If the "Denominational System" was adopted, it would satisfy and do justice to all, and, at the same time, excite such rivalry and compet.i.tion among teachers as to advance education, whilst it diminishes its cost in the same ratio. We have seen that it costs about four times as much to give the miserable infidel instruction in the Public Schools, as it does to give a good Christian education in the denominational schools. What possible objection, then, can there be to adopt the denominational, or separate system, when it costs four times less, and imparts, to say the least, as good an education to the greatest number of children? It is no argument to urge that schools would be sectarian.
We have sectarian churches, and various shades and differences of belief, already. This would not alter one or the other a particle. The State cannot impose uniformity on churches; why force it on schools?
Indeed it is worse, inasmuch as this scholastic conformity or uniformity is against all religions, and in favor of infidelity, or the no-religious sect, if there be such a one. It discriminates against the believers, and is in favor of the unbelievers.
But it is easy to see what the matter is. It is not religion these men fear so much as _compet.i.tion_. One session"s trial of the separate system would so clearly demonstrate to the public the economy and advantages of this plan, that the troop of paid teachers, officers, musicians, and others, who are fattening at the expense of a credulous people, would be exposed, and have to take their "carpet-bags" and tramp. However, I have no cause of quarrel with the employes, male or female, of the Public Schools. They do not elect themselves, nor make their salaries, and they are not to be blamed for taking them. If the clever gentleman who draws (in one State, at least) $2,750 for ten months, four hours" a day work, or the accomplished lady who gets $2,000 for the same time and labor, or the three musicians at $2,000 each, or the humble, but perhaps not less useful, corps of "school-sweepers"
(janitors), who are rewarded with $16,886.50, or the officers (three), who pocket $14,457.90 salary, and $20,771.96 office-expenses!! are so handsomely rewarded, it is their good fortune, and not their fault.
There is, doubtless, a great deal of human nature in their composition, as well as others.
There is no earthly way of giving satisfaction to all, except by granting the denominational system, thereby leaving to all sects and denominations, as well as to those who do not range themselves under any specific form at all, to apply a fair proportion of the school-money.
All those who prefer the present plan would have no change to make, and all those who desire the separate plan would have the right to select their own cla.s.s-books and teachers; in other words, would have the interior management of their own schools. This is the way church matters are managed to the satisfaction of all. Peoples" views and convictions on education are just as conscientious and distinct as on religion, and they have just as good a right to them. If any man denies this truth, I would like him to give his reasons.
There is one other thing to be taken into consideration here: if, as is claimed, all, from the highest to the lowest, have a right to an education at the hands of the State, and if, as is admitted, all should be instructed in their moral and religious duties, if not by the State, at least by their parents and pastors, who will instruct the poor little orphans, the very cla.s.s for whose benefit the public provide an education--who, I say, will instruct them in the way they should go? who will answer for these little "waifs of society"? They ask for bread, and the State gives them a stone; it has, with the best intentions in the world, no better to give them. These considerations have compelled most of the European States, as well as our neighbors--the Canadians--to abandon the _G.o.dless system_, and establish separate schools, when asked to do so by the members of any denomination.[G]
There _is no exception to this rule, except here!_ With all our boasted progress, we are behind all civilized nations in this important particular.
Now by adopting this fair method, the poor orphans and ragged children, who have the first and best claim of all, would be educated. As it is, it is a notorious fact, that as far as Public Schools are concerned, they are left out in the cold. This fact is capable of being demonstrated to any lady or gentleman who will visit the Catholic orphanages and poor schools of any city. If any one doubts this, and does me the honor of putting himself at my disposal, I will show him or her thousands of such poor ragged little ones in one evening. Now is it not drawing largely upon public credulity, as well as on the public purse, to ask for thousands for high schools, and normal schools, etc., to educate the children, in great part, of the rich, or, at best, comparatively well to do, and turn their backs on the poor fatherless orphans and the ragged children of the poor widow or laboring man? Will anybody who has his eyesight doubt or deny this? If so, he can be convinced, any day of the week, by looking at the cla.s.s and style of boys and girls who go to the upper Public Schools, and observing the boys and girls (several hundreds in number) who go to the poor schools of the Sisters of Mercy, or, in fact, to any other charity convent school.
