echoes of the calumnies of M. de Laveleye had reached this country. These had, however, been long familiar in other forms, and are to be me!, with to- day in almost every newspaper, in too many school- books, and by the reader of general literature. Sub- sequently, by Baron de Haulleville's permission, and by arrangement with the editor of The Catholic Review, its translation, enriched with notes from the Dublin Re- view, from Mr. Henrj Bellingliam's summary of the orig- inal, and from other sources, have been re published by the present publishers. The work has met with gene- ral approval abroad, Italian, English and German ver- sions having been called for within a few years. Cardinal Manning, Cardinal Dechamps, and our late illustrious Pope, Pius IX., have written warmly of its merits. Meeting with thoroughness many of the sin- ister difficulties which are daily permeating the secular and Protestant press of America, it is believed thnt ifc will win in this country the favor which it deserves. Ifc contains an arsenal of facts and arguments which answer the slanderers who daily point to what they call the decrepitude of C-itholic peoples. It shows that the real progress of the world has been Catholic prog- ress, and it predicts that in the approaching great age of the world Catholic principles will prevail and rule. Cardinal Dechamps, Archbishop of Malines, urging Baron de Haulleville to republish this book, wrote as f ol-ows : MALINES, January 10, 1876. "What I have read of the articles you have published in the Revue Generate, on the future of Catholic peo- VI PREFACE. pies, impels me to hasten to send you my felicitations. In combating for truth you have not remained simply on the defensive ; you have valiantly taken the offensive, as it is right to do wh6n proof is cltar. The highest commendation which it is possible to give to your work, is to say that it should be studied, even next to the works of Balmes on Protestantism and Catholicity in their Relations to European Civilization.* Balmes demonstrated his thesis by a magnificent array of de- cisive facts, but the history of recent times has fur- nished you with a multitude of other brilliant deeds, which have added a new lustre to this already victo- rious discussion. " Yes, the Catholic Church is the mother of Euro- pean civilization, and those eyes must be closed against evidence which do not perceive that by her doctrine, by her action, by her trials, and by her labors, the Church has been and always remains the supreme agent of the moral, intellectual and social progress of the world. She instructs us, it is true, to seek, according to the words of Christ, 'above all things the Kingdom of God and His justice, ' but that is be- cause she teaches above all things the reign of justice and truth in the spirit which she manifests towards one and all of her institutions. "You have c'osely examined the contrary assertions of a superficial science, you have convicted them of error, and you have done it outright, even coldly and ma hematically; but you have not suppressed alto- gether a sentiment very rare in our day, that of a legiti- mate indignation, which every soul loving the truth should experience in the presence of an inexcusable error which takes haughty strides. This sentiment, * This important work ought to be in the hands of every Catholic student. It can be ordered from Hickey & Co., pub- lishers of The Vatican Library, New York (price $ 3.00). PREFACE. Vll indeed, lias not altered in you the feeling of charity towards those who are deceiving themselves, and it has supplied you, more than once, with an eloquence which you did not seek. " Why do you not collect all these articles in a vol- ume by itself?' They would reach so much more easily many souls seduced by the every-day sophistries of the world, which no contemporary writer has criti- cised more severely or successfully than you. V. A., CARDINAL DECHAMPS, Archbishop of Malines. " Cardinal Manning, Archbishop of Westminster, sums up the questions described in this book, and their im- portance, in the following preface to Mr. Bellingham/s condensed English version : "The following pages contain a copious array of facts and arguments to refute the shallow but plausible fal- lacy against the Catholic faith derived from an alleged superiority in civilization attained by non-Catholic countries. The fallacy is plausible because it appeals to the lower and worldly notions of the day as to the nature of civilization. It is shallow, because it merely touches on the outside of the question. Nevertheless, it has been repeated incessantly in this century, but chiefly in this country; and it belongs by special right to the school of political economists, who for nearly a century have reduced all questions of civilization and progress to production, wealth, material development, which are supposed to constitute human progress. The following facts are either studiously ignored or tacitly denied by this school of reasoners : 1. That the highest standard of material progress ever known before the action of Christianity upon the Vlll PBBFAGE. world was that of Greece and Borne. But neither Greece nor Rome can bear comparison with the moral progress of the Hebrew Commonwealth. 2. That the civilization of both Greece and Borne, in their legislation, their administration of justice, their public and their private morals, can bear no compar- ison with the laws, tribunals, patriotism, 4 and domestic life of the Jewish people. 3. That the moral condition of Greece and Borne, both in their public and private life, exhibits a corrup- tion so universal and so intense as to demonstrate the inefficiency of the lights and the laws of the natural order to create and to sustain the civilization of the human race. 4. That the civilization of which we are the offspring is not the civilization of the old Greek or Boman world, which was swept away before the germs of the civiliza- tion of Europe were planted. 5. That the civilization of Europe is the creation of Christianity ; that the germs of our civilization are (1) the Christian household created by the sacrament of Christian marriage; (2) the Christian people formed by Christian education ; and (3) the Christian State elevated by the higher law of Christian morals. 6. That the highest civilization, therefore, has a two- fold foundation, material and moral, and a twofold progress, likewise both material and moral. 7. That the material foundation and progress which consists in the action and development of the reason and skill of men in arts, science, industry, wealth and natural prosperity, as it existed before the moral foun- dation of a higher life and law was laid, so it may for a time survive the loss of that higher life. Great eco- nomical and material prosperity may be found, at least for a time, when the moral life of a people is de~ PREFACE. IX clining, or even low. Material progress will continue after the moral progress has been checked, at least long enough to afford a plausible argument in favor of a non-Catholic as against a Catholic people, a province or a canton. " Such is, in fact, the fallacy of M. de Laveleye and his followers; and such is the argument which for a century has perplexed and deceived many minds. "The Baron de Haulleville has done good service, therefore, in treating of the future of Catholic nations. As Lord Bacon says, ' Time destroys the fictions of men, but confirms the judgments of truth.' Given time enough, and we see that the greatest material prosperity, unless supported by a higher principle, cannot endure; it carries in itself the principle of its own dissolution. Germany and France are direct ex- amples of this truth. Mediaeval Germany was a crea- tion of Christianity. Modern Germany, since Luther, is already divided against itself. The northern half, which Comte placed as the lowest in the scale of European civilization, is precisely that half which has forfeited its Christianity. The southern half still lives on by the principle of its own creation. The material 1 progress of France is greater than that of any country except our own. It is checked and endangered only in the measure of the decline of its moral progress; and its moral .progress is checked only in the measure in which the infidel revolution of the last eighty years has checked it. " The master fallacy of the arch-impostor is the as- sertion that Christianity that is, the Catholic faith and the Catholic Church are the obstacles to civilization and progress. Christianity, as the chaos and corruption of the Greek and Roman world demonstrate, and as modern Europe shows, is the productive and the sus- taining principle of all civilization, and of all progress X PBEFACE. in the higher culture of men and of nations. All things are preserved by the permanent action of the principle from which they spring. Christendom, or modern Europe, with all its civilization of national and international law, and with all the purities and sanctities of its domestic and private life, is the off- spring of the Christian faith and of the Christian Church. European civilization will survive while it is Christian. If it ever cease to be Christian it will die out not all at once, but stealthily, steadily, surely, under a fair countenance of seeming health. Its material progress will for a generation or two deceive many, till its moral progress has been turned backward, and its material progress has issued in the return of the Iron Age of universal armaments, mutual destruction, and the supremacy of might and matter over the moral laws of God and the higher civilization and onward progress of mankind. Donoso Cortes was mocked as a dreamer in his day, when he said, " Christian Europe is moribund. It is dying because it is poisoned. It cannot live by matter alone, and it is poisoned by every word that proceedeth oufe of the mouth of its philosophers." We are eye-wit- nesses of this dissolution. Materialists and doc- trinaires, sceptics and Positivists, and the schoolmen of profit and loss, tare and tret, with their ignoble and un joyous science, have dwarfed statesmen into poli- ticians. These are the pontiffs and the prophets who are laboring to eliminate Christianity from civilization, and to make the nations conspire against the Cath- olic Church, the mother of their civilization, as the enemy of their welfare and the obstacle of their pro- gress. * l It is a sign of happy augury when we see laymen like Mr. Bellingham and the Baron de Haulleville de- - PREFACE. XI voting their intelligence and their industry to the refutation of this great deceit. HENRY EDWARD, Cardinal- Archbishop of Westminster." April 12, 1878. Our late illustrious Pope, Pio Nono, of blessed mem- ory, recognizing the utility and Catholic character of Baron de Haulleville's word, honored him with the fol- lowing letter : " TO our Beloved Son, the noble Baron de Haulleville, Brussels: "Beloved son, noble sir, health and Apostolic Bene- diction : Nothing is more noble, nor is anything more worthy of a Christian, than the zeal you evince in the service of the Church, especially in the present state of affairs, when to attack her indiscriminately leads to glory. Therefore do we rejoice that you again wish to vindicate this Mother of ours from the iniquitous and oft-repeated calumny that she is inimical to the civil prosperity and progress of the people. All his- tory, itself, gives the lie to this accusation. The civil- ization of the barbarians, the subjugation of law, the formation of civil associations, the reclaiming of marshy and uncultivated districts into fields and villages, the introd action and promotion of the arts, the preserva- tion and diffusion of the books of ancient literature, the solicitude manifested for all human necessities, all protest against this accusation, but in vain; the same accusation is constantly renewed, and the inexperienced and ignorant multitude is constantly blinded, and driven to contemn the Church. *' Therefore, although unable on account of the grave Xii PREFACE. cares of the Church to read the work on " The Future of Catholic Peoples," presented by you, in which you have gathered together the articles already published afc different times in the Revue Generate, we most gladly receive it, and congratulate you for having, as you say, undertaken anew the fosk of refuting this obsolete calumny, repeatedly refuted by the constant and unin- terupted testimony of facts. Their convincing elo- quence necessarily demonstrates to a considera- e mind that the Catholic Church, while instituted for tha pro- secution of a supernatural end, cannot but commend and footer truth a .d justice, establi-sh order and r< fine the faculties of man; that she always was and ever will be, by h r very nature, the parent and nurse of civil prosperity and true progress. Therefore does all his- tory testify that these have flourished or languished in proportion to the many vicissitudes of religion in n tions; and that religion being rejected by this one or that one, if the outward show of wealth and power does not instantly go to pieces, it is because it is su-taioed by some vestige of religion not yet debased. We pre- dict, therefore, for your book that, many be ng awakened in it from thtir bl ndness, will be led to iorm a juster opinion of the Church. As a presage of the Divine favor, and as a sign of our paternal good will to you, beloved son and noble sir, we impart to you most lovingly the Apostolic Benediction. Given at Eome, at St. Peter's, October 5th, 1876. Of our Pontificate the thirty-first. Pros PP. IX." CONTENTS. Letter of Cardinal Dechampg, Prefatory Remarks by Cardinal Man- ningLetter of Pope Pius IX iii CHAPTER I. MODERN PROTESTANTISM, AND THE ADVERSARIES OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. Lord Macaulay's Opinion on the Perpetuity of the Catholic Church- Origin of this Book A New Apologetical Essay on Protestantism Vague Character of this Modern Protestantism Its Strategeti- cal Movements against the Catholic Church The Consequence of Applying Buckle's Method to Theology M. de Laveleye's Thesis is False a prioriIt does not Commence by Proving the Truth of its Principles He makes the Religious Question only the Object of a Study on Social Economy He takes no Account of the Works of the Learned Catholics of the Present Time The Object of the Book 1 CHAPTER II. THE CAUSES OF THE CIVIL OR MATERIAL PROSPERITY OP A NATION. Is it True that Protestant Communities Alone are " Progressing T Does the Phenomenon of the "Progress" of Protestant Nations Depend on Race ? The English Government is a Product of the Catholic Ages Civil Government in other Catholic Nations before the French Revolution and the Reformation Of the Civil Energy of the Catholic Spaniards Comparison between the Civil Liber- ties of the Italians and those of the Prussians before the Reforma- tion Companion between the Social Condition of the Scotch and Irish The Swiss Catholics 23 CHAPTER III. ECONOMICAL COMPARISON Ol* PROTESTANT WITH CATHOLIC COUNTRIES. What is meant by the words, " To be a Man of the Times ? "The First Temporal Rule of Human Societies is, " Seek first the King- dom of God: " Servire Deo regnare est How a Community of fciY CONTENTS. Savageg can be [Relatively Perfect One Thing only is Necessary for a Community, which id, the Service of God: the other things are Relative and Contingent -It is False that Protestant countries are more active, industrious, economical, and richer, than Catho- lic Countries Error of the Abb6 F. Martin on this Subject Polit- ical Economy and Catholics in Prussia; in the United States; i i Canada Protestants in France The so-called Economical Con- sequences of the Edict of Nantes The Quota of the Exchange and Catholic Countries Catholics and the Book Trade Catholics and Political Life in Germany The Conclusion to be drawn from these Facts , 64 CHAPTER IV. OA.THOLICS AHD COLONIZATION The Pretended Sterility of Catho'ic Communities What is called Colonizing Catholics in the Philippine Islands In China The British Colonies The Dutch Colonies Catholics in the United S.ates The Colonies of the Catholic Missionaries Belgian Mis- sionary Colonists 100 CHAPTER V. CATHOLICS AND CIVIL LIBERTY. Protestant Countries have Experienced more Revolutions than Catho- lic Countries The Moral Character of the great French Revolu- tionCivil Liberty in Italy; in Belgium What the Modern Pro- testant Liberals mean by Political Liberty Their Object in Preaching Protestantism in Catholic Countries Essays by MM. Quinet and Sue A Discussion between the Liberals on Liberty 1 31 CHAPTER VI. CATHOLIC COUNTRIES AND EDUCATION." Education is not in itself a Source of Material Prosperity False Conclusions that are often Drawn from the Condition of Public Instruction in a Country as regards Political Influence Primary Education in Belgium; in Prussia The Organization of Primary Education does not date from the Reformation Free Examination in Prussia 154 CHAPTER VII. CATHOLIC COUNTRIES AND MORALITY. Literary Corruption in France the Fruit of Anti-Catholic Doctrines Political Absolutism the Antithesis of the Catholic Church The Catholic Church was the First and the only one i^ History to Maintain the Absolutely Moral Character of Marriage Morals in Spain and Italy more Pure than in Protestant Countries Illegiii- CONTENTS. XV macy among the Middle Classes more Common in Protestant Countries Immorality in the North of Europe Comparative Statistics of Morality in England 179 CHAPTER VIII. THE REFORMATION HAS NOT FAVORED THE DEVELOPMENT OF CIVIL. LIBERTY. Wherever the Reformation Triumphed it set up a State Church, Des- troyed Civil Liberty, and forced the Nation to Recede, instead of Advancing, in the way of Political Progress Civil and Political Liberties have relatively Flourished only in Countries in which the Leaders of the Reformation did not Succeed in Setting up a State Church, and in which a large portion of the Nation remained Catholic, and another portion were Divided into Separate Reli- gious Communities In Catholic Countries Civil Liberty is An- cient; Absolutism Modern The Catholic Church, alone, is Capable of Resisting, in the midst of a Nation that Contains the Dissolving Element, by Virtue of the Civil Liberty of expressing all imagin- able Opinions, and of Practising every kind of Worship Demon- stration of these Theses by Facts 191 CONCLUSION. The Next Great Age will be a Catholic One 227 APPENDIX. NOTES FROM THE " DUBLIN REVIEW." Macaulay's Contrast of Protestantism and Catholicity -M. de Laveleye's Position His Seven Propositions Religion and Prosperity The German Catholics The Scotch and Irish Ulster and Connaught Protestants in France M. de Haulleville's Reply The Catholics in Canada The Future of Catholic Nations English Institutions The Education Question The "Moral Level" M. de Haulleville on the Future of Catholicity 231 NOTES BY MR. HENRY BELLINGHAM. The Plantation of Ulster England's Claims in America The Colony of Piopolis Protestant Persecution of Catholics State Regula- tion of Religion Enthrals the Mind Mediaeval Familiarity with the Scriptures Catholic Respect for Science Protestant Prussian Immorality Evangelical German Immorality Irish Catholic Morality The Protestant Reformation in England 264 NOTES FROM AMERICAN SOURCES. Extract from an Address by Thomas J. Semmes Catholic Progress in America Lecky's Testimony to the Catholic Organization of Europe Catholic Democracy Definition of Civilization by John- XVI CONTENTS. BOD, Burke, Buckle, and Mill Dr. Newman and Thomas Carlyle Education and Crime Dr. Laing on the Results of Prussian Ed- ucation Catholics and Popular Education Comparative Morality Prosperity of Catholic Nations 295 Testimony of the American Press to the Splendor of the Catholic Dis- play in the Philadelphia Exposition 308 PAPAL TESTIMONY. Extract from the First Encyclical of Leo XIII. on the Obligations of Civilization to the Church .....317 CHAPTEB L MODE3N PROTESTANTISM AND THE ADVERSARIES OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. Lord Macaulay's Opinion on the Perpetuity of the Catholic Church Origin of this Book A New Apologetical Essay on Protestantism Vague Character of this Modern Pro- testantism Its Strategetical Movements against the Catho- lic Church The Consequence of Applying Buckle's Method to Theology M. de Laveleye's Thesis is False a priori It does not Commence by Proving the Truth of its Principles He makes the Religious Question only the Object of a Study on Social Economy He takes no Account of the Works of the Learned Catholics of the Present Time The Object of this Book. " How it was," wrote, thirty-six years ago, one of the most celebrated Protestant historians of the present cen- tury, " that Protestantism did so much, yet did no more, how it was that the Church of Eome, having lost a large part of Europe, not only ceased to lose, but actually regained nearly half of what she had lost, is certainly a most curious and important question ; and on this question Professor Kanke has thrown far more light than any other person who has written on it. " There is not, and there never was on this earth, a work of human policy so well deserving of examination as the Eoman Catholic Church. The history of that Church joins together the two great ages of human civilization. No other institution is left standing which carries the mind back to the times when the smoke of sacrifice rose from the Pantheon, and when carnelopards and 2 THE FUTUEE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. tigers bounded in the Flavian amphitheatre. The proudest royal houses are but of yesterday, when com- pared with the line of the Supreme Pontiffs. That line we trace back in an unbroken series, from the Pope who crowned Kapoleon in the nineteenth century to the Pope who crowned Pepin in the eighth ; and far beyond the time of Pepin the august dynasty ex- tends, till it is lost in the twilight of fable. The re- public of Venice came next in antiquity. But the republic of Venice was modern when compared with the Papacy ; and the republic of Venice is gone, and the Papacy remains. The Papacy remains, not in de- cay, not a mere antique, but full of life and youthful vigor. The Catholic Church is still sending forth to the farthest ends of the world missionaries as zealous as those who landed in Kent with Augustin, and still confronting hostile kings with the same spirit with which she confronted Attila. The number of her children is greater than in any former age. Her ac- quisitions in the New World have more than compen- sated for what she has lost in the Old. Her spiritual ascendancy extends over the vast countries which lie between the plains of the Missouri and Cape Horn, countries which, a century hence, may not improbably contain a population as large as that which now in- habits Europe. The members of her communion are certainly not fewer than a hundred and fifty mil, lions ; and it will be difficult to show that all other Christian sects united amount to a hundred and twenty millions. Nor do we see any sign which indicates that the term of her long dominion is approaching. She MODERN PROTESTANTISM AND THE CHURCH 3 saw the commencement of all the governments and of all the ecclesiastical establishments that now exist in the world ; and we feel no assurance that she is not des- tined to see the end of them all. She was great and respected before the Saxon had set foot on Britain, be- fore the Frank had passed the Ehine, when Grecian eloquence still flourished at Antioch, when idols were still worshipped in the temple of Mecca. And she may still exist in undiminished vigor when some trav- eller from New Zealand shall, in the midst of a vast solitude, take his stand on a broken arch of London Bridge to sketch the ruins of St. Paul's. " We often hear it said that the world is constantly becoming more and more enlightened, and that this en- lightenment 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 be a well-founded expectation. We see that dur- ing 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 philo- sophy, that it has produced innumerable inventions tending to promote the convenience of life, that medi- cine, surgery, chemistry, engineering, have been very greatly improved, that government, police, and law have been improved, 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 a change, that change has, on the whole, been in favor of the Church of 4 THE FUTURE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. Eome. We cannot, therefore, feel confident that the progress of knowledge will necessarily be fatal to a sys- tem 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." Is there one among my readers who is not acquainted with the author of these noble words, of which I am only the unskilful translator ? * Lord Macaulay was born and died a Protestant, but his profound erudition prevented him from misrepresenting facts, and his sound knowledge carried him to a height at which faith is often to be met with, but hatred, never. Ranke's book and Lord Macaulay's essay returned to our recol- lection whilst we were reading a French reprint of an article lately published in a Belgian periodical by M. E. de Laveleye, Professor of Political Economy in the State University of Liege. In the Revue de Belgique this article is entitled, " Protestantism and Catholicism in their Relations to the Liberty and Prosperity of Nations." Exceedingly grateful towards the author for his interesting and in- structive writings on rural economy, we had already forgotten, in common with the small circle of his Bel- gian readers, the common-place accusations which some contemporaries of St. Augustine f and of Julian the Apostate]: had already published in a different form, * Critical and Historical Essays, by Lord Macaulay ; Essay on Ranke's "History of the Popes." f See Klee's " Histoire des Dogmes," p. 71. J The works of the Emperor Julian, edited by E. Talbot, and published in Paris (Plon, 1863), are a fruitful mine for those who wish to examine this subject. MODEBN PROTESTANTISM AND THE CHUBCH. 5 when we saw three translations into foreign languages of this tiny pamphlet appearing simultaneously. The Anglican, Mr. Gladstone, notorious for his errors in theology, has enriched the English translation with a letter to the author. This preface, says the Saturday Review, does not much enhance the merits of the work. M. Bluntschli, the German plenipotentiary at the Brus- sels conferences, and one of the professors of the Prot- estantenverein, a Prussian community of disunited Protestants, has written for the German edition a su- perficial introduction that indicates a man who under- stands the tastes of his readers. Finally, M. de Savor- nin Lohman, an orthodox Dutchman, has not hesitated for a moment to present this negation of the Catholic Church to his brethren in Holland. Since so well- known men become the god-fathers of M. de Lave- leye's pamphlet, let us read it over again, and see if it deserve the honors of this questionable celebrity. The French edition, revised and corrected, ad usum Defe phini, has been published in Paris by a few French- men, under a new title: "De VAvenir des Peuples Cath- oliques." These few anonymous Frenchmen evidently desire to prevent their country from descending any further the inclined plane of decadence on which France is slowly but surely gliding ever since the time of Hugh Capet. This patriotism may appear extraordin. ary. It is not as much so as the loose preface which they have put at the head of M. de Laveleye's pam- phlet. I say loose, because this preface resembles a pavement: "M. de Laveleye's words are serious, but they are 6 THB FXJTUBE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. free from party feeling, for they come from a scholar whose works are reliable guides. If he judges Ultra- montanism with severity, declaring it to be a social danger, we must remember that it is not from sectarian animosity, for he is a Catholic ; if he has pointed out with a courageous hand the weakness and faults of those who guide the helm of the State, he must not be accused of narrow-mindedness or reaction, for he is one of the most esteemed and most honored leaders of the Liberal party in Belgium. To judge men and things of the present we must know how to look for the truth in a really independent mind. That is the noble exam- ple set by M. de Laveleye. He deserves to be known, and, still more, to be imitated." M. de Laveleye, who is endowed with estimable qualities, seems to have been led into the paths of error by a kind of despair, the result of a weakness of character or of an intellectual energy which has been unable to control itself. We would not say anything calculated to hurt the feelings of so distinguished a Belgian writer, but he so industriously uses the privi- lege of writing, that he will allow us to reply without evasion to his over zealous friends. M. de Laveleye's words are so deeply imbued with a partisan spirit that they possess nothing in common with science ; nor is his mind more independent, for he writes under tha influence of sectarian animosity. He is not a Catholic, nor is he even a Protestant ; he is a Liberal. Without desiring it, perhaps, he is dependent on that haughty sect of subjective rationalists, who disdainfully admit all religions and profess none ; who, if necessity re- MODEBN PROTESTANTISM AND THE CHTJBCH. 7 quires it, protect, " in the interest of the people," every imaginable form of worship, except one alone ; viz., that of the Universal Church; and who, like Milton's fallen angel, hover over the ocean of religious errors, whilst casting a glance of defiance at the sun, which is the light of the world, O Sun, I hate thee ! This is M. de Laveleye's thesis in all its nakedness : The nations of Latin race are evidently on the decline ; the future of the world belongs to the Germanic race, and to that of the Sclaves. The French, Spaniards and Italians, in a word, all those of Latin origin, except, perhaps, the Genevese, ex stirpe Carteret, and the people of Nimes of the school of M. Eeville, have become degenerate ; the Prussians, Russians and, per- haps, the Anglo Saxons (for they are still too Catholic) are about to renew the world. How are we to explain such a phenomenon? The answer gives M. de Lave- leye no more embarrassment than the question. Listen attentively : Those of Latin origin are suffering from "Cupertinage," as it has been expressed by M. PreVost- Paradol, that witty contributor to the Journal des Debats, who afterwards became a Bonapartist for the sake of an ambassadorship to Washington, where he committed suicide ; nations which neglect their own interests are overrun with monks,* as another amiable * These thoughts are extracted from M. de Laveleye's pam- phlet. "Cupertinage" is a subtle allusion to the office of St. Joseph Cupertino, introduced into France with the Roman liturgy. There was a discussion on this subject among men of letters, in which this word played an important part, out a less important one, however, than was taken by the formidable pen of M. Louis Veuillot who administered blows to his opponents that have become proverbial in French journalism. 8 THE FUTURE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. gentleman of the same school, M. Geruzet, expressed himself ; the whole Latin race, with the exception of the Liberals of Geneva, have the Catholic virus in their blood. This is why it is so completely corrupted both physically and morally, and this corruption con- demns it to an incurable malady. The Germanic races, on the contrary, are almost entirely Protestant. Now, Protestantism alone has the words of eternal life and the promise of immortality ; this is why these races increase, prosper, become rich, and will traverse through time on the wings of religion and purity until the end of the world. The Sclave races are not spoken of with sufficient reserve ; the paradox would be far too palpable, and, at the present time, would have been too offensive to the generality of M. de Laveleye's readers. Lest I be accused of misrepresenting the Liege professor's thoughts, I will here reproduce an anal- ysis of them from a friendly and enthusiastic pen in the Saturday Review, which another faithful pen has translated for the JEcho du Parlemant : " This pamphlet has just been translated into Eng- lish with a preface by Mr. Gladstone. The preface does not add much to the merit of the work, but it will help to gain it circulation in England. Independently of this assistance it would please the English, for it shows the immense superiority of Protestantism over the rival religion, and the superiority of Protestants over Catholics in the domain of riches, liberty and happi- ness. This is ancient history to us, but the old histor- ies are often true and for the majority of Englishmen MODERN PBOTESTANTISM AND THE CHUECH 9 it is equally true and consoling that both terrestrial and spiritual advantages are on the side of Protestant- ism. M. de Laveleye shows that the principal vice of Catholicism is to corrupt its adversaries and to lead them through despair to the Ke volution. They rarely escape the indirect influence of the doctrine in which they have been brought up, and are as certain of their rights, as bent on crushing those who combat them, as well disposed to abuse power when they possess it, as any ecclesiastical faction. They have nothing better to offer to the world than a series of negations and a general dread of piety. But, as M. deLavelye correctly says, man cannot live without religion. M. de Layeleye's conclusion is a very sad one. The reader will natural- ly imagine that all these eulogies of Protestantism, this insisting on the necessity of faith, are going to end with an exhortation to the Belgians to be converted and be- come Protestants. But there is not even mention of this in the pamphlet. M. de Laveleye discusses the relative merits of Protestantism and Catholicism, as he would dis- cuss the relative magnitude of two planets. There was a time when very many Catholic countries, and espe- cially France, might have become Protestant, but they allowed the opportunity to escape them, and, as M. de Laveleye says, they could not catch it again. Catholic countries are destined, as it appears to him, to remain for ever the prey alternately of ecclesiastical and revo- lutionary despotism, but they are not destined to become Protestant. In a word, they believe either too much or too little, and for that very reason Protestantism is not made for them. Protestantism is the high-road to 10 THE FUTURE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. happiness, but it is closed against all those whose prin- ces assumed a certain attitude in the sixteenth century. There is more truth in this mode of reasoning than Prot- estants themselves think, but it is impossible to deter- mine the exact truth of this thesis, and the restrictions it implies, without entering on the domain of theology. In the sphere of politics, however, we must feel sorry for the Belgian, who, witnessing the discords that are rending his country, foresees gloomy days in store, and is penetrated with the heart-rending conviction that the only means of salvation for his compatriots has been taken away from them by the blind folly of their ancestors. " Whilst we thank the English writer for his deep inte- rest in the moral welfare of Belgian Catholics, let us do him this justice; he thoroughly understands the "salutary" design of our charitable compatriot, who is never tired of bringing us into disrepute among foreign- ers. Only a yea* ago he sent to the Fortnightly Review an anti-constitutional article, entitled in the French translation, "Le Parti Clerical enBelgique" It is an imaginary picture, in which the Belgian Catholics are most unfairly represented* The article is accompanied by statistics of the religious associations in Belgium, in which the figures are so arranged as to excite the brutal passions of the "vile multitude." Fourteen thousand copies of this work have been printed for "gratuitous" distribution among the members of the Liberal asso- ciations of our country. What is the form of Protestantism which M. de Lave- leye preaches, or allows himself to preach ? Is it that MODEBN PBOTESTANTISM AND THE CHUECH. 11 of Henry VIII., of Luther, of Calvin, of Zwingli, or of Knox ? Is he a Quaker, a Puritan, a Presbyterian, or a Baptist ? Is the God whom he positively adores that of M. Sydow of Berlin or the mountebank God of M. Guizot, judged by M. Thiers? Is the Christianity which he recommends that of Dr. Colenso or that of Dr. Bunsen ; the pietism of M. de Gerlach or the Puseyism of the Anglican High Church ; the liberal Protestant- ism of M. de Pressense* or the Protestant liberalism of M. Bluntschli ; the Calvinistic State- worship of M. Car- teret or the Hegelian Lutheranism of Prince Bismarck ? M. de Laveleye has forgotten to tell us. This forget- fulness may be only a polemical strategy for the use of the public for whom he writes ; but it shows a doctrinal weakness and a religious powerlessness which we are pleased to point out. If it suffices to reject the princi- ple of authority to be a Christian, that is to say, if a man is truly a Christian only outside the Boman, Catholic and Apostolic Church, pray, be good enough to recite your Credo, that we may have the advantage of com- paring our creed with yours. The religion of the future cannot consist in a simple negation of the Catholic Church. Make your act of faith, then, in public. Will your interpretation of the Bible induce you to profess the dogma of the Incarnation of the Word and the mys- tery of the Holy Trinity ? Do you believe in the resur- rection of our Lord Jesus Christ ? Do you admit the supernatural ? How do you pray, or have you faith in prayer? Do you believe in the devil (a ridiculous question to put to a " savant") ? etc., etc. M. de Lave- leye's attitude permits us to assert that he has no cer- 12 THE FUTURE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. tainty on all these great questions, and that, even if he had, he would not dare to acknowledge it, for such an avowal would immediately alienate from him nearly all his present admirers. His only readers would be MM. Gladstone, Bluntschli, De Savornin, and a few curious men of letters. In religious matters denial is not enough. What we wish to assert must be known with absolute certainty. Religion is not an abstraction. It is positive, active, aggressive, and accompanied by an external form of worship. Subjective reason can, un- doubtedly, have a philosophical conception of God ; but the living God of the Christians and the supernatural of the Christian doctrine are defined in Revelation. What does the independent mind of M. de Laveleye think about all that ? Until he explains to us his posi- tive religious belief, we will not believe in his sincerity, and whatever he asserts against Catholics will only be looked upon as a personal animosity, very learned and very elegant, if you will, but still an animosity, without any logical significance or scientific importance. Instead of defending the Catholic Church against the attacks of M. de Laveleye, attacks that are as ancient as the existence of this " mother always young yet ever old," we would find it very easy to take the offensive, after the manner of the Prussians, and treat a priori ihe question in, dispute. Does Protestantism in its hundred different forms, from the established Church of England and the Swedish Church down to Socinian- 5sm and the Platonic Christianity of the Liege profes- sor, really represent the doctrine of Jesus Christ ? If, MODERN PEOTESTANTISM AND THE CHUECH. 13 in effect, every one can freely interpret the Bible, there can, logically, be as many different religions as there are men npon earth, that is to say, that some day or other there will, perhaps, be no religion at all. The Protestant Churches are, therefore, bringing about the complete destruction of the Christian doctrine. It is for this reason that statesmen like M. Quinet, philosophers like M. Vacherot, and poets like M. Eugene Sue, have said before M. de Laveleye : "The attempt to destroy Catholicism without giving a substitute for it is not at- taining its end." And these proud spirits are plotting the perversion of the Catholic masses to any one of the different forms of Protestantism, provided the latter be the accomplices of subjective Rationalism against the universal Church. This is what is commonly called re- tiring in order to make a better jump, or " bridging it." M. de Laveleye is not as- bold as these radicals. He even appears to dissuade the Catholics from abjuration. It is said that elsewhere he has been less reserved on this subject. However this may be, in this pamphlet which we are examining, he remains a prey to a sort of despair, which would afflict us deeply, if we had not frequently seen him throw it off to howl the most un- just accusations against the coreligionists of his no doubt piously spent youth. M. de Laveleye, who has not explained to us his Protestant declaration of faith, has not theologically shown that Protestantism in its general form, inasmuch as it is a negation of the uni- versal Church, is the supreme and infallible expression of Christian revelation. He conceals the shallownesa of his positive doctrines behind a convenient negation. 14 THE FUTUBE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. A man of learning never does this, even when he be- comes the disciple of Buckle. I have, in effect, Heard some admirers of M. de Lave- leye's principles assert that he is one of Buckle's most brilliant disciples, whose works, I humbly confess, I I have never read in the original. If I correctly un- derstand the analyses of the writings of this publicist that have been made in my presence, the deductive method, which is by no means new, would be their basis. I willingly admit this method in the daily prac- tice of positive politics, but I could not admit such ^a principle to be the logical basis of philosophy. M. de Laveleye applies it in developing the subject under consideration, and he gives us in refutation an argu- ment of invincible power. He explains, with a certain amount of boasting, what he calls the benefits of Prot- estantism, which have engendered civilizations in comparison with which the social influence of the Universal Church would appear in a sort of irremedia- ble inferiority. This mode of argument proves noth- ing, for it proves too much. In effect, Athens in the time of Pericles, Carthage under the government of Hannibal, Home in the epoch of Virgil, and Spain un- der the Arab Caliphs, present us with forms of civiliza- tion which, in a human point of view, are far superior in splendor to the oppressive government of Frederick I. , Hie twelfth elector of Brandenburg and first king of Prussia, to the violent reign of Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, or to the rigid rule of President Jackson of the United States. Grecian, Phenician, or Koman paganism, and even Mohammedanism would be infin- MODEBN PBOTESTANTISM AND THE CHUECH. 15 itely superior to Protestantism on this point. The latest efforts of German philosophy have induced Herr von Hartmann, the thinker now in fashion at Berlin, to make this acknowledgement: "A relapse into paganism is one result of the philosophy which will unintention- ally be that of the future." And why not? Look at JEschylus, Euripides, Sophocles, Plato, Pindar,. Aristo- phanes, Demosthenes, Phidias, Praxiteles, the Parthe- non, the Yenus of Milo, the Laocoon, etc. What ora- tors, what poets, what philosophers, what artists, what works ! Do the Marches of Brandenburg, Sweden, the 'cities of Berne, Washington, or even the court of George I. of Hanover present us with such an assem- blage of poetry, grace, intelligence, beauty and natural reason? M. Theophile Gautier preferred Aspasia to all the matrons of Protestantism. Out of every hun- dred readers who will approve of M. de Laveleye's pamphlet, there are not ten who will differ in their opinion from the witty pagan of Lutetia. In a human point of view, is there a Protestant country that could compare favorably with the state of Rome in the time of Julius Caesar ? But will you say that the Latins of pagan Eome had so much political, literary, and econo- mical superiority because they were not Catholic ? No, that would be absurd. We must not make this discussion unreasonably long. Yet, before concluding our a priori refutation, M. de Laveleye must permit us to tell him one truth more. For the sake of argument we suppose what is not the case ; we suppose that all his allegations are correct, that the different forms of Protestantism are every 16 THE FUTURE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. where seen to be in a radiant superiority, and that the organic and fatal inferiority of Catholic communities, in a political, literary and economical point of view, is proved in his pamphlet. What will he have proved theologically ? Nothing. Et quand 1'autel brise que la foule abandonne S'ecroulerait sur moi ! . . . temple que je cheris, Temple ou j'ai tant regu, temple oil j'ai tout appris, J'embr as serais encore ta derniere colonne, Dusse-je etre e'crase soustes sacres debris.* M. de Laveleye, who wishes to give a lesson to the societies that have produced Charlemagne, Dante, St. Thomas Aquinas, Christopher Columbus, St. Vincent de Paul and M. de Laveleye himself, who despises them, who proclaims ex cathedra infallible decrees against the inevitable corruption of Christianity as it is practised by Catholics, is ignorant of, or has forgot- ten, amid the intellectual voluptuousness into which he has allowed himself to fall, the first rudiments of the Christian doctrine. Jesus Christ did not come upon earth to save political society, to enrich it, to teach it to read and write, to imbue it with the principles of free trade, to lead it on to the discovery of the properties of steam and electricity, or to make it acquire a taste *For the benefit of those of our readers who do not under- stand French we give the following literal translation of these beautiful lines : " And when the broken altar which the multi- tude abandons should have fallen upon me ! . . . O temple which I love, temple in which I have received so much, temple in which I have learned everything, I would even then embrace thy last column, were I to be crushed beneath thy sa- cred ruins." MODERN PROTESTANTISM AND THE CHURCH. 17 for belles-lettres. He was born in a stable.brought tip in a workshop as a laborer, and died ignominiously on the cross for the salvation of souls. I will spare a professor of political economy the trouble of listening to a sermon on this subject ; but let him open a vol- ume of any Biblical concordance and he will find ten pages of texts precisely on this one subject. Such is the essence of the Christian doctrine : " Seek ye, there- fore, first the kingdom of God and His justice and all these things shall be added unto you," says the Foun- der of the Church ; and all these things have been given to all men of good will. The end and object of the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ is supernat- ural. A little book which we do not study as atten- tively as we ought, viz., the catechism, says with its usual clearness, " Jesus Christ came to deliver us from the slavery of the devil and from eternal death. "* When the soul of every citizen is saved, the States in which they dwell are also saved. There has not been, in fact, a single Catholic society for the last eighteen centuries that has fallen to ruin. Yet, should even one society, composed of faithful Catholics, dissolve, or, without being dissolved, should live on without meeting with the success which "the men of the times " desire, such an occurrence would prove nothing absolutely nothing against the Catholic Church ; for, once more I say, that the end of the Incarnation of the Word of God is supernatural. St. Augustine, who *St. Luke, v, 31, 32; ix, 56; xix, 10 St. Matthew, ix, 13 St. Mark, ii, 17 St. Paul, Epistle to Timothy, i, 15- St. John, x, 10; xii, 46, 47, &c. 18 THE FUTUEE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. lived in a society as refined as that in -which MM. de Laveleye, Gladstone, Bluntschli, and de Savornin move, and who was as well versed in philosophy and civiliza- tion as any of the professors of modern Europe, wrote to a friend, to console him in his worldly reverses, these words which have come down through the ages as a motto for Catholics ; numquid Christianus es ut in hoc scsculo floreres ? *' Have you been raised to the dignity of a Christian to succeed in this world ? " This is only the paiaphrase of the text of St. Luke, xvi, 8, " The children of this world are wiser in their genera- tion than the children of light." And have you ever meditated on that other formidable text of the same evangelist : " Think ye that I am come to give peace on earth ? I tell you, no ; but separation. For there shall be henceforth five in one house divided ; three against two, and two against three." M. de Laveleye (page 25), with an intention which we will unmask further on, complacently laughs at the pious sovereigns who were so diligent in confessing their sins (a kind of mortal seldom to be met with in the nineteenth centu- ry). But governments do not confess at all, and when they have sinned they ought to do penance here below. When a man is pious and makes a diligent and sincere- ly contrite confession, he does all that he ought to do to be saved for eternity, even when, during the twenty- five, fifty, or seventy-five miserable years of his life here on earth, he may have been neither learned, nor parsimonious, nor rich, nor a subscriber to the Revue des Deux Mondes. "For," says Ecclesiastes, "the wise man dies as well as the ignorant. " Could M. de MODEKN PROTESTANTISM AND THE CHUJRCH. 19 Laveleye have convinced me of what is impossible, could he have proved as clearly as that two and two make four, that all the Catholics of the world are, in a political point of view, simpletons or fools, and that all Protestants are, without exception, transcendent politicians, eminent economists, unparalleled scholars, and that they will become millionaires, M. de Lave- leye would have convinced me of this only, that, theologically, he could prove nothing, unless, perhaps, the approach of the end of time, when such events are to happen according to the prophecies. In a word, the possession and practice of Christian truth, in its ideal purity, do not, ipso facto, confer temporal advantages in the same degree, a beggar can be a saint, and a nation of saints has no infallible promise of temporal felicity. M. de Laveleye's thesis is, therefore, false a priori. A Christian scholar, who is a corresponding member of the Institute of France and, like M. de Laveleye, a professor of political economy, made a remark to me late- ly the truth of which is evident Protestants and Liberals picture to themselves a certain ideal of human society, and they prove without any difficulty that the states modeled after their image, answer to this ideal. When Catholics accept the question as thus stated, they throw themselves into a snare with perfect good will. They should begin therefore, by determining what ought to be the true ideal of human society, a well in an economical as in a political point of view ; then show the superiority of Catholic institutions over Pro- testant communities, both for the defense of publio 20 THE FUTUBE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. liberty, and the securing the well-being of the nation. M. de Laveleye himself has not taken the trouble to give us a logical proof of the truth of his principles. We will confine ourselves, therefore, in this place to pro- claiming the superiority of our own, in accordance with the short but decisive considerations that precede, reserving to ourselves the right to strengthen this proof whenever it will be necessary to do so in the in- terest of the discussion. Another stratagem of the modern Protestant and Liberal, polemistgudn discussions of this kind is an ar- bitrary suppression of the differences created by nature, difference of latitude, altitude and climate, difference of manners, difference of natural genius, etc. They would cast all nations in the same mould, and, naturally, in a Liberal or Protestant mould. This conception of humanity is belied by facts * it tends to make of the world a mortally fatiguing abode, and to reduce the human mind to a colorless and dull uniformity. When the polemists to whom I allude affect, like M. de Lavel- eye, not to share this error, they are guilty of another excess. They pretend to submit the " undulating and divers " nations to the tyranny of an exclusively logical rule, and they propose to man as his end upon earth the passion for comfort and the mission for hoarding up riches ; as if the great act of life did not consist in the apprenticeship of sacrifice, which is the prepara- tion for death. I willingly acknowledge, that M. de Laveleye, as a studious and laborious man, sincerely desires to raise himself above the narrow sphere of the sordid interests of the world ; but I state here that his MODERN PROTESTANTISM AND THE CHURCH. 21 political and economical doctrines, such as they are ex- pressed in his work, do not rise above the level of the philosophy of Bentham and Adam Smith. The reflections to wliich I have given expression suf- fice, in my own estimation, to sap the foundation of the scaffolding of M. de Laveleye's " deductive " argu- ments ; and I could legitimately stop here, neglecting to contest the series of facts which he advances more or less arbitrarily, and refraining from submitting to a new discussion arguments, or, rather, accusations of which the greater part have been a hundred times re- futed. It is a thing unheard of that a man who prides himself on his knowledge, that a professor who will not allow any one to suspect him of being ignorant of the "literature of his subject," as the Germans say; it is a thing unheard of, I say, that M. de Laveleye should seize on so important a question and treat it with so much bustle in thirty-two octavo pages, and boldly pass with one bound over the recent (I will not speak of the earlier) works of M. Aug. Nicholas, the Abbd Sdnac, the Abbd Martin, M. Ch. Perin, Cardinal De- champs, Manzoni, the Abb Margotti, Dollinger (before the Council), Hettinger, Kl^e, Moehler, Hergenro- ther, Balme's, Maguire, Dr. Newman, Cardinal Man- ning, &c. &c. We do not, I repeat, accept the question as he puts it ; but we are going to follow him step by step through his " deductive" evolutions, in applying to him the method which he himself makes use of. This will be for us an apologetic proof a posteriori. Before undertaking this task, let me be allowed to 22 THE FUTURE OP CATHOLIC PEOPLES. forewarn the reader against a false interpretation of my intentions. Until I am convinced of the contrary,! will not believe, I assert, in the Protestantism of M. de Laveleye. I hope that this frank avowal will not dis- please him. I am personally acquainted with, and have a profound esteem for, some pious Anglican Prot- estants, Calvinists, Lutherans and others. I believe in their sincerity, and pay homage to their sentiments and to the dignity of their private life. If these pages meet their eyes, and if they do me the honor of reading them, I entreat them to see in them only a proof of my desire to benefit truth ; and if any expression should escape my pen which m ight person a lly offend either themselves or the writer to whom I am replying, I re- tract it beforehand. I wish to follow the precept of St. Augustine, " Interficite errores, diligite err antes Deal hard with the errors, but love the erring." CHAPTEE H. THE CAUSES OF THE CIYTD OB MATEBIAIi FROSPEUITY OP A NATION. Is it True that Protestant Communities Alone are "Progress- ing ? " Does the Phenomenon of the "Progress' of Prot- estant Nations Depend on Kace ? The English Government is a Product of the Catholic Ages Civil Government in other Catholic Nations before the French Eevolution and the Reformation Of the Civil Energy of the Catholic Spaniards Comparison between the Civil Liberties of the Italians and those of the Prussians before the Reformation Com- parison between the /Social Condition of the Scotch and Irish The Swiss Catholics. "Sectarian passions or anti - religious prejudices," says M. de Laveleye, "are too often introduced into the study of these questions. It is time to apply to them the method of observation and the scientific impartiality of the physiologist and the naturalist. Irrefutable conclusions will be the result of the mere statement of facts." Here is the first of these con- clusions : "Catholic nations progress much less rapid- ly than nations that have ceased to be Catholic, and compared with the latter they appear to recede. This fact is so manifest that the bishops themselves, and the Univers, their organ in France, use it as a text with which to reproach unfaithful Catholics." This first "irrefutable" conclusion is not expressed very clearly. In the first place what is progress, a word that does not exist, even in the political language of the Anglo- Saxons ? The English, the most political people in 24 THE FUTURE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. Europe, never speak of progress ; they only apply themselves to the realization of improvements. What does " recede " mean? When I hear M. de Laveleye pronounce the eulogy of the Protestant sects, which are dissolving before our eyes, I say that M. de Lave- leye recedes ; if I were allowed to contemplate " a sov- ereign who goes frequently to confession," I would say : here is a sovereign who is progressing in the way of truth and happiness, whilst M. de Laveleye would loudly proclaim it to be the abomination of desolation. We should first therefore, come to an understanding about the meaning of the words. My meanings are in direct opposition to those of M. de Laveleye. But as he brings the accusation, it is his business to prove what he asserts. I do not any more clearly understand the meaning of the last expression : Do the Bishops and the Univera reproach infidels, that is to say, Prot- estants of every shade, with being too advanced, or do they complain of the faithful, who are too lukewarm for progress, for not advancing more rapidly? la either case reproach is at least singular ; the Catholic bishops are not devoid of common sense. However this may be, I presume that the author wishes to prove that Catholic nations are retrogressive, that is to say, people who are not fond of political liberty. Whence comes that phenomenon ? It is impossible, says M. de Laveleye, to attribute it to the accident of race ; for : "The English, it is said, know better than the French how to make use of the parliamentary regime and political liberty. Is it the influence of blood ? I do not think so ; for until about the sixteenth century THE CAUSES OF A NATION'S PKOSPEBITT. 