THE DANGER OF THE HOUR. HOW TO MEET IT
Statement of the case
The printing press is one of the greatest forces of the modern world. The multitude of publications sent forth on its wings each morning are messengers of light or darkness. Their influence for good or evil is more powerful than that of armies or parliaments: that influence we can no more escape than we can escape the sunlight or the air that surrounds us. It penetrates our homes; it colours our thoughts; it furnishes motives for our actions. The Press is indeed the lever that moves the world of our day, and we are but the puppets of its will.
Such being the case, is it not a question of first importance for the priest to examine its bearing on his own life, and on the lives of those committed to his care?
A general principle
That we may do so in a scientific manner, let us take a simple general principle. Reading is the food of the mind. Now, the body is marvellously influenced by the food it assimilates; give a man wholesome nutriment and mark the bounding vigour of his blood, the activity and healthy development of every organ; feed him on innutritious food and the most robust must fade; on poisonous food and the strongest languishes unto death.
The substance of the body is so influenced by what it assimilates that scientists assure us, young animals fed on madder will reproduce the purple dye of the plant in the very texture of the bone.
The principle illustrated
With far greater thoroughness and completeness does thought act upon the mind: thought blends with thought with a force and subtleness unknown in matter. Watch the principle in action. Let any man habitually read good books—and by good books I mean the production of any person whose mind is illumined by faith and whose heart is fed by the sacraments—it matters little in what shape such books reach us, let it be a novel or a book of poems or essays. No man can invariably read such works without growing imperceptibly better. His Catholic principles grow more robust; he becomes more fearless in expressing them; each volume leaves an aroma behind and imparts a new flavour to his life. Fresh oil is poured into the lamp of his piety, its flame burns brighter, he feels an unction in his prayers; he has a holy relish for the sacraments. His very interests in life change: he looks on everything with supernatural eyes, he becomes touchy about the interests of the Church, anxious about the foreign missions, and feels an insult to the Holy See as a wound.
The food his brain is living on is leavening his whole life, giving colour, tone and trend to his existence.
Brownson
This literature, on which he nourishes himself, has been admirably described by the mastermind of Catholic America—Dr. Brownson:—"Catholic literature is robust and healthy of a ruddy complexion, and full of life. It knows no sadness but the sadness of sin, and it rejoices for evermore. It eschews melancholy as the devil's best friend on earth, abhors the morbid sentimentality which feeds upon itself and grows by what it feeds upon. . . . It washes its face, anoints its head, puts on its festive robe, goes forth into the fresh air, the bright sunshine; and, when occasion requires, rings out the merry laugh that does one's heart good to hear. It is on principle that the Catholic approves such gladsome and smiling literature."[a]1]
[a]1] Vol. xix., p. 155.
Now look at the converse picture. Let the mind of the most devout Catholic feed on the writings of the Protestant or sensualist and mark the transformation. See how his soul becomes enervated, his judgment warped and his heart invaded by every temptation. His Catholic principles insensibly vanish, and the standards of paganism replace them. The light of the supernatural dies in his eyes, a film of clay overspreads his vision; he looks on the Church through coloured lenses, and the rankness of earth is upon his life.
Thus our thoughts, views and actions are marvellously coloured and influenced by the books we read.
The English press operating on the Irish mind
Let us now turn to examine how this bears on our own lives and the lives of those around us.
Thick as snowflakes, but without their whiteness, the sensuous and infidel Press of England is discharging its messengers of evil on this land. It is speaking by a multitude of tongues into the hearts of our people. The sensational novel, the suggestive picture paper, the trashy magazine are breathing a deadly blight over the soul of Ireland: they whisper thoughts that fall like corrosive poison into the sanctuary of young hearts, destroying the only jewels that are worthy of being there enshrined—bright faith and pure morals.
What the Londoner saw
An Irishman residing in London, after visiting his native country in 1900, records his impressions:—
"I have been amazed during recent visits to Ireland at the display of London weekly publications, while Dublin publications of a similar kind were difficult to obtain. I have seen the counters of newsagents in such towns as Waterford, Limerick, Kilkenny and Galway piled as thickly, and with as varied a selection of these London weekly journals as in Lambeth or Islington. . . . I was so impressed with the phenomenon that I endeavoured when in Dublin to obtain some accurate information in regard to its extent. At Messrs. Eason's I was told that within the past ten years the circulation of these journals in Ireland had almost quadrupled, although the population had diminished within the same period by one-eighth."[a]2]
[a]2] Mr. MacDonagh in "Nineteenth Century," July, 1900.