The Bible, or religious education in schools, will ever come up to vex and torment the public, especially the Catholic portion of the community, until the right of separate schools is granted. It is especially the Catholics that do and must insist upon having separate schools, for it is the Catholics that have always done all in their power to establish and maintain the republican form of government, and it is through the influence of Catholicity alone that our Republic can be maintained, and increased in power and glory.
A body which has lost the principle of its animation becomes dust. Hence it is an axiom that the change or perversion of the principles by which anything was produced, is the destruction of that very thing; if you can change or pervert the principles from which anything springs, you destroy it. For instance, one single foreign element introduced into the blood produces death; one false a.s.sumption admitted into science, destroys its certainty; one false principle admitted into morals, is fatal. Now our American nation is departing from the principles which created their civilization, and upon which their grand Republic is based. Their civilization is becoming every day more and more material, and this material civilization, while more and more material, is becoming less moral; society is becoming less solid, less safe, less stable; individuals are becoming more anarchical, the intellect more licentious, the wills of men more stubborn, and this self-will expresses itself in their actions, so that it is true to say that, by means of G.o.dless education, the principles of Christianity upon which the American Republic was founded, and by which it has. .h.i.therto been preserved, have been rejected, and are being violated on every side. Our Republic, therefore is no more progressing, but is going back.
About fifteen years ago a number of leading politicians and statesmen of America, of highest name and note, met together to consider the condition of the United States. It was before the war, when there were already many causes of anxiety. It was said that there was a universal and growing license of the individual will, and that law and government were powerless to restrain it; that if the will of the mult.i.tude became licentious, it would seriously threaten the public welfare and liberty of the country. The conclusion they came to was, that, _unless there could be found some power which could restrain the individual will_, this danger would at last _seriously menace the United States_.
Now it is easy to say what that power is. It is the power which created the Christian society--it is the power which drew the world out of the darkness of heathenism, abolished slavery, restored woman to her true dignity--it is the power which established and maintained republican governments, and that power is the power of Catholicity. Whensoever this power is weakened or lost, immediately all political society decays.
There will be a bright future for America if this power will be maintained and preserved.
The Catholic Church is the grandest Republic that was ever established.
But it is a Republic of a supernatural order. It has for its Founder Jesus Christ, the Son of G.o.d Himself. He chose St. Peter for its first President. This grand Republic is divided, as it were, into as many States as there are dioceses; each diocese has a Bishop--a true successor of the Apostles--for Governor, and each Bishop has priests to a.s.sist him in the spiritual government of the diocese. The Const.i.tution of this Republic was made by Jesus Christ. It cannot be changed or altered at all, either by the President, or by the votes of its citizens. St. Peter and the other Apostles, and their lawful successors, were bound in conscience, by Jesus Christ, to keep His Const.i.tution--His doctrine--and teach others to keep it, under pain of forfeiture of eternal life. The President and the Governors of this Republic--the Pope and the Catholic Bishops--are not at liberty to govern its citizens, the Catholics, as they please; they have to govern them according to the Const.i.tution--the Doctrine of Jesus Christ. Now Almighty G.o.d governs men in accordance with the nature with which He has created them, as beings endowed with reason and free-will. G.o.d adapts His government to our rational and voluntary faculties, and governs us without violence to either, and by really satisfying both. The rulers of the Catholic Church have to do the same; they must govern men as freemen. Hence the Catholic Church leaves to every people its own nationality, and to every State its own independence; she ameliorates the political and social order, only by infusing into the hearts of the people and their rulers the principles of justice and love, and a sense of accountability to G.o.d. The action of the Church in political and social matters is indirect, not direct, and in strict accordance with the free-will of individuals and the autonomy of states. Servile fear does not rank very high among Catholic theologians. The Church, when she can, resorts to coercive measures only to repress disorders in the public body. Hence her rulers are called shepherds, not lords, and shepherds of their Master"s flock, not of their own, and are to feed, tend, protect the flock, and take care of its increase for Him, with sole reference to His will, and His honor and glory. The Catholic Church proffers to all every a.s.sistance necessary for the attainment of the most heroic sanct.i.ty, but she forces no man to accept that a.s.sistance.
