The Catholic World Volume Iii Part 62

[Footnote 57: How this is possible in the case of those who have received the gift of infallible perseverance, it is difficult to see, unless the "elect" are chiefly found among the _elite_ of society.]

"And when there is taken into the account _the neglect_ of these wealthier churches to make provision for the populations in those sections of the city formerly occupied by them, there is furnished _an explanation of the vast disparity_ between the number of churches compared with the immense population as a whole, which remain unprovided for.

"True, in order to escape the imputation of neglecting _'the poor of this world'_ altogether, some of the wealthier churches have established _missionary Sabbath schools outside_ of their own congregations. The princ.i.p.al denominations--the Episcopalians, Methodists, Baptists, Reformed Dutch Church, and Presbyterians, are also doing something in the way of supporting _missionary chapels for the poor_; but none of them are making provisions for them in a manner or to an extent at all commensurate either with their _duty_ or their _means_.

"Take, in ill.u.s.tration, a view of the amount of missionary work being done in this city by the large and wealthy presbytery of New York. True, the Brick church; the Fifth avenue church, corner Twenty-first street; the Fifth avenue church, between Eleventh and Twelfth streets; the Presbyterian church in University place, corner Tenth street, and perhaps one or two others, each support, independently of drawing upon the funds raised for domestic missions, a _mission Sabbath school and chapel_. But out of the moneys contributed annually by the churches connected with the presbytery, amounting to from $12,000 to $15,000, there are only _two regularly organized missionary churches_ connected with that body. These are the German mission church in Monroe street, comer of Montgomery, and the African mission church in the Seventh avenue, each supported at an expense of $600 per annum. Nor are the ecclesiastical judicatories of other churches doing much better.

"Is this, then, the way to _'continue in G.o.d's goodness?'_ Writing on this subject, so long ago as 1847, the Rev. Dr. Hodge, the oldest professor occupying a chair in the Princeton Theological Seminary, and the learned and able editor of 'The Princeton Review,' had used his pen in refuting the statement of those in the Presbyterian Church who affirm that _'we have already more preachers than we know what to do with,'_ etc.; and having disposed of that matter, he pa.s.ses to the subject of the _difference in the mode_ of sustaining and extending the gospel in and by the Presbyterian Church. In reference to the _policy_ adopted by said church to this end, he says:

"'Our system, which requires the minister to rely for his support _on the people_ to whom he preaches, has had the following inevitable results: 1. In our cities _we have no churches to which the poor can freely go and feel themselves at home_. No doubt, in many of our city congregations there are places in the galleries in which the poor may find seats free of charge; but, as a general thing, _the churches are private property_. They belong to those who build them, or who purchase or rent the pews after they are built.

They are intended and adapted for the cultivated and thriving cla.s.ses of the community. There may be exceptions to this remark, but we are speaking of a general fact. _The ma.s.s of the people in our cities are excluded from our churches._ The Presbyterian Church is practically, in such places, _the church for the upper cla.s.ses_ (we do not mean the worldly and the fashionable) _of society._" And to this Dr. Hodge adds, as the _result_ of the working of 'our system,' the following:

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"'_The Presbyterian Church_ IS NOT A CHURCH FOR THE POOR. She has precluded herself from that high vocation by adopting the principle _that the support of the minister must be derived from the people to whom he preaches._ If therefore, the people are too few, too spa.r.s.e, too poor, to sustain a minister, or too ignorant or wicked to appreciate the gospel, THEY MUST GO WITHOUT IT.'"

Thus far the author of the tract and Dr. Hodge. The statements of the latter are indorsed by the General a.s.sembly of the Presbyterian Church. A Baptist clergyman, writing in the "Memorial Papers," a work which was suppressed after publication, says: "The Church has no conversions and no hold on the ma.s.ses. The most successful church building is that which excludes the poor by necessity." [Footnote 58]

[Footnote 58: A high price will be paid at this office for a copy of "The Memorial Papers."]

We do not cite these statements in order to make a point against Protestantism from the admissions of its advocates, or to exult over these admissions. We respect our anonymous friend, and the learned and accomplished Princeton divine, for their candor, honesty, and zeal for the religious instruction of the poor. We have nothing in view except an exposition of the real state of things in New York, and are anxious to arrive at facts. Allowing for all errors and exaggerations, and with a perfect willingness to admit everything which can be said to extenuate the evil, we must admit the palpable, undeniable fact, that some hundreds of thousands of our population are either unprovided with the opportunity of attending any form of worship and religious instruction, or are indifferent to the subject. Sunday is to them a mere holiday from work (to many not even that), to be spent in recreation and amus.e.m.e.nt, if not in something positively bad.

It appears especially that the lower section of the city has been almost entirely given up by Protestants. [Footnote 59] There is one very notable and very honorable exception, however, in Trinity church, which has always been the best managed ecclesiastical corporation of all the Protestant religious inst.i.tutions in our country.

[Footnote 59: That is, except as a missionary ground.]

The educational and eleemosynary inst.i.tutions of New York are on a colossal scale. We will not go into extensive details on this subject, as our topic is properly the religion of the city. It is estimated that there are 144,000 children in New York, of whom 104000 are at school, [Footnote 60] and 40,000 growing up without instruction. The poverty, wretchedness, and indifference of parents is more to blame for the condition of that portion not at school, than the want of accommodation.

Hospitals, refuges, asylums of all kinds, abound in the city; as well as dispensaries where medical a.s.sistance and medicine can be obtained by the poor gratuitously. There is, beside, a gigantic system of domestic relief and outdoor charity under the direction of the munic.i.p.al authorities. The number of individuals relieved in various ways during the year by these public charities is about 57,000; 30,000 receive gratuitous medical attendance from the dispensaries. For education, $1,000,000 a year is expended by the city, and for public charity, $700,000. The collections made for local purposes of benevolence are estimated at $500,000, and the other collections made in Protesant churches at $500,000 more. The ecclesiastical expenses of maintaining the various churches are estimated at $1,000,000. The great Protestant societies whose headquarters are in New York, receive about $2,700,000 annually. $6,000,000 were distributed among the families of soldiers during the late war. Beside these rough estimates of the vast sums expended by great public organizations, there is no counting the amount of individual contributions, often on a large scale, to colleges, etc., and the sums expended in benevolent works by private societies or individuals.

[Footnote 60: This includes also Catholic schools and colleges. The estimate is too small, however, and another gives 206,000 as the number going to school.]

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There can be no doubt that the people of New York, possessing means, are a very liberal and philanthropic cla.s.s. That there is still remaining a great deal of "evangelical" religious zeal and activity is also manifest. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that the influence of the old, orthodox Protestant tradition has remarkably diminished, and that the minority of nominal Protestants have lapsed into a state of indifference to positive Christianity. We doubt if 25,000 men can be found in the city who sincerely profess to believe the tenets common to what are called the "evangelical" churches; and of these but a small fraction adhere intelligently to the distinctive doctrines of any one sect; _e.g._, the Protestant Episcopal, or Presbyterian. The remainder have a general belief in the truth of Protestant Christianity, more or less vague, with a great disposition to consider positive doctrines as matters of indifference. Outside the communion list of the different churches, we believe the general sentiment to be, among the educated, that Christianity is a very useful, moral inst.i.tution, containing substantially all the truth which can be known respecting ultra-mundane things, but without any final authority over the reason, and completely subject to the criticism of science. Among the uneducated, we believe that negative unbelief, and a supine indifference to everything beside material interests, prevails. We will not attempt to a.s.sign causes or reasons for it; but the fact is evident. A vast ma.s.s of the population is completely outside of the influence of any religious body, or any cla.s.s of religious teachers professing to expound revealed truths concerning G.o.d and the future life. Moreover, the traditional belief in revealed truths is much weaker in the young and rising generation, even of those brought up under positive religious instruction, than it is in the present adult generation. There appears to be no tangible, palpable reason for thinking that Protestant Christianity, under any form, is in a condition to revive its former sway; to keep what it retains, or to recover what it has lost. The mere lack of church accommodation will not account for this, and if at once this lack were remedied, it would not change it materially. For, in those places which are furnished with a superabundance of churches, the same undermining of religious belief is going on. The fact that the most respectable Protestant publishers make no scruple of republishing the works of such writers as Renan and Colenso, and that these books are read with such avidity, indicates the way the current is setting.

