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Essays and Reviews. 
 
ESSAYS 
 
 AND 
 
 REVI EWS. 
 
 RT. REV. J. L SPALDING, D.D., 
 
 Bisliop of Peoria, 
 
 New York : 
 
 THE CATHOLIC PUBLICATION SOCIETY, 
 
 9 Barclay Street. 
 
 1877, 
 
Copyright : 
 L. KEHOE. 
 
 1877. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 HE papers contained in this volume 
 have appeared, with one or two 
 exceptions, substantially as they are 
 here published, in the Catholic World during 
 the last eighteen months. The essay entitled 
 " Religion and Art " has been rewritten from 
 a sketch made several years ago. Some of 
 the subjects which are here discussed, hurriedly 
 and imperfectly enough, have at least the merit 
 of dealing with questions of present interest ; 
 and throughout the entire volume that w^hich 
 has chiefly engaged my thought is religion, 
 which, however it be considered, remains, and 
 must for ever remain, the chief and most essen- 
 
 4r- 
 
6' Preface. 
 
 tial element in the history and civihzation of 
 mankind, as it alone gives to human nature a 
 hif^her than animal value and a more than 
 mortal destiny. 
 
 Xrw York, May r, 1877, 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PACK 
 
 TuE Catholic Church in the Uxixfin States, 1776-1S76, 9 
 
 The PERSEcrTioN of the Church in the German Em- 
 pire, «... 50 
 
 Comparative Influence of Catholicism and Protest- 
 antism ON National Prosperity. 
 
 I. Wealth, 88 
 
 II. Education ii9 
 
 III. Morality, 151 
 
 Prussia and the Church. 
 
 1 190 
 
 II., 2lg 
 
 III 249 
 
 German Journalism, 27S 
 
 Religion and Art, 306 
 
Essays and Reviews. 
 
 THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE UNITED 
 
 STATES, 1776-1876. 
 
 IHE conditions of social life which have 
 been developed in the European colo- 
 nies of North America, though to a 
 certain extent the result of the physical 
 surroundings of the early settlers, are chiefly the 
 freer growth of principles which have been active 
 for centuries in the Christian nations of the Old 
 World. The elements of society here, unhindered by 
 custom, law, or privilege, grouped themselves quick- 
 ly and spontaneously into the forms to which they 
 are tending in Europe also, but slowly and through 
 conflict and struggle. The great and most signifi- 
 cant fact, that it was found impossible in the New 
 World to create privileged classes, clearly pointed 
 in the direction in which European civilization was 
 moving. Another fact not less noteworthy was the 
 failure of every attempt to establish religion in this 
 country. 
 
lo The Catholic Chunh in 
 
 Though there is but little to please the fancy or 
 fire the imagination in American character or insti- 
 tutions, it is nevertheless to this country that the 
 eyes of the thoughtful and observant from eveiy 
 part of the world are turned. The catholicity of 
 Christian civilization has generalized political prob- 
 lems and social movements. Civilization, like reli- 
 gion, has ceased to be national ; and the bear- 
 ing of a people's life upon the welfare of the 
 human race has come to be of greater moment 
 than its effect upon the national character. It is 
 to this that the universal interest which centres in 
 the United States must be attributed. 
 
 We are a commonplace and mediocre people ; 
 practical, without high ideals, lofty aspirations, or 
 excellent standards of worth and character. In 
 philosophy, in science, in literature, in art, in cul- 
 ture, we are inferior to the nations of Europe. No 
 mind transcendentally great has appeared among 
 us ; not one who is heir to all the ages and citizen 
 of the world. Our ablest thinkers are merely the 
 disciples of some foreign master. Our most gifted 
 poets belong to the careful kind, who with effort 
 and the file give polish and smoothness, but not 
 the viois divinior, to their verse ; and who, when 
 they attempt a loftier flight, grow dull and mono- 
 tonous as a Western prairie or Rocky Mountain 
 table-land. Our most popular heroes — Washington 
 and Lincoln — are but common men, and the higher 
 is he who is least the product of our democratic in- 
 stitutions. 
 
 Our commercial enterprise and mechanical achieve- 
 
the United States, 1 776-1876. n 
 
 ments are worthy of admiration, but not so far above 
 those of other nations as to attract special attention. 
 If to-day, then, the American people draw the 
 eyes of the whole world upon themselves, it is not 
 because they have performed marvellous deeds, 
 opened up new realms of thought, or created high- 
 er types of character, but because their social and 
 political condition is that to which Europe, whether 
 for good or evil, seems to be irresistibly approach- 
 ing. Beyond doubt, the tendency of modern civ- 
 ilization is to give to the people greater power and 
 a larger sphere of action. Every attempt to arrest 
 this movement but serves to make its force the 
 more manifest. This spirit of the age is seen in 
 the -general spread of education, in the widening 
 of the popular suffrage, in the separation of church 
 and state, and in the dying out of aristocracies. 
 We simply note facts, without stopping to examine 
 principles or to weigh consequences. Those who 
 resist a revolution are persuaded that it will work 
 nothing but evil, while those who help it on hope 
 from it every good ; and the event most generally 
 shows both to have been in error. Our present 
 purpose does not lead us to speculate as to the 
 manner in which the general welfare is to be af- 
 fected by the great social transformations by which 
 the character of civilized nations is being so pro- 
 foundly modified ; but we will suppose that the 
 reign of aristocracies and of privilege is past, and 
 that in the future the people are to govern ; and 
 we ask, What will be the influence of the new 
 society upon the old faith ? 
 
12 The Catholic Church m 
 
 The essential life of the Catholic Church is inde- 
 pendent of her worldly condition ; and though we 
 are bound to believe that she is to remain amongst 
 iTien until the end, we are yet not forbidden to 
 hold that at times she may to human eyes seem 
 almost to have ceased to be ; that as in the past 
 Christ was entombed, the dcletuin iioinen Chris- 
 tiamun was proclaimed, in the future also the 
 heavens may grow dark, God's countenance seem- 
 ingly be withdrawn, and the voice of despair cry 
 out that all have bent the knee to Baal. 
 
 " But yet the Son of Man, when he cometh, shall 
 he find, think you, faith on earth ? " Wc may hope, 
 we may despond ; let us, then, dispassionately con- 
 sider th.e facts. 
 
 First, we will put aside the assumption that it is 
 possible to organize this modern society so as to 
 crush the church by persecution or violence. In a 
 social state, which can be strong only by being just, 
 attempts of this kind, if successful, would inevita- 
 bly lead to anarchy and chaos, out of which the 
 church would again come forth with or before the 
 civil order. We cannot, then, look forward to a 
 prolonged and open conflict between the church 
 and the civilized governments of the world without 
 giving up all hope in the permanency and effective- 
 ness of the social phase upon which we have en- 
 tered. In the end the European states, like the 
 American, must be convinced that, if they would 
 live, they must also let live ; since a modus vivendi 
 between church and state is absolutely essential to 
 the permanence of society as now constituted. 
 
the United States, 1776-1876. 13 
 
 The question, then, is narrowed to the free and 
 peaceable life of the church in contact with the pop- 
 ular governments which are already constituted or 
 are struggling for existence ; and it is in their bear- 
 ing upon this all-important subject that the world- 
 wide significance of the lessons to be learned from 
 a careful study of the history of the Catholic 
 Church in the United States becomes apparent. 
 For a hundred years this church has lived in the 
 new society, and all the circumstances of her posi- 
 tion have been admirably suited to test her power 
 to meet the difficulties offered by a democratic 
 social organization. The problem to be solved was 
 whether or not a vigorous but yet orderly and obe- 
 dient Catholic faith and life could flourish in this 
 country, where what are called the principles of 
 modern civilization have found their most complete 
 expression. 
 
 If we would understand the history of our coun- 
 try, we must not lose sight of the religious charac- 
 ter of the men by whom it was explored and colon- 
 ized. Religious zeal led the Puritans to New Eng- 
 land, the Catholics to Maryland, and the Quakers 
 to Pennsylvania ; and among the Spaniards and the 
 French there were many who, like Columbus and 
 Champlain, deemed the salvation of a soul of 
 greater moment than the conquest of an empire. 
 We might, indeed, without going beyond our pre- 
 sent subject, speak of the heroic and gentle lives 
 of the apostolic men who, from Maine to California, 
 from Florida to the Northern Lakes, toiled among 
 the Indians, and not in vain, that they might win 
 
14 The Catholic Church in 
 
 them from savage ways and lift them up to higher 
 modes of life. The Catholics of the United States 
 can never forget that the labors of these men be- 
 long to the history of the church on this continent ; 
 that the lives they offered up, the blood tliey shed, 
 plead for us before God ; and that if their work is 
 disappearing, it sinks into the grave only with the 
 dying race which they more than all others have 
 loved and served. But in this age men are little 
 inclined to dwell upon memories, however glorious. 
 We live in the present and in the future, and, in 
 spite of much cheap sentiment and wordy philan- 
 thropy, we have but weak sympathy with decaying 
 races. We are interested in what is or is to be, not 
 in what has been ; and perhaps it is well that this 
 is so. We have but feeble power to think or act or 
 love, and it should not be wasted. If Americans 
 to-<lay are busy with thoughts of a hundred years 
 ago, it is not that they love those old times and 
 their simple ways, but that by contrast they may, 
 in boastful self-complacency, glory in the present. 
 They look back, not to regret the fast-receding 
 shore, but to congratulate themselves that they 
 have left it already so far behind. It is enough, 
 then, to have alluded to the labors of the Catholic 
 missionaries among the North American Indians, 
 since those labors have had and can have but small 
 influence upon the history of the church in the 
 United States. To understand this history we 
 need only study that of the Europeans and their 
 descendants on this continent. 
 
 The early colonists of the present territor}- of the 
 
the United States, i 776-1876. 15 
 
 United States were as unlike in their religious as in 
 their national characters. English Puritans founded 
 the colonies of New England ; New York was set- 
 tled by the Dutch ; Delaware and New Jersey by 
 the Dutch and the Swedes; Pennsylvania by 
 Quakers from England, who were followed by a 
 German colony. Virginia was the home of the 
 English who adhered to the Established Church 
 of the mother country, and North Carolina became 
 the refuge of the Nonconformists from Virginia ; in 
 South Carolina a considerable number of Hugue- 
 nots found an asylum ; and in Maryland the first 
 settlers were chiefly English Catholics. Nearly all 
 these colonies owed their foundation to the reli- 
 gious troubles of Europe. The Puritans, the Ca- 
 tholics, and the Quakers were more eager to find a 
 home in which they could freely worship God than 
 to amass wealth. 
 
 The religious spirit of New England, whose in- 
 fluence in this country, before and since the Revo- 
 lution, has been preponderant, was as narrow and 
 proscriptive as it was intense, and a gloomy fana- 
 ticism lay at the basis of its entire political and 
 social i?ystem. The Puritan colonies were not so 
 much bodies politic as churches in the wilderness. 
 To the commission appointed to draw up a body 
 of laws to serve as a declaration of rights. Cotton 
 Mather declared that God's people should be gov- 
 erned by no other laws than those which He him- 
 self had given to Moses ; and one of the first acts 
 of the Massachusetts colony was the expulsion of 
 John -and Samuel 13rowne with their followers, be- 
 
1 6 TJie Catholic Church in 
 
 cause they refused to conform to the religious prac- 
 tices of the Pilgrims. If dissenting Protestants 
 were not tolerated in New England, Catholics cer- 
 tainly could not hope for mercy; and, in fact, they 
 were denied religious liberty even in Rhode Island, 
 which had been founded by the victims of Puritan 
 persecution as a refuge for the oppressed and a 
 protest against fanaticism. Though Mr. Bancroft, 
 Aviiose partisan zeal whenever there is question of 
 New England is unmistakable, denies that this 
 unjust discrimination was the act of the people of 
 Rhode Island, it served, at any rate, so effectually 
 to exclude Catholics that when the war of inde- 
 pendence broke out not one was to be found within 
 the limits of the colony. 
 
 Puritanism, more than any other form of Protes- 
 tantism, drew its very life from a hatred of all that is 
 Catholic. The office and authority of bishops, the 
 repetition of the Lord's Prayer, the sign of the 
 cross, the chant of the psalms, the observance of 
 saints' days, the use of musical instruments in 
 church, and the vestments worn by the ministers 
 of religion were all odious to the Puritans because 
 they were associated with Catholic worship ; and 
 in their eyes the chief crime of the Church of Eng- 
 land was that she still retained some of the doc- 
 trines and usages of that of Rome. Religion and 
 freedom, though their conception of both was par- 
 tial and false, were the predominant passions of the 
 Puritans ; and since they looked upon the Catholic 
 Church as the fatal enemy alike of religion and of 
 freedom, their fanaticism, not less than their onthu- 
 
the United States, i 776-1876. 17 
 
 siastic love of independence, filled them with the 
 deepest hatred for Catholics. They had the virtues 
 and the vices of the lower and more ignorant classes 
 of Englishmen, from which for the most part they 
 had sprung. If they were frugal, content with 
 little, ready to bear hardship and to suffer want, 
 not easily cast down, they were also narrow, super- 
 stitious, angular, and unlovely ; and these charac- 
 teristics were hardened by a cold, gloomy, and un- 
 sympathetic religious faith. The credulity which led 
 them to hang witches made them ready to believe in 
 the diabolism of priests ; while the narrowness of 
 their intellectual range rendered them incapable of' 
 perceiving the grandeur and excellence of an organi- 
 zation which alone, in the history of the world, has 
 become universal without becoming weak, and 
 Avhich, if it be considered as only human, is still 
 man's most wonderful work. With the aesthetic 
 beauty of the Catholic religion they could have no 
 sympathy, since they were deprived of the sense 
 by which alone it can be appreciated. Though 
 they fasted, appointed days of thanksgiving, and, 
 through a false asceticism, changed the Lord's day 
 into the Jewish Sabbath, the fasts and saints' days 
 of Catholics were in their eyes the superstitions of 
 idolaters ; and while they assumed the right to 
 declare what is true Christian doctrine and to en- 
 force its acceptance, they indignantly rejected the 
 spiritual authority of the church, though historically 
 traceable to Christ's commission to the apostles. 
 
 The measures, therefore, which the colonies of 
 New England took to prevent the establishment 
 
i8 The Catholic CJiurch in 
 
 of the Catholic Church on their soil, were merely 
 the expression of the horror and dread of what they 
 conceived its influence and tendency to be. In 
 163 1, just eleven years after the landing of the 
 Mayflewer, Sir Christopher Gardiner, on mere sus- 
 picion of being a papist, was seized and sent out 
 of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, and in the 
 same year the General Court wrote a letter de- 
 nouncing the minister at Watertown for giving ex- 
 pression to the opinion that the Church of Rome is 
 a true church. Three years later Roger Williams, 
 whose tolerant temper has been an exhaustless 
 "theme of praise, joined with the Puritans in declar- 
 ing the cross a " relic of Antichrist, a popish symbol 
 savoring of superstition and not to be countenanced 
 by Christian men " ; and, in proof of the sincerity 
 of their zeal, these godly men cut the cross from 
 out the English flag. Priests were forbidden, under 
 pain of imprisonment and even death, to enter the 
 colonies; and the neighboring Catholic settlements 
 of Canada were regarded with sentiments of such 
 bigoted hatred as to blind the Puritans to their own 
 most evident political and commercial interests. 
 So unrelenting was their fanaticism that one of the 
 grievances which they most strongly urged against 
 George III. was that he tolerated popery in Canada. 
 In the New England colonies, down to 1776, the 
 Catholic Church had no existence, and the same 
 may be said of the other colonies, with the excep- 
 tion of Maryland and of a few families scattered 
 through parts of Pennsylvania. In Maryland itself, 
 where the principles of religious liberty, which now 
 
the United States, i 776-1876. 19 
 
 form a part of the organic law of the land, had 
 been first prockumed by the Catholic colonists, the 
 persecution of the church early became an important 
 feature in the colonial legislation. In successive 
 enactments the Catholics were forbidden to teach 
 school, to hold civil office, and to have public wor- 
 ship ; and were, moreover, taxed for the support 
 of the Established Church. The religious character 
 of Virginia, though less intense and earnest than 
 that of New England, can hardly be said to have 
 been less anti-Catholic; and it is therefore not sur- 
 prising that we should find the cruel penal code of 
 the mother country in full vigor in this colony. 
 
 It would have been difficult to find anywhere 
 communities more thoroughly Protestant than these 
 thirteen British colonies one hundred years ago. 
 The little body of Catholics in Maryland, in all 
 about 25,000, who, in spite of persecution, had re- 
 tained their faith, had sunk into a kind of religious 
 apathy ; and as their public worship had long been 
 forbidden and they were not permitted to have 
 schools, to indifference was added ignorance of the 
 doctrines of the church. A few priests, once mem- 
 bers of the suppressed Society of Jesus, lingered 
 amongst them, though they generally found it 
 necessary to live upon their own lands or with their 
 kindred, and with difficulty kept alive the flickering 
 flame of faith. Without religious energy, zeal, or 
 organization, the IMaryland Catholics were gradu- 
 ally being absorbed into mere worldliness or into 
 the more vigorous Protestant sects; and, in fact, 
 many of the descendants of the original settlers had 
 
20 The Catholic ChjM'ch in 
 
 already lost the faith. In this way the character 
 of the old Catholic colony had been wholly changed ; 
 so that Maryland surpassed all the other colonies 
 in the odious proscriptiveness of her legislation, 
 levying the same tax for the introduction into her 
 territory of a Catholic Irishman as for the importa- 
 tion of a negro slave. The existence of the Catholic 
 families there, and of the small and scattered set- 
 tlements in Pennsylvania, if recognized at all by 
 the general public, was looked upon as an anomaly, 
 an anachronism, which, from the nature of things, 
 must soon disappear. There is no . exaggeration, 
 then, in saying that the Revolution found the Bri- 
 tish provinces of North America thoroughly Pro- 
 testant, with a hatred of the church which nothing 
 but the general contempt for Catholics tended to 
 mitigate ; while the seeming failure of the Catholic 
 settlement in Maryland, one hundred and fifty 
 years after the landing of Lord Baltimore, gave no 
 promise of a brighter future for the faith. 
 
 In the presence of the impending conflict with 
 England political questions became supreme, and the 
 Convention of 1774, in its appeal to the country, 
 entreated all classes of citizens to put away reli- 
 gious disputes and animosities, which could only 
 withhold them from uniting in the defence of their 
 common rights and liberties. Though this appeal 
 was probably meant to smooth the way for a more 
 cordial union between New England and the South- 
 ern colonies, which were even then as unlike as 
 Puritan and Cavalier, it was also an evidence of 
 the public feeling, showing that with the American 
 
the United States, i 776-1876. 21 
 
 people religious questions were fast coming" to be 
 merely of secondary importance. At any rate it 
 was responded to cheerfully and generously by the 
 Catholics, who, without stopping to think of the 
 wrongs they had suffered, threw themselves hear- 
 tily into the contest for national independence. 
 The signer of the Declaration who risked most was 
 a Catholic, and a Catholic priest was a member of 
 the delegation sent to Canada to bring about an 
 alliance, or at least to secure the neutrality of that 
 province. 
 
 The conduct of the Catholics in the war made, 
 no doubt, a favorable impression, and the very im- 
 portant aid given to the American cause by Catho- 
 lic France had still further influence in softening 
 the asperities of Protestant prejudice ; but, unless 
 we are mistaken, we must seek elsewhere for the 
 explanation of the clause of the federal Constitu- 
 tion which provides that " no religious test shall 
 ever be required as a qualification for any office or 
 public trust under the United States" ; as well as 
 of the First Amendment, to the effect that " Con- 
 gress shall make no law respecting an establishment 
 of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." 
 These acts were merely part of a general policy, 
 which restricted as far as possible the functions of 
 the federal government, and left to the several 
 States as much of their separate sovereignty as was 
 consistent with the existence of the national Union. 
 
 This is evident from the fact that the federal 
 Constitution placed no restriction upon the legis- 
 lation of the different States in matters of religion, 
 
2 2 TJic Catholic Church iti 
 
 leaving them free to pursue the intolerant and per- 
 secuting policy of tlie colonial era ; and, indeed, 
 laws for the support of public worship lingered in 
 Connecticut till l8i6 and in Massachusetts till 1833, 
 and anti-Catholic religious tests were introduced 
 into several of the State constitutions. In New 
 York, as late as 1806, a test-oath excluded Catholics 
 from office ; and in North Carolina, down to 1836, 
 only those who were willing to swear to belief in 
 the truth of Protestantism were permitted to hope 
 for political preferment. New Jersey erased the 
 anti-Catholic clause from her constitution only in 
 1844; and even to-day, unless we err, the written 
 law of New Hampshire retains the test-oath.* 
 
 The law which denied to the general govern- 
 ment all right of interference in religious matters 
 was a political necessity. Any attempt to intro- 
 duce into Congress religious discussions would 
 have surely rent asunder the still feeble bands 
 by which New England and the Southern States 
 were held together. The reasons of policy which 
 forbade the federal government to meddle with 
 slavery applied with tenfold force to questions of 
 religion. 
 
 The First Amendment to the Constitution, of 
 which we Americans are so fond of boasting, was 
 not, therefore, an assertion of the principle of tol- 
 eration or of the separation of church and state ; 
 it was merely the expression of the will of the 
 confederating States to retain their pre-existing 
 
 * f ince this was written. New Hampshire has abrogated the law which ex- 
 cUidcd Catholics from office. 
 
the United States, 1776-1876. 23 
 
 rights of control over religion, which, indeed, they 
 could not have delegated to the general govern- 
 ment without imperilling the very existence of the 
 Union. Nearly all the leading statesmen of that 
 day recognized the necessity of some kind of 
 union of church and state, and their views were 
 embodied in the different State constitutions. 
 
 The year before the first battle of the Revolution 
 no less than eighteen Baptists were confined in one 
 jail in Massachusetts for refusing to pay ministerial 
 rates ; and yet John Adams declared " that a change 
 in the solar system might be expected as soon as a 
 change in the ecclesiastical system of Massachu- 
 setts" ; and at a much later period Judge Story 
 was able to affirm that " it yet remained a problem 
 to be solved in human affairs whether any free 
 government can be permanent where the public 
 worship of God and the support of religion con- 
 stitute no part of the policy or duty of the 
 state." 
 
 There is no foundation, we think, for the opinion 
 which we have sometimes heard expressed, that the 
 First Amendment to the Constitution was intended 
 as an act of tardy justice to the Catholics of the 
 United States, in gratitude for their conduct during 
 the war and for the aid of Catholic France. It in 
 fact made no change in the position of the Catho- 
 lics, whom it left to the mercy of the different 
 States, precisely as they had been in the colonial 
 era. Various causes were, however, at work which, 
 by modifying the attitude of the States towards 
 religion, tended also to give greater freedom to the 
 
24 The Catholic Church in 
 
 Catholic Church. TIic first of these was the rise 
 of what may be called the secular theory of gov- 
 ernment, whose great exponent, Thomas Jefferson, 
 had received his political opinions from the French 
 philosophers of the eighteenth century. The state, 
 according to this theory, is a purely political organ- 
 ism, and is not in any way concerned with religion ; 
 and this soon came to be the prevailing sentiment 
 in the Democratic party, whose acknowledged lead- 
 er Jefferson was, which may explain why the great 
 mass of the Catholics in this country have always 
 voted with this party. Another cause that tended 
 to bring about a separation of church and state 
 was the rapidly-increasing number of sects, which 
 rendered religious legislation more and more diffi- 
 cult, especially as several of these were opposed 
 to any recognition of religion by the civil power. 
 And to this we may add the growing religious 
 indifference which caused large numbers of Ameri- 
 cans to fall away from, or to be brought up outside 
 of, all ecclesiastical organization. The desire, too, 
 to encourage immigration — which sprang from in- 
 terested motives, and also from a feeling, very 
 powerful in the United States half a century ago, 
 that this country is the refuge of all who are 
 oppressed by the European tyrannies — predisposed 
 Americans to look favorably upon the largest tol- 
 eration of religious belief and practice. There is 
 no question, then, but the Catholics of this country 
 owe the freedom which they now enjoy to the 
 operation of general laws, the necessary results of 
 given social conditions, and not at all to the good- 
 
the United States. 1776-1876, 
 
 -:) 
 
 will or tolerant temper of American Protestants. 
 Let us, however, be grateful for the boon, whence- 
 soever derived. At the close of the war which 
 secured our national independence and created the 
 republic the Catholic Church found herself, for all 
 practical purposes, unfettered and free to enter 
 upon a field which to her, we may say, was new. 
 At that time there were in the whole country not 
 more than forty thousand Catholics and twenty- 
 five priests. In all the Tsmd there was not a convent 
 or a religious community. There was not a Catho- 
 lic school ; there was no bishop ; the sacraments of 
 confirmation and of Holy Orders had never been 
 administered. The church was without organiza- 
 tion, having for several years had no intercourse 
 with its immediate head, the vicar-apostolic of 
 London ; it was without property, with the ex- 
 ftption of some land in Maryland, which, through 
 a variety of contrivances, had been saved from the 
 rapacity of the colonial persecutors ; and, sur- 
 rounded by a bigoted Protestant population, igno- 
 rant of all the Catholic glories of the past, it was 
 also without honor. But faith and hope, which 
 with liberty ought to make all things possible, had 
 not fled, and soon the budding promise of the 
 future harvest lifted its timid head beneath the 
 genial sun of a brighter heaven. The priests of 
 Maryland and Pennsylvania addressed a letter to 
 Pius VI., praying him to appoint a prefect-aposto- 
 lic to preside over the church in the United States; 
 and as the Holy See was already deliberating upon 
 a step of this kind, Father Carroll was made supe- 
 3 
 
26 'J he Catholic Church in 
 
 rior of the American clergy, with power to admin- 
 ister the sacrament of confirmation. This was in 
 1784. 
 
 The priests, who at this time, for fear of wound- 
 ing Protestant susceptibiHties, thought it inexpe- 
 dient to ask for a bishop, were now, after longer 
 deliberation, persuaded that in this they had erred, 
 and they therefore named a committee to present a 
 petition to Rome, praying for the erection of an 
 episcopal see in the United States. The Holy 
 Father having signified his willingness to accede to 
 this proposition, and it having been ascertained, 
 too, that the government of this country would 
 make no objection, they at once fixed upon Balti- 
 more as the most suitable location for the new sec, 
 and presented the name of Father Carroll as the 
 most worthy to be its first occupant. The papal 
 bulls were dated November 6, 1789, and upon theft 
 reception Father Carroll sailed for England, where 
 he was consecrated on the 15th of August, the 
 Feast of the Assumption, 1790. 
 
 Events were just then taking place in France 
 which w^ere of great moment to the young church 
 on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. The 
 French Revolution was getting ready to guillotine 
 priests and to turn churches into barracks; and M. 
 Emery, the Superior-General of the Order of Saint 
 Sulpice, who was as far-seeing as he was fearless, 
 entered into correspondence with Bishop Carroll, in 
 England, with a view to open an ecclesiastical 
 seminary in the United States. The offer was 
 gladly accepted, and the year following (1791) M. 
 
the I 'nitcd States, 1776-1876. 27 
 
 Nagot organized the Theological Seminary of Bal- 
 timore, and in the same year the first Catholic 
 college in the United States was opened at George- 
 town, in the District of Columbia. In 1790 Father 
 Charles Neale brought from Antwerp a community 
 of Carmelite nuns, who established themselves near 
 Port Tobacco, in Southern Maryland. This was 
 the first convent of religious women founded in the 
 United States, the house of Ursuline nuns in New 
 Orleans having come into existence while Louisiana 
 was still a Fi*ench colony. A few years later a 
 number of religious ladies adopted the rule of the 
 Order of the Visitation and organized a convent in 
 Georgetown; and in 1809 Mother Seton founded 
 near Emmittsburg, in Maryland, the first commu- 
 nity of Sisters of Charity in this country, just one 
 year after Father Dubois, the future Bishop of 
 New York, had opened Mt. St. Mary's College. 
 In 1805 Bishop Carroll reorganized the Society of 
 Jesus, and in 1806 the Dominicans founded their 
 first convent in the United States, at St. Rose, in 
 Kentucky. Two years later episcopal sees were 
 established at New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and 
 Bardstown, with an archiepiscopal centre at Bal- 
 timore. 
 
 In this way the church was preparing, as far as 
 the slender means at her command would permit, 
 to receive and care for the vast multitudes of Catho- 
 lics who began to seek refuge in the United States 
 from the persecutions and oppressions of the British 
 and other European governments. But her re- 
 sources were not equal to the urgency and magni- 
 
28 The CatJiolic CJiurcJi in 
 
 tude of the occasion, and her history during the 
 lialf-century immediately following the close of 
 the Revolutionary war, though full of examples of 
 courage, zeal, and energy, shows her in the throes 
 of a struggle which, whether it were for life or 
 death, seemed doubtful. 
 
 Like an invading army, her children poured in a 
 ceaseless stream into the enemy's country, and, ar- 
 rived upon the scene of action, they found them- 
 selves without leaders, without provisions, without 
 means of defence or weapons of heavenly warfare. 
 Far from their spiritual guides, in a strange land, 
 without churches or schools, the very air of this 
 new world seemed fatal to the faith of the early 
 Catholic immigrants ; and when, yielding to the 
 rigors of the climate or the hardships of frontier 
 life, they died in great numbers, their orphan chil- 
 dren fell into the hands of Protestants and were 
 lost to the church. Their descendants to-day are 
 scattered from Maine to Florida, from New York to 
 California. 
 
 Bishop England, though inclined to exaggerate 
 the losses of the church in this country, was cer- 
 tainly not mistaken in holding that during the 
 period of which we speak, though there was an 
 increase of congregations, there was yet a great 
 falling away of Catholics from the faith in the 
 United States. 
 
 Unfortunately, the want of priests and churches 
 cannot with truth be said to have been the greatest 
 evil, especially in the early years of the organiza- 
 tion of the hierarchy. A spirit of insubordination 
 
/// c Un itcd Sta /if j-, 1776-1876. 29 
 
 existed both in the clergy and the hiity. " Every 
 day," wrote Bishop Carroll, " furnishes me with 
 new reflections, and almost every day produces 
 new events to alarm my conscience and excite fresh 
 solicitude at the prospect before'me. You cannot 
 conceive the trouble which I suffi^r already, and the 
 still greater which I foresee from the medley of 
 clerical characters, coming from different quarters 
 and of various educations, and seeking employment 
 here. I cannot avoid employing some of them, 
 and soon they begin to create disturbances." There 
 were troubles and scandals in nearly all the larger 
 cities, which in some instances were fomented by 
 the priests themselves. The trustee system was a 
 fruitful cause of disturbance, threatening at times 
 to bring the greatest evils upon the church ; espe- 
 cially as there seemed to be reason to fear lest the 
 dissensions between the clergy and the laity might 
 serve as a pretext for the intermeddling of the civil 
 authority in ecclesiasFfcal affairs. Except in the 
 two or three colleges of which we have spoken, 
 there was no Catholic education to be had ; and for 
 a long time the few elementary schools which were 
 ofDened were of a very wretched kind. Indeed, we 
 may say that it is only within the last quarter of a 
 century that many of the bishops and priests of this 
 country have come to realize the all-importance of 
 Catholic education. 
 
 Another unavoidable evil was the mingling of 
 various nationalities in the same church, giving rise 
 to jealousies, and frequently to dissensions ; and to 
 this we may add that the very people to whom 
 
30 llie CatJiolic CJnirch in 
 
 above all others the church in this country is in- 
 debted for its progress met with peculiar difficulties 
 in the fulfilment of their God-given mission. This 
 fact did not escape the keen eye of the first bishop 
 of Charleston. 
 
 " England," he says, " has unfortunately too Avell 
 succeeded in linking contumely to their name [the 
 Irish] in all her colonies; and though the United 
 States have cast away the yoke under which she 
 held them, many other causes have combined to 
 continue against the Irish Catholic more or less to 
 the present day the sneer of the supercilious, the 
 contempt of the conceited, and the dull prosing of 
 those who imagine themselves wise. That which 
 more than a century of fashion has made habitual 
 is not to be overcome in a year; and to any Irish 
 Catholic who has dwelt in this country during one- 
 fourth of the period of my sojourn it will be pain- 
 fully evident that, although the evil is slowly dimin- 
 ishing, its influence is not confined to the American 
 nor to the anti-Catholic. When a race is once 
 degraded, however unjustly, it is a weakness of our 
 nature that, however we may be identified with 
 them upon some points, we are desirous of showing 
 that the similitude is not complete. You may be 
 an Irishman, but not a Catholic; you may be Ca- 
 tholic, but not Irish. It is clear you are not an 
 Irish Catholic in either case I But when the great 
 majority of Catholics in the United States were 
 either Irish or of Irish descent, the force of the 
 prejudice against the Irish Catholic bore against 
 the Catholic religion, and the influence of this pre- 
 
the United States, 1776-1876. 31 
 
 judice has been far more mischievous than is gene- 
 rally believed." * 
 
 We must not omit to add that many of the early 
 missionaries spoke English very imperfectly and 
 were but little acquainted with the habits and cus- 
 toms of the people among whom they were called 
 to labor ; while the five or six bishops of the coun- 
 try, separated by great distances from their priests, 
 rarely saw them, and consequently were in a great 
 measure unable to control or direct them in the 
 exercise of the sacred ministry. The French mis- 
 sionaries, who in their own country had seen the 
 most frightful crimes committed in the name of 
 liberty and of republicanism, found it difficult to 
 sympathize heartily with our democratic institu- 
 tions; and from Ireland very few priests came, 
 because the French Revolution had broken up the 
 Continental Irish seminaries from which she drew 
 her own supplies. 
 
 The purchase of Louisiana from France in 1803 
 added little or nothing to the strength of the church 
 in the United States, since, owing to the wretched 
 French ecclesiastical colonial policy, which did not 
 permit the appointment of bishops, the Catholic 
 population of that province, a large portion of whom 
 were negro slaves, had been almost wholly neg- 
 lected. What the state of the church was in Florida 
 at tlie time of its cession to the United States may 
 be inferred from the fact that in the whole province 
 there was but one efficient priest, who at once with- 
 drew to Cuba, and afterwards to Ireland, his native 
 
 * Bishop England's works, vol. iii. p. 233. 
 
32 TJic CatJiolic Church in 
 
 country. In the early years of the present century 
 Protestant feeling in tiiis country was much more 
 earnest and self-confident than at present — in the 
 simple days of camp-meetings and jerking revivals 
 and childlike faith in the pope as Antichrist, and 
 in priests and nuns as Satan's chosen agents ; when 
 the preachers had the whole world of anti-popery 
 commonplace wherein to disport themselves without 
 fear of contradiction. The universal feeling of pity 
 for those who doubted the supreme wisdom of our 
 political institutions was bestowed with not less 
 boundless liberality upon all who failed to perceive 
 that American Protestantism was the fine essence 
 and final outcome of all that is best and purest in 
 religion. Catholic opinion, on the other hand, was 
 feeble, unorganized, and thrown back upon itself 
 by the overwhelming force of a public sentiment 
 strong, fresh, and defiant. We were, moreovtr, 
 still under the ban of English literature that for 
 three hundred years had been busy travestying the 
 history and doctrines of the church, to defend 
 which was made a crime. There were but few 
 Catholic books, and those to be had generally failed 
 to catch the phases of religious thought through 
 which American Protestants were passing. It was 
 more than thirty years after the erection of the see 
 of Baltimore that the Charleston Miscellany, which 
 Archbishop Hughes called the first really Catholic 
 newspaper ever published in this country, was 
 founded ; and fifty years after the consecration of 
 Bishop Carroll there were but six Catholic journals 
 in the United States. 
 
the Un ited States, 177 6- 1876. 33 
 
 Much else might be said in illustration of the 
 difficulties with which the church has had to con- 
 tend, and of the obstacles which she has had to 
 overcome, in order to win the position which she 
 now occupies in the great American republic. 
 Enough, however, has been said to show that it 
 would be difficult to imagine surroundings which, 
 while allowing her freedom of action, would be 
 better suited to test her strength and vitality. 
 
 The 15 th of next August eighty six years will 
 have passed since the consecration of Bishop Car- 
 roll, and to this period the organized efforts of the 
 church to secure a position in this country are con- 
 fined. The work then begun has not for a moment 
 been intermitted. In the midst of losses, defeats, 
 persecutions, anxieties, doubts, revilings, calumnies, 
 the struggle has been still carried on. Each year 
 with its sorrows brought also its joys. The pro- 
 gress, if at times imperceptible, was yet real. When ' 
 in the early synods and councils of Baltimore were 
 gathered the strong and true-hearted bishops and 
 priests who have now gone to their rest, there was 
 doubtless more of sadness than of exultation in 
 their words as they spoke of their scattered and 
 poorly-provided flocks, of the want of priests, of 
 churches, of schools, of asylums, of the hardships 
 of missionary life, and of labors that seemed in 
 vain. Still, they sowed in faith, knowing that God 
 it is who gives the increase. Eike weary travellers 
 who seem to make- no headway, by looking back 
 they saw how much they had advanced. New 
 churches were built, wzw congregations v/ere formed, 
 4 
 
34 ^/^^ Catholic Church in 
 
 new dioceses were organized. On some mountain- 
 side or in deep Avooded vale a cloister, a convent, a 
 college, a seminary arose, one Iiardly knew how, 
 and yet another and another, until these retreats of 
 learning and virtue dotted the land. The elements 
 of discord and disturbance within the church grew 
 less and less active, the relations between priest 
 and people became more intimate and cordial, the 
 tone of Catholic feeling improved, ecclesiastical 
 discipline was strengthened, and the self-respect 
 of the Catholic body increased. 
 
 The danger, which at one time may have seemed 
 imminent, of the estrangement of the laity from the 
 clergy, disappeared little by little, and to-day in no 
 country in the world are priest and people more 
 strongly united than here. With the more thorough 
 organization of dioceses and congregations paro- 
 chial schools became practicable, and the great pro- 
 gress made in Catholic elementary education is one 
 of the most significant and reassuring facts con- 
 nected with the history of the church in the United 
 States. The number of pupils in our parochial 
 schools was, in 1873, 38o,ocxD, and to-day it is pro- 
 bably not much short of half a million, which, how- 
 ever, is even less than half of the Catholic school 
 population of the entire country. But the work 
 of building schools is still progressing, and the con- 
 viction of the indispensable necessity of religious 
 education is growing with both priests and people ; 
 so that we may confidently hope that the time is 
 not very remote when in this country Catholic chil- 
 dren will be brought up only in Catholic schools. 
 
the United States, 1 776-1876. 35 
 
 By establishing protectories, industrial schools, and 
 asylums we are growing year after year better able 
 to provide for our orphan children. 
 
 The want of priests, which has hitherto been one 
 of the chief obstacles to the progress of the church, 
 is now felt only in exceptional cases or in new or 
 thinly-settled dioceses. A hundred years ago there 
 were not more than twenty-five priests in the 
 United States ; in 1800 there were supposed to be 
 forty; in 1830 the number had risen to two hun- 
 dred and thirty-two, and in 1848 to eight hundred 
 and ninety. In ten years, from 1862 to 1872, the 
 number of priests was more than doubled, having 
 grown from two thousand three hundred and seven- 
 teen to four thousand eight hundred and nine. The 
 lack of vocations to the priesthood among native 
 Americans was formerly a subject of anxiety and 
 also of frequent discussion among Catholics in this 
 country; but now it is generally admitted, we think, 
 that if proper care is taken in the education and 
 training of our youths, a sufficient number of them 
 will be found willing to devote themselves to the 
 holy ministry. 
 
 In 1875 there were, according to the official sta- 
 tistics of the various dioceses, five thousand and 
 seventy four priests, twelve hundred and seventy- 
 three ecclesiastical students, and six thousand five 
 hundred and twenty-eight churches and chapels in 
 the United States. There were also, at the same 
 time, thirty-three theological seminaries, sixty-three 
 colleges, five hundred and ■ fifty-seven academies 
 and select schools, sixteen hundred and forty-five 
 
36 The CatJiolic Church in 
 
 parochial schools, two hundred and fourteen asy- 
 lums, and ninety-six hospitals under the authority 
 and control of the Catholic hierarchy of this 
 country. 
 
 One hundred years ago there was not a Catholic 
 ecclesiastical student, or theological seminary, or 
 college, or academy, or parochial school, or asylum, 
 or hospital from Maine to Georgia. 
 
 Father Badin, the first person who ever received 
 Holy Orders in the United States, was ordained in 
 the old cathedral of Baltimore on the 25th of May, 
 1793, just eighty-three years ago. It is now eighty- 
 six years since Bishop Carroll was consecrated, and 
 down to 1808 he remained the only Catholic bishop 
 in the American Church, whose hierarchy is com- 
 posed at present of one cardinal, ten archbishops, 
 forty-six bishops, and eight vicars-apostolic. 
 
 In 1790 there was not a convent in the United 
 States; in i8cK) there were but two; to-day there 
 are more than three hundred and fifty for women, 
 and there are probably one hundred and thirty for 
 men. 
 
 We may be permitted to refer also to the increase 
 of the wealth of the church in this country, espe- 
 cially since this seems to be the cause of great 
 uneasiness to the faithful and unselfish representa- 
 tives of the sovereign people. The value of the 
 property owned by the church in this country, as 
 given in the census reports, was, in 1850, $9,256,- 
 758; in i860, $26,774,119; and in 1870, $60,985,565. 
 The ratio of increase from 1850 to i860 was 189 per 
 cent., and from i860 to 1870 128 percent.; while 
 
the United States, 1 776-1876. 2>1 
 
 the aggregate wealth of the whole country during 
 these same periods increased in the former decade 
 only 125 per cent, and in the latter only 86 per 
 cent. In 1850 the value of the church property of 
 the Baptists, the Episcopalians, the Methodists, 
 and the Presbyterians was greater than that of the 
 Catholics, but in 1870 we had taken the second 
 rank in point of wealth, and to-day we think there 
 is no doubt but that we hold the first. 
 
 " Whatever causes," says Mr. Abbott, in his re- 
 cent article on " The Catholic Peril in America," 
 " may have contributed to this significant result, it 
 is certain that among the chief of them must be 
 reckoned exemption from just taxation, extraordi- 
 nary shrewdness of financial management, and frau- 
 dulent collusion with dishonest politicians." 
 
 Those who know more of the history of the 
 church in this country than can be learned from 
 statistical reports, or articles in reviews, or cyclopae- 
 dias are aware that there are no possessions in the 
 United States more honestly acquired, or bought 
 with money more hardly earned, than those of the 
 Catholic Church ; and that her present wealth, 
 instead of being due to special financial shrewdness, 
 has in many instances been got in spite of great 
 and frequent financial blundering ; while the bi- 
 shops and priests of America, with here and there 
 an exception, have neither had nor sought to have 
 any political influence, nor would they, if disposed 
 to meddle with partisan politics, meet with any 
 encouragement from the Catholic people. Their 
 position with regard to the question of education is 
 
38 The Catholic Church in 
 
 the result of purely conscientious and religious 
 motives ; and while claiming for Catholics the 
 right to give to their children the benefit of religious 
 training, they have everywhere and repeatedly 
 given the most convincing proofs of their sincere 
 desire to concede to all others the fullest liberty in 
 this as in other matters ; and though they cannot 
 approve of that feature in the common-school sys- 
 tem which excludes all teaching of doctrinal reli- 
 gion, they have never thought of pretending that 
 those to whom it does commend itself should not 
 be permitted to try the experiment of a purely 
 secular education, provided they respect in others 
 the freedom of conscience which is now a part of 
 the organic law of the land. 
 
 With very few exceptions, Catholics have, through- 
 out the whole country, been rigidly excluded from 
 all the higher political offices ; though now, unfor- 
 tunately, this can hardly be considered a grievance 
 since the general corruption and unworthiness of 
 public life have caused the more respectable class 
 of American citizens to shrink from the coarseness 
 and vulgarity of our partisan contests. On the 
 other hand, those nominal Catholics who acquire 
 influence in what is called " ward politics " are 
 generally very much like other politicians, eager to 
 serve God and the country whenever it puts money 
 in their purse. What political reasons may have 
 determined the great body of Catholic voters in 
 this country to prefer the Democratic to the Whig, 
 and later to the Republican, party, we know not ; 
 but we are very sure that nothing could be more 
 
the United States, 177 6- 1876, 39 
 
 unfounded than to imagine that the welfare or 
 progress of the church can in any way be connected 
 with the success of Democratic partisanism. As a 
 religious body we have nothing to hope from either 
 or any party. We ask nothing but the liberty 
 which with us is considered the inalienable heritage 
 of all men ; and for the rest, we know that a politi- 
 cian doing a good deed is more to be shunned than 
 an enemy plotting evil. 
 
 The property of the Catholic Church in the 
 United States has not been exempted from taxa- 
 tion, except under general laws which applied 
 equally to that of all other religious denominations ; 
 and though we can imagine nothing more barbar- 
 ous, more hurtful to the progress of the national 
 architecture and to the general esthetic culture of 
 the people, than a change in the policy which has 
 hitherto prevailed, not in this country alone, but in 
 all the civilized states of the world, nevertheless, 
 if those who hold that religion has no social value 
 succeed in revolutionizing legislation on this sub- 
 jectj the Catholics will not be less prepared than 
 their neighbors to abide the issue. 
 
 A more interesting study than the wealth of the 
 church is the growth of the Catholic population in 
 the United States, though, in the absence of relia- 
 ble or complete statistics on this subject, we are 
 not able to give an entirely satisfactory or exact 
 statement of the facts. The " number of sittings," 
 to use the phrase of the official reports, given in the 
 United States Census, is of scarcely any assistance 
 in determining the relicjious statistics of the coun- 
 
40 T/ie Catholic Church in 
 
 try. The number of Protestant church sittings, for 
 instance, was in 1870 19,674,548, whereas thp mem- 
 bership of all the Protestant sects of the country 
 was only about 7,000,000 ; and it is well known 
 that, while in most Protestant churches many seats 
 are usually unoccupied during religious service, in 
 the Catholic churches the same seat is frequently 
 filled by three, or four, or even five different per- 
 sons, who take it in succession at the various 
 Masses. 
 
 Ninety-one years ago Father Carroll set down the 
 Catholic population of the United States at twenty- 
 five thousand, and he may have fallen short of the 
 real number by about ten thousand. In 1808, 
 when episcopal sees were placed at Boston, *Kew 
 York, Philadelphia, and Bardstovvn, the Catholic 
 population had increased to about one hundred and 
 fifty thousand. In 1832 Bishop England estimated 
 the Catholics of the United States at half a mil- 
 lion ; but in 1836, after having given the subject 
 greater attention, he thought there could not be 
 less than a million and a quarter. Both these esti- 
 mates, however, were mere surmises ; for Bishop 
 England, who always exaggerated the losses of the 
 church in this country, not finding it possible to 
 get the data for a well-founded opinion as to the 
 Catholic population, was left to conjecture or to 
 arguments based upon premises which, to say the 
 least, were themselves unproven. The editors of 
 the Metropolitan Catholic Almanac for 1848, basing 
 their calculations upon the very satisfactory returns 
 which they had received from the thirty dioceses 
 
the United States, 1776-1876. 41 
 
 then existing in the United States, set down our 
 CathoHc population at 1,190,700, and this is proba- 
 bly the nearest approach which we can make to the 
 number of Catholics in this country at the time the 
 great Irish famine gave a new impulse to emigra- 
 tion to America. From 1848 down to the present 
 day the increase of the Catholic population has 
 been very rapid, it having risen in a period of 
 twenty-eight years from a little over a million to 
 nearly seven millions. The third revised edition 
 of Schem's Statistics of the World for 1875 gives 
 6,000,000 as the Catholic population of the United 
 States, and the America^i Afinual Cyclopcedia for 
 1875 reckons it as more than 6,000,000; and from a 
 careful consideration of the data, which, however, 
 are still imperfect, we think it is at present pro- 
 b£^t>ly not less than 7,000,000. This remarkable 
 growth of the church during the last thirty years 
 must be attributed to various causes, by far the 
 most important of which is beyond all doubt the 
 vast immigration from Ireland ; to which, indeed, 
 we must also chiefly ascribe the progress of the 
 church during this century in all other countries 
 throughout the world in which the English language 
 is spoken. No other people could have done for the 
 Catholic faith in the United States what the Irish 
 people have done. Their unalterable attachment to 
 their priests, their deep Catholic instincts, which no 
 combination of circumstances has ever been able 
 to bring into conflict with their love of country ; 
 the unworldly and spiritual temper of the national 
 character; their indifference to ridicule and con- 
 
42 The Catholic Church in 
 
 tempt ; and their unfailing generosity — all fitted 
 them for the work which was to be done here, and 
 enabled them, in spite of the strong preju<5ices 
 against their race which Americans had inherited 
 from England, to accomplish what would not have 
 been accomplished by Italian, French, or German 
 Catholics. Another cause of the more rapid 
 growth of the church during the last quarter of a 
 century may be found in the more thorough organ- 
 ization of dioceses, congregations, and schools, by 
 which we are better able to shield our people from 
 unhealthy influences, and thus year after year to dim- 
 inish our losses ; while the increasing number of con- 
 verts to the faith helps to swell the Catholic ranks. 
 Of 22,209 persons who were confirmed in the dio- 
 cese of Baltimore from 1864 to 1868, 2,752, or more 
 than 12 per cent., were converts; and our convejets 
 are generally from the more intelligent classes of 
 Americans. The efforts to arrest the progress of 
 the church, which now for nearly half a century 
 have assumed a kind of periodicity, may be plac- 
 ed among the causes which have added to her 
 strength. These attempts are made in open viola- 
 tion of the religious and political principles which 
 are the special boast of all Americans, and the only 
 arguments which can be adduced to justify them 
 are drawn from fear or hatred. Whenever we have 
 been made the victims of lawlessness or fraud, as 
 in the burning of the Charlestown convent and the 
 churches of Philadelphia, or in the spreading "Aw- 
 ful Disclosures " throughout the land, the sympa- 
 thies of generous and honest men have been at- 
 
the Un ited States, 177 6- 1876. 43 
 
 tracted to us. And when Protestant bigotry has 
 made an alliance with a political party in order to 
 compass our ruin, it has merely succeeded in forc- 
 ing the opposing party to take up throughout the 
 whole country the defence of the Catholics. Thus 
 during the brief day of the " Know-nothing" con- 
 spiracy large numbers of Protestants, for the first 
 time since the Reformation, were led to examine 
 into the history of the church, with a view to de- 
 fend her against the traditional objections of Pro- 
 testantismi itself. In fact, in a country which looks 
 with equally tolerant complacency upon every form 
 of belief or unbelief from Atheism to Voodooism, 
 from the Joss-House of the Chinaman to the Mor- 
 mon Tabernacle and breeding caravansary of free- 
 love, to imagine that there can be either decent or 
 reasonable motives for exciting to persecution of 
 the Catholic Church is sheer madness ; nor can we 
 think it less absurd to suppose that the good sense 
 and justice of the American people will allow them 
 to commit themselves to a policy as inconsistent as 
 it would be outrageous. 
 
 However this may be, there can be no doubt but 
 the repeated and unprovoked attacks made upon 
 the Catholics of the United States by fanatics and 
 demagogues have helped to increase their union 
 and earnestness ; and this leads us away from the 
 growth of the church in her external organization 
 to the consideration of the development of her 
 spiritual and intellectual life. And here we are at 
 once struck by the similarity between her progress 
 and that of the country itself, which has been dif- 
 
44 The Catholic CJiurch in 
 
 fusive at the expense of concentration and thor- 
 oughness. Nevertheless, no attentive observer can 
 fail to be struck by the intense and earnest reh'gious 
 spirit by which the great body of the Catholics of 
 the United States are animated, as well as the 
 readiness with which they co-operate with their 
 priests in promoting the interests of religion. No- 
 where do we find greater eagerness for instruction 
 in the truths of the faith, or greater willingness to 
 make sacrifices in order to give to the young a re- 
 ligious education, than among the Catholics of this 
 country. Our priests are, as a body, laborious, 
 self-sacrificing, and disinterested, and are honestly 
 struggling to make themselves worthy of the great 
 mission which God has given them in America. 
 
 Our position in this country hitherto has turned 
 the thoughts of our best minds to polemical and 
 controversial writing, which, though useful and 
 even necessary, has only a temporary value, since 
 it is addressed primarily to objections and phases 
 of belief which owe their special significance to 
 transitory conditions of society and opinion. Con- 
 troversies between Catholics and Protestants which 
 forty years ago attracted general attention and 
 produced considerable impression, woulcj now pass 
 unnoticed ; for the simple reason that Americans, 
 in the confusion of sects and religious opinions, 
 have come to realize that Protestantism has no 
 doctrinal basis, and is left to trust exclusively to 
 religious sentiment. Dogmatic Protestantism is 
 of the past, and the most popular preachers are 
 those who appeal most skilfully to the religious in- 
 
the United States, 1 776-1876. 45 
 
 stincts without requiring the acceptance of any re- 
 ligious beliefs. Most of our best writers have been 
 men whose arduous labors left them but little time 
 for study or literary composition, and their works 
 frequently bear the marks of hasty performance ; 
 but they will nevertheless not suffer from compa- 
 rison with the religious writings of American Protes- 
 tants. The ablest man who has devoted himself 
 to the discussion of religion and philosophy, or pro- 
 bably any other subject, in the United States during 
 the last hundred years is Dr. Brownson, all of whose 
 best thoughts have been given to the elucidation 
 of Catholic truth ; and though there was something 
 wanting to make him either a great philosopher or 
 a great theologian, or even a perfect master of 
 style, we know of no other American of whom this 
 may not also be justly said ; unless, perhaps, we 
 may consider Prescott, Hawthorne, or Irving worthy 
 of the last of these titles. And though we Catho- 
 lics have no man who is able to take up the pen 
 which has just fallen from the hand of Dr. Brown- 
 son, none who have the power which once belonged 
 to England and Hughes, we are in this not more un- 
 fortunate than our country, which no longer finds 
 men like Adams or Jefferson to represent not un- 
 worthily its supreme dignity ; nor any like Web- 
 ster, Clay, or Calhoun, whose minds were as lofty 
 as their honor was pure, to lend the authority of 
 wisdom and eloquence to the deliberations of a 
 great people. 
 
 During the hundred years of our independent 
 life the external development of the church, like 
 
46 ^ The CatJiolic Church in 
 
 that of the nation, has been so rapid that all indi- 
 vidual energies have to a greater or less degree 
 been drawn to help on this growth. Another cen- 
 tury, bringing other circumstances, with thenn will 
 bring the opportunity and the duty of other work. 
 A more thorough organization must be given to our 
 educational system ; Catholic universities must be 
 created which in time will grow to be intellectual 
 centres in which the best minds of the church in 
 this country may receive the culture and training 
 that will enable them to work in harmony for the 
 furtherance of Catholic ends ; a more vigorous and 
 independent press, one not weakened by want or 
 depraved by human respect or regard for persons, 
 must be brought into existence. We must pre- 
 pare ourselves to enter more fully into the public 
 life of the country ; to throw the light of Catholic 
 thought upon each new phase of opinion or belief 
 as it rises ; to grapple more effectively with the 
 great moral evils which threaten at once the life of 
 the nation and of the church. All this and much 
 else we have to do, if our God-given mission is to 
 be fulfilled. 
 
 And now we will crave the indulgence of our 
 readers while we conclude with a brief reference to 
 what we conceive to be the office which the Catho- 
 lic Church is destined to fulfil in behalf of the Ame- 
 rican state and civilization. 
 
 De Tocqueville, in his thoughtful and singularly 
 judicious treatise on American institutions, makes 
 the following very just remarks : 
 
 " I think the Catholic religion has been falsely 
 
the United States, 1776-1876. 47 
 
 looked upon as the enemy of democracy. On the 
 contrary, Catholicism, among the various sects of 
 Christians, seems to me to be one of the most favor- 
 able to the equality of social conditions. The reli- 
 gious community in the Catholic Church is com- 
 posed of but two elements — the priest and the 
 people. The priest alone is lifted above his flock, 
 and all below him are equals. In rriatters of doc- 
 trine the Catholic faith places all human capacities 
 upon the same level ; it subjects the wise and the 
 ignorant, the man of genius and the vulgar crowd, 
 to the details of the same creed ; it imposes the 
 same observances upon the rich and the poor ; it 
 inflicts the same austerities upon the powerful and 
 the weak ; it enters into no compromise with mortal 
 man, but, reducing the whole human race to the 
 same standard, it confounds all the distinctions of 
 society at the foot of the same altar, even as they 
 are confounded in the sight of God. If Catholicism 
 predisposes the faithful to obedience, it certainly 
 does not prepare them for inequality; but the con- 
 trary may be said of Protestantism, which gene- 
 rally tends to make men independent more than to 
 render them equal. . . . But no sooner is the priest- 
 hood entirely separated from the government, as is 
 the case in the United States, than it is found that 
 no class of men are naturally more disposed than 
 the Catholics to transfuse the doctrine of the equal- 
 ity of conditions into political institutions." * 
 
 The generous sentiments which two centuries 
 and a half ago led the Catholics of Maryland to 
 
 * Demorracy in A merica, vol. i. p. 305. 
 
48 The Catholic Church in 
 
 become the pioneers of religious liberty in the New 
 World, are still warm in the hearts of the Catholic 
 people of the United States. We have even here 
 been the victims of persecution, and it is not im- 
 possible that similar trials may await us in the 
 future ; but we have the most profound conviction 
 that, even though we should grow to be nine-tenths 
 of the population of this country, we shall never 
 prove false to the principle of religious liberty, 
 which, to the Catholics of the United States, at 
 least, is sacred and inviolable. For our own part, 
 we should turn with unutterable loathing from the 
 man who could think that any other course could 
 ever be either just or honorable. 
 
 The Catholics of this republic are deeply im- 
 pressed with the inviolability of the rights of the 
 individual. We believe that the man is more than 
 the citizen ; that when the state tramples upon the 
 divine liberty of the most wretched beggar, the 
 consciences of all are violated : that it is its duty 
 to govern as little as possible, and rather to suffer a 
 greater good to go undone than to do even a slight 
 wrong in order to accomplish it. For this reason 
 we believe that when the state assumed the right 
 to control education, it took the first step away 
 from the true American and Christian theory of 
 government back towards the old pagan doctrine 
 of state-absolutism. Though we uphold the rights 
 of the individual, we are not the less strong in our 
 advocacy of the claims of authority. In fact, the 
 almost unbounded individual liberty which our 
 American social and political order allows would 
 
the Uitiied States, 1 776-1876. 49 
 
 fatally lead to anarchy, if not checked by some 
 great and sacred authority ; and this safeguard can 
 be found only in the Catholic Church, which is the 
 greatest school of respect the world has ever seen. 
 The church, by her power to inspire faith, rever- 
 ence, and obedience, will introduce into our na- 
 tional life and character elements of refinement and 
 culture which will temper the harshness and reck- 
 lessness of our republican manners. By her con- 
 servative and unitive force she will weld into 
 stronger union the heterogeneous populations and 
 widely-separated parts of our vast country. The 
 Catholics were the only religious body in the United 
 States not torn asunder by sectional strife during 
 our civil war, and we are persuaded that, as our 
 numbers grow and our influence increases, we are 
 destiwed to become more and more the strong bond 
 to hold in indissoluble union the great American 
 family of States. The divisions and dissensions of 
 Protestantism have a tendency to prepare the pub- 
 lic mind to contemplate without alarm or indigna- 
 tion like divisions and dissensions in the state ; and 
 all who love the country and desire that it remain 
 one and united for ages must look with pleasure 
 upon the growth of a religion which, while main- 
 taining the unity of its own world-wide kingdom, 
 inspires those who are guided by its teachings with 
 a horror of political contention and discord. 
 5 
 
THE PERSECUTION OF THE CHURCH IN 
 THE GERMAN EMPIRE.* 
 
 HE Catholics are suffering to-day, in the 
 very heart of Europe, a persecution 
 which, if less bloody, is not less cruel 
 or unjust, than that which afflicted the 
 Christian Church in the beginning of the fourth 
 century, under the reign of the brutal old emperor, 
 Diocletian. The prisons of Germany are filled with 
 confessors of the faith, who, in the midst of every 
 indignity and outrage, bear themselves with a con- 
 stancy and heroism not unworthy of the early 
 martyrs. And it is strange, too, that this struggle 
 should be only a renewal of the old conflict between 
 Christ and Caesar, between the Son of Man and the 
 prince of this world. In fact, anti-Christian Europe 
 is using every exertion to re-create society on the 
 model of Grecian and Roman paganism. This ten- 
 dency is manifest in all the various realms of thought 
 and action. 
 
 We perceive it — and we speak now more particu- 
 larly of Germany — in literature, in science, in the 
 manner of dealing with all the great problems which 
 concern man in his relations with both the visible 
 
 * Written in 1373. 
 
PerseciUion in the German E^npirc. 5 1 
 
 and the unseen world ; and it looms up before us, 
 in palpable form and gigantic proportions, in the 
 whole attitude of the state toward the church. 
 There has never lived on this earth a more thorough 
 pagan than Goethe, the great idol of German litera- 
 ture, to whom the very sign of the cross was so 
 hateful that in his notorious Venetian Epigram he 
 put it side by side with garlic and vermin. The 
 thought of self-sacrifice and self-denial was so odious 
 to his lustful and all-indulgent nature that he turned 
 from its great emblem with uncontrollable disgust, 
 and openly proclaimed himself a " decidirter Nicht- 
 christ." " Das Ewig Weibliche " — sensualism and 
 sexualism — was the god of his heart, in whose 
 praise alone he attuned his lyre. And Schiller, in 
 his Gods of Greece, complained sorrowingly that all 
 the fair world of gods and goddesses should have 
 vanished, that, one (the God of the Christian) might 
 be enriched ; and with tender longing he prayed 
 that " nature's sweet morn " might again return. 
 
 Both the religion and the philosophy of pagan- 
 ism were based upon the deification of nature, and 
 were consequently pantheistic. Now, this pagan 
 pantheism recrudescent is the one permanent type 
 amid the endless variations of modern German 
 sophistry. It underlies the theorizing of Schelling, 
 Fichte, and Hegel, as well as that of Feuerbach, 
 Biichner, and Strauss. They all assume the non- 
 existence of a personal God, and transfer his attri- 
 butes to nature, which is, in their eyes, the mother 
 of all, the sole existence, and the supreme good, 
 ^his pantheism, which confuses all things \\\ extrir 
 
52 The Persecution of the 
 
 cable chaos, spirit with matter, thought with sensa- 
 tion, the infinite with the finite, destroying the 
 very elements of reason, and taking from language 
 its essential meaning, has infected all non-Catholic 
 thinking in Germany. When we descend from the 
 misty heights of speculation, we find pantheistic 
 paganism in the idolatry of science and culture, 
 which have taken the place of dogma and morality. 
 It is held to be an axiom that man is simply a pro- 
 duct of nature, who knows herself in him as she 
 feels herself in the animal. 
 
