Part 9 (1/2)

If the ”Denominational System” was adopted, it would satisfy and do justice to all, and, at the sa teachers as to advance education, whilst it diminishes its cost in the same ratio We have seen that it costs about four tiive the miserable infidel instruction in the Public Schools, as it does to give a good Christian education in the denominational schools What possible objection, then, can there be to adopt the denominational, or separate system, when it costs four tiood an education to the greatest nue that schools would be sectarian

We have sectarian churches, and various shades and differences of belief, already This would not alter one or the other a particle The State cannot impose uniformity on churches; why force it on schools?

Indeed it is worse, inasainst all religions, and in favor of infidelity, or the no-religious sect, if there be such a one It discriainst the believers, and is in favor of the unbelievers

But it is easy to see what the ion these men fear so much as _competition_ One session's trial of the separate system would so clearly dees of this plan, that the troop of paid teachers, officers,at the expense of a credulous people, would be exposed, and have to take their ”carpet-bags” and tramp However, I have no cause of quarrel with the employes, male or female, of the Public Schools They do not elect themselves, northeentleman who draws (in one State, at least) 2,750 for ten ets 2,000 for the same time and labor, or the three musicians at 2,000 each, or the humble, but perhaps not less useful, corps of ”school-sweepers”

(janitors), who are rewarded with 16,88650, or the officers (three), who pocket 14,45790 salary, and 20,77196 office-expenses!! are so handsoood fortune, and not their fault

There is, doubtless, a great deal of human nature in their composition, as well as others

There is no earthly way of giving satisfaction to all, except by granting the deno to all sects and denoe themselves under any specific form at all, to apply a fair proportion of the school-money

All those who prefer the present plan would have no change to make, and all those who desire the separate plan would have the right to select their own class-books and teachers; in other words, would have the interior ement of their own schools This is the way church ed to the satisfaction of all Peoples' views and convictions on education are just as conscientious and distinct as on religion, and they have just as good a right to theive his reasons

There is one other thing to be taken into consideration here: if, as is claiht to an education at the hands of the State, and if, as is adious duties, if not by the State, at least by their parents and pastors, ill instruct the poor little orphans, the very class for whose benefit the public provide an education--who, I say, will instruct theo? ill answer for these little ”waifs of society”? They ask for bread, and the State gives them a stone; it has, with the best intentions in the world, no better to give them These considerations have cohbors--the Canadians--to abandon the _Godless system_, and establish separate schools, when asked to do so by the members of any denomination[G]

There _is no exception to this rule, except here!_ With all our boasted progress, we are behind all civilized nations in this i this fair ed children, who have the first and best claim of all, would be educated As it is, it is a notorious fact, that as far as Public Schools are concerned, they are left out in the cold This fact is capable of being deentlees and poor schools of any city If any one doubts this, and doeshimself at ged little ones in one evening Now is it not drawing largely upon public credulity, as well as on the public purse, to ask for thousands for high schools, and norreat part, of the rich, or, at best, comparatively well to do, and turn their backs on the poor fatherless orphans and the ragged children of the pooror laboring ht doubt or deny this? If so, he can be convinced, any day of the week, by looking at the class and style of boys and girls who go to the upper Public Schools, and observing the boys and girls (several hundreds in nuo to the poor schools of the Sisters of Mercy, or, in fact, to any other charity convent school

The Bible, or religious education in schools, will ever come up to vex and torment the public, especially the Catholic portion of the coranted It is especially the Catholics that do andseparate schools, for it is the Catholics that have always done all in their power to establish and h the influence of Catholicity alone that our Republic can be lory

A body which has lost the principle of its anie or perversion of the principles by which anything was produced, is the destruction of that very thing; if you can change or pervert the principles fros, you destroy it For instance, one single foreign element introduced into the blood produces death; one false assumption admitted into science, destroys its certainty; one false principle admitted intofrom the principles which created their civilization, and upon which their grand Republic is based Their civilization is beco every day more and more material, and this material civilization, whilelessless solid, less safe, less stable; individuals are beco more anarchical, the intellect more licentious, the wills of men more stubborn, and this self-will expresses itself in their actions, so that it is true to say that, by means of Godless education, the principles of Christianity upon which the American Republic was founded, and by which it has hitherto been preserved, have been rejected, and are being violated on every side Our Republic, therefore is noback

About fifteen years ago a nuhest naether to consider the condition of the United States It was before the hen there were already many causes of anxiety It was said that there was a universal and growing license of the individual will, and that law and government were powerless to restrain it; that if the will of the multitude became licentious, it would seriously threaten the public welfare and liberty of the country The conclusion they came to was, that, _unless there could be found soer would at last _seriously menace the United States_

Now it is easy to say what that power is It is the pohich created the Christian society--it is the pohich drew the world out of the darkness of heathenisnity--it is the pohich established and overnments, and that power is the power of Catholicity Whensoever this power is weakened or lost, immediately all political society decays

There will be a bright future for America if this poill be randest Republic that was ever established