This is the offal the national mind is feeding on, and yet people express surprise that we are becoming West-British and losing Catholic thought and character.
It is estimated that, without counting the book or parcel post, every week there are three tons of this literature discharged on the quays of Dublin alone. If this is even approximately true it reveals a startling condition of things.
It may well be questioned whether the bayonets of Cromwell or the plantations of James threatened more destruction to all we hold dear. I believe they were as toy armies compared with the silent foe now encamped upon the soil.
Out of these three tons it would be easy to count, not the volumes, but the pages, devoted to a defence of the Ten Commandments. Works of open or professed assault on faith or morals are as yet few, the time is not ripe just yet, their forerunners are here, however, the ground is being prepared. The advance guards have come, and it is only a question of time till the heavy ordnance is planted in our midst.
Cardinal Logue
Our present danger has been admirably described by an eminent prelate:—"A mass of literature which professes to be innocent, and ostensibly aims at being interesting, but seeks to create that interest and engross attention by fostering thoughts that appeal to the passions with no uncertain voice. Even when such works do not openly attack faith or the sanctity of morals, they seek to convey the subtle poison of unbelief or corruption by covert insinuation, by ridicule, by ignoring religious truth and supernatural motives as unworthy of consideration, more effectually and fatally, than they would have done by open and undisguised assault."[a]3]
[a]3] Cardinal Logue, Lenten Pastoral.
There are novels that constitute an unbroken attack, from the first page to the last, against some divine truth, yet with such a delicate hand is the insidious poison distributed that you may be challenged to lay your finger on a single objectionable passage. Satan has not been studying the human heart for six thousand years without knowing it well. He takes very good care not to label his drugs, or present his poison to timid minds in large doses; hence there is no alarm: but the treacherous danger of such books is well illustrated by a tree to be found in tropical forests.
The Tropical tree
In early autumn it is ablaze with sheaves of fairest pink; it warns you off by no repellant odour; its umbrageous shelter is most inviting; yet so fatal is the subtle breath with which it charges the air around that should an incautious traveller rest his head for one night under its treacherous shade he would wake no more.
So, the flowery brilliancy of style, the charms and graces of diction of many a modern novel are fascinating, but the pages they adorn exhale a deadly breath.
A sample novel
Let us take a sample novel. The foundation of the State is the family; the corner-stone on which the family rests is the sacred marriage bond. Dissolve that and you convert social harmony into social chaos. Yet how many books are there which are covert attacks on the marriage tie.
The heroine is generally a married lady who discovers that her husband is not the man she should have married. From this centre-point the web of intrigue is woven. Mawkish sentiment and false pity are aroused. A glamour is thrown over the sins and the sinners. Tears are demanded for libertines and their crimes are gilded. Virtue becomes a tyranny; the marriage bond an intolerable yoke, and the divorce court—which is truly a vestibule of hell—a haven of relief.
It is unnecessary to trace the effects of such degrading teaching on the lives of the young, whose minds are as wax to receive and marble to retain: how the high standards of virtue taught in the school and strengthened in the home vanish: how the touchy sensitiveness of the pure soul becomes deadened and a hunger for grosser excitements is awakened.
The head leads the heart
Now that we have analysed the intellectual food on which our people live let us advance the enquiry one step further and ask—Where must it all end? St. Thomas answers: "Nihil volitum nisi cognitum." That principle is axiomatic in its truth: the heart will ever follow the head. As you sow in thought you will reap in action. Corrupt a nation's intellect, and as surely as darkness succeeds sunset, as effect follows cause, so surely corruption of that nation's heart must ensue.
How clearly the devil understands this and what use has he not made of it!
For the past four hundred years the greatest evils that have afflicted the Church are traceable to a licentious Press. Printing was scarcely invented till Satan seized it for his own purposes. By it the Humanists of the fifteenth century scattered broadcast pagan ideas. The disentombed paganism continued to ferment and rot the hearts of the people till in the next century it burst forth in the deluge of unbridled passions that marked the Reformation.
France
Voltaire and his disciples did not openly cry "down with the Church," but they took the surest road to level it. They corroded the foundations of Christian belief. By encyclopedias and pamphlets they first attacked with sneer and jibe, the person of the priest, then the sacraments he administered became the butt of their mockery, and they finally flouted the gospel he preached. And while the agents of evil were busy, the good cures of France sounded no trumpet of alarm, but dreamed themselves into the comforting delusion that all would blow over, till the ground under their feet began to rock and heave in the convulsive throes of the Revolution.
