Take another supposition. Surely, belief in God would be “a fundamental truth held in common by all Christian communions.” Here we begin again. Who is God? What is God? Where is God? Is God a spirit? Is God a trinity or a unity? Is there only one God? Do all men believe in and worship the same God? All at sea again at the very mention of God’s name!
Take the belief in a future. Does man end here? Does he live again after death? Will the future be happy or miserable? Is there a hell or a heaven? Is there an everlasting life? What is Mr. Smyth’s own opinion on such “fundamental truth”? There is not a single “fundamental truth” “held in common by all Christian communions.” What is truth itself? What is a fundamental truth? Fundamental to what? Why, there is not a single religious subject of any kind whatever that can be mentioned to “Christian communions” of a mixed character which will not on the instant create as many contentions as there are members of various Christian communions present. Let Mr. Smyth try it outside, and see. Let him preach on “fundamental truth” to any mixed congregation in New York; let there be free discussion after, and what would be the result? It is hard to say. But in all probability the discussion would end by the State, in the persons of its representatives, stepping in to eject the fundamental truths from the building.
One need not go beyond this to show how necessarily sectarian must Mr. Smyth’s religious instruction and preaching be. But the very next sentence bristles with direct antagonism to Catholic teaching: “What delinquent children need is not the mere memorizing of ecclesiastical formularies and dogmas, which they can repeat one moment and commit a theft the next.” In plain English, Catholic children do not need to learn their catechism, which is the compendium of Christian doctrine. What is the use of learning it, asks Mr. Smyth, when they can “commit a theft the next moment”? He had better go higher, and ask Christian members of Congress how they can address such pious homilies to interesting Young Men’s Christian Associations, while they know they have been guilty of stealing. He might even ask the Rev. George H. Smyth how he could reconcile it with his conscience to take an oath or make a solemn promise on entering the ministry to preach a certain form of doctrine, and profess to throw that oath and promise to the winds immediately on being offered a salary to teach something quite different on Randall’s Island. “But they do need, and it is the province of the State to teach them that there are, independent of any and all forms of religious faith, fundamental principles of eternal right, truth, and justice, which, as members of the human family and citizens of the commonwealth, they must learn to live by, and which are absolutely essential to their peace and prosperity. These principles are inseparable from a sound education, and must underlie any and every system of religion that is not a sham and a delusion.”
That sounds very fine, and it is almost painful to be compelled to spoil its effect. One cannot help wondering in what theological school Mr. Smyth studied. He will insist on his “fundamental principles,” which, in the preceding paragraph, are “common to all Christian communions,” but have now become “independent of any and all forms of religious faith.” Is there any “fundamental principle of eternal right, truth, and justice” which, to “members of the human family,” is “independent of any and all forms of religious faith”? Is there anything breathing of eternity at all that comes not to us in and through “religious faith”? If there be such “fundamental principles of eternal right, truth, and justice,” in God’s name let us know them; for they are religion, and we are ready to throw “any and all forms of religious faith” that contradict those eternal principles to the winds. This we know: that there is not a single “principle of eternal right, truth, and justice” which, according to Mr. Smyth, “it is the province of the State to teach delinquent children,” that did not come to the State through some form or another of religious faith; for in the history of this world religion has always preceded and, in its “fundamental principles of eternal right, truth, and justice,” instructed and informed the state. The Rev. George H. Smyth is either an infidel or he does not know of what he is writing.
What kind of “moral and religious instruction” is likely to be imparted to all children, and to Catholic children of all, by the Rev. George H. Smyth, may be judged from the foregoing. Whether or not his teaching can approve itself to a Catholic conscience may be left to the judgment of all fair-minded men. His report is only quoted further to show how completely subject the consciences of all these children are to him:
“The regular preaching service each Sabbath morning in the chapel has been conducted by the chaplain, one or more of the managers usually being present; also, the Wednesday lecture for the officers. In the supervision of the Sabbath-schools in the afternoon he has been greatly aided by managers Ketchum and Herder, whose valuable services have been gratefully appreciated by the teachers and improved (sic) by the inmates.
“The course of religious instruction laid down in the by-laws and pursued in the house for fifty years has been closely adhered to.” That is to say, for fifty years not a syllable of Catholic instruction has been imparted to the Catholic inmates of the House of Refuge. The number of those Catholic inmates will presently appear.
Among the gentlemen to whom the chaplain records his “obligations” for their gratuitous services in the way of lectures are found the names of nine Protestant clergymen and two Protestant laymen. No mention of a Catholic. The Sabbath-school of the Reformed Church, Harlem, is thanked for “a handsome supply” of the Illustrated Christian Weekly. The librarian reports that one hundred copies of the Youth’s Companion are supplied weekly, one hundred copies of the American Messenger, and one hundred and twenty-five copies of the Child’s Paper. There is no mention of a Catholic print of any kind. The chaplain and librarian are under no obligations for copies of the Young Catholic, or the New York Tablet, or the Catholic Review, or any one of our many Catholic journals. They are all forbidden. Yet they are not a whit more “sectarian” than the Christian Weekly. In addition, the Bible Society is thanked “for a supply of Bibles sufficient to give each child a copy on his discharge.”
We turn now to the report of the principal of schools. It is chiefly an anti-Catholic tirade on the public school question, but that point may pass for the present. What we are concerned with here is the species of instruction to which the Catholic children of the institution are subjected. Mr. G. H. Hallock, the principal, is almost “unco guid.” A single passage will suffice. “But underneath all this intellectual awakening there is a grander work to be performed; there is a moral regeneration that can be achieved. Shall we stand upon the environs of this moral degradation among our boys, and shrink from the duty we owe them, because they are hardened in sin and apparently given over to evil influences? Would He who came to save the ‘lost’ have done this?
“Nothing can supply the place of earnest, faithful religious teaching drawn from the Word of God. I have the most profound convictions of the inefficacy of all measures of reformation, except such as are based on the Gospel and pervaded by its spirit. In vain are all devices, if the heart and conscience, beyond all power of external restraints, are left untouched.”