Religious liberty is openly and positively denied in the New York House of Refuge, as will be seen from their own “Report of Special Committee to the Managers of the House of Refuge,” 1872; from which it appears, at pp. 21, 22, that the religion of the house consists in “Christian worship in simple form, and Gospel lessons in Sunday-schools,” and that the “inmates are brought into the same chapel for public worship,” and that “the whole regimen of the house,” including of course the religious part, “is devised and pursued with careful attention to the wants of the inmates, but is not submitted to the control of themselves or their friends.” As Americans we have been taught from our infancy that liberty of conscience is the dearest right of the American citizen. We learned in our college days that even “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of a religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”; but we now learn that what the highest legislative power in the nation, and what no state legislature, can do, the managers of the New York House of Refuge have done and are now doing: they have made a law respecting the establishment of a religion in the House of Refuge, a public institution—a religion which they have called variously “Christian worship in simple form,” “Gospel lessons,” “Unsectarianism,” “The Broad Principles of Christianity”—and have forbidden the free exercise of any other religion. Even if all Christians were united in this worship and in these principles, have Jewish citizens no rights under the Constitution? As citizens of the State of New York, we have learned from the state constitution and Bill of Rights “that the free exercise and practice of religious profession and worship without discrimination or preference shall for ever be allowed to all mankind.” Chancellor Kent, in his Commentaries on American Law, says that “the free exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and worship may be considered as one of the absolute rights of individuals, recognized in our American constitutions and secured to them by law.”[4] And Story, in his Commentaries on the Constitution, maintains in equally strong terms “the freedom of public worship according to the dictates of one’s conscience.”[5]
But we are now told by the Managers of the House of Refuge that “delinquency has, under the law, worked some forfeiture of rights, and that neither the delinquents nor their friends for them can justly claim, while under sentence of the courts, equal freedom with the rest of the community who have not violated the law.”[6] Such was the answer given by American citizens, constituting the Board of Managers of the New York House of Refuge, to the committee of American citizens sent by the Catholic Union to demand liberty of conscience and freedom of religious worship for the Catholic children in the Refuge! Either this answer means that the children in the House of Refuge are not a portion of mankind, or that religious freedom is one of the rights forfeited by delinquency, or the Board of Managers have proclaimed themselves guilty of the grossest violation of the rights of man and of God. We presume these gentlemen will not admit either the first or the third of these alternatives; indeed, they almost say in terms that a commitment to the House of Refuge works a forfeiture of that religious liberty guaranteed to all mankind. We know delinquency under the law suspends the civil rights of the delinquent while in prison, such as the right to hold public office or administer a private trust; but it does not work even a forfeiture of property except in the case of an outlawry of treason. These are all the forfeitures worked by the highest crimes known to the law. Religion is not a civil right; no crime can forfeit it; no power on earth can extinguish it. The greatest of public malefactors, the murderer and the traitor, enjoy it even on the scaffold: does the child whose only offence is poverty or vagrancy forfeit it? In the sacred names of Liberty and Religion, what sort of Refuge is this to stand on American soil?
The Children’s Aid Society is another New York institution largely supported by public funds. We learn from its Nineteenth Annual Report, 1871, that one of its objects is to shelter in its lodging-houses the orphan and the homeless girls and boys, and labor incessantly to give them the “foundation ideas of morals and religion” (p. 5). Alluding to the Italian School, No. 44 Franklin Street, the report says: “We have conquered the prejudices and superstition of ignorance, and converted into useful citizens hundreds of this unfortunate class.” With such a programme of unsectarian conversion, the leading feature in which is indifferentism in religion, the immediate forerunner of infidelity and agrarianism, it is no wonder that the report immediately proceeds: “So much so, indeed, that the Italian government,” that same godless government which is so ferociously waging war on Catholicity, “has taken a deep interest in our institution” (p. 28).
