Polynesian. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu], Hawaii) 1844-1864, 1859-10-15
No. "a.

number Of such vessels are being made ready for
sea IN the New England States. Thus, while the
extreme Southern States are furnishing the depots
/ the extreme Northern States are supplying the
vessels In these joint stock speculatons between
Southern nigger-driVers and Northern nigeer-wo
shippers. The almighty dollar is the charm which
makes them band of brothers in this profitable
business but beyond their common financial in
terests they are as widely separated as canting
| hypocrisy and q brazen defiance of law
! CATHOLIC DEMONSTRATION the New York
Herald understands the matter
! The correspondents Of the English journals.
writing from Germany about the peace, do not
understand what they are writing about, and
many American journals are equally puzzled as to
| the meaning OF the new Italian Confederation
and write the purest nonsense on the subject. The
g first son of the church " we'll knows what he
means by the peace of Villafranca, and what he
means by the political reorganization of Italy
under the Presidency of the Pope. But it is be-
yond the comprehension of the shallow and the
shOrt-sIghted, who only see in it On evidence of
his conscious weakness or of his fears. They have
not the sagaciy to perceive that the design of the
Emperor of the French is to inaugurate new
in the Catholic chureh-an epoch which will not
mark its speedy decline and fall but its regenera-
tion, whence it will take new start and enter
a career of civilization, in which it will abb
sOrb the numerous sects which revolted from it or
split from each other. There is very little real
difference now between the Catholic and the Pro-
testant churches. The former is no longer what it
was, and its members do not now believe in the
abSurdities which were grated upon it in the Mid
die Ages. The Protestant sects are all beginning
to feel that they have failed in maintaining the
spirit of Christianity, and there is a tendency
among them to return to the old Catholic Church,
with its sublime ritual, in which the Imagination
of the deyout can find attractions and charms for
which it will look in vain in the dry Protestant
creeds, with their speculative theology, which the
most intellectual and educated minds can scarcely
understand, but which are unsOlved riddles to the
great mass of the community. The Peuseyites in
England, and the movement Of DR.. Bellows and
his friends in this country, are but indications OF
the general tendency. And if religion, with its
genial warmth and its immortal hopes, is to be
preserved in the world, and cold infdelity is not
to Oyerrun all Europe and America, there is moth
ing-left but a return to the Catholic church, puri
fed, reconstructed and adapted to the wants and
the civilization of the age. Louis Napoleon, the
man OF the age, understands this, and Its accom-
plishment is his great mission.
Napoleon Ill. is now in a position TO realize the
ideas Of Napoleon T.. modified by his own expe-
rience and by the rapid intellectual progress and
changes of half a century. By erecting an Italian
Confederation and placing the Pope of Rome ut
its head, he establishes a powerful government,
tween him and Austria, whose present Emperor
he has won by the religious idea Of the Confedera
ton. And he gives the Catholic religion new
lease of power, and makes it an agent OF extensive
civilization. Stripped of the mummerles which
were heaped upon it in the dark ages, and Its fas
cinating ritual blended with philosophy, and
adapted to the progress of the age, 1t viii thus
become religion suited to the Protestant as well
as the Catholic mind, and, superseding the myr-
lads of Christian seets will regain the position 1t
lost in Europe. Had this course been pursued at
the time of Luther and Calvin there would have
been no Protestant Reformation, but Catholic
one, like that of Hildebrand, within the Church
itself. The religions Of Protestants and Catholics
are at bottom the same. They are both founded
on mysteries which cannot now be understood but
the codes of doctrines and morals essentially
alike, while the Catholic church has the advantage
of its magnificent ritual to kindle devotion, to
touch the soul through the senses, and to appeal
to all that is beautiful in nature and art to win
the affections to Heaven and to God. Such is the
grand design of the Emperor of the French.