The controversies of that day would furnish matter for an article in themselves. They were the topic of the day, and led to many curious scenes. Among the Catholic controvertists, the Rev. Mr. Levins was particularly incisive and effective; Rev. Mr. Varela dealt gentler but heavy blows, being keen in argument and sound in learning. A tract on the five different Bibles of the American Bible Society was one of those occasions where, departing from the defensive, the Catholic apologist assumed the offensive. And this time it was highly offensive. At that time the Bible Society published a Spanish Bible, and Testaments in French, Spanish, and Portuguese, all Catholic versions, merely omitting the notes of the Catholic translators. Appleton's Cyclopædia asserts that "the American Bible Society, made up of materials more thoroughly Puritanic, and less Lutheran and continental, ... has never published any other than the canonical (Protestant) books;" but this is not so. The Spanish Bible of 1824 contains the very books which in other editions they reject absolutely. It is true that in the edition of 1825 they left them out of the body of the book, but kept them in the list of books. After that they disappeared, while the title-page still falsely professed to give the Bible translated by Bishop Scio de San Miguel, without the slightest intimation that part of Bishop Scio's work was omitted. We once bought Bagster's edition of the Vulgate, and found ourselves the victim of a similar fraud.
Mr. Varela exposed the inconsistency of their publishing in one language as inspired what they rejected in another; of translating a passage in one sense in one volume, and in another in a Bible standing beside it. The subject caused a sensation. After deliberating on the matter, it was determined to suppress all these Catholic versions; they were accordingly withdrawn. The stereotype plates were melted up; and the printed copies were, as we were assured, committed to the flames, although it took some time to effect this greatest Bible-burning ever witnessed in New York.
Meanwhile New York was not without its organs of Catholic sentiment. The Truth-Teller was for many years the vehicle of information and defence. The editor, William Denman, still survives to witness the progress made since that day when he battled almost alone among the press of the land. The Catholic Diary, and The Green Banner, and The Freeman's Journal followed.
While the controversy fever lasted, some curious scenes took place. Catholics, especially poor servant-girls, were annoyed at all times and in all places, in the street, at the pump—for those were not days of Croton water—and even in their kitchens. One Protestant clergyman of New York had quite a reputation for the gross indecency that characterized his valorous attacks of this kind. The servant of a lady in Beekman street—people in good circumstances lived there then—was a constant object of his zeal. One day, report said, after dining with the lady, he descended to the kitchen, and began twitting the girl about the confessional, and coupling this with the grossest charges against the Catholic clergy. The girl bore it for a time, and when ordering him out of her realm failed, she seized a poker and dealt her indecent assailant a blow on the head that sent him staggering to the stairs. While he groped his way bewildered to the parlor, the girl hastened to her room, bundled up her clothes, and left the house. The clergyman was long laid up from the consequence of his folly, and every attempt made to hush the matter up; but an eccentric Catholic of that day, Joseph Trench, got up a large caricature representing the scene, which went like wild-fire, attack being always popular, and an attack on the Protestant clergy being quite a novelty. Trivial as the whole affair was, it proved more effective than the soundest theological arguments, and Mary Ann Wiggins with her poker really closed the great controversial period.
It had its good effects, nevertheless, in making Catholics earnest in their faith. Their numbers were rapidly increasing, and with them churches and institutions. Besides the Orphan Asylum, an institution for those who had lost only one parent, the Half-Orphan Asylum, was commenced and long sustained, mainly by the zeal and means of Mr. Glover, a convert whose name should stand high in the memory of New York Catholics. This institution, now merged in the general Orphan Asylum, had in its separate existence a long career of usefulness under the care of the Sisters of Charity.
Bishop Du Bois was unremitting in his efforts to increase the number of his clergy and the institutions of his diocese. The progress was marked. Besides clergymen from abroad, he ordained, or had ordained, twenty-one who had been trained under his own supervision, and who completed their divinity studies chiefly at the honored institution which he had founded in Maryland; among these was Gregory B. Pardow, who was, if we mistake not, the first native of the city elevated to the priesthood. Five of these priests have since been promoted to the episcopacy, as well as two others ordained in his time by his coadjutor.
In manners, Bishop Du Bois was the polished French gentleman of the old régime; as a clergyman, learned and strict in his ideas, his administrative powers were always deemed great, but in their exercise in his diocese they were constantly thwarted by the trustee system. But he was not one easily intimidated; and when the trustees of the cathedral, in order to force him to act contrary to the dictates of his own better judgment, if not his conscience, threatened to deprive him of his salary, he made them a reply that is historical, "Well, gentlemen, you may vote the salary or not, just as seems good to you. I do not need much; I can live in the basement or in the garret; but whether I come up from the basement, or down from the garret, I will still be your bishop."
He had passed the vigor of manhood when he was appointed to the see of New York, and the constant struggle aged him prematurely. It became necessary for him to call for a younger hand to assist. The position was one that required a singularly gifted priest. The future of Catholicity in New York depended on the selection of one who, combining the learning and zeal of the missionary priest with that donum famæ which gives a man influence over his fellow-men, and that skill in firm but almost imperceptible government which is the characteristic of a great ruler, could place Catholicity in New York on a firm, harmonious basis, instinct with the true spirit of life, that would insure its future success. Providence guided the choice. Surely no man more confessedly endowed with all these qualities could have been selected than the Rev. John Hughes, trained by Bishop Du Bois at Mount St. Mary's, and then a priest of the diocese of Philadelphia, where his dialectic skill had been evinced in a long and well-maintained controversy.
The final overthrow of the trustee system gave the church freedom, and new institutions of every kind which had been imperatively required sprang up. A college at Fordham, the forerunner of the several Catholic colleges of the State, was soon founded; a convent of Ladies of the Sacred Heart, for the education of young ladies; Sisters of Mercy with their various important labors came to help the good work. But now a large German Catholic immigration began. Bishop Hughes saw the want and the means; a development of the German churches, especially under the care of the Redemptorist fathers, soon followed.
The position of the Catholic children in regard to their participation in those educational advantages next attracted his care. The prevalent spirit in those institutions for which Catholics as well as Protestants were taxed was essentially anti-Catholic; the books used were often vile in their character, whenever Catholicity was touched upon. Think of Huntington's Geography with a picture at Asia of "Pagan Idolatry," and at Italy of "Roman Catholic Idolatry." Think of an arithmetic—Pike's, we believe—with a question like this, "If a pope can pray a soul out of purgatory in three days, a cardinal in four, and a bishop in six, how long would it take all three to pray them out?" A Catholic girl in the Rutgers Female Institute, when the geography was given to her, happened to open to Italy, and, outraged at the wanton insult to her feelings, threw the book on the floor, burst into tears, and left the school; but Rutgers Female Institute could use such books as they chose, and Catholics could send there or elsewhere. It was not a State creation, supported by taxes drawn from all; but did any right exist to force Catholics to the alternative of submitting to such degrading insults or keep aloof from schools which they were taxed to support? or rather, the question was, Could Catholics in the State of New York be compelled to support the Protestant church and aid in its extension?