What the result of all this will be, is a matter for very serious consideration. Our political, civil, and moral order is founded on Christianity. The old Christian tradition has been the principle of the interior life of the nation. Take away positive Christian belief, and the moral principles which are universally acknowledged are still only a residuum of the old religion. The spirit of Christianity survives partly in civilization as its vital principle. How long a certain political and social order may continue after faith has died out, we cannot say. We cannot but think, however, that a disintegrating principle begins to work as soon as religious belief begins to die out. There is nothing, therefore, more destructive to the temporal well-being of men, than the spread of sceptical and infidel principles. Merely from this point of view, therefore, the decay of religious belief and earnestness ought to be deplored as the greatest of evils, and one for which no advance in physical science or material prosperity can compensate. What the moral fruits already produced by this decay are, and what the prospects are for the future in this direction, we leave our readers to gather from the perusal of the secular papers; and it may be estimated from the cry of alarm which is from time to time forced from them, as new and startling developments of the progress in vice and criminality are made.

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We turn our attention now to the Catholic population of the city, and the religious inst.i.tutions under the control of the Catholic Church.

The Catholic population is variously estimated at from 300,000 to 400,000. As no census has been taken, all estimates must be merely approximate. One way in which an estimate may be made, is by taking the returns of the census giving the total population of foreign birth, and getting the proportion of Catholics to non-Catholics among the various nationalities. Some probable estimate of the native-born Catholics must then be made and added to the number of foreign-born.

In 1860 the number of inhabitants of foreign birth was 383,717, out of a total of 813,669. If we suppose that the foreign-born population has increased to 460,000, it seems not improbable that the Catholic proportion of it, with the home-born Catholics added, will reach the total of 400,000.

Another basis of calculation is the ratio of baptisms to the whole population. A register is kept with the utmost exactness in each parish, and the result transmitted once a year to the chancery, where it is entered in the diocesan record. We are furnished, therefore, with an authentic census of births from Catholic parents each year, and if the exact multiplier could be ascertained by which to multiply this number, we should reach a certain result. It can only be conjectured, however, with more or less probability, and varies in different localities remarkably according to the character of the population. The baptisms for one year are 18,000. Multiply the number by 33, as is usually done in making the estimates of the general census, and you have 594,000. This number is too large, however. If we take 20, it gives us 360,000; 25, 450,000. We do not profess to come any nearer than this to an estimate of the actual Catholic population.

The two conjectural calculations, compared with each other, appear to settle the point that it is, as we have already stated, between 300,000 and 400,000.

The number of churches is 32, or one to from 10,000 to 12,000 people; and the number of priests 93, or one to about 4,000 people. In the lower section, embracing the first seven wards, there are five churches: St. Peter's in the Third ward, St. James's in the Fourth, St. Andrew's and Transfiguration in the Sixth, and St. Teresa's in the Seventh. These churches furnish nearly three times as much accommodation as the Protestant churches in the same district. It must be remembered that the capacity of a Catholic church includes standing room as well as sittings, and must be multiplied by the number of ma.s.ses. A church which will hold, when crowded, 2,000 persons, and where four ma.s.ses are celebrated, will accommodate 8,000 on one Sunday; and, considering the causes which keep many from attending church regularly, 12,000 different individuals who attend regularly or occasionally. One of these churches, St. Teresa's, is a very fine building of stone, which was purchased about four years ago from the Presbyterians, and was called in former times the Rutgers street Presbyterian church. No Catholic church in the lower part of the city has ever been closed, or moved up town, with the exception of St.

Vincent de Paul's.

The middle district has nine churches: St. Alphonsus' in the Eighth ward (German and English), St. Joseph's in the Ninth, St Bridget's in the Eleventh, St. Mary's in the Thirteenth, St. Patrick's in the Fourteenth, St. Ann's in the Fifteenth, Holy Redeemer (German), St.

Nicholas's (German), Nativity, in the Seventeenth.

Below Fourteenth street we have, therefore, fourteen churches, most of them very large, surrounded by a dense Catholic population, and crowded with overflowing congregations. A very large proportion of our Catholic population is in this part of the city.

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Between Fourteenth and Eighty-sixth streets we have fifteen churches: St. Columba's and St. Vincent de Paul's (French) in the Sixteenth ward, St. Francis Xavier's and the Immaculate Conception in the Eighteenth, St. Francis's (German), St. John Baptist's (German), and St. Michael's in the Twentieth, St. Stephen's and St. Gabriel's in the Twenty-first, Holy Cross, a.s.sumption (German), and St. Paul's in the Twenty-second, St. Boniface's, St. John's, and St. Lawrence's in the Nineteenth. Above Eighty-sixth street we have St. Paul's, Harlem, and the Annunciation and St. Joseph's (German), Manhattanville. [Footnote 61]

[Footnote 61: Of these churches, St. Teresa's, Immaculate Conception St. Michael's, St. Gabriel's, St. Boniface's, a.s.sumption, St.