25 France, Spain and Italy had provincial liberties strongly resembling those of England. The only nota- ble difference was that the latter had a centralized re- gime, and only one parliament, as an organ which showed itself strong enough to keep royalty in check. The Norman conquest having unified England, a uni- fied parliament had to be composed, and royalty being very strong, the nobility and commons united to com- bat it, whilst elsewhere they were constantly at variance with each other. The destinies of France and Eng- land become entirely different only as late as the sev- enteenth century, when the Puritans had overcome the Stuarts, and when Louis XIV, by expelling the Be- formers from France, had erased the last traces of local autonomy, and the only elements that could oppose a serious resistance to despotism. " Volumes might be written on this subject. I will content myself with answering a few summary as- sertions by a few summary considerations. The great misfortune of France has been, as M. de Laveleye ac- knowledges (page 15), that it has been governed, ever since the fourteenth century, by the Eenaissance, which is in reality only the same thing as modern Lib- eralism. The doctrines of the French government, then represented by royalty, were liberal in principle. "French unity" is one of the principal results of this policy, which radical historians, like MM. Michelet, Quinet, Blanc, Esquiros and even H. Martin, praise in a manner so compromising to the successors of St. Louis. England, in its government, has had the happiness^ of preserving, even after the Beformation, all the po- 26 THE FUTURE OF CATHOMC PEOPLES. litical principles of the Catholic Middle Ages ; fortu- nately, it obstinately resisted the introduction of the Roman law, whose royal Caesarism inundated almost the entire continent from the beginning of the Renais- sance ; it has preserved the text and principles of the Magna Charta* under which the signature of Stephen Langton, a cardinal of the Roman Church, figures at the head of the list ; it has preserved all its national tra- ditions, all its ancient laws ; but lately it referred with pride to customs of the time of Alfred the Great; it has preserved intact the interior organization of its secular government, and even the exterior form of the Roman Church. Since the Reformation, a remarkable phe= nomenon is every day presented to our observation : the English people ceases to be Roman Catholic, under the influence of what unworthy means is very well known, but it preserves a form of government which has remained until the present moment, throughout its whole extent, the most Catholic government in Europe whilst the French nation, even while it continues in the generality of its members to be the eldest of Catholic nations, has not ceased, unless Louis XVI. be counted an exception, to be governed by princes and statesmen whose political doctrines are in direct antipathy to the Church of Rome. This is a point of the philosophy of history which a former ed- itor of the Univers, but at present of the Monde, of Paris, has clearly proved in works that are not read as generally as they deserve to be. Let no one come to us, Catholics, to throw in our face as an insult the glo- riotis history of English institutions. They are ours. THE CAtJSES OF A NATION'S PBOSPEBITT. 27 I admire them with all my heart, and I tremble with respect every time I enter that noble palace of West- minster to be present at a session of the Imperial Par- liament of England, the foremost political assembly in the world. The session is presided over by a man who wears the costume of the Middle Ages : he has an alm- oner who recites the Christian prayers as in the time of Philip of Hainault. At the distance of two paces from his seat is the tomb of Edward the Confessor, relig- iously respected in its admirable primitive form. In proceeding from the church to the great hall of John Lackland we must pass by a cemetery of the fourteenth century, which the piety of the English people respects in the midst of London, and which our " progressist" ediles would soon transform into a boulevard to walk upon (progredi). I defy our continental liberals to accept the English institutions, or even those of Amer- ica which are derived from them. But let us not allow ourselves to be led away by this all-absorbing subject. The representative government " on the English plan" is a product of the Catholic Middle Ages. It has been lost in France since the time of Louis XI., before the official birth of Protestantism. Since the Refor- mation it has always remained unknown to the most Protestant power in Europe, the Electorate of Branden- burg, in this sense the retrogressive power by ex- cellence ; and it was preserved in the Netherlands, among the Protestants of the North as well as among the Catholics of the South, down to the time of the " liberal" Joseph II., and the arrival of the "liberat- ing" army of Dumouriez, which deprived us of our in- 28 THE FUTUKE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. dependence and our secular liberties by infecting us with the principles of the French [Revolution. Did not the ecclesiastical principality of Liege, whence M. de Laveleye now issues his rash judgments, possess with- out interruption, until the "immortal con quests of '89," a representative government "on the English plan ?" If he is ignorant of the fact, let him read the latest work of M. Poulet, the eminent Louvain prof essor, and those of the learned Canon Paris. And in Switzerland, a land in which the Catholic Church and free institutions were united for centuries before Calvin's time, did not the Catholic cantons preserve their Christian democra- cies, as well as the Protestant cantons, until their * 'deliv- erance " by the Sonderbund war ? And the Tyrol? It but lately celebrated the fifth centenary of the founda- tion of its local institutions. M. de Laveleye may wonder, if he please, how this fortunate corner of Europe "can live peacefully only under the dominion of Rome. " The Tyrolese have no reason to envy any people, so far as historical traditions, nobleness of heart, vigor of body and mind, and all the virtues that make men free and bold are concerned. And was the constitution which St. Stephen gave to Hungary a chart of bondage ? Was it inferior in its institutions to the ancient English con- stitution ? And because there were no Puritans, Qua- kers or Presbyterians in the ecclesiastical electorates of the holy empire, do you think seriously for a moment that the people were less free and more corrupt than the half -savage Scotch? Look at Westphalia, where the peasants had trusts; the Ehenish provinces in which both city and rural life first approached anything like THE CAUSES OF A NATION'S PROSPERITY. 29 perfection ; Catholic Swabia and Franconia, whose in- habitants have preserved a vigor which made itself con- spicuous in the Thirty Years' War, the Seven Years' War, under the empire of the French Eevolution, and at a still more recent date ; and maintain, if you dare, that all these lands, blessed by St. Boniface, have pro- duced races that have been degenerated by the Catholic faith, which has preserved them strong and pure in spite of liberal governments ? The example of Spain confirms my thesis in a most remarkable manner. Since the time of Charles V. this country has been robbed of the institutions which we call, for the sake of brevity, the representative regime. The absolutism of Philip n. and his success- ors, who experienced in their own persons the influence of the Kenaissance ; then the political folly of the Bourbons, and finally the Liberals of the present cen- tury (the JLiberdles, the word belongs to the country of Cervantes), in a word, the Spanish government has exerted all its influence to corrupt politically an admi- rable country, inhabited by the most energetic race in Europe. I say, that people has resisted because it was Catholic. For more than seven centuries the total duration of ancient Eome the Catholic Goths of Spain, having taken refuge in the mountain caverns of the Asturias, watched, prayed and fought to preserve their own homes and even Europe from the corroding influ- ence of Islamism. Their national assemblies were councils ; their laws were democratic in the Christian sense of the word, but they were so penetrated with the spirit of religion that they were called by ecclesi- 30 THE FUTURE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. astical names. For more than seven centuries these Catholic giants fought, and they triumphed. Scarcely had their indomitable valor relieved them from the Moslems when they were obliged for three centuries to bear the heavy yoke of royal absolutism. In a short time the traces of their ancient institutions are to be found only amid the mountains of Navarre. But the Catholic faith remained in Spain as the coals live be- neath the ashes. Napoleon appears on the scene. He says : Spain is a nation of monks ; its people are cowards ; I will make an easy conquest of them. You know what happened. The Spaniards of the beginning of this century proved themselves worthy descendants of the conquerors of the Mussulmans ; Catholic Spain inflicted the first mortal blow on the absolutism that menaced Europe. Then reigned in turn the different shades of the Liberates* who have reduced the country of Isabella the Catholic to the state in which we now eee it. The mass of the Catholic people of Spain resists this third trial, and I am convinced that this noble country, which has been brought up, nourished, and instructed on the maternal knee of the Church, will become once more, in its religious unity, one of the foremost nations in the world. Its literature is superior in grandeur, moral richness, and aesthetic splendor to all the Protestant literature in the world ; its painters and architects hold the first rank in the pantheon of artists ; it possesses a clergy whose bish- ops stupefied (this is the expression of Cardinal De- champs, who told it to me and who knows it himself) the Fathers of the Vatican Council by the soundness of THE OAU3E8 OP A NATION'S PROSPERITY. 31 their extensive knowledge ; it possesses monuments which resemble poems in stone ; it has had the com- merce of the world within its power ; it has endowed humanity with half of our globe ; it has founded, by itself alone, more colonies than all the other nations put together. Spain has been, is, and will remain the Catholic country, by excellence. You say it is the Church that has diminished the greatness and power of Spain. That is an historical absurdity. It is you, it is your friends, your political idols who have momen- tarily interrupted civil germination in this energeti- cally fruitful land, the country of the Asturian Goths, of the Cid, and of the JZomanceros, the country of Mu- rillo and Velasquez, of Lope de Vega, Calderon and Cervantes, the adopted mother of Christopher Colum- bus and Hernando Cortez, the tomb of Charles V., the cradle of St. Ignatius and of Balm^s. I have just pro- nounced the name of one of Jbhe profoundest thinkers of the present century, the Catalan Don Jayme Bal- me's, who died at Vich in 1848, at the age of thirty- eight years, after a literary, philosophical and political career whose renown is increasing with the progress of time. He has left a work which M. de Laveleye would do well to meditate upon before finally accepting the eulogies of MM. Gladstone, Bluntschli, and the editors of the Chronique / viz., "Protestantism Com- pared with Catholicity." Saline's, who was not a Caiiist, wrote admirable pages about his country. Here is one which will perhaps induce you to read more: "We may expect much from the right instinct of the 32 THE FUTUBE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. Spanish nation, from her proverbial gravity, which so many misfortunes have only augmented, and from that tact, which teaches her so well how to discern the true path to happiness, by rendering her deaf to the insid- ious suggestions of those who seek to lead her astray. Although for so many years, owing to a fatal combina- tion of circumstances, and a want of harmony between the social and political order, Spain has not been able to obtain a government which understands her f eelings and instincts, follows her inclinations, and promotes her prosperity, we still cherish the hope that the day will come when from her own bosom, so fertile in future life, will come forth the harmony which she seeks and the equilibrium which she has lost* In the meantime, it is of the highest importance that all men who have a Spanish heart in their breasts, and who do not wish to see the vitals of their country torn to pieces, should unite and act in concert to preserve her from the genius of evil. Their unanimity will prevent the seeds of perpetual discord from being scattered upon our soil, will ward off this additional calamity, and will preserve from destruction those precious germs whence may arise, with renovated vigor, our civilization, which has been so much injured by disastrous events. " The soul is overwhelmed with painful apprehensions at the thought that a day may come when religious unity will be banished from among ns ; that unity which is identified with our habits, our customs, our manners, our laws ; which guarded the cradle of our monarchy in the cavern of Covadonga, and which was the emblem on our standard during a struggle of eight THE CAUSES OF A NATION'S PROSPERITY. 83 centuries against the formidable crescent ; that unity which developed and illustrated our civilization in times of the greatest difficulty ; that unity which fol- lowed our terrible tercios, when they imposed silence upon Europe ; which led our sailors when they discov- ered the New World, and guided them when they for the first time made the circuit of the globe ; that unity which sustains our soldiers in their most heroic ex- ploits, and which, at a recent period, gave the climax to their many glorious deeds in the downfall of Napo- leon. You who condemn so rashly the work of ages ; you who offer so many insults to the Spanish nation, and who treat as barbarism and ignorance the regulat- ing principle of our civilization, do you know what it is you insult ? Do you know what inspired the genius of Gonzalvo, of Hernando Cortez, of the conqueror of Lepauto ? Do not the shades of Garcilazo, of Herrera, of Ercilla, of Fray Luis de Leon, of Cervantes, of Lope de Vega, inspire you with any respect ? Can you ven- ture to break the tie which connects us with them, to make us the unworthy posterity of these great men ? Do you wish to place an impassable barrier between their faith and ours, between their manners and ours ; to make us destroy all our traditions, and to forget our most inspiring recollections ? Do you wish to preserve the great and august monuments of our ancestors' piety among us only as a severe and eloquent reproach ? Will you consent to see dried up the most abundant fountains to which we can have recourse to revive lite- rature, to strengthen science, to reorganize legislation, to reestablish the spirit of nationality, to restore our 34 THE FUTUKB OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. glory, and replace this nation in the high position which her virtues merit, by restoring to her the peace and happiness which she seeks with so much anxiety, and which her heart requires ?" * M. de Laveleye is so fond of making prophecies that he will allow me to make one cursorily ; it will not frighten him, for it is very clerical, and has against it all the appearances of the successes of our time. I take it from my reason, "corrupted" by the catechism. This is my prophecy : Catholic Spain will be great when Lutheran Prussia will be no longer in existence, or will be reduced, perhaps, to the March of Brandenburg, bis an die March, as a German statesman said in 1866, when commenting on a verse of the monk of Lehnin. I made the acquaintance of a German Protestant, who has entered the fold of the Catholic Church, on my return from a journey to Spain. I take this oppor- tunity to recommend his book,f one of the most inter- esting that could be read at the present time. The con- clusions of Herr B. Baumstarck, who was then judge at Constance, in the duchy of Baden, are far from con- firming the deductive thesis of M. de Laveleye. Af- ter drawing a picture of the faults committed by the rulers of Spain, and the dangers of the situation into which this noble country has been plunged, Herr Baumstarck wrote in 1867 : * European Civilization, by the Rev. J. Balmes, page 78 of the American edition, published by Murphy & Co., of Balti- more. f It has been translated into French by the Baron de Lame- zan, with the title : " line excursion en Espagne par JKeinhold Baumstarck" (Paris : Tolra, 1872). Consult the pamphlet which Herr Baumstarck has recently published at Wurtzburg, "Zur Spanischen Frage," p. 72. THE CAUSES OF A NATION'S PBOSPEKITY. 35 "But there remains in me a profound conviction : it is that Spain is approaching, not what would resemble decadence, but quite the country, a considerable and glorious development . . . Should things turn to the worst, should the firebrand of civil war yet cast its sinister glare over this beautiful country, should the party of destruction and negation hold the reins of power for a time, these interruptions could not modify my opinions. Perturbations of this sort are afflicting and cruel to many private individuals who become their victims; they only apparently arrest the rapid progress of development. The Spanish peo- ple, in possession of an enormous capital yet un- touched, and of intellectual and moral strength, whilst adopting whatever good modern European civilization really contains, has known how to preserve itself from most of the corruptions that elsewhere spring from it. This is why the future of this people must necessarily be great and brilliant ; and what is neces- sary will happen Does any one wish to find at the end of this book the substance of the truths which I have brought with me from Spain, as a treasure to be shared with my readers ? Here it is concentrated in a few propositions which resume its quintessence : " 1. The Spanish people are not in a state of decadence and debasement. Far from that: they are busying themselves about their intellectual and material pro- gress with an energy that makes us entertain the most brilliant hopes. "2. The solid bases of this development if they wish 36 THE FUTURE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. to obtain a lasting prosperity are, and will be, Cath- olicism and monarchy. "3. In what concerns art and literature, Spain is on a level with any people or any country in the world. "4. As to ourselves, the children of central Europe, we could, for many reasons, go back to school in Spain ; we would leave it edified on more points than one. " In 1723 the population of Spain amounted to 7,625,000 souls. This number had increased in 1857 to 14,957,837; in 1860 it was 15,151,677, and in 1868, 16,732,052. In 1850, the value of the general commerce of Spain amounted to 1,150 million reals. In 1860 it was 2,584, and in 1867, 2,937 millions. In taking account of the moral civilization of a nation, I do not attach supreme importance to facts of this kind; but, contrasted with M. de Laveleye's assertions, they possess an eloquent significance. Until the Renaissance the republics of the Peninsula were not, politically, inferior to England. After this epoch, which began earlier in Italy than elsewhere, they underwent, it is true, the fatal influence of the doc- trines which are now called liberal, and of which Ma- chiavelli was one of the theorizers. Religious morals corrected, as far as was possible, the fatal consequen- ces of this system. When we see even Popes favoring this latter to a certain extent, in their quality of tem- poral princes, we can only the more admire the divine edifice of the Church which has preserved incorrupt- ible the deposit of the eternal promises. I have writ- ten a book on the Italian republics or communes. I think I have shown clearly enough in it the causes of THE CAUSES OF A NATION'S PKOSPEKITY. 37 the precocious decay of the free institutions of the Middle Ages, and the causes of the false direction which was already given to them as early as the thir- teenth century.* But my critics have not, I fear, the same tastes as M. de Laveleye. I will, perhaps, scan- dalize him also by not sharing in every point the en- thusiasm manifested by his friend, M. Blunt schli, in the preface to the German translation of his pamphlet, on the subject of music and the fine arts, in which, contrary to the general thesis of the Liege professor, M. Bluntschli gives the palm even to the Latin Catho- lic nations. I do not by any means wish to expose my- self to ridicule by denying certain improvements real- ized by the Renaissance, or to throw stones at Michael Angelo, for example, the architect of the basilica of St. Peter's ; but I could easily show that the great Latin artists who find favor, although Catholics, with liberals of the school of MM. de Laveleye and Bluntschli, were themselves afflicted with the organic and mortal malady of the Eenaissance. If you wish, we will give you a proof of this some other time. I am not an admirer of the Italian governments since the Eenaissance. My ideal, which is that of Catholics, is neither the brilliant dictatorship of the Medicis, tha clement Liberalism of the house of Lorraine in France, nor the elegant absolutism of the Bourbons of Naples, But Italy, on the whole, compared with Sweden, Russia, and even England before the French Revolu- * Histoire des Communes Lombardes depuis leur origin* jusqu? a, la fin du treizieme siecle, par P. de Haulle villa. (Paris, Didier, 1857.) 38 THE FUTURE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. tion, without speaking of half-savage Scotland, was not materially so unhappy, and morally it shone in the spiritual world with a brilliancy which cannot be de- nied by any one. Were not the courts of Italy super- ior in literary and artistic culture, and far before those of Stockholm, Copenhagen, Potsdam and even London ? The patrimony of St. Peter, the civil principality of the Roman Church, which was to Europe what the District of Columbia is to the United States, the temporal pow- er of the Pope, the oldest sovereignty in Europe, presented, until the arrival of the French " litera- teurs " of the end of the last century, a model style of self-government : anti-Catholic " civilization " has changed all this. From the fourteenth century until the arrival of the French revolutionists and " civili- zers " the Romagna and Bologna were, in the desert of Europe, oases of political felicity. The sovereign Pontiff, it may be safely said, was never insulted by any one of his subjects living there, and liberty of worship, in the sense of our Liberals, was never dreamed of ; but was it permitted to criticise the Epis- copal Church, the Margrave (Oberbischqff), or the Es- tablished Church in Sweden, Prussia and England ? Did ever the shadow of religious liberty exist in these three Protestant countries ? You would not attempt to say it did ; the only undisputed liberty was that of hating and persecuting the Catholic Chuich. In Prussia and Sweden religious tyranny, full of hypoc- risy and brutality, held sway. The Test Act was abolished in England only forty-eight years ago. It 1 is no more than a few years since a Catholic priest THE CAUSES OF A NATION'S PBOSPEKITT. 39 could not show himself in public in the country of Lord Macaulay and Mr. Gladstone without being subjected to the punishment of a criminal. If in your estimation "civilization" does not consist in the brutal negation of the Catholic Church, and if your principles on political liberty are sincere, you will not rank the Italy of the last three centuries below the level of Protestant na- tions. For my part, I could prove to you that it ought to be placed higher than the latter ; but it is unneces- sary for me to give this proof here. I will at present content myself with showing to the public the Catholic Spaniards and Italians on one side, the Protestants, Prussians as well as Swedes and Eng- lish Puritans, on the other, and I will ask : which of these two groups, in its entirety, the better represents the great, noble and fruitful ideas which are agitating humanity since the Passion of Jesus Christ ? The an- swer is not doubtful. I wish only to add that from the beginning of the Beforination until 1848, Prussia, the incarnation of Lutheran Protestantism, was the last of the " civil- ized " states, according to the ideas held by M. de La- veleye, and that, without the military victories of 1866 and 1870, the most part of his readers would protest against the exaggerated eulogies he passes upon it. But let us proceed: "When we see Latin Protestants gaining the advan- tage over German Catholic communities ; when, in the same country, and in the same group, with the same language and a common origin, it is shown that the Reformers progress more rapidly and more regularly 4:0 THE FUTUBE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. than Catholics, it is difficult not to attribute the supe- riority of the one over the other to the religion they profess." The author is going to attempt to demonstrate these paradoxes which are ever inspired by his anti-Catholic prejudices. He first cites Ireland and Scotland : " It is admitted that the Scotch and Irish are of the same origin. Both have been subjected to the Eng- lish. Until the sixteenth century Ireland was much more civilized than Scotland. Green Erin was, during the early part of the Middle Ages, a centre of civiliza- tion, when Scotland was only a resort for barbarians. Since the Scotch adopted the Reformation they have even outstripped the English. The climate and nature of the soil are opposed to Scotland's being as rich as England; but Lord Macaulay states that since the seventeenth century the Scotch are in advance of the English in everything. Ireland, on the contrary, de- voted to Ultramontanism, is poor, miserable, kept in agitation by the spirit of rebellion, and appears incap- able of raising itself by its own strength. What a con- trast, even in Ireland, between extremely Catholic Connaught,and Ulster, where Protestantism predomi- nates ! Ulster has become rich by industry ; Con- naught presents the appearance of the last extremity of human misery." It is from Lord Macaulay that M. de Laveleye bor- rows the fundamental idea of his comparison between Catholic and Protestant nations. The English histo- rian naturally favors the Protestant side ; but with what reserve and with what equity 1 It is thus that he as- THE CAUSES OP A NATION'S PKOSPEMTY. 41 serts, for example, that it "is difficult to say to which England owes most, to the Roman Catholic religion or to the Reformation. " The picture he draws of Ireland and Scotland at the time of the death of Queen Eliza- beth (the great Queen is one of the weak points of this illustrious man), in 1603, bears no resemblance to the portrait given of her by the Liege professor. Let the reader judge for himself: " In the year 1603 the great Queen died. That year is, on many accounts, one of the most important epochs in our history. It was then that both Scotland and Ireland became parts of the same empire with Eng- land. But Scotland and Ireland, indeed, had been subjugated by the Plantagenets, but neither country had been patient under the yoke. Scotland had, with heroic energy, vindicated her independence, had, from the time of Robert Bruce, been a separate kingdom, and was now joined to the southern part of the island . in a manner which rather gratified than wounded her national pride. Ireland had never, since the days of Henry the Second, been able to expel the foreign in- vaders, but she struggled against them long and fierce- ly. During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the English power in that island was constantly declining, and, in the days of Henry the Seventh, had sunk to the lowest point. The Irish dominions of that prince con- sisted only of the counties of Dublin and Louth, of some parts of Meath and Kildare, and of a few seaports scattered along the coast. A large portion even of Leinster was not yet divided into counties. Munster, Ulster, and Connaught were ruled by petty sovereigns, 42 THE FUTURE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. partly Celts, and partly degenerate Normans, who had forgotten their origin and had adopted the Celtic lan- guage and manners. But, during the sixteenth cen- tury, the English power had made great progress. Half -savage chieftains who reigned beyond the pale had yielded, one after another, to the lieutenants of the Tudors. At length, a few weeks before the death of Elizabeth, the conquest, which had been begun more than four hundred years before by Strongbow, was completed by Mountjoy. Scarcely had James the First mounted the English throne when the last O'Donnell and O'Neill who have held the rank of independent princes, kissed his hand at Whitehall. Thenceforward his writs ran and his judges held assizes in every part of Ireland, and the English law superseded the cus- toms which had prevailed among the aboriginal tribes. " In extent Scotland and Ireland were nearly equal to each other, and were together nearly equal to Eng- land, but were much less thickly populated than Eng- land, and were very far behind England in wealth and civilization. Scotland had been kept back by the steril- ity of her soil : and, in the midst of light, the thick darkness of the middle ages still rested on Ireland. " The population of Scotland, with the exception of the Celtic tribes which were thinly scattered over the Hebrides and over the mountainous parts of the north- ern shires, was of the same blood with the population of England, and spoke a tongue which did not differ from the purest English more than the dialects of Somersetshire and Lancashire differed from each other. In Ireland, on the contrary, the population, with the THE CAUSES OF A NATION'S PEOSPEBITY. 43 exception of the small English colony near the coast, was Celtic, and still kept the Celtic speech and man- ners. " In natural courage and intelligence both the na- tions which now became connected with England ranked high. In perseverance, in self-command, in fore- thought, in all the virtues which conduce to success in life, the Scots have never been surpassed. The Irish, on the other hand, were distinguished by qualities which tend to make men interesting rather than pros- perous. They were an ardent and impetuous race, easily moved to tears or to laughter, to fury or to love. Alone among the nations of Northern Europe, they had the susceptibility, the vivacity, the natural turn for acting and rhetoric, which are indigenous on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. In mental cultiva- tion Scotland had an indisputable superiority. Though that kingdom was then the poorest in Christendom, it already vied in every branch of learning with the most favored countries. Scotsmen, whose dwellings and whose food were as wretched as those of the Iceland- ers of our time, wrote Latin verse with more than the delicacy of Yida, and made discoveries in science which would have added to the renown of Galileo. Ireland could boast of no Buchanan or Napier. The genius, with which her aboriginal inhabitants were largely en- dowed, showed itself as yet only in ballads which, wild and rugged as they were, seemed to the judging eye of Spenser to contain a portion of the pure gold of poetry. " Scotland, in becoming part of the British monarchy preserved all her dignity. Having, during many gen- 44 THE FUTURE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. erations, courageously withstood the English arms, she was now joined to her stronger neighbor on the most honorable terms. She gave a king instead of receiving one. She retained her own constitution and laws. Her tribunals and parliaments remained entirely inde- pendent of the tribunals and parliaments which sate at Westminster. The administration of Scotland was in Scottish hands ; for no Englishman had any motive to emigrate northward, and to contend with the shrewd- est and most pertinacious of all races for what was to be scraped together in the poorest of all treasuries. Meanwhile Scottish adventurers poured southward, and obtained in all the walks of life a prosperity which ex- cited much envy, but which was in general only the just reward of prudence and industry. Nevertheless, Scotland by no means escaped the fate ordained for every country which is connected, but not incorpora- ted, with another country of greater resources. Though in name an independent kingdom, she was, during more than a century, really treated, in many respects, as a subject province. " Ireland was undisguisedly governed as a depend- ency won by the sword. Her rude national institutions had perished. The English colonists submitted to the dictation of the mother country, without whose sup- port they could not exist, and indemnified themselves by trampling on the people among whom they had set- tled. The parliaments which met at Dublin could pass no law which had not previously been approved by the English Privy Council. The authority of the English legislature extended over Ireland. The executive ad- THE CAUSES OF A NATION'S PROSPERITY. 45 ministration was intrusted to men taken either from England or from the English pale, and, in either case, regarded as foreigners, and even as enemies, by the Celtic population. " But the circumstance which, more than any other, has made Ireland to differ from Scotland remains to be noticed. Scotland was Protestant. In no part of Europe had the movement of the popular mind against the Roman Catholic Church been so rapid and violent. The Reformers had vanquished, deposed, and impris- oned their idolatrous sovereign. They would not en- dure even such a compromise as had been effected in England. They had established the Calvinistic doc- trine, discipline, and worship ; and they made little distinction between Popery and Prelacy, between the mass and the Book of Common Prayer. Unfortunately for Scotland, the prince whom she sent to govern a fairer inheritance had been so much annoyed by the pertinacity with which her theologians had asserted against him the privileges of the synod and the pulpit that he hated the ecclesiastical polity to which she was fondly attached as much as it was in his effeminate na- ture to hate anything, and had no sooner mounted the English throne than he began to show an intolerant zeal for the government and ritual of the English Church. " The Irish were the only people of Northern Europe who had remained true to the old religion. This is to be partly ascribed to the circumstance that they were some centuries behind their neighbors in knowledge. But other causes had cooperated. The Reformation 46 THB FUTURE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. had been a national as well as a moral revolt. It had been, not only an insurrection of the laity against the clergy, but also an insurrection of all the branches of the great German race against an alien domination. It is a most significant circumstance that no large society of which the tongue is not Teutonic has ever turned Protestant, and that, wherever a language derived from that of ancient Borne is spoken, the religion of modern Borne to this day prevails. The patriotism of the Irish had taken a peculiar direction. The object of their animosity was not Borne, but England ; and they had especial reason to abhor those English sovereigns who had been the chiefs of the great schism, Henry the Eighth and Elizabeth. Durin g the vain struggle which two generations of Milesian princes maintained against the Tudors, religious enthusiasm and national enthu- siasm became inseparably blended in the minds of the vanquished race. The new feud of Protestant and Papist inflamed the old feud of Saxon and Celt. The English conquerors, meanwhile, neglected all legitimate means of conversion. No care was taken to provide the vanquished nation with instructors capable of mak- ing themselves understood. No translation of the Bible was put forth in the Erse language. The gov- ernment contented itself with setting up a vast hier- archy of Protestant archbishops, bishops and rectors, who did nothing, and who, for doing nothing, were paid out of the spoils of a Church loved, and revered by the great body of the people. "* * History of England, by Lord Macaualy ; vol. I.. pa#e 18 New York, 1865. THE CAUSES OF A NATION'S PROSPERITY. 47 We see how Lord Macaulay overturns more than one of the barricades that people have desired to set up against the Catholic Church by supporting themselves on his writings. M. de Laveleye has, moreover, made an unfortunate selection of his time to take from the "Island of Saints" an argument in favor of his Protestant thesis a few months before the celebration of the centenary of O'Connell, and on the eve of the publication of a host of pamphlets that brought to light the infamies of which this heroic people was, during three centuries, the victim under Protestant "civilization." The Ca- tholic Emancipation .bill in England dates from 1829. O'Connell was the first Catholic who sat in the House of Commons, and he was the first Catholic Lord Mayor of Dublin. The Tudors, the Stuarts, Cromwell and the Puritans, the House of Orange and the House of Hanover, all those, in a word, who have held power in England since Henry VIII., have vied with each other in severity and cruelty, I do not say in oppressing Ireland and muzzling its inhabitants, but in extermi- nating its population. Those who have most signally distinguished themselves in this work of Protestant civilization are Cromwell and his Puritan " saints." I am not going to re-write this abominable history after M. de Beaumont and the author of the beautiful articles that recently appeared in the Germania of Berlin. Let it suffice for me to recall in a summary manner the fol- lowing " economical" facts to those who may have for- gotten them : The Virgin Queen confiscated 600,000 acres of land ; James I., 2,000,000 acres. The govern- 4:8 THE FUTUEB OP CATHOLIC PEOPLES t ment of this latter even sent its officers to draw up a register of all Ireland, and it was discovered that near- ly all the lands belonged to the Crown, and that the whole of Connaught should be confiscated. Charles I. had this "surveying" operation revised by Lord Depu- ty Strafford, and the Irish know with how much success. Cromwell's army of "saints" committed such atrocities in green Erin that the memory of the maledictions of his victims is yet fresh in the minds of the Irish. All the Catholics who were not massacred, and who could be found, were shipped off to America or shut up in Connaught. "To hell or to Connaught!" Such was the command of these founders of Protestant "civilization." In the reign of William of Orange there remained to Irish Catholics only the tenth part of the property of the soil. After the final fall of the Stuarts, bloody cruelties ceased. The work of the lawyers began, and their hy- pocrisy raised a monument of injustice which makes the Protestant historian Gervinus* burst out into this cry of indignation : " A system of oppression against nature was invented, whose plan was to impoverish and bar- barize the mass of the people, by exterminating either the Catholic Church or the Catholic population itself." In 1663 and 1666 the Irish were forbidden to export their cattle, because their agriculture was reviving ; in 1699 the export of wool was prohibited because these wretches were beginning to compete with the English, etc., etc. No "Papist" could be a State officer nor acquire estated property. No Papist master could have *Geschichte des 19ten Jahrh. Vol. yii, page 458. THE CAUSES OF A NATION'S PROSPEBITY. 49 more than two apprentices, lest Irish industry might assume strength and vigor. It is a thing worthy to be meditated on by the fanatical admirers of the French Civil Code of 1804, that the English government, to impoverish the Irish, imposed on them the obligation of making an equal division of their property among their children, that is to say, our pre- sent system which is admitted neither in England nor in the United States. This system, Burke said, could only ruin families of slender means, "without afford- ing them any means of raising themselves by their in- dustry and intelligence, being prevented from preserv- ing any sort of property."* As late as the reign of George ITT. Catholics were not allowed to erect schools ; it is only as yesterday since the parents of Daniel O'Connell were obliged to send their son to Liege and Douay to find a Catholic school in which the future Liberator of their country might be educated. It was only under this same reign of George III. that the law was abolished by virtue of which an Irishman was forbidden to have in his possession a horse worth more than five pounds sterling. Burke said of this entire code of Protestant despotism : * ' It is so ad- mirably organized to oppress the people and disfigure human nature itself in them, that never has anything like it been invented by the most notorious hypocrisy." This suffices to prove the sovereign injustice of M. de Laveleye's judgment. Am I not, in reality, more than justified in accusing the Liege professor of allowing * See the work of M. le Chevalier A. de Moreau d'Andoy, entitled Le Testament. Paris. Deutu, 1873, 50 THE FUTURE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. himself to be inspired by religions hatred, when I proye to what an extent he falsifies history to support his pre- judices or passionate judgments? Ah! you say it is the Church that has made Ireland miserable, and that it is Protestantism that has made England great and power- ful. I say you are praising the assassin and insulting the victim. Listen to a page of the history of the de- liverance of the Irish, as told but lately by one of our friends in the Frangais of the 3d of August. 1875: " In 1828, O'Connell thought the opportunity had come for striking a heavy blow. There was question, as we know, of obtaining the privilege for Catholics to sit in the House of Commons and to fill public offices. O'Connell resolved on presenting himself to the electors of Clare in order to force open the gates of that Parlia- ment which were so obstinately kept shut. It might appear at first sight that if it was difficult for O'Connell to gain admission into the House of Com- mons, nothing ought to be easier to him than to have himself chosen by the electors. Were not the vast majority ojE the Irish Catholics ? Yes, but to have a vote, it was necessary to pay a certain rent. Then, all the rich folks were Protestants, and nearly all the Catholics were poor. There were scarcely any Catholic voters but the tenants or small farmers who were com- pletely at the mercy of the Protestant landlord. The tenants have no lease : the caprice of the landlord or rather of his agent for the landlord lives almost invariably in England suffices to drive out the farmer. Expulsion, or, to use the cant word, eviction, means ruin. The tenant receives no indemnity for the iin- THE CAUSES OF A NATION'S PROSPERITY. 61 provements he has made : he got the land waste and had to build a house upon it : on the day of the eviction his cabin is destroyed. That is the duty of the terrible ' crowbar brigade. ' "There is nothing so lamentable as the history of these evictions. The Irish peasant has often shown in such circumstances an endurance, the secret of which can only be found in his religious faith. Do you wish to have an example of it? Two old creatures brutally driven from their cabin, are lamenting. ' Ah !' says the poor woman, ' here I am at seventy-four years of age, without a shelter in the world ; I, who have never done ill to any one, and who have often given shelter to the unfortunate. What have I done to deserve all this?' 'Say nothing, my dear/ replied her husband, ' our Lord suffered more than that in His Passion.' " Evictions of this kind are not isolated facts. In ten years alone, from 1841 to 1851, 282,000 houses were destroyed in this manner. During the single year 1849, 50,000 families were thus driven out. You could not travel through some parts of Ireland without meet- ing at every step with these desolate ruins. The ex- cesses have been such that an Englishman and a Prot- estant, John Bright, could say: 'It is impossible, while travelling through these regions , not to feel that an enormous crime has been committed by the gov- ernment to which the people of this country are sub- ject. 9 We see what was the relation of the Catholic voter to the Protestant landlord. Every vote cast for a Catholic and there was no secret voting then brought on eviction as an inevitable consequence, that 52 THE FUTTJBE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. is to say, ruin and sometimes death. So, until the or- ganization of the great Catholic Association, the far- mer voted invariably according to the will of the land- lord. The association once founded, the farmer felt that he was supported and encouraged. His patriot- ism was aroused and it inspired him with veritable acts of heroism. By what other name shall we call the con- duct of that poor father of a family who was in prison for some debt he owed to his landlord ? The latter went to see him : 'You are free/ he says, 'if you only vote against O'Connell.' There was a struggle in the peasant's soul. On one side was his country, on the other his family who needed him to work for their support. He accepts the offer and wends his way to- wards the poll with an unsteady step and a clouded brow. His poor wife, who is in the crowd, perceives him. She guesses what has happened. She rushes towards him, forgetful of her children who are dying of hunger and asking her for bread. 'Unfortunate man/ she exclaimed, ' what are you doing ? Do you think on your soul and liberty ?' The peasant understands his wife, votes for O'CoDnell and goes back to prison. " When O'Connell announced that he was going to present himself before the electors of Clare, there was great excitement in Ireland. On both sides prepara- tions were made for a battle which every one felt would be decisive. On one side were the government, the soldiery and riches ; on the other a multitude in rags, but with them the Catholic clergy, the Association and O'Connell. The fight was animated, but the- Protest- ants soon perceived that they would be beaten. All JHE CAUSES OF A NATION'S PBOSPERITY. 53 the tenants abandoned their landlords and voted for O'Connell, in spite of all the threats of eviction. The Agitator was elected by an overwhelming majority, ana, surrounded by 60,000 men all of whom bore large boughs of trees in their hands as a sign of triumph, he entoned this song of victory : " ' The men of Clare know that the only basis of lib- erty is religion. They have triumphed, because the voice which is raised for fatherland first breathed its prayer to the Lord. Songs of liberty are now heard throughout the whole country ; these sounds traverse the valleys, the hills reecho them ; they murmur in the waves of our rivers, and our torrents, with their voices of thunder, reanswer the echoes of our mountains : Ireland is free I' " Yes, Ireland has become free because it was indomi- table in its faith. Let us hope that the Irish will also remain faithful to their traditions of generosity. If the English government were just and wise, it would al- ways bear in mind* the words by which the Duke of Wellington justified the Emancipation Bill to the House of Lords: "Your lordships know that at least half the troops which I commanded by the grace of his Majesty in the campaigns undertaken on different occasions for the security and independence of this country, were * We have taken the liberty of slightly changing this sentence. Our author expresses himself as if England had already made complete reparation to Ireland for the injuries of the past. Un- fortunately, this is not the case. If much has been done, many concessions still remain to be made, and it would be for the in- terest of both countries that they be made as soon as possible. 54 THE FUTURE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. composed of Boman Catholics. In reminding yon of this fact, I am persuaded that all other arguments are super- fluous. We must all acknowledge that without the blood and valor of Catholics we would not have been victorious." But, you will say, all that does not prevent Catholic Connaught from being the home of misery, whilst Protestant Ulster is enriched by industry. In the first place, this is not exactly the case. Connaught, which has produced Father Mathew,* one of the greatest men of the present century, is not as miserable to-day as people affect to believe ; crimes against property are less numerous there than in Ulster, and for forty years past this province has been constantly progressing. Finally, it has been proved by us that the relatively greater well-being of Ulster is the product of execrable violence. What would people say of a Pasha who would reproach the Sclaves that are subject to Turkey with being poor whilst the Turks enjoy opulence? What would you think of the judge whe would re- proach a man that was robbed with the misery into which a robber had plunged him ? We will say more of Ulster farther on. " Since the Scotch adopted the Reformation," says M. de Laveleye, " they have made more rapid progress than the English." Since the English themselves have been distanced by the Scotch, it is not, then, the Re- formation that is the cause of this progress, unless M. *The Baron de Haulleville is mistaken about the birth- place of Father Mathew, which is Thomastown, Tipperary ; but Archbishop McHale or Father Tom Burke will answer his pur- pose just as well. THE CAUSES OF A. NATION'S PROSPERITY. 55 deLaveleye pretends that the English are still too Catholic, and that progress is in direct proportion to the distance a people is from the positive bases of Christianity. The author should have also told us of what branch of the Eeformation he wishes to speak. Of all the countries in the world, except perhaps the United States, Scotland is in effect the one that is most divided in its religious life. We will have occasion to speak further on of the Scotch Calvinists and of the out- rageous despotism which sectarianism has inflicted on this country ever since the first breaking out of the He- formation. We will here content ourselves with assert- ing that there is no religious folly which has not found adherents beyond the Tweed. M. de Laveleye's ideal cannot consist in such a moral anarchy. For I ask myself in vain what relation could exist between this anarchy and the material prosperity of Scotland. This prosperity is real. I have recently travelled through this country, which it is so interesting to study, and I have been astonished at the economical phenomena which I have observed there. I would have been more so if I had not known the prodigious results obtained by the obstinate industry of my compatriots of the Arden- nes, of the peasants of the Campine, and of the farm laborers of some of the sandy plains of Flanders. M. de Laveleye, who has written such judicious things about the rural economy of our own country, ought to speak more seriously of the prosperity of the Scotch. The Duke of Sutherland reclaims every year so many acres of fertile land out of an ungrateful soil, at the expense of capital which is wonderfully abundant in his treas- 56 THE FUTURE OF CATHCXLIC PEOPLES. ury. I do not by any means blame him for it. But what would M. de Laveleye say if I ascribed to the ac- tion of the Catholic Church the wonders in agriculture , accomplished by the aid of the money of the State in the plains of Beverloo and th? beautiful artificial prairies created in the Campine of Limburg by the Count de Theux, or if I attributed to Belgian Liberal- ism the excellent agricultural operations effected in the Campine of Antwerp by M. Rolin-Jacquemyns ? If it is the Reformation that has brought about the present prosperity of Scotland, we must acknowledge that this result has come very slowly, since it was de- layed for more than two centuries. Here is the truth, told by M. L. de Lavergne.* "Scotland is one of the noblest examples we have in the world of the power of man over nature. I know of no country except Holland which could compete with it. Switzerland itself does not offer such great obstacles to human industry. What increases the wonder of this development of prosperity on so poor a soil is that it is all recent, Scotland has not the same precedent as England. Only a century ago it ^vas yet one of the poorest and most barbarous coun- tries in Europe. The final remains of its former pov- erty have not yet entirely disappeared. But we can assert that, on the whole, there is not now under heav- en a better regulated country. Its total productions have increased tenfold in the course of the present century. * Essai sur Veconomie rurale de VAngleterre t de VEcosse et de Tlrlanfa. Paris, Giiillemm, 1858. THE CAUSES OF A NATION'S PROSPERITY. 57 "Scotch farmers, so generally miserable a hundred years ago, do not yet possess as much capital as the English. . . . The shires of Lanark and Eenfrew, which are the principal seats of manufacturing and commercial activity, have passed, in a hundred years, from a population of 100,000 to 600,000 souls, and the single city of Glasgow from 20,000 inhabitants to near 400,000. . . , Even the germ of so much riches had no existence in 1750. It was English capital, aided by laborious and frugal Scotch genius, that thus transformed this inert land in so short a time. . . . As long as Scotland remained isolated from Eng- land and dependant ^m its own strength, it only vege- tated ; but when it was opened to the capital and ex- amples of its powerful neighbor, it at once rose to at least equal preeminence. . . . The handsomest present that England has made to Scotland, in uniting it to itself, because it alone contains all the others, is its constitution and its political spirit. Scotland was, until 1750, the stronghold of feudalism; it began to open its eyes only after the battle of Culloden. . . . At the end of the last century, the county of Air, on the frontiers of Galloway, was in the most de- plorable condition, etc." I have mentioned the Duke of Sutherland. The Ipstory of the recent fortunes of this great lord in Scot- land has been told by M. L. de Lavergne, and it proves how M. de Laveleye is blinded by his anti-Catholic prejudices. We are told that Scotland owes its pros- perity to Protestant principles. That is absolutely false. Until the battle of Culloden, in 1746, the chiefs 58 THE FUTUBB OP CATHOMO PEOPLES. of the Highland clans, says M. de Lavergne (p. 348), " dreamt only on increasing the numbers of their sol- diers, their importance being judged, net by their rev- enues, but by the strength of the armed bands they could equip. When the agricultural and social State of the Middle Ages had long ceased to exist elsewhere, it was still preserved amid these retreats. After the expulsion of the Stuarts everything was changed." How ? It is interesting to know that. The population, partly Catholic (a portion of the Highlanders never ceased to remain faithful to the Church of Eome), was too dense for the productive qualities of the soil. The heads of clans came by de- grees to the conclusion that it was possible to make use of their mountains only by depopulating them; from that time they never ceased, at first by following circuitous routes, then openly, and by violence, to de- cimate that population which their ancestors had mul- tiplied in the interest of war. The English govern- ment adroitly drove them on to it. Until the com- mencement of the present century, these measures were executed with discretion ; but after that people put themselves to less trouble ; the head of the clan began to hunt his subjects very many of the unfor- tunate creatures emigrated to Canada ; others sought shelter in the Lowlands. On the ruins of their cabins large farm-houses were erected for the raising of sheep. In 1808 Lord Selkirk publicly explained his theory of this depopulation. It was and is still called " clearing an estate." It was the time when Sir Walter Scott sung ! The last heiress of the great southern lords, THE CAUSES OF A NATION'S PBOSPEBITY. 