Catholics believe the doctrines of the Church, because they believe the Catholic Church the Church of G.o.d--they believe that Jesus Christ commissioned St. Peter and the Apostles, and their lawful successors, to teach all men in His name--to teach them infallibly and authoritatively His divine doctrine--they believe that this Church is the medium through which G.o.d manifests His will and dispenses His grace to man, and through which alone we can hope for heaven; they believe that nothing can be more reasonable than to believe G.o.d at His word, and that, above all, they must seek the kingdom of G.o.d and secure their eternal salvation.
Being governed by the Church, as freemen, in the spirit of a republican government, and enjoying, as they do, the freedom of the children of G.o.d, Catholics feel nowhere more at home than under a republican form of government. If a great pope could say in truth that he was nowhere more pope than in America, every Catholic can, and does, also, say in truth, "Nowhere can I be a better Christian than in the United States." Hence it is that Catholics are very generally attached to the republican inst.i.tutions of the country--no cla.s.s of our citizens more so--and would defend them at the sacrifice of their lives. Catholics far more readily adjust themselves to our inst.i.tutions than non-Catholics, and among Catholics it must be observed that _they_ succeed best who best understand and best practise their religion. They who are least truly American, and yield most to demagogues, are those who have very little of Catholicity, except the accident of being born of Catholic parents, who had them baptized in infancy.
Practical Catholics are the best Republicans! If we consult history, we find that they were always foremost in establishing and maintaining the republican form of government. Who originated all the free principles which lie at the basis of our own n.o.ble Const.i.tution? Who gave us trial by jury, _habeas corpus_, stationary courts, and the principle--for which we fought and conquered in our revolutionary struggle against Protestant England--that taxes are not to be levied without the free consent of those who pay them? All these cardinal elements of free government date back to the good old Catholic times, in the middle ages--some three hundred years before the dawn of the Reformation! Our Catholic forefathers gave them all to us.
Again, we are indebted to Catholics for all the republics which ever existed in Christian times, down to the year 1776: for those of Switzerland, Venice, Genoa, Andorra, San Marino, and a host of minor free Commonwealths, which sprang up in the "dark ages." Some of these republics still exist, proud monuments and unanswerable evidences of Catholic devotion to freedom. They are acknowledged by Protestants, no less than by Catholics. I subjoin the testimony of an able writer in the New York _Tribune_, believed to be Bayard Taylor. This distinguished traveller--a staunch Protestant--appeals to history, and speaks from personal observation. He writes:
"Truth compels us to add that the oldest republic now existing is that of San Marino, not only Catholic, but wholly surrounded by the especial dominion of the popes, who might have crushed it like an egg-sh.e.l.l at any time these last thousand years--but they didn"t. The only republic we ever travelled in besides our own is Switzerland, half of its cantons or states entirely Catholic, yet never, that we have heard of, unfaithful to the cause of freedom. We never heard the Catholics of Hungary accused of backwardness in the late glorious struggle of their country for freedom, though its leaders were Protestants, fighting against a leading Catholic power avowedly in favor of religious as well as civil liberty. And chivalric, unhappy Poland, almost wholly Catholic, has made as gallant struggles for freedom as any other nation; while of the three despotisms that crushed her, but one was Catholic."
Let us bring the subject home to our own times and country. Who, I would ask, first reared in triumph the broad banner of universal freedom on this North American Continent? Who first proclaimed in this new world a truth too wide and expansive to enter into the head of, or to be comprehended by, a narrow-minded bigot--a truth that every man should be free to worship G.o.d according to the dictates of his conscience? Who _first_ proclaimed, on this broad continent, the glorious principles of universal freedom? Read Bancroft, read Goodrich, read Frost, read every Protestant historian of our country, and you will see there inscribed, on the historic page, a _fact_ which reflects immortal honor on our American Catholic ancestry--that Lord Baltimore and his Catholic colonists of Maryland were the _first_ to proclaim universal liberty, civil and religious; the _first_ to announce, as the basis of their legislation, the great and n.o.ble principle that no man"s faith and conscience should be a bar to his holding any office, or enjoying any _civil privilege_ of the community.
