The Irish Race in the Past and the Present Part 48

Of Virginia, Spotswood, the governor, could write to England, in 1711: "This government is in perfect peace and tranquillity, under a due obedience to royal authority, and a gentlemanly conformity to the Church of England."

Of Maryland, Mr. Bancroft writes that the English Revolution was a Protestant revolution.

"A convention of the a.s.sociates 'for the defence of the Protestant religion' a.s.sumed the government, and, in an address to King William, denounced the influence of the Jesuits, the prevalence of popish idolatry, the connivance by the previous government at murders of Protestants, and the danger from plots with the French and Indians."

Hence, a little farther on, we read: "The Roman Catholics alone were left without an ally, exposed to English bigotry and colonial injustice. They alone were disfranchised on the soil which, long before Locke pleaded for toleration, or Penn for religious freedom, they had chosen, not as their own asylum only, but, with Catholic liberality, as the asylum of every persecuted sect. In the land which Catholics had opened for Protestants, the Catholic inhabitant was the sole victim to Anglican intolerance. Ma.s.s might not be said publicly. No Catholic priest or bishop might utter his faith in a voice of persuasion. No Catholic might teach the young. If the wayward child of a Papist would but become an apostate, the law wrested for him from his parents a share of their property. The disfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the proprietary related to his creed, not to his family. Such were the methods adopted 'to prevent the growth of Popery.'"

Mr. Bancroft adds with much truth and force: "Who shall say that the faith of the cultivated individual is firmer than the faith of the common people? Who shall say that the many are fickle, that the chief is firm? To recover the inheritance of authority, Benedict, the son of the proprietary, renounced the Catholic Church for that of England; the persecution never crushed the faith of the humble colonists."

Pennsylvania appears to form an exception to that universal animosity against Catholics. It is said that, owing to William Penn, "religious liberty was established, and every public employment was open to every man professing faith in Jesus Christ. . . . In Pennsylvania human rights were respected: the fundamental law of William Penn, even his detractors concede, was in harmony with universal reason, and true to the ancient and just liberties of the people."

Such may have been the written law--the theory; but the law as executed--the fact--was far from realizing those fine promises.

As late as the end of the Revolutionary War, the Catholics of Philadelphia were compelled to hide away their worship in a small chapel, surrounded by buildings whose only access was a dark and winding alley still in existence a few years back.

It is known, moreover, that Penn himself, in 1708, forbade ma.s.s to be celebrated in the colony. According to T. D. McGee, Governor Gordon, in 1734, prohibited the erection of a Catholic church in Walnut Street; and, in 1736, a private house having been purchased at the corner of Second and Chestnut streets for the same object, it was again prohibited.

New Jersey showed her liberality in the form sacred to all the other colonies: "Liberty of conscience was granted to all but papists."

There was as yet no h.o.m.ogeneity in New York, the Dutch still preserving great power, and, consequently, "the idea of toleration was still imperfect in New Netherlands; equality among religious sects was unknown." If this was the case with several Protestant organizations, what must it have been with the Catholics? It is well known that no one dared openly avow his faith in the true Church, and that John Ury was hanged in 1741 for being a priest, though whether he was a priest or not is still a question.

Rhode Island had proclaimed in the beginning "entire freedom of mind;" but, after the Revolution of 1688, the colony "interpolated into the statute-book the exclusion of papists from the established equality."

The spirit of Connecticut is well expressed in the words of the address sent by the colony to King William of Orange, on his accession: "Great was the day when the Lord who sitteth upon the floods did divide his and your adversaries like the waters of Jordan, and did begin to magnify you like Joshua, by the deliverance of the English dominions from popery and slavery."

We wonder how the taciturn Hollander received this effusion of Connecticut? There is nothing more to add on the situation of the Catholics in the land of the "blue laws."

In Ma.s.sachusetts it will be no surprise to hear that "every form of Christianity, except the Roman Catholic, was enfranchised."

This short sketch is eloquent enough with reference to the position in which the poor Irish immigrant found himself on landing on the sh.o.r.es of the New World. His faith he found proscribed as severely almost as in his own country. He was compelled to conceal it; and, even had he been free to make open profession of it, he could find no minister of his creed tolerated anywhere. The country was a perfect blank as far as the ceremonies of his religion went. In his native land he knew where to find a priest; he was advised of the day and of the precise place where he might a.s.sist at the sacred mysteries of his religion; and, were it in the cave or on the mountain-top, in the bog or the mora.s.s, he knew that there he could adore and receive his G.o.d as truly and as worthily as in the magnificent domes looking proudly to heaven under Catholic skies. But in British North America, except in a few counties of Maryland, where the true faith had once been openly planted and taken root, where some clergymen of his own creed were even still to be found, though forced to conceal, or at least not expose themselves too freely, he knew that elsewhere it was useless for him to inquire, not only for a sacred edifice where he might go to thank his G.o.d on landing, but even to look for a priest should he find himself at the point of death.

