Note A. (P. 17.)
During the evenings of the late winter months a series of scenic representations, twice in every week, was displayed in the school-room, which is near the church; and the admission being free, they were attended by large numbers of the poorer class, Roman Catholic and Protestant. On these occasions the priest always attended, and explained the subjects represented, which were uniformly taken from the Scripture. And he lost no opportunity of inviting his audience to hear the same subjects enforced in the church which thus interested them in the school-room.
The following extracts from some of these tracts, which are all announced upon a large printed placard in the window of the house where they are sold, as having received
The “approbation of his Eminence Cardinal Wiseman and all the Catholic Bishops,”
will justify, it is presumed, without a comment, the epithets here applied to them, as describing their character and tendency. They are either untrue, unfair, or ironical.
Extracts from a tract, entitled, “Protestantism weighed in its own Balance, and found wanting. No. 1. The Bible, and the Bible only.”
“It is worth observing that this rule of faith, as well in its short and popular form, as also when more fully drawn out and explained, is rather negative than positive. Those who use it are more careful to say what they do not than what they do. They insist upon ‘the Bible only’ to the exclusion of everything else, but they are not equally jealous about receiving the whole Bible, every part of it. They say that nothing is to be required of any man that it should be believed which is not to be found in the Bible, or at least may not be proved thereby; but they do not with equal distinctness insist upon the duty of believing everything which is read in that sacred book or may be proved by it. This is no idle assertion, but is plain matter of fact.”—P. 1.
“There are many texts even then which they do not really receive; some which are to them as an unknown tongue, without any meaning at all, and which they therefore make no use of whatever; others which seem to be opposed to their own creed, and which they therefore try to escape from and to explain away; lastly, there are others which they even boldly contradict.”—P. 2.
“If God did not intend the Bible to be man’s only guide and teacher in matters of religion, but appointed His Church for this very purpose, that she should fulfil this office, and promised her His guidance, so that she should never be deceived in proposing anything to our belief that was not true and had not been revealed by Him, then of course, not only is the Catholic Church right upon this point, but also of necessity right upon every other point also.”—P. 6.
“The Protestant professes that the only sure way of knowing God’s will is for every man to read the Holy Scriptures for himself. I take up the Holy Scriptures, therefore, for this purpose, and I find there that our Lord appointed, and the apostles practised, quite another way of learning God’s will and the right road to heaven. I find that our Lord sent, not a message, but messengers; not a book for men to read, but apostles for men to obey; and in like manner I find that the apostles do say not a word about the necessity of not believing anything that is not written in a certain book, but on the contrary, that they distinctly say, Believe all that you have been taught, whether written or unwritten.”—P. 9.
“It is plain that our Lord did not use the words, ‘Search the Scriptures,’ in the sense in which the Protestants use them. He did not refer His hearers to the Scriptures in the same way that the Protestant refers you. For if so, why did they need His further teaching? He made the same use of the Scriptures as Catholics do in speaking to Protestants at this day. The Catholic says to Protestants, ‘Search the Scriptures,’ for these are they which testify of the Church as well as of her Head. They expressly command you to ‘hear the Church’ (St. Matt, xviii. 17).”—P. 11.
“A Catholic priest at the present day might follow the example of St. Paul, and show that Jesus whom he preached was Christ; that the Church which he preached to them was in very deed the society to which such high and noble privileges were promised in Holy Scripture. And every one who should give heed to his preaching in the same way as the Bereans did, would not fail to meet with the same reward. He also would ‘believe;’ believe not only the one doctrine which had been thus proved to him from Holy Scripture, viz. that the Church was the appointed teacher of mankind, but also every other doctrine which the same teacher might propose to his belief, whether written in the Holy Bible or not.”—P. 14.
Extract from another tract, entitled, “The Church, the Guardian of Scripture, or, How does the Bible come to us?”
“People are apt to think of the Bible, as if it were a whole without parts, indivisible, self-existent, in short, a kind of divinity; or, at least, as if it had come down from heaven precisely such as we now have it, ready bound to our hands, if not with the Bible Society’s stamp upon it.”—P. 7.
Extract from another tract, entitled, “The Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary, or, The use of the Beads no vain Repetition.”