59 the Countess of Sutherland, married, in 1785, George Granville, Marquis of Stafford, who was raised in 1833 to the dignity of Duke of Sutherland. The marchioness possessed in the county of Sutherland more than 750,- 000 acres, inhabited by 15,000 Highlanders, from among whom the ninety-third regiment of infantry was re- cruited ; but her husband had enormous capital at his disposal. They were both served by an intelligent man, named James Loch, who knew how " to clear an estate." The Highlanders of the heiress of the Mhoir- Fhear-Chattaibh received orders to leave their moun- tains and come and settle on the lands of the Mar- chioness situated near the sea-shore, as fishermen, mariners or laborers. Those who refused to do so were compelled to emigrate to America. In the ten years from 1810 to 1820, 3,000 families were thus expelled from the lands on which their ancestors had lived. When they resisted, her agents demolished their dwel- lings, and in some cases, in order to do their work more quickly they set fire to them. In consequence of in- telligent operations, and thanks to the Marquis of Stafford's capital, 118,000 Cheviots and 13,000 black- faces browsed on the Sutherland mountains ; 415,000 pounds of wool were sold to Yorkshire owners of spin- ning factories ; 30,000 sheep were slaughtered for the farmers of Northumberland ; and Mr. Loch became member of Parliament. O Walter Scott ! Leaving Connaught, M deLaveleye sets out for Swit- zerland, where once more he loses an opportunity of showing his special knowledge in matters of rural and political economy. Blinded by his prejudices, he CO THE FUTURE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. pretends that the Latin cantons of Neufchatel, Vaud and Geneva, because they are Protestant, are extraor- dinarily superior to the Germanic, but Catholic, cantons of Lucerne, the Upper Valais and the forest cantons, in education, literature, the fine arts, industry, wealth, commerce and even in cleanliness. This unqualified assertion may alarm those readers who are unacquainted with Switzerland and its history ; but it is more audacious than correct. The basin of Lake Leman has received from nature exceptional fertility and resources of economy, and it is not astonish- ing that the people who inhabit these favored countries are more prosperous than the mountain villagers of Uri, or those of the rude and savage valleys of Saas, Anniviers and Zermatt in the Upper Valais. Compare the Protestant regions of the canton of Vaud outside the basin of Lake Leman, with the Catholic districts of the canton of Fribourg, which are in the same condi- tions of climate and altitude, and you will be convinced that the Catholics of Fribourg are nothing behind the Protestants of Vaud, either in intellectual culture, economical production, order or well-being. The prosperity of Geneva is very natural, and to explain this it is not necessary to give the honor of it to the coreligionists of M. Carteret. This city occupies an exceptional position on the banks of a large lake fur- rowed by steamboats, surrounded by vineyards and rich pastures, and bordering on France. But lately Geneva was the rendezvous of many foreigners who came from every country in the world ; the elite of its historical population belongs to rich, distinguished THE CAUSLo OF A NATION'S PKOSPEBITT. 61 and emigrant French families. The fortune of Neufchatel is due to its population of clock- makers, who are no more Protestant than they are Catholic, and whose lot is not very enviable. To say that the cantons of Geneva and Neufchatel are more prosperous than the Upper Valais and the For- est cantons because the latter are Catholic, is no more reasonable than the following proposition : men have not succeeded in raising cereals on the sides of the Mat- terhorn, nor in planting vines of Andermatt in Uri be- cause the soil is there inhabited by Catholics. M. Mar- tin* cites, with regard to the Valais, an " economical " fact, which I submit to the reflection of the professors of Geneva, Berne, and Liege. At a general meeting of all the conferences of St. Vincent de Paul of Italian Switzerland, at St. Maurice, the conferences from the Valais declared that they knew not to what purpose they ought to apply their resources and their time, seeing that they had no poor Co attend to f On the authority of an English writer, Mr. Hep- worth Dixon, M. de Laveleye goes so far as to pretend that in the canton of Appenzell, which is divided into two parts (since 1597 ; Inner-Rhoden, in the moun- tains, inhabited by 11,900 Catholics ; and Ausser- Rhoden, in the plain, peopled by 46,726 Protestants), a population of the same Germanic race proves the same principles ; the Protestants are active, indus- trious, sociable and rich ; the Catholics are slothful, fond of routine, ignorant, poor, and live in huts scat- tered here and there. " Every shepherd," says Mr. * Avenir du Protestantisme et du Catholicisme, p. 197. 62 THE FUTUKB OP CATHOLIC PEOPLES, Dixon, " lives in seclusion ; he meets his fellow-citi- zens only at mass, at a boxing match, or in the public house. Every one knows how to read and write, for they are Swiss and are subject to the cantonal laws ; but they know neither of books nor journals ; scarcely are some Lives of the Saints, some popular stories, some collections of old women's cures to be found, instead of fresh and exciting news. 19 Dr. Schaep- man, in the excellent Dutch Review, Onze Wachter (August 1875), which we heartily recommend our Flemish compatriots to read, replied to M. de Savor- nin's translation by an article that reveals a master hand. We will have occasion to cite it more than once. The Dutch poet, with the austere good faith that is characteristic of his race, took the trouble to study the very source from which M. de Laveleye has drawn his Swiss paradoxes. The result is that Mr. Dixon, in his book called " The Switzers " is no more reliable an authority than in his other writings : " Free Russia," 4 'New America," ",The History of two Queens "etc. The Saturday Review itself does not repose an unreserved confidence in him. I have never visited the canton of Appenzell ; but one of my Swiss friends, whom I have con- sulted about Mr. Dixon's assertions, gave me answer : " They are meaningless " (I quote ver, batim); "it is understood that a people having few pastors, and living in almost inaccessible mountains, is ruder and less opulent than are urban multitudes liv- ing in a plain ; the question of religion has nothing iu common with the economical situation of the canton of THE CAUSES OF A NATION'S PROSPERITY. 63 Appenzell." For my own part, I assert that Mr. Dixon's portrait, relieved of its false pencil ings, charms me. These mountaineers, known, besides, over all Switzer- land for their jovial humor, their strength of body and mind, and their ancient popular games (Schwingfeste), ought to produce a delightful effect, when they descend from their habitations, in their picturesque national costumes, either to betake themselves to mass, or to amuse themselves amid the "civilized " people of the plains. Mountaineers, shepherds who all know how to read and write, who are subscribers to what are disdain- fully called "popular sheets," and who read the Lives of the Saints instead of taking pleasure in "fresh and ex- citing novels" like "Timothy Trim", and "Fanny Lear," for example. Such mountaineers cannot evi- dently merit the eulogium of the "cultivated minds" of whom M. de Laveleye speaks. CHAPTEK HI. ECONOMICAIj COMPARISON OF PEOTESTANT WITH CATH- OLIC COUNTRIES. What is meant by the words " To be a Man of the Times? The First Temporal Eule of Human Societies is, " Seek first the Kingdom of God Sermre Deo regnare estHow a Com munity of Savages can be Relatively Perfect One Thing only is Necessary for a Community, which is the Service of God ; the other things are Relative and Contingent It is False that Protestant countries are more active, industrious, economical and richer than Catholic Countries Error of the Abbe F. Martin on this Subject Political Economy and Catholics in Prussia In the United States In Canada Protestants 'in France The so-called Economical Conse- quences of the Edict of Nantes The Quota of the Ex- change and Catholic Countries Catholics and the Book Trade Catholics and Political Life in GermanyThe Con- clusion to be drawn from these Facts. Before penetrating farther into the labyrinth of the deductive school, let us refer once more to the absolute principles that predominate in this discussion. I have no disdain for worldly comfort ; I entertain a profound admiration for all the scientific discoveries of our age ; with all my heart I associate myself with, and in my humble sphere, I labor with perseverance in, the progress of public instruction ; I take an active part in the civil contests of the forum ; I appreciate the prac- tical importance of industry and commerce ; I do not deny the logic of the economical law of buying and selling ; I prefer our railway carriages to the stage- coaches in which I used to traverse the Ardennes in ECONOMICAL COMPABISON. C5 my youth ; I consider my perfected fowling-piece far superior to the flint and rod gun of my grandfather's time ; in a word, I am " a man of my time ; " but I assert that M. de Laveleye will not convince me that M. Tiberghien is a greater philosopher than Aristotle ; that the pupil of the latter, Alexander of Macedonia, was inferior in poli tics to Bismarck ; that Demosthenes was less talented than Mr. Gladstone ; that Papinian was a pedant compared with M. Bluntschli, and that M. de Savornin is far superior to St. Jerome. The Protestant sects, and even the Universal Church have only indirect relations with all the very respectable things which these great names recall to mind. Jesus Christ said : " My Kingdom is not of this world." His kingdom is that of God. " Seek His kingdom and His justice," adds the Savior of the human race, " and all these things shall be added unto you." And Catholics possess all these things in different proportions, and to at least as great an extent as Protestants. At a time when professors of political economy willingly believe themselves to be the high priests of the future, be- cause they expound the laws that regulate the produc- tion and circulation of fluctuating riches, and study the conditions of material prosperity, in our epoch, especially, we must not cease to repeat, and even to cry out from the house-tops, that the end of man on this earth does not consist in the exaltation of his own power. I open the catechism used by my children, and I read with delight these simple answers, superior to all the beauties of Plato's " Timseus " and the twelfth book of Aristotle's " Metaphysics." 66 THE FUTURE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. "Q. What is man? A. Man is a creature of God, endowed with reason, possessing an immortal soul and a mortal body. " Q. What is the noblest part of man ? A. It is the soul. " Q. For what end was man created by God ? A. Man was created by God to serve Him in HAS life, and to possess Him for ever in the next. " We were not created, then, to enjoy "ourselves in this life and to amass wealth ? A. No, we were created to serve God." To serve God is to reign. Servire Deo regnare est. He who serves God reigns over creation, even should he be the poorest and most illiterate of men. The Christian faith has not been preached and the Univer- sal Church has not been founded by rich capitalists, men of letters, publicists, professors of rural economy, transcendent politicians, skilful diplomatists, great -warriors, and eloquent or shrewd lawyers. Jesus Christ, filius fabri, lived as a laborer and died cruci- fied between two malefactors ; the Apostles were sim- ple men, workingmen, fishers like the fishermen of Blankenberghe, and the divine work of Christianity was the greatest scandal to which the " learned," the "rich," the "intelligent," and the "civilized" of the four first centuries lent their aid. It is the same with it at the present time. The existence, vigor, development, and immutability of the Catholic Church is a scandal for M. de Laveleye, and all the incom- prehensible geniuses who share his superannuated prejudices and perhaps his recent hate. ECONOMICAL COMPARISON. 67 M. X. Marmier related a short time ago before the assembled academies of France the history of the Home. I select from the extensive works of this charming narrator a passage which I dedicate to M. de Laveleye. Down to the present time the tertiary man, who will be, they say, in theology, something similar to what the Krupp cannon is in the art of war, has not been discovered ; but there are lacustrine cities yet in existence, and, strange to say, they are " cleri- cal": " In one of the most fertile regions of South America, in the Bepublic of Venezuela, a tribe of Indians con- struct their cabins in the middle of Lake Maracaibo. Why? Is it that they may be out of the reach of tigers and serpents, or of the invasion of a hostile tribe ? No. It is simply to rid themselves of mos- quitoes that are far more ferocious and venomous than those of our temperate climates. Like ours, they feel at home in the neighborhood* of water. But they do not go far from the humid soil to which they owe their existence, and the Indians know that at a certain dis- tance from the shore they have nothing more to fear from these terrible insects. They have at hand all they want to build their cabins: tihepalo di hierro for their piles, a lighter wood for their boards and partitions, creeping plants from which they make cords to bind the different parts of their edifice, and palm leaves with which to cover the roof. For they know nothing either of snow or cold winds. They do not require to build massive walls for the mere purpose of keeping out the rain. Thanks to the peculiar richness of their 68 THE FUTUKE OP CATHOLIC PEOPLES. country, they have no more need to give themselves much trouble about the necessaries of life. They have only to throw their lines or nets into the lake that sur- rounds them and they find as much excellent fish as they want. On this same lake, at certain periods, they see thousands upon thousands of ducks beating one another to death, and they capture a large quantity of them with ingenious snares. On the shore grows the hevea, from which they extract the milky juice from which caoutchouc is made. Merchants come every year to purchase this commodity as well as the down of the ducks which these industrious people collect, and the cargoes of fish which they have sahed and smoked. " Thus the Indians of Maracaibo live in their peace- ful home. They are not as numerous as civilized com- munities. They have neither newspapers nor railways. They are unacquainted with the pleasant agitations of the trickeries of the Exchange, and the charms of par- liamentary discussions. ^ But Spanish missionaries have converted them to Catholicism. In the midst of their villages rises a chapel, also built on piles. The cross which surmounts it is reflected in the water. Its bell tolls the Angelus in this solitude of the New World ; at the time of the offices the family canoes are ranged at the foot of its portal, and the faithful Indians kneel piously within its walls. " When the Spaniards arrived here the aspect of the aquatic habitations of Maracaibo reminded them of Venice, and they gave the country in which they found them the name of Venezuela. The opulent Venice lost its wealth. The city of the doges lost its golden ECONOMICAL COMPAKISON. b\) ring. The queen of the Adriatic lost her crown. Mar- vellous Venice ! Of old so many glories of every kind, and so many disasters in quick succession ! " The little Indian tribe in Venezuela has not ex- perienced this brilliant prosperity, and will never ex- perience this terrible decay. Satisfied with its lowly position in this world, it dreams neither on becoming rich by hazardous speculations, nor on becoming great by adventurous conquests. Its high sea is its lake, its light bark iis JBucentaure, its wooden chapel its bas- ilica of St. Mark, and its happiness is to be looked for in the modest habits of its daily life." Certainly, neither you, reader, nor I will choose this lacustrine city for a summer residence ; but we would not dare to assert that these happy creatures live, before God, in a state of civilization inferior to that enjoyed by the ushers of the present government of Geneva, or the police agents of Berlin. The con- clusion I wish to draw from this sort of apologue is this : the deductive, doctrine of the school of M. de Laveleye is false in principle. The material and ex- terior development of a community depends on the nature and countless accessory circumstances which vary according to epoch and latitude. But one thing alone is necessary, everywhere and always, and that is to serve God, and even when we do not politically, economically, industriously or literarily succeed in this service, we are none the less above all the things of this world. Servire Deo regnare est. I am astonished that M. de Laveleye has not read the beautiful book of the Abbe* Martin, " De Vavenir 70 THE FUTUBE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. du Protestantisme etdu Catholiciame." He would have found arguments in it in support of his thesis. M. Martin, who does not appear to have studied the causes and effects of the Renaissance sufficiently, and whom the study of theology has kept too much, per- haps, from economical researches on the origin of the riches and poverty of nations, agrees that Catholic nations are economically and, perhaps, politically to a certain extent, inferior, when compared with so-called Protestant nations ; and he endeavors to explain or rather to attenuate this extraordinary situation by the aid of moral considerations which bear too close a resemblance to consolations. Holding the principles which I have laid down in all due reserve, and with- out denying that a Catholic community, even religi- ously perfect, may temporarily, under the influence of certain external circumstances, decline economically and politically, I do not admit the concessions made by M. Martin. I am going to continue the proof of it, by following M. de Laveleye step by step. " Wherever the two forms of worship are met with in the same country," M. de Laveleye pretends that " Protestants are more active, industrious and econo- mical, and consequently richer, than Catholics. " The end of life not being to amass riches, I might simply refer the author to Melanchton. He said to his mother, who desired to become a Protestant : "If it is best to live a Lutheran, it is preferable to die a Catholic." But let us take from M. de Laveleye's idea whatever truth it may contain: a rational econo- mical development tfiat does not destroy the spiritual ECONOMICAL COMPARISON. 71 means which man ought to employ to attain his super- natural end. In this point of view the thesis of the professor of political economy is belied by the facts. In Prussia, the stronghold of Lutheranism, it is precisely the Catholic provinces that are the richest, if they are not the only ones that are rich : Rhenish Prussia, Westphalia and Silesia. The Protestant provinces, Prussia, Pomerania and Brandenburg, which furnish at the present time the strongest con- tingent to emigration, are the poorest, and in the Protestant province of Prussia, it is precisely the Catholic district of Ermland that is alone rich. Catho- lic Posen, although possessing a robust rural class, is, it is true, less prosperous than the other Catholic provinces. And why ? Because it is yet suffering from the economical (and not religious) errors of the government of the ancient Polish monarchy, and next because it is the object of an administrative tyranny which stifles all the aspirations of the people ; thus, for example, the government swore they would Ger- manize the Polish people. Instruction is given in the primary schools only in German to children who have learned nothing but Polish on their mother's knee ; they are obstinate in checking with premeditation the intellectual development of the young. The economi- cal development of the Posenians is shackled by the government in the primary schools. After the annex- ation to the electorate of Brandenburg of certain Catholic districts of Westphalia (Bavensberg, etc,) Frederic IT. permitted their inhabitants to settle in the Marches which, with the exception of the city of 72 THE FUTURE OP CATHOLIC PEOPLES. Berlin, were until then absolutely forbidden to tliem. This is the reason why very many Catholic families of Westphalian origin are now to be found in the Marches. All are in easy circumstances in a relatively poor country, and it is they who, since the proclama- tion of religious liberty in 1850, have served as the nucleus of all the Catholic missions in these districts. There exist, however, particularly in Silesia and Posen certain poor Catholic districts ; these are principally the communes where formerly there were rich monas- teries, " secularized " in 1810 or after 1831. The people who lived around these ancient Catholic insti- tutions, and who shared in their happiness and even in their splendor, were suddenly ruined when the source of their worldly prosperity was dried up, when the former causes of their industry were made to disappear and those on whom they depended for sup- port were hunted from the country. Such ruins, caused by the spirit of Protestantism, are not re- paired in a few years. The truth is, that in mixed populations where the ma- jority are not violently oppressive, the minority, in concentrating their forces and their energy, generally distinguish themselves by an industrious activity. Such is the economical cause of the industry and commerce of the Greeks in the Turkish empire, of Protestants in Bavaria, Alsace, and the south of France, of Catholics in Holland and the Marches of Brandenburg, of the Dalmatians in the Republic of Venice, of the Chinese in the British possessions of Asia, and of the Jews in every part of the world. ECONOMICAL COMPARISON. 73 M. de Laveleye pretends, after M. de Tocqueville, that " in the United States most of the Catholics are poor;" and he adds that in Canada "affairs of import- ance, industry, commerce, the principal business houses in the cities are in the hands of Protestants." When M. de Tosqueville travelled in the United States (about 1830), the emancipation of the Catholics from the yoke of the Puritans and other English "lib- erals" was recent, and the new immigration of the Irish, French and German Catholics had not yet pro- duced its fruits. The illustrious writer, if he really expressed this judgment (M. de Laveleye has not told us where he gets his quotation), would not repeat ib now, seeing that Catholics everywhere hold the first rank in the great American Republic, not only in Louisiana, at Baltimore, Boston and New York, but even in the Western States. Since De Tocqueville has been quoted, I will also quote him : "America is the most democratic country in the world, and it is at the same time the country where, according to the most trustworthy accounts, the Catholic religion is making the greatest progress. . . . Our kinsmen will tend more and more to divide themselves into two parties only, the one abandoning Christianity altogether and the other entering into the fold of the Catholic Church. * * * * * * * * "The American (that is the Protestant) preachers incessantly return to this subject, and it is only with great difficulty they can at all divert their attention from it, The better to affect their hearers they are 74: THE FUTURE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. showing them every day how religious belief favors liberty and public order, and it is often difficult to know, when hearing them, whether the chief object of religion is to secure eternal felicity in the next world or well-being in this one."* M. de Laveleye has not been happy in calling in the assistance of M. de Tocqueville. The first Catholic bishop who was appointed .in the United States was Bishop Carroll, in 1790. There are now seven jarch- bishops and thirty-six bishops ;t and the first Ameri- can cardinal, Archbishop McCloskey of New York, has recently entered the Sacred College. Catholic works of every kind are being developed with truly admirable energy and abundance, and the faithful of Louisiana, Missouri, and the Western States, as well as those of California and Oregon, rival the old and rich Catholic communities of New England, in endowing these in- numerable works with capital, which is the palpable manifestation of unexampled prosperity. Is it in the "History of the Intellectual Development of Europe," by Dr. Draper, that M. de Laveleye has found his singular information on the economical situation of American Catholics? The school to which our com- patriot belongs has created a certain degree of excite- ment about this poor production of a New York pro- fessor of chemistry, whose philosophy is in no way superior to that of Holbach and Helvetius, Chough it has been praised by Professor Tyndall. However this * De la Democratic au'A Etats Unis, vol. 2, pages 30 and 142 (Paris : Pagnerre, 1850.) f There are at present eleven archbishops and fifty-six ops in the United States. ECONOMICAL COMPABISON. 75 may be, M. de Laveleye's argument is not serious, and we picture to ourselves the jovial air with which it will be received by our friend, Father flecker, of the New York Catholic World. I know not whether the Catholic Canadians are doing " great things ; " but this is the first time I hear of their poverty. In the Island of Newfoundland and Lower Canada, where the descendants of the old French col- onists constitute, if I am well informed, three-fourths of the population, most of the real estate is in the hands of Catholics, who are generally in very comfort- able circumstances ; in Upper Canada the less numer- ous Catholics are Irish or other immigrants, who are found in the usual condition of this general class of colonists in the English possessions. From the time of the annexation of the French colonies of North America to the crown of England, the Catholics have been, if not oppressed, at least debarred from the favors of the metropolis. It is remarkable, and it is right to remind M. de Laveleye of it, that the Catholic popula- tions of North America have alone remained faithful to the British crown since the end of the last century. This fidelity has been recompensed in the present cen- tury by the tardy gratitude of England ; and for the last forty years the Catholic Canadians, finally left to their own efforts, have shown a prodigious activity. If English Protestants do "great things," the French and Irish Catholics of Canada are all doing good things. The enterprising and practical spirit of the English, which existed before the birth of Luther, has manifest- ed itself t it is true, in Canada as well as everywhere 76 THE FUTURE OP CATHOLIC PEOPLES* else, and I am not far from admitting, -with M. de La- yeleye, that in industrial and commercial speculations, Protestant and "perfidious " Albion occupies the first rank : but, once more, rich benefices are not the stan- dard of the moral and political value of a man, a family, a society or a people. According to the stories told to us by the Canadians who have served in the Pontifical army, or studied in the University of Louvain, I add that the English Protestants in no way hold the first rank either in Quebec or Montreal, or even in St. John's, Newfoundland. M. de Laveleye may boldly erase the Canadian Cath- olics from the list of the niggards who know not how to derive legitimate applications from political econ- omy. If I were a Frenchman, I would be far proud- er of my country for having produced the brave race of Canadians than for having realized the " immortal conquests of '89." From Quebec to Nlmes is a long distance, but Frenchmen are to be found there, not Frenchman afflict- ed with Catholicism, but Frenchmen transformed by the Eeformation. You naturally expect here the men- tion of the great name of M. Guizot, a native of Nimes, whom we may cite as a brilliant example, taken at haz- ard from among the total of the Protestants of this oasis of prosperity. Undeceive yourselves. " M. Audiganne, in his remarkable studies on 'The Working Classes of France' remarks the superiority of Protestants in industry and his testimony is the less suspicious as he does not attribute this superior- ity to Protestantism. The majority of the people of ECONOMICAL COMPARISON. 77 Nlmes, he says, and notably those employed in the manufacture of taffeta, are Catholics, whilst the chiefs of industry and commerce, the capitalists, in a word, belong in general to the reformed religion. " When any one family is divided into two branches, the one adhering to the faith of its fathers, the other enrolling itself under the standard of the new doctrines, we almost always remark a progressive decay on one side, and on the other increasing riches. ... At Mazamet, the Elboeuf of the South of France, M. Audiganne still further says, all the chiefs of industry, except one, are Protestants, whilst the great majority of the laborers are Catholics. The latter are less edu- cated than are the laboring Protestant families," This mode of argument is really extraordinary. M. Audiganne cites economical facts which can easily be explained and whose law we have pointed out already, and he is careful to say that he does not attribute to religious causes a state of things which is apparently favorable to Protestants as such. What conclusion does M. de Laveleye draw from it ? He audaciously divides M. Audiganne's testimony ; he takes for his thesis the part favorable to Protestants, and feigns to forget the unfavorable part. In supposing that this mode of discussion is admissible in the domain of mod- ern logic, what conclusion could M. de Laveleye draw from it ? At best a fact interesting to note, viz. : that at Nimes and Mazamet capital is in the hands of Prot- estants. By this mode of reasoning the Kothschilds are the depositaries of a civilization far superior to that of the Protestants of both hemispheres ; the Jewish 78 THE FUTUBB OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. bankers of Berlin and Frankfort are endowed with more practical intelligence than the followers of Luther, and Judaism is superior to Protestantism. I had hoped that M. de Laveleye, in presence of the scandalous and actual revocation of the religious liber- ty of the Catholics in Switzerland and Prussia, would spare us the superannuated citation of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. But I have been deceived: "Before the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes," he says, " the Reformers were superior in every branch of labor, and the Catholics, who could not bear compe- tition, forbade to them, from 1662, by several successive edicts, the practice of different industries in which they excelled. After their expulsion from France, the Protestants brought into England, Prussia, and Holland their enterprising and economical spirit ; they enriched the district in which they settled. It is to reformed Latins that the Germans partly owe their progress. The refugees of the Revocation introduced different industries into England, among others that of silk, and it was the disciples of Calvin that civilized Scotland." , Calvinistic civilization in Scotland! But in the whole history of Christianity we could not find a sect whose actions have been, on the whole, more rude, in- tolerant and gross. We have already raised a corner of the veil which" they wish to throw over the former situation of Scotland ; we will tear it all off hereafter. I come to the most urgent question the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. This impolitic act of Louis XIV. was approved neither by the cabinet of Madrid, nor ECONOMICAL COMPARISON. 79 especially by Pope Innocent XL Lord Macaulay and Kanke, who agree on this point, even quote these re- markable words which came from the Court of Home : "Christ never used such means; we ought to lead men towards the Church, and not drag them to it. " It behoves, moreover, neither the fierce Calvinists of Geneva and Scotland, nor the intolerant German Lu- therans, nor the tyrannical Anglicans to reproach with an act of intolerance King Louis XIV, who did against the Reformers of his kingdom, for political rather than religious reasons, what they themselves have done and are still doing, through blind hatred against Catholics, throughout the whole extent of Europe. The King of Fiance invoked the theological thesis, and in overturn- ing the hypothesis of the religious liberty of the dis- senters, he was not proud of the principles of the He- formation on liberty of worship. With regard to the economical side of the expulsion of the Huguenots, many reflections might be made. I will confine myself to contesting the facts cited by M. de Laveleye by re- ferring him to the article devoted by M. A. d'Avril in the Revue des Questions Historiques (vol. xv., 1874) to the work of M. de Segur Dupeyron, formerly French consul at Antwerp, entitled: " Histoire des negotia- tions maritimes et commerciales de la France aux dix-septieme et dix-huitieme sieeles considerees dans leurs rapports arec la politique generate." M. de Segur blames the act of Louis XTV, attributes the momentary decline of French industry during the second half of the reign of the "great king" to the misfortunes of war, and denies that the prosperity ol 80 THE FUTURE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. other countries has been the work of the French refu- gees. The draperies of Friesland date from the Carlovin- gian epoch ; in the beginning of the sixteenth century Amsterdam and Ley den produced 24, 000 pieces of cloth every year ; the weaving of wool was introduced into England by Flemish workmen two centuries before the preachings of Luther ; seventy-one years before the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes workmen from Aix-la- Chapelle introduced into Amsterdam new processes of manufacturing woollen goods; twenty-five years before this same Revocation the fabrication of silk was already carried on in Holland. It was Dutch and Flemish workmen who introduced into Sedan and the South the perfected methods for weaving woollen thread. It was towards 1521 that Lombard workmen brought into France the industry of silk. From 1629 to 1681 it was organized in England, notably at London when it gave employment to 4000 workmen; in 1713, twenty - eight years after the Revocation, the number of these workmen had not increased. A diplomatic letter of 1686 establishes that the industries of flax and hemp had been perfected in England by Catholic workmen who came from France. In 1713 the English manu- factures were incapable of sustaining competition with the French ; this fact is evident from the petitions ad- dressed to the Parliament of England against the treaty negotiated at Utrecht. The same was the case in Holland. The author of the ' 'Histoire des re fugles Protestants" says : ' ' The in- dustry practised by refugees was less durable in Holland than their brilliant beginnings had led people to ex- ECONOMICAL COMPARISON. 81 pect. The manufactures of silk,linencloth,liats and pa- per which they had created were beginning to languish from the first half of the eighteenth century (that is to say, after the establishment of peace)." The same author adds that woollen goods, tanneries and sugar re- fineries preserve in our days the improvements they received at that epoch; but M. de Segur denies this as- sertion, and he shows that all the present perfections of these industries are far posterior to 1685. Finally, this is the conclusion <. fVie"Histoire des Refugies Prot- estants" : "The manufactures established by the French exiles could not fail to perish by degrees. Even the manufacture of silks flourished until the end of the War of the Succession in Spain (1713). Peace once re- established, the silks of France, less costly and more elegantly finished, soon resumed their former superior- ity over the markets of Holland." Is it clear? Is not M. de Segur authorized in concluding thus: " In pres- ence of French competition, the Protestant refugees were powerless, or nearly so, to reestablish anything durable either in England or in Holland." In Prussia, where enormous advantages were offered to the refugees, the industry whose development they favored could support itself only by means of excep- tional and prohibitory laws. Yet we must attribute the origin of this movement to a resolution of the Elec- tor of Brandenburg to withdraw his States from the industrial monopoly of Holland and England. With the advantageous conditions which he offered he could attract workmen from every other country. The ancestors of MM. Ancillon, Dubois-Beymond, 82 THE FUTURE OP CATHOLIC PEOPLES. de TEstocq, de Forcade, Clairon d'Haussonville, Bras- sier de Saint Simon, Chapuis, Fournier, etc., in taking refuge in the Electorate of Brandenburg, sought posi- tions in the ranks of the clergy, the civil administration and the army rather than in industry and commerce. The manufacture of silk suffered for a time in France, during the War of the Succession in Spain, but after the reestablishment of peace neither England nor Hol- land could compete with French industry. English and Dutch manufactures had acquired an extraordinary development. After the conclusion of peace this indus- try fell, outside France, to its former level. I think that these few indications amply suffice to reduce to their proper value the assertions of M. de Laveleye on the economical consequences of the Kevo- cation of the Edict of Nantes. The following asser- tions can still more easily be disproved: ' Compare the quota in the Exchange of the public funds of Protestant with those of Catholic States. The difference is immense. The English 3 per cent, ex- ceeds 92 ; the French 3 per cent, floats about 60. The rentes of. Holland, Prussia, Denmark, and Sweden are at least at par ; those of Austria, Italy, Spain, and Portu- gal are one- third or even one-half lower." M. de Laveleye is not generous in throwing over- board Italy, which is the work of his friends. Before 1859, the finances of the Papal States, the kingdom of Naples, Modena, Parma, Tuscany, and principally Piedmont and even the Lombardo- Venetian Kingdom were in a brilliant situation. Before the revolution of 1848, which was not fomented by Catholics, it is not, ECONOMICAL COMPABISON. 83 perhaps useless to repeat it, the Metallics of Austria were above par. As to the finances of Holland they are no more Protestant than Catholic, in the same way as the financial situation of Belgium is neither the work of M. Frere nor of M. Malou. No one thinks of ques- tioning the unheard-of splendor of England's riches. Babylon was rich ; the ancient Indian princes of Mexico possessed riches which turned the brains of the Span- ish conquerors ; if Tiberius had asked for a loan it would have been contributed a thousand fold ; Both- schild's grandfather was a poor devil ; his great grand- children will be reduced, perhaps, to moderate circum- stances. Do these facts prove anything for or against Judaism ? I have no desire to interest myself in M. de Laveleye's personal affairs, but I would wager that he prefers the French to the Prussian rentes as a specula- tion. When, after the next war, the so-called Luth- eran Prussians will have to pay perhaps ten milliards, as the French Catholics had to pay five in 1871, we will know whether their appeal will be heard and whether the subscription, when opened, will be covered five times over. M. de Laveleye, who belongs to a family that is well versed in financial matters, has too much practical knowledge of affairs to believe seri- ously that we will see in the fir-tree forests which sur- round Varzin the financial prodigies which we have witnessed in France for the last five years. One could not understand how M. de Laveleye dared attempt to use so weak an argument, if he had not im- mediately followed it by an exceedingly naive avowal: " To-day throughout all Germany the commerce of the 84 THE FUTUBB OP CATHOLIC PEOPLES. products of the mind, books, reviews, maps, journals, is almost entirely in the hands of Jews and Protest- ants." M. de Laveleye is right. Protestants really hold only the second rank in this turmoil of un-Catholic civilization ; the Jews occupy the first place in it, and they have deserved well of it. But then, it is not to- wards Protestantism that our Liberals, who were bap- tized Catholics and afterwards disabused, ought to direct their hearts, weary of truth and religion ; it is Judaism that attracts them, and nothing remains for them to do but have themselves circumcised, so as to walk with a more steady step towards the great ideas of the future. The " commerce of the productions of the mind " in Germany is a subject that ought not to be treated incidentally. We will speak of it more at length than M. de Laveleye deigns to do. The book trade in Ger- many is concentrated at Leipsic so effectually that the market of Berlin itself has tried in vain to rival the Leipsiger Bucfimesse ; but this centre of book-selling is exclusively Protestant or Jewish, so that Catholic publications are, so to say, banished from it, and Catholic booksellers have had, since 1848, to have re- course to extraordinary or special means to forward the circulation of their publications. Let us also re- mind M. de Laveleye (who has undoubtedly forgotten it,) that the "commerce of the productions of the mind" and that of pharmaceutical drugs have been free in the country of Luther only since 1848. The absolu- tism of the Leipsic market is one of the accessory ECONOMICAL COMPARISON. 85 canses of the philosophical and literary decline of modern Germany and of the materialism into which the book trade is sinking deeper and deeper every day. In what catalogue of the North will you find mention made of the former Dr. Dollingei's " The Church and the Churches," a formidable work which M. de Laveleye ought to study. From the central depot are excluded not only Catholic books of which large editions are refused, as for example, the Bonifacius Calender, but even a conspiracy of silence is organized against the most serious books of Pro- testant writers who do not fraternise with the National- Liberal party. Herr Wuttke, a Protestant of the old school, and a distinguished professor in the University of Leipsic itself, is in this situation. One of his books, " Journalism and the Formation of Public Opinion in Germany," has been pitilessly ignored, not only in the so " enlightened " Germany of the North, but even at Leipsic. This studied disdain has not prevented this work, which is highly moral in tone, from reaching its third edition which has just appeared. The periodicals devoted especially to the German book trade, loquacious and even frequently ridicuously prolix as they are, pass over Catholic pub- lications in silence, or mention them in imperceptible characters or obscure places. This tyranny has pro- voked the publication of bibliographical periodicals specially destined for Catholics. Among these I take pleasure in mentioning here the Litterarischer Hand- weiser which Dr. Fr. Hulskamp and Dr. H. Rump of regretted memory, founded thirteen years ago at 86 THE FUTUEE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. Miinster in "Westphalia. This monthly catalogue, preceded by bibliographical and other notices, written with a rare elevation of mind and style, is a model ; I recommend it to studious readers. It is a veritable classified encyclopedia with general tables of the con- temporary book trade in America, England, France and especially in Germany. To my knowledge, there does not exist in contemporary literature, besides the Polybiblion and the Bibliographic Catholiquc of France, a periodical superior to the Litterarischer Handweiser. The exclusivism of the Leipsic market has, moreover, benefited the Catholic book trade ; since 1848 Germany is covered with Catholic book- stores, of which several now enjoy a European repu- tation. There is no longer a city of any importance in - the Catholic or mixed countries which does not possess one, two, or even three Catholic book-stores. The intolerance of Protestant and Jewish merchants has been imitated by the authors of the encyclopedias published with more or less bustle at Leipsic, or else- where. One of the latest and strangest examples of this partiality unworthy of science has been recently given by Schelling's son-in-law, Herr G. Waitz, in his encyclopedia of German historical science. If the reader desires to form an idea of the degree of par- tiality shown by the most famous writers of the do- minant school, he will read with fruit and even with cheerfulness the brilliant article devoted to this de- nial of justice in the learned Mayence review, Der Kaiholik, of October, 1875. Since the appearance of M. Wuttke's book, a certain ECONOMICAL COMPABISOK. 87 amount of audacity is required to defend the anti- Catholic German press, which is, so to say, entirely in the hands of Jews, in, a country that has become for- ever famous for the "reptile funds." The Catholic press, daily or periodical, is inferior in nothing to the Jewish, Protestant, or free-thinking press. There is not in all Germany a non-Catholic journal superior in its management to the courageous, erudite, witty and energetic organ of the Catholics of Berlin, the Ger- mania. This paper has become a power at the gates of the chancery of the empire. Bismarck himself boasted publicly of the skilful management of the Germania, and did not constrain himself from one day branding certain editors of his own officious journals with the epithet of swineheards (sauhirteri). If our liberals admire the Cologne Gazette, I venture to say that the Kcelnisehe Volkszeitung, published by M. Bach- em, at Cologne also, is one of the most complete journals to be found in Europe. There is not a locality of the least importance, either in the South or in the North, Catholic or mixed, in which a Catholic journal has not been started since 1848, since there exists a certain degree of liberty of the press in the country of Luther, while most of the German journals, with the excep- tion of the Neue Preusissche Zeitung, the Frankfurter Zeitung, and some other rare independent papers, are devoted to the government, all the Catholic journals, to the number of about 300, maintain a most dignified attitude, and set the noblest examples of liberty. Without subsidy, without the reptile funds, without support from "people of importance," the Catholic jour- 88 THE FUTURE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. . nals develop and prosper, and yet they are incessantly prosecuted and even confiscated ; the Germania haa already had the honor of seeing five of its editors con- demned to imprisonment in three years ; the whole strength of the government, the entire influence of the police and all the zeal of the bar are directed against the development of the Catholic press, which is full of life and vigor, so that the Novelles, which the Prus- sian government lately proposed to introduce into the penal code appear to have no other object in view than to crush Catholic journals and to justify once more these words of J. de Maistre : " Unless error is main- tained by proscriptions, it will never hold its own against truth." There is not in all Germany a periodical re- view that has more influence on public opinion than the Historical and Political Papers, of Munich, the "yellow book," conducted with so much talent by Herren Joergand Binder, and establishedjwith so much brilliancy by Joseph Gcerres, the great Catholic writer whom Napoleon I. surnamed the " sixth power." Since the death of Gcerres, Schlegel, Eichendorf and Grillparzer the Austrian, all Catholics, and H. Heine, who was a Jew, mention for me one great German writer. German literature is tossed about between a certain materialistic originality and an imitation of the defects of the French literature of the present day : literary mediocrity is the fashion. The language of Schiller, which Prince Bismarck introduced so prou$- ly into German diplomacy accredited abroad, is mak- ing no progress ; it swarms with neologisms that are not understood by the people, and words and phrases ECONOMICAL COMPAKISON. 89 borrowed from the English and French. But lately, when the German Government communicated with the Belgian Cabinet, three of us (of whom two were Ger- mans) spent a whole evening in making out the mean- ing of a few phrases, as if there was question of a satire of Persius or an Assyrian inscription. Who are the orators in the Parliament of Berlin ? Herr Lasker, a Jew, and Bismarck, a sceptic who stammers and speaks hesitatingly, as some timid people fire a revolver. The Centre contains a whole group of orators and debaters Herr Windhorst, the 4< pearl of Meppen ;" Herren P. and August Eeichensperger, the Baron von Schorle- mer-Alst, the "captain" of the Westphalian peasants ; Canon Moufang, Dr. Joerg, one of the most satirical speakers of new Germany, c. If you descend from this lofty eminence to the level of the people you will soon be convinced that there is in reality no political life except among the German Catholics. The entire Catholic people move and live with their priests and deputies. They alone display that political maturity which inspires energy in the de- fence of right, calm in passive resistance and persever- ance in measured and dignified protest. None but the Catholics have made a loyal use of the parliamentary regime ; their adversaries have derived from this re- gime only instruments of power and oppression ; by a scandalous abuse of the right of majorities, they have brought into disrepute the representative institutions which, moreover, preserved their roots only in Catholic countries whilst they have been forgotten in the March- es of Brandenburg ever since the sixteenth century. 90 THE FTTTUBE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. The parliamentary Centre at Berlin has behind it aa many voters as the three times more numerous ma- jority of their Liberal adversaries. In effect, ninety- nine per cent, of the Catholic voters vote at elections, whilst the Liberals obtain scarcely fifty per cent, of the suffrages. The German Liberals consoled them- selves on one occasion by calling the Catholic voters an " electoral herd of cattle." In truth this is too much boasting for a party to which Prince Bismarck, the master of the situation, gave one day to understand that his members were elected only in his name ; in effect, this happy statesman really repre- sents, in his own person, outside the Catholic ranks, the entire political life of Germany. The National Liberals are Bismarck's " electoral herd of cattle." Is it necessary to continue this demonstration still fur- ther, after the confession which this latter and his faithful colleague, HerrFalk, made when bringing for- ward their May Laws ? They confessed that they were powerless to fight the Catholics whilst they let the Church enjoy liberty, and they appealed to brute force. At this juncture, thanks to the complicity of power and of the so-called Protestants of the National-Liberal party, Catholics are pursued like wild beasts, and in- numerable compliments and favors are heaped upon the lukewarm disciples of Luther. Are the Catholic Church and her faithful subjugated, and is Protestant- ism making progress ? You do not believe it yourself I No ; a thousand times no ; Catholics are not what you say they are, or what you desire they should be. Un- able to conquer them, you have tried to poison their ECONOMICAL COMPAEISON. 91 faith, and this important undertaking having failed, you wish to demolish their Church. It was M. Thiers, I think, who once said, "Those who feed on the Catholic priest die of it.*' I know not when this phenomenon of political digestion will manifest itself in Germany. In any case, if the Jews and Protestants have in their hands the commerce of intellectual works, which is partially inexact, Catholics certainly have, so to say, the actual monopoly of the great spiritual works in Germany. " The Beformation," concludes M. de Laveleye, " has communicated to the countries that have adopted it a vigor of which history can scarcely take ac- count. " He then pronounces a pompous eulogy on the Netherlands, Sweden, England and the United States,* whose material victories and recent prosperity he contrasts with the fallen greatness of Spain, the modern revolutions of France, and the recent defeats of the House of Austria. All this mode of argument is a victorious demonstration of the error into which pre- judice plunges M. de Laveleye. If Spain, France and Austria have at certain periods occupied the foremost rank in what we call the family of nations, it is shown that the Catholic religion opposes no obstacle to a nation's temporal greatness. If, on the other hand, Holland and Sweden have also at a certain epoch, * In the French edition Prussia and the following passage of the first edition have been omitted: "Protestant Prussia conquers two empires, each twice as populous as itself, the first in seven weeks, the second in seven months." This military ar- gument is truly surprising from the pen of an economist. In the beginning of this century Prussia was beaten in a single day at Jena. Was that the fault of Dr. Luther ? 92 THE FUTUBE OF OATHOUO PEOPLES. which exists no longer, exercised a preponderating influence in the political world, it is clear that Pro- testantism is not a safeguard against decay. How is it that M. de Laveleye has not seen the effect of sujh a mode of reasoning? He prophesies also against the Catholic Church that in two cen- turies Asia will belong to the schismatic Sclaves Cesaro-popism would be, therefore, superior even to Protestantism, since the Russians would succeed in in driving the English from Asia. " Two centuries ago,'* says our author, "the supremacy belonged with- out dispute to the Catholic States. The others were on- ly second-rate powers. To-day, put France, Austria, Italy and South America on one side, and on the other, Russia, the German Empire, England and North America, evidently the predomiannce has passed to the heretics and schismatics" Such, then, is the influ- ence which the prestige of success and strength exer- cises over men who believe themselves to be more clear- sighted. In effect, Italy," a geographical expression," exists as a kingdom dear to the Liberals only since 1859; until 1866, no one said that Austria was inferior to Prussia: France, to which M. de Laveleye owes his reputation, is disdainful to certain philosophers only since 1870; the German Empire dates from yesterday and does not yet enjoy the conditions of stability; Rus- sia, which preserved its equanimity, amid the mortifi- cations of its defeats and powerlessness, became, sud- denly and without exhibiting any effort, the arbiter be- tween the powers of Europe. Why? Because it was not Catholic? Evidently not, but because, in a balance of ECONOMICAL COMPARISON. 