The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1886-03-18
LETTERS FROM THE PEOPLE.
Father Alerainr and the puritans.


TO the Editor of the indianapolis Journal:
Father Alerding is anything but happy reply
ing in yesterdays Journal He has. uncon-
sciously, no doubt, entangled himself trife
Certainly he succeeds in accomplishing the
feat of telling the public that he dug
away back into the records of Historian Ban
crofts sayings of nearly quarter of a century
ago, to erect a mannikin over whose shout
ders might be cast slime upon men and
times who whatever may have been their errors,
are not only held in affectionate reverence by the
great mass Of the American people, but as the
source, likewise, from whence flows all that is
substantially good in the government and prog
ress of this country. Besides, the reverend
Father indirectly confesses that he knew the
truth in respect to Bancroft's testimony, and
that his lecture paltered with it, that,
in fact it was not so much the
truth he cared to search for in the
pages of the great historian as it was
material with which to swell the proportions OF
the mannikin he would construct insist in
the light of yesterdays note from the reverend
gentleman, that he paltered with the record and
suppressed testimony in his own possession.
He says he compared the edition of Bancroft he
read from-the ntv-second-printed in 1857,
with the late editions, down to that printed in
1885, and yet he omitted telling his listeners,
when enlightening them, with this injection:
Even Bancroft, in the latest edition of his
great history has compromised with bigotry;'
that Bancroft wrote as early as 1875, in preface
to then new edition of his work, and in expla-
nation of the changes he had made therein: "For
more than forty years, theauthor has been accus-
toned to invite and receive, from friends in all
parts OF the Union, instruction on the branches
of American history to which they had especial
ly given attention; and, during the
same period, new and complete ma
the most various sources" And he adds, after
adverting to the care and labor employed in pre-
pairing the revised edition, "a very few state
ments disappear before the severer application
of the rules of historical criticism" The state
ment which Father Alerding used was one of
those which the author had, under those rules,
withdrawn. 1t had disappeared from his his
tory, had ceased to be Bancrofts testimony, and
to reproduce it as such, by one who is In the
attitude of giving testimony himself, would be
characterized in our law courts, if used within
their precincts, by legal term which | leave
the reverend gentleman himself TO supply in
this connection. Father Alerding is not without
having had an opportunity of knowing the
weight, volume and meaning of language in tes-
timony; nor is he unfamiliar with the practice
of the courts in regard to either its use or its
suppression. The reverend father and the
courts have already lad some interesting dis
cussions on this subject of testimony.
Nor is the reverend lecturers position i'm
proved greatly by the fippancy of suggestion
which points to himself as an exampler in the
study of Bancroft This writer has sought
anxously and almost tearfully, as an Irishman
and Catholic loving his native land and rever-
encing his creed, in edition after edition of the
historian to discover if the patient industry, the
generous heart. and the broad intellect of this
American writer had traced any contradiction,
or mitigation Of certain recorded facts in his
tory, the presence Of which cover his Irish
Catholic face with shame, and, confronted with
the truth of which, fills his Irish American heart
with anger Facts. of which the following as a
sample is submitted to the notice of the pious
admirers of the reverend eulogist of Catholic
Maryland"
Cultivated men of the Roman Church, like
Carroll, gave hearty support to the cause of in
dependence, but the great mass of its members,
who were then about one in seventy-fve of the
whole population of the United States, followed
the influence Of the Jesuits in whose hands the
direction of them still remained, and who alike
cherished disfrust of the influences of the
American revolution and hatred of France for
her share in the overthrow of their order. In
Philadelphia therefore. Howe had been able to
form regiment OF Roman Catholics. With
still better success Clinton courtei the Irish,
allured them to a combination di-
rectly adverse to their own interests and raised
for Lord Rawdon large regiment in which
officers and men were exclusively Irish" (Ses
VOL vi, Chap. 36, Ban. His.) Thirty five years
or so ago. Incorporate zeaots of the Catho-
lie Church, like DR.. Bronson, the magazine
writer of that period, caused facts like these to
be dragged from the obscurity to which the
charity and forgiveness Of the American people
had consigned them, and thus provoked the re-
dictionary movement of now-nothin gsm to pa
rade them, not only to the detriment of the
Catholic Church. but to the peril of that division
of the Irish race then in America. Hence,
speakers of the class and school of Father Aer-
ding must expect to meet the observation of Irish
Catholics when venturing tosstep beyond the
strict line of their ecclesiastical functions
There are those of my countrymen, and co.relig-
ionists. Father Alerding will permit me to as
sure him, who regard the facts stated. in the ex-
tract just quoted, as the elimination OF q crime
which had its inception in the influence of those
Jesuits here referred to; and who heaven help
ing them, will, as Catholic Irishmen, forever
stand hereafter in the way of repetition of that
crime flowing from priestly influence over the
Irish people
Meantime, there is another feature no less
Objectionable in the reverend fathers discourse
than the one adverted to in my former commu-
pication. Stripped of its verbiage and pretense,
this lecture blankets the attenuated sheer of
man dissatisfied with the foundations of this
Republic. There was not suffciency of Roman
Catholic ecclesiasticism laid in with the original
material No apostolic blessing had been IN
voked at the laying of the cornerstone. No
papal legate had been asked to attend the DELHI
erations of the Continental Congress. No red
hated cardinal or purple -robed bishop is per-
mltteu any more lnHueuco III the framing OF It's
laws than just that measure accorded to worth
and intelligence in citizenship. And why should
the covert sheer be absent when the utterer of
this uncalledfor screed has his moral and
intellectual eyes evidently set to look but
in one direction from his head-a direction from
which is obscured every atom of feeling thought,
or religion which does not reflect the blaze of
Roman ecclesiastical influence. Aside from the
sheer it so i'll conceals the reverend gentle
mons lecture hardly DISCUSSES its purpose. The
majority of those who heard its delivery, and for
whose mental digestion it has been published,
are Irish people, indifferently well read in book
the civil liberty of their race of successive gen
erations OF English Catholics, a handful of whom
is here attempted to be extolled to their eyes.
The Irish people know those English Catholics
well. They have known them for 700 years and
they know them to-day, and they know little,
il anything, that is good of them.