His Holiness Pope Leo XIII.
 
 THE 
 
 2-1 
 
 ^lEMORIAL VOLUME, 
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 — OF THE — 
 
 Third Plenary Council 
 
 OF BALTIMORE, 
 
 NOVEMBER 9-DECEMBEE, 7, 1884. 
 
 *! 
 
 BALTIMORE : 
 
 THE BALTIMORE PUBLISHING COMPANY, 
 
 No. 174 West Baltimore Street. 
 1885.
 
 UOPTRIOHT 
 
 Bt the Bat.timore PnBLisniNG Co.. 
 
 188.5. 
 
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 Press of {\e Baltimort PublUfiing Co.
 
 
 MEMORIAL VOLUME 
 
 — OF THE- 
 
 TSIi^D ■E^LEn^^I^.Y COTJIN-OIIL. 
 
 OF BALTIMORE. 
 
 14453;^w5
 
 We Dedicate this 
 
 emoriitl fotumc af the §hird §hmtr^ §owml 
 
 To the 
 
 Hierarchy, Clergy and Laity 
 
 Of the 
 United States 
 
 ^s it ^c^timoiiinl 
 
 To their Unwavering Adherence 
 
 To all the Doctrines 
 Of the 
 
 Catholic Church. 
 
 THE BALTIMORE PUBLISHING CO.
 
 APPEOBATIOTT. 
 
 We give our most cordial cqil^rohation to the entei'prise of The Baltimore Pub- 
 lishing Conqmny, The Memorial Volume of the Third PlenOiry Council of Baltimore, 
 and we trust that it tvill meet with the hearty co-operation of the faithful. 
 
 ^ JAMES GIBBOUS. 
 
 Archbishop of Baltimore.
 
 Most Rev. James Gibbons, D.D.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 rrilE BALTIMORE PUBLISHING COMPANY, in presenting 
 this volume to tlie public, trust that its typographical 
 appearance and the careful manner with Avhich its matter 
 has been prepared will be appreciated. It is a work which 
 every Catholic family should possess. 
 
 The sermons of the bishops during the council form, of 
 course, one of the chief features of the work. In their crude 
 form, as reported by stenographers, they have been extensively 
 published, both at home and abroad ; thus showing the w^orld- 
 wide interest taken in the acts of the council. The dignified 
 Pastoral Letter which follows them has also received no small 
 share of public attention, and its patriotic tone and wise counsels 
 have commended it even to citizens of other creeds. 
 
 With regard to the preliminary matter, it is only necessary 
 for us to say that it has been prepared with the greatest care. 
 The first article consists of the Prize Essay on '^ The Catholic 
 Church in the United States," and will be found a good con- 
 densed summary of our Church's origin and growth in this 
 country. Then come a chronicle of the preceding Councils of 
 Baltimore, based on the Latin records ; a history of the Third 
 Plenary Council's public acts ; an account of the grand reception 
 tendered by the citizens of Baltimore to the members of the 
 Council; the congratulations to the Most Rev. Apostolic Dele- 
 gate ; the acclamations ; a list of the members of the Council ; 
 a list of the deceased members of the Second Plenary Council ; 
 
 (3)
 
 4 PREFACE. 
 
 outline sketches of the lives of the American prelates; and 
 the Pastoral of the Most Rev. Archbishop of Baltimore to 
 the clergy and laity of his archdiocese. The facts in the 
 sketches of the prelates' lives are authentic. The whole work 
 is embellished by portraits of the prelates and other illus- 
 trations.
 
 COHTEKTS. 
 
 Dedication, 1 
 
 Approbation of Archbishop Gibbons, 2 
 
 Preface, 3 
 
 Illustrations, 7 
 
 "The Catholic Church in the United States." Prize Essay 
 
 by John A. Eussell, A.B., 9 
 
 "The Councils of Baltimore." By Hugh P. McElrone, . . 29 
 
 The Third Plenary Council of Baltimore, 46 
 
 The lleccption to the Members of the Council by the Citizens 
 
 of Baltimore, 52 
 
 Congratulating the Apostolic Delegate, 65 
 
 The Acclamations, 68 
 
 Members of the Council — A list of their Names, ... 70 
 
 Deceased Prelates of the Second Plenary Council, .... 80 
 Lives of the Present American Prelates — Outline Sketches, 
 
 Giving the Authentic Facts, 82 
 
 Pastoral Letter of the Most Rev. Archbishop of Baltimore to 
 
 the Clergy and Laity of his Diocese, Ill 
 
 " The Church in Her Councils." By Most Rev. Patrick John 
 
 Ryan, D.D., Archbishop of Philadelphia, 1 
 
 " The Catholic Church Equally Opposed to Anarchy and to 
 Despotism, the Guardian of Society, the Defender of True 
 Liberty." By the Right Rev. John L^eland, D.D., Bishop 
 of St. Paul, Minn., 11 
 
 " De Mortuis — Our Deceased Prelates." By the Most Rev. M. 
 
 A. Corrigan, D.D., Coadjutor Archbishop of Kew York, . . 33 
 
 " The Priesthood." By the Most Rev. W. H. Elder, D.D., Arch- 
 bishop of Cincinnati, 43 
 
 " The Unity of the Church." By the Right Rev. J. F. Shanahan, 
 
 D.D., Bishop of Harrisburg, 59 
 
 (3)
 
 6 CONTENTS. ' 
 
 '' The Missions for the Colored People." By the Right Rev. 
 
 ^y. H. Gross, D.D., Bishop of Savannah, Ga., .... 71 
 "University Education Considered in its Bearings on the Higher 
 
 Education of Priests." By Right Rev. J. L. Spalding, D.D., 
 
 Bishop of Peoria, 111., » 75 
 
 " The Necessity of Revelation." By the Right Rev. R. Gilmour, 
 
 D.D., Bishop of -Cleveland, 103 
 
 "Indian Missions." By the Most Rev. C. J. Seghers, D.D., 
 
 Archbishop of Oregon City, 114 
 
 " Christian Marriage." By the Right Rev. M. J. O'Farrell, D.D., 
 
 Bishop of Trenton, N. J., 120 
 
 "The Observation of Feasts." By the Right Rev. S. V. Ryan, 
 
 D.D., Bishop of Buffalo, N. Y., 132 
 
 "Faith and Reason." By the Right Rev. J. A. AVatterson, D.D., 
 
 Bishop of Columbus, 142 
 
 "The Catholic Church in the United States." By Right Rev. 
 
 Bernard J. McQuaid, D.D., Bishop of Rochester, . . . . 161 
 "The Sacrifice of the Mass." By^ Right Rev. E. Fitzgerald, 
 
 D.D., Bishop of Little Rock, Ark., .177 
 
 "Thanksgiving Day." By Right Rev. J. L. Spalding, D.D., 
 
 Bishop of Peoria, 111., 186 
 
 "Catholic Societies." By Right Rev. J. J. Keane, D.D., Bishop 
 
 of Richmond, "Va., 190 
 
 "The Church and Science." By Right Rev. Thomas A. Becker, 
 
 D.D., Bishop of Wilmington, Del., 209 
 
 "The Catholicity of the Church." By Right Rev. James 
 
 O'Connor, D.D., Vicar Apostolic of Nebraska, .... 214 
 "The Sanctity of the Church." By Right Rev. John Hen- 
 
 nessy, D.D., Bishop of Dubuque, ... 224 
 
 " The Work of the Council." By Right Rev. J. L. Spalding, 
 
 D.D., Bishop of Peoria, 245 
 
 "The Blessed Virgin Mary, under the Title of the Immacu- 
 late Conception, Patroness of the Cliurch in the United 
 
 States." By Right Rev. F. S. Chatard, D.D., Bishop of 
 
 Vincennes, 255 
 
 Pastoral Letter of the Third Plenary Council. 
 The Cathedral Organ,
 
 ILLUSTRATIOHS. 
 
 1. His Holiness Pope Leo XIII. Frontispiece. 
 
 2. Most Rev. James Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore and Apos- 
 
 tolic Delegate. 
 
 3. His Eminence John Cardinal McCloskey, Archbishop of New 
 
 York. 
 
 4. George Calvert, Lord Baltimore, Founder of Maryland and Re- 
 ligious Freedom in America. 
 
 5. Most Rev. John Carroll, First Archbishop of Baltimore. 
 
 6. Most Rev. John J. Williams, Archbishop of Boston. 
 
 7. Most Rev. P. J. Ryan, Archbishop of Philadelphia. 
 
 8. Interior View of the Cathedral, Baltimore. 
 
 9. Exterior View of the Cathedral, Baltimore. 
 
 10. Exterior View of the Seminary where the Private Sessions were 
 
 held. 
 
 11. View of the New Cathedral Organ. 
 
 12. Most Rev. ISI. A. Corrigan, Coadjutor Archbishop of New York. 
 
 13. Most Rev. W. H. Elder, Archbishop of Cincinnati. 
 
 14. Most Rev. Michael Heiss, Archbishop of Milwaukee. 
 
 15. Most Rev. P. A. Fechan, Archbishop of Chicago. 
 
 16. Most Rev. P. "NY. Riordan, Coadjutor Archbishop of San Fran- 
 
 cisco. 
 
 17. Most Rev. F. X. Leray, Archbishop of New Orleans. 
 
 18. One Group of Five Archbishops and Bishops. 
 
 19. Fourteen Groups, Nine Each, of Bishops and Other Members of 
 the Council.
 
 His Eminence John Cardinal McClosket/, D.D.
 
 THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 I>IiIZE ESS-A."5r_ 
 
 BY JOHN A. RUSSELL, A.B. 
 
 WERE it given to some seer of the tenth century to address 
 the future American Church in the person of the monk who 
 came out from Ireland to Christianize Iceland, he would use lan- 
 guage full of hope and promise, yet not unmixed with sorrow and 
 regretful anticipation. He would tell of a northern nation con- 
 verted to Christianity from gross idolatry, and taught in the arts 
 and the science and the literature of Christian Europe ; and he 
 would add that that Christianity was wiped out of existence by 
 the extinction of the race which professed it. The next chapter 
 of his prophecy would open on the coast of San Salvador on that 
 October day when, after months of battling with the ocean's storms, 
 Columbus planted the cross of the Crucified One on the shores 
 of the newly found continent ; and before that chapter were fin- 
 ished he would have recorded the humiliation and ingratitude 
 which were the portion of the same Columbus before his eyes 
 were closed in death. Joy and sorrow, toil and suffering, hope 
 and even despair Avould be his themes ere he would tell the story 
 of the firm foundation of the American Church. And that tale 
 would scarcely be ended before he would have to modify it with 
 recitals of the storms which the Church had to buffet and the 
 trials which she had to undergo before her priests were venerated 
 tmd her children respected as was their due. Marking as the 
 •opening of the Third Plenary Council does the beginning of a 
 new era in the Catholic history of America, an excellent oppor- 
 tunity is afforded to look back and take a retrospect of what 
 that seer might have told by anticipation. Such is the object of 
 this monograph, — briefly to consider the Rise and Progress of the 
 Catholic Church in the United States. 
 
 9
 
 10 THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 I. 
 
 Catholicity is nothing new in America. Away back in the 
 eleventh century, before England had fallen under the dominion 
 of Danish kings, while the monk Gerbert occupied the chair of 
 Peter under the title of Sylvester II, and just after the combined 
 Christian princes of Spain had routed the armies of Almanzor, 
 the Moor, there were Norse settlements in Iceland and on the 
 shores of the North American continent, where altars were raised 
 to the true God, and where priests chanted His praises and people 
 adored Him with a fervor unexcelled in any of Europe's strong- 
 holds of faith. As early as the year 1000, missionaries were 
 working for the conversion of Iceland. They found their task 
 neither tedious nor difficult ; and in the course of sixteen years 
 the stone gods of the Vikings were overturned, and in their stead 
 were erected altars to Him who, loving all, redeemed all. Nor 
 did the work end here. Not contented with the limits placed by a 
 small island, the sons of men who had taken refuge from a tyrant 
 on the high seas once more boldly struck out, and following the 
 coast of the mainland, penetrated to Vinland, now New England. 
 There is proof positive that the colonists in Vinland maintained 
 their profession of the faith in which their fathers and brothers 
 believed. Thus was Catholicity implanted in America at an early 
 date ; thus were priests employed ; and thus was the flock devel- 
 oped which was watched over by the Bishop of Garda. There 
 was no lack of progress on the part of the Icelandic Church, which, 
 founded at a time when Europeans were anxiously and fearfully 
 awaiting the Milennium, promised to become one of the brightest 
 jewels of the Roman crown. 
 
 All things earthly seem forced to run in a mad race towards 
 dissolution. The Norse colonies within the shadow of the Arctic 
 circle were no exception to this general rule. For a time they 
 prospered, and with them the religion of their inhabitants. But by one 
 of those terrestrial changes which can never be sufficiently accounted 
 for, the gulf stream sliiftcd its course and left Greenland and Ice- 
 land bereft of that influence which had tempered the rigor of the 
 polar gales. The climatic changes attendant upon the fluctuation 
 of the gulf stream turned Iceland and Greenland into barren 
 wastes, habitable only by rude and hardy tribes. The Norse
 
 THE CATIIOLIG CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES. 11 
 
 oolonies were wiped oat, and by the extinction as a race of those 
 who professed Catholicity in the North, the history of the Norse- 
 American Church was closed forever. Thus ended one period of 
 the Church in America. That period was as separate and distinct 
 from any which followed, as it was original and independent of 
 any that went before. It bequeathed to later ages no influences, 
 and it left behind it no effects other than the ruined altars and 
 the half obliterated inscriptions subsequently discovered in Greenland 
 and Vinland. 
 
 It was not long, comparatively, until the next epoch of American 
 -Catholicity began. Columbus came in 1492, and his return to 
 Spain with tales of his wonderful discovery and of the strange 
 races to whom the true God was an unknown Being and His 
 worship a mystery, marked the beginning of the new era. Earnest 
 men began to assert and skeptical ones to half admit that perhaps 
 there were yet nations to be won over to Christ and to be marshaled 
 tinder His banner. Brave souls followed in the Avake of Colum- 
 bus, and every vessel that left the ports of Spain brought with 
 it to America one or more of those Intrepid missionaries who 
 were born for higher things than ordinary men, and who braved 
 old ocean's storms and the trials and tortures which they could 
 only faintly Imagine, in behalf of the cause of Christ. Half a 
 century's work wrought a great change. By the middle of the 
 sixteenth century Ponce de Leon, the missionaries Avho accompanied 
 and fell with Narvaez, the companions of De Soto, and the Domini- 
 cans who followed under Father Career, had all left their imprint on 
 the soil of Florida, Alabama and Mississippi, and their influence 
 in the hearts of tlie Indians who basked In the rays of an almost 
 tropical sun. Farther west the devoted Franciscan, Andrew de 
 Olmos, was at work in Mexico, and in the North Jacques Cartier 
 and his followers forgot not the religion which they had known in 
 sunny France. And thus it followed that before the beginning of 
 the seventeenth century that portion of the American continent 
 lying east of the Mississippi river had been traversed by a band 
 of missionaries, not great in numbers, but strong In ardor and 
 perseverance. The reports of the successes of this forlorn hope 
 found many eager students in the novitiates and seminaries of 
 Europe, and it was not long until new spirits were enlisted In the 
 work of Christianizing the savages of America. No history can
 
 12 THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 be more interesting, no romance more fascinating, no tragedy 
 more touching than the record of the lives and the labors, the 
 trials and the sufferings of the early missionaries in America. 
 Nearly three centuries have passed away since they advanced 
 through the West and the South, — the pioneers of civilization and 
 the heralds of faith. To-day their missions still exist among the few 
 Indians who linger about Sault-Ste.-Marie and the islands of Green 
 Bay ; while at this distant time traditions of the " Black Robes " are 
 fondly treasured np by the wild, roving Indians of the North. On 
 the moss-grown trees we yet see the carved cross, surmounted by 
 the characteristic motto, A.M.D.G., to remind the traveler that he 
 treads upon ground hallowed by the footsteps of saints. Thus the 
 stately pines of the Saginaw Valley, the tall cedars of Sault-Ste.- 
 Marie and the giant oaks and the gnarled cherry trees of the 
 Green Bay region all bear witness to the zeal and the burning 
 jsiety of the early Jesuit missionaries. Those grand old woods 
 formed the cathedral arches through which re-echoed the solemn 
 tones of the Tantum Ergo. Those silent oratories were the .scenes 
 of fasts and weary watches, all offered -to the Most High for the 
 conversion of the degraded Indians. Through those v/oods men 
 of piety and genius and noble birth trod their uncertain way from 
 one scene of torture to another. Sacrificing all that was great in 
 the eyes of the world, all that promised a life of ease and com- 
 fort and luxury, they crossed the bleak Atlantic and made their 
 way up the St. Lawrence to Montreal. There they separated. 
 Some few remained to minister to the spiritual wants of the post. 
 Others went south, never to return. Some, again, went to the 
 wild shores of Lakes Huron and Superior, where they labored and 
 suffered until, when their thankless task was finished, they offered 
 up their pure and well-tried souls to their Creator. A goodly 
 number succumbed to the tortures of barbarous Indians. The wild 
 shrieks of the Iroquois formed the fitting requiems of Breboeuf 
 and Daniel. The sainted Marquette and the venerable Menard, 
 worn out by toil and age and torture, knelt down to pray beside 
 some giant tree ; and there, far from the land of their birth, far 
 from all that was near and dear to tliem, they passed away. 
 Where their relics lie concealed only the great recording angel 
 knows. 
 
 Nor did the work of these men die with them. They studied
 
 (reorge Calmrt, First Lord Baltimnre.
 
 THE CATHOLIG CEURCS IN THE UNITED STATES. 13 
 
 the nature of the country, its features and its resources, and all 
 these they incorporated into their contributions to that great and 
 reliable source of American history, the "Relations de Jesuites." To 
 the early missionaries, then, we owe much. To them we owe the 
 civilization of almost every portion of the country. Their missions 
 in lands made fertile by the blood of martyrs, have grown great. 
 The mission of Sault-Ste. -Marie is now an episcopal see. The 
 mission of Kaskaskia has grown to a metropolis, known the world 
 over. For their labors we can never repay them ; for their troubles 
 no eulogium can be a sufficient recompense ; for their faults, if 
 they had any, a merciful God has given pardon. 
 
 But it is not yet of these that this necessarily brief sketch 
 must treat. It must pass over in silence works worthy of being 
 graven on plates of brass and written on stone with a stylus of 
 iron in order that due attention may be paid to a later and, to 
 Catholics of the present day, a more important period. The growth 
 of the Catholic Church in the United States, prior to the Revo- 
 lution, was not that of the sturdy oak, whose roots grow stronger 
 and thicker with each succeeding year. It was rather like the 
 mosses which cluster round the trunk, and which, beautiful though 
 they may bo, are easily uprooted. We must look, then, for the 
 real birth of the existing American Church to a later period than 
 that which is glorified by the labors of the early missionaries ; 
 we must pass on to that period which began just before the first 
 episcopal see was established in America, when the priests were 
 few and those few worn by toil and service. 
 
 II. 
 