93 perfect equilibrium, two pounds of powder, whether manufactured by Protestants, Catholics or Greeks, always gain the advantage over one pound. In other words, Eussia is at this moment the arbiter of the balance of power inEurope. Perhaps Austria will be so to-morrow; and after to-morrow, Italy. Who knows but that the turn of Spain will come again, perhaps, next. The attempt to combat the Church with economical formulas is not new. M. Napoleon Roussel, a French Protestant pastor, had, already twenty years ago, tried to use this tin armor at his own expense. His book, 11 Les Nations Cathliques et les Nations Protestantes Consider ees sous le triple rapport du Bien-etre,des Lumieres etde la Moralite" is already forgotten. But the criticism with which it was honored by a witty sceptic, M. John Lemoinne, of the French Academy, has lost none of its freshness. I take the liberty of re- producing it here almost entire, from Mgr. de Se'gur's excellent little book, entitled " Causerie sur le Prot* estantisme d'aujourd'hui :" "We opened this book with the desire of saying all the good we could of it, but with the best will in the world it is impossible for us to consider it either as a good book or as a good action. The author . . . has compiled a book which advocates, to say the least, the crudest, the most senseless, and the most desperate ma- terialism. In truth ; if a minister of the Gospel has only this sort of morality to present to the world; if , Protestant or Catholic, whatever he may be, he has no other con- elusion to draw from history, then the only thing men 94 THE FUTURE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. have to do is to live highly, conduct themselves with deco- rum and manage their affairs carefully ; the richest are always the most virtuous. Such reading as this grieves the heart. * ****** * *'M. Boussel had the intention of comparing Cath- olic with Protestant nations under the threefold rela- tion of well-being, intellect and morality. In this comparison, unfortunately, morality, which ought to have a right to the first place, occupies only the last and least important ; intellect holds the second rank, and, as in the title well-being is prominent, it struts along in a gaudy manner. ****** * * "In two volumes M. Koussel demonstrates, with large reinforcements of figures, that Protestants are infinitely better off in this world than Catholics that they have more revenues, more industries, more securities, more linen and more boots. Until the pres- ent moment we always believed that at the last judgment God would put the good on one side and the bad on the other; but in M. Boussel's system humanity is di- vided into two other categories, that of fat, and that oi thin people ; God will no longer try the reins and hearts, but the stomachs. If M. Koussel allowed St. Peter to guard the entrance to heaven, he would cer- tainly give him instruction, as at the Tuileries, to allow no one to pass in but the well-behaved and well dressed. In the Protestant theology, a decent appearance is tli3 one thlug necessary for salvation. ****** * * ECONOMICAL COMPARISON. 95 " We must see with what complaisance M. Roussel scores up the accounts of all Catholic and Protestant countries ; it is partly a double entry system of book- keeping. "On the ground of well-being, M. Roussel and Protestantism reign as masters. They are the rich- est. Look, for example, at the figure which this sad and wretched Ireland presents by the side of her Protest- ant sisters ! M. Boussel gives us, after an official re- port, the statistics of a parish of four thousand inhabi- tants all Catholics, he is careful to add ; and these four thousand Catholics possess between them one cart, one plough, sixteen harrows, eight saddles, two side saddles, seven table forks, ninety-three chairs, two hundred and forty-three stools, twenty-seven geese, three turkeys, two hair mattresses, eight straw mat- tresses, eight bronze candlesticks, three watches,* a school, a priest, no hats, no clocks, no boots, no tur- nips, no carrots. Let us stop a little in this enumer- ation ; M. Roussel cites entire pages of it; and after having gone through with this kind of hospital visiting, he triumphantly exclaims : ' Let us cross the channel, and after having seen Catholic Ireland and its miseries, contemplate Protestant Scotland and its prosperity.' "Like people who have the jaundice, and to whom everything appears yellow, M. Roussel goes searching through Catholicism even into corners where one would have never imagined that he could nestle. He cites, for example, the story of a pugilistic scene which occurs in Ireland, the combatants thrashing each other soundly, the witnesses refreshing them with vinegar, and making them swallow some whiskey, finally all 96 THE FUTURE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. the customary accompaniments to this kind of exer- cise. But can you guess where the scandal lies ? It is that these Irish fight with sticks instead of striking each other with the fists, as the noble professional boxers of England do / M. Eoussel gravely cites this fact as an example of the grossness of Irish and Catho- lic manners. How different from those noble Protest- ant boxers and from those admirable fisticuffs undoubt- edly inspired by faith ! Set two boxers at it, one Catholic and the other Protestant, one will be distin- guished from the other by the greater or less vigor of his elbows : this is a new criterion of which we never dreamt before. "Continuing his tour of the world, M. Eonssel sub- jects Catholic and Protestant Switzerland to the same pf ocess of comparison. A traveller comes into a Cath- olic canton and his first remark is : 'what nastiness! what a yellow, black, and Irvid tinge !' It is agreed that all Catholics are yellow. Here is another impres- sion of travel; we quote it : 'By two o'clock we ar- rived at Fluelen ; this patch of Catholicism was an- nounced to us by four wennish creatures, six scabby wretches, half a dozen miserable devils in rags who appeared to have come out of the grave . . .' We see that this is better and better; a little while ago the Catholics were yellow, now they are all scabby. Let us turn our eyes away from this sickening spectacle and hasten to relieve them by the sight of a Protest- ant land. 'How many dales ! what cultivation !' ex- claims M. Eoussel. 'How much abundance and in- dustry 1 Zurich and its beautiful environs appear to me ECONOMICAL COMPARISON. 97 to be the home of wisdom, moderation, comfort and happiness . . . We entered a cottage where the mistress of the house offered us milk and cherries, and placed on the table, nine or ten large silver spoons.' . . . Are you listening attentively ! Ten silver spoons ! What holy people ! It is not these scabby Catholics, these livid folks, that could show so many of them. Do you wish to follow M. Koussel into Spain ! There once more, with a numerous reinforce- ment of quotations, he will prove to you that the roads are badly kept, that the inns are dirty, and that they eat off pewter vessels; he will then compare this land of Catholicism with that land of Protestantism, England, which, in its turn, is mentioned in connection with its silver services, its railways, its linens, etc, " We do not confine ourselves to accompanying M. Boussel through all his peregrinations, we do not deny the exactitude of his reckonings, and we leave to Prot- estantism the benefit of its plate. But did M. Boussel, when he travelled in Ireland, for example, uever experience the least remorse of conscience ? Has he never asked himself whether Protestants had not some hand in the misery of this Catholic country ? If the Protestants represent no more than a tenth of the population of Ireland, with what right did they lay a heavy hand on all the property and revenues of the Catholic Church ? And when M. Boussel, to prove that Catholics are no longer oppressed in Ireland, tells us that they have four archbishops, twenty-three bishops, 2,500 churches, and more than 2,000 priests, how is it that he does not express a little admiration 98 THE FUTURE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. for this nation of mendicants which finds means in its misery to support its churches, whilst the Protestant bishops and ministers live sumptuously and plentifully on the profits of confiscation ? How is it that a minis- ter of the Gospel is forgetful of thesa simple words : * Amen, I say to you, this poor widow hath cast in more than all they who have cast into the treasury. For all they did casfc in of their abundance ; but she of her want cast in all she had, even her whole living. ' "But M. Eoussel has kept for France the most bril- liant, the most invincible of all his arguments. Listen to it : ' Persecuted for centuries, despoiled of their pos- sessions, French Protestants should be to-day, not on a level with, but even far below the rest of the nation in regard to riches. Is it so ? If we wished to consult only public opinion, we might say that the conscience of the reader has answered already.' " We entreat you to admire, in passing, the singular duty that conscience performs here ; but let us allow the author to continue : " 'But we desire to assert nothing, not even what is evident, without basing our assertions on documents. Those which we have produced on this subject are au- thentic and of the greatest importance/ " Here we trembled for Catholicism. What is going to become of it? Let us re-assure ourselves; it is a bag of crowns, only a shower of big pennies. M. Boussel explains to us in detail that he procured the amount of the quota mobilier, paid by the Protestants of the Department of the Seine. The list is litho- graphed ; it is in his hands, and on this basis he flOONOMlCAL COMPABISON. 99 that the average paid by all the inhabitants of Paris is 33 francs and 4 centimes, and the average paid by Pro- testants, 87 francs 1 centime. ' Thus,' he says, * French Protestants possess three times more riches than their Boman Catholic fellow-countrymen.' After such a blow Catholicism ought to surrender ; ur questionably it will never get over the quota mobilier. But why has not M. Eoussel, whilst he was in the humor of making out accounts, also consulted the quota paid by another portion of the population, to whom we have no inten- tion of saying anything hurtful, but who generally pass for being very well quoted we wish to speak of the Jews. Who knows but that he might have found the Israelites still richer, and consequently still more vir- tuous than the Protestants ? " But, once more, we do not wish to contest M. BoussePs figures, nor disturb his triumph. We leave him to mount on his Protestant pyramid of five franc pieces and there sing his Gloria in Excelsis. Some- body has said : ' Amen, I say to you that a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven. And again I say to you: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven.' We could mate some other quotations which would be equally as good as those of M. Boussel, but we are not com- petent to preach a sermon. M. Boussel, perhaps, sincerely believed that he was writing a moral and re- ligious book ; sectarian bigotry has blinded him, and we regret having to repeat that his conclusions are essentially materialistic. " CHAPTEB IV. CATHOLICS AND COLONIZATION. The Pretended Sterility of Catholic CommunitiesWhat is called Colonizing Catholics in the Philip pine Islands In China The British Colonies The Dutch Colonies Catho- lics in the United States The Colonies of the Cat'holic Missionaries Belgian Missionary Colonists. After this strange conclusion, M. de Laveleye loses all self-control. He writes : " Nations subject to Home appear to be afflicted with sterility; they no longer colonize; they have no power of expansion. The words employed by M. Thiers to depict their religious capital, Borne, viduitas et sterili- tas t might be equally applied to them. Their past is brilliant, but the present is dark and the future dis- quieting." Viduitas et sterilitas / Is it really M. Thiers who dared to express himself thus ? ^M. Thiers, a childless man, whose whole life has been fruitful only in revo- lutionary inspirations, who has labored for the ruin of all the powers which have been contemporaneous with him in France, including his own among the rest. M. Thiers, the widower of two governments which he had espoused, after a long interval, in 1840 and 1870, M. Thiers who, according to Von Arnim, "crosses rivers on a tight-rope laid alongside a first-rate bridge," would dare to speak to us of the widowhood and bar- renness of the Borne of the Popes ? The Borne of the Popes was never less a widow and more fruitful than at CATHOLICS AND COLONIZATION. 101 the present moment. Never, at any period of history have the eyes of mortals, throughout tbe two hemi- spheres, been turned with more love or more hatred towards Eome, the See of Peter, Capitoli immobile saxum. Is it to admire the ruins of the city of the Caesars or to study the projects of Garibaldi that mul- titudes of pilgrims set out every day, so to speak, from every part of the world? Leave the triple crown out of the question if you will, but answer this : is there in the universe another man who bears the mark of royalty on his brow in a more remarkable man- ner than does Pius IX ? Is there, I do not say in this century alone, but in the last six centuries, a Pope whose teachings, simple recommendations and entire pontificate have been more fruitful ? The reestablish- ment of the Catholic hierarchy in Holland and Eng- land, the organization of more than fifty new dioceses in America, the foundation of the great Church of the United States, that of Australia, that of Tasmania, etc., etc., the colossal*work accomplished by the Con- gregation of the Propaganda dare you call these prodigies acts of sterility? Never has the Spouse of Christ, the Church, been more closely united with the Pope ; do the proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, the Council of the Vatican, the constitution Dei Filius, a masterpiece of philoso- phy on the relations of reason and faith, the consti- tution Pastor jEternus, the encyclicals Mirari voa and Quanta cura, thrown like a challenge to the tri- umphant Liberalism of this century, and twenty other important documents addressed 102 THE FUTURE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. urbi et orbi constitute acts of powerlessness? At what epoch have schisms and heresies been less dangerous to the unity of the Universal Church ? It is sufficient, in reply, to consider the Old Catholics be- numbed in the midst of the greatest military power now in the world. There reigns in the Catholic Church so great an affection for the Pope, and the" action of the Pope in the government of the Universal Church is so fruitful, that it is really puerile on the part of its ad- versaries to attempt to deny facts so palpable. I could understand, from a certain point of view, how a sincere adversary might be a little frightened at so om- inous a situation, but I do not really know how to qualify the brutal denial of a fact which stares us in the face and is in reality invisible only to the blrid. Nationalities submitted to Borne no longer colonize . But, great God, who, I ask, still continue to colonize outside Catholic peoples ? To whom do we owe, so to say, all the colonies that exist in the world, if it is not to Catholics ? I assert that thlre never was but one Church which knew, and which still knows, how to col- onize, and this is the Catholic, Apostolic and Koman Church. I am sorry to have to speak thus to Prof, de Laveleye whose economical ideas are going to be put to a severe test. In the historical meaning of the word, to colonize a country is to confer upon it the benefits of civilization. The Spanish adventurers who turned America to profit in the sixteenth century, and the Anglo-Saxon pirates or traders who, in the last and even in the present century, "colonized " certain coun- tries by first depopulating them of their native inhab- CATHOLICS AND COLONIZATION. 103 itants, we will not call colonists. No one professes more respect than I do for the civil virtues of the English and Dutch, but it is not to the|r colonial pol- icy that I will go to look for new motives for admiration. The most beautiful colonies known in the history of modern times down to the French Eevolution are due to Spain, Portugal and France, acting at epochs when, contrary to M. de Laveleye's theory, these Catholic countries were precisely more "subject to Rome," at least formally, than they are to-day ; but these colo- nies began to get rid of the influence of the mother country precisely at the moment when the latter was becoming less "submissive to Borne," in the seven- teenth and eighteenth centuries, in the age of Voltaire, the Encyclopaedists, the persecutors of the Jesuits, Pombal, Aranda, Choiseul and Mirabeau. I have not to re- write here this lamentable history ; every one knows with how mu^h skill the Dutch and English took advantage of this situation to wrest such flourishing establishments from* the Catholics. The Spanish and Portuguese colonies resisted separation from their mother country, so to say, until the departure of the last Jesuit. All the ancient colonies, in spite of the ravages that the Liberal ideas caused in them, still bear the traces of the splendor of the time when they were more "submissive to Rome." The Catholic Spaniards, Portuguese and French did not begin by proscribing the indigenous inhabitants ; they baptized them, " elevat- ed " them, intermarried with them ; in a word, they colonized like Christians. Neither the English, nor even the Dutch have in any way followed these exam- 104 THE FUTUKE OP CATHOLIC PEOPLES. pies. They built counting houses and carried on a profitable trade. What am I saying*? They have everywhere destroyed, as much as it lay in their power, the flourishing Christian communities founded, in the East especially, by the religious Portuguese, Spaniards and French. The history of the Christian colonization realized in the Indies and Japan by Sb. Francis Xa- vier, is morally admirable and materially ten times more astonishing than the expedition of Alexander of Macedonia. Have you, then, never read it? And were not the exploits of the Franciscans and Jesuits in China, those Christian epics, related to you on your mother's knee ? or have you never perfumed the intellect of your children with them? When English and Dutch Protestants arrived, all this nascent civilization was destroyed, to be replaced by mere traffic ; what re- mained of it was spoiled by the European Liberals, by Aranda, Pombal and others. AhJ if you desire to make the apology of the Catholic Church, attract pub- lic attention to colonization, to the missions, to the Propagation of the Faith, to its Annals, to the Work for the Propagation of the Faith, to the Congregation of the Propaganda at Home, a colossal, humanitarian and universal institution which bears the stamp of divinity. An English writer, Mr. T. W. M. Marshall, has written on this subject a work, entitled "Christian Missions." I know no treatise on political or social economy that gives more complete information or more luminous instruction on the true riches of Christian nations, or on the conditions of civilization among peo- CATHOLICS AND COLONIZATION. 105 pies "sitting in the shadow of death." I have just read over again in this excellent book the paragraph relating to the Philippine Islands, one of those favored corners of the world, like the Tyrol, so much despised by M. de Laveleye. In 1858 Mr. Crawford, formerly governor of Singapore, made the following declaration at a meeting for the Protestant missions: "In the Philippine Islands the Spaniards have converted to the Catholic Faith several millions of the natives, and an immense amelioration in their social condition has been the consequence.'** Sir H. Ellis, a Protestant hos- tile to Catholics, acknowledges, in his "Journal of an Embassy to China" (Chapter viii., page 442), that "great praise is due to the Spaniards for the establishment of schools throughout the entire colony, and for their un- ceasing efforts to propagate Christianity by the best of means the diffusion of Christian instruction." Mrs. Morell, the wife of an American captain, expresses herself thus about Manilla in her "^Impressions of Travel " : " In Manilla there are more convents than in any other city in the world of equal population, and both natives and foreigners are unanimous in acknowledging that they follow excellent rules. All appear to be occupied in useful work ; idleness is banished from among them . . Born a Protestant, I believe tbat I will die a Protestant, but henceforward I will be more charitable towards all those who profess to love God and religion, whatever may be their form of belief. " Another Amer- "The Times of the 2d of December, 1858. 106 THE FUTUBE QP CATHOLIC PEOPLES. ican writer addressed tlie following report to Mr. C. J. Ingersoll : " The colony is very flouris^iing. Nearly all the Tagalos and Horaforos natives have been con- verted to the Catholic faith. There are three suffragan bishops in the province ; one of them, the Bishop of New Segovia, in the Isle of Lugon, wrote to me in 1837 that his diocese contained more than 600,000 Christians. " Let the reader, adds Mr. Marshall, compare these re- sults with the history of the Dutch and English mis- sions in the Indian archipelago. The influence of the clergy in the Philippines, in spite of the small propor- tion of the Spaniards to the natives, is attested by very many writers. Sir John Bowring, whom we knew at Brussells to be far from " clerical," wrote in 1859 : "The Catholic clergy exercise an influence which would appear magical if it was not regarded as divine by their partisans." In his "Kecollections of Manilla and the Philippines," Mr. Robert MacMicking, a determined Protestant, since he is a Scotchman, speaks thus, in 1861, of the Philippine Islands, where he resided for several years : " The natives were not subjected to Spain by her war- riors, nor by her steel-clad knights, but by the soldiers of the cross, by the priests who inflamed them with their own ardor for the cause of Christ. " He acknowl- edges also that the suppression of the Jesuits, who were banished from the Islands in 1768, had the most disas- trous effects on commerce and agriculture. "The Church," he adds, "has proved for a long time that it v as the least expensive and the most efficacious instru- ment of order and good government at the same time ; CATHOLICS AND COLONIZATION. 107 that it taught the people to read at least their prayer- books and other manuals of piety. There are very few Indians who know not how to read, and I remarked that the inhabitants of Manilla serving on board of vessels and making up their equipage are much more frequent- ly capable of signing their names than the English ma- riners in the Philippines. " There are very few Indians who know not how to read. And this result has been obtained in a magically clerical country, as Sir John Bowring would say, in a country that has become Span- ish, without any liberal association, education league, or the panacea of the "gratuitous-lay-obligatory" in- struction, fitrange, very strange. Mr. MacMicking concludes his report with this appreciation of the present Spanish missionaries: "These generous men have penetrated where the soldiers dared not enter with arms in their hands, and it is true to say that the sword has given, way to the gown, with the best consequences, in submitting these savage Indians to the Roman Catholic faith, by intro- ducing the arts and civilization among them. Hun- dreds, I will say even thousands, of these savages, are now peaceful cultivators, having learned from these good Fathers how to till the soil, instead of living, as they had done previously, on the products of the chase, and in perpetual hostility with one another."* " The nations subject to Rome appear to be afflicted with sterility; they no longer colonize." Here, says * Christian Missions, by T. W. M. Marshall. See also, in the JRevue Generate for 1874, vol. 19 page 331, a very interesting article by M. J. de Petit, entitled, " Souvenirs ties lies Philip- pines. 108 THE FUTUBB OP CATHOLIC PEOPLES. M. de Laveleye, is an example of it taken at hazard : " The Count de Beauvoir arrives at Canton ; he there sees an islet, Sha-Myen, situated in the middle of the river, and ceded to France and England. The traveler is struck with the contrast which the part ceded to England bears with that which belongs to France. In six years (1867) there are already a little English vil- lage, a Protestant church, a cricket ground, a race course, spacious villas, and magnificent godowna for the great theiferous houses of China. A roadway sep- erates the British from the French territory. On ours there are clumps of uncared trees, nuisances, wander- ing dogs, cats, moles, but not a single house."* This example, taken at hazard, is very unhappily chosen. I suppose that M. de Laveleye does not con- sider as colonizers the English merchants who go to Canton to try and carry on a profitable business. If the cricke.t-ground, whose description delights him, belongs to Protestant missionaries, we must confess that he might find a fitter object for his admiration ; for French Catholic missionaries have something else to do in China besides playing cricket on the sea-shore; they penetrate into the interior to become martyrs after having preached the Christian faith and " colon- ized " China. Herr Schaepman has, moreover, already refuted this whim of M. de Beauvoir, by citing another passage from the book of this Catholic gentleman, the travelling companion of the Duo de Penthievre, a des- cendant of St. Louis : * Voyage autour du Monde, vol. 2, p. 427, CATHOLICS AND COLONIZATION. 109 "If I am afflicted since leaving Singapore at seeing how poor French commerce is in the extreme East, and how the tricolor appears but as a rara avis in terris, the general impression made on me bears at present less the character of despair and more that of consolation. Yes, it is true ; England, the queen of the seas, is material mistress of the Asiatic empires by her colossal commerce; she imports into them her bales of cotton, and exports teas and silks for the million ; but France is the country of ideas, and she brings them even into the most unknown regions of China. Let us help on as much as we can this moral force, vivify- ing and inexhaustible, exalted by the purity and pov- erty of its agents, illustrated by martyrs and corrobo- rated by faith ! "* One is also quite naturally induced by this little in- cident, which is not wanting in interest, to open the recent book of a statesman, very well known in Europr, the Baron von Httbner, formerly Austrian ambassador at Paris. One of our friends has spoken of this work of Von Hiibner, as it deserved, in explaining for what motives the opinion of the author had so much au- thority in this matter. Baron von Hiibner begins by affirming that a nation can be great without having the vocation of colonizing in the modern sense of the word ; then he says : "Besides, what is the meaning of colonization? Is it merely the clearing of the soil ? In this point of view the colonies of Louis XTV. in Canada would compare * Java, Siam, Canton. Voyage autour du Monde, p. 438. 110 THE FUTUBB OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. favorably with the most flourishing of those of other nations. Is it to work the ground for the profit of the immigrants ? In that case the English deserve the palm which all the world allows them. But if we un- derstand by colonization, carrying civilization into the hearts of the native population whose territory you occupy, then the Portuguese and Spaniards of the six- teenth and seventeenth centuries seem to me to have been the foremost colonizers in the world. Histories writ'en-.-do not let us forget it by pens which were any- thing but impartial, have tarnished (and justly, if the facts related be true) the reputation of the Spanish and Portuguese conquerors, and accused them of unheard- of acts of cruelty, oppression, and wrong. Even those who were reported gentle and humane employed means which our own century would not stand for a moment. But these kingdoms beyond the seas were rich and prosperous, and the capitals of the presiden- cias became the centres of civilization. Ths natives flocked into them, and took back to their homes, with the light of Christianity (though perhaps feeble and uncertain) the ideas and usages (though very imper- fect also) of civilized life. The progress made was real and lasting. Witnesses who are beyond suspicion travellers who, like Alexander Humboldt, have visit- ed the Spanish colonies at the beginning of this cen- tury that is, at a time when Spain herself had long since fallen from her rank among the first powers of Europe speak with admiration of the organization Bhe had left behind of the regularity of the adminis- trative service in these colonies of the security and CATHOLICS AND COLONIZATION. Ill order which, reigned there, and of the wisdom of the colonial laws, drawn up and codified under the reign of the Philips. The Court of Madrid, it is true, drew from its territories beyond the seas a quantity of pre- cious metals ; but on the other hand the mother-coun- try gave her blood. The constant emigration which finally exhausted Spain is, in truth, one of the princi- pal causes of the rapid decadence of this noble and chivalrous nation. Even to this day the young men of certain provinces expatriate themselves in crowds. In the north, and especially in the Asturias, one only sees women and old men. The young ones are gone to Havana, Peru, or to Rio de la Plata. When traver- sing the hamlets buried in the gorges of the Canta- brian mountains I used to see notices put up in every direction announcing the departure of such and such ships from Santander, Gijon, and Ribadesilla, for Cuba and South America all, it was stated, furnished with a surgeon and a chaplain. Alas ! both one and the other are necessary, for in these passages the mor- tality is frightful. Every one of these emigrants (and formerly even more so than now) becomes, very often unknown to himself, an agent of civilization. Thus, see the results. Wherever the Spaniards have reigned we find Indian tribes who have embraced Christianity, and adopted, in a certain measure, our habits and ideas. The greater part of the politicians whom we now see at the head of their republics are of Indian origin. I have had pure redskins as colleagues; and I have seen ladies of the same color, dressed by Worth, delighting in Patti's roulades. I do not quote 112 THE FUTURE OP CATHOLIC PEOPLES. these personages as models of statesmen; or these fair critics as great authorities in music; but the fact is none the less significant. Well, this is the work of Spanish colonization. Can one say the same thing of the effect of English emigration ? Evidently not. I set aside all question of India, which I have not yet visited. But everywhere, especially in North Ameri- ca, the contact of the Anglo-Saxon race with semi- barbarous savages is fatal to the latter. They only adopt European vices; they hate and fly from us, and that is the wisest thing they can do; or else they per- ish miserably. In every way they remain what they have always been savages. But what is the use of discussing the comparative merits of different nations ? Bather let us render to each their due."* Farther on Baron von Hiibner adds : "France is rich enough to pay for her glory, her ideas, her caprices, and even her faults. Since the days of Louis XIV. she has held to the idea of pervading the whole earth, and striking all nations with the prestige of her greatness. The pursuance of this policy im- poses upon her, it is true, in these distant regions, sacrifices which are not strictly in accordance with the material interests of her traders. But this considera- tion does not stop her. She has given herself the hon- orable and civilizing mission of protecting her co-religionists all over the world. Do not let us look too closely into her motives, which perhaps are not all purely religious. The results have been, and are, as * A Ramble Round the World, by M. le Baron de Hiibner, translated by Lady Herbert; p. 448 (New York, 1874.) CATHOLICS AND COLONIZATION. 113 everyone must allow, the most important services that could be rendered to humanity. "In the world of ideas, the French are the most ex- pansive people in the universe. By doing both great good and some harm, they have impregnated the whole civilized world with their tastes, their ideas, and even with their fashions. But no nation has so great a dislike- to leave their homes. French emigrants are the least numerous everywhere; and even those one does meet with are not (saving certain honorable exceptions) the brightest specimens of their nation. The trutfi. is, that France offers to her children space and means where- with to support them, to arrive at a comfortable in- dependence, and occasionally, to riches and the highest offices in the state. Those who quit her shores rarely find, beyond them, the fortune which they have dis- dained to seek at home. But, side by side with these emigrants, who are not always successful, there are others, who, while living and acting in comparative obscurity, surround themselves in their distant coun- try with an aureola of imperishable glory. In China, as in every other foreign land, wherever you see above the Consulate the French flag flying, you perceive likewise, in the neighborhood, the spire of a church, and alongside a convent, a school, a hospital. There human minds are being enlightened by civilization, and human hearts by faith; there the wounds of both souls and bodies are healed, miseries are alleviated, and the apostolic virtues of charity, love, self-abne- gation, patience, and devotion are exercised in the highest degree. All these missionaries and Sisters 114 THE FUTURE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. are not French, it is true : Italy, Spain, and Belgium have furnished their contingent ; but the great ma- jority of these Christian heroes and heroines belong to France ; and it is France which shields them with her powerful protection."* There is no writer at present who is of more author- ity in matters of colonization than M. X. Marmier. His last bookf contains a very interesting chapter entitled : "La France dans ses colonies." I borrow this quotation from it : "Disastrous wars and lamentable treaties have taken from us most of our ancient possessions. But we have left on them a profound impression. A distinguished English writer, Anthony Trollope, recently visited the Antilles,and there he was witness of the persistency of the attachment to France in islands formerly governed by France, not uninterruptedly during centuries, but during a small number of years : Santo Domingo, To- bago, Santa Lucia, Trinidad ; Trinidad, first occupied by the Spaniards, then by the English, conquered and restored to Spain by the French, then retaken anew by the English. What language, says Mr. Trollope, do you think they speak in this island in which we have a governor, an administrative council, a garrison and important counting houses? English? No. Span- ish? No. But French. The whole population is French by its idioms, by its customs and by its Catholicism. To this honest avowal Mr. Trollope adds: there is a * A Ramble Hound the World, page 456. f En Pays Lointains, par X. Marmier, de I'Academie Fran- 9aise. (Paris: Hachette, 1876.) CATHOLICS AND COLONIZATION". 115 Catholic bishop there who receives a yearly pension from England which he distributes entirely in alms. There, as well as wherever else old France has passed, its memory is associated with the virtues of Catholi- cism and the spirit of charity. At St. Vincent we may note another example of the attraction of our emi- grants. The English having taken possession of this island, the Carribees,who occupied a portion of it, rose in arms on three different occasions to expel them, and call back the French, whose domination they longed for." The witty academician has brought together a host of facts of this kind. All have for object to prove the following thesis : " It has been often said : France knows not how to colonize. Should we admit this reproach without con- testing it? The other nations are pleased with pro- claiming their merits. We indolently let ours be depreciated, and sometimes we depreciate them our- selves. We have been accused of abandoning our- selves to futile vanities. It would be better for us to maintain ourselves in a just degree of pride. The history of our colonies is one of the noblest and often one of the most attractive pages of our annals. It has been eloquently and learnedly told on different occasions and in different places. I have no intention of retrac- ing a new sketch of it. In collecting together my memories of travel, in adding to them recent studies, I would only show, by a few characteristic traits, the particular qualities of colonization with which France lias been gifted on all occasions. Hardihood in enter* 116 THE FOTTJEB OP CATHOLIC PEOPLES. prise, generosity in victory, dignity in misfortune. Other nations have achieved more brilliant or more lasting successes. None has shown such virtues." M. X. Marmier's testimony is at least worth that of M. Thiers, who, forty years ago, wittily mocked the future of railways, and still believes, even to this day, in custom houses. The colonies of the French mission- aries in the present century recall the glory of the great Descubradores of the Iberian peninsula, and Algeria, colonized by the French within the last forty-five years, bears comparison with all the conqjiests made by the Anglo-Saxons since the reign of Louis XV. Father Marquette first explored the Meschace'be', which Eobert Lasalle afterwards descended to give to France Louisiana, where Bienville afterwards founded New Orleans. Champlain laid the foundations of the city of Quebec. This is how M. X. Marmier de- scribes the foundation of Montreal ! "In 1641 two small vessels set out fromLaRochelle for Canada. On one of these ships was a holy maiden, Mile. Manse de Langres, who renounced a brilliant po- sition in her own country to devote herself to works of charity amid savage regions; on the other was a gentle- man of Champagne, M. de Maisonneuve, a priest, some soldiers and laborers, thirty persons in all. In the month of August the good travellers arrived at Quebec. The colony of this town tried to retain them. It was composed of two hundred souls. Thirty addi- tional heroes, what a precious reinforcement ! But M. de Maisonneuve had made up his mind to go to Hochelaga, and he wished to fulfil his promise. It CATHOLICS AND COLONIZATION. 117 was in vain that they pointed out to him the dangers to which he was exposing himself in approaching, with so small a number of soldiers, this island occupied by a considerable tribe of Indians. He answered like a valiant gentleman : *I have not come to deliberate but to act. Should there be at Hochelaga as many Iroquois as there are trees on this plain, I am in duty and in honor bound to establish a colony there. ' In the month of October he reached the coast of Hochel- aga, and there constructed cabins and a chapel of wood. Mile. Manse organized an hospital in the same place, and a Sister from Troyes founded the institution in which young girls were to be brought up gratuitously. A few tents in the midst of the woods, a chapel, shel- tered with a roof of leaves, a bell suspended from the branch of a fir tree, an hospital for the sick, a school for the poor, such were the first elements of our city of Montreal, which now contains eighty thousand souls." It is not in this wise, we must acknowledge, that the Anglo-Saxons or Dutch Protestants proceeded. One of the pearls of the colonial British empire is the island of Mauritius, which its peaceful conqueror, the Cheva- lier de Fougdres, commandant of the Triton, of Saint Malo, called the Isle of France. This valiant officer erected upon the beach a cross decorated with lilies, with this inscription: Jubet hie Gallia stare Crucem.* We must not grow weary of recalling these memo- ries which are more glorious for France than all the *" Here France bids the Cross to stand." 118 THE FUTUBB OF CATHOLIC! PEOPLES. " conquests of '89 " and the wars of the Empire. Jacques Cartier, who, with two small vessels of 60 tons, skirted the bank of Newfoundland to ascend the course of the St. Lawrence, has left us the story of his voyage. This is how he begins : " On Sunday the day and feast of Pentecost, by the command of the captain and the good wish of all, each made his confession and all together received our Lord in the cathedral church of St. Malo, after having re- ceived which we were presented to the choir of the said church before the reverend father in God, Mon- sieur of St. Malo, who in his episcopal state gave us his benediction." Father Marquette, on returning from the regions in which he had discovered the Mississippi, wrote in his narrative these admirable lines : " When the entire journey was worth only the sal- vation of one soul I esteemed all my troubles well re- compensed, and this is what I have reason to presume, for when on my return we passed by the Illinois, I spent three days explaining to them the mysteries of our faith through all their cabins, after which, as we embarked, they brought to me to the water's edge a dying child which I baptized a little before it died, by an admirable providence for the salvation of this in- nocent soul. " The whole history of the colonization of the Yankees of North America does not present us with so noble a. figure as that of Montcalm, the hero of French Canada. We loudly proclaim that if Spain, Portugal and .Frui^o were not allowed to become weak through the Cse ^ar- CATHOLICS AND COLONIZATION. 119 ism of the Bourbons and the political doctrines which we now call Liberal, these countries would be at present what they then were and what they may become once more, the foremost colonizers in the world. The masterpiece of the colonial policy of modern England is India. But at Calcutta the English are only following, even in the inferior point of view of material interests, the examples set by France. " The man who first saw that it was possible to found an European empire on the ruins of the Mogul mon- archy was Dupleix. His restless, capacious, and in- ventive mind had formed this scheme, at a time when the ablest servants of the English Company were bus- ied only about invoices andbills of lading. . . . The arts both of war and policy, which a few years later were employed with such signal success by the Eng- lish, were first understood and practised by this ingen- ious and aspiring Frenchman."* Ah ! the nationalities subject to Home no longer colo- nize ! But who colonizes, then ? The Prussian Lutherans ? The Swiss Calvinists ? The hundred sects of the United States of North America ? A hun- dred times no. Is it England properly so-called ? Is it the Anglo-Saxons of North America ? Is it the Protes- tant portion of the people of Holland ? This is what we are going to examine. Holland, the United States, and especially England, certainly signalize themselves in our age by the * Critical and, Historical Essays, by Lord Macaulay. Essay on Lord Olive. 120 THE FUTURE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. practical intelligence and energetic tenacity of their commercial and colonial policy, which we must distin- guish from the civilizing and Christian work of coloni- zation properly so-called. The actual ' 'colonial policy" of England is the masterpiece of this great people ; but this policy is neither Protestant nor Catholic, nor even anti-Catholic. It has for object the well-understood mercantile interest of Great Britain, applies to the colonies the doctrines of Adam Smith, but does not ex- clude the simultaneous application by private individu- als of the great spiritualistic principles of colonization formerly employed so successfully by the Spaniards, Portuguese and French. Most of the colonies which England possesses to-day have been taken by her at recent dates from the Spaniards, Portuguese, French, or Dutch. One of the few colonies which it created, and w lien it no longer possesses; is New England, which was founded in spite of itself. What was this colony ? It was composed of fugitives, malcontents, misan- thropes, and sectaries, who removed from merry old England, which was not at all sorry to lose them. Cardi- nal Manning, whose great mind and noble heart pesonify for me the future of the Catholic people of England, re- cently reminded us of the history of the foundation of Maryland. I will trouble M. de Laveleye with this quotation : "Lord Baltimore, who had been Secretary of State under James L, in 1633, emigrated to the American Plantations, where, through Lord Stafford's influence, he had obtained a grant of land. He was accompan- ied by men of all minds, who agreed chiefly in the one CATHOLICS AND COLONIZATION. 121 desire to leave behind them the miserable religious conflicts which then tormented England. They named their new country Maryland, and there they settled. The oath of the Governor was. in these terms : * I will not, by myself or any other, directly or indirectly, mo- lest any person professing to believe in Jesus Christ, for or in respect of religion.' Lord Baltimore invited the Puritans of Massachusetts, who, like himself, had renounced their country for conscience' sake, to come into Maryland. In 1649, when active persecution had sprung up again in England, the Council of Mary- land, an the 21st of April, passed this statute : * And whereas the forcing of the conscience in matters of re- ligion has frequently fallen out to be of dangerous consequence in the commonwealth where it has been practised, and for the more quiet and peaceable gov- ernment of the province, and the better to preserve mutual love and amity among the inhabitants, no per- son within the province professing to believe in Jesus Christ shall be anyways troubled, molested, or dis- countenanced for his or her religion, or in the free ex- ercise thereof.' The Episcopalians and Protestants fled from Virginia into Maryland. Such was the com- monwealth founded by a Catholic upon the broad mor- al law I have here laid down that faith is an act of the will, and that to force men to profess what they do not believe is contrary to the law of God, and that to generate faith by force is morally impossible. It was by conviction of the reason and by persuasion of the will that the world- wide unity of faith and communion were slowly built up among the nations. When once 122 THE FUTURE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. shattered, nothing but conviction and persuasion can restore it. Lord Baltimore was surrounded by a mul- titude scattered by the great wreck of the Tudor perse- cutions. He knew that God alone could build them up again into unity; but that the equity of charity might enable them to protect and to help each other, and to promote the common weal. "I cannot refrain from continuing the history. The Puritan commonwealth in England brought on a Puri- tan revolution in Maryland. They acknowledged Crom- well, and disfranchised the whole Catholic population. Liberty of conscience ' was declared, but to the ex- clusion of ' Popery, Prelacy, and licentiousness of opinion.' Penal laws came of course. Quakers in Massachusetts, for their first offence, lost one ear ; for the second, the other ; for the third, had their tongue seared with a red hot iron. Women were whipped, and men were hanged, for religion."* England has been severely punished, for it has lost the only countries that, before the sixteenth century, it could have the pretension of having really colonized by sending to them its own children. The punishment has been so much the more severe, as on the very territory of this lost colony it has seen a rival power arise, and one so much the more to be dreaded as it speaks the same language. The Dutch do not possess a single colony to-day which they founded, in the sense of Catholic colonies, * The Vatican Decrees in their bearing on Civil Allegiance, by Henry Edward, Archbishop of Westminster ; page 89. (New York : The Catholic Publication Society, 1875.) CATHOLICS AND COLONIZATION. 123 that is to say, a colony in -which are found all the in- stitutions, all the manners and the religion of the mother country. Their establishment in the Indies is an immense counting house of commerce and indus- try defended by a powerful army ; they run to amass a fortune in the Indies, then they return to enjoy their wealth in Europe, at the Hague, at Amsterdam, at Paris, and even at Brussels. But they do not colonize in the Spanish, Portuguese or French sense of the word I do not reproach them for it here, but since we are driven to it, we must surely point out the con- siderable distance that separates Catholic principles in this matter from the precepts of all the other known forms of worship. As to the United States, directed, I acknowledge, by the political genius of the Anglo-Saxon race*, a genius which in itself belongs as well to Cardinals Manning and MoCloskey and Mr. Brownson, as to Mr. Disraeli, President Grant and Mr. Gladstone ; as to the United States they especially owe their prodigious develop- ment to immigration. I have not now at hand the complete statistics of the astonishing movement of European populations towards the countries in which the sun sets to us ; but I confidently assert that one of the principal causes of the greatness of the United * It is from his familiarity with English writers that our au- thor is led lo think so highly of the " Anglo-Saxon race." The truth is tkat the English element is far from being the most prominent in this country, either in business enterprise or lite- rary talent. The portion of our population which furnishes the largest contingent to the energy aud intelligence of the nation would feel anything but complimented by being called "Anglo-Saxons." 124 THE FUTUBE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. States is the immigration of Catholics. Mr. Maguire, formerly a member of the English parliament, has proved that his compatriots, the Irish Catholics, " con- quered " a portion of the United States. A French Review, the Contemporain, lately published special statistics on emigration to the United States, which received from 1820 to 1860, 208,063 French, whilst Prussia furnished to this movement in the same space of time only 80,432 immigrants. Among these Prus- sians there were many Catholics, and I believe many Catholics from Luxemburg. In the grand duchy of Luxemburg there have been veritable secessions of entire villages, starting out with their pastor, burgo- master and schoolmaster. All the new western States of the Union are peopled by Catholics. Moreo\er, to be convinced of the im- portance of the Catholic population of the United States, it suffices to consider the ecclesiastical hier- archy which has been formed in half a century : forty dioceses, half of the Church of France. The French (Catholic) population is increasing in British Canada, where the Irish Catholics, those ver- itable colonizing emissaries of England, have come to settle in multitudes. To form an idea of them, consult once more the table of the Catholic hierarchy. The same remarks will do for the Cape, Australia, New Zealand, Tasmania, etc. The reader may remark that I do not pretend to give to Catholics the too frequently sad privilege of emi- gration, I simply say that throughout the whole of the great colonizing movement, in which our age is CATHOLICS AND COLONIZATION. 125 taking part with astonishment, among the Anglo-Sax- on races, it is Catholic civilization that is leading the way. Your friends themselves are frightened at it, for I read every day in their journals the expression of the terror they feel at seeing the influence of Catholics in the elections of the United States and Canada. But lately the government of Victoria (Melbourne), one of the most flourishing colonies of Australia, was even composed of Catholics, since one of its principal per- sonages was Mr. Duffy, the Irish member of Parlia- ment who, twenty-five years ago, had so hard a struggle with the English government. A former colleague of Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Forster, in a meeting held at Edinburgh, lately gave with feel- ings of pride a magnificent description of the immense possessions of the British Empire, and he coolly dis- cussed the chances England had of preserving or losing India. A book might be written on this subject. I resume it thus : in presence of the actual efforts of the government at London it is to be desired that India remain a British possession, for if the English have not always accomplished on the Ganges and the Indus the duty of Christian colonizers, and if they are not doing so thoroughly even to-day, they at least no longer for- bid others to accomplish it in their stead, and they are preventing a terrible anarchy among the natives. The energy, activity, intelligence and courage which tke English statesmen and the army are showing for many years past in this immense Indian empire, eight times more extensive and six times more populous than the entire United Kingdom, and kept in check by a hand- 126 THE jrUTUKB OP CATHOLIC PEOPLES. ful of Europeans, certainly presents a marvellous spec- tacle, which gives a high idea of the actual policy of the English monarchy, Economists may also admire the vast network of railroads and telegraph lines with which the administration of the viceroys has endowed the country, and financiers will calculate the dividends which the English residents are at present laying by af- ter scoring up their accounts. But to all these splendors I prefer the results of the ancient Portuguese or French colonization and the present situation of the Spanish col- onization in the Philippines, held in such disdain by economists properly so called.* At the risk of exciting their pity for me I add that the blustering history of the exploits of the English in India and the Chinese seas chille me when I compare it with the epic story of the heroic triumphs obtained on the same ground in the sixteenth century by St. Francis Xavier with his crucifix, and the annals which all the Catholic mission- aries in Asia are even at this moment writing with their blood. No, no, I say it boldly, it is only the nations " subject to Borne," that do not appear to be stricken with sterility, and it is only they that colonize. This is the truth. Are you acquainted with the work of the Propagation of the Faith, the most colossal instrument of colonization that is known in history ? It was a poor Catholic maid-servant that founded it at Lyons by picturing to her imagination an association in which each associate might pay one cent a week. This idea, *I ought, however, to make an exception in the case of Herr Boscher, He has written a little book which is replete with facts, entitled : Colonies, Colonial Policy and Emigration. (Leipsio : 1856.) CATHOLICS AND COLONIZATION. 127 BO simple and so humble, has been blessed in the Cath- olic Church by the Sovereign Master of the colonists of all ages. These cents have germinated. They an- nually become millions which serve to send into every part of the earth laborers in the cause of civilization whose blood possesses the marvellous gift of fertilizing the nations that commit the crime of shedding it. Sanguis martyrum semen Christianorum. I know that the Protestant Churches also send out mission- aries, and God keep me from criticising devoted men who undertake these missions with sincerity and self-de- niaL But I should be allowed to show that the results of the Protestant missions, however respectable they maybe in the intentions of their promoters, cannot even- be put on a comparison with the admirable fecundity of the Catholic apostolate. And since we are on this so interesting chapter of Catholic colonization, let us inform several of our fel- low-citizens that Belgium, the immense majority of whose inhabitants honor themselves also, in spite of their material prosperity, with being "subject to Borne," is as fruitful as the other Catholic nations in this propagation of Christian civilization among the most savage peoples on earth. What one of us has not heard of Father de Smet, so humble, so good, so enterprising, for the good of souls ? This illustrious Jesuit, of whom our friend, Father Deynoodt, has written the life and published the letters, was, by him- Balf alone, more powerful among the redskins of the West than was the government of the United States. His , inspired by the Catholic faith, subdued eav- 328 THE FUTURE OP CATHOLIC PEOPLES. age nations, and when the government at Washing- fen "wished to obtain something from the former pos- sessors of the soil of the Union, to whom did it apply ? To this priest from Termonde, "subject to the voice of Borne," as M. de Laveleye would say. And who were the companions of this groat man of peace, this dvilizer, this veritable doctor in colonization ? Father de Theux, the brother of the venerable minister whose loss we yet mourn, Father Verhaegen, the cousin of the former president of the Liberal Association of Brussels, and a hundred other Belgian priests. There is at Louvain, besides the Society of Jesus, a special American college, whose incessant labor consists in Bending missionaries to America. It is to the Belgian Jesuits that has been entrusted the mission of Bengal, where our compatriots possess a flourishing college and where they render more services to the English author- ities than divisions of infantry. The learned Father Carbonnelle, sr ^retary of the Scientific Society, which has been founded at Brussels, has only just returned from this perilous mission. One of the sons of M. A. Neut, of the Patrie, of Bruges, has lost his health there. One of the brothers of our colleague, M. de Penaranda, died there, carried off by the severi- ty of the climate. Twenty others of our fellow-citi- zens have sacrificed their health for the last fifteen years in this work of civilization, in a very unhealthy land,made famous by the labors of the first Jesuits, in- defatigable laborers who are repairing with obstinacy all the ruins accumulated by savagery, the spirit of error or hatred. Allow me, in passing, to remind you OATHOUCS AND COLONIZATION. 