Mgr. Louis de Ségur: Plain Talk about the Protestantism of Today [1868]

[Stone]

VI. Catholic Intolerance.


— We know now what to think of the vaunted tolerance of Protestants. Let us examine on what ground the hackneyed charge of intolerance is made against the Catholics. This charge contains both a truth and a falsehood.

The Church is certainly intolerant in matters of doctrine. True; and we glory in it! Truth is of itself intolerant. In religion, as in mathematics, what is true, is true, and what is false is false. No compromise between truth and error; truth cannot compromise. Such concessions, however small, would prove an immediate destruction of truth. Two and two make four: it is a truth. Hence whoever asserts the contrary, utters a falsehood. Let it be an error of a thousandth or of a millionth part, it will ever be false to assert that two and two do not make four.

The Church proclaims and maintains truths as certain as the mathematical ones. She teaches and defends truths with as much intolerance as the science of mathematics defends hers. And what more logical? The Catholic Church alone, in the midst of so many different sects, avers a possession of absolute truth, out of which there cannot be true Christianity; she alone has a right to be, she alone must be, intolerant. She alone will and must say, as she has said through all ages, in her councils: "If any one saith or believeth contrary to what I teach, which is truth, let him be anathema!"

At the same time, our Lord, intrusting her with the deposit of truth, has also left in her his spirit of charity and patience. Intolerant as regards the doctrine, the Church has mercy for the people, and never has she had recourse to lawful measures of rigor, but after all manner of kindness and persuasion have failed.

She has visited only the incorrigible, and then as a last resort. She was constrained to do so, to preserve from contagion the souls of the faithful, to put an end to scandals, and to fulfil those great duties of a justice — not less divine than mercy is.

In her patience and in her tolerance towards persons as well as in her intolerance for what concerns doctrine, the Catholic Church faithfully follows in the footsteps of her Chief and her God, our Lord Jesus Christ, who is truth, mercy, and justice.

As for those anti-Catholic historians who write so much about the pretended barbarism of the Church in the middle ages, their misrepresentations are entirely discredited by the conscientious labors of a new generation of historians far more impartial than their predecessors. "To live, Protestantism found itself forced to build up a history of its own," said the celebrated historian Thierry, — certainly not suspected of any partiality towards the Church.

There are Protestants now, who, divesting themselves of all party spirit, protest against those old slanders, criminal exaggerations, and perfidious insinuations, with which old histories are crammed. "For the last three centuries," says de Maistre, "history has been a permanent conspiracy against truth."

[Stone]

VII. The Inquisition, St. Bartholomew, and the Dragonnades of the Cevennes.

A few words more about Catholic intolerance. Protestants never tire of casting up against the Catholics certain facts, which they allege as proofs to convince them of intolerance, — the Inquisition, St. Bartholomew, and the Dragonnades of the Cevennes.

These items have furnished materials for romances and plays; but writers of novelettes and plays do not profess regard for historical accuracy, and people of common sense and seekers of truth do not generally look to them for information.

1. What is, then, this Inquisition, which frightens us so much, even in these, our days? Popular romances represent it as a terrible tribunal, raised in every Catholic land, torturing poor victims in deep dungeons, and burning them at the stake, with surrounding fires never put out.

The Protestant historians, Ranke and Guizot, honorably admit that the Spanish Inquisition was only a political institution to protect the unity of Spain. The rulers of that kingdom looked upon heresy as the enemy most dangerous to the peace of their dominions, and declared it a crime of high treason against the nation. Unable to decide by themselves, or their civil courts, questions of faith, they established an ecclesiastic tribunal, charged with the examination of prisoners and with judgment on their orthodoxy. The inquisitors then acquainted the prince with the result of their examination, and the latter pronounced sentence as he deemed best.*

That institution you may value as you choose; you are at liberty to condemn the abuses and the cruelties of which it has been guilty through the violence of political passions and the character of the Spaniard; yet one cannot but acknowledge, in the terrible part taken by the clergy in its trials, the most legitimate and most natural exercise of ecclesiastical authority. Does not the examination of questions of faith belong by right divine to the Church? but what man of good faith will ever confound these acts, exclusively religious, with the office of the executioner?

But remember that the Popes have never ceased to protest against the rigors of the Spanish Inquisition, although it received no prestige whatever from their authority, it being, as we have seen, a political institution of the Spanish kingdom.

2. But you will say, "What of the Saint Bartholomew? — that frightful massacre ordered by the Church, to the sacrifice of so many Protestant lives?"

The Saint Bartholomew, even more than the Inquisition of Spain, is a political event.* Protestants rebelled against lawful authority; they had attempted to seize the person of the king, and endeavored to establish in the midst of the nation a people turbulent and revolutionary. The youthful Charles IX. and the haughty Catharine Medici, his mother, were threatened in their lives and liberty by the conspiracy of Amboise; they had to fly for their lives before that of Meaux. The leaders of the Protestant party grew more insolent every day. The queen, thus goaded, resolved to get rid of the rebels, and called to her assistance the religious excitement fanned into frenzy by the fury of the Huguenots. Religion was the pretext, but not the cause of the Saint Bartholomew. Men well read in history know it to be so in these our days; why, then, do not Protestant historians acknowledge it in good faith?

