It is useless to hope that the doctrine of the indissolubility of marriage will ever be adopted either in theory or practice as the result of reasoning on the principles of either the natural law or the moral code of Christianity, by those who reject the infallibility of the Catholic Church. It is also useless to hope that the Protestant clergy and jurists will ever agree together as to the proper ground of divorce, and the proper safeguards of marriage, much less that they will agree in adopting the opinions of the most rigorous school among them, as sustained by their able and learned advocate, President Woolsey, in The New-Englander. The only thing in the power of the Protestant clergy and their lay coadjutors is, to diminish and retard the destructive tendency of the false principle they have admitted into theology and legislation by their denial of the Catholic doctrine regarding marriage. In this direction they may do something, and it is to be desired that they should exert themselves to the utmost to do all they can. The clergy may exert a certain moral and religious influence by acting according to some fixed principles and laws in regard to performing the marriage ceremony and admitting or excluding persons from communion. Also by preaching and writing on the obligations of marriage, the blessings which flow from unions which are hallowed by perfect and lifelong fidelity to conjugal and parental duties, and the evils which are the consequence of infidelity and frequent separations. Jurists and statesmen may reform the administration of law in the courts so as to decrease the facility of obtaining divorce, and secure to all parties a thorough protection of all the rights guaranteed to them by the civil law. Physicians and others may do good by pointing out the physical and social evils which flow from the violation of those laws on which the multiplication and healthy development of the race depend. So far as individuals are induced to marry in accordance with the dictates of pure affection and enlightened prudence, to observe the moral laws of the married state, and to remain faithful to each other until death, and so far as divorces and re-marriages are rendered less numerous, so far good will be done, and the well-being of society promoted. We desire most heartily that the utmost possible success may attend these well-meant efforts. Nevertheless, we cannot flatter our Protestant friends with any expression of our own conviction that this success will be anything more than placing a breakwater in the way of the current that is sweeping away the Christian institution of marriage. The principles and institutions which make society Christian, the traditions which connect it with the past and give it Christian and moral vitality, have been received and retained from the Catholic Church. As these are gradually abandoned and lost, society possesses no power to recover and restore them. Christian societies outside the church, and states composed of persons who are nominally Christian but out of Catholic communion, bear within them the principle of dissolution, without possessing any sufficient principle of recuperation. The Catholic Church alone possesses a divine law given by revelation which she is competent to explain and authorised to enforce, and which is a principle of perpetual life, capable of resisting every tendency to disease and death, and of renewing every decayed national constitution, restoring every degenerate people, and continually repeating the work wrought in the first formation of Christendom. Protestantism is a tubercular deposit in the centre of the bosom of society. Its necessary result is spiritual, moral, intellectual, and finally, physical death. As in the case of a person smitten with tuberculosis, there may be for a long time many portions of the lungs unaffected, much health and strength in the organs and limbs of the body, and an increase of cerebral excitement and activity, although the principle of death which will finally stop all vital activity is slowly and surely gaining upon the principle of life; so with those portions of Christendom which are smitten with heresy. There is much health and vigor remaining as the effect of the original state of sound, integral, Catholic life. Many individuals remain essentially sound in their belief and upright in their practice. There is even a flush on the surface of society, a hectic brilliancy in the eye of intellect, a fevered activity of thought and action, which is mistaken for genuine, healthful vigor and vitality. The boastful, shallow organs of public sentiment, whose real doctrines are infidel, but who are forced to wear a little smear of popular religion on their face, pretend, with an assurance equally sickening and ridiculous, to read lectures and give advice to the Vicar of Christ and the bishops of the Catholic Church on great moral and social questions. Their changes are rung with monotonous and unmeaning repetition upon railroads, telegraphs, steam, newspapers, heavy guns, and progress. The Catholic Church is denounced as the great obstacle in the way of modern society, because she adheres to the steadfast, unchanging affirmation of eternal principles of truth, law, and justice. Her complete spoliation is urged as the great means of hastening the march of society toward its goal. It is vain to expect an argument which has any solidity, or even the pretence of an answer which is grave and serious, to the reasonings and expostulations of those who point out the deadly symptoms which are concealed beneath