The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-12-29

Editorial Opinions sf tho Leading Journals
Upon Current TOpios-COmpiled EvcrV
DaY for the EvenluR Telegraph.
THE DOMINION on CONVERTS.


There are other accidents of birth upon
which the average English child may con-
gratulate himself beyond that for which the
hymns which he learns make him grateful.
II he is fortunate in not being born negro,
he may be thankful that in the great ajority
of cases he is not born Roman Catholic.
It is difficult to conceive acuter moral griev-
ances than those under which the English
Roman Catholics who have always been
Roman Catholics are now suffering. In all
probability, if allowance be made for the DIFF
ference of period, Lord Macaulay's descrip-
tion of the Roman Catholic of James lis
day is in great degree applicable to the true
English Romanist of our own. In his tastes
and in his social creed he may be believed to
be not less but more of an Englishman than
his neighbors and we may even suspect that
he has an equal natural affinity for the COM
monplaces which are dear to them. The
declarations published by the Roman Catho-
lie peers and commoners during the struggle
for emancipation are very curious reading,
and show that the gentlemen who signed
them had gone very far in accepting
the principal articles of Revo-
luton faith. In those days the
favorite argument of their advocates was
that James the Second was a martyr 10
the cause of liberation, and it was often asked
whether men who held the same doctrines
with the barons of Runnymede must neees-
sarily be among the deadly enemies of free
dom. But now the Papal Syllabus pro-
nounces it a capital error to hold that even
immigrants into Catholic country ought to
be allowed freedom of Worship; and, as for
Magma Charta, ID is incontestable that Pope
cursed all who had art or part in it, and all
Popes are about to be declared infallible by
the Gcumenicsl Council. The truth is that
the influences which operate on the Roman
Catholic Church of the Continent are neces-
sarily very feebly felt by the English Roman
Catholic body. 1t is easy to understand why
She privileged classes of continental countries
should suppose that they gain strength by
allying themselves with a power which tries
to be, and to great extent is, the centre OF
conservative resistance all over the world.
But the English Roman Catholics have
nothing whatever to gain by denationalizing
themselves. Ultramontanism for them means
a closer connection with Irish agrarian dis
content; and this Is hardly natural alliance
for well-to-do minority consisting chiefly
of landowners.
One misfortune which has overtaken this
body of noblemen and gentlemen is probably
the heaviest which can happen to men of
taste and sense. They have fallen under the
dominion of converts. Some fifteen or
twenty years ago the Protestant world was
agitated by the preaching of few Roman
Catholic priests who had deserted their
Church; and it is instructive to call to mind
its characteristics The hearer of Father
Achlli or Father Gavazzi learned that the
Pope was marvel of denoniacal cruelty, that
converts were sinks of immortality, and that
the Church of Rome was in league with every
form of oppression which weighs upon the
human race. Of Professionalism he heard that
the little happiness which existed in the
world was traceable to it, and that not q sus-
picion rested on the character or motives of
its founders. In other words, he listened to
some statements which in general way were
true, to some wild exagggerations, and to
some rather impudent falsehoods. Now it
would be very un Just to the converts who
are riding roughshod over the English Roman
Catholics to say that they are men of such
equivocal character as were some of the per-
sons who Joined the Protestant camp from
Romanism, but it is undeniable that there is
a strong generic likeness between the two
sets of apostates; and, indeed, we are not
sure that the advantage is not in some re-
spects with the Italians. Some OF them had
really done and suffered much, and there was
an occasional manliness and force in their
language which fayorably contrast with the
effeminate shrieking of men who have sedu-
lousy rid themselves of every fragment of
intellectual virility. If, again, there is pin
to choose between the statement that every
convent is brothel, and the statement that
modern civilization is founded on divorce, we
think that the latter is the most discreditable
of the two to the author; it is equally false
and malignant with the other in point of in
tention, and, besides that, it is nonsensical.
The Greeks observed common qualities in
political refugees of all classes which
led them to make it an adage
that exiles ought never to be trusted; just in
the same way religious refugees of all sorts
have great deal in common. There is in
all the same virulent hatred of the sect which
they have left and the same extravagant ad-
miration and exaltation of the most doubtful
pretensions of the sect which they have
Joined Among those who profess faith,
and especially an old faith, simply because
they were born to it, there will always be
many to whom these Characteristics are in the
highest degree offensive Some things in
their own creed they do not greatly care to
have dwelt upon; some things in rival creeds
they do not altogether like to have attacked
The easy going Anglican saves himself from
such annoyances by keeping as far away as
possible from the hall or chapel in which the
convert is lecturing; but for the old-fashiened
English Roman Catholic there is no such
Escape The convert is an archbishop. and
his utterances are pastorals it would be dis
loyalty even to complain of either.
All English converts to Roman Catholicism
have not been of the exact type of DR.. Man
ming but it seems certain that all future con
Verts will more or less belong toit; and, at al
events, it is only such converts that the Holy
See delights to honor. For adherents of thu
stamp of the eccentric Mr.. Ffoulkes tn,
Church has had no room since the Reforma
tion, and it is only wonderful that he SHOULD
have thought otherwise. But, beyond this
ii is becoming clear that there will shortly b
NO nlaoa aven for converts like DR. Newman