“Nereus et Achilleus Martyres.“Militiæ nomen dederant sævumQ gerebantOfficium pariter spectantes jussA TYRanniPræceptis pulsante metu serviRE PARatiMira fides rerum subito posueRE FVRORemCOnversi fugiunt ducis impia castrA RELINQVVNTPROiiciunt clypeos faleras telAQ. CRVENTACONFEssi gaudent Christi portaRE TRIVMFOSCREDITe per Damasum possit quid GLORIACHRISTI.”
“Nereus et Achilleus Martyres.“Militiæ nomen dederant sævumQ gerebantOfficium pariter spectantes jussA TYRanniPræceptis pulsante metu serviRE PARatiMira fides rerum subito posueRE FVRORemCOnversi fugiunt ducis impia castrA RELINQVVNTPROiiciunt clypeos faleras telAQ. CRVENTACONFEssi gaudent Christi portaRE TRIVMFOSCREDITe per Damasum possit quid GLORIACHRISTI.”
“Nereus et Achilleus Martyres.
“Nereus et Achilleus Martyres.
“Militiæ nomen dederant sævumQ gerebantOfficium pariter spectantes jussA TYRanniPræceptis pulsante metu serviRE PARatiMira fides rerum subito posueRE FVRORemCOnversi fugiunt ducis impia castrA RELINQVVNTPROiiciunt clypeos faleras telAQ. CRVENTACONFEssi gaudent Christi portaRE TRIVMFOSCREDITe per Damasum possit quid GLORIACHRISTI.”
“Militiæ nomen dederant sævumQ gerebant
Officium pariter spectantes jussA TYRanni
Præceptis pulsante metu serviRE PARati
Mira fides rerum subito posueRE FVRORem
COnversi fugiunt ducis impia castrA RELINQVVNT
PROiiciunt clypeos faleras telAQ. CRVENTA
CONFEssi gaudent Christi portaRE TRIVMFOS
CREDITe per Damasum possit quid GLORIA
CHRISTI.”
The date of the church was likewise ascertained. It is known that Pope Damasus, the great preserver of the martyrs’ graves, would never allow the Christian cemeteries to be disturbed for the purpose of building a church therein; and although he himself strongly desired that his remains should repose in one of these sacred places by the side of his predecessors, he abandoned this desire rather than remove the sacred ashes of the dead. It may naturally be concluded, then, that this church was built after his day—he died in 384—as were the churches of S. Agnes, S. Lawrence, and S. Alexander, all of which are beyond the city walls and built in catacombs. The catacombs under the Church of S. Petronilla showed an inscription bearing the date of 390, and in the church itself a monumental slab with the date of 395 has been found. It is thus almost certain that between the highest date foundunder, and the lowest date foundin, the church—that is, between the years 390 and 395—the basilica of S. Petronilla was constructed.
For about three centuries and a half this church was well frequented. We have records of gifts sent to it, precious vestments, etc., by Pope Gregory III., who reigned from 715 to 741. But in 755 the Longobards came down upon Rome; they desecrated the churches and cemeteries around the city, and then began the siege of Rome. After peace was made, the pontiff of the period, Paul I., transferred the relics and remains of the saints to safer custody, and the Church of S. Petronilla became deserted. From unmistakable signs it seems that this desertion was conducted in a most regular manner, and that it was closed and despoiled of its preciousobjects. The door which entered the left aisle was found walled up; the altar, the seats of the choir, the episcopal chair, and the ambons or marble pulpits ware all removed and transported elsewhere. The floor of the church, so far below the level of the surrounding soil, formed a resting-place for the water which drained through the neighboring lands after rains had fallen, and this undoubtedly formed the strongest reason for the abandonment of S. Petronilla. Nothing was left in it butsarcophagiand sepulchres, the pavements with their marble epitaphs—so valuable to-day in revealing history—some columns with their beautifully-carved capitals, which time or an earthquake has overturned and hidden within the dark bosom of the earth for more than a thousand years.
The hundred pilgrims who came from America, with a hundred new-found friends, assembled on the 14th of June, 1874, to pray in that disentombed old church. They had come from a world unknown and undreamt of by the pilgrims who had formerly knelt within these walls; and as they looked around on the wide and desolate Campagna, and on the monument of Cecilia Metella shining in the distance white and perfect, in spite of the nineteen centuries that have passed away since it received its inmate, and at the blue, changeless sky overhead, and then turned their eyes upon the church, decorated that morning with festoons of green branches and gay flowers, the same as it may have been on other festive occasions a thousand years ago, they may have felt that time has effected almost as little change in the works of man as in those of nature, and that all things in Rome partake of Rome’s eternity.
Le Culte Catholique ou Exposition de la Foi de l’Eglise Romaine sur le Culte du aux Saints et a leurs Reliques, a la bienheureuse Vierge Marie, aux Images, etc., en réponse aux objections du Protestantisme, suivie d’une dissertation historique et critique sur le celibat du clergé. Par l’Abbé Louis-Nazaire Bégin, Docteur en Théologie, Professor à la Faculté de Théologie de l’Université Laval. Quebec: Typographie d’Augustin Cote et Cie. 1875.
Le Culte Catholique ou Exposition de la Foi de l’Eglise Romaine sur le Culte du aux Saints et a leurs Reliques, a la bienheureuse Vierge Marie, aux Images, etc., en réponse aux objections du Protestantisme, suivie d’une dissertation historique et critique sur le celibat du clergé. Par l’Abbé Louis-Nazaire Bégin, Docteur en Théologie, Professor à la Faculté de Théologie de l’Université Laval. Quebec: Typographie d’Augustin Cote et Cie. 1875.