 The formulas in which the thought is clothed are 
 of minor importance. In the ultimate analysis we 
 find in all the conflicting schools of German infi- 
 delity this sentiment, however widely its expression 
 may vary : that nature is supreme, and there is no 
 God beside. The cosmos, instead of a personal 
 God, is the ultimate fact beyond which science pro- 
 fesses to be unable to proceed ; and therefore the 
 duality of ends, aims, and results which underlies 
 the Christian conception of the universe must 
 necessarily disappear. There is no longer God and 
 the world, spirit and matter, good and evil, heaven 
 and hell ; there is not even man and the brute. 
 There is only the cosmos, which is one ; and from 
 this it necessarily follows that the distinction be- 
 tween the spiritual and the temporal power is un- 
 real and should cease to be recognized. 
 
 ^Jow, here we have discovered the very germ 
 from which the whole Prussian persecution has 
 sprung. In the last analysis it rests upon the as- 
 sumption that the spiritual power hc-^s no right to 
 
Church in the German Empire. 53 
 
 exist, since the truths upon which it was supposed 
 to be based — as God, the soul, and a future life — 
 are proven to be myths. Hence the state is the 
 only autonomy, and to claim authority not derived 
 from it is treason. Thus the struggle now going on 
 in Prussia is for life or death. It rages around the 
 very central citadel of the soul and of all religion. 
 The Catholics of Germany are to-day contending 
 for what the Christians of the first centuries died — 
 the right to live. To understand this better it will 
 be well to consider for a moment the attributes of 
 the state in pagan Greece and Rome. 
 
 Hellenic religion, in its distinctive forms, had its 
 origin in the deification of nature and of man as 
 her crowning work, and both were identified with 
 the state. Hence religion was hero-worship ; the 
 good man was the good citizen, the saint was the 
 successful warrior who struck terror into the ene- 
 mies of his country, and thus the religious feeling 
 was confounded with the patriotic spirit. To be a 
 true citizen of the state, it was necessary to pro- 
 fess the national religion ; and to be loyal to the 
 state was to be true to its protecting gods. The 
 highest act of religion was to beat back the invader 
 or to die gloriously on the battle-field. Indeed, in 
 paganism we find no idea of a non-national religion. 
 The pagan state, whether imperial, monarchical, or 
 republican, was essentially tyrannical, wholly in- 
 compatible with freedom as understood in Christian 
 society. To be free was to be, soul and body, the 
 slave of the state. Plato gives to his ideal Republic 
 unlimited power to control the will of the indivi- 
 
54 ^/^<^ Persecution of the 
 
 dual, to direct all his thoughts and actions, to model 
 and shape his whole life. He merges the family 
 and its privileges into the state and its rights, gives 
 the government absolute authority in the education 
 of its subjects, and even places the propagation of 
 the race under state supervision. 
 
 The pagan state was also essentially military, 
 recognizing no rights except those which it had not 
 the power to violate. Now, the preaching of Christ 
 was- in direct contradiction to this whole theory of 
 government. He declared that God and the soul 
 have rights as well as Caesar, and proclaimed the 
 higher law which affirms that man has a destiny 
 superior to that of being a citizen of any state, 
 however glorious ; which imposes upon him duties 
 that transcend the sphere of all human authority. 
 Thus religion became the supreme law of life, and 
 the recognition of the indefeasible rights of con- 
 science gave to man citizenship in a kingdom not 
 of this world. It, in consequence, became his duty 
 as well as his privilege to obey first the laws of this 
 supernatural kingdom, and to insist upon this 
 divine obligation, even though the whole world 
 should oppose him. 
 
 This teaching of Christ at once lifted religion 
 above the control of the state, and, cutting loose 
 the bonds of servitude which had made it national 
 and narrow, declared it catholic, of the whole earth 
 and for all men. He sent his apostles, not to 
 the Jew, or the Greek, or the Gentile, but to 
 all the nations, and in his church he recognized 
 no distinction of race or social condition— the 
 
CJnirch in the German Empire. 55 
 
 slave was like the freeman, the beggar like the 
 king. 
 
 This doctrine, the most beneficent and humani- 
 tarian that the world has ever heard, brought forth 
 from the oblivion of ages thd all-forgotten truth of 
 the brotherhood of the race, and raised man to a 
 level on which paganism was not able even to con- 
 template him ; proclaiming that man, for being 
 simply man, irrespective of race, nationality, or 
 condition, is worthy of honor and reverence. Now, 
 it was precisely this catholic and non-national cha- 
 racter of the religion of Christ which brought it 
 into conflict with the pagan state. The Christians, 
 it was held, could not be loyal citizens of the 
 empire, because they did not profess the religion 
 of the empire, and refused to sacrifice to the divinity 
 of Caesar. They were traitors, because in those 
 things which concerned faith they were resolved 
 not to recognize on the part of the state any right 
 to interfere ; and therefore were they cast into 
 prison, thrown to the wild beasts in the Amphithe- 
 atre, and devoured under the approving eyes of the 
 worshippers of the emperor's divinity. This history 
 is repeating itself in Prussia to-day. 
 
 Many causes have, within the present century, 
 helped to strengthen the national feeling in Ger- 
 many. The terrible outrages and humiliations in- 
 flicted upon her by the pitiless soldiers of the first 
 Napoleon made it evident that the common safety 
 required that the bonds of brotherhood among the 
 peoples of the different German states should be 
 drawn tighter. The development of a national 
 
56 The Persecution of the 
 
 literature also helped to foster a longing for national 
 unity. In the seventeenth, and even down to 
 nearly the end of the eighteenth, century, French 
 influence, extending from the courts of princes to 
 the closets of the learned, gave tone to both litera- 
 ture and politics. 
 
 Leibnitz wrote in French or Latin, and Freder- 
 ick the Great strove to forget his own tongue, that 
 he might learn to speak French with idioma- 
 tic purity — an accomplishment which he never ac- 
 quired. 
 
 As there was no German literature, the national 
 feeling lacked one of its most powerful stimulants. 
 But in the latter half of the eighteenth century, and 
 during the first half of the nineteenth, a literature 
 rich, profound, thoroughly German, the creation of 
 some of the highest names in the world of letters, 
 came into existence, and was both a cause and an 
 effect of the national awakening. Goethe especial- 
 ly did much, by the absolute ascendency which he 
 acquired in the literature of his country, to unify 
 and harmonize the national mind. 
 
 Still, a thousand interests and jealousies, local 
 and dynastic, old prescriptive rights, and a constitu- 
 tional slowness and sluggishness in the Germanic 
 temperament, stood in the way of a united father- 
 land, and had to be got rid of or overcome by force 
 before the dream of the nationalists could become a 
 reality. 
 
 Prussia, founded by rapine, built up and strength- 
 ened by war and conquest, has always been a heart- 
 less, self-seeking state. The youngest of the great 
 
Church hi the German Empire. 57 
 
 European states, and for a long time one of the 
 most inconsiderable, she has gradually grown to be 
 the first military power of the world. Already, in 
 the time of Frederick the Great, she was the formid- 
 able rival of Austria in the contest for the hege- 
 mony of the other German states. This struggle 
 ended, in 1866, in the utter defeat of Austria on 
 the field of Sadowa. Hanover, Saxony, Hesse-Cas- 
 sel, and other minor principalities were at once ab- 
 sorbed by Prussia, who, besides greatly increasing 
 her strength, thus became the champion of German 
 unity. But German unity was a menace to France, 
 who could not possibly maintain her preponderance 
 in European affairs in the presence of a united Ger- 
 many. Hence the irrepressible conflict between 
 France and Prussia, which ended in the catastrophe 
 of Sedan. 
 
 The King of Prussia became the Emperor of 
 Germany, and German national pride and enthusi- 
 asm reached a degree bordering on frenzy. 
 
 By a remarkable coincidence the Franco-Prussian 
 war broke out at the very moment when the dogma 
 of Papal infallibility was defined, and immediately 
 after the capitulation of Sedan, Victor Emanuel 
 took possession of Rome. The Pope was without 
 temporal power — a prisoner indeed. The feeling 
 against the newly-defined dogma was especially 
 strong in Germany, where the systematic warfare 
 carried on by the Janus party against the Vatican 
 Council had warped the public mind. France, the 
 eldest daughter of the church, was lying, bleeding 
 and crushed, at the feet of the conqueror. The 
 6 
 
58 The Persecution of the 
 
 time seemed to have arrived when the bond which 
 united the Catholics of Germany with the Pope, 
 and through him with the church universal, might 
 easily be broken. 
 
 The defection of Dollinger and other rationalis- 
 tic professors, as well as the attitude of many of 
 the German bishops in the council, and the views 
 which they had expressed with regard to the pro- 
 bable results of a definition of the infallibility of the 
 Pope, tended to confirm those who controlled the 
 policy of the new empire in the opinion that there 
 would be no great difficulty in forming the Catho- 
 lics of Germany into a kind of national religious 
 body wholly subject to the state, even in matters 
 of faith. If we add to this the fact that the infidels 
 of our day have a kind of superstition which leads 
 them to think that all religious faith has grown 
 weak, and that those who believe are for the most 
 part hypocritical, insincere, and by no means anx- 
 ious to suffer for conscience' sake, we shall be able 
 to understand how Bismarck, who is utterly indiffer- 
 ent to all religion, and who believes in nothing ex- 
 cept the omnipotence of the state, should have per- 
 suaded himself to destroy the religious freedom 
 which had come to be considered the common pro- 
 perty of Christendom. Already, in the month of 
 August immediately following the close of the war 
 with France, we find the Northern German press, 
 which obsequiously obeys his orders, beginning to 
 throw out hints that Rome had always been the 
 enemy of Germany ; that her claims were incom- 
 patible with the rights of the state and hurtful to 
 
Church in the German Empire. 59 
 
 the national development ; and that, in presence of 
 the newly-defined dogma of Papal infallibility, the 
 necessity of resisting her ever-increasing encroach- 
 ments upon the domain of the civil authority had 
 become imperative. The watchword given by the 
 official press was everywhere re-echoed by the or- 
 gans of both infidel and Protestant opinion, and 
 it at once became evident that the German Empire 
 intended to make war on the Catholic Church. 
 
 There was yet another end to be subserved 
 by the persecution of the church, Bismarck made 
 no secret of his fears of a democratic movement in 
 Germany after the excitement of the French cam- 
 paign had died away, and he hoped to avert this 
 danger by inflaming the religious prejudices of the 
 infidel and Protestant population. 
 
 On the 8th of July, 1871, the Catholic depart- 
 ment in the Ministry of Public Worship was abolish- 
 ed, and the government openly lent its influence to 
 the Old Catholic movement. 
 
 The Prussian constitution makes religious in- 
 struction in the gymnasia obligatory, and in schools 
 in which Catholic doctrines are taught the govern- 
 ment admits that only persons who have received 
 the approbation of the bishop of the diocese are to 
 be appointed to perform this duty. Dr. Wollmann, 
 who had for a long time held the office of teacher 
 of religion in the Catholic gymnasium of Brauns- 
 berg, apostatized after the Vatican Council, and 
 was, in consequence, suspended from the exercise 
 of the priestly ofiice by his bishop, who declared 
 that, since Wollmann had left the church, he could 
 
6o The Persecution of the 
 
 no longer be considered a suitable religious instruc- 
 tor of Catholic youth. Von Mlihler, the Minister 
 of Public Worship, refused to remove Wollmann ; 
 and since religious instruction is compulsory, the 
 pupils who could not in conscience attend his 
 classes were forced to leave the school. 
 
 This act of Von Miihler was in open violation of 
 the Prussian constitution, which expressly recog- 
 nized in the Catholic Church the right of directing 
 the religious instruction of its members. 
 
 To require that Catholics should send their chil- 
 dren to the lessons of an excommunicated priest 
 was to trample upon the most sacred rights of con- 
 science. By declaring, as in this case, that those 
 who rejected the dogma of infallibility were true 
 Catholics, the German government plainly showed 
 that it intended to assume the competency of 
 deciding in all matters of faith, and consequently 
 to wholly ignore the existence of any religious au- 
 thority distinct from that of the state. 
 
 Bismarck's next step was not less arbitrary or 
 tyrannical. He proposed to the Federal Council 
 and Reichstag a law against what was termed the 
 abuse of the pulpit, by which the office of preach- 
 ing should be placed under the supervision of the 
 police. 
 
 This law, which was passed by a feeble majority, 
 was simply a renewal of the attempt to suppress 
 Christianity made by the Jewish Council in Jerusa- 
 lem when the apostles dared to preach in the name 
 of Jesus, without asking permission of the rulers of 
 the people : " But that it may be no further spread 
 
Church in the German Empire. 6i 
 
 among the people, let us threaten them, that they 
 speak no more in this name to any man. And 
 calling them, they charged them not to speak at all, 
 nor teach in the name of Jesus " (Acts iv. 17, 18). 
 
 The injustice of this law was plainly shown by the 
 Saxon member of the Federal Council, who pointed 
 out the fact that, whilst liberty of speech was 
 denied to Catholic priests, socialists and infidels 
 were permitted every day to attack the very foun- 
 dations of all government and civilization. 
 
 This, however, is but the necessary consequence 
 of the theory of the state-God. To preach in the 
 name of any other God is treason ; whereas atheism 
 is the correlative of the omnipotence of the govern- 
 ment. That the present tendency in Germany is 
 to put the nation in the place of God is expressly 
 recognized by the Allgenieine Evang. Luth. Kircheti- 
 zdtnng, which is the organ of orthodox Lutheran- 
 ism. These are its words : " For the dogmatic 
 teaching of Christianity they hope to substitute the 
 national element. The national idea will form the. 
 germ of the new religion of the empire. We have 
 already seen the emblems which foreshadow the 
 manner in which this new worship is to be organ- 
 ized. Instead of the Christian festivals, they will 
 celebrate the national memories, and will call to the 
 churches the masses to whom the road is no longer 
 known. Have, we not seen, on the anniversaiy 
 of Sedan, the eidolon of the emperor placed upon 
 the altar, whilst the pulpit was surrounded with the 
 busts of the heroes of the war? 
 
 "During eight days they wove crowns of oak- 
 
62 The Persecution of the 
 
 leaves and the church was filled ; whilst out of ten 
 thousand parishioners, scarcely a dozen can be got 
 together to listen to the word of God. Such is the 
 religion of the future church of the empire. Little 
 more is needed to revive the ancient worship of the 
 Roman emperors ; and if the history of Germany is 
 to be reduced to tliis duel between the church of 
 the emperor and that of the Pope, we must see 
 on which side the Lutherans will stand." 
 
 The next attack on the church was made under 
 cover of an enactment on the inspection of public 
 schools, A project of law was presented to the 
 House of Deputies, excluding all priests from the 
 inspection of schools, and at the same time oblig- 
 ing them to undertake this office whenever asked 
 to do so by the state authorities. This latter clause 
 was, however, so openly unjust that it was rejected 
 by the House. But the law, even as it stands, is 
 a virtual denial that Catholic schools have any right 
 to exist at all, and is an evidence that the German 
 Empire intends to destroy Christian faith by estab- 
 lishing an atheistic system of popular education. 
 
 And now war was declared against the Jesuits. 
 The Congress of the Old Catholics, which met at 
 Munich in September, 1871, had passed violent re- 
 solutions against the order ; and later the Old Ca- 
 tholic Committee at Cologne presented a petition 
 of similar import to the imperial Parliament. 
 
 The debate was opened in the month of May, 
 1872. A project of law, restricting the liberties of 
 religious orders, and especially directed against the 
 Society of Jesus, was brought before the Federal 
 
CJntrch in the Germmz Emph-e'. 6 
 
 3 
 
 Council and accepted by a large majority. Wheu 
 it came before the imperial Parliament, amendments 
 were added rendering it still more harsh and tyran- 
 nical. The order was to be shut out from the 
 empire, its houses to be closed, foreign Jesuits were 
 to be expelled, and the German members of the 
 society were to be confined to certain districts ; and 
 the execution of these measures was to be entrusted 
 to the Federal Council. 
 
 On the 4th of July the law received the approval 
 of the emperor, and on the 5th it was promulgated. 
 Thus in the most arbitrary manner, without any 
 legal proceedings, hundreds of German citizens, 
 against whom there was not the slightest proof of 
 guilt, were deprived of their rights and expelled 
 from their country. Besides, the measure was 
 based upon the most ignorant misconception of the 
 real condition of the church, and was therefore 
 necessarily ineffective. The religious orders and 
 the secular priesthood do not represent opposite 
 tendencies in the church ; their aims are identical, 
 and, in our day at least, the secular priests are as 
 zealous, as active, and as efficient as the members 
 of the religious orders. 
 
 What end, then, was to be gained by expelling 
 the Jesuits, whilst devoted and zealous priests were 
 left to minister to the Catholic people, whose faith 
 had been roused by this scandalous persecution of 
 men whom they knew to be guilty of no crime 
 except that of loving Jesus Christ and his church ? 
 The blow struck at the Jesuits was, in truth, aimed 
 at the church, and this the bishops, priests, and 
 
64 The Persecution of the 
 
 entire Catholic people of Germany at once recog- 
 nized. They saw now, ^nce even the possibility 
 of doubting was no longer left to them, that 
 the German Empire had declared war on the 
 church; and Bismarck, seeing that his half-way 
 measures had deceived no one, resolved to adopt a 
 policy of open violence. With this view a new 
 minister of Public Worship was appointed in the 
 person of Dr. Falk, who drew up the plan of the 
 famous Four Church Laws to which he has given 
 his name, and which was adopted on the nth of 
 May, 1873. 
 
 In virtue of these laws — which it is unnecessary 
 to transcribe in full — the state arrogates the right 
 of appointing to all ecclesiastical offices, since the 
 government claims authority to approve or annul 
 all nominations made by the bishops ; and the Pre- 
 sident of the Province {Obcrpraesidcnt) is bound to 
 interdict the exercise of any religious function to 
 ecclesiastics appointed without his consent. The 
 bishop who makes an appointment to the cure of 
 souls without the consent of the civil authority is 
 fined from two hundred to one thousand thalers ; 
 and the priest who, appointed in this way, exercises 
 spiritual functions, is visited with a proportionate 
 penalty. This is an attempt to change the very 
 nature of the church ; it is a denial of its right 
 to exist at all. 
 
 The third of these laws creates the " Royal Court 
 of Justice for Ecclesiastical Affairs," which claims 
 and possesses by act of Parliament the right to 
 reform all disciplinary decisions made by the bishops 
 
Church ill the German Empire. 65 
 
 in relation to the ecclesiastics under their jurisdic- 
 tion. Tiiis same court has by law the right to 
 depose any ecclesiastic whose conduct the govern- 
 ment may see fit to consider incompatible tvith 
 public order. 
 
 The Pope is interdicted from the exercise of dis- 
 ciplinary power within the territory of the Prussian 
 monarchy. 
 
 The state takes control of the education of the 
 young men destined to the priesthood. It requires 
 them to pass the arbiturieiiten-examcn in a German 
 gymnasium, and then to devote three years to the 
 study of theology in a German university, during 
 which time they are not to be permitted to live in 
 an episcopal seminary ; and thereafter they are to 
 pass a'public examination before the state officials. 
 All educational establishments for the clergy, espe- 
 cially all kinds of seminaries, are placed under the 
 superintendence of the government, and those which 
 are withheld from this supervision are to be closed. 
 The education of priests, the fitness of candidates 
 for holy orders, appointments to the cure of souls, 
 the infliction of ecclesiastical censures, the sound- 
 ness of the faith of the clergy, are, in the new 
 German Empire, matters to be regulated by the 
 police. 
 
 This is not a struggle between Catholicity and 
 Protestantism ; it is a battle between the Atheist 
 State and the Kingdom of God. The Protestant 
 Church in Germany does not alarm Bismarck, be- 
 cause it is feeble and has no independent organiza- 
 tion, since its ministers are appointed and ruled by 
 
66 The Persecution of the 
 
 the emperor, and it is also well understood that 
 very few of them have any faith in positive religion. 
 But the orthodox Protestants of Germany thor- 
 oughly understand that the attempt to crush the 
 Catholic Church is meant to be a fatal blow at the 
 vital principle of all religion. This is recognized 
 by the Allgevteine Evaiig. Liitli. Kirchcnzeitung in 
 the article from which we have already quoted. 
 " It is a common remark," says this organ of ortho- 
 dox Lutheranism, " that the blows struck at the 
 Church of Rome will tell with redoubled force 
 against the evangelical church. But what is meant 
 to injure, only helps the Roman Church. There 
 she stands, more compact than ever, and. the world 
 is amazed at beholding her strength. Once the 
 word of the Monk of Wittenberg made her tremble, 
 but to-day the blows of power make her stronger. 
 Let us beware of illusion ; it is certain that in the 
 Protestant North of Germany there has grown up 
 a public opinion on the Church of Rome which 
 provokes the respect even of the liberals. We have 
 enough to do, they say, to fight the socialists ; it is 
 time to leave the Catholic bishops in peace." 
 
 In the spring of 1870, whilst the discussion con- 
 cerning the opportuneness of defining the infallibili- 
 ty of the Pope was attracting the attention of every 
 one, and when the distant mutterings of the Franco- 
 Prussian war were not yet audible, the leading or- 
 gans of the Party of Progress in Berlin sought to 
 weigh the probable results of a definition, by the 
 Vatican Council, of the much-talked-of dogma. In 
 case the Pope should be declared infallible, the 
 
CInirch in the German Empire. 67 
 
 VolkszeiUing^ of Berlin, affirmed that many would 
 favor the interference of the government to prevent 
 all further intercourse between the bishops of Prus- 
 sia and the Roman Pontiff, which would result in 
 the creation of a national church wholly independ- 
 ent of Rome. 
 
 But this organ of the Party of Progress openly 
 avowed that there was not the slightest proba- 
 bility that the state could, by any means at its com- 
 mand, succeed in separating the Catholic Church 
 in Prussia from communion with the See of Peter ; 
 nor was there, it confessed with perfect candor, a 
 single bishop in Germany who would desire such a 
 separation. 
 
 And yet, as we have shown, the task which the 
 German Empire has set itself is precisely the one 
 which is here pronounced impossible. We will re- 
 turn now to the history of the tyrannical enactments 
 and violent measures by which the worshippers of" 
 the God-State hope to destroy the faith of thirteen 
 millions of Catholics. The project of the Falk laws 
 was brought before the Landtag on the 9th of Jarr- 
 uary, 1873, and on the 30th of the same month the 
 Catholic episcopate of the kingdom of Prussia enter- 
 ed a solemn protest against this iniquitous attempt 
 to violate the most sacred rights of conscience and 
 religion. 
 
 In the name of the natural law, of the historical 
 and legitimately-acquired rights of the church in 
 Germany, of the treaties concluded by the crown of 
 Prussia with the Holy See, and, in fine, in the name 
 of the express recognition of these rights by 
 
68 The PersenUion of the 
 
 the constitution, they protest against measures 
 which are a manifest violation of the doctrine, the 
 constitution, and the disciphne of the church. 
 
 It is of the duty and right of each bishop, they 
 declare, to teach the Catholic doctrine and adminis- 
 ter the sacraments within his own diocese ; it is also 
 of his duty and right to educate, commission, and 
 appoint the priests who are his co-operators and 
 representatives in the sacred ministry ; and it is 
 of his duty and right to exhort and encourage them 
 in the fulfilment of their charge, and, when they 
 obstinately refuse to obey the doctrine and laws of 
 the church, to depose them from office, and to for- 
 bid them the exercise of all ecclesiastical functions; 
 all of which rights are violated by the proposed 
 laws. As to the Royal Court for Ecclesiastical Af- 
 fairs, they affirm that they can never recognize its 
 competency, and that they can see in it only an 
 attempt to reduce the divinely-constituted church 
 to a non-Catholic and national institution. 
 
 The memorial concludes with the following noble 
 and solemn words : 
 
 " Concord between church and state is the safe- 
 guard of the spiritual and the temporal power; the 
 indispensable condition of the welfare of all hu- 
 man society. The bishops, the priests, the Catholic 
 people, are not the enemies of the state ; they are not 
 intolerant, unjust, or without charity towards those 
 of a different faith. They ask nothing so earnestly 
 as to be allowed to live in peace with all men ; but 
 they demand that they themselves be permitted 
 to live according to their faith, of the divinity and 
 
Church in the German Empire. 69 
 
 truth of which they are most thoroughly convinced. 
 They require that the integrity of religion and their 
 church and the liberty of their conscience be left 
 inviolate, and they are resolved to defend their 
 lawful freedom, and even the smallest right of the 
 church, with all energy and without fear. 
 
 " P'rom our inmost souls, in the interest of the 
 state as much as of the church, we conjure and im- 
 plore the authorities to abandon the disastrous po- 
 licy which they have taken up, and to give back to 
 the Catholic Church, and to the millions of the 
 faithful of that church who are in Prussia and in the 
 empire, peace, religious liberty, and security in the 
 possession of their rights, and not to impose upon us 
 laws obedience to which is incompatible, for every 
 bishop and for every priest and for all Catholics, 
 with the fulfilment of duty — laws, consequently, 
 which violate conscience, are morally impossible, 
 and which, if carried into execution by force, will 
 bring untold misery upon our faithful Catholic peo- 
 ple and our German fatherland." 
 
 The organs of the government declared that the 
 Memorial was an ultimatum, " a declaration of war "; 
 that " it was impossible to keep the peace with 
 these bishops ; and that they should be reduced as 
 soon as possible to a state in which they could do no 
 harm." Accordingly, the discussion of the Falk 
 laws was hurried up, and they were adopted in May 
 by a majority of two-thirds. 
 
 In the meantime, the government continued to 
 follow up its harsh measures against the religious 
 orders, going so far as to close the churches of royal 
 
70 The Persecution of the 
 
 patronage in Poland, in order to prevent their con- 
 secration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. It even 
 forbade the children of the schools to assist at the 
 devotions of the Sacred Heart. The Catholic ca- 
 sinos were closed ; the Congregations of the Blessed 
 Virgin, the Society of the Holy Childhood, and 
 other religious associations were suppressed. The 
 church in Cologne, which had been devoted to the 
 use of thcCatholic soldiers of the Prussian army, was 
 turned over to the Old Catholics. 
 
 By the beginning of 1873 nearly all the Jesuits 
 had withdrawn from the territory of the German 
 Empire, and taken refuge in France, England, Aus- 
 tria, Belgium, Brazil, the Indies, and the United 
 States. Those who still remained were interned 
 and placed under the supervision of the police. 
 The government next proceeded to take steps to 
 suppress those religious orders which it considered 
 as affiliated to the Jesuits. A mission which the 
 Redemptorists were giving at Wehlen, near Treves, 
 was broken up by the police. Another mission 
 which they were about to open at Oberjosbach 
 (Nassau) was interdicted ; whilst almost at the 
 same time several Redemptorists were decorated 
 " for services rendered to the fatherland during the 
 war." A community of Lazarists at Kulm was dis- 
 solved, and convents of the Ladies of the Sacred 
 Heart, of the Sisters of Notre Dame, of the Sisters 
 of Charity, and of the Sisters of St. Charles were 
 closed. 
 
 Von Gerlach, the President of the Court of Ap- 
 peals of Magdeburg, himself a Protestant, has in- 
 
Church in the German Empire. 7 1 
 
 formed us, in a pamphlet which he pubHshed about 
 this time, of the effect of these persecutions upon 
 the Cathohcs of Germany. 
 
 '* As for the CathoHc Church," he wrote, " per- 
 secutions strengthen her. In fact, her moral power 
 is increased under pressure. The Catholic Church 
 is to-day more zealous, more compact, more united, 
 more confident of herself, more energetic, and bet- 
 ter organized, than she was at the commencement 
 of 1 87 1. The Roman Catholics have good reason 
 to be thankful that their church has gained in faith, 
 in the spirit of sacrifice and prayer, in devoutness 
 in worship, and in all Christian virtues. 
 
 " It is even evident that the interior force of the 
 religious orders, especially that of the Jesuits, has 
 been proportionately augmented. Around these 
 proscribed men gather all those who love them to 
 protect and help them." 
 
 The courageous conduct of the German bishops 
 in taking a firm and decided stand against the per- 
 secutors of the church met with the almost unani- 
 mous approval of both priests and people. Dr. 
 Dollinger and his sect were forgotten. If there had 
 ever been any life in the impossible thing, it went 
 out in the first breath of the storm that was break- 
 ing over the church. All the cathedral chapters 
 gave in their adhesion to their respective bishops, 
 and their example was followed by the pastors, rec- 
 tors, and vicars of the eleven Prussian dioceses. 
 They repelled with horror, to use the words of the 
 clergy of Fulda, the attempt to separate the mem- 
 bers from the head, and to give to the priesthood 
 
72 The Persecution of the 
 
 tutors in the person of a state official. Even the 
 twenty-nine deacons of the Seminary of Gnesen en- 
 tered their protest, recalling in their address to 
 Archbishop Ledochowski the beautiful words of St. 
 Laurence to Pope Sixtus as he was led to martyr- 
 dom : Quo sine filio, pater ? 
 
 The Catholic nobility, in their meeting at Miin- 
 ster in January, 1873, openly proclaimed their fidel- 
 ity to the church and their firm resolve to defend 
 her rights and liberties ; and the Catholic people 
 began to organize throughout the Ernpire. 
 
 " The Association of the Catholic Germans," 
 which now counts its members by hundreds of 
 thousands, was formed, with the motto, Neither 
 rebel nor apostate. Its Wanderversaininlungen (mi- 
 gratory reunions) spring up everywhere, and become 
 centres of Catholic life. This association is based 
 upon the constitutional law, its acts are public, the 
 means it employs are legitimate, and the end it 
 aims at is distinctly formulated in its statutes. 
 
 In this manner the Catholics of Germany prepar- 
 ed themselves, not to commit acts of violence or to 
 transgress the law, but to offer a passive resistance 
 to tyranny and oppression, to uphold liberty of con- 
 science against state omnipotence, and to suffer 
 every evil rather than betray their souls' faith. 
 
 The Imperial government, on the other hand, 
 showed no intention of withdrawing its arbitrary 
 measures, but through its organs openly declared 
 that " the execution of the clerical laws would form 
 a clergy as submissive and tractable as the Prussian 
 army" ; whilst Herr Falk proclaimed in the Reich- 
 
ChtLVch in the German Empire. ^'^^ 
 
 stag " that the government was resolved to make 
 use of every means which the law placed within its 
 power ; and if the present laws were not sufficient, 
 others would be framed to ensure their execution." 
 
 The ukase, signed by Bismarck on the 20th of 
 May, 1873, suppressed the convents of the Redemp- 
 torists, of the Fathers of the Holy Ghost, of the 
 Lazarists, and of the Ladies of the Sacred Heart ; 
 and the members of these orders were commanded 
 to abandon their houses before the end of the fol- 
 lowing November. The Ladies of the Sacred Heart 
 were accused of desiring to acquire *' universal spir- 
 itual dominion." 
 
 The bishops were called on to submit for the ap- 
 proval of the government, in accordance with the 
 tenor of the May laws, the plan of studies and the 
 disciplinary rules of their diocesan seminaries ; 
 which, of course, they declined to do, though they 
 foresaw that their action would bring about the 
 closing of these institutions. Herr Falk, the Min- 
 ister of Worship, ordered an examination into the 
 revenues of the different parishes, without even 
 asking the co-operation of the bishops ; and the 
 civil authorities were warned of their duty to notify 
 the government of all changes which were made in 
 the body of the clergy. The police received orders 
 to interfere, at certain points, with Catholic pilgrim- 
 ages, which, in other instances, were positively in- 
 terdicted. 
 
 The annual allowance of twelve hundred thalers 
 to Mgr, Ledochowski, Archbishop of Posen, was 
 withdrawn, his seminary was closed, and all teach- 
 7 
 
74 The Persecutioti of the 
 
 ers were forbidden to ask his permission to give re- 
 ligious instruction. In November, 1873, the arch- 
 bishop's furniture was seized ; even his paintings 
 were carried off. The people, gathering in crowds, 
 shouted after the officials: "Thief! thief!" On 
 the 23d of the same month Mgr. Ledochowski 
 was condemned to pay a fine of five thousand four 
 hundred thalers, or, in default, to an imprisonment 
 of two years, for having made nine appointments 
 to ecclesiastical offices contrary to the laws of 
 May. 
 
 Before the end of December, the fines imposed 
 upon the archbishop had reached twenty-one thou- 
 sand thalers. In January, 1874, he was cited before 
 a delegate judge of the Royal Court for Ecclesias- 
 tical Affairs, but refused to appear, since he could 
 not, in conscience, recognize the competency of a 
 civil tribunal to pass sentence on the manner in 
 which he had exercised his pastoral functions. He 
 moreover averred that, in case the threat to drag 
 him into court should be carried out, it was his 
 firm resolve to say nothing. 
 
 Several priests of the Diocese of Posen had al 
 ready been incarcerated for failure to pay the fines 
 of the government, and on the 3d of February, 
 1874, at five o'clock in the morning, the archbishop 
 was himself arrested and carried off to prison in 
 Ostrowo, a town of about seven thousand inhabi- 
 tants, chiefly Protestants and Jews. 
 
 The bishops of Prussia at once drew up a letter 
 to the clergy and the Catholic people of their dio- 
 ceses, in which they declared that " the only crime 
 
Church in the German Empire. 75 
 
 of Archbishop Ledochowski was that of having 
 chosen to suffer everything rather than betray the 
 liberty of the church of God and deny Catholic 
 truth, sealed by the precious blood of the Saviour.' 
 
 The canons of the Chapter of Posen were ordered 
 by the government to elect a capitular-vicar ; and 
 as they declined to give their approval to the cruel 
 and unjust imprisonment of their archbishop, a 
 state official was appointed to take charge of the 
 affairs of the diocese. 
 
 Both the priests and people of Prussian Poland 
 remain firm, and give noble examples of steadfast- 
 ness in the faith. 
 
 The history of the persecution in one diocese is, 
 with a few unimportant differences, that of all. 
 More than a year ago the annual allowance of 
 three thousand four hundred and seventy thalers 
 made to the Theological Seminary of Cologne was 
 withdrawn. Archbishop Melchers and his vicar- 
 general were cited before a civil tribunal for the 
 excommunication of two apostates. The Lazarists 
 were driven from the preparatory seminaries of 
 Neuss and Miinstereifel. 
 
 On the 22d of November, 1873, the archbishop 
 was condemned to pay a fine of twenty-five hun- 
 dred thalers for five appointments made in viola- 
 tion of the May laws ; and almost every week 
 thereafter new fines were imposed, until finally his 
 furniture was seized on the 3d of February, 1874,. 
 and in a very short time the venerable prelate was 
 incarcerated, not even his lawyer being allowed to 
 visit him. His prison-cell was thought to be too 
 
76 The Pcrsectttion of the 
 
 comfortable, and he was soon changed to a wretch- 
 ed hole under the very roof of the jail. A great 
 number of pastors and vicars of his diocese were 
 deprived of their positions, and soir.e of them 
 imprisoned. 
 
 On the 20th of November, 1873, the priests of 
 twenty-eight towns and villages of the Diocese of 
 Treves were interdicted by the government, and 
 the bishop fined thirty-six hundred thalers. The 
 Theological Seminary was closed, " not to be re- 
 opened until the bishop and rector should accept 
 in gpod faith the laws of May, 1873 " ; and all 
 seminarians who should be found there on the I2th 
 of January, 1874, were to be forcibly ejected. 
 
 The 15th of this same month the professors were 
 forbidden to instruct the students of theology, 
 under penalty of a fine of fifteen thalers or five 
 days' imprisonment for each offence ; and this pro- 
 hibition is to remain in vigor until the bishop 
 accepts the Falk laws. On the 21st of January an 
 inventory of the furniture of the episcopal palace 
 was taken. The goods were sold at public auction 
 on the 6th of February ; in a few days Bishop 
 Eberhard was thrown into prison ; and before the 
 end of August, 1874, sixty of his priests were con- 
 fessing the faith in the dungeons of Treves and 
 Coblentz. 
 
 The old Dominican convent in Treves had been 
 converted into a prison, and it is there that the 
 bishop and some thirty of his priests were incar- 
 cerated. The prison discipline is rigid and harsh 
 in the extreme. These confessors of Christ are 
 
CIntrch in the German Empire, jj 
 
 forced out of their beds at five o'clock in the morn- 
 ing, and from this until they retire at nine in the 
 evening they must either walk to and fro in their 
 cells, or sit upon stools, as chairs are not allowed. 
 If during the day they wish to lie down for a 
 moment, an official at once informs them that this 
 is not permitted ; if they lean against the wall, the 
 table, or the bed, they again receive the same 
 warning. A jailer accompanies them whenever 
 necessity forces them to leave their cells. All let- 
 ters to and from the prison are read by the officials, 
 and, in case the slightest pretext can be found, are 
 destroyed. None save those who have voluntarily 
 given themselves up, and Avho, after a first impri- 
 sonment, have not received an ovation from the 
 people, are allowed to say Mass, The bishop is 
 permitted to celebrate the Holy Sacrifice, but no 
 one is suffered to be present except the server and 
 the indispensable government official. 
 
 The food seems scarcely sufficient to sustain life. 
 We have received from a most trustworthy person, 
 who during the past summer examined into this 
 whole matter on the spot, the bill of fare of the 
 priests confined in the prison of Treves, which we 
 here submit to our readers : 
 
 Breakfast, Dinner. Supper. 
 
 Sunday Porridge Peas Soup and Bread. 
 
 Monday Coffee Beans Soup and Bread. 
 
 Tuesday Porridge Potatoes Soup and Bread. 
 
 Wednesday Soup Rye Meal Soup and Bread. 
 
 Thursday Soup Peas Porridge. 
 
 Friday Coffee Rice Soup. 
 
 Saturday Porridge Cabbage . . . .Soup. 
 
78 The Persecution of the 
 
 Three times in the week each of the prisoners 
 receives a small piece of meat, and this is the only 
 change ever made in the bill of fare which we have 
 just given. What we have called " porridge " is 
 known at Treves under the name of Schlicht, and is 
 a kind of flour-paste. When we reflect that there 
 are in Germany to-day not less than a thousand 
 priests who are suffering this slow and cruel mar- 
 tyrdom, we shall be able to realize that the present 
 pagan persecution may in all truth be compared to 
 those which, in the first ages of Christianity, gave 
 to the church her legions of martyrs and confessors. 
 It is not necessary that we should enter into a 
 detailed account of the persecution in the other 
 dioceses of Germany. The same scenes are every- 
 where enacted — fines, citations, seizure of effects, 
 interdicts, and imprisonments, on the part of the 
 government ; whilst the Catholics, standing in un- 
 shaken fidelity to God and conscience, suffer in 
 patience every outrage that their enemies can in- 
 flict, rather than betray the sacred cause of the 
 religion of Christ. The May laws of 1873 did not 
 prove sufficiently harsh or tyrannical to satisfy the 
 Prussian infidels ; and they were consequently sup- 
 plemented by clauses which passed both houses of 
 the Reichstag in May, 1874. In virtue of these 
 amendments, the state can decree the sequestration 
 of the goods of an ecclesiastical post not occupied 
 in the manner prescribed by the Falk laws. In this 
 case these goods are to be administered by a royal 
 commissary. 
 
 The Royal Court for Ecclesiastical Affairs receives 
 
Church in the German Empire. 79 
 
 the power to depose bishops ; and, this deposition 
 being once pronounced, they are forbidden to exer- 
 cise any ecclesiastical functions in their respective 
 dioceses, which by this very fact are placed under* 
 interdict. When the bishop is deposed by the Royal 
 Court, the cathedral chapter is summoned to pro- 
 ceed to elect his successor ; and in case it fails to 
 comply with this injunction within ten days, all 
 goods belonging to the episcopal see, as well as 
 those of the chapter of the diocese, and of the par- 
 ishes, are sequestrated and administered by the 
 government. 
 
 This miserable legislation gives to the state the 
 entire spiritual power, and ignores alike the rights 
 of God and those of the free Christian conscience. 
 Still, it is only the legitimate and logical expression 
 of the views and aims of the modern heathen- 
 ism which is organizing throughout Europe for the 
 destruction of the religion of Christ. 
 
 The May laws of 1873 required the bishops to 
 convert all the incumbents having charge of 
 churches into permanent and irremovable par- 
 ish priests ; and in consequence the position of 
 twelve hundred and forty-one incumbents in the 
 Rhine Province became illegal on the nth of May, 
 1874. A general interdict was therefore expected, 
 and even a process to compel the bishop to comply 
 with this clause was looked for ; but Herr Falk 
 seems to have been frightened by his own legisla- 
 tion, since already, on the 8th of May, he announc- 
 ed in the Reichstag that only those priests whom 
 "the government considered dangerous " would be 
 
8o The Persecution of the 
 
 notified of the proceedings taken against the bish- 
 ops, and that no others would be held to come un- 
 der the operation of the law. In this manner the 
 J^russian Minister of Worship avoided the odium of 
 a general interdict, whilst by a slower process he 
 hopes eventually to bring about this result. The 
 moment the incumbent of a church receives official 
 notification that his bishop has been put under re- 
 straint, he is by the very fact forbidden to perform 
 any ecclesiastical function, and his post is consider- 
 ed vacant. The LandratJi then declares this vacancy, 
 and invites the parishioners to prepare for the 
 election of a successor to their former pastor. 
 
 That this election may take place, it suffices that 
 ten men, who are of age and in the full possession of 
 their civil rights, put in an appearance, and the per- 
 son chosen by them and approved of by the civil 
 authority is recognized as the lawful incumbent. 
 
 The evident aim of this law is to create a schism 
 in every parish in the German Empire, which, by 
 fomenting divisions amongst the Catholics, would 
 greatly aid the government in its effijrts to destroy 
 the church. But this is only one of innumerable 
 instances in which the persecutors have been wholly 
 mistaken. 
 
 They counted first upon the weakness of the 
 Catholic bishops ; confidently expecting tliat one or 
 the other of them would place himself at the head 
 of the Old Catholics, and thus, whilst causing great 
 scandal in the church, give to that still-born sect at 
 least a semblance of respectability. But not one of 
 the German prelates wavered. They go to prison, 
 
Church in the German Empire. 8 1 
 
 like the apostles, rejoicing that they are found Avor- 
 thy to suffer for Christ, and declare that they are 
 willing to shed their blood for the holy cause. 
 Their enemies are not more ready to inflict than 
 they to bear wrong and outrage for the love of Je- 
 sus. Then, there was no doubt in the minds of the 
 Prussian infidels that large numbers of the clergy 
 would take advantage of the bribes offered by gov- 
 ernment to apostates to throw off the authority of 
 the bishops, and to constitute themselves into a 
 schismatical body. On the contrary, the persecu- 
 tion has only drawn tighter the bonds which unite 
 the priests with their chief pastors. In all Germany 
 there have not been found more than thirty ration- 
 alistic professors and suspended priests who were 
 willing to take sides with Dollingerin his rebellion ; 
 and the juridically-proven immorality of Bishop 
 Reinkens will no doubt give us a true insight into 
 the characters of most of the men who have elected 
 him their ecclesiastical superior. 
 
 When the persecutors found that both bishops 
 and priests were immovable in their devotion to the 
 church, they appealed to the Catholic people, and, by 
 the laws of May, 1874, placed it in their power to 
 create a schism, by giving them the right to elect 
 their own pastors, with the promise that govern- 
 ment would turn the churches over to them. But 
 this attempt to show that the bishops and priests 
 of Germany have not the sympathy and confidence 
 of the laity has met with signal rebuke. 
 
 The elections for the Prussian Landtag in No- 
 vember, 1873, and those for the Reichstag in Janu- 
 
 8 
 
82 The Persecution of the 
 
 aiy, 1874, had not merely a political significance; 
 their bearing upon the present and future welfare of 
 the church in the German Empire is of the greatest 
 importance. Opportunity was given to the Catho- 
 lic people to make a public confession of faith ; to 
 declare, in words which could not be misunderstood, 
 .whether or not they were resolved to stand firm 
 in the struggle into which their leaders had been 
 forced. 
 
 In the November elections, in spite of every ef- 
 fort of the government, the Catholics increased 
 their representatives in the Landtag from fifty-two 
 to eighty-nine ; and in the Reichstag their members 
 have grown from sixty-three to considerably more 
 than one hundred. 
 
 The entire Rhenish Province elected Catholics. 
 Cologne, Dusseldorf, Treves, Coblentz, Aix-la-Cha- 
 pelle, Crefeld, Bonn, Neuss, DUren, Essen, Mal- 
 medy, JSIiilheim, all the cities of the Lower Rhine, 
 made their vote an act of faith. Windthorst, the 
 leader of the Catholic party, was elected at Mep- 
 pen (Hanover) over Falk, the author of the May 
 laws, by a majority of nearly fifteen thousand. 
 The entire vote for Falk was only three hundred 
 and forty-seven. 
 
 The result of the elections undoubtedly startled 
 the government, and possibly shook Bismarck's con- 
 fidence in the power of persecution to destroy 
 Catholic faith ; but the struggle had grown too 
 fierce to allow him to think of withdrawing. 
 
 On the contrary, the firmness of the Catholic 
 people incited the persecutors to still harsher mea- 
 
Church in the German Empire. 8 
 
 o 
 
 SLires; but nothing that they have done or can do 
 will succeed in breaking the combined passive op- 
 position of the clergy and the laity. 
 
 In the Vatican Council, the most determined re- 
 sistance to the definition of the infallibility of the 
 Pope was made by the German bishops, who felt 
 no hesitation in openly declaring with what anxiety 
 they regarded the probable effects of such a defini- 
 tion upon the Catholics of their own country. Di- 
 visions, apostasies, schisms, seemed imminent ; and 
 it is not easy now to determine what might have 
 been the result had not God's providence inter- 
 fered. 
 
 In the first place, at the very moment when the 
 definition was made, the terrible conflict between 
 France and Prussia broke forth, and raged so fierce- 
 ly that the loud earth was struck dumb, and men 
 held their breath till it should be ended. In the 
 meantime, the angry feelings aroused by the dis- 
 cussions in the Vatican Council had, in great mea- 
 sure, been calmed, and it was "possible to take a 
 fairer and more dispassionate view of the Avhole 
 subject. 
 
 Then the attempt of the government to destroy 
 the Catholic Church in Germany, by tearing it 
 away from its allegiance to the Pope, and debasing 
 it to a mere function of the state, roused those who 
 might have been disposed to waver, and brought 
 about a universal reawakening of faith. It is the 
 fate of the enemies of God's people to bless when 
 they mean to curse. In fact, when Catholics begin 
 to suffer, they begin to triumph ; and hence even 
 
84 The Perseactioit of the 
 
 those who hate us have of nothing so great horror 
 as of making martyrs and confessors of us. They 
 know the history of martyrdom — that in the Avhole 
 earth and in all ages it means victory. 
 
 The church, which sprang from the conflict of 
 the God-Man with death, like him, in her greatest 
 humiliation shows forth her highest power. 
 
 Her march through the world and through the 
 ages is not along pleasant roads and through peace- 
 ful prospects, or, if so, only at times and rarely. 
 If she move in pomp amid the acclamations of 
 peoples, her triumphal procession ends in sorrow. 
 The bark of Peter must be storm-tossed ; and when 
 the angry waves would swallow it, the divine voice 
 speaks the magic word, and the quiet deep bears it 
 secure on its peaceful bosom. 
 
 The road wherein the progress of the church is 
 most certain is the blood-stained way of the cross. 
 When she is all bruised, and there is no comeliness 
 left in her; when her eyes are red with weeping, 
 and the world, beholding her agony, mocks and jeers 
 and laughs her to scorn, then is she strongest ; for 
 her strength comes from humility, from suffering, 
 from the cross. When she is humbled, God exalts 
 her ; when he permits her enemies to entomb her 
 in ignominy, he is near at hand to crown her with 
 the immortal glory of a new life. The word of 
 Christ is: "You shall live in the world in the 
 midst of persecutions ; but take heart : I have 
 conquered the world." 
 
 Within the memory of those who are still young, 
 it was the fashion with our enemies to proclaim 
 
Church in the German Empire. 85 
 
 that the church was decrepit, that she was dyings 
 that of her own weight she would fall to pieces in 
 the new society that was growing up around her : 
 to-day we hear that she is everywhere waxing too 
 strong, and men appeal against her to tyranny and 
 to brute force. 
 
 The most powerful and the most thoroughly or- 
 ganized of the modern nations, the great Ciiltur- 
 Staat of this most enlightened age, has confessed 
 that it is unable to check the growth of the church 
 by legitimate means, and it has therefore had re- 
 course to the most arbitrary legislation and to 
 the harshest measures of compulsion and violence. 
 This, of course, is an explicit avowal of its own im- 
 potence. We find also that the two nations which 
 have manifested the most supercilious indifference 
 to the Catholic Churchj as being something which 
 'did not and could not concern them, now applaud 
 this Prussian tyranny, in spite of the pretence of 
 the love of freedom and fair play. The sympathy 
 of the English press, and to a great extent of the 
 American press, in this struggle, is with the abso- 
 lute and liberty-destroying government of Prussia. 
 The favorite motto of " civil and religious liberty 
 all the world over" has been wholly lost sight of, 
 and Englishmen and Americans give moral aid to a 
 state which wantonly tramples upon both. 
 
 This, too, was a cherished watchword : The 
 church is the friend of absolutism, the enemy of 
 freedom. 
 
 But to-day we behold the Catholic Church, single- 
 handed, fighting again the same battles of liberty 
 
86 The Pei'secutio7i of the 
 
 which she fought and \yon in the early centuries 
 of Christianity. Now, as then, she opposes absolu- 
 tism in the state ; denies, as she then denied, 
 that Caesar can lawfully lay claim to " the things 
 of God" ; and protests, in the name of the outraged 
 dignity of human nature, that there is a freedom 
 which transcends the sphere of all earthly authority. 
 Her children, when nothing else remains to be done, 
 utter the divine words : Non possnintis — we cannot ; 
 we must obey God rather than men. 
 
 Referring to this struggle, Bismarck has said, in 
 a memorable speech, that " it is the ancient contest 
 for power, which is as old as the human race itself — 
 the contest for power between king and priest." 
 This is necessarily the view which he takes, since 
 he believes in nothing but force. But the dualism 
 here is not in the combatants alone ; it is in the 
 objects for which they contend. 
 
 It is indeed the ancient contest between good 
 and evil, between the spirit and the flesh, between 
 the Christ and the rulers of this world, v/hich makes 
 life a warfare and the earth a battle-field, and which 
 must continue until the end. Never has it been 
 fiercer than in our day, and the battle is yet hardly 
 begun. But very few indeed understand the na- 
 ture of the struggle, or are at all aware of the real 
 principles and interests which are at stake. Few 
 men can see further than an hour or beyond the 
 little circle that bounds their private interests; but 
 each day it is becoming more evident that all must 
 take sides ; that not to be for Christ is to be against 
 him. 
 
CImrch in the German Empire. 87 
 
 Twice in the last eighteen hundred years the 
 church has been the ark of the nations : she surviv- 
 ed the destruction of paganism ; she converted and 
 civilized barbarism. Some historian will tell, in 
 another age, how, when Christian society, grown 
 luxurious and corrupt, without God and without 
 future hope, was sinking back into the flesh-wor- 
 ship and the death of ancient paganism, she, gath- 
 ering around her the remnant of her children, and 
 fearlessly facing the storm and the wrath of those 
 who had ceased to know her, "kept her own pure 
 and undefiled till the dawn of the brighter day, 
 to become the leaven of the social state that is 
 to be. 
 
COMPARATIVE INFLUENCE OF CATHO- 
 LICISM AND PROTESTANTISM ON NA- 
 TIONAL PROSPERITY.-^ 
 
 WEALTH. 
 
 T is wonderful," wrote Proudhon, " how 
 in all our political questions we always 
 stumble on theology." Mr. Gladstone 
 will doubtless concur in this senti- 
 ment ; for he cannot take a step without stumb- 
 ling ^ the Catholic Church. She is every- 
 where, and everywhere she is to him a cause of 
 alarm. So potent is her influence growing to be, 
 so cunningly laid are the plans by which her policy 
 is directed, so perfect is the organization and disci- 
 pline of her forces, so insidious are her methods of 
 procedure, as he would have us believe, that it is 
 full time all Christendom were warned of the ap- 
 proaching danger. She is in his eyes an ever- 
 present menace to the civilization of the world. 
 
 He at least bears testimony to her power and 
 vitality. She is not a relic of a past age ; she lives, 
 
 * Protestantism and Cat!toli:ism in tkeir hearing ■u/>en the Liierty and 
 Prosperity of Nations. A study of social economy. By Emile de Laveleye. 
 With an introductory letter by the Rt. Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P. London, 
 
 1875. 
 
Influence of Catholicisin, etc. 89 
 
 and, what is more, it does not seem that she is 
 willing to die. If we consider the various efforts 
 by which men are seeking to weaken and destroy 
 the church, we shall find in them no mean evidence 
 of her divine strength. And first of all, in an age 
 intellectually most active, she is the subject of 
 universal criticism, and is cited before every tri- 
 bunal of human knowledge to be tried on an hun- 
 dred different and often contradictory counts. Her 
 historical relations with the world, extending over 
 eighteen hundred years and co-extensive with Chris- 
 tendom, are minutely examined into by men who, 
 shutting their eyes to the benefits which she has 
 conferred upon the human race, are eager to dis- 
 cover charges against her. She is made responsible 
 for the crimes of those who called themselves Ca- 
 tholics, though she was the first to condemn their 
 evil deeds. The barbarism, the ignorance, and the 
 cruelty of the middle ages are set to her count, 
 when, in fact, she was the chief source of civiliza- 
 tion, of enlightenment, and of mercy during that 
 period. When she opposes the tyranny of kings, 
 she is called the enemy of the state ; when she seeks 
 to restrain the lawlessness of the people, she is 
 proclaimed the friend of tyrants. Not in politics 
 alone, but in all the sciences, men in our day stum- 
 ble on the Catholic Church. 
 
 We are told that she is the one great spiritual 
 organization which is able to resist, and must as a 
 matter of life and death resist, the progress of 
 science and modern civilization. Men profess to 
 find innumerable points of collision between her 
 
90 Infltie7icc of Catholicism and 
 
 dogmas and the conclusions of science, and are 
 surprised when she claims to understand her own 
 teachings better than they, and is not prepared to 
 abandon all belief in God, the soul, and future life 
 because physical research has given us a wider 
 knowledge of the phenomena of matter. Now we 
 hear objections to her moral teaching — that it is 
 too severe, that she imposes burdens upon men's 
 shoulders too heavy for human nature to bear, that 
 she encourages asceticism, celibacy, and all manner 
 of self-denial opposed to the spirit of the age and 
 of progress; then, on the contrary, that her mo- 
 rality is lax, that she flatters the passions of men, 
 panders to their sensual appetites, and grants, for 
 gain, permission to commit every excess. 
 
 At one time we are told that her priests are 
 indolent, immoral, ignorant, without faith ; at an- 
 other, that they arc ceaselessly active, astute, 
 learned, and wholly intent upon bringing all men 
 to their own way of thinking. Now we are in- 
 formed that her children cannot be loyal subjects 
 of any government ; and immediately after we hear 
 that they are so subservient, so passively obedient, 
 that they willingly submit to any master. And 
 here we come more immediately upon our subject ; 
 for whereas Mr. Gladstone has declared that the 
 loyalty of Catholics is not to be trusted, M. de 
 Laveleye asserts that " despotic government is the 
 congenial government of Catholic populations." 
 
 The pamphlet from which we quote these words, 
 and which we propose now to examine, has been 
 presented to the English-reading public by special 
 
Protestantism on National Prosperity. 9 1 
 
 request of Mr. Gladstone, and has been farther 
 honored by him with a prefatory letter. The 
 author, it is true, takes a fling at the Church of 
 England, and plainly intimates that in his opinion 
 it is little better than the Catholic Church ; but the 
 ex-premier could not forego the opportunity of 
 striking his enemy, though he should pierce his 
 dearest friend in giving the blow. He takes the 
 precaution, indeed, to disclaim any concurrence in 
 M. de Laveleye's " rather unfavorable estimate of 
 the Church of England in comparison with the 
 other reformed communions." The question dis- 
 cussed in the pamphlet before us, as its title 
 implies, is the relative influence of Catholicism and 
 Protestantism on the liberty and prosperity of 
 nations ; and the conclusion which is drawn is that 
 the Reformation is favorable to freedom and pro- 
 gress, and that the Catholic Church is a hindrance 
 to both. 
 
 This has long been a favorite theme with Pro- 
 testants — the weapon with which they think them- 
 selves best able to do good battle in their cause ; 
 and doubtless it is employed, in most favorable 
 circumstances, in an age like ours, in which mate- 
 rial progress is so marked a feature that its influence 
 may be traced in everything, and in nothing more 
 than in the thoughts and philosophies of the men 
 of our day. It is worthy of remark that Protes- 
 tantism, professing to be a purer and more spiritual 
 worship, should have tended to turn men's minds 
 almost exclusively to the worldly and temporal 
 view of religion ; so that it has become the fashion 
 
92 Influence of Catholicism and 
 
 to praise Christianity, not because it makes men 
 humble, pure, self-denying, content with little, but 
 rather because its influence is supposed to be of 
 almost an opposite nature. Much stress is laid 
 upon the physical, social, and mental superiority of 
 Christian nations to those that are still pagan, and 
 the inference implied, if not always expressly stat- 
 ed, is that these temporal advantages are due to 
 the influence of ChristJanity, and prove its truth 
 and divine origin. Without stopping to consider 
 the question whether the material and social supe- 
 riority of Christian nations is to be attributed to 
 their religious faith, we may ask whether, admit- 
 ting that this is the case, it may with propriety be 
 adduced in proof of the truth of the religion of 
 Christ ? 
 
 In the case of individuals no one, certainly, would 
 think of arguing that prosperity proves a right faith, 
 or even consistent practice. To hold that wealth 
 and success are evidences of religious life, whatever 
 it may be, is certainly not Christian doctrine. Does 
 the teaching of Christ permit the rich to lay the 
 unction to their souls that they are God's favored 
 children? Were they his friends? Did they flock 
 round him? Did they drink in his words gladly? 
 If men who claim to be his disciples have deified 
 worldly success, and made temporal prosperity a 
 sufficient test of the trutli of his religion, they can- 
 not plead any word of his in excuse. 
 
 He certainly never paid court to the great, or 
 stooped to flatter the rich. Was it not he who 
 said, " Woe be to }'ou rich : )'e have received your 
 
Protestantism on National Prosperity. 93 
 
 reward" ? and again, '' It is harder for a rich man 
 to enter the kingdom of heaven than for a camel to 
 pass through the eye of a needle"? Did he not 
 take Lazarus to his bosom when Dives was in hell ? 
 
 " Blessed are ye," he said, " when men shall revile 
 you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner 
 of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice 
 and be exceeding glad ; for great is your reward in 
 heaven : for so persecuted they the prophets which 
 were before you." 
 
 The preaching of Christ Avas wholly unworldly. 
 He sternly repressed the earthly ambitions of his 
 disciples, and declared that, as the world hated 
 him, it would also hate those who believed in him. 
 They would be outcasts for his name's sake ; if this 
 life were all, they of all men would be most misera- 
 ble. Indeed, he rarely speaks of human happiness 
 in the customary sense ; he passes over what might 
 be said in favor of this life, and brings out in bold 
 relief its vanity and unsatisfactoriness. He draws 
 no pictures of domestic bliss, and says but little of 
 even innocent pleasures or those temporal blessings 
 which are so sweet to all ; and as he taught that 
 worldly prosperity is no evidence of God's favor, he 
 was careful to correct the error of those who looked 
 upon misfortune as a proof of guilt, as in the case of 
 the man born blind and of those upon whom a 
 tower had fallen. 
 
 Christ was poor, his apostles were poor, his disci- 
 ples were poor, nearly all the Christians of the first 
 ages were poor ; and yet every day we hear men 
 talk as though they considered poverty and Chris- 
 
94 Injlucnce of Caiholicism and 
 
 tianity incompatible. This is manifestly the opin- 
 ion of M. de Laveleye. His argument may be 
 stated in this way: England and Scotland are rich, 
 Ireland is poor. The Protestant cantons of Switz- 
 erland are rich, the Catholic are poor. " In the 
 United States," says De Tocqueville, " the greater 
 part of the Catholics are poor." In fact, wherever 
 the two religions exist together, the Protestants are 
 more active, more industrious, and consequently 
 richer than the Catholics. 
 
 This is the substance of what is spread over a 
 dozen pages of the pamphlet. The conclusion is 
 not difficult to draw. Protestants are richer than 
 Catholics, and therefore better Christians. 
 
 " No man can serve two masters," said Christ : 
 "you cannot serve God and Mammon." On the 
 contrary, says M. de Laveleye, the success with 
 which you worship Mammon is the best proof that 
 you serve God truly. Of course it would be foreign 
 to M. de Laveleye's purpose to stop to inquire 
 whether the poverty of Ireland be due to the Ca- 
 tholic faith of her people or to til? rapacity and 
 misgovernment of England ; whether that of the 
 Catholic cantons of Switzerland might not be ac- 
 counted for by the fact that they are mountainous, 
 with an inhospitable climate and a barren soil ; and 
 whether even M. de Tocqueville's assertion that the 
 greater part of the Catholics of the United States 
 are poor might not be satisfactorily explained by 
 stating that the greater part of them are emigrants 
 Avho have recently landed upon these shores without 
 a superabundance of this world's goods. 
 
Protestantism on National Prosperity. 95 
 
 He had also good reasons, while treating this 
 part of his subject, for not looking nearer home. 
 He had in Belgium, under his very eye, one of the 
 most thrifty, industrious, and prosperous peoples 
 of Europe, and at the same time one of the most 
 Catholic. Why did he not compare the wealth of 
 Belgium with that of Sweden or Denmark? Why 
 did he not say a word about Catholic France, whose 
 wealth and thrift cannot be denied. He does, 
 indeed, make mention of two French manufacturing 
 towns, in which, he states, on the authority of M. 
 Audiganne, the capitalists are for the most part 
 Protestants, whilst the operatives are Catholics ; 
 though what this has to do with any debatable 
 question between Catholicism and Protestantism is 
 not easily seen. 
 
 The assertion * that " wherever the two religions 
 co-exist in the same country the Protestants are 
 more active, more industrious, more economical, 
 and consequently richer than the Catholics," is not 
 borne out by facts. A single example will suffice 
 to show how rash M. de Laveleye has been in 
 making so wide an affirmation. The Catholics of 
 the Rhine Province are universally acknowledged 
 to be among the most thrifty and enterprising popu- 
 lations of Prussia, and are far richer than, for in- 
 stance, the Protestants of Pomerania. 
 
 It would not be difficult, by adopting M. de 
 Laveleye's mode of reasoning, to turn his whole 
 argument on this point against his own position. 
 Whether or not national wealth, we might say, is 
 
 *p. 14. 
 
96 htjluence of Catholicism and 
 
 evidence of orthodox Christian faith, there can be 
 no doubt but that the Cliristian reHgion is favora- 
 ble to even the temporal interests of the lowest and 
 most degraded classes of society. Its doctrines on 
 the brotherhood of the race and the equality of all 
 before God first inspired worthy notions of the dig- 
 nity of man. Then the sympathy which is created 
 for the poor, the suffering, and the oppressed natu- 
 rally set men to work to devise means for the relief 
 of human misery. It is to its influence that we 
 must ascribe the abolition of slavery, the elevation 
 of woman, and the thousand ministries which in 
 Christian land's attend on the wretched and the 
 weak. 
 