"Very well," you urge; "but did not the Pope sing a Te Deum on the occasion of that butchery?" Yes, he did; but Gregory XIII. had been deceived as to the facts. He received a hurried despatch from the French court, that a murderous attempt had been made on the lives of the king and of his family, and that they had been delivered from the hands of the Huguenots, and the assassins had been punished; whereupon the Pope went to St. Peter's and returned public thanks to God. He did not know the lamentable truth of that night. Those excesses have, however, been greatly exaggerated by the party; for after all the Protestant martyrology could not set down the number of victims, all counted, but at seven hundred and eighty-six, for all France. Because those men, in rebellion against their sovereign, had been shot down as turbulent Calvinists, is it a reason why the Catholic Church should be held accountable for their death? The whole blame of the Saint Bartholomew is therefore laid, and solely, on the machiavellian conduct of Charles IX. and Catharine Medici.

Without any purpose of excusing that which cannot be excused, we must observe that men and institutions always bear the stamp of the times. In those ages, public manners were rude and uncouth, and their character affected men and things, good and evil. Moreover the religious sentiment had a mastery over all the rest. Accordingly, Protestant violence came into collision with an excitability of faith whereof we have no idea. To it we must refer, for the most, the extreme measures which accompanied many historical facts of those days.

3. Although this asperity of manners was somewhat softened in France in the days of Louis XIV., it yet was the cause of lamentable results at the time of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. I shall not canvass here the nature of that act of Louis. But truth compels us to remember that, during the cruelties practised against the Huguenots in certain parts of the Cevennes, the king's officers went beyond the orders of their master, and they alone were guilty. Irritated at the attempt made by the Protestants to sunder the unity of the nation, to plot with strangers, to hold continued practice with England, Louis XIV. resolved upon purging France of this leaven of discord. To assert the rights of the crown, as well as those of religion, he called force to his assistance. But it is well known how Bossuet and Fenelon, however of one mind with the king, deprecated those cruel and violent measures. What, then, in the presence of these simple facts, becomes of the charges preferred by the enemies of the faith? And how can the dragonnades of the Cevennes be turned into an argument against the Church?

Here we have three facts, three political crimes, if you will, for which Protestants make the Church responsible after three hundred years. Oh! but St. Francis de Sales spoke well when, at the utterance of so many slanders against the Church by the Protestants of his own time, he compared her to the chaste Susanna, falsely accused by those men who should have been her defenders! That sainted woman, brought to the pillory, exclaimed: —

"O Eternal God, who knowest hidden things! . . . Thou knowest that they have borne false witness against me; whereas, I have done none of these things which these men have maliciously forged against me."

"And the Lord raised the spirit of young Daniel, and he cried out with a loud voice: —

"'Are ye so foolish, ye children of Israel, that, without examination or knowledge of the truth, ye have condemned a daughter of Israel?'

"And the people rose and did justice to the innocence and sanctity of the chaste Susanna." (Dan. xiii.)

[Stone]

VIII. Protestant Martyrs.


— Protestantism has no Martyrs. — A martyr gives his life in steadfast testimony of the faith of Jesus Christ. He dies, not for the sake of personal opinion, but for the doctrine of the Church of God. He is not obstinate but faithful. Hence every Christian put to death out of hatred to the faith is a martyr.

Are those few Protestants, who have suffered martyrdom for their religious opinions, martyrs? Not at all. They staked their lives to uphold private ideas and convictions purely human; preferring their own defiance to their lives. It is a death crowning man's pride; whereas, a veritable martyrdom is the most perfect act of humble submission and total self-abnegation. It is not enough to be killed in order to be a martyr. It must needs be a death suffered for the sake of a truth which one's honor will maintain even at the cost of life.

In the pretended martyrs of reformed sects we find fanaticism, defiance, self-glory, and madness, — all offspring of pride. On the other hand, the true martyrs — those whom Holy Church offers to Jesus Christ, from St. Stephen down to those recently killed for the faith in China and Ava — all die in the peace of God; meek and humble, like innocent victims, expressing love for their executioners, — martyrs worthy of Jesus both in life and death.

[Stone]

IX. An Instance of Protestant Moderation.


— We often hear Protestants complaining of the violent style of Catholic writers. It is a clerical ruse of great and keen cunning; because, on the other hand, they vaunt great moderation and tenderness in their attitude towards the Church.

Now, we have something to say about it:

1. What they are pleased to call violence in Catholic writers is only an ardent zeal for the truth — that zeal which devoured our Saviour, Jesus Christ, when he whipped the buyers and sellers out of the temple, and made Pharisees and scribes writhe under his scathing anathemas.

2. Catholics attack Protestantism, but only on the defensive, against Protestants. Protestantism is a rebellion, essentially unwarrantable, against truth and the Church, and the children of the Church and of truth never take up arms against Protestantism but to ward off its attacks and save their faith.

3. Lastly, this Protestant moderation is of a kind both with their style of controversy and their tolerance. It does not exist, and we defiantly hurl back the charge they advance against us.

We shall now give a proof of a general character — a well-known proof — upheld alike by the Protestant and the socialistic press.