Le Culte Catholiqueis another valuable addition to controversial literature, by the author ofThe Bible and the Rule of Faith.
It is true that the days of controversy seem to be drawing to a close. The Greek schism still holds itself aloof in sullen isolation; but the controversy is exhausted, and all that is left of a church has become the mere unfruitful appanage of a northern despotism.
As to Protestantism, it never had any positive existence as a confession. Three hundred years have exhausted its theological pretensions. As a religion it has ceased to exist, and it lies buried beneath the weight of its own negations. The only formidable enemies of the church now are the disowners both of Christ and God, and they seek her destruction because they know that she alone offers an insuperable obstacle to the universal atheism which they hope to bring about.
Under such circumstances works like Dr. Bégin’s are chiefly useful for the information of Catholics, and for the support they render to their faith.
Le Culte Catholiqueis, the writer tells us, “an exposition of the faith of the Roman Church in the matters of the worship of the saints and of their relics, of the blessedVirgin Mary, of images, etc., in reply to the objections of Protestantism, followed by a historical and critical dissertation on the celibacy of the clergy.” On these trite subjects little that is new can be said. But the work before us is a terse and lucid summary of Catholic teaching on the above points.
It is the object of the society of Freemasons to effect the universal deification, the rejection, that is, of the belief in any existence higher than the human being, and in any superiority of one man over another. For this they find it convenient to support the foolish Protestant objection to a splendid ritual and costly churches, on the ground that “God is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” Dr. Bégin quotes the following telling passage from a contemporary writer in answer to this frivolous objection:
“I know the old tirades about the temple of nature. No doubt the starry vault of heaven is a sublime dome; but no worship exists which is celebrated in the open air. A special place of meeting is required for collective adoration, because our religious sociability urges us to gather together for prayer, as it were to make a common stock of our joys and griefs. Besides, should the time come when we shall have nothing but the cupola of heaven to shelter our religious assemblies, it would require a considerable amount of courage to betake ourselves thither, especially in winter. And the philosophers who find our cathedrals so damp would not be the most intrepid against the inclemency of the sanctuary of nature. Thus do great errors touch on the ridiculous. Reasoning begins their refutation; a smile ends it.”
The second chapter is an admirable exposition of the special worship (hyperdulia) paid to the Blessed Virgin Mary, in the course of which he shows triumphantly that the definition of her Immaculate Conception was no new doctrine, but a mere definite and dogmatic statement of a doctrine which had been all along held implicitly in the church. The following simile, illustrative of this argument, appears to us to be worth quoting: “Modern science, which is daily making such extraordinary progress, discovers, ever and anon, fresh stars, which seem to float in the most distant depths of space, which become more bright as they are more attentively observed, and which end by becoming stars of continually-increasing splendor. These stars are not of recent date; they are not new; they are only perceived. Something analogous takes place in the heavens of the church on the subject of certain truths of our faith. Their light reveals itself and develops by degrees. Sometimes the shock of controversy illuminates them. Then comes a definition to invest them with fresh splendor. But in receiving this supplement of light, destined to make them better understood by the faithful, they lose nothing of their proper nature; their essence is not in the slightest degree changed; only our minds appropriate them with more facility.”
Flowers from the Garden of the Visitation; or, Lives of Several Religious of that Order. Translated from the French. Baltimore: Kelly, Piet & Co. 1875.
Flowers from the Garden of the Visitation; or, Lives of Several Religious of that Order. Translated from the French. Baltimore: Kelly, Piet & Co. 1875.
To those who have attempted to form an adequate conception of the charitable and ascetic spirit, the simple record of these saintly lives must have a wonderful fascination. To those, even, who are wholly absorbed in a life of pleasure it will at least possess the merit of a new sensation, if they can forget the silent reproof which such examples convey.
It affords matter of encouragement in these days of combined luxury and destitution to look over the history of those—many of whom were delicately reared—who left all for God, content to do whatsoever he appointed them to do, and to submit to extraordinary mortifications for his sake. The work embraces six brief biographies of Visitation Nuns eminent for their self-sacrificing labors for the moral and intellectual education of their charges, and in other good and charitable offices. Their names, even, may be quite new to English-speaking readers, but that fact is all the more in keeping with their hidden lives. We have said enough to indicate the general character of the volume.
John Dorrien: A novel. By Julia Kavanagh. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1875.
John Dorrien: A novel. By Julia Kavanagh. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1875.
The writer succeeds, in the very opening chapter, in so portraying the character of a child as to make it a living breathing reality to the reader. The story of his humble life in childhood and his struggles and trials in later years is told without any attempt at fine writing—indeed, all the characters are simply andwell drawn, and retain their individuality to the end. The heroine, neglected in childhood, and without any guide in matters of faith, is easily persuaded by a suitor that religion is contrary to reason; and thus, left to her own unaided judgment, and notwithstanding her innate love of truth, soon finds herself entangled in a web of deceit and hypocrisy. She only escapes the unhappiness which such a course entails by forsaking it.
The moral of the tale (if that is not an obsolete term) is what the reader would naturally infer—the necessity of early religious instruction, and the advantage, even in this life, of a belief in revealed truth. We are glad to note the absence of the faults which disfigure much of the imaginative literature of the day, not excepting, we are sorry to say, that which emanates from the writer’s own sex. We see no attempt to give false views of life, or to undermine the moral and religious principles of the reader; on the contrary, there is reason to infer much that is positively good, though not so definitely stated as we should have liked.