 We must infer that those nations in which this 
 influence is most powerful — which, in other words, 
 are most truly Christian — will have, in proportion 
 to their population, the smallest class of human 
 beings cursed by the worst plague known to modern 
 civilization, bearing with it, as it does, a threefold 
 degradation, moral, physical, and social. We of 
 course refer to pauperism. 
 
 Now, in England, from whose wealth M. de 
 Laveleye would infer the superiority of her religion, 
 we find that this pauper class, compared with the 
 whole population, is as 1 to 23 ; whereas in Ireland, 
 which is poor — and, according to this theory, for 
 that reason under the ban of a false religion — there 
 is but I pauper to 90 inhabitants ; in other 
 words, pauperism is four times more common in 
 England than in Ireland. Now, whether Ave refer 
 this fact to Encrland's wealth or to Enc^land's reli- 
 
Protestantism on N^ationa I Prosperity. 97 
 
 gion — and in M. de Lavcleye's opinion they are 
 correlative — our conclusion must be either that the 
 influence of the Christian religion, which necessarily 
 tends to promote the temporal well-being of the 
 most degraded classes of society, is less felt in Eng- 
 land than in Ireland, or else that national wealth is 
 hurtful to the interests of these same classes, and 
 consequently opposed to the true Christian spirit ; 
 and in either case we have Catholic Ireland more 
 fairly Christian than Protestant England. We 
 would not have our readers think for a moment 
 that we are seriously of the opinion that our argu- 
 ment proves anything at all. We give it merely 
 as a specimen of the way in which the reasoning of 
 this pamphlet may be turned against its own con- 
 clusions, though, in fact, we have done the work 
 too respectably. 
 
 We cannot forget, if M. de Laveleye does, that, 
 of all sciences, the social — if, indeed, it may be said 
 as yet to exist at all — is the most complex and the 
 most difficult to master. The phenomena which it 
 presents for observation are so various, so manifold, 
 and so vast, our means of observation are so limited, 
 our methods so unsatisfactory, and our prejudices 
 so fatal, that only the thoughtless or the rash will 
 tread without suspicion or doubt upon ground so 
 uncertain and so little explored. 
 
 M. de Laveleye himself furnishes us an example 
 of how easily we may go astray, even when the way 
 seems plain. 
 
 " Sectarian passions," he writes," " or anti-re- 
 
 *p. II. 
 9 
 
98 hifiuence of Catholicism and 
 
 ligious prejudice have been too often imported 
 into the study of these questions. It is time that 
 we should apply to it the method of observation 
 and the scientific impartiality of the physiologist 
 and the naturalist. When the facts are once estab- 
 lished, irrefragable conclusions will follow. It is 
 admitted that the Scotch and Irish are of the same 
 origin. Both have become subject to the English 
 yoke. Until the sixteenth century Ireland was much 
 more civijized than Scotland. During the first part 
 of the middle ages the Emerald Isle was a focus of 
 civilization, while Scotland was still a den of barba- 
 rians. Since the Scotch have embraced the Re- 
 formation, they have outrun even the English. . . . 
 Ireland, on the other hand, devoted to ultramon- 
 tanism, is poor, miserable, agitated by the spirit of 
 rebellion, and seems incapable of raising herself by 
 her own strength." The conclusion which is drawn 
 from all this, joined with such other facts as the 
 late victories of Prussia over Austria and France, is 
 that " Protestantism is more favorable than Catho- 
 licism to the development of nations." 
 
 We may as well pause to examine this passage, 
 which, both with regard to the statement of facts 
 and to the interpretation put upon them, fairly 
 represents the style and method of the pamphlet 
 before us. 
 
 " It is admitted that the Scotch and Irish are of 
 the same origin." This is true, as here stated, 
 only in the sense that both are descended of Adam ; 
 and hence it would have been as much to the point 
 to aflRrm that all the nations of the earth are of 
 
Protestantism on National Prosperity. 99 
 
 the same origin. The Scots were, indeed, an Irish 
 tribe ; but when they invaded Caledonia, tliey 
 found it in the possession of the Picts, of whom 
 whether they were of Celtic or Teutonic race is still 
 undecided. The inhabitants of the Scotch low- 
 lands are chiefly of Anglo-Saxon blood, and it is 
 almost exclusively among them that the progress 
 of which our author speaks is noticeable. The 
 Highlanders, who are of Celtic race, had made but 
 little advancement in wealth and civilization so late 
 as the beginning of the last century. There is con- 
 sequently no meaning or point in this comparison 
 between the Scotch and Irish, since it is based upor< 
 a manifestly false assumption. 
 
 " Until the sixteenth century," continues M. de 
 Laveleye, " Ireland was much mora civilized than 
 Scotland. During the first part of the middle ages 
 the Emerald Isle was a focus of civilization, while 
 Scotland was still a den of barbarians." Now, it 
 was precisely in those ages in which Ireland was " a 
 focus of civilization " that the Catholic faith pf her 
 people shone brightest. It was then that convents 
 sprang up over the whole island ; that the sweet 
 songs of sacred psalmody, which so touched the 
 soul of Columba, were heard in her groves and 
 vales ; that the sword was sheathed, and all her 
 people were smitten with the high love of holy life 
 and were eager to drink at the fountains of know- 
 ledge. It was then that she sent her apostles to 
 Scotland, to England, to France, to Germany, to 
 Switzerland, and to far-off Sicily ; nor did she remit 
 her efforts in behalf of civilization until the invad- 
 
I oo Iiijliicucc of Catholicism and 
 
 ing Danes forced her children to defend at once 
 their country and their faith. 
 
 But let us follow M. de Laveleye : " Since the 
 Scotch have embraced the reformed religion, they 
 have outrun even the English. . . . Ireland, on the 
 other hand, devoted to ultramontanism, is' poor, 
 miserable, agitated by the spirit of rebellion, and 
 seems incapable of raising herself by her own 
 strerngth.'' 
 
 We cannot think that Mr. Gladstone had read 
 this passage when he requested the author to have 
 his pamphlet translated into English; for we cannot 
 believe that he is prepared to lay the misfortunes 
 of Ireland to the influence of the Catholic faith 
 upon her people, and not to the cruelty and mis- 
 government of England. 
 
 The Irish Catholics are reproached with their 
 poverty, when for two hundred years the English 
 government made it a crime for them to own any- 
 thing. They are taunted with their misery, when 
 for t^vo centuries they lived under a code which 
 placed them outside the pale of humanity ; of which 
 Lord Brougham said that it was so ingeniously 
 contrived that an Irish Catholic could not lift up 
 his hand without breaking it ; which Edmund 
 Burke denounced as the most proper machine ever 
 invented by the wit of man to disgrace a realm and 
 degrade a people ; and of which Montesquieu wrote 
 that it must have been contrived by devils, ought 
 to have been written in blood and registered in 
 hell ! 
 
 Ireland is found fault with because she is agitated 
 
Protestantism on National Prosperity. loi 
 
 by the spirit of rebellion, when even to think of the 
 wrongs she has suffered makes the blood to boil. 
 Is it astonishing that she should be poor Avhen Eng- 
 land, with set purpose, destroyed her commerce 
 and rained her manufacturing interests, fostering 
 at the same time a policy fatal to agriculture, the 
 aim of which, it would seem, was to force the Irish 
 to emigrate, that the whole island might be turned 
 into a grazing ground for the supply of the English 
 markets ? 
 
 "What a contrast," further remarks M. de Lave- 
 leye,* " even in Ireland, between the exclusively 
 Catholic Connaught, and Ulster, where Protestant- 
 ism prevails !" 
 
 Mr. Gladstone certainly cannot be surprised at 
 this contrast, nor will he seek its explanation in the 
 baneful influence of the Catholic Church. He at 
 least knows the history of Cromwell's invasion of 
 Ireland ; he has read of the massacres of Drogheda 
 and Wexford ; he knows the fate of the eighty thou- 
 sand Catholic Irishmen whom Cromwell drove into 
 the ports of Munster, and shipped like cattle to the 
 sugar plantations of the Barbadoes, there to be 
 sold as slaves; nor is he ignorant of what was in 
 store for those Irish Catholics who were still left ; 
 of how they were driven out of Ulster, Munster, 
 and Leinster across the Shannon into Connaught — 
 that is, into the bogs and wild wastes of the most 
 desolate part of Ireland — there to die of hunger or 
 cold, or to survive as best they might. Five-sixths of 
 the Catholics had perished ; the remainder were driv- 
 
 * p. 12. 
 
I02 Iii/ltieiicc oj CatJiolicism and 
 
 en into barren Connaught ; the Protestants settled on 
 the rich lands of Ulster, Munster, and Leinster ; and 
 now here comes good M. de Laveleye to find that 
 Connaught is poor because it is Catholic, and Ul- 
 ster is rich because it is Protestant. But we must 
 not forget Scotland. 
 
 " Since the Scotch," says M. de Laveleye, " have 
 embraced the reformed religion, they have outrun 
 even the English." 
 
 We shall take no pains to discover whether or in 
 what respect or how far the Scotch surpass the Eng- 
 lish. The meaning of the words which we have 
 just quoted is evidently this : The progress which 
 the Scotch have made during the last three centu- 
 ries, in wealth and the other elements of material 
 greatness, must be ascribed to the influence of the 
 Protestant religion. 
 
 To avoid even the suspicion of unfairness in dis- 
 cussing this part of the subject, we shall quote the 
 words of an author who devoted much time and re- 
 search to the study of the character and tendencies 
 of Scotch Presbyterianism, and whose deeply-rooted 
 dislike of the Catholic Church is well known : 
 
 " To be poor," says Buckle,* describing the doc- 
 trines of the Scotch divines of the seventeenth centu- 
 ry — " to be poor, dirty, and hungry ; to pass through 
 life in misery and to leave it with fear ; to be plagued 
 with boils and sores and diseases of every kind ; 
 to be always sighing and groaning ; to have the 
 face streaming with tears and the chest heaving 
 with sobs ; in a word, to suffer constant affliction 
 
 * History of Civilisalian, vol. ii. p. 314, 
 
Protestantis7n on Natio7ial Prosperity. 103 
 
 and to be tormented in all possible ways — to un- 
 dergo these things was a proof of goodness just as 
 the contrary was a proof of evil. It mattered not 
 what a man liked, the mere fact of his liking it 
 made it sinful. Whatever was natural was wrong. 
 The clergy deprived the people of their holidays, 
 their amusements, their shows, their games, and 
 their sports ; they repressed every appearance of 
 joy, they forbade all merriment, they stopped all 
 festivities, they choked up every avenue by which 
 pleasure could enter, and they spread over the 
 country an universal gloom. Then truly did dark- 
 ness sit on the land. Men in their daily actions 
 and in their very looks became troubled, melan- 
 choly, and ascetic. Their countenance soured and 
 was downcast. Not only their opinions, but their 
 gait, their demeanor, their voice, their general as- 
 pect, were influenced by that deadly blight which 
 nipped all that was genial and warm. The way of 
 life fell into the sere and yellow leaf; its tints 
 gradually deepened ; its bloom faded and passed 
 off; its spring, its freshness, and its beauty were 
 gone ; joy and love either disappeared or Avere 
 forced to hide themselves in obscure corners, until 
 at length the fairest and most endearing parts of 
 our nature, being constantly repressed, ceased to 
 bear fruit and seemed to be withered into perpetual 
 sterility. Thus it was that the national character 
 of the Scotch was in the seventeenth century dwarf- 
 ed and mutilated. . . . They [the Scotch divines] 
 sought to destroy not only human pleasures, but 
 human affections. They held that our affections are 
 
1 04 Injlucncc of Caiholicism. and 
 
 « 
 
 necessarily connected with our lusts, and that \vc 
 must therefore wean ourselves from them as earthly 
 vanities. A Christian had no business with love or 
 sympathy. He had his own soul to attend to, and 
 that was enough for him. Let him look to him- 
 self. On Sunday, in particular, he must never 
 think of benefiting others ; and the Scotch clergy 
 did not hesitate to teach the people that on that 
 day it was sinful to save a vessel in distress, and 
 that it was a proof of religion to leave ship and 
 crew to perish. They might go : none but their 
 wives and children would suffer, and that was no- 
 thing in comparison with breaking the Sabbath. 
 So, too, did the clergy teach that on no occasion 
 must food or shelter be given to a starving man, un- 
 less his opinions were orthodox. What need for 
 him to live ? Indeed, they taught that it was a sin 
 to tolerate his notions at all, and that the proper 
 course was to visit him with sharp and immediate 
 punishment. Going yet farther, they broke the do- 
 mestic ties and set parents against their offspring. 
 They taughf the father to smite the unbelieving 
 child, and to slay his own boy sooner than to allow 
 him to propagate error. As if this were not enough, 
 they tried to extirpate another affection, even more 
 sacred and more devoted still. They laid their 
 rude and merciless hands on the holiest passion of 
 which our nature is capable — the love of a mother 
 for her son. . . . To hear of such things is 
 enough to make one's blood surge again, and raise a 
 tempest in our inmost nature. But to have seen 
 them, to have lived in the midst of them, and yet 
 
Protestantism on National Prosperity. 105 
 
 not to have rebelled against them, is to us utterly 
 inconceivable, and proves in how complete a thral- 
 dom the Scotch were held, and how thoroughly 
 their minds as well as their bodies were en- 
 slaved." 
 
 The seventeenth century, which was the golden 
 age of French literature, and also of the Catholic 
 Church in France, threw almost total darkness over 
 Scotland, which during that period was most com- 
 pletely under the power of Protestantism. The 
 clergy governed the nation ; they were the only 
 men of real influence ; and yet there was no philo- 
 sophy, no science, no poetry, no literature worth 
 reading. " From the Restoration," says Laing, 
 ** down to the Union the only author of any emi- 
 nence whom Scotland produced was Burnet.' 
 
 If the thrift and industry of the Scotch are due 
 to Protestantism, to what shall we ascribe the en- 
 terprise and commerce of the Catholic republics of 
 Venice and Genoa during the middle ages? - 
 
 If England's wealth to-day comes from the Re- 
 formation, how shall we account for that of Spain 
 in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries ? And 
 if the decline of Spain has been brought about by 
 the Catholic faith, to what cause shall we assign 
 that of Holland, who in the seventeenth century 
 ruled the seas and did the carrying trade of 
 Europe ? 
 
 M. de Laveleye's way of accounting for the pros- 
 perity of nations is certainly simple, but we doubt 
 whether it would satisfy any respectable school-boy. 
 Unfortunately for such as he, there is no rule of 
 ■ 9 
 
io6 Influence of Catholicism a?id 
 
 three by which social problems may be solved. 
 Race, climate, soil, political organization, and many 
 other causes, working through every-varying com- 
 binations, must all be considered if we would un- 
 derstand the history of material progress. As labor 
 is the most fruitful cause of wealth, there is a ne- 
 cessary relation between national wealth and nation- 
 al habits, which are the outcome of a thousand in- 
 fluences, one of the most powerful of which un- 
 doubtedly is religious faith. But who does not 
 know that climate influences labor, not only by 
 enervating or invigorating the laborer, but also 
 by the effect it produces on the regularity of his 
 habits? If the Italian loves the dolce far nicntCy 
 while the New-Englander makes haste to grow rich 
 as though some demon whom gold could bribe pur- 
 sued him, shall we find the secret of their peculiar 
 characters in their religious faith or in the climate 
 in which they live, or shall we not rather seek it in 
 a combination of causes, physical and moral ? We 
 have assuredfy no thought of denying the intimate 
 connection which exists between faith and charac- 
 ter or between a nation's religion and its civiliza- 
 tion. We are willing even to affirm that not only 
 the general superiority of Christian nations, but 
 their superior wealth also, is in great measure attri- 
 butable to their religion. And now, bidding adieu 
 to M. de Laveleye for a while, we propose to dis- 
 cuss this subject, to which we have already alluded, 
 somewhat more fully. 
 
 Christianity certainly does not measure either the 
 greatness or the happiness of a people by its wealth, 
 
Protestantism on National Prosperity. 107 
 
 nor does it take as its ideal that state of society in 
 which " the millionaire is the one sole god " and 
 commerce is all in all ; in which *' only the ledger 
 lives, and only not all men lie." 
 
 Whether we consider individuals or associations 
 of men, the Catholic Church does not hold and can- 
 not hold that material interests are the highest. To 
 be noble, to be true, to be humble, to be pure, is, in 
 her view, better than to be rich. Man is more than 
 money, Avhich is good only in so far as it serves to 
 develop his higher nature. 
 
 " The whole aim of man is to be happy," says 
 Bossuet. " Place happiness where it ought to be, 
 and it is the source of all good ; but the source of 
 all evil is to place it where it ought not to be." 
 
 " It is evident," says St. Thomas, " that the hap- 
 piness of man cannot lie in riches. Wealth is 
 sought after only as a support of human life. It 
 cannot be the end of man ; on the contrary, man is 
 its end. . . . The longing, moreover, for the 
 highest good is infinite. The more it is possessed, 
 the more it is loved and the more all else is despis- 
 ed ; for the more it is possessed, the better is it 
 known. With riches this is not the case. No soon- 
 er are they ours than they are despised, or used as 
 means to some other end ; and this, as it shows 
 their imperfect nature, is proof tjiat in them the 
 highest good is not to be found." 
 
 If wealth is not the highest good of individuals, 
 is it of nations? What is the ideal of society? 
 The study of the laws which govern national life 
 must necessarily begin with this question, which 
 
1 08 Influence of Catholicis^n and 
 
 all who have dealt with the subject, from Plato to 
 Comte and Mill, have sought to answer. It is mani- 
 fest that each one's attempt to solve this problem 
 will be based upon his views on the previous ques- 
 tion : What is the ideal of man ? This, in turn, will 
 be answered according to each one's notions of the 
 ideal of God ; and here we have the secret of the 
 phenomenon which so surprised Proudhon — the 
 necessary connection between religion and society, 
 theology and politics. 
 
 Is there a God, personal, distinct from nature? 
 Or is nature the only god, and science her prophet ? 
 It is just here at this central point that men are 
 dividing ; it is here we must place ourselves, if we 
 would view the two great armies that in all Chris- 
 tendom are gathering for a supreme conflict. 
 
 There is a form of infidelity in our day — and it 
 is the one into which all unbelief must ultimately 
 resolve itself — which starts with this assumption : 
 Whether or not there is a God must for ever re- 
 main unknown to man. It reasons in this way : 
 This whole subject belongs within the region, not 
 only of the unknown, but of the unknowable. It is 
 an insoluble riddle, and the philosophies and theo- 
 logies which have sought to unravel it, if only idle, 
 might deserve nothing more than contempt ; but 
 they have been the bane of human thought, have 
 soured all the sweetness of life, and therefore ought 
 to be visited with the execration of mankind. Since 
 religion is a subject about which nothing can be 
 known, what is so absurd as to spend time upon it? 
 WHiat so absurd as to divert the thoucrhts of men 
 
Protestantism on National Prosperity. 109 
 
 from subjects in which thinking is fruitful to those 
 in which it must for ever remain barren of all ex- 
 cept evil results? What so absurd as to set them 
 working for a future life, of which we can never 
 know whether it exists at all, when we might at 
 least teach them how to make the present one 
 worth having? The paradise of the future, which 
 the prophetic eye of science can already descry, is 
 /// the world, not beyond it ; and to seek to hasten 
 its approach is the highest and only worthy object 
 in life. As we take it, this is the creed of modern 
 unbelief, to which as yet few will openly subscribe^ 
 but toward which all its hundred conflicting schools 
 of thought are moving. Few men indeed are able 
 to perceive the logical outcome of their opinions, 
 and still fewer have the courage to confess what 
 they more than half suspect. 
 
 This superstition is a return to the nature-wor- 
 ship of paganism, but under a different aspect. Of 
 old, nature was worshipped as revealed to sense, 
 and now as revealed to thought ; then as beautiful, 
 now as true or useful. The first was artistic, and 
 form was its symbol; the last is scientific, and law 
 is its expression. The religion of humanity is a 
 phase of this worship ; for in it man is considered, 
 not as the child of God, but as the product of 
 nature. 
 
 And now what has this to do with the ideal of 
 society or the wealth of nations? At the basis of 
 all social organization lies morality, as it is by con- 
 duct that both individuals and nations are saved or 
 lost. The history of the human race shows that 
 
I lo Injiiieticc of Catholicism and 
 
 religion and morality are intimately related. That 
 there have been good atheists does not affect the 
 truth of this proposition any more than that there 
 have been bad Christians. Men are usually better 
 or worse than their principles ; practice and profes- 
 sion rarely accord ; and this is remarked because 
 it ought not to exist. 
 
 Conduct, to be rational, should be motived, and 
 consequently referable to certain general principles 
 by which it is justified. To be particular, a man 
 who believes in God, the Creator, a P'ather as just 
 as he is good, has fundamental motives of action 
 which are wanting to the atheist. The one should 
 seek to approve himself to his heavenly Father ; 
 the other cannot go farther than conform to the 
 laws of nature. To the one this life, as compared 
 with that which is to be, is of value only as it 
 relates to it ; to the other it is all in all. And since 
 the ultimate end of society is the welfare of the 
 associated, the one will regard this end from a 
 transcendental point of view, taking in time and 
 eternity ; the other will consider it merely with re- 
 ference to man's present state. Their notions of 
 life, of its ends, aims, and proper surroundings, will 
 be radically different. 
 
 Suppose for a moment that religious beliefs are 
 mere dreams, fancies of sick brains ; is it not at 
 once manifest that human life is a much poorer and 
 sorrier thing than it is commonly thought to be ? 
 As the light of heaven fades away, do not all things 
 grow dark, leaving us in the shadow of death, de- 
 spairing or debauched, sullen or frantic ? The 
 
Protestantism on National Prosperity. 1 1 1 
 
 poet's dream, the mother's fond hope, the heart's 
 deep yearning, the mind's flight towards the infi- 
 nite — all become flat, meaningless, and unprofitable. 
 Men are simply animals chained to this clod, too 
 happy if the heaven-seeking eye permitted them to 
 see it alone. Trouble, danger, and physical pain 
 are the only evils, and virtue is the sharp-sighted 
 prudence which enables us to avoid. them. Self- 
 denial is not only useless, it is irrational. Our ap- 
 petites are good and ought to be indulged. Noth- 
 ing, of its own nature, is sinful ; excess alone is 
 wrong ; all indulgence, provided it hurt no one, is 
 good — nay, it is necessary. Whoever denies any 
 one of his appetites the food it craves cripples him- 
 self, is maimed and incomplete. " He may be a 
 monk ; he may be a saint ; but a man he is not." 
 
 When these views are transferred to questions of 
 political economy and social organization, they lead 
 to materialistic and utilitarian theories. Society 
 must be organized on the basis of positivism ; the 
 problem of the future is how to give to the greatest 
 number of individuals the best opportunities of in- 
 dulgence, the greatest amount of comfort, with the 
 least amount of pain. This is the greatest-happi- 
 ness principle of Bentham and Mill. Culture, of 
 course, intellectual and aesthetic, as afibrding the 
 purest pleasure, must form a feature of this society ; 
 but its distinctive characteristic is wealth, which is 
 both the means and the opportunity of indulgence. 
 
 " We constantly hear of the evils of wealth," says 
 Buckle, " and of the sinfulness of loving money ; 
 although it is certain that, after the love of know- 
 
1 1 2 Injiiietice of Catholicism and 
 
 ledge, there is no one passion which has done so 
 much good to mankind as the love of money." 
 
 " If we open our eyes," says Strauss,* " and are 
 honest enough to avow what they show us, we 
 must acknowledge that the entire activity and aspi- 
 ration of the civih'zed nations of our time is based 
 on views of life which run directly counter to those 
 entertained by Christ. The ratio of value between 
 the here and the hereafter is exactly reversed ; and 
 this is by no means the result of the merely luxu- 
 rious and so-called materialistic tendencies of our 
 age, nor even of its marvellous progress in technical 
 and industrial improvements. . . . All that is best 
 and happiest which has been achieved by us has 
 been attainable only on the basis of a conception 
 which regarded this present world as by no means 
 despicable, but rather as man's proper field of 
 labor, as the sum total of the aims to which his 
 efforts should be directed. If, from the force of 
 habit, a certain proportion of workers in this field 
 still carry the belief in an hereafter along with them, 
 it is nevertheless a mere shadow, which attends 
 their footsteps without exercising any determining 
 influence on their actions." 
 
 This is the cosmic religion, v/hich is preached as 
 " the new faith, the religion of the future." This 
 world is all in all — let us make the most of it ; or, 
 as the pagans of old put it : " Let us eat and drink, 
 for to-morrow we die." 
 
 In its essence it is sensualism ; in its manifesta- 
 
 • Thf Chi Faith and the New, p. 86. 
 
Protestantism on National Prosperity. 1 1 3 
 
 tions it will be refined or coarse, according to the 
 dispositions of the persons by whom it is accepted. 
 Now its worship will be accompanied with music 
 and song and dance ; at other times it will sink to 
 those orgies in which man becomes only an unna- 
 tural animal. 
 
 Let us now turn to the Christian religion, and 
 consider its teachings in their bearing upon the 
 i^ubject we are discussing. They are the very op- 
 posite of those which we have just read, and pro- 
 ceed from principles which are in direct contradic- 
 tion to the cosmic philosophy. God is the highest, 
 the Creator of all things, Avhich are of value only as 
 they relate to him and are in harmony with the 
 laws of his being. The earth is but the threshold 
 of heaven or of hell, as the case may be. This life 
 is a preparation for a future one, which is eternal ; 
 and all human interests, whether individual or 
 social, to be rightly understood, must be viewed in 
 their relation to this truth. Man is essentially a 
 moral being, and duty, which is often in conflict 
 with pleasure, is his supreme law. He is under the 
 action of antagonistic forces ; seeing the better and 
 approving it, he is drawn to love the worse and to 
 do it. Thus self-denial becomes the condition of 
 virtue, and warfare with himself his only assurance 
 of victory. 
 
 " But he said to all : If any one wishes to come 
 after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross 
 every day, and follow me." 
 
 Wealth, which is the world's great slave and idol, 
 and universal procurator of the senses, though in 
 
1 14 Injlucnce of CaiJiolicism and 
 
 itself not evil, is yet a hindrance to the highest 
 spiritual life. " If thou wouldst be perfect, go sell 
 what thou hast, and give it to the poor, and thou 
 shalt have treasure in heaven : and come and fol- 
 low me." 
 
 As duty is the supreme law of the individual, it 
 follows that we must seek the ideal of society in 
 the moral order, to which all other social interests 
 should be made subservient, or else they will beget 
 only an unbounded and lawless activity. Even 
 education is valuable only in so far as it gives man 
 a deeper sense of his responsibility to God, and 
 enables him more thoroughly to understand and 
 perform his duty. 
 
 The social problem as between Christianity and 
 modern paganism may be stated in this way: is it 
 the end of society to grow strong in virtue through 
 self-denial, or to increase indefinitely the means 
 and opportunity of indulgence ? On which side is 
 progress, on which decline ? 
 
 We cannot now go farther into this subject, but 
 before leaving it we wish to quote the words of 
 Fitzjames Stephen, who will hardly be called a 
 Christian, on modern progress. 
 
 " I suspect," he says,* " that in many ways it has 
 been a progress from strength to weakness ; that 
 people are more sensitive, less enterprising and 
 ambitious, less earnestly desirous to get what they 
 want, and more afraid of pain, both for themselves 
 and others, than they used to be. If this should 
 
 * Liberty, Egitality, Fraternity, p. 110. 
 
Protestantism on National Prosperity. 1 1 5 
 
 be so, it appears to me that all other gains, whether 
 in wealth, knowledge, or humanity, afford no equiva- 
 lent. Strength, in all its forms, is life and man- 
 hood. To be less strong is to be less a man, what- 
 ever else you may be. This suspicion prevents me, 
 for one, from feeling any enthusiasm about pro- 
 gress, but I do not undertake to say it is well 
 founded. ... I do not myself see that our me- 
 chanical inventions have increased the general vigor 
 of men's characters, though they have no doubt 
 increased enormously our control over nature. The 
 greater part of our humanity appears to me to be a 
 mere increase of nervous sensibility, in which I feel 
 no satisfaction at all." 
 
 The general superiority, and even the greater 
 wealth, of Ciiristian nations as compared with 
 others we would attribute, in great part at least, to 
 the influence of their religious faith, to which they 
 owe their sentiments on the dignity and sacredness 
 of human nature in itself, apart from surroundings ; 
 on the substantial equality of all men before God, 
 which tends to produce as its counterpart the 
 equality of all before the law, thus leading to the 
 abolition of slavery, the elevation of woman, and 
 the protection of childhood. To it also they owe 
 their ideas on the family, which, in its constitutive 
 Christian elements, lies at the very foundation of 
 our civilization. To Christianity they owe the 
 principles of universal charity and compassion, 
 which have revolutionized the relations of social 
 life ; and, finally, to it they are indebted for the 
 rehabilitation of labor, the chief source of wealth, 
 
1 1 6 Inflncnce of Caiholia'sin and 
 
 which the pagan nations looked upon as degrad- 
 ing. 
 
 " I cannot say," writes Herodotus, " whether the 
 Greeks get their contempt for hibor from the Egyp- 
 tians ; for I find the same prejudice among the. 
 Thracians, the Scythians, the Persians, and the 
 Lydians." 
 
 "The Germans," says Tacitus, "cannot bear to 
 remain quiet, but they love to be idle ; they hold 
 it base and unworthy of them to acquire by their 
 sweat what they can purchase with their blood." 
 In the same way the Gauls looked upon labor wi-th 
 contempt. 
 
 We shall have to take up M. de Laveleye's 
 pamphlet again ; for the present we lay it aside 
 with the following remark : If we should grant, to 
 the fullest, all that is here said about the greater 
 wealth and material prosperity of Protestant as com- 
 pared with Catholic nations, what are we thence to 
 conclude? Shall we say that the greed of gain 
 which is so marked a feature in the populations of 
 England and the United States is at once the result 
 and proof of true Christian faith ? May it not be 
 barely possible that the value of material progress 
 is exaggerated ? Is there not danger lest, when 
 man shall have made matter the willing slave of all 
 his passions, he should find that he has become the 
 creature of this slave ? However this may be, 
 might not a Catholic find some consolation in the 
 words of Holy Writ ? 
 
 " And the angel that spoke in me, said to me : 
 Cry thou, saying, Thus saith the Lord of hosts : I 
 
Protestantism on National Prosperity. 117 
 
 am zealous for Jerusalem and Sion with a great zeal. 
 And I am angry ivith a great anger zvith the nations 
 that are rich; for I was angry a little, but they 
 helped forward the evil." 
 
COMPARATIVE INFLUENCE OF CATHO- 
 LICISM AND PROTESTANTISM ON NA- 
 TIONAL PROSPERITY. 
 
 II. EDUCATION. 
 
 NE of the most mischievous prejudices 
 of our day is the popular theory that 
 the cure for all evils is to be sought in 
 the intellectual education of the masses. 
 Those nations, we are told by every declaimer, 
 in which the education of the people is most uni- 
 versal, are the most moral, the richest, the strongest, 
 the freest, and their prosperity rests upon the 
 most solid and lasting foundation. Make igno- 
 rance a crime, teach all to read and write, and war 
 will smooth its rugged front, armies will be dis- 
 banded, corruption will disappear, and mankind 
 will have found the secret of uninterrupted pro- 
 gress, the final outcome of which will surpass evew 
 our fondest dreams. 
 
 This fallacy, which has not even the merit of 
 being plausible, is, of course, made to do service in 
 M. de Laveleye's pamphlet on the comparative 
 bearing of Protestantism and Catholicism on the 
 prosperity of nations. 
 
* Protestantism on National Prosperity. 1 1 9 
 
 " It is now universally admitted," he informs 
 us,"^^' " that the diffusion of enlightenment is the 
 first condition of progress. . . . The general spread 
 of education is also indispensable to the exercise of 
 constitutional liberty. ... In short, education is 
 the basis of national liberty and prosperity." 
 
 He then declares that in this matter of popular 
 education Protestant countries are far in advance 
 of those that are Catholic ; that this is necessarily so, 
 since *' the Reformed religion rests on a book — the 
 Bible ; the Protestant, therefore, must know how to 
 read. Catholic worship, on the contrary, rests upon 
 sacraments and certain practices — such as confes- 
 sion, Masses, sermons — which do not necessarily 
 involve reading. It is, therefore, unnecessary to 
 know how to read ; indeed, it is dangerous, for it 
 inevitably shakes the principle of passive obedience 
 on Avhich the whole Catholic edifice reposes: read- 
 ing is the road that leads to heresy." 
 
 We will first consider the theory, and then take 
 up the facts. 
 
 " The diffusion of enlightenment is the first con- 
 dition of progress. Education is indispensable to 
 the exercise of constitutional liberty. Education 
 is the basis of national liberty and prosperity." 
 
 Enlightenment is, of course, of the mind, and 
 means the development, m.ore or less perfect, of 
 the intellectual faculties ; and education, since it is 
 here considered as synonymous with enlightenment, 
 must be taken in this narrow sense. 
 
 Progress is material, moral, intellectual, social, 
 * p. 22. 
 
1 20 Influence of Catholicism and 
 
 political, artistic, religious, scientific, literary, and 
 indefinitely manifold. Now, it is assumed that the 
 diffusion of enlightenment is not merely promotive, 
 but that it is an essential condition of progress in 
 its widest and fullest meaning. This is the new 
 faith — the goddess of culture, holding the torch of 
 science and leading mankind into the palace of plea- 
 sure, the only true heaven. 
 
 By conduct, we have already said, both individ- 
 uals and nations are saved or perish ; and we spoke 
 of the civilized. Barbarous states are destroyed by 
 catastrophes — they die a violent death ; but the 
 civilized are wasted by internal maladies — siiis et 
 ipsa Roma viribtis ritit. They grow and they decay, 
 they progress and they decline. At first poverty, 
 virtue, industry, faith, hopefulness, strong charac- 
 ters and heroic natures ; at last wealth, corruption, 
 indolence, unbelief, despair, children too weak even 
 to admire the strength of their fathers, too base to 
 believe that they were noble. Public spirit dies 
 out ; patriotism is in the mouths of politicians, but, 
 like the augurs of Rome, they cannot speak the 
 word and look one another in the face. The coun- 
 try is to each one what he can make out of it, and 
 the bond of union is the desire of each citizen to 
 secure his own interests. The bondholders love their 
 country, and the satisculottes are disloyal ; class rises 
 against class, civil discord unsettles everything, rev- 
 olution succeeds revolution, and when the barbarian 
 comes he holds an inquest over the corpse. It gen- 
 erally happens, too, that those civilizations which 
 spring up quickest and promise most fair are fated 
 
Protesiaiilism on Natio7ial Prosperity. 1 2 i 
 
 to die .earliest ; as precocious children disappoint 
 fond mothers. If the teaching of history is a trust- 
 worthy guide, we are certainly safe in affirming 
 that civilized states and empires perish, not from 
 lack of knowledge, but of virtue ; not because the 
 people are ignorant, but because they are corrupt. 
 
 The assumption, however, is that men become 
 immoral because they are ignorant ; that if they 
 were enlightened, they would be virtuous. 
 
 "The superstition," says Mr. Herbert Spencer,* 
 " that good behavior is to be forthwith produced 
 by lessons learned out of books, which was long 
 ago statistically disproved, would, but for precon- 
 ceptions, be utterly dissipated by observing to what 
 a slight extent knowledge affects conduct ; by ob- 
 serving that the dishonesty implied in the adul- 
 terations of tradesmen and manufacturers, in frau- 
 dulent bankruptcies, in bubble companies, in 'cook- 
 ing ' of railway accounts and financial prospectuses, 
 differs only in form, and not in amount, from the 
 dishonesty of the uneducated ; by observing how 
 amazingly little the teachings given to medical 
 students affect their lives, and how even the most 
 experienced medical men have their prudence 
 scarcely at all increased by their information." 
 
 It is not knowledge, but character, that is impor- 
 tant ; and character is formed more by faith, by 
 hope, by love, admiration, enthusiasm, reverence, 
 than by any patchwork of alphabetical and arith- 
 metical symbols. The young know but little ; but 
 they believe firmly, they hope nobly, and love gen- 
 
 * Study of Sociology, p. 121. 
 10 
 
1 2 2 Influence of CatJiolicism attd 
 
 crously ; and it is while knowledge is feeble and 
 these spontaneous acts of the soul are strong that 
 character is moulded. The curse of our age is 
 that men will believe that, in education, to spell, 
 to read, to write, is what signifies, and they cast 
 aside the eternal faith, the infinite hope, the divine 
 love, that more than all else makes us men. 
 
 " The true test of civilization," says Emerson, 
 " is not the census, nor the size of cities, nor the 
 crops — no, but the kind of man the country turns 
 out." Is there some mystic virtue in printed words 
 that to be able to read them should make us men ? 
 And even in the most enlightened countries what 
 do the masses of men know ? Next to nothing ; 
 and their reading, for the most part, stupefies 
 them. The newspaper, with its murders, suicides, 
 hangings, startling disclosures, defalcations, embez- 
 zlements, burglaries, forgeries, adulteries, advertise- 
 ments of nostrums, quack medicines, and secrets of 
 working death in the very source of life, with all 
 manner of hasty generalizations, crude theories, and 
 half-truths jumbled into intellectual pot-pourris ; 
 the circulating library, with its stories, tales, roman- 
 ces of love, despair, death, of harrowing accidents, 
 of hair-breadth escapes, of successful crime, and all 
 the commonplaces of wild, reckless, and unnatural 
 life — these are the sources of their knowledge. Or, 
 if they are ambitious, they read ** How to get on in 
 the world," "The art of making money," "The se- 
 cret of growing rich," " The road to wealth," " Suc- 
 cessful men," " The millionaires of America," and 
 the Mammon-worship, and the superstition of mat- 
 
Protestantism on National Pi'ospcrity. 123 
 
 ter, and the idolatry of success become their reli- 
 gion ; their souls die within them, and what wretch- 
 ed slaves they grow to be ! 
 
 In the newspaper and circulating library God and 
 man, heaven and earth — all things — are discussed, 
 flippantly, in snatches, generally ; all possible con- 
 flicting and contradictory views are taken ; and 
 these ignorant masses, who, in the common schools, 
 have been through the Fourth Reader, and who 
 know nothing, not even their own ignorance, are 
 confused. They doubt, they lose faith, and are en- 
 lightened by the discovery that God, the soul, truth, 
 justice, honor, are only nominal — they do not con- 
 cern positivists. Can anything be more pitiful than 
 the state of these poor wretches ? — neither knowing 
 nor believing ; without knowledge, yet having nor 
 faith nor love. God pity them that they are com- 
 munists, internationalists, solidaircs ; for what else 
 could they be ? No enthusiasm is possible for them 
 but that of destruction. 
 
 Religion is the chief element in civilization, and 
 consequently in progress. For the masses, even 
 though the whole energy of mankind should spend 
 itself upon some or any possible common-school 
 system, the eternal principles which mould charac- 
 ter, support manhood, and consecrate humanity will 
 always remain of faith, and can never be held scien- 
 tifically. If it were possible that science should 
 prove religion false, it would none the less remain 
 true, or there would be no truth. 
 
 What children know when they leave school is 
 mechanical, external to their minds, fitted on them 
 
124 Influence of CatJwlicism and 
 
 like clothes on the body ; and it is soon worn 
 threadbare, and hangs in shreds and patches. 
 Take the first boy whom you meet, fourteen or fif- 
 teen years old, fresh from the common school, and 
 his ignorance of all real knowledge will surprise 
 you. What he knows is little and of small value : 
 what is of moment is whether he believes firmly, 
 hopes strongly, and loves truly. Not the diffusion 
 of enlightenment do we want so much, but the diffu- 
 sion of character, of honest faith, and manly cour- 
 age. 
 
 Man is more than his knowledge. Simple faith 
 is better than reading and writing. And yet the 
 educational quacks treat the child as though he 
 were mere mind, and his sole business to use it, 
 and chiefly for low ends, shrewdly and sharply, 
 with a view to profit ; as though life were a thing 
 of barter, and wisdom the art of making the most 
 of it. 
 
 Poor child ! who wouldst live by admiration, 
 hope, and love, how they dwarf thy being, stunt thy 
 growth, and flatten all thy soaring thoughts with 
 their dull commonplaces — thrift, honesty is the best 
 policy, time is money, knowledge is wealth, and 
 all the vocabulary of a shop-keeping and trading 
 philosophy. Poor child ! who wouldst look out in- 
 to the universe as God's great temple, and behold 
 in all its glories the effulgence of heaven ; to whom 
 morning, noon, and night, and change of season, 
 golden flood of day and star-lit gloom, all speak of 
 some diviner life, how they stun thy poetic soul, 
 full of high dreams and noble purposes, with their 
 
Prote si autism 07i National Prosperity. 125 
 
 cold teaching that man lives on bread alone — put 
 money in thy purse ! And when thou wouldst 
 look back with awe and reverence to the sacred 
 ages past, to the heroes, sages, saints of the olden 
 times, they come with their gobble and tell thee 
 there were no railroads and common schools in 
 those days. 
 
 ^' Is it strange that this education should hurt the 
 nation's highest interests by driving in crowds, like 
 
 - cattle to the shambles, our youths from God and 
 nature and tilling of the soil to town and city, or, 
 worse, into professions to which only their conceit 
 or distaste for hard labor calls them ? What place 
 for morality is there in this Poor Richard's Cate- 
 chism — education of thrift and best policy? We, 
 grow in likeness to what we love, not to what we 
 know. With low aims and selfish loves only nar- 
 row and imperfect characters are compatible. 
 
 Science, when cherished for itself — which it sel- 
 dom is and in very exceptional cases — refines and 
 purifies its lovers, and chastens the force of passion : 
 though even here we must admit that the wisest of 
 mankind may be the meanest, morally the most un- 
 worthy. But for the great mass of men, even of 
 those who are called educated, the possession of 
 such knowledge as they have or can have has no 
 necessary relation with higher moral life. Their 
 learning may refine, smooth over, or conceal their 
 sin ; it will not destroy it. The furred gown and 
 intertissued robe hide the faults that peep through 
 beggars' rags, but they are there all the same. 
 There may be a substitution of pride for sensuality, 
 
1 26 Ivfluence of CatJiolicism and 
 
 or a skilful blending or alternation of the finer with 
 the coarser. Vice may lose its grossness, but not 
 its evil. And herein we detect the wretched soph- 
 istry of criminal statistics, which deal, imperfect- 
 ly and roughly enough, with what is open, shock- 
 ing, and repulsive. The hidden sins that, "like pit- 
 ted speck in garnered fruit," slowly eating to the core 
 of a people's life, moulder all ; the sapping of faith, 
 the weakening of character, the disbelief in good- 
 ness ; the luxury, the indulgence, the heartlessness- 
 and narrowness of the rich ; the cunning devices 
 through which " the spirit of murder" works in the 
 very means of life, 
 
 " While rank corruption, mining all within, 
 Infects unseen" 
 
 — cannot be appreciated by the gross tests of 
 numbers and averages. The poor, by statistics as 
 by the world, are handled without gloves. In the 
 large cities of civilized countries, both in ancient 
 and in modern times, we have unmistakable proof 
 of what knowledge can do to form character and 
 produce even the social virtues. These populations 
 have had the advantage of the best schools in the 
 most favorable circumstances, and yet in character 
 and morality they are far beneath the less educated 
 peasantry. Sensual indulgence, contempt of au- 
 thority, hatred and jealousy of those above them, 
 make these the dangerous classes, eager for social* 
 istic reforms, radical upheavals of the whole exist- 
 ing order ; and were it not for the more religioq? 
 tillers of the soil, chaos and misrule would already 
 
Protestantism on National Prosperity. 127 
 
 prevail. In Greece and Rome it was in the cities 
 that civilization first perished, as it was there it 
 began — began with men who had great faith and 
 strong character, but little knowledge ; perished 
 among men who were learned and refined, but who 
 in indulgence and debauch had lost all strength and 
 honesty of purpose. 
 
 In the last report of the Commissioner of Edu- 
 cation some interesting facts, bearing on the rela- 
 tion of ignorance to crime, are taken from the 
 Forty-fifth Annual Report of the inspector of the 
 State penitentiary for the Eastern District of 
 Pennsylvania. 
 
 " It is doubted if in any State, or indeed in any 
 country," says the commissioner, " forty-four vol- 
 umes containing the annual statistical tables relat- 
 ing to the populations of a penal institution, cover- 
 ing nearly half a century, can, on examination, be 
 regarded as more complete." 
 
 The number of prisoners received into the insti- 
 tution from 1850 to i860 was 1,605, of whom 15 
 per cent, were illiterate, 15 per cent, were able to 
 read, and 70 per cent., or more than two-thirds, 
 knew how to read and write ; from i860 to 1870, 
 2,383 prisoners were received into the penitentiary, 
 and of these 17 per cent, were illiterate, 12 per 
 cent, could read, and about 71 per cent, could read 
 and write. 
 
 Of the 627 convicts who were in the penitentiary 
 during the year 1867,62 per cent., or five-eighths of 
 the whole number, had attended the public schools 
 of the State, 25 per cent., or two-eighths, had gone 
 
128 ht/lnence of Catholicism a7id 
 
 to private institutions, and 12 per cent., or one- 
 eighth, had never gone to school. 
 
 But, as we have said, statistics deal with crime, 
 and cliiefly with' the more open and discoverable 
 sort, not with morality ; whereas nations are de- 
 stroyed not so much by crime as by immorality. 
 
 The thief is caught and sent to the penitentiary ; 
 but the trader who adulterates or gives short mea- 
 sure, the banker who puts forth a false or exagger- 
 ated statement, the merchant who fails with full 
 hands, the stock-gambler who robs thousands, 
 Credit-Mobilier men and " ring" men generally 
 who plunder scientifically, Congressmen who take 
 money for helping to swindle the government, 
 getters-up of " bubble companies" — salted dia- 
 mond-fields and Emma Mines — compared with 
 whom pickpockets and burglars are respectable 
 gentlemen — these know not of penitentiaries ; pri- 
 sons were not built for such as they. The poor 
 man abandons his wife, without divorce marries 
 another, and is very properly sent to State prison. 
 His rich and educated fellow-citizen gets a divorce, 
 or is a free-lover, or keeps a harem, and for him 
 laws were not made. Even that respectable old 
 dame Society only gently shakes her head. We 
 must not expect too much of gentlemen, you know. 
 The ignorant girl falls, commits infanticide, and is 
 incarcerated or hanged — heaven forbid that we 
 should attempt to tell what she would have done 
 had she been educated ! — at any rate, she would 
 not have gone to prison, though her guilt would 
 not have been less. 
 
Protestantism on National Prosperity. 129 
 
 Has the very great diffusion of enlightenment 
 among our people during the hundred years that 
 we have been an independent nation made them 
 more moral and more worthy? 
 
 " The true test of civilization is not the census, 
 nor the size of cities, nor the crops — no, but the 
 kind of man the country turns out." 
 
 The Yankee is smarter than the Puritan — is he as 
 true a man ? Is the inventor of a sewing-machine 
 or a patent bedstead as worthy as he who believes 
 in God and in liberty against the whole earth with 
 all his heart and soul, even though the heart be 
 hard and the soul narrow ? What compensation is 
 there in all our philanthropies, transcendentalisms, 
 sentimentalities, patent remedies for social evils, for 
 the loss of the strong convictions, reverent belief, 
 and simple dignity of character that made our 
 fathers men ? Do we believe in the goodness and 
 honesty of men as they did, or is it possible that 
 we should ? What can come of beliefs in over- 
 souls, whims, tendencies, abstractions, develop- 
 ments? If we were shadows in a shadow-land, 
 this might do. 
 
 Look at a famous trial where the very aroma and 
 fine essence of our civilization was gathered : What 
 bright minds, keen intellects ! Poetry, eloquence, 
 romance ; the culture, the knowledge, the scientific 
 theories of the age — all are there. And yet, when 
 the veil is lifted, we simply turn away heart-sick 
 and nauseated. Not a hundred statistical prison 
 reports would reveal the festering corruption and 
 deep depravity, the coarse vulgarity and utter 
 II 
 
1 30 Influence of Catholicism and 
 
 Jieartlessness that is there, whatever the truth 
 may be, if in such surroundings it can be found 
 at all. 
 
 In Laing's Notes of a Traveller'^ we find a 
 most striking example of almost incredible corrup- 
 tion united with great intellectual culture. " In 
 this way," he says, " we must account for the sin- 
 gular fact that the only positively immoral religious 
 sect of the present times in the Christian world 
 arose and has spread itself in the most educated 
 part of the most educated country in Europe — in 
 and about Konigsberg, the capital of the province 
 of Old Prussia. The Muckers are a sect who com- 
 bine lewdness with religion. The conventicles of 
 this sect are frequented by men and women in a 
 state of nudity ; and to excite the animal passion, 
 but to restrain its indulgence, is said to constitute 
 their religious exercise. Many of the highest no- 
 bility of the province, and two of the established 
 clergy of the city, besides citizens, artificers, and 
 ladies, old and young, belong to this sect ; and two 
 young ladies are stated to have died from the con- 
 sequences of excessive libidinous excitement. It 
 is no secret association of profligacy shunning the 
 light. It is a sect — according to the declarations 
 of Von Tippelskirch and of several persons of con- 
 sideration in Konigsberg who had been followers of 
 it themselves — existing very extensively under the 
 leadership of the established ministers of the Gos- 
 pel, Ebel and Diestel, of a Count von Kaniz, of a 
 
 Lady von S , and of other noble persons. . . . 
 
 ♦ p. 221. 
 
Protestantism on National Prosperity. 1 3 1 
 
 The system and theory of this dreadful combina- 
 tion of vice with religion are, of course, very pro- 
 perly suppressed. . . . The sect itself appears, by 
 Dr. Bretscheider's account of it, to have been so 
 generally diffused that he says ' it cannot be be- 
 lieved that the public functionaries were in ignorance 
 of its existence ; but they were afraid to do their 
 duty from the influence of the many principal people 
 who were involved in it.' " 
 
 But we are not the advocates of ignorance. We 
 will praise with any man the true worth and ines- 
 timable value of education. Even mere mental 
 training is, to our thinking, of rare price. Water 
 is good, but without bread it will not sustain life. 
 Wine warms and gladdens the heart of man ; but 
 if used without care, it maddens and drives to de- 
 struction. We are crying out against the folly of 
 the age which would make the school-room its 
 church, education its sacrament, and culture its re- 
 ligion. It is the road to ruin. Culture is for the 
 few ; and what a trumpery patchwork of frippery 
 and finery and paste diamonds it must ever remain 
 for the most of these ! For the millions it means 
 the pagan debauch, the bacchanal orgy, and mere 
 animalism. 
 
 " The characters," wrote Goethe — who was pagan 
 of the pagans and " decidirter Nicht-Christ " — 
 " which we can truly respect have become rarer. 
 We can sincerely esteem only that which is not 
 self-seeking. ... I must confess to have found 
 through my whole life unselfish characters of the 
 kind of which I speak only there where I found a 
 
132 Infiuence of Catholicism and 
 
 firmly-grounded religious life ; a creed, which had 
 an unchangeable basis, resting upon itself — not de- 
 pendent upon the time, its spirit, or its science." 
 
 This foundation of a positive religious faith is as 
 indispensable to national as to individual character, 
 and without it the diffusion of enlightenment can- 
 not create a great or lasting civilization. Religion 
 ought to constitute the very essence of all primary 
 education. It alone can touch the heart, raise the 
 mind, and evoke from their brutish apathy the ele- 
 ments of humanity, especially the reason ; and it is 
 therefore the one indispensable element in any 
 right system of national education. A population 
 unable to read or write, but with a religious faith 
 and discipline, have before now constituted, and may 
 again constitute, a great nation ; but a people with- 
 out religious earnestness have no solid political cha- 
 racter. Religion is the widest and deepest of all 
 the elements of civilization ; it reaches those whom 
 nothing else can touch ; but for the masses of men 
 there can be no religion without the authoritative 
 teaching of a church. 
 
 And now let us return to M. de Laveleye 
 *• The general spread of education," he says,* " is 
 indispensable to the exercise of constitutional 
 liberty. . . . Education is the basis of national 
 liberty and prosperity." 
 
 In view of the facts that constitutional liberty has 
 existed, and for centuries, in states in which there 
 was no " general spread of education," and that 
 
 ♦ P. J3- 
 
Protestantism on National Prosperity. 133 
 
 "the diffusion of enlightenment " is found in our 
 own day to co-exist with the most hateful despot- 
 isms, we might pass on, without stopping to exam- 
 ine more closely these loose and popular phrases ; 
 but since the fallacies which they contain form a 
 part of the culture-creed of modern paganism, and 
 are accepted as indisputable truths by the multi- 
 tude, they have a claim upon our attention which 
 their assertion by Mr. Gladstone's friend could not 
 give them. 
 
 There is no necessary connection between popular 
 education and civfl liberty, as there is none between 
 the enlightenment and the morality of a people. 
 This is a subject full of import — one which, in this 
 age and country, ought to be discussed with perfect 
 freedom and courage. Courage indeed is needed 
 precisely here ; for to deny that there is a God, to 
 treat Christ as a myth or a common man, to 
 declaim against religion as superstition, to make 
 the Bible a butt for witticisms and fine points, to 
 deny future life and the soul's immortality, to de- 
 nounce marriage, to preach communism, and to 
 ridicule whatever things mankind have hitherto 
 held sacred— this is not only tolerable, it is praise- 
 worthy and runs with the free thought of an en- 
 lightened and inquiring age. But to raise a doubt 
 as to the supreme and paramount value of intellec- 
 tual training ; of its sovereign efficacy in the cure 
 of human ills ; of its inseparable alliance with free- 
 dom, with progress, with man's best interests, is 
 pernicious heresy, and ought not to be borne with 
 patiently. In our civilization, through the action 
 
134 Injluejice of Catholicism aftd 
 
 of majorities, there is special difficulty in such dis- 
 cussions, since with us nothing is true except what 
 is popular. Majorities rule, and are therefore right. 
 With rare eloquence we denounce tyrant kings and 
 turn to lick the hands of the tyrant people. Who- 
 ever questions the wisdom of the American people 
 is not to be argued with — he is to be pitied ; and 
 therefore both press and pulpit, though they flaunt 
 the banner of freedom, are the servants of the 
 tyrant. To have no principles, but to write aryd 
 speak what will please the most and offend the few- 
 est — this is the philosophy of free speech. We 
 therefore have no independent, and consequently 
 no great, thinkers. It is dangerous not to think 
 with majorities and parties ; for those who attempt 
 to break their bonds generally succeed, like Emer- 
 son, only in becoming whimsical, weak, and incon- 
 clusive. It is not surprising, then, that the Catho- 
 lics, because they do not accept as true or ultimate 
 what is supposed to be the final thought and defi- 
 nite will of American majorities on the subject of 
 education, should be denounced, threatened, and 
 made a Trojan horse of to carry political adven- 
 turers into the White House. 
 
 Nevertheless, the observant are losing confidence 
 in the theory, so full of inspiration to demagogues 
 and declaimers, that superstition and despotism 
 must be founded on ignorance. In Prussia at this 
 moment universal education co-exists with despot- 
 ism. Where tyrannical governments take control 
 of education they easily make it their ally. 
 
 Let us hear what Laing says of the practical re- 
 
Protestantism on National Prosperity. 1 3 5 
 
 suits of the Prussian system of education, which it 
 is so much the fashion to praise. 
 
 " If the ultimate object," he says, " of all educa- 
 tion and knowledge be to raise man to the feeling 
 of his own moral worth, to a sense of his responsi- 
 bility to his Creator and to his conscience for every 
 act, to the dignity of a reflecting, self-guiding, vir- 
 tuous, religious member of society, then the Prus- 
 sian educational system is a failure. It is only a 
 training from childhood in the conventional disci- 
 pline and submission of mind which the state exacts 
 from its subjects. It is not a training or education 
 which has raised, but which has lowered, the human 
 character. . . . The social value or importance of 
 the Prussian arrangements for diffusing national 
 scholastic education has been evidently overrated ; 
 for now that the whole system has been in the full- 
 est operation in society upon a whole generation, 
 we see morals and religion in a more unsatisfactory 
 state in this very country than in almost any other 
 in the north of Europe ; we see nowhere a people 
 in a more abject political and civil condition, or 
 with less free agency in their social economy. A 
 national education which gives a nation neither re- 
 ligion, nor morality, nor civil liberty, nor political 
 liberty is an education not worth having. ... If 
 to read, write, cipher, and sing be education, the 
 Prussian subject is an educated man. If to reason, 
 judge, and act as an independent free agent, in the 
 religious, moral, and social relations of man to his 
 Creator and to his fellow-men, be the exercise of 
 the mental powers which alone deserves the name 
 
136 hifluence of Catholicism a7id 
 
 of education, then is the Prussian subject a mere 
 drum-boy in education, in the cultivation and use 
 of all that regards the moral and intellectual en- 
 dowments of man, compared to one of the unlet- 
 tered population of a free country. The dormant 
 state of the public mind on all affairs of public in- 
 terest, the acquiescence in a total Avant of political 
 influence or existence, the intellectual dependence 
 upon the government or its functionary in all the 
 affairs of the community, 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 influ- 
 ence of religious and social principle in society, 
 justify the conclusion that the moral, religious, and 
 social condition of the people was never looked at 
 or estimated by those writers who were so enthu- 
 siastic in their praises of the national education of 
 Prussia." 
 
 In spite of the continued progress of education, 
 there is even less liberty, religious, civil, and politi- 
 cal, in Prussia to-day than when these words were 
 written, thirty years ago. 
 
 Nothing more dazzles the eyes of men than great 
 military success ; and this, together with the habit 
 Avhich belongs to our race of applauding whoever 
 wins, has produced, especially in England and the 
 United States, where Bismarck is looked upon, ig- 
 norantly enough, as the champion of Protestantism, 
 a kind of blind admiration and awe for whatever 
 is Prussian. " Protestant Prussia," boasts M. de 
 Laveleye, " has defeated two empires, each con- 
 
Protestantism on National Prosperity. 1 3 7 
 
 taining twice her own population, the one in seven 
 weeks, the other in seven months"; and in the 
 new edition of Appleton's Cyclopcedia we are in- 
 formed that these victories are attributed to the 
 superior education of her people. As well might 
 the tyranny of the government and the notorious 
 unchastity and dishonesty of the Prussians be 
 ascribed to their superior education. Not to the 
 general intelligence of the people, but to the fact 
 that the whole country has been turned into a mili- 
 tary camp, and that to the one purpose of war all 
 interests have been made subservient, must we 
 seek for an explanation of the victories of Sadowa 
 and Sedan. 
 
 Who would pretend that the Spartans were in 
 war superior to the Athenians because they had a 
 more perfect system of education and were more 
 intelligent or had a truer religion ? Or who would 
 think of accounting in this way for the marvellous 
 exploits of Attila with his Huns, of Zingis Khan 
 with his Moguls, of Tamerlane with his Tartars, of 
 Mahmood, Togrul-Bey, and Malek-Shah with their 
 Turkish hordes ? 
 
 In fact, it may be said, speaking largely and in 
 general, that the history of war is that of the tri- 
 umph of strong and ignorant races over those which 
 have become cultivated, refined, and corrupt. The 
 Romans learned from their conquered slaves letters 
 and the vices of a more polished paganism. Bar- 
 barism is ever impending over the civilized world. 
 The wild and rugged north is ever rushing down 
 upon the soft and cultured south ; the Scythian 
 
o 
 
 8 Influence of Catholicism a^td 
 
 upon the Mede, the Persian, and the Egyptian ; the 
 Macedonian upon Greece, and then upon Asia and 
 Africa ; the Roman upon Carthage, and in turn fall- 
 ing before the men of the north — Goth, Vandal, 
 Hun, Frank, and Gaul; the Mogul and the Tartar 
 upon China and India ; the Turk upon southern 
 Europe, Asia, and Africa ; and to-day, like black 
 clouds of destiny, the Russian hordes hang over the 
 troubled governments of more educated Europe. 
 Look at Italy during the middle ages — the focus 
 of learning and the arts for all Christendom, and yet 
 an easy prey for every barbarous adventurer ; and in 
 England the Briton yields to the Saxon, who in 
 turn falls before the Norman. It would be truer to 
 say that Prussia owes her military successes to the 
 ignorance of her people, though they nearly all can 
 read and write. Had she had to deal with intelli- 
 gent and enlightened populations, she could not 
 have made the country a camp of soldiers. 
 
 The Prussian policy of " blood and iron " has 
 been carried out, in defiance of the wishes of the 
 people as expressed through their representatives, 
 who were snubbed and scolded and sent back home 
 as though they were a pack of school-boys ; yet 
 the people looked on in stolid indifference, and 
 allowed the tax to be levied after they had refused 
 to grant it. 
 
 We will now follow M. de Laveleye a step far- 
 ther. 
 
 " With regard to elementary instruction," he 
 says, " the Protestant states are incomparably more 
 advanced than the Catholic. England alone is no 
 
Protestantism on National Prosperity. 139 
 
 more than on a level with the latter, probably be- 
 cause the Anglican Church, of all the reformed 
 forms of worship, has most in common with the 
 Church of Rome." 
 
 If any one has good reason to praise education, 
 and above all the education of the people, certain- 
 ly we Catholics have. The Catholic Church creat- 
 ed the people ; she first preached the divine doc- 
 trine of the brotherhood and equality of all men be- 
 fore God, which has wrought and must continue to 
 work upon society until all men shall be recognized 
 as equals by the law. She drew around woman her 
 magic circle ; from the slave struck his fetters and 
 bade him be a man ; lifted to her bosom the child ; 
 baptized all humanity into the inviolable sacredness 
 of Christ's divinity ; she appealed, and still appeals, 
 from the tyranny of brute force and success, in the 
 name of the eternal liberties of the soul, to God. 
 Her martyrs were and are the martyrs of liberty ; 
 and if she were not to-day, all men would accept 
 accomplished facts and bow before whatever suc- 
 ceeds. 
 
 The barbarians, who have developed into the civ- 
 ilized peoples of Europe, despised learning as they 
 contemned labor. War was their business. The 
 knight signed his name with his sword, in blood ; 
 the pen, like the spade, was made for servile hands. 
 To destroy. this ignorant, idle life of pillage and 
 feud, the church organized an army, unlike any the 
 world had ever seen, unlike any it will ever see out- 
 side her pale — an army of monks, who, with faith 
 in Christ and the higher life, believed in knowledge 
 
140 Injiuence of Catholicism and 
 
 and in work. They became the cultivators of the 
 mind and soil of Europe. 
 
 "The praise," says Hallam, speaking of the mid- 
 dle ages, " of having originally established schools 
 belongs to some bishops and abbots of the sixth 
 century." 
 
