It is time that our historians and popular writers should reflect a little on what they are saying, when they assert that the reformation emancipated the mind and prepared the way for civil and religious freedom. This has become a sort of cant, and Catholics here it repeated so often that some of them almost think that it cannot be without some foundation, and therefore that there must be something uncatholic in civil and religious liberty. It is all a mistake, and illusion, or a delusion. The principles of the reformation, as far as principles it had, were and are in direct conflict with them, and whatever progress either has made has been not buy it, but in spite of it, by means and influences it began its career by repudiating. The man reared in the bosom of the reformation has no conception of real religious, civil, or mental liberty till he is converted to the Catholic faith, and enters as a freeman into the Catholic Church.
I have dwelt at length on this subject for the sake of historical truth, and also to quiet the fears of my non-Catholic countrymen that the spread [{639}] of the church in our country will endanger our republican or democratic system of government. That system of government is quite as acceptable to Catholics as it is to Protestants, and accords far better with Catholic principles then with the principles of the reformation. The church does not make our system of government obligatory on all nations; she directly enjoins it nowhere, because no one system is adapted alike to all nations; and each nation, under God, is free to adapt its political institutions to its own wants, taste, and genius; but she is satisfied with it here, and requires her children to be loyal to it. It is here the law, and as such I supported it. I might not support a similar system for Great Britain, France, or Russia; because, though it fits us, it might not fit equally well the British, the French, or the Russians, or as well as the systems they already have fit them. My coat may not fit my neighbor, and my neighbor's coat may not fit me. I am neither as a Catholic nor as a statesman a political propagandist. But I love my own country with an affection I was unconscious of as a Protestant, and Americans bred up Catholics will always be found to be among our most ardent patriots, and our most stanch defenders of both civil and religious freedom.
The mistake is that people are too ready to make a religion of their politics, and to seek to make the system of government they happen to be enamored of for themselves a universal system, and to look upon all nations that do not accept it, or not blessed with it, as deprived of the advantages of civil society. They make their system the standard by which all institutions, all men and nations, are to be tried. They become political bigots, and will tolerate no political theories but their own. Hence, the American people are apt to suppose there is no political freedom where our system of government does not prevail; and to conclude because the church recognizes the legitimacy in other forms of governments in other countries, and does not preach a crusade against them, that she is the enemy of free institutions and social progress. All this is wrong. Religion is one and catholic, and obligatory upon all alike; political systems, save in the great ethical principles which underlie them, are particular, national, and are obligatory only on the nation that adopts them. There are catholic principles of government, but no catholic or universal form of government. Our government is best for us, but that does not prove that in political matters we are wiser or better than other civilized nations, or that we have the right to set ourselves up as the model nation of the world. Other nations may not be wholly forsaken by Providence. Non-Catholic Americans cry out against the church that she is anti-republican; but if we were monarchists we should cry out as did the monarchical party in the sixteenth century, that she is anti-monarchical and hostile to the independence of kings. Let us learn that she may in one age or country support one form of civil constitution, and without inconsistency support a different system in another.
From All the Year Round.
"DEO OPT. MAX"
Art thou drowsy, dull, indifferent,
Folder of the hands,
Dreaming o'er the silent falling
Of life's measured sands?
Living without aim or motion,
Save thyself to please,
Careless as the beasts that perish,
Sitting at thine ease?
Not for thee the mighty message
Rings in startling tone;
Vainly would its peeling accents
Strike through hearts of stone.
Sounding o'er the clash and clatter
Of this earth's vain din,
Unto you, that live in earnest,
And that work to win,
Thus it speaks: "Aspirants, toilers
For some lofty gain,
See ye spend not strength and spirits,
Hope and faith, in vain!
"All that soars past self is noble—
Every upward aim—
Make it nobler yet—the noblest!
And immortal fame!
"Let not good or great content ye—
Higher and still higher,
Only for the best, the greatest,
Labor and aspire!
"Spurning all that's partial, doubtful,
All your vigor bend
(Worthiest aim and worthiest effort)
To a perfect end!
"Thus have all true saints before ye,
All true heroes striven,
Reaching for the best, the highest,
Beyond earth to heaven."