 Before the thirteen original States had thrown off the garb of 
 adolescent dependence and had assumed the toga of independent 
 manliood, the various missions which comprised the American 
 Church were attached to tlie jurisdictions of the parent nations. 
 Florida was administered from Spain ; the priests of the North- 
 west owed ecclesiastical obedience to superiors in France ; the 
 Jesuit missionaries looked to Rome for counsel and direction; while 
 the few priests who were stationed in the States on the Atlantic 
 coast received comparatively little attention from the Vicar Apos- 
 tolic of London. The change from dependence to independence on
 
 14 THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 the part of the colonies wrought a corresponding change in the- 
 government of the American Church. The feeling against the 
 parent nation was so strong at the close of the Revolution that 
 there was a manifest impropriety in having the American clergy 
 derive their ecclesiastical authority from the English vicar apos- 
 tolic. This dignitary was represented in the colony of Maryland 
 by the Rev. Father Lewis, wdio had been Superior of the American 
 Mission of the Society of Jesus before the suppression of the 
 Order. A change was speedily effected. In 1784 the regular clergy 
 of the United States, w'ho numbered not more than thirty at most, 
 united in a petition to the Holy See for the appointment of a 
 superior or vicar apostolic, who should have all the necessary 
 faculties of a bishop. Rome had anticipated the request of the 
 clergy of the then promising American mission ; and the Sacred 
 Congregation was already discussing the propriety of an episcopal 
 appointment for the new country, when the petition of the clergy 
 was presented. A favorable answer was at once returned, and 
 with it came the official notice of the appointment of the Rev. 
 John Carroll as superior. He was already nearly fifty years of 
 age. A native of Maryland, he had been educated in England 
 and France, and had been a member of the Society of Jesus 
 until the issuance of the famous brief of Clement XIV. In 
 obedience to that mandate he dissolved his connection with the 
 order at Bruges, and after tarrying in England for a brief period 
 he returned to his native land. There he found a state of 
 affairs which was interesting from whatever point it was viewed. 
 Politically, all was anxiety and dissatisfaction at the manner in 
 which the mother country had dealt Avith the colonies. Little evi- 
 dence of religious life existed. The priests were few, their charges 
 onerous, and the conditions under which they Avorked were not 
 always favorable. He took up his residence vvith his mother at 
 Rock Creek, ten miles from the present city of Washington. From 
 a chapel on her estate he ministered to the spiritual wants of 
 the Catholics of the surrounding country. On the breaking out 
 of the war of 1776 he espoused the cause which was ennobled 
 by the services of his illustrious relative of Carrollton. From the 
 first he was ardent in liis support of the principles of the Revo- 
 lution. He early recognized the incompatibility of the English 
 temperament with that of the American colonists ; and he felt
 
 THE CATJIOLIG CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES. 15 
 
 that perfect religious freedom might be implanted in the nation 
 to be formed if the war had a successfid outcome. His learning 
 and his judgment were early recognized, and during the war he 
 was appointed one of four commissioners to visit Quebec in the 
 hope of gaining the active co-operation of the Canadians, or at 
 least of obtaining from them a promise of neutrality. The com- 
 missioners failed in their first purpose, becalise the Canadians 
 remembered that the New England colonies had included among 
 their grievances against the British crown the " intolerable tyranny 
 of the King of England in allowing the practice of the Popish 
 religion in Canada." But Father Carroll secured, by his entreaties, 
 the neutrality of our northern neighbors, before he returned to 
 Maryland to resume the active charge of his Hock Creek Mission. 
 
 Such, briefly, was the career of John Carroll, priest of the 
 Society of Jesus, up to the time of his appointment as superior 
 of the American clergy. The choice gave universal satisfaction, for 
 Father Carroll was respected by Protestants and Catholics alike. 
 He at once entered upon the duties of his new and, in some 
 respects, unique dignity. The Church at that time was not strong 
 nor were its adherents of the most fervent character. The lack 
 of priestly ministrations and counsel had resulted in many cases 
 in causing whole settlements to become lukewarm. These Father 
 Carroll sought to reach. The first difficulty that stood in his way 
 was the lack of priests. This was partially obviated by the immi- 
 gration of a number of priests from Europe. Pastors were at 
 once sent to parishes in New England, the Carolinas and Kentucky, 
 in which State there was a Catholic population of four thousand 
 souls. For himself, in spite of his dignity, he worked from early 
 morning until late at night in the cause of religion. Journeys for 
 the administation of the sacraments were made to the most distant 
 parts of the district, over which he had authority. The priests in 
 almost all cases became imbued with the fervor of their superior, 
 and redoubled their efforts in the vineyard of the Lord. 
 
 For five years Father Carroll occupied the position of superior 
 of the American clergy. In 1789, the prosperity and rapid growth 
 of the Church suggested the propriety of the appointment of a 
 bishop. The authority of the vicar general was not sufficiently 
 extensive ; and his lack of some powers was the cause of insu])or- 
 dination on the part of a few priests, who refused to bow before.
 
 16 THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 any but an episcopal mandate. The clergy applied to Rome for 
 the foundation of an American see, and soon received a favorable 
 answer, coupled with the privileges of selecting the see and nomina- 
 ting; its first incumbent. Tlie choice was soon made and forwarded 
 to Rome. By a bull of November 6, 1789, Pope Pius VI 
 designated the city of Baltimore as the Episcopal see, and ap- 
 pointed John Carroll Bishop and Pastor of its Cathedral Church. 
 This was more than Dr. Carroll had expected. Fearing lest his 
 position as superior of the American clergy might suggest the 
 choice of his name, he Avas careful to frustrate every movement 
 that might lead to his nomination. But he accepted the call and 
 in the summer of 1790, he sailed for England. Arrived there he 
 presented himself before Right Rev. Charles Walmsley, Vicar-Apos- 
 tolic of London, for consecration. The ceremony took place in the 
 private chapel of a wealthy Commoner, Thomas Weld, who proffered 
 his hospitality to Bishop Carroll during his stay in England. 
 When he had been vested with all the power and dignity of his 
 office, the bishop sailed for the country to which he was now 
 bound by a stronger tie, to which he stood in a holier relation, 
 than any man had stood before. He appreciated his responsibilities 
 and bent every effort toward making his administration successful 
 for the Church. Before leaving England he had arranged with the 
 Sulpicians who were driven from France, for the establishment 
 of a theological school in his see, in order that he might draw 
 on the rising generation in America for laborers in the vineyard, 
 lie attended personally to all the duties, clerical and otherwise, of 
 his office, a task which entailed iio small amount of labor. From 
 all parts came requests for priests and complaints of insufficient 
 attention, occasionally varied by a dispute between a clergyman 
 and his congregation. All these matters Bishop Carroll had to 
 adjudicate. He sought not only to conserve and consolidate the 
 existing Church, but also to extend it. A number of fortuitous 
 circumstances assisted him in carrying out his generous design. 
 On the dying out of that opposition to the Society of Jesus which 
 had wrung from Pope Clement the bull of suppression, the exiled 
 and separated Fathers of the order were called from the seclusion 
 in which they had spent years. Through the halls of seminaries 
 and educational institutions, through the corridors of prisons and 
 jails, through the forests and the morasses of half-known lands
 
 Most RpA\ John Carroll, Firf^l Archbishop of Baltiinore.
 
 THE CATHOLIG CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES. 17 
 
 Tang the permission of the Holy See for the establishment of the 
 order. The words were sweet music in the ears of the noble 
 disciples of Loyola, and in a brief time the society was once more 
 ready for the strife, weak and wounded, it is true, yet still full 
 of courage and hope. Bishop Carroll needed all the help possible 
 to enable him to carry out his work; and he was not slow in 
 ■enlisting in his support the men who spend half a lifetime in 
 learning how to do the greatest good in the other half. But the 
 Jesuits were not the only forces who came to his aid. Infidel 
 ascendancy in France had filled the religious heavens with dark 
 iind lowering clouds. Persecution was going on in some places, 
 and in other localities no one knew how soon the lash would be 
 applied. This state of affairs resulted in the emigration to America 
 •of a number of brilliant ecclesiastics, w'ho offered their services 
 to Bishop Carroll. The aid was opportune, and from these recruits, 
 the American Church has selected such names as Matignon, Chev- 
 <3rus and Richard for veneration. Ten years go by quickly, and 
 Avhen they are past it is only in rare instances that it can be 
 said that any special good has been done during their continuance. 
 But the decade which followed the consecration of Bishop Carroll 
 was prolific in good. Its beginning saw a Church without an 
 episcopal head, without sufiftcient workers to attend to its wants, 
 without either schools or seminaries in which to train the Catholic 
 3'outh of the young republic. The opening of the present century 
 witnessed as the head of the American Church a man possessed 
 of the most consummate administrative ability. The number of 
 priests had increased and with them flocks had grown in extent 
 and devotion. All promised well for the Catholic Church in 
 America at the beginning of the initial year of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury. The Church was consolidated and the efforts of the pastors 
 Avere directed to a common end. All was harmony and every one 
 was filled with a desire for the growth of Catholicity. Young men 
 came forward to perform the sacred duties of the ministry, and 
 by the year 1810, there were in the country nearly one hundred 
 priests, in charge of as many congregations. A new life was 
 breathed into the American Church, formed as it had been from a 
 .spiritual rib of the almost dormant religious Adam of the Old World. 
 Rome was not insensible to the advances in the new world, and 
 at an early date the Sacred Congregation of the Propaganda saw
 
 18 THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 that the burthen borne by Bishop Carroll was too heavy for even 
 his strong and willing shoulders. Some years before Rev. Leonard 
 Neale, president of Georgetown College, had been made coadjutor 
 to tlie Bishop of Baltimore, cum jure successionis. But instead of 
 alleviating the cares of Bishop Carroll this new move only sought 
 to enlarge his usefulness by allov;ing him to look over portions of 
 his field which had been liitherto neglected. The Diocese of Balti- 
 more then included that entire portion of the United States lying 
 south of the St. Lawrence river and the Great Lakes. It stretched 
 from Michigan to Florida and from Maine to Missouri. It in- 
 cluded among its charges the civilized Indians of Maine and the 
 savages of the Northwest territory ; and as if all these did not 
 entail sufficient responsibility, a portion of the West Indies owed 
 spiritual allegiance to the Bishop of Baltimore. With the increase 
 of the American Church the burden became too great for one man, 
 and a division was made. Dr. Carroll was raised to the dignity of 
 Archbishop, and four suffragan dioceses were created with their respec- 
 tive sees at Philadelphia, Boston, New York, and Bardstown, in Ken- 
 tucky. The bishops appointed to fill the episcopal chairs thus created 
 were: Dr. Egan, for Philadelphia; Dr. Cheverus, for Boston; Dr. 
 Concannon, for New York, and Dr. Flaget, for Bardstown. All were 
 holy ecclesiastics, whose earnest labors had rendered them in every 
 manner worthy of the dignity with which they were honored. Three 
 of the appointees (for Dr. Concannon died in Naples just before 
 the time he intended to sail for America) presented themselves in 
 St. Peter's Church, Baltimore, for consecration on the Sunday pre- 
 ceding and the Sunday following the Feast of All Saints in the year 
 1810. After their consecration Archbishop Carroll took the occasion 
 of their presence to hold a conference on matters relating to the 
 discipline and the future government of the American Church. The 
 conference over, the Archbishop was relieved of much of the anxiety 
 attendant upon tlie administration of so extensive a diocese, and he 
 devoted his spare time and the remnant of his enormous energy 
 to building up the educational and charitable institutions attached 
 to the primatial see, and for five years the destinies of the Ameri- 
 can Church were guided by this holy man in a spirit of prudence 
 and judgment. 
 
 The year 1815 was ebbing out when John Carroll, priest, 
 patriot, and successor of the Apostles, was stricken with sickness
 
 THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES. 19 
 
 unto death. In spite of his eighty years, in spite of his labors and 
 privations, in spite of the length of the period he had figured in 
 American ecclesiastical affairs, there were many who thought that 
 the end was not yet. But they were mistaken. Representatives of 
 the gay society with which he often mingled, and the expounders 
 of strange creeds to whoni he was a living sermon and who loved 
 him as one of their own, gathered about the death-bed of the 
 primate and joined in the prayers for the departing soul, to which 
 the dying lips made clear and unequivocal response. Within the 
 shadow of St. Peter's, stretched on the floor that he might die 
 the more humbly, and with ^^ Miserere mci^' on his lips, the Ameri- 
 can patriarch passed away on the 9th of December, 1815. 
 
 There arc at long intervals men whose lives are the keys to 
 movements and whose existence furnishes the index to the history 
 of the circles in which tliey moved. Such a man was Dr. Car- 
 roll. He became liead of the American Church at a time when 
 its future successful existence was little more than a hope ; and 
 he closed his eyes with the satisfaction that he had been instru- 
 mental in the realization of that hope. He was the embodiment 
 of those religious principles and that holy energy which marked 
 the early periods of Catholicity in the United States. No apology 
 is, therefore, required for giving to him so large a portion of 
 the space devoted to a period of which he was the central figure. 
 
 III. 
 
 There were a few who feared that when the directing hand of 
 Archbishop Carroll was removed from the American Church its 
 progress would not be as great or as rapid as it had been. But 
 the destinies of the Church of Christ depend on no human agen- 
 cies, and the greatest saint who may rule that Churcli is only the 
 instrument of the Omnipotent. The removal by death of the ven- 
 erable archbishop was, no doubt, a great blow to American Catho- 
 lics. Every one felt as if he had lost a personal friend, as indeed 
 he had. But all knew that the only proper way to do honor to 
 the memory of the patriarch was to follow in his footsteps and to 
 walk in the path which he had marked out. The Church continued 
 to grow. Its numbers were increased by immigration from the Old 
 World and conversion in the New. At times scandal was given by
 
 20 THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 insubordinate priests, who felt that Archbishop Carroll's successors, the 
 Most Revs. Leonard Neale and Ambrose Marechal, were not possessed 
 of the firmness which had characterized the rule of the first bishop 
 of the United States. In this, however, they were mistaken and 
 the scandal given by rebellious ecclesiastics of Charleston, Norfolk 
 and Philadelphia was in part repaired by an exposition of the 
 true character of the rebellious men. The Sees of Charleston and 
 St. Louis were added to the suffragans of the See of Baltimore. 
 The See of Charleston was presided over by Bishop England, who 
 had been called from the parish of Bandon, Ireland, to assume 
 the direction of the Church in the Carolinas. He was a man pos- 
 sessed of the most penetrating judgment, and he was early struck 
 with the necessity of co-operation on the part of tlie bishops. 
 There were evils prevalent in all the existing dioceses which 
 threatened to mar the harmonious existence of the American 
 Church. One of these was the system of lay trusteeism, which 
 had a tendency towards the disruption of congregations. There 
 were other evils of as great magnitude which had to be coped 
 with. United action was necessary, a uniform rule was desirable. 
 In order to arrive at such unity it occurred to Bishop England 
 that a council of prelates would be of incalculable assistance by 
 facilitating the interchange of opinions and ideas. He communicated 
 his plan to the Metropolitan, Archbishop James AVhitfield, with the 
 result that the latter issued an invitation to all the prelates under 
 his jurisdiction to meet in the first Provincial Council of Balti- 
 more in the autumn of 1829. The occasion was a memorable one, 
 marking as it did the beginning of uniformity in the discipline of 
 the American Church. Besides Archbishop Whitfield there were 
 present at this council Bishops England, Flaget and Rosati and 
 the two Fenwicks, who filled the Sees of Boston and Cincinnati. 
 The council sat for several days, and embodied its work in thirty- 
 eight decrees, which subsequently received tlie approbation of the 
 Holy See. No little prudence and forethought was required of 
 the assembled prelates. They were legislating for the half million 
 Catholics of our day and perhaps for as many more who should 
 succeed them before another council was held. The bishops did 
 not betray their trust, and as a consequence their decrees have 
 received uniform respect and commanded unvarying obedience dur- 
 ing all the years that have elapsed since their formulation.
 
 THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES. 21 
 
 Besides dealing with other important matters the decrees tended 
 towards checking the abuses attendant upon lay-trusteeism and 
 towards the establishment of a Catholic book concern. 
 
 It was in the '30's that that incessant stream of immigration, 
 which has since continued with uninterrupted vigor, began to flow 
 from Ireland. Seven centuries of persecution had so worked upon 
 the Irish mind that even when O'Connell wrung from the British 
 government the deed of Irish religious independence, there were 
 many who feared that the concession was made for some occult 
 purpose. Across the sea they saw an independent and a prosperous 
 land, which held out a constant invitation to all who sought 
 escape from tyranny, and who yearned for freedom. The invitation 
 was accepted, and from that day to this the Irish race has been 
 furnishing more than its share of intellect and genius and talent 
 to the American Church. The influx of so many immigrants did 
 much to increase the number of American Catholics. They crowded 
 into the cities, and made their uncertain way into the western re- 
 gions of the country; and wherever they went they brought with 
 them their priests and erected their altars. Changes took place ; 
 new dioceses were created, and in some cases the incumbents of 
 old ones resigned their charges, while others passed to their re- 
 ward. In the course of time the advisability of holding a second 
 council became apparent, and it was convened in 1837 by Arch- 
 bishop AVhitfield, who had presided over the first assemblage of 
 American prelates. The council effected changes in the methods of 
 episcopal nominations, and devoted much of its time to a discus- 
 sion of missions for the conversion of the negroes of Liberia and 
 the Indians of the Northwest. By general consent both these 
 charges were confided to the Society of Jesus, which took up the 
 work with alacrity, and resumed among the Indians the missions 
 which had been commenced by the school of Jogues and Menard, 
 and they did not relinquish them until 1850, when one of their 
 number, Rev. John Baptist Miege, was raised to the episcopal 
 dignity, and the Indian Territory made a vicariate apostolic. 
 During the years that followed, provincial councils Averc convened 
 at Baltimore at intervals of four or five years, and the wisdom 
 and the piety which marked the councils when they represented 
 the nation continued to be their characteristic when other archi- 
 episcopates were formed, and Baltimore ceased to be the only seat
 
 22 THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 of an American archbishop. Important suggestions were made at 
 these councils with regard to discipline, and not the least important 
 of their acts was the declaration of the seventh Council of Balti- 
 more (convened in Mayj 1849), that the definition by the Pope of 
 the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary as a dogma 
 of the Roman Catholic Church would be looked upon with great 
 satisfaction by the prelates. In the newly created provinces pro- 
 vincial councils were likewise held, and decrees formulated which 
 received the sanction of the Holy Father. But these decrees had 
 a binding force which was purely local in character. They failed 
 to bear that authority with which the decrees of the Baltimore 
 provincial councils were stamped when those bodies legislated 
 for the entire American Church. This circumstance caused the 
 American prelates to enter into a quiet but earnest movement 
 looking towards the holding of National Councils. The result of 
 the movement was that a summons was issued to all the bishops 
 of the United States to meet in the Cathedral Church of the 
 city of Baltimore on the 9tli of May, 1852, for the discussion 
 of questions aifecting tho interests of the Church in this country. 
 
 No such gathering had been before witnessed in the history 
 of the American Church. Among its attendants were six arch- 
 bishops and twenty-six bishops, all of whom were presided over 
 by the Most Rev. Francis Patrick Kenrick, who had been trans- 
 ferred from the See of Philadelphia only a few years before. The 
 entire episcopacy was present, from the Archbishop of Baltimore, 
 to the Bishop of Monterey, who had to travel across the continent. 
 Austere Jesuits, silent Trappists, bearded Franciscans and learned 
 Benedictines represented their orders, and a dozen religious orders 
 were present in the person of their superiors. The council was 
 in session for a number of days, and the principal result of its 
 labors was a request to the Holy See to establish eight new 
 bishoprics, to raise San Francisco to an archiepiscopal see, and 
 to constitute Ui)per Michigan a vicariate apostolic. This increase of 
 the episcopacy was rendered necessary by the rapid growth of the 
 Catholic population. Bishops no longer found themselves able to 
 attend to tlie requirements of a large district, for the population 
 had become concentrated and the trading posts of fifty years before 
 had grown into promising cities. The calls for episcopal ministra- 
 tions were so many that the increase in tlie number of bishops
 
 THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES. 23 
 
 Avas fully justified by the exigencies of the times. The pastoral 
 letter of the council was prepared by Archbishop Kenrick. It 
 abounds in good counsels and directions to Catholics for their 
 proper conduct, and has been characterized by many as the most 
 truly apostolical document which ever emanated from such a body. 
 The decrees of the council were, with some slight amendments, 
 approved by the Roman Congregations, and the approval returned 
 in the following year in an apostolic letter of the Holy Father. 
 It had been originally intended that a National Council of the bishops 
 •of the United States should be held every ten years. In 1862^ when 
 the time came for the second Plenary Council, the country was 
 in the midst of internecine strife. A civil war had dismembered 
 the nation, and it was next to impossible for the prelates of the 
 INorth and South, and the East and the West, to meet in National 
 Council. At the close of the war, when the embers of sectional 
 unimosity had ceased to glow, preparations were begun for the 
 postponed assembly. Martin John Spalding was then the successor 
 of Archbishop Carroll, and a worthy one he was. He was the 
 son of one of the oldest families of Maryland, and had been 
 baptized by the apostolical Father Nerinckx. After some years of 
 study in the seminary at Bardstown, Kentucky, he was sent to 
 Rome to study theology and philosophy. His public defence of 
 theses for the doctor's cap was so able an exhibition as to win 
 for *\\Q young scholastic the encomiums of all who were present 
 at his examination. Made coadjutor to the Bishop of Louisville 
 in 1848, he succeeded the venerable Bishop Flaget on that prelate's 
 death in 1850. On the death of the Archbishop of Baltimore iu 
 1864, he was elevated by Papal rescript to the most dignified 
 position in the American Church. This was the man who was 
 •commissioned Apostolic Delegate to the second Plenary Council held 
 in 1866. That event exceeded the first council in magnificence, 
 as much as the first council had been in advance of any relig- 
 ious event known before in this continent. In the sunshine of 
 that October morning on which the council opened, six archbishops, 
 thirty-seven bishops, three mitred abbots, and the representatives 
 of thirteen religious bodies, followed by upwards of one hundred 
 theologians, moved reverentially through the crowds which lined 
 the streets of Baltimore, from the archiepiscopal residence to tlie 
 metropolitan church. No such sight had been witnesssed on earth
 
 24 THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 since the Council of Trent. Those who knew not Catholic unity 
 were astonished that such an event could take place in a country 
 which had been divided by civil war only a few months before. 
 They could not understand how, after a strife which had dismem- 
 bered the most powerful of the sects, the prayer of the Northern 
 priest could be wafted to heaven on a cloud of incense with the 
 petition of his Southern brother. They knew naught of what 
 Father Ryan, h\ his address at the council, called "that faith 
 in one Holy, Catholic and Apostolical Church which for fifteen 
 centuries, from the Council of Nice to the second Council of 
 Baltimore, has expressed the faith of her children." The solemn 
 sessions of the council were conducted on a scale of the most 
 solemn magnificence, while at the private sessions the questions 
 engrossing the attention of the prelates are said to have been 
 discussed with unequalled intelligence and judgment. It was not 
 long until the decrees of tlie council, to which Cardinal Cullen 
 alluded as a mine of theological learning, received their binding 
 force from Rome, and at the Vatican Council of 1869, they were 
 referred to as monuments to the correct judgment and thorough 
 learning of those who took part in their formulation. They are 
 unique in ecclesiastical legislation, and in all cases exhibit a 
 desire on the part of the legislators to conform as far as possible 
 \vith the usage of the Church on all points. 
 
 IV. 
 
 In our opening lines the assertion was ventured that the his- 
 tory of the Catholic Church in the United States would not be 
 found to be unmixed with sorrow and persecution. Up to this 
 point only the pleasing phases of that history have been dwelt 
 upon. The outlines of the picture have been drawo, and the 
 coloring laid in perhaps imperfectly. The toning now remains to 
 be added, — the shadows are yet to be filled irr, that the picture 
 may form a true and a just whole. 
 
 As far back as 1830, a peculiar class of French and German. 
 refugees came to the liospitable shores of America. They brought 
 with them little that was good and mucli tliat was vicious. Ex- 
 pelled from their native lands for their connection with secret 
 societies which threatened the existence of the government, they
 
 THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES. 25 
 
 sought to re-establish their infamous associations in this country. 
 They were, in a great measure, successful. Their combinations 
 were ostensibly directed against citizens of foreign birth, but were 
 in reality meant as a persecution to the American arm of the 
 Catholic Church. An intense popular feeling against Catholics 
 was Avorked up, and unjustly. In spite of the fact that Catholics 
 had shed their blood as freely in the days of the Revolution as 
 their Protestant fellow-citizens, in spite of their hitherto unques- 
 tioned patriotism, in spite of their earnest protestations of thorough 
 and uncompromising loyalty, an influential party became embued 
 with the idea that they owed obedience to the Pope of Rome, 
 who could be looked upon in no other light than as a foreign 
 potentate. The party became known and flourished as the "Ameri- 
 can," and later as the " Know-Xothing " party. The embers of 
 the excitement smouldered with an occasional outburst such as that 
 which led to the destruction by incendiaries of the Convent of 
 Mount St. Benedict, at Charlestown, Mass., Avhcn scores of young 
 ladies escaped only at the peril of their lives. In 1852 the flames 
 broke out afresh. The number of the French and German refu- 
 gees had already been augmented by the arrival of a numerous 
 band of Italian anarchists whom fear of the law's strong arm had 
 driven from Italy. They re-formed their societies of Carbonari in 
 America, and used all possible means to excite the passions of 
 the American people against the Church. An opportune occasion 
 for an exhibition of malevolence was soon presented. Monsignor 
 Bedini, the Pope's nuncio to Brazil, had been commissioned by 
 the venerable Pius IX to visit the United States and to person- 
 ally convey to President Pierce and his Cabinet expressions 
 of the Pope's warmest regard for the Executive and the nation 
 over Avhich he ruled. The visit of the Pope's nuncio was the 
 red rag to the infuriated Italians, who had scarcely ceased con- 
 spiring against the nuncio's master within the very walls of his 
 own city. The revolutionary papers attacked and villified the vis- 
 itor, and at Cincinnati his life was threatened by a mob. Ga- 
 vazzi and his German confreres preached death to the priest, and 
 it was only by cutting short his intended stay in the United 
 States, that the monsignor escaped with his life. But the hissing 
 of the serpents which had been warmed at the American breast 
 had their effect. The doctrine was heralded to the nation that
 
 26 TEE THIRD PLEN'ARY COUNCIL. 
 
 America was for Americans, and that foreigners, and especially 
 Catholic foreigners, were engaged in treasonable plotting against the 
 existence of the government. The whole country became inflamed. 
 A secret society having as its end the extinction of tlie Catholic 
 Church in America was formed, and its members were bound by 
 oaths deep and darlc. The party proscribed those who did not be- 
 long to it, and its members regarded as an enemy every inan who 
 coukl not give the password known only to the initiated. Brilliant 
 intellects were fettered by the chains of prejudice, and they suc- 
 cumbed to the malign influence. The wikl fanaticism practiced 
 and ])reached defies the descriptive powers of human pen. No 
 one but its victims could tell of its malevolence, and in a 
 number of cases their tongues were hushed in death. To use 
 the words of one who took part in the struggle, " Know-Nothing- 
 ism was something worse than civil war ; it was a struggle into 
 which all the worst elements of politics and religion entered." It 
 denounced and insulted every dignitary of the Catholic Church, 
 from the first Pope of Rome to the humblest acolyte who served 
 Mass in the church of the rudest hamlet. 
 
 The campaign of 1855 was conducted in several States M'ith great 
 acrimony. In Louisville, Kentucky, in Ellsworth, Maine, and in 
 several other places, the culmination was reached in outrages on 
 Catholics. The facts are well known to students of American his- 
 tory, who have blushed at the dishonor cast upon our country's 
 fame and the unworthy acts done in the name of liberty. But 
 in the year 1859, Virginia dealt the first blow to the supremacy 
 of the " American " party by prostrating it in that State, and their 
 power began to wane. Their purposes -were no longer occult ; 
 their designs were no longer hidden. By the beginning of the year 
 1860 they had returned to the nothingness from which they had 
 sprung. 
 
 But Know-Nothingism is not the only evil with which the Catholic 
 Church has had to contend in the United States. For thirty years 
 and more the Catholic population of this country has been forced to 
 pay tribute to a system of godless education of which not one can 
 conscientiously take advantage. The Catholic protests against paying 
 for the education of other than their own children were made in 
 the earliest days of the Know-Nothing era, and were hurled back as 
 arguments in fiivor of the enmity of Catholics to free institutions.
 
 THE CATHOLIG CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES. 27 
 
 But Know-Nothingism has passed away, and the school question 
 still remains in all its glaring injustice. Millions of money are 
 iinnually taken from Catholics for the support of schools in which 
 they have no interest. The Catholic considers it unfair to tax 
 him for the support of schools from which all ideas of religion 
 are excluded, nor can he accept those in which a false religion 
 is taught ; for between godlessness and error the choice is only 
 slightly in favor of the latter. The fight has been an earnest one 
 on both sides. It has elicited and is to-day drawing forth the 
 most solid arguments in favor of the Catholic doctrine. Some day 
 the quarrel will be ended, some day justice will be done. 
 
 "We _ have seen, briefly, the history of the Church up to the 
 ■close of the second Plenary Council. AYe have viewed its strug- 
 gles and its successes, and have alluded to the persecution through 
 which its children have had to pass. But since the last Plenary 
 Council great changes have been effected and great advances made. 
 The body spiritual has increased until the Catholic Church in 
 the United States numbers seven millions of adherents. The 
 favor of the Holy See has been shown by the appointment of 
 an American cardinal. The growth of the Church has been 
 ■exemplified by the erection of stately cathedrals and magnificent 
 temples. Peace and war, love and enmity, prosperity and hard- 
 ship have all caused her truths to become known and her 
 •counsels to be followed. Her relations with the republic have ever 
 been of the most amicable character. The Church which built up 
 and sustained San Marino, Andorra, Venice and a host of Old 
 World republics could have no differences with a government more 
 perfect than any of these had been. Her priests have marched 
 and fasted, her sons have shed their blood on the battle-field, her 
 daughters have carried solace and comfort to wounded bodies and 
 lacerated hearts, with as much if not more devotion than have 
 their fellow-citizens of other sects. And with the beginning of this 
 third Plenary Council the American Church stands ready for a 
 new era of activity, clad in a strongei mail of faith than ever 
 before, with a brighter buckler of hope, with a more perfect shield 
 of charity. 
 
 Si 50"
 
 28 THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 But could no other Church have done this ? " O unconquerable 
 Church of Rome ! Church of all lands and all races, of all centu- 
 ries and all seasons, with the same unvarying faith, the same priestr 
 hood, the same sacrifice, the same sacraments for the king and the 
 peasant, the most learned philosopher and the most unlettered of 
 men, for the Croesus and the Lazarus ; what Church but thou could 
 have a mission for this land of ours, where Providence has gath- 
 ered men of every race and tongue, and shown the very help- 
 lessness of schism and error by their utter incapacity to mould 
 men into one homogeneous Christian body, instinct with faith, hope, 
 and 'life that is in charity? This dost thou accomplish, O Catholic 
 Church of America, and it is wonderful in our eyes."' 
 
 ' John G. Shea, American Catholic Qjuarterly Review, vol. ix, p. 481.
 
 Tlie Cathedral, Baltimore.
 
 THE COUNCILS OF BALTIMORE/ 
 
 BY HUGH P. McELROKE. 
 
 I. 
 
 FEW and scattered were the Catholics of the republic in the 
 year 1791. The most of them perhaps were in the Diocese 
 of Baltimore. It was therefore only natural that the Right Rev. 
 John Carroll, its first Bishop, should have had the honor of pre- 
 siding over the first ecclesiastical tribunal which adopted regulations 
 for the Church in the United States ; for the Province of Balti- 
 more included at that time all the broad thousands of miles which 
 are now divided into several provinces and many dioceses. 
 
 Accordingly, shortly after his appointment to the see, by epis- 
 copal summons, dated October 27, 1791, the Bishop of Baltimore 
 called together his ecclesiastical dependents, and the synod met on 
 November 7. It is curious to note at this day how small was 
 the body assembled to legislate for Avhat has developed into the 
 mighty Church of America. The record contains the following 
 names, besides that of Bishop Carroll : Very Rev. James Pellentz, 
 Vicar-General ; Revs. James Frambach, Robert Mollineux, Francis 
 A. Fleming, Francis C. Nagot, John Ashton, Henry Pile, Leonard 
 Neale, Charles Sewall, Sylvester Boarman, William Filing, James 
 Vanhuftel, Robert Phmkett, Stanislaus Cerfoumont, Francis Beeston, 
 Laurence Gressel, Joseph Eden, Louis C. Delavau, John Tessier 
 and Anthony Garnier. 
 
 The legislation of the synod, which was apparently not sent to 
 Rome for approval (at least there is no record of the fact), was 
 highly approved by the first Provincial Council. Bishop Carroll 
 was indeed worthy of all praise for the labor he bestowed upon 
 the work, he taking the initiative in, if not indeed originating, 
 all the decrees that were passed. Session first was occupied by 
 
 1 Revised froin articles in The Catholic Mirror. 
 
 (29)
 
 30 THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 religious ceremonies, but the evening session of the day on which 
 the synod assembled regulated the conditions of the Sacraments of 
 Baptism and Confirmation. The whole of the next day was con- 
 sumed in completing the decree on the Eucharist. Penance, ex- 
 treme unction and matrimony were dealt with on the 9th. But 
 the chiefest work was done on November 10, the fourth and last 
 day of the synod. It was mostly devoted to issuing rules for 
 the clergy to observe in the performance of their functions. The 
 last decree of the little synod, the results of whose efforts were 
 immediately felt, bore on the Paschal Communion, reinforcing the 
 decree, "Omnis utriusque sexus," of the Lateran Council. Finally 
 the bishop announced that Eev. John Ashton had been designated 
 his coadjutor, and then, after a " Te Deum " was sung, the synod 
 adjourned. 
 
 AVith not less approval did the Provincial Council of 1829 men- 
 tion the articles of ecclesiastical discipline put forth by the then 
 Archbishop Carroll, of Baltimore, in conjunction with the coadjutor 
 bishop and the Bishops of Philadelphia, Boston, and Bardstown, 
 Kentucky. The first article bears upon priests going from one 
 diocese to another; the second on .regulations for the secular and 
 regular clergy ; the third on the Scriptures, approving the Douay 
 Bible ; the fourth on parochial registers ; the fifth on baptism ; 
 the sixth on sponsers ; the seventh on the material for celebrating 
 Mass ; the eighth on matrimony, ordering the ceremony to be 
 performed in churches where possible ; the ninth directs pastors 
 to warn their flocks against indulging in going to theatres or other 
 public entertainments of a bad character, and reading immoral 
 fables called novels — especially prohibiting the perusal of works 
 which attack our holy religion. 
 
 The tenth article should be remarked upon at some length. 
 The ridiculous charge has been frequently made that the Church 
 has changed her attitude since the revolution of 1848 in regard 
 to secret societies and their great prototype, Freemasonry. There 
 are grounds for the charge to rest upon, astonishing as they may 
 seem to Catholics. A passage from one of Joseph de Maistre's letters 
 from St. Petersburg intimating that the operations of the Illuminati 
 (the Nihilists of those days) were not unfavorable to the spread of 
 the Catholic Church in Russia, has been garbled and extensively 
 quoted in Protestant journals. Maistre never pjit the matter in.
 
 THE COUNCILS OF BALTIMORE. 31 
 
 the way the Church's enemies make it appear that he did, but 
 even if he did we are not disposed to regard him as an authori- 
 tative Catholic writer. However, the tenth article of the discipli- 
 nary rules promulgated by INIost Rev. John Carroll, Archbishop 
 of Baltimore, and his suffragan bishops, in 1810, just about the 
 period that Maistre wrote, effectually disposes of this calumny. In 
 it they enjoin upon priests not to administer the Sacraments of 
 the Church to those who belonged to Freemasonry, no matter in 
 what shape they might put their connection with the condemned 
 society. 
 
 These are the beginnings of ecclesiastical legislation in the United 
 States. They are adduced first, in order to contrast how few were 
 those ecclesiastics who took part compared to the host which 
 attended the third Plenary Council ; and secondly, to show how 
 the legislation of the Church of this country, even as far back 
 as 1791 and 1810, when Catholics were weak in numbers and 
 she was unknown and despised, was pitched in the high and 
 independent tone and firm attitude as to the verities of religion 
 which has ever since marked the American Church and gained it 
 admiration throughout the world. 
 
 II. 
 
 Nineteen years passed along after the promulgation of the dis- 
 ciplinary rules by Archbishop Carroll 'and his suffragans in 1810 
 before it was thought necessary to call together the growing epis- 
 copate of America to consult upon our Church affairs. The popu- 
 lation had been increasing slowly but steadily, and to the list of 
 bishops, which, on the former occasion, included only three besides 
 the coadjutor of the archbishop, had been added a man of singular 
 energy of character and a scope of genius which forecast the bril- 
 liant future of the American Church — Right Rev. John England, 
 who Avas consecrated Bishop of Charleston (his diocese then in- 
 cluding North and South Carolina and Georgia) in 1820. It was 
 chiefly through his exertions that the first Provincial Council, 
 which was really National, since it included the United States so 
 far as they Avere mapped out into diocesan lines, was convened. 
 In constant communication M'ith Rome, the trusted adviser of the 
 Propaganda, and the regular correspondent of the Propagation
 
 32 THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 Society, of Lyons, France, he was naturally looked upon, in effect, 
 as the channel of connection between the centre of religion and 
 the promising republic of the western hemisphere. 
 
 Accordingly, by letters issued in December, 1828, Most Rev. 
 James Whitfield, who had been consecrated Archbishop of Baltimore, 
 May 25, 1828, as the successor of Archbishop Marechal, summoned 
 the following prelates to the first Provincial Council : . Right Rev. 
 Benedict J. Flagct, Bishop of Bardstown, Kentucky, consecrated 
 l^ovember 4, 1810; Riglit Rev. .John England, Bishop of Charleston, 
 South Carolina, consecrated September 21, 1820; Right Rev. 
 Edward Fenwick, Bishop of Cincinnati, consecrated January 13, 
 1822; Right Rev. Joseph Rosati, Bishop of St. Louis, consecrated 
 March 2o, 1804 ; Right Rev. Benedict Fenwick, Bishop of Boston, 
 consecrated November 1, 1825; Very Rev. William Matthews, 
 "Vicar Apostolic and Administrator of Philadelphia, consecrated Feb- 
 ruary 26, 1828. Among those who were designated as assistant 
 theologians may be mentioned the choice of the Bishop of Bards- 
 town, Rev. Francis Patrick Kenrick, who was also one of the 
 secretaries of the Council, and the choice of Bishop England, Rev. 
 Simon Gabriel Brute — both names which, later on, shone high in 
 the galaxy of the American episcopate — the former destined to 
 preside over our first Plenary Conncil. 
 
 On the fourth day of October the council held its first session. 
 That and the following four days were devoted to the reading oi 
 Papal documents, and to the unfolding of the Roman Church's 
 views in regard to America by Bishop England. Ten days were 
 then spent in a careful consideration of disciplinary rules, which 
 are embodied in the "Concilia Provincialia Baltimori," 1851. They 
 include not only an amplification of Archbishop Carroll's wise 
 regulations, but also contain additions chiefly from Bishop England, 
 the fruit of extended and most active observation. The number of 
 these decrees is thirty-eight. They embrace nearly the whole field of 
 Catholic discipline, and not only the prompt approval of them by 
 the Roman Congregations, but also the endorsement and continua- 
 tion of them by subsequent councils of American prelates, show 
 how well they were framed and how singularly fortunate they were 
 in meeting the anticipated needs of succeeding times. 
 
 One of the evils whicli Bishop England early recognized and 
 vigorously worked against was the practical uuaccouutability of
 
 THE COUNCILS OF BALTIMORE. 33 
 
 priest to bishop, and in turn of layman to priest. Tilings were 
 generally in a loose state, many unworthy priests who had been 
 sent out of Europe taking up their abode in various places, either 
 without the authorization of the spiritual rulers or else on false 
 pretences, and thus creating scandal among the community at large. 
 There were few native priests ; most of them came from foreign 
 parts; and in this another drawback lay. A large part of them 
 were the French refugees from the terrors of the French Revolu- 
 tion. Good and holy men they were, and their exertions were 
 recognized as bearing the best fruits. But they were believers in 
 monarchy ; and their horror of republicanism was increased by the 
 sad hardships which the unworthy French republicans had inflicted 
 upon themselves and by the memory of the cruel scenes which 
 they had witnessed. But slightly acquainted with our language, 
 the genius of our institutions and the temper of our people, they 
 often gave vent to sayings that were magnified and distorted by 
 the enemies of the Cliurch, and this had a great deal to do with 
 the preservation of England's Puritan Tradition in this country. 
 Accordingly we find this our first Provincial Council occupied 
 largely with the subjects indicated. 
 
 After making several regulations in regard to the administration 
 of the Sacraments, another matter is touched upon. It has been 
 charged that the Church's policy lias greatly changed on the sub- 
 ject of the danger to Catholic youth from education in mixed 
 schools. Certainly the evil is aggravated now by the vast expan- 
 sion of the system, but as far back as 1829 we see no difference 
 in the tone of the prelates — that is, measured by the lesser danger 
 at that day. The thirty-third, thirty-fourth and thirty-fifth decrees 
 deal with the matter in no honied tones. "Wherever parochial 
 schools are possible, they are ordered to be opened, and Sunday- 
 schools are insisted upon as an absolute necessity ; when a school 
 is found in which Catholic doctrines or moral principles are attacked, 
 it is the duty of the pastor in its neighborhood to prohibit attend- 
 ance at it by the children of his flock. 
 
 In the beginning of the following year these decrees were re- 
 turned as approved by the Propaganda Congregation and the Pope. 
 A most favorable impression was made upon the Church at large.
 
 34 THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 III. 
 
 It was only four years after the first Provincial Council that 
 a pressing need was felt for a new one. Accordingly, in the 
 last days of October, 1833, in obedience to the summons issued 
 some months before, the prelates of the United States and their 
 theologians assembled once more in the metropolitan city to con- 
 sult on the affairs of the Church. 
 
 One of the most interesting features in the history of the Coun- 
 cils of Baltimore is the notation of the names of ecclesiastics and 
 of their positions, who afterwards rose to high places in the 
 Church. To use a military expression, the illustrious prelates, 
 who have gained a place in the world-wide history of the uni- 
 versal Church, did not reach their stations by the mere force of 
 precedence ; they won their spurs by hard work. In addition to 
 those who attended the last council we find : Right Rev. John 
 Dubois, Bishop of New York, consecrated on the 29th of Octo- 
 ber, 1826; Right Rev. Michael Portier, Bishop of Mobile, con- 
 secrated November 5, 1826 ; both of whom failed to attend the 
 former council because of the delay in their return to this country 
 from Rome ; Right Rev. Francis Patrick Kenrick, Bishop of 
 Arathensia and coadjutor of the Bishop of Philadelphia, consecrated 
 June 6, 1830 ; Right Rev. Frederick Rese, Bishop of Detroit, 
 consecrated October 6, 1833 ; Right Rev. John B. Purcell, Bishop 
 of Cincinnati, consecrated October 13, 1833 ; the last being the 
 successor of Right Rev. Edward Fenwick, then dead. Among the 
 assistant theologians may be mentioned several names "which are 
 still familiar to our ears : Revs. Peter Fredet, William McSherry,. 
 Samuel Eccleston, Andrew Byrne (the first student in the seminary 
 established by Bishop England in Charleston), John Hughes and 
 Simon Brute. 
 
 The most important business before this small but illustrious 
 assembly was the erection of new dioceses and settling the bound- 
 aries of the old. The Pope, Gregory XVI, by a bull issued in 
 the July of the following year, approved the decrees on these 
 subjects. For instance, the Diocese of Boston, wliich is now a 
 flourishing province with many suffragan sees, included the six 
 States of New England — "that is" says the bull, "Massachusetts,, 
 Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut and Vermont."
 
 THE COUNCILS OF BALTIMORE. 35 
 
 The Diocese of New York comprised not only tlie whole of that 
 Empire State, but also the counties of Sussex, Bergen, Morris, 
 Essex, Somerset, Middlesex and Monmouth in New Jersey. Vir- 
 ginia and West Virginia were subject to the Archbishop of Balti- 
 more. The Diocese of Philadelphia consisted of the whole State 
 of Pennsylvania, of Delaware, and seven counties in New Jersey. 
 It needs only the mention of these facts to call attention to tlie 
 contrast now afforded by the numerous compact sees which cover 
 all this territory. 
 
 Among the other notable decrees passed and approved at Rome 
 are t\vo placing the Indian and Negro missions under the special 
 charge of the Society of Jesus. Another decree called for a cor- 
 rect edition of the Rituale Romanum, and the last fixed the date 
 for the opening of the next council — the third Sunday after 
 Easter in the year 1837. The second Provincial Council adjourned 
 October 27, 1833. 
 
 IV. 
 
 There was no increase in the number of prelates who attended 
 the third council. Its decrees, as were those of the preceding 
 Council, are signed by ten names. Archbishop Whitfield had passed 
 to his reward, and Archbishop Eccleston had succeeded, and he 
 presided over the assemblage. Dr. C. I. White, one of America's 
 most learned scholars, was the associate secretary of the council, 
 and a great deal of its labor fell upon him. 
 
 All the sessions of tliis council were short, and the time of 
 it extended only from the 17th to the 22d of April, inclusive. 
 The decrees that it passed are printed upon three pages, and are 
 confined in their scope to clerical and liturgical regulations. The 
 Roman Ritual of the Sacred Congregation recommended by Pope 
 Gregory XVI at their request for an authoritative version was 
 adopted. 
 
 In 1836 Bishop England, on being invited to do so, addressed 
 a series of letters to the Propagation Society of Lyons, which had 
 been most generous in its contributions to the cause in America, 
 on the progress and the state of the Church in this country. He 
 estimated the Catholic population at 1,500,000, after having con- 
 sulted all the authorities within his reach and having employed 
 the most careful inquiry. According to the calculations which he
 
 36 THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 adduces there should have been at least 3,900,000 Catholics in the 
 United States — a loss of 2,400,000. Among the various causes 
 which he assigned for this defection there are prominently placed 
 by him — unworthy priests, foreign priests, who did not understand 
 the nature of our people, and a scarcity even of the material that 
 could bo got. In the first class were many who simply disgraced the 
 name and created the greatest scandals ; others, wlio, though honest 
 enough, lacked that polish and refinement which enable one to take 
 a place in society ; for the strange theory prevailed in Europe that 
 Americans were rude and uncultured, perhaps lived in log huts 
 and dressed in homespun, and that any kind of priests would do 
 for tliem ; the consequence of which opinion was that many of the 
 priests at that time not only repelled non-Catholics, but did much 
 by their manners to drive Catholics from the Church. Many of 
 the foreign priests were French, tlie objections to whom have been 
 stated. In order to meet these wants measures were adopted in 
 this council looking to a provision of means for educating native 
 priests ; and the beginnings made then have developed, under the 
 watchful care of the zealous and vigilant succession of prelates 
 who have ruled the American Church, until to-day we see in 
 America a band of priests whom it would be hard to match in 
 any country of the world. 
 
 Some of the Papal rescripts approving the council's decrees were 
 not received until 1841, after the next council was held. 
 
 Y. 
 
 It is now seemed a settled matter that councils should be 
 held every three years. Accordingly, in 1840, 1843, 1846 and 
 1849 four councils followed 'the others so happily and successfully 
 planned by the great brain of Bishop England. When the fifth 
 met he was absent from the list of prelates — gone to that bourne 
 whence no traveler returns. Archbishop Eccleston presided over 
 the four councils now under consideration. 
 
 Little was done except to confirm and strengthen precedent 
 legislation, and to add such regulations as the needs of the day 
 demanded. The steady increase in the prelates is, however, ob- 
 servable. Thirteen signed the decrees of the 1840 council, and the 
 following ones bear the signatures of fifteen (sixteen counting 
 Bishop England's place filled by the administrator of the diocese,
 
 THE COUNCILS OF BALTIMORE. 37 
 
 Very Rev. R. S. Baker), twenty-three, and twenty-five, respectively. 
 Right Rev. Francis Patrick Kenrick appears as the Bishop of 
 Philadelphia, and Right Rev. John Hughes as Bishop of New 
 York ; Right Rev. John McCloskey, Bishop of Albany, and Right 
 Rev. Martin Jolin Spalding, Bishop of Lengonensis in ]^)artibu!i — all of 
 them names which require only to be mentioned now, for they 
 are household words throughout the United States. Among the 
 attendant theologians are also many names since become familiar 
 throughout the land for theological lore and ripe scholarship, as 
 also for having attained high ecclesiastical stations. Por instance, 
 the Revs. Boniface AVimmer, Joseph S. Alemany, C. I. AVhite, 
 J. P. Y/ood, John Loughlin, Michael Heiss, Bernard O'Reilly, 
 AVilliam H. Elder, C. L Pise and others — some of them dead, 
 some of them living to-day — but all of them so well known that 
 it requires only the mention of their names. Thus, it will be 
 seen that the episcopate was steadily gaining, not only in numbers, 
 but in the quality of the material composing it ; and a number 
 of wise theologians were growing up, ready to add their lore to 
 its assembled deliberations. 
 
 The decree issued in 1810 by the then few prelates in America 
 against secret societies has been mentioned. The seventh decree of 
 the fourth council repeats and reinforces the disciplinary article of 
 Archbishop Carroll and his suffragans. Members of these societies 
 were deprived then as now of participation in the Sacraments, and 
 pastors were urged to exhort the faithful not to join them. This 
 Avas in 1840, still a good while before the Catholic Church is 
 said to have changed her policy in regard to secret societies and 
 under a Pope before Pius IX, who, the enemy alleges, was scared 
 by the revolution of 1848. To Catholics no proof was needed; 
 but Ave would like to ask our friends the enemy how they will 
 overcome the fact of these decrees, Avhich were duly approved at 
 Rome by Gregory XVI ? 
 
 The other decrees of these councils related chiefly to clerical 
 regulations, as, for instance, forbidding one clergyman to trespass 
 upon the parish of another. Only five decrees were passed by the 
 sixth council, and the last one merely fixed, as usual, the date 
 <»f the following meeting. One tiling, however, makes it notable. 
 Pope Gregory XVI had died, and Pius IX, under whose foster- 
 ing care the rapid growth of the Church in the succeeding thirty
 
 38 THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 years was witnessed in this country, had succeeded and for the 
 first time addressed liis American followers through the Archbishop 
 of Baltimore. Even thus early, when he had just mounted the 
 Papal throne, and although his letter is very short, lie manifests 
 his love and admiration for the vigorous young Church of the 
 West, destined, in his prophetic opinion, to make up for the mel- 
 ancholy losses in Europe. The energy of our episcopate, considering 
 the difficulties they had to struggle with and the vast extent of 
 country covered by their dioceses, moves him to wonder, which 
 he freely expresses — and, indeed, Pius IX's favorites were always 
 the American Bishops, American Catholics — the nation itself. " I 
 am more truly Pope in America than in any other country," he 
 used to say. The Roman cardinals called Bishop England, on 
 account of his untiring industry and celerity of movement, the 
 " steam bishop." Pius IX knew him well before Charleston's 
 great bishop died — several years anterior to the Pope's succession 
 to the throne ; and the tradition of him who was the originator 
 of the American councils and his brother prelates yet remained. 
 A new genci'ation was now at hand, but they were worthy heirs 
 of the robes worn by those rugged heroes, our first bishops, who 
 metaphorically fought their way into the United States and cleared 
 the paths for those that followed them. 
 
 Although the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed 
 Virgin was not defined by the Holy See until five years after the 
 holding of the seventh council, we find recorded here a letter from 
 the Pope inculcating devotion to her in the Immaculate Concep- 
 tion; and the two first decrees relate to this grand, glorious and 
 pious subject. In them the Catholics of America are urged to pay 
 particular devotion to the Holy Mother of God in the Immacu- 
 late Conception, and our country placad under her special protec- 
 tion. It is notable to behold this unanimous demand, as it were, 
 of the ^Vmerican episcopate for the promulgation of the dogma. 
 They, in common with their brethren tlu-oughout the Catholic 
 world, asked that it be made a doctrine of the faitli, and when 
 five years had passed the Holy Father acceded to tlic wishes of 
 his chihlren by solemnly promulgating it. It is an illustration of 
 how wise and cautious the proceedings of the Holy See are. It 
 does not originate anything; it waits until a question is raised, 
 and when the universal voice is fi)r its ai)|)roval or condemnation 
 it speaks, guided by the counsels of the Holy Ghost.
 
 THE COUNCILS OF BALTIMORE. 39 
 
 The last decree of the council fixed the date of the first Plenary 
 or National Council for 1850, but the subsequent delays necessi- 
 tated by providing for the divisions of provinces and dioceses, and 
 the appointments of rulers thereof, prevented it from assembling 
 before 1852. 
 
 VI. 
 
 At the conclusion of the seventh Provincial Council (and it 
 must be remembered that these councils were really national) a 
 petition to the Holy Father was adopted asking the erection of 
 new archdioceses, with the reservation of primatial powers to the 
 metropolitan See of Baltimore.^ The petition was accepted, and 
 the consequence was the erection of six provinces out of the single 
 original archdiocese which had for lialf a century covered the whole 
 country. In these, various Provincial Councils were held to adopt 
 regulations suitable to the wants of their people. In doing so, 
 however, it speedily became obvious that much confusion would 
 follow from the fact that varying rules prevailed in each of the 
 provinces. It was necessary that some central landmark, as it were, 
 should be set up as a guide for all. Hence, having received 
 letters as Delegate Apostolic from the Holy See, the Archbishop 
 of Baltimore issued a call, November 21, 1851, to the other arch- 
 bisliops and their suffragans, for the first Plenary Council of the 
 United States to assemble in the following INIay. 
 
 Archbishop Eccleston, mIio had presided over several of the 
 Provincial Councils, had passed away, and the Most Rev. Francis 
 Patrick Kenrick occupied the primatial see. Let us note the 
 other archbishops and the order in which they are ranked : Most 
 Eev. Francis N. Blanchet, Archbishop of Oregon ; Most Rev. Peter 
 Richard Kenrick, Archbishop of St. Louis ; Most Rev. Anthony 
 Blanc, Archbishop of New Orleans ; Most Rev. John Hughes, 
 Archbishop of New York; and Most Rev. John B. Purcell, Arch- 
 bishop of Cincinnati. There were twenty-three bishops, among 
 whom is notable the Right Rev. John McCloskey, Bishop of 
 Albany — now our illustrious cardinal — and Right Rev. Martin John 
 Spalding, Bishop of Louisville, afterwards Archbishop of Baltimore. 
 
 The council lasted eleven days — from the 10th to the 20th of 
 
 1 Ut Sedes Metropolitana Baltimorensis Primatus honore gaudeat, cui Sedes omnes, tam 
 Metropolitanaj quam Episcopales in Fojderatis Americ£E Septcntrionalis Statibus et Terri- 
 torils, subjaceant.
 
 40 THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 May inclusive. There were many weighty questions to be consid- 
 ered, and the first that came before the body was the lack of 
 uniformity in the provincial decrees of the preceding two or three 
 years. Accordingly the second decree bears upon this point by 
 extending the decrees of the seven Provincial Councils of Baltimore 
 to all the dioceses of the Federal Union. Tliere were in all 
 twenty-five decrees. The majority relate to ecclesiastical discipline, 
 such as re-adopting the Rituale Roraanum approved by the first 
 Provincial Council, fixing the periods during which a bishop might, 
 for various reasons, absent himself from his diocese, exhorting 
 bishops to consult, when possible, aged, learned and experienced 
 priests in their dioceses before promulgating rules and regulations, etc. 
 Among the decrees may be noted the following : The 9th pro- 
 vides tliat priests coming from Europe to settle in the United 
 States should be required to show credentials from the bishops of 
 the dioceses whence they come in order to obtain a station from 
 the American bishop to whom they applied. The 11th orders the 
 bans of marriage to be published in all the dioceses without fail, 
 and exhorts the clergy not only to be emphatic in doing so, but 
 to diligently seek out whether any grave obstacles exist in each 
 case. The 13th deals with the school question. In it the bishops 
 in their respective dioceses are earnestly exhorted to take int& 
 grave consideration the great and increasing evil of youth growing 
 up ignorant of God and the teachings of His Church ; and, if 
 it was possible, to establish a school by the side of every church. 
 The next decree provides that eacli province should have at least 
 one seminary for training priests and supplying the thin ranks so 
 inadequately filled by the recruits from Europe. 
 
 Among the acts of this our first Plenary Council was the estab- 
 lishment of a sodality to pray for the conversion of non-Catholics. 
 A petition was forwarded to the Holy Father asking that indul- 
 gences be granted to the prayers offered up; to which the late 
 glorious Pope replied with his accustomed benignity, freely bestow- 
 ing upon them the treasures of heaven. 
 
 At the time the council Avas held there was in tliis country a 
 Catholic population of about 4,000,000. It would be a moderate 
 estimate to say that a much larger number than tliis had been 
 lost to the Church. As will be seen above tlie prelates recognized 
 this melancholy fact. They speak of the great and increasing evil
 
 THE COUNCILS OF BALTIMORE. 41 
 
 of youth being allowed to grow up in a godless state ; and they 
 devote a decree to the subject. 
 
 Between the first and second Plenary Councils lies a long, 
 troubled and bloody chapter of American history. Not that the 
 quarrels of men can effect the calm course of the Church, but 
 material obstacles necessarily intervened. In the meantime there 
 were held three truly Provincial Councils in Baltimore ; but the 
 design is to treat only those of national extent, and we pass on 
 to the second Plenary Council. 
 
 VII. 
 
 In coming to treat upon tne second Plenary Council, one feels 
 that we are touching almost contemporary history. It is within 
 the recollection of thousands now living, and it would be useless 
 to dwell upon it to the extent that its importance will demand 
 and will receive hereafter. However, there are some things in 
 connection with it which should be noticed here in order to con- 
 trast it with the former councils. 
 
 But before going into any details about it, let us observe the 
 difference between the Catholic Church, which retains the spirit 
 as well as the doctrines of her Founder, Jesus Christ, and the 
 false sects which could only imitate the human passions of their 
 earthly founders. From 1861 to 1865, the United States were 
 torn by one of the fiercest civil wars on record. In that terrible 
 struggle Catholics were not backward on either side. They were 
 found in the forefront of the battle in the Federal and in the 
 Confederate armies ; on every field their blood was freely poured 
 out for the cause they had espoused. But while Catholic met 
 Catholic hilt to hilt in defence of what each side considered to 
 be their country and its rights, they were ready to kneel as 
 brothers in the same Cliurch ; they never dreamed of importing 
 their quarrels into the calm sanctuary of the Lord. So, while 
 armies marched and the sword flashed up and down the land, the 
 Church of America remained one, undivided, indivisible. There 
 Avere a Presbyterian Church North and a Presbyterian Church 
 South; a Methodist Church North and a INIethodist Church South; 
 and, strange as it may sound, these divisions hated each otlier 
 even worse than the sectaries hated the Papists. "What more 
 decisive proof can be adduced to show that the Church has the
 
 42 THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. ' 
 
 ' ■ ■■ , r .} 
 spirit of that Christ who prayed that His followers might in 
 religion, be united even as the Father and He were united? And 
 what more decisive proof can be adduced to show the falsehood 
 of the jarring sects, ready to split in two during those very trials 
 which God sends upon the wicked earth to try men's souls? 
 
 Scarcely had the echoes of war died away when the Most Rev. 
 Martin John Spalding, Archbishop of Baltimore, on the 19th of 
 March, 18 GO, issued a call, as Apostolic Delegate of the Holy See, to 
 the archbishops and bishops of the United States to assemble in 
 this city for the purpose of consulting on the affairs of the Church. 
 The date for the council had been fixed for 1862, but, as the 
 letter says, it could not then be held on account of the disturbed 
 state of the times. In response to the call, there met in the 
 autumn of 18 66 seven archbishops, thirty-seven bishops, one ad- 
 ministrator, one procurator, and two mitred abbots. Among the 
 notable things which we find recorded in the names of those taking 
 part in this council are these : The present Apostolic Delegate 
 and Archbishop of Baltimore, Most Rev. James Gibbons, acted as 
 assistant chancellor to the chancellor. Rev. Thomas Foley; while 
 Father Corcoran, the chief secretary of the third Plenary Council 
 just closed, was the chief secretary of the second. The theolo- 
 gians included such well-known names as these : Revs. J. L. Spald- 
 ing, P. J. Ryan, Edward Fitzgerald, F. X. Weninger, S.J., A. M. 
 Toebbe, N. J. Perche, Francis McNierny, J. B. Brouillet, M. Marty, 
 T. A. Becker, B. J. McQuaid, F. X. Leray, J. Benoit, T. F. 
 Hendricken, D. Manucy, T. Mullen, A. S. Healy, John McElroy, S.J., 
 etc. who are known now from Maine to Texas for their intellecual 
 acquirements and the high stations they occupied or occupy in 
 the Church. 
 
 The second point to which we desire to call particular atten- 
 tion is the completeness of the body of decrees passed by the 
 second Plenary Council as compared with the precedent ones. 
 They take up a volume as large as that which includes all those 
 of the councils which we have been reviewing in these pages. 
 The first portion is a thorough digest of Christian doctrine and 
 the second a summary of discipline for tlie American Church. 
 For the convenience of tliose who desire to refer to the volume, 
 it is arranged in chapters and sections and indexed fully. Every- 
 thing about it bears the stamp of Archbishop Spalding's command-
 
 TIIU COUNCILS OF BALTIMORE. 43 
 
 lug genius, assisted by the scholarly talents of his brother prelates 
 and the theologians of the council. Well might Archbishop Cor- 
 rigan, in his sermon on " Our Deceased Prelates " (given else- 
 where in full) speaking of Archbishop Spalding, exclaim: "The 
 generation to come will have reason to bless his memory for all 
 that he accomplished for the Church in America." 
 