The journals of the principal sects of France — *Le Lien*, *L'Espérance*, *Les Archives* — have with great zeal announced and encouraged a book as one of the very best, and one which is to be found in all the Protestant publishing houses of Paris. It is an old work by the Lutheran, Marnix de Sainte-Aldegonde, recently re-ushered before the public, with a preface by Mr. Quinet.

No Protestant organ protests against its republication. Nay, all hail its appearance.

The preface says: "Our work is not only to refute Popery, but to root it out; not to root it out only, but to brand it with infamy; not only to brand it with infamy, but to stifle it under the mire." (p. 7.) "Catholicity must be done away with."

"Whoever undertakes to root out that sickly and mischievous superstition (Catholicity), provided he feels able to do it, should, first of all, remove such superstition out of sight of the people, and render its practice absolutely and physically impossible. At the same time no hope should be held out for its reappearance." (p. 81.)

"This religious despotism (the Catholic Church) cannot be rooted out unless we get rid of all legality. . . . Blind as it is, it dooms itself to be the victim of blind force." (p. 37.)

"No; no truce with The Unjust." (p. 42.)

"The principle that all religions are equal is at variance with all philosophy, all science, and all history. . . . There exists a religion which glories in its being incompatible with modern liberties. Had the French Revolution seen this difference plainly, it might, by a concentration of its powers, enmities, and decisions, have exterminated a worship which denies existence to modern civilization. But . . . that revolution was wanting in audacity, . . . and the (Catholic) worship, which it was its mission to break, came out of its hands stronger, healthier, and bolder than ever. Let us not be guilty of the same again." (pp. 57 and fol.)

This is a plain talk. We know where we should find ourselves were Protestantism to triumph over the Christian Church! In the face of such open violence, thus openly exciting people to hatred against, and to the destruction of, religion, who will dare find fault with us Christians because we rise to defend our faith and our life?

However, we should not much wonder at this incredible challenge to persecute and annihilate the Church with fire and sword. Mr. Quinet only repeats, with a faint echo, the sanguinary declamations of the founders of Protestantism. He only writes to-day what Luther and Calvin wrote three hundred years ago, and wrote in terms so exaggerated and with a fury so deep, that the revolutionists of our times could not hold the candle to them.

In his fine work *On Protestantism*, Augustus Nicolas says: "No language did ever lend itself to express the sanguinary violence of Luther's writings. His *The Papacy of Rome Founded by the Devil* is a blot that will disgrace forever not only the literature of Germany, but even the annals of mankind. The Pope" (truly the pen almost refuses to copy the words) "is the devil. Were I able to kill the devil, should I not do it at the peril of my life? The Pope is an enraged wolf, against which the whole world should rise without waiting for a magistrate's warrant. In such matters there can never be cause for regret, unless it were for not having been able to plunge the dagger deeper in his breast. . . . No sooner were the Pope convicted by the Gospel, than the whole world should rush and fall upon him, slaughtering him, and with him his emperors and kings and princes and lords, without mercy. Yea, we should fall upon them with all kinds of weapons, and wash our hands in their blood. . . . Monarchs and princes and lords who belong to the crew of the Roman Sodom should be attacked with all kinds of arms, and we should wash our hands in their blood. . . ." (T. xii. f. 233, seq. — T. i. f. 51, a. — T. ix. f. 24, b. ed. Wittenb.)

"Shall I mention Calvin, from or on whose pen perpetually flourished the epithets of rascal, drunken sot, raving madman, beast, hog, donkey, dog, etc.? Hear him: 'As for the Jesuits, who are our greatest opponents, they should be put to death; or, if that could not be easily done, they should be expelled, or certainly crushed out with lies and calumnies.'" (pp. 469, 70.)

Just what Quinet advises — the papacy must be rooted out; it must be dishonored, choked in the mire. After such violent declarations by Luther and Calvin, it is easily understood why the revolutionists of our days have so much sympathy for Protestantism. But it is passing all understanding how such Protestant journals as are called moderate, and Protestant publishers, should have advertised and offered for sale the work of Marnix and its preface!

Marnix's book is a tissue of obscenities, of infamies so revolting that respect for my readers and for myself will not allow me to make any quotation from it. I made an attempt, but gave it up in disgust. He utters blasphemies which no Christian should dare repeat, not even for the purpose of inspiring a salutary horror of them. And yet, there you have a Protestant work, republished, after three centuries, in Belgium with the aid of a national subscription of Protestants, infidels, and free masons; and it is sold in noonday light in Paris — a Catholic city!

Yes, let Protestants wonder at the generous indignation of Catholics! Let them complain because the children of the Church resent and repel the insults heaped on their mother! Let them boast, forsooth, of their meekness and of their moderation.

"Questi moderati sono gente di rabbia infinita," said to me once an Italian priest. They call themselves moderate, but their fury is infinite.

[Stone]

X. Of Those Persecutions Whereof Protestants Claim to Have Been the Victims.


— Protestants will always persecute when they are the majority; but if they happen to be in the minority they'll whine out doleful tunes of being persecuted. To hear them they are even this day persecuted in France and in Rome — a charge so strange that we must establish it clearly before we refute it.

