, 1884-01-20

the old philosopher. Here, I thought,
was a paragraph filled with falsehood,
and for a similar purpose. No one
cares to be caught, and 1 was deter
mined to keep clear Of the trap. Be-
sides l never was ambitious for notori-
ETY.. My pulse to this hour beats kind
Of half surprised when l see my nam
In print, and this fact alone would dis
suade me even now from noticing the
bitter attack did not graver reasons
urge me to answer 1t.
One of the errors and evils OF our
time is the implied faith many have in
the infallibility of newspapers. Super
hcial minds-and so many minds are
super1cial-rely upon newspaper state
meHts with provoking confidence.
They read but see no deeper than the
surface. They accept every statement
at its face value. Their morning paper
furnishes them with talking material
for the day. If occasionally they meet
in its columns some fact or series of
facts unusually heartrendiDg they may
weep over them for a week or more,
and afterward find hat the facts they
wept for were ~fabrications. When will
people learn to take editorial u%tterances
for what they are WORTH A man who
deceives everybody and who battles his
creditors may lie in print when it sub
serves his purposes. Why believe what
he writes or copies, when you know his
word would not get him a nickel
cigar?
Now to the point-ths plagiarized
paragraph 1.-THE assertion that the
Catholic church feels a deep concern
for the education of the masses has
been often maden Quite truel 1t has
been made by Catholics who knew what
they were speaking of. and it has
been made even by professionals who
however, were better versed in history
and less prejudiced against the church
than the writer of the paragraph in
question, or the person who copied it
into the Daily Sun. 1t has been made
too often to be offset" by the frauds
or the falsehoods of q newspaper sky
larker.
To disprove this assertion IL para
grapher intimates tina it sufices to
cite the case of Spain; will not alto
gether L should think, at least | hold a
different view. One witness never suf-
ices to disprove or mullify the con-
curing testimony of two or more re-
spectacle witnesses. An assertion that
Is established as a fact by Ireland, and
France, and Austria, and Hungary and
the United States and by all impartial
history, cannot suffer from the single
case of Spain. If Spain is an excep-
ton, and the only one, it helps rather
to prove the rule. This reasoning is
easily understood. Everyone acknowl-
edges the eagerness of protestanism to
make proselytes. and the earnest en-
deav ors of the Catholic church to make
people better. The fact that protestant
ism is losing instead of gaining In
numbers Ia no argument against the
e%xistance of that eagerness which we
know exists. The fact that there was
a bad mar named Brother Martin nur.
tured within the sacred sanctuary is
no argument against the beneficial in
hlence of the Catholic church upon
society and civilization. The solitary
case of Spain proves nothing against
the church. If Spain is low in the
scale of education, we must look for
the cause in her centuries of declining
prosperity-and among the causes of
that declining prosperity we find the
enormous war expenditure and NAL
administration of Philip II, for which
the church is in no way responsible,
and we find also numerous evils which
the church emphatically condemned.
Why, then, charge the church OF Spain,
so often over-run by Moors and Bible
mongers, SO often at war. so often
reyolutionized-is to-day in a deplora-
BILE condition intellectually.
But Spain is an absolutely Catholic
country" saddening thought What
has professionalism been doing during the
past $50 years when there is still to be
found upon the surface of the civilized
globe a country absolutely Catholic?'
Nor is Spain alone in this. Ireland,
Portugal, France, Belgium, Austria.
Hungary, and even Switzerland, all
these are as absolutely Catholic as
Spain. What has protestanism been
doing? Ireland ranks first among the
nations in education; France first i IN
refinement and civilization; Italy first
in the arts, while of Switzerland a
protestant attests hat sin no country
is elementary instruction more widely
ditfused." Is 1t fair IN a newspaper to
select Spain and dangle her illiterate
millions in our facesp Is it fair in any
writer to misstate figures and suppress
facts even when he is laboring to es-
tablish a preconceived theory This the
petty Photographer L am dealing with
has done. But his reason for selecting
the case OF Spain is obvious. He be-
lieved, short-sighted as he was, that
there was enough in her ''oficlal data
If skillfully manipulated, Ito offset
the assertion 30 often made, Ibis OBJ
ject was ''to effect" ''the assertion" -
so he says not a word about France,
Ireland, Hungary, Austria or America,
but ''goos for' Spain. Likely he had
an old spite against Spain. He had
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