The morning star and Catholic messenger., 1879-01-12
The School Question.

1
schools. By the means of this coalitio
they managed to defeat the opposition
and now they have time to ruminate owe
the results. OF course, the impression
prevailing among Catholic voters wa
that the religions exercises or Instruction
should be in accordance with the religion
Of the pupil. Imagine then their conster
nation when they found their allies to have
been acting in bad faith. No sooner die
religious instruction become fixed ele-
ment of the public school than Protestant
| bigotry took free and exclusive possession
of it. In other words Catholic children
were to be taught anti Catholic relig gion.
| 1t would be impossible at this distance
from the scene to calculate how many jokes
| were gotten off on the Catholics for being
SO cheaply caught by the old fox of Pro-
testan tism. Their quondam opponents OF
the late popular contest must have enjoy ed
| their predicament greatly and made it the
occasion of abundant raillery. 1t was
truly an instance of the lamb putting his
head trustingly into the mouth of the lion.
How in the world reasonable meu who
had lived for years face to face with bigotry
conld have been SO strangely ignorant of
it's character is q puzzle. Bigots may be
very good men-they often are-but bigo-
try itself is devil. 1t keeps no terms,
regards no pledges, respects no etiquette,
knows no Obligation. 1t has no conscience
and ignores all gratitude. 1t has but one
maxim Every thing is fair in war. In
other matters a bigot may be mau of high
honor and scrupulous good faith in re-
Hgien he conRinces himself that the end
justifies the means. He feels that they
and that the glory of God requires them to
be saved by any kind Of ungentemanly
trickery if necessary.
So the bigotry of New Haven permitted
q body of citizens otherwise very worthy
people, no doubt, to treat their allies with
the shabbiest kind of Greek faith and de-
prive them of all advantage from a victory
which would have been impossible without
their Co operation. These devotees do not
hesitate to collect Catholic taxes and apply
them to the support of schools the doors of
which are virtually chat to Catholic chill
dren. They seem to think it quite fair
to plunder the Philistines for the profit of
the Lords chosen. Certainly many of
these citizsns would not think of defraud
ing Catholic, more than any other, in an
ordinary business transaction. They
would not make him pay cent niore than
q Protestant for bill of goods, but to put
him under tribute to the work of the Lord
and extort HE substance for the nee OF the
Temple, is, they hold, good and a holy
deed. The sting OF the treatment in this
New Haven case, however, was in the cool
assurance with which the Catholic public
was bamboozled at tying the rope around
it's own neck.
"Serves 'em right" is the only comment
that can be made anywhere on this one
sided transaction. There are two kinds of
Protestant public in this country-the
Protestant public, so-callt d. and the genu-
inc Protestant public. The former COM
prises thousands of people who are not
Catholics but who have no special bigotry
towards the Catholic Church, although
classed nominally as Protestants the
latter are Simon-pure heretics, zealots in
religion, Protestants in earnest. With the
public at large, Catholics may sometimes
hope to make reasonable arrangement for
the use of their own school money, but it
ia folly to expect any such thing at the
hands of the Eealots or protecting Chris
tians. There can be no bona fde alliance
with them. They would, true enough,
like to see their own doctrines taught in
the public schools, but never if it could
only be on condition of similar recogni-
ton for the Catholic religion. In that
case they would prefer TO see the school
left entirely Goddess.
The First Gross Planted on an Anglican Altar