overthrow of our government and for the destruction of our liberties. I do not think that the Catholic hierarchy is at all dissatisfied with our form of government; but I do think that Catholics, as Catholics, have been pretty deeply immersed at times in party politics. They went into the elections of 1892 to defeat General Harrison. The Catholic press, with scarcely an exception, made fervent appeals to their readers so to cast their votes as to "rebuke bigotry" and compel Indian Commissioner Morgan to leave the Indian Bureau. They raised a hue and cry against his administration, claiming that he was hostile to their schools and teachers and treated them with injustice. They rallied as many Catholic votes as possible against the Republican candidates, and were overjoyed at their signal defeat. That Catholic votes accomplished that defeat I do not say. I do not believe they did. I only say that it was the evident desire of the more zealous and bigoted Catholics to secure a change in the administration. It is worthy of remark, however, that nothing has been gained for their Church. A Baptist succeeded a Baptist in the direction of the Indian Bureau; and the policy of the previous administration has been followed, and there are no Catholic complaints. Catholics were also in the last elections, as Catholics, to rebuke the American Protective Association. But from the returns it is evident that they had little or no success. Hundreds of thousands of them must have voted with the same party with which it was sought to identify the American Protective Association. I have not a word that is favorable to say of this proscriptive association; but I do not greatly pity those against whom it makes war. They brought the punishment on themselves. I agree most fully with those who apprehend danger if the Roman Catholic Church goes into politics; but I believe the danger will not be to the country, but to the Church. II. Does the Church of Rome desire to destroy our public school system? "Destroy" is a strong word. I doubt whether it is right to apply it even to the most hostile opinion that prevails among the hierarchy. The most any Catholic has asked for is exemption from payment of the public school tax or division of the school funds. In neither case would the system be destroyed. If the first alternative were adopted it would im16-FIFTH SERIES, VOL. XI. pair the integrity of the system and limit it. It would not be for all the people, as it is now, but only for the larger part of them. If the second proposal were accepted we should have in this country the conditions that prevail in England and elsewhere. We should have both the secular and religions elements represented in our public schools. The system would be greatly changed and impaired, but it would not be destroyed. It would not be fair, I think, to say that the hierarchy would destroy our public school; but it is fair to say that they are not satisfied with it as it is. Years ago, particularly under the reign of Pius IX, who resisted modern progress and opposed modern ideas, the feeling of the leaders of the Church in this country was hostile to our public schools. One reason for this was the undeniable fact that the Church sustained heavy losses through the falling away of Catholic children from the faith. Many became Protestants, and many others refused to enter the Church of their parents. They imbibed, in the atmosphere of the schoolroom, ideas of liberty and independence-liberty to think for themselves, with a sense of personal responsibility for the results of their thinking. Bishop and priest, accustomed to systems in the Old World providing for religious instruction, regarded our secular schools as dangerous to the faith of Catholic children, and not infrequently denounced them as godless. In recent years, however, this feeling has become far less intense; Catholic parents regard the public schools with more and more favor. They find them much superior to Catholic parochial schools and patronize them extensively. Here in New York, the largest diocese, numerically, in the country, reporting a Catholic population of 800,000, there are only 40,149 children in the parochial schools. Most of the rest are, of course, in the public schools. Moreover, the Church is convinced that the American people mean to preserve the public school as it is, and it recognizes the uselessness of keeping up a losing warfare. It has become generally Americanized itself, and has learned how it can supplement the instruction given in the secular school with religious training. Letters from five archbishops and twenty-five bishops, published last year, show that Catholic prelates generally agree in saying that they do not demand a * * In The Independent of January 11, 1894. Here When division of the public school funds or a recognition of denominational schools as a part of the system of the State. In the present state of public opinion they do not think it would be wise to do so. They also agree in holding that the denominational systems of other countries are preferable to ours. we must take a decided stand for our system as it is. ever and wherever the issue is raised we must be prepared to meet it and resolutely oppose any backward step. My own belief is that the issue will never be seriously raised. Irresponsible individuals may try to do so, but the hierarchy will not commit itself to a hopeless task. In fact, it is adjusting itself to the American idea and modifying its decrees. Catholic parents are not now excommunicated for ignoring the parochial, and patronizing the public, schools. Catholic prelates and priests are outspoken friends of our system of public education -not many of them, to be sure, but they are increasing in number. Archbishop Katzer expresses his hearty approval of the following action of the German-American Catholic societies of Wisconsin in 1890: We concede the necessity of compulsory school laws, the necessity of public schools, and the right of taxation for such purposes. We hereby declare that we make no claim upon public funds for the maintenance of parochial and private schools. If this article were not already too extended I should like to show wherein the decrees of the Church in America have been modified so as to allow Catholic parents larger liberty in the education of their children, and to give further evidence of the change in the attitude of the Church. My own position is that of the fullest confidence in the purpose and power of the American people to maintain and develop our free school system on undenominational lines. At the same time, we cannot afford to be careless as to the utterances and actions of the Church of Rome. If it should plan a sudden attack, which I do not in the least expect, let us be ready to meet it. In conclusion, I would encourage all reform movements in the Catholic Church. I would recognize every step forward toward a purer faith and a more evangelical doctrine, every sign of decrease of superstition, every indication of development of independence of spirit and of resistance to ecclesiastical tyranny, remembering that no Church reforms its doctrine and practice suddenly. The question is sometimes asked, "If the Church of Rome has changed in anything, where is the record of the repeal, when did it recall its errors?" I would answer this question by asking another: When did the Presbyterian Church disavow those chapters of the Westminster Confession which affirm the horrible decrees of Calvinism? It has recently refused to revise those chapters. Does it, therefore, still hold the old doctrine of reprobation, and can we convict it of believing in infant damnation because the section from which this inference has been drawn is still unchanged? H. K. Carroll. ART. VI.—THE RELIGIOUS BELIEFS OF JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.' ONE could not come near John Greenleaf Whittier without realizing that he stood near one who had felt the touch of the seamless robe. It was with a little private company in the parlors of ex-Governor Claflin, in Boston,, that we spent a golden, never-to-be-forgotten afternoon with him ten or eleven years ago. He was then seventy-five years old; tall, slender, erect, active, energetic; with face mild, firm, intense; head like a Hebrew prophet; and "dark, deep eyes full of shadowed fire." Since that day we have always called him "St. John Whittier." He, too, was a son of thunder; he, too, was the apostle of love. Is it wrong to call this meek and quiet man a Boanerges? Read his "Voices of Freedom " and answer. His ancestors were Huguenots, men who had offered their backs to the scourge and their necks to the guillotine for the faith that was in them; and he was a son of the fathers. He stood up boldly in those stormy days when the muttering thunders of approaching war were shocking North and South, and speaks truly when he says, My voice, though not the loudest, has been heard Wherever Freedom raised her cry of pain. But he did not whisper against iniquity: Deeply he felt, and, stern and strong, His soul spoke out against the wrong. One has aptly said: "When he was fighting slavery he knew the word which would hit hardest and seldom scrupled to use it. A vocabulary brought from the Old Testament by the way of Puritan New England was not one of ethereal mildness." Whittier was of the Quaker Church militant, "preaching brotherly love," as Lowell puts it, and then "driving it in." His words just after the Mexican war sound as if the breath of the Almighty were blowing through the trumpet he held to his lips: By all for which the martyrs bore their agony and shame; "The disciple whom Jesus loved."-John xxi, 20. |