Rome or Reason
A reply to Cardinal Manning.

by Robert G. Ingersoll
(1888)

From The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll (Dresden Edition, 1900–1902), Volume 6.
Source: https://thegreatagnostic.com/works/rome-or-reason/
Public domain. CC0 / Public Domain Mark 1.0.

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The Gladstone-Ingersoll Controversy.

THE CHURCH ITS OWN WITNESS, By Cardinal Manning.

THE Vatican Council, in its Decree on Faith has these words: "The
Church itself, by its marvelous propagation, its eminent sanctity, its
inexhaustible fruitfulness in all good things, its catholic unity and
invincible stability, is a vast and perpetual motive of credibility, and
an irrefragable witness of its own Divine legation."* Its Divine Founder
said: "I am the light of the world;" and, to His Apostles, He said also,
"Ye are the light of the world," and of His Church He added, "A city
seated on a hill cannot be hid." The Vatican Council says, "The Church
is its own witness." My purpose is to draw out this assertion more
fully.
  • "Const. Dogm. de Fide Catholica, c. iii.

These words affirm that the Church is self-evident, as light is to the
eye, and through sense, to the intellect. Next to the sun at noonday,
there is nothing in the world more manifest than the one visible
Universal Church. Both the faith and the infidelity of the world bear
witness to it. It is loved and hated, trusted and feared, served and
assaulted, honored and blasphemed: it is Christ or Antichrist, the
Kingdom of God or the imposture of Satan. It pervades the civilized
world. No man and no nation can ignore it, none can be indifferent to
it. Why is all this? How is its existence to be accounted for?

Let me suppose that I am an unbeliever in Christianity, and that some
friend should make me promise to examine the evidence to show that
Christianity is a Divine revelation; I should then sift and test the
evidence as strictly as if it were in a court of law, and in a cause of
life and death; my will would be in suspense: it would in no way
control the process of my intellect. If it had any inclination from the
equilibrium, it would be towards mercy and hope; but this would not
add a feather's weight to the evidence, nor sway the intellect a hair's
breadth.

After the examination has been completed, and my intellect convinced,
the evidence being sufficient to prove that Christianity is a divine
revelation, nevertheless I am not yet a Christian. All this sifting
brings me to the conclusion of a chain of reasoning; but I am not yet
a believer. The last act of reason has brought me to the brink of the
first act of faith. They are generically distinct and separable. The
acts of reason are intellectual, and jealous of the interference of the
will. The act of faith is an imperative act of the will, founded on and
justified by the process and conviction of the intellect. Hitherto I
have been a critic: henceforward, if I will, I become a disciple.

It may here be objected that no man can so far suspend the inclination
of the will when the question is, has God indeed spoken to man or no? is
the revealed law of purity, generosity, perfection, divine, or only the
poetry of imagination? Can a man be indifferent between two such sides
of the problem? Will he not desire the higher and better side to be
true? and if he desire, will he not incline to the side that he desires
to find true? Can a moral being be absolutely indifferent between two
such issues? and can two such issues be equally attractive to a moral
agent? Can it be indifferent and all the same to us whether God has
made Himself and His will known to us or not? Is there no attraction
in light, no repulsion in darkness? Does not the intrinsic and eternal
distinction of good and evil make itself felt in spite of the will?
Are we not responsible to "receive the truth in the love of it?"
Nevertheless, evidence has its own limits and quantities, and cannot be
made more or less by any act of the will. And yet, what is good or bad,
high or mean, lovely or hateful, ennobling or degrading, must attract
or repel men as they are better or worse in their moral sense; for an
equilibrium between good and evil, to God or to man, is impossible.

The last act of my reason, then, is distinct from my first act of
faith precisely in this: so long as I was uncertain I suspended the
inclination of my will, as an act of fidelity to conscience and of
loyalty to truth; but the process once complete, and the conviction once
attained, my will imperatively constrains me to believe, and I become a
disciple of a Divine revelation.

My friend next tells me that there are Christian Scriptures, and I go
through precisely the same process of critical examination and final
conviction, the last act of reasoning preceding, as before, the first
act of faith.

He then tells me that there is a Church claiming to be divinely founded,
divinely guarded, and divinely guided in its custody of Christianity and
of the Christian Scriptures.

Once more I have the same twofold process of reasoning and of believing
to go through.

There is, however, this difference in the subject-matter: Christianity
is an order of supernatural truth appealing intellectually to my reason;
the Christian Scriptures are voiceless, and need a witness. They
cannot prove their own mission, much less their own authenticity or
inspiration. But the Church is visible to the eye, audible to the ear,
self-manifesting and self-asserting: I cannot escape from it. If I go to
the east, it is there; if I go to the west, it is there also. If I stay
at home, it is before me, seated on the hill; if I turn away from it, I
am surrounded by its light. It pursues me and calls to me. I cannot deny
its existence; I cannot be indifferent to it; I must either listen to
it or willfully stop my ears; I must heed it or defy it, love it or
hate it. But my first attitude towards it is to try it with forensic
strictness, neither pronouncing it to be Christ nor Antichrist till I
have tested its origin, claim, and character. Let us take down the case
in short-hand.

1. It says that it interpenetrates all the nations of the civilized
world. In some it holds the whole nation in its unity, in others it
holds fewer; but in all it is present, visible, audible, naturalized,
and known as the one Catholic Church, a name that none can appropriate.
Though often claimed and controversially assumed, none can retain it; it
falls off. The world knows only one Catholic Church, and always restores
the name to the right owner.

2. It is not a national body, but extra-national, accused of its foreign
relations and foreign dependence. It is international, and independent
in a supernational unity.

3. In faith, divine worship, sacred ceremonial, discipline, government,
from the highest to the lowest, it is the same in every place.

4. It speaks all languages in the civilized world.

5. It is obedient to one Head, outside of all nations, except one only;
and in that nation, his headship is not national but world-wide.

6. The world-wide sympathy of the Church in all lands with its Head has
been manifested in our days, and before our eyes, by a series of public
assemblages in Rome, of which nothing like or second to it can be
found. In 1854, 350 Bishops of all nations surrounded their Head when he
defined the Immaculate Conception. In 1862, 400 Bishops assembled at the
canonization of the Martyrs of Japan. In 1867, 500 Bishops came to keep
the eighteenth centenary of St. Peter's martyrdom. In 1870, 700 Bishops
assembled in the Vatican Council. On the Feast of the Epiphany, 1870,
the Bishops of thirty nations during two whole hours made profession of
faith in their own languages, kneeling before their head. Add to this,
that in 1869, in the sacerdotal jubilee of Pius IX., Rome was filled for
months by pilgrims from all lands in Europe and beyond the sea, from the
Old World and from the New, bearing all manner of gifts and oblations
to the Head of the Universal Church. To this, again, must be added the
world-wide outcry and protest of all the Catholic unity against the
seizure and sacrilege of September, 1870, when Rome was taken by the
Italian Revolution.

7. All this came to pass not only by reason of the great love of
the Catholic world for Pius IX., but because they revered him as the
successor of St. Peter and the Vicar of Jesus Christ. For that undying
reason the same events have been reproduced in the time of Leo XIII. In
the early months of this year Rome was once more filled with pilgrims of
all nations, coming in thousands as representatives of millions in all
nations, to celebrate the sacerdotal jubilee of the Sovereign Pontiff.
The courts of the Vatican could not find room for the multitude of gifts
and offerings of every kind which were sent from all quarters of the
world.

8. These things are here said, not because of any other importance,
but because they set forth in the most visible and self-evident way the
living unity and the luminous universality of the One Catholic and Roman
Church.

9. What has thus far been said is before our eyes at this hour. It is no
appeal to history, but to a visible and palpable fact. Men may explain
it as they will; deny it, they cannot. They see the Head of the Church
year by year speaking to the nations of the world; treating with
Empires, Republics and Governments. There is no other man on earth that
can so bear himself. Neither from Canterbury nor from Constantinople can
such a voice go forth to which rulers and people listen.

This is the century of revolutions. Rome has in our time been besieged
three times; three Popes have been driven out of it, two have been shut
up in the Vatican. The city is now full of the Revolution. The whole
Church has been tormented by Falck laws, Mancini laws, and Crispi laws.
An unbeliever in Germany said some years ago, "The net is now drawn so
tight about the Church, that if it escapes this time I will believe in
it." Whether he believes, or is even alive now to believe, I cannot say.

Nothing thus far has been said as proof. The visible, palpable
facts, which are at this moment before the eyes of all men, speak for
themselves. There is one, and only one, worldwide unity of which
these things can be said. It is a fact and a phenomenon for which an
intelligible account must be rendered. If it be only a human system
built up by the intellect, will and energy of men, let the adversaries
prove it. The burden is upon them; and they will have more to do as we
go on.

Thus far we have rested upon the evidence of sense and fact. We must now
go on to history and reason.

Every religion and every religious body known to history has varied
from itself and broken up. Brahminism has given birth to Buddhism;
Mahometanism is parted into the Arabian and European Khalifates;
the Greek schism into the Russian, Constantinopolitan, and Bulgarian
autocephalous fragment; Protestaritism into its multitudinous
diversities. All have departed from their original type, and all
are continually developing new and irreconcilable, intellectual and
ritualistic, diversities and repulsions. How is it that, with all
diversities of language, civilization, race, interest, and conditions,
social and political, including persecution and warfare, the Catholic
nations are at this day, even when in warfare, in unchanged unity of
faith, communion, worship and spiritual sympathy with each other and
with their Head? This needs a rational explanation.

It may be said in answer, endless divisions have come out of the Church,
from Arius to Photius, and from Photius to Luther.

Yes, but they all came out. There is the difference. They did not remain
in the Church, corrupting the faith. They came out, and ceased to belong
to the Catholic unity, as a branch broken from a tree ceases to belong
to the tree. But the identity of the tree remains the same. A branch is
not a tree, nor a tree a branch. A tree may lose branches, but it rests
upon its root, and renews its loss. Not so the religions, so to call
them, that have broken away from unity. Not one has retained its members
or its doctrines. Once separated from the sustaining unity of the
Church, all separations lose their spiritual cohesion, and then their
intellectual identity. Ramus procisus arescit.

For the present it is enough to say that no human legislation, authority
or constraint can ever create internal unity of intellect and will; and
that the diversities and contradictions generated by all human systems
prove the absence of Divine authority. Variations or contradictions are
proof of the absence of a Divine mission to mankind. All natural causes
run to disintegration. Therefore, they can render no account of the
world-wide unity of the One Universal Church.

Such, then, are the facts before our eyes at this day. We will seek out
the origin of the body or system called the Catholic Church, and pass at
once to its outset eighteen hundred years ago.

I affirm, then, three things: (1) First, that no adequate account can be
given of this undeniable fact from natural causes; (2) that the history
of the Catholic Church demands causes above nature; and (3) that it has
always claimed for itself a Divine origin and Divine authority.

I. And, first, before we examine what it was and what it has done, we
will recall to mind what was the world in the midst of which it arose.

The most comprehensive and complete description of the old world, before
Christianity came in upon it, is given in the first chapter of the
Epistle to the Romans. Mankind had once the knowledge of God: that
knowledge was obscured by the passions of sense; in the darkness of the
human intellect, with the light of nature still before them, the nations
worshiped the creature—that is, by pantheism, polytheism, idolatry;
and, having lost the knowledge of God and of His perfections, they lost
the knowledge of their own nature and of its laws, even of the natural
and rational laws, which thenceforward ceased to guide, restrain, or
govern them. They became perverted and inverted with every possible
abuse, defeating the end and destroying the powers of creation. The
lights of nature were put out, and the world rushed headlong into
confusions, of which the beasts that perish were innocent. This is
analytically the history of all nations but one. A line of light still
shone from Adam to Enoch, from Enoch to Abraham, to whom the command was
given, "Walk before Me and be perfect." And it ran on from Abraham
to Caiaphas, who crucified the founder of Christianity. Through all
anthropomorphisms of thought and language this line of light still
passed inviolate and inviolable. But in the world, on either side of
that radiant stream, the whole earth was dark. The intellectual and
moral state of the Greek world may be measured in its highest excellence
in Athens; and of the Roman world in Rome. The 'state of Athens—its
private, domestic, and public morality—may be seen in Aristophanes.

The state of Rome is visible in Juvenal, and in the fourth book of St.
Augustine's "City of God." There was only one evil wanting-. The world
was not Atheist. Its polytheism was the example and the warrant of all
forms of moral abominations. Imitary quod colis plunged the nations
in crime. Their theology was their degradation; their text-book of an
elaborate corruption of intellect and will.

Christianity came in "the fullness of time." What that fullness may
mean, is one of the mysteries of times and seasons which it is not for
us to know. But one motive for the long delay of four thousand years
is not far to seek. It gave time, full and ample, for the utmost
development and consolidation of all the falsehood and evil of which the
intellect and will of man are capable. The four great empires were each
of them the concentration of a supreme effort of human power. The second
inherited from the first, the third from both, the fourth from all
three. It was, as it was foretold or described, as a beast, "exceeding
terrible; his teeth and claws were of iron; he devoured and broke in
pieces; and the rest he stamped upon with his feet." * The empire of
man over man was never so widespread, so absolute, so hardened into one
organized mass, as in Imperial Rome. The world had never seen a military
power so disciplined, irresistible, invincible; a legislation so just,
so equitable, so strong in its execution; a government so universal,
so local, so minute. It seemed to be imperishable. Rome was called
the eternal. The religions of all nations were enshrined in Dea Roma;
adopted, practiced openly, and taught. They were all _religiones
licitae_, known to the law; not tolerated only, but recognized. The
theologies of Egypt, Greece, and of the Latin world, met in an empyreum,
consecrated and guarded by the Imperial law, and administered by the
Pontifex Maximus. No fanaticism ever surpassed the religious cruelties
of Rome.. Add to all this the colluvies of false philosophies of every
land, and of every date. They both blinded and hardened the intellect
of public opinion and of private men against the invasion of anything
except contempt, and hatred of both the philosophy of sophists and of
the religion of the people. Add to all this the sensuality of the most
refined and of the grossest luxury the world had ever seen, and a moral
confusion and corruption which violated every law of nature.
  • Daniel, vii. 19.

The god of this world had built his city. From foundation to parapet,
everything that the skill and power of man could do had been done
without stint of means or limit of will. The Divine hand was stayed, or
rather, as St. Augustine says, an unsurpassed natural greatness was the
reward of certain natural virtues, degraded as they were in unnatural
abominations. Rome was the climax of the power of man without God, the
apotheosis of the human will, the direct and supreme antagonist of God
in His own world. In this the fullness of time was come. Man built all
this for himself. Certainly, man could not also build the City of God.
They are not the work of one and the same architect, who capriciously
chose to build first the city of confusion, suspending for a time his
skill and power to build some day the City of God. Such a hypothesis is
folly. Of two things, one. Disputers must choose one or the other.
Both cannot be asserted, and the assertion needs no answer—it refutes
itself. So much for the first point.

II. In the reign of Augustus, and in a remote and powerless Oriental
race, a Child was born in a stable of a poor Mother. For thirty years He
lived a hidden life; for three years He preached the Kingdom of God, and
gave laws hitherto unknown to men. He died in ignominy upon the Cross;
on the third day He rose again; and after forty days He was seen no
more. This unknown Man created the world-wide unity of intellect and
will which is visible to the eye, and audible, in all languages, to the
ear. It is in harmony with the reason and moral nature of all nations,
in all ages, to this day. What proportion is there between the cause
and the effect? What power was there in this isolated Man? What unseen
virtues went out of Him to change the world? For change the world He
did; and that not in the line or on the level of nature as men had
corrupted it, but in direct contradiction to all that was then supreme
in the world. He taught the dependence of the intellect against
its self-trust, the submission of the will against its license,
the subjugation of the passions by temperate control or by absolute
subjection against their willful indulgence. This was to reverse what
men believed to be the laws of nature: to make water climb upward and
fire to point downward. He taught mortification of the lusts of the
flesh, contempt of the lusts of the eyes, and hatred of the pride of
life. What hope was there that such a teacher should convert imperial
Rome? that such a doctrine should exorcise the fullness of human pride
and lust? Yet so it has come to pass; and how? Twelve men more obscure
than Himself, absolutely without authority or influence of this world,
preached throughout the empire and beyond it. They asserted two facts:
the one, that God had been made man; the other, that He died and
rose again. What could be more incredible? To the Jews the unity and
spirituality of God were axioms of reason and faith; to the Gentiles,
however cultured, the resurrection of the flesh was impossible. The
Divine Person Who had died and risen could not be called in evidence as
the chief witness. He could not be produced in court. Could anything be
more suspicious if credible, or less credible even if He were there to
say so? All that they could do was to say, "We knew Him for three years,
both before His death and after He rose from the dead. If you will
believe us, you will believe what we say. If you will not believe us,
we can say no more. He is not here, but in heaven. We cannot call him
down." It is true, as we read, that Peter cured a lame man at the gate
of the Temple. The Pharisees could not deny it, but they would not
believe what Peter said; they only told him to hold his tongue. And yet
thousands in one day in Jerusalem believed in the Incarnation and the
Resurrection; and when the Apostles were scattered by persecution,
wherever they went men believed their word. The most intense persecution
was from the Jews, the people of faith and of Divine traditions. In
the name of God and of religion they stoned Stephen, and sent Saul to
persecute at Damascus. More than this, they stirred up the Romans in
every place. As they had forced Pilate to crucify Jesus of Nazareth, so
they swore to slay Paul. And yet, in spite of all, the faith spread.

It is true, indeed, that the Empire of Alexander, the spread of the
Hellenistic Greek, the prevalence of Greek in Rome itself, the Roman
roads which made the Empire traversable, the Roman peace which sheltered
the preachers of the faith in the outset of their work, gave them
facilities to travel and to be understood. But these were only external
facilities, which in no way rendered more credible or more acceptable
the voice of penance and mortification, or the mysteries of the faith,
which was immutably "to the Jews a stumbling-block and to the Greeks
foolishness." It was in changeless opposition to nature as man had
marred it; but it was in absolute harmony with nature as God had made
it to His own likeness. Its power was its persuasiveness; and its
persuasiveness was in its conformity to the highest and noblest
aspirations and aims of the soul in man. The master-key so long lost
was found at last; and its conformity to the wards of the lock was its
irrefragable witness to its own mission and message.

But if it is beyond belief that Christianity in its outset made good
its foothold by merely human causes and powers, how much more does this
become incredible in every age as we come down from the first century to
the nineteenth, and from the Apostolic mission to the world-wide Church,
Catholic and Roman, at this day.

Not only did the world in the fullness of its power give to the
Christian faith no help to root or to spread itself, but it wreaked all
the fullness of its power upon it to uproot and to destroy it, Of the
first thirty Pontiffs in Rome, twenty-nine were martyred. Ten successive
persecutions, or rather one universal and continuous persecution of two
hundred years, with ten more bitter excesses of enmity in every province
of the Empire, did all that man can do to extinguish the Christian name.
The Christian name may be blotted out here and there in blood, but the
Christian faith can nowhere be slain. It is inscrutable, and beyond the
reach of man. In nothing is the blood of the martyrs more surely the
seed of the faith. Every martyrdom was a witness to the faith, and the
ten persecutions were the sealing of the work of the twelve Apostles.
The destroyer defeated himself. Christ crucified was visibly set forth
before all the nations, the world was a Calvary, and the blood of the
martyrs preached in every tongue the Passion of Jesus Christ. The world
did its worst, and ceased only for weariness and conscious defeat.

Then came the peace, and with peace the peril of the Church. The
world outside had failed; the world inside began to work. It no longer
destroyed life; it perverted the intellect, and, through intellectual
perversion, assailed the faith at its centre, The Angel of light
preached heresy. The Baptismal Creed was assailed all along the line;
Gnosticism assailed the Father-and Creator of all things; Arianism,
the God-head of the Son; Nestorianism, the unity of His person;
Monophysites, the two natures; Monothelites, the divine and human wills;
Macedonians, the person of the Holy Ghost So throughout the centuries,
from Nicaea to the Vatican, every article has been in succession
perverted by heresy and defined by the Church. But of this we shall
speak hereafter. If the human intellect could fasten its perversions
on the Chris tian faith, it would have done so long ago; and if the
Christian faith had been guarded by no more than human intellect, it
would long ago have been disintegrated, as we see in every religion
outside the unity of the one Catholic Church. There is no example in
which fragmentary Christianities have not departed from their original
type. No human system is immutable; no thing human is changeless.
The human intellect, therefore, can give no sufficient account of the
identity of the Catholic faith in all places and in all ages by any
of its own natural processes or powers. The force of this argument is
immensely increased when we trace the tradition of the faith through the
nineteen OEcumenical Councils which, with one continuous intelligence,
have guarded and unfolded the deposit of faith, defining every truth
as it has been successively assailed, in absolute harmony and unity of
progression.

What the Senate is to your great Republic, or the Parliament to our
English monarchy, such are the nineteen Councils of the Church, with
this only difference: the secular Legislatures must meet year by year
with short recesses; Councils have met on the average once in a century.
The reason of this is that the mutabilities of national life, which are
as the water-floods, need constant remedies; the stability of the Church
seldom needs new legislation. The faith needs no definition except in
rare intervals of periodical intellectual disorder. The discipline
of the Church reigns by an universal common law which seldom needs a
change, and by local laws which are provided on the spot. Nevertheless,
the legislation of the Church, the Corpus Juris, or Canon Law, is
a creation of wisdom and justice, to which no Statutes at large or
Imperial pandects can bear comparison. Human intellect has reached its
climax in jurisprudence, but the world-wide and secular legislation
of the Church has a higher character. How the Christian law corrected,
elevated, and completed the Imperial law, may be seen in a learned and
able work by an American author, far from the Catholic faith, but in the
main just and accurate in his facts and arguments—the Gesta Christi
of Charles Loring Brace. Water cannot rise above its source, and if the
Church by mere human wisdom corrected and perfected the Imperial law,
its source must be higher than the sources of the world. This makes a
heavy demand on our credulity.

