“The message which we have just given is the solemn voice of one who is dead; or, better, it is his last will and testament actually sealed with his own blood; for our noble president had just written it with his own hand when he was assailed by his murderers. Its last words are those of a dying father who, blessing his children, turns for the last time toward them his eyes, darkened by the shadow of death, and asks pardon of them, as if he had been doing anything during all their lives but loading them with benefits. Deeply moved and distressed by grief, we seek in vain for words adequate to express our love and veneration for him. Posterity no doubt will honor the undying memory of the great ruler, the wise politician, the noble patriot, and the saintly defender of the faith who has been so basely assassinated. His country, worthily represented by their present legislators, will shed tears over this tomb which contains such great virtues and such great hopes, and will gratefully record on imperishable tablets the glorious name of this her son, who, regardless of his own blood and life, lived and died only for her.”
This splendid eulogy is an echo of the eternal benediction and a reflection of the brilliant crown which we cannot doubt that God has given to this his latest martyr.
IV.
The reader will see that this message of Garcia Moreno contains a true and genuine scheme of Christian government which he applied in the republic of Ecuador, in direct opposition to the ideas and aspirations of modern liberalism. Every point of it is in most marked contrast to the liberalist programme. At some risk of repetition, we will here make a short comparison between the two, on account of the importance of the conclusions which all prudent men can draw from it.
Moreno begins with God, and puts him at the head of the government of his people; liberalism would have the state atheistic, and is ashamed even to mention the name of God in its public documents. Moreno desires an intimate union between the state and the Catholic Church, declaring that the social order must be founded on the church, and that her divine teaching must be the rule of human institutions and the law of civil laws; liberalism, on the other hand, not only separates the state from the church, but even raises it above her, and makes the civil laws the standard in harmony with which the ecclesiastical laws must be framed. It even would subject the most essential institutions of the church to the caprice of man. Moreno desires full liberty for the bishops, and ascribes to this liberty the reform of the clergy and the good morals of the people; liberalism wants to fetter episcopal action, excites the inferior clergy to rebellion against their prelates, and endeavors to withdraw the people from the influence of either. Moreno not only supports but multiplies religious communities; liberalism suppresses them. Moreno respects ecclesiastical property, and promotes by the resources of the state the foundation of new seminaries, saying that without them it will not be possible worthily to fill the ranks of the sacred ministry; liberalism confiscates the goods of the church, closes the seminaries, and sends the young Levites to the barracks, to be educated in the dissipation and license of military life. Moreno confides to the clergy and to the religious orders the training and instruction of youth; liberalism secularizes education, and insists on the entire exclusion of the religious element. Moreno removes from his Catholic nation the wiles and scandals of false religion; liberalism promulgates freedom of worship, and opens the door to every heresy in faith and to every corruption in morals. Moreno, finally, sees in himself the weakness inherent in man, and gives God credit for all the good which he accomplishes; while liberalism, full of satanic pride, believes itself capable of everything, and places all its confidence in the natural powers of man. The antagonism between the two systems is, in short, universal and absolute.
Now, what is the verdict of experience? It is that the application of Moreno’s system has resulted in peace, prosperity, the moral and material welfare of the people—in a word, social happiness. On the contrary, the application of the liberalist system has produced discord, general misery, enormous taxation, immorality among the people, and public scandals, and has driven society to the verge of destruction and dissolution. The liberty which it has given has been well defined by Moreno; it is the liberty of a corpse, the liberty to rot.
And at this juncture the infamous wickedness and the despicable logic of the liberalist party can no longer be concealed. It has laid it down as certain that the principles of the middle ages, as it calls them—which are the true Catholic principles, the principles affirmed by our Holy Father Pius IX. in his Syllabus—are not applicable to modern times, and can no longer give happiness to nations. But here is a ruler, Garcia Moreno by name, who gives the lie to this grovelling falsehood, and shows, by the irresistible evidence of facts, that the happiness of his people has actually come simply from the application of these principles. What is the answer of the liberalist sect to this manifest confutation of their theory? First, it endeavors to cry down its formidable adversary by invective and calumny; and then, finding that this does not suffice to remove him from public life, it murders him. This is the only means it has to prove its thesis; and, having made use of it, it begins to shriek louder than before that Catholic principles cannot be adapted to the progress of this age. No, we agree that they cannot, if you are going to kill every one who adapts them. What use is it to argue with a sect so malicious and perverse? O patience of God and of men, how basely are you abused!
A REVIVAL IN FROGTOWN.
There was quite an excitement in Frogtown. The Rev. Eliphalet Notext, “The Great Revivalist, who had made more converts than any other man in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, the United States and Territories, and the British Provinces of North America,” was to “open a three weeks’ campaign” in the town.