THE
CATHOLIC WORLD.
VOL. XXII., No. 129.—DECEMBER, 1875.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1875, by Rev. I. T. Hecker, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.
MR. GLADSTONE AND MARYLAND TOLERATION.
It was supposed that Mr. Gladstone had been so triumphantly refuted, as a polemic, that he would take a prudent refuge in silence. At a moment when neighboring nations were rent with religious dissensions, and when England needed repose from, rather than fuel added to, her internal agitations, a statesman and ex-premier of the British Empire assumes the rôle of a religious agitator and accuser, and startles, as well as offends, the public sense of appropriateness by his useless and baseless indictment against the Catholic Church, to which England owes all that is glorious in her constitution and in her history; against English Catholics in particular, his fellow-subjects, who of all others, by their loyalty and Christian faith and virtues, can preserve the liberties and the institutions of their country, now threatened alike by infidel corruption, Protestant indifference, and communistic malice; and against that saintly and illustrious pontiff whose hand is only raised to bless, whose lips breathe unfaltering prayer, and whose voice and pen have never ceased to announce and defend the eternal truths of religion, to uphold morality, and to refute the crying errors and evils of our times. The unanswerable refutations which Mr. Gladstone’s attacks elicited from Cardinal Manning, Bishops Ullathorne and Vaughan, Drs. Newman and Capel, and Canon Neville, not to speak of the Italian work of Mgr. Nardi and the rebukes administered by the periodical press, had, it was believed, even by impartial Protestants, effectually driven this new champion of the old No-popery party in England from the field of polemics. But, like all new recruits, the ex-premier seems incapable of realizing defeat, or perhaps is anxious, at least, to retire with the honors of war.
Not content with the serial publication of his three tracts, he has just now republished them in one volume, with a Preface, under the title of Rome and the Newest Fashions in Religion—a title as unbecoming the gravity of his subjects as it is unsupported by the contents of the work. The preface to the republication not only reiterates his accusations on all points, but the author, not satisfied with his new part as theologian, essays the rôle of historical critic, and thus gives prominence to a historical question of deep interest and of especial importance to the Catholics of this country.
The same animus which inspired Mr. Gladstone’s attacks against the church, against his Catholic fellow-countrymen, and against the most august and venerable personage in Christendom, has also induced him to deny to the Catholic founders of Maryland the honorable renown, accorded to them heretofore by historians with singular unanimity, of having, when in power, practised religious toleration towards all Christian sects, and secured freedom of conscience, not only by their unwavering action and practice, but also by giving it the stability and sanctions of statute law. This is certainly the only phase in this celebrated controversy upon which it remains for Mr. Gladstone to be answered.
His Eminence Cardinal Manning, in The Vatican Decrees in their bearing on Civil Allegiance, at page 88 (New York edition), writes:
“For the same reasons I deplore the haste, I must say the passion, which carried away so large a mind to affirm or to imply that the church of this day would, if she could, use torture, and force, and coercion in matters of religious belief.… In the year 1830 the Catholics of Belgium were in a vast majority, but they did not use their political power to constrain the faith or conscience of any man. The ‘Four Liberties’ of Belgium were the work of Catholics. This is the most recent example of what Catholics would do if they were in possession of power. But there is one more ancient and more homely for us Englishmen. It is found at a date when the old traditions of the Catholic Church were still vigorous in the minds of men.… If the modern spirit had any share in producing the constitution of Belgium, it certainly had no share in producing the constitution of Maryland. Lord Baltimore, who had been Secretary of State under James I., in 1633 emigrated to the American plantations, where, through Lord Stafford’s influence, he had obtained a grant of land.… They named their new country Maryland, and there they settled. The oath of the governor was in these terms: ‘I will not, by myself or any other, directly or indirectly, molest any person professing to believe in Jesus Christ, for or in respect of religion.’ Lord Baltimore invited the Puritans of Massachusetts—who, like himself, had renounced their country for conscience’ sake—to come into Maryland. In 1649, when active persecution had sprung up again in England, the Council of Maryland, on the 21st of April, passed this statute; ‘And whereas the forcing of the conscience in matters of religion hath frequently fallen out to be of dangerous consequence in the commonwealth where it has been practised, and for the more quiet and peaceable government of the province, and the better to preserve mutual love and amity among the inhabitants, no person within the province professing to believe in Jesus Christ shall be anyways troubled, molested, or discountenanced for his or her religion, or in the free exercise thereof.’ The Episcopalians and Protestants fled from Virginia into Maryland. Such was the commonwealth founded by a Catholic upon the broad moral law I have here laid down—that faith is an act of the will, and that to force men to profess what they do not believe is contrary to the law of God, and that to generate faith by force is morally impossible.”
Mr. Gladstone, in his Vaticanism, page 96, replies to the above as follows: