The times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1897-1901, 1901-04-14

|
enced by the existence of State Churches
and the degrees of obnoxious privilege
which the State Churches severaIly have
| possessed. Where the yoke of the estab-
lishment was heavy. as in France under
the Bourbons, free thought has been lash
ed into fury where. in England, the
| ecclesiastical polity has been COMPARE
lively mild, it has taken the gentIer form
| of evangelical dissent. In the United
| States at the beginning of the last CEN
fury there were faint relics of State
| Churches. churches, that is. recognized
| and protected, though not endowed by
| the State. But there has been little to
| irritate skepticism or provoke it to vio-
lence of any kind, and the transition has
accordingly been tranquil. Speculation,
| however, has now arrived at a point at
which its results in the minds of the more
| enquiring clergy come into collision with
the dogmatic creeds of their churches and
| their ordination tests. Especially does
! awakened conscience rebel against the
ironclad Calvinism of the Westminster
| Confession. Hence attempts, hitherto
baffied to revise the creeds, hence. here
| sy trials. scandalous and ineffective.
Who can undertake to say how far
religion now influences the inner life of
the American people? Outwardiy life in
the United States, in the Eastern States
at least, is still religious. Churches are
well maintained. congregations are fun i;
offertories are liberal. 1t is still respect
able to be churchgoer Angllcanism.
from its connection with the English
hierarchy, is fashionable among the
wealthy society of cities. We note how
ever. that in all pulpits there is tend
ency to glide from the spiritual into the
social, IL not into the material: to edge
away from the pessimistic view of the
present world with which the gospels are
instinct; to attend less exclusively to our
future, and more to our present state.
Social reunions. picnics. and sideshows
are growing in Importance as parts of the
Church system. Jonathan Edwards, IL
he could now come among his people.
would hardly find himself at home.
The Catholic Church had come out TO
America in evil companionship with
Spanish conquest. the iniquities of which
she had sanctified and shared. With the
Spanish colonies she decayed, and her
history during the past century in South
America appears to have been that of
miserable decline which could add moth
ing to religious thought or history.
Mexican liberalism, under the Presidency
of Juarez, cast off allegiance to her, and
priest dared not show himself in the
dress of his order on the street. In
French Canada the Catholic Church has
reigned over simple .peasantry, her own
from the beginning, thoroughly submits
sive to the priesthood, willing to give
freely of its little store for the building
and sufficiently firm in its faith to throng
to the fame of st. Anne Beaupre for
miracles of healing She has kept the
habitant ignorant and unprogressive, but
made him, after her rule, moral, insisting
on early marriage. on remarriase, con-
trolling his habits and amusements with
an almost Puritan strictness. Probably
French Canada has been as good and as
happy as anything the Catholic Church
had to show. The priesthood was of the
Gallican school. 1t lived on good terms
with the State, though in French Canada
the State was a conqueror From fear
of New England Puritanism it had kept
it's people loyal to Great Britain during
the Revolutionary war From fear of
French atheism it kept it's people loyal to
Great Britain during the war with France.
1t sang '.Te Deum" for Trafal2l.. So
things were till the other day But then
came the Jesuit. He got back, from the
subserviency of the Canadian politicians,
the lands which he had lost after the
conquest and the suppression of his
orders He supplanted the Gallicans, cap
tured the hierarchy and prevailed over
the great sulpician Monastery in a strug-
gle for the passionate of Montreal. Other
influences have of late been working for
change in direction neither Gallican nor
Jesuit Railroads have broken into the
rural seclusion which favored the ascend
ency of the priest. Popular education has
made some way. Newspapers have in
creased in number and are more read
The peasant has been growing FESTIVE
under the burden of 1.-THE and fabrique
Many of the habitants go into the Northern
States of the Union for work, and return
to their own country bringing with them
republican ideas. Americans who have
been stunning Continental union from
dread of French-Canadian Popery may lay
aside their fears.
1t was a critical moment for the Catho-
lie Church when she undertook to extend
her domain to the American Republic.
She had there to encounter a genius radi-
cally opposed to her own. The remnant
of Catholic Maryland could do little to
help her on her landing. But she came in
force with the flood of Irish. and after
ward of South German emigration. How