Starting from St. Peter to Leo XIII., there have been some 258
Pontiffs claiming to be, and recognized by the whole Catholic unity as,
successors of St. Peter and Vicars of Jesus Christ. To them has been
rendered in every age not only the external obedience of outward
submission, but the internal obedience of faith. They have borne the
onset of the nations who destroyed Imperial Rome, and the tyranny of
heretical Emperors of Byzantium; and, worse than this, the alternate
despotism and patronage of the Emperors of the West, and the
substraction of obedience in the great Western schisms, when the unity
of the Church and the authority of its Head were, as men thought, gone
for ever. It was the last assault—the forlorn hope of the gates of
hell. Every art of destruction had been tried: martyrdom, heresy,
secularity, schism; at last, two, and three, and four claimants, or, as
the world says, rival Popes, were set up, that men might believe that
St. Peter had no longer a successor, and our Lord no Vicar, upon earth;
for, though all might be illegitimate, only one could be the lawful and
true Head of the Church. Was it only by the human power of man that the
unity, external and internal, which for fourteen hundred years had been
supreme, was once more restored in the Council of Constance, never to be
broken again? The succession of the English monarchy has been, indeed,
often broken, and always restored, in these thousand years. But here
is a monarchy of eighteen hundred years, powerless in worldly force or
support, claiming and receiving not only outward allegiance, but inward
unity of intellect and will. If any man tell us that these two phenomena
are on the same level of merely human causes, it is too severe a tax
upon our natural reason to believe it.

But the inadequacy of human causes to account for the universality,
unity, and immutability of the Catholic Church, will stand out more
visibly if we look at the intellectual and moral revolution which
Christianity has wrought in the world and upon mankind.

The first effect of Christianity was to fill the world with the true
knowledge of the One True God, and to destroy utterly all idols, not
by fire but by light. Before the Light of the world no false god and no
polytheism could stand. The unity and spirituality of God swept away all
theogonies and theologies of the first four thousand years. The stream
of light which descended from the beginning expanded into a radiance,
and the radiance into a flood, which illuminated all nations, as it had
been foretold, "The earth is filled with the knowledge of the Lord,
as the covering waters of the sea;" "And idols shall be utterly
destroyed."* In this true knowledge of the Divine Nature was revealed to
men their own relation to a Creator as of sons to a father. The Greeks
called the chief of the gods Zeus Pater, and the Latins Jupiter; but
neither realized the dependence and love of sonship as revealed by the
Founder of Christianity.
  • Isaias, xi. 9-11, 18.

The monotheism of the world comes down from a primeval and Divine
source. Polytheism is the corruption of men and of nations. Yet in
the multiplicity of all polytheisms, ont supreme Deity was always
recognized. The Divine unity was imperishable. Polytheism is of human
imagination: it is of men's manufacture. The deification of nature and
passions and heroes had filled the world with an elaborate and tenacious
superstition, surrounded by reverence, fear, religion, and awe.
Every perversion of what is good in man surrounded it with authority;
everything that is evil in man guarded it with jealous care. Against
this world-wide and imperious demon-ology the science of one God, all
holy and supreme, advanced with resistless force. Beelzebub is not
divided against himself; and if polytheism is not Divine, monotheism
must be. The overthrow of idolatry and demonology was the mastery of
forces that are above nature. This conclusion is enough for our present
purpose.

A second visible effect of Christianity of which nature cannot offer
any adequate cause is to be found in the domestic life of the Christian
world. In some nations the existence of marriage was not so much as
recognized. In others, if recognized, it was dishonored by profuse
concubinage. Even in Israel, the most advanced nation, the law of
divorce was permitted for the hardness of their hearts. Christianity
republished the primitive law by which marriage unites only one man and
one woman indissolubly in a perpetual contract. It raised their mutual
and perpetual contract to a sacrament. This at one blow condemned all
other relations between man and woman, all the legal gradations of
the Imperial law, and all forms and pleas of divorce. Beyond this the
spiritual legislation of the Church framed most elaborate tables of
consanguinity and affinity, prohibiting all marriages between persons in
certain degrees of kinship or relation. This law has created the purity
and peace of domestic life. Neither the Greek nor the Roman world
had any true conception of a home. The Eoria or Vesta was a sacred
tradition guarded by vestals like a temple worship. It was not a law
and a power in the homes of the people. Christianity, by enlarging the
circles of prohibition within which men and women were as brothers and
sisters, has created the home with all its purities and safeguards.

Such a law of unity and indissolubility, encompassed by a multitude of
prohibitions, no mere human legislation could impose on the the passions
and will of mankind. And yet the Imperial laws gradually yielded to its
resistless pressure, and incorporated it in its world-wide legislation.
The passions and practices of four thousand years were against the
change; yet it was accomplished, and it reigns inviolate to this day,
though the relaxations of schism in the East and the laxities of the
West have revived the abuse of divorces, and have partially abolished
the wise and salutary prohibitions which guard the homes of the
faithful. These relaxations prove that all natural forces have been, and
are, hostile to the indissoluble law of Christian marriage. Certainly,
then, it was not by natural forces that the Sacrament of Matrimony and
the legislation springing from it were enacted. If these are restraints
of human liberty and license, either they do not spring from nature, or
they have had a supernatural cause whereby they exist. It was this that
redeemed woman from the traditional degradation in which the world had
held her. The condition of women in Athens and in Rome—which may be
taken as the highest points of civilization—is too well known to need
recital. Women had no rights, no property, no independence. Plato looked
upon them as State property; Aristotle as chattels; the Greeks wrote of
them as [—Greek—].

They were the prey, the sport, the slaves of man. Even in Israel, though
they were raised incomparably higher than in the Gentile world, they
were far below the dignity and authority of Christian women. Libanius,
the friend of Julian, the Apostate, said, "O ye gods of Greece, how
great are the women of the Christians!" Whence came the elevation of
womanhood? Not from the ancient civilization, for it degraded them; not
from Israel, for among the Jews the highest state of womanhood was the
marriage state. The daughter of Jepthe went into the mountains to mourn
not her death but her virginity. The marriage state in the Christian
world, though holy and good, is not the highest state. The state of
virginity unto death is the highest condition of man and woman. But this
is above the law of nature. It belongs to a higher order. And this life
of virginity, in repression of natural passion and lawful instinct, is
both above and against the tendencies of human nature. It begins in a
mortification, and ends in a mastery, over the movements and ordinary
laws of human nature. Who will ascribe this to natural causes? and, if
so, why did it not appear in the first four thousand years? And when has
it ever appeared except in a handful of vestal virgins, or in Oriental
recluses, with what reality history shows? An exception proves a rule.
No one will imagine that a life of chastity is impossible to nature; but
the restriction is a repression of nature which individuals may acquire,
but the multitude have never attained. A religion which imposes chastity
on the unmarried, and upon its priesthood, and upon the multitudes of
women in every age who devote themselves to the service of One Whom they
have never seen, is a mortification of nature in so high a degree as
to stand out as a fact and a phenomenon, of which mere natural causes
afford no adequate solution. Its existence, not in a handful out of the
millions of the world, but its prevalence and continuity in multitudes
scattered throughout the Christian world, proves the presence of a cause
higher than the laws of nature. So true is this, that jurists teach that
the three vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience are contrary to "the
policy of the law," that is, to the interests of the commonwealth, which
desires the multiplication, enrichment, and liberty of its members.

To what has been said may be added the change wrought by Christianity
upon the social, political, and international relations of the world.
The root of this ethical change, private and public, is the Christian
home. The authority of parents, the obedience of children, the love of
brotherhood, are the three active powers which have raised the society
of man above the level of the old world. Israel was head and shoulders
above the world around it; but Christendom is high above Israel. The new
Commandment of brotherly love, and the Sermon on the Mount, have wrought
a revolution, both in private and public life. From this come the laws
of justice and sympathy which bind together the nations of the Christian
world. In the old world, even the most refined races, worshiped by our
modern philosophers, held and taught that man could hold property in
man. In its chief cities there were more slaves than free men. Who has
taught the equality of men before the law, and extinguished the impious
thought that man can hold property in man? It was no philosopher: even
Aristotle taught that a slave was [—Greek—]. It was no lawgiver, for
all taught the lawfulness of slavery till Christianity denied it. The
Christian law has taught that man can lawfully sell his labor, but that
he cannot lawfully be sold, or sell himself.

The necessity of being brief, the impossibility of drawing out the
picture of the old world, its profound immoralities, its unimaginable
cruelties, compels me to argue with my right hand tied behind me. I can
do no more than point again to Mr. Brace's "Gesta Christi," or to Dr.
Dollinger's "Gentile and Jew," as witnesses to the facts which I have
stated or implied. No one who has not read such books, or mastered their
contents by original study, can judge of the force of the assertion that
Christianity has reformed the world by direct antagonism to the human
will, and by a searching and firm repression of human passion. It has
ascended the stream of human license, contra ictum fluminis, by a
power mightier than nature, and by laws of a higher order than the
relaxations of this world.

Before Christianity came on earth, the civilization of man by merely
natural force had culminated. It could not rise above its source; all
that it could do was done; and the civilization in every race and
empire had ended in decline and corruption. The old civilization was not
regenerated. It passed away to give place to a new. But the new had
a higher source, nobler laws and supernatural powers. The highest
excellence of men and of nations is the civilization of Christianity.
The human race has ascended into what we call Christendom, that is,
into the new creation of charity and justice among men. Christendom was
created by the worldwide Church as we see it before our eyes at this
day. Philosophers and statesmen believe it to be the work of their own
hands: they did not make it; but they have for three hundred years
been unmaking it by reformations and revolutions. These are destructive
forces. They build up nothing. It has been well said by Donoso Cortez
that "the history of civilization is the history of Christianity, the
history of Christianity is the history of the Church, the history of the
Church is the history of the Pontiffs, the greatest statesmen and rulers
that the world has ever seen."

Some years ago, a Professor of great literary reputation in England, who
was supposed even then to be, as his subsequent writings have proved, a
skeptic or non-Christian, published a well-known and very candid book,
under the title of "Ecce Homo." The writer placed himself, as it were,
outside of Christianity. He took, not the Church in the world as in
this article, but the Christian Scriptures as a historical record, to be
judged with forensic severity and absolute impartiality of mind. To the
credit of the author, he fulfilled this pledge; and his conclusion shall
here be given. After an examination of the life and character of the
Author of Christianity, he proceeded to estimate His teaching and its
effects under the following heads:
    1. The Christian Legislation.
    2. The Christian Republic.
    3. Its Universality.
    4. The Enthusiasm of Humanity.
    5. The Lord's Supper.
    6. Positive Morality.
    7. Philanthropy.
    8. Edification.
    9. Mercy.
    10. Resentment.
    11. Forgiveness.

He then draws his conclusion as follows:

"The achievement of Christ in founding by his single will and power a
structure so durable and so universal is like no other achievement which
history records. The masterpieces of the men of action are coarse and
commonplace in comparison with it, and the masterpieces of speculation
flimsy and unsubstantial. When we speak of it the commonplaces of
admiration fail us altogether. Shall we speak of the originality of
the design, of the skill displayed in the execution? All such terms are
inadequate. Originality and contriving skill operate indeed, but, as it
were, implicitly. The creative effort which produced that against which
it is said the gates of hell shall not prevail cannot be analyzed. No
architect's designs were furnished for the New Jerusalem; no committee
drew up rules for the universal commonwealth. If in the works of
nature we can trace the indications of calculation, of a struggle with
difficulties, of precaution, of ingenuity, then in Christ's work it may
be that the same indications occur. But these inferior and secondary
powers were not consciously exercised; they were implicitly present in
the manifold yet single creative act. The inconceivable work was done
in calmness; before the eyes of mea it was noiselessly accomplished,
attracting little attention. Who can describe that which unites men? Who
has entered into the formation of speech, which is the symbol of their
union? Who can describe exhaustively the origin of civil society? He who
can do these things can explain the origin of the Christian Church.
For others it must be enough to say, 'The Holy Ghost fell on those that
believed'. No man saw the building of the New Jerusalem, the workmen
crowded together, the unfinished walla and unpaved streets; no man
heard the clink of trowel and pickaxe: 'it descended out of heaven from
God.'"*
  • "Ece Homo," Conclusion, p. 329, Fifth Edition. Macmillan,
    1886.

And yet the writer is, as he was then, still outside of Christianity.

III. We come now to our third point, that Christianity has always
claimed a Divine origin and a Divine presence as the source of its
authority and powers.

To prove this by texts from the New Testament would be to transcribe the
volume; and if the evidence of the whole New Testament were put in, not
only might some men deny its weight as evidence, but we should place our
whole argument upon a false foundation. Christianity was anterior to
the New Testament and is independent of it. The Christian Scriptures
presuppose both the faith and the Church as already existing, known, and
believed. Prior liber quam stylus: as Tertullian argued. The Gospel
was preached before it was written. The four books were written to
those who already believed, to confirm their faith. They were written
at intervals: St. Matthew in Hebrew in the year 39, in Greek in 45. St.
Mark in 43, St. Luke in 57, St. John about 90, in different places and
for different motives. Four Gospels did not exist for sixty years, or
two generations of men. St. Peter and St. Paul knew of only three of
our four. In those sixty years the faith had spread from east to west.
Saints and Martyrs had gone up to their crown who never saw a sacred
book. The Apostolic Epistles prove the antecedent existence of the
Churches to which they were addressed. Rome and Corinth, and Galatia
and Ephesus, Philippi and Colossae, were Churches with pastors and people
before St. Paul wrote to them. The Church had already attested and
executed its Divine legation before the New Testament existed; and when
all its books were written they were not as yet collected into a volume.
The earliest collection was about the beginning of the second century,
and in the custody of the Church in Rome. We must, therefore, seek to
know what was and is Christianity before and outside of the written
books; and we have the same evidence for the oral tradition of the faith
as we have for the New Testament itself. Both alike were in the custody
of the Church; both are delivered to us by the same witness and on the
same evidence. To reject either, is logically to reject both. Happily
men are not saved by logic, but by faith. The millions of men in
all ages have believed by inheritance of truth divinely guarded and
delivered to them. They have no need of logical analysis. They
have believed from their childhood. Neither children nor those who
infantibus oquiparantur are logicians. It is the penance of the
doubter and the unbeliever to regain by toil his lost inheritance. It
is a hard penance, like the suffering of those who eternally debate on
"predestination, freewill, fate."

Between the death of St. John and the mature lifetime of St. Irenaeus
fifty years elapsed. St. Polycarp was disciple of St. John. St. Irenaeus
was disciple of St. Polycarp. The mind of St. John and the mind of St.
Irenaeus had only one intermediate intelligence, in contact with each. It
would be an affectation of minute criticism to treat the doctrine of
St. Irenaeus as a departure from the doctrine of St. Polycarp, or the
doctrine of St. Polycarp as a departure from the doctrine of St. John.
Moreover, St. John ruled the Church at Ephesus, and St. Irenaeus was
born in Asia Minor about the year A. D. 120—that is, twenty years after
St. John's death, when the Church in Asia Minor was still full of the
light of his teaching and of the accents of his voice. Let us see how
St. Irenaeus describes the faith and the Church. In his work against
Heresies, in Book iii. chap. i., he says, "We have known the way of our
salvation by those through whom the Gospel came to us; which, indeed,
they then preached, but afterwards, by the will of God, delivered to us
in Scriptures, the future foundation and pillar of our faith. It is not
lawful to say that they preached before they had perfect knowledge,
as some dare to affirm, boasting themselves to be correctors of the
Apostles. For after our Lord rose from the dead, and when they had been
clothed with the power of the Holy Ghost, Who came upon them from on
high, they were filled with all truths, and had knowledge which was
perfect." In chapter ii. he adds that, "When they are refuted out
of Scripture, they turn and accuse the Scriptures as erroneous,
unauthoritative, and of various readings, so that the truth cannot be
found by those who do not know tradition"—that is, their own. "But when
we challenge them to come to the tradition of the Apostles, which is in
custody of the succession of Presbyters in the Church, they turn against
tradition, saying that they are not only wiser than the Presbyters, but
even the Apostles, and have found the truth." "It therefore comes
to pass that they will not agree either with the Scriptures or with
tradition." (Ibid. c. iii.) "Therefore, all who desire to know the truth
ought to look to the tradition of the Apostles, which is manifest in all
the world and in all the Church. We are able to count up the Bishops who
were instituted in the Church by the Apostles, and their successors
to our day. They never taught nor knew such things as these men
madly assert." "But as it would be too long in such a book as this to
enumerate the successions of all the Churches, we point to the tradition
of the greatest, most ancient Church, known to all, founded and
constituted in Rome by the two glorious Apostles Peter and Paul, and to
the faith announced to all men, coming down to us by the succession
of Bishops, thereby confounding all those who, in any way, by
self-pleasing, or vainglory, or blindness, or an evil mind, teach
as they ought not. For with this Church, by reason of its greater
principality, it is necessary that all churches should agree; that is,
the faithful, wheresoever they be, for in that Church the tradition of
the Apostles has been preserved." No comment need be made on the
words the "greater principality," which have been perverted by every
anti-Catholic writer from the time they were written to this day. But if
any one will compare them with the words of St. Paul to the Colossians
(chap. i. 18), describing the primacy of the Head of the Church in
heaven, it will appear almost certain that the original Greek of St.
Irenaeus, which is unfortunately lost, contained either [—Greek—], or
some inflection of [—Greek—] which signifies primacy. However this
may be, St. Irenaeus goes on: "The blessed Apostles, having founded
and instructed the Church, gave in charge the Episcopate, for the
administration of the same, to Linus. Of this Linus, Paul, in his
Epistle to Timothy, makes mention. To him succeeded Anacletus, and
after him, in the third place from the Apostles, Clement received the
Episcopate, he who saw the Apostles themselves and conferred with them,
while as yet he had the preaching of the Apostles in his ears and the
tradition before his eyes; and not he only, but many who had been taught
by the Apostles still survived. In the time of this Clement, when no
little dissension had arisen among the brethren in Corinth, the Church
in Rome wrote very powerful letters potentissimas litteras to the
Corinthians, recalling them to peace, restoring their faith, and
declaring the tradition which it had so short a time ago received from
the Apostles." These letters of St. Clement are well known, but have
lately become more valuable and complete by the discovery of fragments
published in a new edition by Light-foot. In these fragments there is
a tone of authority fully explaining the words of St. Irenaeus. He then
traces the succession of the Bishops of Rome to his own day, and adds:
"This demonstration is complete to show that it is one and the same
life-giving faith which has been preserved in the Church from the
Apostles until now, and is handed on in truth." "Polycarp was not only
taught by the Apostles, and conversed with many of those who had seen
our Lord, but he also was constituted by the Apostles in Asia to be
Bishop in the Church of Smyrna. We also saw him in our early youth, for
he lived long, and when very old departed from this life most gloriously
and nobly by martyrdom. He ever taught that what he had learned from
the Apostles, and what the Church had delivered, those things only are
true." In the fourth chapter, St. Irenaeus goes on to say: "Since, then,
there are such proofs (of the faith), the truth is no longer to be
sought for among others, which it is easy to receive from the Church,
forasmuch as the Apostles laid up all truth in fullness in a rich
depository, that all who will may receive from it the water of life."
"But what if the Apostles had not left us the Scriptures: ought we not
to follow the order of tradition, which they gave in charge to them to
whom they intrusted the Churches? To which order (of tradition) many
barbarous nations yield assent, who believe in Christ without paper
and ink, having salvation written by the Spirit in their hearts, and
diligently holding the ancient tradition." In the twenty-sixth chapter
of the same book he says: "Therefore, it is our duty to obey the
Presbyters who are in the Church, who have succession from the Apostles,
as we have already shown; who also with the succession of the Episcopate
have the charisma veritatis certum," the spiritual and certain gift of
truth.

I have quoted these passages at length, not so much as proofs of the
Catholic Faith as to show the identity of the Church at its outset with
the Church before our eyes at this hour, proving that the acorn has
grown up into its oak, or, if you will, the identity of the Church at
this hour with the Church of the Apostolic mission. These passages show
the Episcopate, its central principality, its succession, its custody of
the faith, its subsequent reception and guardianship of the Scriptures,
Its Divine tradition, and the charisma or Divine assistance by which its
perpetuity is secured in the succession of the Apostles. This is almost
verbally, after eighteen hundred years, the decree of the Vatican
Council: Veritatis et fidei nunquam deficientis charisma.*
  • "Const. Dogmatica Prima de Ecclesia Christi," cap. iv.

But St. Irenaeus draws out in full the Church of this day. He shows the
parallel of the first creation and of the second; of the first Adam and
the Second; and of the analogy between the Incarnation or natural body,
and the Church or mystical body of Christ. He says:

Our faith "we received from the Church, and guard.... as an excellent
gift in a noble vessel, always full of youth, and making youthful the
vessel itself in which it is. For this gift of God is intrusted to the
Church, as the breath of life (was imparted) to the first man, so this
end, that all the members partaking of it might be quickened with life.
And thus the communication of Christ is imparted; that is, the Holy
Ghost, the earnest of incorruption, the confirmation of the faith, the
way of ascent to God. For in the Church (St. Paul says) God placed
Apostles, Prophets, Doctors, and all other operations of the Spirit, of
which none are partakers who do not come to the Church, thereby
depriving themselves of life by a perverse mind and worse deeds. For
where the Church is, there is also the Spirit of God; and where the
Spirit of God is, there is the Church, and all grace. But the Spirit is
truth. Wherefore, they who do not partake of Him (the Spirit), and are
not nurtured unto life at the breast of the mother (the Church), do
not receive of that most pure fountain which proceeds from the Body of
Christ, but dig out for themselves broken pools from the trenches of the
earth, and drink water soiled with mire, because they turn aside from
the faith of the Church lest they should be convicted, and reject the
Spirit lest they should be taught."* Again he says: "The Church,
scattered throughout the world, even unto the ends of the earth,
received from the Apostles and their disciples the faith in one God the
Father Almighty, that made the heaven and the earth, and the seas, and
all things that are in them." &c.**
    *St. Irenaeus, Cont. Hezret lib. iii. cap. xxiv.
    ** Lib. i. cap. x.

He then recites the doctrines of the Holy Trinity, the Incarnation, the
Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ, and His
coming again to raise all men, to judge men and angels, and to give
sentence of condemnation or of life everlasting. How much soever
the language may vary from other forms, such is the substance of the
Baptismal Creed. He then adds:

"The Church having received this preaching and this faith, as we have
said before, although it be scattered abroad through the whole world,
carefully preserves it, dwelling as in one habitation, and believes
alike in these (doctrines) as though she had one soul and the same
heart: and in strict accord, as though she had one mouth, proclaims,
and teaches, and delivers onward these things. And although there may be
many diverse languages in the world, yet the power of the tradition is
one and the same. And neither do the Churches planted in Germany believe
otherwise, or otherwise deliver (the faith), nor those in Iberia, nor
among the Celtae, nor in the East, nor in Egypt, nor in Libya, nor
they that are planted in the mainland. But as the sun, which is God's
creature, in all the world is one and the same, so also the preaching of
the truth shineth everywhere, and lightened all men that are willing to
come to the knowledge of the truth. And neither will any ruler of the
Church, though he be mighty in the utterance of truth, teach otherwise
than thus (for no man is above the master), nor will he that is weak in
the same diminish from the tradition; for the faith being one and the
same, he that is able to say most of it hath nothing over, and he that
is able to say least hath no lack."*
  • St. Irenaeus, lib. i. c. x.

