The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1868-11-08
WITH THE NUNS.


ciality to misrepresent and vilify every
thing even remotely connected with the
Catholic Church. Unscrupulous in asser-'
Genealogical in argument, prejudiced in
opinions, it rarely startles it's readers with
slimpses Of truth. In the number for No
yember, an article with tho above caption
arrested our attention, written with appa-
rent candor, but of course tinged with the
coloring natural to o person still immersed
in the fog of Professionalism. In two or three
instances the editor, alarmed at the fairness
Of the author in the text,appends fool notes,
with the view Of toning down, or explain
ing away unpalatable truths. These we
omit as being simply impertinent, and evil
IDENTIFY intended for class who are not pre-
pared to admit that, any good can come
out of NAZARETH From the main article
we omit two paragraphs, the substance of
which is that in this age of Newspapers,
platforms, schools, and libraries, it is impos-
sible to go back to Tetzel and Torquemada-
that the Sorbonne is never again to decide a
quarrel between degma and fact, etc. Such
platitudes, we suppose, was necessary as
tub to the Protestant whale. If it renders
the deglutition of the animal easier, the ex-
posture of the fallacy may be charitably
postponed for season. We suhjoin the ar
tice:
If ever there was q Protestant by descent,
tradition, educational influence, and reli-
giOus conviction, l supposed was one. A
Puritan ancestry on my fathers side, whose
= graves for near two hundred years some
time since unused over at Hartford, had de-
termined my cast in the Roundhead type,
hnf OF fsav,Nc nell Il
capable Of hating anything. Not that i
knetr much about it, but Protestant martyr
ologies and histories of the Reformation had,
with other concurrent influences, engender-
ed state of feeling which, though correct
enough, perhaps in some of it's impulses,
was beyond peradyenture eminently< unju-
dlcIa1. well remember, when q boy, the
abhOrrent interest with which watched
the building of st. Peters Cathedral, at
Cincinnati. Several years were spent in
laying its ponderous formdations-in places
eight to fifteen feet thick, and sounded
them many . time in search of inQuisitorial
vaults made ready for their furniture of
pain, and as season after season the grand
enclosure grew, wandered through crypt
and gallery hunting for secret chambers,
g. and estimating as best l could the resist
ance that its massive masonry would op-
pose to an artillery entilade down Seventh
: street-in which proposed to make my
knowledge OF the building useful For that
it was II fortress under the guise OF u church,
was probably at that time the best settled
of all my articles of faith. But the church
grew through fifteen years of building to
architectural maturity-and I suppose
grew some two; Mt all events, l Outgrew
alike the belief i'll its dungeons, and the de-
sire to knock it down.
All my family, and their collaterals, were
Baptists-a denomination, as / suppose,
more Numerically antagonistic, in respect
of church government, doctrine, and reli-
gious methods, to the Romish system, than
any other body called Evangelical. Every
congregation is n complete and unitary
church. The church meeting is the highest
court of appeal. Universal suffrage had
been practiced by it for generations before
it was patented as apoltical pauacea. The
written Word, unclogged by patristic, ecu
menical or synodical interpretations, is the
sole and sufficient rule of faith and practice
1t was from Baptist Church in Virginia
8 that Jefferson drew the model from which he
cast the present political institutions of the
United States. 1t has no proxy member
ship. Livery individual on its muster-roll
is, or should be able to do militant duty
My father was Il devout and working mem
Der of this Democratic faith. The last ten
years oi his life were chiefly spent in for
walding the erection and endowment of Il
theological college for the education of Bap-
fist ministers. $Iis work for the time being
seemed To prosper, and he left the institu-
ton at his death with large and valuable
buildings, extensive and deliberately i'm
: proved grounds lin the centre of growing
city-and an endowment of more than half
million of dollars. This he considered the
one completely successful labor of his life
Here was to he ga centre of evangelical light
and truth, that from age to age wouid shed
its beams over the Western churches-a
seat of gospel learning from which, under
the Divine blessing, would go out long lines
of thoroughly equipped ana earnest men to
hasten the final triumph and universal reign
of pure aud primitive rclig,o,." So he
wrote, and prayed, and planned twenty
four years ago.
Among those who wrought steadfastly at
the her, teal enterprise was one Dennis, an
= Hibernlun of small scholarship hut -rrent