Public School Education Part 10

Let these enemies of the country unfold their banners of "Infidelity,"

"Socialism," "Free Thought," "Scepticism," "Communism," "No G.o.d," "No Christ," "No Pope," "No Church," and a thousand others; let them grind their teeth, let them froth and foam at the mouth, let them tremble with rage, let them shake their heads with an air of majesty, as if they would say to the Church, "We bury you to-morrow, we write your epitaph and chant your De Profundis; our league is mighty, our forces are mult.i.tudinous, our weapons are powerful, our bravery is desperate."

The Catholic Church calmly answers, "I know you hate me because I am the palladium of truth and of public and private morality; I am the root and bond of charity and faith; I love justice and hate iniquity. But it is for this very reason that I will remain forever; for truth and justice being, in the end, always victorious, I will not cease to bless and to triumph. All the works of the earth have perished; time has obliterated them. But I remain, because Christ remains, and I will endure until I pa.s.s from my earthly exile to my country in heaven.

"Human theories and systems have flitted across my path like birds of night, but they have vanished; numberless sects have, like so many waves, dashed themselves to froth against me, this rock, or, recoiling, have been lost in the vast ocean of forgetfulness. Kingdoms and empires that once existed in inimitable worldly grandeur are no more; dynasties have died out, and have been replaced by others.

"Thrones and sceptres and crowns have withstood me; but, immutable, like G.o.d, who laid my foundation, I am the firm, unshaken centre round which the weal and woe of nations move--weal if they adhere to it--woe if they separate from it. If the world takes from me the cross of gold, I will bless the world with one of wood.

"Tear down my Banner of the Cross if you can! Touch a single fold of it if you dare! Sound your battle-cry; rally your hosts--marshal your ranks! Storm these lofty summits. They never yet have been surrendered.

The flag that waves above them has never trailed in defeat, and the hearts that guard that flag have never flinched before the foe, and the bravery that shoots through every film of these hearts has never faltered. On with the conflict! Let it rage! Our line of battle reaches back to Calvary. That line has never been broken by wildest onset! These soldiers have never fled! We are the sons of veterans who have marched through a campaign of eighteen hundred years--marched and never halted--marched and always triumphed! We belong to the old Imperial Guard of Faith! We never yet have met a Waterloo!

"I am a queen--but a warrior-queen. You will never find me on a throne here below. Banner in hand, I am ever in the midst of battle. I have never granted a day of truce to my enemies. War against all who war against G.o.d--war against all who war against Christ--war against all who war against man--war against all who war against truth--this is my destiny.

"Peace here below, I have never known. Rest here below, I have never found. I am always on the march--my banner ever unfurled--my war-cry ever sounding!

"Therefore, in the storm and shock of my battle of to-day with my enemies, my soldier-children fear not. Around my old chieftain they rally. What though some may desert and leave the lines? The lines close up again--and the deserters are not missed. What though a Judas Iscariot may betray? A brave Matthias takes his place. What though a few of craven spirit may flee? The ranks they left are filled by brave men and true.

"From the hill of Calvary to the hill of the Vatican, from Peter before the Council to Pius before the Sardinian, my history has been one long, uninterrupted battle--and my battle one long and glorious victory."

We cannot but smile when we hear infidels talk of the downfall of the Church. What could h.e.l.l and its agents do more than they have already done for her destruction? They have employed tortures for the body, but they could not reach the spirit; they have tried heresy, or the denial of revealed truth, to such an extent that we cannot see room for any new heresy; they have, by the hand of schism, torn whole countries from the unity of the Church; but what she lost on one side of the globe, she gained tenfold on the other. All these have ignominiously failed to verify the prophecies of h.e.l.l, that "the Church shall fall."

Look, for instance, at the tremendous effort of the so-called glorious Reformation, together with its twin sister--the unbelief of the nineteenth century. Whole legions of church reformers, together with armies of philosophers armed with negation, and a thousand and one systems of Paganism, rushed on against the Chair of Peter, and swore that the Papacy would fall, and with it the whole Church. Three hundred years are over, and the Catholic Church is still alive, and, to all appearances, more vigorous than ever. The nations have proved that they can get along very well without reformers, but not without the Catholic Church. Men are foolish enough to dream of the destruction of the Papacy. Napoleon tried the game, and, from the summit of his empire, walked into exile, whilst his victim, Pius VII., leaving his prison, entered Rome in triumph. A great statesman of France said, not long ago, that those who tried to swallow the Papacy, and with it the whole Church, always died of indigestion. Let the enemies of the Catholic Church beware! If they dash their heads against this rock, they must not be astonished to find them broken.