Paul's, and St. Joseph's (German), are comparatively new; and a very large cathedral, capable of containing 10,000 persons is building.

St. Stephen's is also being enlarged to a capacity of 5,000, and a church has been purchased for the Italians.]

After the old Catholic fashion of jamming and crowding, all these churches might allow somewhere near 200,000 persons, or two-thirds of the adult Catholic population, to hear ma.s.s on any one Sunday, if they should all attempt to do so on the same day. Judging by the way churches are crowded, we would suppose that more than two-thirds attend occasionally; and of those who do not, the majority neglect it through poverty, discouragement, indolence, and a careless habit, or some other reason which does not imply loss of faith. As to confessions and communions, they flow in a ceaseless stream throughout the year, as if the paschal time were perpetual. In cachone of our churches there are from 100 to 500 communions every week, and a much greater number on the princ.i.p.al festivals. Probably the usual number of communions in the city, on any Sunday taken at random, is not short of 5,000. At least 8,000 children receive first communion and confirmation every year; and from 40,000 to 50,000 are instructed every week in the catechism, the Sunday schools varying in their numbers from 500 to 2,500.

The Catholic population is increasing at the rate of at least 20,000 a year. New York is now about the fourth city in the world in Catholic population, and bids fair, in a few years, to rank next to Paris in this respect.

The Catholic inst.i.tutions for education, strictly within the city limits, are:

1. Two colleges, St. Francis Xavier's and Manhattan colleges, the first conducted by Jesuits, and the second by Christian Brothers.

2. Two academies for boys and twelve for girls.

3. Twenty-one parochial schools for boys, and twenty for girls, the whole containing about 14,000 pupils.

There are other very large and fine establishments in the vicinity of New York, practically belonging to the city, but not within its limits.

There are 4 orphan asylums, a protectory for the reception of vagrant children in two departments, male and female, which is out of town, another for servant girls out of place, a very fine industrial school for girls, 2 hospitals, 4 religious communities of men; and 11 of women. The most numerous of these religious congregations are the Jesuits and the Sisters of Charity; the former having in the diocese 39 fathers, beside numerous members of inferior grade, and the latter 333 sisters and 39 different establishments.

In every sense except as regards munic.i.p.al government, Brooklyn, which is on the other side of East River, is a part of New York; and there we have another diocese of immense proportions, with another great congeries of Catholic inst.i.tutions. On the opposite side of the town, and on the Jersey sh.o.r.e of the Hudson, the churches of Jersey City, which is remarkably advanced in Catholic inst.i.tutions, are plainly visible.

Our object in this article has been to give a general idea of the provision made for the religious wants of the ma.s.s of the population in the city of New York.

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In spite of the uncertainty of the estimates and statistics we have given in regard to exact numbers, it is plain that this provision is very inadequate; that a vast ma.s.s of our population is unprovided for or totally indifferent; that the orthodox Protestant societies have lost to a great extent their influence over the ma.s.s of the population, and that a great body of practically heathen people has been gradually forming and acc.u.mulating in the very bosom of our social system.

Where are we to look for a remedy to this state of things? It is necessary to our political and social well-being that crime and vice should be restrained, that the ma.s.s of the people should be instructed and formed in virtue, taught sobriety, chast.i.ty, honesty, obedience to law, fidelity to their obligations, and universal morality. Soldiers, policemen, prisons, poor-laws, and all extrinsic means of this kind are insufficient preventives or remedies for the disorders caused by a prevalence of vice and immorality. They will burst all these bonds, and disrupt society, if not checked in their principle. Can liberal Christians, philanthropists, philosophers, political economists, and our wealthy, well-informed gentlemen of property, who have thrown away their Bibles, and who sneer at all positive revelation, indicate to us a remedy? Can they apply it? Is it in their power, by scientific lectures, by elegant moral discourses, by material improvements, by societies, by laws, by any means whatever, to tame, control, civilize, reform, make gentle, virtuous, conscientious, this lawless mult.i.tude?

