The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1868-05-31

rug is the humane regeneratOr that snail
put Christianity to the blush.
Now, if Satan, the arch-enemy of Eve
and her daughters, should be determined,
as he is, to continue on his warfare against
them, it would certainly be to his interest
to deprive them of the protection of the
Church-to take them out Of the hands of
their real friend.
The most natural wayto do thatwould be
to assume for himself and his allies a still
higher tone of friendship towards them. He
would become an angel of Observation-Disclosures
light. He would inspire his human coop
orators with burning zeal in woman's be-
half, wonderful solicitude for her improve
ment, a saddening anxiety about her ne
elected condition. Even supposing that he
may not have adopted That ruse in this case,
and that Mr.. Duruy, and other ultra pro-
gressionists, may not be unquestionably his
instruments, still, we think that woman
might well be excused for shrinking in dis
trust from these new apostles of woman's
rights with the exclamation, "Save me
from my friends :" I1meo Dasiaos ct dona
ferentes."
This scheme is undoubtedly, however, q
development of the modern phase of per-
secution-indirect coercion. Open force
has long since failed-utterly failed to ar
rest the progress of the Church. First came
violence, even to death, but the blood of
the martyrs was found to be the most pro-
life seed of the Church. Then the tactics
of irreligion, profiting by discontinue, grew
less and less truculent, but more and more
crafty. Death having no terror, impover-
ishment and ruin were tried. Repatriation,
confiscation, fines, every mode of appealing
to avarice in order to enforce the attendance
of adults at the conventicles of the perse
cutors, and of children at their schools,
were essayed in a constantly increasing
scale of skill and refinement in cruelty.
In vain. Even nature assisted faith
against this bungling adversary. Man nat
urally revolts against force, and is more and
more alienated by oppression. Persecution
has thus, at length, found that to be sue
cessful it must be hidden. 1t must attack
faith singly, without making nature it's ally.
Hence, all these high-fiown generalities of
modern days about public education, this
desperate determination in the cause of pub
lie schools among all nationalities, imperial
or republican, whether under the inspira-
ton of religion or of heresy. Necessity
must force parents to abandon the faith and
morality of their children to chance, while
the prosecutor lodges the odium by bland
Iy telling them to send the children where
they please.
But as faith is no coward, so it is no fool.
The Church can neither be frightened nor
deceived This hidden persecution has
been understood from the first, by those
who were on the watch, and before long it's
cunning device will be universally recog-
nized and despised. The novelty of Mr.. Du-
ruy is but an application of the same strata
gem. new only in its higher flight of auda-
city. He and his set may not know, posi-
lively, that they are the tools of an evil
spirit, but this they ought to know, that
neither he nor they can ever prevail against
the Church. The Evil One knows that well
enough, but in the connections which he |
stirs up by means of bad men, he is sure of
catching some prey, if it should only be his
own friends.