 Title X of chapter lY, p. 243, contains a specially interesting de- 
 •cree. The council was swift in recognizing the immense change 
 brought about by the emancipation of the slaves, and this long 
 and careful decree relates to efforts for their conversion. It begins 
 by reciting the well-known fact that Protestants have never 
 •converted a heathen people and by dwelling on the deplorable 
 condition of the manumitted negroes, plunged in darkness and 
 Fetichism. Each archbishop is exhorted to make a careful study 
 of the situation in regard to the blacks in his province and to 
 take such steps as he thinks proper to Christianize this unfor- 
 tunate people. It will be remembered how this decree and the 
 consequent acts of Provincial Councils excited the ire of a bigoted 
 part of the American press, and how a certain New York pictorial 
 "Journal of Barbarism" libelled the clergy of the American Church 
 until the indignant protests of the fair-minded American people 
 compelled it to desist. In order to show the calm and temperate 
 tone of the prelates, in such striking contrast to the disturbed 
 feelings on both sides at that time, a part of the council's pas- 
 toral letter is quoted : 
 
 " We must all feel that in some manner a new and most ex- 
 tensive field of charity and devotedness has been opened to us by 
 the emancipation of the immense slave population of the South. 
 We could have wished, that in accordance with the action of the 
 Catholic Church in past ages, in regard to the serfs of Europe, a 
 more gradual system of emancipation could have been adopted, so 
 that they might have been in some measure prepared to make a 
 better use of their freedom than they are likely to do now. Still 
 the evils whicli must necessarily attend upon the sudden liberation 
 •of so large a multitude, with their peculiar dispositions and habits, 
 only make appeal to our Christian charity and zeal, presented by 
 their forlorn condition, the more forcible and imperative. We urge 
 upon the clergy and people of our charge the most generous co- 
 operation with the plans which may be adopted by the bishops
 
 44 THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 of the dioceses in which they arc, to extend to them that Chris- 
 tian education and moral restraint of which they stand in such 
 need. Our only regret in regard to the matter is, that our means 
 and opportunity of spreading over them the protecting and salutary 
 influences of our holy religion are so restricted." 
 
 There is not a thoughtful man in America to-day who will not 
 endorse this wonderfully sagacious forecast of the American bishops. 
 The truth is, the Church has the experience of ages; she is not 
 moved by the evanescent passions of the moment ; but, guided from 
 on high, she moves forward calmly and steadily ; her prelates catch 
 her spirit and " like stars to their appointed heights they rise." 
 
 Parochial and industrial schools are recommended, nay, com- 
 manded, where possible, in two decrees. Tlie relations of Church 
 and State are luminously explained. Many of the popular theories 
 of to-day are condemned. Spiritism (falsely called Spiritualism) being 
 described as the work of Satan and his attendant demons. In 
 conclusion we quote the weighty words of the council on the 
 newspaper press : 
 
 "AVe cheerfully acknowledge the services the Catholic press has 
 rendered to religion, as also the disinterestedness with which, in 
 most instances, it has been conducted, although yielding to pub- 
 lishers and editors a very insufficient return for their labors. We 
 exhort the Catholic community to extend to these publications a 
 more liberal support, in order that they may be enabled to become 
 more M'orthy the great cause they advocate. We remind them that 
 the power of the press is one of the most striking features of 
 modern society ; and that it is our duty to avail ourselves of this 
 mode of making known the truths of our religion and removing 
 the misapprehensions which so generally prevail in regard to them." 
 
 To reinforce the above, the letter of Pope Pius IX, February 
 12, 1866, is adduced, in which he speaks of the evil secular 
 press which is animated by a diabolical hatred of our holy religion,, 
 and of the necessity of having a Catholic press to counteract the 
 mischievous influence of those Avho have seized upon the art in- 
 vented by a Catholic and turned it into an engine of destruction 
 against the Church. 
 
 The last decree of the council is devoted to the recommenda- 
 tion of the erection of fifteen new episcopal sees. 
 
 There were many interesting questions canvassed in this council
 
 THE COUNCILS OF BALTIMORE. 45 
 
 and in regard to which there are contained in the volume before 
 iis^ several letters back and forth between the Koman Congregations 
 and the American prelates. But we have already outrun our limits, 
 and must close by noting tlic impulse whicli the council gave to 
 the progress of the Church in America. In a period of eighteen 
 years the number of the hierarchy has doubled; the number of 
 priests has risen from about 3,000 to about 8,000; churches, from 
 3,500 to 8,500; while the Catholic population, which was 5,500,000 
 in 1866, is to-day over 8,000,000 — some placing it as high as 
 10,000,000. 
 
 ' "Concilii Plenarii Baltimorensis IT. Acta et Decreta." Editio Altera Mendis Expurgata. 
 Baltiniora?, MDCCCLXXX.
 
 THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 THE third Plenary Council was formally opened in the Cathedral 
 of Baltimore on Sunday, November 9, and continued for four- 
 weeks, closing on Sunday, December 7, 1884. 
 
 A conference of the American bishops had been held in Rome 
 the preceding year, at which, under the guidance of Congregations 
 of Roman cardinals, the schema of our third National Council were 
 prepared, and the Most Rev. James Gibbous, D.D., Archbishop 
 of Baltimore, was appointed by our Most Holy Lord, Leo XIII,. 
 Pope, as Apostolic Delegate, to preside over the august assemblage 
 which recently closed in Baltimore. 
 
 The number of prelates who took part M'as nearly double 
 that of those who attended the second Plenary Council. The mem- 
 mers were divided in rank as follows : Fourteen archbishops, sixty 
 bishops, five visiting bishops from Canada and Japan, seven abbots, one 
 prefect apostolic, eleven monsignors, eighteen vicars general, twenty- 
 three superiors of religious orders, twelve rectors of seminaries, 
 and ninety theologians. A large number of clergymen from all 
 parts of the country participated in the ceremonies. 
 
 I. 
 
 At 9.30 A.M. of trhe opening day the prelates met at the 
 archiepiscopal residence, and being joined by the clergy, moved in 
 solemn procession through the streets to the Cathedral. The fol- 
 lowing was the order observed : Cross-bearer carrying the pro- 
 cessional cross; seminarians of St. Sulpicc ; regular clergy; secular 
 clergy ; chanters ; theologians of the council ; officials of the council ; 
 superiors of religious orders ; rectors of theological seminaries ; 
 Very Rev. and Rt. Rev. monsignors ; Rt. Rev. mitred abbots ; 
 Rt. Rev. bishops ; Most Rev. archbishops ; censer-bearer carrying 
 the censer ; archiepiscopal cross-bearer between two acolytes ; assistant 
 priest of the Most Rev. Apostolic Delegate; Most Rev. Apostolic 
 
 (46)
 
 ITS HISTORY AND ITS ACTS. 4T 
 
 Delegate between liis deacons of lionor ; insignia-bearers of the 
 Most Rev. Apostolic Delegate. 
 
 The seminarians, llev. clergy and chanters were vested in cas- 
 sock, surplice and biretum; t!ie Rev. regular dcrgy in the habit of 
 their respective orders; the theologians in amice, alb, cincture, red 
 stole and red chasuble; the officials of the council, superiors of 
 religious orders, rectors of seminaries and monsignors in surplice (or 
 rochet), amice, red cope and biretum; the Rt. Rev. mitred abbots 
 in the habit of their respective orders, red cope and plain white 
 mitre; Rt. Rev. bishops and Most Rev. archbishops in rochet, 
 amice, red cope and plain gold mitre; the assistant priest in sur- 
 plice, amice, red cope and biretum; the deacons of honor in amice, 
 alb, cincture and red dalmatic; the Most Rev. Apostolic Delegate in 
 amice, alb, cincture, red stole, red cope and precious mitre. 
 
 During the procession the hymns Vcnl Creator Spiritus (The 
 Hymn to the Holy Ghost), Ave 3Iaris Stella (The Hymn to the 
 Blessed Virgin), and the Psalms 80, 83 and 86 were sung by the 
 Rev. clergy and choir. 
 
 The Most Rev. Apostolic Delegate on reaching the altar sang the 
 Prayer to the Holy Ghost, and to the Blessed Virgin, Patroness 
 of the Cathedral. Pontifical High Mass was celebrated by ihe Most 
 Rev. Peter Richard Kenrick, D.D., Archbishop of St. Louis, in 
 presence of the Most Rev. Apostolic Delegate, who occupied the 
 throne at the Gospel side of the sanctuary. 
 
 At the end of the Mass the Most Rev. celebrant retired ta 
 the sacristy, accompanied by his attendant ministers. The Mest. 
 Rev. Patrick J. Ryan, D.D., Archbishop of Philadelphia, then 
 ascended the pulpit and preached the opening sermon, the subject 
 being : " The Church in Her Councils." 
 
 After the sermon the ceremonies proper to the opening session 
 were begun. They were as follows : Antiphon and psalm by the 
 choir; prayer by the Apostolic Delegate; litany of the saints by the 
 choir; prayer by the Apostolic Delegate; Gospel by the deacon; 
 hymn, Veni Creator, by the choir; address by the Apostolic Delegate; 
 formal opening of the council; reading of preliminary decrees which 
 regard the rules to be observed in the council, etc., etc.; roll of 
 members called; profession of faith made by all the members of the 
 council; announcement of the date of the following session; Papal 
 Benediction by the Apostolic Delegate; return of the procession to- 
 the archiepiscopal residence.
 
 48 THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL : 
 
 II. 
 
 On the Sundays during the council, the public ceremonies in 
 the evening consisted of Pontifical Vespers, sermon and Benediction 
 of the Blessed Sacrament. On the Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays 
 and Fridays of each week the public ceremonies in the evening 
 consisted of a sermon and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. 
 Every Sunday and Thursday except the first Thursday, there was a 
 solemn session of the council, at which the two houses of the bishops 
 and theologians met and passed upon the decrees. The following 
 are the dates of the sermons preached by the prelates and given 
 elsewhere, except the two in Latin : Sunday, November 9, 10.30 
 A.INI., " The Church in her Councils," by Most Eev. P. J. Eyan, 
 D.D, Archbishop of Philadelphia; 7.30 P.M., "The Unity of the 
 Church," by Right Rev. J. Shanahan, D.D., Bishoj) of Harrisburg; 
 Monday, November 10, " The Church — the Support of Just Gov- 
 ernment," by Right Rev. J. Ireland, D.D., Bishop of St. Paul ; 
 Tuesday, November 11, "The Church and Science," by Right Rev. 
 T. A. Becker, D.D., Bishop of Wilmington ; Wednesday, November 
 12, " The Necessity of Revelation," by Right Rev. R. Gilmour, 
 D.D., Bishop of Cleveland; Thursday, November 13, " De Mor- 
 tuis — Our Deceased Prelates," by Most Rev. M. A. Corrigan, D.D., 
 Coadjutor Archbishop of New York; Friday, November 14, 
 " Indian Missions," by Most Rev. C. J. Seghers, D.D., Archbishop 
 of Oregon; Sunday, November 16, 10.30 A.M., "The Priesthood," 
 by Most Rev. AV. H. Elder, D.D., Archbishop of Cincinnati ; 7.30 
 P.M., "The Higher Education of the Priesthood," by Right Rev. 
 J. L. Spalding, D.D., Bishop of Peoria; Monday, November 17, 
 "Faith and Reason," by Right Rev. J. A. Watterson, D.D., 
 Bishop of Columbus ; Tuesday, November 18, " Christian Mar- 
 riage," by Right Rev. M. J. O'Farrell, D.D., Bishop of Trenton; 
 Wednesday, November 19, "The Observation of Feasts, etc.," by 
 Right Rev. S. Y. Ryan, D.D., Bishop of Buffalo; Thursday, 
 November 20, " De Sacerdotio — The Holy Priesthood," by Most 
 Rev. J. S. Alemany, D.D., Archbishop of San Francisco ; Friday, 
 November 21, "The Missions for the Colored People," by Right 
 Rev. W. "H. Gross, D.D., Bishop of Savannah ; Sunday, November 
 23, 10.30 A.M., "The Sacrifice of the Mass," by Right Rev. E. 
 Fitzgerald, D.D., Bishop of Little Rock; Monday, November 24,
 
 Most Rev. Michael Heiss, D.JJ.
 
 ITS HISTORY AND ITS ACTS. 49 
 
 <'Tlie Catholicity of the Church/' by Eight Rev. J. O'Connor, 
 D.D., Vicar-Apostolic of Nebraska; Tuesday, November 25, "Cath- 
 olic Societies," by Right Rev. J. J. Keane, D.D., Bishop of Rich- 
 mond ; Wednesday, November 26, " The Progress of the Church 
 in the United States," by Right Rev. B. J. McQuaid, D.D., 
 Bishop of Rochester ; Thursday, November 27, " De Dignitate Sa- 
 ■cerdotali — The Dignity of the Holy Priesthood," by Most Rev. M. 
 Heiss, D.D., Archbishop of Milwaukee ; " Thanksgiving Day ," by 
 Right Rev. J. L. Spalding, D.D., Bishop of Peoria, 111. ; Friday, 
 November 28, " The Blessed Virgin Mary, Patroness of the Church 
 in the United States," by Right Rev. F. S. Chatard, D.D., Bishop 
 of Vincennes; Sunday, November 30, 10.30 A.M., "The Sanctity 
 of the Church," by Right Rev. J. Hennessy, D.D., Bishop of 
 Dubuque; Thursday, December 4, 10.30 A.M., "The Papacy," by 
 Rev. W. Wayrich, C.SS.R. ; Sunday, December 7, 10.30 A.M., 
 •"The Work of the Council," by Right Rev. J. L. Spalding, D.D., 
 Bishop of Peoria, 111. 
 
 At St. Alphonsus's Church, which was used as a pro-Cathedral, 
 the following sermons were preached in the German language : 
 November 9, Sunday evening, the Most Rev. Michael Heiss, D.D., 
 Archbishop of Milwaukee. Subject, " The Councils of the Church — 
 Their History and Their Usefulness;" November 12, Wednesday 
 evening, Rt. Rev. Martin Marty, O.S.B,, D.D.-, Vicar Apostolic of 
 Dakota Territory. Subject, " The Church — Her Indestructibility and 
 Infallibility ; " November 14, Friday evening, Rt. Rev. Caspar H. 
 Borgess, D.D., Bishop of Detroit. Subject, " The Church — Her Unity 
 and Sanctity;" November 16, Sunday evening, Rt. Rev. Joseph Dwen- 
 ger, D.D., Bishop of Fort Wayne. Subject, "The Church — Her 
 Apostolicity and Catholicity; or, Tlie Reformation is in Principle 
 a Denial of the Divinity of Christ ; " November 19, Wednesday 
 evening, Rt. Rev. Francis Xav. Krautbauer, D.D., Bishop of Green 
 Bay. Subject, " The Church in America — Especially the German 
 Element;" November 21, Friday evening, Rt. Rev. Joseph Rade- 
 macher, Y).D., Bishop of Nashville. Subject, " Catholic Schools — 
 Their Necessity to the Child and their Influence on Society;" 
 November 23, Sunday evening, Rt. Rev. Henry Joseph Richter, 
 D.D., Bishop of Grand Rapids. Subject, "The Indissolubility and 
 Sanctity of Matrimony ; " November 26, Wednesday evening, Rt. Rev. 
 Kilian C. Flascli, D.D., Bishop of La Crosse. Subject, " The First
 
 50 THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL: 
 
 Precept of the Church ; " November 28, Friday evening, Rt. Rev. 
 Winand Michael Wigger, D.D., Bishop of Newark. Subject, " The 
 Love of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus to Man ; " November 30, 
 Sunday evening, Rt. Rev. Aegidius Junger, D.D., Bishop of Nes- 
 qually, Washington Territory. Subject, " Mary, the Mother of Jesus^ 
 is our Spiritual Mother." 
 
 III. 
 
 On the last day of the council, Sunday, December 7, there 
 was a procession as on the first. White vestments were worn 
 during the procession and the Pontifical High Mass, which was 
 that of the Most Holy Trinity, celebrated by the Most Rev. M. A.. 
 Corrigan, Coadjutor Archbishop of New York; and red vestments 
 during the closing session. At the end of the Mass, Right Rev. 
 J. L. Spalding preached the sermon, on " The Work of the Coun- 
 cil." After the sermon, the bishops and prelates in the sanctuary, 
 and all the other members of the council in the sacristy, ex- 
 changed the white vestments worn during Mass for those of a 
 red color (this color being symbolical of the tongues of fire which 
 descended on the Apostles on Pentecost Sunday). 
 
 The closing ceremonies of the council were as follows: 1. Prayers^ 
 Hymn, Psalms, etc., similar to those of the First Session, were 
 sung. 2. The decrees not yet voted on, were proposed to the 
 Fathers of the Council. 3. All the decrees were signed. 4. Roll 
 of members called. 5. Acclamations chanted. 6. Kiss of Peace 
 given. 7. Te Dcum by the choir. 8. Closing Prayers. 9. Papal 
 Benediction by the Most Rev. Apostolic Delegate. 10. Return of 
 the procession to the Archiepiscopal residence and to St. Alphon- 
 sus's Hall as on Sunday, November 9. 
 
 IV. 
 
 What the decrees of the council are will not be made known 
 in an official form until they have received the approval of the 
 Roman Congregations and the Holy Father. It is, however, well 
 understood that the principal object of the meeting Avas to devise 
 means for a gradual introduction of canon law into this comitry. 
 It is reported that one-tenth of the pastors will be made irre- 
 movable rectors ; that ecclesiastical courts will be established, con-
 
 ITS HISTORY AND ITS ACTS. 51 
 
 sisting of two, four, or six clergymen, to be known as consultors, 
 according to the size of the diocese, and these courts will have 
 considerable powers as advisers ; that the consultors and irremov- 
 able rectors will, when occasion arises, select three names, out of 
 which the Pope, after considering any objections which the bishops 
 of that province may make to one or all the names, will select 
 one as bishop, or send all back for reconsideration. Other im- 
 portant decrees were passed, such as one adopting a universal 
 catechism, the j)rofits on the sale of which is to be devoted to 
 the maintenance of Catholic schools ; the selection of a single 
 Catholic newspaper in each province for special support ; longer 
 terms for the education of priests, and the establishment of a 
 Catholic university for which funds have been provided ; and 
 various other measures which will all be made known in a clearer 
 and more definite form when the decrees are published. 
 
 The pastoral letter of the council, which is printed at the con- 
 clusion of this volume, has been received by the American public 
 in the most cordial manner. Comments of the secular press could 
 be quoted by the score praising the broad, patriotic, and enlight- 
 ened views of the prelates and the sterling character of the Chris- 
 tian counsel which they give to the eight or ten million of the 
 faithful, of whose spiritual aifairs they have charge. 
 
 A new chapter has been added to the history of American 
 Catholicity; and it is one of which every member of this great 
 council may well feel jjroud to the last day of his life. By their 
 labors they have gained the more loving allegiance of the Catho- 
 lic laity, and a higher degree of respect and honor from their 
 fellow citizens of other creeds.
 
 THE RECEPTION. 
 
 AT the Concordia Opera House, on Thursday evening, November 
 20, the citizens of Baltimore tendered a grand reception to the 
 members of the third Plenary Council. Among the seven hundred 
 or eight hundred present in the hall were many of the notabilities 
 of official and judicial life. 
 
 Seated on ' the stage were Archbishops Gibbons, of Baltimore, 
 and Williams, of Boston ; Hon. W. J. O'Brien, who presided as 
 chairman, Judge William M. Merrick and Mr. Charles J. Bonaparte. 
 At nine o'clock, the Hon. William J. O'Brien called the assemblage 
 to order and said : 
 
 3Iost Rei\, Right Rev. and Rev. Sirs — The Catholics of Baltimore 
 have availed themselves of your presence in our city at the third 
 Plenary Council to tender to you this evening's reception. It is 
 with great pleasure that they testify their high respect for you 
 personally and their devotion to our Holy Mother Church. I now 
 introduce Mr. Charles J. Bonaparte, M'ho will address you. 
 
 Mr. Charles J. Bonaparte then advanced to the front of the 
 stage and spoke as follows : 
 
 Reverend Prelates — The Catholics of Baltimore, in whose name I 
 address you, express, by their gathering to-night, the interest felt, 
 not by Baltimorcans or Catholics only, but by citizens of all our 
 States and thoughtful men of every creed, in the third Plenary 
 Council of the American Church. This interest arises less from 
 curiosity regarding the details of your work, the particular measures 
 which your wisdom may devise to define tlie teaching or perfect 
 the discipline of the Church, than from the living proof which 
 your meeting affords of its harmony, its vitality, its steady, unvary- 
 ing growth in the great nation of the New World. Catholics 
 compare with a just pride in their religion this reunion Avith its 
 predecessors j note the new sees grown up wliere was yesterday 
 a wilderness, the provinces become too large for the guidance of 
 
 (52)
 
 THE RECEPTION. 53 
 
 a single hand, the thousand churches risen from their foundations 
 since last the bishops of the United States met to take counsel ; 
 the monasteries, asylums, convents, colleges, hospitals, schools, then 
 unthought of, now active and prosperous ; and they feel a reason- 
 able confidence that as the past has been, so will be the future, 
 that the Church in our country is destined, under God's provi- 
 dence, to live and to jjurify our people. Of this lioi^e, which you 
 share with us, I need say no more ; let me dwell for a moment 
 on the reasons why our fellow-citizens M'ho, unhappily, differ from 
 us in belief; or, at least, those qualified by education and reflec- 
 tion to appreciate the drift of men and things around us, may 
 look on your meeting as of grave and joyful significance. 
 