To St. Irenaeus, then, the Church was "the irrefragable witness of its
own legation." When did it cease so to be? It would be easy to multiply
quotations from Tertullian in A. D. 200, from St. Cyprian a. d. 250,
from St. Augustine and St. Optatus in A. d. 350, from St. Leo in a. d.
450, all of which are on the same traditional lines of faith in a divine
mission to the world and of a divine assistance in its discharge. But I
refrain from doing so because I should have to write not an article
but a folio. Any Catholic theology will give the passages which are now
before me; or one such book as the Loci Theologici of Melchior Canus
will suffice to show the continuity and identity of the tradition of
St. Irenaeus and the tradition of the Vatican Council, in which the
universal church last declared the immutable faith and its own legation
to mankind.

The world-wide testimony of the Catholic Church is a sufficient witness
to prove the coming of the Incarnate Son to redeem mankind, and to
return to His Father; it is also sufficient to prove the advent of the
Holy Ghost to abide with us for ever. The work of the Son in this world
was accomplished by the Divine acts and facts of His three-and-thirty
years of life, death, Resurrection, and Ascension. The office of the
Holy Ghost is perpetual, not only as the Illuminator and Sanctifier of
all who believe, but also as the Life and Guide of the Church. I may
quote now the words of the Founder of the Church: "It is expedient to
you that I go: for if I go not, the Paraclete will not come to you; but
if I go, I will send Him to you."* "I will ask the Father, and He shall
give you another Paraclete, that He may abide with you for ever." "The
Spirit of Truth, Whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not
nor knoweth Him; but you shall know Him, because He shall abide with you
and shall be in you."*
  • St. John, xvi. 7.
     Ibid, xiv. 16.
  • St.John, xiv. 16, 17.

St. Paul in the Epistles to the Ephesians describes the Church as a body
of which the Head is in heaven, and the Author of its indefectible life
abiding in it as His temple. Therefore the words, "He that heareth you
heareth Me." This could not be if the witness of the Apostles had been
only human. A Divine guidance was attached to the office they bore. They
were, therefore, also judges of right and wrong, and teachers by Divine
guidance of the truth. But the presence and guidance of the Spirit of
Truth is as full at this day as when St. Irenaeus wrote. As the Churches
then were witnesses, judges, and teachers, so is the Church at this hour
a world-wide witness, an unerring judge and teacher, divinely guided and
guarded in the truth. It is therefore not only a human and historical,
but a Divine witness. This is the chief Divine truth which the last
three hundred years have obscured. Modern Christianity believes in the
one advent of the Redeemer, but rejects the full and personal advent of
the Holy Ghost. And yet the same evidence proves both. The Christianity
of reformers, always returns to Judaism, because they reject the full,
or do not believe the personal, advent of the Holy Ghost. They deny that
there is an infallible teacher, among men; and therefore they return to
the types and shadows of the Law before the Incarnation, when the Head
was not yet incarnate, and the Body of Christ did not as yet exist.

But perhaps some one will say, "I admit your description of the Church
as it is now and as it was in the days of St. Irenaeus; but the eighteen
hundred years of which you have said nothing were ages of declension,
disorder, superstition, demoralization." I will answer by a question:
was not this foretold? Was not the Church to be a field of wheat and
tares growing together till the harvest at the end of the world? There
were Cathari of old, and Puritans since, impatient at the patience
of God in bearing with the perversities and corruptions of the human
intellect and will. The Church, like its Head in heaven, is both human
and divine. "He was crucified in weakness," but no power of man could
wound His divine nature. So with the Church, which is His Body. Its
human element may corrupt and die; its divine life, sanctity, authority,
and structure cannot die; nor can the errors of human intellect fasten
upon its faith, nor the immoralities of the human will fasten upon
its sanctity. Its organization of Head and Body is of divine creation,
divinely guarded by the Holy Ghost, who quickens it by His indwelling,
and guides it by His light. It is in itself incorrupt and incorruptible
in the midst of corruption, as the light of heaven falls upon all the
decay and corruption in the world, unsullied and unalterably pure. We
are never concerned to deny or to cloak the sins of Christians or of
Catholics. They may destroy themselves, but they cannot infect the
Church from which they fall. The fall of Lucifer left no stain behind
him.

When men accuse the Church of corruption, they reveal the fact that to
them the Church is a human institution, of voluntary aggregation or of
legislative enactment. They reveal the fact that to them the Church is
not an object of Divine faith, as the Real Presence in the Sacrament of
the Altar. They do not perceive or will not believe that the articles of
the Baptismal Creed are objects of faith, divinely revealed or divinely
created. "I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Holy Catholic Church, the
Communion of Saints, the forgiveness of sins," are all objects of faith
in a Divine order. They are present in human history, but the human
element which envelops them has no power to infect or to fasten upon
them. Until this is perceived there can be no true or full belief in the
advent and office of the Holy Ghost, or in the nature and sacramental
action of the Church. It is the visible means and pledge of light and
of sanctification to all who do not bar their intellect and their will
against its inward and spiritual grace. The Church is not on probation.
It is the instrument of probation to the world. As the light of
the world, it is changeless as the firmament As the source of
sanctification, it is inexhaustible as the Rivex of Life. The human and
external history of men calling themselves Christian and Catholic has
been at times as degrading and abominable as any adversary is pleased
to say. But the sanctity of the Church is no more affected by human sins
than was Baptism by the hypocrisy of Simon Magus. The Divine foundation,
and office, and mission of the Church is a part of Christianity. They
who deny it deny an article of faith; they who believe it imperfectly
are the followers of a fragmentary Christianity of modern date. Who can
be a disciple of Jesus Christ who does not believe the words? "On this
rock I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail
against it;" "As the Father hath sent Me, I also send you;"* "I dispose
to you, as My Father hath disposed to Me, a kingdom;" "All power in
heaven and earth is given unto Me. Go, therefore, and teach all
nations;"* "He that heareth you heareth Me;"**** "I will be with you
always, even unto the end of the world;"(v) "When the days of Pentecost
were accomplished they were all together in one place: and suddenly
there came a sound from heaven as of a mighty wind coming, and there
appeared to them parted tongues, as it were, of fire;" "And they were
all filled with the Holy Ghost;" (vi) "It seemed good to the Holy Ghost
and to us to lay upon you no other burdens."(vii) But who denies that
the Apostles claimed a Divine mission? and who can deny that the
Catholic and Roman Church from St. Irenaeus to Leo XIII. has ever and
openly claimed the same, invoking in all its supreme acts as witness,
teacher, and legislator the presence, light, and guidance of the Holy
Ghost? As the preservation of all created things is by the same creative
power produced in perpetual and universal action, so the indefectibility
of the Church and of the faith is by the perpetuity of the presence and
office of the Third Person of the Holy Trinity. Therefore, St. Augustine
calls the day of Pentecost, Natalis Spiritus Sancti.
    *St. John, xx. 21.
     St. Luke, xxii. 29.
  • St. Matthew, xxviii. 18, 19.
    **** St. Luke, x. 10.
    (v) St. Matthew, xxviii. 20.
    (vii)Acts, ii. 1-5.
    (viii) Acts, xv. 28.

It is more than time that I should make an end; and to do so it will be
well to sum up the heads of our argument. The Vatican Council declares
that the world-wide Church is the irrefragable witness of its own
legation or mission to mankind.

In proof of this I have affirmed:

1. That the imperishable existence of Christianity, and the vast and
undeniable revolution that it has wrought in men and in nations, in the
moral elevation of manhood and of womanhood, and in the domestic, social
and political life of the Christian world, cannot be accounted for by
any natural causes, or by any forces that are, as philosophers say,
intra possibilitatem natures, within the limits of what is possible to
man.

2. That this world-wide and permanent elevation of the Christian world,
in comparison with both the old world and the modern world outside of
Christianity, demands a cause higher than the possibility of nature.

3. That the Church has always claimed a Divine origin and a Divine
office and authority in virtue of a perpetual Divine assistance. To this
even the Christian world, in all its fragments external to the Catholic
unity, bears witness. It is turned to our reproach. They rebuke us for
holding the teaching of the Church to be infallible. We take the rebuke
as a testimony of our changeless faith. It is not enough for men to say
that they refuse to believe this account of the visible and palpable
fact of the imperishable Christianity of the Catholic and Roman Church.
They must find a more reasonable, credible, and adequate account for
it. This no man has yet done. The denials are many and the solutions
are many; but they do not agree together. Their multiplicity is proof
of their human origin. The claim of the Catholic Church to a Divine
authority and to a Divine assistance is one and the same in every age,
and is identical in every place. Error is not the principle of unity,
nor truth of variations.

The Church has guarded the doctrine of the Apostles, by Divine
assistance, with unerring fidelity. The articles of the faith are to-day
the same in number as in the beginning. The explicit definition of
their implicit meaning has expanded from age to age, as the everchanging
denials and perversions of the world have demanded new definitions
of the ancient truth. The world is against all dogma, because it
is impatient of definiteness and certainty in faith. It loves open
questions and the liberty of error. The Church is dogmatic for fear of
error. Every truth defined adds to its treasure. It narrows the field
of error and enlarges the inheritance of truth. The world and the Church
are ever moving in opposite directions. As the world becomes more vague
and uncertain, the Church becomes more definite. It moves against wind
and tide, against the stress and storm of the world. There was never
a more luminous evidence of this supernatural fact than in the Vatican
Council. For eight months all that the world could say and do, like
the four winds of heaven, was directed upon it. Governments, statesmen,
diplomatists, philosophers, intriguers, mockers, and traitors did their
utmost and their worst against it. They were in dread lest the Church
should declare that by Divine assistance its Head in faith and morals
cannot err; for if this be true, man did not found it, man cannot reform
it, man cannot teach it to interpret its history or its acts. It knows
its own history, and is the supreme witness of its own legation.

I am well aware that I have been writing truisms, and repeating trite
and trivial arguments. They are trite because the feet of the faithful
for nearly nineteen hundred years have worn them in their daily life;
they are trivial because they point to the one path in which the
wayfarer, though a fool, shall not err.

Henry Edward, (Cardinal Manning), Card. Archbishop of Westminster.

ROME OR REASON: A REPLY TO CARDINAL MANNING.
    Superstition "has ears more deaf than adders to the voice of
    any true decision."

I.

CARDINAL MANNING has stated the claims of the Roman Catholic Church with
great clearness, and apparently without reserve. The age, position and
learning of this man give a certain weight to his words, apart from
their worth. He represents the oldest of the Christian churches. The
questions involved are among the most important that can engage the
human mind. No one having the slightest regard for that superb thing
known as intellectual honesty, will avoid the issues tendered, or seek
in any way to gain a victory over truth.

Without candor, discussion, in the highest sense, is impossible.
All have the same interest, whether they know it or not, in the
establishment of facts. All have the same to gain, the same to lose. He
loads the dice against himself who scores a point against the right.

Absolute honesty is to the intellectual perception what light is to the
eyes. Prejudice and passion cloud the mind. In each disputant should be
blended the advocate and judge.

In this spirit, having in view only the ascertainment of the truth, let
us examine the arguments, or rather the statements and conclusions, of
Cardinal Manning.

The proposition is that "The church itself, by its marvelous
propagation, its eminent sanctity, its inexhaustible fruitfulness in all
good things, its catholic unity and invincible stability, is a vast and
perpetual motive of credibility, and an irrefragable witness of its own
divine legation."

The reasons given as supporting this proposition are:

That the Catholic Church interpenetrates all the nations of the
civilized world; that it is extranational and independent in a
supernational unity; that it is the same in every place; that it speaks
all languages in the civilized world; that it is obedient to one head;
that as many as seven hundred bishops have knelt before the pope; that
pilgrims from all nations have brought gifts to Rome, and that all these
things set forth in the most self-evident way the unity and universality
of the Roman Church.

It is also asserted that "men see the Head of the Church year by year
speaking to the nations of the world, treating with Empires, Republics
and Governments;" that "there is no other man on earth that can so bear
himself," and that "neither from Canterbury nor from Constantinople can
such a voice go forth to which rulers and people listen."

It is also claimed that the Catholic Church has enlightened and purified
the world; that it has given us the peace and purity of domestic life;
that it has destroyed idolatry and demonology; that it gave us a body of
law from a higher source than man; that it has produced the civilization
of Christendom; that the popes were the greatest of statesmen and
rulers; that celibacy is better than marriage, and that the revolutions
and reformations of the last three hundred years have been destructive
and calamitous.

We will examine these assertions as well as some others.

No one will dispute that the Catholic Church is the best witness of its
own existence. The same is true of every thing that exists—of every
church, great and small, of every man, and of every insect.

But it is contended that the marvelous growth or propagation of the
church is evidence of its divine origin. Can it be said that success is
supernatural? All success in this world is relative. Majorities are not
necessarily right. If anything is known—if anything can be known—we
are sure that very large bodies of men have frequently been wrong. We
believe in what is called the progress of mankind. Progress, for
the most part, consists in finding new truths and getting rid of old
errors—that is to say, getting nearer and nearer in harmony with
the facts of nature, seeing with greater clearness the conditions of
well-being.

There is no nation in which a majority leads the way. In the progress of
mankind, the few have been the nearest right. There have been centuries
in which the light seemed to emanate only from a handful of men, while
the rest of the world was enveloped in darkness. Some great man leads
the way—he becomes the morning star, the prophet of a coming day.
Afterward, many millions accept his views. But there are still heights
above and beyond; there are other pioneers, and the old day, in
comparison with the new, becomes a night. So, we cannot say that success
demonstrates either divine origin or supernatural aid.

We know, if we know anything, that wisdom has often been trampled
beneath the feet of the multitude. We know that the torch of science has
been blown out by the breath of the hydra-headed. We know that the whole
intellectual heaven has been darkened again and again. The truth or
falsity of a proposition cannot be determined by ascertaining the number
of those who assert, or of those who deny.

If the marvelous propagation of the Catholic Church proves its divine
origin, what shall we say of the marvelous propagation of Mohammedanism?

Nothing can be clearer than that Christianity arose out of the ruins
of the Roman Empire—that is to say, the ruins of Paganism. And it is
equally clear that Mohammedanism arose out of the wreck and ruin of
Catholicism.

After Mohammed came upon the stage, "Christianity was forever expelled
from its most glorious seats—from Palestine, the scene of its most
sacred recollections; from Asia Minor, that of its first churches; from
Egypt, whence issued the great doctrine of Trinitarian Orthodoxy, and
from Carthage, who imposed her belief on Europe." Before that time "the
ecclesiastical chiefs of Rome, of Constantinople, and of Alexandria
were engaged in a desperate struggle for supremacy, carrying out their
purposes by weapons and in ways revolting to the conscience of man.
Bishops were concerned in assassinations, poisonings, adulteries,
blindings, riots, treasons, civil war. Patriarchs and primates were
excommunicating and anathematizing one another in their rivalries
for earthly power—bribing eunuchs with gold and courtesans and royal
females with concessions of episcopal love. Among legions of monks who
carried terror into the imperial armies and riot into the great cities
arose hideous clamors for theological dogmas, but never a voice for
intellectual liberty or the outraged rights of man.

"Under these circumstances, amid these atrocities and crimes, Mohammed
arose, and raised his own nation from Fetichism, the adoration of
the meteoric stone, and from the basest idol worship, and irrevocably
wrenched from Christianity more than half—and that by far the
best half—of her possessions, since it included the Holy Land, the
birth-place of the Christian faith, and Africa, which had imparted to
it its Latin form; and now, after a lapse of more than a thousand
years that continent, and a very large part of Asia, remain permanently
attached to the Arabian doctrine."

It may be interesting in this connection to say that the Mohammedan now
proves the divine mission of his apostle by appealing to the marvelous
propagation of the faith. If the argument is good in the mouth of a
Catholic, is it not good in the mouth of a Moslem? Let us see if it is
not better.

According to Cardinal Manning, the Catholic Church triumphed only over
the institutions of men—triumphed only over religions that had been
established by men,—by wicked and ignorant men. But Mohammed triumphed
not only over the religions of men, but over the religion of God.
This ignorant driver of camels, this poor, unknown, unlettered boy,
unassisted by God, unenlightened by supernatural means, drove the armies
of the true cross before him as the winter's storm drives withered
leaves. At his name, priests, bishops, and cardinals fled with white
faces—popes trembled, and the armies of God, fighting for the true
faith, were conquered on a thousand fields.

If the success of a church proves its divinity, and after that another
church arises and defeats the first, what does that prove?

Let us put this question in a milder form: Suppose the second church
lives and flourishes in spite of the first, what does that prove?

As a matter of fact, however, no church rises with everything against
it. Something is favorable to it, or it could not exist. If it succeeds
and grows, it is absolutely certain that the conditions are favorable.
If it spreads rapidly, it simply shows that the conditions are
exceedingly favorable, and that the forces in opposition are weak and
easily overcome.

Here, in my own country, within a few years, has arisen a new religion.
Its foundations were laid in an intelligent community, having had
the advantages of what is known as modern civilization. Yet this new
faith—founded on the grossest absurdities, as gross as we find in the
Scriptures—in spite of all opposition began to grow, and kept growing.
It was subjected to persecution, and the persecution increased its
strength. It was driven from State to State by the believers in
universal love, until it left what was called civilization, crossed the
wide plains, and took up its abode on the shores of the Great Salt
Lake. It continued to grow. Its founder, as he declared, had frequent
conversations with God, and received directions from that source.
Hundreds of miracles were performed—multitudes upon the desert were
miraculously fed—the sick were cured—the dead were raised, and the
Mormon Church continued to grow, until now, less than half a century
after the death of its founder, there are several hundred thousand
believers in the new faith.

Do you think that men enough could join this church to prove the truth
of its creed?

Joseph Smith said that he found certain golden plates that had been
buried for many generations, and upon these plates, in some unknown
language, had been engraved this new revelation, and I think he insisted
that by the use of miraculous mirrors this language was translated.
If there should be Mormon bishops in all the countries of the world,
eighteen hundred years from now, do you think a cardinal of that faith
could prove the truth of the golden plates simply by the fact that the
faith had spread and that seven hundred bishops had knelt before the
head of that church?

It seems to me that a "supernatural" religion—that is to say, a
religion that is claimed to have been divinely founded and to be
authenticated by miracles, is much easier to establish among an ignorant
people than any other—and the more ignorant the people, the easier
such a religion could be established. The reason for this is plain.
All ignorant tribes, all savage men, believe in the miraculous, in the
supernatural. The conception of uniformity, of what may be called the
eternal consistency of nature, is an idea far above their comprehension.
They are forced to think in accordance with their minds, and as a
consequence they account for all phenomena by the acts of superior
beings—that is to say, by the supernatural. In other words, that
religion having most in common with the savage, having most that was
satisfactory to his mind, or to his lack of mind, would stand the best
chance of success.

It is probably safe to say that at one time, or during one phase of the
development of man, everything was miraculous. After a time, the mind
slowly developing, certain phenomena, always happening under like
conditions, were called "natural," and none suspected any special
interference. The domain of the miraculous grew less and less—the
domain of the natural larger; that is to say, the common became the
natural, but the uncommon was still regarded as the miraculous.
The rising and setting of the sun ceased to excite the wonder of
mankind—there was no miracle about that; but an eclipse of the sun was
miraculous. Men did not then know that eclipses are periodical, that
they happen with the same certainty that the sun rises. It took many
observations through many generations to arrive at this conclusion.
Ordinary rains became "natural," floods remained "miraculous."

But it can all be summed up in this: The average man regards the common
as natural, the uncommon as supernatural. The educated man—and by that
I mean the developed man—is satisfied that all phenomena are natural,
and that the supernatural does not and can not exist.

As a rule, an individual is egotistic in the proportion that he lacks
intelligence. The same is true of nations and races. The barbarian is
egotistic enough to suppose that an Infinite Being is constantly doing
something, or failing to do something, on his account. But as man rises
in the scale of civilization, as he becomes really great, he comes to
the conclusion that nothing in Nature happens on his account—that he is
hardly great enough to disturb the motions of the planets.

Let us make an application of this: To me, the success of Mormonism
is no evidence of its truth, because it has succeeded only with the
superstitious. It has been recruited from communities brutalized by
other forms of superstition. To me, the success of Mohammed does not
tend to show that he was right—for the reason that he triumphed only
over the ignorant, over the superstitious. The same is true of the
Catholic Church. Its seeds were planted in darkness. It was accepted by
the credulous, by men incapable of reasoning upon such questions. It
did not, it has not, it can not triumph over the intellectual world. To
count its many millions does not tend to prove the truth of its creed.
On the contrary, a creed that delights the credulous gives evidence
against itself.

Questions of fact or philosophy cannot be settled simply by numbers.
There was a time when the Copernican system of astronomy had but few
supporters—the multitude being on the other side. There was a time when
the rotation of the earth was not believed by the majority.

Let us press this idea further. There was a time when Christianity was
not in the majority, anywhere. Let us suppose that the first Christian
missionary had met a prelate of the Pagan faith, and suppose this
prelate had used against the Christian missionary the Cardinal's
argument—how could the missionary have answered if the Cardinal's
argument is good?

But, after all, is the success of the Catholic Church a marvel? If this
church is of divine origin, if it has been under the especial care,
protection and guidance of an Infinite Being, is not its failure
far more wonderful than its success? For eighteen centuries it has
persecuted and preached, and the salvation of the world is still remote.
This is the result, and it may be asked whether it is worth while to try
to convert the world to Catholicism.

Are Catholics better than Protestants? Are they nearer honest, nearer
just, more charitable? Are Catholic nations better than Protestant?
Do the Catholic nations move in the van of progress? Within their
jurisdiction are life, liberty and property safer than anywhere else? Is
Spain the first nation of the world?

Let me ask another question: Are Catholics or Protestants better than
Freethinkers? Has the Catholic Church produced a greater man than
Humboldt? Has the Protestant produced a greater than Darwin? Was not
Emerson, so far as purity of life is concerned, the equal of any true
believer? Was Pius IX., or any other vicar of Christ, superior to
Abraham Lincoln?

But it is claimed that the Catholic Church is universal, and that its
universality demonstrates its divine origin.

According to the Bible, the apostles were ordered to go into all the
world and preach the gospel—yet not one of them, nor one of their
converts at any time, nor one of the vicars of God, for fifteen hundred
years afterward, knew of the existence of the Western Hemisphere. During
all that time, can it be said that the Catholic Church was universal? At
the close of the fifteenth century, there was one-half of the world in
which the Catholic faith had never been preached, and in the other half
not one person in ten had ever heard of it, and of those who had heard
of it, not one in ten believed it. Certainly the Catholic Church was not
then universal.