 Ireland is converted and at once becomes a kind 
 of university for all Europe. In England the epis- 
 copal sees became centres of learning. Wherever a 
 cathedral was built a school with a library grew up 
 under its shadow. Pope Eugenius II., in a council 
 held in Rome in 826, ordered that schools should 
 be established throughout Christendom at cathedral 
 and parochial churches and other suitable places. 
 The Council of Mayence, in 813, admonishes pa- 
 rents that they are in duty bound to send their 
 children to school. The Synod of Orleans, in 800, 
 enjoins the erection in towns and villages of schools 
 for elementary instruction, and adds that no re- 
 muneration shall be received except such as the pa- 
 rents voluntarily offer. The Third General Council 
 of Lateran, in 1179, commanded that in all cathe- 
 dral churches a fund should be set aside for the 
 foundation and support of schools for the poor. 
 Free schools were thus first established by the 
 Catholic Church, and her monasteries were the libra- 
 ries where the arts and letters of a civilization that 
 had perished were carefully treasured up for the re- 
 kindling of a brighter and better day. 
 
 As early as the twelfth century many of the uni- 
 versities of Europe were fully organized. Italy 
 took the lead, with universities at Rome, Bo- 
 
Protestantism on National Prosperity. 141 
 
 logna, Padua, Naples, Pavia, and Perugia — the 
 sources 
 
 "Whence many rivulets have since been turned, 
 O'er the garden Catholic to lead 
 Their living waters, and have fed its plants." 
 
 The schools founded at Oxford and Cambridge 
 in the ninth and tenth centuries had in the twelfth 
 grown to be universities. At Oxford there were 
 thirty thousand, at Paris twenty-five thousand, and 
 at Padua twenty thousand students. Scattered 
 over Europe at the time Luther raised his voice 
 against the church there were sixty-six universities. 
 
 "Time went on," says Dr. Newman, speaking of 
 the mediaeval universities; "a new state of things, 
 intellectual and social, came in ; the church was girt 
 with temporal power; the preachers of St. Dominic 
 were in the ascendant : now, at length, we may ask 
 with curious interest, did the church alter her an- 
 cient rule of action, and proscribe intellectual activ- 
 ity? Just the contrary; this is the very age of uni- 
 versities ; it is the classical period of the school- 
 men ; it is the splendid and palmary instance of 
 the wise policy and large liberality of the church, 
 as regards philosophical inquiry. If there ever was 
 a time when the intellect went wild and had a li- 
 centious revel, it was at the date I speak of. When 
 was there ever a more curious, more meddling, 
 bolder, keener, more penetrating, more rationalistic 
 exercise of the reason than at that time? What 
 class of questions did that subtle metaphysical 
 spirit not scrutinize? What premise was allowed 
 without examination ? What principle was not 
 
142 Influence of Catholicism and 
 
 traced to its first origin, and exhibited in its most 
 naked shape ? . . . Well, I repeat, here was some- 
 thing which came somewhat nearer to theology 
 than physical research comes ; Aristotle was a 
 somewhat more serious foe then, beyond all mis- 
 take, than Bacon has been since. Did the church 
 take a high hand with philosophy then ? No, not 
 though that philosophy was metaphysical. It was 
 a time when she had temporal power, and could 
 have exterminated the spirit of inquiry with fire 
 and sword ; but she determined to put it down by 
 argument ; she said: 'Two can play at that, and 
 my argument is the better.* She sent her contro- 
 versialists into the philosophical arena. It was the 
 Dominican and Franciscan doctors, the greatest of 
 them being St. Thomas, who in those mediaeval uni- 
 versities fought the battle of revelation with the 
 weapons of heathenism." * 
 
 To find fault with the church because popular 
 education in the middle ages was not so well organ- 
 ized nor so general as in our own day would be as 
 wise as to pick a quarrel with the ancient Greeks 
 for not having railroads, or with the Romans be- 
 cause they had no steamships. Reading and writ- 
 ing were not taUght then universally as they are 
 now, because the mechanism which renders this pos- 
 sible did not exist. Without steam and the print- 
 ing-press, common-school systems would not now be 
 practicable, nor would the want of them be felt. 
 We have great reason to be thankful that the art 
 of printing was invented and America discovered 
 
 * The Idea of a University, p. 4^9, 
 
Protestantism on National Prosperity. 143 
 
 before Luther burned the Pope's bull, else we 
 should be continually bothered with refuting the 
 cause-and-effect historians who would have infalli- 
 bly traced both these events to the Wittenberg 
 conflagration. 
 
 All Europe was still Catholic when gunpowder 
 drove old Father Schwarz's pestle through the ceil- 
 ing, when Gutenberg made his printing-press, when 
 Columbus landed in the New World ; and these are 
 the forces which have battered down the castles of 
 feudalism, have brought knowledge within the 
 reach of all, and some measure of redress to the 
 masses of the Old World, by affording them the 
 possibility and opportunity of liberty in the New. 
 These forces would have wrought to even better 
 purpose had Protestan-tism not broken the continu- 
 ity and homogeneity of Christian civilization. The 
 Turk would not rest like a blight from heaven upon 
 the fairest lands of Europe and Asia, nor the dark- 
 ness of heathenism upon India and China, had the 
 civilized nations remained of one faith ; and thus, 
 though our own train might have rushed less rapid- 
 ly down the ringing grooves of change, the whole 
 human race would have advanced to a level which 
 there now seems but little reason to hope it will 
 ever reach. 
 
 We are slowly but inevitably rising to a position 
 from which it will be possible to understand the in- 
 jury done to Christian civilization by the disturbing 
 influence of Protestantism. For a long time reli- 
 gious prejudice prevented men from seeing the 
 plainest and most unmistakable facts of history, 
 
144 Influence of CatJiolicism and 
 
 and we are therefore not surprised that the six- 
 teenth century should have been glorified by an 
 almost universal hymn of praise. In order to jus- 
 tify itself, Protestantism was under the sad ne- 
 cessity of misinterpreting or perverting the history 
 of Christendom. The fifteenth century was 
 robbed of its Catholic glories to crown the 
 sixteenth with honors which were not its own. 
 
 "The fifteenth century," says Guizot, " is a cen- 
 tury of voyages, enterprises, discoveries, and inven- 
 tions of all kinds."* 
 
 The revival of letters, the invention of printing, 
 the discovery of America, the mariner's compass, gun- 
 powder, the establishment of universities, of banks, 
 of postal service, the Gothic architecture, the mathe- 
 matics, mining, smelting, weaving, engineering, pa- 
 per, fire-arms, clocks, musical instruments, the mo- 
 dern languages, the greatest of modern poems, 
 were all before Luther. Marsilius Ficin, who was 
 born in 1433, understood his age when he called 
 the fifteenth century the golden ; for it was beyond 
 question the glorious dawn of a brighter era. "Aure- 
 um esse hoc sKCulum," he says, "minime dubitabit, 
 qui praeclara saeculihujus inventa considerare volue- 
 rit." And its greatest splendor was in Italy, where 
 the influence of the popes was most powerful. Le- 
 onardo da Vinci, who was born in 1445, the painter 
 ofthe"Last Supper" and the rival of Michael An- 
 gelo, rendered greater services even to science than 
 to art. He it was who first proclaimed the princi- 
 ple that experiment and observation are the only 
 
 ♦ History of Civilization in Euro/>e, Lesson xi. 
 
Protestantism on National Prosperity. 145 
 
 right methods in scientific investigation. He excel- 
 led in painting, sculpture, architecture, engineering, 
 and was thoroughly instructed in the astronomy, 
 anatomy, and chemistry of his times. " To him," 
 says Dr. Draper, " and not to Lord Bacon, must be 
 attributed the renaissance of science. Bacon was 
 not only ignorant of mathematics, but deprecated 
 its application to physical inquiries. He con- 
 temptuously rejected the Copernican system, al- 
 leging absurd objections to it. While Galileo was 
 on the brink of 'his "great telescopic discoveries, 
 Bacon was publishing doubts as to the utility of 
 instruments in scientific investigations. To ascribe 
 the inductive method to him is to ignore history. 
 His fanciful philosophical suggestions have never 
 been of the slightest use. No one has ever thought 
 of employing them. Except among English read- 
 ers, his name is almost unknown." * 
 
 To Italy belongs the honor of the invention of 
 the barometer, and also of the thermometer. Harvey 
 owed his discovery of the circulation of the blood to 
 the experiments of his teacher, Fabricius of Padua. 
 The school of Salerno, the great medical author- 
 ity in Europe from the eighth to the fourteenth cen- 
 tury, was founded by the disciples of St. Benedict, 
 who also called the attention of the afflicted to the 
 value of mineral waters in the cure of disease. 
 Baden, Kissingen, Marienbad, Pyrmont, Rippoldsau, 
 and many other similar places were from the ear- 
 
 * Conflict between Religion and Science^ p. 233. Dr. Draper but repeats what 
 Liebig has satisfactorily proved in his work on Bacon. Both he and Goethe, who 
 is no mean authority in such matters, hold that Bacon's influence retarded the 
 progress of science. 
 12 
 
146 Influence of Catholicism and 
 
 liest times in the hands of the monks, who invited 
 the suffering from every land to try the virtues of 
 these waters. 
 
 Geographical discovery was carried on under the 
 patronage and with the aid of the church. " In 
 our day," says Ritter, " commercial and scientific 
 interests are the motives which impel to a wider 
 knowledge of the earth ; in the middle ages these 
 motives were drawn from religion and the church." * 
 Even as late as the beginning of the present cen- 
 tury our knowledge of the great Chinese Empire 
 was derived principally from the writings of the Je- 
 suit missionaries. 
 
 The most celebrated geographer of the middle 
 ages was Father Mauro, a Camaldulese monk, who 
 died in 1459. His chief labors were undertaken in 
 the interests of the Republic of Venice and of Al- 
 fonso V. of Portugal. His geographical charts in- 
 spired Vasco da Gama and Christopher Columbus 
 with the thoughts which led to such immortal re- 
 sults. Another priest, Hermann Martinez, was the 
 first to suggest the idea which led to the discovery 
 of the New World — that the best way to reach the 
 east was to sail westward ; and when Columbus 
 was about to lose all hope, a Spanish monk won to 
 his enterprise the heart of the great Catholic queen. 
 
 But we lose sight of M. de Laveleye's assertion 
 that in popular education the Protestant nations are 
 far in advance of the Catholic, with the exception 
 of England, which is at least up to the standard of 
 Catholic countries. In the report of the Commis- 
 
 ♦ Histoire dei Dicoin<ertes Gdogi-afhigues, p, 141. 
 
Protestantism on National Prosperity. 147 
 
 sioner of Education for 1874 there is a statistical 
 account of the state of education in foreign coun- 
 tries which throws some light upon this subject. 
 
 The school attendance, compared with the popu- 
 lation, is in Austria as i to 10 ; in Belgium, as i 
 to 10^; in Ireland, as i to 16; in Catholic Swit- 
 zerland, as I to 16; in England, as i to 17. In 
 Bavaria it is as i to 7, upon the authority of Kay, in 
 his Social Condition of the People in Englajid and 
 Europe. Catholic Austria, Bavaria, Belgium, and 
 Ireland have proportionately a larger school at- 
 tendance than Protestant England. England and 
 Wales (report of 1874), with a population of 22, 712,- 
 266, had a school population of 5,374,700, of whom 
 only about half were registered, and not half of 
 these attended with sufficient regularity to bring 
 grants to their schools. Ireland, with a population 
 of 5,411,416, had on register 1,006,511, or nearly 
 half as many as England and Wales, though her 
 population is not a fourth of that of these two 
 countries. " The statistical fact," says Laing, speak- 
 ing of Rome as it was under the popes, " that 
 Rome has above a hundred schools more than Ber- 
 lin, for a population little more than half that of 
 Berlin, puts to flight a world of humbug about sys- 
 tems of national education carried on by govern- 
 ments and their moral effects on society. ... In 
 Catholic Germany, in France, Italy, and even Spain, 
 the education of the common people in reading, 
 writing, arithmetic, music, manners, and morals, is 
 at least as generally diffused and as faithfully pro- 
 moted by the clerical body as in Scotland. It is 
 
148 Influence of Catholicism and 
 
 by their own advance, and not by keeping back the 
 advance of the people, that the popish priesthood 
 of the present day seek to keep ahead of the intel- 
 lectual progress of the community in Catholic 
 lands ; and they might, perhaps, retort on our 
 Presbyterian clergy, and ask if they, too, are in 
 their countries at the head of the intellectual move- 
 ment of the age. Education is in reality not only 
 not repressed, but is encouraged, by the popish 
 church, and is a mighty instrument in its hands, 
 and ably used." * 
 
 Professor Huxley's testimony is confirmatory of 
 this admission of Laing. " It was my fortune," he 
 says, " some time ago to pay a visit to one of the 
 most important of the institutions in which the 
 clergy of the Roman Catholic Church in these 
 islands are trained ; and it seemed to me that the 
 difference between these men and the comfortable 
 champions of Anglicanism and Dissent was com- 
 parable to the difference between our gallant Vol- 
 unteers and the trained veterans of Napoleon's Old 
 Guard. The Catholic priest is trained to know his 
 business and do it effectually. The professors of 
 the college in question, learned, zealous, and deter- 
 mined men, permitted me to speak frankly with 
 them. We talked like outposts of opposed armies 
 during a truce — as friendly enemies ; and when I 
 ventured to point out the difficulties their students 
 would have to encounter from scientific thought, 
 they replied : ' Our church has lasted many ages, 
 and has passed safely through many storms. The 
 
 * Notes of a Traveller, pp. 402, 403. 
 
Protestantism on National Prosperity. 149 
 
 present is but a new gust of the old tempest, and 
 we do not turn out our young men less fitted to 
 weather it than they have been in former times to 
 cope with the difficulties of those times.' "* 
 
 " It is a common remark," says Kay, " of the 
 operatives of Lancashire, and one which is only too 
 true : ' Your church is a church for the rich, but not 
 for the poor. It was not intended for such people 
 as we are.' The Roman church is much wiser than 
 the English in this respect. ... It is singular to 
 observe how the • priests of Romanist countries 
 abroad associate with the poor. I have often seen 
 them riding with the peasants in their carts along 
 the roads, eating with them in their houses, sitting 
 with them in the village inns, mingling with them 
 in their village festivals, and yet always preserving 
 their authority, "f 
 
 With us, too, the masses of the people are fast 
 abandoning Protestantism. There is no Catholic 
 country in Europe in which the social condition of 
 the lower classes is so wretched as in England, the 
 representative Protestant country. For three hun- 
 dred years, it may be said, the Catholic Church had 
 no existence there. The nation was exclusively 
 under Protestant influence ; and yet the lower 
 classes were suffered to remain in stolid ignorance, 
 until they became the most-degraded population in 
 Christendom. 
 
 " It has been calculated," says Kay, writing in 
 1850, " that there are at the present day, in Eng- 
 
 * Lay Sermons, p. 6i, 
 
 + The Social CondLion, etc., vol. i. p. 420. 
 
150 hijiuence of Catholicism^ etc. 
 
 land and Wales, nearly 8,000,000 persons who can- 
 not read and write." That was more than half of 
 the whole population at that time. But this is not 
 the worst. A population unable to read or write 
 may nevertheless, to a certain extent, be educated 
 through religious teaching and influence ; but these 
 unhappy creatures were left, helpless and hopeless, 
 to sink deeper and deeper beneath the weight of 
 their degradation, without being brought into con- 
 tact with any power that could refine or elevate 
 them ; and if their condition has somewhat im- 
 proved in the last quarter of a century, this is no 
 more to be attributed to Protestantism than the 
 Catholic Emancipation Act or the Atlantic cable. 
 
COMPARATIVE INFLUENCE OF CATHO- 
 LICISM AND PROTESTANTISM ON NA- 
 TIONAL PROSPERITY. 
 
 III. MORALITY. 
 
 HE keen relish which we all have for other 
 people's sins is proverbial. As those 
 who think with us are right, so are they 
 virtuous who have only our own vices. 
 Prodigality, which, to the miser's thinking, is the 
 worst of sins, is, in the eyes of the spendthrift, 
 merely an evidence of a generous nature. Men who 
 wish to be thought gentlemen have a weakness for 
 what are called gentlemanly vices ; but from the 
 coarser though less depraved wickedness of the vul- 
 gar they turn with loathing. This bias of our com- 
 mon nature is not confined in its action to indivi- 
 duals ; it affects classes, nations, races. The rich are 
 shocked by the vices of the poor, and the poor, in 
 turn, no less by those of the rich ; masters hate the 
 sins of servants, and are repaid in their own coin. 
 
 When the free-born Briton sings, " England, 
 with all thy faults, I love thee still," he means that 
 faults, if only they be English, are after all not so 
 bad. Wrapt up in the precious bundle of our self- 
 
152 Influence of Catholicism and 
 
 m 
 
 love are all our pet sins and weaknesses. The uni- 
 versal hatred which existed between the nations of 
 antiquity must be attributed in great part to the 
 fact that their vices were unlike, and therefore re- 
 pellant. The national contempt for foreigners is, 
 in Christian times, strong in proportion to the bar- 
 barism of the people by whom it is felt ; but in 
 Greece and Rome such civilization as was then pos- 
 sible seemed to have no power over this prejudice. 
 Not to be a Greek was to have been created for vile 
 uses, and not to be a Roman was to be nobody. 
 The French, as seen by the English, are giddy and 
 lack dignity; the English appear to French eyes 
 sulky and wanting in good nature; the Turk thinks 
 both struck with madness, because they walk about 
 and stretch their legs when they might sit still ; 
 and though he is at their mercy, yet he cannot per- 
 suade himself that they are anything but Christian 
 dogs. The negro is quite sure the first man must 
 have been black, and in this he is in accord with 
 Mr. Darwin. The North American Indian will 
 vanish from the earth through the golden portab 
 of the western world still believing that he is the 
 superior of the " pale face." The power of nation- 
 al prejudice is almost incredible. " Our country, 
 right or wrong" is, we believe, an American phrase ; 
 but it expresses a sentiment which is almost uni- 
 versally held to be right and proper. In interna- 
 tional disputes men nearly always take sides with 
 their own country, without stopping to inquire 
 into the merits of the quarrel, which, indeed, the 
 strong feeling that at once masters them would pre- 
 
Protestantism on National Prosperity. 153 
 
 vent them from being able to do. They act instinc- 
 tively like children who always think that in diffi- 
 culties with neighbors their own parents are in the 
 right. We Americans are certainly not paragons 
 of virtue, and in this centennial year it is probably 
 wise to discuss almost anything rather than our 
 morals ; yet we cannot but think that M. Louis 
 Veuillot was somewhat under the influence of na- 
 tional prejudice when he wrote that, if we were 
 sunk in the bottom of the ocean, civilization would 
 have lost nothing. Our form of government, it is 
 true, does not lead us to look for salvation, either 
 in church or state, from a king by divine right ; 
 still, he might just as well have let us alone, espe- 
 cially as he is at no loss for quarrels at home. Nor 
 can we think that the Germans Avho have raised 
 such a storm of indignation over the crime in Bre- 
 merhaven, committed, as it is supposed, by an 
 American, would have held the whole German peo- 
 ple and their civilization responsible for the offence 
 had they known its author to be native there and 
 to the manner born. 
 
 As no passion takes hold of the human heart 
 with such sovereign power as that of religion, it fol- 
 lows that no bias of judgment is more fatal to truth 
 than religious prejudice; and now let us gently de- 
 scend again to M. Emile de Laveleye and his pam- 
 phlet : 
 
 " It is agreed on all sides," he says,* " that the 
 power of nations depends on their morality. Every- 
 where is found the maxim, which is almost become 
 
 * p. 25. 
 
 13 
 
154 Influence of Catholicism a?td 
 
 an axiom of political science, that where morals are 
 corrupted the state is lost. Now, it appears to be 
 an established fact that the moral level is higher 
 among Protestant than among Catholic populations. 
 Religious writers confess this themselves, and ex- 
 plain it by the fact that the former remain more 
 faithful to their religion than the latter, which ex- 
 planation I believe to be the true one." 
 
 Here is fairness surely. The soft impeachment 
 could not have been made in a more moderate or 
 subdued tone. Catholics are notoriously more im- 
 moral than Protestants ; but the subject is a pain- 
 ful one, and M. de Laveleye does not wish to em- 
 phasize the unpleasant truth by giving proof — which, 
 indeed, would be superfluous, since Catholics them- 
 selves, we are assured, admit the fact and are con- 
 cerned only about its explanation ; and, strange to 
 say, they have found the key to the mystery in the 
 greater fidelity of Protestants to their religion : so 
 M. de Laveleye and the Catholics shake hands and 
 the dispute is at an end. 
 
 The position of Protestants with regard to this 
 question is peculiar. The very life of their religion 
 is intimately associated with a fi^^ed belief in the pre- 
 ternatural wickedness of popes, priests, nuns, and 
 Catholics generally. The sole justification of Pro- 
 testantism was found in the abominable corruptions 
 of Rome, and its only defence is that it is a purer 
 worship, capable of creating a higher morality. The 
 history of the Reformation, as written by Protes- 
 tants, traces its origin to an awful and heaven-inspir- 
 ed indignation at the sight of papal iniquity, which 
 
Protestanlism on National Prosperity. 155 
 
 resulted in a divine Protest against sin. It is this 
 feeling, indeed, which is the living human magnet- 
 ism in the words of Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, and 
 Knox. They all felt that in so far as they protest- 
 ed against open and patent evil they were right, 
 and therefore strong. Leo X., with God's eternal 
 truth, but encircled by all the Graces and Muses, 
 was at a disadvantage With those strong and plain- 
 spoken men. In fact, the eternal ally of human er- 
 ror is human truth. It is because men who are 
 right do wrong that men who are wrong seem 
 right ; and if men in general were fit to be priests 
 of God, there would be on earth no power to op- 
 pose the Catholic Church. St. Paul had protested, 
 St. John Chrysostom had protested, St. Peter Da- 
 mian had protested, St. Bernard had protested, St. 
 Catherine of Sienna had protested, and yet there 
 was no Protestantism. To protest was well and is 
 well, but to seek to found a religion upon a protest 
 is madness ; and this is Protestantism. 
 
 With Protestants purity of dogma is out of the 
 question ; and nothing, therefore, remains to them 
 but purity of morals. To this they must cling like 
 drowning men to straws. Protestantism, if consid- 
 ered from a doctrinal point of view, is nihilism. 
 Gather up the hundred sects which, taken collec- 
 tively, are called Protestantism, and we will find 
 every positive religious dogma excluded ; not even 
 the personal existence of God remains. Mr. Mat- 
 thew Arnold is a true Bible-Protestant, who has a 
 little sect of his own, and all that he holds is that 
 there is "a Power in us, not ourselves, which makes 
 
1 56 Injluence of Catholicism and 
 
 for righteousness " ; and this he has discovered to 
 be the sum and substance of all Scripture teaching. 
 Doctrinal Protestantism is like the wrong side of a 
 piece of tapestry with its fag-ends hanging in 
 patches, twisted and jumbled ; and yet they are the 
 very substance out of Avhich has been wrought a 
 work of divine beauty. The dogmatic weakness of 
 Protestantism throws its whole energy upon the 
 moral side of religion. Its utter falseness, when we 
 accept the fact that Christ has established a divine 
 system of faith, is so manifest that no impartial 
 thinker would hesitate to give his full assent to the 
 sentiment of Rousseau : " Show me that in reli- 
 gious matters I must accept authority, and I shall 
 become a Catholic at once." Supposing the Chris- 
 tian religion to be what it is commonly held to be 
 by both Catholics and Protestants, it necessarily 
 follows that the Catholic Church is the only logical 
 as it is the only historical Christianity. This, we 
 believe, is the almost universally-received opinion 
 of non-Christian writers in our own da)'', in which, 
 for the first time since the Reformation, a consid- 
 erable number of learned men who are neither Ca- 
 tholic nor Protestant have been able to view this 
 subject dispassionately. We do not mean to say 
 that these writers prefer the church to the sects; 
 on the contrary, they are partial to these because 
 in their workings they perceive, as they think, the 
 breaking-up and dissolution of the whole Christian 
 system. Protestantism is valuable in their eyes as 
 a stage in what Herbert Spencer calls " the univer- 
 sal religious thaw " which is going on around us. 
 
Protesta7itisni on National Prosperity, 157 
 
 If there has been no divine revelation, then what- 
 ever tends to weaken the claim of the church to be 
 the depository of such revelation is good, especially 
 as her claim is the only one which rests upon a 
 valid historical basis. And it is because a very 
 large number of men more than half suspect there 
 never has been a revelation that Protestantism 
 meets with so much favor from the unbelieving and 
 pagan world, as serving the purpose of an easy step- 
 ping-stone from the strong and pronounced super- 
 naturalism of the church to the nature-worship of 
 Darwin and Spencer or the German Ciilturists. 
 
 Macaulay was struck and puzzled by what his 
 keen eye could not fail to perceive to be so univer- 
 sal a phenomenon as to have the force of a law of 
 history. 
 
 "It is surely remarkable," says this brilliant 
 writer, "that neither the moral revolution of the 
 eighteenth century nor the moral counter-revolution 
 of the nineteenth should have in any perceptible 
 degree added to the domain of Protestantism. 
 During the former period whatever was lost to Ca- 
 tholicism was lost also to Christianity ; during the 
 latter whatever was regained by Christianity in Ca- 
 tholic countries was regained also by Catholicism. 
 We should actually have expected that many 
 minds, on the way from superstition to infidelity, 
 or on the way back from infidelity to superstition, 
 would have stopped at an intermediate point. Be- 
 tween the doctrines taught in the schools of the 
 Jesuits, and those which were maintained at the 
 little supper-parties of the Baron Holbach, there is 
 
158 Influence of Catholicism and 
 
 a vast interval in which the human mind, it should 
 seem, might find for itself some resting-place more 
 satisfactory than either of the two extremes ; and 
 at the time of the Reformation millions found such 
 a resting-place. Whole nations then renounced 
 popery without ceasing to believe in a First Cause, 
 in a future life, or in the divine authority of Chris- 
 tianity. In the last century, on the contrary, when 
 a Catholic renounced his belief in the Real Pre- 
 sence, it was a thousand to one that he renounced 
 his belief in the Gospel too ; and when the reaction 
 took place, with belief in the Gospel came back 
 belief in the Real Presence. We by no means ven- 
 ture to deduce from these phenomena any general 
 law ; but we think it a most remarkable fact that 
 no Christian nation which did not adopt the princi- 
 ples of the Reformation before the end of the six- 
 teenth century should ever have adopted them. 
 Catholic communities have since that time become 
 infidel and become Catholic again, but none has be- 
 come Protestant." 
 
 There could not be a more satisfactory proof of 
 the transitional and accidental nature of Protestan- 
 tism. Like all human revolutions, it grew out of 
 antecedent circumstances ; and these were prima- 
 rily political and social and only incidentally reli- 
 gious. The faith in the divine authority of the 
 Christian religion was at that time absolute, and not 
 at all affected by the tendency to scepticism ob- 
 servable among a few of the Humanists. The poli- 
 tical power of the pope, however, together with his 
 peculiar temporal relations to the German Empire, 
 
Protestantistn on Natioital Prosperity. 159 
 
 had gradually created throughout Germany a very 
 strong national prejudice against his authority, 
 which, upon the slightest provocation, was ready to 
 break out "into downright hatred of the Papacy. 
 The worldly lives and ways of some of the popes 
 had been as fuel for the conflagration which was to 
 burst forth. Men, unconsciously it may be, grew 
 accustomed to look upon the Christian religion 
 and the Papacy as distinct and separable ; and the 
 temper of the public mind, while remaining rever- 
 ential toward Christ and his religion, was embittered 
 against his vicar. When, from amidst the social 
 abuses and political antagonisms of Germany, 
 Luther, in the name of Christ, denounced the pope, 
 his voice struck precisely the note for which the 
 public ear was listening, and, as Macaulay says, 
 whole nations renounced allegiance to the pope 
 without giving up faith in God and his Christ. This 
 was done in the excitement of revolutionary enthu- 
 siasm, when passion and madness made deliberation 
 impossible, and when a thoughtful and analytical 
 study of the constitution of the church Avas out of 
 the question. The Reformers imagined that they 
 could abolish the pope and yet save Christianity, 
 just as in France, two centuries and a half later, it 
 was thought possible to abolish God and yet save 
 the principle of authority, without which society 
 cannot exist. And, indeed, it is as reasonable to 
 suppose that this world, with its universal evidence 
 of design and adaptation of means to ends, could 
 have come into existence without the action of a 
 supreme and intelligent Being, as to think that the 
 
1 60 Influence of CatJiolicisui and 
 
 system of religious truths taught by Christ can have 
 either unity or authority amongst men without a 
 living centre and visible representative of both. 
 Protestants, in rejecting the primacy of the pope, 
 were forced to accept as fundamental to their faith 
 a principle of so purgative and drastic a nature that, 
 in the general process of sloughing of religious 
 thought which it brings on, it is itself finally carried 
 away into the vacuum of nihilism. 
 
 This became evident as soon as the attempt was 
 made to agree upon articles of belief. New here- 
 sies sprang up day after day, and complete chaos 
 would have ensued from the beginning had not the 
 different states taken hold of one or other of the 
 sects and " established " it, thus, by the aid of the 
 temporal power, giving to it a kind of consistency, 
 but at the same time depriving it of vitality. Thus 
 what Macaulay regarded as so remarkable — that no 
 Christian nation which did not adopt the principles 
 of the Reformation before the end of the sixteenth 
 century should ever have adopted them — and he 
 might as well have made the proposition universal, 
 since there was no reason why he should limit it to 
 Christian nations, as it is well known that in no- 
 thing has Protestantism given more striking proof 
 of its impotence than in its utter failure to convert 
 the heathen — this, we say, far from surprising us, 
 seems so natural that we cannot understand how an 
 observant mind should think it strange. 
 
 Protestantism was, in the main, the product of 
 the peculiar political and social condition of Europe 
 during the last period of the middle ages, and to 
 
Protestantism on National Prosperity. 1 6 1 
 
 expect Catholic nations, or indeed individual Catho- 
 lics of any intellectual or moral character, to become 
 Protestant in our day argues a total want of power 
 to grasp this subject. As well might one hope to 
 see the pterodactyls and ichthyosauri of a past 
 geologic era swimming in our rivers. Catholics 
 there are, indeed, now, as in the eighteenth century, 
 who become sceptics, who abandon all belief in 
 Christianity, but none who become Protestants ; 
 for we cannot consider such persons as Achilli or 
 Edith O'Gorman as instances of conversion of any 
 kind. A very limited acquaintance with Catholics 
 and Catholic thought will suffice to convince any 
 reflecting mind that for us there is no alternative 
 but to accept the doctrine of the church or to 
 renounce faith in Christ. Was there ever fairer 
 field for heresy to flourish in than that which 
 opened up before Old Catholicism at its birth? 
 But it was still-born. To this day its sponsors 
 have not dared define its relation to the pope ; and 
 until this is done it remains without character. At 
 any rate, it does not claim to be Protestant. 
 
 Turning to view the present condition of Protes- 
 tantism, we are struck by the contrast. The very 
 word " Protestant " is without meaning when 
 applied to two-thirds of the non-Catholics of Ger- 
 many, England, and the United States. Their 
 mental state is one of disbelief in, or indifference 
 to, all forms of positive religion ; and if occasionally 
 they are roused to some feeling against the church, 
 it is through an association of ideas, traditional 
 with them, which places her in antagonism with 
 
1 62 Influence of Catholicism and 
 
 their political theories and national prejudices. 
 Among earnest and reflecting Protestants who are 
 united with one or other of the sects, there are two 
 opposite currents of religious thought of a strongly- 
 marked and well-defined character. Those who 
 are borne on the one are being carried farther and 
 farther away from the historic teachings of Christ, 
 and are busied in trying to dress out in Biblical 
 phraseology some of the various cosmic or panthe- 
 istic philosophies of the day. They very generally 
 assume that religion has nothing to do with theo- 
 logy, nor, consequently, with doctrines and dogmas. 
 As its home is the heart, its realm is the world of 
 sentiment ; and so it matters not what we believe, 
 provided only we feel good. Opposed to this cur- 
 rent, which is bearing with it all the distinctive 
 landmarks of the Christian religion, is another which 
 is carrying men back to the church. In fact, all 
 great minds among Protestants who have been 
 strongly impressed by the objective character of 
 Christian truth have been drawn towards the Catho- 
 lic Church. Who can have failed to perceive, for 
 instance — to mention only the three greatest who 
 have occupied themselves with religious questions — 
 how Leibnitz, Bacon, and Bishop Butler, in their 
 intellectual apprehension of the Christian system, 
 were, in spite of themselves, attracted to the 
 church ? Or who that is acquainted with the Eng- 
 lish Catholic literature of our own day is ignorant 
 of the divine illumination which many of the most 
 intellectual and reverent natures from the sects of 
 Protestantism have found in the teachings of the 
 
Protestantism on National Prosperity. 1 63 
 
 one Catholic Church ? In this way, by a process 
 of supernatural or natural selection, the fragments 
 of Protestantism are being assimilated to the church 
 or are disappearing in the sea of unbelief in which 
 even now they are seen only as barren islands in 
 the wild waste of waters. 
 
 These considerations must be borne in mind by 
 whoever would take a comprehensive view of the 
 question which we propose now to discuss. In the 
 first place, by reflecting upon them we shall find no 
 difficulty in accounting for the marked difference 
 in tone and character between Catholic and Protes- 
 tant controversy, by which no attentive observer 
 can have failed to be struck. Taking for granted 
 the existence of God and the divinity of Christ, as 
 admitted by the earlier Protestant sects, the logical 
 position of the church is unassailable, which, as we 
 have already stated, is generally conceded by im- 
 partial non-Christian thinkers. 
 
 As a consequence, Catholic controversialists, as- 
 sured of the absolute coherence of their whole 
 system with the fundamental dogma of the divine 
 mission of Christ, have been chiefly concerned with 
 showing the logical viciousness of the essential 
 principles of Protestantism. They have, indeed, 
 not omitted to remark upon the moral unfitness of 
 such men as Henry VIII., Luther, Knox, and 
 Zwingli to be the divinely-chosen agents of a 
 reformation in the religion of Christ ; but such ob- 
 servations have been incidental to the main course 
 of the argument, and this is alike true of our more 
 
164 Influence of Catholicism and 
 
 learned discussions and of our popular contro- 
 versies. 
 -/" Catholic writers — allowing for individual excep- 
 tions — have not felt that, to show the falsity of 
 Protestantism, it was necessary to denounce Pro- 
 testants or to stamp upon them any mark of infamy. 
 They have treated them as men who were wrong, 
 not as men who were wicked. Protestant contro- 
 versy, on the other hand, presents for our con- 
 sideration characteristics of a very different nature. 
 In the consciousness of their inability to settle upon 
 a fixed creed, which has been shown by history, 
 and from the necessarily feeble manner in which 
 articles of faith could be held by them, on account 
 of the disagreement and conflict of opinion among 
 themselves, Protestant writers were forced to treat 
 their religion, not as a doctrine, but as a tendency ; 
 and for this reason, together with the natural hatred 
 which men entertain for a church or government 
 against which they have rebelled, they were led to 
 draw contrasts between the results of Protestantism 
 and Catholicity ; so that it became customary to 
 attribute all the enlightenment, morality, progress, 
 and liberty of the world to Protestantism, and to 
 represent Catholics as cruel, ignorant, corrupt, and 
 in every way depraved. Luther, as we should 
 naturally expect, led the way in this style of con- 
 troversy. 
 
 " The Papists," he said, " are for the most part 
 mere gross blockheads. . . . The pope and his 
 crew are mere worshippers of idols and servants of 
 the devil. . . . Pope, cardinals, bishops, not a soul 
 
Protestantism on National Prosperity. 165 
 
 of them has read the Bible ; 'tis a book unknown to 
 them. They are a pack of guzzling, stuffing wretches, 
 rich, wallowing in wealth and laziness. . . . Seeing 
 the pope is Antichrist, I believe him to be a devil 
 incarnate. . . . The pope is the last blaze in the 
 lamp which will go out and ere long be extin- 
 guished — the last instrument of the devil, that 
 thunders and lightens with sword and bull ; . . . 
 but the Spirit of God's mouth has seized upon that 
 shameless strumpet. . . . Antichrist is the Pope 
 and the Turk together. . . . The pope is not God's 
 image, but his ape. . . . Popedom is founded on 
 mere lies and fables. ... A friar is evil every way ; 
 the preaching friars are proud buzzards ; all who 
 serve the pope are damned ; the Papists are devoid 
 of shame and Christianity." *, 
 
 This is the style of Protestant controversy which, 
 except in form, still lingers in this nineteenth cen- 
 tury. Protestant devotion, it may be said without 
 sarcasm or exaggeration, consists essentially in a 
 holy horror of popery. Were it possible to elimi- 
 nate the Catholic Church from human society, Pro- 
 testantism would at once fatally assume an attitude 
 towards the world wholly different from that in 
 which it now stands.' At present, when attacked 
 by evolutionistic pantheism — which means all the 
 sophistries of the day — it takes refuge behind the 
 historic fortress of Christianity, the Catholic Church, 
 and, when encountered by the church, it makes an 
 alliance with cosmism or anything else. Were the 
 Catholic Church not in existence, it would be forced 
 
 * The Table-Talk of Martin Luther^ pp. 200, 206, 213, ei passim. 
 
1 66 Injiuence of Catholicism and 
 
 at once to build a fortress of its own ; for the Bible 
 is only a breastwork, which must be in charge of a 
 commander in-chief if we hope to hold it for the 
 sovereign Lord. From the beginning, then, Pro- 
 testants branded Catholics with a mark of infamy ; 
 they were idolaters, worse than pagans, for the 
 most part gross blockheads, who fall an easy prey 
 to the designing arts of priests and monks, who are 
 only knaves and rogues, whose chief aim is to carry 
 out the fiendish purposes of the pope, the arch- 
 enemy. Antichrist, the devil in the flesh ; and thus 
 the church becomes the Woman of Babylon, flam- 
 ing in scarlet, and alluring the nations to debauch. 
 
 No evidence, therefore, is needed to show that 
 Catholics are immoral, depraved, thoroughly cor- 
 rupt. To doubt it would be to question the truth 
 of Protestantism and to believe that something 
 good might come out of Nazareth. In good sooth, 
 do not the Catholics, as M. de Laveleye says, admit 
 the fact themselves? 
 
 We often hear persons express surprise that intel- 
 ligent and honest Protestants should still, after 
 such sad experience, be so eager to believe the 
 " awful disclosures " of " escaped nuns," and to 
 patronize that kind of lecture — of which, thank 
 God ! Protestants have the monopoly — delivered to 
 men or women only, in which the abominations of 
 the confessional are revealed and the general pre- 
 ternatural wickedness of priests, monks, and nuns 
 is made fully manifest. This, to us, we must say, 
 has never seemed strange. The doctrine of total 
 depravity is an article of Protestant faith, and, when 
 
Protestantism on National Prosperity. 167 
 
 applied to Catholics, to none other have Protes- 
 tants ever clung with such unwavering firmness and 
 perfect unanimity. When disagreeing about every- 
 thing else, they have never failed to find a point of 
 union in this. Even after having lived and dealt 
 with Catholics who are kind-hearted, pure, and 
 fair-minded, in the true Protestant there still lurks 
 a vague kind of suspicion that there must be some 
 mysterious and secret diabolism in them which 
 eludes his observation ; that after all they may be 
 only "as mild-mannered men as ever scuttled ship 
 or cut a throat " ; and after his reason has been 
 fully convinced that the Catholic Church is the 
 only historical Christianity, he is still able to re- 
 main a strong Protestant by falling back upon the 
 undoubted total depravity of Papists. Dr. New- 
 man, in his Apologia, the most careful and instruc- 
 tive self-analysis which has been written in this 
 century, or probably in any other, declares that 
 after he had become thoroughly persuaded of the 
 truth of the Catholic Church his former belief that 
 the pope was Antichrist still remained like a stain 
 upon his imagination ; and yet he had never been 
 an ultra-Protestant. Many a Protestant has ceased 
 to believe in Christ, without giving up his faith in 
 the pope as Antichrist. 
 
 It is not surprising, in view of all this, that Pro- 
 testants should have habitually held the church re- 
 sponsible for the evil deeds of Catholics. 
 
 When quite recently the excited Germans charged 
 the dynamite plot of Thomassen upon our Ameri- 
 can civilization, we replied, with perfect justice, that 
 
1 68 Influence of Calholicism and 
 
 such crimes are anomalies, the guilt of which ought 
 not to be laid upon any nation, and all reasonable 
 men admitted the evident good sense of our answer ; 
 but Protestants the world over have been uiTanimous 
 in seeking to hold up the church to the execration 
 of mankind as responsible for the St. Bartholomew 
 massacre. Is Protestantism answerable for Crom- 
 well's massacres at Drogheda and Wexford ? Re- 
 ligious fanaticism, no doubt, had much to do in 
 urging him to butcher idolaters and slaves of Satan ; 
 but we should blush for shame were we capable of 
 thinking for a moment that such inhumanities are 
 either produced or approved by the real spirit of 
 the Protestant religion. 
 
 We know of nothing in the Catholic Church 
 which in any way corresponds to Protestant anti- 
 popery literature ; indeed, we doubt whether in the 
 whole history of literature anything so disgraceful 
 and disreputable as this can be found, unless, pos- 
 sibly, it be that which is professedly obscene, but 
 which has nowhere ever had a recognized existence; 
 and we question whether even this is as discredita- 
 ble to human nature as the " awful disclosures " and 
 " lectures to men or women only " of Protestants. 
 
 In discussing the comparative morality of Catho- 
 lic and Protestant nations it would be more satis- 
 factory, even though it should not be more conclu- 
 sive, to consider their respective virtues rather than 
 their vices. There would seem to be neither good 
 sense nor logic in taking the individuals and classes 
 that are least brought under religious influences of 
 any kind, in order to use their depravity as an 
 
Protestantism on Natiotial Prosperity. 1 69 
 
 argument for or against the church or Protestantism. 
 In the apostolic body one out of twelve was a thief 
 and traitor, yet neither Catholics nor Protestants are 
 in the Habit of concluding from this that they must 
 all have been rogues and hypocrites. The amount 
 of crime, one would think, is but a poor test of the 
 amount of virtue. As the greatest sinners have 
 made the greatest saints, so in the church depravity 
 may co-exist with the most heroic virtue, though, 
 of course, not in the same individual. Our divine 
 Saviour plainly declares that in his church the good 
 shall be mingled with the bad ; that the cockle shall 
 grow with the wheat till the harvest time ; that 
 some shall call him Lord and Master, and yet do 
 not the will of his Father ; that even, with regard to 
 those who sit in the chair of Moses — and, let us add, 
 of Peter — though their authority must ever be ac- 
 knowledged, yet are not their lives always to be 
 imitated, nor approved of even. It is manifestly 
 contrary to the teaching of Christ to make the note 
 of sanctity in his church consist in the individual 
 holiness of each and every member. He is no 
 Puritan, though he is the all-holy God. A puristic 
 religion is essentially narrow, self-conscious, and 
 unsympathetic ; it draws a line here on earth be- 
 tween the elect and the reprobate ; its disciples eat 
 not with sinners, nor enter into their abodes, nor 
 hold out to them the pleading hands of large-heart- 
 ed charity. Such a faith does not grow upon 
 men ; it does not win and convert them to God. 
 
 If, instead of comparing the crimes, we should 
 consider the respective virtues, of Catholic and Pro. 
 
 14 
 
1 70 hijiuaice of CatJiolicisin and 
 
 tcstant nations, we should at once be struck by the 
 difference in their standards of morality. The most 
 practical way of determining the real standard of 
 morality of any religion is to study the character 
 of its saints. There we find religious ideals made 
 tangible and fully discernible. Here at once we 
 perceive that there is an essential difference between 
 the Catholic and the Protestant standard of morality. 
 The lives of our saints, even when understood by 
 Protestants, generally repel them. They are, in 
 their eyes, useless lives, idle lives, superstitious 
 lives, unnatural and inhuman. We take the words 
 of Christ, *' If thou wouldst be perfect, go sell what 
 thou hast, give it to the poor, and come and follow 
 me," in their full and complete literal meaning. 
 The highest life is to leave father and mother, to 
 have nor wife nor children, nor temporal goods except 
 what barely suffices, and to cleave to Christ only with 
 all one's soul in poverty, chastity, and obedience. 
 Now, this life of prayer in poverty, chastity, and 
 obedience is an offence to Protestants. They do 
 not believe in perfect chastity, they hold religious 
 obedience to be a slavery, and poverty, in their eyes, 
 is ridiculous. Inasmuch as the monks tilled the 
 earth, transcribed books, and taught school, they 
 receive a partial recognition from the Protestant 
 world ; but inasmuch as they were bound by reli- 
 gious vows they excite disgust. We should say, 
 then, that the distinctive trait of Catholic morality 
 is ascetic, while the Protestant is utilitarian. The 
 one primarily regards the world that is to be, the 
 other that which already is. The one inclines us to 
 
Protesta7itism 07i National Prospci'ify. 
 
 171 
 
 look upon this as a worthless world to lose or win ; 
 the other is shrewd and calculating — this is the best 
 wfe have any practical experience of; it is the part 
 of wisdom to make the most of it. The one seems 
 to be more certain of the future life, the other of 
 the present. It is needless to prolong the contrast, 
 and we shall simply confess that we have always 
 been inclined to the opinion of those who hold that 
 Protestantism, in its aims and direct tendencies, is 
 more favorable to what is called material progress 
 than Catholicism. In fact, one cannot realize th^ 
 personal survival of the soul through eternity, and 
 at the same time be supremely interested in stocks 
 or the price of cotton. 
 
 Not that the church discourages efforts which 
 have as their object the material interests of man- 
 kind ; but, in her view, our duties to God are of the 
 first importance, and to these all others are subor- 
 dinate. What doth it profit ? she is always asking, 
 whereas Protestantism is busy trying to show us 
 how very profitable and pleasant the Reformation 
 has made this world — and virtuous, too, since hon- 
 esty is the best policy and enlightened self-interest 
 the standard of morals. It is the old story — God 
 and the world, the supernatural and the natural, 
 progress from above and progress from below. 
 
 But we feel that it is time Ave should give our 
 readers proof that we have no desire to avoid 
 direct issue with M. de Laveleye. We flatly 
 deny, then, his assertion that the Catholic nations 
 are more immoral than the Protestant ; and when 
 he further affirms that Catholic writers themselves 
 
I 72 Influence of Catholicisju and 
 
 — for his words can have no other meaning — admit 
 this, he h'es under a mistake for which there can be 
 no possible excuse. In the statement of facts, 
 however, which we propose now to give, we make 
 no use whatever of the testimony of Catholics, but 
 rely exclusively upon the authority of Protestants 
 and of statistics ; and that our readers may have the 
 benefit of observations extending over considerable 
 time as well as space, we will not confine ourselves 
 to the most recent writers or statistics on the sub- 
 ject under discussion. Laing, a Scotch Presbyterian 
 and a most conscientious and observant traveller, who 
 wrote some thirty-five years ago, says of the Prench : 
 " They are, I believe, a more honest people than 
 the British. ... It is a fine distinction of the 
 French national character and social economy that 
 practical morality is more generally taught through 
 manners among and by the people themselves than 
 in any country in Europe."* Alison, the historian, 
 writing about the same time, but referring to the 
 early part of this century, says that the proportion 
 of crime to the inhabitants was tzvelve times greater 
 in Prussia than in France.f To this may be added 
 the testimony of John Stuart Mill, in his Autobio- 
 graphy^ published since his death, who passed a 
 considerable portion of his life in France. Referring 
 to his sojourn there when quite a young man, he 
 says: 
 
 " Having so little experience of English life, and 
 the few people I knew being mostly such as had 
 
 ♦ Notes of a Traveller^ pp. 79, So. 
 ^ ■ ■ i + History 0/ Euro/>e, vol. iii. chap, x.wli. 10, 11. 
 
Protestantism on National Prosperity, i ']^ 
 
 public objects of a large and personally disinterest- 
 ed kind at heart, I was ignorant of the low moral 
 tone of what in England is called society : the habit 
 of, not indeed professing, but taking for granted in 
 every mode of implication that conduct is of course 
 always directed towards lowand petty objects; the 
 absence of high feelings, which manifests itself by 
 sneering depreciation of all demonstrations of them, 
 and by general abstinence (except among a few of 
 the stricter religionists) from professing any high 
 principles of action at all, except in those preor- 
 dained cases in which such profession is put on as 
 part of the costume and formalities of the occasion. 
 I could not then know or estimate the difference 
 between this manner of existence and that of a peo- 
 ple like the French, whose faults, if equally real, are 
 at all events different ; among whom sentiments 
 which, by comparison at least, may be called elevat- 
 ed are the current coin of human intercourse, both 
 in books and in private life, and, though often eva- 
 porating in profession, are yet kept alive in the na- 
 tion at large by constant exercise and stimulated 
 by sympathy, so as to form a living and active part 
 of the existence of a great number of persons, and 
 to be recognized and understood by all. Neither 
 could I then appreciate the general culture of the 
 understanding, which results from the habitual ex- 
 ercise of the feelings, and is thus carried down into 
 the most uneducated classes of several countries on 
 the Continent, in a degree not equalled in England 
 among the so-called educated, except where an 
 unusual tenderness of conscience leads to a habitual 
 
1 74 hifltie7ice of CatJiolicism and 
 
 exercise of the intellect on questions of right and 
 ■ wrong." * 
 
 This is strong testimony when we consider that 
 it comes from an Englishman. In speaking of the 
 . elder Austin the same writer says: "He had a 
 strong distaste for the general meanness of English 
 life, the absence of enlarged thoughts and unselfish 
 desires, the low objects on which the faculties of 
 all classes of the English are intent. "f Mill's opin- 
 ion of the French is confirmed by Lecky, who 
 writes : " No other nation has so habitual and vivid a 
 sympathy for great struggles for freedom beyond its 
 border. No other literature exhibits so expansive 
 and oecumenical a genius, or expounds so skilfully 
 or appreciates so generously foreign ideas. In no 
 other land would a disinterested war for the sup- 
 port of a suffering nationality find so large an 
 amount of support." % 
 
 Much has been said and written of the licentious- 
 ness of the French, which may, in part at least, be 
 due to the fact that they, more than any other peo- 
 ple, have known how to make vice attractive by 
 taking from it something of the repulsive coarseness 
 which naturally belongs to it, but must also be as- 
 cribed to the feeling that they are Catholic, and 
 therefore sensual. But let us examine the facts on 
 this subject. We again bring Laing forward as a 
 witness. 
 
 " Of all the virtues," he says, " that which the 
 domestic family education of both the sexes most 
 
 " Autobiografky,'p'p. sZ, s<), i /6id. p. 177, 
 
 X Hittory 0/ European Morals, p. 160. 
 
Protestantis7n on N'ational Prosperity. 1 7 5 
 
 obviously influences — that which marks more clearly 
 than any 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 moral restraint upon passions and impulses 
 which it is the object of education and knowledge 
 to attain — is undoubtedly female chastity. Will 
 any traveller, will any Prussian, 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?"* 
 
 Acts which in other countries would affect the 
 respectability and happiness of a whole family for 
 generations are in Prussia looked upon as mere 
 youthful indiscretions. What Laing affirms of 
 Prussia, Madame de Stael, herself a Protestant, 
 applies indiscriminately to the Protestant States 
 of Germany. 
 
 " Love," she writes, " is a religion in Germany, 
 but a poetic religion which tolerates too easily all 
 that sensibility can excuse. It cannot be denied 
 that the facility of divorce in the Protestant States 
 is prejudicial to the sacredness of marriage. They 
 change husbands with as much composure as if 
 they were arranging the incidents of a drama ; the 
 good-nature common to both men and women ac- 
 counts for the absence of bitterness in these rup- 
 tures ; and as the Germans have more imagination 
 than passion, the most extravagant events take 
 place with astonishing tranquillity. In this way, 
 nevertheless, manners and character lose all con- 
 
 * Notes 0/ a Traveller . p. 172. 
 
1 76 hifluetice of Catholicisvi and 
 
 sistency ; the spirit of paradox shakes the most 
 sacred institutions, and all fixed rules of conduct 
 are destroyed." * 
 
 But let us take the statistics of illegitimacy, 
 which is a method of discussing the question made 
 popular among Protestants by the Rev. Hobart 
 Seymour in his Evenings with the Romanists. 
 
 The number of illegitimate births in France for 
 every hundred was, in 1858, 7.8; in the same year 
 in Protestant Saxony it was 16; in Protestant Prus- 
 sia, 9.3; in Wurtemberg (Prot.), 16.1; in Iceland 
 (Prot. ; 1838-47), 14; in Denmark (1855), 1 1.5 ; Scot- 
 land (1871), 10. 1 ; Hanover (1855), 9.9; Sweden 
 (1855), 9.5; Norway (1855), 9.3, 
 
 Catholic France, then, judged by this test, stands 
 higher than any Protestant country of which we 
 have statistical reports, except England and Wales, 
 where the percentage was, in 1859,6.5; but Eng- 
 land and Wales are below other Catholic countries, 
 and notably far below Ireland. The rate of illegiti- 
 macy in the kingdom of Sardinia (1828-37) was 2.1 ; 
 in Ireland (1865-66), 3.8; in Spain (1859), 5-^ "' *" 
 Tuscany, 6 ; in Catholic Prussia, 6.1. 
 
 In Scotland there are, in proportion to popula- 
 tion, more than three times as many illegitimate 
 births as in Ireland ; and in England and Wales 
 there are more than twice as many, and in Protes- 
 tant Prussia the percentage is a third greater than 
 in Catholic Prussia.f 
 
 * L'AlletnagTies t. i, ch. 3. 
 
 t For the full discussion of the statistics of this subject see The Catholic 
 World, vol. ix. pp. 52 and 845. 
 
Protestantism on National Prosperity, i ']'] 
 
 If chastity, to use Laing's expression, is the in- 
 dex-virtue, the question as to the comparative mo- 
 rah'ty of Protestant and Catholic nations may be 
 considered at an end. Lecky's words on the Irish 
 people have often been quoted, to his own regret, 
 we believe. 
 
 " Had the Irish peasants been less chaste," he 
 says, " they would have been more prosperous. 
 Had that fearful famine which in the present cen- 
 tury desolated the land fallen upon a people who 
 thought more of accumulating subsistence than of 
 avoiding sin, multitudes might now be living who 
 perished by literal starvation on the dreary hills of 
 Limerick or Skibbereen." * 
 
 There is not in all Europe a more thoroughly 
 Protestant country than Sweden. For three hun- 
 dred years its people have been wholly withdrawn 
 from Catholic influences. During all this time Pro- 
 testantism, upheld by the state, undisturbed by dis- 
 sent, with tli€ education of the people in the hands 
 of the clergy, and a population almost entirely ru- 
 ral, has had the fairest possible opportunity to show 
 what it is capable of doing to elevate the moral 
 character of a nation. What is the result? In 
 1838 Laing visited Sweden and made a careful 
 study of the moral and social condition of the peo- 
 ple ; and he declares that they are at the very bot- 
 tom of the scale of European morality. In 1836 
 one person out of every 112 — women, infants, sick, 
 all included — had been accused of crime, and one 
 out of every 134 convicted and punished. In 1838 
 
 * Eurcpean Morals, p. 155. 
 15 
 
178 Influence of Catholicism and 
 
 there were born in Stockholm 2,714 children, of 
 whom 1,577 were legitimate and 1,137 illegitimate, 
 leaving a balance of only 440 chaste mothers out of 
 
 2,714. 
 
 Drunkenness, too, was more common there than 
 in any other country of Europe or of the world. 
 Nearly 40,000,000 gallons of liquor were consumed 
 in 1850 by a population of only 3,000,000, which 
 gives thirteen gallons of intoxicating drink to every 
 man, woman, and child in the kingdom. 
 
 If these things could be said of any Catholic 
 nation, the whole Protestant world would stand 
 aghast, nor need other proof of the absolutely dia- 
 bolical nature of popery. Compare this agricul- 
 tural and pastoral population with the Catholic 
 Swiss mountaineers— who to this day claim to have 
 descended from a Swedish stock, and whose cli- 
 mate is not greatly different from that of Sweden — 
 and we find that the Catholic Swiss are as moral 
 and sober as the Protestant Swedes are corrupt and 
 besotted. Or compare them with the Tyrolesc, 
 than whom there is no more Catholic and liberty- 
 loving people on earth. 
 
 " Honesty may be regarded as a leading feature 
 in the character of the Tyrolesc," says Alispn. . . . 
 " In no part of the world are the domestic or con- 
 jugal duties mort strictly or faithfully observed, and 
 in none do the parish priests exercise a stricter or 
 more conscientious control over their flocks. . . . 
 Perhaps the most remarkable feature in the char- 
 acter of the Tyrolese is their uniform piety — a feel- 
 ing which is nowhere so universally diffused as 
 
ProtestantisjH on National Prosperity. 1 79 
 
 among their sequestered valleys. . . . On Sun- 
 day the xvhole people flock to church in their neat- 
 est and gayest attire ; and so great is the number who 
 thus frequent these places of worship that it is not 
 unfrequent to see the peasants kneeling on the 
 turf in the church-yard where Mass is performed, 
 from being unable to fijid a place within its walls. 
 Regularly in the evening prayers are read in every 
 family; and the traveller who passes through the vil- 
 lages at the hour of twilight often sees through their 
 latticed windows the young and the old kneeling to- 
 gether round their humble fire, or is warned of hisap- 
 proach to human habitation by hearing their evening 
 hymns stealing through the silence and solitude of 
 the forest, ... In one great virtue the peasants in 
 this country(in common, it must be owned, with most 
 Catholic states) are particularly worthy of imitation. 
 The virtue of r/^^r//;', which is too much overlooked 
 in many Protestant kingdoms, is there practised to 
 the greatest degree and by all classes of people." * 
 
 With true Protestant condescension Alison adds : 
 " Debased as their religion is by the absurdities and 
 errors of the Catholic form of worship, and mixed 
 up as it is with innumerable legends and visionary 
 tales, it yet preserves enough of the pure spirit of 
 its divine origin to influence in a great measure the 
 conduct of their private lives." 
 
 Among rural populations more than elsewhere 
 the divine power of the Christian religion is made 
 manifest. To the poor, the frugal, and the single- 
 hearted those heavenly truths which have changed 
 
 * KWsov^s Miscellaneous Essays,^. 119. 
 
1 80 Influence of Catholicism and 
 
 the world, but which were first listened to and re- 
 ceived by fishermen and shepherds, appeal with a 
 force and directness which the mere worldHng and 
 comfort-lover cannot even realize. In the presence 
 of nature so silent and awful, yet so vocal, every- 
 thing inclines the heart of man to hearken to the 
 voice of God. Mountains and rivers; long-with- 
 drawing vales and deep-sounding cataracts ; winter's 
 snows, and spring, over whose heaving bosom the 
 unseen hand weaves the tapestry that mortal fingers 
 never made ; summer's warm breath, and autumn, 
 when the strong year first feels the chill of death, 
 and "tears from the depth of some divine despair 
 rise in the heart and gather to the eyes " — all 
 speak of the higher world which they foreshadow 
 and symbolize. But in the hurry and noise of the 
 city, with its extremes of wealth and poverty, of 
 indulgence and want, of pride and degradation, the 
 pleading voice of religion is not heard at all, or is 
 heard only as a call from the shore is heard by men 
 who are madly hurrying down some rapid stream. 
 It is evident, therefore, that the easiest and surest 
 way of getting at the relative moral influence of the 
 Catholic and Protestant religions is to study their 
 action upon rural populations. We have already es- 
 tablished on the best authority the incalculable 
 moral elevation of the Catholic rural populations 
 of Switzerland and the Tyrol over the Protestants 
 of the same class in Sweden. Let us now turn to 
 Great Britain. 
 
 Kay, after having given a table of. criminal sta- 
 tistics for England and Wales for the years 1841 and 
 
Protestantism on National Prosperity. 1 8 1 
 
 1847, makes the following remarks upon the facts 
 there presented : 
 
 " This table well deserves study. It shows that 
 the proportional amount of crime to population 
 calculated in two years, 1841 and 1847, "^V'^s greater 
 in both years in almost all the agricultural counties 
 of England than it was' in the mamifactiiring and 
 mining districts. . . . With what terrible signifi- 
 cance do these statistics plead the cause of the 
 poor of our rural districts ! Notwithstanding that 
 a town-life necessarily presents so many more op- 
 portunities for, and temptations to, vice than a 
 rural life ; notwithstanding that the associations of 
 the latter are naturally so muCh purer and so much 
 more moral than those of the former ; notwith- 
 standing the wonderfully crowded state of the 
 great manufacturing cities of Lancashire ; notwith- 
 standing the constant influx of Irish, sailors, va- 
 grants, beggars, and starving natives of agricultural 
 districts of England and Wales ; and notwithstand- 
 ing the miserable state of most of the primary 
 schools of those districts and the great ignorance 
 of the majority of the inhabitants, still, in the face 
 of all these and other equally significant facts, the 
 criminality of the manufacturing districts of Lan- 
 cashire is LESS in proportion to the population 
 than that of most of the rural districts of England 
 and Wales !" "" 
 
 In Scotland illegitimacy is more common in the 
 country than in the towns and cities. In 1870 the 
 rate of illegitimacy for the whole country was 9.4 
 
 * Kay's Social Condition of ike People, vol ii. p. 392. 
 
1 82 Influence of Catholicism and 
 
 per cent., or i in every 10.6 ; whereas in the rural 
 districts alone it was 10.5, or i in every 9.5. In 
 1871 it was for the whole country lo.i, or i in every 
 9.8, and in the rural districts 1 1.2, or i in every 
 8.9.* In England also the rate of illegitimacy is 
 much larger in the rural districts than in the 
 cities, whereas in Catholic France it is just the re- 
 verse. In the country districts of England we have 
 the following rate : 
 
 Nottingham, 8.9 
 
 York, North Riding 8.9 
 
 Salop, g.8 
 
 Westmoreland, 9.7 
 
 Norfolk, 10.7 
 
 Cumberland, 11.4 
 
 In France : 
 
 Rural districts, 42 
 
 La Vendee, 2.2 
 
 Brittany — Cote d'Or, 1.2 
 
 Thus in the most Catholic rural districts of France 
 there are only one or two illegitimate births in 
 every hundred. 
 
 This is also true of Prussia, whose most strongly 
 Catholic provinces are Westphalia and the Rhine- 
 land. In Westphalia there are only three and a 
 half illegitimate births in every hundred, and in 
 the Rhineland only three and a third ; but in tho- 
 roughly Protestant Pomerania and Brandenburg 
 there are ten and twelve illegitimate births in the 
 hundred. f In Ireland, again, we find the same 
 
 •See London Statistical yournal, J870, 1871, 
 t Historische Politiicht Blatter ^ 1867. 
 