It is only necessary to read these reports to be convinced that the system either leads to materialism, the religion of worldly prosperity and thrifty citizenship, or to some form of Protestant sectarianism. The system of “emigration” pursued by such institutions, by which children are sent out West and placed with anybody and everybody who will take them, completes the work commenced in the East. On pages 54-56 of the report last quoted is related the case of a youth sent East, who “cannot speak of his parents with any certainty at all”; it matters not what religion they were of, the son is now preparing for the ministry of one of the sects. His letter also recites a similar case in reference to another boy “who was sent out West.” It is certain that he is not preparing for the Catholic ministry, for his impressions of a miracle are thus expressed: “To be taken from the gutters of New York City and placed in a college is almost a miracle.” The story of young “Patrick,” p. 59, whose education was obtained at the Preparatory School at Oberlin and at Cornell University, is significant. On page 60 is told the story of an Irish orphan girl sent to Connecticut, and placed with “an intelligent Christian woman, who means to do right.” On page 63 is told the history of a little boy sent to Michigan, who is well pleased with toys and new clothes, “like all other children; he has a splendid new suit of clothes just got, and he attends church and Sabbath-school.” A similar case is related at page 65, of a little girl sent to Ohio, and we shall show below what has become of little girls sent to that state. These are some of the model cases of which this unsectarian society makes a boast in its report. It is a significant fact that, of the 8,835 who came under the influences of this society in one year, 3,312 were of Irish birth, and it may be estimated with certainty that a considerable proportion of the other children of foreign, as well as many of home birth were Catholics. The number of children born in Ireland who were sent West during the year was 1,058. This institution received for the furtherance of these unsectarian objects the sum of $66,922.70 in this year from our public funds.
We have also before us the Twentieth Annual Report of the New York Juvenile Asylum, 1871, which proves the proselytizing character of this public-pap-fed unsectarian institution. “The children that are entrusted to us are at the most susceptible period of life,” etc., “when their destiny for time, if not for eternity, may be fixed” (p. 9). “They must be drilled into systematic habits of life in eating, sleeping, play, study, work, and worship” (p. 10). To “attend church” (p. 21), and “the evening worship,” and religious services generally, are frequently recurring duties of the children. In this institution the children of foreign birth during the year were 3,648, and of these 1,981 were born in Ireland. Of course we cannot say how many of the children of home birth were the children of Irish and Catholic parents. We have, alas! but too much certainty that a large proportion of the children are Catholic. We casually met recently with an interesting proof of this in Scribner’s Magazine, November, 1870, in an account given by a visitor to the Juvenile Asylum. In the evening the visitor was invited to see the girls’ dormitory as the girls were going to bed. She writes: “All the children were saying their prayers. I noticed that several of them made the sign of the cross as they rose.” Touching evidence of their traditional faith and parental teaching! a simple but sublime tribute to holy church! an earnest sign of love and hope for those sacraments which came to us through the cross, but which, like that cross itself, were not a part of the religion, worship, and practice of this unsectarian asylum.
In the list of model examples presented in the report of the Western agent will be seen the usual proselytizing influence of such institutions. The cases either show mere material or worldly advantage, or the embrace of pure sectarianism. On page 50 is related the case of a little girl, who “scarcely remembers her parents,” of whom it is related that “she is a member of the Presbyterian Church.” Two other girls are indentured to members of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The “church and Sunday-school” are prominent features in nearly every case. The amount received during the year by this unsectarian institution from our public funds was $62,065.24..
The Five Points House of Industry, which received, from 1858 to 1869, the sum of $30,731.69. from our Board of Education, states in its charter, among the objects for which it was incorporated, the following: “III. To imbue the objects of its care with the pure principles of Christianity, as revealed in the Holy Scriptures, without bias from the distinctive peculiarities of any individual sect.” This means that the children belonging to distinctive religious denominations, instead of being allowed to follow the distinctive tenets, and practise the worship, in which they were reared, are deprived of this right, and, as respects the Catholic children, they are to reject and exclude every tenet and devotion distinctively Catholic. How far even this profession of unsectarianism is carried into practice will be discovered from the Monthly Record of the Five Points House of Industry for April and May, 1870, p. 302, giving an account of the dedicatory exercises:
“The services consisted of an opening anthem by the children, followed by a prayer by Rev. Dr. Paxton, asking a blessing upon the House and its objects.
“This was followed by a hymn; a statement of the affairs of the institution, by Rev. S. B. Halliday; a recitative by the children; a statement as to city missions, by Rev. G. J. Mingins; a short discourse on the ‘Union of Christian Effort,’ by Rev. H. D. Ganse; a discourse on the ‘Lights and Shadows of Large Cities,’ by Rev. John Hall, D.D.; and, finally, a roundelay given by the children.”
How far the pledge given in the charter of this establishment, “without bias from the distinctive peculiarities of any individual sect,” is carried out is further seen from the following extract from a letter addressed by the president to the Rev. John Cotton Smith, a prominent minister of the Episcopalian sect: “Between your church and the institution the most kind and harmonious co-operation has ever existed. They will ever cherish a most pleasing remembrance of the relations that have subsisted between them.”[7]