Is it universal now? What impression has Catholicism made upon the many
millions of China, of Japan, of India, of Africa? Can it truthfully be
said that the Catholic Church is now universal? When any church becomes
universal, it will be the only church. There cannot be two universal
churches, neither can there be one universal church and any other.

The Cardinal next tries to prove that the Catholic Church is divine,
"by its eminent sanctity and its inexhaustible fruitfulness in all good
things."

And here let me admit that there are many millions of good
Catholics—that is, of good men and women who are Catholics. It is
unnecessary to charge universal dishonesty or hypocrisy, for the reason
that this would be only a kind of personality. Many thousands of heroes
have died in defence of the faith, and millions of Catholics have killed
and been killed for the sake of their religion.

And here it may be well enough to say that martyrdom does not even tend
to prove the truth of a religion. The man who dies in flames, standing
by what he believes to be true, establishes, not the truth of what he
believes, but his sincerity.

Without calling in question the intentions of the Catholic Church, we
can ascertain whether it has been "inexhaustibly fruitful in all good
things," and whether it has been "eminent for its sanctity."

In the first place, nothing can be better than goodness. Nothing is more
sacred, or can be more sacred, than the wellbeing of man. All things
that tend to increase or preserve the happiness of the human race are
good—that is to say, they are sacred. All things that tend to the
destruction of man's well-being, that tend to his unhappiness, are bad,
no matter by whom they are taught or done.

It is perfectly certain that the Catholic Church has taught, and still
teaches, that intellectual liberty is dangerous—that it should not
be allowed. It was driven to take this position because it had taken
another. It taught, and still teaches, that a certain belief is
necessary to salvation. It has always known that investigation and
inquiry led, or might lead, to doubt; that doubt leads, or may lead,
to heresy, and that heresy leads to hell. In other words, the Catholic
Church has something more important than this world, more important than
the well-being of man here. It regards this life as an opportunity for
joining that church, for accepting that creed, and for the saving of
your soul.

If the Catholic Church is right in its premises, it is right in its
conclusion. If it is necessary to believe the Catholic creed in order
to obtain eternal joy, then, of course, nothing else in this world is,
comparatively speaking, of the slightest importance. Consequently,
the Catholic Church has been, and still is, the enemy of intellectual
freedom, of investigation, of inquiry—in other words, the enemy of
progress in secular things.

The result of this was an effort to compel all men to accept the belief
necessary to salvation. This effort naturally divided itself into
persuasion and persecution.

It will be admitted that the good man is kind, merciful, charitable,
forgiving and just. A church must be judged by the same standard. Has
the church been merciful? Has it been "fruitful in the good things"
of justice, charity and forgiveness? Can a good man, believing a good
doctrine, persecute for opinion's sake? If the church imprisons a man
for the expression of an honest opinion, is it not certain, either that
the doctrine of the church is wrong, or that the church is bad? Both
cannot be good. "Sanctity" without goodness is impossible. Thousands of
"saints" have been the most malicious of the human race. If the history
of the world proves anything, it proves that the Catholic Church was for
many centuries the most merciless institution that ever existed among
men. I cannot believe that the instruments of persecution were made and
used by the eminently good; neither can I believe that honest people
were imprisoned, tortured, and burned at the stake by a church that was
"inexhaustibly fruitful in all good things."

And let me say here that I have no Protestant prejudices against
Catholicism, and have no Catholic prejudices against Protestantism.
I regard all religions either without prejudice or with the same
prejudice. They were all, according to my belief, devised by men, and
all have for a foundation ignorance of this world and fear of the next.
All the Gods have been made by men. They are all equally powerful and
equally useless. I like some of them better than I do others, for the
same reason that I admire some characters in fiction more than I do
others. I prefer Miranda to Caliban, but have not the slightest idea
that either of them existed. So I prefer Jupiter to Jehovah, although
perfectly satisfied that both are myths. I believe myself to be in a
frame of mind to justly and fairly consider the claims of different
religions, believing as I do that all are wrong, and admitting as I do
that there is some good in all.

When one speaks of the "inexhaustible fruitfulness in all good things"
of the Catholic Church, we remember the horrors and atrocities of the
Inquisition—the rewards offered by the Roman Church for the capture and
murder of honest men. We remember the Dominican Order, the members of
which, upheld by the vicar of Christ, pursued the heretics like sleuth
hounds, through many centuries.

The church, "inexhaustible in fruitfulness in all good things," not only
imprisoned and branded and burned the living, but violated the dead. It
robbed graves, to the end that it might convict corpses of heresy—to
the end that it might take from widows their portions and from orphans
their patrimony.

We remember the millions in the darkness of dungeons—the millions who
perished by the sword—the vast multitudes destroyed in flames—those
who were flayed alive—those who were blinded—those whose tongues were
cut out—those into whose ears were poured molten lead—those whose eyes
were deprived of their lids—those who were tortured and tormented in
every way by which pain could be inflicted and human nature overcome.

And we remember, too, the exultant cry of the church over the bodies
of her victims: "Their bodies were burned here, but their souls are now
tortured in hell."

We remember that the church, by treachery, bribery, perjury, and the
commission of every possible crime, got possession and control of
Christendom, and we know the use that was made of this power—that it
was used to brutalize, degrade, stupefy, and "sanctify" the children
of men. We know also that the vicars of Christ were persecutors for
opinion's sake—that they sought to destroy the liberty of thought
through fear—that they endeavored to make every brain a bastile in
which the mind should be a convict—that they endeavored to make every
tongue a prisoner, watched by a familiar of the Inquisition—and that
they threatened punishment here, imprisonment here, burnings here, and,
in the name of their God, eternal imprisonment and eternal burnings
hereafter.

We know, too, that the Catholic Church was, during all the years of
its power, the enemy of every science. It preferred magic to medicine,
relics to remedies, priests to physicians. It thought more of
astrologers than of astronomers. It hated geologists—it persecuted
the chemist, and imprisoned the naturalist, and opposed every discovery
calculated to improve the condition of mankind.

It is impossible to forget the persecutions of the Cathari, the
Albigenses, the Waldenses, the Hussites, the Huguenots, and of every
sect that had the courage to think just a little for itself. Think of
a woman—the mother of a family—taken from her children and burned, on
account of her view as to the three natures of Jesus Christ. Think of
the Catholic Church,—an institution with a Divine Founder, presided
over by the agent of God—punishing a woman for giving a cup of cold
water to a fellow-being who had been anathematized. Think of this
church, "fruitful in all good things," launching its curse at an honest
man—not only cursing him from the crown of his head to the soles of
his feet with a fiendish particularity, but having at the same time the
impudence to call on God, and the Holy Ghost, and Jesus Christ, and the
Virgin Mary, to join in the curse; and to curse him not only here, but
forever hereafter—calling upon all the saints and upon all the redeemed
to join in a hallelujah of curses, so that earth and heaven should
reverberate with countless curses launched at a human being simply for
having expressed an honest thought.

This church, so "fruitful in all good things," invented crimes that
it might punish. This church tried men for a "suspicion of
heresy"—imprisoned them for the vice of being suspected—stripped them
of all they had on earth and allowed them to rot in dungeons, because
they were guilty of the crime of having been suspected. This was a part
of the Canon Law.

It is too late to talk about the "invincible stability" of the Catholic
Church.

It was not invincible in the seventh, in the eighth, or in the ninth
centuries. It was not invincible in Germany in Luther's day. It was not
invincible in the Low Countries. It was not invincible in Scotland, or
in England. It was not invincible in France. It is not invincible in
Italy, It is not supreme in any intellectual centre of the world. It
does not triumph in Paris, or Berlin; it is not dominant in London,
in England; neither is it triumphant in the United States. It has not
within its fold the philosophers, the statesmen, and the thinkers, who
are the leaders of the human race.

It is claimed that Catholicism "interpenetrates all the nations of the
civilized world," and that "in some it holds the whole nation in its
unity."

I suppose the Catholic Church is more powerful in Spain than in any
other nation. The history of this nation demonstrates the result of
Catholic supremacy, the result of an acknowledgment by a people that a
certain religion is too sacred to be examined.

Without attempting in an article of this character to point out the many
causes that contributed to the adoption of Catholicism by the Spanish
people, it is enough to say that Spain, of all nations, has been and is
the most thoroughly Catholic, and the most thoroughly interpenetrated
and dominated by the spirit of the Church of Rome.

Spain used the sword of the church. In the name of religion it
endeavored to conquer the Infidel world. It drove from its territory
the Moors, not because they were bad, not because they were idle and
dishonest, but because they were Infidels. It expelled the Jews,
not because they were ignorant or vicious, but because they were
unbelievers. It drove out the Moriscoes, and deliberately made outcasts
of the intelligent, the industrious, the honest and the useful, because
they were not Catholics. It leaped like a wild beast upon the Low
Countries, for the destruction of Protestantism. It covered the seas
with its fleets, to destroy the intellectual liberty of man. And
not only so—it established the Inquisition within its borders. It
imprisoned the honest, it burned the noble, and succeeded after many
years of devotion to the true faith, in destroying the industry, the
intelligence, the usefulness, the genius, the nobility and the wealth
of a nation. It became a wreck, a jest of the conquered, and excited the
pity of its former victims.

In this period of degradation, the Catholic Church held "the whole
nation in its unity."

At last Spain began to deviate from the path of the church It made a
treaty with an Infidel power. In 1782 it became humble enough, and wise
enough, to be friends with Turkey. It made treaties with Tripoli and
Algiers and the Barbary States. It had become too poor to ransom the
prisoners taken by these powers. It began to appreciate the fact that it
could neither conquer nor convert the world by the sword.

Spain has progressed in the arts and sciences, in all that tends to
enrich and ennoble a nation, in the precise proportion that she has lost
faith in the Catholic Church. This may be said of every other nation in
Christendom. Torquemada is dead; Castelar is alive. The dungeons of the
Inquisition are empty, and a little light has penetrated the clouds and
mists—not much, but a little. Spain is not yet clothed and in her
right mind. A few years ago the cholera visited Madrid and other cities.
Physicians were mobbed. Processions of saints carried the host through
the streets for the purpose of staying the plague. The streets were not
cleaned; the sewers were filled. Filth and faith, old partners, reigned
supreme. The church, "eminent for its sanctity," stood in the light and
cast its shadow on the ignorant and the prostrate. The church, in its
"inexhaustible fruitfulness in all good things," allowed its children
to perish through ignorance, and used the diseases it had produced as an
instrumentality to further enslave its votaries and its victims.

No one will deny that many of its priests exhibited heroism of the
highest order in visiting the sick and administering what are called the
consolations of religion to the dying, and in burying the dead. It is
necessary neither to deny or disparage the self-denial and goodness of
these men. But their religion did more than all other causes to produce
the very evils that called for the exhibition of self-denial and
heroism. One scientist in control of Madrid could have prevented the
plague. In such cases, cleanliness is far better than "godliness;"
science is superior to superstition; drainage much better than
divinity; therapeutics more excellent than theology. Goodness is not
enough—intelligence is necessary. Faith is not sufficient, creeds are
helpless, and prayers fruitless.

It is admitted that the Catholic Church exists in many nations; that it
is dominated, at least in a great degree, by the Bishop of Rome—that it
is international in that sense, and that in that sense it has what may
be called a "supernational unity." The same, however, is true of the
Masonic fraternity. It exists in many nations, but it is not a
national body. It is in the same sense extranational, in the same sense
international, and has in the same sense a supernational unity. So the
same may be said of other societies. This, however, does not tend to
prove that anything supernational is supernatural.

It is also admitted that in faith, worship, ceremonial, discipline and
government, the Catholic Church is substantially the same wherever
it exists. This establishes the unity, but not the divinity, of the
institution.

The church that does not allow investigation, that teaches that all
doubts are wicked, attains unity through tyranny, that is, monotony by
repression. Wherever man has had something like freedom, differences
have appeared, heresies have taken root, and the divisions have become
permanent—new sects have been born and the Catholic Church has been
weakened. The boast of unity is the confession of tyranny.

It is insisted that the unity of the church substantiates its claim to
divine origin. This is asserted over and over again, in many ways; and
yet in the Cardinal's article is found this strange mingling of boast
and confession: "Was it only by the human power of man that the unity,
external and internal, which for fourteen hundred years had been
supreme, was once more restored in the Council of Constance, never to be
broken again?"

By this it is admitted that the internal and external unity of the
Catholic Church had been broken, and that it required more than human
power to restore it. Then the boast is made that it will never be broken
again. Yet it is asserted that the internal and external unity of the
Catholic Church is the great fact that demonstrates its divine origin.

Now, if this internal and external unity was broken, and remained broken
for years, there was an interval during which the church had no internal
or external unity, and during which the evidence of divine origin
failed. The unity was broken in spite of the Divine Founder. This is
admitted by the use of the word "again." The unbroken unity of the
church is asserted, and upon this assertion is based the claim of divine
origin; it is then admitted that the unity was broken. The argument is
then shifted, and the claim is made that it required more than human
power to restore the internal and external unity of the church, and that
the restoration, not the unity, is proof of the divine origin. Is there
any contradiction beyond this?

Let us state the case in another way. Let us suppose that a man has a
sword which he claims was made by God, stating that the reason he knows
that God made the sword is that it never had been and never could be
broken. Now, if it was afterwards ascertained that it had been broken,
and the owner admitted that it had been, what would be thought of him
if he then took the ground that it had been welded, and that the welding
was the evidence that it was of divine origin?

A prophecy is then indulged in, to the effect that the internal and
external unity of the church can never be broken again. It is admitted
that it was broken—it is asserted that it was divinely restored—and
then it is declared that it is never to be broken again. No reason is
given for this prophecy; it must be born of the facts already stated.
Put in a form to be easily understood, it is this:

We know that the unity of the church can never be broken, because the
church is of divine origin.

We know that it was broken; but this does not weaken the argument,
because it was restored by God, and it has not been broken since.

Therefore, it never can be broken again.

It is stated that the Catholic Church is immutable, and that its
immutability establishes its claim to divine origin. Was it immutable
when its unity, internal and external, was broken? Was it precisely the
same after its unity was broken that it was before? Was it precisely the
same after its unity was divinely restored that it was while broken?
Was it universal while it was without unity? Which of the fragments was
universal—which was immutable?

The fact that the Catholic Church is obedient to the pope, establishes,
not the supernatural origin of the church, but the mental slavery of its
members. It establishes the fact that it is a successful organization;
that it is cunningly devised; that it destroys the mental independence,
and that whoever absolutely submits to its authority loses the jewel of
his soul.

The fact that Catholics are to a great extent obedient to the pope,
establishes nothing except the thoroughness of the organization.

How was the Roman empire formed? By what means did that Great Power
hold in bondage the then known world? How is it that a despotism is
established? How is it that the few enslave the many? How is it that
the nobility live on the labor of peasants? The answer is in one word,
Organization. The organized few triumph over the unorganized many.
The few hold the sword and the purse. The unorganized are overcome in
detail—terrorized, brutalized, robbed, conquered.

We must remember that when Christianity was established the world
was ignorant, credulous and cruel. The gospel with its idea of
forgiveness—with its heaven and hell—was suited to the barbarians
among whom it was preached. Let it be understood, once for all, that
Christ had but little to do with Christianity. The people became
convinced—being ignorant, stupid and credulous—that the church held
the keys of heaven and hell. The foundation for the most terrible mental
tyranny that has existed among men was in this way laid. The Catholic
Church enslaved to the extent of its power. It resorted to every
possible form of fraud; it perverted every good instinct of the human
heart; it rewarded every vice; it resorted to every artifice that
ingenuity could devise, to reach the highest round of power. It tortured
the accused to make them confess; it tortured witnesses to compel the
commission of perjury; it tortured children for the purpose of making
them convict their parents; it compelled men to establish their own
innocence; it imprisoned without limit; it had the malicious patience to
wait; it left the accused without trial, and left them in dungeons until
released by death. There is no crime that the Catholic Church did not
commit,—no cruelty that it did not practice,—no form of treachery that
it did not reward, and no virtue that it did not persecute. It was
the greatest and most powerful enemy of human rights. It did all that
organization, cunning, piety, self-denial, heroism, treachery, zeal and
brute force could do to enslave the children of men. It was the enemy of
intelligence, the assassin of liberty, and the destroyer of progress. It
loaded the noble with chains and the infamous with honors. In one hand
it carried the alms dish, in the other a dagger. It argued with the
sword, persuaded with poison, and convinced with the fagot.

It is impossible to see how the divine origin of a church can be
established by showing that hundreds of bishops have visited the pope.

Does the fact that millions of the faithful visit Mecca establish the
truth of the Koran? Is it a scene for congratulation when the bishops
of thirty nations kneel before a man? Is it not humiliating to know that
man is willing to kneel at the feet of man? Could a noble man demand, or
joyfully receive, the humiliation of his fellows?

As a rule, arrogance and humility go together. He who in power compels
his fellow-man to kneel, will himself kneel when weak. The tyrant is a
cringer in power; a cringer is a tyrant out of power. Great men stand
face to face. They meet on equal terms. The cardinal who kneels in the
presence of the pope, wants the bishop to kneel in his presence; and the
bishop who kneels demands that the priest shall kneel to him; and the
priest who kneels demands that they in lower orders shall kneel; and
all, from pope to the lowest—that is to say, from pope to exorcist,
from pope to the one in charge of the bones of saints—all demand that
the people, the laymen, those upon whom they live, shall kneel to them.

The man of free and noble spirit will not kneel. Courage has no knees.

Fear kneels, or falls upon its ashen face.

The Cardinal insists that the pope is the vicar of Christ, and that
all popes have been. What is a vicar of Christ? He is a substitute in
office. He stands in the place, or occupies the position in relation
to the church, in relation to the world, that Jesus Christ would occupy
were he the pope at Rome. In other words, he takes Christ's place; so
that, according to the doctrine of the Catholic Church, Jesus Christ
himself is present in the person of the pope.

We all know that a good man may employ a bad agent. A good king might
leave his realm and put in his place a tyrant and a wretch. The good
man and the good king cannot certainly know what manner of man the
agent is—what kind of person the vicar is—consequently the bad may be
chosen. But if the king appointed a bad vicar, knowing him to be bad,
knowing that he would oppress the people, knowing that he would imprison
and burn the noble and generous, what excuse can be imagined for such a
king?

Now, if the church is of divine origin, and if each pope is the vicar of
Jesus Christ, he must have been chosen by Jesus Christ; and when he was
chosen, Christ must have known exactly what his vicar would do. Can we
believe that an infinitely wise and good Being would choose immoral,
dishonest, ignorant, malicious, heartless, fiendish, and inhuman vicars?

The Cardinal admits that "the history of Christianity is the history
of the church, and that the history of the church is the history of the
Pontiffs," and he then declares that "the greatest statesmen and rulers
that the world has ever seen are the Popes of Rome."

Let me call attention to a few passages in Draper's "History of the
Intellectual Development of Europe."

"Constantine was one of the vicars of Christ. Afterwards, Stephen IV.
was chosen. The eyes of Constantine were then put out by Stephen, acting
in Christ's place. The tongue of the Bishop Theodorus was amputated
by the man who had been substituted for God. This bishop was left in a
dungeon to perish of thirst. Pope Leo III. was seized in the street and
forced into a church, where the nephews of Pope Adrian attempted to
put out his eyes and cut off his tongue. His successor, Stephen V., was
driven ignominiously from Rome. His successor, Paschal I., was accused
of blinding and murdering two ecclesiastics in the Lateran Palace.
John VIII., unable to resist the Mohammedans, was compelled to pay them
tribute.

"At this time, the Bishop of Naples was in secret alliance with the
Mohammedans, and they divided with this Catholic bishop the plunder they
collected from other Catholics. This bishop was excommunicated by the
pope; afterwards he gave him absolution because he betrayed the chief
Mohammedans, and assassinated others. There was an ecclesiastical
conspiracy to murder the pope, and some of the treasures of the church
were seized, and the gate of St. Pancrazia was opened with false keys
to admit the Saracens. Formosus, who had been engaged in these
transactions, who had been excommunicated as a conspirator for the
murder of Pope John, was himself elected pope in 891. Boniface VI.
was his successor. He had been deposed from the diaconate and from the
priesthood for his immoral and lewd life. Stephen VII. was the next
pope, and he had the dead body of Formosus taken from the grave, clothed
in papal habiliments, propped up in a chair and tried before a Council.
The corpse was found guilty, three fingers were cut off and the body
cast into the Tiber. Afterwards Stephen VII., this Vicar of Christ, was
thrown into prison and strangled.

"From 896 to 900, five popes were consecrated. Leo V., in less than two
months after he became pope, was cast into prison by Christopher, one of
his chaplains. This Christopher usurped his place, and in a little while
was expelled from Rome by Sergius III., who became pope in 905. This
pope lived in criminal intercourse with the celebrated Theodora, who
with her daughters Marozia and Theodora, both prostitutes, exercised an
extraordinary control over him. The love of Theodora was also shared by
John X. She gave him the Archbishopric of Revenna, and made him pope in
915. The daughter of Theodora overthrew this pope. She surprised him in
the Lateran Palace. His brother, Peter, was killed; the pope was thrown
into prison, where he was afterward murdered. Afterward, this Marozia,
daughter of Theodora, made her own son pope, John XI. Many affirmed that
Pope Sergius was his father, but his mother inclined to attribute him to
her husband Alberic, whose brother Guido she afterward married. Another
of her sons, Alberic, jealous of his brother John, the pope, cast him
and their mother into prison. Alberic's son was then elected pope as
John XII.

"John was nineteen years old when he became the vicar of Christ. His
reign was characterized by the most shocking immoralities, so that the
Emperor Otho I. was compelled by the German clergy to interfere. He was
tried. It appeared that John had received bribes for the consecration
of bishops; that he had ordained one who was only ten years old; that
he was charged with incest, and with so many adulteries that the Lateran
Palace had become a brothel. He put out the eyes of one ecclesiastic;
he maimed another—both dying in consequence of their injuries. He was
given to drunkenness and to gambling. He was deposed at last, and Leo
VII. elected in his stead. Subsequently he got the upper hand. He seized
his antagonists; he cut off the hand of one, the nose, the finger, and
the tongue of others. His life was eventually brought to an end by the
vengeance of a man whose wife he had seduced."

And yet, I admit that the most infamous popes, the most heartless and
fiendish bishops, friars, and priests were models of mercy, charity,
and justice when compared with the orthodox God—with the God they
worshiped. These popes, these bishops, these priests could persecute
only for a few years—they could burn only for a few moments—but their
God threatened to imprison and burn forever; and their God is as much
worse than they were, as hell is worse than the Inquisition.