“Perhaps you find something that shocks you in the fact of the ‘Hail Mary’ being repeated so much oftener than the Lord’s Prayer; and it may be that there is in this a fresh instance of that unhappy creature-worship which disfigures every part of the Catholic religion. Now do not suppose that the reason of this is, that we consider prayers addressed to the Blessed Virgin better than prayers addressed to God. We do certainly think her prayers for us are better, and more likely to be heard and answered than our own; because we know that she was ever perfectly free from all stain of guilt, and is now nearest to God in glory; and we feel ourselves full of the defilement of sin.”—P. 10.
“Christ has entered into His kingdom, and His saints are reigning with Him. Which of them shall be nearest to Him in glory as once in suffering, but her through whom He joined our human nature to Deity itself? The anguish over, the grace and virtue crowned, the glory never to pass away; surely, well may we again call the Queen of Heaven, ‘Blessed among women!’ and more than ever trusting in the power of her intercession, more than ever call on her, ‘Holy Mary, mother of God! pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour of death.’”—P. 14.
SECOND AND FOURTH OF THE FIVE SORROWFUL MYSTERIES.
“2d. The scourging of our Blessed Lord, at the pillar by soldiers, in Pilate’s house; the number of stripes they gave him being above five thousand.
“4th. The carrying of the Cross; in which our Lord Jesus Christ, being sentenced to die, bears with most amazing patience the cross which is laid upon Him for His greater torment and ignominy, meeting His blessed mother by the way.”
FOURTH AND FIFTH OF THE FIVE GLORIOUS MYSTERIES.
“4th. The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin; in which after her death, twelve years after the Resurrection, she is assumed into heaven by her Divine Son accompanied by the holy angels.
“5th. The Coronation of the Blessed Virgin; in which, amid the great jubilee and exultation of the whole court of heaven, and to the particular glory of all the saints, she is crowned by her Son with the brightest diadem of glory.”—P. 16.
Extracts from a tract, entitled, “Our Parish Churches as they were and as they are. 1. Old stones tell tales.”
“I declare, it seems to me that the very idea of worship has almost died out in England. Do you think that if people really felt they were speaking to Almighty God, they would sit at their ease, or look over a book, and never do more? Church of Englandism has such a comfortable look about it; it is the religion of people well to do in the world, and have too much business to transact to turn their minds thoroughly to anything else. It is a one day a week religion. Every thing about it is so formal, so decent, so sober, so proper and respectable. It would look so odd to seem in earnest; to be on your knees in prayer before so many well-dressed people, as though you had a soul to be saved. Church of Englandism is such a human thing; it smacks so much of the world and of ‘good society.’ It makes a poor man feel awkward, just as he does when he finds himself in a gentleman’s drawing-room.”—P. 10.
“The Church of England would never have built such churches, though it is very proud of them now it has got them, and lately has taken to making a few others in imitation of the old ones. People never seem to think of this. They are always bragging about their fine old parish churches, and their venerable cathedrals, and all the while they were built by the Papists, as they call them; and if it had not been for the Papists they would never have had them to brag of. The sparrow stole into the martin’s nest, and said, See what a nice warm house I have got. He couldn’t say he had made it, but he was quite as cocky as if he had.”—P. 11.
“‘And what is this?’ said I again; and I pointed at a curious sort of niche with a hole at the bottom of it. ‘That,’ said he, ‘is a piscina; it was for pouring the water away after the priest had washed his hands.’ ‘Why should he wash his hands,’ said I, ‘more than our ministers?’ ‘Because,’ said Peter, ‘he had to touch the body of the Lord, and to lift Him up, as when He was raised on the cross. And your ministers have no need to wash theirs, because they have not got the body of our Lord there at all.’”—p. 14.
“‘What was the use of saying mass for him,’ said I, ‘when he was dead and buried?’ Peter smiled, and answered, ‘It is said in the Scriptures, that it is a good and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, and it certainly must be so.’”—P. 15.
Extracts from a tract, entitled, “The Church of our Fathers.”
“St. Peter, the prince of the apostles, to whom our Lord himself gave the name of Peter, which signifies a rock, and told him at the same time that on that rock He would build His Church, and that the gates of hell should not prevail against it,—this same Peter went to Rome and became its Bishop; and from that time the Church of Rome, as being the See of St. Peter, has ever been looked upon by the faithful as the mother and mistress of all churches, and each of his successors in turn as the visible head of the Church on earth.”—P. 5.