The Bible and the Rule of Faith.By the Abbé Louis-Nazaire Bégin, Doctor of Theology, Theological Professor in the University of Laval. Translated from the French by G. M. Ward [Mrs. Pennée].
The Bible and the Rule of Faith.By the Abbé Louis-Nazaire Bégin, Doctor of Theology, Theological Professor in the University of Laval. Translated from the French by G. M. Ward [Mrs. Pennée].
Protestantism is well-nigh defunct. It is in its last throes. It has not sufficient vitality left to care for its own doctrines, such as they are. As a religion it has almost ceased to exist. Disobedience to the faith has been succeeded by indifference; indifference by the hatred of Christ. Its rickety old doctrines, whose folly has been exposed over and over again thousands of times, have quietly tumbled out of existence. Protestants themselves have almost forgotten them, and certainly do not care enough about them to defend them. Paganism has returned—paganism in its last stage of sceptical development. We have to contend now for the divinity of Christ and the existence of a God. The Bible and the rule of faith are up amongst the lumber.
Yet it may be—as the writer of this work asserts; we much doubt it, however—that there are still “many poor souls in the bosom of Protestantism a prey to the anguish of doubt.” To such the Abbé Bégin’s treatise on the rule of faith may be of the utmost service. The argument is extremely terse and lucid. In short, were the minds of Protestant fanatics open to reason, it could not fail to convince them of the unreasoning folly of their notions about the Bible being the one only rule of faith.
The first part of this work treats of the rule of faith in general, and proves, amongst other things, that such a rule must be sure, efficient, and perpetual to put an end to controversies.
The second part exhibits the logical impossibility of the Protestant rule of faith, remote and proximate. That is to say, that it is impossible for the unexplained text of the Bible to be a sure, efficient, and perpetual rule of faith, and for an immediate inspiration of its meaning to individuals by the Holy Ghost to be its means of explanation.
The third part proves very exhaustively that the Catholic rule of faith is the only possible sure, efficient, and perpetual one; namely, Holy Scripture, the remote rule, and the teaching church, the proximate one.
To any souls “in the bosom of Protestism” who are “a prey to the anguish of doubt,” if indeed there be such, we cordially recommend this treatise. Its tone is kind and gentle, its reasoning irresistible, and, with the blessing of God, is able to put an end to all their doubts on the fundamental question as to the true rule of faith.
Personal Reminiscences.By Cornelia Knight and Thomas Raikes. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1875.
Personal Reminiscences.By Cornelia Knight and Thomas Raikes. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1875.
This is another of the pleasant “Bric-à-Brac series,” edited by Richard Henry Stoddard. Miss Knight was that nondescript kind of being known as a “lady companion” to the Princess Charlotte of Wales. Her position gave her peculiar facilities for enjoying the privilege, so dear to certain hearts, of a peep behind the scenes of a royal household. Never having been married, she had plenty of time for jotting down her notes and observations on men, women, and things. Many of the men and women she met were famous in their way and in their time. As might be expected, there is much nonsense in her observations, mingled with pleasant glimpses of a kind of life that has now passed away. Mr. Raikes’ journal is similar in character to that of Miss Knight, with the advantage or disadvantage, as may be considered, of having been written by a man.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1875, by Rev.I. T. Hecker, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.
It was supposed that Mr. Gladstone had been so triumphantly refuted, as a polemic, that he would take a prudent refuge in silence. At a moment when neighboring nations were rent with religious dissensions, and when England needed repose from, rather than fuel added to, her internal agitations, a statesman and ex-premier of the British Empire assumes therôleof a religious agitator and accuser, and startles, as well as offends, the public sense of appropriateness by his useless and baseless indictment against the Catholic Church, to which England owes all that is glorious in her constitution and in her history; against English Catholics in particular, his fellow-subjects, who of all others, by their loyalty and Christian faith and virtues, can preserve the liberties and the institutions of their country, now threatened alike by infidel corruption, Protestant indifference, and communistic malice; and against that saintly and illustrious pontiff whose hand is only raised to bless, whose lips breathe unfaltering prayer, and whose voice and pen have never ceased to announce and defend the eternal truths of religion, to uphold morality, and to refute the crying errors and evils of our times. The unanswerable refutations which Mr. Gladstone’s attacks elicited from Cardinal Manning, Bishops Ullathorne and Vaughan, Drs. Newman and Capel, and Canon Neville, not to speak of the Italian work of Mgr. Nardi and the rebukes administered by the periodical press, had, it was believed, even by impartial Protestants, effectually driven this new champion of the old No-popery party in England from the field of polemics. But, like all new recruits, the ex-premier seems incapable of realizing defeat, or perhaps is anxious, at least, to retire with the honors of war.
Not content with the serial publication of his three tracts, he has just now republished them in one volume, with aPreface, under the title ofRome and the Newest Fashions in Religion—a title as unbecoming the gravity of his subjects as it is unsupported by the contents ofthe work. The preface to the republication not only reiterates his accusations on all points, but the author, not satisfied with his new part as theologian, essays therôleof historical critic, and thus gives prominence to a historical question of deep interest and of especial importance to the Catholics of this country.
The sameanimuswhich inspired Mr. Gladstone’s attacks against the church, against his Catholic fellow-countrymen, and against the most august and venerable personage in Christendom, has also induced him to deny to the Catholic founders of Maryland the honorable renown, accorded to them heretofore by historians with singular unanimity, of having, when in power, practised religious toleration towards all Christian sects, and secured freedom of conscience, not only by their unwavering action and practice, but also by giving it the stability and sanctions of statute law. This is certainly the only phase in this celebrated controversy upon which it remains for Mr. Gladstone to be answered.