"John XIII. was strangled in prison. Boniface VII. imprisoned Benedict
VII., and starved him to death. John XIV. was secretly put to death in
the dungeons of the castle of St. Angelo. The corpse of Boniface was
dragged by the populace through the streets."

It must be remembered that the popes were assassinated by
Catholics—murdered by the faithful—that one vicar of Christ strangled
another vicar of Christ, and that these men were "the greatest rulers
and the greatest statesmen of the earth."

"Pope John XVI. was seized, his eyes put out, his nose cut off, his
tongue torn from his mouth, and he was sent through the streets mounted
on an ass, with his face to the tail. Benedict IX., a boy of less than
twelve years of age, was raised to the apostolic throne. One of his
successors, Victor III., declared that the life of Benedict was so
shameful, so foul, so execrable, that he shuddered to describe it. He
ruled like a captain of banditti. The people, unable to bear longer his
adulteries, his homicides and his abominations, rose against him, and
in despair of maintaining his position, he put up the papacy to auction,
and it was bought by a presbyter named John, who became Gregory VI., in
the year of grace 1045. Well may we ask, Were these the vicegerents of
God upon earth—these, who had truly reached that goal beyond which the
last effort of human wickedness cannot pass?"

It may be sufficient to say that there is no crime that man can commit
that has not been committed by the vicars of Christ. They have inflicted
every possible torture, violated every natural right. Greater monsters
the human race has not produced.

Among the "some two hundred and fifty-eight" Vicars of Christ there were
probably some good men. This would have happened even if the intention
had been to get all bad men, for the reason that man reaches perfection
neither in good nor in evil; but if they were selected by Christ
himself, if they were selected by a church with a divine origin and
under divine guidance, then there is no way to account for the selection
of a bad one. If one hypocrite was duly elected pope—one murderer,
one strangler, one starver—this demonstrates that all the popes were
selected by men, and by men only, and that the claim of divine guidance
is born of zeal and uttered without knowledge.

But who were the vicars of Christ? How many have there been? Cardinal
Manning himself does not know. He is not sure. He says: "Starting from
St. Peter to Leo XIII., there have been some two hundred and fifty-eight
Pontiffs claiming to be recognized by the whole Catholic unity as
successors of St. Peter and Vicars of Jesus Christ." Why did he use the
word "some"? Why "claiming"? Does he not positively know? Is it possible
that the present Vicar of Christ is not certain as to the number of his
predecessors? Is he infallible in faith and fallible in fact?

Robert G. Ingersoll.

II.
    "If we live thus tamely,—
    To be thus jaded by a piece of scarlet,—
    Farewell nobility."

NO ONE will deny that "the pope speaks to many people in many nations;
that he treats with empires and governments," and that "neither from
Canterbury nor from Constantinople such a voice goes forth."

How does the pope speak? What does he say?

He speaks against the liberty of man—against the progress of the human
race. He speaks to calumniate thinkers, and to warn the faithful
against the discoveries of science. He speaks for the destruction of
civilization.

Who listens? Do astronomers, geologists and scientists put the hand to
the ear fearing that an accent may be lost? Does France listen? Does
Italy hear? Is not the church weakest at its centre? Do those who
have raised Italy from the dead, and placed her again among the great
nations, pay attention? Does Great Britain care for this voice—this
moan, this groan—of the Middle Ages? Do the words of Leo XIII. impress
the intelligence of the Great Republic? Can anything be more absurd
than for the vicar of Christ to attack a demonstration of science with a
passage of Scripture, or a quotation from one of the "Fathers"?

Compare the popes with the kings and queens of England. Infinite wisdom
had but little to do with the selection of these monarchs, and yet they
were far better than any equal number of consecutive popes. This is
faint praise, even for kings and queens, but it shows that chance
succeeded in getting better rulers for England than "Infinite Wisdom"
did for the Church of Rome. Compare the popes with the presidents of the
Republic elected by the people. If Adams had murdered Washington, and
Jefferson had imprisoned Adams, and if Madison had cut out Jefferson's
tongue, and Monroe had assassinated Madison, and John Quincy Adams had
poisoned Monroe, and General Jackson had hung Adams and his Cabinet, we
might say that presidents had been as virtuous as popes. But if this
had happened, the verdict of the world would be that the people are not
capable of selecting their presidents.

But this voice from Rome is growing feebler day by day; so feeble that
the Cardinal admits that the vicar of God, and the supernatural church,
"are being tormented by Falck laws, by Mancini laws and by Crispi laws."
In other words, this representative of God, this substitute of Christ,
this church of divine origin, this supernatural institution—pervaded
by the Holy Ghost—are being "tormented" by three politicians. Is it
possible that this patriotic trinity is more powerful than the other?

It is claimed that if the Catholic Church "be only a human system, built
up by the intellect, will and energy of men, the adversaries must prove
it—that the burden is upon them."

As a general thing, institutions are natural. If this church is
supernatural, it is the one exception. The affirmative is with those who
claim that it is of divine origin. So far as we know, all governments
and all creeds are the work of man. No one believes that Rome was a
supernatural production, and yet its beginnings were as small as those
of the Catholic Church. Commencing in weakness, Rome grew, and
fought, and conquered, until it was believed that the sky bent above a
subjugated world. And yet all was natural. For every effect there was an
efficient cause.

The Catholic asserts that all other religions have been produced by
man—that Brahminism and Buddhism, the religion of Isis and Osiris, the
marvelous mythologies of Greece and Rome, were the work of the human
mind. From these religions Catholicism has borrowed. Long before
Catholicism was born, it was believed that women had borne children
whose fathers were gods. The Trinity was promulgated in Egypt centuries
before the birth of Moses. Celibacy was taught by the ancient Nazarenes
and Essenes, by the priests of Egypt and India, by mendicant monks, and
by the piously insane of many countries long before the apostles lived.
The Chinese tell us that "when there were but one man and one woman upon
the earth, the woman refused to sacrifice her virginity even to people
the globe; and the gods, honoring her purity, granted that she should
conceive beneath the gaze of her lover's eyes, and a virgin mother
became the parent of humanity."

The founders of many religions have insisted that it was the duty of man
to renounce the pleasures of sense, and millions before our era took the
vows of chastity, poverty and obedience, and most cheerfully lived upon
the labor of others.

The sacraments of baptism and confirmation are far older than the Church
of Rome. The Eucharist is pagan. Long before popes began to murder each
other, pagans ate cakes—the flesh of Ceres, and drank wine—the blood
of Bacchus. Holy water flowed in the Ganges and Nile, priests interceded
for the people, and anointed the dying.

It will not do to say that every successful religion that has taught
unnatural doctrines, unnatural practices, must of necessity have been
of divine origin. In most religions there has been a strange mingling
of the good and bad, of the merciful and cruel, of the loving and
malicious. Buddhism taught the universal brotherhood of man, insisted on
the development of the mind, and this religion was propagated not by
the sword, but by preaching, by persuasion, and by kindness—yet in
many things it was contrary to the human will, contrary to the human
passions, and contrary to good sense. Buddhism succeeded. Can we, for
this reason, say that it is a supernatural religion? Is the unnatural
the supernatural?

It is insisted that, while other churches have changed, the Catholic
Church alone has remained the same, and that this fact demonstrates its
divine origin.

Has the creed of Buddhism changed in three thousand years? Is
intellectual stagnation a demonstration of divine origin? When anything
refuses to grow, are we certain that the seed was planted by God? If the
Catholic Church is the same to-day that it has been for many centuries,
this proves that there has been no intellectual development. If men do
not differ upon religious subjects, it is because they do not think.

Differentiation is the law of growth, of progress. Every church must
gain or lose: it cannot remain the same; it must decay or grow. The fact
that the Catholic Church has not grown—that it has been petrified from
the first—does not establish divine origin; it simply establishes
the fact that it retards the progress of man. Everything in nature
changes—every atom is in motion—every star moves. Nations,
institutions and individuals have youth, manhood, old age, death. This
is and will be true of the Catholic Church. It was once weak—it grew
stronger—it reached its climax of power—it began to decay—it never
can rise again. It is confronted by the dawn of Science. In the presence
of the nineteenth century it cowers.

It is not true that "All natural causes run to disintegration."

Natural causes run to integration as well as to disintegration.
All growth is integration, and all growth is natural. All decay is
disintegration, and all decay is natural. Nature builds and nature
destroys. When the acorn grows—when the sunlight and rain fall upon it
and the oak rises—so far as the oak is concerned "all natural causes"
do not "run to disintegration." But there comes a time when the oak
has reached its limit, and then the forces of nature run towards
disintegration, and finally the old oak falls. But if the Cardinal is
right—if "all natural causes run to disintegration," then every success
must have been of divine origin, and nothing is natural but destruction.
This is Catholic science: "All natural causes run to disintegration."
What do these causes find to disintegrate? Nothing that is natural. The
fact that the thing is not disintegrated shows that it was and is of
supernatural origin. According to the Cardinal, the only business
of nature is to disintegrate the supernatural. To prevent this, the
supernatural needs the protection of the Infinite. According to this
doctrine, if anything lives and grows, it does so in spite of nature.
Growth, then, is not in accordance with, but in opposition to nature.
Every plant is supernatural—it defeats the disintegrating influences of
rain and light. The generalization of the Cardinal is half the truth. It
would be equally true to say: All natural causes run to integration. But
the whole truth is that growth and decay are equal.

The Cardinal asserts that "Christendom was created by the world-wide
church as we see it before our eyes at this day."

Philosophers and statesmen believe it to be the work of their own
hands; they did not make it, but they have for three hundred years been
unmaking it by reformations and revolutions.

The meaning of this is that Christendom was far better three hundred
years ago than now; that during these three centuries Christendom has
been going toward barbarism. It means that the supernatural church of
God has been a failure for three hundred years; that it has been unable
to withstand the attacks of philosophers and statesmen, and that it has
been helpless in the midst of "reformations and revolutions."

What was the condition of the world three hundred years ago, the period,
according to the Cardinal, in which the church reached the height of its
influence, and since which it has been unable to withstand the rising
tide of reformation and the whirlwind of revolution?

In that blessed time, Philip II. was king of Spain—he with the cramped
head and the monstrous jaw. Heretics were hunted like wild and poisonous
beasts; the Inquisition was firmly established, and priests were busy
with rack and fire. With a zeal born of the hatred of man and the love
of God, the church, with every instrument of torture, touched every
nerve in the human body.

In those happy days, the Duke of Alva was devastating the homes of
Holland; heretics were buried alive—their tongues were torn from their
mouths, their lids from their eyes; the Armada was on the sea for the
destruction of the heretics of England, and the Moriscoes—a million and
a half of industrious people—were being driven by sword and flame
from their homes. The Jews had been expelled from Spain. This Catholic
country had succeeded in driving intelligence and industry from its
territory; and this had been done with a cruelty, with a ferocity,
unequaled, in the annals of crime.

Nothing was left but ignorance, bigotry, intolerance, credulity, the
Inquisition, the seven sacraments and the seven deadly sins. And yet a
Cardinal of the nineteenth century, living in the land of Shakespeare,
regrets the change that has been wrought by the intellectual efforts, by
the discoveries, by the inventions and heroism of three hundred years.

Three hundred years ago, Charles IX., in France, son of Catherine de
Medici, in the year of grace 1572—after nearly sixteen centuries of
Catholic Christianity—after hundreds of vicars of Christ had sat in St.
Peter's chair—after the natural passions of man had been "softened" by
the creed of Rome—came the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, the result of a
conspiracy between the Vicar of Christ, Philip II., Charles IX., and his
fiendish mother. Let the Cardinal read the account of this massacre
once more, and, after reading it, imagine that he sees the gashed and
mutilated bodies of thousands of men and women, and then let him say
that he regrets the revolutions and reformations of three hundred years.

About three hundred years ago Clement VIII., Vicar of Christ, acting in
God's place, substitute of the Infinite, persecuted Giordano Bruno even
unto death. This great, this sublime man, was tried for heresy. He had
ventured to assert the rotary motion of the earth; he had hazarded the
conjecture that there were in the fields of infinite space worlds larger
and more glorious than ours. For these low and groveling thoughts, for
this contradiction of the word and vicar of God, this man was imprisoned
for many years. But his noble spirit was not broken, and finally, in the
year 1600, by the orders of the infamous vicar, he was chained to
the stake. Priests believing in the doctrine of universal
forgiveness—priests who when smitten upon one cheek turned the
other—carried with a kind of ferocious joy fagots to the feet of this
incomparable man. These disciples of "Our Lord" were made joyous as
the flames, like serpents, climbed around the body of Bruno. In a few
moments the brave thinker was dead, and the priests who had burned him
fell upon their knees and asked the infinite God to continue the blessed
work forever in hell.

There are two things that cannot exist in the same universe—an infinite
God and a martyr.

Does the Cardinal regret that kings and emperors are not now engaged in
the extermination of Protestants? Does he regret that dungeons of the
Inquisition are no longer crowded with the best and bravest? Does he
long for the fires of the auto da fe.?

In coming to a conclusion as to the origin of the Catholic Church—in
determining the truth of the claim of infallibility—we are not
restricted to the physical achievements of that church, or to the
history of its propagation, or to the rapidity of its growth.

This church has a creed; and if this church is of divine origin—if
its head is the vicar of Christ, and, as such, infallible in matters
of faith and morals, this creed must be true. Let us start with the
supposition that God exists, and that he is infinitely wise, powerful
and good—and this is only a supposition. Now, if the creed is foolish,
absurd and cruel, it cannot be of divine origin. We find in this creed
the following:

"Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold
the Catholic faith."

It is not necessary, before all things, that he be good, honest,
merciful, charitable and just. Creed is more important than conduct. The
most important of all things is, that he hold the Catholic faith. There
were thousands of years during which it was not necessary to hold that
faith, because that faith did not exist; and yet during that time the
virtues were just as important as now, just as important as they ever
can be.

Millions of the noblest of the human race never heard of this creed.
Millions of the bravest and best have heard of it, examined, and
rejected it. Millions of the most infamous have believed it, and because
of their belief, or notwithstanding their belief, have murdered millions
of their fellows. We know that men can be, have been, and are just
as wicked with it as without it. We know that it is not necessary to
believe it to be good, loving, tender, noble and self-denying. We admit
that millions who have believed it have also been self-denying and
heroic, and that millions, by such belief, were not prevented from
torturing and destroying the helpless.

Now, if all who believed it were good, and all who rejected it were
bad, then there might be some propriety in saying that "whoever will
be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic
faith." But as the experience of mankind is otherwise, the declaration
becomes absurd, ignorant and cruel.

There is still another clause:

"Which faith, except every one do keep entire and inviolate, without
doubt, he shall everlastingly perish."

We now have both sides of this wonderful truth: The believer will be
saved, the unbeliever will be lost. We know that faith is not the child
or servant of the will. We know that belief is a conclusion based upon
what the mind supposes to be true. We know that it is not an act of the
will. Nothing can be more absurd than to save a man because he is not
intelligent enough to accept the truth, and nothing can be more infamous
than to damn a man because he is intelligent enough to reject the false.
It resolves itself into a question of intelligence. If the creed is
true, then a man rejects it because he lacks intelligence. Is this
a crime for which a man should everlastingly perish? If the creed is
false, then a man accepts it because he lacks intelligence. In both
cases the crime is exactly the same.

If a man is to be damned for rejecting the truth, certainly he should
not be saved for accepting the false. This one clause demonstrates
that a being of infinite wisdom and goodness did not write it. It also
demonstrates that it was the work of men who had neither wisdom nor a
sense of justice.

What is this Catholic faith that must be held? It is this:

"That we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity, neither
confounding the persons nor dividing the substance." Why should an
Infinite Being demand worship? Why should one God wish to be worshiped
as three? Why should three Gods wished to be worshiped as one? Why
should we pray to one God and think of three, or pray to three Gods
and think of one? Can this increase the happiness of the one or of the
three? Is it possible to think of one as three, or of three as one? If
you think of three as one, can you think of one as none, or of none as
one? When you think of three as one, what do you do with the other two?
You must not "confound the persons"—they must be kept separate. When
you think of one as three, how do you get the other two? You must not
"divide the substance." Is it possible to write greater contradictions
than these?

This creed demonstrates the human origin of the Catholic Church. Nothing
could be more unjust than to punish man for unbelief—for the expression
of honest thought—for having been guided by his reason—for having
acted in accordance with his best judgment.

Another claim is made, to the effect "that the Catholic Church has
filled the world with the true knowledge of the one true God, and that
it has destroyed all idols by light instead of by fire."

The Catholic Church described the true God as a being who would inflict
eternal pain on his weak and erring children; described him as a fickle,
quick-tempered, unreasonable deity, whom honesty enraged, and whom
flattery governed; one who loved to see fear upon its knees, ignorance
with closed eyes and open mouth; one who delighted in useless
self-denial, who loved to hear the sighs and sobs of suffering nuns,
as they lay prostrate on dungeon floors; one who was delighted when
the husband deserted his family and lived alone in some cave in the far
wilderness, tormented by dreams and driven to insanity by prayer and
penance, by fasting and faith.

According to the Catholic Church, the true God enjoyed the agonies of
heretics. He loved the smell of their burning flesh; he applauded with
wide palms when philosophers were flayed alive, and to him the _auto da
fe_ was a divine comedy. The shrieks of wives, the cries of babes when
fathers were being burned, gave contrast, heightened the effect and
filled his cup with joy. This true God did not know the shape of the
earth he had made, and had forgotten the orbits of the stars. "The
stream of light which descended from the beginning" was propagated by
fagot to fagot, until Christendom was filled with the devouring fires of
faith.

It may also be said that the Catholic Church filled the world with the
true knowledge of the one true Devil. It filled the air with malicious
phantoms, crowded innocent sleep with leering fiends, and gave the world
to the domination of witches and wizards, spirits and spooks, goblins
and ghosts, and butchered and burned thousands for the commission of
impossible crimes.

It is contended that: "In this true knowledge of the Divine Nature was
revealed to man their own relation to a Creator as sons to a Father."

This tender relation was revealed by the Catholics to the Pagans, the
Arians, the Cathari, the Waldenses, the Albigenses, the heretics, the
Jews, the Moriscoes, the Protestants—to the natives of the West Indies,
of Mexico, of Peru—to philosophers, patriots and thinkers. All these
victims were taught to regard the true God as a loving father, and this
lesson was taught with every instrument of torture—with brandings and
burnings, with flayings and flames. The world was filled with cruelty
and credulity, ignorance and intolerance, and the soil in which all
these horrors grew was the true knowledge of the one true God, and the
true knowledge of the one true Devil. And yet, we are compelled to say,
that the one true Devil described by the Catholic Church was not as
malevolent as the one true God.

Is it true that the Catholic Church overthrew idolatry? What is
idolatry? What shall we say of the worship of popes—of the doctrine of
the Real Presence, of divine honors paid to saints, of sacred vestments,
of holy water, of consecrated cups and plates, of images and relics, of
amulets and charms?

The Catholic Church filled the world with the spirit of idolatry. It
abandoned the idea of continuity in nature, it denied the integrity of
cause and effect. The government of the world was the composite
result of the caprice of God, the malice of Satan, the prayers of
the faithful—softened, it may be, by the charity of Chance. Yet the
Cardinal asserts, without the preface of a smile, that "Demonology was
overthrown by the church, with the assistance of forces that were
above nature;" and in the same breath gives birth to this enlightened
statement: "Beelzebub is not divided against himself." Is a belief in
Beelzebub a belief in demonology? Has the Cardinal forgotten the Council
of Nice, held in the year of grace 787, that declared the worship of
images to be lawful? Did that infallible Council, under the guidance of
the Holy Ghost, destroy idolatry?

The Cardinal takes the ground that marriage is a sacrament, and
therefore indissoluble, and he also insists that celibacy is far better
than marriage,—holier than a sacrament,—that marriage is not the
highest state, but that "the state of virginity unto death is the
highest condition of man and woman."

The highest ideal of a family is where all are equal—where love has
superseded authority—where each seeks the good of all, and where none
obey—where no religion can sunder hearts, and with which no church can
interfere.

The real marriage is based on mutual affection—the ceremony is but the
outward evidence of the inward flame. To this contract there are but two
parties. The church is an impudent intruder. Marriage is made public to
the end that the real contract may be known, so that the world can see
that the parties have been actuated by the highest and holiest motives
that find expression in the acts of human beings. The man and woman
are not joined together by God, or by the church, or by the state.
The church and state may prescribe certain ceremonies, certain
formalities—but all these are only evidence of the existence of a
sacred fact in the hearts of the wedded. The indissolubility of marriage
is a dogma that has filled the lives of millions with agony and tears.
It has given a perpetual excuse for vice and immorality. Fear has
borne children begotten by brutality. Countless women have endured the
insults, indignities and cruelties of fiendish husbands, because they
thought that it was the will of God. The contract of marriage is the
most important that human beings can make; but no contract can be
so important as to release one of the parties from the obligation of
performance; and no contract, whether made between man and woman, or
between them and God, after a failure of consideration caused by the
willful act of the man or woman, can hold and bind the innocent and
honest.

Do the believers in indissoluble marriage treat their wives better than
others? A little while ago, a woman said to a man who had raised his
hand to strike her: "Do not touch me; you have no right to beat me; I am
not your wife."

About a year ago a husband, whom God in his infinite wisdom had joined
to a loving and patient woman in the indissoluble sacrament of marriage,
becoming enraged, seized the helpless wife and tore out one of her eyes.
She forgave him. A few weeks ago he deliberately repeated this frightful
crime, leaving his victim totally blind. Would it not have been better
if man, before the poor woman was blinded, had put asunder whom God
had joined together? Thousands of husbands, who insist that marriage is
indissoluble, are the beaters of wives.

The law of the church has created neither the purity nor the peace of
domestic life. Back of all churches is human affection. Back of all
theologies is the love of the human heart. Back of all your priests and
creeds is the adoration of the one woman by the one man, and of the one
man by the one woman. Back of your faith is the fireside; back of your
folly is the family; and back of all your holy mistakes and your sacred
absurdities is the love of husband and wife, of parent and child.