Protesta ntism on National Prosperity. 1 8 3 
 
 state of things. The rate of illegitimate births for 
 all Ireland is 3.8 percent. ; but the lowest proportion 
 is in Connaught, nineteen-twentieths of whose peo- 
 ple are Catholics, and the greatest is in Ulster, half 
 of whose population is Protestant. " The sum of 
 the whole matter," says the Scotsman (June, 1869), 
 a leading organ of Presbyterian Scotland, " is that 
 semi-Presbyterian and semi-Scotch Ulster is fully 
 three times more immoral than wholly popish and 
 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." There is no reason why 
 further proof should be given of what is a manifest 
 truth ; that rural populations — let us say, rather, 
 the people — in proportion as they are Catholic, are 
 also chaste ; and consequently that the Catholic 
 Church, as every man who is competent to judge 
 must know, is the mother of purity, which is the 
 soul of Christian life, and without which we cannot 
 draw near to the heart of the Saviour and su- 
 preme Lover of men. Protestants, however, will 
 be at no loss for arguments. Should the worst 
 come to the worst, illegitimacy, like the gallows, 
 may be declared an evidence of civilization, and 
 then it needs must follow, as the night the day, 
 that it is more common in Protestant than in 
 Catholic countries. 
 
 Let us now turn to the vice of intemperance. 
 " I am sure," says Hill, " that I am within the 
 truth when I state, as the result of minute and 
 extensive inquiry, that, in four cases out of five, 
 
1 84 Injlucncc of Caiholicism and 
 
 when an offence is committed intoxicating drink 
 has been one of the causes."* 
 
 In an attempt, then, to form an estimate of the 
 relative morality of nations, we should not omit to 
 consider the vice of drunkenness, which is the 
 cause of half the crime and misery in the world. 
 Were it in our power to obtain accurate statistics 
 on this subject, as on that of illegitimacy, the su- 
 perior sobriety of the Catholic nations would be 
 shown even more strikingly than their superior 
 chastity. The Spaniards, it is universally acknow- 
 ledged, are the soberest people in Europe, as the 
 Swedes are the most intemperate. Their respec- 
 tive geographical positions suggest at once what is 
 often assigned as a sufficient explanation of this 
 fact — the great difference of climate. It was long 
 supposed that the southern nations were more sen- 
 sual than the northern, because it was thought a 
 warm climate must necessarily develop a greater 
 violence of passion. We know now, however, that 
 this is not the case. Though climate has an un- 
 doubted influence on morality, its action is yet so 
 modified or controlled among Christian and civiliz- 
 ed nations that generalizations founded upon its 
 supposed effects are unreliable. The Swedes and 
 the Scotch are intemperate, the Spaniards and the 
 Italians are sober. The former are Protestant, the 
 latter Catholic; it is therefore at once evident that 
 religion has nothing to do with this matter, which 
 can only be accounted for by the difference of 
 
 * Crime : Us Amount, Causes, and Remedies. By Frederick Hill, Earrister- 
 at-law, late Inspector of Prisons. London, p. 65. 
 
Protestantism on A^ational Prosperity. 185 
 
 climate. These are the tactics of our opponents ; 
 those virtues in which the Catholic nations excel 
 must be attributed to natural causes ; but when 
 some of them are found to lack the enterprise and 
 industrial spirit of the English or the Americans, it 
 would be altogether unreasonable to ascribe this to 
 anything else than their*religion. 
 
 Scotch statistics show a greater amount of intem- 
 perance in summer than in winter, which would 
 seem to indicate that a high temperature does not 
 tend to destroy the passion for intoxicating drink. 
 But we do not propose to enter into a discussion 
 of causes, which, however, we are perfectly willing 
 jto take up at the proper time. Our controversy 
 with M. de Laveleye turns upon facts. 
 
 We have already cited the testimony of Laing to 
 show that the Swedes, after they had been under 
 the exclusive influence of Protestantism for three 
 hundred years, were the most drunken people in 
 Europe. Laing was in Venice on the occasion of a 
 festival, when the whole population had turned out 
 for pleasure, and he did not see a single case of 
 intoxication ; not a single instance, even among the 
 boys, of rudeness ; and yet all were singing, talk- 
 ing, and enjoying themselves. He gives the follow- 
 ing account of a popular merry-making which he 
 saw at Florence : 
 
 " It happened that the 9th of May was kept here 
 as a great holiday by the lower class, as May-day 
 with us, and they assembled in a kind of park about 
 a mile from the city, where booths, tents, and carts, 
 with wine and eatables for sale, were in crowds and 
 
1 86 Injlue7ice of Catholicism and 
 
 clusters, as at our village wakes and race-courses. 
 The multitude from town and country round could 
 not be less than twenty thousand people, grouped 
 in small parties, dancing, singing, talking, dining 
 on the grass, and enjoying themselves. / did not 
 sec a single instance of inebriety, ill-temper, or unruly, 
 boisterous conduct ; yet the people were gay and 
 jo3^ous. * 
 
 Robert Dale Owen, writing from Naples, said : 
 " I have not seen a man even partially intoxicated 
 since I have been in the city, of 420,000 inhabitants, 
 and they say one may live here for four years with- 
 out seeing one." 
 
 Let us now turn to Protestant lands. St. Cuth- 
 bert's parish, Edinburgh, had in 1861 a population 
 somewhat exceeding 90,000 souls. Of these, 1,953 
 were " drunk and incapable," 3,935 were " drunk and 
 discharged"; making in all 5,888, or nearly. I in 15. 
 
 In Salford jail (England), in 1870, the proportion 
 of commitments for drunkenness was, as compared 
 with commitments for all offences, 37 per cent.f 
 
 We have it upon the authority of the English 
 government that in 1874 no fewer than 285,730 Bri- 
 tons were proceeded against for being drunk and 
 disorderly, or drunk and not disorderly ; and, of 
 course, to this must be added the probably greater 
 number who escaped arrest. Mr. Granville, one of 
 the secretaries of the Church of England Society in 
 the diocese of Durham, estimates that there is an 
 aggregate of 700,000 habitual drunkards in Eng- 
 
 * Notes of a Traz'eller, pp. 4iS-ig. 
 
 t See London Statistical Journal, 1871. 
 
Protestantism on National Prosperity. 187 
 
 land. " It is a melancholy but undeniable fact," 
 says the Alliance Neivs, '* that, notwithstanding 
 vast agencies of improvement, intemperance, crime, 
 pauperism, insanity, and brutality are more ram- 
 pant than ever; and, if we except pauperism, these 
 evils have more than doubled in the last forty 
 years." We have not been able to get the statis- 
 tics of drunkenness for Ireland, and can therefore 
 institute no comparison between England and that 
 country with regard to intemperance ; ^ but we 
 have before us the criminal statistics of both coun- 
 tries for 1854, the population of England and Wales 
 in that year being about three times as great as 
 that of Ireland. The following table of convictions 
 will enable us to form an estimate of the compara- 
 tive honesty of the two nations : 
 
 Robberj' by persons armed, England and Wales, 
 Robbery by persons armed, Ireland, . 
 Larceny from the person, England and Wales, . 
 Larceny from the person, Ireland, 
 Larceny by servants, f England and Wales, 
 Larceny by servants, Ireland, .... 
 Larceny, simple, England and Wales, 
 
 Larceny, simple, Ireland 
 
 Frauds and attempts to defraud, England and Wales, 
 Frauds and attempts to defraud, Ireland, . 
 Forgery, England and Wales, . . . . 
 
 210 
 2 
 
 1-570 
 
 389 
 
 2,140 
 
 44 
 12,562 
 
 3.329 
 
 676 
 
 62 
 
 149 
 
 * In 1871, 14,501,983 gallons of spirits were distilled in Scotland. What propor- 
 tion of this was consumed at home we do not know. For the same year the num- 
 ber of gallons entered for home consumption in Ireland was 5,212,746. The popu- 
 lation of Scotland is nearly three millions and a half, and that of Ireland about 
 five millions and a half. 
 
 t England and Wales, with not quite three times the population of Ireland, had 
 fifty times as many cases of dishonesty among servants, which clearly accounts for 
 those newspaper advertisements in which English housekeepers are careful to 
 state that " no Irish need apply." 
 
1 88 Influence of Catholicistn and 
 
 Forgery, Ireland, ......... 4 
 
 Uttering and having in possession counterfeit coin, Eng- 
 land and Wales, 674 
 
 Uttering and having in possession counterfeit coin, Ire- 
 land 4 
 
 On the other hand, the following crimes are pro- 
 portionately more numerous in Ireland: 
 
 Convictions for manslaughter in 1854 : 
 
 England and Wales, 96 
 
 Ireland 50 
 
 Burglary, England and Wales, 3S4 
 
 " Ireland, 240 
 
 We cannot think, however, that these returns 
 are trustworthy, for the Statistical Journal of 1867 
 gives the following criminal tables for England in 
 1865: 
 
 Wilful murder cases tried, 60 
 
 Manslaughter 316 
 
 Concealment of birth, 143 
 
 Total; 519 
 
 And in Ireland from 1865 to 1871, a period of 
 six years, only 21 persons were sentenced to death, 
 of whom 13 were executed, Irish crime, in its 
 worst phase, grows out of the injustice and wrongs 
 inflicted upon the people by their Protestant rulers; 
 and though no condemnation of agrarian outrages 
 can be too severe, it must nevertheless be admitted 
 that the landlords and their agents are more guilty 
 than the victims whom their cruelties have driven 
 to deeds of desperation. 
 
 It is greatly to be regretted that criminal sta- 
 tistics give us no information upon the religious 
 
Protestantism on National Prosperity. 1 89 
 
 character of the persons accused or convicted of 
 offences against the law. Many have been bap- 
 tized in infancy, and are called Catholics, who have 
 never been brought under the influence of the 
 church. In the absence of official statistics. Dr. 
 Descuret, who, in his capacity of legal physician in 
 Paris, had abundant opportunity to obtain data re- 
 lative to this subject, made, about thirty years ago, 
 a careful study of the religious views and sentiments 
 of French criminals. The conclusion which he 
 reached was that, in every hundred persons accused 
 of crime, fifty are indifferentists in religion, forty 
 are infidels, and the remaining ten sincere believers. 
 In a hundred suicides he found only four persons 
 of known piety, three of whom were women sub- 
 ject to melancholia, and the other had been for 
 some time m.entally deranged.* 
 
 * La Medecine d€s Passions, y. 116. 
 

 
 
 BJfc^rif^4; 
 
 Y^^,^ - 
 
 |P^ 
 
 
 MLSv 
 
 m^smsi 
 
 PRUSSIA AND THE CHURCH. 
 
 HE first attempts to introduce the Chris- 
 tian religion into Prussia were unsuc- 
 cessful. St. Adalbert in 997, and St. Bru- 
 no in 1009, suffered martyrdom whilst 
 preaching the Gospel there, and the efforts of Po- 
 land to force the conquered Prussians to receive the 
 faith only increased the bitterness of their anti- 
 Christian prejudices. Early in the twelfth century 
 Bisiiop Otto, of Bamberg, made many conversions 
 in Pomerania; and finally, in the beginning of the 
 thirteenth, the Cistercian monk Christian, with the 
 approval and encouragement of Pope Innocent III., 
 set to work to bring the Prussians into the church, 
 and met with such success that in 1215 he was 
 made bishop of the country. The greater part of 
 the people, however, still remained heathens, and 
 the progress of Christianity aroused in them such 
 indignation that they determined to oppose its far- 
 ther advance with the sword. To protect his flock 
 Bishop Christian called to his aid the knights of the 
 Teutonic Order ; in furtherance of his designs, the 
 Emperor Frederick II. turned the whole country 
 over to them, and Pope Gregory IX. took measures 
 
Prussia and the Church. 191 
 
 to increase their number, so that they might be 
 able to hold possession of this field, now first open- 
 ed to the Gospel. Pope Innocent IV. also mani- 
 fested special interest in the welfare of the church 
 in Prussia ; he urged priests and monks to devote 
 themselves to this mission, supported and encour- 
 aged the bishops in their trials and difficulties, and 
 exhorted the convents throughout Germany to 
 contribute books for the education of the people. 
 But circumstances were not wanting which made 
 the position of the church in Prussia very unsa- 
 tisfactory. The people had for the most part 
 been brought under her influence by the power 
 of arms, and consequently to a great extent re- 
 mained strangers to her true spirit. The Teutonic 
 Order, moreover, gave ecclesiastical positions only 
 to German priests, so as to hold out inducements to 
 the people to learn German ; though, as a conse- 
 quence, the priests were unable to communicate 
 with their flocks, except by the aid of interpre- 
 ters. 
 
 The grand master, too, had almost unlimited 
 control over the election of bishops, which was the 
 cause of many evils, especially as the order gradu- 
 ally grew lax in the observance of the rule, and 
 lost much of its Christian character. Unworthy 
 men were thrust into ecclesiastical offices, the 
 standard of morality among the clergy was lowered, 
 and the people lost respect for the priesthood. It 
 is not surprising, in view of all this, that the reli- 
 gious sectaries of the thirteenth and fourteenth 
 centuries should have found favor in Prussia, and 
 
192 Prussia and the Cluirch. 
 
 made converts among her still half-pagan popula- 
 tions. 
 
 In 1466 the Teutonic Order became a depen- 
 dency of the crown of Poland. There was no hope 
 of its freeing itself from this liumiliating subjection 
 Avithout foreign aid ; and with a view to obtain 
 this, the knights resolved to choose their grand mas- 
 ter from one or other of the most powerful German 
 families. First, in 1498, they elected Frederick, 
 Duke of Saxony ; and upon his death, in 1510, Al- 
 brecht, Margrave of Brandenburg, was chosen to 
 succeed him. 
 
 Albrecht refused the oath of supremacy to Sigis- 
 mund, King of Poland, who thereupon, in 15 19, 
 declared war upon him. 
 
 To meet the expenses of the war, Albrecht had 
 the sacred vessels of the church melted down and 
 minted ; but he was unable to stand against the 
 arms of Poland, and therefore sought the media- 
 tion of the Emperor of Germany, through whose 
 •good offices he was able to conclude, in 1521, a four 
 years' truce. He now went into Germany, where 
 Luther was already preaching the Protestant re- 
 bellion, and asked aid from the imperial Parliament, 
 which was holding its sessions at Nuremberg ; and 
 as this was denied him, he turned with favor to 
 the teachers of the new doctrines. The Teutonic 
 Order had become thoroughly corrupt, and Leo X. 
 urged Albreclit to begin a reformation /// capite et 
 vicmbris ; but the grand master sought the advice 
 of Luther, from whom he received the not unwel- 
 come counsel to throw away the " stupid, unnatural 
 
Prjtssia and the Church. 193 
 
 rule of his order, take a wife, and turn Prussia into 
 a temporal hereditary principality." Albrecht ac- 
 cordingly asked for preachers of the new doctrines, 
 and in 1526 announced his abandonment of the 
 order and the Catholic Church by his marriage 
 with the daughter of the King of Denmark. Act- 
 ing upon the Protestant principle, cujus regio ejus 
 religio — the ruler of the land makes its religion — he 
 forced the Prussians to quit the church from which 
 they had received whatever culture and civilization 
 they had. 
 
 At his death, in 1568, Lutheranism had gained 
 complete possession of the country. 
 
 A few Catholics, however, remained, for whom, 
 early in the seventeenth century. King Sigismund 
 of Poland succeeded in obtaining liberty of con- 
 science, which was still denied to those of Branden- 
 burg. Frederick William, the second king of Prus- 
 sia, and the first to form the design of placing her 
 among the great powers of Europe by the aid of a 
 strong military organization, in giving directions in 
 1718 for the education of his son, afterwards Fre- 
 derick the Great, insisted that the boy should be 
 inspired with a horror of the Catholic Church, '' the 
 groundlessness and absurdity of whose teachings 
 should be placed before his eyes and well impressed 
 upon his mind." 
 
 Frederick William was a rigid Calvinist ; and if he 
 tolerated a few Catholics in his dominions, it was 
 only that he might vent his ill-humor or exercise 
 his proselytizing zeal upon them. He indeed 
 granted Father Raymundus Bruns permission to 
 
 10 
 
194 Prussia and the Church. 
 
 say Mass in the garrisons at Berlin and Potsdam, 
 but only after he had been assured that it would 
 tend to prevent desertions among his Catholic sol- 
 diers, and that, as Raymundus was a monk, bound 
 by a vow of poverty, he would ask no pay from his 
 majesty. 
 
 In 1746 permission was granted the Catholics to 
 hold public worship in Berlin, and the St. Hedwig's 
 Church was built ; in Pomeraiiia, how.ever, this pri- 
 vilege was denied them, except in the Polish dis- 
 tricts. 
 
 During the eighteenth century congregations 
 were formed at Stettin and Stralsund. In the 
 principality of Halberstadt the Catholics were al- 
 lowed to retain possession of a church and several 
 monasteries, in which public worship was permit- 
 ted ; and in what had been the archbishopric of 
 Magdeburg there were left to them one Benedictine 
 monastery and four convents of Cistercian nuns. 
 These latter, however, were placed under the su- 
 pervision of Protestant ministers. 
 
 Frederick the Great early in life fell under the 
 influence of Voltaire and his disciples, from whom 
 he learned to despise all religion, and especially 
 the rigid Calvinism of his father. He became a 
 religious sceptic, and, satisfied with his contempt 
 for all forms of faith, did not take the trouble to 
 persecute any. He asked of his subjects, whether 
 Protestant or Catholic, nothing but money and 
 recruits ; for the rest, he allowed every one in his 
 dominions " to save his soul after his own fashion." 
 He provided chaplains for his Catholic soldiers, 
 
Pritssia and the Chiirck. 195 
 
 and forbade the Calvinist and Lutheran ministers 
 to interfere with their religious freedom, for reasons 
 similar to those which had induced his father to 
 permit Raymundus Bruns to say Mass in the garri- 
 son at Berlin. He had certainly no thought of 
 showing any favor to the church, except so far as 
 it might promote his own ambitious projects. His 
 great need of soldiers made him throw every ob- 
 stacle in the way of those who wished to enter the 
 priesthood, and his fear of foreign influence caused 
 him to forbid priests to leave the country. His 
 mistrust of priests was so great that he gave in- 
 structions to Count Hoym, his Minister of State, to 
 place them under a system of espionage. Catho- 
 lics were carefully excluded from all influential and 
 lucrative positions. They were taxed more heavily 
 than Protestants, and professors in the universities 
 were required to take an oath to uphold the Re- 
 formation. 
 
 Notwithstanding, it was in the reign of Frederick 
 the Great that the Catholic Church in Prussia may 
 be said to have entered upon a new life. For more 
 than two hundred years it had had no recognized 
 status there ; but through the conquest of Silesia 
 and the division of Poland, a large Catholic popu- 
 lation was incorporated into the kingdom of Prus- 
 sia, and thus a new element, which was formally 
 recognized in the constitution promulgated by 
 Frederick's immediate successor, was introduced into 
 the Prussian state. Together with the toleration 
 of all who believed in God and were loyal to the 
 king, the law of the land placed the Catholic and 
 
196 Prussia ajid tJic ChurcJi. 
 
 Protestant cluircbes on an equal footing. To under- 
 stand how far this was favorable to the church we 
 must go back and consider the relations of Prussia 
 to Protestantism. 
 
 What is known as the Territorial System, by 
 which the faith of the people is delivered into the 
 hands of the temporal ruler, has existed in Prussia 
 from the time Albrecht of Brandenburg went over 
 to the Reformers. Protestantism and absolutism 
 triumphed simultaneously throughout Europe, and 
 this must undoubtedly be in a great measure attri- 
 buted to the fact that the Protestants, whether 
 willingly or not, yielded up their faith into the 
 keeping of kings and princes, and thus practically 
 abandoned the distinction of the spiritual and tem- 
 poral powers which lies at the foundation of Chris- 
 tian civilization, and is also the strongest bulwark 
 against the encroachments of governments upon the 
 rights of citizens. Duke Albrecht had hardly be- 
 come a Protestant when he felt that it was his duty 
 (" coacti sunms " are his words) to take upon him- 
 self the episcopal office. This was in 1530 ; in 1550 
 he treated the urgent request of the Assembly to 
 have the bishopric of Samland restored as an attack 
 upon his princely prerogative. 
 
 His successor diverted to other uses the fund 
 destined for the maintenance of the bishops, and 
 instituted two consistories, to which he entrusted 
 the ecclesiastical affairs of the duchy. 
 
 During the seventeenth century Calvinism gained 
 a firm foothold in Prussia. It became the religion 
 of the ruling family, and Frederick William, called ' 
 
Prussia and the Church. 197 
 
 the Great Elector, to whose policy his successors 
 have agreed to ascribe their power, sought in every- 
 way to promote its interests, though he strenu- 
 ously exercised his jus cpiscopale, his spiritual su- 
 premacy over both the Lutherans and the Cal- 
 vinists. 
 
 His son, Frederick, who first took the title of 
 King of Prussia (1700), continued the policy of his 
 father with regard to ecclesiastical affairs. " To us 
 alone," he declared to the Landstand, " belongs the 
 JUS supremuin cpiscopale, the highest and sovereign 
 right in ecclesiastical matters." 
 
 The Lutherans wished to retain the exorcism as 
 a part of the ceremony of baptism ; but Frederick 
 published an edict by which he forbade the ap- 
 pointment of any minister who would refuse to con- 
 fer the sacrament without making use of this cere- 
 mony. In the same way he meddled with the 
 Lutheran practice of auricular confession ; and by 
 an order issued in 1703 prohibited the publication 
 of theological writings which had not received his 
 imprimatur. 
 
 His successor, Frederick William, the father of 
 Frederick the Great, looked upon himself as the 
 absolute and irresponsible master of the subjects 
 whom God had given him. " I am king and mas- 
 ter," he was wont to say, " and can do what I 
 please." He was a rigid Calvinist, and made his 
 absolutism felt more especially in religious matters. 
 It seems that preachers then, as since, were some- 
 times in the habit of delivering long sermons ; so 
 King Frederick William put a fine of two thalers 
 
198 Prussia and the Chitrch. 
 
 upon any one who should preach longer tlian one 
 hour. He required his preachers to insist in all ' 
 their sermons upon the duty of obedience and loyal- 
 ty to the king, and the government officials were 
 charged to report any failure to make special men- 
 tion of this obligation. Both Lutherans and Cal- 
 vinists were forbidden to touch in their sermons 
 upon any points controverted between the two con- 
 fessions. No detail of religious worship was insig- 
 nificant enough to escape his meddlesome tyranny. 
 The length of the service, the altar, the vestments 
 of the minister, the sign of the cross, the giving or 
 singing the blessing, all fell under his " high episco- 
 pal supervision." 
 
 This unlovely old king was followed by Frederick 
 the Great, who, though an infidel and a scoffer, 
 held as firmly as his father to his sovereign episco- 
 pal prerogatives, and who, if less meddlesome, was 
 not less arbitrary. And now we have got back to 
 the constitution which, after Silesia and a part of 
 Poland had been united to the crown of Prussia, 
 was partially drawn up under Frederick the Great, 
 and completed and promulgated during the reign 
 of his successor ; and which, as Ave have already 
 said, placed the three principal confessions of the 
 Christian faith in the Prussian states — the Luthe- 
 ran, the Reformed, and the Catholic — on a footing 
 of equality before the law. Now, it must be no- 
 ticed, this constitution left intact the absolute au- 
 thority of the king over the Reformed and Luthe- 
 ran churches, and therefore what might seem to be 
 a great gain for the Catholic Church was really none 
 
Prussia and the Church. 199 
 
 at all, since it was simply placed under the supreme 
 jurisdiction of the king. There was no express re- 
 cognition of the organic union of the church in 
 Prussia with the pope, nor of the right of the bi- 
 shops to govern their dioceses according to the ec- 
 clesiastical canons, but rather the tacit assumption 
 that the king was head of the Catholic as of the 
 Protestant churches in Prussia. The constitution 
 was drawn up by Suarez, a bitter enemy of the 
 church, and in many of its details was characterized 
 by an anti-Catholic spirit. It annulled, for in- 
 stance, the contract made by parents of different 
 faith concerning the religious education of their 
 children, and manifested in many other ways that 
 petty and tyrannical spirit which has led Prussia to 
 interfere habitually with the internal discipline and 
 working of the church. 
 
 As the Catholic population of Prussia increased 
 through the annexation of different German states, 
 this constitution, which gave the king supreme con- 
 trol of spiritual matters, was extended to the new- 
 ly-acquired territories. Thus all through the eigh- 
 teenth century the church in Prussia, though not 
 openly persecuted, was fettered. No progress was 
 made, abuses could not be reformed, the appoint- 
 ment of bishops was not free, the training of the 
 priesthood was very imperfect ; and it is not sur- 
 prising that this slavery should have been produc- 
 tive of many and serious evils. 
 
 The French Revolution and the wars of Napo- 
 leon, which caused social and political upheavals 
 throughout Europe, toppled down thrones, over- 
 
200 Prtissia and the Church. 
 
 threw empires, and broke up and reformed the 
 boundaries of nations, mark a new epoch in the 
 history of Prussia, and indeed of all Germany, whose 
 people had been taught by these disastrous wars 
 that they had common interests which could not be 
 protected without national unity, the want of which 
 had never before been made so painfully manifest. 
 
 After the downfall of Napoleon, the ambassa- 
 dors of the Allied Powers met in Vienna to settle 
 the affairs of all Europe. Nations, provinces, 
 and cities were given away in the most reckless 
 manner, without any thought of the interests or 
 wishes of the people, to the kings and rulers who 
 could command the greatest influence in the con- 
 gress or whose displeasure was most feared, Ger- 
 many demanded the restoration of Alsace and 
 Lorraine, but was thwarted in her designs by 
 Great Britain and Russia, who feared the restora- 
 tion of her ancient power. 
 
 Prussia received from the congress, as some com- 
 pensation for its sufferings and sacrifices during 
 the Napoleonic wars, the duchies of Jiilich and 
 Berg, the former possessions of the episcopal sees 
 of Cologne and Treves, and several other territories, 
 which were formed into the Rhine province. On 
 the other hand, it lost a portion of the Sclavonic 
 population which it had held on the east ; so that, 
 though it gained nothing in territory, it became 
 more strictly a German state, and was consequent- 
 ly better fitted gradually to take the lead in the ir- 
 repressible movement toward the unification of Ger- 
 manv. 
 
Prussia and the Church. 201 
 
 In the Congress of Vienna it was stipulated that 
 Catholics and Protestants should have equal rights 
 before the law. The constitutional law of Prussia 
 was extended to the newly-acquired provinces, and 
 " all ecclesiastical matters, whether of Roman Ca- 
 tholics or Protestants, together with the super- 
 vision and administration of all charitable funds, 
 the confirming of all persons appointed to spiritual 
 offices, and the supervision over the administration 
 of ecclesiastics as far as it may have any relation to 
 civil affairs, were reserved to the government." 
 
 In 1817, upon the occasion of the reorganization 
 of the government, we perceive to what practical 
 purposes these principles were to be applied. The 
 church was debased to a function of the state, her 
 interests were placed in the hands of the ministry 
 for spiritual affairs, and the education of even 
 clerical students was put under the control of gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 It was in this same year, 1817, that the tercen- 
 tennial anniversary of the birth of Protestantism 
 was celebrated. For two centuries Protestant faith 
 in Germany had been dying out. Eager and bitter 
 controversies, the religious wars and the plunder 
 of church property during the sixteenth and early 
 part of the seventeenth centuries, had given it an 
 unnatural and artificial vigor. It was a mighty and 
 radical revolution, social, political, and religious, 
 and therefore gave birth to fanaticism and intense 
 partisan zeal, and was in turn helped on by them. 
 
 There is a natural strength in a new faith, and 
 when it is tried by war and persecution it seems to 
 
 17 
 
202 Prussia and the Church. 
 
 rise to a divine power. Protestantism burst upon 
 Europe with irresistible force. Fifty years had not 
 passed since Luther had burned the bull of Pope 
 Leo, and the Catholic Church, beaten almost every- 
 where in the North of Europe, seemed hardly able 
 to hold her own on the shores of the Mediterra- 
 nean ; fifty years later, and Protestantism was saved 
 in Germany itself only by the arms of Catholic 
 France. The peace of Westphalia, in 1648, put an 
 end to the religious wars of Germany, and from 
 that date the decay of the Protestant faith was 
 rapid. Many causes helped on the work of ruin ; 
 the inherent weakness of the Protestant system 
 from its purely negative character, the growing and 
 bitter dissensions among Protestants, the hopeless 
 slavery to which the sects had been reduced by the 
 civil power, all tended to undermine faith. In the 
 Palatinate, within a period of sixty years, the rulers 
 had forced the people to change their religion four 
 times. In Prussia, whose king, as we have seen, 
 was supreme head of the church, the ruling house 
 till 1539 was Catholic; then, till 1613, Lutheran; 
 from that date to 1740, Calvinistic ; from 1740 to 
 1786, infidel, the avowed ally of Voltaire and 
 D'Alembert ; then, till 1817, Calvinistic; and final- 
 ly again evangelical. 
 
 During the long reign of Frederick the Great 
 unbelief made steady progress. Men no longer 
 attacked this or that article of faith, but Christi- 
 anity itself. The quickest way, it was openly said 
 by many, to get rid of superstition and priestcraft, 
 would be to abolish preaching altogether, and thus 
 
Prussia and the Church, 203 
 
 remove the ghost of religion from the eyes of the 
 people. It seems strange that such license of 
 thought and expression should have been tolerated, 
 and even encouraged, in a country where religion 
 itself has never been free ; but it is a peculiarity 
 of the Prussian system of government that while 
 it hampers and fetters the church and all religious 
 organizations, it leaves the widest liberty of con- 
 science to the individual. Its policy appears to be 
 to foster indifference and infidelity, in order to use 
 them against what it considers religious fanaticism. 
 Another circumstance which favored infidelity may 
 be found in the political thraldom in which Prussia 
 held her people. As men were forbidden to speak 
 or write on subjects relating to the government or 
 the public welfare, they took refuge in theological 
 and philosophical discussions, which in Protestant 
 lands have never failed to lead to unbelief. This 
 same state of things tended to promote the intro- 
 duction and increase of secret societies, which, in 
 the latter half of the eighteenth century, sprang 
 up in great numbers throughout Germany, bearing 
 a hundred different names, but always having anti- 
 Christian tendencies. 
 
 To stop the spread of infidelity, Frederick William 
 II., the successor of Frederick the Great, issued, in 
 1788, an "edict, embracing the constitution of re- 
 ligion in the Prussian states." The king declared 
 that he could no longer suffer in his dominions that 
 men should openly seek to undermine religion, to 
 make the Bible ridiculous in the eyes of the peo- 
 ple, and to raise in public the banner of unbelief, 
 
204 Prussia and the Church. 
 
 deism, and naturalism. lie would in future permit 
 no farther change in the creed, whether of the 
 Lutheran or the Reformed Church. This was the 
 more necessary as he had himself noticed with sor- 
 row, years before he ascended the throne, that the 
 Protestant ministers allowed themselves boundless 
 license with regard to the articles of faith, and in- 
 deed altogether rejected several essential parts and 
 fundamental verities of the Protestant Church and 
 the Christian religion. They blushed not to revive 
 the long-since-refuted errors of the Socinians, the 
 deists, and the naturalists, and to scatter them 
 among the people under the false name of enlighten- 
 ment {Anfkldriing),\v\v\?X they treated God's Word 
 with disdain, and strove to throw suspicion upon the 
 mysteries of revelation. Since this was intolera- 
 ble, he therefore, as ruler of the land and only law- 
 giver in his states, commanded and ordered that in 
 future no clergyman, preacher, or school-teacher of 
 the Protestant religion should presume, under pain 
 of perpetual loss of office and of even severer pun- 
 ishment, to disseminate the errors already named ; 
 for, as it was his duty to preserve intact the law of 
 the land, so was it incumbent upon him to see that 
 religion should be kept free from taint ; and he 
 could not, consequently, allow its ministers to sub- 
 stitute their whims and fancies for the truths of 
 Christianity. They must teach what had been 
 agreed upon in the symbols of faith of the de- 
 nomination to which they belonged ; to this they 
 were bound by their office and the contract under 
 which they had received their positions. Never- 
 
Prussia and the Church. 205 
 
 theless, out of his great love for freedom of con- 
 science, the king was wiUing that those who were 
 known to disbelieve in the articles of faith might 
 retain their offices, provided they consented to 
 teach their flocks what they were themselves un- 
 able to believe. 
 
 In this royal edict we have at once the fullest 
 confession of the general unbelief that was de- 
 stroying Protestantism in Prussia, and of the hope- 
 lessness of any attempt to arrest its progress. What 
 could be more pitiable than the condition of a church 
 powerless to control its ministers, and publicly re- 
 cognizing their right to be hypocrites? How could 
 men who had no faith teach others to believe ? 
 Moreover, what could be more absurd, from a 
 Protestant point of view, than to seek to force 
 the acceptance of symbols of faith when the whole 
 Reformation rested upon the assumed right of the 
 individual to decide for himself what should or 
 should not be believed ? Or was it to be supposed 
 that men could invest the conflicting creeds of the 
 sects with a sacredness which they had denied to 
 that of the universal church ? It is not surprising, 
 therefore, that the only effect of the edict should 
 have been to increase the energy and activity of 
 the infidels and free-thinkers. 
 
 Frederick William III., who ascended the throne 
 in 1797, recognizing the futility of his father's at- 
 tempt to keep alive faith in Protestantism, stopped 
 the enforcement of the edict, with the express de- 
 claration that its effect had been to lessen religion 
 and increase hypocrisy. Abandoning all hope of 
 
206 Prussia and the CJuirch. 
 
 controlling the faith of the preachers, he turned his 
 attention to their morals. A decree of the Ober- 
 consistorium of Berlin, in 1798, ordered that the 
 conduct of the ministers should be closely watched 
 and every means employed to stop the daily-in- 
 creasing immorality of the servants of the church, 
 which was having the most injurious effects upon 
 their congregations. Parents had almost ceased 
 having their children baptized, or had them chris- 
 tened in the " name of Frederick the Great," or 
 in the " name of the good and the fair," sometimes 
 with rose-water. 
 
 But the calamities which befell Germany during 
 the wars of the French Revolution and the empire 
 seemed to have turned the thoughts of many to 
 religion. The frightful humiliations of the Father- 
 land were looked upon as a visitation from heaven 
 upon the people for their sins and unbelief; and 
 therefore, when the tercentennial anniversary of 
 Protestantism came around (in 1817), they were 
 prepared to enter upon its celebration with earnest 
 enthusiasm. The celebration took the form of an 
 anti-Catholic demonstration. For many years con- 
 troversy between Protestants and Catholics had 
 ceased ; but now a wholly unprovoked but bitter 
 and grossly insulting attack was made upon the 
 church from all the Protestant pulpits of Germany 
 and in numberless writings. The result of this 
 wanton aggression was a reawakening of Catholic 
 faith and life ; whilst the attempt to take advan- 
 tage of the Protestant enthusiasm to bring about 
 a union between the Lutheran and Reformed 
 
Prussia and the Church. 207 
 
 churches in Prussia, ended in causing fresh dissen- 
 sions and divisions. The sect of the Old Luther- 
 ans was formed, which, in spite of persecution, 
 finally succeeded in obtaining toleration, though 
 not till many of its adherents had been driven 
 across the ocean into exile. 
 
 As the Congress of Vienna had decided that 
 Catholics and Protestants should be placed upon a 
 footing of equality, and as Prussia had received a 
 large portion of the secularized lands of the church, 
 with the stipulation that she should provide for 
 the maintenance of Catholic worship, the govern- 
 ment, in 1816, sent Niebuhr, the historian, to 
 Rome, to treat with the pope concerning the reor- 
 ganization of the Catholic religion in the Prussian 
 states. Finall}'-, in 1821, an agreement was signed 
 which received the sanction of the king, and was 
 published as a fundamental law of the state. 
 
 In this Concordat with the Holy See there is at 
 least a tacit recognition of the true nature of the 
 church, of her organic unity — a beginning of re- 
 spect for her freedom, and a seeming promise of a 
 better future. In point of fact, however, in spite 
 of Niebuhr's assurance to the Holy Father that 
 he might rely upon the honest intentions of the 
 government, Prussia began almost at once to med- 
 dle with the rights of Catholics. A silent and slow 
 persecution was inaugurated, by which it was 
 hoped their patience would be exhausted and their 
 strength wasted. And now we shall examine more 
 closely the artful and heartless policy by which, 
 with but slight variations, for more than two cen- 
 
2o8 Prussia and the CJnircJi. 
 
 turies Prussia has sought to undermine the Catho- 
 'lic religion. In 1827 the Protestants of all com- 
 munions in Prussia amounted to 6,370,380, and the 
 Catholics to 4,023,513. These populations are, to 
 only a very limited extent, intermingled ; certain 
 provinces being almost entirely Catholic, and others 
 nearly wholly Protestant. By law the same rights 
 are granted to both Catholics and Protestants ; 
 and both, therefore, should receive like treatment 
 at the hands of the government. 
 
 This is the theory; what are the facts? We will 
 take the religious policy of Prussia from the reor- 
 ganization of the church after the Congress of 
 Vienna down to the revolution of 1848, and we 
 will begin with the subject of education. For the 
 six millions of Protestants there were four exclu- 
 sively Protestant universities, at Berlin, Halle, 
 Konigsberg, and Greifswalde ; for the four millions 
 of Catholics there were but two Jialf universities, 
 at Bonn and Breslau, in each cf which there was 
 a double faculty, the one Protestant, the other 
 Catholic ; though the professors in all the facul- 
 ties, except that of theology, were for the most 
 part Protestants. Thus, out of six universities, to 
 the Catholics was left only a little corner in two, 
 though they were forced to bear nearly one-half of 
 the public burdens by which all six were support- 
 ed. But this is not the worst. The bishops had 
 no voice in the nomination of the professors, not 
 even those of theology. They were simply asked 
 whether they had any objections to make, on proof . 
 The candidate might be a stran'ger, he might be 
 
Prussia and the Chtirch. 209 
 
 wholly unfitted to teach theology, he might be 
 free from open immorality or heresy ; and there- 
 fore, because the bishops could prove nothing 
 against him, he was appointed to instruct the as- 
 pirants to the priesthood. 
 
 At Breslau a foreign professor Avas installed, 
 who began to teach the most scandalous and here- 
 tical doctrines. Complaints were useless. During 
 many years his pupils drank in the poison, and at 
 length, after he had done his work of destruction, 
 he was, as in mockery, removed. Nor is this an 
 isolated instance of the ruin to Catholic faith 
 wrought by this system. The bishops had hardly 
 any influence over the education of their clergy, 
 who, young and ignorant of the world, were thrown 
 almost without restraint into the pagan corruptions 
 of a German university, in order to acquire a know- 
 ledge of theology. At Cologne a Catholic college 
 was made over to the Protestants ; at Erfurt and 
 Diisseldorf Catholic gymnasia were turned into 
 mixed establishments with all the professors, save 
 one, Protestants. 
 
 Elementary education was under the control of 
 provincial boards consisting of a Protestant presi- 
 dent and three councillors, one of whom might be a 
 Catholic in Catholic districts. In the Catholic pro- 
 vinces of the Rhine and Westphalia the place of 
 Catholic councillor was left vacant for several 
 years till the schools were all reorganized. Indeed, 
 the real superintendent of Catholic elementary edu- 
 cation was generally a Protestant minister. 
 
 There was a government censorship of books of 
 
2IO Prussia and the CJitu'ch. 
 
 religious instruction, the headquarters of which were 
 in Berlin, but its agents were scattered throughout 
 all the provinces. All who were employed in this 
 department, to which even the pastorals of the bish- 
 ops had to be submitted before being read to their 
 flocks, were Protestants. The widest liberty was 
 given to Protestants to attack the church ; but 
 when the Catholics sought to defend themselves, 
 their writings were suppressed. Professor Freuden- 
 feld was obliged to quit Bonn because he had spo- 
 ken of Luther without becoming respect. 
 
 Permission to start religious journals was denied 
 to Catholics, but granted to Protestants; and in 
 the pulpit the priests were put under strict re- 
 straint, while the preachers were given full liberty 
 of speech. Whenever a community of Protestants 
 was found in a Catholic district, a church, a cler- 
 gyman, and a school were immediately provided 
 for them ; indeed, richer provision for the Protes- 
 tant worship was made in the Catholic provinces 
 than elsewhere ; but when a congregation of Ca- 
 tholics grew up amongst Protestants, the govern- 
 ment almost invariably rejected their application 
 for permission to have a place of worship. At 
 various times and places churches and schools 
 were taken from Catholics and turned over to 
 Protestants; and though Prussia had received an 
 enormous amount of the confiscated property of 
 the church, she did not provide for the support of 
 the priests as for that of the ministers. 
 
 At court there was not a single Catholic who 
 held office ; the heads of all the departments of 
 
Prussia and the Chw'cJi. 2 1 1 
 
 government were Protestants ; the Post-Office de- 
 partment, down to the local postmasters, was ex- 
 clusively Protestant ; all ambassadors and other 
 representatives of the government, though sent to 
 Catholic courts, were Protestants. 
 
 In Prussia the state is divided into provinces, and 
 at the head of each province is a high-president 
 (Ober-Prasident). This official, to whom the reli- 
 gious interests of the Catholics were committed, 
 was always a Protestant. The provinces are di- 
 vided into districts, and at the head of each dis- 
 trict was a Protestant president, and almost all the 
 inferior officers, even in Catholic provinces, were 
 Protestants. 
 
 Again, in the courts of justice and in the army 
 all the principal positions were given to Protestants. 
 In the two corps d'armhs of Prussia and Silesia, 
 one-half was Catholic ; in the army division of Po- 
 sen, two-thirds ; in that of Westphalia and Cleves, 
 three-fifths ; and, finally, in that of the Rhine, sev- 
 en-eighths ; yet there was not one Catholic field- 
 officer, not a general or major. In 1832 a royal or- 
 der was issued to provide for the religious wants of 
 the army, and every care was taken for the spirit- 
 ual needs of the Protestant soldiers ; but not even 
 one Catholic chaplain was appointed. All persons 
 in active service, from superior officers down to 
 private soldiers, were declared to be members of 
 the military parish, and were placed under the au- 
 thority of the Protestant chaplains. If a Catholic 
 soldier wished to get married or to have his child 
 baptized by a priest, he had first to obtain the per- 
 
212 Prttssia a7id the CJnirch 
 
 mission of his Protestant curate. What was still 
 more intolerable, the law regulating military wor- 
 ship was so contrived as to force the Catholic 
 soldiers to be present at Protestant service. 
 
 Let us now turn to the relations of the church 
 in Prussia with the Holy See. All direct commu- 
 nications between the Catholics and the pope 
 were expressly forbidden. Whenever, the bishops 
 ■wished to consult the Holy Father concerning the 
 administration of their dioceses, their inquiries had 
 to pass through the hands of the Protestant min- 
 istry, to be forwarded or not at its discretion, and 
 the answer of the pope had to be conveyed through 
 the same- channel. It was not safe to write ; 
 for the government had no respect for the mails, 
 and letters were habitually opened by order of Von 
 Nagler, the postmaster-general, who boasted that 
 he had never had any idiotic scruples about such 
 matters ; that Prince Constantine was his model, 
 who had once entertained him with narrating how 
 he had managed to get the choicest selection of in- 
 tercepted letters in existence ; he had had them 
 bound in morocco, and they formed thirty-three 
 volumes of the most interesting reading in his pri- 
 vate library. Thus the church was ruled by a sys- 
 tem of espionage and bureaucracy which hesitated 
 not to violate all the sanctities of life to accomplish 
 its ends. The bishops were reduced to a state of 
 abject dependence ; not being allowed to publish 
 any new regulation or to make any appointment 
 without the permission and approval of the Pro- 
 testant high-pres'ident, from whom they constant- 
 
Prussia and the Church. 213 
 
 ly received the most annoying and vexatious de- 
 spatches. 
 
 The election of bishops was reduced to a mere 
 form. When a see became vacant, the royal com- 
 missary visited the chapter and announced the per- 
 son whom the king had selected to fill the office, 
 declaring at the same time that no other would re- 
 ceive his approval. 
 
 The minutest details of Catholic worship were 
 placed under the supervision and control of Protes- 
 tant laymen, who had to decide how much wine 
 and how many hosts might be used during the 
 year in tlie different churches. 
 
 We come now to a matter, vexed and often dis- 
 cussed, in which the trials of the church in Prussia, 
 prior to the recent persecutions, finally culminated ; 
 we allude to the subject of marriages between Ca- 
 tholics and Protestants. 
 
 When, in 1803, Prussia got possession of the* 
 greater part of her Catholic provinces, the following 
 order was at once issued : " His majesty enacts that 
 children born in wedlock shall all be educated in 
 the religion of the father, and that, in opposition 
 to this law, neither party shall bind the other." 
 Apart from the odious meddling of the state with 
 the rights of individuals and the agreeaients of 
 parties so closely and sacredly related as man and 
 wife, there was in this enactment a special injustice 
 to Catholics, from the fact that nearly all the mixed 
 marriages in Prussia were contracted by Protestant 
 government officials and Catholic women of the 
 provinces to which these agents "had been sent. 
 
214 Prussia and the CImrch, 
 
 As these men held lucrative offices, they found no 
 difficulty in making matrimonial alliances ; and as 
 the children had to be brought up in the religion 
 of the father, the government was by this means 
 gradually establishing Protestant congregations 
 throughout its Catholic provinces. In 1825 this 
 law was extended to the Rhenish province, and in 
 1831 a document was brought to light which ex- 
 plained the object of the extension, which was that 
 it might prove an effectual measure against the 
 proselyting system of Catholics. 
 
 The condition of the church was indeed deplora- 
 ble. With the name of being free, she was, in 
 truth, enslaved ; and while the state professed to 
 respect her rights, it was using all the power of the 
 most thoroughly organized and most heartless sys- 
 tem of bureaucracy and espionage to weaken and 
 fetter her action, and even to • destroy her life. 
 •This was the state of affairs when, in the end of 
 1835, Von Droste Vischering, one of the greatest 
 and noblest men of this century, worthy to be 
 named with Athanasius and with Ambrose, was 
 made archbishop of Cologne. 
 
 The Catholic people of Prussia had long since 
 lost all faith in the good intentions of the govern- 
 ment, of whose acts and aims they had full know- 
 ledge; and it was in order to restore confidence that 
 a man so trusted and loved by them as Von Droste 
 Vischering was promoted to the see of Cologne. 
 The doctrines of Hermes, professor of theology' in 
 the University of Bonn, had just been condemned 
 at Rome, but the government ignored the papal 
 
Prussia and the Church. 215 
 
 brief, and continued to give its support to the Her- 
 mesians; the archbishop, nevertheless, denounced 
 their writings, and especially their organ, the Bon- 
 ner Theologische Zeitschrift, forbade his students to 
 attend their lectures at the university, and finally 
 withdrew his approbation altogether from the Her- 
 mesian professors, refusing to ordain students unless 
 they formally renounced the proscribed doctrines. 
 
 By a ministerial order issued in 1825, priests were 
 forbidden, under pain of deposition from office, to 
 exact in mixed marriages any promise concerning 
 the education of the offspring. A like penalty was 
 threatened for refusing to marry parties who were 
 unwilling to make such promises, or for withhold- 
 ing absolution from those who were bringing up 
 their children in the Protestant religion. To avert 
 as far as possible any conflict between the church 
 and the government, Pius VIII. , in 1830, addressed 
 a brief to the bishops of Cologne, Treves, Miinster, 
 and Paderborn, in which he made every allowable 
 concession to the authority of the state in the mat- 
 ter of mixed marriages. The court of Berlin with- 
 held the papal brief, and, taking advantage of the 
 yielding disposition of Archbishop Spiegel of Co- 
 logne, entered, without the knowledge of the Holy 
 See, into a secret agreement with him, in which 
 still farther concessions were made, and in violation 
 of Catholic principle. Von Droste Vischering took 
 as his guide the papal brief, and paid no attention 
 to such provisions of the secret agreement as con- 
 flicted with the instructions of the Holy Father. 
 
 The government took alarm, and offered to let 
 
2i6 Prussia and the Church. 
 
 fall the Hermesians, if the archbishop would yield 
 in the affair of mixed marriages ; and as this ex- 
 pedient failed, measures of violence were threaten- 
 ed, which were soon carried into effect ; for on the 
 evening of the 20th of November, 1837, the arch- 
 bishop was secretly arrested and carried off to the 
 fortress of Minden, where he was placed in close 
 confinement, all communication with him being cut 
 off. The next morning the government issued a 
 "Publicandum," in which it entered its accusations 
 against the archbishop, in order to justify its arbi- 
 trary act and to appease the anger of the people. 
 Notwithstanding, a cry of indignation and grief was 
 heard in all the Catholic provinces of Prussia, which 
 was re-echoed throughout Germany and extended 
 to all Europe. Lukewarm Catholics grew fervent, 
 and the very Hermesians gathered with their sym-. 
 pathies to uphold the cause of the Church. 
 
 The Archbishop of Posen and the Bishops of 
 Paderborn and Munster announced their withdrawal 
 from the secret convention, which the Bishop of 
 Treves had already done upon his death-bed ; and 
 henceforward the priests throughout the kingdom 
 held firm to the ecclesiastical law on mixed mar- 
 riages, so that in 1838 Frederick William III. was 
 forced to make a declaration recognizing the rights 
 for which they contended. But the Archbishop of 
 Cologne was still a prisoner in the fortress of Min-' 
 den. Early, however, in 1839, ^^^^ health began to 
 fail ; and as the government feared lest his death 
 in prison might produce unfavorable comment, he 
 received permission to withdraw to MUnster. The 
 
Prussia and the Church. 2 1 7 
 
 next year the king died, and his successor, Fred- 
 erick William IV., showed himself ready to settle 
 the dispute amicably, and in other ways to do jus- 
 tice to the Catholics. A great victory had been 
 gained — the secret convention was destroyed — a 
 certain liberty of communication with the pope was 
 granted to the bishops. The election of bishops 
 was made comparatively free, the control of the 
 schools of theology was restored to them, the Her- 
 mesians either submitted or were removed, and the 
 Catholics of Germany awoke from a deathlike sleep 
 to a new and vigorous life. 
 
 An evidence of the revival of faith was given in 
 the fall of 1844, when a million and a half of Ger- 
 man Catholics went in pilgrimage, with song and 
 prayer, to Treves. 
 
 Nevertheless, many grievances remained unre- 
 dressed. The censorship of the press was still used 
 against the church ; and when the Catholics asked 
 permission to publish journals in which they could 
 defend themselves and their religious interests, they 
 were told that such publications were not needed ; 
 but when Ronge, the suspended priest, sought to 
 found his sect of " German Catholics," he receiv- 
 ed every encouragement from the government, and 
 the earnest support of the officials and nearly the 
 entire press of Prussia ; though, at this very time, 
 every effort was being made to crush the " Old Lu- 
 therans." 
 
 The government continued to find pretexts for 
 meddhng with the affairs of the bishops, and the 
 newspapers attacked the church in the most insult- 
 is 
 
2 1 8 Prussia and the Church. 
 
 ing "manner, going so far as to demand that reli- 
 gious exercises for priests should be placed under 
 police supervision. We have now reached a mem- 
 orable epoch in the Ifistory of the Catholic Church 
 in Prussia — the revolution of 1848, which convulsed 
 Germany to its centre, spread dismay among all 
 classes, and filled its cities with riot and bloodshed. 
 When order was re established, the liberties of the 
 church were recognized more fully than they had 
 been for three centuries. 
 
PRUSSIA AND THE CHURCH. 
 
 II. 
 
 N February, 1848, Louis Philippe was 
 driven from his throne by the people of 
 Paris, and the Republic was proclaimed. 
 This revolution spread rapidly over the 
 whole of Europe. The shock was most violent in 
 Germany, where^verything was in readiness for a 
 general outburst. Most of the governments were 
 compelled to yield to the popular will and to make 
 important concessions. New cabinets were formed 
 in Wurtemberg, Darmstadt, Nassau, and Hesse. 
 Lewis of Bavaria was forced to abdicate. Hanover 
 and Saxony held out until Berlin and Vienna were 
 invaded by the revolutionary party, when they too 
 succumbed. On the 13th of March the Vienna 
 mob overthrew the Austrian ministry, and Metter- 
 nich fled to England. Italy and Hungary revolted. 
 Berlin was held all summer by an ignorant revolu- 
 ^tionary faction. In September fierce and bloody 
 riots broke out in Frankfort. 
 
 Popular meetings, secret societies, revolutionary 
 club*s, violent declamations, and inflammatory ap- 
 peals through the press kept all Germany in a state 
 of agitation. Occasional outbreaks among the pea- 
 
2 20 Prussia and the Church. 
 
 santry, followed by pillage and incendiarism, in- 
 creased the general confusion. 
 
 It was during this time of wild excitement that 
 the elections for the Imperial Parliament were held. 
 To this assembly many avowed atheists, pantheists, 
 communists, and Jacobins were chosen — men who 
 fully agreed with Hecker when he declared that 
 " there were six plagues in Germany : the princes, 
 the nobles, the bureaucrats, the capitalists, the 
 parsons, and the soldiers." The parties in the Par- 
 liament took their names from their positions in the 
 assembly hall, and were called the extreme left, the 
 left, the left centre, the right centre, the right, and 
 the extreme right. The first three were composed 
 of red republicans, Jacobins, and^iberals. To the 
 right centre belonged the constitutional liberals ; 
 and on the right and right centre sat the Catholic 
 members, the predecessors of the party of the Cen- 
 triun of the present day. The extreme right was 
 occupied by functionaries and bureaucrats, chiefly 
 from Prussia. The Parliament of Frankfort, in the 
 Grundrcchte, or Fiindameiital Rights, w^hich it pro- 
 claimed, decreed universal suffrage, abolished all 
 the political privileges of the aristocracy, the here- 
 ditary chambers in all the states of Germany, set 
 aside the existing family entails, and, though it 
 nominally retained the imperial power, degraded 
 the emperor to a republican president by giving 
 him merely a suspensive veto. 
 
 While this Parliament was sitting the Catholic 
 bishops of Germany assembled in council at Wilrz- 
 burg, and, at the conclusion of their deliberations. 
 
Prussia and the Church. 221 
 
 drew up a Memorial as firm in tone as it was clear 
 and precise in expression, in which they set forth 
 the claims of the church. 
 
 " To bring about," they said, " a separation from 
 the state — that is to say, from public order, which 
 necessarily reposes on a moral and religious foun- 
 dation — is not according to the will of the church. 
 If the state will perforce separate from the church, 
 so will the church, without approving, tolerate what 
 she cannot avoid ; but, unless compelled by the 
 duty of self-preservation, she will not break the 
 bonds of union made fast by mutual understanding, 
 
 ** The church, entrusted with the solemn and holy 
 mission, 'As my Father hath sent me, so send I 
 ye,' requires for the accomplishment of this mission, 
 whatever the form of government of the state may 
 be, the fullest freedom and independence. Her 
 holy popes, prelates, and confessors have in all ages 
 willingly and courageously given up their life and 
 blood for the preservation of this inalienable free- 
 dom." 
 
 In virtue of these principles the bishops, in their 
 Memorial, claimed the right of directing, without 
 any interference on the part of the state, theologi- 
 cal seminaries, and of founding schools, colleges, 
 and all kinds of educational establishments ; of 
 exerting canonical control, unfettered by state 
 meddling, over the conduct of their clergy, as well 
 as that of introducing into their dioceses religious 
 orders, congregations, and pious confraternities, for 
 which they demanded the same privileges which 
 the new political constitution had granted to secu- 
 
22 2 Prussia and the Church. 
 
 lar associations. Finally, they asserted their right 
 to free and untrammelled communication with the 
 Holy See ; and, as included in this, that of receiv- 
 ing and publishing all papal bulls, briefs, and other 
 documents without the Royal Placet, which they 
 declared to be repugnant to the honor and dignity 
 of the ministers of religion. 
 
 The Frankfort Parliament decreed the total sepa- 
 ration of church and state, and was therefore com- 
 pelled to guarantee the freedom of all religions. 
 This separation was sanctioned by t4ie Catholic 
 members of the Assembly, who looked upon it as 
 less dangerous to the cause of religion and morality 
 than ecclesiastical Josephism. In the present con- 
 flict between the church and the German Empire 
 the Catholic party has again demanded, and in vain, 
 the separation of church and state. In rejecting 
 their urgent request Dr. Falk declared that the 
 leading minds in England and America are already 
 beginning to regret that their governments have so 
 little control over the ecclesiastical organizations 
 within their limits. 
 
 Whilst the representatives of the German people 
 at Frankfort were abolishing the privileges of the 
 nobles, decreeing the separation of church and 
 state, and forgetting the standing armies, the gov- 
 ernments were quietly gathering their forces. Mar- 
 shal Radetzky put down the Italia'n rebellion. Prince 
 Windischgratz quelled the democracy of Vienna, 
 and General Wrangel took possession of Berlin, 
 without a battle. Russia, at the request of Aus- 
 tria, sent an army into Hungary to destroy the 
 
Prussia and the Church. 223 
 
 rebellion in that country, and the disturbances in 
 Bavaria and in the Palatinate were suppressed by- 
 Prussian troops under the present Emperor of 
 Germany. The representatives of the larger states 
 withdrew from the Frankfort Parliament, which 
 dwindled, and finally, amidst universal contempt 
 and neglect, came to an end at Stuttgart, June 18, 
 
 1849- 
 
 But the liberties of the church were not lost. In 
 Prussia, as we have seen, a better state of things 
 had begun with the imprisonment of the heroic 
 Archbishop of Cologne in 1837. In the face of the 
 menacing attitude of the German democrats and 
 republicans, Frederick William IV. confirmed the 
 liberties of the Catholic Church by the letters- 
 patent of 1847. 
 
 The constitutions of December 5, 1848, and Janu- 
 ary 31, 1850, were drawn up in the lurid light of 
 the revolution, which had beaten fiercest upon the 
 house of HohenzoUern. The king had capitulated 
 to the insurgents, withdrawn his soldiers from the 
 capital, and abandoned Berlin, and with it the 
 whole state, for nine months to the tender mercies 
 of the mob. He was forced to witness the most 
 revolting spectacles. The dead bodies of the 
 rioters were borne in procession under the windows 
 of his palace, while the rabble shouted to him : 
 ** Fritz, off with your hat." 
 
 It is not surprising, in view of* this experience, 
 that we should find in the constitution of 1850 
 (articles 15 to 18 inclusive) a very satisfactory re- 
 cognition of the rights of the church. Why these 
 
2 24 Prussia and the Church. 
 
 paragraphs granting the church freedom to regulate 
 and administer its own affairs ; to keep possession 
 of its own revenues, endowments, and estabHsh- 
 ments, whether devoted to worship, education, or 
 beneficence ; and freely to communicate with the 
 Pope, were inserted in the constitution, we know 
 from Prince Bismarck himself. In his speech in 
 the Prussian Upper House, March lo, 1873, he 
 affirmed that " they were introduced at a time 
 when the state needed, or thought it needed, help, 
 and believed that it would find this help by leaning 
 on the Catholic Church. It was probably led to 
 this belief by the fact that in the National Assem- 
 bly of 1848 all the electoral districts with a pre- 
 ponderant Catholic population returned — I will not 
 say royalist representatives, but certainly men who 
 were the friends of order, which was not the case 
 in the Protestant districts." 
 
 The provisions of the constitution of 1850 with 
 regard to the church were honorably and faithfully 
 carried out down to the beginning of the present 
 conflict. Never since the Reformation had the 
 church in Prussia been so free, never had she made 
 such rapid progress, whether in completing her in- 
 ternal organization or in extending her influence. 
 The Prussian liberals and atheists, who had fully 
 persuaded themselves that without the wealth and 
 aid of the state the Catholic religion would have no 
 force, were amazed. The influence of the priests 
 over the people grew in proportion as they were 
 educated more thoroughly in the spirit and disci- 
 pline of the church under the immediate super- 
 
Prussia and the Church. 225 
 
 vision of the bishops, unfettered by state interfer- 
 ence ; the number of convents, both of men and 
 women, rapidly increased ; associations of all kinds, 
 scientific, benevolent, and religious, spread over 
 the land ; religious journals and reviews were 
 founded in which Catholic interests were ably ad- 
 vocated and defended ;. and all the forces of the 
 church were unified and guided by the harmonious 
 action of a most enlightened and zealous episco- 
 pate. 
 
 This was the more astonishing as the Evangeli- 
 cal Church, whose liberties had also been guaran- 
 teed by the constitution of i8$o, had shown itself 
 unable to profit by the greater freedom of action 
 which it had received. In fact, the Evangelical 
 Church was lifeless, and it needed only this test to 
 prove its want of vitality. It was a state creation, 
 and in an age when the world had ceased to recog- 
 nize the divine right of kings to create religions. 
 It was only in 181 7 that the Lutheran and Calvin- 
 istic churches of Prussia, together with the very 
 name of Protestant, were abolished by royal edict 
 and a new Prussian establishment, under the title 
 of " evangelical," was imposed by the civil power 
 upon a Protestant population of nearly eight mil- 
 lions, whose religious and moral sense was so dead 
 that they seemed to regard with stolid indifference 
 this interference of government with all that free- 
 men deem most sacred in life. Acts of parliament 
 may make " establishments," but they cannot 
 inspire religious faith and life ; and it was therefore 
 not surprisingrthat, when the mummy of evangeli- 
 19 
 
226 Prussia and the Church. 
 
 calism was put out into the open air of freedom by 
 the constitution of 1850, it should have been re- 
 vealed to all that the thing was dead. 
 
 Nevertheless, the Prussian government continued 
 to act toward the Catholic Church with great jus- 
 tice, and even friendliness, and the war against 
 Catholic Austria in 1866 wrought no change in its 
 ecclesiastical policy. Even the opening of the 
 Vatican Council caused no alarm in Prussia; on 
 the contrary, King William, as it was generally be- 
 lieved at least, was most civil to the Holy Father; 
 and Prince Bismarck himself at that time saw no 
 reason for apprehension, though he had been the 
 head of the ministry already eight years. To what, 
 then, are we to attribute Prussia's sudden change 
 of attitude toward the church? Who began the 
 present conflict, and what was its provocation ? 
 
 This is a question which has been much dis- 
 cussed in the Prussian House of Deputies and else- 
 where. Prince Bismarck has openly asserted in the 
 House of Deputies within the past year that the 
 provocation was the definition of papal infallibility 
 by the Vatican Council on the 18th of June, 1870, 
 and subsequently the hostile attitude of the party 
 of the Centrum toward the German Empire. 
 