Well, then, hear what Mr. Le Savoureux, Protestant minister of Limoges, said at a public meeting in Queen Street, Edinburgh, 1857: "I have good news to give you from motherland (France). The faint light of the Gospel is advancing. Our fathers allowed Protestantism to become extinguished, in spite of the struggle of our good Huguenots, but the ancient national churches are getting up. Such nations as France, Spain, etc., under the sway of Rome are dead nations. Romanism is the enemy of moral good. The commune of Villefavard has become Protestant; we have swept the Saints out of the Church. We have established ten schools in the department of Allier, and, had we money, we Protestants would have attained a majority. But since the coup-d'état a man appeared — that Napoleon — who has allied himself with Catholic ideas, has closed our schools, and summoned us before the courts of justice. We are now hidden in the woods! Yet the progress continues. At Limoges the work was broken up by a railroad. Had we been Romans the administration would not have disturbed us!" And the Limousin clerk winds up by begging God to grant them liberty!

The Paris correspondent of the "London Times" gives even a more melancholy picture of the heart-rending situation of Protestantism in France. Poor ministers thrown into jail; churches and schools wantonly disbanded.

Hear these truthful correspondents: "Yes, we have seen whole populations taking refuge in forests, as their fathers did before them, in order to practise their religion. To escape the intrusions of the police they had to keep watchers to warn them in time. Hymns were sung only at intervals, prayers and sermons were broken up, and when the officers arrived they only saw men, women, and children picking up acorns, or climbing up trees." (Times, Jan. 5, 1858.)

It is well known how these ridiculous assertions, so often and so impudently repeated, called forth, at last, a rejoinder from the "Moniteur," denying their truth with indignation and contempt. True, not all the Protestants of France push so far the mania of complaining, whether right or wrong; yet the majority among them seem to find a pleasure in calling and believing themselves injured, interfered with in both their rights and their interests, balked in their movements — in a word, persecuted. In their writings, in their journals, in their sermons, and above all in the courts of justice, they forever complain of being the victims of persecution.

But what victims, great God! Would to Heaven the Catholics of Ireland and Sweden were victims like them! Never was a creed more free and more favored than Protestantism is in France this day. Count them: a late census set their number at several hundred thousand in thirty-six millions of people. Count the offices they fill from the highest to the lowest. Search the public accounts and compare the pay of Protestant ministers with the compensation given to the Catholic clergy. They are free, not only among their own people but even among the Catholics, to employ the most active propagandism, free to defend themselves and free to attack others. See the relation on which their many temples and schools stand to their number in Paris — thirteen thousand, after official reports. Remember that these schools, increasing every day in number, in the very centre of wards almost exclusively Catholic, are filled for the most with the children of the poor enticed away from the Church. Remember, also, that the works of Marnix de Sainte-Aldegonde (it is enough to quote this work for all) is sold with impunity by all their booksellers. Then, lay your hand on your breast, and tell me, reader, can they really call themselves persecuted in France? Indeed, their complaints are unjust, and very awkward in their ingratitude.*

---

*Galignani* of Paris, in its issue of Saturday, June 20, 1867, announces for the next day thirteen places open to Protestant worship: "Forney's Letters from Europe." Letter xxv. — Phila.: Peterson Bros., 1867. Thus, even in Rome, more liberty is allowed to Protestants than Catholics ever obtained in purely Protestant countries. At what price could a Catholic priest officiate in England under Elizabeth? Could a priest even make his appearance in Geneva when Calvin ruled there? And was not William Penn called to an account because he allowed a mass-house in Philadelphia?

(Continuing from the previous chapter) — . . . did not the Protestants of Maryland put their heels on the neck of the Catholics, who had been their greatest benefactors, as soon as they got the upper hand? . . . And so forever. Now look to Rome. Protestants go and come; some of them civil, some very impertinent and insulting. The Pope does not mind them. He even allows them to meet at their ambassadors' houses and have service. Point to such privileges in a thorough Protestant city: and if the Pope does not allow a public meeting-house to be opened in the centre of Rome, nobody can blame him, because, the Pope being the Depository of Divine Truth, he cannot conscientiously countenance the manifestations of what is opposed to that truth. Yet he allows them to meet extra muros. Rome is the property of the Catholic world, not of Italy, and the Pope of Rome holds it in trust for the Catholic community scattered all over the world.

And did not the Protestants of Maryland put their heels on the neck of the Catholics, who had been their greatest benefactors, as soon as they got the upper hand? . . . And so forever. Now look to Rome. Protestants go and come; some of them civil, some very impertinent and insulting. The Pope does not mind them. He even allows them to meet at their ambassadors' houses and have service. Point to such privileges in a thorough Protestant city: and if the Pope does not allow a public meeting-house to be opened in the centre of Rome, nobody can blame him, because, the Pope being the Depository of Divine Truth, he cannot conscientiously countenance the manifestations of what is opposed to that truth. Yet he allows them to meet extra muros. Rome is the property of the Catholic world, not of Italy, and the Pope of Rome holds it in trust for the Catholic community scattered all over the world.

[Stone]

XI. The Market of Souls.


— Heretical books and pamphlets are spread broadcast all over Catholic countries. Yet this distribution, dangerous and active though it be, is only a secondary means for the agents of the Protestant propaganda. There is still a more powerful agent, to which they are not ashamed to have recourse — money. Says the Archbishop of Genoa, in one of his pastorals: "A unanimous cry of indignation re-echoes from all parts of Catholic Europe. It would be astonishing indeed, yet a useless effort, were the Protestant so reckless as to deny it."