At the present day it is almost impossible to give any details and move the reader by a picture of the complete spiritual dest.i.tution of the Irish immigrant in his new home. Here and there, however, we meet, in reading, facts apparently insignificant in themselves, which at first sight seem to have no connection whatever with the subject on hand, yet which, with the aid of reflection, throw quite a flood of light on it, as convincing as it is unexpected. Take, for instance, the following:

"In the last year of the administration of Andros in Ma.s.sachusetts," says Mr. Bancroft, "the daughter of John Goodwin, a child of thirteen years, charged a laundress with having stolen linen from the family. Glover, the mother of the laundress, a friendless immigrant, almost ignorant of English, like a true woman, with a mother's heart, rebuked the false accusation. Immediately, the girl, to secure revenge, became bewitched. The infection spread. Three others of the family, the youngest a boy of less than five years old, soon succeeded in equally arresting public attention. . . . Cotton Mather went to pray by the side of one of them, and, lo! the child lost her hearing till prayer was over. What was to be done? The four ministers of Boston and the one of Charlestown a.s.sembled in Goodwin's house, and spent a whole day of fasting in prayer. In consequence, the youngest child, the little one of five years old, was 'delivered.' But if the ministers could thus by prayer 'deliver' a possessed child, there must have been a witch. The honor of the ministers required a prosecution of the affair; and the magistrates, William Stoughton being one, with a 'vigor'

which the united ministers commended as 'just,' made 'a discovery of the wicked instrument of the devil.' The culprit was evidently a wild Irishwoman, of a strange tongue. Goodwin, who made the complaint, 'had no proof that could have done her any hurt;' but the 'scandalous old hag,' whom some thought 'crazed in her intellectuals,' was bewildered, and made strange answers, which were taken as confessions, sometimes, in excitement, using her native dialect. . . . It was plain the prisoner was a Roman Catholic; she had never learned the Lord's Prayer in English; she could repeat the Pater Noster fluently enough, but not quite correctly; so, the ministers and Goodwin's family had the satisfaction of getting her condemned as a witch and executed."

The position of this poor woman, who had never openly declared herself a Catholic, but which fact the people were led to infer from various circ.u.mstances, expresses the condition of all Irish immigrants at the time. A further fact recorded by the same historian shows what the feeling toward Catholics was at the time in Ma.s.sachusetts:

"The girl, who knew herself to be a deceiver, had no remorse, and to the ministers it never occurred that vanity and love of power had blinded their judgment."

The reason was plain: Glover was a Catholic. How could the girl be expected to feel remorse for having brought about her death?

How could the ministers feel the least concern because their "vanity and love of power" had effected the hanging of such a creature?--"a vessel of wrath," in any case; a "predestined reprobate," beyond doubt, whose ignominious death on earth and eternal punishment afterward were "a true source of joy in heaven and an increase of glory for the infinite justice of G.o.d, " if there was any truth in Calvinism.

Another fact, as suggestive as the above, is found in McGee's "Irish Settlers in America:" "The first Catholic church that we find in Pennsylvania, after Penn's suppression of them in 1708, was connected with the house of a Miss Elizabeth McGauley, an Irish lady, who, with several of her tenantry, settled on land on the road leading from Nicetown to Frankfort. Near the site of this ancient sanctuary stood a tomb, inscribed, 'John Michael Brown, ob. 15th December, A. D. 1750. R. I. P.' He had been a priest residing there incognito."

Miss E. McGauley was not poor, like Glover. On coming to America with some of her tenantry, she secured herself beforehand against the difficulty of practising her religion; and, knowing well that no priest was to be found in the country, she brought one with her. All the remainder of his life did this minister of G.o.d reside in her house incognito, keeping the ministry intrusted to him for the service of all a profound secret. He never attempted, probably, to enlighten his prejudiced and ignorant neighbors; the knowledge of his character and the benefits arising from his presence were confined to the lady of the house and her faithful tenantry. Even after his death the secret was still kept, and only the cabalistic characters "R. I.

P." remain to tell an intelligent reader that he was neither Quaker nor Protestant; and, probably, tradition alone, preserved doubtless in the neighborhood, could a.s.sure us that he was a priest.

How many Catholics scattered over the broad colony of Pennsylvania, immigrants like Miss McGauley, but unlike her in their poverty, and therefore unable to hire a clergyman, never knew that they might unburden their consciences and enjoy the consolations of their religion, by travelling a hundred miles or so to the house "on the road leading from Nicetown to Frankfort?" How many lived and died within a short distance, and never knocked at the door, owing to their ignorance of the cla.s.s of inmates? Thus, although there were some ministers of G.o.d in the country, their number was so small, and they were so far distant from each other, that their labors were utterly unavailing for the great body of the Catholic immigrants, who would have rejoiced to throw themselves at their feet, and ease their hearts and purify their souls by confession.