The disciples of Satan to-day are sleepless in their endeavours to undermine the faith of Ireland through the same agency; while it is to be feared that some of the guardians of that sacred treasure are inclined to imitate the dreamy lethargy that led to such disastrous results in France.
Europe
Look at Europe to-day seething with socialism and anarchy, its huge standing armies scarcely able to hold these worse than barbarian hordes in check. Out of what dark womb have these monsters crept? A corrupt Press. The devil found men whose lives were filled with pain and want; he came breathing through the Press telling them to distrust God, and to make war upon society. The Reformation, the Revolution, the social anarchy of to-day are the direct offspring of a licentious Press. Permit a nation's mind to be poisoned, and that nation's heart must rot. Nihil volitum nisi cognitum.
Fifty years ago
In proof of this we need not look outside our own shores. Fifty years ago the priests of Ireland often had recourse to rough methods with the people. Even the aid of the "blackthorn" was occasionally invoked as an effective instrument for securing correction or impressing conviction. Yet, on the morrow, all was forgotten; and the people would die for the man who punished them. Let the priest of to-day but thwart the grand-children of that generation, even in a small matter, and mark their rancour. How bitter! how relentless! The Catholic spirit of half a century ago was not operated on by the literature of a nation that is daily losing even the veneer of Christianity.
You may gash a man with healthy blood to the bone, and time will quickly heal the wound and scarcely leave a scar, but if the man's blood be corrupt the scratch of a thorn may involve consequences demanding the surgeon's knife.
The spirit that Catholic Ireland had fifty years ago is sadly changed to-day; and its tendency to fester on slight provocation is due to the poison distilled into it from an unwholesome, anti-Catholic literature. Only twenty years ago we had a painful illustration of the silent but terrible mischief that has been done by England's Press upon the Catholic mind of this country.
An evil crisis
Up to the time of the Parnell crisis the priests imagined their feet were planted upon a solid rock; they discovered they were standing on a pie-crust. What a startling revelation was in store for them. Small wonder they rubbed their eyes and asked in bewilderment, Are we in Catholic Ireland?
The ground broke; the fiery breath of hell belched forth. We saw the devil spitting hate through the lips of politicians, the columns of the Press, and the resolutions of the schoolmasters. Terrible as was this outward exhibition, it revealed but a fraction. The spirit of revolt and infidelity that raged within the breasts of young men and darkened their conversation was awful. The writings of avowed freethinkers and libertines were devoured, and if any young man had the heroic courage to remonstrate, his words would be drowned in derision.
God permitted that warning to come, but have we taken it as a warning? What efforts have we made since to secure the entrenchments? The danger passed, and we sank back into the old, dreamy lethargy, and left the field open to the devil to sow his tares anew. Our greatest danger to-day is our apparent safety. We wrap ourselves into a false security, while a dry rot is permitted to stealthily corrode the pillars of intellectual conviction that must uphold all. Unless this is fought, and fought effectively, the structure of our Catholic life will topple like a house of cards.
Objections answered
All looks calm now, but so long as the causes that produced the sad outburst of twenty years ago continue unchecked, worse inevitably awaits us. I may be told. Look at the union of priests and people to-day; look at our flourishing sodalities and our beautiful churches.
The union of priests and people was then tested by one strong wrench, and it snapped; and so long as the evil forces that caused the fissure continue to gnaw once more the bond that unites the hearts of priests and people, is it stronger you expect that bond to grow?
With regard to our pious sodalities. Did the question ever present itself—How much of the average sodalist's piety is resting on sentiment and tradition, and how little of it on intellectual conviction? Transplant him from the hotbed to the ice-chills of infidelity in America or Australia, where the very air is electric with doubt and denial, and when the storm beats upon him, is his head armed to defend his Faith?
Where could he get the necessary knowledge? Not from the book in his hand, for it is "Marie Corelli" or "Hall Caine" you find him best acquainted with. Not from the Catholic newspaper, for the question is—Do we possess one? It is a strange fact that while Irish Catholics abroad have founded, and support, splendid Catholic journals in every land where they have found a home, the mother Church from which they sprang is practically defenceless. He gets poor assistance from the pulpit; for while homilies and exhortations are admirable in their way, they fall far short of covering the needs of this questioning age. Our dogmatic treatises are permitted to lie entombed in dust on our top shelves, while clear and homely exposition of Catholic truth would be drunk in like honey by the people.
You point to our beautiful churches, beautiful they are indeed. But to what purpose do we raise temples of stone if we permit the living temple of the soul to be eaten into by the poison mildews of evil thought. The Continent is dotted over with stately but empty basilicas, silent and mournful monuments to a Faith and a love long since departed.
