What progress the world has made in liberty and civilization, has been made, not with the assistance of the Christian Church, but in spite of its determined opposition and deadly hostility. Dr. Draper, author of the "History of the Conflict between Religion and Science," and other works, tells us that:
"Latin Christianity is responsible for the condition and progress of Europe from the fourth to the sixteenth century," and subsequently avers, "Whoever will, in in a spirit of impartiality, examine what had been done by Catholicism for the intellectual and material advancement of Europe, during her long reign, and what has been done by science in its brief period of action, can, I am persuaded, come to no other conclusion than this, that, in instituting a comparison, he has established a contrast." ("Conflict," p. 321.) Lecky, in his "History of Morals," vol. 2, p. 18, tells us:—"For more than three centuries the decadence of theological influence has been one of the most invariable signs and measures of our progress. In medicine, physical science, commercial interests, politics, and even ethics, the reformer has been confronted with theological affirmations that have barred his way, which were all defended as of vital importance, and were all compelled to yield before the secularizing influence of civilization." (Protestant as well as Catholic Christianity is, however, obnoxious to this stricture of Lecky.)
The Freethinkers "striving to replunge the world into the depths of barbarism!" What can the Archbishop's idea of barbarism be? Doubtless in his priestly mind everything is "barbarism" which does not square with the Encyclical, or with the dogmas of his infallible Church. If, however, barbarism is in reality just the opposite of our most enlightened and highest civilization in Art, Science, Literature and Ethics, it will, I have the presumption to think, be found that those "foolish men"—those "brutalized" Freethinkers—are leading the van of progress forward to a higher civilization, instead of dragging it backward to barbarism. The truth of this is patent everywhere, in every civilized country, and many of our Christian opponents admit it, though Archbishop Lynch may not. A clergyman of Toronto—Rev. W. S. Rainsford, of St. James' Cathedral—(from whom the Archbishop of St. Mary's Cathedral might probably, to his advantage, take a lesson in toleration), in a sermon preached in that city, Nov. 17th, 1878, in speaking of Freethinkers, made use of the following language, as reported in the Globe of the 18th:
"This sort of infidelity, that of Materialism, has its students in the laboratory and in the library. It includes men of moral lives, of earnest purposes, * * * men who uphold morality, chastity, self-denial, perseverance with as clear a voice as Christians do, but on different grounds."
Years ago the N. Y. Independent, a religious paper, made the following ingenuous admission:
"To the shame of the Church it must be confessed that the foremost in all our philanthropic movements, in the interpretation of the spirit of the age, in the practical application of genuine Christianity, in the reformation of abuses in high and low places, in the vindication of the rights of man, and in practically redressing his wrongs, in the intellectual and moral regeneration of the race, are the so-called infidels in our land. The Church has pusillanimously left, not only the working oar, but the very reins of salutary reform in the hands of men she denounces as inimical to Christianity, and who are practically doing, with all their might, for humanity's sake, what the Church ought to be doing for Christ's sake; and if they succeed, as succeed they will, in abolishing slavery, banishing rum, restraining licentiousness, reforming abuses and elevating the masses, then must the recoil on Christianity be disastrous. Woe, woe, woe, to Christianity when Infidels by the force of nature, or the tendency of the age, get ahead of the Church in morals, and in the practical work of Christianity. In some instances they are already far in advance. In the vindication of Truth, Righteousness, and Liberty, they are the pioneers, beckoning to a sluggish Church to follow in the rear."
The Evangelist also, made the following admission of the same facts: "Among all the earnest minded young men, who are at this moment leading in thought and action in America, we venture to say that four-fifths are skeptical of the great historical facts of Christianity. What is held as Christian doctrine by the churches claims none of their consideration, and there is among them a general distrust of the clergy, as a class, and an utter disgust with the very aspect of modern Christianity and of church worship. This scepticism is not flippant; little is said about it. It is not a peculiarity alone of radicals and fanatics; most of them are men of calm and even balance of mind, and belong to no class of ultraists. It is not worldly and selfish. Nay, the doubters lead in the bravest and most self-denying enterprises of the day."
From a Church which has always opposed the education of the people, when she had the power, and exterminated or expatriated the best intellects under her jurisdiction, this talk of Freethinkers "re-plunging the world into the depths of barbarism" comes with a very bad grace from his Grace of Toronto. By this Church the Moriscoes were driven out of Spain—100,000 of them—and this because they were the friends of progress, of art and science. Buckle, the historian, tells us:—"When they were thrust out of Spain there was no one to fill their places; arts and manufactures either degenerated or were entirely lost, ard immense regions of arable land were left uncultivated; whole districts were suddenly deserted, and down to the present day have never been repeopled." The Jews also were expelled, as they, too, were in favor of knowledge and improvement, and this was sufficient cause for their expatriation.
This relentless enemy—the Church—of all science, all progress in knowledge among the people, ruthlessly exterminated the best minds within its grasp for centuries. Darwin, in his "Descent of Man," vol. 1, p. 171-2, says:—
"During the same period the Holy Inquisition selected with extreme care the freest and boldest men in order to burn and imprison them. In Spain alone some of the best men, those who doubted and questioned—and without doubting and questioning there can be no progress—were eliminated during three centuries at the rate of a thousand a year."