And what power has Protestantism to check the National Crime--the murder of helpless innocents? Everybody knows, who knows anything about the subject, that among the Roman Catholic population this crime is hardly known. The reason for the rare occurrence of this crime among Catholics, is their religion. The doctrine of the Catholic Church, her canons, her pontifical const.i.tutions, her theologians, without exception, teach, and always have taught, that even the intention of preventing or destroying human life, at any period from the first instant of conception, is a heinous crime, equal at least in guilt to the crime of murder.

Now as to the power of Protestantism to check this crime, Dr. Storer, the distinguished Protestant physician of Boston, says: "We are compelled to admit that _Protestantism_ has failed to check the increase of criminal abortion." (Criminal Abortion, p. 55.) "There can be no doubt that the Romish ordinance, flanked, on the one hand, by the confessional, and by denouncement and excommunications on the other, has saved to the world _thousands of infant lives_." (Ibid. p. 74.) "During the ten years which have pa.s.sed since the preceding sentence was written, we have had ample verification of its truth. _Several hundreds of Protestant women_ have personally acknowledged to us their guilt, against whom only seven Catholics, and of these we found, upon further inquiry, that all but two were only nominally so, not going to the confession."--(Ibid.)

It is, then, not Protestantism, it is the Catholic Church alone that has the power to oppose herself to the propagation of so heinous a crime, and prevent her children from shedding the blood of helpless innocents.

The third great evil which has made the most fearful inroad among us, so as already to have extorted many a warning cry, is _the contempt of the marriage tie_.

The family, as I have said in a previous chapter, is the groundwork of civil society. If the family be Christian, the State will also be Christian; and if the family be corrupt, the State cannot remain long untarnished. It is the holy sacrament of marriage that gives sanct.i.ty to the family, and strength to civil society. To reject that sacrament is to sow the seeds of revolution. Revolution in the family begets revolution in the State. When a government, which, by its very nature, should restrain immorality, allows the separation of man and wife, it sanctions the right of revolution in the family, and sooner or later that government will feel the dire effects of its own corrupt doctrine.

Now it is a matter of fact that the contempt of the marriage tie, so prevalent in our country, is owing to Protestantism. If any one wishes to learn how the Continental Reformers regarded the Sacrament of Matrimony, let him read Luther's sermon on Marriage (if he can do so without a blush), or, better still, the dogmatical judgment of Luther, Melanchthon, Bucer, and the rest, giving permission! to the innocent Landgrave of Hesse to commit bigamy, pure and simple.

It is the Catholic Church alone, again, that has always regarded the Christian marriage as the corner-stone of society; and at that corner-stone have the Popes stood guard for eighteen centuries, by insisting that Christian marriage is one, holy, and indissoluble. Woman, weak and unprotected, has, as the history of the Church abundantly proves, found at Rome that guaranty which was refused her by him who had sworn at the altar of G.o.d to love her and to cherish her till death.

Whilst, in the nations whom the Reformation of the sixteenth century tore from the bosom of the Church, the sacred laws of matrimony are trampled in the dust, whilst the statistics of these nations hold up to the world the sad spectacle of divorces as numerous as marriages, of separations of husband from wife, and wife from husband, for the most trivial causes, thus granting to l.u.s.t the widest margin of license, and legalizing concubinage and adultery; whilst the nineteenth century records in its annals the existence of a community of licentious polygamists within the borders of one of the most civilized countries of the earth, we must yet see the decree emanating from Rome that would permit even a beggar to repudiate his lawful wife, in order to give his affections to an adulteress.

