It has been remarked by some, that if the tears shed by emigrants on the bosom and on the banks of the great Father of Waters, the Mississippi, were preserved in a great reservoir, they would form a lake many fathoms in depth and many miles in circumference. With less exaggeration can it be stated, if the number of men killed, murdered, and otherwise cut off, on the railroads of the Union, by the ill treatment, neglect, cruelty, avarice, and malice of contractors, storekeepers, overseers, and bosses,—if all these men's dead bodies were placed within three feet of one another, or even side by side, they would cover, from end to end, the ten thousand miles of railroad that are within the United States. And if the tears shed on the Mississippi would make a lake the size of the Lakes of Killarney, the tears shed on the railroads would form a body of salt, burning water, as great in bulk as Lakes Superior and Ontario together. If there be any irresponsible, cruel, barbarous despotism on earth, in savage or civilized life, it is emphatically in the discipline that prevails on the railroad régime. There is no man daring enough to speak a word in favor of the cruelly-oppressed railroad man, except an odd priest here and there; and even he has often to do it at the risk of having a revolver presented at him, or having his character maligned by the slanders of the moneyed ruffians whose crimes and excesses he may feel it his duty to reprimand. Father Ugo was not the man to wink at the cruel treatment to which, in the part of the railroad that ran through his mission, his poor fellow-men and fellow-Christians were submitted; and he had, consequently, often to experience no small share of the malice, and a tolerable share of outrage, in the shape of threats and insulting language, from our independent company, Lofin, Van Stingey, Whinny, & Co.
CHAPTER XII.
MASS IN A SHANTY.
There was great bustle and preparation in the valley of R—— Creek, on Ascension Thursday. Hired men were up at three o'clock that morning to do "chores," and hired girls were busy the night before in arranging the household, so that the female bosses of the several farm-houses would be able to find all things in order. Many and violent also were the arguments that passed between Catholic servants and their heretical masters and mistresses, on one hand to ignore, and on the other to assert, the right to worship according to one's conscience. Yes, to their shame be it told, the Protestant sects in America, as they do in all countries where they have sway or are tolerated, practically deny that article of the federal constitution that guarantees the right to every citizen to worship God according to the dictates of conscience or individual judgment. With the word liberty ever on their lips, like the lion's skin on the ass, to deceive, the sects, great and small, from the Church of England down, down, down to the Mormons or Transcendentalists, through the grades of Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, all play the tyrant in their own way. All act the despot, and would exercise spiritual tyranny, if in their power. For proof of this, the history of the "Blue Laws" in the land of the Pilgrims is only to be consulted on this side of the Atlantic; and at the other side, modern as well as by-gone records show, that, wherever Protestantism had the power, there the few were oppressed by the many. Every sovereign, from Elizabeth down to Victoria, acted the tyrant over the Catholics; and in Sweden, Denmark, Prussia, and the Protestant Swiss cantons, persecution is now a part of the laws of these several states. Persecution is not sanctioned by the laws of the United States, if we except the prescriptive code of New Hampshire, which comes under that genus; but if it be not legalized, we are not to thank Protestantism for that. Wherever it has sway in the family, in the town council, or the assembly, there the cloven foot of intolerance and persecution is seen from under the sanctimonious gown it puts on. Indeed, although the compulsion of the conscience is not enforced by State laws, it is attempted, as far as practicable, where its effects are more galling, and its existence more intolerable,—namely, in the family at home, or in the camp or barrack abroad. Catholic servants are not only denied the right to attend their duties in many families, but actually forced to hear the disgusting ranting or ludicrous prayer of any impostor who may take on himself the office of preacher. And Catholic soldiers are punished by fine and severe corporal chastisements for refusing to attend the service of an heretical chaplain. And no senator, zealous for liberty, raises his voice on behalf of the Catholic soldier, and of the Catholic servant girl, while they are exposed to a persecution such as no Catholic government, king, or despot ever attempted to force on the consciences of their dissenting subjects, not even Queen Mary, of England, excepted; for the so-called persecution by Catholic princes has never been to compel men to adopt a new religion. Protestants in Europe and here attempt to compel the adoption of their false tenets by those who are neither desirous nor willing to adopt them, and who already profess a true religion. This is what makes a vast difference between the persecution your "Madiai" suffer, and this ten times worse persecution which many an otherwise honest and kind-hearted American farmer allows to take place in his family. The Day of Judgment alone will reveal to light what trials, crosses, and real persecution Catholic servant men and women have to endure in remote and country places from the bigotry, hypocrisy, and cruelty of ignorant, unfeeling farmers and their wives, goaded on, no doubt, and urged, by low, base, and brutal parsons, who have scarcely enough to eat, and who envy the priest the comparative independence which the liberality and true Catholic charity of his flock enable him to maintain.
By these remarks I am not to be understood as saying that good-nature, justice, and even generosity, do not govern the conduct of the American people. I am aware of their kindness, hospitality, and philanthropy; but these fine traits of character are obscured, perverted, and rendered abortive, whenever the demon of sectarian influence touches them with her black rod. And, like the Jews, while they are persecuting the Holy One of God in his humble members, they think they are doing a service to God. Such is the effect of the poison, in the shape of religious instruction, infused into the minds of this noble people by the lying and ignorant teachers that they allow to instruct them. The American people are generally so busy, so intent in making a fortune or a livelihood, that they have not time, as they cannot have the inclination, to pay much attention to religious training. Hence it is in the science of the soul and salvation, as in that of medical science, the number of impostors and quacks is infinite.
The following dialogue between an Irish Catholic servant and her evangelical mistress will serve faintly to illustrate what is the weekly, if not daily, recurrence in tens of thousands of families all over this "free country":
"You can't go, that's the amount of it, Anne," said Mrs. Warren to an Irish Catholic servant maid of hers, who heard of the priest's being at the shanties on this morning.
"Why so, ma'am?" said Anne. "All the girls of the country around are allowed to go; but I never get a Sunday or holy day to myself. It is too bad."
"Why don't you come with us to our meeting, where all the decent folks go, and none of your Irish are present?"