It is a matter of congratulation that the redemption of Rome has been effected so easily and bloodlessly. The despotism of a thousand years fell at a touch in noiseless rottenness. The people of Rome, fifty to one, cast their ballots of condemnation like so many shovelfuls of earth upon its grave. Outside of Rome there seems to be a very general acquiescence in its downfall. No Peter the Hermit preaches a crusade in its behalf. No one of the great Catholic powers of Europe lifts a finger for it. Whatever may be the feelings of Isabella of Spain and the fugitive son of King Bomba, they are in no condition to come to its rescue. It is reserved for American ecclesiastics, loud-mouthed in professions of democracy, to make solemn protest against what they call an "outrage," which gives the people of Rome the right of choosing their own government, and denies the divine right of kings in the person of Pio Nono.
The withdrawal of the temporal power of the Pope will prove a blessing to the Catholic Church, as well as to the world. Many of its most learned and devout priests and laymen have long seen the necessity of such a change, which takes from it a reproach and scandal that could no longer be excused or tolerated. A century hence it will have as few apologists as the Inquisition or the massacre of St. Bartholomew.
In this hour of congratulation let us not forget those whose suffering and self-sacrifice, in the inscrutable wisdom of Providence, prepared the way for the triumph which we celebrate. As we call the long, illustrious roll of Italian patriotism—the young, the brave, and beautiful; the gray-haired, saintly confessors; the scholars, poets, artists, who, shut out from human sympathy, gave their lives for God and country in the slow, dumb agony of prison martyrdom—let us hope that they also rejoice with us, and, inaudible to earthly ears, unite in our thanksgiving: "Alleluia! for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth! He hath avenged the blood of his servants!"
In the belief that the unity of Italy and the overthrow of Papal rule will strengthen the cause of liberty throughout the civilized' world, I am very truly thy friend.
INDIAN CIVILIZATION.
THE present condition and future prospects of the remnants of the aboriginal inhabitants of this continent can scarcely be a matter of indifference to any class of the people of the United States. Apart from all considerations of justice and duty, a purely selfish regard to our own well-being would compel attention to the subject. The irreversible laws of God's moral government, and the well-attested maxims of political and social economy, leave us in no doubt that the suffering, neglect, and wrong of one part of the community must affect all others. A common responsibility rests upon each and all to relieve suffering, enlighten ignorance, and redress wrong, and the penalty of neglect in this respect no nation has ever escaped.
It is only within a comparatively recent period that the term Indian Civilization could be appropriately used in this country. Very little real progress bad been made in this direction, up to the time when Commissioner Lang in 1844 visited the tribes now most advanced. So little had been done, that public opinion had acquiesced in the assumption that the Indians were not susceptible of civilization and progress. The few experiments had not been calculated to assure a superficial observer.
The unsupported efforts of Elliot in New England were counteracted by the imprisonment, and in some instances the massacre of his "praying Indians," by white men under the exasperation of war with hostile tribes. The salutary influence of the Moravians and Friends in Pennsylvania was greatly weakened by the dreadful massacre of the unarmed and blameless converts of Gnadenhutten. But since the first visit of Commissioner Lang, thirty-three years ago, the progress of education, civilization, and conversion to Christianity, has been of a most encouraging nature, and if Indian civilization was ever a doubtful problem, it has been practically solved.
The nomadic habits and warlike propensities of the native tribes are indeed formidable but not insuperable difficulties in the way of their elevation. The wildest of them may compare not unfavorably with those Northern barbarian hordes that swooped down upon Christian Europe, and who were so soon the docile pupils and proselytes of the peoples they had conquered. The Arapahoes and Camanches of our day are no further removed from the sweetness and light of Christian culture than were the Scandinavian Sea Kings of the middle centuries, whose gods were patrons of rapine and cruelty, their heaven a vast, cloud-built ale-house, where ghostly warriors drank from the skulls of their victims, and whose hell was a frozen horror of desolation and darkness, to be avoided only by diligence in robbery and courage in murder. The descendants of these human butchers are now among the best exponents of the humanizing influence of the gospel of Christ. The report of the Superintendent of the remnants of the once fierce and warlike Six Nations, now peaceable and prosperous in Canada, shows that the Indian is not inferior to the Norse ancestors of the Danes and Norwegians of our day in capability of improvement.
It is scarcely necessary to say, what is universally conceded, that the wars waged by the Indians against the whites have, in nearly every instance, been provoked by violations of solemn treaties and systematic disregard of their rights of person, property, and life. The letter of Bishop Whipple, of Minnesota, to the New York Tribune of second month, 1877, calls attention to the emphatic language of Generals Sherman, Harney, Terry, and Augur, written after a full and searching investigation of the subject: "That the Indian goes to war is not astonishing: he is often compelled to do so: wrongs are borne by him in silence, which never fail to drive civilized men to deeds of violence. The best possible way to avoid war is to do no injustice."