It is not true that neither the Greek nor the Roman world had any true
conception of a home. The splendid story of Ulysses and Penelope, the
parting of Hector and Andromache, demonstrate that a true conception of
home existed among the Greeks. Before the establishment of Christianity,
the Roman matron commanded the admiration of the then known world. She
was free and noble. The church degraded woman—made her the property
of the husband, and trampled her beneath its brutal feet. The "fathers"
denounced woman as a perpetual temptation, as the cause of all evil. The
church worshiped a God who had upheld polygamy, and had pronounced his
curse on woman, and had declared that she should be the serf of the
husband. This church followed the teachings of St. Paul. It taught the
uncleanness of marriage, and insisted that all children were conceived
in sin. This church pretended to have been founded by one who offered a
reward in this world, and eternal joy in the next, to husbands who would
forsake their wives and children and follow him. Did this tend to the
elevation of woman? Did this detestable doctrine "create the purity and
peace of domestic life"? Is it true that a monk is purer than a good and
noble father?—that a nun is holier than a loving mother?

Is there anything deeper and stronger than a mother's love? Is there
anything purer, holier than a mother holding her dimpled babe against
her billowed breast?

The good man is useful, the best man is the most useful. Those who fill
the nights with barren prayers and holy hunger, torture themselves
for their own good and not for the benefit of others. They are
earning eternal glory for themselves—they do not fast for their
fellow-men—their selfishness is only equalled by their foolishness.
Compare the monk in his selfish cell, counting beads and saying prayers
for the purpose of saving his barren soul, with a husband and father
sitting by his fireside with wife and children. Compare the nun with the
mother and her babe.

Celibacy is the essence of vulgarity. It tries to put a stain upon
motherhood, upon marriage, upon love—that is to say, upon all that
is holiest in the human heart. Take love from the world, and there is
nothing left worth living for. The church has treated this great, this
sublime, this unspeakably holy passion, as though it polluted the heart.
They have placed the love of God above the love of woman, above the love
of man. Human love is generous and noble. The love of God is selfish,
because man does not love God for God's sake, but for his own.

Yet the Cardinal asserts "that the change wrought by Christianity in the
social, political and international relations of the world"—"that the
root of this ethical change, private and public, is the Christian home."
A moment afterward, this prelate insists that celibacy is far better
than marriage. If the world could be induced to live in accordance with
the "highest state," this generation would be the last. Why were men and
women created? Why did not the Catholic God commence' with the sinless
and sexless? The Cardinal ought to take the ground that to talk well is
good, but that to be dumb is the highest condition; that hearing is a
pleasure, but that deafness is ecstasy; and that to think, to reason, is
very well, but that to be a Catholic is far better.

Why should we desire the destruction of human passions? Take passions
from human beings and what is left? The great object should be not to
destroy passions, but to make them obedient to the intellect. To indulge
passion to the utmost is one form of intemperance—to destroy passion is
another. The reasonable gratification of passion under the domination of
the intellect is true wisdom and perfect virtue.

The goodness, the sympathy, the self-denial of the nun, of the monk, all
come from the mother-instinct, the father-instinct—all were produced by
human affection, by the love of man for woman, of woman for man. Love is
a transfiguration. It ennobles, purifies and glorifies. In true marriage
two hearts burst into flower. Two lives unite. They melt in music. Every
moment is a melody. Love is a revelation, a creation. From love
the world borrows its beauty and the heavens their glory. Justice,
self-denial, charity and pity are the children of love. Lover, wife,
mother, husband, father, child, home—these words shed light—they are
the gems of human speech. Without love all glory fades, the noble falls
from life, art dies, music loses meaning and becomes mere motions of the
air, and virtue ceases to exist.

It is asserted that this life of celibacy is above and against the
tendencies of human nature; and the Cardinal then asks: "Who will
ascribe this to natural causes, and, if so, why did it not appear in the
first four thousand years?"

If there is in a system of religion a doctrine, a dogma, or a practice
against the tendencies of human nature—if this religion succeeds,
then it is claimed by the Cardinal that such religion must be of divine
origin. Is it "against the tendencies of human nature" for a mother to
throw her child into the Ganges to please a supposed God? Yet a religion
that insisted on that sacrifice succeeded, and has, to-day, more
believers than the Catholic Church can boast.

Religions, like nations and individuals, have always gone along the line
of least resistance. Nothing has "ascended the stream of human license
by a power mightier than nature." There is no such power. There never
was, there never can be, a miracle. We know that man is a conditioned
being. We know that he is affected by a change of conditions. If he
is ignorant he is superstitious; this is natural. If his brain is
developed—if he perceives clearly that all things are naturally
produced, he ceases to be superstitious, and becomes scientific. He is
not a saint, but a savant—not a priest, but a philosopher. He does
not worship, he works; he investigates; he thinks; he takes advantage,
through intelligence, of the forces of nature. He is no longer the
victim of appearances, the dupe of his own ignorance, and the persecutor
of his fellow-men.

He then knows that it is far better to love his wife and children than
to love God. He then knows that the love of man for woman, of woman for
man, of parent for child, of child for parent, is far better, far holier
than the love of man for any phantom born of ignorance and fear.

It is illogical to take the ground that the world was cruel and ignorant
and idolatrous when the Catholic Church was established, and that
because the world is better now than then, the church is of divine
origin.

What was the world when science came? What was it in the days of
Galileo, Copernicus and Kepler? What-was it when printing was invented?
What was it when the Western World was found? Would it not be much
easier to prove that science is of divine origin?

Science does not persecute. It does not shed blood—it fills the world
with light. It cares nothing for heresy; it develops the mind, and
enables man to answer his own prayers.

Cardinal Manning takes the ground that Jehovah practically abandoned
the children of men for four thousand years, and gave them over to every
abomination. He claims that Christianity came "in the fullness of time,"
and it is then admitted that "what the fullness of time may mean is one
of the mysteries of times and seasons, that it is not for us to know."
Having declared that it is a mystery, and one that we are not to
know, the Cardinal explains it: "One motive for the long delay of four
thousand years is not far to seek—it gave time, full and ample, for the
utmost development and consolidation of all the falsehood and evil of
which the intellect and will of man are capable."

Is it possible to imagine why an infinitely good and wise being "gave
time full and ample for the utmost development and consolidation of
falsehood and evil"? Why should an infinitely wise God desire this
development and consolidation? What would be thought of a father who
should refuse to teach his son and deliberately allow him to go into
every possible excess, to the end that he might "develop all the
falsehood and evil of which his intellect and will were capable"? If a
supernatural religion is a necessity, and if without it all men simply
develop and consolidate falsehood and evil, why was not a supernatural
religion given to the first man? The Catholic Church, if this be true,
should have been founded in the Garden of Eden.

Was it not cruel to drown a world just for the want of a supernatural
religion—a religion that man, by no possibility, could furnish? Was
there "husbandry in heaven"?

But the Cardinal contradicts himself by not only admitting, but
declaring, that the world had never seen a legislation so just, so
equitable, as that of Rome.

Is it possible that a nation in which falsehood and evil had reached
their highest development was, after all, so wise, so just and so
equitable?

Was not the civil law far better than the Mosaic—more philosophical,
nearer just?

The civil law was produced without the assistance of God.

According to the Cardinal, it was produced by men in whom all the
falsehood and evil of which they were capable had been developed and
consolidated, while the cruel and ignorant Mosaic code came from the
lips of infinite wisdom and compassion.

It is declared that the history of Rome shows what man can do without
God, and I assert that the history of the Inquisition shows what man
can do when assisted by a church of divine origin, presided over, by the
infallible vicars of God.

The fact that the early Christians not only believed incredible things,
but persuaded others of their truth, is regarded by the Cardinal as a
miracle. This is only another phase of the old argument that success is
the test of divine origin. All supernatural religions have been founded
in precisely the same way. The credulity of eighteen hundred years ago
believed everything except the truth.

A religion is a growth, and is of necessity adapted in some degree to
the people among whom it grows. It is shaped and molded by the general
ignorance, the superstition and credulity of the age in which it lives.
The key is fashioned by the lock.

Every religion that has succeeded has in some way supplied the wants of
its votaries, and has to a certain extent harmonized with their hopes,
their fears, their vices, and their virtues.

If, as the Cardinal says, the religion of Christ is in absolute harmony
with nature, how can it be supernatural? The Cardinal also declares that
"the religion of Christ is in harmony with the reason and moral nature
in all nations and all ages to this day."

What becomes of the argument that Catholicism must be of divine origin
because "it has ascended the stream of human license, _contra ictum
fluminis_, by a power mightier than nature"?

If "it is in harmony with the reason and moral nature of all nations and
all ages to this day," it has gone with the stream, and not against
it. If "the religion of Christ is in harmony with the reason and moral
nature of all nations," then the men who have rejected it are unnatural,
and these men have gone against the stream. How then can it be said
that Christianity has been in changeless opposition to nature as man has
marred it? To what extent has man marred it?

In spite of the marring by man, we are told that the reason and moral
nature of all nations in all ages to this day is in harmony with the
religion of Jesus Christ.

Are we justified in saying that the Catholic Church is of divine origin
because the Pagans failed to destroy it by persecution?

We will put the Cardinal's statement in form:

Paganism failed to destroy Catholicism by persecution, therefore
Catholicism is of divine origin.

Let us make an application of this logic:

Paganism failed to destroy Catholicism by persecution; therefore,
Catholicism is of divine origin.

Catholicism failed to destroy Protestantism by persecution; therefore,
Protestantism is of divine origin.

Catholicism and Protestantism combined failed to destroy Infidelity;
therefore, Infidelity is of divine origin.

Let us make another application:

Paganism did not succeed in destroying Catholicism; therefore, Paganism
was a false religion.

Catholicism did not succeed in destroying Protestantism; therefore,
Catholicism is a false religion.

Catholicism and Protestantism combined failed to destroy Infidelity;
therefore, both Catholicism and Protestantism are false religions.

The Cardinal has another reason for believing the Catholic Church of
divine origin. He declares that the "Canon Law is a creation of wisdom
and justice to which no statutes at large or imperial pandects can bear
comparison;" "that the world-wide and secular legislation of the church
was of a higher character, and that as water cannot rise above its
source, the church could not, by mere human wisdom, have corrected and
perfected the imperial law, and therefore its source must have been
higher than the sources of the world."

When Europe was the most ignorant, the Canon Law was supreme.

As a matter of fact, the good in the Canon Law was borrowed—the bad
was, for the most part, original. In my judgment, the legislation of the
Republic of the United States is in many respects superior to that of
Rome, and yet we are greatly indebted to the Civil Law. Our legislation
is superior in many particulars to that of England, and yet we are
greatly indebted to the Common Law; but it never occurred to me that our
Statutes at Large are divinely inspired.

If the Canon Law is, in fact, the legislation of infinite wisdom, then
it should be a perfect code. Yet, the Canon Law made it a crime next to
robbery and theft to take interest for money. Without the right to take
interest the business of the whole world, would to a large extent, cease
and the prosperity of mankind end. There are railways enough in the
United States to make six tracks around the globe, and every mile was
built with borrowed money on which interest was paid or promised. In no
other way could the savings of many thousands have been brought together
and a capital great enough formed to construct works of such vast and
continental importance.

It was provided in this same wonderful Canon Law that a heretic could
not be a witness against a Catholic. The Catholic was at liberty to
rob and wrong his fellow-man, provided the fellow-man was not a fellow
Catholic, and in a court established by the vicar of Christ, the man
who had been robbed was not allowed to open his mouth. A Catholic could
enter the house of an unbeliever, of a Jew, of a heretic, of a Moor, and
before the eyes of the husband and father murder his wife and children,
and the father could not pronounce in the hearing of a judge the name of
the murderer.

The world is wiser now, and the Canon Law, given to us by infinite
wisdom, has been repealed by the common sense of man.

In this divine code it was provided that to convict a cardinal bishop,
seventy-two witnesses were required; a cardinal presbyter, forty-four;
a cardinal deacon, twenty-four; a subdeacon, acolyth, exorcist, reader,
ostiarius, seven; and in the purgation of a bishop, twelve witnesses
were invariably required; of a presbyter, seven; of a deacon, three.
These laws, in my judgment, were made, not by God, but by the clergy.

So too in this cruel code it was provided that those who gave aid,
favor, or counsel, to excommunicated persons, should be anathema, and
that those who talked with, consulted, or sat at the same table with or
gave anything in charity to the excommunicated should be anathema.

Is it possible that a being of infinite wisdom made hospitality a crime?
Did he say: "Whoso giveth a cup of cold water to the excommunicated
shall wear forever a garment of fire"? Were not the laws of the Romans
much better? Besides all this, under the Canon Law the dead could be
tried for heresy, and their estates confiscated—that is to say, their
widows and orphans robbed.

The most brutal part of the common law of England is that in relation
to the rights of women—all of which was taken from the _Corpus Juris
Canonici_, "the law that came from a higher source than man."

The only cause of absolute divorce as laid down by the pious canonists
was propter infidelitatem, which was when one of the parties became
Catholic, and would not live with the other who continued still an
unbeliever. Under this divine statute, a pagan wishing to be rid of
his wife had only to join the Catholic Church, provided she remained
faithful to the religion of her fathers. Under this divine law, a man
marrying a widow was declared to be a bigamist.

It would require volumes to point out the cruelties, absurdities and
inconsistencies of the Canon Law. It has been thrown away by the world.
Every civilized nation has a code of its own, and the Canon Law is
of interest only to the historian, the antiquarian, and the enemy of
theological government.

Under the Canon Law, people were convicted of being witches and wizards,
of holding intercourse with devils. Thousands perished at the stake,
having been convicted of these impossible crimes. Under the Canon Law,
there was such a crime as the suspicion of heresy. A man or woman could
be arrested, charged with being suspected, and under this Canon Law,
flowing from the intellect of infinite wisdom, the presumption was in
favor of guilt. The suspected had to prove themselves innocent. In all
civilized courts, the presumption of innocence is the shield of the
indicted, but the Canon Law took away this shield, and put in the hand
of the priest the sword of presumptive guilt.

If the real pope is the vicar of Christ, the true shepherd of the sheep,
this fact should be known not only to the vicar, but to the sheep. A
divinely founded and guarded church ought to know its own shepherd, and
yet the Catholic sheep have not always been certain who the shepherd
was.

The Council of Pisa, held in 1409, deposed two popes—rivals—Gregory
and Benedict—that is to say, deposed the actual vicar of Christ and the
pretended. This action was taken because a council, enlightened by the
Holy Ghost, could not tell the genuine from the counterfeit. The council
then elected another vicar, whose authority was afterwards denied.
Alexander V. died, and John XXIII. took his place; Gregory XII. insisted
that he was the lawful pope; John resigned, then he was deposed, and
afterward imprisoned; then Gregory XII. resigned, and Martin V. was
elected. The whole thing reads like the annals of a South American
revolution.

The Council of Constance restored, as the Cardinal declares, the unity
of the church, and brought back the consolation of the Holy Ghost.
Before this great council John Huss appeared and maintained his own
tenets. The council declared that the church was not bound to keep its
promise with a heretic. Huss was condemned and executed on the 6th
of July, 1415. His disciple, Jerome of Prague, recanted, but having
relapsed, was put to death, May 30, 1416. This cursed council shed the
blood of Huss and Jerome.

The Cardinal appeals to the author of "Ecce Homo" for the purpose of
showing that Christianity is above nature, and the following passages,
among others, are quoted:

"Who can describe that which unites men? Who has entered into the
formation of speech, which is the symbol of their union? Who can
describe exhaustively the origin of civil society? He who can do these
things can explain the origin of the Christian Church."

These passages should not have been quoted by the Cardinal. The author
of these passages simply says that the origin of the Christian Church
is no harder to find and describe than that which unites men—than that
which has entered into the formation of speech, the symbol of their
union—no harder to describe than the origin of civil society—because
he says that one who can describe these can describe the other.

Certainly none of these things are above nature. We do not need the
assistance of the Holy Ghost in these matters. We know that men are
united by common interests, common purposes, common dangers—by race,
climate and education. It is no more wonderful that people live in
families, tribes, communities and nations, than that birds, ants and
bees live in flocks and swarms.

If we know anything, we know that language is natural—that it is a
physical science. But if we take the ground occupied by the Cardinal,
then we insist that everything that cannot be accounted for by man,
is supernatural. Let me ask, by what man? What man must we take as the
standard?

Cosmas or Humboldt, St. Irenaeus or Darwin? If everything that we
cannot account for is above nature, then ignorance is the test of the
supernatural. The man who is mentally honest, stops where his knowledge
stops. At that point he says that he does not know. Such a man is a
philosopher. Then the theologian steps forward, denounces the modesty
of the philosopher as blasphemy, and proceeds to tell what is beyond the
horizon of the human intellect.

Could a savage account for the telegraph, or the telephone, by natural
causes? How would he account for these wonders? He would account for
them precisely as the Cardinal accounts for the Catholic Church.

Belonging to no rival church, I have not the slightest interest in the
primacy of Leo XIII., and yet it is to be regretted that this primacy
rests upon such a narrow and insecure foundation.

The Cardinal says that "it will appear almost certain that the original
Greek of St. Irenaeus, which is unfortunately lost, contained either
[—Greek—], or some inflection of [—Greek—], which signifies
primacy."

From this it appears that the primacy of the Bishop of Rome rests on
some "inflection" of a Greek word—and that this supposed inflection
was in a letter supposed to have been written by St. Irenaeus, which has
certainly been lost. Is it possible that the vast fabric of papal power
has this, and only this, for its foundation? To this "inflection" has it
come at last?

The Cardinal's case depends upon the intelligence and veracity of his
witnesses. The Fathers of the church were utterly incapable of examining
a question of fact. They were all believers in the miraculous. The same
is true of the apostles. If St. John was the author of the Apocalypse,
he was undoubtedly insane. If Polycarp said the things attributed to him
by Catholic writers, he was certainly in the condition of his master.
What is the testimony of St. John worth in the light of the following?
"Cerinthus, the heretic, was in a bathhouse. St. John and another
Christian were about to enter. St. John cried out: 'Let us run away,
lest the house fall upon us while the enemy of truth is in it.'" Is
it possible that St. John thought that God would kill two eminent
Christians for the purpose of getting even with one heretic?

Let us see who Polycarp was. He seems to have been a prototype of the
Catholic Church, as will be seen from the following statement concerning
this Father: "When any heretical doctrine was spoken in his presence
he would stop his ears." After this, there can be no question of his
orthodoxy. It is claimed that Polycarp was a martyr—that a spear was
run through his body, and that from the wound his soul, in the shape
of a bird, flew away. The history of his death is just as true as the
history of his life.

Irenaeus, another witness, took the ground that there was to be a
millennium—a thousand years of enjoyment in which celibacy would not be
the highest form of virtue. If he is called as a witness for the purpose
of establishing the divine origin of the church, and if one of his
"inflections" is the basis of papal supremacy, is the Cardinal also
willing to take his testimony as to the nature of the millennium?

All the Fathers were infinitely credulous. Every one of them believed,
not only in the miracles said to have been wrought by Christ, by the
apostles, and by other Christians, but every one of them believed in
the Pagan miracles. All of these Fathers were familiar with wonders and
impossibilities. Nothing was so common with them as to work miracles,
and on many occasions they not only cured diseases, not only reversed
the order of nature, but succeeded in raising the dead.

It is very hard, indeed, to prove what the apostles said, or what the
Fathers of the church wrote. There were many centuries filled with
forgeries—many generations in which the cunning hands of ecclesiastics
erased, obliterated or interpolated the records of the past—during
which they invented books, invented authors, and quoted from works that
never existed.

The testimony of the "Fathers" is without the slightest value.
They believed everything—they examined nothing. They received as a
waste-basket receives. Whoever accepts their testimony will exclaim with
the Cardinal: "Happily, men are not saved by logic."

Robert G. Ingersoll.

Is Divorce Wrong

By Cardinal Gibbons, Bishop Henry C. Potter, and Colonel Robert G.
Ingersoll.

THE attention of the public has been particularly directed of late
to the abuses of divorce, and to the facilities afforded by
the complexities of American law, and by the looseness of its
administration, for the disruption of family ties. Therefore the _North
American Review_ has opened its pages for the thorough discussion of
the subject in its moral, social, and religious aspects, and some of the
most eminent leaders of modern thought have contributed their opinions.
The Rev. S. W. Dike, LL.D., who is a specialist on the subject of
divorce, has prepared some statistics touching the matter, and, with
the assistance of Bishop Potter, the four following questions have been
formulated as a basis for the discussion:

1. Do you believe in the principle of divorce under any circumstances?

2. Ought divorced people to be allowed to marry under any circumstances?

3. What is the effect of divorce on the integrity of the family?

4. Does the absolute prohibition of divorce where it exists contribute
to the moral purity of society?

Editor North American Review,

Introduction by the Rev. S. W. Dike, LL.D.

I AM to introduce this discussion with some facts and make a few
suggestions upon them. In the dozen years of my work at this problem I
have steadily insisted upon a broad basis of fact as the only foundation
of sound opinion. We now have a great statistical advance in the report
of the Department of labor. A few of these statistics will serve the
present purpose.

There were in the United States 9,937 divorces reported for the year
1867 and 25,535 for 1886, or a total 328,716 in the twenty years. This
increase is more than twice as great as the population, and has been
remarkably uniform throughout the period. With the exception of New
York, perhaps Delaware, and the three or four States where special
legislative reforms have been secured, the increase covers the
country and has been more than twice the gain in population. The South
apparently felt the movement later than the North and West, but its
greater rapidity there will apparently soon obliterate most existing
differences. The movement is well-nigh as universal in Europe as here.
Thirteen European countries, including Canada, had 6,540 divorces in
1876 and 10,909 in 1886—an increase of 67 per cent. In the same period
the increase with us was 72.5 per cent. But the ratios of divorce
to population are here generally three or four times greater than in
Europe. The ratios to marriage in the United States are sometimes as
high as 1 to 10, 1 to 9, or even a little more for single years. In
heathen Japan for three years they were more than 1 to 3. But divorce
there is almost wholly left to the regulation of the family, and
practically optional with the parties. It is a re-transference of the
wife by a simple writing to her own family.

1. The increase of divorce is one of several evils affecting the family.
Among these are hasty or ill-considered marriages, the decline of
marriage and the decrease of children,—too generally among classes
pecuniarily best able to maintain domestic life,—the probable increase
in some directions of marital infidelity and sexual vice, and last, but
not least, a tendency to reduce the family to a minimum of force in the
life of society. All these evils should be studied and treated in their
relations to each other. Carefully-conducted investigations alone can
establish these latter statements beyond dispute, although there can be
little doubt of their general correctness as here carefully made. And
the conclusion is forced upon us that the toleration of the increase
of divorce, touching as it does the vital bond of the family, is so far
forth a confession of our western civilization that it despairs of
all remedies for ills of the family, and is becoming willing, in great
degree, to look away from all true remedies to a dissolution of the
family by the courts in all serious cases. If this were our settled
purpose, it would look like giving up the idea of producing and
protecting a family increasingly capable of enduring to the end of its
natural existence. If the drift of things on this subject during the
present century may be taken as prophetic, our civilization moves in an
opposite direction in its treatment of the family from its course with
the individual.

