We are a commonplace and mediocre people; practical, without high ideals, lofty aspirations, or excellent standards of worth and character. In philosophy, in science, in literature, in art, in culture, we are inferior to the nations of Europe. No mind transcendentally great has appeared among us; not one who is heir to all the ages and citizen of the world. Our ablest thinkers are merely the disciples of some foreign master. Our most gifted poets belong to the careful kind, who with effort and the file give polish and smoothness, but not the mens divinior, to their verse; and who, when they attempt a loftier flight, grow dull and monotonous as a Western prairie or Rocky Mountain table-land. Our most popular heroes—Washington and Lincoln—are but common men, and the higher is he who is least the product of our democratic institutions.
Our commercial enterprise and mechanical achievements are worthy of admiration, but not so far above those of other nations as to attract special attention.
If to-day, then, the American people draw the eyes of the whole world upon themselves, it is not because they have performed marvellous deeds, opened up new realms of thought, or created higher types of character, but because their social and political
condition is that to which Europe, whether for good or evil, seems to be irresistibly tending. Beyond doubt, the tendency of modern civilization is to give to the people greater power and a larger sphere of action. Every attempt to arrest this movement but serves to make its force the more manifest. This spirit of the age is seen in the general spread of education, in the widening of the popular suffrage, in the separation of church and state, and in the dying out of aristocracies. We simply note facts, without stopping to examine principles or to weigh consequences. Those who resist a revolution are persuaded that it will work nothing but evil, while those who help it on hope from it every good; and the event most generally shows both to have been in error. Our present purpose does not lead us to speculate as to the manner in which the general welfare is to be affected by the great social transformations by which the character of civilized nations is being so profoundly modified; but we will suppose that the reign of aristocracies and of privilege is past, and that in the future the people are to govern; and we ask, What will be the influence of the new society upon the old faith?
The essential life of the Catholic Church is independent of her worldly condition; and though we are bound to believe that she is to remain amongst men until the end, we are yet not forbidden to hold that at times she may to human eyes seem almost to have ceased to be; that as in the past Christ was entombed, the deletum nomen Christianum was proclaimed, in the future also the heavens may grow dark, God’s countenance seemingly be withdrawn, and the voice of
despair cry out that all have bent the knee to Baal.
“But yet the Son of Man, when he cometh, shall he find, think you, faith on earth?” We may hope, we may despond; let us, then, dispassionately consider the facts.
First, we will put aside the assumption that it is possible to organize this modern society so as to crush the church by persecution or violence. In a social state, which can be strong only by being just, attempts of this kind, if successful, would inevitably lead to anarchy and chaos, out of which the church would again come forth with or before the civil order. We cannot, then, look forward to a prolonged and open conflict between the church and the civilized governments of the world without giving up all hope in the permanency and effectiveness of the social phase upon which we have entered. In the end the European states, like the American, must be convinced that, if they would live, they must also let live; since a modus vivendi between church and state is absolutely essential to the permanence of society as now constituted.
The question, then, is narrowed to the free and peaceable life of the church in contact with the popular governments which are already constituted or are struggling for existence; and it is in their bearing upon this all-important subject that the world-wide significance of the lessons to be learned from a careful study of the history of the Catholic Church in the United States becomes apparent. For a hundred years this church has lived in the new society, and all the circumstances of her position have been admirably suited to test her power to meet the difficulties offered by a democratic social organization. The
problem to be solved was whether or not a vigorous but yet orderly and obedient Catholic faith and life could flourish in this country, where what are called the principles of modern civilization have found their most complete expression.