What American can forget the names of Rochambeau, De Gra.s.se, De Kalb, Pulaski, La Fayette, Kosciusko? Without the aid of these n.o.ble Catholic heroes, and of the brave troops whom they led on to victory, would we have succeeded at all in our great revolutionary contest? Men of the clearest heads, and of the greatest political forecast, living at that time, thought not; at least they deemed the result exceedingly doubtful.
And during the whole war of the Revolution, who ever heard of a Catholic coward, or of a Catholic traitor? When the Protestant General, Gates, fled from the battle-field of Camden with the Protestant militia of North Carolina and Virginia, who but Catholics stood firm at their posts, and fought and died with the brave old Catholic hero, De Kalb?
the veteran who, when others ingloriously fled, seized his good sword, and cried out to the brave old Maryland and Pennsylvania lines, "Stand firm, for I am too old to fly!" Who ever heard of a Catholic Arnold? And who has not heard of the brave Irish and German soldiers who, at a somewhat later period, mainly composed the invincible army of the impetuous "Mad Anthony" Wayne, and const.i.tuted the great bulwark of our defence against the savage invasions which threatened our whole northwestern frontier with devastation and ruin?
All these facts, and many more of a similar kind which might be alleged, cannot have pa.s.sed away, as yet, from the memory of our American citizens. Americans cannot have forgotten, as yet, that the man who perilled most in signing the Declaration of Independence was a Roman Catholic, and that when Charles Carroll, of Carrolton, put his name to that instrument, Benjamin Franklin observed, "There goes a cool million in support of the cause!"
And when our energies were exhausted, and the stoutest hearts entertained the most gloomy forebodings as to the final issue, Catholic France stepped gallantly forth to the rescue of our infant freedom, almost crushed by an overwhelming English tyranny! Catholic Spain also subsequently lent us her aid against England. Many of our most sagacious statesmen have believed that, but for this timely aid, our Declaration of Independence could scarcely have been made good.
These facts, which are but a few of those which might be adduced, prove conclusively that Catholicity is still what she was in the middle ages--the steadfast friend and support of free inst.i.tutions.
The great roots of all the evils that press upon society, and make man unhappy, are--
"THE IGNORANCE OF THE MIND, AND THE DEPRAVITY OF THE WILL."
Hence he who wishes to civilize the world, and thus a.s.sist in executing the plans of G.o.d"s providence, must remove these two great roots of evil by imparting to the mind infallibly the light of truth, and by laying down for the will authoritatively the unchangeable principles of morality. It is the Catholic Church that has accomplished in society this twofold task, by means of education.
In the Pagan world, education was an edifice built up on the principles of slavery. The motto was, "Odi profanum vulgus et arceo." Education was the privilege of the aristocracy. The great ma.s.s of people was studiously kept in ignorance of the treasures of the mind. This state of things was done away with by the Roman Catholic Church, when she established the monastic inst.i.tutions of the West. The whole of Europe was soon covered with schools, not only for the wealthy, but for the poorest even of the poor. Yes, education was systematized, and an emulation was created for learning, such as the world had never seen before. Italy, Germany, France, England, and Spain, had their universities; but side by side with these, their colleges, gymnasiums, parish and village schools, as numerous as the churches and monasteries, which the efforts of the Holy See had scattered with lavish hand over the length and breadth of the land.
And where was the source of all this light? I answer, at _Rome_. For when the barbarian hordes poured down upon Europe from the Caspian Mountains, it was the Popes who saved civilization. They collected, in the Vatican, the ma.n.u.scripts of the ancient authors, gathered from all parts of the earth at enormous expense. The barbarians, who destroyed everything by fire and sword, had already advanced as far as Rome.