His Eminence Cardinal Manning, inThe Vatican Decrees in their bearing on Civil Allegiance, at page 88 (New York edition), writes:
“For the same reasons I deplore the haste, I must say the passion, which carried away so large a mind to affirm or to imply that the church of this day would, if she could, use torture, and force, and coercion in matters of religious belief.… In the year 1830 the Catholics of Belgium were in a vast majority, but they did not use their political power to constrain the faith or conscience of any man. The ‘Four Liberties’ of Belgium were the work of Catholics. This is the most recent example of what Catholics would do if they were in possession of power. But there is one more ancient and more homely for us Englishmen. It is found at a date when the old traditions of the Catholic Church were still vigorous in the minds of men.… If the modern spirit had any share in producing the constitution of Belgium, it certainly had no share in producing the constitution of Maryland. Lord Baltimore, who had been Secretary of State under James I., in 1633 emigrated to the American plantations, where, through Lord Stafford’s influence, he had obtained a grant of land.… They named their new country Maryland, and there they settled. The oath of the governor was in these terms: ‘I will not, by myself or any other, directly or indirectly, molest any person professing to believe in Jesus Christ, for or in respect of religion.’ Lord Baltimore invited the Puritans of Massachusetts—who, like himself, had renounced their country for conscience’ sake—to come into Maryland. In 1649, when active persecution had sprung up again in England, the Council of Maryland, on the 21st of April, passed this statute; ‘And whereas the forcing of the conscience in matters of religion hath frequently fallen out to be of dangerous consequence in the commonwealth where it has been practised, and for the more quiet and peaceable government of the province, and the better to preserve mutual love and amity among the inhabitants, no person within the province professing to believe in Jesus Christ shall be anyways troubled, molested, or discountenanced for his or her religion, or in the free exercise thereof.’ The Episcopalians and Protestants fled from Virginia into Maryland. Such was the commonwealth founded by a Catholic upon the broad moral law I have here laid down—that faith is an act of the will, and that to force men to profess what they do not believe is contrary to the law of God, and that to generate faith by force is morally impossible.”
“For the same reasons I deplore the haste, I must say the passion, which carried away so large a mind to affirm or to imply that the church of this day would, if she could, use torture, and force, and coercion in matters of religious belief.… In the year 1830 the Catholics of Belgium were in a vast majority, but they did not use their political power to constrain the faith or conscience of any man. The ‘Four Liberties’ of Belgium were the work of Catholics. This is the most recent example of what Catholics would do if they were in possession of power. But there is one more ancient and more homely for us Englishmen. It is found at a date when the old traditions of the Catholic Church were still vigorous in the minds of men.… If the modern spirit had any share in producing the constitution of Belgium, it certainly had no share in producing the constitution of Maryland. Lord Baltimore, who had been Secretary of State under James I., in 1633 emigrated to the American plantations, where, through Lord Stafford’s influence, he had obtained a grant of land.… They named their new country Maryland, and there they settled. The oath of the governor was in these terms: ‘I will not, by myself or any other, directly or indirectly, molest any person professing to believe in Jesus Christ, for or in respect of religion.’ Lord Baltimore invited the Puritans of Massachusetts—who, like himself, had renounced their country for conscience’ sake—to come into Maryland. In 1649, when active persecution had sprung up again in England, the Council of Maryland, on the 21st of April, passed this statute; ‘And whereas the forcing of the conscience in matters of religion hath frequently fallen out to be of dangerous consequence in the commonwealth where it has been practised, and for the more quiet and peaceable government of the province, and the better to preserve mutual love and amity among the inhabitants, no person within the province professing to believe in Jesus Christ shall be anyways troubled, molested, or discountenanced for his or her religion, or in the free exercise thereof.’ The Episcopalians and Protestants fled from Virginia into Maryland. Such was the commonwealth founded by a Catholic upon the broad moral law I have here laid down—that faith is an act of the will, and that to force men to profess what they do not believe is contrary to the law of God, and that to generate faith by force is morally impossible.”
Mr. Gladstone, in hisVaticanism, page 96, replies to the above as follows:
“It appears to me that Archbishop Manning has completely misapprehended the history of the settlement of Maryland and the establishment of toleration there for all believers in the Holy Trinity. It was a wise measure, for which the two Lords Baltimore, father and son, deserve the highest honor. But the measure was really defensive; and its mainand very legitimate purpose plainly was to secure the free exercise of the Roman Catholic religion. Immigration into the colony was by the charter free; and only by this and other popular provisions could the territory have been extricated from the grasp of its neighbors in Virginia, who claimed it as their own. It was apprehended that the Puritans would flood it, as they did; and it seemed certain that but for this excellent provision the handful of Roman Catholic founders would have been unable to hold their ground. The facts are given in Bancroft’sHistory of the United States, vol. i., chap. vii.”
“It appears to me that Archbishop Manning has completely misapprehended the history of the settlement of Maryland and the establishment of toleration there for all believers in the Holy Trinity. It was a wise measure, for which the two Lords Baltimore, father and son, deserve the highest honor. But the measure was really defensive; and its mainand very legitimate purpose plainly was to secure the free exercise of the Roman Catholic religion. Immigration into the colony was by the charter free; and only by this and other popular provisions could the territory have been extricated from the grasp of its neighbors in Virginia, who claimed it as their own. It was apprehended that the Puritans would flood it, as they did; and it seemed certain that but for this excellent provision the handful of Roman Catholic founders would have been unable to hold their ground. The facts are given in Bancroft’sHistory of the United States, vol. i., chap. vii.”