2. Divorce, including these other evils related to the family, is
preeminently a social problem. It should therefore be reached by all
the forces of our great social institutions—religious, educational,
industrial, and political. Each of these should be brought to bear on it
proportionately and in cooperation with the others. But I can here take
up only one or two lines for further suggestion.

3. The causes of divorces, like those of most social evils, are
often many and intricate. The statistics for this country, when the
forty-three various statutory causes are reduced to a few classes, show
that 20 per cent, of the divorces were based on adultery, 16 on cruelty,
38 were granted for desertion, 4 for drunkenness, less than 3 for
neglect to provide, and so on. But these tell very little, except that
it is easier or more congenial to use one or another of the statutory
causes, just as the old "omnibus clause," which gave general discretion
to the courts in Connecticut, and still more in some other States, was
made to cover many cases. A special study of forty-five counties in
twelve States, however, shows that drunkenness was a direct or indirect
cause in 20.1 per cent, of 29,665 cases. That is, it could be found
either alone or in conjunction with others, directly or indirectly, in
one-fifth of the cases.

4. Laws and their administration affect divorce. New York grants
absolute divorce for only one cause, and New Jersey for two. Yet New
York has many more divorces in proportion to population, due largely to
a looser system of administration. In seventy counties of twelve States
68 per cent, of the applications are granted. The enactment of a more
stringent law is immediately followed by a decrease of divorces, from
which there is a tendency to recover. Personally, I think stricter
methods of administration, restrictions upon remarriage, proper delays
in hearing suits, and some penal inflictions for cruelty, desertion,
neglect of support, as well as for adultery, would greatly reduce
divorces, even without removing a single statutory cause. There would
be fewer unhappy families, not more. For people would then look to real
remedies instead of confessing the hopelessness of remedy by appeals to
the courts. A multitude of petty ills and many utterly wicked frauds
and other abuses would disappear. "Your present methods," said a
Nova Scotian to a man from Maine a few years ago, "are simply ways of
multiplying and magnifying domestic ills." There is much force in this.
But let us put reform of marriage laws along with these measures.

5. The evils of conflicting and diverse marriage and divorce laws are
doing immense harm. The mischief through which innocent parties are
defrauded, children rendered illegitimate, inheritance made uncertain,
and actual imprisonments for bigamy grow out of divorce and remarriage,
are well known to most. Uniformity through a national law or by
conventions of the States has been strongly urged for many years.
Uniformity is needed. But for one, I have long discouraged too early
action, because the problem is too difficult, the consequences too
serious, and the elements of it still too far out of our reach for any
really wise action at present. The government report grew immediately
out of this conviction. It will, I think, abundantly justify the
caution. For it shows that uniformity could affect at the utmost only a
small percentage of the total divorces in the United States. _Only 19.9
percent of all the divorced who were married in this country obtained
their divorces in a different State from the one in which their marriage
had taken place, in all these twenty years, 80.1 per cent, having been
divorced in the State where married_. Now, marriage on the average lasts
9.17 years before divorce occurs, which probably is nearly two-fifths
the length of a married life before its dissolution by death. From this
19.9 per cent, there must, therefore, be subtracted the large migration
of married couples for legitimate purposes, in order to get any fair
figure to express the migration for divorce. But the movement of the
native population away from the State of birth is 22 or 23 per cent.
This, however, includes all ages. For all who believe that divorce
itself is generally a great evil, the conclusion is apparently
inevitable that the question of uniformity, serious as it is, is a very
small part of the great legal problem demanding solution at our hands.
This general problem, aside from its graver features in the more
immediate sphere of sociology and religion, must evidently tax our
publicists and statesmen severely. The old temptation to meet special
evils by general legislation besets us on this subject. I think
comparative and historical study of the law of the family, (the
Familienrecht of the Germans), especially if the movement of European
law be seen, points toward the need of a pretty comprehensive and
thorough examination of our specific legal problem of divorce
and marriage law in this fuller light, before much legislation is
undertaken.

Samuel W. Dike.

However much men may differ in their views of the nature and attributes
of the matrimonial contract, and in their concept of the rights and
obligations of the marriage state, no one will deny that these are grave
questions; since upon marriage rests the family, and upon the family
rest society, civilization, and the highest interests of religion and
the state. Yet, strange to say, divorce, the deadly enemy of marriage,
stalks abroad to-day bold and unblushing, a monster licensed by the laws
of Christian states to break hearts, wreck homes and ruin souls. And
passing strange is it, too, that so many, wise and far-seeing in less
weighty concerns, do not appear to see in the evergrowing power of
divorce a menace not only to the sacredness of the marriage institution,
but even to the fair social fabric reared upon matrimony as its
corner-stone.

God instituted in Paradise the marriage state and sanctified it. He
established its law of unity and declared its indissolubility. By divine
authority Adam spoke when of his wife he said: "This now is bone of my
bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she
was taken out of man. Wherefore a man shall leave father and mother, and
shall cleave to his wife: and they shall be two in one flesh."*
  • Gen., ii., 23-24.

But like other things on earth, marriage suffered in the fall; and
little by little polygamy and divorce began to assert themselves against
the law of matrimonial unity and indissolubility. Yet the ideal of the
marriage institution never faded away. It survived, not only among the
chosen people, but even among the nations of heathendom, disfigured
much, 'tis true, but with its ancient beauty never wholly destroyed.

When, in the fullness of time, Christ came to restore the things
that were perishing, he reasserted in clear and unequivocal terms the
sanctity, unity, and indissolubility of marriage. Nay, more. He gave to
this state added holiness and a dignity higher far than it had "from the
beginning." He made marriage a sacrament, made it the type of his own
never-ending union with his one spotless spouse, the church. St. Paul,
writing to the Ephesians, says: "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ
also loved the church, and delivered himself up for it, that he might
sanctify it, cleansing it by the laver of water in the word of life,
that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot
or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without
blemish. So also ought men to love their wives as their own bodies....
For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave
to his wife, and they shall be two in one flesh."*
  • Ephes., v., 25-31.

In defence of Christian marriage, the church was compelled from the
earliest days of her existence to do frequent and stern battle. But
cultured pagan, and rough barbarian, and haughty Christian lord were
met and conquered. Men were taught to master passion, and Christian
marriage, with all its rights secured and reverenced, became a ruling
power in the world.

The Council of Trent, called, in the throes of the mighty moral upheaval
of the sixteenth century, to deal with the new state of things, again
proclaimed to a believing and an unbelieving world the Catholic doctrine
of the holiness, unity, and indissolubility of marriage, and the
unlawfulness of divorce. The council declared no new dogmas: it simply
reaffirmed the common teaching of the church for centuries. But some
of the most hallowed attributes of marriage seemed to be objects of
peculiar detestation to the new teachers, and their abolition was
soon demanded. "The leaders in the changes of matrimonial law," writes
Professor Woolsey, "were the Protestant reformers themselves, and that
almost from the beginning of the movement.... The reformers, when they
discarded the sacramental view of marriage and the celibacy of the
clergy, had to make out a new doctrine of marriage and of divorce."*
The "new doctrine of marriage and of divorce," pleasing as it was to the
sensual man, was speedily learned and as speedily put in practice. The
sacredness with which Christian marriage had been hedged around began to
be more and more openly trespassed upon, and restive shoulders wearied
more and more quickly of the marriage yoke when divorce promised freedom
for newer joys.

To our own time the logical consequences of the "new doctrine" have
come. To-day "abyss calls upon abyss," change calls for change, laxity
calls for license. Divorce is now a recognized presence in high life and
low; and polygamy, the first-born of divorce, sits shameless in palace
and in hovel. Yet the teacher that feared not to speak the words of
truth in bygone ages is not silent now. In no uncertain tones, the
church proclaims to the world to-day the unchangeable law of the strict
unity and absolute indissolubility of valid and consummated Christian
marriage.

To the question then, "Can divorce from the bond of marriage ever be
allowed?" the Catholic can only answer no.
  • "Divorce and Divorce Legislation," by Theodore D. Woolsey,
    2d Ed., p. 126.

And for this no, his first and last and best reason can be but this:
"Thus saith the Lord."

As time goes on the wisdom of the church in absolutely forbidding
divorce from the marriage bond grows more and more plain even to the
many who deny to this prohibition a divine and authoritative sanction.
And nowhere is this more true than in our own country. Yet our
experience of the evils of divorce is but the experience of every people
that has cherished this monster.

Let us take but a hasty view of the consequences of divorce in ancient
times. Turn only to pagan Greece and Rome, two peoples that practised
divorce most extensively. In both we find divorce weakening their
primitive virtue and making their latter corruption more corrupt. Among
the Greeks morality declined as material civilization advanced. Divorce
grew easy and common, and purity and peace were banished from the family
circle. Among the Romans divorce was not common until the latter days of
the Republic. Then the flood-gates of immorality were opened, and, with
divorce made easy, came rushing in corruption of morals among both sexes
and in every walk of life. "Passion, interest, or caprice," Gibbon, the
historian, tells us, "suggested daily motives for the dissolution
of marriage; a word, a sign, a message, a letter, the mandate of a
freedman, declared the separation; the most tender of human connections
was degraded to a transient society of profit or pleasure."* Each
succeeding generation witnessed moral corruption more general, moral
degradation more profound; men and women were no longer ashamed of
licentiousness; until at length the nation that became mighty because
built on a pure family fell when its corner-stone crumbled away in
rottenness.
  • "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," Milman's Ed., Vol.
    III., p. 236.

Heedless of the lessons taught by history, modern nations, too, have
made trial of divorce. In Europe, wherever the new gospel of marriage
and divorce has had! notable influence, divorce has been legalized; and
in due proportion to the extent of that influence causes for divorce
have been multiplied, the bond of marriage more and more recklessly
broken, and the obligations of that sacred state more and more
shamelessly disregarded. In our own country the divorce evil has grown
more rapidly than our growth and strengthened more rapidly than our
strength. Mr. Carroll D. Wright, in a special report on the statistics
of marriage and divorce made to Congress in February, 1889, places the
number of divorces in the United States in 1867 at 9,937, and the number
in 1886 at 25,535. These figures show an increase of the divorce evil
much out of proportion to our increase in population. The knowledge that
divorces can easily be procured encourages hasty marriages and
equally hasty preparations. Legislators and judges in some States
are encouraging inventive genius in the art of finding new causes for
divorce. Frequently the most trivial and even ridiculous pretexts are
recognized as sufficient for the rupture of the marriage bond; and
in some States divorce can be obtained "without publicity," and even
without the knowledge of the defendant—in such cases generally an
innocent wife. Crime has sometimes been committed for the very purpose
of bringing about a divorce, and cases are not rare in which plots have
been laid to blacken the reputation of a virtuous spouse in order
to obtain legal freedom for new nuptials. Sometimes, too, there is a
collusion between the married parties to obtain divorce. One of them
trumps up charges; the other does not oppose the suit; and judgment is
entered for the plaintiff. Every daily newspaper tells us of divorces
applied for or granted, and the public sense of decency is constantly
being shocked by the disgusting recital of of divorce-court scandals.

We are filled with righteous indignation at Mormonism; we brand it as
a national disgrace, and justly demand its suppression. Why? Because,
forsooth, the Mormons are polygamists. Do we forget that there are
two species of polygamy—simultaneous and successive? Mormons practise
without legal recognition the first species; while among us the second
species is indulged in, and with the sanction of law, by thousands in
whose nostrils Mormonism is a stench and an abomination. The Christian
press and pulpit of the land denounce the Mormons as "an adulterous
generation," but too often deal very tenderly with Christian
polygamists. Why? Is Christian polygamy less odious in the eyes of God
than Mormon polygamy? Among us, *tis true, the one is looked upon as
more respectable than the other. Yet we know that the Mormons as a
class, care for their wives and children; while Christian polygamists
but too often leave wretched wives to starve, slave, or sin, and
leave miserable children a public charge. "O divorced and much-married
Christian," says the polygamous dweller by Salt Lake, "pluck first the
beam from thy own eye, and then shalt thou see to pluck the mote from
the eye of thy much-married, but undivorced, Mormon brother." It follows
logically from the Catholic doctrine of the unity and indissolubility
of marriage, and the consequent prohibition of divorce from the marital
bond, that no one, even though divorced a vinculo by the civil power,
can be allowed by the church to take another consort during the lifetime
of the true wife or husband, and such connection the church can but hold
as sinful. It is written: "Whosoever shall put away his wife and marry
another committeth adultery against her. And if the wife shall put away
her husband, and be married to another, she committeth adultery."*
  • Mark, x., ii, 12.

Of course, I am well aware that upon the words of our Saviour as found
in St. Matthew, Chap. xix., 9, many base the right of divorce from the
marriage bond for adultery, with permission to remarry. But, as is
well known, the Catholic Church, upon the concurrent testimony of the
Evangelists Mark and Luke, and upon the teaching of St. Paul,
interprets our Lord's words quoted by St. Matthew as simply permitting,
on account of adultery, divorce from bed and board, with no right to
either party to marry another.

But even if divorce a vinculo were not forbidden by divine law, how
inadequate a remedy would it be for the evils for which so many deem it
a panacea. "Divorce a vinculo," as Dr. Brownson truly says, "logically
involves divorce ad libitum."* Now, what reason is there to suppose
that parties divorced and remated will be happier in the new connection
than in the old? As a matter of fact, many persons have been divorced
a number of times. Sometimes, too, it happens that, after a period of
separation, divorced parties repent of their folly, reunite, and are
again divorced. Indeed, experience clearly proves that unhappiness
among married people frequently does not arise so much from "mutual
incompatibility" as from causes inherent in one or both of the
parties—causes that would be likely to make a new union as wretched
as the old one. There is wisdom in the pithy saying of-a recent writer:
"Much ill comes, not because men and women are married, but because they
are fools."*
  • Mark, x., n, 12. Luke, xvi., 18. J I. Cor.,vii., 10, 11.
     Essay on "The Family—Christian and Pagan."
  • Prof. David Swing in Chicago Journal.

There are some who think that the absolute prohibition of divorce does
not contribute to the purity of society, and are therefore of opinion
that divorce with liberty to remarry does good in this regard. He who
believes the matrimonial bond indissoluble, divorce a vinculo evil, and
the connection resulting from it criminal, can only say: "Evil should
not be done that good may come." But, after all, would even passing good
come from this greater freedom? In a few exceptional cases—Yes: in
the vast majority of cases—No. The trying of divorce as a safeguard of
purity is an old experiment, and an unsuccessful one. In Rome adulteries
increased as divorces were multiplied. After speaking of the facility
and frequency of divorce among the Romans, Gibbon adds:

"A specious theory is confuted by this free and perfect experiment,
which demonstrates that the liberty of divorce does not contribute
to happiness and virtue. The facility of separation would destroy
all mutual confidence, and inflame every trifling dispute. The minute
difference between a husband and a stranger, which might so easily be
removed, might still more easily be forgotten."*

How apropos in this connection are the words of Professor Woolsey:

"Nothing is more startling than to pass from the first part of the
eighteenth to this latter part of the nineteenth century, and to observe
how law has changed and opinion has altered in regard to marriage, the
great foundation of society, and to divorce; and how, almost pari passu,
various offences against chastity, such as concubinage, prostitution,
illegitimate births, abortion, disinclination to family life, have
increased also—not, indeed, at the same pace everywhere, or all of them
equally in all countries, yet have decidedly increased on the whole."!

Surely in few parts of the wide world is the truth of these strong words
more evident than in those parts of our own country where loose divorce
laws have long prevailed.

It should be noted that, while never allowing the dissolution of the
marriage bond, the Catholic Church has always permitted, for grave
causes and under certain conditions, a temporary or permanent
"separation from bed and board."
  • "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," Milman's Ed., Vol.
    III., p. 236.
    ** "Divorce and Divorce Legislation," 2d Ed., p. 274.

The causes which, positis ponendis, justify such separation may be
briefly given thus: mutual consent, adultery, and grave peril of soul or
body.

It may be said that there are persons so unhappily mated and so
constituted that for them no relief can come save from divorce _a
vinculo_, with permission to remarry. I shall not linger here to point
out to such the need of seeking from a higher than earthly power the
grace to suffer and be strong. But for those whose reasoning on this
subject is of the earth, earthy, I shall add some words of practical
worldly wisdom from eminent jurists. In a note to his edition of
Blackstone's "Commentaries," Mr. John Taylor Coleridge says:

"It is no less truly than beautifully said by Sir W. Scott, in the case
of Evans v. Evans, that 'though in particular cases the repugnance
of the law to dissolve the obligation of matrimonial cohabitation may
operate with great severity upon individuals, yet it must be carefully
remembered that the general happiness of the married life is secured
by its indissolubility.' When people understand that they must live
together, except for a few reasons known to the law, they learn to
soften by mutual accommodation that yoke which they know they cannot
shake off: they become good husbands and good wives from the necessity
of remaining husbands and wives: for necessity is a powerful master in
teaching the duties which it imposes. If it were once understood that
upon mutual disgust married persons might be legally separated, many
couples who now pass through the world with mutual comfort, with
attention to their common offspring, and to the moral order of civil
society, might have been at this moment living in a state of mutual
unkindness, in a state of estrangement from their common offspring, and
in a state of the most licentious and unrestrained immorality. In this
case, as in many other cases, the happiness of some individuals must be
sacrificed to the greater and more general good."

The facility and frequency of divorce, and its lamentable consequences,
are nowadays calling much attention to measures of "divorce reform."
"How can divorce reform be best secured?" it may be asked. Believing,
as I do, that divorce is evil, I also believe that its "reformation"
and its death must be simultaneous. It should cease to be. Divorce as we
know it began when marriage was removed from the domain of the church:
divorce shall cease when the old order shall be restored. Will this ever
come to pass? Perhaps so—after many days. Meanwhile, something might
be done, something should be done, to lessen the evils of divorce. Our
present divorce legislation must be presumed to be such as the majority
of the people wish it. A first step, therefore, in the way of "divorce
reform" should be the creation of a more healthy public sentiment on
this question. Then will follow measures that will do good in proportion
to their stringency. A few practical suggestions as to the salient
features of remedial divorce legislation may not be out of place.
Persons seeking at the hands of the civil law relief in matrimonial
troubles should have the right to ask for divorce a vinculo, or
simple separation a mensa et thoro, as they may elect. The number
of legally-recognized grounds for divorce should be lessened, and
"noiseless" divorces forbidden. "Rapid-transit" facilities for passing
through divorce courts should be cut off, and divorce "agencies" should
be suppressed. The plaintiff in a divorce case should be a bona fide
resident of the judicial district in which his petition is filed, and in
every divorce case the legal representatives of the State should appear
for the defendant, and, by all means, the right of remarriage after
divorce should be restricted. If divorce cannot be legislated out of
existence, let, at least, its power for evil be diminished.

James Cardinal Gibbons.

I am asked certain questions with regard to the attitude of the
Episcopal Church towards the matter of divorce. In undertaking to answer
them, it is to be remembered that there is a considerable variety of
opinion which is held in more or less precise conformity with doctrinal
or canonical declarations of the church. With these variations this
paper, except in so far as it may briefly indicate them, is not
concerned. Nor is it an expression of individual opinion. That is not
what has been asked for or attempted.

The doctrine and law of the Protestant Episcopal Church on the subject
of divorce is contained in canon 13, title II., of the "Digest of the
Canons," 1887. That, canon has been to a certain extent interpreted by
Episcopal judgments under section IV. The "public opinion" of the
clergy or laity can only be ascertained in the usual way; especially
by examining their published treatises, letters, etc., and perhaps most
satisfactorily by the reports of discussion in the diocesan and general
conventions on the subject of divorce. Among members of the Protestant
Episcopal Church divorce is excessively rare, cases of uncertainty in
the application of the canon, are much more rare, and the practice of
the clergy is almost perfectly uniform. There is, however, by no means
the same uniformity in their opinions either as to divorce or marriage.

As divorce is necessarily a mere accident of marriage, and as divorce is
impossible without a precedent marriage, much practical difficulty might
arise, and much difference of opinion does arise, from the fact that the
Protestant Episcopal Church has nowhere defined marriage. Negatively,
it is explicitly affirmed (Article XXV.) that "matrimony is not to
be counted for a sacrament of the Gospel." This might seem to reduce
matrimony to a civil contract. And accordingly the first rubric in
the Form of Solemnization of Matrimony directs, on the ground of
differences of laws in the various States, that "the minister is left
to the direction of those laws in everything that regards the civil
contract between the parties." Laws determining what persons shall be
capable of contracting would seem to be included in "everything that
regards the civil contract;" and unquestionably the laws of most of
the States render all persons legally divorced capable of at once
contracting a new marriage. Both the first section of canon 13 and the
Form of Solemnization, affirm that, "if any persons be joined together
otherwise than as God's word doth allow, their marriage is not
lawful." But it is nowhere excepting as to divorce, declared _what the
impediments are_. The Protestant Episcopal Church has never, by canon
or express legislation, published, for instance, a table of prohibited
degrees.

On the matter of divorce, however, canon 13, title II., supersedes, for
the members of the Protestant Episcopal Church, both a part of the civil
law relating to the persons capable of contracting marriage, and also
all private judgment as to the teaching of "the Word of God" on that
subject. No minister is allowed, as a rule, to solemnize the marriage of
any man or woman who has a divorced husband or wife still living. But
if the person seeking to be married is the innocent party in the divorce
for adultery, that person, whether man or woman, may be married by
a minister of the church. With the above exception, the clergy are
forbidden to administer the sacraments to any divorced and remarried
person without the express permission of the bishop, unless that person
be "penitent" and "in imminent danger of death." Any doubts "as to the
facts of any case under section II. of this canon" must be referred to
the bishop. Of course, where there is no reasonable doubt the minister
may proceed. It may be added that the sacraments are to be refused also
to persons who may be reasonably supposed to have contracted marriage
"otherwise," in any respect, "than as the Word of God and the discipline
of this Church doth allow." These impediments are nowhere defined; and
accordingly it has happened that a man who had married a deceased wife's
sister and the woman he had married were, by the private judgment of
a priest, refused the holy communion. The civil courts do not seem
inclined to protect the clergy from consequences of interference with
the civil law. In Southbridge, Mass., a few weeks ago, a man who
had been denounced from the altar for marrying again after a divorce
obtained a judgment for $1,720 damages. The law of the church would
seem to be that, even though a legal divorce may have been obtained,
remarriage is absolutely forbidden, excepting to the innocent party,
whether man or woman, in a divorce for adultery. The penalty for breach
of this law might involve, for the officiating clergyman, deposition
from the ministry; for the offending man or woman, exclusion from the
sacraments, which, in the judgment of a very large number of the clergy,
involves everlasting damnation.