Some Irishmen, it is true, had emigrated before such concealment was requisite, in Maryland at least, where an asylum for all had been opened by Lord Baltimore, a Catholic. Thus, the Carrolls had settled in Prince George County. They were at liberty to make open use of the services of the English fathers of the Society of Jesus, who for a long time officiated undisguisedly among their English Catholic flocks; but, as was seen, after the Revolution of 1688, Catholics were disfranchised in Maryland even, their religious rites proscribed, and penalties enacted against the open profession of their worship.

Thus, concealment became a necessity, there also; the policy of keeping the existence of clergymen and the celebration of the holy mysteries secret had to be adopted there as in other colonies. The Carroll family, like Miss Elizabeth McGauley, gave refuge in their house to a minister of their own religion, and it was in such a chapel-house that John Carroll was born, on the 8th of January, 1735--the first Bishop and Archbishop of Baltimore.

It is therefore no matter for wonder that the number of children of the Church in North America did not increase in proportion to the number of Catholic immigrants; on the contrary, the posterity of the majority of those who chose the British colonies, for their home was lost to her. The immigrants themselves, we are confident, never lost their faith. Although living for years without any exterior help, without receiving a word of instruction or advice, without the celebration of any religious rite whatever, or the reception of any sacrament, yet, faith was too deeply rooted in their minds and hearts to be ever eradicated, or shaken even.

But, though they themselves clung fast to their faith in the midst of so many adverse circ.u.mstances, what of their children?

There is no doubt that many of them did, individually, every thing possible to transmit that faith to their children; but all they could do was to speak privately, to warn then against dangers, and set up before them the example of a blameless life.

Not only was there no priest to initiate them into the mysteries, granted by Christ to the redeemed soul; there was not even a Catholic school-master to instruct them. Even the "hedge-school"

could not be set on foot. Books were unknown; Catholic literature, in the modern sense, had not yet been born; there was no vestige of such a thing beyond, perhaps, an occasional old, worn, and torn, yet dearly-prized and carefully-concealed prayer-book, dating from the happy days of the Confederation of Kilkenny.

There is no reason, then, for surprise in the fact that, although the families of those first Irish settlers were numerous and scattered over all the district which afterward became the Middle and Southern States, only a faint tradition remained among many of them that they really belonged to the old Church and "ought to be Catholics." How often was this the case thirty years ago, particularly in the South!

It would not be right to conclude that all this was a pure and unmitigated loss to the Church of Christ. Later on, we shall have to speak of more numerous and serious losses: but a few words on this first one may not be thrown away.

As in the material world an infinite number of germs are lost, and quant.i.ties of seeds, wafted on the breeze from giant trees and humble plants, fall and perish on a barren rock, in the eddies of a swift-running brook, or, oftener still, on the hard and unkind soil on which they have happened to alight; so that, out of a thousand germs, a few only find every thing congenial to their growth, and attain to the full size allotted them by Nature --nevertheless, despite this loss, the species is not only preserved, but so multiplied as to produce on the beholder, in after-time, the impression that, not only no loss has been sustained, but that much has been gained. So is it with the Catholic Church in general, and in particular with the momentous events now being considered.

The cultivated field of the "father of the family" was about to be extended over a new and vast area. A whole continent was to be "fenced around," and "olive-trees," and "fig-trees," and all plants useful and ornamental, were destined to flourish in that vast garden to the end of time. The great and eternal Father was, by his providence, directing the mighty operation from above, and marking the various points of the compa.s.s to which the floating germs were to be wafted. He knew that he was planting a new garden for his Son, who would, as usual, be the first husbandman, and employ many workmen to help him.

How could it be expected that all would be gain without loss, when the harvest-time had not yet arrived, and the "enemy" was busy sowing "tares" in all directions? Was not the work human as well as divine? and, as human, did not the work partake of the imperfection of human things?

The continent had evidently been predestined to form one of the strongest branches of the great Catholic tree. Discovered before the modern heresies of Protestantism had shown themselves, it was to bring into the fold of Christ new nations, when some old ones were to be cut off and wither away. This has long ago been pointed out; but another mighty design of Providence there was which only now begins to show itself.