Again, in hisPrefacetoRome and the Newest Fashions in Religion, page viii., Mr. Gladstone writes:
“It has long been customary to quote the case of Maryland in proof that, more than two centuries ago, the Roman Catholic Church, where power was in its hands, could use it for the purposes of toleration. Archbishop Manning has repeated the boast, and with very large exaggeration.“I have already shown from Bancroft’sHistorythat in the case of Maryland there was no question of a merciful use of power towards others, but simply of a wise and defensive prudence with respect to themselves—that is to say, so far as the tolerant legislation of the colony was the work of Roman Catholics. But it does not appear to have been their work. By the fourth article of the charter we find that no church could be consecrated there except according to the laws of the church at home. The tenth article guaranteed to the colonists generally ‘all privileges, franchises, and liberties of this our kingdom of England.’ It was in 1649 that the Maryland Act of Toleration was passed, which, however, prescribed the punishment of death for any one who denied the Trinity. Of the small legislative body which passed it, two-thirds appear to have been Protestant, the recorded numbers being sixteen and eight respectively. The colony was open to the immigration of Puritans and all Protestants, and any permanent and successful oppression by a handful of Roman Catholics was altogether impossible. But the colonial act seems to have been an echo of the order of the House of Commons at home, on the 27th of October, 1645, that the inhabitants of the Summer Islands, and such others as shall join themselves to them, ‘shall without any molestation or trouble have and enjoy the liberty of their consciences in matters of God’s worship’; and of a British ordinance of 1647.“Upon the whole, then, the picture of Maryland legislation is a gratifying one; but the historic theory which assigns the credit of it to the Roman Church has little foundation in fact.”
“It has long been customary to quote the case of Maryland in proof that, more than two centuries ago, the Roman Catholic Church, where power was in its hands, could use it for the purposes of toleration. Archbishop Manning has repeated the boast, and with very large exaggeration.
“I have already shown from Bancroft’sHistorythat in the case of Maryland there was no question of a merciful use of power towards others, but simply of a wise and defensive prudence with respect to themselves—that is to say, so far as the tolerant legislation of the colony was the work of Roman Catholics. But it does not appear to have been their work. By the fourth article of the charter we find that no church could be consecrated there except according to the laws of the church at home. The tenth article guaranteed to the colonists generally ‘all privileges, franchises, and liberties of this our kingdom of England.’ It was in 1649 that the Maryland Act of Toleration was passed, which, however, prescribed the punishment of death for any one who denied the Trinity. Of the small legislative body which passed it, two-thirds appear to have been Protestant, the recorded numbers being sixteen and eight respectively. The colony was open to the immigration of Puritans and all Protestants, and any permanent and successful oppression by a handful of Roman Catholics was altogether impossible. But the colonial act seems to have been an echo of the order of the House of Commons at home, on the 27th of October, 1645, that the inhabitants of the Summer Islands, and such others as shall join themselves to them, ‘shall without any molestation or trouble have and enjoy the liberty of their consciences in matters of God’s worship’; and of a British ordinance of 1647.
“Upon the whole, then, the picture of Maryland legislation is a gratifying one; but the historic theory which assigns the credit of it to the Roman Church has little foundation in fact.”
Let us first test Mr. Gladstone’s accuracy and consistency as a historical critic. He begins by alleging that the Maryland Toleration Act was a measure of defensive prudence in the interests of the Catholics themselves, and that “its main and very legitimate purpose plainly was to secure the free exercise of the Roman Catholic religion.” He then asserts that this act of toleration was not the work of the Catholics at all, but of a Protestant majority in the legislature which passed it. We have, then, here presented the extraordinary picture of an alleged Protestant legislature passing a law which was really intended to protect Catholics against Protestant ascendency and apprehended Protestant persecution, and whose “main and very legitimate purpose was to secure the free exercise of the Roman Catholic religion.” Surely, the Protestants of that day were liberal and generous, especially as it was an age of persecution, when not only were Catholics hunted down both in England and her Virginia and New England colonies, but even Protestants of different sects were relentlessly persecuting each other. And in what proper sense cantheybe said to have been Protestants with whom it was “a very legitimate purpose” to legislate in the express interests of Roman Catholics?
Mr. Gladstone also states that the Toleration Act was passed inthe apprehension of an influx of Puritans, and to protect the colony “from the grasp of its neighbors in Virginia”; whereas his favorite author, Mr. Bancroft, informs Mr. Gladstone that Lord Baltimore invited both the Episcopalians of Virginia and the Puritans of New England into his domains, offering a gift of lands as an inducement; and it is a historical fact that numbers of them accepted the invitation.
Again, Mr. Gladstone, while apparently treating the Toleration Act as a Catholic measure, animadverts with evident disapproval on that feature in it which “prescribed the punishment of death for any one who denied the Trinity,” and then immediately he claims that the legislature which passed the act was a Protestant body—“two-thirds,” he writes, “appear to have been Protestants”—thus imposing upon his Protestant friends the odium of inflicting death for the exercise of conscience and religious belief; and that, too, not upon Papists, as they were not included in the punishment.
