The Sun.
London, England, 1868-07-09 00:00:00

"THE IGNORANT AND DEPRAVED."

The Rock, which may be described as the
fervid, and to do it no more justice, as the able
and consistent representative in England of the
black and ungainly Protestantism of Ireland, in
commenting on a recent article in the WEST-
MINSTER GAZETTE, on the gradual transfer of
political power from middle class Liberalism
into the hands of the peoples of Europe, arrives
at the conclusion, which it calls a gratifying
one, that Rome has no hope of retaining " her
hold on the middle class," and " is casting in
her lot with the ignorant and depraved." But
we had always thought that it was not a re-
proach, but a note of the Church of God, to
preach the Gospel to the poor, to the masses
of the people, to those whom the Rock de
scribes as " ignorant and depraved," and that
it was characteristic of the hireling to confine
his attention to that small " middle class.,"
which the Rock describes joyously as posses-
sing " the largest material resources." It is,
we believe, true, as we said in the article alluded
to by the Rock, that there is a movement going
on throughout Europe, against Liberalism,
against, that is to say, a class which legislates
exclusively in its own selfish interests, and op-
pressively as regards the rights and interests
of the vast majority of the people. What direc-
tion this democratic movement may take,
will depend mainly upon the influence which
Christianity in Europe, Which the Catholic
Church can bring to bear upon the masses
of the people. It is true that the corrupting
influence of Liberalism has been long at
work opposing Christian education and under-
mining religions faith, that the active agency
of Communism is at hand, ready to pervert
the minds of the working classes, oppressed
and galled at the treatment which they receive
at the hands of the well-to-do classes, whom the
Rock patronises and flatters ; of the owners of
capital, the masters of the labour market. If
in this terrible struggle between an anti-Chris-
tian Liberalism and a Christian Democracy,
sore beset by Communism and Infidelity,
the Catholic Church casts in her lot, not with
a class " whose intellectual and material re-
sources " are not on the side of Christianity,
but with the people's, who is there to reproach
her ? The Rock, moreover, in rejoicing that
the middle and well-to-do class in Europe, and
the intellectual class, as represented, we sup-
pose, in Germany by Strauss, in France by
Renan and the Siecle in England by Jowett
and the Pall Mall Gazette, are escaping alto-
gether from the control of the Catholic Church,
and in relegating to her charge those whom
it calls " the ignorant and depraved," can
scarcely be aware what numerical proportion
the despised masses bear to the well-to-do and
intellectual classes. Happening to have at
hand some statistics prepared for another pur-
pose, as to the relative proportion in Prussia
between the well-to-do classes and the rest of
the population, we will quote them here for
the especial enlightenment of the Rock. In
Prussia, before the recent annexation of terri-
tory, the population was 16,869,786, and of
this population only 44,407 persons (heads
of families) possess an annual in come of £l5O
and upwards. Now, taking each of these
heads of families to represent a family of five
persons, it appears that there are 222,055
souls, or only 1.31 per cent. of the whole
population which can be described as well
to do. Applying these returns, subject of
course to various modifications, to England
and other countries, the result would show
how small a number of souls is comprised in
the affluent middle class, whom the Rock re-
gards with such exclusive interest, compared
with the vast majority of souls whom it de-
scribes as " ignorant and depraved." Such a
description would suit the condition of the
working classes, the outcasts and the slaves of
Pagan times, and perhaps may, to our national
disgrace, be applied to the state of practical
heathenism into which the labouring popu-
lation of England has sunk Under three hun-
dred years of Protestantism ; but it is not
true as applied to the Catholic populations
of Europe. The masses of the people in France,
in Austria, in Italy, in Spain, in Catholic
Germany, in Belgium, and in Ireland are
not " ignorant and depraved," but are far
better instructed in the Chriptian religion, and
far more virtuous than the' middle class, in
which selfish worldliness and anti-Christian
Liberalism have taken so deep a hold.
The Rock, in describing the vast majority
of souls in England as " ignorant and de-
praved," has unwittingly brought a most fatal
accusation against Protestantism. Out of its
own mouth it is condemned.—Westminster
Gazette.