129 of a personal reminiscence : Professor David Forbes, F. B. S., related to me that on one of his scientific ex- peditions in South America he fell into the hands of a band of Indians who were already prepared to scalp him, when he was delivered by some "black robes," Jesuits, who, at the foot of the Cordilleras, 500 leagues from the Atlantic coast, were evangelizing these sav- ages, living with them for the love of Jesus Christ and His Church, and gradually raising them to the dignity of men. The Jesuits enjoyed an absolute respect among their "friends," and Mr. Forbes pictured them to me as the foremost colonizers of modern times. I preserve a religious remembrance of the noble Abbe* Yerbie&t, formerly chaplain to our military Bchool. This excellent priest, who honored me with his friendship, heard the cry of St. Francis Xavier : " Belgians, Belgians, send me Belgians." Without any resources but a moderate patrimony, Father Verbiest, in his exceeding charity (charity is the source of civili- zation), resolved to go and bear the words of truth to the countries to which the Franciscan Jean de Buys- broeck, his compatriot, had formerly made his way by traversing our entire hemisphere on foot. With his first disciples, M. Van Segvelt, assistant pastor of St. Gudule, MM. Vranckx and Verlinden of Molenbeck, M. Bax of Montaign, MM. Wilrycks and Paaps of Turnhout and Hamer of Nimeguen, he founded the mission of Mongolia, of which the mother house is at the gates of Brussels,at Scheutveld on the Ninoveroad. Van Segvelt and Verbiest were the first to die in the Tigers' Valley, between the fortieth and fiftieth de- 130 THE PUTUEB OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. grees of latitude, in a desert ; but their work of civili- zation still survives.* Let us not forget to mention in addition all our religious societies of women, which, under an assumed name sometimes send the female descendants of our noblest families to instruct child- ren and convert adults in Africa, America, Australia and Asia. The mother house of the Sisters of Notre- Dame of Namur has founded more than thirty stations in the most different latitudes. I have just hurriedly conducted the reader across the vast plain of Catholic colonization : I ask every sincere man, to whatever Church he may belong, is it reasonable to assert that Catholics no longer colonize ? I am justified in saying : either M. de Laveleye has not studied this subject, or he is blinded by hatred of the Church. I defy him also, as a last challenge, to an- swer this question ; which do you prefer, the Dutch Protestants who annexed to themselves the Portuguese colonies, or the English Protestants who afterwards took possession of the Dutch colonies that previously belonged to Portugal, or the Portuguese Freemasons who allowed themselves to be duped by their friends of London and Amsterdam, and have prepared for their country the loss of the great colonies which the " most faithful " nation had founded ? * Consult Voyages de Bruxelles en Mongolie et travaux des missionnaires de la Congregation de JScheutveld-lei.-J3ruxelles (Brussels : Coomans, 1873.) CHAPTER V. CATHOLICS AND CIVIL LIBEETT. Protestant Countries have Experienced' More Revolutions than Catholic Countries The Moral Character of the Great French Revolution Civil Liberty in Italy In Belgium What the Modern Protestant Liberals Mean by Political Lib- erty Their Object in Preaching Protestantism in Catholic Countries Essays by MM. Quinet and Sue A Discussion between the Liberals on Liberty. Prejudices disturb M. de Laveleye's ideas so much that he even goes so far as to accuse the Catholic Church of having inspired the war which the unfortu- nate Napoleon III. carried on in Mexico, and of hav- ing provoked the war of 1870. These historical dis- coveries are truly extraordinary in an associate of M. J. Klaczko. I do not think it worth while to waste my time in speaking about them. It is but right, however, to quote his argument as a curiosity : *' It was Ultramontanism that, through the Empress Eugenie, the mouth-piece of the clerical party, urged the undertaking of the expedition to Mexico, to strengthen the Catholic nations of America, and the Franco-Prussian war, to raise an obstacle to the progress of Protestant States in Europe. " A note develops this theme in the following manner: " This is what Prince Bismarck recently asserted in the tribune, at Berlin. The Empress said in 1870 ; It is my war. It was she who, in the supreme coun- cil of St. Cloud, caused the war to be decided on, of 132 THE FUTUBB OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. which the Emperor clearly saw the danger. This is a fact that henceforward belongs to history." The italics in this note do not appear in the French edition. Why ? I know not. Besides, it is of little importance for us to know it. An argument just as weak as this, but more easily put in circulation, because the multitude is incapable of estimating its value, is the following : "The peoples subject to Borne . . . have no power of expansion * . . Their past is brilliant, but the present is gloomy and the future disquieting. Is there any situation more heartrending than that of Spain. France, which has rendered such great ser- vices to the world, is equally well calculated to cause us sorrow . . because it appears destined to be in- cessantly tossed about between despotism and anarchy. . . . Catholic countries are a prey to intestine quar- rels which are consuming their strength, or which, at least, are preventing them from advancing as regularly and as rapidly as Protestant peoples. " M. de Laveleye has, in the eyes of the educated, a defect which to the "vile multitude" appears an ex- cellence. He dogmatizes incessantly, and gives himself no trouble about proving his assertions. Either he is sure of the public he has to deal with or he despises them. I know the question here raised is very un- wieldy, but he should at least develop it a little. To refute this profound historical error, or to administer the antidote to persons who have already swallowed the poison, I should have very much space at my disposal, and entertain no fear of having already abused the in- CATHOLICS AND CIVIL LIBERTY. 133 dulgence of the reader too much. I must, however, dispose of this awkward and unjust accusation. Protestant countries have been less free from revo- lution and anarchy than Catholic countries. England has undergone dreadful revolutions down to the acces- sion of the house of Orange, and if it has been relatively peaceful since that epoch, it is at the cost of an ab- solute religious intolerance with regard to Catholics and of an abominable despotism applied to the Irish. The Dutch have had their periods of anarchy much oftener than the Catholic Belgians, their neighbors of the same race, and they have found calm, which, more- over, is congenial to their disposition, only in the haven of the stadtholderate. As to the Protestants of the North, especially the Prussian Lutherans, they have been peaceful until 1848, like the Assyrians or Babylo- nians, because they were crushed under the most op- pressive civil despotism of which modern history makes mention. If we except Geneva, where Calvinistic ab- solutism has flourished, Switzerland has been, in gen- eral, a land of moderate civil liberty, until the Sonderbund war, in the Protestant as well as in the Catholic cantons. I will say nothing of Catholic nations before the French ^Revolution. In general, since the sixteenth century, these nations have, in my opinion, had a bad civil government, but they remained faithful to order, discipline and the established authorities. Preserved, during two hundred years, from the dangers of the [Reformation, they were at last dragged into the great movement of 1789, which was only the logical devel- 134 THE FUTURE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. opment of Protestantism. Poland was the only ex- ception; but we must not forget that it was lain in wait for like a prey by two eagles, the one white, towards the East, and the other black, towards the West, and thatthe cry of one of its magnates, " malo periculosam libertatem quam otiosum sermtium"* was a cry of defense against ravishers who finally succeeded in their criminal schemes. A single nominally Protestant country has resisted in the present century all the tendencies to anarchy, and that is England, whose people have remained Christian, and whose government iS the only one that has, since the Csesarism of the Renaissance, preserved the type of the ancient Catholic governments of the Middle Ages. For my own part, I will not hesitate to bestow on England the praises that are due to it : on this point Catholics will owe to it a lasting debt of gratitude. England has remained for them a model and a consolation a living model of the ancient his- torical Catholic institutions; a consolation, because they can point to it and say : there is where we would all be, throughout Europe, without the excesses of the Renaissance, the hatred of the sectaries of the six- teenth century, the insolence of such governments as those of Louis XIV, the Regency, and Louis XV. , the cor- ruption of our Encyclopaedists, the revolutionary theo- ries of the eighteenth century, and the Liberal doc- trines of the nineteenth. I will say nothing of Holland, for it owes the bene- *"I prefer dangerous liberty to peaceful servitude." CATHOLICS AND CIVIL LIBERTY. 135 fits of its peaceful and prosperous state as much to its Catholic subjects as to its Protestant citizens, and, be- sides, the Catholic Belgians deserve as much merit, in this matter, as the Protestant Dutch. Switzerland, the United States of North America, and Prussia are not out of the reach of the dangers which M. de Laveleye points out : the United States are but just emerging from a dreadful civil war which may begin again to-morrow ; Switzerland is plunged in the depths of anarchy ; and Prussia is in a revolu- tionary state that will terminate in a manner which God alone foresees. Let us speak of the present situation of South Ame- rica, Spain and France : for Italy, in M. de Laveleye's estimation, has entered on the normal path to salvation. Imperfectly peopled, violently and suddenly torn from the European governments to which they owe their existence and by which they were badly governed during the eighteenth century, thanks to the com- plicity of Liberals like Pombal and Aranda, certain States of South America have struggled for forty years in the deadly grasp of anarchy. What are these States ? Mexico, Venezuela, and the Argentine Re- public, which are governed by Liberals. Chili, Peru, Ecuador and Brazil are no more to be pitied than Vir- ginia or Carolina. I do not pretend that everything which takes place there deserves the approbation of the wise ; but you would not dare to maintain that in the country of the Quakers of North America, public felicity is unchequered. Of Spain we have spoken already. What we shall 136 THE FUTUKE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. say of France may, moreover, be applied to the land of the Cid. What remains of M. de Laveleye's wholesale accu- sation ? The paragraph relating to France, the land which gave birth to " the immortal principles of '89," and which but lately, before the coming of Prince Bis- marck, gave the signal of all the campaigns directed against the Catholic Church. A man must possess singular audacity or profess a sovereign contempt for his readers who would attempt to maintain that the cause of the revolutions from which France, " the eldest daughter of the Church of Borne, "is suffering should be attributed to the Church and to Catholics. The French certainly have, on the whole, remained obstinately attached to the faith of St. Eemigius, and the acknow- ledgment of Christendom has ratified the eulogium of their heroic actions which the annalists of the Middle Ages had expressed under this proverbial form, Getta Dei per Francos, comprising under this latter term not only the French properly so-called, but the Francs or ancient Lotharingians and even all the Catholic tribes that settled along the right bank of the Khine as far as Friesland. There is not at present upon the earth a Church more pure in doctrine, more united in faith, more fruitful in works than this great Church of France ; and when we consider the place it holds in the "Universal Church, we cannot contemplate without a shudder what the physiognomy of the modern world would be if it did not exist or should suddenly dis- appear. Without permitting our fears to carry us so far, we must not forget that the country of St. Vincent CATHOLICS AND CIVIL LIBERTY. 137 de Paul gave birth to Voltaire, and that the Little Sis- ters of the Poor are less honored there by men of let- ters than Madame Sand. Above all we must carefully distinguish the extraordinary movement to which France has been officially obedient since the Renaiss- ance. Without going back to the time of Philip le Bel, who had already professed the doctrines of Dr. Talk, and to the author of the second part of the "Roman de la Rose," Jean de Meung, who, according to the exquisite remark of my friend, Leon de Monge, had already anticipated the writers of the " reptile press," we can assert that never since the Reforma- tion has France had a government strictly faithful to the doctrines of the civil-ecclesiastical law such as it is taught throughout the Universal Church. Not to render confused so simple a question by extending it, let us ask ourselves what has been, in this present century, the government in France that we could call "clerical," (I take this word in its good sense, in con- trast, for example, with a "Gueux" government, as we would say in Belgium). You will, perhaps, an- swer by mentioning the Restoration. I do not entirely admit the honor people would confer on the govern- ment of Louis XVIII. and Charles X. , which were al- ways more concerned about themselves than about the honor of the Church; yet, I will grant, under certain reserves, that the Restoration, as a government, was fa- vorable to Catholic interests ; but the government of the Restoration was, before that of Marshal McMahon, one of the best that France has seen, How many misfortunes and disasters would not France 138 THE FUTUKE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. have avoided if it had preserved, developed and per- fected this monarchical constitution on the basis of the most evident traditions and moral interests of the country. From Louis XYI. to Marshal McMahon, except the little bright. spot of the [Restoration, all the governments that have succeeded each other in France have been hostile or indifferent to Catholic in- terests. The civil constitution of the clergy, the organic articles, the imprisonment of Pope Pius VI., the carrying off of Pius VII. , the greatest evils which the pontificate of Pius IX. has endured are the handiwork of the rulers of France ; the Government of July was liberal ; that of Napoleon III. was the god- father of Count Cavour and the accomplice of Prince Bismarck ; the two [Republics of 1848 and 1870 led to the assassination of the Archbishops of Paris, Affre and Darboy. I do not believe that even the silly papers of the liberal multitude would admit that it was Catholics that guillotined Louis XVI. , proscribed the clergy that refused to take the oath, created the University of France, instituted the National Guard, brought the Count of Montalembert and the Pere Lacordaire before the tribunal of the peers, and shot the "hostages." M. de Tocqueville has resumed the labors of the latter part of his life in this phrase : " We were advancing when the French Eevolution came. " In spite of the new and bloody experiences of the present century, we may say of France, as it is at present, that it is advancing. It is advancing in such a way that its enemies are not asleep. As to French civilization, its action is so pow- erful that it is within its orbit that M. de Laveleye CATHOLICS AND CIVIL LIBERTY. 1?9 goes to look for the consecration of his talents ; its material conquerors themselves experience its irre- sistible influence : Graecia capta f erum victorem cepit. * As an expounder of Protestant ideas, M. de Laveleye is, moreover, very ungrateful to official France. It would be interesting, in effect, to study the following questions : First, what would become of Protestant- ism on the continent and of the Grand Turk, if the crown of France, instead of becoming, at the most im- portant junctures, their accomplice, had religiously united itself to the Emperor to fight against them. Secondly, what especially, would have been the fate of the State that typifies Lutheranism, the Electorate of Brandenburg, without France at the most critical epochs of its existence ? A strange monument was re- cently inaugurated at Ems to remind future genera- tions of a scene which did not take place, namely, a scene in which the unfortunate Count Benedetti is supposed to have insulted the King of Prussia. We know that this pretended insult aided, in an admirable manner, the long premeditated design of Bismarck's policy. They would engrave on this monument the names of the heroes of the scene : King William, Count Benedetti, Count von Lehndorf, and Prince An- tony Badzivill, the King's two aides-de-camp. His majesty was formally opposed to it on account of its untruthfulness. To get rid of this embarrassment the promoters of this monument should have simply in- * " Conquered Greece took the fierce victor captive." 140 THE FUTUBE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. scribed on the marble the names of Francis I, Cardinal Richelieu and Napoleon III. Cardinal Richelieu ;vould even deserve to have his statue erected in front of the Branderiburgerthor at Berlin. It is understood, then, in the deductive school, that the nations corrupted by the Catholic Church are con- demned to political absolutism, moral slavery and an incurable poverty. In this point of view, however, Italy and Belgium, says M. de Laveleye, appear to be more "happy than France and Spain. But IB liberty definitively established in these fcwo countries ? Well- meaning men doubt it." What liberty? The author has forgotten to tell us ; but he lets us guess it a little farther on. However this may be, an honest anony- mous gentleman in an Italian journal, II Diritto, has written an article entitled Italia Nera. In this article he says : " The peoples of the Papal religion are al- ready dying or about to die." The anonymous writer then tells us that all will go on well in new Italy, whilst the Catholics will derive no benefit from the common political liberties ; but the day on which these wretch- es will take seriously to heart the principles of the constitution which has been imposed upon them, and will no longer keep aloof, then "will be manifested the incompatibility between modern civilization and the ideas of Rome." The artless reader will ask him- self : But what does this good fellow mean ? He pre- tends that the peoples who profess the religion of the Pope are dead or are going to die ; and then, all on a sudden, he immediately perceives a people of this per- nicious species, even in Italy, Italia Nera ; it keep* CATHOLICS AND CIVIL LIBERTY. 141 still, it is true, like a gloomy people, but he is afraid that it will throw off its indifference which is only apparent ; what do I say, they are certain that this dead or dying one is going to put himself in motion, and then, just heaven, all will be lost. The reasoning of this well-meaning Italian is truly worthy of the " phy- siican m spite of himself." " Palsanguenne, here's a physician who pleases me ; I think he'll succeed, for he's a buffoon." But let us not laugh, for the subject of itself is hard- ly laughable. What will " soon" come to pass in It- aly (we accept the augury of it) " is exactly what is passing in Belgium - since 1840." MM. Gladstone, Bluntschli, and de Savornin have asked themselves, why only since 1840. They will experience other dis- appointments besides. In effect, everybody is not yet convinced that the Catholics of Belgium are dying or ' about to die. M. de Laveleye is too intelligent to deny the vitality aid virile energy of his Catholic fellow cit- izens who practise seriously and sincerely the repre- sentative regime, who endure, without an expression of discontent, the shock of all the consequences of the most extended system of liberties that reigns in the modern world, and who are no more deficient in intel- lect or means than the liberals or Protestants of the past, present or future. How is he going to get out of this difficulty ? In the following manner : ' ' Recently one of the authors of the Belgian Consti- tution, and the most eminent of them perhaps, told me, while his soul was filled with sorrow : * "We be- 142 THE FUTURE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. lieved that to establish liberty it was sufficient to pro- claim it, by separating the Church from the State. I am beginning to believe that we were deceived. The Church, supporting herself on the rural districts, wish- es to impose her absolute power. The large cities, gained over to the modern ideas, will not allow them- selves to be enslaved without trying to defend them- selves. We are drifting towards a civil war, as in France. We are already in a revolutionary state. The future appears to me to be big with troubles. The last elections have begun to make the danger apparent. The elections for the Chambers have strengthened the clerical party, whilst those for ,the communes have given the power to the Liberals in all the large cities. Thus the antagonism between the cities and rural dis- tricts, one of the causes of the civil war in France, also shows itself in Belgium, As long as the govern- ment will remain in the hands of prudent men, more disposed to serve their country than to obey their bish- ops, serious disorders are not to be feared. But if the fanatics who openly accept the Syllabus as a political programme should come into power, terrible shocks will be the consequence. Recently they were near bringing civil war and foreign invasion upon us.' " I will put aside the commonplace about the Syllabus, which M. de Laveleye has evidently never read, and I will take no account, against the honorable writer, of the argument built upon the recent thieatening note of Prince Bismarck, and to which our parliament ly;s already unanimously clone justice. I will confine ii.y- *elf to the basis of this truly strange argumentation. CATHOLICS AND CIVIL LIBERTY.' 143 It is an acknowledgement of powerlessness. In his " Histoire de la Revolution" M. Quinet seesbnt two ways of dealing with religious questions : " either in- terdiction or liberty,'* and he shows that liberty is of no avail. There remains, then, interdiction. "If Luther and Calvin," he says, "had contented them- selves with establishing liberty of worship without adding anything, there never would have been the shadow of a religious revolution in the sixteenth cen- tury." Do you understand? In the letter which the same writer addressed on one occasion to M. Sue, "On the Keligious and Moral Situation of Europe," he says plainly : " Brute force is the only means that has suc- ceeded in annihilating an ancient form of belief. " In a recent article published under the title of " The Prin- ciples of Liberty in Political Matters," byM. H. Perga- meni, a talented young man, in the Revue de Belgique . (October 1875), the periodical of which M. de Laveleye is one of the editors and the principal contributor, we read a brutal, but clear and frank, apology for these anti-Christian doctrines. The author, following in the footsteps of MM. Quinet, Sue, and an eccentric Eng- lishman, Mr. J. F. Stephen, brings to task the doc- trinal Liberals, the Manchester school, the Unionists and the Belgian Constitution. He treats political lib- erty as an inefficacious means, a superannuated instru- ment, a false idol, a dotard. It is mockery to leave lib- erty to our opponents. Liberty, he says with a caii- did assurance, is " a simply practical notion, a result of race, climate and civilization." The author also de- serves to be ranked among the Dumber of involuntary 144 THE FUTUBE OF CATHOLIO PEOPLES. apologists. Bead, in effect, this negation of certi- tude : "If we were ruled here below by aa infallible and superior law, if, anywhere in the heavens, the book of truth were left wide open before us, if we could easily read what is conformable with and what is contrary to the ideal of society, the problem of truth would be speedily solved. All that would be conformable to this social ideal would be allowable and free, and all that would be contrary would be prohibited. ' 'Alas ! such is not the case. Abandoned children, we have not above us an infallible master to lead us by the hand and say to us : This is the truth. The truth, it is we ourselves who create it ; the social ne- cessities, it is we who define them. "How ? By brute force; it is brute force alone that in this world creates and preserves, it is it that fixes the social necessities and the rules of law; for a law without force is only a word. Whatever people may say, not only does might surpass right, which does not signify much, but might is right." Farther on, M. H. Pergameni repeats this proposi- tion of Mr. Stephen : "The question of knowing whether liberty is good or evil is as illogical as that of knowing whether fire is good or bad. " There is cer- tainly a true meaning in this aphorism, and Catholics will not contradict it : but in the mouth, or from the pen, of him who denies all objective authority upon earth, such a proclamation of principle is outrageous; let the author permit me to say so without believing that I mean to offend him personally. CATHOLICS AND CIVIL LIBERTY. 145 I add that, admitting M. Pergameni's starting point, his work is a little pearl of logic and misguided common sense. But his starting point is absolutely the same as that of M. de Laveleye. Here is the con- clusion of M. Pergameni's pleading : "Let us not lose our time, then, in trying to con- vince our adversaries ; the experience of centuries could alone decide which of us is in the right, which of us is nearest to the social ideal. We believe we are right and that suffices ; henceforward our duty is to try and make the ideas we believe correct to pre- vail, without disturbing ourselves about liberty. "Moreover, this tendency to set liberty aside as an auxiliary in the social contest, is becoming more and more apparent in proportion as conservative opin- ion is transformed and rallies around this old- est and most solid religious edifice raised by men, the Boman Catholic Church. Germany, Switz- erland and Italy have set us this example; let us fol- low it if we wish to be saved. "Without doubt, in certain countries, as in England and in the United States, for example, these questions appear still farther from being stated so clearly, and the liberty of association and worship is there almost unbounded. But premonitory commotions are already agitating this surface which is apparently so calm, and the moment is approaching when England and the United States will have to come face to face with this redoubtable problem of religious liberty. They will do so, we have no doubt, witji all the practical common- sense of the Anglo-Saxons, and will not amuse them- 146 THE FUTURE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES, selves with discussing whether such or such a measure of defense, the suppression of the religious orders, for example, is a blow at the liberty of association. Ne- cessity is law, salus populi supremo, lex, these are old axioms which the human race will never repudiate. ' ' With us, as well as in France, the situation is much more critical; we are in the heat of the contest, and Ultramontanism has set itself with an alarming ardor to its work of absorption. "What will we do? Will we continue to fold our arms and chant daily the litanies of liberty, or will we start up with a manly heart and tryHo muzzle the Ro- man wolf ? "And by what means? Will it suffice, as many think it will, to take away from the Church what we call its privileges, and to realize in an absolute manner the formula of a free Church in a free State ? We say it with an absolute conviction that that would be on our part to commit suicide. "No, if the Belgian Liberals wish to save their coun- try and their ideas, they must have recourse to more energetic means, they must work without relaxation for the suppression of convents and religious orders, they must wrest education from the hands of the clergy, they must put a stop, by severe and radical measures, to the unheard of development of miracles, pilgrimages and stigmatisations which are a scandal and a shame to our country. "What will these measures be ? Undoubtedly there is no question of making martyrs. We are no longer in the times when people were burned and tortured in CAIHOIiIOS AND CIVIL LIBERTY. 147 the name of a political opinion; the manners of hu- manity are changed, and the man of the nineteenth century no longer possesses the undaunted courage of his ancestors; but if repression has lost its character of ferocity, it exists none the less, for it is the sanction of right. Imprisonment, fines and banishment are legal arms, and why not make use of them ? "I reptat that liberty, toleration; free discussion and the innocent railleries of our followers of Voltaire will not gain for us an inch of ground in this contest. On the contrary, the more we speak of liberty and good-naturedly amuse ourselves by turning miracles into ridicule, the more will the superstition extend it- self among our people; it is not with fillips that we can storm a granite fortress. "If we wish to do our work seriously, we ought to forget the doctrines of 1830, and put aside our fine dreams of liberty. Who denies that liberty is some- times good ? But social life is much more precious, and to preserve it such as we understand it, we must know how to use constraint. All our laws are a perpetual example of it, for they all encroach upon the domain of liberty; let us yet restrict this domain where it in- terferes with our social ideal, and we will act logically, as men ought to act. "The principles which ought to guide us in this con- test are those of legitimate defense and social preserva- tion; they are also those of human solidarity, too much neglected by the Liberals of every country. It is high time that men of progress should seriously concern themselves about the poorer classes, these laborers 148 THE FUTURE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. whose number is increasing everv day to an alarming proportion. In this respect the clericals are ahead of us for a long time past, after their own manner; this tute- lage of the little ones, whom the Liberals disdainfully neglected, they have taken in hand; they have made themselves the counsellors, masters and consolers of the people. Let us do likewise; let us go to the disin- herited, let us protect them against the enterprises of the Church, should it even be at the expense of the liberty of association. Finally, let us remember 4hat the great law of all human society is the contest of con- trary forces, that a political party sustains itself only by contest, that it is never allowed for it to fall asleep and leave the battle-field free to its adversaries, and that the true service of all those who believe in an idea is that of one of the champions of liberalism, Marnix de Sainte Aldegonde: Let there be repose else- where !" Undoubtedly, M. H. Pergameni might employ the talents which God has given him in the service of a better cause ; but no one can dispute that, in this rather savage energy there reigns a certain sincerity. Nevertheless, the young writer has been thrown over- board by the lords of the Liberal admiralty. The Echo du Parlement, in which he published a novel, treats him as a romancer, and compares him to the Croix, crux episcoporum. The Independance calls him a colt. We do not see, it says, " the necessity of discussing the violences of the young publicist of the Revue de Belgique. They are the playful flings of an escaped colt that is sowing his wild oats. It is not CATHOLICS AND CIVIL LIBEBTY. 149 bad to have them to lose. Yet he should not squander them too wildly." Finally M. de Laveleye himself, somewhat too sur- prised at the sensation this " frolicking " has created, thought he should, in the name of the committee of the Revue, write to the Journal de Oand a letter in which we read as follows under the date of the 21st of October : " The system defended by M. Pergameni is not ac- cepted by any of the members of the committee. But it has numerous partisans in England, Italy, France and particularly in Germany, and, let it be well under- stood, it will rally to itself still more in proportion as the excessive pretensions of the clergy will provoke a more ardent opposition. This opinion representing thus one of the important shades of the anti-clerical movement, it has appeared useful to us that it should be exposed, so that people could appreciate it, and if need be, combat it." It appears to me that this disavowal was not neces- sary : M. Pergameni says nothing which M. de Lavel- eye does not say ; only he says it more clearly. In his letter to M. Sue already referred to, M. Quinet acknowledges that he is a little embarrassed in trying to put his doctrine into form ; he enunciates it, he says, only by enervating the words. M. de Lavel- eye experiences the same embarrassment. But M. Pergameni has not enervated the words. That is the only difference which I perceive between the two theses sustained by the two fellow laborers. I would be happy to learn that I am deceived ; but then I 150 THE FUTUBE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. would accuse M. de Laveleye of a flagrant inconsis- tency. If " the most eminent of the authors of the Belgian constitution" (we regret that we have not made his acquaintance) begins to believe that he has been deceived, in generously " according " civil liberties to Catholics, what, then, is the regime which he would apply to them, if he were master ? What, then, are the " terrible shocks " which await the Catholics ? Whence will the shocks come ? All these questions are left by M. de Laveleye in a literary darkness from which M. Pergameni has extricated them. The advocate X. Olin and Professor G. Tiberghien have no desire to accept the responsibility of M. Per- gameni's article. The former, taking his observations from the historical standpoint of our parliamentary liberal doctrinaries, protests with much energy, we must acknowledge, against M. Pergameni's doctrine, but he does not essentially refute it. In effect, this doctrine is put in practice in Prussia and Switzerland, two countries which " are marching at the head of modern civilization," and if they wish to make short work of " clerical routine," even " rational " argu- ments are not wanting to legitimatize the employment of force in the service of political success. Ancient society, on the eve of the ^Redemption, and at the apogee of its civilization, threw itself into the abyss of Csesarism. Virgil and Horace were no simpletons ; and yet this regime was not displeasing to them. Aristotle was the preceptor of the son of Philip of Macedon, whose system of absolutism was not repug- nant to him. Prince Bismarck, who realizes the pre- CATHOLICS AND CIVIL LIBEETY. 151 ceptsof M. Pergameni, is honored as one of the great- est men of our time, and I see the most learned jurists, the most renowned men of letters, and what remains in Germany of philosophers, weaving crowns for him. M. Tiberghien is more technical than M. Olin, but I venture to say that he is less convincing ; he seeks to remedy M. Pergameni's errors on the matter of liberty, and he addresses to him on this subject a little pater- nally philosophical admonition. The reader has no desire that I should oblige him to follow me through the digression into which I would be drawn, if I wished in my turn to criticize the theory of M. Tiberghien. Let us say, however, that the latter does honor to his profession in maintaining a spiritualistic doctrine ; but his a priori definition of liberty, his somewhat arbi- trary determination of the idea of right, his theory on civil and political liberty, which he deduces exclusively from the notion of moral liberty, cannot be received without philosophical reserve, and gives rise to many rational objections. We may profess the soundest philosophical doctiine on moral liberty, whilst not ad- mitting as an absolute principle (as we must do in phi- losophy) the liberty of worship, and yet be perfectly honest men ; and in the same way we may doctrinally define the liberty of worship as a pestilence, whilst sin cerely and legitimately, but civilly, respecting a legis- lation which would tolerate all forms of worship This is the thesis and hypothesis of Catholics. M. Olin does not admit the absolute liberty of worship. For what reason ? M. Tiberghien pretends that it is only sophists 152 THE FUTUKE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. who sustain absolute liberty. "Liberty," he says, "could not be absolute for man, since the liberty of each member of society finds its limit in the liberty of all the others. Liberty has its limits ; does that prevent it from being a benefit ? It is a benefit since it is a right. " This reasoning is faulty in its founda- tion ; it confounds moral and political liberty, the ab- solute with the relative, and it overturns the notion of good ; liberty is not a benefit because it is a right ; lib- erty, on the contrary, can become a right only for the realization of good. If I were in M. Pergameni's place I would victori- ously answer all this argumentation. Who will define the limits of civil liberty (let us clearly understand each oth- er on the meaning of the words,and not confound, as M. Tiberghien does, moral with civil liberty)? I, M. Tiberghien will reply. We, cry out the friends of M. Olin. Why could not MM. Stephen , Carteret, Bismarck and Pergameni reply, in their turn, it is we? I defy M. Tiberghien to show that the encyclicals Mirari vos and Quanta cura are philosophically inferior to his subjective and uncertain theories. I say philosophi- cally, leaving theology to shallow minds like those of "the clericals," This is too much on this subject. It is time to con- clude. On the whole, then, Catholic nations are dead or are going to die; but as long as they are not yet, per- chance, buried, take care lest you grant them any lib- erties which are legitimate only for Liberals and Pro- testants; "experience has shown and will show more CATHOLICS AND CIVIL LIBERTY. 153 clearly every day that on the gronnd of absolute liber- ty, free-thought cannot contend against Catholicism." Thus, on one sine, they are seeking to propagate this belief, against the history of the past and the facts of the present, that the souls of Catholics are relig- iously corrupted, that they are slaves politically, and that they are economically condemned to hard labor and poverty; then when it has been shown, as in Belgium, that such a thesis is radically false and unsustainable, they trick themselves up on some other point and pro- claim that these same Catholics ought to be excluded from a share in the benefits of the civil liberty of the common law. On one side they state, with a pretend- ed sorrow, that they are incapable of living; on the other, "their souls filled with sadness," they condemn them to death, because they possess too much life. If I wished to qualify such a doctrine with a single word, I would say that it is political pharisaism, in- spired at the same time by hatred of the Church and contempt of civil liberty. M. de Laveleye then ascends the Capitol to give thanks to the gods in these terms : "For every man who wishes to scrutinize the facts without prejudice, it remains, then, an established fact that the Reformation is more favorable than Ca- tholicism to the development of nations. We must now examine into the causes of this fact. I believe that it is not difficult to point them out. " We will follow him to verify these assertions. CHAPTEE VI. CATHOLIC COUNTRIES AND EDUCATION. Education is not in It&elf a Source of Material Prosperity- False Conclusions that are often Drawn from the Condition of Public Instruction in a Country as regards Political In- fluence Primary Education in Belgium In Prussia The Organization of Primary Education does not date from the Eef ormation Free Examination in Prussia. After having vainly tried to prove that the Eef orma- tion is "more favorable than Catholicism to the de- velopment of nations," M. de Laveleye looks for the causes of this imaginary fact. The first of these causes would be education, which is, in his opinion, more complete in Protestant countries ; and by education he understands particularly the modest, scientific and literary baggage which one carries away with him from the primary school. Saxony, Denmark, Sweden and Prussia march at the head of nations " without, or al- most without, illiterate people," whilst the Catholic countries, Belgium, France, Spain and Portugal are stagnating in invincible ignorance. Yes, invincible ; for " it is all very fine for Catholic States to make in- struction obligatory, like Italy, or to expend much money for this purpose, like Belgium ; they are not succeeding in dispelling ignorance." England, where primary instruction is little more complete than in Por- tugal, comes to derange the apparent regularity of this syllogism. Why? "Probably because the Anglican Church is, among the forms of the reformed worship, CATHOLIC COUNTRIES AND EDUCATION. 155 that winch most closely resembles the Church of Rome." This adverb of probability should in a slight degree flatter the self-love of Mr. Gladstone, the au- tKor's patron in England. M. de Laveleye might put Holland alongside of Great Britain. As regards Switzerland, the " primary " facts would there be of an irresistible eloquence ; the Latin, but Protestant can- tons of Neufchatel, Vaud and Geneva would be in this respect on a level with the Germanic cantons of Zurich and Berne, and they would be superior to those of Ticino, the Valais and Lucerne. The general cause of this extraordinary contrast would be the first and last word of Dr. Luther: Instruct the children. Protestants ought all know how to read, since the reformed worship reposes on a book, the Bible, whilst among Catholics, " reading is the way which leads to heresy." Moreover, and to say it all. the organization of popular instruction dates from the Reformation. "Education being very favorable to the practice of political liberty and to the production of riches, and Protestantism favoring the diffusion of education, there is then a manifest cause for the superiority of Protestant States." The whole of this reasoning is contrary not only to reality but even to the economical thesis of the author. "Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God." Everybody knows that riches, in the vulgar sense of the word, are not in general the appanage of scholars or well educated men. Sfcultitiam patiuntur opes. If I meant to be indiscreet, how many simpletons 156 THE FUTURE OF CATHOMO PEOPLES. could I not point out around me who have become ex- ceedingly rich and who hardly know how to sign their names. Who was the intelligent man that said, "he is as stupid as a millionaire ?' ' ' Tor what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his soul ?" It is not riches,it is not even knowledge that ele- vates nations, it is justice. Justitia elevat gentes. In Athens, the most elegant of republics, did all the electors of the time of Aristophanes know how to read and write ? Was it primary education that made the fortunes of Tyre and of Carthage ? When ancient Rome was the political mistress of the world, were the compatriots of Ovid, Horace and Virgil all "normal- ists ?" You acknowledge yourself that England is one of the foremost political societies of the modern world, although it is one of the last on the scale of primary education. And is not Kussia, the actual ar- biter of the peace of Europe, in the "primary" rela- tion the last of States ? The consul who reduced the fatherland of Plato and Pindar to the condition of a B-oman province was a boor. How many pedants could we not point out among those who bore from one end of Europe to the other the standard of the "immortal principles of '89." You say, "it is the schoolmaster who has triumphed at Sedan ;" who, then, formerly triumphed at Jena? Obligatory instruction existed in Prussia long before 1789, and it did not prevent that State from being politically humiliated from the time of the retreat from Champagne, under the Prince of Co- burg, until 1813; and when Napoleon I. occupied CATHOLIC COUNTKIES AND EDUCATION. 157 Berlin, he carried off the sword of Frederic II., ex- claiming : "This is all that Prussia is worth." No, the quality of Catholic does not condemn us to political failure. Unfortunately, also, pedagogy is powerless against artillery and even against cuirassiers. The general argumentation of M. de Laveleye does not, therefore, attain its end ; on the contrary, it con- firms my Catholic thesis. The details of this argumentation do not any better withstand free examination. According to the educational statistics*, the country that is farthest advanced on the scale of primary in- struction, is Sweden, of which the civilized districts are almost on a level with certain districts of our pro- vinces of Luxemburg, Limburg and Namur. In spite of the secular Schultzwang of Prussia, the monarchy of Frederic H. is not so far advanced as our arron- dissement of Arlon, which is under the administration of M. J. P. Nothomb, the commissary of the king. This perfection of our primary instruction is even general in our Luxemburg, my native country. In his discourse at the opening of the session of the pro- vincial council, M. Vandamme, the governor, said in 1872 : " Luxemburg counts at this moment 507 primary schools. That is, one school for every four hundred inhabitants. In no country in Europe has such *De VEnseigenmentprimaire en Betgique, par. M. le Baron de Hauleville. (Brussels : Closson, 1870.) The reader is also re- ferred to an article by our author on the same subject in the Revtie Generate for January, 1875. 158 THE FUTURE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. progress been made. This is the fruit of the common efforts of private individuals, the communes, the pro- vince and the central power : an association as wise as it is fruitful. ... In the prolonged attempts of Luxemburg to establish schools, a spectacle most in- teresting, I was going fco say touching, presents itself. It was an enormous enterprise in itself ; local difficul- ties came, besides, to complicate it ; our province has a territorial extent exceptional in the country ; it possesses no great centres ; it is thinly populated and the people are scattered into eight or nine hundred groups; many of our communes are poor. . . . For more than fifty years past the number of pupils in our pri- mary schools has been relatively considerable, and this number has only increased with time. In 1817 it was equal to ten per cent, of the population ; it now ex- ceeds fifteen per cent. Last year the census of the province showed 31,580 children of an age to attend school, and the number of pupils, in effect, frequent- ing our primary schools was 31,259 ; there remained, then, only 341 children, or one per cent. Never in any country in Europe, nor under any school system what- ever has so admirable a result been obtained. The whole population passes through our schools. . . . We possess a teacher to every 357 inhabitants, whilst in the entire kingdom this proportion is one to every 480 inhabitants. In Brabant it is one to every 507 in- habitants, and in the province of Liege one to every 526. In a parliamentary document recently published and in which the state of primary education in the different countries of the world is stated and ap- CATHOLIC COUNTRIES AND EDUCATION. 159 preciated in a learned manner, we read the following : ... ' The brightest side of the system of Switzer- land and what explains its success and celebrity con- sists without dispute in the great number of teachers we there meet.* Well, in Switzerland there are less teachers than among us ; the proportion there is as follows : one teacher to every 370 inhabitants. Our superiority is not, therefore, local only and rela- tive to the other Belgian provinces ; it also places Luxemburg above the countries that are most favored in this respect. " Such is, in this province, the organization of popular education, as the happy tendencies of the population, the law and time have made it. " Yet, school organization is only a collection of means more or less adapted and whose effects are un- certain according to times and circumstances ; the final object, the great duty, is the diffusion of instruc- tion. In what proportion do the people of Luxem- burg enjoy this benefit ? " On this point, gentlemen, I often and curiously in- terrogate statistics and all the elements of proof that they can furnish ; here is the conclusion I have come to : in more than half of our communes ignorance is absolutely banished from the rising generation, as well for the females as for the males; in the other com- munes, it is, except in a very few retired localities, an insignificant exception ; we can say, then, that pri- mary instruction in Luxemburg is almost universal." In the province of Namur and in Limburg,both Cath- olic countries, equally satisfactory results are obtained. 160 THE FUTURE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. Baron Kervyn de Lettenhove proved but a short time ago to the Chamber of Representatives that his " cleri- cal"arrondissement of Ecloo was far superior, as regards primary instruction, to the " liberal " city of Brussels, the capital of the kingdom and of the intelligence of Belgium. All those who take an interest in primary instruction among us know that the industrial arron- dissements of Liege and Mons, the citadels of the Lib- eral ideas, are classed among the most illiterate of our country. I leave to the reader the trouble of drawing his conclusions from these facts. I do not deny the high degree of perfection to which the Germans but lately raised their primary schools : but it is to distort facts most wonderfully to attribute this situation to Lutheranism or to the Prussian Union. We might as well attribute to the efforts of M. V. Tesch the " primary " superiority of the arron- dissement of Arlon where everybody knows how to read and write. I might, perhaps, admit, with a certain degree of re- serve, that the Schulzwang (the civil obligation of going to school) has had much to do with this result, but it is not useless to remark to our Protestantizing Liberals : 1. That the Swedish and German schools were, before the war of 187Q,confessional schools. 2. That in Belgium for example, where the same system has happily pre- vailed in the official instruction, and where liberty has been left to Catholics, we are rapidly progressing to- wards the radical abolition of primary ignorance, with- out the Schulzwang , without fieldkeepers, gendarmes or Protestants. 3. That in Germany primary instruc- CATHOLIC COUNTRIES AND EDUCATION. 161 tion is as far, if not further, advanced in Catholic countries than in the Protestant provinces. 4. That Catholic Belgium has no reason to envy, as regards primary instruction, the Protestant provinces of Hol- land, and that it has the superiority over Anglican Great Britain. 5. That M. Langlois has recently dem- onstrated, in the Fran$ais, that primary instruction in France is not inferior to that of the most flourishing States of the American Union which are Protestant fco a great extent. As to Switzerland, I deny the correctness of M. de Laveleye's conclusions. It is possible that in the Va- lais, Ticino and even in the canton of Lucerne,pri- mary instruction is less general than in some other cantons, but this fact, if it is correct, is naturally ex- plained by the impossibility of erecting schools in the mountains inhabited by a population that is scattered here and there. We have already proved that in Switzerland M. de Laveleye wilfully confounds the mountains with the plains. The reader will understand that it is impossible for us to enter into the details of a discussion of this kind. I ought to confine myself to the principal points of my subject. I must, however, correct a prejudice and an historical error, which hostility to the Catho- lic Church has propagated. Since 1870, especially, our Liberals represent Prussia as the classic land of all the social and political truths, and among the lat- ter they cite with emulation education in general and primary instruction in particular, which they would make the holy works of the Prussian Lutherans. But 162 THE FUTURE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES, does any one wish to know to whom this educationa splendor is in great part due ? To the Catholics. One hundred and fifty years ago the Marches of Branden- burg, as regards education and other things besides, was one of the States in all Europe that had made least progress, and that after two centuries of "Luth- eran civilization." It was the epoch when the Elec- tor, who seldom jested, one day, in a moment of whim- sical absolutism, made the grave professors of the Uni- versity of Frankfort on the Oder sit naked on the ice of the river. As to the peasants and laborers, they were still more cruelly treated; the recruiting sergeant was much more respected than the few successors of the Catholic masters who founded the ancient paro- chial and claustral schools. The "primary" ignorance was great. Even in the reign of Frederic H. , when certain efforts had already been made to change so la- mentable a state of affairs, they had no intention of giv- ing to the school the significance preached to-day by Herr Falk and his foreign admirers. * 'The catechism and the four rules suffice," wrote M. de Voltaire to his friend, that royal philosopher whom people cite as the precursor of the national Liberals, and who neither spoke nor wrote anything but French. Frederick added that one should not * 'break the branch on which he sits." In Silesia, which then constituted a part of the mon- archy of the Catholic Hapsburgs, the situation was en- tirely different. Every locality was there provided with a school, either parochial or claustral. In lower and middle Silesia there were many Protestants who CATHOLIC COUNTRIES AND EDUCATION. 163 also enjoyed a satisfactory system of primary educa- tion, thanks to a competition and a civil liberty which did not exist in the Protestant State of Brandenburg, any more than it does at present. When Frederick II. began, in the very bosom of the German empire, by the violent conquest of Silesia, the series of Prus- sian annexations with which we are all familiar, he re- membered the services which the Jesuits had rendered to his House, in working for the transformation of the duchy of Prussia into a kingdom.* After the suppression of the Society of Jesus he maintained the Fathers in possession of most of their ancient colleges, which he simply transformed into State establishments, whilst leaving to them their Catholic character. Frederic II. also protected the popular schools of the Augas- tinians, whose establishments, within the circle of Sagan, became even model or normal schools. Felbiger, the prior of Sagan, with his celebrated scholasticus, Strauss, may be considered as the veritable organizer of the ancient Prussian schools. The great school settlement of 1801 was, so to say, copied after the institute of these "clericals." In the new western provinces we have to point out analogous facts. Not much more than a few days ago, there was inaugurated at Miinster, in Westphalia, a statue to the Baron von Furstenberg, who raised popu- lar instruction to the highest degree of prosperity; he was aided in this clerical work by an illustrious Cath- *Regarding this interference of the Jesuits see Les Alle- mands depuis la guerre de Sept-Ans, par M. le Baron de Haulleville, page 26. (Brussels, 1868.) 