Questions
Now that we begin to realise the danger and the extent of this evil, a number of questions naturally suggest themselves.
I
How is it that the master carefully scrutinizes the character of a servant before admitting her into his house, lest her influence in his home might be for evil, and that same man allows the author to pass in unchallenged? The author comes, not to minister but to master; to impress his thoughts on the minds and perhaps blast the virtue of the children.
2
Since every parent is bound to provide that his children's apartments are well supplied with healthy air, is not the obligation far more serious to take care that the moral atmosphere of the home does not hold the deadliest poisons in solution?
3
Questions
Why does not the young girl, who is so fastidious about the class of people with whom she will associate, exercise even ordinary discrimination in the selection of an author? This is the companion whose influence sinks deeper and lasts longer than that of the person with whom she sips tea or takes a walk. He whispers into her soul under the shade of the midnight lamp. He embeds his principles on her brain. He lives in her dreams. He becomes her oracle to conjure by.
4
Or, let us put the question this way: How many of the men and women who flit across the pages of modern fiction would a respectable Catholic admit into his home or introduce to his family? He would not give them his company, but he gives them his brains. The hem of his garment they may not touch, but the pith of his life he places at their disposal. Make no mistake about it. You cannot shake off the influence of your author. His thoughts become your thoughts. He weaves himself into the woof of your mind.
5
How is it that when the proselytiser comes to your parish in human shape you are all afire, but when he comes speaking, not by one but a hundred tongues, silently but effectively sapping the Faith or virtue of your flock, no pulpit rings with denunciation? All these questions may be answered by another most pertinent to the priest.
Have the people been taught to realise the danger confronting them? Have their consciences been awakened? Have we been dumb watch-dogs while they are being devoured?
Apologies
The treatment of this subject would be incomplete if the stock apologies for dangerous reading were not dealt with.
When you remonstrate with a Catholic on the character of his reading, you are sure to be met with some of the following, and any one of them is supposed to be a complete justification, no matter how bad the book:—
Style
"I read these books for the style." This is sometimes heard from people whose pretentions to literary taste borders on the grotesque; but let that pass. Has a paralysis fallen on every hand that wields a Catholic pen? Does the light of Faith beaming on a human mind quench the beauties of imagination or dull the taste? Or, is a perfect style to be found only among the apostles of evil? Surely the long range of Catholic writers offers an ample variety of the most perfect exponents of literary style. Let us be honest. It is not for the style these books are read; it is because they gratify an unhealthy craving, because they are soft, sensual, suggestive, and stimulate feelings not far from the border-land of sin.
I see no harm
"I see no harm in them." Now by this answer you implicitly admit that you see no good. Have you then no remorse for frittering away such a precious gift of God as time? If the damned got five minutes of that time to repent, every chamber in hell would be empty. Yet you squander months and years without a qualm.
You see no harm in it. Look into your own life and what do you discover. The unction of prayer sucked out of your soul, your relish for the Sacraments gone, a dry rot consuming your spiritual life, a nausea for supernatural things, a taste every day becoming more clayey, and an increasing appetite for grosser excitements. Books that you would tremble to touch a year ago you now devour without a pang; or perhaps the stray shreds of infidelity are weaving themselves into your future creed. Do not mind what you see with the eye of a conscience that is already half-dead. Search deep into your own heart and life, and you will quickly discover the damage done.
Narrow-minded
"We cannot be narrow-minded." Is it then a something to be ashamed of, if in matters pertaining to our eternal interests we are cautious and conservative? Not prone to take dangerous risks? This is the disposition sometimes called narrow-mindedness. Surely it is better even to be narrow-minded than pagan-minded.
But let us clear our minds of cant and squarely face the question. Will the person who calls you narrow-minded for exercising caution in the selection of your books, exhibit his own breadth of mind by going into a chemist's shop, shutting his eyes and gulping down the contents of the first bottle that comes to his hand? Ha! You see how quickly his broad-mindedness is replaced by most careful caution. But a library is like a chemist's shop. The shelves may hold health-giving medicines or the most deadly poisons. As well call the harbour authorities narrow-minded because they close the ports against the cholera ship, as to question the just prudence of the man who shuts his door against the evil book.
Up-to-date
"We must be up-to-date." The man that takes this as the sole principle by which to guide his moral conduct, not only writes himself down "depraved," but an intellectual imbecile. What does he mean? He means that he is incapable of thinking for himself; that he has no fixed chart, but is tossed about in the eddy of fashion; that he has no principle to guide his own conduct by, but has to look to the street and follow where the crowd leads.
