The remark had become trite in the mouths of Europeans, that America has no history. Such was the inertness of our countrymen in the department of American history; such the want of works recounting the thrilling story of early adventure and colonization, the struggles of feeble colonies for existence and permanence, their long and steadfast preservation of free institutions inherited from the mother-country, and their gallantry in defending them against an unnatural mother; the birth and growth of a vast and mighty republic, maintaining at once order and liberty amid the convulsions and revolutions of European dynasties and empires, and eliciting from a European monarch, whose crown was afterwards torn from his head, the remark addressed to an American Catholic bishop, who told him of free and peaceful America, “Truly, that people at least understand liberty; when will it be understood among us?”—all these things remained so long an untold story, that it was believed but too generally that America was without a history to record. The subsequent works of Bancroft, Irving, Prescott, Parkman, and others have pretty effectually dispelled the delusion.
But it seems to have been equally thought, among the historians of the church, that her career in America
was also devoid of historical interest, so few and meagre were our published records and histories. In the general histories of the church, such as that by Darras, commencing with the earliest ages, and coming down to our own times, with but slight general allusions to America, no mention whatever is made of the rise and progress of the church in the United States. In the American edition of Darras, there is an Appendix, written for the purpose by an American author, Rev. Charles I. White, D.D., giving a Sketch of the Origin and Progress of the Catholic Church in the United States of America, and intended to supply, in some measure, the omission.
In our article on Bishop Timon, in The Catholic World of April, 1871, we remarked: “Sketches of local church history, more or less complete, have occasionally appeared—sketches, for instance, like The Catholic Church in the United States, by De Courcy and Shea; and Shea’s History of the Catholic Missions among the Indian tribes of America, and Bishop Bayley’s little volume on the history of the church in New York. But a work of a different kind, broader in its design than some of these excellent and useful publications, more limited in scope than the dry and costly general histories, still awaits the hand of a polished and enthusiastic man of letters.”
When we penned these lines, though we knew of Mr. Clarke’s long-continued and unwearied labors in that
department of American Catholic literature, had cheered at times his earnest and faithful studies, and had, by his kindness, been able to spread before our readers some of his interesting and admirably prepared biographical papers, such as the Life of Governor Dongan of New York, in The Catholic World of September, 1869, and the Memoir of Father Brébeuf, S.J., in the July and August numbers, 1871, still we scarcely hoped that we should see our desires so soon realized, or that we should so soon have occasion to hail the appearance of the splendid work now before us, the fruits of his accomplished pen and energetic industry, in the two handsomely printed and elegantly bound volumes, The Lives of the Deceased Bishops of the Catholic Church in the United States. The production of such a work, prepared during the broken and fleeting moments of leisure snatched from a life devoted to professional duties, and to an active participation in the Catholic and public-spirited enterprises of our busy metropolis, is something for which we, as a Catholic journalist devoted to literature, may be permitted to express our own thanks, and those of the Catholic community, and at the same time to commend it as an instance of successful literary toil in a rich but uncultivated field, and as, what we hope and believe it will be, a reward for long and painstaking researches, careful collation, and fine literary study. There were but few published works, as we have remarked, from which to draw the facts and information necessary for such a book. Hence the author had to seek, in a great measure, his materials from the archives of the various dioceses, the unpublished correspondence and journals of the deceased prelates, their pastoral letters and addresses, from the Catholic serial
publications and newspapers of the last half-century (a task of great and protracted labor and fatigue), from the personal recollections of surviving friends, co-laborers, and colleagues of the bishops, from family records, from his own correspondence with numerous witnesses of the growth of the church and of the labors of our apostolic men, and even from the silent but sacred marble records of the tomb. The frequency with which the author cites, among his authorities, unpublished documents and original sources of information, which were in many cases the individual narratives of living witnesses, committed to writing at his request, and for this work, is a proof of the industry and labor with which this work has been prepared, and give us the means of appreciating the services thus rendered to our American Catholic literature, in securing and preserving from decay, oblivion, or total loss many valuable but perishable traditions and documentary materials. We will refer to two only, among many instances throughout these richly stored pages, of valuable documents thus given to the public; these are the royal charter of King James II., guaranteeing liberty of conscience to the Catholics of Virginia in 1686, and the beautiful and touching letter addressed by Archbishop Carroll, in 1791, to the Catholic Indians of Maine, the remnants of the pious and faithful flock of the illustrious and martyred Rale—for the publication of both of which we are indebted to Mr. Clarke.
Mr. Clarke has devoted many years to these valuable and excellent studies and compositions, and those who have read our Catholic periodical literature during the last fifteen years, will remember his Memoirs of Archbishops Carroll and Neale, of Bishops Cheverus and Flaget, of the
Rev. Prince Demetrius Augustine Gallitzin, of Fathers Andrew White and Nerinckx, of Governor Leonard Calvert, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, Commodore John Barry, the father of the American navy, and Judge Gaston; which were published in 1856 and 1857 in The Metropolitan of Baltimore. The favor with which these papers were received at the time, and the earnest recommendations of prelates, priests, and laymen, have, as we have learned, induced the author to enlarge his plans and undertake a series of works, which will give the American Church a complete biography of ecclesiastics and laymen, and, at the same time, literary monuments of classic taste and scholarship. The present book of the prelates will, as we rejoice to learn, be followed by the second work of the course, containing the lives of the missionaries of our country, such as White of Maryland, Marquette, Jogues, and Brébeuf of New York, Rale of Maine, the missionaries of the Mississippi Valley, of distinguished priests in later times, and of the founders of our religious houses, male and female. The remaining work of the series, more interesting probably than even the preceding ones, because not the least attempt has so far been made in that direction, will contain the lives of distinguished Catholic laymen, who have rendered signal services to our country, such as Calvert, Carroll, and Taney of Maryland, Iberville of Louisiana, Dongan of New York, La Salle and Tonty, explorers of the Mississippi River, Barry of Pennsylvania, Vincennes of Indiana, Gaston of North Carolina, and many others. The whole will form a complete series of Catholic biographical works, issued in the appropriate order of bishops first, priests and religious second, and finally of statesmen, captains, explorers, and
jurists. We cannot withhold the expression of our pleasure at the prospect of results such as these in a department of literature which it has ever been one of the objects of The Catholic World to encourage, promote, and cherish.