The Dalles daily chronicle. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1890-1948, 1896-04-24

ever had editorial control. When you
quoted Bishop Hughes fuIminatIons
against the free schools of New York you
might have explained that his attacks
were against what were strictly Sec
tartan, Protestant schools. supported
from the public treasury, and that so
successful was his attack that the present
non-sectarian schools were established
short time after. You might have ex-
planned that the same Bishop Hughes,
on November /, 1841, little before the
New York legislature abolished the Sec
tartan school system against which the
bishop had fought, published card in
the city of New York in which he said
Bishop Hughes does not permit him
self or any of the clergy to meddle in the
business of politics. He does not ask
for sectarian schools, nor did he ever.
He does not ask that any of the public
money should be given to his denomin-
alton, nor did he eUer. Any system of
education which does not interfere with
the rights of any denomination will
satisfy him. The present system is not
of this descriptions it insists on giving
what is termed the legal quantity of
religious instruction. It has many op-
ponents in this city on constitutional
grounds"
Nor would it have injured the cause of
truth, however much it might have been
out of harmony with the spirit and in
tent of your lecture, If you had added,
Ia 1 4 L
trembling in the balance, and the i'm
mortal Lincoln had all the United States
to choose from, it was this same John
Hughes he selected as ambassador, to lay
before the nations of the old world the
true issues involved in the contest, in
order to prevent the baneful effects of a
recognition of the Southern confederacy.
But enough. l cannot close this letter
without asking space for the insertion of
an extract from an address delievered in
Washington, D. G. last Sunday, by
Arch bishop Ireland. Every sentence of
it is protest against the assumptions of
DIR. Grant and his A. P. A. admirers,
that Catholicism is at war with loyalty
to the state, and that Catholics owe
dllGRlduCS III POiiIlCdI A1dGISES, W bH0
head of the Roman church. Who knows
but this resumption may be the
fortress that DIR. Grant claims l have
have never attacked? Archbishop Ire
land said:
The most positive precepts of the
Catholic church go to the building of
America. She prescribes loyalty to the
state, purity of personal life, charity to
fellow-men. The church recognizes, as
her own species. faith and morals; she
possesses and claims no mission In civil
and political matters. If the church en-
croaches upon the sphere of the state,
we should bid her be away. If the state
enters into the sanctuary of conscience,
the proper empire of the church, the ap-
peal is to God, and the state is ordered
to hold off its hands. With the separa-
tion of church and state. as 1t is in
America, the church and the state re-
volve freely in their separate and dis
tinct spheres; Catholics fall behind none
of the fellow citizens in admiring it and
demanding it's continuance. The Cath
olic church wishes no aid from the state
in the preaching of the gospel. But lib
erty from the state she wishes and
clamors for as a sacred and inalienable
right; liberty in its fullest sense under
the common law of the land. / am
Catholic, am a priest and bishop;
but 1 am an American citizen, and 1
must be debarred from no rights and
privileges accorded to other citizens be-
cause am Catholic. My words betray
no fear for the future. Americans are a
people of sincere religious convictions
and of profound common sense, and they
will know how to keep church and state
separate, and yet give liberty it's fullest
sway and guard religion and morals.
Sentiments like these-and they are
the common, everyday, expression of
representative Catholics-ought to level
to the fat earth every fortress" that
has any relation to American citizenship.
HUGH GoURLAY.
The Dalles, April "a. 1896.