VI.
The persecution of the sword and the law have demonstrated the cruel and hypocritical character of this heresy, at the same time it has proved the vigor and stability of the church.
More than once in these nineteen centuries, it has been attempted to extirpate Catholicism from the heart of a nation, as Russia is trying to do now: We do not know that they have ever succeeded. Even under Mohammedan rule, the church has maintained its existence for more than twelve centuries in Turkey and in Northern Africa; and though it has suffered one continual persecution, and lost innumerable multitudes through martyrdom, it counts to-day in these very countries more than three millions of faithful children. [Footnote 20] In Japan, where missionaries had scarcely time to sow the seeds of Catholic truth before a savage war was waged upon it, its roots are still living, and show after two centuries an unwavering fidelity to the faith. [Footnote 21]
[Footnote 20: See Marcy's Christianity and its Conflicts, p. 405, and Marshall's Christian Missions, vol. ii. p. 24, for a more complete statement of the church in those countries.—ED. C. W. The Bibliothèque de l'Ecole des Chartes for May to June, 1866, contains an interesting analysis of some curious documents on the relations of Popes Gregory VII., Gregory IX., Innocent IV., and Nicholas IV., with the Christians of Africa.]
[Footnote 21: "When some Japanese martyrs were added to the catalogue of saints a few years ago, there were found to be in Japan some thousands of Christians who had preserved their faith without any human ministry solely by the aid of their good guardian angels."—Discourse pronounced by the Holy Father on the Promulgation of the Decree relative to the Beatification, of the 205 Martyrs of Japan, April 30, 1867.]
Heresy, inspired with the same fury as paganism and Islamism, has exhausted every resource to destroy the ancient faith: the young and flourishing churches of England and Holland proclaim its failure. The Catholics have vanquished by faith those who overcame them by force; the blood of martyrs is always the seed of its liberty and life. Three centuries have passed, and God, through his vicar, pronounces the word of resurrection: Puella, tibi dico, surge. And she has risen, weak, but glorious and full of hope; her fair countenance again shines over the land of St. Boniface and St. Willibrord, making even heretics tremble at her marvellous life. Poor fanatics! You said formerly, "Renounce the pope, or you will be hung;" but how has God and the children of those martyrs revenged your cruelty! The pope yet rules at Rome; he appoints bishops in your cities to govern your sees; he places your victims on the altar; your fellow-citizens venerate these victims. The hour of the complete return of Holland to Christianity cannot be much longer delayed. The canonization of the martyrs of Gorcum is an additional element of strength for Catholics, while it must cause the most bigoted of its opponents to reflect upon the failure of Protestantism to overthrow "the abominations of popery." "When Rome," says the great bishop of Poitiers—"when Rome glorifies the saints of heaven, she never fails to multiply the saints of earth."
Carlyle's Shooting Niagara.
Of the many expressive words with which the English language has been endowed few are more forcible than the little term "bosh." For a long time we have in vain tried to discover a synonym with which to relieve it from too frequent use, and we think that Carlyle's last "essay" has gratified our patience. Thomas Carlyle is what the world sometimes calls a philosopher. No one can deny that he is a man of excellent abilities. Having been an extraordinarily close observer of men and things from his earliest childhood—and he is now seventy-two years old—and having, from his first appearance in Brewster's Encyclopaedia, gone through a literary career of forty-four years with extraordinary success, the world is naturally interested in any criticism he may see fit to pronounce upon it. He will be judged, however, as severely as he judges, by those who have placed him upon the little pedestal from which he looks down. People are anxious to know whether in his old age he ought to be dethroned. Naturally of a serious and taciturn mind, having been buried from his youth amid the works of the most sombre and gloomy of Germany's theorizers, and given ever to solitude and meditation, it was not surprising that his writings ever displayed excessive bitterness, and a distrust of human nature more than Calvinistic; but, when we heard that, in the good old age to which Providence had brought him, he had written his ideas upon the present state of society, we expected to find a little more of kindness and of love of truth than had been displayed by Diogenes Teufelsdröckh, the "Great Censor of the Age." We must regard Shooting Niagara as the résumé of the thoughts of Carlyle's life. Coming out of his solitude, as he tells us, to grapple with the problem of whither democracy is drifting, and realizing, as he does, "that it is not always the part of the infinitesimally small minority of wise men and good citizens to be, silent," we expected, in spite of his modesty, to meet something interesting and profitable. Interested we have been, and so would we be at seeing the convulsions of a shark brought to grief upon the strand. The only profit we have received is the knowledge of how miserably small prejudice can make a great mind. In the present paper Carlyle has used to perfection (?) that curious style for which he has enjoyed celebrity among many—a celebrity obtained pretty much like that of certain metaphysicians, whose obscurity makes some give them credit for profundity. As of two opinions Carlyle always chooses the more uncharitable, so, of two ways of expressing an idea, he invariably adopts the more obscure, intricate, and verbose. In our endeavor to illustrate his position, we have been obliged to select his more plain and simple passages, with a sacrifice very often to the strength of our own opinions, which would have been materially increased had we wished to try the patience of our readers.