164 THE FTJTT7BE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. . olic, Overberg, whose name is now familiar to all the pedagogues in the world. The Prussian government has no right, therefore, to exert any "Protestant" ef- fort to found its schools; in the West as well as in the East, it has inherited Catholic schools which were true models of confessional institutions. The Prussian government scrupulously left to them this necessary character, and it is to this happy circumstance, and to it alone, that we must attribute the rich fruits of popu- lar education in Prussia down to 1870. Since "the schoolmaster has conquered at Sedan" he has become proud, it appears. The confessional character of the primary schools has been, if not radically suppressed, at least perverted, and it becomes easy to predict that it is all over with the educational superiority of Prus- sia since it has foolishly taken away the life which its Catholic founders had breathed into it. "Never has any State," says a celebrated Protestant, a Prussian of the old stamp, the late Herr Dahlmann, formerly my professor at the University of Bonn, "never has any State forestalled the education of children, to bring them up according to its own fancy, without injuring the best part of the people; our sagacity forbids us to sell souls to the State." M. de Laveleye assures us that during the campaign of 1870 the French (Catholic) wounded asked for cards to play with, whilst the convalescent Protestants (Ger- mans) asked for nothing but books. I have not wit- nessed any of these demands for cards in any cf the ambulances created during this dreadful war, of which I pray God to spare us the renewal, But I know that CATHOLIC COUNTRIES AND EDUCATION. 165 many of the Catholic German wounded. Bavarians, Rhinelanders, Westphalians, and Poles (poor Poles !), who had been mutilated in the service of the German cause, which is now represented to us as that of Protes- tantism, protested against the Protestant books which were given to them. Everything had been foreseen by the superintendents except that, and it was necessary that charitable men should interfere to prevent these unfortunate creatures from seeing attempts to ruin their morals added to their physical sufferings. The organization of popular instruction does not date from the Reformation, as M. de Laveleye inconsider- ately states. Luther did not make his studies in a Protestant school. Before the invention of printing that is to say, before the end of the fifteenth century the Catholic clergy alone took an interest in the re- quirements of public instruction. It was printing that gave a new impulse to education and to the diffusion of this i ublic instruction. It is not my duty at present to give a history of the schools of the Catholic Middle Ages, from CLarlemagne to Charles V., although the subject is very interesting and too generally neglected; to become acquainted with the Middle Ages requires long studies, and, unfortunately, the enemies of the Ca- tholic Church intentionally confound their history with that of the centuries of transition ; they do not like to apply themselves to persevering studies, which ordina- rily lead to sincerity, when they do not lead to the faith. The schools of the Middle Ages were certainly not equal in number to our present schools, and the number of their discoveries (scientific, physical, chemi- 166 THE FUTUKE OP CATHOLIC PEOPLES. cal, mechanical, astronomical, etc.,) was not equal to the amount of our present knowledge. But in tlie claustral schools pupils learned to write, read and cal- culate (the four rules), just as at present, and in the chairs of the universities the moral sciences (the most important of all) were taught with as much splendor as can be imagined to-day for the most blustering univer- sities of Germany, There was, for example, in the twelfth century, a pro- fessor who was called the Count of Aquinas, a Neapolitan who was professor at Paris, at Cologne, in the Italian universities, and who went to die at Toulouse. It is all very fine for me to search among the compatriots of Herr von Hartmann,the philosopher of the unknowable. I do not know one man who is worthy of unlacing the san- dals of this Dominican, the Angel of the Schools. When writers as eminent as M. Domet de Verges and my learned fellow laborer, Dr. Van Weddingen, perceive no salvation for contemporary philosophy, but in a pro- found study of scholastic ideology and metaphysics, I feel myself excited to pity in presence of a multitude of babbling and boasting pygmies, who scarcely know how to stammer the language of the great Christian scholars who enlightened the world from the time of St. Bernard to that of St. Ignatius Loyola. Are not Albert the Great, Boger Bacon, the author of the Imitation, Dante and Petrarch worth Herr en Virchow, Haeckel, v n Sybel and Madam Louisa Miihlbach ? In all the ver- sifications that have been dedicated to Prince Bismarck, there is not a single line that breathes the powerful in- spiration of the poetry of the Middle Ages. CATHOLIC COUNTRIES AND EDUCATION. 167 "The reformed worship reposes on a book the Bible," says M. de Laveleye, "whilst reading is the way that leads Catholics to heresy." This assertion as- tonishes us by its errors. In the first place, to pretend that Catholics do not read, or are afraid to read, is child- ishness. Then M. de Laveleye will allow me to in- form him that the Protestant sects repose, not on the Bible, but on the symbolical Scriptures. It is very true that Luther gave up the Bible to free individual interpretations, but he. did not at all admit any one to contradict his interpretation. So he quickly drew up, in concert with his friends, a new Credo, the Confessio Augustana, which the princes, enriched by the spoils of the Church, propagated with the aid of the sword and of blood, and which is not even Biblical, since its doctrines on grace, faith without works, etc. , are not to be found in the Bible. The diffusion of instruction has nothing in commoii with the Protestant doctrine ; for, in their religious teach- ing Protestants do not apply their principle of free ex- amination, but the principles of the Catholic Church, since they instruct children authoritatively. Let us also add that the convulsive efforts of Luther in favor of public instruction date only from the second part of his heretical career. The destruction of the chapters, convents and ancient charitable institutions, which Catholic piety had planted like dense forests, had as a lamentable consequence the ruin of all the schools sustained by the secular and the regular clergy. In a short time was witnessed a great falling off in educa- tion and morality. It was then, but then only, that 168 THE FUTURE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. Luther, whose work was menaced, began his loud talk about the necessity of education.* I have already mentioned the Confession of Augs- burg. I will take this opportunity to resume, for the reader's benefit, the singular history which free ex- amination in matters of religion furnishes to us in Prussia. The doctrines of Luther on grace and on communion gave rise to the most vehement disputes between the partisans of the former Augustinian monk, those of Zwingli and those of Calvin. Each party pretended to have a doctrinal infallibility, proved from the Sacred Scriptures ; these contrary pretensions were defended, more than once, not by briefs and encyclicals, but by the sword, and the material victory of the one had for consequence the moral oppression of the other. In western Germany the Confessio Augustana was particularly combated by the " Beformed " Church properly so-called, sup- ported by the Catechism of Heidelberg. The chiefs of the different States called Protestant of the former empire of Germany adopted sometimes the Confessio Augustana and sometimes the Catechism of Heidel- berg, according as this change agreed with their fancy or their temporal interest, without caring much for the free examination of the people, who did not exam- ine at all, and of the pastors who were not free. The religious variations of official Prussia deserve to be classed among the most singular of all. In conse- * See Luther's works. Also consult A. Menzel's Neuere Geschichte der Dewtschen, voL 1, page 123. CATHOLIC COUNTRIES AND EDUCATION. 169 quence of an alliance with the House of Orange, the Dutch ** reformed "worship became that of the court of Brandenburg, and the Lutheran preachers were compelled, by violence if necessary, to support in their temples the preachings and the communion of the Calvinists. Calvinist pastors were even imposed quite simply on Lutheran parishes. The Lutheran preachers who were unwilling to sub- mit to this form of free examination were brutally de- posed and banished, exactly in the same way as the Catholic priests are to-day under the ministry of Herr Falk. Let us cite from among these victims of the Calvinist heresy, Gerhard, who is well-known for the services he rendered to the Protestant chant. But the majority of the preachers preferred to preserve to their families their daily bread by adopting, with the best possible grace, the Catechism of Heidelberg. Things went on thus until after the Congress of Vienna, which, as everybody knows, gave to the crown of Prus- sia new territories inhabited by Saxon Lutherans. It was then that the official Church of Prussia, under the bayonet cross of its territorial bishop (Landesbisch- of), the king, decreed the fusion of the two confess- ions by means of a Union in the Lord's Supper. Never in any country has a similar religious enormity been perpetrated with so much discipline and so uncere- moniously. A few communities declared themselves "free;" others consoled themselves with allowing a generous but sterile pietism to be imposed on them by the authorities. * 'Enlightened" people adopted He- gel's religion of the God-State. As to the mass of the 170 THE FUTURE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. Lutheran population, they were insensibly converted to the Union by the schoolmasters or by the aid of the military service. The Prussian Union was a veri- table State Church, which is crumbling before our eyes, since baptism has come to be no longer obliga- tory, and since civil marriage has been introduced into the legislation. The " enlightened" middle classes concern themselves little about this perilous situa- tion. Their civilizing scepticism serves them pro- visionally as an intrenchment under the protection of an army of twelve hundred thousand men. As to the laboring classes of the Protestant provinces, in the Marches of Brandenburg, in Pomerania, in East Prus- sia, in Schleswig-Holstein, and in Saxony, they allow themselves to be led away more and more towards socialism, which is the "religion of the future." It is strange that M. de Laveleye should fix pre- cisely upon the present time to illustrate the advan- tages of reading the Bible, which few persons now read in the Protestant countries of Germany, especially since the Protestantenverein has popularized the criticisms of Herr Strauss against the Sacred Scriptures. The pres- ent Prussian administration also has made efforts to limit the reading of the Bible in the schools. There are not wanting, even in Germany, men who "move about in the highest grades of civilization," and who find that the youth of modern times are too intelligent to lose their time in reading " legends," respectable indeed, by reason of their antiquity, but penetrated through and through by the powerful rays of modern science. They reason like Schiller ; CATHOLIC COUNTRIES AND EDUCATION. 171 Welche Keligion ich bekenne ? Keine von alien Die Du mir nenst. Und warum keine ? Aus Religion.* Things have come in Protestant Germany to such a state of religious disorganization that Catholics sin- cerely wish that they may not see the number of Protes- tant believers becoming any smaller. The latter are at least Christians. Before leaving this subject; let us not neglect to point out still further, by the light of history, the igno- rance of those who accuse Catholics of favoring igno- rance. To those who pretend in their pride that we know nothing I might answer : We know all that you know, and we know our catechism besides. So as not to allow them time to smile disdainfully, I will add a few facts.f Without going back to the "darkness" of the Middle Ages, when, according to the testimony of the Protestant historian, Voigt, Pope Gregory VII., one of the bugbears of the Liberals of our time, pressed all the bishops to protect literature and the arts, and to or- ganize schools in the immediate vicinity of their cathe- dral churches, I will cite the opinions of Burke, Gibbon and Hutchinson. The first of these has declared that " France alone has produced more distinguished men than all tho Protestant universities of Europe;" the second has said that " a monastery of Benedictines haa given to the world more books of science than all the * "What religion do I profess? None of those which you name. And why none of them ? Because of religion." f I borrow them, as well as what precedes, from a popular little English book which has recently been translated into French under the title, Pourquoi nous sommes catholiques et non protestants, discussion an, point de vue de VEcriture, du bon sens et desfaits. It was written by Dr. Keenan, a Scotch priest. (Paris: P. Lethielleux, 1870.) 172 THE FUTUBE OF CATHOLIC PEOPIiES. universities of England ;" and the third expressed him- self thus in the House of Lords : " Catholicism, which has been this night the object of so many insults, has been the belief of the most populous and tne most t n- lightened nations of Europe, of the most illustrious characters that have ever honored the name of man (Cobbett, Letter I. ; Lingard). " The Bishop of Ghent but lately recalled to our memory this stereotyped phrase of the documents of the Pontifical cha -cellor : "Igno- rance is the mother of vice." This phrase was proverb- ial in the Universal Church before the birth of Luther. One thing that has favored the calumnies of the ad- versaries of the Universal Church is this fact, that the invention of printing preceded the rise of Protestant- ism in Europe by scarcely seventy years. Before the end of the fifteenth century printing presses were established in thirty-four cities of France, and from 1455 to 1536, 22,032,900 volumes were printed. Popes Nicholas V. and Sixtus IV. as well as the Catho- lic princes and kings of most of the countries of Eu- rope, protected by their munificence the arts and sciences. Education was in so flourishing a state in Germany that ten universities were founded there from 1403 t > 1506. Erasmus declares that " education was triumphant in England ; that the king, the queen, two cardinals and all the bishops were employed in diffusing it." All the universities of Europe were, in effect, founded by Catholics. For three hundred years the Protest- ants of England have shown their desire to diffuse in- struction by founding two universities only, those of CATHOLIC COUNTKIES AND EDUCATION. 173 Dublin and London. Modern Europe owes to the Catholic Church its civilization, its laws and all its knowledge of the fine arts. In effect the origin of painting, sculpture, music and architecture, is entirely Catholic. If any one doubts about it,let him look at those magnificent abbeys, those cathedrals which have es- caped the vandalism of the Reformation, the ruins which the barbarous hand of Protestantism has not completely destroyed. It is not, therefore, astonishing that Colonel Mitchell, in his " Life of Wallenstein," declares that " religion and civilization will never ac- quit themselves of the debt they owe to the Roman Pontiffs and to the Church of Rome, which for so long a time exerted the noblest efforts to make humanity advance in the way of progress.*' When writing that Catholics were prohibited in a gen- eral manner to read the Sacred ScripturesM. de Laveley e should have indicated the source from which he obtained this strange information. I read in a work en titled "La lecture dela Bible en langue vulgaire," which is from the authorized pen of Mgr. Malou, Bishop of Bruges : " Has the Church passed a law which prohibits Catholics to read the Holy Bible ? I do not hesitate to answer : No. The Church has never prohibited the reading of the Bible to all the faithful. Never has she forbidden in an absolute manner the reading of the holy books, in any language whatever ', to all laymen. Never has she sanctioned a species of monopoly in fa- vor of the clergy." Undoubtedly the Church has decreed certain re- strictions in this matter, remembering those of whom 174 THE FUTURE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. St. Peter speaks, when he says that certain parts of the Epistles of Sfc. Paul are "hard to be understood, which the unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures, to their own destruction. " (2nd Ep. III. 16). But this prohibition justifies it- self. Here is the rule : Benedict XIV. gave his appro- bation in 1757 to a decree of the Congregation of the In- dex, which granted to all the faithful the general per- mission to read the Bible in the vulgar tongue, provided that the vei sions should have been approved by the com- petent authority, and should be accompanied by notes taken from the writings of the holy Fathers or f romCath- olic writers. Every day the Church in its offices causes the Scriptures to be read to the assembled faithful. In 1826 the English Catholic bishops publicly de- clared that never did the Church prohibit the circula tion of authentic copies of the Scriptures. Pius VII., in a letter addressed to the English bishops, and dated the 18th of April, 1826, told them "to induce the faithful to read the Holy Scriptures, for that nothing was more useful, more capable of consoling and animating them. They confirm the faith, strengthen the hope, and in- flame the charity of the true Christian." Pius VI., writing to Martini, Archbishop of Flor- ence, regarding his translation of the Scriptures, con- gratulates him on his zeal in publishing this translation and exhorts the faithful to read it : this letter, dated April 1778, is placed at the beginning of all the En- glish Catholic Bibles. Before Protestantism existed there were more than twenty translations of the Bible in most of the modern CATHOUO COUNTRIES AND EDUCATION. 175 languages. Here is the enumeration of some old Cath- olic translations : Bible of Just, Mayence 1462 Bible of Bender, Augsburg 1467 Malermi's Italian Bible 1471 The Four Gospels in Flemish (Belgian) 1472 The entire Bible in " Belgian," Cologne 1475 Bible of Julien 1477 Edition of Delft 1477 Bible of Ferrier, Spanish 1478 Edition of Gonda 1479 Edition of Des Moulins, French 1490 Four translations mentioned by Bausobre (Histoire de la JReforme, Book 4.), printed before 1522 To this enumeration it may be as well to add the fol- lowing list of the old manuscript Catholic translations : Of the Bible into English : 1290 " " " Anglo-Saxon, verse 1300 " " " German languages 800 " " " Italian 1270 " " " Spanish 1280 " " " French 1294 Before Luther's time three translations and several editions of the Bible appeared in Italy ; four transla- tions and a multitude of editions were published in the Gothic languages and in French ; two Belgian transla- tions which passed through several editions. A Czech translation was published at Prague in 1488 ; at Putna in 1498 ; at Venice in 1506 and 1511. Many other Cath- olic translations into almost all the languages of the world were published at Borne, the sanctuary of "Popery." 176 THE FUTUBE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. The anti- Catholic prejudices, of certain writers are so deeply rooted that it ia with the greatest difficulty we succeed in making them believe that Luther was, not the first translator of the Bible into the vulgar German tongue. Before the apostasy of the too fa- mous Augustinian monk, there existed twenty-one German translations (fifteen in Hochdeutsch and six in Niedersaevhsisch) in Germany. Luther himself made use of the translation of Nicholas of Lyra, which appeared in 1473, and passed through several editions before the Reformation. Luther made such good use of the translation of Lyra that a comic poet has render- ed this truth proverbial : Si Lyra non lyrasset, Lutherus non saltasset.* A Protestant writer, whose honest testimony we have more than once invoked, Mr. Laing, (in his "Notes of a Traveller"), makes the following admis- sions : "The education of the regular clergy in the Catho- lic Church is perhaps absolutely, and without any doubt comparatively, superior to that of the Protest- ant clergy. By absolutely superior, I mean that in a given number of Popish priests and Protestant minis- ters, one will find among the former a greater number of men who can read and understand the ancient lan- guages, Greek, Latin and Hebrew, and the modern languages that have any connection with that of the Old Testament, a greater number of scholars, distin- guished mathematicians, and a larger amount of ac- "*If Lyra had not piped, Luther had not danced," CATHOLIC COUNTRIES AND EDUCATION. 177 quired knowledge. The Catholic clergy have adroitly iaken possession of education, not, as people suppose ji Protestant countries, to leave the people in the darkness of ignorance and to teach them errors and superstititions, but to be masters of the influence that useful knowledge has over society." In allusion to this vulgar calumny, viz : "that the Catholic clergy leave the people in the darkness of ig- norance," he combats it in these terms, long before the violent overthrow of the temporal sovereignty of the Holy See, and before the constitution of the Talk regime in Prussia : "This opinion of our ministers is more orthodox t^an it is charitable and true. The Popish clergy has less to lose by the progress of education than the Pro- testant clergy. ID Catholic Germany, in France, in Italy, and even in Spain, the education of the lower classes in reading, writing, arithmetic, music, polite- ness and morality is diffused by the clergy with at least as much generality and zeal as in Protestant countries. It is of their own accord, and not on account of the in- itiative taken by the people, that the Popish priests of the present day seek to maintain themselves at the head of intellectual progress. The Popish Church,far from being opposed to education, protects it, and it is in her hands a powerful instrument which she knows how to use. In every street in Borne there are, at short distances from each other, primary schools for the edu- cation of the children of the lower and middle classes. Eome, with a population of 158,678 souls, has 372 pri- mary schools, comprising 452 masters and 14, 099 pupils. * 178 THE FUTUBE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. Berlin, with a population twice as large as that of Borne, has only 264 schools. Borne has a university attended by 660 students ; and the Papal States, with a population of two millions and a half, contain seven universities. Protestant Prussia, with a population of fourteen millions, has only seven. The fact that Borne lias at least a hundred schools more than Berlin, al- though its population is less than half, disposes of all these calumnies. But, some one will ask, what do the people of Borne learn in these schools? Precisely what is taught to the people of Berlin, the most Protest- ant capital of the most Protestant State in the world : reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, the languages, and religious doctrine. " This testimony, given by an adversary, is well calcu- lated, says Dr. Keenan, to open the eyes of the Protes- tants that are blindest to this truth, that the Catholic Church loves education and protects the arts and sciences. The Catholic Church respects science because it comes from God, and because it teaches respect. " The Catechism is the greatest, the holiest school of respect that the world has ever had. " Let M. de Lave- leye allow me, en passant, to give the exact words of this quotation from M. Guizot (Meditations et etudes morales, pp. 70, 71). It is applied to the Catholic Church, and not to the dissenting sects. M. de Lave- leye wished to give the Protestant Churches the honor of it by suppressing the word Catholic and replacing it by the epithet Christian. CHAPTEE CATHOLIC COUNTRIES AND MORALITY. Literary Corruption in France the Fruit of Anti-Catholic Doc- trines Political Absolutism the Antithesis of the Catho- lic Church The Catholic Church was the First and the only one in History to Maintain the Absolutely Moral Character of Marriage Morals in Spain and Italy more Pure than in Protestant Countries The average Illegiti- macy higher among Protestant peoples. Immorality in the North of Europe Comparative Statistics of Morality in England. M. de Laveleye has surpassed himself in the fol- lowing proposition : " Everybody is disposed to grant that the strength of nations depends on their morality. . . . But it ap- pears to be averred that the standard of morality is higher among Protestant than among Catholic peo- ples." After so audacious an assertion one naturally ex- pects a demonstration, especially on the part of a pro- fessor of political economy. A demonstration is, in effect, given to us ; but it is entirely directed against the friends of the author, the Liberals. Here is a re- capitulation of it : Catholic peoples are corrupted, for 1. The French fashionable literature is immoral : 2. In Catholic countries those who have wished to combat the Roman Church have borrowed their arms from paganism and from the spirit of the Renaissance. Almost all the French authors and politicians who have worked for the emancipation of the mind have 180 THE FUTURE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. been conspicuous for their immorality. Those who re- spect morals are almost always devoted to the Church but penetrated with "absolutist" doctrines. In Eng- land and America, on the contrary, the same men de- fend at the same time religion, morality, and liberty : 3. M. Taine (a positivist) and M. Provost Paradol (who committed suicide after having passed over to Caesar) have said that the French (the Catholics ?) no longer base morality on anything but a point of honor, whilst the English (the Protestants ?) base it on austere duty. There are many truths in the pages which M. de Jjaveleye devotes to the development of these three arguments ; in reading them attentively one remains even convinced that, if the author were not blinded by his anti-Catholic prejudices (truth has, in certain cases, the privilege of " shutting its eyes "), his reasoning would become altogether correct. But such as it is, it resembles a stupid blunder in strategy : M. de Laveleye fires, without perceiving it, upon his own forces. He speaks correctly when he accuses of a corruption of taste the most fashionable literateurs in France, the Sainte-Beuves, the Abouts, the Sardous, the Alex. Dumas, etc., etc. M. Schaepman has already made the able retort that M. de Laveleye might preach by example, by preventing, in the periodicals of which he has control, the publication of such romances as the ' * Vicaire de Noirval" and the * ' Chambre d louer. " To this argumentum ad hominem I will add others more to the point : the writers to whom M. de Laveleye al- CATHOLIC COUNTRIES AND MORALITY. 181 ludes are all anti-Catholic, and the translations of their works and their comedies are very much relished in "the country of the fear of God and pious morals," particularly at Berlin, one of the most immoral cities in the world. The princes of the French literature of ihe present century, the Chateaubriands, the Gratrys Jie Montalemberts, the Autrans, the Laprades, the Dupanloups, the Lacordaires, etc., are neither cor- ;upt men, nor Protestants, nor Liberals. The first prose writer in England is a Catholic Father New- man, whose friend, Father Faber, has left lyrical poetry far superior in inspiration to the works of Ten- nyson, the poet laureate. The two great geniuses of Germany in the nineteenth- century have been Catho- lics ; Grillparzer the Austrian, and Joseph Goerres, of Coblentz. Manzoni, the most brilliant glory of Italy, was a Catholic. The mighty works of Don Jayme Balmes have shed their rays upon the world and asso- ciated the country of Calderon with the efforts of Catholic peoples, in the vast field of literature : Dom- inus illuminatio mea. M. de Laveleye compares Luther, who was very modest, as we all know, Calvin, Knox and Zwingli, with Eabelais and Voltaire. This is a comparison which Catholics will allow him to draw with all possi- ble serenity, only he should have added Ulric von Hutten to his Piotestant list. Catholics will thank him also for having put in their place, alongside of Eabelais and Voltaire, the guilty geniuses of Kousseau, P. L. Courier and Beranger, these idols of contempo- rary liberalism, and with having been able to cite as 182 THE FUTURE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. "absolutists," from among the Catholic literary stars of France, only the names of Bossuet, Fenelon, and Racine. I ask pardon for the latter. His obsequi- ousness to Louis XTV. never injured, in the mind of the readers, any one but the Roi Soleil ; it has at least contributed towards giving us Athalie, a master- piece,and the son whom he brought up has sung in im- mortal verses the wonders of the Catholic faith : Faux sages, faux savants, indociles esprits, Un moment, fiers mortels, suspendez vos mepris. La raison, dites-vous, doit etre notre guide : A toua mes pas aussi cette raison preside, Sous la divine loi que vous osez braver, C'est elle-meme ici qui va me captiver, Et parle a tous les coeurs q'elle invite a s'y rendre : Vous done qui la vantez, daignez du moms 1'entendre.* It was not Jean Racine, who, after having penned well-studied phrases on the "point of honor, "would have accepted from the enemies of Louis XIV. an em- bassy to America, only to commit suicide there. Fe*ne*lon, whose works I do not unreservedly admire, and whose romance, called Telemaque, has falsified the political ideas of the French as much as have the histor- ical manuals of the good Rollin, was not an absolutist. He submitted to the regime of the Roi Soleil ; but he did not write up its principles. As to Bossuet, we will concede a little to M. de Laveleye, wlio appears to have * "False sages, false scholars, disobedient spirits, proud mortals, restrain your contempt for an instant. Beason, you say, ought to be your guide : this reason guides me also in every step I take. Under the divine law which you dare to brave, it is the very thing that will captivate me ; it speaks to all hearts, and invites them to take refuge with it ; do you, then, who boast of it, deign at least to listen to it" CATHOLIC COUNTRIES AND MOBALITY. 183 forgotten that this great mind dimmed its own glory by becoming too much the theologian of Gallicanism, an error which was in a certain sense the " Bismarckism" of the seventeenth century in France, that is to say, a thoroughly Liberal error, accepted, moreover, by all the Protestant Churches since Luther, as the foundation of the ecclesiastico-civil law. That the pious Protestants of our time, the "austere Calvinists," the amiable Quakers, the mild Puritans, and even the Gueux of Holland, most of whom were retired revolutionists, have shown themselves more chaste, more moral, more Christian, in a word, than Mirabeau, (the friend of Frederick II.), St. Just and Robespierre, I am not the man who will deny ; but what do the Liberals think of this? That sincere Protestantism, that is to say, incomplete Christianity, is superior to paganism, as M. de Laveleye grants, no Catholic will dispute ; let us show, however, that the most prominent Liberals are not of this opinion. But I search in vain through M. de Laveleye's pamphlet for a proof of the moral superiority of Protestantism over the Universal Church, that Church in which one every day addresses ardent prayers to the holy Virgin, the seat of wisdom, sedes sapientice, and the mother most chaste, mater castissima. I do not pretend that the inhabitants of Catholic countries become impeccable from the very fact that they accept the Councils of Trent and of the Vatican ; it is not enough to have the faith ; to render ourselves wor- thy of it we must practise it, and accomplish works. It is but right to observe also that in Catholic countries, 184 THE FUTURE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. in Belgium, in France, in the South, East and West of Germany, in Italy, in Spain, in Portugal, etc. , etc. , po- litical, social and religious revolutions, provoked by the social influence of Protestantism^ have*created a state of things in which it often becomes very difficult, not to say impossible, to distinguish the Catholic populations, properly so-called, from the other social bodies. Every- where the good grain is mixed with the cockle. One thing is certain, that is, that to take into consideration only the historical point of view, there is not in the an- nals of humanity a form of worship which has imposed in so absolute a manner the divine precepts contained in the sixth and ninth commandments. How many people would be excellent Catholics if they could sup- press these two obstacles that stand in the way of their passions ! The worst feature of religious error in the nineteenth century is its having denied the sacra- mental character of marriage. The evangelical consis- tory, assembled in council, authorized, in virtue of the tolerant maxims of Melanchton, Philip the Magnan- imous, Elector of Hesse, to share his throne with two Electresses at the same time. The King of Prussia, Frederick William II., who gave his right hand to the Queen, gave his left to Julia von Voss. This second marriage was blessed, on the 25th of May, 1787, in the chapel of the castle of Charlottenburg, by the reverend Zoellner, preacher at the court. Liberalism, which is, in certain respects, the degen- erate offspring of Protestantism, is doctrinally power- less to prevent the natural consequences of the suppres- sion of the sacrament of marriage. Outside the Cath- CATHOLIC COUNTBIES AND MORALITY. 185 olio faith, practised in spirit and in truth, one may be chaste in three ways : as a man without love, as a pious Mussulman, or as a eunuch. Thank heaven, there have beeD^since Henry VIII, the man of seven "succes- sive " wives, myriads of sincere, pious and chaste Prot- estants, but they were and are so in the name of the principles of the Catholic Church, which, by a strange inconsistency, they practise, whilst opposing them dog- matically ; and the public which has applauded the Liberal homilies of M. de Laveleye, call these Protest- ants pietists or hypocrites. There are two gates of exit in the Catholic Church,or rather a single gate with two foldings ; the pride of the body, which is volup- tuousness, and the voluptuousness of the spirit, which is pride. To assert that the sincere practice of the Catholic faith can engender immorality, one must not have the faintest idea of the organism of the Church and of the spiritual conditions of its existence. Logic- ally it is a contradiction in action. In fact, morals are more pure in Spain and Italy than in the Protestant countries of the North. I know that, since 1870 especially, people say very much of the immorality of the French, which may have been the ally of the German schoolmaster in leading to the military triumph of Sedan. In the very palace of Louis XIV. at Versailles, during the siege of Paris, the highest military authority of the German army pronounced a grand eulogy on German morals and on those of Berlin ; it is from that epoch that people, when speaking of Berlin, date this phrase, " the city of pious morals and of the fear of God.'* It is only 186 THE FUTUKE OP CATHOLIC PEOPLES. too true that in certain parts of France, in the centre especially and in the departments adjoining Paris, there reigns an amount of immorality which makes us fear for the future of the nation. But these depart- ments are precisely those in which the influence of the Catholic Church has been most successfully op- used. These districts, however, are no more immoral t^iaii the entire north of Germany, which a person must nave lived in to know it thoroughly. I have some knowledge of Mecklenburg and the neighboring prov- inces ; nowhere in France have I witnessed so much baseness, so much gross materialism, so much stupid impurity. Paris is cited, not without reason, as one of the bordels of modern civilization ; but this city of pleasures, this rendezvous of the lazy, the idle and the vicious of the entire world has never passed, as far as I know, for a Catholic city : they kill the archbishops there, shoot the hostages, erect resounding tribunes for the implacable enemies of the Church and run thither from the four corners of the world to applaud in the theatres, on the boulevards, in the cafe's, in the concert saloons and elsewhere, all the vices which are the concrete negation of Catholic faith and morality. At London, in the capital of the only Prot- estant country in which Catholics can now- adays derive useful instruction from things which their blind or liberal governments have made them forget, ancient laws of Catholic origin do not permit the pub- lic exhibition of elegant or ingenious vice ; but is this great city on the whole more moral than Paris? I doubt it. As to the city of Berlin I am certain that it CATHOLIC COUNTEIES AND MORALITY. 187 it is inferior to Paris in respect to morals. Vice does not enjoy there, as at Paris, the vogue organized by men of letters, of art or of the theatre, who, under the most fallacious pretexts, I grant, make you at least laugh quite heartily sometimes, or hold you under the charm of a language and manner worthy of the most polished society ; but the vice which stalk; abroad at Berlin is gross and brutal, without elegance and without refinement. All the social wounds of France weigh heavily upon it, and the odors of Paris " are unendurable there. If you wish to appreciate all the hideousness of French vices you must go and examine their translations at London and especially at Ber- lin where divorce has attained proportions unheard of in the history of Christian peoples. I might speak at great length of all the solid virtues of the German Catholics, and I was personally acquainted, even in the north of Germany, with many Protestant families that might be cited as models, but it would be impos- sible for me to find, in any large city in the world, as many religious works as there are in Paris. Side by side with the most repulsive moral infections, we see arising the radiant beauty of the charity whose inces- sant action possesses the marvellous gift of purifying the atmosphere through which it passes. Do you wish to comprehend in a single phrase the abyss which separates the moral condition of Paris from that of London and Berlin. In Paris the Sister of Charity is honored and the Little Sister of the Poor is pro- tected ; in London they are beginning to be tolerated ; they are proscribed in Berlin. 188 THE FUTURE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. I read recently in an essay by Dr. Fonsagrives of Moc tpellier on Hygiene Sociale : *'It is stated that there is in Europe an average ille- i icy of 15 natural children in every 100 births. I t 'nought it interesting to compare the amount of ille- gitimacy throughout the entire of European peoples of German race with what it is among peoples of L .tin race, and I have found that for the former it was 15 per cent., and for the latter 6.11. Where, then, is this German morality of which so much has been said in these latter years ?" In Sweden and Norway immorality is "prodigious." Bayard Taylor wrote, as far back as 1858, that "the Church of Sweden is being slowly petrified by pure inertia." I would be glad to have M. de Laveleye or some other modern Protestant cite for me a man, a book, a work of contemporary Sweden, in the interest of the Christian religion and morality, whose merits entitle it to European notice. "In no Christian communion," says a Scotch Protestant writer, Mr. Laing, "has religion less influence on the moral state of the public. When a man is passing through the streets of Stockholm, he may make this reflection : out of every three persons passing alongside of me there is one that is the fruit of illicit intercourse, and out of every forty-nine, one at least has committed criminal offences." Mr. Inglis, however, another Protestant traveller, does not hesitate to assert that ' the standard of morality is much higher in Sweden than in Norway." In this latter country "indifference with regard to religion is general." This will suffice, CATHOLIC COUNTRIES AND MOBALITY. 189 I hope, on this subject whose details it is very hard to expound to a Catholic public. Let us say nothing of the nursery of the Mormons, Denmark, where in 1777 and in 1789, they still de- creed the penalty of death against the Catholic priests who should set their foot on the territory of the king- dom. If from Protestant Prussia " the country of pious morals and of the fear of God, " if from Sweden, which but lately was the most violently intolerant country in Europe before the publication of the Talk laws, if from Norway, which is still more immoral than Sweden, and that is saying very much, we passed over to Scotland, the most Calvinistic and the most in- temperate country in the world, we should have a vile picture to unfold to the eyes of the reader ; we would have to develop this theme of the Saturday JReview (8th Oct. 1859) : " It is certain that Scotland presents the spectacle of being the nation that is most completely Puritanized and the most completely addicted to drnnkenness that is on the surface of the earth. New York is indis- putably the most immoral city in the world ; at Geneva religion is almost unknown ; and at Glasgow the sons of the Covenanters form the population that is most brutalized by drunkenness." . We should also study this other subject, lately pointed out by the Times : " According to a parliamentary document recently published by Parliament and compiled by Dr. Cameron, during the year ending the 30th of June 1875, 61,173 persons were arrested in Scotland for 190 THE FUTURE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. drunkenness : 38,213 as " drunk and incapable," and 26,960 as " drunk and disorderly." But we must restrain ourselves. The pages that precede suffice, morever, to prove satisfactorily the futility of M. de Laveleye's incredible argu- ments. However, before leaving this matter I will cite another book written by Dr. John Forbes, a physician of the Court of England. In his '* Memoranda in Ireland in 1852," John Forbes, M. D., physician to her Majesty's household, has established in the following manner the statistics of illegitimate births in the British Isles : Catholic Ireland has one illegitimate in every 16.47 le- gitimate births ; England one in every 1.49 ; arch-Pro- testant Wales one in 0.46. These proportions are far from being favorable to M. de Laveleye's thesis. There are others which will somewhat grieve him also. In Ireland the Catholic faith not only embalms patriot- ism, but also preserves private morals ; in Catholic Connaught there is one illegitimate birth in every 23. 53 legitimate ones, whilst in Protestant Ulster there is one in every 7.26. If I add that the apostle of temperance, the ad- mirable and heroic Father Mathew, came from Con- naught,* I will have completely destroyed the obscuri- ties which M. de Laveleye has tried to heap aron the glorious purity of Catholic morality. Let us now pass on to another subject. * We have already corrected this mistake. CHAPTEK Yin. THE REFORMATION HAS NOT FAVORED THE DEVELOPMENT OF CIVIL LIBERTIES. Wherever the Kef onnation Triumphed it Set up u State Church, Destroyed Civil Liberty, and Forced the Nation to Recede instead of Advancing in the way of Political Progress Civil and Political Liberties have relatively Flourished only in Countries in which the Leaders of the Reformation did not Succeed in Setting up a State Cnurch, and in which a Large Portion of the Nation Remained Catholic and anoth- er portion were Divided into Separate Religious Communi- ties In Catholic Countries Civil Liberty is Ancient, Absol- utism Modern The Catholic Church alone is Capable of Resisting in the midst of a Nation that Contains the Dis- solving Element by Virtue of the Civil Liberty of Express- ing all Imaginable Opinions, and of Practising every kind of Worship Demonstration of these Theses by Facts. M. de Laveleye's essay is devoid of method. One must read and re-read it to discover the connection of his arguments. The author mingles and intermingles the most dissimilar subjects, and renders very arduous the task of his best disposed adversaries. This disor- der of his ideas naturally manifests itself in the ex- pression of his thoughts. Thus, the all-important question of the Catholic Church and civil liberties is treated by him in three or four different places with great levity and without logical sequence. In the chapter which I now take up, and which re- sembles a book of notes from badly digested readings, he lays down the questions imperfectly ; repeats errors and even calumnies a thousand times refuted ; takes no 192 THE FUTURE OF CATHOLIC EOPLES. account of the immense labors of the historical criti- cism of our times; incorrectly defines principles and institutions which he afterwards takes the facile pleasure of blaming, criticising, and even execrating ; ignores even the whole of the doctrines which form the basis of the Keformation ; reasons upon a fantastical Protestantism ; refutes Calvin with the aid of Luther, and Luther by means of Calvin, etc. I ask the reader's pardon if, in my turn, the necessi- ties of this discussion shall compel me to take the lib- erty of refuting some charges. However, I will exert every effort to avoid them. M. de Laveleye pretends that the Reformation has favored the development of civil liberty, whilst the Catholic Church inevitably leads nations to despotism and anarchy. The natural government of Protest- ant peoples would be the representative regime, whilst Catholics are born for absolutism. This thesis is so diluted by the author, and so feebly developed, that I believe it useless to follow his flimsy argumentation. His principal authority against the Catholics in this matter is Bossuet, the theologian of the Gallican Church, a Church which has affinities with Josephism and Liberalism. If I were inclined to enter into a discussion on this point I could easily prove that the passages quoted from the Bishop of Meaux do not say all that M. de Laveleye thinks they do. I will content myself with denying the authority of Bossuet in mat- ters of civil-ecclesiastical law, and I will abandon to M. de Laveleye the elegant and literary Csesarism of Louis XIV., and even the whole political developmen THE REFORMATION AND CIVIL LIBERTIES. 193 of the French monarchy since Louis XI. (Every one knows that MM. Michelet, L. Blanc, Quinet, Esqui- ros, etc., already rank this latter among the precur- sors of the French Bevolution.) As to the very basis of his thesis, M. de Laveleye does not appear to have reflected much upon it, else he would at least know by name the work of Dr. Doll- inger, his present ally ("The Church and the Churches"), and those of M. L. Martin and Mr. Mar- shall, already mentioned. I am going to make ex- tracts from these learned writers and copy them, in a certain sense, for the purpose of giving a rapid demon- stration of the following propositions : 1. Wherever the Keformation has triumphed it has set up a State Church,* restrained civil liberty, and forced the nation to recede instead of advancing on the path of political progress. 2. Civil and political liberties have relatively flour- ished only in countries where the leaders of the Be- formation did not succeed in erecting a State Church, in which a large portion of the people remained Catho- lic, and another portion was divided into separate re- ligious societies. * Beligious unity, maintained by political institutions, is an incalculable benefit. The Catholic Church has never ceased to proclaim this truth. But when Protestants establish State Churches, they act in opposition to the fundamental principle of their religious rebellion. With Protestants the State Church represents to some extent an ecclesiastical State, whilst in the Catholic teaching, religious unity is considered not as a temporal means of government, but as a principle, directing and superior to it. With Protestants the State Church is an in- strument of the State, 194 THE FUTUBE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. 3. In Catholic count rcccivi! liberty is ancient, ab- solutism modern. 4. In the midst of a nation, the Catholic Church alone is capable of offering a religious resistance, as a form of worship, to the dissolving element contained in the civil liberty of expressing all imaginable sorts of opinions and of practising every species of worship. In drawing up this conclusion I do not pretend to say that this civil liberty is favorable to the propagation of the truth, much less that it is essential to this propa- gation. I simply state a fact. Before the sixteenth century, civil toleration in re- ligious matters was unknown in European politics, un- less in Rome, where the Jewish religion has been civilly tolerated in the Ghetto ever since the fall of the Roman Empire. Outside the Universal Church there never were any except national religions, and these are in- tolerant in their very political essence. After the coronation of Charlemagne at Rome, Eu- rope wa.s considered as a Christian republic, practising the worship of the Universal Church, and there could be no question of introducing another without ruin- ing the very constitution of the Holy Empire. The Reformation was brought about in the name of liber- ty of conscience, but in reality it was everywhere the bitterest enemy of this liberty. Wherever the Luth- erans and Calvinists have had the mastery, they have suppressed it. In England, Ireland, Denmark, Sweden, Branden- burg and at Geneva, all the " Reformers," I say all, regarded the oppression of the Catholic Church an first hear the StateSo In 1693 royalty was declared 200 THE FUTTJBE OP CATHOLIC PEOPLES* absolute. Charles XII. sent word one day to the Diet that he would send his boots to preside over it, "or to have them blackened," as they would say in Liberal Belgium. After the murder of this amiable free- thinker, "Swedish liberty," that is to say, the dom- ination of the nobility, was reestablished, and the most scandalous revolutions succeeded one another until the murder of Gustavus. Lutheran Sweden was then nothing more than a "gambling house of in- trigue and political corruption." Finland became Russian, and the kingdom found a more or less re- paratory political rest only in the arms of a French Catholic general who thought that the crown was well worth an abjuration. Sweden is still asleep. With- out Linnseus, Berzelius, and Geijer it would be to-day as little known among us as the Indians of Lake Mara- caibo. Behold what Protestantism has made of the land of the sainted King Eric IX. M. de Laveleye, erase Sweden from your enchanting table of civil liberty! Cancel Denmark also. Molesworth, an English- man, who was thoroughly conversant with the history of the Protestants of the North, wrote so long ago as 1692 : " In the Eoman Catholic religion, with its su- preme head who is at Borne, there is a principle of op- position to unlimited political power. But in the North the Lutheran Church is completely subject to the civil power and reduced to a state of servitude. All the peoples of Protestant countries have lost their liberties since they changed their religion for a better." In Denmark Lujbheranism had completely triumphed. THE BEFOBMATION AND OTVXL LIBERTIES. 201 What was the result of this victory ? Herr Barthold, a l^rotestant historian of Berlin, replies : "The peas- ant was anew submitted to the savage like a dog ; the citizens, deprived of every means of defence, groaned beneath the weight of oppression and the military regime. The North was Lutheran,but the king and the nobility shared the sovereignty between them, and the children of the preachers themselves and of the sacristans were serfs." The nobility seized not only upon the ecclesiastical property but even on the free lands of the peasantry. Mr. Allen, in his History of Denmark, which the Academy of Copen- hagen has crowned, and acknowledged to be the best book of its kind, says: " The farmers of the great eccle- siastical domains had to exchange the mild administra- tion of the clergy for the crushing yoke of the nobil- ity. The services were arbitrarily multiplied, the peasants were treated as serfs. Agriculture, being neglected, fell below the level which it had reached in the Middle Ages. The population diminished. The country was covered with deserted habitations." In a short time the clergy and the middle classes in their turn felt in their civil capacity the progress of the Eeformation. Eight or nine hun- dred nobles reigned as masters over a country which was no longer defended by the apos- tolical liberty of which the Catholic Church has the in- corruptible deposit. Christian IV. (1588-164:8) tried to break this absolutism. He failed. The revolution of 1660 was more successful ; the despotism of the nobility was overturned, but the great body of the 202 THE FUTUBE OP CATHOLIC PEOPLES. people gained nothing by it. Frederic HE. and his suc- cessors declared themselves absolute kings. A law of 16G5 proclaimed that the king had not to take any oath, nor to acknowledge an obligation of any kind whatever, but could do all that he pleased with a full and entire authority. What a disgrace for a people ! Let men compare with this ignominy the oath of the Catholic kings of Aragon before the Kenaissance, the obligations of the kings of Castile, our Belgian charters and those of the Basque provinces, which are still in existence, and, with his hand on his conscience, let him make a choice. In 1687 the misery of the Danish peasants was such that a fifth of the properties formerly culti- vated by them remained fallow. In 1702 Frederic VI. abolished serfage to make way for another sort of tyranny: the peasant "was attached to the soil." During the eighteenth century entire villages disap- peared in the gulf of misery caused by an illiterate and shameless absolutism. Schools were lacking. In 1766 popular instruction was, so to say, null. At the end of the eighteenth century scarcely one person out of every twenty knew how to read. In 1805 personal liberty was accorded, for the first time, to 20,000 (I say twenty thousand) families of serfs. In a petition addressed in 1714 to King Frederic IV., the bishops of Norway, the country of St. Olaf II., already made the following avowal : " With the exception of a small number of the children of God, there is between us and our pagan ancestors only one difference, that is that we bear the name of Christians." The provincial States re-estab- lished by Frederic VI. did not limit the royal absolut THE REFORMATION AND CIVIL LIBERTIES. 203 ism in Denmark. An observer favorable to the Danes, the Scotchman Laing, whom I have already cited, made this remark in 1839 : " As the Danes are completely passive with regard to politics, and never raise their voice to discuss their own affairs, they are yet found to be, in spite of the great number of excellent ordinances decreed by the government, in the same condition in which they were in 1660. They are two centuries behind the age, com- pared with the Scotch, the Dutch, and the Belgians, .with whom at first sight they might be compared under the relation of population and their general situation." From the Danes let us pass to their co-religion- ists, the German Lutherans. In Germany, says the Prussian Protestant historian, Herr H. Leo, "the na- tural result of the reformation was that this power of the princes and the cities of the empire (that of the functionaries) increased considerably, and that, on the contrary, the liberty of the mediate nobility, of the peasants and that of the State was annihilated." It would be really too long and even fastidious to show here the development of this conclusion, unfortunately too true, in the different Protestant States : Mecklen- burg where serf age was abolished only in 1829;Pomer- ania where the States General were suppressed almost immediately under the first Protestant duke; the duchies of Hanover and Brunswick where the oral procedure and the States General disappeared before the absolutism of the prince, and where the historian would find nothing to glean, from the beginning of the seventeenth century, but the vulgar gossip of the table 204: THE FUTURE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. and the alcove, if the illustrious memory of Leibnitz, who had no repugnance for Catholic sentiments, did not hover over this country, etc., etc. Time and space are wanting to me. Let us speak only of the electorate of Brandenburg, the model of the States that are "defenders of civil liberties and of tolera- tion." The reader will remember that the malady of the Reformation was innoculated only by degrees into Brandenburg, and into Prussia, which was wrested, as is well known, from the Teutonic Order. During the whole of the sixteenth century there was a certain amount of hesitation in the Hohenzollern princes. The weak Duke Albert, the Elector Joachim and his son, John-George, on account of their disorders, had need of the concurrence of the States which served the cause of good as well as that of evil in the sixteenth century. Even from the beginning of the seventeenth century, the convocation of the States was at first in- terrupted ; after 1656 no diet was ever again convoked whilst the French were ruining the Palatinate, ac- cording to the military custom of the lansquenets and reiters of the time, the "great" Elector was adminis- tratively devastating his own States. His government differed in no respect from those of Sweden and Den- mark, either in despotism or in grossness. Prus- sia, according to the expression of the historian Sten- zel, was on the way to become one of those Asiatic States in which despotism crushes everything that is noble and beautiful. War and the passion for the chase, which the Elector satisfied by employing there- THE REFORMATION AND CIVIL LIBERTIES. 205 in 3,000 men, were the two "ideas" which the nation had to favor while exhausting its strength. Thus were the slavery and serfage which were oppressing the peasant rigorously maintained. Frederic I., the first king in Prussia, by the gift of the Emperor Leo- pold of Hapsburg, continued the same system of "tol- eration." It was he who invented for his court, copied after that of Versailles, the charge of the mistress. The Countess of Wartenburg had to perform the duties of this honorary charge, to walk every day in company with the EjDg for half an hour in the royal gardens, in presence of the courtiers, the ancestors of those who at present express such fine phrases on the corruption of the French. Frederic William I. (1713-1740), drove abso- lutism to puerility. His anecdotes are found in all the humorous almanacs ; I need not repeat them. Under this ignoble reign the Protestant pastors were less than corporals. I suppose that there is no serious writer in Europe who would dare to transform Frederic II. into a protector of civil liberty. A disciple of Voltaire, who received one day from his Prussian majesty, or by his orders, a branch of green wood, could alone be satisfied with the political principles of this witty and mischie- vous king. Frederic II. granted but one liberty : un- der his reign, each one could "save himself after his own manner," provided, however, that the "majesty of the laws" enacted by this despot was not interfered with. Is not this saving one's self after one's own manner the crowning point of liberalism for the im- mense majority of the present adversaries of the Oath- 206 THE FUTUBE OP CATHOLIC PEOPLES olic Church? Toellner cites a work of Frederic II.* in which this freethinker clearly reveals that the prin- cipal cause of his contempt for Christianity came from the disgust with which ecclesiastical history, as pre- sented by the Protestants, inspired him. For him this history was only a drama played by knaves and hypo- crites, at the expense of the masses, their dupes and victims. I here stop in the expression of the thoughts with which the later history of Prussia inspires me, in the point of view of civil liberty. We are no longer free, even in Belgium, to appreciate this history correctly. Look at what is taking place under our eyes ; and if you have the hardihood to transform what you see into a work of civil liberty, I will call you pharisees. Not only will I discuss no more, but I will prepare myself for self-defence, as if my personal liberty were menaced, just exactly as in the glorious times of Luther, Calvin, -and the Gueux of Holland. When "civil liberty" is not made to consist merely in the gross hatred of the Catholic Church, we may ac- knowledge that the Belgian provinces, from the depar- ture of the Duke of Alva to the importation of the "im- mortal principles of '89" on the point of the bayonets of the army of Dumouriez, enjoyed much more freedom than the Calvinistic Netherlands. The recent labors of Professor Poullet of Louvain throw floods of light on this historical point. During two centuries Holland * Preface to the book entitled : Abrtge de VMstoire ecclesia*- tique de Fkury. Berne (Berlin), 1767. M. de Trades is the au thor of this book, and Frederick II. wrote the preface. THE REFORMATION AND CIVLL LIBERTIES. 207 was torn by the spirit of faction, and it was saved from the absolutism of the House of Orange only by the par- tial failure of the Calvinists. If Holland had become entirely Calvinist it would have experienced the polit- ical fate of Sweden, Prussia, and Denmark. "The Reformed Church of Holland," says the Protestant Niebuhr, "has been grossly tyrannical, and can be praised neither for intellect nor for the common sense of its doctrines. Calvinism has shown everywhere, in Holland, in Scotland, and at Geneva, a desire for blood equal, at least, to that of the Inquisition, and has no- where revealed a single one of the merits of the Cath- olic religion." The absolutism of Calvinism and of the House of Orange was stopped by the formation of new sects and by the obstinate fidelity of a large por- tion of the people to the Catholic Church. The Cath- olics, deprived of all political rights, always served as a support to the opposition party, and this rendered impossible the omnipotence of the dominant Church. The execution of Barneveld and the murder of the brothers De Witt remind us also that Protestant Hol- land is not in a position to reproach Spain, for example, with the number of its revolutions. Towards the end of the eighteenth century the fury of the rebels called in even foreign intervention, a thing which the Catho- lic Spaniards have never tolerated. The Dutch have allowed to come among them successively the Prussians, the French and the English. In 1787 the Prussians, masters of Amsterdam, protected the Orangists. In 1795, a comrade of Bernadotte reduced Holland to the condition of a chapel of ease to the French Republic. 208 THE FUTUKE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES, The Dutch were so enervated by their political revolu- tions that they even mimicked the Jacobins of Paris. In the point of view of civil liberties Holland offers, however, a more consoling spectacle than all the other Protestant nations. Calvinism was the State religion but the States General guaranteed, in different degrees and according to the different epochs, a certain liberty to dissenters, Arminians, Lutherans, Mennonites and other sects that came from abroad. The Catholics alone, forming two-fifths of the population, were op- pressed, and even pitilessly so, down to the present gen- eration. The States General protected Spinoza and Bayle, but they proscribed the religious liberties of the coreligionists of Fe'ne'lon and Malebranche. All the filth of the literature of the eighteenth century has been reprinted in Holland; St. Vincent de Paul would not be permitted to preach there. It is in Scotland that we observe most clearly what becomes of fabricated religions. Lord Clarendon said in 1660 of the Scotch : " All their religion consists in having a horror of ^Papacy." To encounter horrors of this kind it is not necessary to visit the country of Knox. Few " apostles of toleration " have driven ha tred of the truth as far as has this fanatic. Like the other " Beformers," he declared that it belonged spe- cially to the civil power to regulate all that concerns religion. He cau sed the punishment of death to be decreed against any one who would twice celebrate the holy sacrifice of the mass. Under the inspiration of Calvinism an ecclesiastical tyranny was organised in Scotland of which we can hardly form an idea at pres- THE KEFOBMATION AND CIVIL LIBERTIES. 209 ent, and of which we ought to read the description in the "Domef tic Annals" of Mr. Robert Chambers: the private life of citizens was subjected to an Asiatic inquisition. Nowhere, not even at Geneva, was such a despotism ever seen. It was broken only in 1713, when Parliament refused to it the support of the secu- lar arm. Fortunately, also, the crown, supported by the Parliament, forced the Calvinists to tolerate the in- troduction of the Episcopal Church. It is in reality only since 1735 that there has reigned a " certain " liberty in Scotland. Then, and then only, the poor Highlanders, who remained attached to the Catholic faith, were permitted to descend from their mountains to practise the religion of their ancestors and to teach England the spiritual power of the religion of Edward the Confessor. I have said enough of England. Of the Puritans and Quakers there is no more question now, and M. de Laveleye seeks in vain to shape a pedestal for them. No one around him will understand him, not even Mr. Gladstone. No more will I lose time in describing the anarchy of the Protestant sects, or (as Dr. Dollinger formerly put it) of the Protestant denominations in the United States. I will only recall a memorable fact : since the wild preachings of Luther a single and only one sincere attempt at a regime of civil and religious liberty was attempted in the world before Washington's time, and by whom ? By Catholics. I mean the foundation of Maryland (Terra Marise), by Lord Balti- more. And who destroyed this regime in which this illustrious Catholic invited all the Protestant sects to 210 THE FUTUBE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. take part ? The Puritans, Quakers, &c, Protestants. In so hasty a sketch as this I can only point out the principal facts. I imagine, however, that those which I have mentioned will suffice to prove the rigorous ex- actitude of my two former propositions, namely, that Protestantism has ruined civil liberty wherever it has had the preponderance ; and that in a political point of view it has provoked a retrograde movement among the peoples that have experienced its fatal influences. In Catholic nations liberty is old, despotism modern. Eogland is the living proof of this proposition. The country which at present gives the clearest idea of what European peoples would be if Protestantism or the Kenaissance had not stifled among them the devel- opment of the institutions that sprung from the great and fruitful movement of the thirteenth century, is the united Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. All the civil liberties of England, save that of worship, which dates from our age, existed before the birth of Luther. England alone escaped the evil influences of the pagan Renaissance, which the Catholic Church has combated and still combats. If Great Britain separated from the Church of Home, it was under a form which still ap- pears too Catholic to the reformers of our time. In effect, the Episcopal system of England, essentially Catholic, is the negation of the fundamental principle of Protestantism. All the fruitful things of ELgland date from the Catholic ages or are essentially Catholic ; all that the present situation of England includes of dangerous is a result of the religious revolution com- manded by Henry VIII. THE KEFOK&ATION AND CIVIL LIBERTIES. 211 France, Spain, Austria, Portugal and Italy, have es- caped, J acknowledge, the consequences of the Refor- mation only to fall into the generative error of the Re- naissance, Csesarism, or its more modern form, Lib^r- alism. Their misfortune has been less great than that of Protestant nations, but they have suffered and are still suffering none the less from this great fault. To become free once more Catholics require only " the liberty of the children of God," that which grants them the free profession of their religion and which gives to tLeir Church the civil liberty of practising its worship and its teachings. Protestant nations, themselves, are becoming free only by ceasing to be Protestant, or at least only at the price of the visible decay of their wor- ship. This double phenomenon, which is foretold in the Scriptures and in our catechisms, may be observed in our epoch with a piecisioii which leaves no room for doubt. Ubi Petrus ibl Ecclesia. In the political language of our time this phrase of St. Ambrose may be thus trans- lated : Where the Pope is there is liberty. Outside Christianity there is no civil liberty. An- cient liberty was based on slavery, which Aristotle, the prince of pre-Christian philosophy, justified "ra- tionally." The integral Christian truth is found only in the Universal Church, which is that of the Pope ; and without truth there is no liberty. Cognosces veritatem et veritas liberabit vos. Let us raise our intelligences above our miserable differences on questions of persons or on distinctions of words, and let us consider in its entirety the history 212 THE FUTURE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. of the Universal Church from the martyrdom of St. Peter to the injuries with which the Sovereign Pontiff, Pius IX., is overwhelmed, whom may God preserve and make to live to the age of John. During these eighteen centuries the Catholic, Apostolic and Roman Church has found itself in open hostility with all the errors of which the spirit of evil is capable, but it has triumphed over all, from the hatred of the Jews, who stoned St. Stephen, to the brutality of the savages who shot the late Archbishop of Paris. Christians have never doubted of it, since it is written that the gates of hell shall never prevail against the Church of Peter. But it is not useless to prove to unbelievers, by ex- perience, that what was written has been realized. The distinction of the two powers, as one would say in school, thut is to say, the source of civil liberty, has been re- vealed to humanity by the Gospel ; it was unknown to paganism. Christians, the best instructed, as well as the least intelligent, know by faifch that this distinction of the two powers is henceforward the condition of social life, and they do not doubt that it will remain intact until the consummation of the world, until the day when all the distinctions of this world will disap- pear to make way for the truth which is eternally one. But, as doubts may arise somewhere, I am going to show, by the exterior history of the Church of Home, that it alone in the world has known how to maintain, alongside the purity of the faith in Jesus Christ, the in- tegrity of the civil liberties. When the fisherman of Galilee, called St. Peter, arrived at Rome, which he surnamed "Babylon" (I. THE REFORMATION AND CIVIL LIBERTIES. 213 Peter, v. 13), to establish his see there, the empire, in the apogee of its greatness, presented the spectacle of a grand corruption and an unparalleled despotism which the literary world knows from Tacitus and Juvenal,of which the Christians have been the witnesses, and whose living history we possess in the Acts of the Martyrs. From the crucifixion of the first Pope on the hill of the Vatican to the universal edict of toleration published in 313 by Constantine, during three cen- turies, the blood of the Catholics washed away the in- famies of the old world. It is from the depths of the catacombs that civil liberty has sprung, and it was with just reason that Julian the Apostate exclaimed when dying : "Galilean, thou hast conquered I" How many apostates of our time have made the same avowal ! Then come the barbarians. Who will stay their pro- gress? The Eoman Empire or the Church, the sons of Theodosius or Pope St. Leo the Great ? When the Eoman Empire of the West became extinct in 476, in an infant's cradle, that of Eomulus Augustulus, the Eoman Church had induced the savages of the North to accept the torch of the faith which was the only light of civil society. "It is not by constraint and violence that Christians ought to overturn error," ex- claimed St. John Chrysostom ; "it is by persuasion, instruction and charity." From Pope St. Gregory the Great to Pope St. Nicholas the Great, this work of spiritual sanctification and civil culture was unin- terrupted. St. Gregory civilizes England, and St. Nicholas appoints as Archbishop of Bremen and Ham- burg St, Ansgar, the Apostle of the North of Europe. 214 THE FUTURE OP CATHOLIC PEOPLES. During these nine first centuries what became of the sects of the Arians, the Manicheans, the Nestorians, etc. ? They were an historical cloud of dust, which dis- appeared before Asiatic despotism. What is the schism of Photius, the Greek Church, going to become when separated from the Pope ? Byzantinism, a word which designates at the sarae a Church without expansion and a society without civil liberty. Charlemagne, founding the Holy Eomnn Empire of the Teutonic nation, is crowned by the Sovereign Pon- tiff, and accepts the charge of maintaining civil liberty in the West, which was incessantly menaced by the in- vasion of fresh hordes of barbarians, or by the rudeness of the old ones. In a short time, under the weak successors of the great Emperor, civil authority is threatened with fresh dangers : the abuses of the feudal system, political anarchy, serfage under all i s forms, the right of force, etc. Without the Catholic Church it would be all over with civil liberty. The communal era begins. Among the first protect- ors of communal liberty, I perceive in Italy a Pope, Alexander II. Who resists the Germanic Caesars when they endeavor to transplant the laws and customs of Byzantium to Europe ? The Church of Eome. Without the perseverance of Catholic peoples, without the fidel- ity of the Catholic hierarchy, without the indom 4 nble moral erergy of myriads of Catholic bishops an 3 monks, without the supreme resistance of the succes- sor > of St. Peter, of a Gregory VII., an In- ncert III., a Boniface VIII., and all the others, the coalition 01 in- THE REFORMATION AND CIVIL LIBERTIES. 215 continent priests and German Cassarism would have triumphed as early as the middle of the Middle Ages. From the beginning of the thirteenth century, when the attempt at a universal Germanic neo-Csesarism had failed, the jurists and liberals took up the important work in a subordinate manner. To comprehend the great danger of this action to the liberty of Europe, it suffices to read the consultations of the doctors of Bologna.brought by Frederick Barbarossa to the Diet of Roncaglia, and the civil code written by Pierre Desvignes for Frederic II. at Naples, Frederick II. who was freely enjoying himself going about through Sicily with a Mussulman body-guard, and living like an Ori- ental pasha,minus the piety. The maternal solicitude of the Roman Church delivered Christendom from these new perils. When the partial success of Protestantism had broken the moral unity of the Christian republic, the principle admitted in the empire of the distinction of the two pow- ers had henceforward for rampart nothing more than the strength, so to say personal or hereditary, of the House of Hapsburg. The Church did not the less persist in its immutability, and it is to its protection that we owe our preservation from the decadence with which we were menaced at the same time by the pagan material- ism of the Renaissance, the absolutism of the Protes- tant princes, the rigorism of the Jansenists, and the invasions of the Turks. If Europe did not entirely es- cape the heavy blows of the revolutions of the sixteenth century, if it had to witness the corruption of so many salutary civil institutions which the Middle Ages had 216 THE FUTUEE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. made to flourish, if we have seen a revival of all the theories and practices of the imperial Boman law, our Catholic ancestors at least found, thaaks to the unsha- ken attitude of the Church of Borne, a modus vivendi which will prevent Europe from descending to the bot- tom of the moral scale, where we have known Sweden, Denmark, Russia, and even England, to be. The Turks no longer appear to us to be an object of dread, because we are generally ignorant of their for- mer power at a time when our ancestors added to their litanies : From the fury of the Turks, O Lord, deliver ns. But we can at least judge in Africa, Asia and the Peninsula of the Balkans of the fatal consequences which the political greatness of the Osmanlis has had for the civil liberty of the peoples whom they have conquered. Who has saved Europe from this corrod- ing influence ? The Church of Borne. In 732 a Catho- lio army, under the command of a Franc chief, Charles Martel, stopped the progress of the Mussul- mans at Poitiers. For seven centuries the Catholic Spaniards continued to render their name illustrious for the defence of civil liberties in combating the Mo- hammedans who established themselves in their count- ry. It is to Pope St. Pius V. that we owe the victory of Lepanto. It was the Catholic peoples of the Austri- an Empire, the Catholic Hapsburgs, John Sobieski and his Poles who stopped the course of the Turks on the Danube and prevented modern Europe from resem- bling the Herzegovina and Bosnia of our own days. I have just pronounced the name of Polanl which Montalembert on one occasion called " the Niobe of THE REFORMATION AND CIVIL LIBERTIES. 217 nations, " Its civil liberty, its secular institutions, its independence, its religion, and even its name, have been ravished, in the midst of peace, from this heroic people, by a coalition of Lutherans, schismatics and Febronians. The English Minister, Mr. Harris, after- wards first Earl of Malmesbury, who assisted at this international crime, having rendered an account of the facts to his government, the Earl of Suffolk, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, tranquilly replied : " It is a curious transaction. " One man alone protested in Europe : the Pope, Ubi Petrus ibi Libertas. Where the Pope is there is liberty. I have sketched the picture of the ruins caused by Protestantism in civil society. I might add to it that of the noble resistance of the Church of Home to the excesses of modern Caesarism, Gallicanisin, Joseph- ism, " Sans-culottism," andBonapartism, The great- est despot of modern times met with invincible resist- ence only twice ; from the Catholic Spaniards and from Pius VII. Contemporary Liberalism, the Ari- anism of the nineteenth century, perceives before it only one insurmountable obstacle, that is, the immov- able rock of the Catholic, Apostolic and Eoman Church, which will triumph over this error as it has triumphed over the others. I will not enter at this point into the development of this subject which would bring me outside the bounds of this work. I reply, moreover, only to assertions. After having accumulat- ed the proofs and facts, I ought to be allowed in my turn to terminate this part of the discussion by an af- firmation which is at this moment demonstrated by the 218 THE EUTUBE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES, facts in Germany, Switzerland and elsewhere : anti- Catholic Liberalism is for the civil liberty of modern Europe an immense danger against which there is no other remedy than the practice of the Catholic religion. A man of science, a Christian like M. de Laveleye (I ought to consider him as such since he asserts it), should leave to others the charge of managing the trowel with the aid of which certain pourfendeura de clerical scrape the walls of the impregnable fortress of the Church. If he reads the encyclicals <; Mirari vos' T and "Quanta cur a," with calm and reflection, he will find in them no principle which could be rejected by any sincere mind. The whole Christian edifice is an enormous fraud or else these encylicals are the ex- pression of the supreme truth. Free them from the secu- lar style of the Pontifical chancellorship, as you know how to do with a sentence of the old courts of Eng- and or even with our court of cassation ; place your- self on the footing of absolute right, the only one to which the sovereign Pontiff pays any regard ; call to mind that the Pope, when he treats of such subjects, speaks for all ages ; consider the present errors which have provoked these doctrinal decisions ; read over again the minutes of those great trials; reflect serious- ly, humbly, as an attentive, instructed and learned person ought to do in all the great circumstances of life ; and with your hand on your conscience come to a conclusion. I have said and written it, and I re- peat that the Popes of our generation, in pronouncing these doctrinal sentences which ignorance or hatred disfigures, in defining with the authority which be* THE REFORMATION AND CIVIL LIBERTIES. 219 longs to the " science " of the Church of Jesus Christ of eighteen centuries' standing, the absolute conditions of the Christian truth in its relations with the political or civil law, the Popes of our generation have rendered to our age a service which will earn for them the blessing** of poster *ty, I know the part which certain foolish individuals pretend to take from these judgments of admirable wisdom and penetrating foresight : I know that under certain religious waggeries are sometimes concealed the narrow spirit of coteries and the pride of some men who forget that " the faith is a gift from God ; " I hear the imprecations which are launched against all the truly good things of our time by "malcontents" who would have used the same language in the time of St. Francis of Assisi and St. Dominick ; but what I know, see or hear, around or within the environs of the Church cannot prevent me from admiring the bril- liant light which it makes to shine in all directions. Blind, indeed, are they who do not see it. Ubi Petrus ibv Libertas. Where the Pope is there is liberty. M. deLaveleye dares to write that Catholic peoples are fatally condemned to despotism and anarchy, that they alternately become the prey of absolutism and revo- lution. Political absolutism is contrary to the essence of the Church, and it is superabundantly proved by the history of our times that Catholics are being subject- ed to revolutions, but are causing none. If, then, there is a despotism or a revolution anywhere, be sure thaf the friends or the allies of M. de Laveleye are at 220 THE FUTURE OP CATHOLIC PEOPLES. least reaping the benefits of it, if they are not its authors. The Catholics are factious. Long ago, Nero, a very liberal man in politics, but rather rude in the expres- sion of his opinions, was so minded. It was only for this motive that he ordered St. Paul to be beheaded and St. Peter crucified, both of whom were provoking civil war in the empire. There is a fable of Lafon- taine, the Wolf and the Lamb, in which the same stern logic is employed by Mr. Wolf. We are also told that the Catholic faith engenders religious indifference, whust the Protestant sects are kindling fires of fervor. Yes, I am personally acquaint- ed with very fervent Protestants, pious men, of whom I deem it an honor to be the friend, but the profound respect with which their elevated character and the purity of their lives inspires me should not prevent me from replying to M. de Laveleye that he assumes his desires or opinions to be realities. I will not waste my ink in showing that the Catholic Church is not in a state of decadence. If you really believe that the Boman Church is menaced with ruin, let it fall, and take no more concern about it than about the religion of India or that of the Celestial Empire. Let us mention in passing that scientific unbelief and that of the higher or " enlightened " classes began in England, whence it passed into France. A French gentleman, after a certain manner, passed some time in England. When he returned to the court of Louis XIV. the latter asked him : "What have you gone to England to learn?" "To think, Sire." " On* the THE REFORMATION AND CIVIL LIBERTIES. 221 horses ?" replied the king. As to Biblical and philo- sophical rationalism it originated in Germany. M. E. Benan is a pupil, if not a plagiarist, of Herr Strauss : this moral filiation in error does not date Irom our times. After having drawn a picture of th j organism of the Catholic Church, which deiiotes a profound ignorance of the Catechism (let M. de Laveleye allow me to tell him gruffly), he affirms that civil society necessarily tends to shape itself after the religious form which dominates in it. Save one reserve which I will make further on, there is some truth in this last observa- tion. I take hold of it to assert that a perfect civil society would be that in which the Catholic religion would be sincerely practised by every citizen. The argument might also be retorted against its author. In effect, in making the defence of Protestantism of what sect does he mean to speak ? He does not tell us, be- cause, in his error, he only adheres to the Protestant principle , that is to say, to religious individualism, to subjectivism. Substantially, he reasons like the phi- losophers of the tune of St. Ambrose (there is nothing new in these matters since the fourth century). Pro- clus said : " The philosopher does not confine him- self to such or such a national form of worship ; he is not a stranger to any form of religion, for he is the high priest of the universe." The prefect Symmachus (governor or burgomaster, as we would now say) ex- claimed, I think, at a public banquet : "What matter by which way we arrive at the truth ? It is so mysterious that there must be many ways leading to it." But if it is on subjectivism that civil society should be mod- 222 THE FUTURE OF CATHOLIC PEOPLES. eled, this latter will tend in politics to the anarchy of M. Proudhon. The same remark may be applied to the inci edible little dissertation of the author on the infallibility of the magistracy of the Holy Apostolic See. The infall- ibility is not absolute. If M. de Laveleye does not know it, let him learn it from one of the children who attend the catechism in the nearest church. The civil society which will take the Catholic form as a model will not, then, submit to an absolute human authority. In this Church the pontifical authority is no more ter- rible than the paternal authority in the family. Of the two authorities, of which one is natural and the other spiritual, the first is tempered by love and by the civil law, and the second by the grace of God and the very constitution of the Church. I ask every un- prejudiced man, what is there terrible in the authority of our Holy Father, Pope Pius IX ? When I said a little while ago that there was some truth in M. de Laveleye's observation touching the in- fluence that the dominant form of worship of a people has over the form of civil society, I should, however, have made one reserve, which will prove the religious care with which a Catholic ought to maintain the prin- ciple of the necessary distinction of the two powers : the analogy between the form of religious society and the form of civil society is not necessary, for the source of the two societies is different, and this differ- ence is the religious guarantee of civil liberty. The form of religious society is divine and determined by the will of its Founder, the form of human society (ar- THE KEFOBMATION AND CIVIL fclBEKTIES. 223 istocraey, democracy, monarchy, &c.) is of human or- igin. St. Thomas, an " Ultramontane," as M. de Laveleye would say, regards monarchy tempered by aristocracy and democracy, as the best form of govern- ment, whilst Bossuet, the chief of Gallicanism, is an absolutist in politics. This comparison deranges M. de Laveleye's reasoning somewhat. Since the conversion of Constantine, and, more re- cently, since the coronation of Charlemagne as tempo- ral head of the Christian Eepublic, civil society had, under the maternal segis of the Church, followed a de- velopment which the false ideas of the Benaissance came to embarrass and whose unity was broken by the Protestant revolution. Since the sixteenth century European society is morally dismembered, and the secular institutions which the people had gained with difficulty and successively to defend the dignity of political life and civil liberties, have not been any more developed ; they have been corrupted, have fallen into desuetude, or have been violently torn from the popular entrails. All these ruins have been the handiwork of the Benaissance and of Protestant- ism. The French Bevolution, in substituting pure rationalism for the subjective Christianity of the Prot- estants, has not been guilty of an innovation ; it has given to its predecessor, the revolution of the sixteenth century, only a new application, much more dangerous to Protestantism than to the Universal Church. In effect, the Protestant governments suppressed the civil liberty of Catholics ; the French Bevolution had at rk which is being done by Catholic missionaries alike in the East and the West ; the won- drous unity, not only of doctrine but of feeling and sentiment, that pervades the whole Church ; the devo- tion alike of pastors and peoples to Rome all are unmistakable auguries for future good. Learning and literature flourish now as they have ever flourished, under the fostering care of the Church ; Protestantism is everywhere dead or dying. Already its influence is gone. Men will soon be either infidels or Catholics. The Church has conquered Protestantism as she con- quered Arianism ; she will conquer infidelity and Lib- eralism as she conquered Paganism and Eoman Caesar- ism. She is the true civilizing power of the present, as she was in the past. Even as we write, wnnc Liberal philanthropists are talking of opening up Africa, the sons of the Church are not talking but working, and quietly and unostentatiously preparing the way for a systematic attempt to win the dark land of Central Africa to the cross of Jesus Christ. With all this before our eyes, we cannot share in any gloomy 2C4 PLANTATION OF ULSTER. forebodings for the future of Catholic peoples. We are approaching the close of one century, the opening of another. The nineteenth century has been an age of Liberalism, for which the eighteenth had prepared the way. Is there any reason why the twentieth cen- tury should not be an age of Catholicity, the ultimate result of the Pontificate of Pius IX.? We do not think there is. On the contrary, we believe that there is every reason why we should hope and pray for such an event. Even humanly speaking, it is more than possible, and he would be a daring man who would say that the hope is a baseless one. NOTES BY HENKY BELLINGHAM, M. A. The following notes are extracted from an English essay based on Baron de Haulleville's work, by Mr. Henry Bellingham, M. A., Barrister at Law : PLANTATION OF ULSTER. [Note to Chapter II., page 23.] The natives were forcibly taken from their homes, deprived of their wealth, and treated with every indig- nity. The impious soldiery pursued the defenceless priests by day and night throughout the province, whilst they entered private houses at discretion and executed whom they pleased. The Bishop of Down and Connor was executed in Dublin by an English culprit under sentence of death, the only person who could be found to do the bloody deed. The men whose lives the Irish people have always held more sacred than those of their ancient chiefs, APPENDIX. 265 were daily slaughtered before their eyes, and cruelties were perpetrated that would have excited the indigna- tion of the heathen. ENGLAND'S CLAIMS IN AMERICA. INote to Chapter IV., page 123.] England has frequently boasted that she is the mother-land of America, anl yet she has little claim even to this. The majority of English-speaking emi- grants that have flocked there in such large numbers during the last thirty or forty years are Irish ; but to go farther back in history, the first European who went to America was Christopher Columbus, an Italian; the second, Americus Vespucci, a Portuguese ; the third, Sebastian Cabot, a Spaniard ; and yet these persons are reckoned the founders of America. Was it not the Dutch who settled New York, and the Swedes Jersey ? Was it not the Danes who set- tled Delaware, and the Huguenots South Carolina, the Spanish Florida, and the French Louisiana ? The very capital in which Congress is held was presented by Carroll, an Irishman, and by careful examination it will be seen that from the lakes to the gulf, and from ocean to ocean, there is not ten per cent, of English blood in the veins of the people. THE COLONY OP PIOPOLIS. [Note to Chapter IV., page 124.] We must not omit one instance of Catholic coloniza- tion that has occurred within the last few years. After the dispersion of the Papal Zouaves consequent on the seizure of Home by the Italian Government, a portion of that body who were from Canada obtained lands in the forests of their native country, cleared the ground, and erected a small village which is rapidly rising into a town and bringing the adjacent territory into cultiva- tion. This small colony has already prospered beyond 266 PROTESTANT PERSECUTION OF CATHOLICS. all expectation, and is ruled in the spirit of true Chris- tianity, such as was witnessed in the early days of the Church. The village bears the name of Piopolis, in honor of the venerated Pontiff Pius IX. PROTESTANT PERSECUTION OF CATHOLICS. [Note to Chapter F., page 133.] Persecution has not only been more generally prac- tised by Protestants than by Catholics, but it has been more warmly defended and supported by the former than by the latter. Bergier defies Protestants to mention a single town in which tlieir predecessors, on becoming masters of it, tolerated a single Catholic. Bousseau, who was educated a Protestant, says,* that " the Reformation was intolerant from its cradle, and its authors universally persecutors." Bayle, a celebrated Calvinist, has published much the same thing. The Huguenot minister, Jurieu, acknowledges the fact "that Geneva, Switzerland, the various principal- ities of Germany, England, Scotland, Sweden, and Denmark had all employed the power of the State to abolish Popery, and establish the Kef ormation. "f The moderate Melancthon wrote a book J in defence of religious persecution. Calvin was ils great cham- pion, and Beza, who succeeded him, wrote a folio work in defence of it. John Knox advocates it in all his writings. |] Edwin Sandys, Bishop of London, published a book in vindication of it. 1T * '-Lettres de la Mont." f " Tab. Lett.," quoted by Bossuet, avertiss., p. 625, \"De ffceretecis puniendis a civili magi strain, etc., a Theod. Beza." "De Bceret. puniend,," Beza. || See Milner's ** End of Keligious Controversy," p. 439. f Ger. Brandt, " Hist. Beform," abridg., vol. i, p. 234, APPENDIX. 267 James I. was repeatedly urged by Parliament to en- force th laws against Catholics with great rigor, and Archbishop Abbot warned Lim against the sin of tol- eration. (See Hush worth's collection, vol. i. p. 144.) Archbishop Usher and eleven Irish bishops present- ed an address to Charles I. against toleration, in which they declared that to give toleration to Papists was a grievous sn. (See Leland's "Hist, of Ireland," vol. ii. p. 482, ad Neal's " Hist.," vol. ii. p. 469.) The Presbyterian divines assembled at Sion College condemned as an error " the doctrine of tolerat on," under the abused term, as they expressed it, "of liberty of conscience. * James II. was deposed by the English nation be- cause he wished that all his su jects should enjoy the same privileges; and to the present day, the mere fact of a man's being a Catholic is sufficient to make his return to Par.iament in any English country almost an impossibility. Dr. Milner says, with great justice, that when Catholic States and princes persecuted Protestants, it was done in favor of an ancient religion, which had been established in their country perhaps a thousand or fifteen hundred years, and which had long preserved the peace, order, and morality of their respective sub- jects, and when at the same time they clearly saw that any attempt to alter this religion would unavoidably produce disorders and sanguinary contests among them. Protestants, on the contrary, everywhere persecuted on behalf of new systems, in opposition to the estab- lished laws of the Church and of the respective States. Nothing was ever more unfounded than the notion that Protestantism is favorable to freedom of con- science, or that Protestants were not persecutors. Protestants not only persecuted Catholics, but they * " History of Churches of England and Scotland," vol. iii. 268 PROTESTANT PERSECUTION OF CATHOLICS. went so far as to persecute each other to the death. In Scotland the Beformation may be said to have begun by the assassination of Cardinal Beaton, to which Knox was a party, and to which Fox, in his "Acts and Monuments,'* says the murderers w re in- stigated by the Spirit of God. " With such indecent haste," says Eobertson, "did the very persons who had just escaped ecclesiastical tyranny proceed to imi- tate the example." (Robertson's ' History of Scot- land.") See also the answer of the Presbytery to the King and Council in 1596, concerning tie Catholic Earls of Huntley, Erroll, etc. , which declared that the civil power could not spare them, as they were guilty of idolatry, a crime punishable by death. In France it is well known that wherever the Hugue- nots carried their victorious arms against their sove- reign, they prohibited the exercise of the Catholic religion, slaughtered the priests, and burnt the churches and convents (Maimbourg, " Hist. Calvin- ism "). One of their own writers, Nicholas Froumanteau, confesses that in the single province of Dauphiny they killed 256 priests and 112 monks (" Liv. de France "). In these scenes the famous Baron des Adrets sig- nalized his notions of Protestant civilization by forcing the Catholic prisoners to jump from the towers upon the pikes of his soldiers, and by compelling his own children to wash their hands in the blood of the Cath- olics. In the Low Countries it was an ordinary thing for the Calvinists to assault the clergy in the discharge of their fu ctions. Wherever Vandermeck and Sonoi, both of them lieutenants of the Prince of Orange, carried their arms, tiiey uniformly put to death in cold blood all the priests and religious they could APPENDIX. 269 lay hands on, as at Dort, Middlebourg, Delft, etc., (" Hist. Ref. des Pays Has," by the Protestant minis- ter, De Brandt). Feller, a celebrated biographer, states that Vander- meck slaughtered more unoffending Catholics in the year 1752 than Alva executed Protestants during his whole government. Monsieur Keroux, a Protestant writer in "ISAbrege de V Histoire de la Hollande," draws a frightful pic- ture of the barbarities committed against the Catholic peasants of North Holland. Amongst the more illus- trious foreign Protestants who suffered death by the violence of other Protestants may be mentioned the names of Servetus, Gentilis, Felix Mans, Rotman, and Barnevelt. In England during the reign of Edward VI. many Protestant dissenters were condemned and burnt. {See Stow's "Annals.") During the reign of Elizabeth large numbers of persons suffered torture and death for their religious opinions. Full descriptions of those who were thus punished may be found in the works of Stow, Brandt, Collier, Neal, etc. Under James I. , Legat and Wrightman were pub- licly executed for Arianism, and under Charles I. the dissenters complained loudly of their sufferings, and particularly that four of their number Leigh ton, Burton, Prynne, and Bastwick were cropped of their ears and set in the pillory. (See Limborch's * 'History of Inquisition," Neal etc.) When the dissenters got the upper hand they con- tinued to put Catholics to death and treated the Epis- copalians with great severity, at the same time appoint- ing days of humiliation and fasting to beg God's par- don for not being more intolerant. (See Neal's " His- tory of Puritans," " History of Churches of England .and Scotland.") 270 PROTESTANT PERSECUTION OF CATHOLICS. The editor of De Laurie's " Plea for Nonconformists" says that this writer was one of 8, 000 Protestant dis- senters who perished in prison in the single reign of Char'es II., merely for dissenting from the Church of iingland as by law established. For the capital pun- ishment and other sufferings of the Quakers our read- ers may r; fer to Penn's " Life of George Fox." Protestant countries can lay no claim to be exempt from anarchy and revolution. To begin with, neither Switzerland nor the United States of America can be considered harbors of refuge against them ; the latter, having but lately emerged from the effects of a terrible civil war which may break out again at any moment, has suffered much from dis- content amongst the masses, and was, but a short time ago, a p r ey to the horrors of bloodshed, owing to a general strike of railway laborers throughout the whole country. The former is full of the elements of anarchy and discontent. The different Swiss cantons are perpet- ually at variance, although the common object of self- defence is able to silence many differences. Since the Reformation, Switzerland has had its full share of insurrection and revolution, and at the present moment offers an example of tyrannical government and a discontented population. Witness the arbitrary expulsion of Monsignor Mer- millod, Yicar Apostolic of Geneva and Bishop of He- bron, in the year 1872; the forcible ejection of Catholic priests and people from their lawful churches, and the intrusion of S ate-appointed apostate clergy in the Jura,* in spite of repeated petitions against such pro- * M. Loyson, an apostace French Carmelite, was installed by the civil authorities of Geneva as curd of the parish, in defi- ance of the wishes of the people, who at once withdrew from bis ministrations. The sequel is amusing. M. Loyson became APPENDIX. 271 ceedings. In Geneva a Government clique of Pro- testants, Jews, and atheists, have seized on all the ecclesiastical property, even that which had been originally given by private individuals,* and in Lau- sanne they have made several attempts to upset the whole machinery of ecclesiastical legislation. Till near the close of the seventeenth century Swit- zerland was distracted by dissensions, and in the year 1703 the whole of the Catholic and Protestant cantons were openly arrayed against each other. From this period to the close of the eighteenth century internal discord paved the way for external aggression, and rendered it an easy prey to the great French Bepublic. The Dutch have had many more periods of anarchy than their Belgian neighbors of the same race. For the space of two centuries Holland was torn asunder by a spirit of faction, and was only saved from the absolutism of the House of Orange by the partial want of success of the Calvinists. Had these latter been altogether triumphant, Hol- land would have shared the political fate of Sweden, Denmark, and Prussia. Towards the close of the eighteenth century the troubled state of the country induced the Dutch to seek foreign intervention, and their land was suc- cessively occupied by the Prussians, the French, and the English. In 1787 the Prussians were masters of disgusted with the situation, his followers being composed of atheists and freethinkers, and threw up the post, declaring that he did so because those who had appointed him were neither liberals nor Catholics. * The church of Notre Dame, built by the contributions of Catholics throughout the world, has been forcibly taken posses- sion of by the Government, and handed over to the sect of Old Catholics. These latter are so few in number and so irreli- gious in practice that they make but little use of it, and it was recently lent for a musical entertainment. 272 PBOTESTANT PERSECUTION OF CATHOLICS. Amsterdam, and openly espoused the cause of the House of Orange. In 1785 a fellow-soldier of Bernadotte reduced the whole kingdom of Holland to the state of a department of the great French Republic. Perpetual quarrels between Arminians and Oalvinists headed by Arminius and Gomarus distracted the coun- try. The Protestants of North Germany until the year 1848 were (like the Assyrians or Babylonians) in a state of comparative tranquility because they were completely crushed under the heel of a civil despot- ism, the most consummate in the record of modern history. The Prussian historian Leo declares that the natural result of the Reformation was the increase of power amongst the sovereigns and various rulers throughout Germany, and the destruction of the liberty of the lesser nobles and peasants. The Thirty Years' War which devastated Germany was the distinct legacy of the Eeformation, and the war of seven years arose from the designs and in- trigues of the Prussian sovereigns. Germans against Germans, monarch against monarch, in a scramble for territory, and the people indifferent and with no in- terest at issue, was the spectacle presentedjui Northern Germany. The sovereigns made conquests according to the number of their highly- disciplined troops, War was carried on by them just as players at chess or draughts carry on warfare and calculate the powers and effect of each piece. The military system of the German governments engendered a spirit of inter- ference not only with the laboring class of the com- munity, but with all business and employment. At the present moment Prussia is in a state of revo- APPENDIX. 273 lutionary ferment, of which no one can foresee the result. Up to the year 1860 Socialism hardly existed in Germany; since then it Has made rapid strides. In the year 1869 it had six journals that represented its principles ; now it has fifty, in addition to almanacs, pamphlets and flying sheets, which are circulated by hundreds of thousands. Herr Most, a celebrated So- cialist leader, declared not long ago at a public meet- ing* that church goers had dwindled into a small minority, and that Christianity was dying out. The daily papers of the 15th and 16th of January, 1877, were loud in their disapproval of the succe ses of the Socialists and Democrats at the elections that had then taken place, and expressed their dread at the future that was before them. From the year 1637 to the year 1720 Denmark was a prey to perpetual war, and from that time has been ground down under a gross form of despotism. The revolution of 1660 destroyed the despotism of the nobles, but Hi tie improvement took place with re- gard to the great mass of the population. In the year 1687 the wretched condition of the Danish peasantry was so alarming that a fifth part of the lands formerly cultivated by them was allowed to remain fallow. In the eighteenth century whole villages disappeared in the abyss of misery, caused by the despotic char- acter of the government. Sweden cannot be cited as an example of the peace enjoyed by nations that have accepted the Befor- mation. For the last three hundred years she has been a prey to perpetual troubles and revolutions. The an- archy that Europe had witnessed in modern Spain is as nothing in comparison to the revolutions in Sweden which disposed of two kings, Sigismund and Gustavus * vSee Times, March 22nd, 1878. 274 PBOTESTANT PERSECUTION OF CATHOLICS. IV., and killed three more Eric XIV., Charles XIL, and Gustavus III. The Swedish people carried the love of sedition to the f xt nfc of repudiating their own national dynasty, by handing over their country to a soldier of fortune, who rose from the ranks of the great French Revolu- tion. The Reformation benefited nobody except the no- bility, who practically made royalty subservient to them. In the year 1680 the States declared that they re- garded it as an " absurdity " that the king should be obliged by the statutes to give them a hearing before finally deciding on questions of government. In 1693 the sovereign power was declared to be absolute, and Charles XII. caused the Diet to be told that he would send his boots to preside over its sittings. After the murder of that amiable freethinker, Swed- ish liberty, i. e. the dominion of the nobles, was re- established, and a series of revolutions followed in rapid succession, concluding with the murder of Gus- tavus. From that period Sweden became a mass of intrigue and political corruption. Finland was seize J upon by Russia, and the kingdom of Sweden found no political rest save in the arms of a French gen- eral who deemed that a crown was well worth an abju- ration. We hear a great deal about the blessings which re- sulted to England from the liberty of the Reformation, but what the Reformation really did was to make Eng- land the scene of constantly recurring insurrections and civil wars from the " Pilgrimage of Graca " till the rebellion of 1745, the risings (always justifiable, except it be admitted that Protestant governments are never to be resisted) being always put down with the most ruthless ferocity. APPENDIX. 275 The Keformation cost the Church of England at least half the population of the United Kingdom, and the country her most treasured possession, the United States of America. As a reformation of manners it proved the most complete failure. It was an outbreak of lawlessness in the first instance, and cruelty and tyranny in its latter stages. Mr. Froude declares that five or six times as much blood was shed by Queen Elizabeth as by her sister Queen Mary, without so much provocation, as there was no insurrection against her as in the case of Queen Mary, and yet one is held out to the public as "Bloody Mary, and the other as " Good Queen Bess." From Hallam's " Constitutional History," we quote the following passage: The Church of England, for more than 150 years after the Reformation, continued to be the servile handmaid of monarchy, and the steady enemy of pub- lic liberty. The divine right of kings, and the duty of passively obeying them and all their commands, were her favorite tenets. She held them firmly through times of oppression, persecution, and licentiousness; while law was trampled down, while judgment was perverted, while the people were eaten as though they were bread. Once and but once, for a moment and but for a moment, when her own dignity and property were touched, she forgot to practise the submission which she had taught." * Again: By no artifice of ingenuity can the stigma of perse- cution, the worst blemish of the English Church be effaced or patched over. When Elizabeth put Ballard and Babington to death, she was not persecuting, nor should we have accused her Government of persecu- tion for passing any law, however severe, against overt acts of sediiion. But to argue that because a man is a Catholic, he must think it right to murder a heretical * Macaulay's " Essays," p. 64. 276 PROTESTANT PERSECUTION OF CATHOLICS. sovereign, and that because he thinks it right, he will attempt to do it, and then to found on this conclusion a law for punishing him as if he had done it, is plain persecution, t Mr. Lecky writes as follows: J It would be scarcely possible to conceive a more infamous system of legal tyranny than that which in the eighteenth century crushed every class and almost every interest in Ireland. The Parliament had been deprived of every vestige of independence. The Irish judges might at any time be removed. Manufacturing and commercial industry had been deliberately crushed for the benefit of English manu- facturers, and the country was reduced to such a state of poverty that the Government was compelled to bor- row 20,000 from a private individual to pay its troops. At the same time a gigantic and ever-increasing pension-list was drawn up from the scanty resources of the nation, and was expended partly in corrupting its representatives and partly in rewarding foreigners. The mistresses of George I. , the Queen Dowager of Prussia, Bister of George II. , and the Sardinian am- bassador who negotiated the Peace of Paris, were all on the pension-lists. The Catholics, excluded from almost every possibil- ity of eminence, deprived of their natural leaders, and consigned by the legislature to utter ignorance, soon sank into the condition of broken and dispirited helots. For the greater part of a century the main object of the legislature was to extirpate a religion by the en- couragement of some of the worst, and the punishment of some of the best qualities of our nature. Its rewards were reserved for the informer, for the hypocrite, for the undutiful son, or for the faithless wife. Its penalties were directed against religious constancy and the honest discharge of ecclesiastical duty. It is impossible for any Irish Protestant whose mind f Ibid., p. 59. | See "Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland," by Lecky, pp. 125,127. Longmans and Green, 1871. _, APPENDIX. 