Considering how complex is the service, the price is extremely moderate—the mere actual expenses of the campaign, the cost of red fire and torch-lights, of liquor and newspaper advertisements. The rest may come out of the public till, in the form of exemption from taxation of church buildings and lands, a share of the public funds for charities and schools, the control of the police for saloon-keepers and district leaders, the control of police-courts and magistrates, of municipal administrations and boards of education, of legislatures and governors; with [109] a few higher offices now and then, to flatter our sacred self-esteem, a senator or a justice on the Supreme Court Bench; and on state occasions, to keep up our necessary prestige, some cabinet-members and legislators and justices to attend High Mass, and be blessed in public by Catholic prelates and dignitaries.
You think this is empty rhetoric—you comfortable, easy-going, ultra-cultured Americans? You professors in your classic shades, absorbed in "the passionless pursuit of passionless intelligence"—while the world about you slides down into the pit! You ladies of Good Society, practicing your "sweet little charities," pursuing your "dear little ideals," raising your families of one or two lovely children—while Irish and French-Canadians and Italians and Portuguese and Hungarians are breeding their dozens and scores, and preparing to turn you out of your country!
God's Armor
You remember "Bishop Blougram's Apology," Browning's study of the psychology of a modern Catholic ecclesiastic. He is not unaware of modern thought, this bishop; he is a man of culture, who wants to have beauty about him, to be a "cabin passenger":
There's power in me and will to dominate
Which I must exercise, they hurt me else;
In many ways I need mankind's respect,
Obedience, and the love that's born of fear.
He wishes that he had faith—faith in anything; he understands that faith is all-important—
Enthusiasm's the best thing, I repeat.
But you cannot get faith just by wishing for it—
But paint a fire, it will not therefore burn!
[110] He tries to imagine himself going on a crusade for truth, but he asks what there would be in it for him—