There is no gainsaying this traffic of consciences. I know very well that there are some among the Protestants, laity and clergy, who will never have recourse to such means. They become indignant at such charges made against Protestantism, and I hear with pleasure the energetic disavowal in favor of their individual honor; but it avails nothing against the effort of their propaganda, which endeavors to entice the poor with fat baits of money and temporal gain, in order to make them apostatize. Daily experience places this assertion beyond the possibility of denial. Those who love and help the poor continually meet with such attempts at seduction; yet they are very far from knowing them all. The unfortunates, who allow themselves to be seduced, are on their guard lest their infamy should be known, and sectarian agents limit their reports only to the number of converts.

Were we able to judge by the number of refusals, the amount of attempts would reach a very high figure. I have myself come across a large number of artisans' families, and distressed families who have received offers of help, work, and gold, sometimes in large sums, on condition they would turn Protestants. The venerable parish priest of St. Sulpice, in Paris, on the occasion of an investigation made in his parish, in 1858, laid before the minister of public worship a very lengthy document containing numerous depositions of families and individuals, attesting the criminal intrusions of Protestant propagandism.

"Have you never seen," said an illustrious prelate, not long ago, "some of these dealers in consciences running over the country, walking through our streets, and even worming themselves into the bosom of families to sow their cockle and their lies? It is a new trade amongst us, yet it is spreading alarmingly. Attention should be called to it.

"It happens thus: There is in a village a poor family heavily in debt, and they are about selling their cabin — their only place of shelter; but there appears one of these soul-brokers who are always on the scent of misfortune. In a tone of perfect good nature he tells the head of the family: 'Poor man! you are badly lodged indeed in this cabin, open to all the winds; how you must suffer from cold! How is it that your priest does not help you to repair your house and to dress yourselves comfortably? . . . Well, I am a Protestant minister, but when I find any poor in my parish I assist them. Come to my house to-morrow and I'll give a warm blanket for your bed, and good clothing for your children.' And off he goes leaving those poor people in an ecstasy of admiration for so much goodness.

"The warm blanket arrives, and the parson does not tarry far behind. This time he talks about repairing the cabin, and he tells them that the requisite sum will be at hand, only that they are not Protestants. At this the woman flares up, and the preacher takes himself off, leaving behind nothing but a bad book.

"Perchance it is a laboring man who falls sick. His wife and children depend on his arms for their support. Poverty and hunger are bad advisers, and often are the source of terrible temptations. Those traders on souls know it; they are on the spot, and offer bread to those wretches, provided they will barter their souls. Alas! they do it.

"Near by, a creditor has seized upon the cot and the little field of a poor countryman, who has nothing else to depend on. The preachers offer him cash enough to rescue his property from the hammer, provided he gives up his Church. With tears he does give it up!

"A poor mother begs a living from door to door, followed by her two little children. The brokers set a couple of their zealous maids after her: they wish to take care of her children and bring them up properly. To compound matters with her conscience, she gives up one, and reserves the other for God.

"These traders drive the best bargains with drunkards, who are forever in want of money. Bankrupts who need a plank, and lewd women who have nothing but a rotten soul to sell, are also good customers: simpletons and dolts afford good chances. No matter where you are, in hotels or taverns, aboard steamboats, in stages, on the highways, you stumble on preachers, catechizers, Bible carriers, who all seem anxious to convert the whole world, each to his own sect."* — (*Du Commerce des Consciences et de l'agitation Protestante en Europe.* Annecy, 1856.)

France, its large cities, Paris, above all, are infested by these indefatigable Protestants. Their chiefs have said: "We must get hold of Paris by all means: once in Paris France is ours: through France we can master Europe." Accordingly paid agents and fanatical women, deacons and deaconesses, etc., creep into the dwellings of our poor people and buy them or their children.

The Vicar-General of Lyons, Mr. Cattet, thus writes on this subject:

". . . When we were drawing the picture of these shameful practices employed by Protestantism for the purpose of proselytizing, we had an abundance of affidavits of such poor Catholics in country places as had thus been seduced, who, ashamed of themselves and repenting for having sold themselves to the apostles of the new gospel, gave us written declarations of the contemptible means of seduction employed against them. Since then we have forwarded to the rector of the Academy of Lyons four affidavits from heads of families, who also declare that they have received money with a pledge that their children should attend Protestant schools.†

"It was a sensible remark, and we love to repeat it, made by one of these bribed wretches who has since recanted in the hands of one of our clergy. Torn with remorse and anguish after he had touched the price of his apostasy, he said to his wife, who also had yielded to the tempter: 'Indeed, woman, I have my doubts about a religion that gives money to make itself accepted.'

"In the face of these well-known facts will the Committee on Evangelization still maintain that no money is given by their party for the purpose of making proselytes?"