277 is not wholly perverted by religious bigotry, to look back without shame and indignation to the penal code. The an Dais of persecution contain many more sanguin- ary pages. They contain no instance of a series of laws more deliberately and ingeniously framed to de- base their victims, to bribe them in every stage of their life to abandon their convictions, and to sow dis- seasion and distrust within the family circle. ^ That the Irish Parliament in tfle last years of Wil- liam, and in the reigns of his two successors, was one of the most persecuting legislative assemblies that ever sat, cannot reasonably be questioned. The code of laws inaugurated in the reign of William in. is described by Burke as a code well digested and well disposed in all its parts, a machine of wise and elaborate contrivance, and as well fitted for the op- pression, impoverishment, and degradation of a people, and the debasement in them of human nature itself, as ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man. It was framed by a small minority of the nation for the oppression of the majority, who remained faithful to the religion of their fathers. It was framed by men who boasted that their cretd rested upon private judg- ment, and whose descendants are never weary of de- claiming upon the intolerance of Popery, and was in all its parts so strictly a religious persecution that any Catholic might be exempted from its operation by sim- ply forsaking his religion. From Hallam's "Constitutional History" (third edi- tion, vol. i. p. 130) we quote the following passage: . Tolerance in religion, it is well known, so unanim- ously admitted at least verbally in the present century, was seldom considered practicable, much less a matter of right, during a period of the Eeformation. And again : It appears that at the end of the seventeenth century the Irish or Anglo-Irish Catholics could hardly possess above one-sixth or one -seventh of the kingdom. They were still formidable from their numbers and their suf- ferings, and the victorious party saw no security but >^ a system of oppression, contained in a series of laws 278 PBOTESTANT PEESECUTION OF CATHOLICS. during the reigns of William and Anne, which have scarcely a parallel in European history. No Papist was allowed to keep a school, or teach in any private houses, except tbe children of the family, and no Papist could be a guardian to any child, &c. , &c., &c. To have exterminated the Catholics by the sword, or expelled them like the -Moriscoes of Spain, would have been little more repugnant to justice and humanity, but incomparably more politic.* From Prendergast's " Cromwellian Settlement" (p. 16) we quote the following : If a Protestant married an Irishwoman, and did not conform to the English religion within one year of the marriage, he sank to the helot-like condition of his wife's people, and was deprived of all rights, he be- came a constructive Papist, and was regarded as worse than a born one. Grattan, in one of his celebrated speeches, said : Civil and religious liberty depends upon political power ; the community that has no share directly or indirectly in political power has no security for its po- litical liberty. Mr. Freeman, in his work entitled " Growth of the English Constitution, "f writes as follows: The old paths have in England ever been the paths of progress; the ancient custom has ever been to shrink from mere change for the sake of change, but fearlessly to change whenever change was needed. And many of the best changes of later times, many of the most wholesome improvements in our law and constitution, have been only the casting aside of innovations which crept in in modern and evil times. They have been the calling up again, in an altered garb, of principles as old as the days when we get our first sight of our forefathers in the German forests. Changed as it is in all outward forms and circum- * Hallam's *' Constitutional History," vol. iii., p. 532. f See " Growth of the English Constitution," by Freeman^ pp. 20, 21. Macmillan, 1872. APPENDIX. 279 stance*, the England in which we live has, in its true life and spirit, far more in common with the England OL the earliest times than it has with the Eugland of clays far nearer to our < wn. In many a wholesome act of modern legislation we have gone back, wittingly or unwittingly, to the earliest principle of our race. We have advanced by falling back on a more ancient state of th ngs; we have reformed by calling to life again the institutions of earlier and ruder times, by setting our- selves free from the slavish subtleties of Norman law- yers, by casting aside as an accursed thing the innova- tions of Tudor tyranny and Stuart usurpation. Again : Our Englis 1 ! constitution was never made in the spnse in which the constitutions of many other coun- tries have been made. There never was any moment when Englishmen drew out their political system in the shape of a formal document, whether a i the car- rjing out of any abstract political theories, or as the imitation of the past or present system of any other nation. Till the Charter was wrung from King John, men called for the laws of good King Edward. We have made changes from time to time, but they have been changes at once conservative and progressive. They have been the application of ancient principles to new circumstances; they have been the careful repairs of an ancieiit building, not the pulling down of an old build- ing and the rearing up of a new. Our national assembly has changed its name and its constitution, but its corporate identity has lived on un- broken. In France, on the other hand, institutions have been the work of abstract theory; they have been the creations for good or for evil of the minds of indi- vidual men. (Pp. 55, 64.) And again : There is, indeed, .a wide difference between the political condition of England under Edward I. and the political condition of England in our own day, but the difference lies far more in the practical working of the constitution than in its outward form. 280 PROTESTANT FEBSECTJTION OF CATHOLICS. The changes have been many, but a large portion of those changes have not been formal enactments, but those silent changes whose gradual working has wrought out for us a conventional constitution existing alongside of our written law. Speaking generally, and allowing for the important class of conventional understandings whi h have never been clothed with the form of wr-tten enactments, the main elements of the English constitution remain now as they were fixed then/' (Pp. 86, 87.) And again: At last came the sixteenth century, the time of trial for many parliamentary institutions in many countries of Europe. Not a few assemblies which had once been as free as our own Parliament were, dii' ing that age, swept away or reduced to empty formalities. Then it was that Charles V. and Philip II. over- threw the free constitutions of Castile and Aragon ; then it was that the States-General of France met for the last time but one before their last meeting of all, on the eve of the great Revolution. In England parliamentary institutions were not swept away, nor did Parliament fcink into an empty form ; but for a while our parliaments, like all our other institutions, became perverted into instruments of tyranny. Every act which has restrained the arbitrary prerog- ative of the Orown, every act which has secured or in- creased either the powers of Parliame t or the liberty of the subject, has been a return, sometimes to the letter, at all times to the spirit of our earliest law. (Pp. 98, 137.) These examples may suffice for Protestant nations. From the sixteenth century the interior government of all the Catholic States has been bad, but on the whole the masses of the people have remained faithful to the order, discipline, and established authority of the/Church. Preserved for 200 years from the dan- gers of the Reformation, they were at length carried away by the great revolutionary movement of 1789, APPENDIX. 281 which was itself but the logical development of Pro- testantism. Poland forms an exception, but we must not forget that she was coveted by two powerful potentates in the East and West, and that the exclamation of one of her magnates, " Malo periculosam libertatem quam otio- sum servitium," was a cry of self-defence against her powerful enemies, who at last succeeded in their guilty and oft-renewed attempts. In the present century there is but one Protestant country that has resisted all the revolutionary aspirations of 1789, and that country is England, whose inhabitants have remain- ed Christian, and whose government a^.one since the Csesarism of the Benaissance has preserved the forma of the ancient Catholic governments of the Mid- dle Ages. Unquestionably she merits much praise, and Cath- olics owe her a debt of gratitude on this matter; for them England has remained a model and a consola- tion : a model, because she is the representative of ancient historical and Cat b olio institutions a consola- tion, because they can point to her as a specimen of what all European countries would have been but for the excesses of the Benaissance, the bigotry of the sec- tarians in the sixteenth century, the insolence of the governments of Louis XIY. , the Begency, and Louis XV., the corrupti n of the encyclopaedists, the revolu- tionary theories of the eighteenth century, and the lib- eral ideas of the nineteenth century none of which arose from Catholicism. Let us examine the present condition of South America, Spain and France, for Italy (although a Catholic nation) is considered by our opponents to have entered their new path to salvation. In Houth America, many States that had been gov- erned by European powers during the eighteenth cen- 282 8TATE BEGULATION OF BELIGION. tury found themselves suddenly cut adrift from them, and for the space of forty years had to struggle in the throt s of anarchy. These States were Mexico, Venezuela, and the Ar- g-ntine Eepublic, all of which were governed by revo- lutionists or men who had adopted the principles of 1789. STATE BEGTTLATION OF RELIGION ENTHBALS THE MIND. [Note to Chapter VI "., page 170 ] The principle that the civil government or State is entitled to regulate the religious belief of a country has more of intellectual thraldom in it than the power of tie Catholic Church could ever have exercised ac- cording to the belief of Protestants in the darkest ages, for it had no civil power joined to its religious power, The Catholic Church was an independent, distinct, and often an opposing power in every country to the civil authority, a circumstance in the social economy of the Middle Ages to which Europe is indebted for her civilization and freedom. When governments attempt to extend their power beyond the legitimate object for which government is established in society, and wish to embrace the intel- lectual, moral, and religious concerns, as well as the material interests of their subjects, they are obliged to adopt a middle course between the extreme of power they would usurp and the innate principle in the human mind of resistance to power over intellectual action. This middle course, founded on no principle but the evasion of applying principle to action, has been the line of policy of most European statesmen during the century. Whilst Europe was singing the praises of the APPENDIX. 283 Prussian system of education, this same system was driving upwards of 600 Christians from the land by religious persecution, who went from Sile;-ia to the wilds of America, in order that they might worship the Almighty after their own fashion, rather than at the dictation of their sovereign. Whilst the condition of Prussia as regards education stood undoubtedly high, her moral state was so low that a sect called the Muckers, who openly taught the most disgusting practices and observances,* embraced hundreds of the nobility and clergy. If to read, write and cipher be education, the Prussians are an educated people; but if to reason, judge, and act as an independent free agent in the re- ligious, 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 are the Prussians utterly deficient. The intellectual dependence of the people upon the government, the abject submission to the want of freedom, or free agency, in thoughts, words or acts, the religious' thraldom of the people to forms which they despise, the want of influence, of religious and social principle in society, justify us in our statements. MEDIJEVAL FAMILIARITY WITH THE SCRIPTURES. [Note to Chapter VI., page 173.] No one who has studied the literature of the Middle Ages can have failed to perceive the strongest evidence of the deep Biblical knowledge it contains. Maitland,t in his " Dark Ages," writes thus : The writings of the Dark Ages are made of the Scrip- tures. I do not merely mean that the writers con- stantly quoted the Scriptures, and appealed to them as * See Laing's " Notes of a Traveller." t "The Dark Ages," by the Rev. S. B. Maitland, librarian to the Archbishop of Canterbury. P, 470. 284 MEDIEVAL FAMILIARITY WITH SCRIPTURE. authorities on all occasions; but I mean that they thought and spoke arid wrote the thoughts a d words and phrases of the Bible, and that they did this con- stantly and habitually as the natural m<>de of express- ing themselves. Further on the same writer adds : I cannot help suspecting that if Bobertson had gone to the Archbishop ot Seville in the seventh century, the Archbishop of Mayence in the ninth, or the Bish p of Chartrea in the eleventh for holy orders, he wou d havH found the examination rather more than he ex- pected. P. 25. Again he says A monk was expected to know the Psalter by heart P. 338. Further on he quotes the famous example of the sermon of the Bishop of Noyon in the seventh cen- tury, which Bobertson and Mosheiin quote ai evidence of the barren theology of that age, and remarks : It seems to have been written as if the author had anticipated each and all of Mosheim's charges, and in- tended to furnish a pointed answer to every one. P. 113. "In the eighth and ninth centuries," says Hallam ("Middle Ages," iii. 474), "when the Vu'gate had ceased to be generally intelligible, .... translations were freely made into the vernacular languages." CATHOLIC RESPECT FOR SCIENCE. [Note to Chapter VI., page 178.] The following are the words of the present Pontiff, Leo XIII., on this subject : How grand and how full of majesty does man ap- pear when he arrests the thunderbolt, .... sum- mons the electric flash, .... how powerful \vhen h taken possession of the force of steam Is there not in man when he does these things some spark of APPENDIX. 285 creative power ? . . . . The Church views these things with joy.* PROTESTANT PRUSSIAN MORALITY. [Note to Chapter VIL, page 187.] The Evangelical Consistory assembled in full coun- cil, authorized Philip, the generous Elector of Hesse, on the strength of Melancthon's tolerant maxims, to seat two Electresses upon the throne at the same time. The King of Prussia, Frederick William II., who had given his right hand to his queen, gave his left to Countess Ju ia Yon Voss. This second in rriage ceremony was performed on the 25th of May, 1787, in the chapel of the castle at Charlottenburg, by Zoellner, the chaplain of the royal family at the Court. EVANGELICAL GERMAN IMMORALITY. [Note to Chapter VIL, page 188.] Prince Pukler Muskauf states in one of his publica- tions that the character of the Prussians for honesty eta Lids far lower than that of any other of the German populations, and as a Prussian he would scarcely come to such a conclusion unless it were generally believed in Germany. Laing says: It is an undeniable fact that the Prussians are in a remarkably demoralized condition in those branches of moral conduct which cannot be taught in schools, and are not taught by the parents, because parental tuition is broken in upon by the interference of the Govern- ment. Of all the virtues that which the domestic family education of both the sexrs most obviously in- fluences, that which marks more clearly than any * See Lenten Pastoral for 1877, by Cardinal Pecci, now Pope Leo XIII., entitled " The Church and Civilization, f " Sudostlicher ilder$aal," 3 vols., 1844. 286 EVANGELICAL GEBMAN LIBEKALITY. other the moral condition of a society, the home state of moral and religious principles, the efficiency of those principles in it, and the amount of that nn ral restraint upon passions and impulses which it is the object of education and knowledge to obtain, is undoubtedly fe- male chastity. And yet I think no traveller or no Prussian will say that this index virtue of the moral condition of a people is not lower in Prussia than in almost any other part of Europe. It is no uncommon event in the family of a respect- able tradesman in Berlin to find upon his breakfast table a litt e baby of which he has no doubt at all about, the m .ternal grandfather. Sucli accidents are only regarded as youthful indis- cretions, and nofe as disgraces, affecting as with us the respectability and happine. s of many a generation."* All the social errors of France are to be found in Prussia, though possibly not visibly apparent to the public. The statistics recently published^!876) by the Com- mittee of the high Evangelical Consistory on the rel- ative proportion of legitimate to illegitimate bir hs are as follows in the Evangelical parishes of the various districts : Hohenzollern .... 2. 50 per cent. Westphalia 2.65 Ehine Provinces . . . . 2.79 Posen 6.77 Prussian Saxony ... 9.12 Brandenbourg (except Berlin) Prussia Proper Pomerania Silesia Berlin 9.16 9.58 9.95 10.15 12.91 The Evangelical Church of Prussia is thus shown by her own confession to be losing her moral and relig- * Laing's "Notes of a Traveller, "p. 1B7. APPENDIX. 287 ions ascendency over the minds of the gi eat mass of the population. IKISH CATHOLIC MORALITY. [Note to Chapter V IT , page 190.] A few years ago a distinguished Protestant writer published a work entitled "Memorandums made in Ireland in the Autumn of 1852, "in tl;e course of which he bears frequent and ungrudging testimony to the in- fluence of the confessional as an agent of purity. The writer was Dr. Forbes, one of her Majesty's physicians. We transcribe some passages from his work which we find quoted in the April number of the Dublin Review, pp. 437-8: " At any rate," says Dr. Forbes, "the result of my inquiries is, that whether right or wrong in a theo- logical or rational point of view, this instrument of confession is, among the Irish of the humbler classes, a direct preservative against certain forms of immo- rality, at least" (vol. ii., p. 81). "Among other charges preferred against confession in Ireland and elsewhere is the facility it affords for corrupting the female mind, and of its actually leading to such cor- ruption. So far from such corruption resulting from the confessional, it is the general belief in Ireland, a belief expressed to me by many trustworthy men in all parts of the country, both by Protestants as well as Catholics, that the singular purity of fenrile life among the lower classes there is in a considerable degree de- pendant on this very circumstance" (p. 83). " With a view of testing as far as was practicable the truth of the theory respecting the influence of confession on this branch of morals, I have obtained through the courtesy of the Poor Law Commissioners a return of the number of legitimate and illegitimate children in the workhouses of each of the four provinces of Ire- land on a particular day, viz., 27th November, 1852. It is curious to mark how strikingly the results there conveyed correspond with the confession theory ; the proportion of illegitimate children coinciding almost 288 IRISH CATHOLIC MORALITY. exactly with the relative proportions of the two re- ligions in each province; being large where the Pro- testant element is large, and small where it is small." &c., &c.. (p. 345). While writing on this subject, we may be allowed to quote the testimony of another Protestant writer, Mr. William Gilbert, who, in an article published in Christian Work, in May, 1864, states that *' While under the guidance of their priests, Irish women as a class enjoy, and with justice, a reputation for respectability of conduct, unsurpassed, if equalled, by any women in the world. " In Ireland cases of infanticide and baby-farming are almost unknown, whilst in England and Scotland scarcely a day passes by without the papers referring to two or three such occurrences. The facts we have adduced in these pages are amply sufficient to demonstrate the fallacy of the chain of arguments usel by our opponents; but before quitting the subject we will quote the illegitimate births in the poor-housts of the British Isles, as given by Dr. Forbes: Ireland 1 illegitimate birth to 16*47 legitimate. England 1 " to 1-49 Wales 1 " to 0-46 A striking testimong of the truth of our remarks has recently been witnessed. Not long ago an assertion of immorality was made in an English newspaper* celebrated for its defence of Evangelical truth, against Irishwomen in general, and the Irish Church in par- ticular, in the following words : " The much vaunted cbastity of Irish girls is a myth. In the rural districts of Ireland the priest is the se- ducer of the parish, and the early improvident mar- * The Jock, a Church of England family newspaper, Oct. 6, 1S77. APPENDIX. 289 riages of the voting people are encouraged by him to conceal his immorality. There is not and cannot be chastity where Popery reigns. " These observations drew forth from Lord Oranmore a reply which we give in extenso . "SiB A letter appears in your number of the 5th instant headed, 'Chastity of Irish Girls.' I believe there can be no more uncompromising Protestant, no one more convinced of the evils of the Roman Catholic system than I am. I have taken the Rock since it was published, and admire its straightforward advocacy of Protestant principles, and therefore I the more regret that by some oversight a paragraph so calumnious and untrue should find place in its columns. I have spent much of my life in a Roman Catholic part of Ire- land, and know well not only that Irish girls are gen- erally chaste, but that it is quite an exception that Irish priests are (in this sense) immoral men; and yet this paragraph attributes to the whole body adultery with malice aforethought and prepense. The admission of such a paragraph into your journal cannot but bring discredit on the good cause your journal so ably sup- ports. . ORANMOBE. Castle MacGarrett, Co. Mayo." Such testimony as this in our favor, from one of our strongest opponents, ought to convince every reason- able man of the truth of our previous assertion with reference to the morality of the Irish, even should he refuse to believe in the morality of the great mass^ of Catholics. THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION IN ENGLAND. [Note to Chapter FJ/., page 209.] England, under Elizabeth, furnishes a most striking example of the inauguration of Jiberty by the Protes- tant Reformation. In this reign not only the episco- pal office, but also ecclesiastical doctrine was subjected to the will of the sovereign. 290 THE REFORMATION IN ENGLAND. Hallam* writes thus of the Anglican Church in 1566 : " The novel theory of ecclesiastical authoiity resolved all its spiritual as well as temporal powers into the royal supremacy," a statement which is con- firmed by English lawyers. Blackstone, for instance, says : " The authority heretofore exercised by the Pope is now annexed to the Crown by the statutes of Henry VIII., Edward and Elizabeth, "f The Anglican Church is in complete subjection to the State. Such are the words of the leading ecclesi- astical papers in England of the present day words which have been amply verified by recent legislation. The " Public Worship Regulation Act" is an example of this, an Act hurried through by a Parliament com- posed of men of every shade of belief, in one session, and then forced upon a body of clergy who were cer- tainly not in favor ot it. It is worthy of notice also, that Convocation, which may in a certain sense be con- sidered as the mouthpiece of the Anglican clergy, was not even consulted oa the matter. The tolerant legislation for Ireland is so well known that in a short work like the present it is unnecessary to dwell much on it, but f r the benefit of those who are under the delusion that Protestantism produces civil liberty we will quote a few of the penal laws, which prove the fact that children were torn away from their parents' protection, priests were hung or exiled, and those who refused to conform to the wishes of the British government were made serfs in their own land. In England for three hundred years Catholics were hunted like wilcl beasts, and the pun- ishment of death was inflicted on a priest for saying the Mass. * Hallam's " Constitutional History," vol. i. p. 100. t Blackstone'a '< Commentaries," vol. iii. p. 67. APPENDIX. 291 In the year 1695 the following laws were enacted: 1. The Catholic Peers were deprived of their right to sit in Parliament. 2. Catholic gentlemen were forbidden to be elected as members of Parliament. 3. Catholics were denied the liberty of voting, and were excluded from all offices of trust and all remun- erative employment. 4. They were fined 80 a month for absence from Protestant worship. 5. They were forbidden to travel five miles from their houses, to keep arms, to maintain suits at law, or to be guardians or executors. 6. Any four justices of the peace could, without further trial, banish any man for life if he refused to attend the Protestant service. 7. Any two justices of the peace could call any man over sixteen before them, and if he refused to abjure the Catholic religion, could bestow his property on the next of kin. 8. No Catholic c mid employ a Catholic school- master to educate his children; and if he sent his child abroad for education he was subject to a fine of 100, and the child could not inherit any property in England or Ireland. 9. Any Catholic priest who came to the country might be hanged. 10. Any Protestant suspecting any other Protestant of holding property in trust for a Catholic might file a bill against the suspected trustee and take the estate from him. 11. Any Protestant seeing a Catholic tenant- at- will on a farm which, in his opinion, yielded one- third more than the yearly rent, might enter on that farm, and, by simply swearing to the fact, take possession. 12. Any Protestant might take away the horse of a 292 THE KEFORMATION IN ENGLAND. Catholic, no matter liow valuable, by simply paying him 5. 13. Horses and wagons belonging to Catholics were in all cases to be seized for the use of the Militia. 14. Any Catholic gentleman's child who became a Protestant could at once take possession of his father's property. The 13th of Charles II,, commonly called "The Corporation Act," excluded Catholics from offices in cities and corporations. The 25th Charles II., commonly called "The Test Act," excluded them from all civil and military offices. The 30th Charles IT. prevented them from taking part in the legislation of the country. An Act of William and Mary prevented the use of the Parliamentary franchise. The horrors of the penal code were slightly relaxed in 1778, when American agitation and British fear per- mitted Catholics to hold property on leases for lives, but still the vast majority of the nation was excluded from the franchises, offices, and honors of the State, not on account of any moral or political delinquency, but merely on account of its rel gion. The whole his- tory of the persecutions which Catholics have endured at the hands of Protestants of every denomina ion is one of the most curious phases of human perversity that the philosopher can find to study. The Rev. Dr. Leland, a Protestant minister, writes as follows* on the plantation of Ulster, which James I. and his successor not only devised, but carried into effect: They obtained commissions of inquiry into -defective titles and grants of concealed lands and rents belong- ing to the Crown, the great beuefit of ^hich was to accrue to the projector, whilst the King was contented * JLeiand, book iv. chap. 8. APPENDIX. 293 with an inconsiderable proportion of the concealment, or a email advance of rent. Discoverers were everywhere busily en-ployed in find iig out flaws in men's titles to their estates The old pipe-ro Is were searched to find the original rents \vi h which they had been charged, the patent ro'ls in the Tower of London were ransacked f < r the ancient grants, no means of industry or devic; s of craft were left uii tried to forca the possessors to accept of new grants at tf Sar- dinia, 2.1; 1859, Spain, 5.6; 1853, Tuscany, 6; 1858, 7.4; 1858, France, 7.8; 1851, Austria, 9; 1865-6, Ire- land, 3 8; Catholic Prussia, 5.1; 1859, Belgium, 7.4; 1856, Sicily. Non-Catholic countries 1859, England and Wales, 6.5; 1855, Norway, 9.3; 1858, non-Catholic Prussia, 9.3; 1855, Sweden, 9.5; 1855, Hanover, 9.9; 1866, Scotland, 10.1; 1855, Denmark, 11.5; 1838 to 1847, Iceland, 14; 1858, Saxony, 16; 1857, Wurtemburg, 16.1. In Holland and Switzerland, where nearly half the population is Catholic, the proportion is as follows: 1859, Holland, 4.1; Switzerland, 6. It will be per- ceived that France stands higher than any non-Cath- olic country except England and Wales, but England and Wales are below other countries, and far below Ireland. In Scotland the number of illegitimate births in proportion to the population is three times greater than in Ireland, and in England Wales there are twice as many; and in non-Catholic Prussia the percentage is a third greater than in Catholic Prussia. Lecky, in speaking of Ireland, seems to complain of the chastity of its people. "Had the Irish peasants been less chaste," he says, "they would have been more pros- perous. Had that fearful famine which, in the present 306 NOTES FBOM AMEBICAN SOUBCES. century, desolated the land, fallen upon a people who tn ought more of accumulating subsistence than of avoiding sin, multitudes might now be living who perished by literal starvation on the dreary hills 01 Limerick and Skibbereen." There Is not in all Europe a more thoroughly anti- Catholic country than Sweden. In 1838 Mr. Laing visited Sweden, and he declares that its people, although almost entirely rural, are at the very bottom of the scale of European morality. In 1836 one per- son out of every 112 women, infants, and sick all in- cluded-^had been accused of crime, and one out of every 134 convicted and punished. In 1838 there were born in Stockholm 2,714 children, of whom 1,577 were legitimate, and 1,137 illegitimate. Drunkenness was more common there than in any other country in the world. Nearly 40,000,000 gallons of liquor were con- sumed in 1850 by a population of only 3,006,000, which gives thirteen gallons of intoxicating drink to every man, woman, and child in the kingdom. Com- pare the Swedish people with the pastoral population of Catholic Switzerland and the Tyrol. Alison, in speaking of the Tyrol ese, was forced to admit that the Catholic religion " yet preserved enough of the pure spirit of its divine origin to influence in a great measure the conduct of their private lives." In Scotland illegitimacy is more common in the country than in the towns and cities ; in England, also, it is more prevalent in the rural districts than in the cities ; whereas, in Prance, it is just the reverse. In the country districts cf England we have the following rate : Nottingham, 8.9 ; York North Biding, 8.9 ; Salop, 9.8 ; Westmoreland, 9.7 ; Norfolk, 10.7 ; Cum- berland, 11.4. In France Kural districts, 4.2 ; La Vendee, 2.2 ; Brittany Cote d'Or, 1.2. Thus in the most Catholic rural districts of France there are only APPENDIX. 307 one or tv\*o illegitimate births in the hundred. This is also true of Prussia, whose most thoroughly Catholic pro vine es are Westphalia and the Khineland ; in Westphalia the rate of illegitimacy is three and a half in every hundred births, and in the Rhine' and only three and one-third ; but in Poinerania and Branden- burg, both thoroughly non-Catholic, ther^ are ten to twelve illegitimate births in the hundred. If we turn to Ireland, the rate for the whole island is 3.8 per cent. ; t e lowest proportion is in Connaught, ninete n- twentieths of who-e people. _are Catholic ; and the greatest is Ulster, half of whose population is non- Catholic. The Scotsman, a 'leading paper in Scot- land, says in June, 1869: "The sum of the whole matter is that semi-Presbyterian and semi-Scotch Ul- ster is fully three times ^more immoral than wholly Irish Connaught, which corresponds with wonderful accuracy to the more general fact, that Scotland as a whole is three times more immoral than Ireland as a whole." I do not consider that material prosperity has any relation whatever to religion, and therefore the military power or the wealth of a .nation cannot with justice be regarded as the result of the religion of its people. Spain, when at the height of its power arid grandeur, was more Catholic than she has been since her decline in the scale of nations. France has been great from the days of Charles Martel to the present hour, not- withstanding her defeat in the Prussian war. She has ever been foremost in tha rank of civilized nations, and except from the short period from 1789 to 1815, her people have steadfastly adhered to the religion of their forefathers. While the Venetian Republic was most powerful, and into Venice the streams of commerce poured untold wealth, her Doge, her Council, and her people were staunch believers in the Catholic faith. S08 NOTES FROM AMEKICAN SOUKCES. Holland in her greatest prosperity was non-Catholic. Her TV ligion remains the same, although her fl ets no Lnger c mmand the ocean. It is, therefore, manifest t .at religion has but little, if any, influence on the more material development of nations, or their rise or decline in the scale of power and pro.- peri ty are to be a tributtd .to other causes than dogmas of faith. The truth is, the Catholic Church alone, with its great spir- itual organization, can check a materialism wi.ich erects the State as the Golden Calf to be adored, and can pr - ven", L.e State, by absorbing the individual, from de- s. raying civil and political liberty." WHAT SPAIN SHOWED IN THE CENTENNIAL EXPOSITION. That bitterly Protestant journal of New York, the Times, is constrained by the facts, wrote The Catholic Review, in September, 1876, to permit its correspon- dent in Philadelphia to bear this further testimony to the work of a Catholic nation which, according to the popular American notion, is " played out. " The Cen- tennial Exposition will teach the average American Protestant many things: " Colonel Francisco Lopez Fabra, the chief Spanish Commissioner, has remained at his post during all the heats of summer with remarkable singleness of pur- pose. The Spanish certainly teach us a lesson of pure nobility in many ways. Their departments are fitted up as museums, and off r enormous contra -ts .to thosj of almost every other na ion, which are fitted up like retail stores. They came here ent rely from good wi 1, without a thought of making money by the sale of their goods, for the men who sent them, in nine-tenths of the whole Spanish display, sent no price list. When APPENDIX. it became evident that there were many would-be pur- chasers, the Spanish, instead of taking advantage of the enthusiasm over their Woolen fabrics and their damascened ware, placed upon them the most moder- ate prices. Their superb porous water coolers 41 al- carazas "were valued at forty-five, fifty, and sixty cents apiece; their lustred porcelain and their fine specimens of glassware in proportion. The experience of those xvho are desirous of buying Various objects is that there are not a few nations who have no fixed price, and who ask three times what they are willing to take. And among those who are more conscientious the prices are exceedingly high, and when the duties are addtd to them they become absolutely prohibitory. There are very few countries whose objects are as cheap and whose methods are as honorable as the Spanish, and at the same time there is not one whose ware B are so distinctly marked with the seal of nation- ality. Col. Fabra is undeniably greatly pleased at the appreciative reception which the Spanish display has met in merica, and he has evinced this in many ways, but in nothing more nobly than in the manner in which the most expensive works on architecture and art, with volumes of exquisite etchings, and volumes of photo- graphs of Spanish cathedrals gf the grand Gothic type havo been sum ndered to the public hands. In the Spanish Government building, which the commission fondly c 11 the House of the King, (for they entertain a personal regard for their young Alfonso, like the feeling the English have for their Queen) these valu- able books are spread out upon comfortable counters for the convenience of the public. Col. Fabra was remonstrated with by zealous Philadelphians: * Your beautiful books will be destroyed; put them under glass ca-es. J *Not at all/ said Col. Fabra, 'they are here to be destroyed, if using them wilt do it. It will 31QT NOTES FROM AMERICAN SOURCES. be sufficient recompense to us if but one man out cf all who turn over the leaves gets a new thought for his art or a new comprehension of Spa : n. And the more they are used the better will Spain be known. I sin uld be as named to take them back to Spain ciean and new and unused. ' Now that was very noble, and was in accordance with the old idea of the Spanish hidalgo pur sang. Certainly all Spain's chivalry has not been laughed away by Cervantes. Throughout the summer Col. Fabra and his assis- tants, Count Donadio, Alvaro de la Gandara, and Col. Marin, have remained, working away at the Spanish display, writing to Spain for new things and arranging them to the best advantage. The treasures cf the Goveruinent building, or the House of the King, are so numerous that they demand the exclusive attention of a separate article. But, not satisfied W;th this dis- play or with the numerous things that have already been added in other quarters, Col. .Fabra wrote to Spain for photographic views of Los Palos, the port from which Columbus sailed for this land, and of the Convent of La Rabida, where he found refuge. These have just arrived and are about to be exhibited in the Main Building. They will be placed in a square frame, supported by a pedestal about five leet in height, and full descriptions in English text will be placed at the head of each photograph. The Spanish Commission r was induced to do this because he found in America a great interest in ail the things that concerned Colum- bus, whose lifo has been so pleasantly p rtrayed by Washington Irving as to make its details very well known to people of education. There was a w^ rid of kindly thoughtfulness in the act, whkTi me. its the heartiest appreciation at our hands, and it is entirely in keeping with the conduct of the Spanish Commis- sion since they arrived in this country. The lovers of APPENDIX. 311 fine etching will be surprised" at the importance and value of the works which have been surrencbre i to the public mercy, and will estimate afc its wordi the noble generosity of the Spania els. The works on architec- ture, though purely of Spanish origin, have a French paraphrase side by side with the Spanish text, so that thosa who desire to study them can do so if they possess either of these languages. The illustrations are ol the first order and show a fine mastery over chromo-lithography. GAB." SPAIN AND BRAZIL SURPRISING THE UNITED STATES. We hear so much of the sleepiness, backwardness, and " effeteness " of Catholic nations, especially the Spanish races, said The Catholic Review in July 1876, that it is w xrth while to consider how they strike the visitors to the Centennial Exposition. We therefore make two long extracts from the Protestant New York Tribune: SPAIN'S GEEAT DISPLAY. A SURPRISE TO ALL VISITORS PUZZLED VISITORS. [From the Regular Correspondent of the New York Tribune.] " PHILADELPHIA, July 5. There is nothing about the details of the Exhibition that is a greater surprise to mo> t visitors than the part Spain takes in it. Her display in the Main Building behind her castellated structure, with all its allegorical and armorial decora- tions, would alone be a highly creditable representa- tion of the Castilian monarchy. It is rich in the evi- dence of a varied and " high developed manufacturing industry which few Americans imagined existed on the sleepy peninsula, and the multitude of wares and fab- rics shown are doubly interesting on account of an 312 NOTES FKOM AMERICAN SOURCES. evident stamp of originality, either in form or orna- mentation, that shows them to be something better than servile copies of the products of other nations. The wealth of natural products exhibited in the Span- ish section of Agricultural Hall calls for almost as much admiration for the multitude of articles it con- tains and the intelligence and system that characterize their arrangement, as well as the liberal enterprise that has gathered them from all the provinces of the king om and from all colonial lands under Spanish rule. With these two strikingly thorough and well-ordered displays Spain might have been not only content but proud of her accomplishments at the Fair; but she has just opened a third exhibit larger than either of the others. It is made in a handsome frame building erected at the cost of the Madrid Government on the slope of George's Hill, near the Japanese dwelling. I have not the dimensions of the structure, but I should say that it cannot be less tnan 150 feet long by 100 wide. Its construction was not begun until after the Exhibition opened, and went on rather slowly under the management of the officers and soldiers of the de- tachment of Boyal engineers that came here under the orders of the Spanish commission. The fa9ade of the building bears a sign with, the word Espana, but this appears to be no guide to the majority of visitors, who enter the hall without knowing what country it be- longs to. "If they mean Spain, why don't they say so?" said an old countryman to-day after he had learned by questioning the character of the building. Like thousands of other visitors, he did not know that many geograpical names are badly tortured in the process of transforming them into shape for English tongues to pronounce. The exhibits in the hall are divided into three classes military, educational, and products of the Philippine APPENDIX. 313 Islands, the former occupying the centre and the two latter the sides of tl.e hall. In the military section there are remarkably fine models illustrating systems of fortifications, and others representing barracks, for- tified towns, bridges, harbors, ancient aqued rets. One of immense size shows the face of the country in which the Spanish troops operated during the African cam- paign of 1859-60, and their different encampments the sea, the mountains, streams, roads, towns and cul- tivated fields all appearing in miniature. Breech- loading artillery, small arms of the Bemington pattern, and c f a device resembliug tli3 Springfield rifle, camp and hospital equipage, models of field and siege artil- tery trains, with well-modeled horses about a foot high attached, lay-figures of soldiers in uniform, fill the section. The military exhibit is larger than that made at the fair by any other foreign nation, and in com- pleteness and excellence it has uo competitor, except the Russian display in Machinery Hall. The educational group contains a large collection of books of science, law, medicine, and general literature that is calculated to give rather an exaggerated idea of the intellectual activity of Spain. It is particularly rich in handsomely illustrated works and in editions of the Spanish classics. Of school books, furniture, and apparatus there is an obvious lack. Good photographs are shown by the artists of Madrid, Seville and Barce- lona. A collection of plaster casts from the Alhambra furnishes material f ;r the study 01 Moorish architect- ure; and there are plenty of drawings and photographs of mod rn buildings, public and private. The art schools show their work in numerous portfolios. The larg^ Government maps hung on the walls show how carefully the country has been surveyed for military purposes, and are besides excellent specimens of the cartographic art. 314 NOTES FEOM AMEKICAN SOURCES. The section devoted to the products of the Phillip- pines occupies about a quarter of the floor space of the buildh g. Specimens of native woods in profusion, a variety of products in glass jars, stuffed animals and birds, models of water craft of various kinds, mats and cordage, and photographs of the aborigines are among the objects to be seen here. The importance of the islands to Spain is forcibly illustrated by the liberal space and prominent position assigned to their contri- butions. BRAZIL. [From the Correspondent of the New York Tribune.} Americans coming into the Brazilian department quicken their steps and look about with a glow of friendly feeling. They are strangers that have sud- denly proved kinsfolk, and given us, in this te^t-time, foe most cordial brotherly recognition and help. A learnt d member of their commission put the case strongly the other day : " We are Americans, as you ; we claim to be as free a people as you ; the only differ- ence is that, with our Emperor, we are not vexed with the turmoil of choosing a ruler once in four years." The truth is that visitors have heretofore done little to seduce us from our allegiance to democracy ; but a King like Dom Pedro, wlio comes to the country to talk with its statesmen, savants, and poets, who looks into the workings of schools, newsboys' homes, manu- factories, and asylums, that he may the better uplift and ennoble his own people, is a dangerous man in a republic. What the central and provincial Govern- ments of Brazil under the sagacious head are doing to elevate the people is shown to us in the school exhibits under the direction of Dr. Philippe da Motta. No ed- ucation-al department in the Exhibition surpasses this in breadth of scope and accuracy of detail. The books, maps, APPENDIX. 315 pictures, and cases of brilliant insects are all arranged, too, with an artistic sense of color and effect which Lints that their director belongs to the tropics. The popular American idea that the lives of these tropical brethren of ours is a dreamy afternoon siesta, will re- ceive a shock when we look into their public school system. The little Joses and Salomes in the cities have small leisure for dreams of any sort. From the age of five to twelve they are compelled to attend the primary schools. In the country, Brazil being so sparsely tettled, education is compulsory in but part of the province, but the governments of all are zealous in urging it on their people. In these free primary schools the child is taught to read by the sellable mode, not by the individual letters. In schools of the first degree the little Brazilian is taught Christian doc- trines, reading, writing, elementary notions of gram- mar, arithmetic, and a system of weights and measures. In the second grade he learns the history and doctrines of the Bible, elements of profane history, geography, especially of Brazil, of physical science, of natural his- to;y, geometry, land surveying, lineal drawing, music of both kinds, and gymnastics. Boys and girls are rigorously separated. Women are employed and pre- ferred as teachers in these primary schools, receive the same salary as men, and offer more successful results as the proof of their efficiency. While there are many normal schools, the ranks of teachers are frequently re- cruited from the ordinary schools. A pupil receiving notes of distinction is permitted to act as assistant, thus qualifying himself for teacher. Having passed through the eight classes of these schools, he submits to an examination, and if he passes becomes an assist- ant teacher of the second year, with salary, a system more immediately practical than that of Normal schools. The copy-books', drawings and specimens of sewing 316 NOTES FBOM AMEBIOAN SOUBCES. from these public schools are presented with more fair- ness than is usual in other exhibits of the same kind, as we have the bad with the good, and specimens yel- low with age, dating back nearly twenty years, con- trasted with those of last winter to show the improve- ment in the systems. The chirography is unusually fair. Whether these Brazilian girls will ever write for the press is problematic, but if they do it will be a day marked with a white stone for the printers. One, Luiga da Alvarenga's composition, I remember, the script of which would make a compositor's heart leap for joy. Absolute religious toleration is practised in the schools, as in every department of Brazil. Object teaching, by the aid of pictures, plastic models, and prepared animals, etc., is used; but the kindergarten is not known. One errand of the Commission here, in- deed, is to secure competent lady teachers of Froebel's system, familiar wi f h the Portuguese language, who will introduce it. Besides these public schools there are private institutions of every grade, from the primary to the lyceums, and . the Imperial School of Dom Pedro II., in the capital. There are, too, religious seminaries, naval and military systems of schools for artisans and workmen, free night-schools in Bio de Janeiro, where more than 1,000 adults are taught, and numberless private classes es- tablished by wealthy planters for the benefit of their poorer neighbors or former slaves. Dr. da Motta has brought representations from the naval, military, and law schools, the academies of free art, the apparatus for teaching the blind and specimens of their work and that of their blind. There is also a superb and com- plete collection of the insects of Brazil, intended for presentation to one of our scientific institutions. There is no doubt that the educational work which lies before Brazil is but fairly begun ; her population APPENDIX. 317 is scattered over one- fifth of the continent, and three- twelfths of it are savages or just emancipated slaves. But in her efforts there are shown an electric energy and a sound common sense which promise exceptional success. One proof of this is seen in the high salaries and respect paid to teachers, in the wise policy that a man must be relieved of anxiety concerning his family if you would have his best work. Another proof is the fact that of the twenty provinces four expend one- sixth of their annual revenue in schools, three one- fifth, six one-fourth, two one-third, and the remainder a large proportion. In addition to this is the aid from the central Government. In half of these provinces and in all the cities primary education is compulsory. The National Library, which contains over 120,000 volumes, to which every decently clothed person has free access, the National Museum, whose visitors on Sundays average 1,000, and numerous polytechnic schools and libraries, well established or springing into life in all of the provinces, testify to the vigor of her intellectual life. B. H. D. PAPAL TESTIMONY. EXTRACT FBOM THE FIRST ENCYCLICAL OF LEO Xm. ON THE OBLIGATIONS OF CIVILIZATION TO THE CHUBCH. We know with certainty, Venerable Brethren, that civilization has no firm foundation unless it rests upon the eternal principles of truth and upon the unchange- able laws of right and justice; and unless true love binds the wills of men together, and harmonizes by its sweetness their mutual relations and duties to each other. Nor is there any one who can rightly deny that it is the Church which, by preaching the Gospel throughout the world, has carried the light of truth amongst nations who were brutalized and steeped in 318 PAPAL TESTIMONY. foul superstition, and has lifted them up to know the Divine Creator of the world and to recognize their own wretchedness ; that it is the Church which has re- moved the misery of slavery, and thereby restored to men the first dignity and nobility of their nature ; the Church which, unfurling the standard of redemption in every region of the world, has introduced or devel- oped sciences and arts, founded and sheltered works of the highest charity for the relief of every kind of sorrow, everywhere civilized the human race in its public and private life, rescued it from its misery, and brought it by every possible effort to a manner of life befitting the dignity and the hope of man. If any unprejudiced man would compare this age in which we live, all hostile as it is to religion and Christ's Church, with those most happy times in which the Church received a mother's honor from the world, most surely would he find that this age of ours, full of disturbance, and pulling all things down, is rushing by a straight and rapid road to its destruction ; but that those days enjoyed excellent institutions, un- troubled peace, wealth and prosperity, in the exact proportion in which the nations paid obedience to the direction and laws of the Church. If, however, those numberless benefits which we have now mentioned, as springing from the ministry and useful labors of the Church, are the true work and g ory of civilization, then it is by no means the case that Christ's Church is a foe to civilization, or rejects it: rather may she claim, that to her by every title belongs the praise of being to civilization a fostering nurse and mother. That kind of so-called civilization, however, which would be at variance with the doctrines and laws of holy Church, cannot be regarded as other than a mock- ery of true civilization, a mere name without a sub- stance. A clear proof of this is afforded by those APPENDIX. 319 nations~6n whom the light of the Gospel has not shone* in who-e lives a certain color of civilization can be seen, but its solid and true benefits are not there. Cer- tainly, that cannot be deemed the perfection of civil- ized life in which every lawful power is boldly con- temned; nor is that to be counted liberty which holds shameful and wretched riot in the unbridled propaga- tion of error, in the free satisfying of low desires, in unpunished deeds of shame and sin, and in tyranny over good men of every social rank. For since these things are full of error, since they distort and are out of harmony with our nature, they cannot certainly have power to perfect the family of man and make it prosperous, for "sin maketh nations miserable/'* Nay, it cannot be but that these things, having corrupted men's minds and hearts, should by their own weight thrust down the nations into every wickedness, give insecurity to all that was rightly ordered, and so, soon- er or later, drag on the State which was before settled and peaceful into uttermost destruction. And if we look at tb e history of the Popes of Borne, what can be more unjust than to deny how much, huw far above all others, the Roman Pontiffs have deserved from the whole of civilized society? Most certainly Our Predecessors, that they might provide for the good of the nations, never hesitated to take on them- selves struggles of every kind, to go through severe labors, to expose themselves to rude difficulty: fixing their eyes on Heaven, they neither lowered that gaze before the threats of the wicked, nor suffered them- selves to be drawn away from the straight path of duty by any unworthy yielding to flattery or promise. It was this Apostolic See which, when the old world fell to pieces, gathered and banded together the remnants of its order; this See was the friendly torch by which * Prov. xiv. 34. 320 PAPAL TESTIMONY. the light of Christian civilization shone forth; this the saving anchor amicist the fierce storms by which the human race was tossed; this the sacred bond of unity which, when nations were sundered in position and in character, still held them bound to one another; this, in fine, was the common centre from which were sought both teaching in religious faith, and guidance and ad- vice in the affairs of peace. In a word, it is the glory of the Popes that with one consent they have thrown themselves before human society as a wall and tower of defence, lest it should slip back again into its former barbarism and superstition. For such merits of Our Predecessors, that We may not record all, We would especially call in witness the times of St. Leo the Great, Alexander III. , Innocent III. , St. Pius V. , Leo X, , and other Pontiffs, by whose labor or guidance Italy came forth unhurt from the danger of utter destruction by barbarians; held uncor- rupt her ancient Faith; and, amidst the darkness and wretchedness of an uncivilized age, cherished the light of the sciences and the splendor of the arts, bade them live, and preserved their life. Witness this City of Ours, Our fostering mother and the seat of the Pon- tiffs, which through them, to its great advantage, has not only become the strongly fortified citadel of the Faith, but has become moreover an asylum of the fine arts and the home of learning, so as to draw upon itself the admiring gaze of the whole world. And since the story of these magnificent benefits has been handed down in the records of history to the memory of man forever, it is easy to be seen that by no other means but the determined will of foes and unworthy slander could men have been beguiled, by word and writing thrust upon them, into believing that the Apostolic See is a hindrance to the civilization of the world and to the happiness of Italy.