 In our day and country two classes of thinking men contem- 
 plate the phases of life and thought portrayed in the manners of 
 the times with ever-increasing anxiety. Many see, with alarm and 
 distress fast deepening into silent despair, religious faith in them- 
 selves and others fading into a dim uncertainty as to everything 
 beyond the world of sense. These men are skeptics, involuntary 
 skeptics, as to everything. They would believe in a God, but they 
 find only a possibility of His existence in physical science, and 
 His alleged revelation as doubtful for critics as Himself; they 
 Avould believe in their own immortality, but they can only hope 
 it is real; they feel, too clearly for their happiness, that with the 
 fundamental doctrines of Christianity they give up the quickening 
 spirit of modern civilization, but the light which shows the abyss 
 at whose brink they stand, reveals no way of escape. They have 
 seen the religions they may still formally profess, qualify and make 
 meaningless one tenet after another, concede this point, silently 
 abandon that, try vainly to compromise over and over again with 
 a constantly advancing spirit of materialism and negation, until the 
 very idea that there can be any fixed, immutable religious truth, 
 lias become strange to them. And, while they have lost so much, 
 they have gained nothing. The followers of Luther or Calvin 
 could believe in a reformed Church; the disciples of Voltaire or 
 Rousseau could believe in a regenerated society; but modern agnos- 
 tics can believe nothing, not even that they were wrong before. 
 
 Others look less below the surface of things ; they are troubled 
 by phenomena in which the first class recognize outward symptoms 
 of the same deep-seated evil. On all sides they note in the
 
 54 THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 American people a blunting of the sense of justice; a growing dim- 
 ness of our moral sight; an inability to distinguish clearly and 
 promptly between right and wrong; a tendency to resolve ethics 
 into mere blind sentiment ; in short, a distortion and maiming of 
 the national conscience. It is not that we have among us bad 
 men, and that these do after their kind ; this but proves the in- 
 herited frailty of our luiman nature; it is that we seem no longer 
 to know bad men and wicked acts Avhen we see them, or to know 
 how to deal with them if we do. We live in an age of con- 
 doned dishonor, of prosperous fraud, when brazen guilt need fear 
 no reproach, if only it has paid. That wealth and what wealth 
 brings should be gained through baseness ; vast fortunes be built 
 up on falsehood and deceit and breach of trust, the perversion of jus- 
 tice, the debauchery of public servants, is, after all, what is seen 
 everywhere, and has been seen always, and must be seen while 
 men remain men ; but that those who thus for profit trample on 
 divine precept and evade human law should be met by the voices 
 of public opinion, the guardians of public morals, with a faltering 
 denunciation, a halting reproof, an indignation but half kindled and 
 dvimr out almost before it has flickered ; that their fruitful sins 
 should be forgotten before they are cold, and the sight of their scan- 
 dalous prosperity awaken but admiration and envy — these things re- 
 veal a canker eating into the heart of the nation. Many indis- 
 posed to more abstruse speculation, yet feel this and are startled by 
 it, and cast around their eyes for some guide in morals who at least 
 knows his mind and dares to speak it. 
 
 To both classes we declare that which they elsewhere vainly 
 seek. The creed of the Catliolic Church is founded on no theory 
 in physics or psychology, and she makes no treaty with such theo- 
 ries. She teaches not what she thinks from reasoning, but what 
 she knows from an ever-present, unceasing revelation. With her 
 facts hypotheses, however phiusible or ingenious, must square them- 
 selves as best they may ; it is not her business to point out their 
 inconsistencies or to correct their errors. She does not so much con- 
 demn them as disregard them ; she believes, not indeed because, 
 but although wliat she believes may be, humanly speaking, impos- 
 sible. And slie has no fear of tlic futnre ; as all the speculations 
 of idealist metaphysicians have never made one man doubt for one 
 moment the reality of his own existence or that of the visible nni-
 
 THE RECEPTION. 65 
 
 verse, so no proof, however conclusive in seeming, that our spirit- 
 ual life is a dream, eternity a blank, the Gospel a myth or a 
 forgery, can touch her, who lives and breathes and has her being 
 in the reality and truth of all these things. Sure of her mission, 
 she shrinks from none of its responsibilities. Her religion is no 
 abstraction ; it is a practical rule of life. She is not content with 
 a passive assent to her claims ; her children must heed her voice 
 and do her work at all times and in all places, on the days of 
 labor as on the day of rest, by the family hearth, in the forum, 
 in the mart no less than within the temple and before the altar. 
 Every act or thought, however minute or private, is subjected to 
 her scrutiny and may merit her rebuke. She would not merely 
 invite, but compel men to do right ; and what is right she always 
 knows and is always ready to say. 
 
 You are fortunate, venerable Fathers, in the time of your meet- 
 ing. At this moment we discharge the grave duty imposed on us 
 all by our form of government, of choosing our chief ruler. 
 
 Thoughtful and patriotic men throughout the country are now 
 reminding us of the principles on which our polity is founded. 
 That the happiness of a republic depends on the virtue of its 
 citizens ; that the suffrage is not a privilege to be abdicated or 
 bartered away, but a trust to be sacredly filled ; that no man has 
 a right to give his conscience into the keeping of any party or 
 faction, or to surrender himself for a season to tiie promptings of 
 blind prejudice or selfish greed; that hypocrisy and calumny and 
 falsehood in every sliape are no less mean and hateful during a 
 political campaign than before or after it ; these truths they would 
 now have us call to mind. And should not your assembling aid 
 to recall them ? True, tlie Catholic Church has no politics ; she 
 knows nothing of candidates or platforms, of administrations or 
 policies, of tariffs or currencies ; she is mute on every question 
 as to which honest men may honestly differ, and no more tells 
 her children what ticket they shall vote than what food they shall eat 
 •or what clothes they shall wear. But, as she demands that they 
 shall eat with temperance, that they shall dress with decency, so 
 she requires of them to vote with an unclouded judgment, with an 
 undrugged conscience, with the good of the country as their mo- 
 tive, with the fear of God before their eyes. She does not meddle 
 with the things of Csesar, but honor and truth, good faith and
 
 56 THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL, 
 
 public spirit, loyalty to our rulers, candor and charity towards our 
 fellow-men ; these are not the things of Caesar, they are hers and 
 she will have them, of all that belong to her ; no man can be at 
 once a good Catholic and a bad citizen. 
 
 To your assembly are turned, now when our wants are most 
 sorely felt, the eyes of those who seek, amid the baseness and 
 injustice which political agitation brings as scum to the surface of 
 our national life, the forces left among us which yet make for 
 righteousness. They greet you as shepherds who will do battle 
 with the ravening wolves of selfishness and avarice — as physicians, 
 M'ho will cure the spreading ulcer of dishonesty and falsehood. 
 AVe, who speak for them, are here to tell you that we recognize 
 the immensity of your task, and our obligation to aid you in our 
 humbler sphere. What you shall determine your spiritual children 
 will accept with reverence and observe with loyalty. They leave 
 with confidence to your wisdom the means by which the good 
 cause may be made to prosper ; but they ask with earnestness 
 and humility of Almighty God, who illumines your minds and 
 strengthens your purpose, that through this council He may make 
 the American people more worthy of His priceless gift — their civil 
 and religious liberty. 
 
 The chairman then introduced Judge William M. Merrick, who 
 spoke as follows : 
 
 3Iost Reverend Archbishops, Right Reverend Bishops, and 3Iembers 
 of the Third Plenary Council — To you, the accredited representatives 
 and guardians of the spiritual interests of eight millions of Amer- 
 ican Catholics, the Catholic citizens of this community have deputed 
 me to extend their cordial welcome, and to express their profound 
 gratification at your presence in our midst. The assemblage of any 
 body of men, voluntary or authoritative, for the purpose of pro- 
 moting the advancement of their fellow-beings, whether in the in- 
 dustrial, the social, the scientific, the political or the moral order, 
 must always be an event of importance and of interest. The measure 
 of the importance of the assemblage is the importance of subject- 
 matter with which they are charged, and the interest felt in it de- 
 pends largely upon the character and capacity of the delegates who 
 have been brought together. How great then must be the import- 
 ance, how profound the interest, how vivid the sympathy whick
 
 THE RECEPTION. 57 
 
 attach to this august body, charged to consider of the social, the 
 moral and the spiritual welfare of the millions now existing, and 
 of the countless millions who hereafter, in this republic, will regu- 
 late their lives and frame their immortal hopes in accord with the 
 teachings of the Catholic Church. 
 
 Recognizing, as we do, that the motives which have wrought 
 to bring about this council are the binding together in good will, 
 for good purposes, of the clergy and the laity of the Church in 
 America, and the infusion into its membership of a more vigorous 
 spiritual life ; and that self-forgetfulness, self-denial, self-sacrifice are 
 the moral attributes which you individually cultivate, we tender to you 
 in your official character our veneration, and to your personal char- 
 acters our affectionate esteem and fraternal greeting. Neither the 
 adulation of individuals, nor of official station, nor anything which 
 savors of pandering to spiritual pride on the one hand, nor of 
 servile dependence on the other, can have place in the greetings 
 which the Catholic laity tender to the Catholic clergy. Such induce- 
 ments would be as distasteful to yourselves as they would be un- 
 worthy of those on whose behalf I speak. 
 
 This reception then has its whole significance in, and is meant 
 to represent the idea of, the cordial relations which exist between 
 the Catholic clergy of America as a body, and the Catholic laity 
 as a body; of the unity of sentiment which forms the bond be- 
 tween the one and the other, and of our desire to manifest before 
 the world our just sense of the benefits conferred upon society — 
 upon humanity — by the Catholic clergy of this country, who, while 
 steadily inculcating the precepts of faith, and encouraging the growth 
 of the spiritual life, and thereby aiding us to fit ourselves for 
 transit to a higher and happier sphere, moreover bear a most im- 
 portant part in advancing civilization, in stimulating and promoting 
 learning and the arts ; and by example and precept assist and en- 
 courage the laity in the due performance of all those duties which 
 make men the true-hearted citizens of a free republic, fully abreast 
 with the pro^'essive spirit of the age. Nothing is more generally 
 misunderstood than the teachings and the tendencies of the influence 
 of the Catholic Church upon republican institutions; and doubtless 
 this council has been looked upon by many with pious alarm, lest 
 it prove a congress convened to make insidious war against Ameri- 
 can freedom. Very many well-intentioned men fail to understand
 
 58 THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 how loyalty to the State can co-exist with obedience to the Church, 
 and simply because they do not know that the jurisdictional limits 
 of the Church are rigorously confined to the domain of faith and 
 morals. But if, instead of darkening counsel, candid thought were 
 directed to the Church's incessant teaching of the Redeemer's an- 
 swer — " Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to 
 God the things that are God's," and to its fundamental tenet of 
 the universal brotherhood of man ; and that in order to be our 
 Saviour it was necessary for the Holy One first to become our 
 Brother, it would necessarily be admitted that the doctrine of non- 
 intervention with forms of government is a cardinal doctrine of 
 the Catholic Church, and that its preaching of the brotherhood 
 and equality of men, and its salient precepts of self-abnegation and 
 self-sacrifice for the sake of our fellow-men, are the very radicals 
 out of which all political freedom in modern times has grown. 
 Need I, in proof, refer to the historic fact, which stands out 
 clear and vivid in spite of all calumny, that the Catholic clergy 
 of this country have never interfered with its political agitations? 
 AYas there ever an occasion on which any portion of the Catholic 
 ■clergy passed any resolve upon any political issue or for or 
 against any candidate for public favor? Need I recall to memory 
 the time when this country was torn with civil strife, and 
 agonized through four years of deadly conflict, how that, while in 
 many other Cliurch organizations there was dissension, separation 
 and denunciation, the Catholic Church kept aloof from either side ; 
 its clergymen inculcating forbearance, counselling peace and ex- 
 tending the consolations of religion without stint, and in the unity 
 of faith, to all without distinction ? Individual clergymen entertained 
 and acted upon their individual opinions as citizens on either side, 
 but never acted as heated partisans on any side. The present 
 occasion especially Avarrants me in recalling one illustrious instance 
 in affirmative proof of the natural sympatliy of the Church with 
 our institutions. 
 
 I refer to your great predecessor, sir — to the Most Rev. John 
 Carroll, the first Archbishop of Baltimore, the companion and in- 
 timate friend of Washington, a zealous advocate of American 
 independence, and the author of that beautiful prayer published 
 by authority, and recited publicly every Sunday in our churches, 
 in which we say : " Let the light of Thy divine wisdom, direct
 
 THE RECEPTION. 59 
 
 the deliberations of Congress, and shine forth in all their pro- 
 ceedings and laws, framed for our rule and government, so that 
 they may tend to the preservation of peace-, the promotion of 
 national happiness, the increase of industry, sobriety and useful 
 knowledge, and may perpetuate to us the blessings of equal liberty." 
 Yes ! here is an authentic teaching of the American Catholic 
 >Church, found in the prayer that the acts of our national gov- 
 ernment may be directed by the light of divine wisdom, to the 
 perpetuation of our American liberty. Surely when the invocation 
 suggested to his flock by the first Primate of America, and sanc- 
 tioned by the unbroken usage of his successors, goes np, through 
 itlie revolving years, from the earnest hearts of millions of 
 Catholic citizens, for the perpetuation of the blessings of equal 
 liberty, the imputation of hostility to republican institutions, in the 
 "teachings or in the spirit of the Catholic Church, has been thereby 
 met, and effectually refuted. The unexampled growth of the Catholic 
 faith in this country, moreover, proves that it flourishes best in an 
 atmosphere of perfect freedom of thought and opinion, of free dis- 
 cussion and untrammelled action. Just one hundred years ago, in 
 l^ovember, 1784, the venerable prelate, whose name I have men- 
 tioned, received official notification of his appointment as the 
 :spiritual superior of the Catholic clergy of the United States; by 
 which act the Church in America became an organized body, 
 in place of consisting of scattered and dependent missions. At 
 that time the Catholics numbered about 16,000 in Maryland, about 
 7,000 in Pennsylvania, and a very few thousand in other States, 
 not counting the Canadian French and their descendants in the 
 territory to the Avestward of the Ohio, and on the borders of the 
 Mississippi. 
 
 At this centennial date more than eight millions may be com- 
 puted within the republic. This could not have come to pass 
 were free thought and free institutions uncongenial to the devel- 
 opment of the Church. It must be obvious then to anyone who 
 will reflect for a moment upon these suggestions, that even the 
 inferior motives of temporal advantage concur with those of the 
 highest and noblest type in binding the cause of human liberty 
 with that of revealed religion. 
 
 But not only is the spirit of the Church in accord with the 
 largest liberty of citizenship; it has nothing to fear, nor does it
 
 60 THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 shrink from the greatest freedom of philosophic and scientific in- 
 quiry. At tlie foundation of Christianity it encountered all the 
 ancient schools of philosophy in turn ; Stoic, Pythagorean, Epi- 
 curean, and the rest. And all along the tract of its early history 
 the successive speculative opinions which it encountered, and the 
 successive heresies of prominence which it combatted and overthrew, 
 had their support in the subtlest operalaons of the acutest in- 
 tellects of those times. 
 
 The Church did not hesitate to encounter its adversaries in* the 
 very field of human reason which they selected. Excelling them 
 in the use of their own weapons, it converted those weapons into 
 instruments of its own triumph, and witli a wise magnanimity it 
 has preserved and been really the only means of preserving the 
 memory of those schools and systems from oblivion. It has made 
 the learning of those schools the monument of its own glory ; and 
 in its turn has been and is now the patron of intellectual 
 development. 
 
 One of the tenets of the Epicurean school still survives, and 
 remains in a modified form among the most dangerous impedi- 
 ments to fliith. I mean the opinion that the distance between 
 Divinity and man is so great that He has no concern, or rather 
 sympathy, with humanity, and that therefore any and all creeds 
 and religious requirements, whether for the regulation of our con- 
 duct here or as incentives to effort for immortal happiness, are 
 without sanctions to uphold them and are utterly fruitless. Another, 
 more ignoble, but at this immediate present fer more captivating 
 error, is that arising out of an illogical application of the doc- 
 trine of evolution, to whi-ch recent investigations in material phi- 
 losophy have lent an exaggerated importance. In the progress of 
 inquiry perverted intellectual pride has stepped in to suggest that 
 man's own greatness is enhanced by denying his dependence upon 
 a creating God, and by ascribing his origin and his powers to some 
 obscure moving cause, out of which his present state and the 
 present condition of other things in their order are emanations. 
 Being persuaded that he is the best teacher of revealed religion 
 who has sounded the depths of human philosophy, and that he 
 will be the most devout Christian who has learned the utter in- 
 sufficiency of philosophy to illuminate his pathway through the 
 unknown, the Church through its ministers has not for an instant
 
 THE RECEPTION. 61 
 
 avoided the challenge to enter the field of historic and philosophic 
 inquiry, and to invite and stimulate its laity to do the same. 
 ^o matter how far the telescope of the astromoraer may penetrate ; 
 no matter how many immeasurable worlds may be proved to exist 
 "beyond those now dreamed of, it knows that God is still there, 
 and the more and more overwhelming is the necessity for His 
 presence ; no matter how minute and how perfect in the de- 
 scending scale the organisms which the microscope discloses, yet 
 more and more it demonstrates that only the constructive and sus- 
 taining powers of a divine Architect are capable of causing these 
 harmonious developments. But with or without a law of devel- 
 opment, reason must pause before some final and impulsive point. 
 Failino; at last the intellect must turn to revelation for aid. And 
 then steps forward the Church, repeating to reason one of its own 
 forgotten truths, that the finite cannot measure the infinite, that 
 the less cannot prescribe a law to the greater. And with reason 
 thus baffled and humbled she addresses the heart : Can it be an 
 indignity or a degradation to receive a favor from one whom you 
 have loved, from one whom you know to be prompted by an im- 
 measurable love for yourself? Behold if there were the sting of 
 dependence in creation it is taken away by the brotherhood of 
 redemption ; and man is lifted by gratuitous aid to an immortal 
 rank far higher than the wildest dreams of intellectual pride could 
 ■ever reach. The law of love reconciles science with religion, man 
 with his Maker. I have thus ventured, on this festal occasion, 
 and although these topics have been exhaustively treated from the 
 pulpit by two eminent bishops during the sittings of this council, 
 to refer to the harmony between patriotism and religion, and 
 between science and revelation, for the especial purpose of em- 
 phasizing the feeling and the conviction of the laity as to the 
 true attitude of the Catholic clergy of America toward these ques- 
 tions, so that it may be fully understood how well grounded are 
 the interest we feel in the deliberations with which you, venerable 
 men, are now engaged, and our confident assurance that the reg- 
 ulations which you may formulate Mill not fall short of the 
 exigencies of the times, and will tend to the vast enlargement of 
 your field of wholesome influence upon religion and upon society. 
 One hundred years ago there were nineteen priests in Maryland 
 and five in Pennsylvania ; of these, four, through age and infirmity.
 
 62 THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 almost entirely unfit for any service. Oh ! if that feeble and de- 
 voted band could have seen, as perhaps in the visions of Chris- 
 tian confidence and hope they did see, this vast gathering of arch- 
 bishops, bishops and mitred abbots, what would have been their 
 exultation. We, 4110 descendants of the men whom they taught 
 and succored, here on the soil consecrated by their humble labors,, 
 in the enjoyment of the heritage of liberty and religion which we 
 have received, calling to mind that past to make us more sensible 
 of the countless blessings of the present, again welcome you, ven- 
 erable Fathers and dear friends, to the hearts and firesides of a 
 grateful people. 
 
 When Judge Merrick sat down Mr. O'Brien said : " I have 
 
 now the honor to present to you Archbishop Williams, of Boston,, 
 
 who will make the reply on behalf of the prelates." Archbishop 
 Williams said : 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen — Your representatives, in their address to- 
 the prelates of the third Plenary Council of Baltimore, welcome 
 them to your hearts and to your firesides. We have reason to 
 believe in the sincerity of this welcome, judging by the past, as the 
 prelates of former councils have already proved the whole-souled 
 heartedness of the Catholics of Baltimore. We of the present council 
 have already proved it for ourselves. The open house of your 
 respected and well-beloved archbishop ; of your numerous and gen- 
 erous clergy, and of so many of your distinguished laity have 
 already told us that Baltimore still treasures the old traditions, and 
 that no matter how numerous may be the members of a council, 
 the Catholics of this city will always have a welcome for them in, 
 their hearts and at their firesides. 
 