“It is generally believed that Caractacus settled in Rome with his family; that his daughter was called Claudia, and that she married a noble Roman called Pudens, who, together with herself, afterwards became Christian; that they had a daughter who was afterwards celebrated as a saint under the name of St. Pudentiana; and that this Pudens and Claudia, whom St. Paul mentions in his Epistle to Timothy (2 Tim. iv. 21), were no other than these. It is said also that this noble British household gave shelter and hospitality to St. Peter, while he lived as Bishop in Rome; a retired room in the house being set apart as his chapel. A church was afterwards built on the site of this house, which having been since twice rebuilt, is still known by the name of St. Pudentiana; and it is this church which, from its connexion with the history of our country, has been assigned to Cardinal Wiseman as the church from which he takes his title.”—P. 7.
“Several miracles attended the death of this our first martyr (Alban). When on his way to death, he came to a river which divided the town from the hill where he was to suffer; the people thronged the bridge over it in such multitudes that he feared he should not be able to pass all that day, and longing for his crown, raised his eyes to heaven and prayed. And God straightway divided the waters as for His people of old, so that he walked through dryshod.”—P. 9.
“The next thing that we hear of the Church in Britain is, that two bishops from Gaul, Germanus and Lupus, were sent over here to preach to the people, many of whom had been perverted by false teachers; but all gladly listened to the preaching of these holy bishops, and returned to the way of truth. They were the more easily persuaded, because the preaching of these men was also accompanied by the working of miracles. After a public conference, in which the heretics had been completely put to silence by the eloquence of the bishops, an officer in the Roman army stepped forward with his little daughter who was blind, and begged that they would bestow such relief upon her as they were able. The bishops desired him to try first the powers of those false teachers who had been just now disputing against them. But these declined the trial, and united with the officer in begging her cure at the hands of Germanus and Lupus. Upon this Germanus offered up a short prayer, and invoking the Holy Trinity, pulled from his bosom a little box of relics which he always carried about him. This he applied to the girl’s eyes, and her sight was immediately restored.”—Pp. 9, 10.
Extracts from a tract, entitled, “How Antichrist keeps Christmas; or, A Peep at Christmas in a Catholic country.”
“It is true, indeed, that Christmas is a festival of such universal gladness, as to thaw for a moment even the icy heart of Protestantism; sending a ray of joyousness down into the cold depths of the population of this country, where all is so smooth and smiling on the surface, all so chill and joyless underneath. At Christmas I really believe a thrill of gladness darts through the heart of the great majority of the people. Churches and chapels are made gay with shining leaves and scarlet berries; carols are sung in the streets; the words, ‘A merry Christmas to you!’ pass from mouth to mouth; and beef and pudding, the outward form which joy is wont to put on in this cold, hungry climate, smoke on many a board to which, alas! for every other day in the year they are utter strangers. Nay, it is to be hoped that even in union workhouses there is an intermission of gruel for Christmas day.”—Pp. 4, 5.
“Abundant food is a necessity of our climate, and a condition of our physical well-being to a degree that the people of the South cannot understand. We are told of our Saxon forefathers, whom I have before mentioned, that their frames, though so tall and well-formed, were neither so patient of labour nor of hunger as might be expected from their apparent strength. Alas! for the necessity which grinds down our poor to the endurance of both to such a hurtful degree. But to return to Christmas. The difference between Catholic and Protestant Christmas is this, that both love Christmas, but Catholics love it far more distinctly and consciously for Christ’s sake. The very name of the festival is theirs, Christ’s Mass; to Protestants one part of the word has confessedly lost its meaning, and the other is a dim vision. Look at the professedly religious part of the observance of this feast, and see what it amounts to. In the churches of the English establishment, except the holly boughs, what is there to tell of the Lord’s birth? Of course the lesson from Scripture recounting that event is read; so also are certain Psalms which prophetically relate to it; and a sermon on the Nativity is (sometimes) preached. But otherwise the ordinary routine of the service goes on the same as usual. ‘Dearly beloved brethren,’ holds on the even tenour of its way, with dulness scarcely mitigated; and there is really nothing either peculiarly to draw out the devotion of those assisting at it towards their infant Lord, nor, which is more to our present purpose, any special outpouring of such devotion on the part of the Church herself.”—P. 6.