 Herr von Kirchmann, a member of the German 
 Parliament and of the Prussian House of Deputies, 
 a national liberal, and not a Catholic, but in the 
 main a sympathizer with the spirit of the Falk 
 legislation, has recently discussed this whole sub- 
 ject with great ability, and — as far as it is pos- 
 sible for one who believes in tb.c Hec^elian doc- 
 
Prussia and the ChurcJi. 227 
 
 trine that " the state is the present god " — also 
 with fairness.^ 
 
 To Prince Bismarck's first assertion, that the 
 definition of papal infallibility was the unpardon- 
 able offence, which has been so strongly emphasized 
 by Mr. Gladstone and re-echoed with parrot-like 
 fidelity by the anti-Catholic press of Europe and 
 America, Herr von Kirchmann makes the following 
 reply : 
 
 " It is difficult to understand how so experienc- 
 ed a statesman as Prince Bismarck can ascribe to 
 this decree of the council such great importance 
 for the states of Europe, and particularly for Prus- 
 sia and Germany. To a theorizer sitting behind 
 his books such a decree, it may be allowed, might 
 appear to be something portentous, since, taken 
 from a purely theoretical stand-point and according 
 to the letter, the infallibility of the Pope in all 
 questions of religion and morals gives him unlimit- 
 ed control over all human action ; and many a Ca- 
 tholic, when called upon to receive this infallibility 
 as part of his faith, may have found that he was 
 unable to follow so far ; but a statesman ought to 
 know how to distinguish, especially where there is 
 question of the Catholic Church, between the lit- 
 eral import of dogmas and their use in practical 
 life. In the Catholic Church as a whole this in- 
 fallibility, as is well known, has existed from the 
 earliest times ; its organ hitherto has been the 
 CEcumenical Council in union with the Pope ; but 
 
 * Der Culturkamf'f in Preussen und seine Bedenken — " Considerations on 
 the Culture-Struggle in Prussia"— von J. H. von Kirchmann. Leipzig, 1875. 
 
2 28 Prussia and the Church. 
 
 already before 1870 it was disputed whether the 
 Pope might not alone act as the organ of infallibil- 
 ity. In 1870 the question was decided in favor of 
 the Pope; but we must consider that the oecumen- 
 ical councils have, as history shows, nearly always 
 framed their decrees in accordance with the views 
 of the court of Rome ; and this, of itself, proves 
 that the change made in 1870 is rather one of form 
 than of essence. Especially false is it to maintain 
 that by this decree a complete revolution in the 
 constitution of the church has been made. To the 
 theorizer we might grant the abstract possibility 
 that something of this kind might some day or 
 other happen ; but such possibilities of the abuse 
 of a right are found in all the relations of public 
 life, in the state and its representatives as well as 
 in the church. Even in constitutions the most 
 carefully drawn up such possibilities are found in 
 all directions. What a statesman has to consider 
 is not mere possibilities, but the question whether 
 the possessor of such right is not compelled, from 
 the very nature of things, to make of it only the 
 most moderate and prudent use. So long, there- 
 fore, as the Pope does not alter the constitution 
 of the church, that constitution remains, precisely 
 in its ancient form., such as it has been recognized 
 and tolerated by the state for centuries ; and 
 wherever the relations between particular states 
 and the court of Rome have been arranged by 
 concordats, these too remain unchanged, unless 
 the states themselves find it convenient to depart 
 from them. We see, in fact, that this infallibility 
 
Prussia and the Church. 229 
 
 of the Pope has in no country of Europe or Ameri- 
 ca altered one jot or tittle in the constitution of the 
 Catholic Church ; and where in particular countries 
 such changes have taken place, they have not been 
 made by the ecclesiastical government, but by the 
 state and in its interest. In Germany even, and 
 in Prussia itself, the Pope has, since 1870, made no 
 change in the church constitution, as determined 
 by the Canon Law; and when, in some of his en- 
 cyclicals and other utterances, he has taken up a 
 hostile attitude towards the German Empire and 
 the Prussian state, he has done this only in defence 
 against the aggressive legislation of the civil gov- 
 ernment. He has never hesitated to express his 
 disapprobation of the new church laws, but he has 
 in no instance touched the constitution of the Ca- 
 tholic Church or the rights of the bishops." * 
 
 It seems almost needless to remark that there is 
 no necessary connection between the doctrine of 
 Papal infallibility and that of the essential organi- 
 zation of the church ; that the jurisdiction of the 
 Pope was as great, and universally recognized as 
 such by Catholics, before the Vatican Council as 
 since ; and consequently that it is not even possi- 
 ble that the definition of 1870 should make any 
 change in his authoritative relation to, or power 
 over, the church. His jurisdiction is wider than his 
 infallibility, and independent of it ; and the duty 
 of obedience to his commands existed before the 
 dogma was defined precisely as it exists now ; and 
 therefore it is clearly manifest that the Vatican 
 
 * Ciilturkamp/, pp. 5-7. 
 
230 Prussia and the Church. 
 
 decree cannot give even a plausible pretext for 
 such legislation as the Falk Laws. 
 
 " Not less singular," continues Herr von Kircli- 
 mann, *' does it sound to hear the party of the 
 Centrum in the Reichstag and Prussian Landtag 
 denounced as the occasion of the new regulations 
 between church and state. The members of this 
 party notoriously represent the views and wishes 
 of the majority of their constituents, and just as 
 faithfully as the members of the parties who side 
 with the government. The reproach that they re- 
 ceive their instructions from Rome is not borne 
 out by the facts; and if there were an understand- 
 ing with Rome of the kind which their adversaries 
 affirm, this could only be the result of a similar 
 understanding on the part of their constituents. 
 Nothing could more strikingly prove that the Ca- 
 tholic party faithfully represent the great majority 
 in their electoral districts than the repeated re- 
 election of the same representatives or of men of 
 similar views. To this we must add that the 
 Centrum, though strong in numbers, is yet in a 
 decided minority both in the Reichstag and the 
 Prussian Landtag, and has always been defeated in 
 its opposition to the recent ecclesiastical legislation. 
 If in other matters, by uniting with opposition 
 parties, it has caused the government inconve- 
 nience, we have no right to ascribe this to feelings 
 of hostility; for on such occasions its orators have 
 given substantial political reasons for their opposi- 
 tion, and instances enough might be enumerated 
 in which, precisely through the aid of the Centrum, 
 
Prussia and the Church. 231 
 
 many illiberal and dangerous projects of law have 
 fallen through ; and for this the party deserves the 
 thanks of the country. 
 
 "The present action of the state against the 
 Catholic Church would be unjustifiable, if better 
 grounds could not be adduced in its favor. For 
 the attentive observer, however, valid reasons are 
 not wanting. They are to be found, to put the 
 whole matter in a single word, in the great power 
 to which the Catholic Church in Prussia had attain- 
 ed by the aid of the constitution and the favor of 
 the government — a power which, if its growth had 
 been longer tolerated, would have become, not in- 
 deed dangerous to the existence of the state, but a 
 hindrance to the right fulfilment of the ends of its 
 existence." * 
 
 Neither the Vatican Council, then, nor the Ca- 
 tholics of Prussia have done anything to provoke 
 the present persecution. To find fault with the 
 German bishops for accepting the dogma of infalli- 
 bility, after having strongly opposed its definition 
 by the council, would be as unreasonable as to 
 blame a member of Congress for admitting the 
 binding force of a law the sanctioning of which he 
 had done everything in his power to prevent. Their 
 duty, beyond all question, was to act as they have 
 acted. This was not the offence ; the unpardonable 
 crime was that the church, as soon as she was un- 
 loosed from the fetters of bureaucracy', had grown 
 too powerful. We doubt whether any more forci- 
 ble argument in proof of the indestructible vitality 
 
 ♦ Page g. 
 
232 Priiss 7 a and l/i e CIi u rch . 
 
 of the church can be found' than that which may 
 be deduced from the universal consent of her ene- 
 mies, of whatever shade of beHef or unbeHef, that 
 the only way in which she can be successfully op- 
 posed is to array against her the strongest of 
 human powers — the state. A complete revolution 
 of thought upon this subject has taken place with- 
 in the last half-century. Up to that time it was 
 confidently held by Protestants as well as infidels 
 that, to undermine and finally destroy the church, 
 it would be simply necessary to withdraw from her 
 the support of the state ; that to her freedom would 
 certainly prove fatal. The experiment, as it was 
 thought, had not been satisfactorily tried. Ireland, 
 indeed, had held her faith for three hundred years, 
 in spite of all that fiendish crueltj^ could invent to 
 destroy it ; but persecution has always been the life 
 of the faith. In the United States the church had 
 been free since the war of independence, but of us 
 little was known ; and, besides, down to, say, 1830 
 even the most thoughtful and far-sighted among us 
 had serious doubts as to the future of the church 
 in this country. 
 
 But with the emancipation of the Catholics in 
 Great Britain, the new constitution of the kingdom 
 of Belgium, and the completer organization of the 
 church in the United States, the test as to the ac- 
 tion of freedom upon the progress of Catholic faith 
 began to be applied over a wide and varied field 
 and under not unfavorable circumstances. What 
 the result has been we may learn from our enemies. 
 Mr. Gladstone expostulates for Great Britain, and 
 
Prussia and the Church. 233 
 
 a 
 
 reaches a hand of sympathy to M. Emile de Lave- 
 leye in Belgium. Dr. Falk, Dr. Friedberg, and 
 even the moderate Herr von Kirchmann, defend 
 the tyrannical j^/^:?/ Z^ze/^ as necessary to stop the 
 growth of the church in Germany ; and at home 
 the most silent of Presidents and the most garrulous 
 of bishops, forgetting that the cause of temperance 
 has prior claims upon their attention, have raised 
 the ciy of alarm to warn their fellow-citizens of the 
 dangerous progress of popery in this great and free 
 country. Time was when " the Free Church in 
 the Free State" was thought to be the proper word 
 of command ; but now it is " the Fettered Church 
 in the Enslaved State," since no state that meddles 
 with the consciences of its subjects can be free. 
 
 If there is anything for which Ave feel more 
 especially thankful, it is that henceforth the cause 
 of the church and the cause of freedom are insepa- 
 rably united. We have heard to satiety that the 
 Catholic Church is the greatest conservative force 
 in the world, the most powerful element of order in 
 society, the noblest school of respect in which man- 
 kind have ever been taught. Praised be God that 
 now, as in the early days, he is making it impossi- 
 ble that Catholics should not be on the side of lib- 
 erty, as the church has always been ; so that all men 
 may see that, if we love order the more, we love not 
 liberty the less ! 
 
 " I will sing to my God as long as I shall be," 
 wrote an inspired king ; " put not your trust in 
 princes." No, nor in governments, nor in states, 
 but in God who is the Lord, and in the poor whom 
 
234 Prussia and the Church, 
 
 Jesus loved. From God out of the people came 
 the church ; through God back to the people is 
 she going. We know there are still many Catho- 
 lics who trust in kings and believe in salvation 
 through them ; but God will make them wiser. 
 The Spirit that sits at the roaring Loom of Time 
 will weave for them other garments. The irresis- 
 tible charm of the church, humanly speaking, lies 
 in the fact that she comes closer to the hearts of 
 the people than any other power that has ever 
 been brought to bear upon mankind. 
 
 Having shown that the oppressive ecclesiastical 
 legislation of Germany was not provoked by the 
 church, and that its only excuse is the increasing 
 power of the church, Herr von Kirchmann reduces 
 all farther discussion of this subject to the two fol- 
 lowing heads : 1st. How far ought the state to go 
 in setting bounds to this power of the Catholic 
 Church ? and 2d. What means ought it to em- 
 ploy ? 
 
 In view of the dangers with which every open 
 breach of the peace between church and state is 
 fraught for the people, it would have been advisable, 
 he thinks, from political motives, to have tried to 
 settle the difficulty by a mutual understanding be- 
 tween the two powers; nor would it, in his opinion, 
 be derogatory to the sovereignty of the state to 
 treat the church as an equal, since she embraces in 
 her fold all the Catholics of the world, who have 
 their directing head in the Pope, whose sovereign 
 ecclesiastical power cannot, therefore, as a matter 
 of fact, be called in question. 
 
Prussia and the C/mrck. 235 
 
 That Prussia did not make any effort to see 
 what could be effected by this policy of conciliation 
 may, in the opinion of Herr von Kirchmann, find 
 some justification in the fact that the government 
 did not expect, and could not in 1871 foresee, the 
 determined opposition of the Catholics to the May 
 Laws of 1873. At any rate, as he thinks, the high 
 and majestatic right of the state is supreme, and 
 it alone must determine, in the ultimate instance, 
 how far and how long it will acknowledge any 
 claim of the church. Thus even this statesman, 
 who is of the more moderate school of Prussian 
 politicians, holds that the church has no rights 
 which the state is bound to respect ; that poli- 
 tical interests are paramount, and conscience, in 
 the modern as in the ancient pagan state, has no 
 claim upon the recognition of the government. 
 English and American Protestants, where their own 
 interests are concerned, would be as little inclined 
 to accept this doctrine as Catholics ; in fact, this 
 country was born of a protest against the assump- 
 tion of state supremacy over conscience; and yet 
 so blinding and misleading is prejudice that the 
 Falk Laws receive their heart-felt sympathy. 
 
 Though Herr von Kirchmann accepts without re- 
 servation the principles which underlie the recent 
 Prussian anti-Catholic legislation, and thinks the 
 May Laws have been drawn up with great wisdom 
 and consummate knowledge of the precise points at 
 which the state should oppose the growing power 
 of the church, he yet freely admits that there are 
 grave doubts whether the present policy of Prussia 
 
■o 
 
 6 Prussia a?id the Church. 
 
 can be successfully carried out. That Prince Bis- 
 marck and Dr. Falk had but a very imperfect 
 knowledge of the difficulties which lay in their 
 path, the numerous supplementary bills which 
 have been repeatedly introduced in order 
 to give effect to the May Laws plainly show. 
 Where there is question of principle and of con- 
 science Prince Bismarck is not at home. He be- 
 lieves in force ; like the first Napoleon, holds that 
 Providence is always on the side of the biggest can- 
 nons; sneers about going to Canossa, as Napoleon 
 mockingly asked the pope whether his excommuni- 
 cation would make the arms fall from the hands of 
 his veterans. He knows the workings of courts, 
 and is a master in the devious ways of diplomacy. 
 He can estimate with great precision the resour- 
 ces of a country ; he has a keen eye for the weak 
 points of an adversary. His tactics, like Napo- 
 leon's, are to bring to bear upon each given point 
 of attack a force greater than the enemy's. He 
 has, in his public life, never known what it is to 
 respect right or principle. With the army at his 
 back he has trampled upon the Prussian constitu- 
 tion with the same daring recklessness with which 
 he now violates the most sacred rights of con- 
 science. Nothing, in his eyes, is holy but success, 
 and he has been consecrated by it, so that the Bis- 
 marck-cultus has spread far beyond the Fatherland 
 to England and the United States. Carlyle has at 
 last found a living hero, the very impersonation of 
 the brute force which to him is ideal and admira- 
 ble ; and at eighty he offers incense and homage to 
 
Prussia and the Church. 237 
 
 the idol. We freely give Prince Bismarck credit 
 for his remarkable gifts — indomitable will, reckless 
 courage, practical knowledge of men, considered as 
 intelligent automata whose movements are directed 
 by a kind of bureaucratic and military mechanism; 
 and this is the kind of men with whom, for the 
 most part, he has had to deal. For your thorough 
 Prussian, though the wildest of speculators and the 
 boldest of theorizers, is the tamest of animals. No 
 poor Russian soldier ever crouched more submis- 
 sively beneath the knout than do the Prussian pan- 
 theists and culturists beneath the lash of a master. 
 Like Voltaire, they probably prefer the rule of one 
 fine Lion to that of a hundred rats of their own 
 sort. Prince Bismarck knew his men, and we give 
 him credit for his sagacity. Not every eye could 
 have pierced the mist, and froth, and sound, and 
 fury of German professordom, and beheld the cra- 
 ven heart that was beneath. 
 
 Only men who believe in God and the soul are 
 dangerous rebels. Why should he who has no faith 
 make a martyr of himself? Why, since there is 
 nothing but law, blind and merciless force, throw 
 yourself beneath the wheels of the state Juggernaut 
 to be crushed ? The religion of culture is the re- 
 ligion of indulgence, and no godlike rebel against 
 tyranny and brute force ever sprang from such wor- 
 ship. So long as Prince Bismarck had to deal with 
 men who were nourished on " philosophy's sweet 
 milk," and who worshipped at the altar of culture, 
 who had science but not faith, opinions but not 
 convictions, amongst whom, consequently, organic 
 
238 Prussia and the Church. 
 
 union was impossible, his policy of making. Ger- 
 many " by blood and iron " was successful enough. 
 But, like all great conquerors, he longed for more 
 kingdoms to subdue, and finding right around him 
 a large and powerful body of German citizens who 
 did not accept the "new faith " that the state — 
 in other words, Prince Bismarck — is "the present 
 god," just as a kind of diversion between victories, 
 he turned to give a lesson to the Pfaffen and cleri- 
 cal Dumnikopfe, who burnt no incense in honor of 
 his divinity. In taking this step it is almost need- 
 less to say that Prince Bismarck sought to pass 
 over a chasm which science itself does not profess 
 to have bridged — that, namely, which lies between 
 the worlds of matter and of spirit. Of the new 
 conflict upon which he was entering he could have 
 only vague and inaccurate notions. Nothing is so 
 misleading as contempt — a feeling in which the 
 wise never indulge, but which easily becomes ha- 
 bitual with men spoiled by success. To the man 
 who had organized the armies and guided the 
 policy which had triumphed at Sadowa and Sedan 
 what opposition could be made by a few poor 
 priests and beggar-monks ? Would the arms fall 
 from the hands of the proudest soldiers of Europe 
 because the Pfaffen were displeased ? Or why 
 should not the model culture-state of the world 
 make war upon ignorance and superstition ? 
 
 Of the real nature and strength of the forces 
 which would be marshalled in this great battle of 
 souls a man of blood and iron could form no just 
 estimate. " To those who believe," said Christ, 
 
Prussia and the Church. 239 
 
 "all things are possible " ; but what meaning have 
 these words for Prince Bismarck? The soul, firm 
 in its faith, appealing from tyrant kings and states 
 to God, is invincible. Lifting itself to the Infinite, 
 it draws thence a divine power. Like liberty, it is 
 brightest in dungeons, in fetters freest, and con- 
 quers with its martyrdom. Needle-guns cannot 
 reach it, and above the deadly roar of cannon it 
 rises godlike and supreme. 
 
 " For though the giant Ages heave the hill 
 And break the shore, and evermore 
 Make and break and work their will ; 
 Though world on world in myriad myriads roll 
 Round us, each with different powers 
 And other forms of life than ours, 
 What know we greater than the soul ? 
 On God and godlike men we build our trust." 
 
 Men who have un wrapt themselves of the garb 
 and vesture of thought and sentiment with which 
 the world had dressed them out, who have been 
 born again into the higher life, who have been 
 clothed in the charity and meekness of Christ, who 
 for his dear sake have put all things beneath their 
 feet, who love not the world, who venerate more 
 the rags of the beggar than the purple of Caisar, 
 who fear as they love God alone, for whom life is 
 no blessing and death infinite gain, form the invin- 
 cible army of Christ foredoomed to conquer. " This 
 is the victory which overcomcth the world — our 
 Faith." 
 
 Who has ever forgotten those lines of Tacitus, 
 inserted as an altogether trifling circumstance in 
 the reign of Nero? — "So for the quieting of this 
 
240 Pmssia and the Church. 
 
 rumor [of his having set fire to Rome] Nero judi- 
 cially charged with the crime, and punished with 
 most studied severities, that class, hated for their 
 general wickedness, whom the vulgar call Chris- 
 tians. The originator of that name was one Christ, 
 who in the reign of Tfberius suffered death by sen- 
 tence of the procurator, Pontius Pilate. The bane- 
 ful superstition, thereby ;*epressed for the time, 
 again broke out, not only over Judea, the native 
 soil of the mischief, but in the City also, where 
 from every side all atrocious and abominable 
 things collect and flourish."* 
 
 " Tacitus," says Carlyle, referring to this pas- 
 sage, " was the wisest, most penetrating man of 
 his generation ; and to such depth, and no deeper, 
 has he seen into this transaction, the most impor- 
 tant that has occurred or can occur in the annals 
 of mankind." 
 
 We doubt whether Prince Bismarck to-day has 
 any truer knowledge of the real worth and power 
 of the living Catholic faith on which he is making 
 war than had Tacitus eighteen hundred years ago, 
 when writing of the rude German barbarians who 
 were hovering on the confines of the Roman Em- 
 pire, and who were to have a history in the world 
 only through the action of that " baneful supersti- 
 tion " which he considered as one of the most 
 abominable products of the frightful corruptions of 
 his age. 
 
 That the Prussian government was altogether 
 
 ♦Tacit. Annal. xv. 44. 
 
Prussia and the Church. 241 
 
 unprepared for the determined though passive op- 
 position to the May Laws which the Catholics have 
 made, Herr von Kirchmann freely confesses. It 
 was not expected that there would be such per- 
 fect union between the clergy and the people ; on 
 the contrary, it was generally supposed that, with 
 the aid of the Draconian penalties threatened for 
 the violation of the Falk Laws, the resistance of 
 the priests themselves would be easily overcome. 
 These men love their own comfort too much, said 
 the culturists, to be willing to go to prison and 
 live on beans and water for the sake of technicali- 
 ties ; and so they chuckled over their pipes and 
 lager-beer at the thought of their easy victory 
 over the Pfaffen. They were mistaken, and Herr 
 von Kirchmann admits that the courage of the bish- 
 ops and priests has not been broken but strength- 
 ened by their sufferings for the faith. 
 
 " So long as we were permitted to hope," he 
 says, " that we should have only the priests to deal 
 with, there was less reason for doubt as to the po- 
 licy of executing the laws in all their rigor ; but the 
 situation was wholly altered when it became mani- 
 fest that the congregations held the same views as 
 the bishops and priests. . . . It is easy to see that 
 all violent, even though legal, proceedings of the 
 government against these convictions of the Cath- 
 olic people can only weaken those proper, and in 
 the last instance alone effective, measures through 
 which the May Laws can successfully put bounds 
 to the growing power of the church. These mea- 
 sures— viz., a better education of the people and a 
 
242 Prussia and the Church, 
 
 higher culture of the priest's — can, from the nature 
 of things, exert their influence only by degrees. 
 Not till the next generation can we hope to gather 
 the fruit of this seed ; and not then, indeed, if the 
 reckless execution of the May Laws calls forth an 
 opposition in the Catholic populations which will 
 shake confidence in the just intentions of the gov- 
 ernment, and beget in the congregations feelings of 
 hatred for everything connected with this legisla- 
 tion. Such feelings will unavoidably be communi- 
 cated to the children, and the teacher will in conse- 
 quence be deprived of that authority without which 
 his instructions must lack the persuasive force that 
 is inherent in truth. In such a state of warfare 
 even the higher culture of the clergy must be use- 
 less. Those who stand on the side of the govern- 
 ment will, precisely on that account, fail to win the 
 confidence of their people ; uind the stronger the 
 aged pastors emphasize the Canon Law of the 
 church, the more energetically they extend the 
 realms of faith even to the hierarchical constitution 
 of the church, the more readily and faithfully will 
 their congregations follow them. 
 
 "It cannot be dissembled that the government, 
 through the rigorous execution of the May Laws, 
 is raging against its own flesh and blood, and is 
 thereby robbing itself of the only means by which 
 it can have any hope of finally coming forth victo- 
 rious from the present conflict. It may be objected 
 that the resistance which is now so wide-spread can- 
 not be much longer maintained, and that all that 
 is needed to crush it and bring about peace with 
 
Prussia and the Church. 243 
 
 the church is to increase the pressure of the law. 
 Assertions of this kind are made with great confi- 
 dence by the liberals of both Houses of the Land- 
 tag whenever the government presents a new bill ; 
 and the liberal newspapers, which never grow tired 
 of this theme, declare that the result is certain and 
 even near at hand. 
 
 " Now, even though we should attach no impor- 
 tance to the contrary assertions of the Catholic par- 
 ty, it is yet evident, from the declarations of the 
 government itself, that it is not at all confident of 
 reaching this result with the aid of the means which 
 it has hitherto employed or of those in preparation, 
 but that it is making ready for a prolonged resis- 
 tance of the clergy, who are upheld and support- 
 ed by the great generosity of the Catholic people. 
 The ovations which the priests receive from their 
 congregations when they come forth from prison 
 are not falling off, but are increasing ; and this is 
 equally true of the pecuniary aid given to them. 
 It is possible that much of this may have been got- 
 ten up by the priests themselves as demonstration ; 
 but the displeasure of the still powerful. government 
 officials which the participants incur, and the great- 
 ness of the money-offerings, are evidence of earnest 
 convictions. 
 
 " Nothing, however, so strongly witnesses to the 
 existence of a perfect understanding between the 
 congregations and the priests as the fact that, 
 though the law of May, 1874, gave to those congre- 
 gations whose pastors had been removed or had 
 not been legally appointed by the bishops the right 
 
244 Prussia and the Church. 
 
 to elect others, yet not even one congregation has 
 up to the present moment made any use of this 
 privilege. When we consider that the number of 
 parishes where there is no pastor must be at least a 
 hundred ; that in itself such right of choice corre- 
 sponds with the wishes of the cpngregations ; far- 
 ther, that the law requires for the validity of the 
 election merely a majority of the members who put 
 in an appearance ; that a proposition made to the 
 LandratJi by ten parishioners justifies him in order- 
 ing an election ; and that, on the part of the influ- 
 ential officials and their organs, nothing has been 
 left undone to induce the congregations to demand 
 elections, not easily could a more convincing proof 
 of the perfect agreement of the people with their 
 priests be found than the fact that to this day in 
 only two or three congregations has it been possi- 
 ble to hunt up ten men who were willing to make 
 such a proposal, and that not even in a single 
 congregation has an election of this kind taken 
 place." "^ 
 
 This is indeed admirable ; and it may, we think, 
 be fairly doubted whether, in the whole history of 
 the church, so large a Catholic population has ever, 
 under similar trials, shown greater strength or con- 
 stancy. Of the peculiar nature of these trials we 
 shall speak hereafter ; the present article we will 
 bring to a close with a few remarks upon what we 
 conceive to have been one of the most important 
 agencies in bringing about the perfect unanimity 
 
 ♦ Culturknwpf, pp. 16-19. i 
 
Pi'iissia and the Church. 245 
 
 and harmony of action between priests and people 
 to which the Catholics of Prussia must in great 
 measure ascribe their immovable firmness in the 
 presence of a most terrible foe. We refer to those 
 Catholic associations in which cardinals, bishops, 
 priests, and people have been brought into immedi- 
 ate contact, uniting their wisdom and strength for 
 the attainment of definite ends. 
 
 Such unions have nowhere been more numerous 
 or more thoroughly organized than in Germany, 
 though their formation is of recent date. It was 
 during the revolution of 1848, of which we have 
 already spoken, that the German Catholics were 
 roused to a more comprehensive knowledge of the 
 situation, and resolved to combine for the defence 
 of their rights and the protection of their religion. 
 Popular unions under the name and patronage of 
 Pius IX. (Pius-Vereine) were formed throughout 
 the fatherland, with the primary object of bringing 
 together once a week large numbers of Catholic 
 men of every condition in life. At these weekly 
 meetings the questions of the day, in so far as they 
 touched upon Catholic interests, were freely dis- 
 cussed, and thus an intelligent and enlightened 
 Catholic public opinion was created throughout 
 the length and breadth of the land. In refuting 
 calumnies against the church the speakers never 
 failed to demand the fullest liberty for all Catholic 
 institutions. 
 
 On the occasion of beginning the restoration and 
 completion of the Cathedral of Cologne, the most 
 religious of churches, the proposition that an annual 
 
246 Prussia and the Church. 
 
 General Assembly of all the unions should be held 
 was made and received with boundless enthusiasm. 
 The first General Assembly took place at Mayence 
 in October, 1848; and thither came delegates from 
 Austria, Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, Hanover, and all 
 the other states of Germany, whose confidence and 
 earnestness were increased by the presence of the 
 Catholic members of the Parliament of Frankfort. 
 For the first time since Luther's apostasy the 
 Catholics of Germany breathed the air of liberty. 
 The bishops assembled at Wilrzburg, gave their 
 solemn approbation to the great work, and Pius 
 IX. sent his apostolic benediction. Since that time 
 General Assemblies have been held at Breslau, 
 May, 1849; Ratisbon, October, 184Q; Linz, 1850; 
 Mayence, 1851 ; Miinster, 1852; Vienna, 1853; 
 Linz, 1856; Salzburg, 1857; Cologne, 1858; Frey- 
 burg, 1859; Prague, i860; Munich, 1861 ; Aix-la- 
 Chapelle, 1862 ; Frankfort, 1863, and in other cities, 
 down to the recent persecutions. 
 
 These assemblies represented a complete system 
 of organization, in which no Catholic interest was 
 forgotten. Every village and hamlet in the land 
 was there, if not immediately, through some central 
 union. We have had the honor of being present 
 at more than one of these assemblies, and the 
 impressions which we then received are abiding. 
 Side by side with cardinals, bishops, princes, no- 
 blemen, and the most learned of professors sat 
 mechanics, carpenters, shoemakers, and black-- 
 smiths — not as in the act of worship, in which the 
 presence of the Most High God dwarfs our uni- 
 
Prussia atid the Church. 247 
 
 versal human littlenesses to the dead-level of an 
 equal insignificance, but in active thought and co- 
 operation for the furtherance of definite religious 
 and social ends. The brotherhood of the race was 
 there, an accomplished fact, and one felt the 
 breathing as of a divine Spirit compared with 
 whose irresistible force great statesmen and mighty 
 armies are weak as the puppets of a child's show. 
 
 We have not the space to describe more minutely 
 the ends, aims, and workings of the numberless 
 Catholic associations of Germany ; but we must 
 express our deep conviction that no study could 
 be more replete with lessons of practical wisdom 
 for the Catholics of the United States. Organiza- 
 tion is precisely what we most lack. Our priests 
 are laborious, our people are devoted, but we have 
 not even an organized Catholic public opinion — 
 nay, no organ to serve as its channel, and make 
 itself heard of the whole country. Many seem to 
 think that the very question of the necessity of 
 Catholic education is still an open one for us ; and 
 this is not surprising, since Ave have no system of 
 Catholic education. Catholic schools, indeed, in 
 considerable number, there are, but the discipline, 
 plan of studies, and even the religious instruction, 
 are left to be determined by the fancy or whims 
 of individuals. The great need of the church in 
 this country is the organization of priests and 
 people for the promotion of Catholic interests. 
 Through this we will learn to know one another; 
 our views will be enlarged, our sympathies deep- 
 ened, and the truth will dawn upon us that, if we 
 
248 Prussia and the Church. 
 
 wish to be true to the great mission which God 
 has given us, the time has come when American 
 Catholics must take up works which do not spe- 
 cially concern any one diocese more than another, 
 but whose significance will be as wide as the na- 
 tion's life. 
 
PRUSSIA AND THE CHURCH. 
 
 III. 
 
 E have already alluded to that feature in 
 the recent ecclesiastical legislation of 
 Prussia which gives to the people the 
 right to choose their pastors, and we 
 have also seen how nobly the Catholics of Germany 
 have thwarted this unholy attempt to create dis- 
 sension and discord in the church. When it could 
 no longer be doubted that the German bishops 
 were immovable in their allegiance to the pope, 
 Prussia sought, by holding out every possible in- 
 ducement to apostasy, to create disunion between 
 the priests and the bishops ; but in this, too, she 
 met with signal defeat. Nothing, therefore, re- 
 mained to be done but to devise measures where- 
 by the administration of ecclesiastical affairs would 
 be placed exclusively in the hands of the laity ; 
 since the breaking' of the bonds which unite church 
 and state would not have as a result that weaken- 
 ing of ecclesiastical power which is so ardently 
 desired. This Professor Friedberg, in his German 
 Empire and the Catholic Church, expressly states 
 in the following words : 
 
 " If the government were to adhere to the plan 
 of a total separation of church and state, what 
 
 21 
 
250 Prussia and the Church. 
 
 would be the consequence ? Would the bishops 
 lose their authority because the state no longer 
 recognized it ? Would the parochial system be 
 broken up if unsupported by the state? In a 
 word, would the church lose any of her power? 
 It would argue an absolute want of perception and 
 a total ignorance of Catholic history to affirm that 
 she would. The stream which for centuries has 
 flowed in its own channel does not run dry because 
 its course is obstructed. It only overflows and 
 floods the country. To continue the metaphor, 
 we must first seek with all care to draw off the 
 waters, and to lead them into pools and reservoirs, 
 where what remains will readily evaporate." 
 
 The Protestants of Prussia are opposed to the 
 separation of church and state, because they are 
 well aware that in the present condition of reli- 
 gious opinion in Germany the rationalists and so- 
 cialists would at once get control of most of the 
 parishes of the Evangelical church, if it were de- 
 prived of the support of the government; and, on 
 the other hand, both they and the infidels are 
 persuaded that the Catholic Church is quite able 
 to maintain herself, and even to wax strong, with- 
 out any help from the temporal power. 
 
 *' One thing," says the Edinburgh Revieiv, " the 
 state is quite at liberty to do. The state is not 
 bound to pay or maintain churches or sects which 
 it does not approve. Indeed, if these conditions 
 are annexed to the acceptance of state payment, 
 the church herself would do well to reject the 
 terms. But will Prince Bismarck withdraw the 
 
Prussia and the Church. 251 
 
 stipend and set the church free ? Nothing of the 
 kind. There is no freedom of religious orders or 
 communities in Prussia. The whole spirit of these 
 laws is to make every form of religious belief and 
 organization as subservient to the state as a Prus- 
 sian recruit is to the rattan of a corporal. That 
 we abhor and denounce as an intolerable oppres- 
 sion ; and it is only by the strangest perversion 
 of judgment that any Englishman can have ima- 
 gined that the cause of true religious liberty was 
 identical with the policy of Prince Bismarck."* 
 
 To consent to a separation of church and state 
 would be a recognition of the independent exis- 
 tence of the church, which Prussia holds to be 
 contrary to the true theory of the constitution of 
 human society in relation to government and re- 
 ligion. This theory is that man exists for the 
 state, to which he owes his supreme and undivid- 
 ed allegiance ; whose duty it is to train and govern 
 him for its own service alike in peace and war. 
 All the interests of society, therefore, material, 
 political, educational, and religious, must be sub- 
 jected to the state, independently of which no 
 organization of any kind ought to be permitted to 
 exist. And in fact the whole spirit of the recent 
 ecclesiastical legislation of Prussia is in perfect con- 
 sonance with this theory. The Falk Laws deny 
 to the church the right to educate her priests, to 
 decide as to their fitness for the care of souls, to 
 appoint them to or remove them from office ; in 
 a word, the right to administer her own affairs, 
 
 * April, 1874, p. 193. 
 
252 Prussia and the Church. 
 
 and consequently to exist at all as an organization 
 separate from the state. 
 
 It can hardly surprise us that the attempt should 
 have been made to prove that this is in accordance 
 with the teachings of the Bible. 
 
 " The New Testament," says the British Quar- 
 terly, " requires that the Christian shall be a loyal 
 subject of the government under which he lives. 
 ' Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. 
 For there is no power but of God ; the powers 
 that be are ordained of God : whosoever therefore 
 resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of 
 God.' " * 
 
 After quoting several texts from the Epistles of 
 St. Paul, of the same general import, the writer in 
 the British Quarterly continues : 
 
 " Now, it is impossible to find in the New Tes- 
 tament any injunctions of obedience to organized 
 ecclesiastical power, like those here given of obe- 
 dience to the civil government. It is not ecclesi- 
 astical authority, nor a corporate ecclesiastical in- 
 stitution, but the personal God, and the individual 
 conscience in its direct personal relations with God, 
 which is set over against an unrighteous demand 
 of the civil authority in the crucial motto of Peter, 
 * We ought to obey God rather than men,' and in 
 the teaching of Christ, ' Render unto Caesar the 
 things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things 
 which are God's.' Of conscience as an ecclesiasti- 
 cal corporation, or of conscience as an imputed or 
 vicarious faculty, determined and exercised by one 
 
 * Romans xiii. i, 2. 
 
Prussia and the Church. 253 
 
 for another, the ethics of the New Testament have 
 no knowledge." * 
 
 It is hard to realize the ignorance or the bad 
 faith of a man who is capable of making such 
 statements as these. Let us take the last words 
 of the gospel of St. Matthew : ** And Jesus com- 
 ing, spoke to them, saying: All power is given to 
 me in heaven and in earth. Going, therefore, teach 
 ye all nations, . . . teaching them to observe all 
 things whatsoever I have commanded you ; and, 
 behold, I am with you all days, even to the con-, 
 summation of the world." Here surely is an or- 
 ganized body of men, receiving from Christ him- 
 self the divine command to teach all the nations 
 of the earth their religious faith and duties, which 
 necessarily carries with it the right to exact obe- 
 dience. But, lest there be any room for doubt, let 
 us hear Christ himself: " He that heareth you, 
 heareth me : and he that despiseth you, despiseth 
 me. And he that despiseth me, despiseth him 
 that sent me." f 
 
 Again : "And if he will not hear the church, let 
 him be to thee as the heathen and the publican. 
 Amen I say to you, whatsoever you shall bind 
 upon earth, shall be bound also in heaven : and 
 whatsoever you shall loose upon earth, shall be 
 loosed also in heaven." \ 
 
 When Peter and John were brought into court 
 and " charged not to speak at all, nor teach in the 
 name of Jesus," they should have submitted at 
 
 ♦ The British Quarterly^ January, 1875, p. 17. 
 t Luke X. 16. J Matthew xviii. 17, i8. 
 
254 Prussia and the Church. 
 
 once, upon the theory that the state has the right 
 to exact supreme and undivided allegiance ; but 
 they appealed to their divine commission, just as 
 the bishops of Germany do to- day, and answered, 
 " We cannot but speak the things which we have 
 seen and heard." * 
 
 And in the council at Jerusalem, " an ecclesias- 
 tical corporation " surely, the apostles say : '* For 
 it hath seemed good to. the Holy Ghost, and to 
 us, to lay no further burden upon you than these 
 necessary things" ;t plainly indicating and using 
 their right to impose commands and exact obedience. 
 But enough of this. The persecutors of the church 
 to-day are not at all concerned about the teachings 
 of the New Testament. The attempt, however, to 
 make it appear that only Catholics protest against 
 the doctrine of absolute and undivided allegiance 
 to the state is wholly unjustifiable. There is no 
 Protestant sect in England or the United States 
 which would submit to the intervention of the 
 government in its spiritual life and internal disci- 
 pline. Would the Methodists, or the Baptists, or 
 the Presbyterians permit the state to decide what 
 kind of education their ministers are to receive, or 
 to determine whether they are capable of properly 
 discharging their spiritual duties, or to keep in 
 office by force those whom the church had cast off? 
 They would go out to pray on the hillside and by 
 the ri^/'er-banks t'ather than submit to such tyranny. 
 
 Is not the right of revolution, which in our day, 
 especially outside of the Catholic Church, is held 
 
 * Acts Iv 20. t Acts XV. a8. 
 
Prussia and the Church. 255 
 
 to be divine, based upon the principle of divided 
 allegiance? Practically it is impossible to distin- 
 guish between loyalty to the government and loy- 
 alty to the state ; and no man in this age thinks 
 of questioning the right of rebellion against a 
 tyrannical government. This divided allegiance 
 marks the radical difference between Christian and 
 pagan civilization. .Before Christ there was no 
 divided allegiance, because the individual was 
 absorbed by the state, and nothing could have 
 wrested mankind from this bondage but a great 
 spiritual organization such as the Catholic Church ; 
 and this, we believe, is generally admitted by our 
 adversaries. They fail to perceive, however, that 
 there is no other institution than the Catholic 
 Church which has the power to prevent the state 
 from again absorbing the individual and destroying 
 all civil and political liberty. If the church could 
 be broken up into national establishments, and the 
 entire control of education handed over to the 
 state, the bringing all men to the servile temper 
 which characterizes the Russians and Protestant 
 Prussians would be only a question of time. Many 
 will be inclined to hold that the general freedom, 
 and even license, of thought of our time would be 
 a sufficient protection against any such danger. 
 
 A little reflection, however, will suffice to dispel 
 this illusion. No number of individuals, unless 
 they are organized, can successfully oppose tyr- 
 anny ; and mere speculations or opinions as to 
 the abstract right of resistance cannot stop the 
 march of the state toward absolutism. The most 
 
256 Prussia a)id the ClnircJi. 
 
 despotic states have often encouraged the most 
 unbounded freedom of thought, and Ave need not 
 go beyond Prussia for an example. In no country 
 in the world has there been more of what is called 
 free-thinking, nor has any government been more 
 tolerant of wild theories and extravagant specula- 
 tions ; and yet the free-thinkers and ilhnninati have 
 done nothing to promote the "growth of free insti- 
 tutions or to encourage civil or religious liberty. 
 They are without unity or organization or pro- 
 gramme. Many of them to-day are the strongest 
 supporters of Bismarckian despotism. Even in 
 1848 they succeeded only in getting up a mob 
 and evaporated in wild talk. 
 
 The divine right of resistance to tyranny would 
 have no sanction or efficacy if it were not kept liv- 
 ing in the hearts of men by supernatural religion. 
 
 This is thoroughly understood by the advocates 
 of absolutism, Avho do not trouble themselves about 
 doctrines of any kind, except when they are up- 
 held by organizations, and for this reason all their 
 efforts are directed to the destruction of the organ- 
 ic unity of the church. Had Prince Bismarck suc- 
 ceeded in his attempt to get the Catholic congre- 
 gations which have been deprived of their priests 
 to elect pastors for themselves, there would have 
 been but another step to open schism, which 
 would have inevitably resulted in favor of Old 
 Catholicism. But, as we have seen, out of more 
 than a hundred parishes, not one has lent itself 
 to the iniquitous designs of the enemies of the 
 church. 
 
Prussia and the Church. 257 
 
 Another striking example of the perfect unanim- 
 ity of thouglit and action which in Prussia exists 
 between priests and people was given last year 
 when the so-called State-Catholics tried to get up 
 a protest against the encyclical letter of the Pope, 
 in which he declared that the May Laws were not 
 binding upon the consciences of Catholics. All 
 the liberal papers of Germany were loud in praise 
 of this project, which presented the fairest oppor- 
 tunity to Catholic government officials to curry 
 favor by showing their acceptance of the Falk 
 laws ; and yet, in spite of every effort that was 
 made, only about a thousancl signatures were ob- 
 tained, most of which were found outside of the 
 eight millions of Prussian Catholics. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone, in his article on the " Speeches 
 of Pope Pius IX.,"* says of the Catholic clergy 
 that they "are more and more an army, a police, 
 a caste ; further and further from the Christian 
 Commons, but nearer to one another and in 
 closer subservience to the pope." However near 
 the Catholic clergy may be to one another, it 
 certainly shows a great lack of power to see 
 things as they are to maintain that they are los- 
 ing the hold which more than any other class of 
 men they have always had on the hearts of the 
 people. The persecution in Germany has shown 
 there that inseparable union of priest and people 
 which is to-day as universal as the life of the 
 church. Had there existed any seed of discord, it 
 
 * The London Quarterly Review, January, 1873, p. 160. 
 
258 Prussia and the Church. 
 
 certainly would have sprung up and flourished in 
 Prussia during the last four or five years. 
 
 What circumstances could have been more fa- 
 vorable to such development than those created 
 by the Old Catholics in league with Bismarck? 
 The unprecedented victories over Austria and 
 France had set all Germany wild with enthusiasm. 
 " Deutschland iiber alles, iiber alles in der Welt," 
 was the refrain of every song. On the other 
 hand, many Catholics, especially in Germany, had 
 been prejudiced and somewhat soured by the false 
 interpretations which were everywhere put on the 
 dogma of papal infallibility. Just at this moment 
 Dr. Dollinger, whose reputation was greater than 
 that of any other German theologian, announced 
 his separation from the church, and at once there 
 gathered around him a party of dissatisfied or sus- 
 pended priests and rationalistic laymen. Reinkens 
 was made bishop, and the Emperor of Germany 
 publicly prayed that the " certainly correct convic- 
 tion of the HocJnviirdiger Herr Bischof might win 
 ground more and more." Fortune smiled upon 
 the new religion and everything seemed to promise 
 it the brightest future. What has been the result? 
 In a population of eight millions of Catholics this 
 sect, with the aid of the state, German enthusi- 
 asm, and the whole liberal press, has been able to 
 gather only about six thousand adherents ; and 
 they are without zeal, without doctrinal or moral 
 unity, having as yet not even dared to define their 
 position towards the Pope. Dr. Dollinger himself 
 has lost interest in the movement, and its most 
 
Prussia and the Church. 259 
 
 sanguine friends have yielded to despondency. 
 Old Catholicism was, in fact, impossible from the 
 beginning. But two roads open before those who 
 to-day go forth from the fold of the church ; the 
 one leads to the Babel and decomposition of Pro- 
 testant sectarianism, the other to the unbelief of 
 scientific naturalism. 
 
 To declare that Christianity is lying disjointed, 
 in shattered fragments, and yet to pretend that hu- 
 man hands, with paste and glue, out of these bro- 
 ken pieces can remake the heavenly vase once fill- 
 ed with God's spirit of faith, hope, and love, is an 
 idle fancy. Into this patchwork no divine life will 
 come ; men will not believe in it, nor will it inspire 
 enthusiasm or the heroic courage of martyrdom. 
 Therefore they who leave the church, their native 
 soil, have indeed all the world before them, and yet 
 no place where they can find rest for their souls. 
 
 What the religious policy of the Prussian Liber- 
 als is, Herr von Kirchmann, to whom in a previous 
 article we introduced our readers, informs us in 
 the following words : 
 
 '.* The majority of the Liberal representatives are 
 highly-educated men who have fallen out with the 
 Christian churches, because they no longer accept 
 their creed, and therefore hold as a principle that 
 freedom of conscience for the individual is abun- 
 dantly sufficient to satisfy the religious wants of 
 the people. At best, they would consent to the ex- 
 istence of congregations ; any organization beyond 
 this they consider not only unnecessary but hurt- 
 ful." 
 
26o PrtirSsia and the Chttrch. 
 
 This, then, is the Liberal programme : the indi- 
 vidual shall have perfect freedom to believe, as he 
 pleases, in God or the devil ; but there shall be no 
 ecclesiastical organization, unless a kind of Con- 
 gregationalism, which, having neither unity nor 
 strength, can be easily rendered harmless by being 
 placed under police supervision. These men of 
 culture, as Herr von Kirchmann says, have fallen 
 out with all the churches ; and they are liberal 
 enough to be willing to do everything in their 
 power to make it impossible that any of them 
 shall exist at all, since without organic unity of 
 some kind there can be no church, as there can be 
 no state. 
 
 But let us hear what Herr von Kirchmann has 
 to remark upon this subject. 
 
 " This view," he says, " may satisfy those who 
 have reached the high degree of culture of the 
 Liberals ; but those who take it, utterly ignore the 
 religious wants of the middle and lower classes, 
 and fail to perceive the yearning, inseparable from 
 all religious feeling, for association with persons 
 of like sentiments, in order, through public wor- 
 ship, to obtain the strength and contentment after 
 which this fundamental craving of the human heart 
 longs." 
 
 To the existence of this feeling, and its yearn- 
 ing for the largest possible association, the history 
 of all Christian peoples, down even to the present 
 day, bears witness ; for this reason nowhere have 
 men been satisfied with the freedom of the indi- 
 vidual, but have ever demanded a church with 
 
Prussia and the Ch u rch . '261 
 
 acknowledged rights and the privilege of free in- 
 tercommunion. 
 
 " To the dangers which would threaten society 
 if religious associations should be broken up, and 
 faith left to the whim of individuals, these highly- 
 cultivated men give no heed, because they do not 
 themselves feel the need of such support ; but 
 they forget that their security, the very possibility, 
 indeed, of reaching the point at which they stand, 
 rests upon the power of the church over the 
 masses ; and should they destroy this by allowing 
 the congregations to break up into atoms, leaving 
 the Christian creed to be fashioned by passion 
 and ever-varying interests, according to the fancy 
 of each and every one, nothing would remain but 
 the brute force of the state, which, without the 
 aid of the internal dispositions of the people, 
 cannot save society from complete dissolution." * 
 
 Herr von Kirchmann, then, adds his testimony 
 to that of many other observers who, though they 
 do not believe in the divine origin and truth of 
 the Christian religion, yet hold that its acceptance 
 by the masses as a system of belief, received on 
 the authority of a church, is essential to the 
 preservation and permanence of our civilization. 
 This is a subject to which we Americans might 
 with great profit give our thoughts. 
 
 As Emerson, who is probably our most charac- 
 teristic thinker, has declared that he would write 
 over the portal of the Temple of Philosophy 
 WHIM, American Protestantism seems more and 
 
 * Der Cuiiurkaiir^f, ? 28, jj. 
 
262 Prussia and ike Church. 
 
 more inclined to accept this as the only satisfac- 
 tory, or indeed possible, shibboleth in religion. 
 The multiplication of sects holding conflicting 
 creeds, while it has weakened faith in all religious 
 doctrines, has helped on the natural tendency of 
 Protestantism to throw men back upon their own 
 feelings or fancies for their faith. This, of course, 
 results in the breaking up even of congregations 
 into atoms of individualism, and will, if not coun- 
 teracted, necessarily destroy our character as a 
 Christian people ; and for us it is needless to say 
 Christianity is the only possible religion. 
 
 Our statesmen — politicians may be the more 
 proper word — though not irreligious, lack grasp 
 of mind and depth of view, else they could not 
 fail to perceive, however little they may sympa- 
 thize with the doctrines or what they conceive to 
 be the social tendencies of the Catholic Church, 
 that just such a strong and conservative Christian 
 organism as she is, is for us an indispensable po- 
 litical requirement. That none of the leading 
 minds of the country should have taken this view 
 is a sad evidence of want of intellectual power or 
 of moral courage. The most that any of them 
 feel authorized in saying in our favor is that a 
 country which tolerates free-love, Mormonism, and 
 the joss-house of the Chinaman ought not, if con- 
 sistency be a virtue, to persecute Catholics. In 
 spite of appearances which mislead superficial 
 observers, we are the most secular people in the 
 world. No other people is so ready to sacrifice 
 religious to material interests ; no other people has 
 
Prussia and the Church. 263 
 
 ever to an equal extent banished all religious in- 
 struction from its national education ; no other 
 people has ever taken such a worldly view of its 
 religion. The supernatural in religion is lost sight 
 of by us, and we value it chiefly for its social and 
 aesthetic power. The popular creed is that reli- 
 gion is something which favors republicanism, pro- 
 motes the exploitation of the material resources 
 of the globe, softens manners, and makes life 
 comfortable. 
 
 The proposition to tax church property shows 
 that a large portion of the American people have 
 ceased to believe in religion as a moral and social 
 power. A church is like a bank or theatre or coal- 
 mine — something which concerns only those who 
 have stock in it, and has nothing whatever to do 
 with the public welfare. The school-house occu- 
 pies quite other ground. The country is interest- 
 ed in having all its citizens intelligent ; this is for 
 the general good ; but whether they believe in God 
 or the soul is a matter of profound indifference, 
 unless, possibly, to themselves, since this can in 
 no way affect the progress or civilization of the 
 American people. This is evidently the only pos- 
 sible philosophy for those who would tax church 
 property. The popular contempt for theology en- 
 couraged by nearly all Protestant ministers is an- 
 other evidence of the tendency to religious disin- 
 tegration. There is but little danger that any 
 church will ever get a controlling influence in the 
 national life of this country ; our peril lies in the 
 opposite direction; and that so few of those who 
 
264 Prussia and the Church. 
 
 think should see this is to us the saddest sign of 
 the times ; but those who do recognize it cannot 
 help knowing that the Catholic Church is the 
 strongest bulwark against this flood-tide. 
 
 The social dangers of an open persecution of the 
 Catholic Church are most clearly seen in Prussia 
 to-day. Since the German chancellor entered up- 
 on his present course of violence five bishops and 
 fifteen thousand priests have been imprisoned or 
 fined, and about the same number of laymen have 
 suffered for daring to speak unfavorably of these 
 proceedings. Never before, probably, have the 
 police been so generally or constantly employed in 
 arresting men who are loved and venerated by the 
 people, and whose only crime is fidelity to con- 
 science. The inevitable consequence of this is 
 that the officers of the government come to be 
 looked upon, not as the ministers of justice, but as 
 the agents of tyranny and oppression, which must, 
 of course, weaken respect for authority. These 
 coercive measures, from the nature of things, 
 tend only to confirm the Catholics in their consci- 
 entious convictions, and the government is there- 
 by instigated to harsher methods of dealing with 
 this passive resistance. The number of confes- 
 sors of the faith increases, the enthusiasm and de- 
 votion of the people are heightened, and it be- 
 comes an honor and a glory to be made a victim 
 of tyranny. The feeling of disgrace which is at- 
 tached to the penalties for violation of law is more 
 efficacious in repressing crime than the suffering 
 which is inflicted ; but this feeling is destroyed, or 
 
Prussia and the Church. 265 
 
 rather changed, into one of an opposite character 
 in the minds of the people when they behold their 
 venerated bishops and much-loved priests dragged 
 to prison for saying Mass or administering the sac- 
 raments. No amount of reasoning, no refinement 
 of logic, can ever convince them that there can be 
 anything criminal in the performance of these sa- 
 cred functions. In this way the ignominy which 
 in the public mind follows conviction for crime is 
 wiped away, and the sacredness of the law itself 
 endangered. 
 
 This alone is sufficient to show how blind and 
 thoughtless Prince Bismarck has been in making 
 war upon the Catholic Church just at the moment 
 when wise counsels would have led him to seek to 
 add the strength of reverence and respect to the 
 enthusiasm with which the creation of the new 
 empire had been hailed. The spoilt child of suc- 
 cess, wounded pride made him mad. How ser- 
 viceable he might have found the moral support 
 of the Catholic clergy Herr von Kirchmann has 
 informed him. 
 
 "I myself," he says, "from 1849 ^^ 1866, with 
 the exception of some intervals, lived in Upper 
 Silefiia, a wholly Catholic province, and, as the 
 president of the Criminal Senate of a Court of 
 Appeals, had the fullest opportunity to study the 
 moral and religious state of the people, which in 
 nothing is so truly seen as in those circumstances 
 out of which spring offences against the law. Now, 
 although this province of more than a million of 
 men was thoroughly Catholic and entirely in the 
 
266 Prussia and the Church. 
 
 hands of the clergy ; although the school system 
 was still very imperfect, and the population, with 
 the exception of the land-owners and the inhabi- 
 tants of the large cities, not speaking the German 
 language, was thereby deprived of culture and of 
 intercourse with the German provinces, yet can I 
 unhesitatingly affirm that the moral condition of 
 the people was in no way worse than in Saxony or 
 the Margravate where formerly I held similar offi- 
 cial positions. The number of crimes was rather 
 less, the security of person and of property greater, 
 and the relations between the different classes of 
 society far more peaceable and friendly than in the 
 provinces to which I have just made allusion. 
 The socage and heavy taxes pressed hard upon 
 the peasantry; nevertheless in 1848 insurrections 
 against the landlords were not more frequent here 
 than elsewhere. It was unquestionably the pow- 
 erful influence of the clergy which, in spite of so 
 many obstacles, gave to the people their moral 
 character, and produced the general contentment 
 and obedience which reflected the greatest honor 
 upon the whole population. The vice of drunk- 
 enness, through the agency of temperance socie- 
 ties established solely by the priests, had been in 
 an almost marvellous manner rooted out from 
 among the people, and the general welfare made 
 manifest progress. By means of my official and 
 political position I had the opportunity to make 
 the acquaintance of a large number of the pastors 
 and curates, and still to-day I recall with pleasure 
 my intercourse with these men, for the most part 
 
^ Prussia and the Church. 267 
 
 cultivated, but above all distinguished by their 
 thorough gentleness of character. They were firm 
 in maintaining the rights of their church, they were 
 filled with the excellence of their mission, but they 
 never thought of thwarting the civil authorities ; 
 on the contrary, they found in the clergy a great 
 and efficacious support, so that this province 
 needed fewer protective and executive officials 
 than others." * 
 
 No enlightened and fair government has any- 
 thing to fear from the influence of men who are as 
 firm in upholding the authority of the state as they 
 are in asserting their own liberty of conscience ; 
 who will neither do wrong nor tamely submit to 
 it. If, in the social, religious, and political crisis 
 through which the nations of Christendom are 
 passing, sound reason is ultimately to prevail and 
 civilization is to be preserved, the necessity of an 
 institution like the Catholic Church will come to 
 be recognized by all who are capable of serious 
 thought. The divided allegiance, the maintenance 
 of the supremacy of conscience, is essential to the 
 preservation of the principle of authority in society. 
 If it were possible to nationalize religion by plac- 
 ing all churches under state control, the authority 
 of the state would necessarily become that of brute 
 force, and would in consequence be deprived of its 
 sacredness. The respect of Christian nations for 
 the civil power is a religious sentiment ; and if the 
 ch.urch could cease to be, there would be a radical 
 revolution in the attitude of the people toward the 
 
 * Cul(ur-kamf>/y pp, 33, 34. 
 
268 Prussia and the Church. 
 
 state. In Europe even now, in consequence of the 
 progress of unbelief, respect for authority and the 
 duty of obedience has been so far destroyed in 
 the minds and hearts of the masses that govern- 
 ment is possible only with the support of immense 
 standing armies, which help on the social dissolu- 
 tion ; and with us things would be in a still worse 
 condition, were it not that the vast undeveloped 
 resources of the country draw off the energies 
 which else would be fatal to public order. Our 
 strength and security are rather in our physical 
 surroundings than in our moral character. Our 
 greatest moral force, during the century of our 
 existence, has been the universal veneration of the 
 people for the Constitution, which was regarded 
 with a kind of religious reverence ; but this ele- 
 ment of strength is fast wasting away and will not 
 pass over as a vital power into the second century 
 of our life. The criticisms, the amendments, the 
 patchings, which the Constitution has been made 
 to suffer, have, more than civil strife, debased it 
 to the common level of profane parchments and 
 robbed it of the consecration which it had received 
 in the hearts of the people. The change which 
 has taken place, though it have something of the 
 nature of growth and development, is yet, unques- 
 tionably, more a breaking down and dissevering. 
 The Catholic Church, by the reverence which she 
 inspires for institutions, is, and in the future Avill 
 be yet more, the powerful ally of those who will 
 stand by the Constitution as our fathers made it. 
 Our statesmen, we know, are in the habit of 
 
Prussia and the Church. 269 
 
 looking elsewhere for the means which are to give 
 permanence to our free institutions. The theory 
 now most in favor is that universal education is the 
 surest safeguard of liberty, and it is upon this more 
 than upon anything else that we, as a people, rely 
 for the perpetuity of our form of government. 
 This hope, we cannot but think, is based upon an 
 erroneous opinion of the necessary tendency of in- 
 tellectual culture ; which is to increase the spirit of 
 criticism, and consequently, by dissatisfying the 
 mind with what is, to direct it continually to new 
 experiments, with the hope of finding something 
 better. Now, though this may be well enough in 
 the realms of speculation, and may be a great help 
 to the progress of science, it most assuredly does 
 not tend either to beget or to foster reverence for 
 existing institutions of any kind ; and this same 
 mental habit which has already made American 
 Protestantism so fragmentary and contradictory 
 will beyond doubt weaken and, unless coun- 
 teracted, destroy the unity of our political life. 
 This is a question which does not concern us alone; 
 with it is bound up the future of the human race. 
 If the American experiment of government by the 
 people fails, all hope of such government perishes. 
 If we allow our personal prejudices to warp our 
 judgment in a matter so catholic and all important, 
 no further evidence of our unfitness for the great 
 mission which God seems to have assigned us is 
 needed. Unfortunately, we are at the mercy of 
 politicians for whom all other questions than the 
 present success of party have no interest, and who 
 
270 Prussia and the Ckurc/t. 
 
 therefore flatter the passions of the people instead 
 of seeking to enlighten them ; and the insane ha- 
 tred and fear of the church which the Protestant 
 masses have inherited from the Old World prevents 
 them from seeing what a source of strength and 
 bond of union is her strong and firmly-knit organ- 
 ism in a social state like ours, in which there are 
 so many elements of dissolution and disintegration. 
 
 Herr von Kirchmann, though, as we have seen, 
 not a Catholic nor a Christian, is yet too profound 
 a statesman not to recognize the supreme social 
 importance of the church to the modern world. 
 
 " Human society," he says, " cannot do without 
 the principle of authority, of obedience, of respect 
 for law, any more than it can do without the prin- 
 ciple of individual freedom ; and now that the 
 family has been shoved into the background, there 
 remains to uphold this principle of authority only 
 one great institution, and that is the Christian 
 churches, and, above all, the Catholic Church. 
 
 " The Reformation has so filled the Evangelical 
 Church with the principle of self-examination and 
 self-determination that she cannot at all take upon 
 herself the mission of protectress of authority, of 
 respect for law, as law ; which is essential to mo- 
 dern society. She is also too far removed from 
 the laity, and lacks those special institutions which 
 would enable her energetically to uphold this 
 principle. 
 
 "The same is true of all reform parties within 
 the church, and must be applied to the Old 
 Catholics, should they succeed in acquiring any 
 
Prussia and the Church. 2 7 1 
 
 importance. The Roman Catholic Church alone 
 must be considered the true mother of respect for 
 authority. She does not permit the individual 
 to decide in matters of faith and discipline ; and 
 she most perfectly realizes the essence of religion, 
 which cannot proceed from the individual, but 
 must have its source in the commandments of 
 God. In the bishops, in the councils, in the pope, 
 the individual finds authorities who announce to 
 him religious truth, and by the administration of 
 the sacraments bring him nearer to God. Changes 
 in faith and worship which, with the progress of 
 science and of general culture, become necessary, 
 are here withdrawn from the disputes of the learn- 
 ed and the criticism of individuals ; in the councils 
 and in their head, the pope, an institution is found 
 by which modifications may be permitted without 
 shaking faith in the teachings of the church. 
 
 " In the position of the priest toward the laity 
 this relation of the individual to the church be- 
 comes most intimate, and numerous special ordi- 
 nances cultivate the spirit of obedience and respect 
 for the commands of ecclesiastical superiors, while 
 they also serve the ends of Christian charity and 
 benevolence. It ought not, indeed, to be denied 
 that this repression of individual self-determination 
 and this fostering of obedience may be carried too 
 far, and to some extent has, in the Catholic Church, 
 been exaggerated, as in civil society the cultiva- 
 tion of individual freedom and the repression of 
 authority have produced an opposite excess ; but 
 precisely through the interaction of these extremes 
 
2 7 2 
 
 Prussia and the Church. 
 
 will the true mean be obtained ; and therefore 
 ought the state to seek in the Catholic Church 
 that powerful institution which alone, by virtue 
 of her whole organization, is able to ward off the 
 dangers which threaten society from the exaggera- 
 tion of the principle of individual freedom. But 
 to do this the church must be left in the posses- 
 sion of her constitution as it has hitherto existed, 
 and the state, consequently, should not interfere 
 with. her external power any further than its own 
 existence demands. In this respect the principle 
 of individual freedom which pervades all modern 
 life is so powerful an auxiliaiy of the state that no 
 fear of the influence of the church need be felt, 
 of which too much is far less dangerous to society 
 than too little. 
 
 '• These are considerations, indeed, which are 
 not in harmony with the programme of modern 
 liberalism, and will therefore have but little weight 
 with those who swim with the current of the time ; 
 "nevertheless, if we look around us, we perceive 
 many evidences of the instinctive feeling of human 
 society that in the Catholic Church may be found 
 a protection for the harmony of social life which 
 now no longer exists elsewhere. Only in this way 
 can we explain the rapid growth of the Catholic 
 Church in her strictly hierarchical constitution in 
 America, and the increasing Catholic movement 
 in England, together with the efforts of the Es- 
 tablished Church to draw nearer to the Catholic; 
 and this tendency would be far more pronounced 
 had it not to contend acainst historical reminis- 
 
Prussia and the Church. 273 
 
 cences, Avhicli in England are more vivid than 
 elsewhere. Similar reasons influence the govern- 
 ment of France to seek rather to strengthen than 
 to weaken the power of the church ; and in this 
 matter the unbelieving Thiers has not acted other- 
 wise than the religious MacMahon. 
 
 " After the principle of authority had been sha- 
 ken by revolutions and an unhappy war in France 
 more than in any other country, the people knew 
 not where to seek help, except in the fostering of 
 religion and the support of the Catholic Church. 
 Like grounds prevent Italy and Austria from com- 
 ing to an open rupture with the church ; they pre- 
 fer to yield somewhat in the execution of the laws 
 rather than suffer themselves to be deprived of her 
 indispensable aid. Similar tendencies exist in the 
 other German governments, and also among the 
 rich and powerful families of Germany and Prussia. 
 Everywhere, even where these families are not ad- 
 herents of the Catholic faith, they feel that this 
 church is a fortress against the anarchy of individu- 
 al freedom, which should be defended and not de- 
 stroyed. The members of these families are not 
 blind to the defects of the church ; but they know 
 that in the present age these are the least to be 
 feared, while her power against the self-exaltation 
 of the individual is indispensable to modern soci- 
 ety. It is altogether a mistake to attribute this 
 bearing of the wealthy classes of all civilized na- 
 tions toward the church to selfish motives or to the 
 cunning of priests; these motives may, as in all 
 great things, slip in in isolated cases ; but this whole 
 
2/4 Prussia and the Church, 
 
 movement in Europe and America springs from 
 deeper causes — from causes which lie at the very 
 root of our common nature, which can neither 
 suffer the loss of freedom nor yet do without order 
 and authority. 
 
 " About every ten years Ave are assured that if only 
 this or that point is reached, the Catholic Church will 
 of herself fall to pieces. Never has the attempt to 
 bring about this consummation been made with 
 more spirit and energy than in the literature and 
 political constitutions of the last century ; and yet 
 this church lives still in our day, and what she has 
 lost in temporal sovereignty is doubly and trebly 
 made up to her in the growing number of her chil- 
 dren and the gradually-increasing insight into the 
 significance of her mission for human society. 
 
 " P'or this reason the present conflict with the 
 church in Prussia ought not to be pushed so far as 
 to bring her power as low as the state has brought 
 that of the Evangelical Church. If the Catholic 
 Church is to fulfil the great social mission which 
 we have just described, and which consists essen- 
 tially in her maintaining an equilibrium between 
 freedom and obedience, which is indispensable to 
 society and the state, her external power and in- 
 ternal organization must not be interfered with in a 
 way to render the accomplishment of this exalted 
 mission impossible." * 
 
 Herr Joerg, the editor of one of the first re- 
 views of Germany, has said that Prince Bismarck 
 
 ♦ CuHurkaiupf, pp. 44-47. 
 
Prussia and the Church. 275 
 
 has done more to strengthen and make popular the 
 Catholic cause in the empire than the two hundred 
 Jesuits whom he has exiled could have done in 
 half a century. This, we believe, is coming to be 
 generally recognized. The war on the church was 
 begun with loud boastings. Men of high position 
 declared that in two years not a Catholic would be 
 left in Germany. The prince chancellor disdained 
 to treat with the Pope or the bishops, and defiant- 
 ly entered upon his course of draconic legislation 
 to compel to his stubborn will the consciences of 
 eight millions of Prussian subjects. He is not able 
 to conceal his disappointment. With glory enough 
 to satisfy the most ambitious he could not rest 
 content, but must court defeat. All his hopes 
 have fallen to the ground. The Old Catholics who 
 were to have been his most powerful allies have 
 sunk into the oblivion of contempt ; the priests 
 whom he expected to throw off the authority of 
 their bishops have not been found ; the uprising 
 of the laity against their pastors has not taken 
 place ; the bishop who was to have put himself at 
 the head of a German Catholic Church has not 
 appeared ; the Falk laws have not served the pur- 
 pose for which they were enacted, nor have the 
 numerous supplementary bills met with better 
 success. He has indeed made his victims person- 
 ally most uncomfortable ; bishops and priests he 
 has cast into dungeons, monks and nuns he has 
 driven forth from their homes and their country 
 to beg the bread of exile; laymen he has sent to 
 jail for speaking and writing the truth; but with 
 
276 Prussia and the CImrch. 
 
 all this he has not advanced one step towards 
 the end he aims at. He has not made a breach in 
 the serried Catholic phalanx. His legislation has 
 nearly doubled the number of Catholic represen- 
 tatives in the parliament ; it has given new life 
 and wider influence to the Catholic press ; it 
 has welded the union of bishops, priests, and peo- 
 ple, and bound all closer to the Pope. From their 
 dungeons the bishops and priests come forth and 
 are received in triumph like conquering heroes ; 
 imprisonments and fines of Catholic editors serve 
 only to increase the circulation of their journals. 
 In the meantime the radicals and revolutionists are 
 gaining strength, crime is becoming more common, 
 and the laws aimed at the church are beginning to 
 tell upon the feebler organizations of Protestan- 
 tism. Since the law on civil marriage has been 
 passed comparatively few contract matrimony in 
 the presence of Protestant ministers ; great num- 
 bers refuse to have their children baptized or to 
 have the preachers assist at the burial of the dead. 
 The government has become alarmed, and quite 
 recently circulars have been sent to the officials 
 charged with carrying out the law on civil mar- 
 riage, in which they are instructed to inform the 
 contracting parties that the law does not abrogate 
 the hitherto existing regulation concerning ecclesi- 
 astical marriage, and that they are still bound to 
 present themselves before the clergyman and to 
 have their children baptized as formerly. The 
 service of the police, we need scarcely say, is not 
 required to induce the Catholics to seek the bless- 
 
Prussia and the Church. 277 
 
 ing of the cliurch upon their marriage contracts or 
 to have their children baptized. 
 
 The result of all this is that many wise and large- 
 minded men, like Von Hoffmann, Von Gerlach, 
 and Von Kirchmann, have lost all sympathy with 
 the policy of Bismarck towards the Catholic 
 Church, as well as confidence in its success. They 
 now thoroughly understand that, were it possible 
 to destroy the church, this would be an irrepara- 
 ble misfortune for the Fatherland. The state needs 
 the church more than the church the state. She 
 can live with Hottentots and Esquimaux, but with- 
 out her neither liberty nor culture can be per- 
 manent. It must also be humiliating to Prince 
 Bismarck to see with what little success those who 
 have sought to ape him have met. Mr. Gladstone, 
 from faith in the chancellor, thought to bolster up 
 a falling party by "expostulating" with the Pope, 
 and he has succeeded only in finding himself in 
 the company of Newdegate and Whalley. Presi- 
 dent Grant has been made to believe that the Pope 
 is such a monstrous man that by means of him 
 even a third term might become possible ; and he 
 will retire to the obscurity of private life with the 
 stigma of having sought to stir up religious strife 
 for the furtherance of his own private interest. 
 
GERMAN JOURNALISM.* 
 
 HE universal hymn of journalistic praise, 
 sung throughout the civih'zed world 
 with hardly a discordant note, is of 
 itself no mean evidence of the power 
 of the press. " Great is journalism," saysCarlyle. 
 ** Is not every able editor a ruler of the world, be- 
 ing a persuader of it ?" From France M. Thiers 
 declares that the liberty of the press is theoreti- 
 cally and practically the most necessary of all ; and 
 was it not our own Jefferson who solemnly affirmed 
 that he would rather live in a country with news- 
 papers and without a government than in a country 
 with a government but without newspapers? And 
 did not Napoleon himself stand in greater awe of a 
 newspaper than of a hundred thousand bayonets ? 
 "Give me but the liberty of the press," cried 
 Sheridan, " and I will give to the minister a venal 
 House of Peers ; I will give him a corrupt and ser- 
 vile House of Commons ; I will give him the full 
 sway of the patronage of office ; I will give him the 
 whole host of ministerial influence ; I will give him 
 all the power that place can confer upon him to 
 
 ♦ Die deutsche Zeitschri/ten unddieEatstehungd^roffintlichen Afeinun^. 
 Ein B;itrax zuf Geschichte des Zeitungswesens. Von Heinrich Wuttke. — The 
 German newspapers and the origin of public opinion : a contribution to the history 
 of journalism. Leipzig; 1875. 
 
German Journalism. 279 
 
 purchase up submission and overcome resistance : 
 and yet, armed with the liberty of the press, I will 
 go forth to meet him undismayed ; I will attack 
 the mighty fabric he has reared with that mightier 
 engine ; I will shake down from its height corrup- 
 tion and bury it amidst the ruins of the abuses it 
 was meant to shelter." 
 
 But we do not propose to treat our readers to a 
 dissertation written in the style of him who de- 
 clared that, were the starry heavens deficient of 
 one constellation, the vacuum could not be better 
 supplied than by the introduction of a printing- 
 press. We fully recognize, however, the very 
 great power of the press which controls public 
 opinion, and indeed often makes it. Nothing is 
 unimportant which throws light upon the constitu- 
 tion and workings of this " Fourth Estate," into 
 whose hands the destinies of modern nations and 
 civilization seem to have been delivered ; and it is 
 for this reason that we take pleasure in bringing 
 to the notice of the American public the work of 
 Professor Wuttke on German Journalism and the 
 Origin of Public Opinion. 
 
 It would be difficult to find a more curious or in- 
 structive book. For years connected with the press, 
 a leader of the " great German party," and the 
 author of several valuable historical and philosophi- 
 cal works, Herr Wuttke has brought to his present 
 task the thoroughgoing and painstaking conscien- 
 tiousness of a German professor. He is wholly in 
 earnest; neither smiles nor laughs; does not even 
 stop to give smoothness and polish to his phrase, 
 
28o Ger7)iaii Jotiriialism. 
 
 but without remorse or fear invades the editorial 
 sanctum, and pours upon its most hidden mysteries 
 the profane h"ght ; holds them up before vulgar 
 eyes, and leaves not the suspicion of a doubt but 
 that he is resolved to tell all he knows. His cour- 
 age no one can deny. The enterprise to which he 
 has devoted himself was full of perils, none of which 
 were hidden from him. 
 
 German newspapers before the revolution of 1848 
 were chiefly of a literary character. Their columns 
 were filled with criticisms of books, philosophical 
 and theological discussions, aesthetic treatises, ac- 
 counts of travel, entertaining stories, and theatrical 
 notices. Scarcely any attention was paid to events 
 of the day, and least of all to those of a political 
 character. The explanation of this anomaly is 
 simple. The governments of Germany exercised a 
 rigorous censorship over the press, and allowed no- 
 thing to be published which might set people to 
 thinking about what their rulers were doing. But 
 the storm of 1848 blew the pen from the hand of 
 the official censor, and opened the columns of the 
 newspaper to all kinds of political theories and dis- 
 cussions. The governments were at sea, borne 
 helpless by the popular wave which had broken 
 them loose from their ancient moorings and was 
 carrying them they knew not whither. Thefr offi- 
 cial organs, with unlimited financial support from 
 the state, were powerless, because people refused to 
 read them whilst independent journals were within 
 their reach. But this revolutionary outburst was 
 soon followed by a reaction, partly brought on by 
 
German yoiirnalism. 281 
 
 its own excesses ; and with the aid of the military 
 the former governments were restored. Restric- 
 tions were again placed upon the liberty of the 
 press ; but so universal had the political agitation 
 been that to think of carrying through a policy of 
 rigorous repression was manifestly out of the ques- 
 tion. It became necessary, therefore, to devise 
 some expedient by which the press m.ight be con- 
 trolled without being muzzled. 
 
 With this view Von Manteuffel, the Prussian 
 minister, established in Berlin a " Central Bureau 
 of the Press," which stood in intimate relations 
 Avith the government and received from the " Secret 
 Fund " a yearly support of from forty to fifty thou- 
 sand thalers. With this money the pens of a crowd 
 of needy scribes were bought, who for twenty or 
 thirty thalers a month agreed to write articles in 
 support of the views which the director of the 
 Bureau should inspire. The next step was to make 
 an opening for these articles in the colurrflis of jour- 
 nals in different parts of the kingdom. This was 
 not difficult, as the contributions were well written, 
 by persons evidently thoroughly informed, and were 
 offered at a nominal price, or even without pay. 
 On the 9th of March, 1851, the director of the Bu- 
 reau sent a circular to " those editors and publish- 
 ers of the conservative party with whom he has not 
 at present the honor of holding personal relations," 
 in which he promised, with special reference to his 
 connection with the Ministry of State, to send them 
 from time to time communications concerning the 
 real condition of political affairs, in order to furnish 
 
282 German Journalism. 
 
 them indispensable materials for the successful 
 prosecution of their labors. This assistance was to 
 be given free of cost, and many editors were ea^^er 
 to avail themselves of it without inquiring with 
 much care into its special significance. In this way 
 the " Central Press-Bureau " wove a net-work of 
 lines of communication over the whole kingdom, 
 which, however, was carefully hidden from public 
 view. It also kept up constant intercourse with 
 the representatives of Prussia at the various Euro- 
 pean courts, which enabled it to give tone to pub- 
 lic opinion on foreign affairs as well as on matters 
 at home. Through the influence of the govern- 
 ment, and by spending money, the Bureau gradu- 
 ally succeeded in introducing its agents into the 
 offices of many newspapers, and occasionally in 
 getting entire control of this or that journal. By 
 this cunning policy the Prussian government was 
 able to lead the unsuspecting public by the nose. 
 
 Whilst confiding readers throughout the land 
 were receiving the views of their favorite journals 
 as the honest expression of public opinion, these 
 newspapers were in fact only the whispering-galler- 
 ies of the Berlin ministry. The editors themselves 
 were often ignorant of the fact that the pens of 
 their co-laborers had been bought and sold. Even 
 foreign journals, in England and France, did not 
 escape the meshes of the ** Press-Bureau," but were 
 entrapped and made to do service for Prussia. 
 
 Another contrivance for working up public opin- 
 ion was the " Lithographic Correspondence-Bu- 
 reau," which is a French invention. This is an 
 
German Journalism. 28 
 
 
 
 agency for the manufacture of correspondence from 
 all parts of the world, at home and abroad, which 
 is lithographed and sent to journals that are willing 
 to pay for it ; and nearly all of them find this the 
 cheapest and easiest method of keeping abreast of 
 the times. 
 
 As the men who found these Bureaus are chiefly 
 intent upon making money, and live, moreover, in 
 salutary awe of the government, they generally 
 find it advisable to place themselves at its dispo- 
 sition. The correspondence-agency of Havas-Biil- 
 lier in Paris was Orleanistic under Louis Philippe, 
 and Napoleonic under the Empire. In return it 
 obtained the monopoly of " lithographic corre- 
 spondence" ; so that, during the reign of Louis 
 Napoleon, France received its knowledge of the 
 foreign world through the single channel of this 
 Bureau, which was carefully supervised by the 
 government. This was too excellent a device not 
 to find ready acceptance in Berlin, and in the most 
 natural way in the world the " Lithographic Cor- 
 respondence-Bureau" was placed alongside the 
 " Press-Bureau" ; the journals which had already 
 fallen under the influence of the latter yielded 
 without resistance to the seductions of the new 
 ally, and thus became to a still greater extent the 
 tools of the government. In this way the " eu- 
 nuchs of the court and press" were in position 
 deliberately and with malice to falsify and pervert 
 public opinion, which soon came to mean the 
 utterances of the herd of venal scribes in Ber- 
 lin who had sold themselves, body and soul, to 
 
284 Gemnan Journalism. 
 
 the " Press-Bureau." One of the five sins which, 
 according to Confucius, is unpardonable, is from 
 under the mantle of truth to scatter broadcast lies 
 which are hurtful to the people ; and this is the 
 charge which Professor Wuttke brings against the 
 crowd of German newspaper-writers. 
 
 Telegraphy, which was first introduced into Ger- 
 many in 1849, led to further improvements in the 
 art of manipulating the press. The " Correspon- 
 dence-Bureau " of Havas-BuUier became a tele- 
 graphic agency and furnished despatches free of 
 charge to the Parisian journals, in order to prevent 
 the starting of a rival business ; and when, notwith- 
 standing, the Agence Continentale was organized, it 
 was suppressed by Persigny, the Minister of State, 
 who by this means was enabled to control the pub- 
 lication of telegrams in all the leading journals of 
 France. In Italy the Stefani Agency, at Turin, 
 rendered similar services to the government of 
 Victor Emanuel ; sending out the most shame- 
 less falsehoods to the four corners of the earth, 
 and carefully suppressing whatever the authorities 
 wished to conceal from the public. These de- 
 spatches were printed in the leading journals of 
 Europe and America as coming from unsuspected 
 sources, when they were in fact the "cooked " tele- 
 grams of the secret agents of Cavour and the Revo- 
 lution. 
 
 In 1850 Reuter established his telegraphic Agen- 
 cy in Aix-la-Chapelle, but removed it in the follow- 
 ing year to Berlin ; and a few months later, when 
 the cable between Calais and Dover was laid, he 
 
German Journalism. 285 
 
 made London the central point of his operations. 
 In Berlin a similar business was opened by Dr. 
 Wolf, a Jew. In 1855 he sold out to a number 
 of capitalists, who organized the Continentalc Tclc- 
 grafenkompagnic, and then entered into a combina- 
 tion with Reuter and Havas, through which they 
 controlled the telegraphic despatches furnished to 
 the press of all Europe. To have the latest news 
 was a journalistic necessity ; and yet to maintain 
 special agents in the great centres, and to pay the 
 high rates for sending special telegrams, would 
 have been too heavy a burden. Nothing remain- 
 ed, therefore, but to take the despatches of the 
 Agencies, which were now in league with one an- 
 other. 
 
 In Prussia nearly all the telegraphic lines, most 
 of which were put up during the reaction after the 
 revolution of 1848, were in the hands of the gov- 
 ernment ; and this, of itself, was sufficient to place 
 the Agencies at its disposal. And in point of fact, 
 it is no secret that in Prussia^there exists a censor- 
 ship of the telegraph, and that the government de- 
 cides as to the despatches which the newspapers 
 shall receive. Whoever will take the trouble to 
 weigh this matter will see what a terrible instru- 
 ment for the perversion of public opinion is thus 
 placed in the hands of the state. A despatch has 
 always in its favor the force of first impressions. 
 When, after days or weeks, explanations follow, 
 they are passed over, new events having already 
 preoccupied public attention. All the world reads 
 the telegram.; comparatively few pay any attention 
 
286 German yoiirtialism. 
 
 to the later-coming corrections of inaccurate or false 
 statements. 
 
 Prussia, then, through her " Central Press- Bu- 
 reau," her " Correspondence-Bureau," and her 
 " Telegram-Bureau," succeeded in getting control 
 of the leading German journals, which, while keep- 
 ing up the appearance of independence and hon- 
 esty, were either in her pay or under the influence 
 of her agents. Public opinion in Germany was at 
 her mercy ; so that, after she had made the most 
 thorough preparations for the war of 1866, she 
 found no difficulty in having it proclaimed through- 
 out the Fatherland that Austria had been arming 
 and was ready to fall upon her in order to rob her 
 of Silesia. The newspapers even lent themselves, 
 when the war had begun, to the publication of a 
 spurious address to the army by Benedek, the Aus- 
 trian leader, in which there was not one word of 
 truth, but in which he was made to speak in a way 
 that could not fail to arouse the indignation of the 
 Prussian soldiers. This forged document was cir- 
 culated by the press and read by the captains to 
 their men as soon as they had entered Bohemia. 
 
 The creation of the new empire has not im- 
 proved German journalism. The " Press-liureau " 
 has enlarged the circle of its activity, while the 
 government has invented other means not less 
 effective for controlling the newspapers. " We 
 care not for public opinion," said a high official in 
 Berlin some months ago ; " for the entire press 
 belongs to us." Prussia has German public opin- 
 ion, in so far as it is allowed to find expression, in 
 
German Journalism. 287 
 
 her keeping. After the war with Austria the an- 
 nual secret fund of the " Press-Bureau " was in- 
 creased to 7o,ocx) thalep ; but this is in reality a 
 very inconsiderable portion of the money at its 
 disposition. The incorporation of Hanover and 
 Hesse with Prussia threw into the hands of the 
 government very large resources. From George of 
 Hanover King William exacted 19,000,000 thalers, 
 and from the Prince Elector of Hesse property 
 with an annual rental of 400,000 thalers. Both 
 these sums were placed at the disposal of Bismarck 
 by the Landtag, that he might use them to defeat 
 the " intrigues " of the enemies of Prussia. It was 
 on the occasion of this grant that Bismarck used 
 the words which have given to the " Press-Bureau " 
 fund a name which it can never lose. " I follow," 
 he said, " malignant reptiles into their very holes, 
 in order to watch their doings." The money which 
 he received to»carry on this dark underground 
 business was appropriately designated by the Ber- 
 lin wits the ** Reptile-fund " {Reptilieiifond). A 
 vocabulary of slang has been invented to designate 
 the hired scribes of the Bureau and their opera- 
 tions. Bismarck calls them " my swine-herds " 
 {ineitie SauJiirteri). To write for the " Press-Bu- 
 reau " is to take mud-baths {Schlaininbdder neli- 
 mcti) ; and the writers themselves, who are classified 
 as " officious," *• high-officious," ** half-officious," 
 and "over-officious," are called " mud bathers " 
 {Schlaimnbdder), and they devour the " Reptile- 
 fund." The instructions issued by the directors 
 for the preparation of articles for the different 
 
288 German Journalism. 
 
 journals are styled "wash-tickets" [Wasclizettet). 
 The directors who are not immediately connected 
 Avith the Bureau are known by the name of " Pi- 
 per " {Pfeifer), which, in the jargon of Berlin, 
 has a peculiar and by no means flattering signi- 
 fication. 
 
 As the buzzards fly to the carcass, so gathered 
 the hungry German scribes around the " Reptile- 
 fund " ; but their pens were cheap and the " Press- 
 Bureau " was able to feed a whole army of them, 
 and yet have abundant means to devote to other 
 methods for influencing public opinion. Its machi- 
 nations are, of course, conducted with the great- 
 est secrecy. All manner of blinds are used. Its 
 agents assume in their articles a style of great 
 independence, deal largely in loud and captious 
 epithets, occasionally even criticise this or that 
 measure of the government, and ape the ways of 
 honest and patriotic men. The "* Central Press- 
 Bureau " itself is pushed as far out of sight as 
 possible ; stalking-horses and scarecrovv^s are put 
 forward ; and the institution is made to appear 
 as only a myth. But the Cave of yEolus is in 
 Berlin, and the winds which are let loose there 
 blow to and fro, hither and yon, through all Ger- 
 many, starting currents in other parts of the world. 
 In this cave the old snake-worship of so many 
 ages and peoples still exists, and the god is the 
 " Reptile-fund." Out of this cavern are blown the 
 double-leaded leaders which fall thick all over the 
 land, and always, as if by magic, just in the right 
 place. False reports eddy through the air; stub- 
 
German Journalism. 289 
 
 born facts are pulled and bent and beaten until 
 they get into the proper shape. The light which 
 is permitted to fall upon them is managed as skil- 
 fully as in an art-gallery or a lady's drawing-room. 
 With the aid of the " Reptile-fund " the " Press- 
 Bureau " found little difficulty in extending its 
 business of buying up journals, paying sometimes 
 as high as a hundred thousand thalers for a single 
 newspaper ; and where this could not be done 
 money was freely spent to start an opposition 
 sheet. Whenever a journal was found to be grow- 
 ing weak, aid was proffered on condition that it 
 should open its columns to the " Press-Bureau " ; 
 sometimes with the understanding that one of 
 its agents should be placed in the editorial chair. 
 So thoroughly has this system of bribery taken 
 possession of Prussian journalism that the court 
 decided (October, 1873), in a suit against the 
 Germania newspaper, that to accuse an editor of 
 being in the pay of the "Press-Bureau" is not a 
 criminal offence, since it does not in the public 
 estimation tend to lower his character. 
 
 Occasionally, in spite of the greatest care, the 
 secrets of the Bureau are betrayed. Thus in 
 February, 1874, a circular was sent to various 
 journals, and amongst others to the Neiie Wormser- 
 Zeitiing, with the offer to furnish from the capi- 
 tal, first, a tri-weekly original article on the politi- 
 cal situation ; second, original political and diplo- 
 matic advice from all the departments of the 
 government, also three times a week; third, a 
 short but exhaustive parliamentary report ; fourth, 
 
 24 
 
290 German Journalism. 
 
 special correspondence from other capitals (writ- 
 ten in Berlin) ; fifth, original accounts of foreign 
 affairs, drawn from the special sources of the 
 Bureau ; and, sixth, a short daily, as well as a 
 more lengthy weekly, exhibit of the Berlin 
 Bourse. For these services nothing was demand- 
 ed ; but, that the thing might not appear too 
 bald, it was stated that the editor should fix his 
 own price. Now, it so happened that when this 
 circular was received by the Naie Wormscr-Zcitung 
 that paper was in the hands of Herr Westerburg, 
 a Social Democrat, who straightway took the pub- 
 lic into his confidence. 
 
 The newly-acquired provinces of Prussia were a 
 favorite field for the operations of the Berlin Bu- 
 reau. General Manteuffel, in 1866, suppressed the 
 Schleswig-Holstemisclie Zcttittig, and handed the 
 country over to the reptile-press. In Alsace and 
 Lorraine also journals were suppressed, and others 
 established, by the government. In these provinces 
 the independent press has wholly disappeared, with 
 the exception of two tame and unimportant sheets. 
 In fact, if we except the Catholic and a few Social 
 Democratic newspapers, there is hardly a journal of 
 any weight in the German Empire in which the 
 press-reptile is not found. " I know," wrote to 
 Professor Wuttke an author well acquainted with 
 the circumstances — " I know few German news- 
 papers in which there is not a mud-bather." For 
 even passing services the Bureau is ready to pay 
 cash. Chaplain Miarka, the editor of the Katholik, 
 has declared publicly that he was ofifered 7,500 tha- 
 
Gei'man yo2trnalis7n. 291 
 
 lers on condition of consenting to write in a milder 
 manner during the elections. 
 
 The working up of public opinion through the 
 press extends far beyond the boundaries of the 
 German Empire. The proceedings of the court in 
 the trial of Von Arnim in 1874 developed the fact 
 that he, whilst representing Prussia at the Tuileries, 
 had entered into relations with various journals in 
 Paris, Vienna, and Brussels ; and it is generally un- 
 derstood that 50,000 thalers were annually placed at 
 the disposition of Herr Rudolf Lindau for the pur- 
 pose of manipulating the Parisian press. Through 
 these and similar means an opening for the arti- 
 cles of the " Press-Bureau " was made in English, 
 French, and Belgian newspapers ; and these arti- 
 cles, which had been first written in German, were 
 translated back into German and published by the 
 reptile-press as the expression of public opinion in 
 foreign countries on Prussian affairs. ** I could give 
 the names," says Professor Wuttke, " of the press- 
 reptiles who write for the Ind^pendajice Beige, of 
 those who take care of the Hour, and of others 
 whose duty it is to furnish articles to the Italian 
 and Scandinavian newspapers." * To hold the Eng- 
 lish in leading-strings, Berlin had, in 1869, a NortJi- 
 Germany Correspondence, and then, under the super- 
 vision of Aegidi, the director of the " Press-Bureau," 
 a Norddeiitsche Correspondenz, which is still the chief 
 source from which both English and American jour- 
 nals draw their information on German affairs. The 
 attempt made from Berlin to buy Katkoff 's Jonrnal 
 
 * pie deutscke Zeitsckri/lcH, p. 309, 
 
292 German Journalism. 
 
 of Moscoiu was defeated by the incorruptibility of 
 the proprietor. 
 
 The reptile-press, of course, ignores and strives to 
 hush whatever may throw light upon the dark work- 
 ings and intrigues of the " Press-Bureau " ; and no 
 better instance of its power in this respect can be 
 given than the history of Professor Wuttke's book 
 on German journalism. Its existence was not recog- 
 nized by the press-reptiles ; its startling revelations 
 were ignored or received in profound silence ; and 
 so successful was this policy that a year after the 
 publication of the work only three hundred copies 
 had been sold ; and it is chiefly through the efforts 
 of a Catholic newspaper — the Germania — and of 
 Windthorst, a leader of the party of the Centrum^ 
 that it has finally been brought to public notice and 
 has now reached a third edition. In the German 
 Parliament, on the i8th of December, 1874, Wind- 
 thorst took Professor Wuttke's book with him to 
 the speaker's stand, and, in a powerful address 
 against any further grant of the *' Secret Fund " 
 {Reptilienfond), made special reference to this work, 
 which he characterized as "conscientious" and full 
 of startling revelations which leave room to sus- 
 pect even worse things. A year before (December 
 3, 1873) the same speaker declared in the Prussian 
 Landtag that in Germany the government had 
 nearly succeeded in getting entire control of the 
 press; that the influence of the "Reptile-fund" 
 was already noticeable in foreign countries, particu- 
 larly in the newspapers of Vienna ; and that the 
 attempt had been made to establish a " Reptile- 
 
German yoiirnalism. 293 
 
 Bureau " in connection with the London embassy ; 
 and when this was found not to work well, a 
 " Press- Bureau " for England, France, and Italy 
 was organized in Berlin. These charges, made in 
 public parliamentary debate, were allowed to pass 
 without contradiction, although Aegidi, the director 
 of the Central Bureau, was a member of the As- 
 sembly and present during the discussion. 
 
 Eugen Richter, the member for Hagen, brought 
 forward other accusations of like import on the 
 20th of January, 1874. We have already given an 
 example of the uses to which the Prussian gov- 
 ernment puts the reptile-press, in the instance of 
 the forged army address attributed to Benedek, 
 and published throughout Germany at the out- 
 break of the war with Austria in 1866.'^ Similar 
 services were rendered by the *' mud-bathers " at 
 the time of the crisis with France in 1870. A 
 false telegram, purporting to come from Ems, 
 dated July 13, 1870, in which the French minister, 
 Count Benedetti, was said to have grossly insulted 
 King William, was eagerly taken up by the venal 
 press and commented upon in a way which excited 
 the greatest indignation in the minds of the Ger- 
 mans against Napoleon, who, they firmly believed, 
 was bent upon humiliating Prussia. In this way 
 public feeling in both countries was fanned into a 
 heat which could be cooled only by blood. The 
 account of the interview at Ems was a fabrication, 
 as Benedetti has since clearly shown ; but Bis- 
 
 * This spurious document has got into many books; e.g.^ into Hahn's Ge- 
 schichie des preussischen Vaterlandes. 
 
294 Germa7t yournalism. 
 
 marck's " swine-herds " had faithfully done their 
 unholy work.* 
 
 When, just at the beginning of the war, the 
 French army made an attack on Saarbriicken, the 
 reptile-press spread the report that they had re- 
 duced the city to ashes ; and this infamous false- 
 hood made a deep impression throughout Ger- 
 many. A similar lie had been propagated at the 
 commencement of the Austrian war. On the 27th 
 of June, 1866, the Prussians were driven from 
 Trautenau by General Gablenz, and forthwith the 
 reptile-press raised the cry that the citizens of 
 Trautenau had poured from their houses hot water 
 and boiling oil on the retreating soldiers ; and the 
 government lent itself to the spreading of this de- 
 testable calumny by dragging off the mayor of 
 Trautenau, Dr. Roth, to prison, where he was de- 
 tained in close confinement nearly three months.f 
 
 There is no subject on which the organs of the 
 *' Press- Bureau" are more united or more eloquent 
 than the necessity of keeping up the full strength 
 of the standing army ; nay, they have gone so far 
 as to demand that the Reichstag shall consent to 
 take from the representatives of the people the 
 right to legislate on military affairs during the next 
 seven years. But before taking this step, hitherto 
 unheard of in the history of constitutional govern- 
 ment, it was necessary to manipulate public opin- 
 ion, so that the members of parliament might seem 
 to be compelled to this decision by the will of the 
 
 * See Ma Mission en Prusse, by Benedetti, Paris, 1871, p. 372 et seq. 
 + Roth, Achtzig Tage in preussischen Ge/atigenscha/t, p. 13. 
 
German yoiir7talism. 295 
 
 people themselves. With this view packed meet- 
 ings were gotten up in various parts of the empire 
 wlTich the telegraph lyingly announced to the 
 world as very numerously attended and unanimous 
 in demanding the seven-year enactment ; but the 
 popular gatherings which were held to protest 
 against this violation of constitutional rights were 
 passed over in dead silence, and their action, conse- 
 quently, did not become known outside of their 
 own immediate neighborhood. The reptile-press 
 acted in full harmony with the "Telegraph-Bu- 
 reau." The Spener sche Zeitinig^ in Berlin, went so 
 far as to declare that no protests had been heard, 
 whereupon the Provinzialkorrcspondenz exclaimed 
 that the movement, which had proceeded from 
 the depths of the nation's heart with unexpected 
 power, should force the Reichstag to yield to the 
 demand of the government. 
 
 As a part of the same programme, the " Press- 
 Bureau" just a year ago raised the cry that France 
 was buying horses, and that in less than three 
 months she would declare war on Germany. On 
 the same day and at the same hour this startling 
 announcement was made in Frankfort, in Leipzig, 
 in Stuttgart, and other cities. The following day 
 hundreds of newspapers throughout the Fatherland 
 took up the chorus and began to shout that the 
 empire was threatened. Now, all the world knows 
 that France at that time was as little thinking of 
 making war on Germany as of tunnelling the At- 
 lantic Ocean ; but this piece of journalistic legerde- 
 main roused the Teutonic mind to the necessity of 
 
296 German Jo^wnalism. 
 
 strengthening the army and increasing the military 
 resources of a country which was already a camp 
 of soldiers. 
 
 No figure of rhetoric is more forcible than repe- 
 tition, and we may calculate with mathematical 
 precision just how many leading articles, all saying 
 the same thing in fifty different localities, are re- 
 quired in order to fabricate a public opinion on a 
 given subject. 
 
 Another trick of the reptile-press is employed to 
 prevent the people from getting a knowledge of 
 the speeches of the opposition in parliament. The 
 arguments of these orators are either excluded 
 from its columns or caricatured so as to appear 
 childish or ridiculous. When, for instance, Sonne- 
 mann, the member for Frankfort, made an appeal 
 in behalf of the Alsacians, who had themselves 
 been reduced to dead silence, and showed from 
 authentic documents the pitiable condition to 
 which that province had been brought, the organs 
 of the " Press-Bureau " declared that " to answer 
 such utterances would be beneath the dignity of a 
 chancellor of the empire ; such want of political 
 honor had no claim to pass as the honest views of 
 an individual " ; and when Mallinckrodt placed his 
 hand on Lamarmora's book to prove his charges 
 against Bismarck, the Spencr scJie Zcitung announc- 
 ed that " the national parties were filled with deep- 
 est disgust at the conduct, of the Centrum s iz.z-- 
 tion, and were not able to conceal their regret 
 that Prince Bismarck should deign to answer these 
 Ultramontane brawlers, since, by consenting to 
 
German Journalism. 297 
 
 notice the tricks of Windthorst, Mallinckrodt, and 
 Schorlemer, he was giving prominence to what 
 ought to be completely ignored " ; and then closed 
 with the phrase of Frederick the Great, " Shall we 
 play at fisticuffs with the rabble ?" The Nord- 
 deutsche Allgemeiiie and National Zeitiing indulged 
 in similar strains, and these articles were then 
 republished by nearly the entire German press. 
 When an opponent is especially troublesome the 
 press-reptiles raise the cry that he has been bought 
 up by foreign gold ; and in this they are probably 
 sincere, since it must be difficult for them to un- 
 derstand how any man could refuse to sell himself 
 for a proper consideration. 
 
 For five years now Bismarck's venal press has 
 poured the full tide of its wrath upon the bishops 
 and priests of Germany. Here was a subject upon 
 which the reptiles could distil their venom to their 
 hearts' content. What magnificent opportunities 
 were here offered to the "mud-bathers" to hunt 
 through the sewers of centuries and to wallow 
 in the mire of ages ; to revive Luther's vocabu- 
 lary and refurbish the rusty weapons that for hun- 
 dreds of years had lain idle and hurtless ! What 
 an open field was here in which to ventilate his- 
 torical calumnies, to produce startling eff"ects by 
 the dramatic grouping of striking figures ; to bring 
 out the light of the golden present by causing it to 
 fall upon the dark and bloody background of the 
 past ! And what divine occasions for indignation, 
 wrath, horror, word-painting to cause the hair to 
 stand on end and the eyes to start ! Here was 
 
 25 
 
29B Germati journalism. 
 
 place for withering scorn, patriotic thunder, lurid 
 lightning to sear the Jesuitic head bent upon the 
 ruin of the new empire. And with what demoniac 
 delight the hired crew ring the changes on each 
 popular catch-word — progress, liberty, culture, free 
 thought ; and how they foam and rage when a 
 bishop or a priest has the " boundless impudence" 
 to speak in defence of the church ! " It has come 
 to this," says the Dresdener Volksbote (April 17, 
 1873) : " Minorities must keep silence." 
 
 " Gone," exclaims a former German minister of 
 state — " gone is the reign of noble ideas ; the power 
 of the love of country and of freedom ; the worth 
 and honor of the national character ! Money alone 
 is loved, and all means by which it is acquired seem 
 natural and praiseworthy." The very foundations 
 of the moral order are attacked by this vile press. 
 The events of 1866 and 1870 are now spoken of 
 as "an historical phenomenon, which cannot be 
 judged by the current notions of morality, but 
 in accordance with which these moral principles 
 themselves must be widened and corrected." This 
 is the low and degrading philosophy to which the 
 idolatry of success fatally leads. 
 
 But, for the honor of journalism, a portion of 
 tlie German press has remained closed against the 
 insidious power of the " Reptile-fund." No Ca- 
 tholic newspaper has lent itself even covertly to 
 this conspiracy against truth and liberty ; and it 
 must be admitted, too, that the socialistic journals 
 have refused the government bribes; their circu- 
 lation, however, which is not large, is confined 
 
German yournalism. 299 
 
 almost exclusively to the laboring classes, and 
 their influence is but little felt. The power of 
 the Catholic press in Germany is of recent growth. 
 In the early part of the present century the only 
 periodical of any weight devoted to the defence 
 of the interests of the church in Germany was the 
 Theologische Quartalschrift, founded in 18 19 as the 
 organ of the Tubingen professors. Twenty years 
 later Joseph Gorres established in Munich the 
 Historisch-politischen Blatter^ which soon caused 
 the influence of his powerful mind to be felt 
 throughout the Fatherland, and which, under the 
 editorial management of the historian Jorg, is 
 still to-day one of the ablest reviews in Germany. 
 The censorship of the press which, prior to the 
 revolution of 1848, was maintained in all the Ger- 
 man governments, was exercised in a way that 
 rendered Catholic journalism impossible. No 
 sooner, however, had the Parliament of Frankfort 
 proclaimed the liberty of the press than the Ca- 
 tholics hastened to take advantage of it by creat- 
 ing newspapers to advocate their religious inter- 
 ests. The bishops and priests, in obedience to 
 the earnest exhortations of Pius IX., threw them- 
 selves into the work with a will ; the people fol- 
 lowed their example ; press-unions were formed 
 and a large number of Catholic newspapers sprang 
 into life. Bismarck's persecution of the church 
 has given yet greater force to this movement and 
 increased both the number and the circulation of 
 Catholic journals. In the new German Empire 
 there are to-day two hundred and thirty news- 
 
300 Germa^i yournalism. 
 
 papers devoted to the interests of the church. 
 The Aiigsburger Wochenblatt has a subscription 
 list of thirty-two thousand ; the Mainzer Volksblatt, 
 one of thirty thousand. Twelve thousand copies 
 of the Gcrviatiia (in Berlin) are sold daily, and 
 many other Catholic journals have a circulation 
 of from five to ten thousand copies. As this pow- 
 erful Catholic press could not be bought, nothing 
 remained to be done but to silence it. 
 
 At the close of the year 1872 all Prussian jour- 
 nals were warned, under pain of confiscation, not 
 to publish the Christmas Allocution of Pope Pius 
 IX. Mallinckrodt, the vigilant Catholic leader, 
 raised his voice in protest against this attempt 
 upon the liberty of the press ; but the Reichstag 
 was silent, and the newspapers which had not 
 heeded the warning were seized. The Mainzer 
 Journal was brought into court for having pre- 
 sumed to print an open letter to the emperor, in 
 which was found the following sentence : " The 
 emperor is bound by the laws of the moral order 
 just like the least of his subjects." The govern- 
 ment procurator (Schon, in Mainz, on the 19th 
 of December, 1873) declared that the emperor is 
 a " sanctified " person, whose majesty is "above 
 the laws of the state," and the bare address " to 
 the emperor " is a punishable offence. For re- 
 publishing this open letter the editors of the 
 Kolner Volkszeiiung and the Miihlheimer Anzeiger 
 were condemned to prison for two months. Sieg- 
 bert, the managing editor of the Dentscher Reichs- 
 zeitung (Catholic), was called upon to give the 
 
Ger7iian Journalism. 301 
 
 name of the writer of a certain article which he 
 had published ; and upon his declaration that 
 this would be a breach of honor he was thrown 
 into prison. 
 
 On the 1st of July, 1874, a new law came into 
 force, by which still further restrictions were 
 placed upon the liberty of the press ; and on the 
 15th of the same month the Minister of Justice 
 enjoined upon the government officials to keep 
 sharp watch upon the newspapers. Within six 
 months from this date the Germania newspaper in 
 Berlin had been condemned thirty-nine times ; and 
 there were besides twenty-four untried charges 
 against it in court. In January, February, March, 
 and April, 1875 — four months — one hundred and 
 thirty-six editors were condemned either to prison 
 or to pay a fine. The most of these were Catho- 
 lics, though some of them belonged to the demo- 
 cratic and socialistic press. It is not necessary 
 to say that the " press-reptiles " were not repre- 
 sented among them. These editors were thrust 
 into the cells of common criminals, were refused 
 books and writing material, and were forced to live 
 upon " prison fare," which many found so unpala- 
 table that they could eat nothing but rye-bread. 
 
 The reptile-press alone is tolerated. If a man 
 wishes to be honest, and has, notwithstanding, no 
 desire to go to jail, the most unwise thing which 
 he could do would be to become a journalist in 
 the new German Empire. To refuse to 'eat of the 
 " Reptile-fund" is to condemn one's self to Bis- 
 marck's " prison fare" of beans and cold water. 
 
302 Germa7i yournalism. 
 
 To poison the wells is not held to be lawful, 
 even in war; but to taint the fountain-sources of 
 knowledge, and to corrupt the channels through 
 which alone the public receives its general infor- 
 mation, is not thought to be unworthy of a great 
 hero, if we may judge from the Prussian chancel- 
 lor's popularity with Englishmen and Americans, 
 which is not diminished even by his determined 
 efforts to crush all who refuse to sell their souls 
 or renounce their manhood. 
 
 " The only man," said Carlyle of Bismarck — 
 " the only man appointed by God to be his vice- 
 gerent here on earth in these days, and knowing 
 he was so appointed, and bent with his whole soul 
 on doing and able to do God's work." And our 
 great centennial celebration of the reign of popu- 
 lar government is to be desecrated by a colossal 
 statue of the man who is its deadliest enemy. 
 
 We have not, in this country, wholly escaped 
 the evil effects of the vast European conspiracy 
 against truth and honor which is carried on 
 through the agency of *' Press-Bureaus," " Tele- 
 gram-Bureaus," " Correspondence-Bureaus," and 
 " Reptile-funds." One may, for instance, readily 
 detect the " trail of the serpent" in many of the 
 cable despatches to the Associated Press, and not less 
 evidently in the European correspondence of some 
 of our leading journals. Is it not worthy of remark 
 that so few of our great newspapers should have 
 taken up the defence of the persecuted and impri- 
 soned German editors? The American press, which 
 can upon such slight compulsion be blatant and 
 
German Journalism. 
 
 o'-'.i 
 
 loud-mouthed, has been most reserved in its treat- 
 ment of Bismarck ; has, indeed, hardly attempted 
 to veil its sympathy with his despotic and arbi- 
 trary measures. If this approval of tyranny went 
 merely the length of applauding his persecution 
 of the Catholic Church, it might be explained by 
 the desire to pander to popular Protestant preju- 
 dice. But how shall we account for it when there 
 is question of the degradation and enslavement 
 of the press itself; of the violation of every prin- 
 ciple of liberty ; and of the systematic consolida- 
 tion of the most complete military despotism 
 which the world has ever seen ? Might it not be 
 possible, even, to trace to the Reptilien-fond the 
 recent attempts to rekindle in the United States 
 the flame of religious hate and fanaticism ? How- 
 ever this may be, it is unfortunately true that mon- 
 ey is the controlling power in American as in Ger- 
 man journalism. Its influence is as discernible in 
 the columns of our own " independent" press as 
 in a genuine Berlin " mud-bather's" double-leaded 
 leader. 
 
 " How can we help it ? " said a well-known edi- 
 tor of Vienna. " A newspaper office is a shop 
 where publicity is bought and sold." " I will be 
 frank," said another journalist. *' I am like a wo- 
 man of the town {Ich bin die Hure von Berlin) \ 
 if you wish to have this and that written, pay 
 your money." Praise and blame, approval and 
 condemnation, are the articles of merchandise of 
 the press, and they are offered to the highest bid- 
 der. 
 
304 Ge7'ma7t Journalisvi. 
 
 " When the proprietor of a journal," says Sa- 
 cher-Mosach, a widely-known writer, who was for 
 some time connected with the Vienna newspaper, 
 the Presse, and afterwards with the Nciie Freie 
 Presse — " when the proprietor of a journal has 
 entered into lucrative relations with a bank, he 
 is not content with placing his sheet at its dispo- 
 sition in whatever relates to financial matters ; but 
 if the director of the bank, as sometimes happens, 
 is a man of fancy who patronizes an actress who 
 has beauty but not talent, he will order his thea- 
 trical critic to praise this lady without stint ; and 
 the critic will reserve all his squibs for some old 
 comedienne who is not protected by a bank direc- 
 tor or by any one else. If a great publisher has 
 all the works which appear in his house advertised 
 in the journal, the proprietor will direct his book 
 critic to find them all admirably written, profound, 
 and full of the freshest and most delightful 
 thoughts ; and the author is just as certain to be 
 praised in this sheet as he is to be torn to pieces 
 by the newspapers in which his book has not been 
 advertised. The first principle of journalistic in- 
 dustry and of the criticism at its command is to 
 recognize merit only when and so far as it is finan- 
 cially profitable to do so." '^ 
 
 It is far from our thought to wish to deny the 
 vast power for good exercised by the press ; but 
 this is. its own constant theme, and we have deem- 
 ed it a more worthy, even though a less pleasant, 
 task to point out at least some of the ways in 
 
 ♦ Sacher-Mosach, Ueber den Werth der_Krttik, Leipzig, 1873, p. 55. 
 
German yoitrnalis^n. 305 
 
 which its power may be turned against the highest 
 interests of truth and the dearest liberties of the 
 people. A thoughtful and fearless work on the 
 influence of journalism on our American civiliza- 
 tion would be a fitting contribution to the cen- 
 tennial literature, and at the same time a most 
 instructive chapter in the history of the country. 
 The only attempt of this kind which so far has 
 been made does not rise above the dignity of 
 a compilation, and is without value as a philo- 
 sophical discussion of the subject. 
 
RELIGION AND ART. 
 
 " Science, O man ! thou sharest with higher spirits, 
 But Art thou hast alone.'' 
 
 iOD is revealed to all the faculties of the 
 soul. He is truth ; he is goodness ; he is 
 beauty. He is known ; he is loved ; he 
 is adored. He is the first and final 
 principle of all knowledge ; he is the ideal of 
 every art ; he is the type of all high and holy liv- 
 ing. 
 
 Art is the expression of ideal beauty ; the re- 
 splendence of mind in matter, of the archetype in 
 nature. It does not copy, but creates ; never rests 
 in the seen, but is transcendental ; looks beyond, 
 through nature, up to God. Whatever it sees it 
 despises, and whatever it does it straightway 
 wishes undone; because the work is eternally 
 below the thought. Like the soul, it is impri- 
 soned in matter, which it half-loathes and half- 
 adores; is drawn to earth by its form, to rise 
 above which is the hope and despair of all its 
 endeavor. Its aim is impossible, but the highest 
 and most glorious. What God cannot do it would 
 accomplish — give to the divine and infinite beauty 
 a sensible form and local dwelling which will reveal 
 and not obscure its immortal splendor. Hence the 
 
Religion a7id Art. 307 
 
 real never satisfies the artist ; not even real 
 art. In the presence of some work of creative 
 power he shouts, he is rapt, he is borne upward 
 into other worlds ; thinks not of form or color 
 or time : his soul has caught sight of the immor- 
 tal and all-beautiful and is ecstatic. 
 
 Art disenchants ; and this is a great merit. It 
 teaches how little of what might be, is ; how far 
 beneath our capabilities we ourselves are content 
 to remain. It is a reproach and makes us feel our 
 unworthiness ; it is a revelation from a higher 
 world in whose presence we despise ourselves for 
 resting satisfied with this. It is a gleam from the 
 face of God seen through the veil of time and 
 space — the eternal allurement and eternal disen- 
 chantment of the noblest souls. It elevates, puri- 
 fies, and refines. It is the most perfect expression 
 of the truest thoughts, the purest loves, the no- 
 blest virtues ; and when it is turned to base ends, 
 it veils its face and hides its celestial beauty : 
 the form remains, but the soul, like that of the 
 virgin martyr, is borne away by the hands of 
 angels. Even in nature it is art that is beautiful 
 — the thought, the idea, symbolizing the unseen 
 and uncreated, reflected from the blue heavens, 
 the starry sky, from azure mountains or green isles. 
 
 When, in the spring, we seat ourselves on the 
 border of a lake in whose pure waters the waving 
 woods and laughing fields, with trees, plants, and 
 flowers, are mirrored ; into whose bosom the rip- 
 pling rills and rivulets are flowing, like joyous 
 children that run to meet their quiet mother, while 
 
3o8 Religion and Art. 
 
 the gentle zephyrs whisper to one another from 
 leaf to leaf, as if afraid to frighten the genius 
 of the place — the soul, free from all distracting 
 thoughts, escapes from earth and lifts itself on the 
 wings of contemplation to the throne of God. 
 Seated on the border of this enchanted lake, we 
 grow sad and pensive ; a sweet melancholy takes 
 hold of us ; we have caught a glimpse of home, 
 but are still exiles. 
 
 Hence in a season of calm weather, 
 Though inland far we be, 
 Our souls have sight of that immortal sea 
 Which brought us hither — 
 " Can in a moment travel hither, 
 And see the children sport upon the shore, 
 And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore. 
 
 There is a religious power, too, in the grand and 
 awful scenes of nature. The ocean, the desert, 
 high mountains and great rivers, storm and dark- 
 ness, with the voice of thunder and the lurid 
 lightning — all speak of God. " He bowed the hea- 
 vens, and came down : and darkness was under his 
 feet. And he did ride upon a cherub, and did fly : 
 yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind. . . . 
 The everlasting mountains were scattered, the per- 
 petual hills did bow. . . . The overflowing of the 
 waters passed by : the deep uttered his voice, and 
 lifted up his hands on high." The child of nature, 
 however rude and imperfect may be his idea of 
 God, is religious in his aspirations. Before he can 
 lose consciousness of the ever-abiding presence of 
 the Creator man must isolate himself, escap-c into 
 
Religion and Art. 309 
 
 empty worlds of shadows and abstractions. So 
 long as he rests upon the solid earth the hea- 
 vens surround Iwm and God's presence is felt. 
 Art is man's effort to recreate nature, to bring out 
 the blurred image of the divine beauty. How un- 
 limited is its range, how immense its power I In- 
 to the inner sanctuary of science few men enter, but 
 all feel the force and inspiration of art. Without 
 it there is no glory ; it is the flower and fine odor 
 of heroic life ; the idealization which gives to the 
 world its noblest characters ; the soul's high strug- 
 gle to transfigure the body and clothe it in celestial 
 light. Art is immortal ; it is catholic ; it survives 
 the ruin of empires and the decay of nations ; is 
 held by no bonds of time or place. It is born of 
 use, but, breaking its shell, it leaves it there and 
 soars far away above all sordidness and all baseness. 
 It hears the music of the spheres, is bathed in the 
 light that never yet was seen on land or sea ; higher 
 still and higher it is borne upwards by a love thaf 
 never knows love's sad satiety — the thirst of the 
 creature for the Creator, the groanings and longings 
 which make all nature plaintive and vocal. Banished 
 from heaven, and bearing with it the remembrance of 
 a better world, it wanders, in love which hopes and 
 despairs, through the universe, seeking the mysteri- 
 ous gift that opens the gates of light. It is the 
 love of the best, the spirit of unrest, the beauty 
 ever ancient and ever new, which tortures the heart 
 of man and fills it with a divine melancholy. All 
 high art is sad ; it scorns enjoyment or whatever 
 else distracts from heavenly contemplation ; and 
 
3 10 Religion and Art. 
 
 when it is sought for pleasure, and not from reli- 
 gion and love, it degrades and is degraded. It 
 mediates between man and nature ; reconciles 
 them ; infuses human thoughts and passions into 
 senseless elements, until, like St. Francis, we feel 
 that the sun and stars and the very stones are our 
 brothers, thrown out from the hand of God, and, like 
 ourselves, with travailing and unutterable longings, 
 seeking the place of eternal rest, the central heart 
 of love that draws all things to itself. Nature's 
 universal unfolding of herself in higher forms is her 
 cry to God, her hunger of the infinite ; the all-per- 
 vading tremor and vibration of matter, in heat, in 
 light, in electricity, in the clinging of atom to 
 atom, of body to body, of planet to planet, is the 
 thrill and ecstasy of a world half-conscious of the 
 divine presence. 
 
 The true philosopher, said Plato, longs for death ; 
 for the divine wisdom whose lover he is is given 
 only to those who through death enter into life, 
 who from;the shadowy dreams of a slumbering ex- 
 istence pass into the clear vision of truth's splen- 
 dor; and so nature struggles to transcend itself, 
 until the new heavens and the new earth are re- 
 clothed under the eye of God, and the creature, 
 no longer a wanderer, enters into its rest. And 
 this is the aim and purpose of art. It seeks to 
 transform the real ; to strike from inert * matter 
 sounds of heavenly harmony. To its eye every 
 common sight is apparelled in celestial light. It 
 beholds that untravelled world whose margin fades 
 for ever and for ever, and with voice, and motion, 
 
Religion and Art. 311 
 
 and form, and color strives to reveal its hidden 
 glory as best it may to the coarser vision of the 
 uninspired. To make known the higher reality 
 which is concealed beneath the shell and surface of 
 things is the task at which it labors always. Like 
 religion, it appeals from time to eternity, from ap- 
 parent to real, from man to God. In its light we 
 behold the transcendent beauty of heroic and no- 
 ble life, which the logical faculty does not detect. 
 How common and unprofitable are man's proudest 
 deeds, if he is but an animal, stabled in this islet 
 of time, and feeding in the world's great trough of 
 matter ! The heaven that lies about us in our in- 
 fancy must break open higher and higher, else we 
 sink. Its finer and ethereal air must be the soul's 
 breath, or it dies. Hector and Achilles were but 
 bullies no better than a thousand Indian braves 
 who lacked the sacred bard and now lie buried, 
 unthought-of as the leaves that overshadowed 
 their fierce battles. Not her heroes, but art, made 
 Greece immortal. Shakspere is worth more to the 
 glory of England than all the victories which he 
 has sung; nay, not to England only is he of greater 
 worth, but to mankind. Dante, Raphael, and Mi- 
 chael Angelo, with many other names of highest 
 power, have made Italy the consecrated land of 
 poetry and of song, the home of beauty and of all 
 loveliness — the native country of the soul. 
 
 It is only when we look at art through the puri- 
 fying and chastening light of time that we fully 
 realize its influence in the history of the human 
 race. The present is always vulgar — loud, glaring, 
 
312 Religion and A vL 
 
 and shameless ; too real to be beautiful. It is the 
 slave of power and wealth, soiled by the idolatry 
 of success, the hideous counterfeit of merit ; but 
 this passes, and art remains for ever. 
 
 The movement which carried the European 
 mind to its present state of enlightenment and re- 
 finement received its first impulse from art lield 
 in the hands of religion. 
 
 The study of the Grecian and Roman models 
 of eloquence, poetry, sculpture, and architecture 
 fired the Christian nations with a love of artistic 
 perfection which the Hebraizing spirit of the Re- 
 formation weakened but could not destroy, and 
 which has given to our civilization some of its 
 most important elements. The historic power of 
 art is greater than that of history, which, as a 
 science, is known to few ; but, when made beauti- 
 ful and sublime in poetry, in song, in eloquence, 
 it moulds the national character by giving dis- 
 tinctness and form to noble and heroic lives which 
 can in no other way be made manifest to the 
 masses of mankind. 
 
 It has been maintained, indeed, that the influence 
 of art upon character is evil ; that it develops the 
 emotions to the injury of what is manly and earn- 
 est in our nature ; that it leads us to separate 
 feeling from action, and tends to make us un- 
 natural and insincere by causing us to seek effect 
 rather than truth. This was a favorite theme 
 of declamation with the Latin classics, who extol 
 the rustic simplicity of the fathers and ascribe the 
 downfall and ruin of their country to the introduc- 
 
ReligioJi and A rt. 3 1 3 
 
 tion of Greek art and luxury. Sallust, the most 
 sensual of men, would have us believe that a taste 
 for painting is a vice no less than lewdness or 
 drinking. But he declaims with equal vehemence 
 against literature ; and, in fact, if his argument had 
 any value, it would tell, not against art alone, but 
 against all politeness and civilization. In spite of 
 the corruptions of society, the civilized man is 
 higher than the savage ; and in spite of the actual 
 and possible perversions of art, its general effect is 
 elevating and religious. The abuse proves the 
 use. When it becomes sensual and immoral, it 
 dies ; its soul is fled, and the wings which had a 
 seraph's power to bear us up, with no middle 
 flight but to God's high heaven, are draggled in 
 the mire and enfold a corpse. It should be an 
 appeal to what is best, likest unto God in our 
 nature; and if it seek to kindle desire or awaken 
 passion, it has denied the soul and become material 
 and atheistic. A low purpose ruins art, as super- 
 stition degrades and unbelief destroys religion. 
 Nothing is more fatal to it than the realism of 
 nature-worship with its sensual creed and desire. 
 Nudity is not more beautiful in art than in nature, 
 and only a low and degraded taste could find 
 pleasure in lifting the sacred veil of shame with 
 which the soul protects its heavenly modesty and 
 shrinks from all coarseness. Art is symbolical, 
 not realistic, and the grunting tribe that seek 
 to clothe it in undisguised flesh and blood are 
 animals. 
 2e 
 
3 1 4 Religion and A rt. 
 
 Chastity and beauty are sisters. Chastity is 
 beautiful, and beauty is chaste. True beauty is 
 never sensuous. It purifies and chastens. Hence 
 art addresses itself less to sense than to soul. It 
 seeks to awaken, not desire, but love, admiration, 
 hope, faith, and all high sentiment. It is not form 
 and color, but the expression of the ideal, the 
 manifestation of th© divine, the infinite peering 
 through the finite, the heavenly reposing on an 
 earthly bosom. Religion and art, then, are allies. 
 Between them there is no antagonism, as there is 
 none between theology and science. This truth 
 the Catholic Church has ever proclaimed, " All 
 religions," wrote Canova to Napoleon, " cherish art, 
 but none so much as our own." In her universal 
 life she embraces all the arts, gives to them har- 
 mony and special ends. Her sacred edifices are 
 not alone the temples of the living God ; they are 
 also the sanctuaries of art which points heavenward. 
 Her sublime conceptions of God and man have re- 
 vealed a new world of thought and sentiment. 
 She has clothed the highest truth in the most per- 
 fect beauty. Spiritual in all her teachings and 
 aspirations, she understands that the visible is 
 but the symbol of the unseen ; that we must 
 stand upon the solid earth before we can rise to 
 higher worlds ; and that this is not a sensuous but a 
 reasonable creed which holds that God cannot be 
 worshipped in spirit and in truth except through 
 signs and symbols. For what else is thought, 
 what else is language ? Our truest conceptions of 
 God and of the soul are but symbols. The very 
 
Religion and Art. 3 1 5 
 
 words which we use to express them are equivocal, 
 as St. Thomas says, not iinivocal. 
 
 No human act can be wholly spiritual. We 
 ascend, by a law of our nature, from the visible to 
 the invisible, from the sensible to the supersensi- 
 ble. A purely spiritual religion would be to man 
 an inaccessible and unreal religion. There can be 
 no faith where there is no thought, nor thought 
 without language ; and language is addressed pri- 
 marily to the senses. There can be no authorita- 
 tive religious teaching without a church, and an 
 invisible church is no church at all. The sectarian 
 protest against the alliance of religion and art can 
 be justified only by ignoring the most essential 
 fact of Christian history, which is the manifesta- 
 tion of God's power and beauty and holiness in 
 human form. To take from the church her sym- 
 bolism is to deny the humanity of Christ. In an 
 invisible society what becomes of his incarnation, 
 miracles, and whole positive revelation? His re- 
 ligion is a system of things invisible visibly mani- 
 fested — the symbolism of divine truth, love, wis- 
 dom, justice, in their relation to man immortal but 
 sinful. 
 
 The union of the soul with God through faith, 
 hope, and love is the first and highest aim of reli- 
 gion ; but faith, hope, and love, like all the deep 
 emotions of the human heart, tend irresistibly to 
 incorporate and express themselves in symbols 
 and acts. What purer or more spiritual love do 
 we know than that of the mother for her child ? 
 And yet with itself is it never content, but rushes 
 
 J 
 
o 
 
 16 Religion and Art. 
 
 out and infuses itself into a thousand words, ten- 
 dernesses, ceremonies, and observances ; builds a 
 temple, erects an altar, and becomes there the all- 
 unselfish and ministering priestess of God to evoke 
 from brutish apathy the heavenly thoughts and 
 divine instincts of the heart of man ; watches, prays, 
 is patient, wearies not, stoops to all lowliness and 
 is ennobled ; fondles, caresses, speaks words of 
 softest music, chides, threatens, rebukes ; the tru- 
 est, the deepest, the most ceremonial of all human 
 devotions is this love which gives to the world its 
 worthiest men. 
 
 A voiceless faith, a dumb hope, and a love with- 
 out symbol sink back upon themselves and die. 
 They are the religion of the infidel, " for the most 
 part of the silent sort at the altar of the unknown 
 and unknowable." '•'■ 
 
 When we believe in God we cry out to him ; 
 when we hope in him we lean upon him ; when we 
 love him we thrown ourselves, like Magdalen, at the 
 feet of his only-begotten Son ; we hear his voice, we 
 drink in his words, and are at rest. We stand be- 
 neath his cross ; linger in sorrow and hope by his 
 grave ; are broken-hearted when he is no longer 
 there, till his risen and immortal presence gives 
 us life again ; and then the desert, or the prison- 
 walls of love, or any spot where we may forget the 
 world wholly and live to him only, is our paradise. 
 With him we keep fast and vigil and feast ; hear 
 the angel announce his birth ; behold the immacu- 
 late maiden, Virgin and Mother; follow her into the 
 
 ♦ Huxley, Lny SexJirons^ p. 16. 
 
Religion and Art. 3 1 7 
 
 mountains, and with her we go up to Bethlehem. 
 In the stable we adore our God, lying all-helpless 
 between the ox and the ass, hear his first piteous 
 cry of suffering and of love; for us the angels sing 
 again the glad song the shepherds heard on the hills 
 of Judea. The wise men come out of the East. 
 Herod rages; the wail of mothers who cannot 
 be consoled strikes upon our ear ; and into Egypt 
 we follow Mary and Joseph as they bear the divine 
 Child. We are with him in the carpenter's shop, 
 as he consecrates and ennobles labor; we are with 
 him amid the doctors, as he shows that the folly 
 of God is better than the science of men. By the 
 banks of the river Jordan we hear the voice of 
 John : " Behold the Lamb of God." The heavens are 
 opened, the Holy Ghost descends, and with the Son 
 of Man leads us into the desert, to fast, to pray, to 
 dwell alone with sadness and with God, to be sore- 
 ly tempted by the evil one, by the evil in ourselves, 
 by the great world-picture of pleasure and of glory ; 
 and still, by the power of prayer and solitude, to 
 conquer, " to rise on stepping-stones of our dead 
 selves to higher things," until we feel and know and 
 are certain that not on bread alone doth man live, 
 but on every word which God's mouth speaketh. 
 
 Through the long centuries, year after year, with 
 love's unerring instinct, the church leads her chil- 
 dren along the sacred way the Bfessed Christ did 
 tread, lingers over each hallowed spot in joy, in 
 thankfulness, in sorrow, or in triumph, nor feels 
 the deadening weight of time nor the fatal curse 
 of distance. 
 
3 1 8 Religion and A rt. 
 
 " For thou dost soothe the heart, thou Church of Rome, 
 By th\' unwearied watch and varied round 
 Of service in thy Saviour's holy home." 
 
 Art's highest mission is to reveal to the world 
 Jesus Christ in his birth, in his life, in his death, in 
 his resurrection. He is the ideal of art — the most 
 beautiful and perfect conception of the divine 
 mind. He is God, the all-beautiful, made manifest. 
 Purity and gentleness and grace, with power and 
 majesty, combine to make him the fairest and the 
 noblest figure in history, to whom the whole world 
 bows in love and adoration. There is no other 
 like unto him ; between him and all other men 
 there is the distance that separates heaven from 
 earth, the divine from the human. Every highest 
 aspiration and worthiest love find in him at once 
 their inspiration and their ideal. 
 
 There is a shadow on the countenance of Jesus 
 w'hich gives to it its artistic completeness. It is 
 sorrow. In gayety and joy there is a trivial some- 
 thing which deprives them of the highest artistic 
 effect. The cheek of beauty is not divine unless 
 the tear of sorrow trickle down it. To preach 
 Jesus Christ, and him crucified, is not to preach 
 true religion only, but also the ideal of art. The 
 first and noblest art is eloquence, which is in itself 
 sculpture, painting, poetry, music — yea, and archi- 
 tecture ; for what worthier temple of God do we 
 know than the human body, all-conscious with 
 soul, tremulous with generous passion, vocal with 
 sublime thought and heroic sentiment? Christ 
 Jesus blessed eloquence and bade it convert the 
 
Religion and A rt. 3 1 9 
 
 world. " Go ye therefore," he said, '* and teach all 
 nations." The divine command was to preach the 
 word, not to write it ; and this living word, spoken 
 by lips touched with celestial fire, has infused life 
 and warmth into the world, converted the nations, 
 and changed the face of the earth. It was the 
 first, and is always the sincerest and worthiest, free 
 popular speech. Before Christ gave his great- 
 commission to the apostles philosophers had dis- 
 coursed to their chosen disciples, and orators had 
 declaimed to citizens on the interests of the state ; 
 but no one had spoken to the people as moral 
 beings with duties and responsibilities which lift 
 them into the world of the infinite and eternal. 
 There were priesthoods, but they were mute in 
 presence of the people, intent upon hiding from 
 them all knowledge of their mysteries. Religious 
 eloquence did not exist ; it first received a voice on 
 the shores of the Lake of Genesareth and on the 
 hills of Judea, in the preaching of Jesus, who re- 
 mains for ever its supreme exponent, speaking 
 with God-like liberty, as one who had authority, 
 on whatever most nearly touches the dearest in- 
 terests of men ; speaking chiefly to the people, 
 bringing back to their minds the long-forgotten 
 truth which proves them the royal race of God. 
 The preaching of God's word with the heavenly 
 liberty which no earthly power might lessen be- 
 came the great school of the human race ; it was 
 the first popular eloquence, and like an electric 
 thrill it ran through the earth. It belongs to the 
 religion of Christ alone. Mahomet, who sought to 
 
2,20 Religion and Art. 
 
 borrow it, was able to catch only its feeble echo. 
 This free Christian public speech is unlike all other 
 oratory; it possesses an incommunicable character- 
 istic through which it has exercised the most bene- 
 ficent influence upon the destinies of mankind. It 
 is essentially spiritual ; lifts the soul above the 
 flesh ; creates new ideals ; and, by inspiring con- 
 tempt for whatever is low or ephemeral, begets 
 enthusiasm for the divine and eternal. It is a 
 voice whose soul-thrill is love — the boundless love 
 of God and of men, who are the children of this 
 love, and therefore brothers. This voice cannot be 
 bought ; it cannot be silenced. Currit verbiim said 
 St. Paul, and again from his prison-cell : " But the 
 word of God is not fettered." On innumerable lips 
 it is born ever anew ; and always and everywhere 
 it is a protest against the brutality of power, an 
 appeal in the name of God, our Father in heaven, 
 in behalf of the poor, the oppressed, the disinherit- 
 ed of humanity. Men may still be tyrants, may 
 still crush the weak, and sacrifice truth and justice 
 to their lustful appetites ; but the voice of God, 
 threatening, commanding, rebuking, shall be silent 
 never more. Festus shall tremble before Paul : 
 at the bidding of Ambrose Theodosius shall re- 
 pent ; and before Hildebrand the brutal Henry 
 shall bow his head. At the sound of this voice all 
 Europe shall rouse itself; shall rush, impelled as 
 by some divine instinct, into the heart of Asia to 
 strike the mighty power which threatened to blight 
 the budding hope of the world. Who can esti- 
 mate the priceless value and supreme force of this 
 
Religion and Art. ^21 
 
 free Christian speech, which, without asking leave 
 of king or people, but impelled by a divine neces- 
 sity, made itself heard of the whole earth ? Over 
 the portals of his Academy Plato wrote : " None 
 but geometers enter here." Over the ever-open 
 door of the church was the word of Christ : " Come 
 to me, all ye who labor and are heavy laden," 
 
 " All you," exclaimed St. Augustine, " who 
 labor, who dig the earth, who fish in the sea, who 
 carry burdens, or painfully and slowly construct 
 the barks in which your brothers will dare the 
 waves — all enter here, and I will explain to you 
 not only the yrcadi Geavrov of Socrates, but the 
 most hidden of mysteries — the Trinity." 
 
 This new eloquence was as large as the human 
 race ; it was for all, and first of all for the poor and 
 the oppressed. It was not artistic in the technical 
 meaning; it did not captivate the senses; it was 
 not polished. There was no showy marshalling of 
 words and phrases, no sweet and varied modulation 
 of voice, no graceful and commanding gesture. 
 Around the altar were gathered the slave, the beg- 
 gar, the halt, and the blind — the oppressed and 
 suffering race of men. If among them were found 
 the rich and high-born, they were as brothers — their 
 wealth and noble birth entered not into the church 
 of Christ. Here was neither freeman nor slave — all 
 were one. Thus in every Christian assembly was 
 typed the humanity which was to be when all men 
 should be brothers and free. To these new-born 
 souls the apostle of Christ spoke : " My brothers," 
 he said, or " My children " ; and though all history 
 
 27 
 
322 Religion and Art. 
 
 and all society shrieked against him, they who heard 
 knew and felt that his words were God's truth. 
 The heart is not deceived in love. " I seek not 
 yours," he said, " but you ; for God is my witness 
 how I long after you all in the heart of Jesus 
 Christ. ... I could wish that myself were ac- 
 cursed if only my brethren be saved." And then, 
 Avith the liberty which love alone knows and gives, 
 he threatened, rebuked, implored, laid bare the 
 hidden wounds of the soul, nor feared to become 
 an enemy for speaking truth. 
 
 To the great and the rich he spoke right out, 
 reminding them of their duties, denouncing their 
 indifference, their cruelty, their injustice ; and then, 
 in accents sweet as a mother's voice, he breathed 
 hope and courage into the hearts of those who 
 suffer, showing them beyond this short and delu- 
 sive life the certain end and reward of their strug- 
 gles and sorrows. He taught them that the soul is 
 the highest, that purity is the best, that only the 
 clean of heart see God ; that man's chief worth lies 
 in that which is common to all, derived from God 
 and for him created. Human life was perishing, 
 wastefully poured through the senses on every 
 carnal thing. No love of beauty or truth or jus- 
 tice was left. The mind was darkened, the heart 
 was paralyzed. 
 
 The great, strong passions that bore the people 
 of Rome in triumph through the earth were dead ; 
 everywhere, in religion, in art, in manners, was the 
 foul blight of materialism ; and a kind of delirium- 
 drove men into animal indulgences, to soul and 
 
Religion and A rt. 
 
 0^3 
 
 body alike fatal. To a race thus glued to the 
 earth by carnal appetites came the voice of the 
 apostle preaching Christ, and him crucified ; telling 
 of the divine love that bowed the heavens and 
 brought down God's own Son to suffer, to labor, to 
 die for them. He was poor, he was meek, he was 
 humble ; he fasted, he prayed ; he comforted the 
 sorrowful, gave hope to the despairing ; he offered 
 up his life for men. Such as he was, those who 
 believe in him must be. To be heartless, to be 
 cruel, to be unjust, to serve the lusts of the flesh, 
 is to have no part with him. This is the great 
 work which Christian eloquence did for art ; it 
 turned the mind's eye from the contemplation of 
 beauty of form to the inner life of the soul ; from 
 thoughts of power and success to principles of 
 right and justice ; from the narrowness of exag- 
 gerated patriotism to catholic sympathies ; from 
 the desire'of enjoyment through indulgence to the 
 idea of happiness through self-restraint. It brought 
 home to man the fuller consciousness of his im- 
 mortal and transcendental value ; gave to him 
 exalted aims and worthy ideals. It declared that 
 man is more than the state, as God is more than 
 the world, and in this way inspired those views of 
 the paramount worth of the individual soul with- 
 out which there could be no successful reaction 
 against the sense-worship of paganism — a low and 
 material creed without eternal verities upon which 
 to rest. Power was its divinity, and it was there- 
 fore without pity or tenderness ; success was its jus- 
 tification, and it consequently trampled upon right. 
 
324 R^ ligion and A rt. 
 
 There can be no high art without great doctrines. 
 If man is only an animal, Landseer is the noblest 
 painter. 
 
 " .... By the soul 
 Only shall the nations be great and free." 
 
 As the Christian religion is the fullest revelation 
 of the soul, it ought to produce the highest art. 
 Since human nature has been transfigured and re- 
 created by the immediate and personal union with 
 it of God himself, art ought to be able to disclose 
 the soul and permit us to gaze upon the divine 
 possibilities which in it lie latent. It may no 
 longer linger in form and color and motion, as if 
 these were its abiding home. It is wedded to the 
 soul and must soar or die. In the presence of 
 men supremely great we cannot stop to notice how 
 they are clothed. Homer was blind and a beggar, 
 but who can remember this when in his adven- 
 turous flight he bears us upward, and we hear the 
 great world-song to which all the nations have 
 listened through a hundred generations ? The in- 
 ner life, if it be pure and high, elevates and enno- 
 bles the meanest forms. True art, like heroic souls, 
 lifts itself above its embodiment, and, rising into 
 the world of the eternal and the infinite, unwraps 
 itself of the vesture woven in the roaring loom of 
 Time. It leaves behind all passion and desire, all 
 enjoyment of sense, and reposes supremely blest in 
 that which, unchangeable, is yet never the same. 
 It aims not merely at the beautiful, but seeks the 
 true and the good ; knowing that 
 
Religion and Art. 325 
 
 " Beauty, Good, and Knowledge are three sisters 
 That dote upon each other, friends to man." 
 
 Without this union of virtue with beauty there 
 can be no Christian art. All its purposes are holy. 
 Its mission is not to multiply the pleasures of the 
 fortunate, but to comfort the unhappy ; to raise to 
 heaven eyes weighed down by sorrow or blinded 
 by the vulgar, garish world ; to reveal to all who 
 despair of this life the certain and immortal triumph 
 of those who suffer in faith and hope and love. 
 
 There is no art for art's sake. It exists for man, 
 and can be worthy only by being useful. The 
 lordly palace grew out of the hut that sheltered 
 from wind and rain some barbarous fisherman 
 clothed in the skins of beasts ; the sweetest and 
 most celestial song caught its first faint echo from 
 the tender lullaby with which some poor mother 
 sang her babe to sleep. All art is born of man's 
 craving for a higher and better life, and, though it 
 cannot satisfy this desire, it ought to raise our 
 thoughts to Him in whom alone the human heart 
 can find repose. 
 
 Poetry is akin to eloquence, and, like it, has a 
 religious mission. The orator and the poet are 
 both born and both are made, despite the ancient 
 proverb. The universe is God's poem, and art but 
 a feeble attempt to interpret its mystic and infinite 
 meaning. Poetry is the natural language of all^ 
 worship, and the muse soars her loftiest flight only 
 on the wings of religious inspiration. The most 
 poetic word in language is the brief, immense word 
 — God. It is the sublimest, the profoundest, the ho- 
 
o 
 
 26 Religion and Art. 
 
 liest word that human tongue can speak. It is the 
 instinctive cry of the soul in moments of supreme 
 trial. In the hour of victory, in the hour of death, 
 in the ecstasy of joy, in the agony of woe, this 
 sacred word bursts spontaneously from the human 
 heart. It is the first word our mother taught our 
 infant lips to lisp when, pointing to heaven, she 
 told us of God, our Father, and bade us look above 
 this base, contagious earth. When the mother for 
 the first time feels her first-born's breath, in the 
 overflowing tenderness of a boundless gratitude 
 she pronounces the name of God ; when, in the 
 helplessness of misery, she bends over the grave of 
 her only child, and her heart is breaking, she can 
 find no relief to her agonizing soul, until, raising 
 her tearful eyes to heaven, she breathes in prayer 
 the name of God. When two young hearts that 
 beat as one vow eternal love, it is in the name 
 of God they do it ; and the union of love 
 loses all its sacredness and half its charm, un- 
 less it is sealed before God's altar and in his 
 holy name. When the mother sends her son to 
 do battle for his country, she puts God's bene- 
 diction upon him : " God be with thee, my boy !" 
 When nations are marshalled in deadly array of 
 arms, and the alarmi^ig drum foretells the dan- 
 ger nigh, and the trumpet's clangor sounds the 
 charge, and contending armies meet in the death- 
 grapple amid fire and smoke and the cannon's 
 awful roar, until victory crowns them that win, 
 those banners that were borne proudly on till 
 they floated in triumph on the field of glory are 
 
Religion and A rt. 327 
 
 gathered together in some great temple of reli- 
 gion, and there an assembled people sing aloud : 
 "We praise thee, O God! we glorify thee, O 
 Lord ! " 
 
 When we see clearly and feel deeply, prose no 
 longer satisfies us. Poetry is truer than prose — 
 expresses more nearly what all ought to feel in the 
 presence of the glories of God's universe. 
 
 " The meanest flower that blows can give 
 Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears." 
 
 We move about in worlds not realized ; and to 
 the poet's mind this t'hought is always present. 
 He is lost in wonder, rapt in ecstasy ; he laughs, 
 weeps, exults, shouts, despairs, and hopes; and if 
 he have but a common nature, the higher v/orld 
 that breaks open before his gaze dazzles and un- 
 settles him. It is therefore genius is akin to mad- 
 ness, and they who have the highest thoughts 
 may lead the lowest lives. 
 
 Poetry need not be wedded to verse, though 
 noble sentiments and deep feeling will always find 
 expression in rhythmical and harmonious words. 
 The thoughts which are nearest and dearest to the 
 soul it does not speak, but sings. The Bible is 
 full of poetry. Sublimer or more touching lyrics 
 than the Psalms of David have not beeii written. 
 They are for ever the song of the soul craving, in 
 the midst of darkness and of death, the light and 
 the life. All true poetry springs from religious 
 sentiment — from the longing for some higlier sym- 
 bol of the divine and uncreated. Never did child 
 look out upon the glad earth or into the deep 
 
328 Relig ioii and A rt. 
 
 heavens but he felt -the need of poetry to speak 
 his reverence and gratitude. What sublimer poet 
 is there than Job ? Like a Titan he girds his loins 
 to struggle with the eternal problem of human 
 destiny. Never has the radical misery of our pre- 
 sent condition, as contrasted with the infinite as- 
 pirations of our being, given birth to more pathe- 
 tic or more heartrending lamentations. It is the 
 despairing cry of a boundless yearning, which he- 
 roic faith gradually subdues and changes into the 
 peace of tranquil hope. 
 
 What depth and spiritual force has not the 
 Christian religion given to poetry ! Groves, flowers, 
 and running waters satisfied the poets of pagan- 
 ism ; but not the boundless ocean, nor the starry 
 heavens, nor aught else can express the infinite 
 thoughts and emotions which fill the soul of a 
 Christian. 
 
 What chastening and ennobling influence has 
 not the veneration with which the church has sur- 
 rounded the Blessed Virgin exercised upon the 
 spirit of poetry ! 
 
 " Mother ! whose virgin bosom was uncrost 
 With the least shade of thought to sin allied ; 
 Woman ! above all women glorified. 
 Our tainted nature's solitary boast ; 
 Purer than foam on central ocean tost ; 
 Brighter than eastern skies at daybreak strewn 
 With fancied roses ; than the unblemished moon 
 Before her wane begins on heaven's blue coast ; 
 Thy image falls to earth." 
 
 The poet may now no more dream of woman, ex- 
 cept as clothed in the sacred modesty and spot- 
 
Religion and Art. 329 
 
 less purity of the Virgin-Mother of the God-born 
 ChUd. 
 
 We cannot think of Mary but religion melts into 
 poetry ; and the thousand heavenly thoughts and 
 heavenly sentiments which in Christian lands and 
 Christian hearts centre in the hallowed names of 
 mother, sister, wife — highest names of love, of 
 beauty, of truth — owe their sweetness and their 
 power to her influence. This devotion has puri- 
 fied and consecrated the passion of love, which no 
 poet has left unsung ; has lifted it out of matter 
 and sense and wedded it to the soul ; has crown- 
 ed it with sacramental glory and immortal hope. 
 Through the grave into life it issues forth again 
 deathless. Such love is not possible where woman 
 is common or coarse ; and if she were forced into 
 vulgar and noisy contact with the public ways and 
 affairs of men, it would die as surely as in the 
 mephitic air of an Eastern harem. To be divine, 
 it needs a sanctuary and faith in God. 
 
 What poefVy is like that which Christian faith 
 has inspired ? Dante, the sovereign poet, looms 
 in colossal majesty above all who have followed 
 him, and none is comparable to him. Through a 
 trinity of transformations he rises to paint a three- 
 fold world — sombre and terrible, sad and devout, 
 rapt and ecstatic. There is no tenderness like 
 Dante's ; neither is there any intensity or seri- 
 ousness like his. There are cries which drown the 
 agonies of hell ; silences which in a moment grow 
 eternal ; and then notes so sad and sweet that all 
 our being melts to tears, and we would be content 
 
330 Religion and Art. 
 
 to weep for ever, were it not that the celestial light 
 breaks upon us, and we hear the fountains of 
 life like music flowing, and are borne upward into 
 a world where we forget all time and place, and 
 know and love God only. Man's spiritual nature 
 has reconquered its supremacy, and, scorning 
 matter, he enters into the realms where angels 
 and demons contend in immortal warfare. From 
 religious faith Milton, like a seraph strong, drew 
 his high inspiration. " Of his moral sentiments," 
 says Dr. Johnson, " it is hardly praise to affirm that 
 they excel those of all other poets; for this supe- 
 riority he was indebted to his acquaintance with 
 the sacred writings." 
 
 Calderon, Lope de Vega, Camoens, Tasso, are 
 all witnesses to the poetic inspiration of religious 
 faith. Lope de Vega, in saying his first Mass, 
 fainted at the bare thought of the sublime and 
 awful mystery of Christ's Real Presence. Most 
 clearly seen, too, is the poetic power of the Chris- 
 tian spirit in Corneille and Racine*the greatest 
 poets of France. 
 
 The modern drama, which embraces all other 
 kinds of poetry, is not only based upon views of 
 human life distinctively Christian, but grew out of 
 the religious Mysteries of the middle ages which 
 still survive in the Passion Play at Ober-Ammergau. 
 This is true alike of the tragedies of Shakspere 
 and of the Autos Sacrameiitales oi Csild&ron. 
 
 Christ has lifted the pall which hung in dark and 
 impenetrable folds around the life of man. He is 
 no longer the plaything of fate, the helpless vie- 
 
Religion a7id Art. 2>Z ^ 
 
 tim of inexorable destiny, who feels upon his heart 
 the brutal foot of an unknown and pitiless power. 
 He is free, and through the tangled web of good 
 and ill walks with no uncertain step. He knows 
 the divine efficacy that there is in suffering and 
 sorrow, ^and that the uses of adversity are sweet. 
 Above Necessity is Liberty, and Life is ever 
 Lord of Death. In Christ he beholds the heroic 
 and tragic ideal of the highest life. All-pure and 
 gentle, he is trampled upon, crushed, nailed to the 
 cross, and his tomb is walled in with ignominy and 
 sealed with contempt. And still he triumphs — 
 stands deathless over the grave and places his 
 cross on the brows of crowned kings and on the 
 summit of all earthly things. Here is the divinest 
 drama. Suffering there is still, and still there is 
 death ; but the heart that believes and is pure, is 
 immortal and conquers fate. Compare the death- 
 struggle of Laocoon with the agony of Christ on 
 the cross. Laocoon, in terror and despair, struggles 
 hopelessly with inexorable fate, which with cold 
 and pitiless grip is crushing him ; Christ, in more 
 intense and keener suffering, consents to death, but 
 conquers agony ; is tranquil in the supreme sacri- 
 fice of infinite love, and through the shadows of the 
 darkened sun the light of eternal day pierces ; or 
 Niobe, turned to stone by hopeless grief, with the 
 Mother of Sorrows, who stands beneath the cross 
 of her divine Son with heart transfixed by the 
 sword of anguish, and is calm because love like 
 hers knows that God is love. 
 
 Poetry passes naturally into music ; for the poet 
 
332 Religion and A rt. 
 
 sings, and is tormented by his thought until it 
 finds harmonious and rhythmic expression. The 
 thought creates the rhythm, and when the rhyme 
 seeks the thought there is no poetry. " The 
 beginning of literature," says Emerson, " is the 
 prayers of a people, and they are always hymns." 
 Music is poetry in tones. It is the language of 
 feeling, the universal language of man. The cry 
 of joy and of sorrow, of triumph and of despair, 
 of ecstasy and of agony, is understood by all be- 
 cause it is the voice of nature. The strong emo- 
 tions of the heart all seek expression in modula- 
 tion of sound ; and religious sentiment is both 
 awakened and calmed by music which lifts the 
 soul out of the world of sense and elevates it 
 towards the infinite and invisible. Nearer than 
 anything else it expresses the inner relations and 
 nature of beings; the universal order and harmony 
 which is found even in seemingly discordant and 
 jarring elements. It is the most spiritual of arts, 
 and more than any other is degraded when per- 
 verted to low and sensuous uses. 
 
 " There is," says Cousin, " physically and morally 
 a marvellous relation between a sound and the 
 soul. It seems as though the soul were an echo in 
 which the sound takes a new power." 
 
 Something of this kind Byron also felt : 
 
 " Oh ! that I were 
 The viewless spirit of a lovely sound, 
 A living voice, a breathing harmony, 
 A bodiless enjoyment, born and dying 
 , With the blest Tone that made me." 
 
Religion and Art. '^Z'S 
 
 Music is the food of the soul in all its most 
 exalted moods. No other art has such power to 
 minister to the sublime dreams and limitless de- 
 sires of the heart which aspires to God ; and there- 
 fore is it held that the man who has not music in 
 himself is fit only for base purposes and is but 
 sluggish earth. Without its softening and spiritual- 
 izing influence we grow wooden and coarse. At its 
 call the universal harmonies of nature stir within 
 us — " birds, voices, instruments, winds, waters, all 
 agree." 
 
 " I was all ear. 
 And took in strains that might create a soul 
 Under the ribs of death." 
 
 He who cultivates music, said the ancients, imi- 
 tates the gods ; and therefore Plato wrote that " we 
 must not judge of music by the pleasure it gives, 
 nor prefer that whose only object is pleasure, but 
 that which in itself bears a resemblance to the 
 beautiful." 
 
 It was, St. Augustine says, sweet psalmody 
 which made the lives of the monks of old so har- 
 monious ; and St. Columba, as in far-off lona he 
 dreamed of Erin, thought nothing there so lovely 
 as the winds that sighed among the oak-groves, 
 and the songs of the birds, and the monks who 
 sang like the birds. 
 
 There is doubtless a music as vast as creation, 
 embracing all sounds, all noises in their numberless 
 combinations, and rising from the bosom of discord* 
 in boundless and harmonious swell — the hymn 
 which the universe chants to God. From the dew- 
 
334 Religion and Art. 
 
 drop that murmurs its inward delight as it kisses 
 the rose-leaf, to the deep and infinite voice of the 
 ocean, sounding like the heart-pant of creation for 
 rest; from the reed that sighs upon the river-bank, 
 to the sad and solemn wail of the primeval forest ; 
 from the bee that sings upon the wing among the 
 flowers, to the lion who goeth forth into the desert 
 alone and awakens the sleeping echoes of the ever- 
 lasting hills ; from the nightingale who disburdens 
 his full throat of all its music, to man, whose very- 
 soul rises on the palpitatin-g bosom of song from 
 world to world up to God's own heaven — all nature 
 is vocal in a divine concert. ** There is music in 
 all things, if men had ears." 
 
 As the numberless ideas which are the forms of 
 our knowledge are but the broken rays which in 
 the mind of God combine to create the pure white 
 light of truth and are one, so the infinite variety 
 of sounds rises up to him and is harmony. 
 
 " From harmony, from heavenly harmony. 
 This universal frame began. 
 From harmony to harmony 
 Through all the compass of the notes it ran, 
 The diapason closing full in man." 
 
 The soul's most transparent veil is the human 
 voice, in whose true accent we best catch a man's 
 real self; since modulation of sound is the most 
 proper expression of all emotion. 
 
 Music gives repose like prayer or the presence 
 of friends, because it satisfies the heart. The mind 
 is prosaic ; the soul poetic and musical. Syinpho- 
 nialis ist anima. " The soul," said Joubert, " sings 
 
Religion and Art. 335 
 
 to itself of all beaut3\" Silence is golden only to 
 those who have power to hear divine melodies — 
 songs of angels and symphonies of heaven. Si- 
 lence is the setting of music, its light and back- 
 ground ; and therefore melody is sweetest in soli- 
 tude — in the night or in sacred convent walls that 
 shut in from the noisy, babbling world souls whose 
 hearts beat time to celestial strains and waft to 
 heaven sighs that are heard of whispering angels. 
 The Catholic Church loves to follow her divine 
 Founder into the desert, and to lift up her eyes to 
 the hills from whence cometh help. In solitude 
 she sings ; her hymns rise in concert with the 
 winds that sigh through the oak-groves and faint 
 upon the desert's burning sands. She loves the 
 mysteriousness of nature, so silent and so musical, 
 resting and thrilling beneath God's brooding spirit. 
 Song is the voice of prayer, which is the breathing 
 of the soul in God's presence. Did not the angels 
 sing when Christ was born, and shall man be dumb 
 now that he lives and conquers and is adored ? 
 God is essential harmony, the works of his hand 
 are harmonious, and his great' precept is Love, 
 which is the source and soul and highest expres- 
 sion of harmony. The soul that loves sings for 
 joy and gratitude. 
 
 What divine and celestial accents has the church 
 not found to speak her love and sorrow, her faith 
 and hope ! 
 
 What sound more heavenly does hill or vale 
 prolong or multiply than the voice of the bell, fill- 
 ing all the air, far and near, with benediction, until, 
 
336 Religion a7id Art. 
 
 as the last peal dies away, heaven and earth grow 
 still and the Lord's day is sanctified ? It has a 
 human sense and sympathy. Now it rings out 
 strong and clear like a shout from the heart of a 
 boy ; and now its mellow notes dwell and linger 
 like sweet memories of childhood. In the solemn 
 night it seems God's warning voice ; and then, piti- 
 less as fate, it beats with iron stroke the hours that 
 make the little life of man. 
 
 The organ, the master-instrument, is the voice 
 of the Christian Church, " the seraph-haunted 
 queen of harmony," sounding like an echo from a 
 mystic and hidden world. How full and deep 
 and strong it rolls out its great volume of sound — 
 an ocean of melody! Now it bursts forth with 
 irresistible power like the hosts of stars when first 
 they wheeled into their orbits and shouted to God ; 
 and now, with a veiled and mysterious harmony, it 
 wraps itself around the soul, shuts out all noise, 
 and composes it to sweet, heavenly contemplation. 
 It is tender as a mother's yearning, and fierce as 
 the deaf and raging sea ; sad as angels' sighs for 
 souls that are lost^ plaintive and pitiful as the cry 
 of those who in purgatorial fires cleanse their sins ; 
 and then its notes faint and die, until we hear their 
 echoes from the eternal shore where they grow for 
 ever and for ever. With the falling day we enter 
 the great cathedral's sacred gloom, and at once 
 are in a vast solitude. The huge pillars rise in 
 giant strength, upholding the high vault already 
 shrouded in the gathering darkness, and silence 
 sits mute in the wide aisle. Suddenly we have 
 
Religion and Art. 
 
 oo, 
 
 been carried into another world, peopled with other 
 beings. We cease to note the passage of time, 
 and earth, with its garish light and distracting 
 noises, has become a dream. As the eye grows 
 accustomed to the gloom we are able to observe 
 the massive building. Its walls rise like the sides 
 of a steep mountain, and in the aisles there is the 
 loneliness and mystery of deep valleys into which 
 the sunlight never falls. From these adamantine 
 flancs countless beings start forth, until the whole 
 edifice is peopled with fantastic forms, upon which 
 falls the mystic light, reflected from the counte- 
 nances of angels, patriarchs, apostles, virgins, mar- 
 tyrs, who from celestial windows look down upon 
 this new-born world. In the distance we see the 
 glimmering taper that burns before God's presence, 
 and then suddenly a great volume of sound, like 
 the divine breath infusing life into these inanimate 
 objects, rolls over us, and every stone from pave- 
 ment to vaulted roof thrills and vibrates ; each 
 sculptured image and pictured saint is vocal ; and 
 from on high the angels lend their voices, until 
 the soul, trembling on the wings of hope and love, 
 is borne upward with this heavenly harmony, and, 
 entranced in prayer, worships the Invisible alone. 
 
 In no art is the influence of the Christian religion 
 more discernible than in painting ; and here, as 
 elsewhere, its dominant characteristic is spirituality 
 — the placing the idea above the form. It gave to 
 art the most exalted ideals — Christ and his immacu- 
 late Mother; and the necessary effect of the con- 
 templation of these models was the subordina- 
 28 
 
^^S Religion and A rt. 
 
 tioii of phj'sical to moral beauty. It could no 
 longer be the artist's aim to paint a comely 
 and finely-formed body, but a body ennobled, 
 purified, and spiritualized by a generous, unselfish, 
 and sympathetic soul. A pure faith gave ex- 
 alted aims, fixed purpose, and seriousness to 
 art. It was no longer sufficient to be elegant and 
 graceful ; it was necessary, above all, to speak to 
 the mind and the soul. All levity and frivolity 
 were banished. A noble earnestness illumined the 
 human countenance, softened only by a smile of 
 loving tenderness such as is seen on the Virgin's 
 face as she contemplates the divine Infant repos- 
 ing in her arms. We cannot think of Christ as 
 laughing or entering into gay or lively discourse ; 
 nor can we so think of his Mother. There is self- 
 satisfaction and egotism in all merriment. The 
 love and pity of the God-man admit not the play 
 of childish joy upon his sacred features — we catch 
 there the expression of repose Avhich comes of 
 strength; of sweet, sad sympathy, of ineffable 
 goodness, yet mingled with the awful earnestness 
 of him who is Judge as well as Saviour, but whose 
 justice is tempered with mercy. In the Blessed 
 Virgin there is a more human sweetness and light ; 
 a grace that seems even more tender because her 
 only office is that of love. Under this high influ- 
 ence art acquired new power and seemed to feel 
 Christ's blessing — the peace which the world knows 
 not. It learned the secret of repose, without 
 which it has been said no work of art can be great, 
 and which is the measure of all artistic excellence : 
 
Religion and Art. 339 
 
 " The life where hope and memory are as one ; 
 Earth quiet and unchanged ; the human soul 
 Consistent in self rule ; and heaven revealed 
 To meditation, in that quietness." 
 
 Purity — the quality of soul most nearly akin to 
 the spiritual and divine nature — became an essential 
 requisite of human beauty and lifted Christian art 
 into a world unknown to paganism. The material 
 universe was looked upon as symbolical of a high- 
 er and nobler mode of existence, so that the body 
 itself in the artist's contemplation was spiritual- 
 ized—grew light and aerial, such as St. Paul de- 
 scribes it rising from death incorruptible and im- 
 mortal. From this type the Christian artist de- 
 rived the angelical form, as seen, for example, 
 in Perugino's Michael, the Archangel — " with his 
 triple crest of traceless plumes unshaken in heaven, 
 his hand fallen on his crossleted sword, the truth 
 girdle binding his undinted armor ; God has put 
 his power upon him, resistless radiance is on his 
 limbs, no lines are there of earthly strength, no 
 traces on the divine features of earthly anger; 
 trustful and thoughtful, fearless but full of love, 
 incapable except of the repose of eternal conquest, 
 vessel and instrument of Omnipotence, filled like 
 a cloud with the victor light, the dust of principal- 
 ities and powers beneath his feet, the murmur of 
 hell against him heard by his spiritual ear like the 
 winding of a shell on the far-off sea- shore." 
 
 The body itself aspires to a spiritual state, and 
 seeks to harmonize its gross elements with the 
 soul, to bring back life's rosy dawn, when both 
 
340 Religion and A ri. 
 
 were one, like sweet music set to noble words. 
 The eye of faith sees more clearly the condi- 
 tions and possibilities of the diviner life — ,catches 
 glimpses of things unutterable, too bright " to 
 hit the sense of human sight." The communion 
 of saints exists ; angels watch over us ; the loved 
 •who have gone before us are not parted from 
 us ; prayer rises like fragrant incense to heaven, 
 falls like dew upon souls who purge their guilt in 
 unknown Avorlds. This high companionship with 
 things unseen makes flesh and blood a wearisome 
 burden to the soul, and it cries out, " Who will free 
 me from this body of death?" The noblest na- 
 tures, no longer able to endure contact with the 
 crowd sunk in sensuous indulgence, flee to the de- 
 sert ; in solitude find the untainted air of God's 
 presence ; shake from the free Christian spirit all 
 jTianacles of deadly servitude ; and, rebaptized in 
 silence and prayer, rise, like eagles new-bathed in 
 pcean, to purer worlds. 
 
 ." Hpw beautiful your presence, how benign, 
 
 Servants of God ! who not a thought will share 
 ■ With the vain world. 
 
 More sweet than odors cajjght by him who sails 
 Near spicy shores of Araby the blest, 
 A thousand times more exquisitely sweet 
 The freight of holy feeling which we m^( 
 In thoughtful moments wafted by the gales 
 from fields where good men walk or bowers wherein 
 they rest." 
 
 This higher life created a higher art. This is 
 evident in the earliest records of Christian art. In 
 
Religion and Art 341 
 
 the paintings of the Catacombs there is a celestial 
 purity, a translucence of soul, a predominance of 
 spirit o^er matter, of faith over sense, which ren- 
 der these works, in spite of technical defects, infi- 
 nitely superior to all art which draws its inspira- 
 tion from less exalted ideals. Here art is pure 
 and noble, because here is a sublime religious faith 
 which gives to human life a transcendental and 
 priceless dignity and worth. In the simplest and 
 meekest face that looks upon us from those sub- 
 terranean walls we behold th^ power of the faith 
 which overcomes the world, which can give to a 
 timid maiden a strength that conquers armies and 
 empires, which makes death sweet as the breath of 
 morning, and through defeat rises ever to diviner 
 victories, triumphing in its martyrdom. It is truth 
 and purity and love, habited in weakness and pov- 
 erty, that rises up to strike dumb the loud and bla- 
 tant vv'orld, with its shams and shows, carnal souls 
 and hollow hearts. 
 
 On the walls of these hidden cities, in whose 
 dark and silent streets we can almost feel the pre- 
 sence of the generations of martyrs, of whom the 
 world was not worthy, and who in the narrow way 
 walked towards the life and the light, there is 
 the sublimest symbolical teaching. The Phoenix, 
 rising from its ashes, proclaims the immortality of 
 the soul, the triumph of spirit over matter, and the 
 final resurrection ; the three youths in the fiery 
 furnace declare that out of the jaws of hell God 
 delivers those who put their trust in him ; and Plia- 
 rao's army, swallowed up by the devouring sea, 
 
342 Religion and Art. 
 
 shout from tlie mad turmoil that God only is great, 
 that it is vain to trust in princes, that they who 
 walk by faith securely tread where the mig^hty fall. 
 Here Abraham so believes in God against the 
 whole earth that he lifts the knife to slay his only 
 son ; from hard and flinty rock Moses strikes the 
 water of life ; and Isaias, with keen vision, piercing 
 the thick veil that hides the future from mortal 
 eyes, sees God's Virgin Mother rising like a fair 
 and lonely star upon the ebon brow of night, light- 
 ing a sin-darkened v^orld ; or the Good Shepherd, 
 on shoulders bruised by the cross of love, bears 
 home the sheep that had strayed from the fold and 
 was lost. 
 
 In all this there is high art, and greatness of 
 style, because the subjects of thought involve uni- 
 versal interests and profound passions. 
 
 Besides noble subjects and seriousness of pur- 
 pose, the Christian religion gave to art exalted 
 aims. It became holy and sought to sanctify men. 
 Artistic fraternities were religious associations. 
 " By the grace of God," said the Siennese painters 
 in 1355, " we are to rule men, who know not letters, 
 manifestors of the miraculous things worked by 
 virtue and in virtue of the holy faith ; and our 
 faith is founded principally in adoring and be- 
 lieving one God in the Trinity — a God of infinite 
 power, infinite wisdom, infinite love and mercy." 
 
 "We aim," said Bufifalmacco, "at naught else 
 than to make saints by our frescoes and pictures ; 
 and, in spite of the devils, to make men more devout 
 and holy." 
 
Religion and A rl. 343 
 
 All those early painters, so justly called the 
 " great masters," worked in faith, with religious 
 sincerity, without thought of gold or sordid motive, 
 caring not to please the vicious taste of an igno- 
 rant public, but only to approve themselves to Him 
 who is the great and eternal artist. 
 
 What delicacy, purity, and devotion are traceable 
 in every line of Giotto's works ! — the oldest, and in 
 some sense the greatest, of the Italian masters. 
 
 Cennini, an artist of tlie early part of the fif- 
 teenth century, and widely known through his 
 Treatise on Painting, insists especially in this work 
 on the moral discipline required to form the Chris- 
 tian artist. He must abstain from all sinful indul- 
 gence, eat sparingly, remain often in solitude, learn 
 self-restraint ; and, since he is to be a teacher of 
 holiness, he must himself be holy, and to this end 
 must go regularly to confession and communion. 
 Cennini declares that the use of good colors, 
 especially in painting the Blessed Virgin, is a re- 
 ligious duty, and he adds that if the painter be 
 underpaid, " God and Our Lady will reward him 
 in body and soul." 
 
 Taddeo Gaddi, the godson and pupil of Giotto, 
 who after the death of the master was appointed 
 to complete the Campanile of Florence, when 
 dying consigned his son to Casentino with the 
 injunction to teach him the practice of art and the 
 duties of a Christian. 
 
 Lippo Dalmasio, a Carmelite monk, never painted 
 a religious subject without preparing himself by 
 meditation, prayer, and fasting ; and so wonderful 
 
344 Religion and Art. 
 
 was his success that Guido Reni could not contem- 
 plate his pictures of the Blessed Virgin without 
 falling into a kind of ecstasy, and Pope Clement 
 VIII. declared that he had never seen images 
 more devout or that touched his heart nearer. He 
 refused resolutely to touch money, but painted 
 solely for the love of God and his blessed Mother. 
 
 Fra Angelico, the most religious and heavenly 
 of all artists, painted Christ and Mary only on his 
 knees ; and when engaged on the Crucifixion a 
 flood of tears burst from his eyes. He prayed con- 
 stantly, smiled seldom, wept often, and never har- 
 bored an impure thought. His head rested on the 
 heart of Jesus, and nothing had power to disturb 
 him. All men have agreed to call him Angel and 
 Blessed. In his Virgin we behold' the very chas- 
 tity and beauty of heaven incarnate, and of his 
 angels Michael Angelo said that no man could 
 paint them who had not seen them in some higher 
 world. Only the pure of heart can depict the pur- 
 est and sublimest sentiments, and they who paint 
 Christ and his angels must be Christ-like and an- 
 gelical : " Blessed are the pure of heart, for they 
 shall see God." 
 
 No one, while looking upon the paintings of 
 Beato Angelico, can harbor a revengeful or lustful 
 thought. They influence us like the presence of 
 holy and noble natures. They are the exponents 
 of Spirit, and we cannot contemplate them with- 
 out inwardly shrinking from whatever is sensual. 
 There is in them a tenderness and repose, a love 
 and peace, which, far above the storm-clouds and 
 
Religion and Art. 345 
 
 blinding dust of earth, breathe the air of heav^en. 
 Not less than in the tone and accent of a saintly- 
 man do we catch in these Madonnas and cherubs 
 the hidden secret of the inward, diviner life. Faith 
 and love inspired Angelico, and one who drank 
 from fountains less pure or deep could not have 
 unveiled to mortal eyes such celestial loveliness. 
 The religious artist makes art religious. Never 
 yet was there true poet who did not believe in his 
 wildest dreams, nor can an artist paint what he 
 believes not to exist. All art which is insincere is 
 false ; and deep, abiding sincerity can come only 
 of religious inspiration. Without this the love of 
 the beautiful, the pursuit of art for its own sake, 
 degenerates into dilettanteism. 
 
 The great religious artists painted for the people, 
 for believing souls, who were eager not to admire, 
 but to worship, and who longed for symbols of 
 their faith. Their masterpieces were never made 
 to hang on the walls of the wealthy, to be gazed at 
 as objects of curiosity or artistic skill. Demos- 
 thenes spoke not with more earnestness or deep 
 conviction than they painted. They were able, 
 because they believed. 
 
 To ask with Ruskin whether art has done good 
 to religion is to put a meaningless question. If it 
 has not served religion, it is condemned ; for man's 
 eternal and highest interests are religious. It is, 
 moreover, impossible that a great and living faith 
 should not symbolize itself in some great art. 
 David sang and danced before the ark, and in all 
 time the soul, feeling God's presence, will be tor- 
 2S» 
 
346 Religion and Art. 
 
 mented by a voiceless thought till art gives it 
 relief. All true prayer is poetic and musical, and 
 to whine and drawl when we supplicate God is as 
 little proper as to stand bolt upright and speak to 
 him as though he were some common mortal with 
 official patronage to bestow. 
 
 Whosoever loves longs for poetry, music, song, 
 pictures, flowers, or whatsoever else is beautiful, 
 though the meanest object is ennobled if it be but 
 associated with this passion. Religion is love, 
 higher and diviner, more real and all-enduring than 
 any other — a love which can make the desert 
 bloom, people solitudes, light the dark-vaulted 
 dungeon, make slavery sweet, disease a pleasant 
 companion, and death a welcome guest. To him 
 who feels this divine ardor kingdoms and princi- 
 palities are but the dust he treads upon ; fame, 
 discordant babble ; and all the ways and hopes of 
 the world vain and purposeless as the rambles of a 
 child. To him naught is but what is eternal ; and 
 in all corruptible things he sees an image of God's 
 immortal glory. From basest matter his faith 
 forms wings with Avhich he would raise himself to 
 companionship with Heaven. He longs for sym- 
 bols which, by expressing, however poorly, his 
 sense of God's presence, may strengthen and de- 
 fine his faith and hope and love. His strong desire 
 creates, religion is clothed with beauty, and art is 
 born. 
 
 Protestantism has produced no religious art, and 
 no other argument is needed to prove that it is 
 without deep religious faith. Its life is feverish 
 
Religion and Art. 347 
 
 and artificial, not profound and interior. Its en- 
 ergy is drawn from strife and opposition, dissen- 
 sions and controversies. It is tormented by the 
 spirit of unrest, it has no peace, and therefore can 
 have no art. It is critical, and therefore without 
 reverence ; it is self-conscious, and therefore with- 
 out humility ; it is worldly, and therefore without 
 exalted ideals ; it is uncontemplative, and there- 
 fore without tenderness. 
 
 Having not within itself the deep fountains of 
 faith and love from which art draws its life, it by 
 instinct strove to shut religion within the soul. 
 It turned from all the Christian glories and hero- 
 isms of the past, virginities and martyrdoms, strug- 
 gles and triumphs, defeats and victories, feeling it 
 had no part in them. It became censorious and 
 lost sympathy ; saw the evil, but passed by the 
 good with averted look. When it was ascetic it 
 was harsh and forbidding ; when it was self-indul- 
 gent it was vulgar and coarse ; when it was enthu- 
 siastic it was Avild and fanatic. It has no ideals. 
 Its very founders refused to lend themselves to the 
 purposes of art. Luther was violent and gross ; 
 Henry, cruel and debauched ; Calvin, heartless and 
 vindictive ; Knox, coarse and barbarous. Its rela- 
 tions .to womanhood were no better. It despised 
 virginity, and degraded marriage by destroying its 
 sacramental character and by admitting divorce. 
 Luther violated the sacredness of woman consecrat- 
 ed by chastity, and Henry alternated between lust 
 and murder. From the Virgin Mother it turned 
 away with horror, thinking to honor Jesus by scorn- 
 
348 Religion and Art. 
 
 ing her who bore him. It never understood that 
 imagination, not less than intellect, is the organ of 
 theGodlike, or that the visible universe is the body- 
 ing forth of the invisible. By an instinct as shallow 
 as it is opposed to art it shrank from mystery and en- 
 tered on the fatal way that leads to scepticism and 
 materialism. To man nothing is divine that is not 
 clothed in mystery. Pluck away the fair, cluster- 
 ing flowers that over-wreath, protect, and sweeten 
 man's life, filling it with charm and wonder, and 
 there remains but a bare carcass fit for Darwinian 
 experimentation. Our God is a hidden God — 
 Christ is seen now no more, except in those who 
 lead with him the silent, secret life which the 
 animal eye perceiveth not. He comes to us not 
 openly, as once he walked in Galilee, but veiled 
 in sacramental rites and sacred symbols. In the 
 Breaking of the Bread we know him, and in the 
 silence of deep meditation, when the door is shut 
 and the windows closed, he stands before us. God 
 has symbolized himself in all the universe ; the 
 heavens are his vesture, the earth is his footstool, 
 and from sun and moon and star he speaks to 
 man ; a gleam of his countenance is reflected from 
 the circumambient eternity on this little islet of time. 
 And what does the church in all her worship but 
 imitate, as best she maj'-, God's own work? What 
 is the pomp and splendor of her ceremonial com- 
 pared with the glories of nature ? Or how can it 
 be wrong in her who knows not the guilty folly of 
 Manicheism to seek to raise man to heaven by 
 the chords that bind him to earth? 
 
Religion and Art. 349 
 
 Then she is the mother of the people ; comes 
 nearer to their hearts than any other, as Jesus 
 alone loves the poor ; and for them criticism and 
 science are not, but only faith and hope and love. 
 They want no lecture-hall, with its bare walls and 
 prosing teacher, but a temple of religion — the 
 home of the multitude, where every art and noble 
 gift of man bows in homage to God's presence. 
 Therefore must she build for Christ and his poor, 
 the temple of majesty and glory, the democratic 
 palace of the people, where the beggar and the 
 prince kneel side by side — a basilica prouder than 
 that of kings, where all the arts are wedded and 
 find a sanctuary in the divine harmony which re- 
 ligion alone can consecrate and make eternal. 
 
 " This long-roofed vista penetrate — but see, 
 One after one, its tablets, that unfold 
 The whole design of Scripture history, 
 From the first tasting of the fatal tree 
 Till the bright star appeared in Eastern skies 
 Announcing One was born mankind to free ; 
 His acts, his wrongs, his sacrifice : 
 Lessons for every heart, a Bible for all eyes." 
 
 Whether or not religion need the service of art, 
 art certainly can never flourish except in her ser- 
 vice ; for of all things it requires the consecration 
 of an exalted and unselfish purpose. He who 
 works for money or praise may work cunningly 
 and admirably, but never divinely. Between art 
 and money or men's praise there is no equivalence, 
 as there is none between mind and matter, beauty 
 and use. Nor is there inspiration in art for art's 
 
350 " Religion and Art. 
 
 sake. The phrase is meaningless ; for, if art is 
 not the symbol of a divine reality, it is frivolous 
 and childish. To be great and worthy, it must be 
 born on the holy mountain where God's law is 
 given, and in the temple where he is worshipped. 
 As soon as men stop to think whether it is dear, 
 or what use there is in it, its soul is fled and ma- 
 terialism smothers all spiritual faith. It is of no 
 avail to preach to those " who love the corn they 
 grind, and the grapes they crush, better than the 
 gardens of the angels upon the slopes of Eden." 
 If man is only an animal, and the world his manger, 
 let him eat the hay and the thistle and be blest. 
 If there is no good in holy thoughts, in limitless 
 desires, in unutterable longings for the highest 
 and the best, in the faith that trusts that God is 
 Love and is just, in the sweet hope that in a better 
 world there is a more restful life,, then indeed may 
 men hold that God's temple is but a mill or bank, 
 and should be taxed lest it be made beautiful. 
 
 If the people who work and suffer, begrimed 
 with the dust and smoke and soil of earth, shut 
 out from companionship with nature, are to have 
 no home of the soul, no place of repose, no taber- 
 nacle of God's presence, no symbol of heaven, 
 where every art conspires to raise the mind and 
 heart to the invisible and higher world, then let 
 the law make it impossible for them to retain the 
 churches which they have built ; and God pity 
 them ! He who made the heavens and the earth 
 is not shut up in houses built by the hands of man. 
 He dwells in his own immensity; the universe is 
 
Religion and A rt. 3 5 i 
 
 his temple ; the sun the inextinguishable lamp 
 that burns before his presence ; the stars the 
 lights that shine upon his altar; and in this vast 
 and divine temple all creatures adore him and 
 proclaim his glory ; and the spheres, as they re- 
 volve, sing in his praise an immortal hymn. God 
 needs not the temples which we build to him ; of 
 man and his works he is for ever independent. 
 But we who crave for God, and who, without him, 
 perish like the brute and have no hope, must have 
 sanctuaries, religious rites and symbols, to prevent 
 the heavenly spirit of faith and love from escaping 
 and losing itself in boundless and empty space. 
 From the crowd the thought of God is banished ; 
 men dig into the earth and sail the seas for food 
 and raiment; they would make the sun and moon 
 pull their wagons ; turn all nature to low uses, and 
 beneath the grinding wheels of mechanism crush 
 the soul. Let us at least leave to man God's tem- 
 ple — the great soul-symbol, where he can still 
 breathe the air of heaven, and weep and pray, 
 
 " The spirit of antiquity — enshrined 
 In sumptuous buildings, vocal in sweet song, 
 In picture, speaking with heroic tongue, 
 And with devout solemnities entwined — 
 Strikes to .the seat of grace within the mind." 
 
 Did not He who is for ever the founder of the 
 religion of the soul, and only Saviour of man, ful- 
 fil all holy observances? He loved the beauty of 
 God's house, was often in the temple, kept fast 
 and feast, was circumcised, sent the lepers to the 
 
352 Religion aiid Art. 
 
 priests for the sin-offering, paid the temple-tax, 
 and performed all other offices of a ceremonial 
 worship. He received the baptism of John ; he 
 breathed upon his apostles ; he rubbed the mud- 
 paste upon the eyes of the blind Ynan ; he com- 
 manded the anointing with oil. Of course, while 
 the blessed Saviour walked among men, and for a 
 long time after he had returned to the Father, 
 Christian worship was of the simplest kind. No 
 various ceremonies, no rich music, no high cathe- 
 drals, no mystic vestments, no solemn altars, no 
 marbles or metals or jewels, or woods of cost, or 
 fine linen, added splendor to the celebration of the 
 divine mysteries. Christ instituted the most holy 
 Sacrament of his real presence in an " upper room" 
 of a hired house ; in an " upper room " the Holy 
 Ghost descended upon the Apostles, waiting and 
 watching in silence and in prayer ; in an " upper 
 room " St. Paul preached in Troas ; at Philippi he 
 led the faithful outside the city to the river-bank 
 where prayer was wont to be made ; and with 
 Silas he sang hymns in prison. St. Peter was 
 praying on the house-top Avhen he saw the vision, 
 and Philip baptized the Ethiopian eunuch in the 
 desert. Having no power or liberty to build 
 churches to God, the apostolic Christians made 
 the whole world his temple and offered to him 
 everywhere the sacrifice of noble lives and heroic 
 deaths. Their immediate successors were driven 
 from the face of the earth into caverns, tombs, 
 and subterranean galleries ; but when from the 
 darkness and the death of the Catacombs they 
 
Rcligiojt a7id Art. 353 
 
 issued forth like Christ from the grave, triumphant 
 and immortal, God inspired them, as the Israelites 
 of old who had passed through the parted waters 
 and the desert into the Land of Promise, to build 
 temples not unworthy of the faith which had con- 
 quered the world. 
 
 In nothing is the spirit of a religion more clearly- 
 seen than in the style of its sacred edifices. The 
 character of the temple is determined by our con- 
 ception of God and of the service which we owe 
 him. The Greeks, plunged in mad delight in the 
 enjoyments of this life and unconscious of a higher 
 existence, thought their gods were stronger men, 
 with greater passions and more ardent cravings for 
 indulgence. Consequently their temples take the 
 form of human dwellings, of wonderful grace and 
 symmetry, harmony of lines and proportions; but 
 without grandeur, mystery, or sublimity. In the 
 dark mysteries of the religion of ancient Egypt 
 death is the predominant thought ; and its temple 
 is a tomb, sad, solitary, motionless. This corre- 
 spondence between architecture and religious faith 
 is most discernible in the Christian temple, which is 
 the highest symbol of the universe, as God's handi- 
 work, ever created by human 'genius. It is the 
 House of God not because it is consecrated to his 
 worship, but because he dwells there really and 
 truly under the sacramental veil ; and it is his 
 divine presence which gives to the whole edifice 
 its form, its appropriateness, and its meaning, as 
 the mind of God creates, moves, and harmonizes 
 the universe. The vital principle in the Christian 
 
354 Religion and Art. 
 
 temple is the Real Presence. Take this away and 
 it is a body without a soul. Therefore the whole 
 edifice grows out of the tabernacle, and draws from 
 it use and beauty, as from the heart the members 
 are developed and by it are nourished. He is 
 there — the mysterious and awful God, but the God 
 of love, of beauty, of mercy. Banished, therefore, 
 be all frivolity, all profane mirth, all trivial joy. 
 Here are we in the presence of infinite mystery ; 
 the ground is holy, unseen spirits are adoring. 
 How the great vault lifts itself to heaven, bending 
 in mighty joy above the tabernacle ! And the 
 wide aisle opens out in limitless expanse, level- 
 ling the mountains and making straight the way 
 of the Lord. The temple is a cross ; its centre 
 the tabernacle, and Christ is adored for ever in the 
 divinest symbol of his love, which is borne upward 
 on aerial spires far above all monuments of human 
 pride, shedding benediction and gentler life through 
 the world's waste. The whole edifice, and each 
 separate part, rises secure and strong heavenward 
 like the flight of angels. It is a universal temple, 
 fit symbol of a catholic religion. All nature is 
 here. Stones, and metals, and woods of cost, moss 
 and lichen, and all kinds of grasses and plants cover 
 its walls and entwine themselves around its col- 
 umns. Reptiles, and monsters of the deep, birds of 
 the air, and all animals that walk the earth, are gath- 
 ered here, for God created them all. And last, as 
 in the world's history, comes man to interpret the 
 mystery and to be God's image and minister. He 
 gives intelligence and a voice to this new creation. 
 
Religion ajid Art. 355 
 
 At his touch the rock takes a human form ; saints and 
 angels appear within the holy place ; the incense 
 gives forth its fragrant breath ; the great organ, 
 standing in lone royalty, utters its deep and mystic 
 voice ; and stone, and moss, and plant, and living 
 things of earth, air, and sea join the choir to chant 
 to God the universal hymn of praise. 
 
 "And, while the Host is raised, its elevatioa 
 An awe. and supernatural horror breeds, 
 And all the people bov/ their heads like reeds 
 To a soft breeze, in lowly adoration." 
 
 This is the temple of religion, type of the 
 Church which God has reared. 
 
THE LIFE 
 
 t M. I J. 
 
 ill, Dl, 
 
 ^RCHBISHOP OF JBaLTIMORE, 
 BY 
 
 RT. REV. J. L. SPALDING, D.D., 
 
 Bishop of Peoria. 
 
 CONTENTS. . 
 
 Chap. I. Ancestry— Parentage — Birth — Early Education. 
 
 II. Professor at St. Mary's College — Enters the Seminary at Bardstown — Is 
 sent to Rome. 
 
 III. Student Life in Rome. 
 
 IV. Last Year in Rome — Public Defence of Theses for the Doctor's Cap. 
 
 V. Ordained Priest — Returns Home — Is made Pastor of the Cathedral in 
 Hardstown — Professor in the Seminarj'— '1 he "' Minerva." 
 
 VI. The " Catholic Advocate " — Religious Journalism — Efforts to Extend 
 its Influence. 
 
 VII. President of St. Joseph's College — Pastor of St. Peter's Church in Lex- 
 ington — Diocese of Nashville. 
 
 VIII. Dr. Spalding is appointed Vicar-General— The Louisville "League "" — 
 His Labors as a Lecturer and t reacher. 
 
 IX. Popular Objections to the Church — Dr. Spalding's Manner of Answer- 
 
 ing Them. 
 
 X. Appointed Bishop of Lengone, in Part. Infid., and Coadjutor of Bishop 
 
 Flaget — Death of Bishop Flaget — btate of the Diocese at the Time 
 of Dr. Spa ding's Consecration. 
 
 XI. State of the Diocese, continued— Bishop Spalding's First Visitation — 
 
 The Early Catholics of Kentucky. 
 
 XII. Retreat of the Clergj- — Building of the Cathedral in Louisville — Divi- 
 sion of the Diocese — The First Plenary Council at Baltimore — Des re 
 to Secure the Ser\ices of a Teaching Brotherhood. 
 
XIII. Visit to Europe — The Xaverian Brothers — The American Co'.lcge at 
 Lou vain. 
 
 XIV. Re'igion and Nationalism — The Know-Nothing Conspiracy — " Bloody 
 Monday." 
 
 XV. The " Miscellanea" — Controversy with Professor Morse. 
 
 XVI, The Provincial Councils of Cincinnati — The Common-School System. 
 
 XVII. Difxesan Affairs — Traits of Character— Correspondence with Arch- 
 bishop Kenrick. 
 
 XVIII. History of the Reformation — Views on the Duties of Ecclesiastics in 
 their Relations with the State — Episcopal Labors. 
 
 XIX. The Civil War and the Church in Kentucky — State of the Diocese of 
 Louisville — Bishop Spalding is appointed to the See of Baltimore. 
 
 XX. Archbishop Spalding takes Possession of His new Charge— Summary of 
 Important Facts in the History of the Archdiocese of Baltimore. 
 
 XXI. Archbishop Sjpalding's First Works in the Diocese of Baltimore^The 
 Syllabus — The Sixth Synod of Baltimore — Correspondence on Various 
 Subjects. 
 
 XXII. The Suffering People of the South — The Diocese of Charleston — The 
 Catholic h'rotectory — Sermon at the University of Notre Dame. 
 
 XXIII. The Second Plenary Council of Baltimore. 
 
 XXIV. Second Plenarj' Counojl of Baltimore, continued— Appointment of Bish- 
 ops— Parochial Rights— Catholic University. 
 
 XXV. The Past, the Present, and the Future. 
 
 XXVI. The Emancipated Slaves — The Catholic Publication Society — The Cen- 
 tenary of the Martyrdom of St. Peter. 
 
 XXVII. Travels in Europe — Ireland — Progress of the Church in the Archdiocese 
 of Baltimore — The American Co. lege in Rome. 
 
 XXVIII. The Dangers.that Threaten the Destruction of our Free Institutions — 
 The Remedy — The Craving for Sensuous Indulgence. 
 
 XXIX. Death of the Verj' Rev. B. J. Spalding— Visitation of the Diocese— 
 The Little Sisters of the Poor — The Vatican Council. 
 
 XXX. The Vatican Council — The Postulatum of Archbishop Spalding — Let- 
 ter to Bishop Dupanloup. 
 
 XXXI. The Definition of Papal Infallibility not only Opportune, but Necessary 
 ^Devotion of the American Church to the holy See. * 
 
 XXXII. The Manner in which the Discussions of the Vatican Council were 
 Conducted— The Infallibility of the Pope — Liberty and Liberalism — 
 Tour in Switzerland. 
 
 XXXIII. The Sacrilegious Invasion of Rome — Archbishop Spalding returns 
 
 Home — His Reception in Baltimore and Washington City — A Re- 
 trospect. 
 
 XXXIV. Last Illness and Death of Archbishop Spalding. 
 
 It is published in the best style possible, and makes a volume of nearly five 
 hundred pages 8vo, with portrait on steel. 
 
 BeveUed Cloth $4 00 
 
 Address 
 
 The Catholic Publication Society, 
 
 LA WBENCE KEHOE, Gen. Agent, 
 
 9 BARCLAY ST., NEW YORK. 
 
ttCSB LIBRARY 
 
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