Attila, who called himself the scourge of G.o.d, stood before its walls; there was no emperor, no praetorian guard, no legions present to save the ancient Capital of the world. But there was a Pope--Leo I. And Leo went forth, and by entreaties, and threats of G.o.d"s displeasure, induced the dreaded king of the Huns to retire. Scarcely had Attila retired, before Genseric, king of the Vandals, made his appearance, invited by Eudoxia, the empress, to the plunder of Rome. Leo met him, and obtained from him the lives and the honor of the Romans, and the sparing of the public monuments which adorned the city in such numbers. Thus Leo the Great saved Europe from barbarism. To the name of Leo, I might add those of Gregory I., Sylvester II., Gregory XIII., Benedict XIV., Julius III., Paul III., Leo X., Clement VIII., John XX., and a host of others, who must be looked upon as the preservers of science and the arts, even amid the very fearful torrent of barbarism that was spreading itself, like an inundation, over the whole of Europe. The principle of the Catholic Church has ever been this: "By the knowledge of Divine things, and the guidance of an infallible teacher, the human mind must gain certainty in regard to the sublimest problems, the great questions of life: by them the origin, the end, the norm and limit of man"s activity must be made known, for then alone can he venture fearlessly upon the sphere of human efforts, and human developments, and human science." And, truly, never has science gained the ascendancy outside of the Church that it has always held in the Church. And what I say of science I say also of the arts. I say it of architecture, of sculpture, and of painting. I need only point to the Basilica of Peter, to the museums and libraries of Rome. It is to Rome the youthful artist always turns his steps, in order to drink in, at the monuments of art and of science, the genius and inspiration he seeks for in vain in his own country. He feels, only too keenly, that railroads and telegraphs, steamships and power-looms, banking-houses and stock companies, though good and useful inst.i.tutions, are not the mothers of genius, nor the schools of inspiration; and therefore he leaves his country, and goes to Rome, and there feasts on the fruits gathered by the hands of St. Peter"s successors, and then returns home with a name which will live for ages in the memory of those who have learned to appreciate the true and the beautiful.
It is thus that the Catholic Church has accomplished the great work of enlightening society. She has shed the light of Faith over the East and the West, over the North and the South, and with the faith she has established the principles of true science on their natural bases. She has imparted education to the ma.s.ses, wherever she was left free to adopt her own, and untrammelled by civil interference. She has fostered and protected the arts and the sciences, and to-day, if all the libraries, and all the museums, and all the galleries of art in the world were destroyed, Rome alone would possess quite enough to supply the want, as it did in former ages, when others supplied themselves by plundering Rome.
The depravity of man shows itself in the constant endeavor to shake off the restraint placed by law and duty upon his will; and to this we must ascribe the licentiousness which has at all times afflicted society.
Pa.s.sion acknowledges no law, and spares neither rights nor conventions; where it has the power, it exercises it to the advantage of self, and to the detriment of social order. The Church is by its very const.i.tution Catholic, and hence looks upon all men as brothers of the same family.
She acknowledges not the natural right of one man over another, and hence her Catholicity lays a heavy restraint upon all the efforts of self-love, and curbs with a mighty hand the temerity of those who would destroy the harmony of life implied in the idea of Catholicity.