Here we should give statistics; but it would be stepping beyond the bounds of a simple talk. Everywhere the same process, and everywhere the strong pleading of "cash" to hold fast the Catholic poor. "Not a day," say the "Annals of Geneva," "not a day, but we hear of some conquest by the god of mammon. Here a well-known minister offers work to the laborer whom he meets on the road — work and help for the winter; there a noble lady entraps a servant in her carriage to explain the precious benefits of the Reformation; elsewhere a gentleman of some sort, who, once foiled, returns by stealth and steals from a father his children whom he sends to some Protestant asylum, etc."‡

Everywhere officious and persevering visits, and the circumstance of the priest being poor is improved upon, and the faith of simple souls is ruined. "How is it?" they will say, with a look of wonder, to the wretch already soured by want, "do not your priests take care of you? Well, never mind, come to see us; we'll do something for you." Then a little talk about the wicked priests, and the abuses of the Catholic Church; which is followed by a piece of money slipped into the poor man's hand, and oh, the glory of having gained a glorious evangelic campaign! A Christian that will go to mass no more, shall no more make his Easter, will hate the priest — a great gain in the cause of the pure gospel!

Such is this ever-increasing Protestant propagandism. Such are these immoral conversions, no less shameful for those who procure than for those who undergo them. Sensible people among Protestants as well as among Catholics will scarcely believe such trade in souls; and yet it is beyond all doubt that money has become the principal agent of such propagandism. In its hands, charity is not a disinterested work; it is the first advance made towards apostasy: You are poor, come to us; we'll give you plenty.

How bitter that bread must taste which is bought at the price of such infamy!

In the track of this religious stock-jobbing the grand ideas of honor and morality, already so weakened, keep on dwindling away, grow fainter and fainter: hearts become debased, characters lose their strength, convictions crumble away; truth and religion are only a means to draw wealth out of the rich and humble the poor.

"To buy" and "to sell" — such are the last words of Protestant propagandism.

---

*Footnotes:*

* What is here written, as European experience, tallies too well with what we see and experience in America. Even this very day (Aug. 27, 1867) a parson, not five miles from my residence, is tampering with the souls of the children of two Catholic families, emboldened by the distance at which they are from their Church and their pastor's residence.

† Should a law be passed in Italy that agents of English and American propagandism were not to give their proselytes any money, there would not be one single Protestant in Italy. Yet, of course, they are only Protestants in name.

‡ The "Annals," quoted above, add by way of a note: "We should mention Messrs. Oltramare, Jacquet, and Bordier (Protestant ministers in Geneva), who have not the least fear to become highly prominent in such visits to poor Catholics."

[Stone]

XII. A Religion of Cash.


— 1. A religion of money is the name given to the Catholic religion by certain Protestant ministers. In concert with the scoffers of religion they charge our priests with selling holy things and trafficking on the credulity of the people, to the profit of their pockets.

It is a cunning charge. Nine out of every ten men are very sensitive whenever the dollar is touched, and to accuse the priests with love of money and intent to pilfer it from the poor, will go a great length to impair their ministry. Protestants know this; hence they repeat the charge over and over with an exceedingly bad faith, inasmuch as they should be the last to utter such an accusation.

It is not generally known that the place of a parson is a most profitable one.* The government in France gives fifteen hundred francs to a parson in the smallest villages, and a salary far larger to those in cities. Beside this emolument, they receive perquisites, which, although not regulated by a tariff, are none the less exacted by custom. Nor is their amount little. Fees for marriages and baptisms in Protestant churches amount to a round sum; bountiful remunerations are given for funeral services, etc.

Add to all this the never-ceasing subscriptions poured into the treasury of biblical and other societies, out of which fat salaries are taken to support their apostles. In 1856, at an Assembly of the Protestant Propaganda, in Germany, it was averred that to their agents in France alone the Association had paid eight millions.

Lastly, it should be remembered that in Protestant countries young ministers generally contract very good matrimonial alliances. It has even been a source of complaint in certain parishes. Not long ago, in one of the cantons of Zurich, at a meeting of young unmarried men it was resolved that in future no unmarried minister should be accepted, "for they carry away the best chances of the place." In other localities pastoral Presbyterial Councils, being mainly composed of fathers of families who have daughters to marry, obstinately refused to receive ministers already married, whose hearts and hands were, therefore, out of market.

Now, of all the money that finds its way into the minister's pocket not a penny is ever spent for church service.

A temple once built (and of course it is not the parson who builds it) requires no other care than that of being swept once a week; there are no sacred vestments to take care of, no expensive luminaries, no religious pomps. The black robe of the parson is called into requisition only on Sunday; it will last a long time with so little wear and tear, and when it is become the worse for wear it can be made available for many domestic purposes.

2. The Catholic parish priest receives from the government a little above one-half of the salary allowed to Protestant ministers, who are so loud in their denunciation against the religion of money — eight hundred and fifty francs to priests occupying places of equal degree with those for which Protestant parsons receive fifteen hundred.

But whilst the Protestant parson is under no expense as regards church service, different is the case with the Catholic priest. In the ritual of the Christian worship there exists a material portion which entails large expenses even in the humblest churches. In the smallest country chapel the celebration of the divine service needs a supply of bread and wine, lamps and candles, sacerdotal vestments of different colors, sacred vessels, linen of various qualities; in a word such an amount of indispensable articles as would astonish those not acquainted with such details. Then you have to pay those who are employed in the Church, generally workmen who live by their labor. Besides all this the parish priest stands, by reason of his position, the first and main help of all the poor, and of all charitable undertakings in his parish. Should ever his heart be faint, his duty and his position would spur him on to act. But after all, he must live, and feed himself and the servant who waits on him.