Mr. Gladstone, inThe Vatican Decrees in their bearing on Civil Allegiance(page 83), expressing no doubt the common sentiments of Protestants since the time of Luther and Henry VIII., uses these irreverent words in regard to the Blessed Virgin Mary, that peerless and immaculate Lady whom four-fifths of the Christian world venerate as the Mother of God:
“The sinlessness of the Virgin Mary and the personal infallibility of the Pope are the characteristic dogmas of modern Romanism.… Both rest on pious fiction and fraud; both present a refined idolatry by clothing a pure humble woman and a mortal sinful man with divine attributes. The dogma of the Immaculate Conception, which exempts the Virgin Mary from sin and guilt, perverts Christianism into Marianism.… The worship of a woman is virtually substituted for the worship of Christ.”
“The sinlessness of the Virgin Mary and the personal infallibility of the Pope are the characteristic dogmas of modern Romanism.… Both rest on pious fiction and fraud; both present a refined idolatry by clothing a pure humble woman and a mortal sinful man with divine attributes. The dogma of the Immaculate Conception, which exempts the Virgin Mary from sin and guilt, perverts Christianism into Marianism.… The worship of a woman is virtually substituted for the worship of Christ.”
And yet with such sentiments, in which doubtless the Protestants of Maryland in 1649 concurred, he attributes to, and claims for, those Protestants who, he says, constituted two-thirds of the Maryland Colonial Legislature in 1649, the passage of a law which enacted “that whosoever shall use or utter any reproachful words or speeches concerning the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of our Saviour, … shall for the first offence forfeit five pounds sterling, or, if not able to pay, be publicly whipped and imprisoned during pleasure, etc.; for the second offence, ten pounds, etc.; and for the third shall forfeit all his lands and goods, and be banished from the province.”
The following anecdote, related by the Protestant Bozman,[98]is quite pertinent to our subject and to our cause:
“And in the time of the Long Parliament when the differences between the Lord Baltimore and Colonell Samuel Matthews, as agent for the colony of Virginia, were depending before a committee of that parliament for the navy, that clause in the sayd law, concerning the Virgin Mary, was at that committee objected as an exception against his lordship; whereupon a worthy member of the sayd committee stood up and sayd, that he wondered that any such exception should be taken against his lordship; for (says hee) doth not the Scripture say, that all generations shall call her blessed? (The author here cites in the margin, ‘Lu. i. 48.’) And the committee insisted no more on that exception.”
“And in the time of the Long Parliament when the differences between the Lord Baltimore and Colonell Samuel Matthews, as agent for the colony of Virginia, were depending before a committee of that parliament for the navy, that clause in the sayd law, concerning the Virgin Mary, was at that committee objected as an exception against his lordship; whereupon a worthy member of the sayd committee stood up and sayd, that he wondered that any such exception should be taken against his lordship; for (says hee) doth not the Scripture say, that all generations shall call her blessed? (The author here cites in the margin, ‘Lu. i. 48.’) And the committee insisted no more on that exception.”
The authorities relied upon by Mr. Gladstone, besides Bancroft, whom we shall presently refer to, areMaryland Toleration, by theRev. Ethan Allen, andMaryland not a Catholic Colony, by E. D. N. The former is a pamphlet of sixty-four pages addressed by the author, a Protestant minister, to his brethren in the ministry in 1855, is purely a sectarian tract, hostile to every Catholic view and interest, and partisan in spirit and in matter. The latter is a few pages of printed matter, consisting of three newspaper articles published last year in theDaily Pioneerof St. Paul, Minnesota, and recently reprinted in theNorth-Western Chronicleof the same place, the editor of which states that the author of the letters is the Rev. Edward D. Neill, also a Protestant minister, and president of Macalester College. The letters of “E. D. N.” were sharply and ably replied to by Mr. William Markoe, formerly an Episcopal minister, now a member of the Catholic Church. The letters of “E. D. N.” are more sectarian than historical, and cannot be quoted in a controversy in which such names as Chalmers, Bancroft, McSherry, Bozman, etc., figure. The attack of “E. D. N.” on the personal character of Lord Baltimore is enough to condemn his effort.
But Mr. Gladstone’s principal author is Bancroft, from whose pages he claims to have shown that “in the case of Maryland there wasno questionof a merciful use of power towards others, butsimplyof a wise and defensive prudence with respect to themselves.” Motives ofself-interestare thus substituted for those ofbenevolenceandmercy. If this were correctly stated, why does Mr. Gladstone state that the Act of Toleration was a measure “for which the two Lords Baltimore, father and son, deserve the highest honor”? But our task is now to inquire how far his author sustains Mr. Gladstone in denying to the Catholics of Maryland, who enacted religious toleration, all motives of benevolence and mercy.
Mr. Bancroft, on the contrary, asserts that the “new government [of Maryland] was erected on afoundationas extraordinary as its results werebenevolent.”[99]In speaking of Lord Baltimore, the founder of Maryland, its chief statesman and law-giver, he extols hismoderation,sincerity of character, anddisinterestedness,[100]and proceeds to say:
“Calvert deserves to be ranked among the most wise andbenevolentlaw-givers of all ages. He was the first in the history of the Christian world to seek for religious security and peace by the practice of justice, and not by the exercise of power; to plan the establishment of popular institutions with the enjoyment of liberty of conscience; to advance the career of civilization by recognizing the rightful equality of all Christian sects. The asylum of Papists was the spot where, in a remote corner of the world, on the banks of rivers which, as yet, had hardly been explored, themild forbearanceof a proprietary adopted religious freedom as thebasisof the state.”[101]
“Calvert deserves to be ranked among the most wise andbenevolentlaw-givers of all ages. He was the first in the history of the Christian world to seek for religious security and peace by the practice of justice, and not by the exercise of power; to plan the establishment of popular institutions with the enjoyment of liberty of conscience; to advance the career of civilization by recognizing the rightful equality of all Christian sects. The asylum of Papists was the spot where, in a remote corner of the world, on the banks of rivers which, as yet, had hardly been explored, themild forbearanceof a proprietary adopted religious freedom as thebasisof the state.”[101]
Referring to the act of taking possession of their new homes in Maryland by the Catholic pilgrims, the same author says, thereby “religious liberty obtained a home, its only home in the wide world, at the humble village which bore the name of St. Mary’s.”[102]And speaking of the progress of the colony, he further says: “Under themildinstitutions and munificence of Baltimore the dreary wilderness soon bloomed with swarming life and activity of prosperous settlements; the Roman Catholics who were oppressed by the laws of England were sureto find a peaceful asylum in the quiet harbors of the Chesapeake; and there, too, Protestants were sheltered against Protestant intolerance.”[103]Such, in fine, is the repeated language of an author whom Mr. Gladstone refers to in proof of his assertion that toleration in Maryland wassimplya measure of self-defence.
