“In several cases two or three have united to form one. The whole number of sects is less than one-fourth of what it was. Creeds have become extremely simplified and in many cases practically ignored. The government among the protestant sects, is in most cases congregational and democratic. They no longer engage in missionary work for the conversion of the heathen, as there are no longer any heathen whose conversion is desired; and no organized effort is necessary for charitable work at home, because that is amply provided for by the state. But the church is useful as a social organization, promoting personal friendships and associations, providing intellectual and educational entertainment for its members fostering and fortifying the moral virtues and elevating and refining the manners. In many of these protestant congregations, the worship of God by prayer and ceremony is entirely discontinued, it being held that all worship is unworthy, and based upon a false notion of the relationship between God and man. Man they say cannot worship or serve God directly. God is not childish enough to want it. All man can do is to help his fellow man and himself and that constitutes his whole duty.”
“These,” said I, “would probably have been called free thinkers or agnostics in my day. But what of the Catholics?”
“The Catholics,” he replied, “are far more numerous than the Protestants. Forty years ago there was a great schism in the Catholic church, the American branch of it separating completely from the European, and setting up for itself as the “American Catholic Church.” At the same time important changes were made in the interpretation of the doctrines of the church and radical innovations in its government. The latter is now largely republican in form and the laity have representation in the councils of the church and a preponderating influence both in its doctrine and its temporal policy. The tendency toward this development showed itself strongly in the beginning of the twentieth century, and originated from the general increase of intelligence and feeling of personal assertion and responsibility among the laity and the example of the freer people about them. The clergy instinctively resisted this tendency, and called upon the Pope and the European church to help them to stop it. The help they afforded only stimulated the movement. The interference of the Europeans was resented as impertinent; the exercise of the papal authority was looked on as a display of superannuated tyranny. The Pope asserted that the American Church by its liberal practices and tendencies was corrupting the church in other parts of the world, and declared they were doing it more damage as members, than they could do as open enemies outside of its pale, and he threatened to excommunicate the whole American body. The immediate cause of the final act of separation was first the persistence of the laity in having the ownership of the church property in their own hands, represented by trustees of their own selection. Second, their demand to share in the government of the church, to which end they proposed a representative legislature composed of two houses, one composed of laymen and the other of clergy.
“Third they asserted the right of private judgment without prejudice to their standing as Catholics, on all questions of mere faith, except the cardinal principle of Christianity, requiring only the observance of the sacraments and the practice of charitable works and a moral life.
“They repudiated auricular confession. These innovations were not all consummated at once, but the controversy once begun, found no logical settlement short of these demands and the rupture of the church. Liberalized in this way in regard to creed and government, and freed from the domination of the Italians, but retaining much of the ancient ritual and the pomp of public worship, the American Church, became very popular, and soon received large accessions of membership from the protestant bodies. In fact the more conservative and spiritual protestants found the new catholic church more congenial to them than the new protestant. The former church advanced toward them as the latter drifted away into rationalism.”
CHAPTER VIII.
Marriage and Divorce.
“You said that the occupations of women became varied and ceased to be domestic in a majority of cases; what effect did that have on marriage and divorce?” I enquired.
“Various causes tended to make marriage almost universal and celibacy became the rare exception. The chief cause was the assumption by the state of the care and education of the children. Another was the ability of women to support themselves. Men did not feel it such a burden to be married when they did not have to greatly exert themselves for the support of either wife or children. Women did not feel it such a burden when they were released from the care and responsibility of a household of children and servants. Marriage moreover has become less of a lottery than in your day, because men and women meet each other in business relations in which they act their natural selves. Neither is obliged to marry in order to live, and less art and deceit are used for the purpose of entrapping a partner. The property of neither man nor woman is affected by marriage, and neither acquires any rights over the property of the other except, that each is bound to care and provide for the other in case of sickness or disability. There are fewer conditions that are liable to produce inharmony, because greater freedom is conceded to the parties, and there are fewer points on which absolute unanimity is essential. Marriage is on the whole much happier than formerly, and although divorces are easily obtained they are much less frequent. These conditions have had a marked effect on the increase of population as you might suppose. There is no longer any temptation to avoid the natural results of marriage, and those unnatural expedients women formerly resorted to for that purpose, ruinous to health and morals, are now almost unknown. The health and strength of women have vastly improved. Women dress sensibly, and live natural hygienic lives, and the terrors of childbearing have practically vanished. As Americans took upon themselves the furnishing of native born citizens to people this country, immigration from Europe fell off rapidly and practically ceased sixty years ago. But notwithstanding this, the population has more than doubled three times, and for the territory that formed the United States in your day it is now over 600,000,000.”