It is also charged against the returned immigrant, that he spreads sedition by bringing home strange religious ideas.
“Signor,” said a priest to me in the Campagna, “a man came home who had been in America a few years; an ignorant, stupid fellow, and when he came, he invited his neighbours to his house. Not to treat them with wine, as you might think; but to preach to them. Think of the impudence of the man! A common man, uneducated and not a priest!
“And the people flocked to hear him! One day shortly after that, there came a real American and he preached to them and they sang. I could hear them singing, Signor, while I was saying mass. The tunes kept going around on the tongues of the people and a few months after, they began building a church. They call it the ‘Methodisto’ church.
“Tell me, what heresy do they teach? My flock is divided; the women are crazy over this new doctrine and they gather the little children and teach them to sing these heretical songs.”
Undoubtedly, a new element of friction has been introduced into the solidary, religious life of the nation; but it is equally true that, in most of the towns of Italy, destructive ideas have long been at work and have weaned many peasants, especially the men, from the Mother Church, leaving them in an anarchical attitude towards Church and State.
The new religious ideals, which are largely the ideals of Protestantism while also acting destructively, have, after all, large constructive powers, and, on the whole, are of undoubted benefit. It is the undisputed testimony of impartial observers, that the Sectarians come home “cleaner” than others, that almost without exception they insist upon temperance and chastity, and that they encourage a sane, intellectual activity.
I have given concrete examples of this in other countries; but in Italy these examples could be multiplied. I do not know of a single instance where the introduction of vital religious ideals has not done more good than harm.
The work of Rev. Luigi Lo Perfido, a Baptist minister, is somewhat exceptional, yet in the main, typical. He has introduced into the town of Matera a really constructive, liberal, religious movement.
This includes, in addition to the simple church services, a coöperative system which has large economic consequences. He has made his church a social and literary centre besides keeping it a spiritual force of acknowledged value.
The Church in Italy may regard as a menace this spirit of the Reformation, which it thought dead; but the Church itself cannot fail to be stimulated by the introduction of the leaven. The Mother Church will, perhaps, have to bestir herself to hold the people, by offering them something better than festas and processions.