But it is a Republic of a supernatural order It has for its Founder Jesus Christ, the Son of God Hirand Republic is divided, as it were, into as many States as there are dioceses; each diocese has a Bishop--a true successor of the Apostles--for Governor, and each Bishop has priests to assist hiovernment of the diocese The Constitution of this Republic was ed or altered at all, either by the President, or by the votes of its citizens St Peter and the other Apostles, and their lawful successors, were bound in conscience, by Jesus Christ, to keep His Constitution--His doctrine--and teach others to keep it, under pain of forfeiture of eternal life The President and the Governors of this Republic--the Pope and the Catholic Bishops--are not at liberty to govern its citizens, the Catholics, as they please; they have to govern the to the Constitution--the Doctrine of Jesus Christ Now Aloverns men in accordance with the nature hich He has created thes endoith reason and free-will God adapts His governoverns us without violence to either, and by really satisfying both The rulers of the Catholic Church have to do the saovern men as freemen Hence the Catholic Church leaves to every people its own nationality, and to every State its own independence; she a into the hearts of the people and their rulers the principles of justice and love, and a sense of accountability to God The action of the Church in political and social matters is indirect, not direct, and in strict accordance with the free-will of individuals and the autono Catholic theologians The Church, when she can, resorts to coercive measures only to repress disorders in the public body Hence her rulers are called shepherds, not lords, and shepherds of their Master's flock, not of their own, and are to feed, tend, protect the flock, and take care of its increase for Hilory The Catholic Church proffers to all every assistance necessary for the attainment of the most heroic sanctity, but she forces no man to accept that assistance

Catholics believe the doctrines of the Church, because they believe the Catholic Church the Church of God--they believe that Jesus Christ commissioned St Peter and the Apostles, and their lawful successors, to teach all men in His name--to teach them infallibly and authoritatively His divine doctrine--they believe that this Church is the h which God h which alone we can hope for heaven; they believe that nothing can be more reasonable than to believe God at His word, and that, above all, they dooverned by the Church, as free, as they do, the freedom of the children of God, Catholics feel nowhere overnreat pope could say in truth that he was nowhere more pope than in America, every Catholic can, and does, also, say in truth, ”Nowhere can I be a better Christian than in the United States” Hence it is that Catholics are very generally attached to the republican institutions of the country--no class of our citizens more so--and would defend them at the sacrifice of their lives Catholics far more readily adjust the Catholics it must be observed that _they_ succeed best who best understand and best practise their religion They who are least truly Aues, are those who have very little of Catholicity, except the accident of being born of Catholic parents, who had them baptized in infancy

Practical Catholics are the best Republicans! If we consult history, we find that they were always fore the republican forinated all the free principles which lie at the basis of our own noble Constitution? Who gave us trial by jury, _habeas corpus_, stationary courts, and the principle--for which we fought and conquered in our revolutionary struggle against Protestant England--that taxes are not to be levied without the free consent of those who pay theovernood old Catholic ties--some three hundred years before the dawn of the Reforain, we are indebted to Catholics for all the republics which ever existed in Christian times, down to the year 1776: for those of Switzerland, Venice, Genoa, Andorra, San Marino, and a host of es” Some of these republics still exist, proud monuments and unanswerable evidences of Catholic devotion to freedoed by Protestants, no less than by Catholics I subjoin the testimony of an able writer in the New York _Tribune_, believed to be Bayard Taylor This distinguished traveller--a staunch Protestant--appeals to history, and speaks from personal observation He writes:

”Truth co is that of San Marino, not only Catholic, but wholly surrounded by the especial do-shell at any time these last thousand years--but they didn't The only republic we ever travelled in besides our own is Switzerland, half of its cantons or states entirely Catholic, yet never, that we have heard of, unfaithful to the cause of freedoary accused of backwardness in the late glorious struggle of their country for freedoainst a leading Catholic power avowedly in favor of religious as well as civil liberty And chivalric, unhappy Poland, alles for freedom as any other nation; while of the three despotis the subject home to our own times and country Who, I would ask, first reared in triumph the broad banner of universal freedom on this North American Continent? Who first proclaimed in this neorld a truth too wide and expansive to enter into the head of, or to be coot--a truth that everyto the dictates of his conscience? Who _first_ proclailorious principles of universal freedom? Read Bancroft, read Goodrich, read Frost, read every Protestant historian of our country, and you will see there inscribed, on the historic page, a _fact_ which reflects immortal honor on our American Catholic ancestry--that Lord Baltimore and his Catholic colonists of Maryland were the _first_ to proclaiious; the _first_ to announce, as the basis of their legislation, the great and noble principle that noany office, or enjoying any _civil privilege_ of the coet the names of Rochambeau, De Grasse, De Kalb, Pulaski, La Fayette, Kosciusko? Without the aid of these noble Catholic heroes, and of the brave troops whom they led on to victory, would we have succeeded at all in our great revolutionary contest? Men of the clearest heads, and of the greatest political forecast, living at that tily doubtful

And during the whole war of the Revolution, who ever heard of a Catholic coward, or of a Catholic traitor? When the Protestant General, Gates, fled from the battle-field of Cainia, who but Catholics stood firht and died with the brave old Catholic hero, De Kalb?

the veteran hen others ingloriously fled, seized his good sword, and cried out to the brave old Maryland and Pennsylvania lines, ”Stand firm, for I am too old to fly!” Who ever heard of a Catholic Arnold? And who has not heard of the brave Irish and German soldiers who, at a somewhat later period, mainly composed the invincible army of the ireat bulwark of our defence against the savage invasions which threatened our whole northwestern frontier with devastation and ruin?

All these facts, and ed, cannot have passed away, as yet, from the otten, as yet, that thethe Declaration of Independence was a Roman Catholic, and that when Charles Carroll, of Carrolton, put his naoes a cool ies were exhausted, and the stoutest hearts entertained the s as to the final issue, Catholic France stepped gallantly forth to the rescue of our infant freedolish tyranny! Catholic Spain also subsequently lent us her aid against England Many of our acious statesmen have believed that, but for this timely aid, our Declaration of Independence could scarcely have been ood