The female portion of our race would always have sunk back into a new slavery, had not the Popes entered the breach for the protection of the Unity, the sanct.i.ty, the Indissolubility of matrimony. In the midst of the barbarous ages, during which the conqueror and warrior swayed the sceptre of empire, and kings and petty tyrants acknowledged no other right but that of force, it was the Popes that opposed their authority, like a wall of bra.s.s, to the sensuality and the pa.s.sions of the mighty ones of the earth, and stood forth as the protectors of innocence and outraged virtue, as the champions of the rights of women, against the wanton excesses of tyrannical husbands, by enforcing, in their full severity, the laws of Christian marriage. If Christian Europe is not covered with harems, if polygamy has never gained a foothold in Europe, if, with the indissolubility and sanct.i.ty of matrimony, the palladium of European civilization has been saved from destruction, it is all owing to the Popes. "If the Popes"--says the Protestant Von Muller--"if the Popes could hold up no other merit than that which they gained by protecting monogamy against the brutal l.u.s.ts of those in power, notwithstanding bribes, threats, and persecutions, that alone would render them immortal for all future ages."

And how had they to battle till they had gained this merit? What sufferings had they to endure, what trials to undergo? When King Lothair, in the ninth century, repudiated his lawful wife in order to live with a concubine, Pope Nicholas I. at once took upon himself the defence of the rights and of the honor of the unhappy wife. All the arts of an intriguing policy were plied, but Nicholas remained unshaken; threats were used, but Nicholas remained firm. At last the king's brother, Louis II., appears with an army before the walls of Rome, in order to compel the Pope to yield. It is useless--Nicholas swerves not from the line of duty. Rome is besieged; the priests and people are maltreated and plundered; sanctuaries are desecrated; the cross is torn down and trampled under foot, and, in the midst of these scenes of blood and sacrilege, Nicholas flies to the Church of St. Peter; there he is besieged by the army of the Emperor for two days and two nights; left without food or drink, he is willing to die of starvation on the tomb of St. Peter, rather than yield to a brutal tyrant, and sacrifice the sanct.i.ty of Christian marriage, the law of life of Christian society.

And the perseverance of Nicholas I. was crowned with victory. He had to contend against a licentious king, who was tired of restraint; against an emperor, who, with an army at his heels, came to enforce his brother's unjust demands; against two councils of venal bishops, the one at Metz, the other at Aix-la-Chapelle, who had sanctioned the scandals of the adulterous monarch. Yet, with all this opposition, and the suffering it cost him, the Pope succeeded in procuring the acknowledgment of the rights of an injured woman. And during succeeding ages we find Gregory V. carrying on a similar combat against King Robert, and Urban II. against King Philip of France. In the thirteenth century, Philip Augustus, mightier than his predecessors, set to work all the levers of power, in order to move the Pope to divorce him from his wife Ingelburgis. Hear the n.o.ble answer of the great Innocent III.:

"Since, by the grace of G.o.d, we have the firm and unshaken will never to separate ourselves from Justice and Truth, neither moved by pet.i.tions, nor bribed by presents, neither induced by love, nor intimidated by hate, we will continue to go on in the royal path, turning neither to the right nor to the left; and we judge without any respect to persons, since G.o.d Himself does not respect persons."

After the death of his first wife, Isabella, Philip Augustus wished to gain the favor of Denmark by marrying Ingelburgis. The union had hardly been solemnized, when he wished to be divorced from her. A council of venal bishops a.s.sembled at Compiegne, and annulled his lawful marriage.

The queen, poor woman, was summoned before her Judges, and the sentence was read and translated to her. She could not speak the language of France, so her only cry was "Rome!" And Rome heard her cry of distress, and came to her rescue. Innocent III. needed the alliance of France in the troubles in which he was engaged with Germany; Innocent III. needed the a.s.sistance of France for the Crusade; yet Innocent III. sent Peter of Capua as Legate to France; a Council is convoked by the Legate of the Pope; Philip refuses to appear, in spite of the summons, and the whole of the kingdom of Philip is placed under interdict. Philip's rage knows no bounds: bishops are banished, his lawful wife is imprisoned, and the king vents his rage on the clergy of France. The barons, at last, appeal against Philip to the sword. The king complains to the Pope of the harshness of the Legate, and when Innocent only confirms the sentence of the Legate, the king exclaims, "Happy Saladin; he had no Pope!" Yet the king was forced to obey. When he asked the barons a.s.sembled in council, "What must I do?" their answer was: "Obey the Pope; put away Agnes and restore Ingelburgis." And, thanks to the severity of Innocent III., Philip repudiated the concubine, and restored Ingelburgis to her rights, as wife and queen. Hear what the Protestant Hurter says, in his life of Innocent: "If Christianity has not been thrown aside, as a worthless creed, into some isolated corner of the world; if it has not, like the sects of India, been reduced to a mere theory; if its European vitality has outlived the voluptuous effeminacy of the East, it is due to the watchful severity of the Roman Pontiffs--to their increasing care to maintain the principles of authority in the Church."