this hectic activity and betrayed by this boastful demeanor. An ill-bred sneer, an unmeaning platitude, or a frivolous display of rhetoric is all that can be expected. Nevertheless, those who are able to think, and who have some real solicitude for progress in truth, in sound morality, in Christian virtue, in solid well-being and happiness, on the part of society and their fellow-men, will not be able to shut their eyes to the evident symptoms which prove that a deadly disease, already far advanced, is feeding on the vitals of the social organism. These symptoms have been pointed out by Protestant clergymen and medical writers, and we refer to their startling statements as evidence of the virulence and extent of the moral ulcer which is eating up the vitals of society and destroying the original, American population of the country. It is not the matter of a few divorces granted to married persons whose rights are judicially proved to have been violated in a flagrant manner, which is of such great importance. While the ancient laws of the states were rigidly enforced, and the number of divorces granted was small, the community received no grievous injury. The great evil which is so alarming, and is working such deplorable effects, consists in the great number of divorces granted, the facility with which they are obtained, and the flippant, shameless disregard of all judicial decorum by the courts of law. Behind all this is another evil, the violation of the morality of the conjugal state. The authors of Protestantism have opened the door to all these disorders by their denial of the indissolubility and sacramental character of matrimony, and their concession of the right to judge and decide upon the whole subject of the marriage contract to the civil power. The door which they have opened they cannot close. There is no protection for the sacredness of marriage at all adequate to the necessities of the case, except in a doctrine, a law, and a system of practical morality, promulgated and enforced by a church which has power over the conscience, and is acknowledged as possessing an authority delegated by Jesus Christ. The utter weakness and helplessness of Protestantism, and the absolute necessity of a return to the Catholic Church in order to save society and civilization, has been manifested in England and the United States in a more startling and sudden manner than could have been anticipated twenty years ago by the most sagacious prophet of the future. We wait with interest and anxiety to see what will be done by those who believe that the secession of the sixteenth century was really a reformation, and that the salvation of the human race is to be looked for from the principles of Luther and Calvin. At present, these principles appear to be tending to the abrogation of the institution of marriage in the Christian sense of the word, and the introduction of a species of polygamy worse than that of Mormonism.
Original.
Mea Culpa.
By Richard Storrs Willis.
I.
All through my fault, my own most grievous fault!
This the chagrin and inward smart of sin.
Nor others' blame can my poor cause exalt—
Naught but myself t' accuse, without, within!
And thus to my God heavy-hearted I cry,
Mea culpa, meet maxima culpa! And thus to the mother of Jesus I sigh,
Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!
II.
O God! the past, the wicked past forgive!
The spectre-sins that haunt my soul dispel.
Deeper than mirth, alas! they frowning live;
Beneath my smiles, in memory's caves they dwell!
And thus to Saint Michael, archangel, I plead,
Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa: And thus to Saint John with regret I concede,
Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!
III.
Ponder my love—a Saviour's voice would fall,
When tempted sore, in youth's delirious hour.
Ponder my love—O kind and gracious call!
And yet from life I plucked each poison-flower!
And thus to Saint Peter and Paul I exclaim,
Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa: And thus to all saints and you, brothers, proclaim,
Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!
IV.
Ah! well, dear Lord, here in my guilt I bow.
What else to do, where else to go, than home?
Joyless, distrest, a contrite suppliant now,
Heartsick of sin, homesick for thee, I come!
Ye saints and you, brothers, to Christ for me pray
Peccavi, mea maxima culpa! Alas! my dear Jesus, 'tis all I can say,
Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!
From The Dublin University Magazine.
Solutions of Some Parisian Problems.
Cabs And Their Patron.
The admirers of French novels have made acquaintance with some of the French representatives of our own carboys and carmen in the French metropolis. They are aware that their cabs or cabriolets are called Fiacres, and they are naturally desirous to know why they should be called by a name which by a little aspiration sounds unmistakably Irish. This trifling question has set some archaeological antiquaries by the ears. The following appears to be the genuine solution: Sanval, author of "Recherches sur les Antiquités de Paris," (end of seventeenth century.) said that, about forty years previous, a certain Nicholas Sauvage, agent to the proprietor of the Amiens coaches, and owner of a large house in the Rue Saint Martin, the front of which was adorned with the enseigne of Saint Fiacre, kept from forty to fifty horses in his stables, and also cabs for the convenience of the public at rather a dear figure. His establishment became so noted that all coaches for hire came to be called Fiacres.