It requires very little fairness to acknowledge that the Church is perfectly justified in authorizing our priests to levy a kind of tax on the performance of certain acts of their ministry, in order to make up for the great disproportion between their salary and their necessary expenses. They are called "perquisites." Then necessity is easily perceived. Before 1702, the perquisites in France amounted to very little indeed: no payment was required for seats; and the little which the priest expected at the hands of the faithful was to maintain the right which the priest has to live on the altar, and to receive from the Christians temporal assistance in exchange for the spiritual benefits bestowed on them by their ministrations.

"If we have sown for you spiritual things, is it a great matter if we reap your carnal things?" says St. Paul (1 Cor. ix. 11), not meaning, of course, a compensation, which would be simony, but a necessary maintenance. Again, "Know ye not that they who work in the sanctuary eat of the things which are of the sanctuary: and they who serve the altar partake of the altar?" (Ib. 13.)

In France, as well as under the government of Florence, and under that of the czar, and of the Emperor of Austria, the revolution has set everything right; they have taken everything from the Church; they could not kill her, but they have robbed her of everything in hope that she may die of starvation. She does not die, but her priests must depend on the continued liberality of the faithful for their support. Hence the necessity of pew-rents; hence the necessity, so painful to the clergy, of often calling on the people for contributions, which scarcely provide for the most necessary wants.

Do you call that a money-making religion?

But there is a money-making religion, members whereof make their millions every year, gathered from public and secret associations; and then, with a well-lined purse in hand, they climb to the attics of our mechanics, enter the huts of our peasants, take advantage of poverty and misfortune, and buy souls at their valuation of silver!

Shame on them for practising that whereof they accuse us!

---

* I have it from the very lips of a minister that the smallest salary of a parson in Paris is 15,500 francs. The amount expended by the American Board of Foreign Missions to support their agents, wives, and children is fabulous.

[Stone]

XIII. A Novel Proof in Favor of Protestantism.


— Whilst Protestantism loses shred after shred, torn by the ruggedness of its own road, the remnants of truth and Christianity received from the Church, it becomes more and more materialistic; it approaches more closely to Luther's ideal — Luther, its first apostle — and shouts with him, "Let us eat, and let us drink, and let's be merry!"

Amongst such as have lost the faith by the Reformation, there are nations — England at the head of all — which, by their geographical position, or their commercial talents, manage their affairs and play their cards well, make plenty of money, enjoy all the pleasures of this life, such pleasures as are now-a-days considered the only and last destiny of man. Now, will it be believed that men in their sober senses, ministers of the gospel, draw therefrom an argument against the Catholic Church? But so it is: "Protestants are better off than Catholics; therefore the religion of the former is the best."

A French minister, the writer of a large number of tracts, has made the above argument the subject of a whole book, which enjoyed a few days' popularity. But the author came to a sore end of it. For the "Journal des Débats," a paper not at all in the interest of Catholicity, has demolished the work and broken the argument beyond any hope of life.

Read now:

"'Catholic and Protestant Nations Considered, under the threefold Aspect of Prosperity, Enlightenment, and Morality; by Napoleon Roussel, a Minister.' When we opened this book we hoped to be able to write in its favor. But, in spite of the best intentions, we cannot view it as a good book or as a good act. The author has written a book, the key-note whereof is the most stupid and most demoralizing materialism. Indeed, if a minister of the gospel has no other moral, but such, to present to the world; if Protestant or Catholic, he can draw no better conclusion from the reading of history, then there is nothing left for man to do but have a good time, good eating, and good drinking; and the more money you have the better man you'll be — such reading chokes the heart.

"Mr. Roussel intended to institute a comparison between Catholic and Protestant nations under the threefold relation of prosperity, enlightenment, and morality. Unfortunately, in such comparison, morality, which should take the head place, occupies only the last and the smallest; then comes the enlightenment: but well-being stands at the head of all, as announced. . . .

"In two volumes does Mr. Roussel demonstrate, with many figures, that Protestants are in this world more happy than Catholics; that they have larger incomes, possess more stock, richer silver sets at table, more shirts, and a larger assortment of shoes. Until now we have believed that, at the last judgment, God would place the good on one side and the wicked on the other; but, according to Mr. Roussel, mankind will be divided into two different classes — the fat and the lean. God shall no more search the hearts and the reins, but the bellies of men. Were Mr. Roussel to give Saint Peter the keeping of the gates of heaven, he would give as a countersign that no person should enter unless of elegant manners and well dressed: Protestant theology requires, in order to be saved, that a decent dress is indispensable. . . .

"It is worth its while to see how self-pleased Mr. Roussel is in squaring up the accounts of Catholic countries and of Protestant countries: it is a regular keeping of books in double entry.