One of the first principles of all social happiness is, that before the law of nature, and before the face of G.o.d, all men are equal. This principle is based on the unity of the human race, the origin of all men from one common father. If we study the History of Paganism, we find that all heathen nations overturned this great principle, since we find among all heathen nations the evil of _Slavery_. Prior to the coming of Christ, the great majority of men were looked upon as a higher development of the animal, as animated instruments which might be bought and sold, given away and p.a.w.ned; which might be tormented, maltreated, or murdered; as beings, in a word, for whom the idea of right, duty, pity, mercy, and law had no existence. Who can read, without a feeling of intense horror, the accounts left us of the treatment of their slaves by the Romans? There was no law that could restrain in the least the wantonness, the cruelty, the licentious excess of the master, who, as master, possessed the absolute right to do with his slaves whatsoever he pleased. To remove this stain of slavery has ever been the aim of the Catholic Church. "Since the Saviour and Creator of the world," says Pope Gregory I., in his celebrated decree, "wished to become man, in order, by grace and liberty, to break the chains of our slavery, it is right and good to bestow again upon man, whom nature has permitted to be born free, but whom the law of nations has brought under the yoke of slavery, the blessing of their original liberty." Through all the middle ages--called by Protestants the _dark ages of the world_--the echo of these words of Gregory I. is heard; and in the thirteenth century Pope Pius II. could say, "Thanks to G.o.d, and the Apostolic See, the yoke of slavery does no longer disgrace any European nation." Since then slavery was again introduced into Africa, and the newly-discovered regions of America, and again the Popes raised their voices in the interests of liberty,--from Pius II. to Pius VII., who, even at the time Napoleon had robbed him of his liberty, and held him captive in a foreign land, became the defender of the negro, to Gregory XVI., who, on the third of November, 1839, insisted in a special Bull on the abolition of the slave trade, and who spoke in a strain as if he had lived and sat side by side with Gregory I., thirteen hundred years before. But here let us observe, that not only the vindication of liberty for all, not only the abolition of slavery, but the very mode of action followed in this matter by the Popes, has gained for them immortal honor, and the esteem of all good men. When the Church abolished slavery in any country where it existed, the Popes did not compel masters, by harshness or threats, to manumit their slaves; they did not bring into action the base intrigues, the low chicanery, the canting hypocrisy of modern statesmen; they did not raise armies, and send them into the lands of their masters to burn and to pillage, to lay waste and to destroy; they did not slaughter, by their schemes, over a million of free men and another million of slaves; they did not make widows and orphans without numbers; they did not impoverish the land, and lay upon their subjects burdens which would crush them into very dust. Nothing of all this. That is not the way in which the Church abolished slavery. The Popes sent bishops and priests into those countries where slavery existed, to enlighten the minds of the masters, and convince them that slaves were men, and consequently had souls, like other people, too. The Popes, bishops and priests infused into the hearts of masters a deep love for Jesus Christ, and consequently a deep love for souls. The Popes, bishops and priests taught masters to look upon their slaves as created by the same G.o.d, redeemed by the same Jesus Christ, destined for the same glory. The consequence was, that the relations of slave and master became the relations of brother to brother; the master began to love his slave, and to ameliorate his condition, till at last, forced by his own acknowledged principles, he granted to him his liberty. Thus it was that slavery was abolished by the preaching of the Popes, bishops and priests. The great barrier to all the healthy, permanent, and free development of nations was thus broken down; the blessings, the privileges of society, were made equally attainable by the ma.s.ses, and ceased to be the special monopoly of a few, who, for the most part, had nothing to recommend them except their wealth.
If any doubt remain as to the favorable influence of Catholicity on civil liberty, it would be dispelled by the express teaching of the theologians, writing in accordance with the principles and the spirit of the Church. Not to extend this point too much, I will confine myself to the authority of the great St. Thomas Aquinas, who, as a theologian, has perhaps had greater weight in the Catholic Church than any other man. His testimony may also show us what were the general sentiments of the school-men in the thirteenth century, when he wrote.
Speaking of the origin of civil power and the objects of law, he lays down these principles: "The law, strictly speaking, is directed primarily and princ.i.p.ally to the common good; and to decree anything for the common benefit _belongs either to the whole body of the people, or to some one acting in their place_." (Summa Theologiae, i. 2, I. Quaest.
Art. iii., Resp.) He p.r.o.nounces the following opinion as to the best form of government: "Wherefore the choice of rulers in any state or kingdom is best, when one is _chosen for his merit to preside over all_, and under him are other rulers _chosen for their merit; and the government belongs to all, because the rulers may be chosen from any cla.s.s of society; and the choice is made by all_." (Ibid, Quaest. cv.
Art. 1.) One would think that he is hearing a Democrat of the modern stamp, and yet it is a monk of the dark ages! Many other testimonies of similar import might be cited, but these will suffice.