 And we on our side bring to your city feelings diiferent from 
 those we should carry to any other city of this great republic. 
 Here we find our Mother Church. Here we find the home of 
 him Avho, one hundred years ago, Avas appointed over the young 
 Church of the United States, with less than thirty thousand Catholics, 
 and less than thirty priests, and to-day his illustrious successor, in 
 his venerated Cathedral, surrounded by a numerous, pious and well- 
 educated clergy, as Apostolic Delegate presides over a third Plenary 
 Council, with thirteen archbishops, sixty bishops, seven mitred abbots, 
 Roman prelates, thirty-five superiors of religious orders, eleven
 
 Most Rev. John J. Williams, DD.
 
 THE RECEPTION. 63^ 
 
 heads of theological seminaries, and nearly one hundred theologians 
 chosen from eveiy portion of our great country. Such a growth 
 in a single century is unparalleled ; and yet the greater portion of 
 it has taken place in the last half century. The Catholic Church 
 does not look upon this growth as one of its glories. It is the 
 glory of our country and of its government which has attracted 
 men from every nation to our shores. Here they found peace front 
 persecution, deliverance from laws that oppressed them. Here they 
 are welcome and admitted to all the rights of citizenship. But the 
 glory of the Catholic Church in this country is that in the face of 
 this wonderful increase it has not yet been found wanting. It is 
 impossible to realize all that had to be done to meet the wants of 
 these millions of Catholics who have poured into these United 
 States during the last fifty years. The priests to be found or 
 ordained, the churches to be built, the schools, the hospitals, the 
 asylums to be provided, the dioceses to be erected, the ecclesiastical 
 provinces to be established, and all this to be done with judgment 
 and with wise forecast for the future. But the wisdom and untiring; 
 zeal of the bishops and their clergy, with the continued and un- 
 limited generosity of the faithful were ever ready to meet whatever 
 was necessary; and the success of their united efforts is as Avonderful 
 as the increase which called them forth. But why do I recite 
 these events? Because in Baltimore this work of the Church began,. 
 in Baltimore it was carried out. In the Councils of Baltimore^ 
 under the leadership of your noble archbishops and the guidance 
 of the Holy See, have been framed those wise regulations which 
 have directed the young Church of America and enabled her to 
 carry out successfully her difficult mission. 
 
 Well may you cherish your venerable Cathedral of Baltimore. 
 Other cathedrals larger and more costly may be built, but this 
 Mother Church has memories and glories which can never belong 
 to another. Here was the scene of the labors of those old 
 champions of the early Church; here their voices resounded in 
 times gone by, and filled her dome with the power of their 
 eloquence. These champions are nearly all gone. But to our joy, 
 one of them has returned again to Baltimore to speak to us the 
 traditions of glorious days, and aid us by his wisdom and ex- 
 perience. Although advanced in years he has still all his mental 
 vigor and physical vitality. Another there is, who is with us only
 
 64 THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 in spirit, our Cardinal Prince. His presence here would have made 
 our joy complete, — and how fittingly, how gracefully, how eloquently 
 he Avould answered your address and expressed the satisfaction 
 of the prelates of this council at the reception you have given 
 them this evening. In conclusion, allow me to recall one more 
 reason why all Catholics, and indeed all lovers of their country, 
 should cherish the name of fair Maryland. It is tlie memory of 
 that noble inheritence left you by your fathers who, having left 
 England to find peace in the exercise of their religion, and having 
 come to these shores, not only left, but established as far as lay 
 in their power, what here they found — -freedom to worship God.
 
 CONGRATULATING THE APOSTOLIC DELEGATE. 
 
 AFTER the signing of the decrees at the last public session of 
 the third Plenary Council, Sunday, December 7, 1884, the Most 
 Hev. Peter R. Kenrick, of St. Louis, who is the senior arch- 
 bishop of the hierarchy, advanced to the foot of the altar, and, 
 half facing the Apostolic Delegate, thanked him for the able manner 
 in which he had presided over the deliberations of the council, 
 and the clergy and laity of Baltimore for their hospitality, which 
 he said the members would always remember M-ith feelings of pride 
 and happiness. Of the work of the council he said it would be 
 sure to be followed with beneficial results. " More than a half 
 •century," continued the venerable speaker, " has passed since the 
 first Plenary Council, when I stood beneath the dome of this 
 •cathedral a silent spectator of the deliberations of that body. I 
 had never seen a more sublime sight. It was not this grand old 
 building, nor the gorgeous vestments, nor the dulcet strains of the 
 music which seemed to come from heaven that inspired me ; it 
 was that assemblage of men, from all parts of the country, with 
 different ideas and sentiments, but with one common end in view — 
 the good of our Church." The archbishop spoke with great emo- 
 tion when he referred to the pleasant memories of the two former 
 Plenary Councils, of both of which he was a member. He is now 
 over seventy-seven years. 
 
 When he had resumed his scat Archbishop Gibbons, moving 
 to the edge of the platform, replied to the address of the Arch- 
 bishop of St. Louis, saying : 
 
 I cannot sufficiently express the thanks I feel. Most Reverend, 
 Right Reverend and Reverend Fathers, for the sentiments uttered 
 by your venerated representative, the Most Rev. Archbishop of 
 St. Louis. Whatever success has attended my part of the work 
 I attribute, under God, to your kind forbearance and unfailing 
 
 E (65)
 
 66 THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 benevolonce towards me. Mindful of the words of the Apostle, 
 you have not despised my youth. 
 
 I have witnessed the proceedings of the greatest deliberative 
 bodies in the Avorld — I liavc listened to debates in the House of 
 Commons, the French Chambers and both Houses of Congress ; 
 I have attended provincial, national and ecumenical councils — but 
 never did I Avitnes.5 more order or decorum, more earnest debates 
 joined with unfailing courtesy ; never did I witness a more hearty 
 acquiescence in the voice of the majority than in the third Plenary 
 Council of Baltimore. Venerable Fathers, we have met as bishops 
 of a common faith ; we part as brothers bound by the closest ties 
 of charity. We have met, many of us strangers to one another ; we 
 part as dearest friends. Though diifering in nationality, in language, 
 in habits, in tastes, in local interests as was said to-day by the 
 eloquent Bishop of Peoria, Ave met as members of the same im- 
 mortal episcopate, having one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one 
 God and Father of all. And if the Holy Father, whose portrait 
 adorns our council chamber, could speak from the canvass, well 
 could he exclaim : " Behold how good and how pleasant a thing it is 
 for brethren to dwell together in unity." The words you have spoken 
 in council, like good seed, are yet hidden from the eyes of man, 
 but they will one day rise and bring forth fruit of sanctification. 
 The decrees you have formulated will one day resound throughout 
 the length and breadth of the land. They will foster discipline 
 and piety ; they will quicken the faith and cheer the hearts of 
 millions of Catholics. 
 
 The joy with which we welcomed you to Baltimore, venerable 
 Fathers, is equalled only by the sorrow we feel at your departure. 
 The clergy and people of this city, whose honored guests you 
 were, have cherished you with all the filial affection and reverence 
 which the faithful of Ephesus had for the Apostle of the Gentiles, 
 and their regret at your departure is as sincere as was that of 
 the Christians of Ephesus at the departure , of their beloved 
 Apostle. They will follow you with their prayers and best wishes 
 for your safe return and a long life of usefulness in your 
 respective dioceses. 
 
 This is tlie last time tliat we sliall assemble again under the 
 dome of this venerable cathedral, with the portraits of God's saints 
 looking down upon us, as the venerable archbishop has said. He
 
 CONGRATULATING THE APOSTOLIC DELEGATE. 67 
 
 has reminded us of our short tenure of life. But we are immortal. 
 God grant that the scene of to-day may be a presage of our 
 future reunion in the temple above not made with hands, in the 
 company of God's living saints, where, clothed in white robes and 
 palms in our hands, we shall sing benediction, and honor, and 
 glory to our God forever.
 
 THE ACCLAMATIONS. 
 
 AT the close of the council, it is usual for the Fathers to chant, 
 in alternate choirs, certain Acclamations, which are at once a 
 profession of their faith in the Church, of their good will toward 
 their brethren, and of their best wishes for the peace and pros- 
 perity of the country and the welfare of their fellow-citizens. The 
 following was the wording of these Acclamations in the third Plenary 
 Council of Baltimore : 
 
 Chanter. To the most Holy and Undivided Trinity, eternal glory 
 and thanksgiving ! 
 
 Chorus. The Charity of the Father, the Grace of the Son, the 
 Communication of the Holy Ghost, O Blessed Trinity ! 
 
 Chant. To the most Blessed Mary, preserved from Original Sin, 
 through the foreseen merits of her Son, the bountiful Patroness 
 of these United States, praise and veneration ! 
 
 Chor. Blessed be the Virgin Mother of God, conceived without 
 Original Sin, who is the Tower of Ivory from which are sus- 
 pended a thousand shields, the entire armor of the strong ! 
 
 Chant. To our Holy Pontiff, Pope Leo XIII, happily reigning, 
 the visible Head of the whole Church, and the true Vicar of 
 Christ on earth, unfading prosperity, eternal memory ! 
 
 Chor. May the Lord fulfill the petitions of our most Holy 
 Father, and may He confirm all his judgments against the ene- 
 mies of the most beloved Spouse of Christ, so that they may 
 come to nought, like water that floweth away, and may they fail 
 like the smoke which vanisheth ! 
 
 Chant. To the most illustrious and most Eevercnd Archbishop 
 of Baltimore, Delegate of the Apostolic See, by whose labor and 
 exertions this Plenary Council has been assembled, directed, and 
 brought to a happy issue, manifold graces with many years ! 
 
 Chor. Manifold graces with many years ! May the Lord grant 
 him the reward of his work ; may he receive an unfading crown 
 of glory ! 
 
 (68)
 
 THE ACCLAMATIONS. 69 
 
 Chant. To the most illustrious and Rev. Archbishops and Bishops 
 who have adorned this council by their learning and wisdom, a 
 happy return to their flocks, long , life, and all prosperity from 
 God! 
 
 Ghor. Everlasting peace, the most plentiful benediction of the 
 Almighty, and a blessed reward of their labors ! 
 
 Chant. To the Right Rev. Abbots, and Very Rev. Superiors 
 of Religious Communities, and also to the Rev. Theologians, who, 
 by their learning and labor, have aided the prelates in the man- 
 agement of the work, increase of grace, eternal happiness ! 
 
 Chor. May the Lord grant them, according to His goodness, 
 every perfect gift ! May the God of wisdom, and the unfading 
 Fountain of true light, illumine their minds with the light of 
 heavenly glory, cherish them by His grace, and strengthen them 
 in virtue ! 
 
 Chant. To the Rev. Clergy of these States, and the whole flock 
 of Christ, salvation and benediction from the Lord ! 
 
 Chor. Show them, O Lord, Thy ways, and direct them in Thy 
 truth, that they may not forget the works of the Most High, and 
 that they may fulfill His Commandments ! 
 
 Chant. To our great and cherished republic, supreme peace, full 
 prosperity, and the overflowing benediction of Almighty God I 
 
 Chor. Grant peace, O Lord, in our days, because there is no 
 one to fight for us but Thee, our God ! 
 
 Chant. To all the people of these United States, unfailing peace, 
 indissoluble concord ! 
 
 Chor. Confirm, O God, what Thou has wrought in them, that 
 all disturbance being removed, Ave may freely serve Thee with one 
 heart and one soul ! 
 
 Chant. To all the faithful departed, who have gone before us 
 with the sign of faith, and repose in the sleep of peace ! 
 
 Chor. Eternal rest grant to them, O Lord, and may perpetual 
 light shine upon them ! 
 
 Chant. And may we, as the Apostle commandeth, obey our 
 prelates, and observe their commands, that with joy they may 
 watch over us, as having to render an account of our souls ! 
 
 Chor. So be it ! so be it ! amen ! amen !
 
 MEMBERS OF THE COUNCIL 
 
 APOSTOLIC DELEGATE. 
 
 Most Kev. James Gibbons, D.D., Archbishop of Baltimore. 
 
 CARDINAL ARCHBISHOP. 
 
 His Eminence John Cardinal McCloskey, D.D., Archbishop of New 
 York. (Absent through illness.) 
 
 ARCHBISHOPS. 
 
 Most Kev. Joseph S. Alemany, D.D., Archbishop of San Francisco. 
 Most. Eev. INIichael A. Corrigan, D.D., Titular Archbishop of Petra 
 
 and Coadjutor of New York. 
 Most Kev. William H. Elder, D.D., Archbishop of Cincinnati. 
 Most Kev. Patrick A. Feehan, D.D., Archbishop of Chicago. 
 Most Kev. Michael Heiss, D.D., Archbishop of Milwaukee. 
 Most Kev. Peter K. Kenrick, D.D., Archbishop of St. Louis. 
 Most Kev. John B. Lamy, D.D., Archbishop of Santa Fe. 
 Most Kev. Francis X. Leray, D.D., Archbishop of New Orleans. 
 Most Kev. Patrick W. Kiordan, D.D., Titular Archbishop of Cabasa 
 
 and Coadjutor of San Francisco. 
 Most Kev. Patrick J. Kyan, D.D., Archbishop of Philadelphia. 
 Most Kev. John B. Salpointe, Titular Archbishop of Anazanba 
 
 and Coadjutor of Santa Fe. 
 Most Kev. Charles J. Seghcrs, D.D., Archbishop of Oregon City. 
 Most Kev. John J. Williams, D.D., Archbishop of Boston. 
 
 BISHOPS. 
 
 Kight Kev. Peter J. Baltes, D.D., Bishop of Alton. (Absent through 
 
 sickness.) 
 Kight Kev. Thomas A. Becker, D.D., Bishop of Wilmington. 
 Kiglit Kev. Caspar H. Borgess, D.D., Bishoj) of Detroit. 
 Kight Kev. Dennis Bradley, D.D., ]5ishop of Manchester. 
 Kight Kev. John B. Brondcl, D.D., Bishop of Helena. 
 Kight Kev. Francis S. Chatard, D.D., Bishop of Vincennes. 
 
 (70)
 
 MEMBERS OF THE COUNCIL. 71 
 
 Eight Eev. John J. Conroy, D.D., Titular Bishop of Curium. 
 
 Right Rev. Henry Cosgrove, D.D., Bishop of Davenport. 
 
 Right Rev. C. M. Dubuis, (Resigned) Bishop of Galveston. (Ab- 
 sent in France and sick.) 
 
 Right Rev. Joseph Dwenger, D.D., Bishop of Fort Wayne. 
 
 Right Rev. Louis M. Fink, O.S.B., D.D., Bishop of Leavenworth. 
 
 Right Rev. Edward Fitzgerald, D.D., Bishop of Little Rock. 
 
 Right Rev. Kilian C. Flasch, D.D., Bishop of La Crosse. 
 
 Right Rev. Nicholas A. Gallagher, D.D., Titular Bishop of Canopus 
 and Administrator of Galveston. 
 
 Right Rev. Richard Gilmour, D.D., Bishop of Cleveland. 
 
 Right Rev. Louis De Goesbriand, D.D., Bishop of Burlington. 
 
 Right Rev. A. J. Glorieux, D.D., Vicar Apostolic Elect of Idaho. 
 
 Right Rev. Thomas L. Grace, D.D., Titular Bishop of Mennith. 
 
 Right Rev. William H. Gross, D.D,, Bishop of Savannah. 
 
 Right Rev. James A. Healy, D.D., Bishop of Portland. 
 
 Right Rev. Thomas F. Hendricken, D.D., Bishop of Providence. 
 
 Right Rev. John Hennessy, D.D., Bishop of Dubuque. 
 
 Right Rev. John J. Hogan, D.D., Bishop of Kansas City and 
 Administrator of St. Joseph. 
 
 Right Rev. John Ireland, D.D., Bishop of St. Paul. 
 
 Right Rev. Francis Janssens, D.D., Bishop of Natchez. 
 
 Right Rev. ^gidius Junger, D.D., Bishop of Nesqually. 
 
 Right Rev. John J. Ivain, D.D., Bishop of Wheeling. 
 
 Right Rev. John J. Keane, D.D., Bishop of Richmond. 
 
 Right Rev. Francis X. Krautbauer, D.D., Bishop of Green Bay. 
 
 Right Rev. John Loughlin, D.D., Bishop of Brooklyn. 
 
 Right Rev. Joseph P. Machebeuf, D.D., Titular Bishop of Epiphany 
 and Vicar Apostolic of Colorado. 
 
 Right Rev. Camillus P. Maes, D.D., Bishop Elect of Coviugton. 
 
 Right Rev. Patrick Manogue, D.D., Bishop of Grass Valley. 
 
 Right Rev. Dominic Manucy, D.D., Administrator of Mobile and 
 Brownsville. 
 
 Right Rev. Martin Marty, O.S.B., D.D., Titular Bishop of Tiberias 
 and. Vicar Apostolic of Dakota. 
 
 Right Rev. John Moore, D.D., Bishop of St. Augustine. 
 
 Right Rev. Francis Mora, D.D., Bishop of Monterey and Los 
 Angeles. 
 
 Right Rev. Ignatius Mrak, D.D., Titular Bishop of Antinoe. (Ab- 
 sent through sickness.)
 
 72 THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 ■Right Rev. Tobias Mullen, D.D., Bishop of Erie. 
 
 Right Rev. "William G. McCloskey, D.D., Bishop of Louisville, 
 
 Right Rev. Lawrence S. McMahon, D.D., Bishop of Hartford. 
 
 Right Rev. Francis McNeirny, D.D., Bishop of Albany. 
 
 Right Rev. Bernard J. McQiiaid, D.D., Bishop of Rochester. 
 
 Right Rev. John C. Neraz, D.D., Bishop of San Antonio. 
 
 Right Rev. Henry P. Northrop, D.D., Bishop of Charleston. 
 
 Right Rev. Eagene O'Connell, D.D., Titular Bishop ofJoppa. 
 
 Right Rev. James O'Connor, D.D., Titular Bishop of Dibona and 
 Vicar Apostolic of Nebraska. 
 
 Right Rev. Michael J. O'Farrell, D.D., Bishop of Trenton. 
 
 Right Rev. AVilliam O'Hara, D.D., Bishop of Seranton. 
 
 Right Rev. Patrick T. O'Reilly, D.D., Bishop of Springfield. 
 
 Right Rev. Joseph Rademacher, D.D., Bishop of Nashville. 
 
 Right Rev. Henry J. Richter, D.D., Bishop of Grand Rapids. 
 
 Right Rev. Isidore Robot, O.S.B., Prefect Apostolic of Indian 
 Territory. 
 
 Right Rev. Stephen V. Ryan, D.D., Bishop of Buffalo. 
 
 Right Rev. Rupert Seidenbusch, O.S.B., D.D., Titular Bishop of 
 Halia and Vicar Apostolic of Northern Minnesota. 
 
 Right Rev. Jeremiah F. Shanahan, D.D., Bishop of Harrisburg. 
 
 Right Rev. John L. Spalding, D.D., Bishop of Peoria. 
 
 Right Rev. John Tuigg, D.J)., Bishop of Pittsburg and Adminis- 
 trator of Allegheny. (Absent through sickness.) 
 
 Right Rev. John Vertin, D.D., Bishop of Marquette and Saut 
 Ste. Marie. 
 
 Right Rev. Edgar P. Wadhams, D.D., Bishop of Ogdensburg. 
 
 Right Rev. John A. Wattcrson, D.D., Bishop of Columbus. 
 
 Right Rev. Winand M. Wiggcr, D.D., Bishop of Newark. 
 
 VISITING PRELATES. 
 
 Most Rev. John J. Lynch, D.D., Archbishop of Toronto, Canada. 
 Most Rev. Cornelius O'Brien, D.D., Archbishop of Halifax. 
 Right Rev. James J. Carbery, D.D., Bishop of Hamilton, Ontario. 
 Right Rev. J. V. Cleary, D.D., Bishop of Kingston, Ontario. 
 Right Rev. Joseph T. Duhamel, D.D., Bishop of Ottawa, Ontario. 
 Right Rev. T. T. O'Mahony, D.D., Coadjutor Bishop of Toronto, 
 
 Canada. 
 Right Rev. J. Osouf, D.D,. Vicar Apostolic of Northern Japan. 
 Right Rev. John Walsh, D.D., Bishop of London, Canada.
 