As often as we look to England, that land of perfidy and deceit, we are reminded of the words of Innocent III. to Philip Augustus. We see Clement using them as his principles in his conduct towards the royal brute Henry VIII. Catherine of Aragon, the lawful wife of Henry, had been repudiated by her disgraceful husband, and it was again to Rome she appealed for protection. Clement remonstrates with Henry. The monarch calls the Pope hard names. Clement repeats, "Thou shalt not commit adultery!" Henry threatens to tear England from the Church; he does it; still Clement insists, "Thou shalt not commit adultery!" Fisher and More go to bleed out their life at Tyburn; still the Pope repeats, "Thou shalt not commit adultery!" Henry had two wives at the same time, and, after _them_, took a new wife, and killed off his old wife, whenever his beastly pa.s.sion prompted. The enslavement of the people followed. Henry made himself head of the Church, and bade the English nation recognize him as such. The penalty of disobeying the tyrant was death. The ma.s.s of the English yielded. This adulterous beast--this ferocious monster--they accepted as their pope; and their children, following in their steps, accepted his b.a.s.t.a.r.d brood--of either s.e.x--as their popes; while the only and true Pope, the successor of St. Peter, the Vicar of Jesus Christ, was rejected by them. To such depths of servility and degradation do apostate nations fall. The firmness of the Pope cost England's loss to the Church. It cost the Pope bitter tears, and he prayed to Heaven not to visit on the people of England the crimes of the despot; he prayed for the conversion of the nation; but sacrifice the sanct.i.ty, the indissolubility of matrimony, that he could never do--abandon helpless women to the brutality of men who were tired of the restraints of morality--no, that the Pope could never permit. If the Court, if the palace of the domestic hearth refused a shelter, Rome was always open, a refuge to injured and downtrodden innocence.

"One must obey G.o.d more than man." This has ever been the language of the Popes, whenever there was question of defending the laws of G.o.d against the powers of the earth; and in thus defending the laws of G.o.d, they protected against outrage the personal dignity, the moral liberty and the intellectual freedom of man. "Because there was a Pope," says a Protestant historian, "there could not any longer be a Tiberius in Europe, and the direction of the religious and spiritual welfare of man was withdrawn from the hands of royalty." Because there were Popes, the will of Caesar could not any longer be subst.i.tuted for law; for the Popes made the Gospel the law-book of the nations. Now the Gospel teaches that all power comes from G.o.d; that from G.o.d the sovereign derives his power, to rule in justice and equity for the welfare of his subjects, and that the subjects are bound to obey their rules, for conscience sake. Hence, adopting the great princ.i.p.al of action, the Popes have at all times condemned the spirit of rebellion, and have anathematized those principles, those factions, those organizations whose aim is, and has always been, to overturn lawful authority and to subst.i.tute anarchy in the place of the harmony of legitimate government. In conformity with this rule of action the Popes Clement XII., Benedict XIV., Pius VII., Leo XII., Gregory XVI., and Pius IX. have condemned secret societies, whose object is the overthrow of civil and religious government. But at the same time that the Popes required from subjects obedience to their lawful governments, they have ever defended subjects against the abuse of power, or against the tyranny of unjust rulers. In Pagan times it had the appearance as if the people existed for the sovereign, and not the sovereign for the people; but in the days and in the countries where the spiritual supremacy of the Pope was acknowledged by rulers, the Pagan idea had necessarily to disappear, for the Popes gave the princes to understand that they existed for the people, and not the people for them.