And what has Protestantism done for human freedom? The Reformation dawned on the world in the year 1517. What did it do for the cause of freedom from that date down to 1776--when our Republic arose? Did it strike one blow for liberty during these two centuries and a half? Did it originate one republican principle, or found one solitary republic?
Not one. In Germany, where it had full sway, it ruthlessly trampled in the dust all the n.o.ble franchises of the Catholic middle ages; it established political despotism everywhere; it united church and state; in a word, it brought about that very state of things which continues to exist, with but slight amelioration, even down to the present day. In England, it did the same; it broke down the bulwarks of the British Const.i.tution, derived from the Catholic Magna Charta; it set at naught popular rights, and gave to the king or queen unlimited power in church and state; and it required a b.l.o.o.d.y struggle and a revolution, one hundred and fifty years afterwards, to restore to something of their former integrity the old chartered rights of the British people.
Protestantism has always boasted much, but it has really done little for the cause of human freedom. As to the liberties which we enjoy in our country, we cheerfully award to our Protestant fellow-citizens the praise which is so justly due them for _their_ share in the glorious struggle.
But as to the power of Protestantism to maintain the Republic by checking the great evils that have already sapped its foundations, it has not any at all. How could Protestantism check infidelity, since it leads to it? There are two causes of infidelity that have existed from the beginning of the world. But about three centuries ago Protestantism opened a very wide avenue to infidelity. Protestantism introduced the principle, "There is no divinely-commissioned authority to teach infallibly." Now infidelity exists in this principle of Protestantism, as the oak exists in the acorn, as the consequence is in the premise. On the claim of private judgment, Protestants reject the authority of St.
Peter, the Vicar of Christ. The Calvinists, going, as they do, by the same principle, reject the Real Presence of our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament.
The Socinians, following the same principle, reject, to-day, the Divinity of Christ, and therefore abjure Christianity, and fall back into utter incredulity.
The German and French philosophers, rationalists, and pantheists, of all degrees, do not even stop at that; they go farther, and deny the existence of a G.o.d Creator, and all by the privilege of free and private judgment.
The individual reason taking, as it does, the place of faith, the Protestant, whether he believes it or not, is an infidel in germ, and the infidel is a Protestant in full bloom; in other words, infidelity is nothing but Protestantism in the highest degree. Hence it is that Edgar Quinet, a great herald of Protestantism, is right in styling the Protestant sects _the thousand gates open to get out of Christianity_.
No wonder, then, that thousands of Protestants have ended, and continue to end, in framing their formula of faith thus: "I believe in nothing."
But let us bring this subject home to our country. The disastrous issue of the revolutionary movements which convulsed all Europe in 1848-9, has thrown upon our sh.o.r.es ma.s.ses of foreign political refugees, most of whom are infidels in religion, and red republicans, or destructionists of all social order in politics. They are men of desperate character and fortune--outlaws from society, with the brand of infidelity upon their brow. It is by this fast-increasing cla.s.s of men that "Young America" is attracted, and learn from them their anarchical principles. The greatest, and, in fact, the only real danger to the permanency of our republican inst.i.tutions, is to be apprehended from this cla.s.s of infidels in our community.
Now what has contributed most towards the enormous increase of these enemies of our republic? It is the G.o.dless education given in the Public Schools. And who established these schools, and who robbed the money from the people to support them--to make this source of infidelity flow so abundantly all over the land? You find the answer to this question in Chapter III.
Protestantism was a separation from the source and current of the Divine-human life which exists in the Catholic Church, and which redeems and saves the world; and Protestants are therefore thrown back upon nature, and able to live only the natural life of the race--saving the portion of Christian life they brought away with them at the time of separation, and which, as not renewed from its source, must, in time, be exhausted.
It is therefore evident that Protestantism cannot fight infidelity. It is only the Catholic Church that can take open ground against these men so hostile to our country, and she feels honored by their bitter hostility. It could not be otherwise. Her principles are eminently conservative in all questions of religion and of civil policy; theirs are radical and destructive in both. Theirs is the old war of Satan against Christ; of the sons of Belial against the keepers of the law; of false and anti-social against true and rational liberty--"the liberty of the glory of the children of G.o.d."