The comments of the secular press upon the council, in many cases, would seem as if their authors were aiming to carry burlesque to its most farcical extreme. Their spirit is that of the mocking ridicule of Voltairian infidelity without its show of argument, together with the grossest materialism and the systematic disavowal of any principle higher than self-interest or political expediency. It is sufficiently absurd when such writers attempt to express, under the protection of their anonymous cloak, any opinions whatever in religious matters. Much more, when they offer their ludicrous advice to the prelates and theologians of the Catholic Church, and pretend to understand the true nature of Christianity and its mission upon earth better than the church herself. In itself the matter is only laughable, and of course the really intelligent and well-informed would only receive with a smile of derision the notion that any serious meaning or value could be ascribed to such lucubrations. But it becomes serious and lamentable when we reflect how small this class really is. The proofs are continually forced upon us of the fact, that a large proportion of those who are intelligent enough to make money, to keep the run of politics and the exchange, to dress well, and to make a show, really read nothing but the daily papers, look to them for their ideas of religion as well as every other topic, and are actually possessed by the grossest ignorance, and the most dense and stolid prejudice, in regard to everything relating to the Catholic Church and to all Catholic nations. Any convert to the Catholic Church, who mixes with ordinary men of business or with general society, will testify to the fact that they are frequently accosted with expressions of surprise that persons intelligent and reputable, such as they are, can possibly be Catholics, and with the assertion, as of a truism, that only the ignorant, the degraded, and the vicious, which with Americans is generally a synonym for poor people or foreigners, believe in the doctrines of the Catholic Church. Those who read the sectarian newspapers suffer themselves to be swept along by the lying current which runs through them, like the filthy stream of a sewer. We happen to have just read a description from a London paper of a visit to the sewers of that city which presents an apt and forcible illustration of what we are saying: "Under Farrington street west," says the writer, "the Fleet Ditch was running in two swift, black streams; almost below the footway upon each side, some three feet six inches deep, and with so strong a current that we were assured it would be impossible to save the life of any one who stepped or slipped into them. These foul streams recalled the ancient Styx and made one hold back with something like a shudder."
The following extract from the Boston Traveller has just fallen into our hands in good time to serve as an instance in point:
"The New Light Of The Catholic Church.
"Mr. Editor: Sabbath evening, April 4th, Father I. T. Hecker, editor of the Catholic World, delivered a lecture in the Music Hall on 'The Religious Condition of the Country.' As it has been reported by the press, it would seem to be little more than a tissue of misrepresentations of New England in particular, and of Protestantism in general. It would be a sufficient reply to the exaggeration and conceit of the reverend padre to say, that if Protestantism had done nothing more than to enable him to rail for an hour and a half at the most cherished and sacred feelings of our people, its mission would not be in vain. And herein is its eminent superiority to that cast-iron system which holds the reviler of our faith. Can Catholicism do what Protestantism did on Sunday week? Will Rome, or any other Catholic city, permit a Protestant minister, placarded and advertised days in advance, in a public hall, to burlesque and hold up to contempt the Catholic faith? This lecturer knows that Rome is mean enough to forbid the exercise of Protestant worship to travellers, or visitors from Protestant lands sojourning temporarily within her walls. And yet he comes to the largest hall in the capital of New England and has the impudence to undertake to tell our people that they are adrift on two tides, one of which is to Rome and the other to infidelity. And if his statements are reliable, infidelity makes altogether the better stand. But we insist that he is either wilfully false or wilfully ignorant, or he would not have said that 'not one in ten of the people of New England accepts as fundamental, the truths which his forefathers held.'
"Father Hecker knows, if he knows anything, that the evangelical churches of New England hold for substance the same doctrines that their fathers held; and he knows, too, that there is not a doctrine held or advocated in any Protestant Church in Christendom which does not have its advocates in the bosom of the Catholic Church. He must be aware that biblical criticism has made sound progress within two hundred and fifty years; and we can hardly believe that even he would be narrow enough to deny that certain doctrines may be re-stated and re-explained without plunging into infidelity, least of all pushing for Rome.
"But as he has chosen to attack New England in particular, it is no more than fair, perhaps, that New England should have the privilege of being compared with the most favored Catholic countries. He certainly will not object to France, which has always been overwhelmingly Catholic, not one in ten of her population being Protestant. And yet scarcely fifty years have passed since the whole nation voted God out of existence, and deified reason in the person of a harlot. The Romish priests, he knows, were among the foremost in this carnival of infidelity and blood. Nor need he be told that the men of France, to-day, are infidels. Italy, too, the seat of this boasting church, is overshadowed, as Father Hecker knows, by a sneering, malignant infidelity. And Spain—blessed, so recently, with the most Catholic queen to whom the Pope sent the golden rose, which enjoyed for generations the blessings of the Inquisition, and for many years committed the entire education of her people into the hands of the Jesuits—what shall we say of her? The best thing we can say of her is, that she drove from her borders that nasty woman, and sent the Jesuits after her. And this is the fruit of Catholicism, and not of Protestantism.
"In only a single country where the Catholic Church has been supreme has the result been the Catholic faith—that country is Ireland. And if Father Hecker is willing to compare the Irish, who are the best fruits of the Catholic Church, with the people of New England, who are the best fruits of Protestantism, we are entirely content. But it is not a little singular that these best children of the Catholic Church should have immigrated to this country by the million, and are still coming, to improve their condition? And we think that Father Hecker himself will not deny that these favorite sons of Rome have wonderfully improved in intelligence, morals, and thrift in this infidel New England.
"But what would this reviling priest have? Would he make of New England another Ireland or Spain, another infidel France or Italy? What would he have us do? Blot out our public schools, take the Bible from the hands of our people, subject their consciences to the priests, establish the inquisition, raise up a generation of Christians like those of his church who hung the negroes to the lamp-posts in New York, and roll back this land into the old night of the middle ages, when Rome sat like a nightmare upon all the peoples of Christendom? Does this priest suppose that our people will swallow such stuff as was offered them at the Music Hall? The common school has not diffused general intelligence here for two hundred and fifty years, that our people should need to go to a Catholic schoolmaster to learn their own history, or the history of that church which has made an Ireland and a Spain.
"Puritan."