Viewed in this light, what a magnificent spectacle does the Catholic Church present to our admiration, and how does the honest heart of downtrodden nationality yearn that these happy days may once more return! Taken mostly from the middle cla.s.ses, sometimes even from the most humble ranks of society, the Popes ascended the Chair of Peter; and these men, who had been the sons of artisans and mechanics, but who had, by their virtue and talent, gained a merit which neither wealth nor a n.o.ble pedigree could bestow, became the arbiters between nation and nation, between prince and people, always prepared to weld together the chain of broken friendship, and to protect, by their power and authority, the rights of subjects oppressed by tyrannical rulers. It was indeed a blessing for Europe that Nicholas I. could curb, with an iron hand, the tyranny of kings and n.o.bles. It was indeed a blessing, not for Europe alone, but for the world, that there lived a genius on earth in the person of Gregory VII., who knew how to protect the Saxons against the wanton lawlessness of Henry, King of Germany, a monster who ground his subjects remorselessly in the dust, and respected neither the sanct.i.ty of virginity nor the sacredness of marriage; neither the rights of the Church, nor those of the State; whose very existence seemed to have no other aim but that of the leech, to draw out the blood from the hearts of his unhappy subjects. What would have become of Germany had there not been a power superior to that of this G.o.dless prince? It was Gregory VII. who hurled him from his throne, and restored to the n.o.ble Saxons and Thuringians their independence, not by the power of the sword, but by the scathing power of his anathema. The same I may say of Boniface VIII., and of Innocent III. There was, happily for Europe, a Court of Appeal, to which even monarchs were forced to bow; and that court was Rome. It was to Rome that the nations appealed, when their independence was at stake or their rights were trampled upon. And Rome was never deaf to the cry of distress, whether it came from Germany or from France, from England or from Poland, from Spain or from the sh.o.r.es of the Bosphorus.

And when the liberty of a nation was on the verge of destruction, and when emperors, and kings, and barons rode rough-shod over the rights, natural and vested, of their subjects, forgetting the sacred trust confided to them, became tyrants, when neither prosperity nor undivided liberty were secure from that rapacious grasp; when even the rights of conscience were set aside with impunity; it was the Popes of Rome who buckled on the armor of Justice, and humbled the pride of princes--even if, as a consequence, they had to say, with a Gregory VII., "Dilexi Just.i.tiam et odivi iniquitatem; ideo morior in exilio"--"I die in exile because I have loved justice and hated iniquity."

The influence of Catholicity tends strongly to break down all barriers of separate nationalities, and to bring about a brotherhood of citizens, in which the love of our common country and of one another would absorb every sectional feeling. Catholicity is of no nation, of no language, of no people; she knows no geographical bounds; she breaks down all the walls of separation between race and race, and she looks alike upon every people, and tribe, and caste. Her views are as enlarged as the territory which she inhabits; and this is as wide as the world. Jew and Gentile, Greek and barbarian, Irish, German, French, English, and American, are all alike to her. The evident tendency of this principle is to level all sectional feelings and local prejudices, by enlarging the views of mankind, and thus to bring about harmony in society, based upon mutual forbearance and charity. And, in fact, so far as the influence of the Catholic Church could be brought to bear upon the anomalous condition of society in America, it has been exercised for securing the desirable result of causing all its heterogeneous elements to be merged in the one variegated but h.o.m.ogeneous nationality.

Protestantism isolates and divides; Catholicity brings together and unites.

The Catholic Church is a grand fact in history--a fact so great that there would be no history without it--a fact permanent, repeating itself perpetually, entering into the concerns of all the nations on the face of the earth, appearing again and again on the records of time, and benefiting, perceived or unperceived, directly or indirectly, socially, morally, and supernaturally, every individual who forms part of the great organism of human society.

Around this Church human society moves like a wheel around its axle; it is on this Church that society depends for its support, its life, its energy, like the planetary system on the sun. Show me an age, a country, a nation deprived of the influence of Catholicity, and I will show you an age, a country, a nation without morals, without virtue.

Yes, if "Religion and Science, Liberty and Justice, Principle and Right," are not empty sounds--if they have a meaning--they owe their energetic existence in the world to the Catholic Church.

Such is the power and such is the influence of Catholicity. Yet I do not pretend that our Catholic population is perfect, or that in them you will find no shortcomings, nothing to be censured or regretted.