"On the ground of temporal welfare Mr. Roussel and Protestantism are the masters; they are the wealthiest. Compare, for instance, sad and beggared Ireland with her Protestant sisters! Mr. Roussel exhibits, from official reports, the schedule of a parish of four thousand inhabitants, all Catholics — a circumstance he takes particular pains to have noted down. Now these four thousand Catholics own, between all, one cart, one plough, sixteen harrows, eight saddles for men, two side-saddles, seven table-forks, ninety-six jaunting-cars, two hundred and forty-three stools, twenty-seven geese, three turkeys, two mattresses, eight ticks, eight brass candlesticks, three watches, one school, one priest, but no hats, no clock, no boots, no turnips, and no carrots. . . . A stop to this catalogue. Mr. Roussel goes on whole pages; and, after having thus gone his round of the hospital, he exclaims, with a feeling of triumph: 'Let us cross the Channel, and after having visited Catholic Ireland and her misery, let us examine Protestant Scotland and her prosperity.'

"Like those who have the jaundice, and to whom every object appears tinted in yellow, Mr. Roussel unearths things from depths into which none would think he could penetrate. Proceeding in his tour he pits Catholic Switzerland against Switzerland Protestant. Here you have a traveller who arrives in a Catholic canton and at once exclaims: 'How nasty! how yellow, black, and livid they look!' Then no doubt about it: all Catholics are yellow. But here is another impression: 'We arrived in about two hours at Flüelen: this hold of Catholicism was announced by four people with goitres, six more who had the itch, and yet half a dozen ragged fellows who seemed to come out of the grave. . . .' You see how things improve in his journey; at first the Catholics were yellow, but then they all have the itch. Let us turn from such saddening sight, and look to the bright vista of a Protestant land: 'Oh, what dales! what a cultivation!' exclaims Mr. Roussel. 'What abundance! what industry! Zurich and its beautiful environs appear to me like the abode of wisdom, of moderation, of comfort, and of happiness. . . . We entered a cabin, and were presented by its mistress with milk and cherries, who also laid on the table nine or ten silver spoons. . . .' Mind it well: ten silver spoons! Oh, what a holy people! Those yellow Catholics, and livid peasants could never show the like! No, indeed! But do you fancy to follow Mr. Roussel into Spain? Even there, by dint of many quotations, he will prove to your heart's content that the roads are out of repair, the inns are dirty, and people must eat on pewter plates. Then, oh, what a contrast between that country and England, that land of Protestantism, endearing itself by its silver plate, railroads, white linen, etc.!

"But we are not bound to follow Mr. Roussel in all his peregrinations; we do not doubt the accuracy of his statements, and we allow his Protestantism the benefit of its silver ware. At the same time did he not feel some compunction as he was wending his way through Ireland? Did he ever ask himself whether the Protestants were not somewhat to be blamed for the misery which harrows that Catholic country? If the Protestants represent only one-tenth of the population, what right have they to lay their hands on the whole property and revenues of the Catholic Church? But when Mr. Roussel attempts to show that Catholics are no more oppressed in Ireland, because there are four archbishops, twenty-three bishops,* two thousand five hundred churches, more than two thousand priests in Ireland, was he so insensible to every notion of admiration for a people who yet out of their poverty support their Church, whilst Protestant prelates and ministers live on the fat of the land, and enjoy all the profits of confiscation? . . .

"But Mr. Roussel's most luminous and most irresistible arguments are kept in reserve for France. Hear him at once: 'Persecuted for ages past, robbed of all they had, French Protestants ought to be to-day, not on a level, but under all the rest in point of wealth. Is it not so? Were we to consult only public opinion, we might say that the reader's conscience has already given its verdict. . . .' Please observe the queer office that conscience has to fill up here. But let him continue: 'We do not intend to make any assertion, even with evidence before our eyes, unless we can rest on arguments; and those we have presented on this matter are all authentic and of the gravest bearing on the question. . . .' Here, we have trembled for Catholicity. What is coming? What thunder is going to fall on its head? Let us breathe freely! It is a bag of dollars — a shower of big coppers. Mr. Roussel informs us that he has secured an abstract of the taxes on personal property paid by the Protestants in the Department of the Seine. The list is stereotyped; he holds it in his hand, and, on such basis, he avers that the average amount paid by all the inhabitants of Paris is thirty-three francs, fourteen centimes; whereas, what is paid, on an average, by the Protestants is eighty-seven francs, one centime; whereupon he remarks: 'French Protestants own three times as much wealth as their Roman Catholic countrymen.' Catholicity must knock under at such a blow. Undoubtedly it will never get over this statement of the tax on personal property. But why did not Mr. Roussel, while busy in adding and subtracting, why did he not examine another book of taxes — those paid by a class of people whom certainly we do not wish to offend, but who pay very considerable taxes for personal property — we mean the Jews? In that case he would have found the Israelites far more rich, and accordingly far more virtuous, than the Protestants.

"Once more, we do not wish to contradict Mr. Roussel's statement, nor mar his happiness. Let him stand, in his glory, on the top of his pyramid built by blocks of dollars and cents, and shout Gloria in Excelsis. Some one has said that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. We might make one or two more quotations far better to the point than those of Mr. Roussel; but it is not our province to write a sermon. Perhaps it was an honest wish of Mr. Roussel to write a moral and religious book; but a sectarian spirit has blinded him, and to our regret we must repeat that the conclusions he comes to are essentially materialistic."

[Signed] "J. Lemoinne."

---

* Roussel should on this day add one cardinal, more bishops, more priests, more churches, and make the argument even more forcible against himself.