It is obvious, then, that the Protestant Episcopal Church allows the
complete validity of a divorce a vinculo in the case of adultery, and
the right of remarriage to the innocent party. But that church has
not determined in what manner either the grounds of the divorce or the
"innocence" of either party is to be ascertained. The canon does not
require a clergyman to demand, nor can the church enable him to secure,
the production of a copy of the record or decree of the court of law
by which a divorce is granted, nor would such decree indicate the
"innocence" of one party, though it might prove the guilt of the other.

The effect of divorce upon the integrity of the family is too obvious to
require stating. As the father and mother are the heads of the family,
their separation must inevitably destroy the common family life. On the
other hand, it is often contended that the destruction has been already
completed, and that a divorce is only the legal recognition of what has
already taken place; "the integrity of the family" can scarcely remain
when either a father or mother, or both, are living in violation of the
law on which that integrity rests. The question may be asked whether the
absolute prohibition of divorce would contribute to the moral purity of
society. It is difficult to answer such a question, because anything
on the subject must be comparatively worthless until verified by
experience. It is quite certain that the prohibition of divorce never
prevents illicit sexual connections, as was abundantly proved when
divorce in England was put within the reach of persons who were not able
to afford the expense of a special act of Parliament. It is, indeed,
so palpable a fact that any amount of evidence or argument is wholly
superfluous.

The law of the Protestant Episcopal Church is by no means identical with
the opinion of either the clergy or the laity. In the judgment of many,
the existing law is far too lax, or, at least, the whole doctrine
of marriage is far too inadequately dealt with in the authoritative
teaching of the church. The opinion of this school finds, perhaps,
its most adequate expression in the report of a committee of the last
General Convention forming Appendix XIII. of the "Journal" of that
convention. It is, substantially, that the Mosaic law of marriage is
still binding upon the church, unless directly abrogated by Christ
himself; that it was abrogated by him only so far that all divorce was
forbidden by him, excepting for the cause of fornication; that a woman
might not claim divorce for any reason whatever; that the marriage of a
divorced person until the death of the other party is wholly forbidden;
that marriage is not merely a civil contract, but a spiritual and
supernatural union, requiring for its mutual obligation a supernatural,
divine grace; that such grace is only imparted in the sacrament of
matrimony, which is a true sacrament and does actually confer grace;
that marriage is wholly within the jurisdiction of the church, though
the State may determine such rules and guarantees as may secure
publicity and sufficient evidence of a marriage, etc.; that severe
penalties should be inflicted by the State, on the demand of the church,
for the suppression of all offences against the seventh commandment and
sundry other parts of the Mosaic legislation, especially in relation to
"prohibited degrees."

There is another school, equally earnest and sincere in its zeal for
the integrity of the family and sexual purity, which would nevertheless
repudiate much the greater part of the above assumption. This school, if
one may so venture to combine scattered opinions, argues substantially
as follows: The type of all Mosaic legislation was circumcision; that
rite was of universal obligation and divine authority. St. Paul so
regarded it. The abrogation of the law requiring circumcision was,
therefore, the abrogation of the whole of the Mosaic legislation. The
"burden of proof," therefore, rests upon those who affirm the present
obligation of what formed a part of the Mosaic law; and they must show
that it has been reenacted by Christ and his Apostles or forms some part
of some other and independent system of law or morals still in force.
Christ's words about divorce are not to be construed as a positive law,
but as expressing the ideal of marriage, and corresponding to his words
about eunuchs, which not everybody "can receive." So far as Christ's
words seem to indicate an inequality as to divorce between man and
woman, they are explained by the authoritative and inspired assertion of
St. Paul: "In Christ Jesus there is neither male nor female." A divine
law is equally authoritative by whomsoever declared—whether by the Son
Incarnate or by the Holy Ghost speaking through inspired Apostles. If,
then, a divine law was ever capable of suspension or modification, it
may still be capable of such suspension or modification in corresponding
circumstances. The circumstances which justified a modification of the
original divine law of marriage do still exist in many conditions of
society and even of individual life. The Protestant Episcopal Church
cannot, alone, speak with such authority on disputed passages of
Scripture as to justify her ministers in direct disobedience to the
civil authority, which is also "ordained of God." The exegesis of the
early church was closely connected with theories about matter, and
about the inferiority of women and of married life, which are no longer
believed.

Of course this is a very brief statement. As a matter of fact the actual
effect of the doctrine and discipline of the Protestant Episcopal Church
on marriage and divorce is that divorce among her members is excessively
rare; that it is regarded with extreme aversion; and that the public
opinion of the church maintains the law as it now is, but could not be
trusted to execute laws more stringent. A member of the committee of the
General Convention whose report has been already referred to closes that
report with the following protest:

"The undersigned finds himself unable to concur in so much of the
[proposed] canon as forbids the holy communion to a truly pious and
godly woman who has been compelled by long years of suffering from
a drunken and brutal husband to obtain a divorce, and has regularly
married some suitable person according to the established laws of the
land. And also from so much of the [proposed] canon as may seem to
forbid marriage with a deceased wife's sister."

The final action on these points, which has already been stated,
indicates that the proposed report thus referred to was, in one
particular at least, in advance of the sentiment of the church as
expressed in her General Convention.

Henry C. Potter.

_Question (1.) Do you believe in the principle of divorce under any
circumstances?_

The world for the most part is ruled by the tomb, and the living are
tyrannized over by the dead. Old ideas, long after the conditions under
which they were produced have passed away, often persist in surviving.
Many are disposed to worship the ancient—to follow the old paths,
without inquiring where they lead, and without knowing exactly where
they wish to go themselves.

Opinions on the subject of divorce have been, for the most part,
inherited from the early Christians. They have come to us through
theological and priestly channels. The early Christians believed that
the world was about to be destroyed, or that it was to be purified by
fire; that all the wicked were to perish, and that the good were to
be caught up in the air to meet their Lord—to remain there, in all
probability, until the earth was prepared as a habitation for the
blessed. With this thought or belief in their minds, the things of this
world were of comparatively no importance. The man who built larger
barns in which to store his grain was regarded as a foolish farmer, who
had forgotten, in his greed for gain, the value of his own soul.
They regarded prosperous people as the children of Mammon, and the
unfortunate, the wretched and diseased, as the favorites of God. They
discouraged all worldly pursuits, except the soliciting of alms. There
was no time to marry or to be given in marriage; no time to build homes
and have families. All their thoughts were centred upon the heaven
they expected to inherit. Business, love, all secular things, fell into
disrepute.

Nothing is said in the Testament about the families of the apostles;
nothing of family life, of the sacredness of home; nothing about the
necessity of education, the improvement and development of the mind.
These things were forgotten, for the reason that nothing, in the
presence of the expected event, was considered of any importance, except
to be ready when the Son of Man should come. Such was the feeling, that
rewards were offered by Christ himself to those who would desert their
wives and children. Human love was spoken of with contempt. "Let the
dead bury their dead. What is that to thee? Follow thou me." They not
only believed these things, but acted in accordance with them; and, as a
consequence, all the relations of life were denied or avoided, and their
obligations disregarded. Marriage was discouraged. It was regarded as
only one degree above open and unbridled vice, and was allowed only
in consideration of human weakness. It was thought far better not to
marry—that it was something grander for a man to love God than to
love woman. The exceedingly godly, the really spiritual, believed in
celibacy, and held the opposite sex in a kind of pious abhorrence. And
yet, with that inconsistency so characteristic of theologians, marriage
was held to be a sacrament. The priest said to the man who married:
"Remember that you are caught for life. This door opens but once. Before
this den of matrimony the tracks are all one way." This was in the
nature of a punishment for having married. The theologian felt that the
contract of marriage, if not contrary to God's command, was at least
contrary to his advice, and that the married ought to suffer in some
way, as a matter of justice. The fact that there could be no divorce,
that a mistake could not be corrected, was held up as a warning. At
every wedding feast this skeleton stretched its fleshless finger towards
bride and groom.

Nearly all intelligent people have given up the idea that the world is
about to come to an end. They do not now believe that prosperity is a
certain sign of wickedness, or that poverty and wretchedness are sure
certificates of virtue. They are hardly convinced that Dives should have
been sent to hell simply for being rich, or that Lazarus was entitled
to eternal joy on account of his poverty. We now know that prosperous
people may be good, and that unfortunate people may be bad. We have
reached the conclusion that the practice of virtue tends in the
direction of prosperity, and that a violation of the conditions of
well-being brings, with absolute certainty, wretchedness and misfortune.

There was a time when it was believed that the sin of an individual
was visited upon the tribe, the community, or the nation to which he
belonged. It was then thought that if a man or woman had made a vow
to God, and had failed to keep the vow, God might punish the entire
community; therefore it was the business of the community to see to it
that the vow was kept. That idea has been abandoned. As we progress, the
rights of the individual are perceived, and we are now beginning dimly
to discern that there are no rights higher than the rights of the
individual. There was a time when nearly all believed in the reforming
power of punishment—in the beneficence of brute force. But the world is
changing. It was at one time thought that the Inquisition was the savior
of society; that the persecution of the philosopher was requisite to the
preservation of the state, and that, no matter what happened, the state
should be preserved. We have now more light. And standing upon this
luminous point that we call the present, let me answer your questions.

Marriage is the most important, the most sacred, contract that
human beings can make. No matter whether we call it a contract, or a
sacrament, or both, it remains precisely the same. And no matter whether
this contract is entered into in the presence of magistrate or priest,
it is exactly the same. A true marriage is a natural concord and
agreement of souls, a harmony in which discord is not even imagined;
it is a mingling so perfect that only one seems to exist; all other
considerations are lost; the present seems to be eternal. In this
supreme moment there is no shadow—or the shadow is as luminous as
light. And when two beings thus love, thus unite, this is the true
marriage of soul and soul. That which is said before the altar, or
minister, or magistrate, or in the presence of witnesses, is only the
outward evidence of that which has already happened within; it simply
testifies to a union that has already taken place—to the uniting of two
mornings of hope to reach the night together. Each has found the ideal;
the man has found the one woman of all the world—the impersonation of
affection, purity, passion, love, beauty, and grace; and the woman has
found the one man of all the world, her ideal, and all that she knows of
romance, of art, courage, heroism, honesty, is realized in him. The
idea of contract is lost. Duty and obligation are instantly changed into
desire and joy, and two lives, like uniting streams, flow on as one.
Nothing can add to the sacredness of this marriage, to the obligation
and duty of each to each. There is nothing in the ceremony except the
desire on the part of the man and woman that the whole world should know
that they are really married and that their souls have been united.

Every marriage, for a thousand reasons, should be public, should be
recorded, should be known; but, above all, to the end that the purity of
the union should appear. These ceremonies are not only for the good and
for the protection of the married, but also for the protection of their
children, and of society as well. But, after all, the marriage remains
a contract of the highest possible character—a contract in which each
gives and receives a heart.

The question then arises, Should this marriage, under any circumstances,
be dissolved? It is easy to understand the position taken by the various
churches; but back of theological opinions is the question of contract.

In this contract of marriage, the man agrees to protect and cherish his
wife. Suppose that he refuses to protect; that he abuses, assaults, and
tramples upon the woman he wed. What is her redress? Is she under
any obligation to him? He has violated the contract. He has failed to
protect, and, in addition, he has assaulted her like a wild beast. Is
she under any obligation to him? Is she bound by the contract he has
broken? If so, what is the consideration for this obligation? Must she
live with him for his sake? or, if she leaves him to preserve her life,
must she remain his wife for his sake? No intelligent man will answer
these questions in the affirmative.

If, then, she is not bound to remain his wife for the husband's sake,
is she bound to remain his wife because the marriage was a sacrament? Is
there any obligation on the part of the wife to remain with the brutal
husband for the sake of God? Can her conduct affect in any way the
happiness of an infinite being? Is it possible for a human being to
increase or diminish the well-being of the Infinite?

The next question is as to the right of society in this matter. It must
be admitted that the peace of society will be promoted by the separation
of such people. Certainly society cannot insist upon a wife remaining
with a husband who bruises and mangles her flesh. Even married women
have a right to personal security. They do not lose, either by contract
or sacrament, the right of self-preservation; this they share in common,
to say the least of it, with the lowest living creatures.

This will probably be admitted by most of the enemies of divorce; but
they will insist that while the wife has the right to flee from
her husband's roof and seek protection of kindred or friends, the
marriage—the sacrament—must remain unbroken. Is it to the interest of
society that those who despise each other should live together? Ought
the world to be peopled by the children of hatred or disgust, the
children of lust and loathing, or by the welcome babes of mutual love?
Is it possible that an infinitely wise and compassionate God insists
that a helpless woman shall remain the wife of a cruel wretch? Can
this add to the joy of Paradise, or tend to keep one harp in tune? Can
anything be more infamous than for a government to compel a woman to
remain the wife of a man she hates—of one whom she justly holds in
abhorrence? Does any decent man wish the assistance of a constable,
a sheriff, a judge, or a church, to keep his wife in his house? Is it
possible to conceive of a more contemptible human being than a man who
would appeal to force in such a case? It may be said that the woman is
free to go, and that the courts will protect her from the brutality of
the man who promised to be her protector; but where shall the woman go?
She may have no friends; or they may be poor; her kindred may be
dead. Has she no right to build another home? Must this woman, full of
kindness, affection, health, be tied and chained to this living corpse?
Is there no future for her? Must she be an outcast forever—deceived and
betrayed for her whole life? Can she never sit by her own hearth, with
the arms of her children about her neck, and with a husband who loves
and protects her? Is she to become a social pariah, and is this for the
benefit of society?—or is it for the sake of the wretch who destroyed
her life?

The ground has been taken that woman would lose her dignity if marriage
could be annulled. Is it necessary to lose your liberty in order to
retain your moral character—in order to be pure and womanly? Must a
woman, in order to retain her virtue, become a slave, a serf, with a
beast for a master, or with society for a master, or with a phantom for
a master?

If an infinite being is one of the parties to the contract, is it not
the duty of this being to see to it that the contract is carried out?
What consideration does the infinite being give? What consideration does
he receive? If a wife owes no duty to her husband because the husband
has violated the contract, and has even assaulted her life, is it
possible for her to feel toward him any real thrill of affection? If she
does not, what is there left of marriage? What part of this contract or
sacrament remains in living force? She can not sustain the relation of
wife, because she abhors him; she cannot remain under the same roof, for
fear that she may be killed. They sustain, then, only the relations
of hunter and hunted—of tyrant and victim. Is it desirable that this
relation should last through life, and that it should be rendered sacred
by the ceremony of a church?

Again I ask, Is it desirable to have families raised under such
circumstances? Are we in need of children born of such parents? Can the
virtue of others be preserved only by this destruction of happiness, by
this perpetual imprisonment?

A marriage without love is bad enough, and a marriage for wealth or
position is low enough; but what shall we say of a marriage where the
parties actually abhor each other? Is there any morality in this?
any virtue in this? Is there virtue in retaining the name of wife, or
husband, without the real and true relation? Will any good man say, will
any good woman declare, that a true, loving woman should be compelled
to be the mother of children whose father she detests? Is there a good
woman in the world who would not shrink from this herself; and is there
a woman so heartless and so immoral that she would force another to bear
that from which she would shudderingly and shriekingly shrink?

Marriages are made by men and women; not by society; not by the state;
not by the church; not by supernatural beings. By this time we should
know that nothing is moral that does not tend to the well-being of
sentient beings; that nothing is virtuous the result of which is not
good. We know now, if we know anything, that all the reasons for doing
right, and all the reasons against doing wrong, are here in this world.
We should have imagination enough to put ourselves in the place of
another. Let a man suppose himself a helpless woman beaten by a brutal
husband—would he advocate divorces then?

Few people have an adequate idea of the sufferings of women and
children, of the number of wives who tremble when they hear the
footsteps of a returning husband, of the number of children who hide
when they hear the voice of a father. Few people know the number of
blows that fall on the flesh of the helpless every day, and few know
the nights of terror passed by mothers who hold babes to their breasts.
Compared with these, all the hardships of poverty borne by those who
love each other are as nothing. Men and women truly married bear the
sufferings and misfortunes of poverty together. They console each
other. In the darkest night they see the radiance of a star, and their
affection gives to the heart of each perpetual sunshine.

The good home is the unit of the good government. The hearthstone is
the corner-stone of civilization. Society is not interested in the
preservation of hateful homes, of homes where husbands and wives are
selfish, cold, and cruel. It is not to the interest of society that good
women should be enslaved, that they should live in fear, or that they
should become mothers by husbands whom they hate. Homes should be filled
with kind and generous fathers, with true and loving mothers; and when
they are so filled, the world will be civilized. Intelligence will rock
the cradle; justice will sit in the courts; wisdom in the legislative
halls; and above all and over all, like the dome of heaven, will be the
spirit of liberty.

Although marriage is the most important and the most sacred contract
that human beings can make, still when that contract has been violated,
courts should have the power to declare it null and void upon such
conditions as may be just.

As a rule, the woman dowers the husband with her youth, her beauty, her
love—with all she has; and from this contract certainly the husband
should never be released, unless the wife has broken the conditions of
that contract. Divorces should be granted publicly, precisely as the
marriage should be solemnized. Every marriage should be known, and
there should be witnesses, to the end that the character of the contract
entered into should be understood; the record should be open and public.
And the same is true of divorces. The conditions should be determined,
the property should be divided by a court of equity, and the custody of
the children given under regulations prescribed.

Men and women are not virtuous by law. Law does not of itself create
virtue, nor is it the foundation or fountain of love. Law should protect
virtue, and law should protect the wife, if she has kept her contract,
and the husband, if he has fulfilled his. But the death of love is the
end of marriage. Love is natural. Back of all ceremony burns and will
forever burn the sacred flame. There has been no time in the world's
history when that torch was extinguished. In all ages, in all climes,
among all people, there has been true, pure, and unselfish love. Long
before a ceremony was thought of, long before a priest existed, there
were true and perfect marriages. Back of public opinion is natural
modesty, the affections of the heart; and in spite of all law, there is
and forever will be the realm of choice. Wherever love is, it is pure;
and everywhere, and at all times, the ceremony of marriage testifies to
that which has happened within the temple of the human heart.

_Question (2). Ought divorced people to be allowed to marry under any
circumstances?_

This depends upon whether marriage is a crime. If it is not a crime, why
should any penalty be attached? Can any one conceive of any reason why
a woman obtaining a divorce, without fault on her part, should be
compelled as a punishment to remain forever single? Why should she be
punished for the dishonesty or brutality of another? Why should a man
who faithfully kept his contract of marriage, and who was deserted by an
unfaithful wife, be punished for the benefit of society? Why should he
be doomed to live without a home?

There is still another view. We must remember that human passions are
the same after as before divorce. To prevent remarriage is to give
excuse for vice.

_Question (3). What is the effect of divorce upon the integrity of the
family?_

The real marriage is back of the ceremony, and the real divorce is
back of the decree. When love is dead, when husband and wife abhor each
other, they are divorced. The decree records in a judicial way what has
really taken place, just as the ceremony of marriage attests a contract
already made.

The true family is the result of the true marriage, and the institution
of the family should above all things be preserved. What becomes of the
sacredness of the home, if the law compels those who abhor each other to
sit at the same hearth? This lowers the standard, and changes the happy
haven of home into the prison-cell. If we wish to preserve the integrity
of the family, we must preserve the democracy of the fireside, the
republicanism of the home, the absolute and perfect equality of husband
and wife. There must be no exhibition of force, no spectre of fear. The
mother must not remain through an order of court, or the command of a
priest, or by virtue of the tyranny of society; she must sit in absolute
freedom, the queen of herself, the sovereign of her own soul and of
her own body. Real homes can never be preserved through force, through
slavery, or superstition. Nothing can be more sacred than a home, no
altar purer than the hearth.

_Question (4). Does the absolute prohibition of divorce where it exists
contribute to the moral purity of society?_

We must define our terms. What is moral purity? The intelligent of
this world seek the well-being of themselves and others. They know that
happiness is the only good; and this they strive to attain. To live in
accordance with the conditions of well-being is moral in the highest
sense. To use the best instrumentalities to attain the highest ends is
our highest conception of the moral. In other words, morality is the
melody of the perfection of conduct. A man is not moral because he
is obedient through fear or ignorance. Morality lives in the realm
of perceived obligation, and where a being acts in accordance with
perceived obligation, that being is moral. Morality is not the child of
slavery. Ignorance is not the corner-stone of virtue.

The first duty of a human being is to himself. He must see to it that
he does not become a burden upon others. To be self-respecting, he must
endeavor to be self-sustaining. If by his industry and intelligence he
accumulates a margin, then he is under obligation to do with that margin
all the good he can. He who lives to the ideal does the best he can. In
true marriage men and women give not only their bodies, but their souls.
This is the ideal marriage; this is moral. They who give their bodies,
but not their souls, are not married, whatever the ceremony may be; this
is immoral.

If this be true, upon what principle can a woman continue to sustain the
relation of wife after love is dead? Is there some other consideration
that can take the place of genuine affection? Can she be bribed with
money, or a home, or position, or by public opinion, and still remain a
virtuous woman? Is it for the good of society that virtue should be thus
crucified between church and state? Can it be said that this contributes
to the moral purity of the human race?

Is there a higher standard of virtue in countries where divorce is
prohibited than in those where it is granted? Where husbands and wives
who have ceased to love cannot be divorced, there are mistresses and
lovers.

The sacramental view of marriage is the shield of vice. The world looks
at the wife who has been abused, who has been driven from the home of
her husband, and the world pities; and when this wife is loved by some
other man, the world excuses. So, too, the husband who cannot live in
peace, who leaves his home, is pitied and excused.

Is it possible to conceive of anything more immoral than for a husband
to insist on living with a wife who has no love for him? Is not this a
perpetual crime? Is the wife to lose her personality? Has she no right
of choice? Is her modesty the property of another? Is the man she hates
the lord of her desire? Has she no right to guard the jewels of her
soul? Is there a depth below this? And is this the foundation of
morality? this the corner-stone of society? this the arch that supports
the dome of civilization? Is this pathetic sacrifice on the one hand,
this sacrilege on the other, pleasing in the sight of heaven?

To me, the tenderest word in our language, the most pathetic fact within
our knowledge, is maternity. Around this sacred word cluster the joys
and sorrows, the agonies and ecstasies, of the human race. The mother
walks in the shadow of death that she may give another life. Upon
the altar of love she puts her own life in pawn. When the world is
civilized, no wife will become a mother against her will. Man will then
know that to enslave another is to imprison himself.

Robert G. Ingersoll.
