The morning star and Catholic messenger., 1874-07-05
The American Pilgrims.
From the London Tablet. I

Unquestionably it seems as if the pro-
! phets and wiseacres who continually fore
tell that the Church's influence is on the
point of becoming extinct, are every day
destined to suffer more and more severe
exposure and refutation. Who cannot re-.
member the chorus of sneers with which
| the commencement of the modern PILGRIM
age movement was hailed some years back
by the amateur theologians and profession al
critics of the anti-Catholic press2 Even
IN france 1t was gaily predicted that the
| attempt to revive the obsolete medeyalism
of going on pilgrimages to holy places was
certain to be the most complete and deci.
sive of failures. The Church of Rome. it
was said, was surely forgetting her tradi-
tional cunning in thus provoking the risk
Of an experiment of such nature. 1t
would now be seen how little real hold the
doctrines of Catholicism had on the masses
who were content to follow outwardly the
traditional observance OF the Church. A
High Mass or an eloquent sermon might
still, indeed, assemble crowds of worship.
pers; but when it came to bravipp the
ridicule eofoutsiders, to undergoing the hard
ships of unaccustomed journeys to remote
shrines, to moving in procession amid for
gotten solitudes, and incurripg the hard
ships of poor quarters and insufficient fare.
1t would quick be found that Catholics
had "progressed' with the age in spite of
themselves, and were as likely to return to
the practices of pilgrims as the followers
OF Foltalre themselves. At most, a few
obscure Villages would contribute their
hundreds of simple and uneducated folks
to the clerical fiasco, and thus there wonIJ
be an end of the matter.
How Catholic France replied to the re.
viers and sceptics is we'll know. In tens
of thousands and in hundreds of thousands,
the elite of the ancient land, noble and
scholar and peasant alike, delicate ladies
and country maids, were to be seen wend-
~ hnl n NNt~
Lourdes or La Salette, or to the sacred |
Convent of Paray. alt is only the French
who could do these things was the neat
refuge OF disappointed scepticism. "It is
the excitable nature of the French alone
which is capable of such manifestations of
was the response to this latest cavil. and
even hostility became half-ashamed to
doubt or sneer at the spectacle of that long
column, every member oft the representa-
tive of hundreds and thousands afar offin Old
England, which wound its way with hymn
ing banner, through the convent walks of
the Bienheureuse. 1t only remained for n
the Catholics of America to show that thev
too were proud to confess the GLORIOUS
Iaith which their ancestors had brought
rom Europe generations ago and which,
u spite of butfettings and troubles, often
hardly less severe than the Dereecutiops of ,
ne Old World, has growR up in the very
'ities Of the Puritan and amid the forests /
u back ckwoodsmen to the dimensions of the {
;hurch that is uumistakably destined to /
ompCehend all that is good aud wise, and q
reat and prosperous, in the vast area Of t
he American Continent. I
We are not surprised that even the ar Il
lval of that first batch of a hundred nil. q
rims from America has called forth so
luch remark. These men are not the n
oisy and vulgar Yankees, of whom the /,
etter nature of Americans 10 so heartily !,
snamed they are not scions of that n
shoddy aristocracy" whose name is a c
ysnonym for wealth i'll. gotten aud ILL., spent. II
ney are representatives of quite another Ii
lass, or rather of the very BODY and snb- Al
.ance OF the great American nation. They ~
re- merchants and farmers and landed r.
roprIetors, doctors and lawyers, priests T
I'D Bishops. In word. they are the b