The most un-up-to-date people that ever lived were the early Christians. When thousands were swarming to the butcheries of the Coliseum they refused to be up-to-date and kept carefully away from the taint of blood and savagery. When the debaucheries of the festivals disgraced the city, they again refused to be "up-to-date." No doubt they were sneered at and called "old-fashioned," "priest-ridden," &c. But it was they, and not those who taunted them, who showed loftiness and nobility of mind in taking, not the craze of the hour, but the Gospel of Jesus Christ as the standard of their conduct.
How to meet the Danger
We have now taken the full bearings of the Danger of the Hour. The remaining question is—How to meet it? To expose the bad book is but half our task—its place must be supplied by the good one. How can this be done? The answer naturally suggests itself. Have we not the Catholic Truth Society? Yes, and it is a splendid weapon if worked as it should be; and its admirable publications pushed into every home.
There is a temptation to belittle these works because they cost only a penny. Though they are reduced to that humble price to meet the wants of the millions, we must not forget that most of them are the productions of the ablest pens, and some of them contain more thought between their modest covers than many a pretentious volume. They have the special advantage of being at a price and in a form accessible to the young. There are many thousands reading these booklets who would never venture, even if they could, to face the four hundred paged volume. But the Catholic Truth Society works do not cover all our needs. They do two things—they serve to create a thirst for more knowledge, and act as pedagogues to lead the child to the door of the parochial library. Here we strike the goal.
The Parochial Library
The parochial library is the crying want of the hour. The one weapon by which we must beat back an evil which threatens appalling ruin. Our service of God must vary with the need of the different ages. At one time He is best served by the pouring out of martyr blood, at another by the building of splendid churches; but to any man who watches the drift and danger of our generation, it is clear as noonday, that the most effective work a priest can offer God to-day is a well stocked library, open to every child of the parish.
It has been said that if St. Paul were on earth now, he would be found editing a Catholic newspaper.
We have seen the devil using the Press with terrible effect for the destruction of souls; let us wrench it from him and baptize it for the service of Christ.
The parochial library as an instrument of defence and propagation is no new discovery.
Encyclopedia Britannica
"As Christianity made its way," says the "Encyclopedia Britannica," "the institution of libraries became a part of the organisation of the Church. So intimate did the union between literature and religion become, that alongside every Church the Catholic bishops had a library erected." Now, if in times past, when not one man in twenty could read, the unerring foresight of the Church led her to adopt the parochial library as her most able auxiliary, the wisdom of that adoption applies with ten-fold force to our times.
The Blunder of the Past
Fifty years ago we taught the people how to read; awakened within them the native desire for knowledge, and then—stopped. When the national school was built had we established the parochial library and made it the means of continuing the child's education, we would have a different Ireland to-day.
We made the youth hungry and then stepped aside. The British publisher came and occupied the place we should have held. He has been feeding them on garbage and gutter literature since. God grant that it is not too late to undo the mischief of our neglect.
What we spend
It is estimated that we spend four hundred and forty-six thousand pounds every year on English papers, books and magazines. Almost half a million of money! How many of our honest rooftrees would not that sum keep standing? How many of our pure boys and girls would it not save from the "hells" of Chicago and New York.
It is bad enough to part with the bone and muscle, but a nation loses her most precious asset when she exports her intellect. While we have gone on helping the British publisher to the carriage and the suburban villa, the young Irishman, who feels the fire of genius throbbing in his blood, sees but two alternatives before him—to starve at home or sell his brains in a foreign market.
To-day the priest holds the field, but for how long? Recent convulsions should warn us; the ground may rock again; then let us arouse ourselves to the task before us.
Awake!
Whether the priest moves or not the library is sure to come, and what in his hands would be a centre of diffusive light to the parish, under the control of semi-educated or conscienceless men may prove a dark curse.
Let the coarse and sensuous literature of England drop from our people's hands. Let us encourage native genius to dip her pen into the old holy well of Catholic truth, and build up a literature that will be racy of the soil and redolent of its Faith. Let us feed the minds of the young on the untainted productions of our own countrymen and women. Let us brace them with robust Catholic principles that are mortised into the solid bed-rock of knowledge. Then the most powerful foe the future holds will blow the trumpet in vain.
But to the priest who slumbers, heedless of the swift march of time, and the forces of evil now possessing our land, I say— Dream on, dear gentle soul, dream on! The day may come when you will awake with a thunder-clap, perhaps to find the Irish Church in chains.