Certainly in our cities and large towns may be found, I am sorry to say, many so-called liberal or _nominal_ Catholics, who are no credit to their religion, to the land of their birth, or to that of their adoption. Subjected at home, as they were, to the restraints imposed by Protestant or quasi-Protestant governments, they feel, on coming here, that they are loosed from all restraints, and forgetting the obedience they owe to their pastors, to the prelates whom the Holy Ghost has placed over them, they become insubordinate, and live more as non-Catholics than as Catholics. The children of these are, to a great extent, shamefully neglected, and suffered to grow up without the simplest moral and religious instruction, and to become recruits to our vicious population, our rowdies and our criminals. This is certainly to be deplored, but can easily be explained without prejudice to the influence of Catholicity, by adverting to the condition to which those individuals were reduced before coming here; to their disappointments and discouragements in a strange land; to their exposure to new and unlooked-for temptations; to the fact that they were by no means the best of Catholics even in their native countries; to their poverty, dest.i.tution, ignorance, insufficient culture, and a certain natural shiftlessness and recklessness, and to our _great lack of schools, churches, and priests_. The proportion, however, that these bear to our whole Catholic population, is far less than is commonly supposed, and they are not so habitually depraved as they appear, for they seldom or never consult appearances, and have little skill in concealing their vices. As low and degraded as this cla.s.s of our Catholic population may be, they never are so low or so vicious as the corresponding cla.s.s of non-Catholics in every nation. A non-Catholic vicious cla.s.s is always worse than it appears; a Catholic vicious cla.s.s is less bad. In the worst there is always some germ that, with proper care, may be nursed into life, that may blossom and bear fruit. Yet, if we look at the Catholic population as it is, and is every year becoming, we cannot but be struck with its marvellous energy and progress. We will find that population more intellectual, more cultivated, more moral, more active, living, and energetic than any other.

The Catholic population of this country, taken as a body, have a personal freedom, an independence, a self-respect, a conscientiousness, a love of truth, and a devotion to principle, not to be found in any other cla.s.s of American citizens. Their moral tone, as well as their moral standard, is far higher, and they act more uniformly under a sense of deep responsibility to G.o.d and their country. They are the most law-loving and law-abiding people. The men of that population are the most vigorous, and the hardiest; their virgins are the chastest; their matrons the most faithful. Catholics do, as to the great majority, act from honest principle, from sincere and earnest conviction, and are prepared to die sooner than in any grave matters swerve from what they regard as truth and justice. They have the principle and the firmness to stand by what they believe true and just, in good report and evil report, whether the world be with them or be against them. Among Catholics you will not find the flunkeyism which Carlyle so unmercifully ridicules in the middling cla.s.ses of Great Britain, or that respect to mere wealth, that worship of the money-bag, or that base servility to the mob, or public opinion, so common and so ruinous to public and private virtue in the United States.

The mental activity of Catholics, all things considered, is far more remarkable than that of our non-Catholic countrymen; and, in proportion to their numbers and means, they contribute far more than any other cla.s.s of American citizens to the purposes of education, both common and liberal, for they receive little or nothing from the public treasury; and in addition to supporting numerous schools of their own, they are forced to contribute their quota to the support of those of the State.

Thus, to take a single ill.u.s.tration, the public school-tax in Cincinnati for last year amounted to $810,000. Of this the Catholics--such is their proportion in that community--contributed $230,000, or more than one-third of the whole rate. This large sum--162,000--goes to the management and formation of schools which the Catholics of Cincinnati are debarred, by their consciences, from entering. They have therefore their own schools, which they have built, and support entirely at their own expense, without any a.s.sistance whatever from the State. The education which they give is known to be excellent; but it is based on religion, and is not controlled by the State and paid officials. The consequence is, that not only are they not encouraged, but they are actually taxed by the State.

Thus, for instance, the Cathedral School is obliged to pay to the State an annual tax of 120, and the schools of another parish 200. The Catholics of the Cathedral Parish have not only to pay the State school-tax, and the heavy tax laid on their school-buildings, but they have to find $3,500 annually to meet the current school expenses. All this has to be collected by the clergy as best they can.

The non-Catholic has no conception of the treasure the Union possesses in these thirteen millions of Catholics, humble in their outward circ.u.mstances as the majority of them may be. A true, high-toned, chivalric national character will be formed, and a true, generous, and lofty patriotism will be generated and sustained in proportion as the force of Catholicity is brought to bear upon our American people, and the life of practical Catholics falls into the current of American life.