Chalmers bears the following testimony to the same point: “He” (Lord Baltimore) “laid the foundationof his province upon the broadbasisof security to property and of freedom of religion, granting, in absolute fee, fifty acres of land to every emigrant; establishing Christianity according to the old common law, of which it is a part, without allowing pre-eminence to any particular sect. The wisdom of his choice soon converted a dreary wilderness into a prosperous colony.”[104]
And Judge Story, with the history of the colony from its beginning and the charter before him, adds the weight of judicial approval in the following words: “It is certainly very honorable to the liberality and public spirit of the proprietary that he should have introduced into hisfundamentalpolicy the doctrine of general toleration and equality among Christian sects (for he does not appear to have gone further), and have thus given the earliest example of a legislator inviting his subjects to the free indulgence of religious opinion. This was anterior to the settlement of Rhode Island, and therefore merits the enviable rank of being the first recognition among the colonists of the glorious and indefeasible rights of conscience.”[105]
But there is another view, clearly sustained by an important and certain chain of facts, which has never occurred to the historical writers on Maryland toleration, at least in this connection, though they give the facts upon which the view is based, and which wholly destroys the theory of Mr. Gladstone and his authorities. The latter may dispute in regard to the merits and motives of the statute of 1649, but they do not touch the real question. It is an incontestable fact that the religious toleration which historians have so much extolled in the Catholic colonists and founders of Maryland did not originate with, or derive its existence from, that law of 1649, but, on the contrary, it existed long anterior to, and independent of, it. This great feature in the Catholic government of Maryland had been established by the Catholic lord-proprietary, his lieutenant-governor, agents, and colonists, and faithfully practised for fifteen years prior to the Toleration Act of 1649. From 1634 to 1649 it had been enforced with unwavering firmness and protected with exalted benevolence. This important fact is utterly ignored by Mr. Gladstone and his authors, the Rev. Ethan Allen and the Rev. Edward D. Neill, but the facts related by Bancroft, and indeed by all historians, prove it beyond a question. Bancroft records that the very “foundations” of the colony were laid upon the “basis” of religious toleration, and throughout the eulogiums pronounced by him on the religious toleration of Maryland, which we have quoted above, refers entirely to the period of the fifteen years preceding the passage of the act of 1649. The Toleration Act was nothing else than the declaration of the existing state ofthings and of the long and cherished policy and practice of the colony—a formal sanction and statutory enactment of the existing common law of the province.
Before proceeding to demonstrate this fact, we will briefly examine how far Mr. Bancroft sustains the theory or views of Mr. Gladstone in regard to the act itself. After extolling the motives and conduct of the Catholics of Maryland in establishing religious toleration, as we have remarked above, during the fifteen years preceding the passage of the act, Mr. Bancroft refers to that statute in terms of highest praise. He barely hints at the possibility that a foresight, on the part of the colonists, of impending dangers to themselves from threatened or apprehended Protestant ascendency and persecution, might have entered among the motives which induced them to pass that act; but he nowhere asserts the fact, nor does he allege anything beyond conjecture for the possibility of the motive. Indeed, his mode of expressing himself indicates that, though he thought it possible, his own impression was that such motive did not suggest in part even the passage of the act; for he writes: “As if, with a foresight of impending danger and an earnest desire to stay its approach, the Roman Catholics of Maryland, with the earnest concurrence of their governor and of the proprietary, determined to place upon their statute-book an act forthe religious freedom which had ever been sacred on their soil.” Compare this with the language of Mr. Gladstone, who excludes every motive but that of self-interest, and refers to Bancroft in support of his view, but does not quote his language. Mr. Bancroft, on the other hand, after quoting from the statute, exclaims, such was “its sublime tenor.”
Mr. Griffith does not agree with the suggestion that a sense of fear or apprehension entered into the motives of the Maryland lawgivers, and says: “That this liberty did not proceed from fear of others, on the one hand, or licentious dispositions in the government, on the other, is sufficiently evident from the penalties prescribed against blasphemy, swearing, drunkenness, and Sabbath-breaking, by the preceding sections of the act, and proviso, at the end, that such exercise of religion did not molest or conspire against the proprietary or his government.”[106]
Let us now proceed to examine still further whether Maryland was a Catholic colony, whether it was by Catholics that religious toleration was established there, and whether it had its origin in the act of 1649 or in the long previous practice and persistent generosity and mercy of the Catholic rulers of the province. It is true that while the territory afterwards granted to Lord Baltimore was subject to the Virginia charter, a settlement of Episcopalians was made on Kent Island; but they were very few in numbers, always adhered to Virginia rather than to Maryland in their sympathies, were so turbulent and disloyal that Governor Calvert had to reduce them by force of arms, and no one has ever pretended that they founded a State. We will show what relation they had in point of numbers and political influence to the colony, and that they did not form even the slightest element of power in the founding of the province.
