The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1903-03-07
Conversations Of
Our Club 3 By Byye S5sstss H.

only under a government of law. en-
bodied either in a constitutional organ
ism or in the legitimate prince. 10y
atty has been much weakened, and
well nigh destroyed, in Great Britain
since the expulsion of the Stuarts and
the accession of the Hanoverians. 1t
is nearly dormant with us and threat
ems ere long to sleep the sleep of death.
Democracy cherishes a proud con-
ce1ted indiVidualism. and at the same
time a mean and cringing Servility to
popular opinion. Under a democracy,
as our own experience proves, the
individual forms an exaggerated esti-
mate Of himself, is in relation to other
individuals self-sufficient, conceited,
saying virtually to each one of them:
I am as good as you, and great deal
better, too While he is deplorably de-
ficient in true independence of thought
and action in face of the public.
The Thoroughbred democrat, naughty
and overbearing to his equal, is
timid slave before public opinion.
He puts the people in the place of
God. and takes whatever is popular TO
be lawful ana right. He asks, Is 1t
popular, will the people-which means
his party-support it? If so, all right,
go ahead! To stand we'll with the pub
lie, with ones party, or ones set, is The
highest aim. As the questions are to be
decided by votes, and votes are count
ed, not weighed, the appeal must be
made to the many. Hence democracy
has a natural tendency to reduce all
virtue and all intelligence to a dead
level. The mass of the people in our
country are perhaps more intelligent,
at least in political matters, than the
lower classes in most European coun-
tries; our educated and cultivated
classes are far below the correspond
ing classes in any European state. In
deed, our educated classes do not COM
pare favorably with the educated
classes of Mexico, and some of the
South American states. There is little
in our community to stimulate exer-
tions for the higher degrees of excel
lence. To rise too high is to rise out
of reach and out of sight of the multi
tude; only inferior men, commonplace
men, can hope to secure the popular
favor. No man of first-rate attain
ments or first order of abilities can
hope to be elected president of the
Union. Your Harrisons Folks, Taylors,
Pierces, Buchanans, carry it over your
Clays, Calhouns and Websters. The
candidate is selected, not because he is
fit but because he is or is presumed to
be available, and he is the more avail
at the recent delegations in congress
from Massachusetts and New York, or
to their representatives in the state
legislatures, and say if high order of
Intelligence and public and private vir-
tue are not a positive disqualification.
High scholarship, profound, discrim-
mating, original thought, are not and
cannot be appreciated by the great
mass of the people, and our authors to
be popular must be superficial, COM
mon-place, vapid, bombastic or intense.
What rises above the common level
rises above the common intelligence.
The reduction of all to the level of the
mass, the self-sufficiency and the OBJ
sequiousness to popular opinion, so
manifest among us are, no doubt, I'M
favorable to the conversion of our
countrymen, because Catholicity re-
quires true greatness, true independ-
ence and manliness of character, love
for our equals, respect for our superb
ors, firmness of purpose, and loyalty
to truth, to right, to justice.
81 see little in the American charac-
ter as it has been developed under our
democratic theory to encourage my
hopes as Catholic. The tendency of
the American people, with individual
exceptions, is not toward the church,
L L
do not despair. First, because L rely
on God, and he will not withhold his
grace; and, second, because l rely on
the gradually increasing weight and
influence of the Catholic population in
the country, and the new and stronger
elements they introduce to neutralize
those 1 have alluded to-"
"That last consideration is one which
I expected Father John to overlook"
remarked O'FIanagan, "for I did not
suppose those who are making so much
ado about converting the country, made
any account of the some 100000 or g.
100000 Catholics. of various nationals
ties, already settled here"
''I have nothing to do with their vari-
Gus nationalities, interrupted Father
John. when we are speaking of Cath
olicity there is no question of nation
alities. The Catholic religion is cath
olic, not national, and overrides, as oc-
casion requires, all nationalities. In
converting a country Providence adapts
means to the end. Excepting the few
settlers of Maryland, soon deprived Of
their Catholic freedom and subjected to
Protestant intolerance-almost as soon
as the colony was organized-the
United States were originally settled
by Protestants of the intensest kind,
and nowhere was hostility to Catholici-
ty more bitter or universal than among
them. One of the grievances alleged by
the colonies against the mother country
was the liberty allowed in Canada to
the French Catholics, to retain and
practice their religion. When we be-
came a nation we recognized the prin-
ciples of religious liberty indeed, not
through the influence of Catholic
France, as M. Henri de Courcy con-
tends, nor through any good will to
Catholicity, nor yet through any love
of religious liberty itself on the part of
Protestants, but because no Protestant
sect was strong enough to make itself
state establishment, and because
Catholicity was looked upon at the time
as virtually dead, and incapable for the
future of making any conquests, or OF
manifesting any vitality Moreover, at
the time the leading men of the coun-
try had very little belief in any re-
ligion, and followed Voltaire and other
unbelievers in advocating liberation,
believing that by tolerating all relig-
ions they could make an end of them.
They held that no religion can long
stand, or exert any influence, unless
supported by the state, as a state esq
Enlistment Under these circum-
stances, with an intense hatred of Cath
olicity, fearing or disdaining to investi-
gate it's claims, caring little for any re-
ligion, and about entering upon
course of material prosperity perhaps
unparalleled in the worlds history,
nothing but miracle of divine grace
could have called their attention to the
Catholic religion, and gained them to
the faith, unless a Catholic populat ton
should migrate hither and bring the
fa ift with them They would nowhere
have tolerated or listened to the mis-