Catholics have their faults and shortcomings, yet they are the salt of the American community, and the really conservative element in the American population. In a few years they will be the Americans of the Americans, and on them will rest the performance of the glorious work of sustaining American civilization, and realizing the hopes of the founders of our great and growing Republic.

It must, then, be evident to every true lover of the Republic, that the State, were it at liberty to favor any particular portion of the community, should favor its conservative element--the Catholics--instead of robbing Catholics of millions of dollars, to continue, by G.o.dless education, the impious work for the increase of the number of enemies of the Republic; it should rather supply Catholics with the means to bring up their children in the spirit of true freedom--in the spirit of devotedness to republican inst.i.tutions. But as the State is neither Catholic nor Protestant, it should at least act justly and impartially; it should not favor its own enemies; it should not make a lie or a farce of our glorious Const.i.tution; it should no longer play the usurper and the robber; it should no longer continue digging its own grave; it should not tax Catholics any longer to support infidel inst.i.tutions--nurseries of all kinds of crimes--and thus continue to violate most atrociously the very letter and spirit of the Const.i.tution, and to commit a direct outrage on the most sacred convictions of Catholics.

It is the well-instructed practical Catholic that is alone capable of appreciating and realizing true freedom. Ever foremost to concede the rights of G.o.d, ever careful to trench on the rights of his fellow-creatures, he is, for all this (and precisely _because_ of this), well aware of his own rights and dignity as a man, as a citizen, and as a baptized Christian--a regenerated son of G.o.d--and, knowing his rights and dignity, he dares maintain them! He protests against G.o.dless education as a volcano that is destined to bury law and authority, and bring about universal anarchy, and prepare and establish the reign of antichrist. We must, then, have separate schools to educate our rising generation in a religious atmosphere, and imbue them with the principles of Christianity. All those who oppose any longer the denominational system, in any manner whatsoever, are traitors to the Republic and the worst enemies of the country, and from henceforth the vengeance of G.o.d will not be slow to overtake them. On the contrary, he who will be first and foremost in promoting this n.o.blest of objects--the establishment of denominational schools--may truly be called the _saviour_ of the Republic,--the _father of his country_; he will be as great, nay, even greater, than Washington himself. Upon him the blessings of heaven will descend in superabundance, and his name will be blessed from generation to generation.

FOOTNOTES:

[G] By "An Act to restore to Roman Catholics in Upper Canada certain rights in respect to Separate Schools," pa.s.sed May 5, 1863, they provided that "the Roman Catholic separate schools shall be ent.i.tled to a share in the fund annually granted by the legislature of the province for the support of common schools, and shall be ent.i.tled also to a share in all other public grants, investments, and allotments for common school purposes now made or hereafter to be made by the munic.i.p.al authorities, according to the average number of pupils attending such school, as compared with the whole average number of pupils attending schools in the same city, town, village or township."--Cap. 5, sec. 20.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE CATHOLIC PRIEST ON THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM.

So far I have spoken as an American citizen. I have shown to all my fellow-citizens the tree with its fruits--the Public School system in broad daylight. All who call themselves Christians, or who consider themselves men of common sense, and warm promoters of the happiness of their fellow-citizens, will agree with me in saying that the Public School system is a tree of which we must say what G.o.d said to Adam of the tree standing in the middle of paradise: "Of the tree of knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat. For in what day soever thou _shalt eat of it thou shalt die the death_."--(Gen ii. 17.) It is now time for me to speak as a priest of the Roman Catholic Church. It is the duty of the Catholic priest to teach the children of the Catholic Church the language of their spiritual Mother--the Church. This language is no other than that of the Supreme Head of the Church--the Pope. Now the language of the Vicar of Christ in regard to G.o.dless education is very plain and unmistakable.

Jesus Christ, our Divine Saviour, has said: "What doth it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul?"--(Matt. xvi. 26.) What will it profit you or your children to gain all knowledge, and to attain the greatest success in this world, if, through your fault, and through your exposing them to the danger of evil education, they suffer the loss of that faith, without which "it is impossible to please G.o.d"?--(Heb. xi.)

_Teaching of the Syllabus._