Maryland was founded alone bythe Catholic Lord Baltimore and his colonists. Such is the voice of history. It is rather disingenuous in the reverend authors of the pamphlets mentioned by Mr. Gladstone that upon so flimsy a circumstance they assert that Maryland was not settled first by Catholics. Their voices are drowned by the concurrent voice of tradition and of history. It is only the reassertion of the pretensions of these zealous sectarians by so respectable a person as Mr. Gladstone, and that, too, in one of the most remarkable controversies of the age, that renders a recurrence to the historical authorities and their results at all desirable or necessary.
The colony of Maryland was conceived in the spirit of liberty. It was the flight of English Catholics from Protestant persecution in their native country. The state of the penal laws in England against Catholics at this period is too well known. The zealous Protestant Bozman writes that they “contained severities enough to keep them [the Catholics] in all due subjection.”
It was at this hour of their extremest suffering that the Catholics of England found a friend and leader in Sir George Calvert, who held important trusts under the governments of James and Charles, and enjoyed the confidence of his sovereigns and of his country. “In an age when religious controversy still continued to be active, when increasing divisions among Protestants were spreading a general alarm, his mind sought relief from controversy in the bosom of the Roman Catholic Church, and, preferring the avowal of his opinions to the emoluments of office, he resigned his place and openly professed his conversion.”[107]Even after this he was advanced to the peerage under the title of Lord Baltimore—an Irish title—and was appointed one of the principal secretaries under James I. His positions in the government gave him not only an acquaintance with American colonization, but an official connection with it. Of these he now availed himself to provide an asylum abroad for his fellow-Catholics from the relentless persecution they were suffering at home. His first effort was to found a Catholic colony on the shores of Newfoundland. A settlement was begun. Avalon was the name it received, and twice did Lord Baltimore cross the ocean to visit his cherished cradle of liberty. Baffled by political difficulties, the severity of the climate, and an ungenerous soil, he abandoned the endeavor. That his motive all along was to found a place of refuge for Catholics from persecution is certain from the time and circumstances under which the enterprise was undertaken, as well as from the testimony of historians. Oldmixon says: “This gentleman [Lord Baltimore], being of the Romish religion, was uneasy at home, and had the same reason to leave the kingdom as those gentlemen had who went to New England, to enjoy the liberty of his conscience.”[108]Bozman writes that “by their [the Puritans’] clamors for a vigorous execution of the laws against Papists, it became now necessary for them [the Catholics] also to look about for a place of refuge.”[109]The same writer also refers to a MS. in the British Museum, written by Lord Baltimorehimself, in which this motive is mentioned. Driven from Avalon by the hardness of the climate, he visited Virginia with the same view; but hence again he was driven by religious bigotry and the presentation of an anti-popery oath from a colony “from which the careful exclusion of Roman Catholics had been originally avowed as a special object.” His mind, filled with the thought of founding a place of refuge for Catholics, next turned to the country beyond the Potomac, which had been embraced originally in the Virginia charter, but which, upon the cancellation of that charter, had reverted to the crown. He obtained a grant and charter from the king, so liberal in its terms that, Griffith says, it became the model for future grants. The name was changed from Crescentia to that of Maryland, in honor of the Catholic queen of Charles; but the devout Catholics of the expedition, in their piety, extended the termTerra Mariæ, the Land of Mary, into an act of devotion and honor to Mary, the Queen of Heaven.
The first Lord Baltimore did not live to see his project carried into effect; he died on the 25th of April, 1632, was succeeded by his son Cecilius, second Lord Baltimore, who, as Bancroft says, was the heir of hisintentionsno less than of his fortunes; to him was issued the charter negotiated by his father, bearing date the 15th of June, 1632.
Founded by a Catholic, designed as an asylum for persecuted Catholics, is it to be supposed that Lord Baltimore and his brother, Governor Leonard Calvert, who organized and led forth the pilgrims, would be so inconsistent at this moment of their success as to lose sight of the main object of the movement, and carryProtestantcolonists with whom to found aCatholiccolony? If, as Rev. Edward D. Neill, author ofMaryland not a Catholic Colony, says, there were only twenty Catholic gentlemen in the ship, and three hundred servants, mostly Protestants, would it have been deemed necessary to carry two Catholic priests and their assistants along to administer to the souls of so small a number? In point of fact, the Protestants were so few that they brought no minister with them, and it was several years before their entire numbers justified their having either a minister or a place of worship. The voyage on theArkandDovewas more like a Catholic pilgrimage than a secular expedition. The principal parts of the ship (theArk), says Father White in hisNarrative, were committed to the protection of God especially, and to his Most Holy Mother, and S. Ignatius, and all the guardian angels of Maryland. The vessel was a floating chapel, an ocean shrine of Catholic faith and devotion, consecrated by the unbloody sacrifice, and resounding with Latin litanies; its safety from many a threatened disaster was attributed to the intercession of the Blessed Virgin and the saints, whose mediation was propitiated by votive offerings promised and promptly rendered after their safe arrival at St. Mary’s. The festivals of the saints were faithfully observed throughout the voyage, the feast of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin was selected for landing, and the solemn act of taking possession was according to the Catholic form. Father White thus describes the scene: