One of the great advantages we Americans, just as others, gain by travelling is improvement in self-knowledge, which is the foundation-stone of wisdom—beginning to look at ourselves as it were from a distance, and to see ourselves as we are seen by others. It is the great profit of this that made the poet exclaim:
“Oh! wad some power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae mony a blunder free us,
And foolish notion.”
When we compare the institutions of foreign lands and their results with our own, we learn a juster appreciation of each, and to remedy the defects of our own, if need be. On the one hand, the nothingness of the individual in many parts of Continental Europe, and the “everythingness” of the state, is very intolerable. The way, too, the police stare at every one in France, as if you had a suspicious look, while the people side with the officer, not apparently from love of the law, but out of fear, just as all the school-boys quake when one is subjected to the pedagogue’s scrutiny. I was in France during Napoleon’s despotism, and now under the republic, and it seemed to me that to the people it was all one; they fear whoever is in power. On landing at Calais, our names were peremptorily demanded, as if the nation feared the entrance of some certain individuals who were only known to it by name. I guess such persons would hardly give their names in such a case. In Ireland, so little respect is had for the people that they are not trusted with arms; but, to keep a gun, one must have a written license from the agents of the inexorable government. Then, in most of those countries, the huge barracks of the standing armies, swallowing up hundreds of thousands of strong, healthy youth, and corrupting the morals of the district wherein they are stationed, seemed to insult the people, and to say: “If you don’t be quiet, we’ll cut you to pieces.” And then again their officers strut along in idleness, or kill time by balls, parties, and cricket-playing, while the masses are sweating to support them, or dying in the poor-houses, worn out in the struggle for existence. Of course, there is some palliation for this. The governments of Europe are afraid of each other, and many of them are afraid of their people, too. God grant that we may never fear a foreign foe, or, what is worse, have a government or laws which the people do not love! But if it is insulting to our manhood to be forbidden to keep arms, it is certainly wrong for us to allow every ruffian to have his loaded revolver always in his pocket. It is worse to have a statute forbidding the carriage of concealed weapons, and not to enforce it.
From the exactness wherewith the public honor is guarded and the criminal laws administered in England—one of those circumstances which make her paper pass as gold in any part of the world—we may learn to correct some of our insane, suicidal looseness in these respects at home, which is destroying all security for life and property, and making us a by-word among the nations. When we see the learning, maturity, and integrity required for the judgeship in other lands, we begin to see how wrong it is to render competition for this high station subject to the bribery of low politicians, whereby, as we all know, men who should be punished as criminals are sometimes found seated on the bench. O my friends! if you but knew what ridicule and contempt for democratic institutions some of these things cause in Europe! It is for this that many excellent persons look with horror on their approach, and cannot appreciate their worth or beauty when they behold these, howsoever accidental, results of their working. Often had we to try and correct unfavorable impressions arising from the fact of known swindlers being allowed to flourish amongst us, and to ruin our public credit by their gambling speculations or bribery; and when one of them is, out of private and lawless revenge, murdered by another, how uncertain it is whether the criminal shall be hanged or restored to society! When they see how we assemble to hear lectures from women divorced from their husbands, and shamelessly living with a paramour, while professing Christian ministers bless such a union, associated though it be with adultery and murder, is it a wonder that Europeans should not increase in their respect for democracy? But the American abroad rouses from the lethargy which the commonness of these things throws over him at home; and to see the disorder as others see it is the first step toward reform. God grant it come not too late!
Until one goes abroad, he is apt to imagine that no country enjoys as much liberty in any sense as our own, and that, how objectionable soever some of our practices may appear, still the corresponding ones in Europe must be intolerably more so. How surprised we are, for instance, when, having encountered the gentlemanly custom-house regulations of England, France, and other nations, the politeness of whose officers is often greater than you often meet with here even in persons who expect to gain by your visit, we return home, and are confronted with the hostile demonstrations of our New York institution! At Liverpool, the officer approaches, and, with a single glance at your appearance, frequently puts the chalk cross on your baggage; or gently asks if you have anything dutiable, and takes your word for an answer; or, at most, slightly examines your baggage, and almost begs pardon for the trouble he is giving. In France likewise, only that you are asked to open your valise, “if you please,” and thanked afterwards. How different in our supposed free atmosphere! Every traveller, citizen or alien, is obliged to sign a statement, liable to be confirmed with an oath, to the effect that he carries nothing dutiable, not even a present for his wife or sister; and then his baggage is examined as if he had made no declaration at all. If the examination is to follow, the oath is unnecessary and therefore sinful. If the oath is accepted as true testimony, is it not insulting to examine, as if it were not believed, or as if the government wished to detect people in perjury. I read the experience of a priest in a Holland custom-house, where the officer insultingly took a crucifix—an image of the crucified Son of God!—out of the valise, and, holding it on high, asked him what it was! In Alexandria of Egypt, they examined his person, pocket, and sounded his stomach, so that he cried out: “What! Is it contraband to have a stomach? Is there any particular size fixed for it? Are there any duties to be paid on it?” At least there was no tampering with an oath in these cases. Such excesses are blamable anywhere, but they are intolerable in a republic.
Another contrast unfavorable to us is the independence of the traveller, at least in this regard: in Continental Europe, no man has to stand even in an omnibus; while here, not only in the street-cars, where it may be explained, but often on the cars of some of our principal railroads, you must stand in travelling. The lawful number of places is marked in Europe, and the people behave as if they were what we claim to be—“individual sovereigns”; if one man is without a seat, the company must either find him one or put on an extra car. Far different from us, who seem to be the slaves of monopoly, or “dead-heads” under a compliment, so that we dare not open our mouths.
When we see how the people of Europe enjoy life, and lengthen their days, and increase their innocent pleasures by moderation in seeking after wealth, by observing occasional holidays, by popular amusements, foot and boatracing, coursing, holding cricket-matches open to the public (free of charge, just as the rest of the sports in Great Britain), we begin to feel how absurd it is for us to be burning out our brains at forty years of age, to break down our bodies by excessive labor, heaping up riches which we thus inhibit ourselves from enjoying, to rush through our work as if we were laying up capital for a thousand years, instead of for ten, twenty, or thirty. By experience of all these things we find that we have much to learn and to improve; and while, on the one hand, we feel our own advantages, we are convinced, on the other, that it was a very silly saying, that of the schoolboy: “That no one should stay in Europe now, since it is so easy to come to America.”
The non-Catholic is disabused of his prejudices by going abroad and finding Catholic institutions so different from what he had been led by his training to expect; and their journey to Rome in particular used formerly to lead many an educated person to the truth. An English lady of high rank and great repute in her day said to Cardinal Pacca, the celebrated minister of Pius VII., “There is one thing in your system which I cannot possibly get over, it is so cruel and shocking.” “What is it that so excites your ladyship’s indignation?” “Your Inquisition. I have been told all kinds of terrible things about it—its punishments, its tortures, and, in fact, all kinds of abominations.” The cardinal endeavored to remove from the lady’s mind the absurd notions which fiction and calumny had associated with the very harmless institution of modern times; but his success was not altogether complete. “Well,” said he, “would your ladyship wish to see the head of this dreaded tribunal?” “Above all things; and I should be most grateful to you for affording me the opportunity.” “Then you had better come here on such an evening (which he named), and you shall see this tremendous personage, and you can then judge of the institution from its chief.” The lady was true to her appointment, all anxiety for her promised interview with the grand inquisitor. The cardinal, who was alone at the time of her arrival, received his visitor with his usual courtly manner, and engaged her in conversation on the various matters of the day. The lady soon became distrait, and at length said: “Your eminence will pardon me, but you led me to expect that you were to gratify a woman’s curiosity.” “How was that, my lady?” “Why, don’t you remember you assured me I was to see the Grand Inquisitor of the Holy Office?” “Certainly, and you have seen him,” the cardinal said, in the quietest possible manner. “Seen him!” exclaimed the lady, looking round the apartment. “I see no one but yourself, cardinal.” “Quite true, my child; I did promise you that you should meet the head of the tribunal of which you have been told such wonderful tales; and I have kept my word, for in me you behold your grand inquisitor! From what you know of him, you may judge of the institution.” “You, cardinal—you the inquisitor! Well, I am surprised!” Her ladyship might have added: “And converted, too,” which she was.
The Catholic is confirmed in his faith when he witnesses the piety of Ireland and Belgium; sees the wealth, position, and learning of the children of the church in other nations. When he visits the chapter-house in the Abbey of Westminster, where, under the wings of the church, the House of Commons long held its sessions, the testimony of its mute walls does more to convince him of the stand of the church in regard to free institutions than all that has been written on the subject. When he beholds, in the famous College of the Propaganda, students of every color, tongue, and clime, united in prayer and study, preparing to preach the one same faith in every land, he realizes what he had always held by faith—the Catholicity of the church—and he understands and feels what some one has expressed: “Elsewhere we believe, but in Rome we see.” Even from the practice of heretics he takes a lesson of attachment to his church; and when he sees how Protestants in Ireland, to avoid the contact with Catholics which they consider dangerous to their belief, support schools of their own all the while they are taxed for the national education, he feels still more the wisdom of the Catholic prelates in condemning mixed education.