Columbus was in search of Asia and the holy sepulchre when he stumbled on the New World. Nor was the idea of his great mind altogether a delusion. The new continent was in future ages to be used as the highway from Europe to the Orient; China, j.a.pan, India, vast regions filled with innumerable mult.i.tudes of human beings, had, so far, scarcely been touched, could scarcely be touched, by Catholicism coming from Europe. In fact it was too far away, and the means of intercommunication were too inadequate. The holy Catholic Church increases as "things which grow;" a few husbandmen--missionaries--are required to set the first seedlings and plants in the soil, to water them, watch over them, and see that they thrive and flourish; the rest of the process is a matter of seeds wafted by the wind, falling and taking root in a fertile soil, which has been already prepared for their reception. If there were no other means of propagation than the toil and sweat of the husbandman, how long would it take to cover the whole earth with vegetation? The first propagation of Christianity was done in this way; hence it took more than ten centuries to Christianize Europe. In the fifth century, Rome was still thoroughly pagan. Were the vast regions of that dim, far-away East to undergo a similar slow and painful process, necessitating an immense amount of labor, centuries and centuries in duration? G.o.d hastened the process by adding to it the wafting of seeds, and America was to be the vast nursery from which those seeds were to come. It was from that long and alternately widening and narrowing belt of land, running down the sea from north to south, that the j.a.phetic race was to invade the "tents of Sem."

Thus was the dream of Columbus to be realized. Asia would be reached by Europe, of which America would form a part. The east of Asia would become contiguous to a real European population, large ma.s.ses of which would easily come in contact with the Mongolian and Malay races of their immediate neighborhood, steam and modern improvements in travel reducing the intervening distance to a matter of a few days. Thus the j.a.phetic movement could be carried out on a large scale, and European civilization come to supersede the obsolete manners of those old and effete races of Eastern Asia. The unity of mankind would be vindicated against its blasphemers; and, to crown the whole, Christianity would find its way back to the cradle of man, then, to its own birthplace, Calvary and the sepulchre of Christ. Thus would the conjectural vision of the great Genoese become only an explanation of the old prophecy of the second father of mankind.1 (1 The reader will understand that all this is merely "a view, " and not given as a pure interpretation of Scripture or past history.)

Thus would the Church at last become rigorously Catholic, and not as some theologians imagined, in their desire to make actual, incomplete facts coincide with a far wider theory, only Catholic by approximation.

If it were allowed us to read the designs of Providence reverently, we might say, without presumption, that it seems such is to be future history, although simple conjecture may produce too strong an impression on our minds. But, at the period of which we speak, shortly after the middle of the last century, any one who would have spoken thus would have been justly deemed a visionary. The south of America, though possessed of the true religion, seemed inert; the North was already showing signs of an intense future activity, but all opposed to the truth. G.o.d was about to change those appearances, and, by infusing the Irish element into the North, produce, in a comparatively short s.p.a.ce of time, the wonderful phenomenon which we witness.

Yet, so short-sighted are we, that some are almost staggered in their faith, because the children of the earliest Irish emigrants to this country, were apparently lost to the Church.

Nevertheless, several circ.u.mstances might be brought forward to show that a real gain accrued to the Church from these lost children of the first Irish settlers. How many prejudices, so deeply rooted in the country as to seem ineradicable, owe their destruction to them! How many harsh and uncharitable feelings against Catholics were smoothed away or softened down by their instrumentality!

Those men who, in after-life, remembered that they "ought to be Catholics," were not ready to accept, on the word of a "minister,"

all the absurd calumnies spread against the Church throughout those vast regions. They had heard, by a kind of tradition, kept alive in their families, of what their ancestors had formerly suffered, and they at least were not inclined to join in the universal denunciation of a creed which they were conscious "ought to be" their own.

Who shall say whether it is not the old Catholic blood, running in the veins of these children of Irish Catholic parents, which has been mainly instrumental in creating that spirit of true liberality which inspires the honorable conduct of the majority of the American people, and in which the Church has at all times found her safety?

It is certain that there is a vast difference between that American spirit and the atmosphere of distrust pervading other countries, and that the rapid spread of the Church throughout the broad regions of the Union has been singularly favored by the soft breeze of a liberal and kindly feeling so common to those even who are not born within the fold. And that the children of Irish parents, themselves lost to the Church, have exercised great influence from the start, in that regard, cannot, we think, be denied.

But, perhaps, too much s.p.a.ce has been devoted to that first emigration from Ireland; it is time to come to a more recent period of which there are more certain and positive accounts.

There is no need to speak of the happy change effected in the position of the Catholic Church in America by the Revolution; Washington, in his reply to the address of the Catholics of the country, has given expression to the feelings of the nation in terms so well known that they require no comment.

From that date commences the real history of the Catholic Church in North America, outside of the provinces originally settled by the French and Spaniards. The influx of Irish immigrants now attracts our chief attention.

From the year 1800, when the "Union" was effected between England and Ireland, the number of immigrants increased suddenly and rapidly, and the situation of the new-comers on their arrival was very different from that of their predecessors. They found liberty not only proclaimed, but established; few churches indeed, but, such as there were, known and open, and a bishop and clergymen already practising their ministry.