Can they give us incorruptible legislators, faithful magistrates, honest men of business, a virtuous commonalty? Can they create truth, honor, and magnanimity, patriotism, chast.i.ty, filial obedience, domestic happiness, integrity? If not, then give them their way, let their doctrines prevail, throw away faith in a positive revelation, and they will not be safe in their houses. The rogues will hang the honest men, and might will be the only right. One of the leaders of the party has not hesitated to avow that the prevalence of his principles would necessarily produce a social and moral chaos of disorder, before mankind could learn in a rational way that their true happiness lies in intellectual and moral cultivation. What has the sect of the philosophers ever done yet to produce virtue and morality in the ma.s.s of mankind? What can they do now? They cannot even reproduce what was good in heathenism, for that was due to an imperfect and corrupted tradition of the ancient revelation, and the influence of the sophists tended to destroy even that. Our modern sophists act on the same principle, and are busily at work to destroy the Christian tradition of faith, and with it the principle which vitalizes Christian civilization.

Can orthodox Protestantism recover its ancient sway, and reproduce a state of religions belief and moral virtue equal to that which once prevailed? We would like to have them prove their ability to do so, and show that they have even made a fair beginning toward recovering their lost ground. We leave them to do what they can, and to try out their experiment to the end on the non-Catholic majority of our population. If their intelligence, wealth, zeal, and prestige of position were thrown into the defence of the common cause of Christian revelation by union with the Catholic Church, the victory would be certain. Unbelief and indifferentism could never make any stand against a united Christianity, in a population so full of religions reminiscences and predilections, and so susceptible to persuasive logic and genuine eloquence, as our own. The Christian cause is weakened by its divisions, and by the political and social schisms which are bred by the schisms in religion. Not only those who are separated from the common trunk of the Catholic Church suffer from the separation, but the trunk itself suffers and is mutilated by the loss.

{389} The Catholic Church cannot do her work completely where the majority of those who prefer Christianity are opposed to her, especially when this majority includes the greater part of the more elevated cla.s.ses.

It is evident, nevertheless, that the Catholic Church in New York has done a great work in our population, and has a great work to do. We have much more than one-third of the whole population, and the majority of the laboring cla.s.s, and of the poor people, on our hands.

The Catholic clergy alone possess a powerful and extensive religions sway over the ma.s.ses of the people. The poor are emphatically here, as they have been always and everywhere, our inheritance. Nearly all that has been done, and is now doing, in an efficacious manner and on a large scale, for the religions welfare of the populace, is the work of our priesthood and their coadjutors. It is impossible to estimate the benefit to society in a political, social, and moral point of view, accruing from the influence and exertions of the Catholic clergy. This is persistently denied by a certain cla.s.s of writers, who never do justice to the Catholic Church except under compulsion. One of them, writing in one of our princ.i.p.al weeklies, recently qualified the Catholic Church in the United States, whose growth and progress he could not ignore, as a mere empty sh.e.l.l without any moral life or power. He accused the Catholic clergy of not exercising that moral influence in the country at large which they ought to exercise, and have exercised in other times and places.

What a change of base this is! But now, the Catholic religion was a kind of embodied spirit of evil, and her ministers had to vindicate their t.i.tle to the rank of men and Christians. Religion, morality, liberty, happiness, would be swept from the country if they were not exterminated! Now, forsooth, we are gravely asked why we do not exert a greater influence for promoting the general well-being of the country? The truth is, that the influence of the Catholic clergy on the people at large has until now been a cipher. They have had no recognized position, and have been counted for nothing, except so far as certain individuals have commanded a personal respect. There is, moreover, a great amount of sham and trumpet-blowing about the great moral demonstrations of the day. The Catholic clergy have not chosen to meddle with questions which were none of their business, or to parade and speechify on platforms or at anniversaries. They have enough to do in looking after the immediate and pressing spiritual and temporal wants of their own people. And in doing this they prevent and reform more vice, produce more solid morality, and work more effectually for the well-being of their fellow-men, than could be done by the best devised philanthropic schemes. One mission in a city congregation, one paschal-time with its labor in the confessional, will do more to uproot drunkenness, dishonesty, and licentiousness, or to hinder these upas-trees from striking root in virgin soil, than our amateur philanthropists could _describe_ if they were all to write and lecture on the subject for a year.