 MEMBERS OF THE COUNCIL. 73 
 
 PROCURATOES. 
 
 Very Rev. E. H. Brandts, Administrator of Covington. 
 
 Very Rev. John N. Lemmens, Procurator of the Administrator of 
 Vancouver's Island. 
 
 Very Rev. R. Phelan, V.G., Procurator of the Bishop of Pitts- 
 burg. 
 
 Very Rev. F. H. Zabel, D.D., Procurator of the Bishop of Alton. 
 
 MITRED ABBOTS. 
 
 Right Rev. Maria Benedict, Trappist, Abbot, Abbey of Our Lady 
 of La Trappe, Gethsemani, Kentucky 
 
 Right Rev. Frowenus Conrad, O.S.B., Abbot, New Engelberg Ab- 
 bey, Conception, Missouri. 
 
 Right Rev. Alexius Edelbrock, O.S.B,, Abbot, St. John's Abbey, 
 College ville, Minnesota. 
 
 Right Rev. Fintan Mundwiler, O.S.B., Abbot, St. Meinrad's Abbey, 
 Indiana. 
 
 Right Rev. Boniface AVimmer, O.S.B. , Archabbot of St. Vincent's 
 Abbey, Pa., and President of the American Cassinese Con- 
 gregation. 
 
 Right Rev. Innocent Wolf, O.S.B., Abbot, Abbey of St. Bene- 
 dict, Atchison, Kansas. 
 
 DOMESTIC PRELATES OF HIS HOLINESS. 
 
 Right Rev. Patrick Allen. 
 
 Right Rev. Leonard Bat/. (Absent.) 
 
 Right Rev. Julian Benoit, V.G. (Absent.) 
 
 Right Rev. August Bessonies, V.G. 
 
 Right Rev. James A. Corcoran, D,D. 
 
 Right Rev. George Doane. 
 
 Right Rev. Thomas Preston, V.G., LL.D. 
 
 Right Rev. William Quinn, V.G. 
 
 Right Rev. Robert Seton, D.D., Apostolic Protho- 
 notary. 
 
 PRIVATE CHAMBERLAINS OF HIS HOLINESS. 
 
 Very Rev. Henry Cliiver, D.D. 
 Very Rev. John ]\r. Farley. 
 Very Rev. John Sullivan, V.G.
 
 74 THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 SUPERIORS OF RELIGIOUS ORDERS. 
 
 Very Rev. A. Aigueperse, S.P.M. 
 
 Very Rev. ]\I. Albcrick, Trappist, Superior of Kew 
 
 Melleray Abbey, Dubuque, Iowa. 
 Very Rev. John B. Bigot, S.M. 
 Very Rev. Leopold Bushart, S.J. 
 Very Rev. Theobald Butler, S.J. 
 Very Rev. Joseph Cataldo, S.J. 
 Very Rev. Nicholas Congiato, S.J. (Absent.) 
 Very Rev. Henry Drees, C.P.P.S. 
 Very Rev. Hyacinth Epp, O.M.Cap. 
 Very Rev. Cyrille Fournier, C.S.V. 
 Very Rev. Bonaventure Frey, O.M.Cap. 
 Very Rev. Robert Fulton, S.J. 
 Very Rev. Aloysius M. Gentile, S.J. 
 Very Rev. Lucas Gottbehoede, O.S.F. 
 Very Rev. Vincent Halbfass, O.S.F. 
 
 Isaac T. Hecker, C.S.P. 
 
 Alfred Leeson, S. St. J. 
 
 Joseph Lesen, O.M.C., D.D. 
 
 John J. Lessmann, S.J. 
 
 Michael D. Lilly, O.P. 
 
 William Loewekamp, C.SS.R. 
 
 A. Mandine, CM. 
 
 Pius R. Mayer, O.C.C. 
 
 Augustine Morini, O.S. 
 
 C. A. McEvoy, O.S.A. 
 
 James McGrath, O.M.I. 
 
 Theophilus Pospisilik, O.S.F. 
 
 John N. Reinbolt, S. Fr. M. 
 
 Damasus Ruesing, O.S.F. 
 
 Elias F. Schaner, C.SS.R. 
 
 Thomas Smith, CM. 
 
 E. Sorin, CS.C 
 
 Thomas Steffanini, CP. 
 
 James Strub, CS.Sp. 
 
 Francis S. Vilarrassa, O.P. (Absent.) 
 
 Very 
 
 Rev. 
 
 Very 
 
 Rev. 
 
 Very 
 
 Rev. 
 
 Very 
 
 Rev. 
 
 Very 
 
 Rev. 
 
 Very 
 
 Rev. 
 
 Very 
 
 Rev. 
 
 Very 
 
 Rev. 
 
 Very 
 
 Rev. 
 
 Very 
 
 Rev. 
 
 Very 
 
 Rev. 
 
 Very 
 
 Rev. 
 
 Very 
 
 Rev. 
 
 Very 
 
 Rev. 
 
 Very 
 
 Rev. 
 
 Very 
 
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 Rev. 
 
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 Rev.
 
 MEMBERS OF THE COUNCIL. ' 75 
 
 SUPERIORS OF THEOLOGICAL SEMINARIES. 
 
 "Very Eev. William Byrne, V.G., D.D., Superior of Mt. St. Mary's 
 
 Seminary, Emmitsburg. 
 ^ery Rev. Patrick V. Cavauagh, CM., Superior of the Seminary 
 
 of Our Lady of the Angels, BuiFalo 
 Very Rev. James Corrigan, Superior of the Seminary of the 
 
 Immaculate Conception, Newark. 
 Very Rev. Henry Gabriels, D.D., Superior of St. Joseph's Sulpician 
 
 Seminary, Troy. 
 Very Rev. J. W. Hickey, CM., Superior of St. Vincent's Seminary, 
 
 Cape Girardeau. 
 Very Rev. John B. Hogan, S.S., D.D., Superior of St. John's 
 
 Sulpician Seminary, Brighton, Boston. 
 Very Rev. William Kieran, D.D., Superior of the Seminary of 
 
 St. Charles Borromeo, Overbrook, Philadelphia. 
 Very Rev. Alphousus Magnien, S.S., D.D., Superior of the Seminary 
 
 of St. Sulpice, Baltimore. 
 Very Rev. Nicholas A. Moes, Superior of St. Mary's Seminary, 
 
 Cleveland. 
 Very Rev. George McCloskey, V.G., Superior of Preston Park 
 
 Seminary, Louisville. (Absent,) 
 Very Rev. Theophile Pospisilik, O.S.F., Superior of the Seminary 
 
 of St. Bonaventure, Buifalo. 
 Very Rev. Augustine Zeininger, Superior of the Seminary of St. 
 
 Francis of Sales, Milwaukee. 
 
 THEOLOGIANS. 
 
 Rev. P. M. Abbelen, for the Archbisbop of Milwaukee. 
 
 Rev. John C Albrinck, for the Archbishop of Cincinnati. 
 
 Very Rev. John E. Barry, V.G. for the Bishop of Manchester. 
 
 Rev. Ferdinand Bergmeyer, O.S.F., for the Bishop of Vincennes. 
 
 Rev. Thomas Bonacum, for the Archbishop of St. Louis. 
 
 Rev. Henry A. Brann, D.D., for the Coadjutor Archbishop of San 
 
 Francisco. 
 Rev. Thomas M. A. Burke, for the Bishop of Little Rock. 
 Rev. Richard L. Burtscll, D.D., for the Bishop of St. Augustine. 
 Rev. Thomas S. Byrne, for the Archbishop of Cincinnati. 
 Very Rev. Edward Cafferty, V.G., for the Bishop of Savannah. 
 Rev. Nicholas Cantwell, for the Archbishop of Philadelphia.
 
 76 ' THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 Very Rev. Thomas Casey, V.G., for the Bisliop of Erie. 
 
 Rev. William F. Clarke, S.J., for the Administrator of Galveston. 
 
 Very Rev. P. J. Conway, V.G., for the Archbishop of Chicago. 
 
 Right Rev. J. A. Corcoran, D.D., for the Archbishop of Philadelphia. 
 
 Rev. Alfred A. Curtis, for the Archbishop of Oregon City. 
 
 Very Rev. Leo Da Sarracena, O.S.F., for the Bishop of Hartford. 
 
 Rev. Isidore Daubresse, S.J., for the Coadjutoi* Archbishop of New 
 
 York. 
 Rev. Emil De Augustinis, S.J., for the Apositolic Delegate. 
 Rev. Januarius De Concilio, for the Vicar Apostolic of Nebraska. 
 Rev. Edmund Didier, for the Titular Bishop of Joppa. 
 Right Rev. Geo. H. Doane, for the Coadjutor Archbishop of Santa Fe. 
 Rev. Robert Doman, for the Bishop of Detroit. 
 Rev. Francis S. Dumont, S.S., for the Bishop of Richmond. 
 Rev. E. Durier, for the Archbishop of New Orleans. 
 Rev. Edward R. Dyer, S.S., D.D., for the Vicar A.postolic of Colorada.. 
 Rev. John T. Gaitley, for the Bishop of Nesqually. 
 Rev. Joseph Giustiniani, CM., for the Bishop of Monterey and 
 
 Los Angeles. 
 Rev. Charles Goldsmith, S.T.B., for the Bishop of La Crosse. 
 Rev. F. Goller, for the Archbishop of St. Louis. 
 Rev. Thomas Griffin, for the Bishop of Springfield. 
 Rev. Matthew Harkins, for the Archbishop of Boston. 
 Rev. A. V. Higgins, O.P., S.T.M., for the Bishop of Columbus. 
 Rev. J. B. Hogan, S.S., D.D., for the Archbishop of Boston. 
 Very Rev. Michael Hurley, V.G., for the Bishop of Peoria. 
 Very Rev. Frederick Katzer, V.G., for the Bishop of Green Bay. 
 Rev. Benjamin J. Keiley, Ph.D., for the Bishop of Wilmington. 
 Rev. Jas. T. Keogh, for the Archbishop of Milwaukee. 
 Rev. Henry F. Ivinnerny, for the Bishop of Providence. 
 Rev. Thomas S. Lee, for the Archbishop of New Orleans. 
 Very Rev. Christopher Linnenkamp, V.G., for the Bishop of Kansas 
 
 City. 
 Rev. Bernard Locnikar, O.S.B., for the Vicar Apostolic of Northern 
 
 Minnesota. 
 Very Rev. P. A. Luddcn, V.G., for the Bishop of Albany. 
 Very Rev. Dwight E. Lyman, V.F., for the Bishop of Helena. 
 Very Rev. Thomas Lynch, V.G., for the Bishop of Burlington. 
 Rev. James F. Mackin, for tlie Archbishop of Oregon City.
 
 MEMBERS OF THE COUNCIL. 77 
 
 Very Eev. Alphonsus Magnien, S.S., D.D., for the Apostolic Dele- 
 gate. 
 
 Very Eev. Edward McColgan, V.G., for the Aj)Ostolic Delegate. 
 
 Eev. James McGolrick, for the Bishop of St. Paul. 
 
 Eev. Bernard J. McManus, for the Bishop of Harrisburg. 
 
 Very Eev. James T. ]\IcManus, V.G., for the Bishop of Eochester. 
 
 Eev. John McQuirk, D.D., LL.D., for the Titular Bishop of Curium. 
 
 Eev. Michael C. O'Brien, for the Bishop of Portland. 
 
 Eev. Joseph P. O'Connell, D.D., for the Bishop of Brooklyn. 
 
 Eev. James O'Eeilly, for the Bishop of Leavenworth. 
 
 Eev. H. Peflerkorn, for the Bishop of San Antonio. 
 
 Eev. Charles Piccirrillo, S.J., for the Bishop of Natchez. 
 
 Eight Eev. William Quinn, Y.G., for the Coadjutor Archbishop of 
 New York. 
 
 Eev. Peter A. Eacicot, S.J., for the Archbishop of Santa Fe. 
 
 Eev. Thomas Eafter, for the Bishop of Grand Eapids. 
 
 Eev. Daniel J. Eiordan, for the Coadjutor Archbishop of San Fran- 
 cisco. 
 
 Eev. William Eobbers, for the Bishop Elect of Covington. 
 
 Eev. Henry L. Eobinson, for the Bishop of Mobile. 
 
 Eev. J. A. Eochford, O.P., for the Archbishop of San Francisco. 
 
 Eev. George Euland, C.SS.E., for the Archbishop of San Francisco. 
 
 Very Eev. Eoger Eyan, V.G., for the Bishop of Dubuque. 
 
 Eev. Aloysius Sabbetti, S.J., for the Archbishop of Santa Fe. 
 
 Eev. Eichard Scannell, for the Bishop of Nashville. 
 
 Eev. Emil Sele, D.D., for the Bishop of Louisville. 
 
 Very Eev. Elias F. Schauer, C.SS.E., for the Apostolic Delegate. 
 
 Eev. Charles Sigl, C.SS.E., for the Prefect Apostolic of Lidian 
 Territory 
 
 Very Eev. Anthony Smith, V.G., for the Bisliop of Trenton. 
 
 Eev. Sebastian B. Smith, D.D., for the Bishop of Newark. 
 
 Eev. Joseph M. Sorg, for the Bishop of Buifalo. 
 
 Eev. J. A. Stephan, for the Vicar Apostolic of Dakota. 
 
 Very Eev. John Sullivan, V.G., for the Bishop of Wheeling. 
 
 Eev. T. P. Thorpe, for the Bishop of Cleveland. 
 
 Eev. A. Trevis, for the Bisliop of Davenport. 
 
 Very Eev. James Trobec, for the Titular Bisliop of Mennith. 
 
 Eev. A. Varsi, S.J., for the Bishop of Grass Valley. 
 
 Eev. John Waldron, for the Archbishop of Chicago.
 
 78 TH'E THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 Rev. S. Wall, for the Vicar Apostolic Elect of Idaho. 
 
 Very Rev. Thomas Walsh, V.G., for the Bishop of Ogdensburg;. 
 
 Rev. E. P. Walters, for the Bishop of Fort Wayne. 
 
 Rev. Francis X. Weninger, S.J., D.D., for the Bishop of Marquette- 
 
 and Sant Ste. Marie. 
 Rev. J. J. Wedenfeller, for the Bishop of Charleston. 
 Very Rev. Moses Whitty, V.G., for the Bishop of Scranton.^ 
 Rev. Wm. J. Wiseman, S.T.L., for the Coadjutor Archbishop of 
 
 Santa F6. 
 
 PROMOTEES. 
 
 Right Rev. Francis Janssens, D.D., Bishop of Natchez. 
 Right Rev. J. J. Kain, D.D., Bishop of AVheeling. 
 
 JUDGES OP EXCUSES AND COMPLAINTS. 
 
 Right Rev. Louis M. Fink, O.S.B., D.D., Bishop of Leavenworth. 
 
 Right Rev. Louis De Goesbriand, D.D,, Bisliop of Burlington. 
 
 Right Rev. John Loughlin, D.D., Bishop of Brooklyn. 
 
 Right Rev. William G. McCloskey, D.D., Bishop of Louisville. 
 
 CHANCELLORS. 
 
 Rev. George AV. Devine. 
 Rev. John S. Foley, D.D. 
 
 SECRETARIES. 
 
 Right Rev. James A. Corcoran, D.D. 
 Very Rev. Henry Gabriels, D.D. 
 Rev. Sebastian G. Messmer. 
 Rev. D. J. O'Connell, D.D. 
 
 NOTARIES. 
 
 Right Rev. Robert Seton, D.D., Prothonotary Apos- 
 tolic. 
 
 Very Rev. P. L. Chapelle, D.D. 
 
 Very Rev. John INI. Farley. 
 
 Very Rev. Nicholas A. Mocs. 
 
 Very Rev. P. A. Stanton, O.S.A., D.D. 
 
 1 Towards the last his place was taken by Rev. Thomas F. Coffee.
 
 m. Rfv. R (fConrtfll, D.D. 
 
 I!f. tl(V. H. Sdon, n.n. 
 
 Rev. James McValleTi, S.S. 
 
 Very Rev. A. Morini, 0.f>\ 
 
 Rt. Rev. .Jas. A. Corcoran, D.D. 
 
 Rev. 'J'/iof:. Bonaonn. 
 
 RfV. s. 0. Messmer. 
 
 Rt. Hex. A. J. Qhrie^ix, D.D. 
 
 Very Rev. N. A. Aloes.
 
 MEMBERS OF THE COUNCIL. 79 
 
 Very Eev. John Sullivan, V.G. 
 
 Very Rev. Frederick Wayrich, C.SS.R. 
 
 Eev. P. M. Abbelen. 
 
 Rev. J. L. Anclreis. 
 
 Rev. Charles P. Grannan, D.D. 
 
 Eev. Matthew Harkins. 
 
 Rev. Henry Moeller, D.D. 
 
 Eev. Sebastian B. Smith, D.D. 
 
 MASTERS OF CEREMONY. 
 
 Eev. Thomas Broyderick. 
 
 Rev. Michael Kelly. 
 
 Eev. James McCallan, S.S. 
 
 CHANTERS. 
 
 Eev. Gabriel Andre, S.S. 
 
 Eev. 'William E. Bartlett., 
 
 Eev. Joseph Cassidy. 
 
 Eev. John B. Drennan. 
 
 Eev. Anthony Lammel. 
 
 Eev. John Marr. 
 
 Eev. Joseph O'Keefe.
 
 DECEASED PRELATES OF THE LAST COUNCIL. 
 
 ARCHBISHOPS. 
 
 Most Rev. James Roosevelt Bayley, D.D., Archbishop of Baltimore. 
 Most Rev. Francis Norbert Blanchet, D.D., Archbisliop of Oregon 
 
 City. 
 Most Rev. John Martin Henni, D.D., Archbishop of Milwaukee. 
 Most Rev. J. M. Odin, D.D., Archbishop of New Orleans. 
 Most Rev. Napoleon J. Perche, D.D., Archbishop of New Orleans. 
 Most Rev. John Baptist Purcell, D.D., Archbishop of Cincinnati. 
 Most Rev. Martin John Spalding, D.D., Apostolic Delegate and 
 
 Archbishop of Baltimore. 
 Most Rev. James Frederic Wood, D.D., Archbishop of Philadelphia. 
 
 BISHOPS. 
 
 ght Rev. Thaddeus Amat, D.D., Bishop of Monteray. 
 
 ght Rev. David W. Bacon, D.D., Bishop of Portland. 
 
 ght Rev. Frederic Baraga, D.D., Bishop of Marquette. 
 
 ght Rev. George Aloysius Carroll, D.D., Bishop of Covington. 
 
 ght Rev. Modeste Demers, D.D., Bishop of Vancouver's Island. 
 
 ght Rev. M. Domenec, D.D., Bishop of Pittsburg. 
 
 ght Rev. Henry Damian Juneker, D.D., Bishop of Alton. 
 
 ght Rev. Peter Joseph Lavialle, D.D., Bishop of Louisville. 
 
 ght Rev. Peter Paul Lefevre, Bishop of Detroit. 
 
 ght Rev. J. H. Luers, D.D., Bishop of Fort Wayne. 
 
 ght Rev. P. N. Lynch, D.D., Bishop of Charleston. 
 
 ght Rev. Augustus M. Martin, D.D., Bishop of Natchitoches. 
 
 ght Rev. F. P. ISIcFarland, D.D., Bishop of Hartford. 
 
 ght Rev. John IMcGill, D.D., Bisliop of Richmond. 
 
 ght Rev. James O'Gorman, D.D., Vicar Apostolic of Nebraska. 
 
 ght Rev. Jolm Quinlan, D.D., Bishop of Mobile. 
 
 ght Rev. Amadeus Rappe, D.D., Bishop of Cleveland. 
 
 ght Rev. S. H. Rosecrans, D.D., Bishop of Columbus. 
 
 (80)
 
 DECEASED PRELATES OF THE LAST COUNCIL. 81 
 
 Right Eev. Maurice de St. Palais, D.D., Bishop of Vincennes. 
 
 Right Rev. John Timon, D.D., Bishop of Buffalo. 
 
 Right Rev. Augustin Yerot, D.D., Bishop of St. Augustine. 
 
 Right Rev. Richard Vincent Whelau, D.D., Bishop of Wheeling. 
 
 ABSENT ox ACCOUNT OF ILLNESS : 
 
 Right Rev. J. B. Miege, D.D., Titular Bishop of Messenia, and (re- 
 signed) Vicar Apostolic of Nebraska. 
 
 The following is a list of eleven other deceased prelates who 
 had either retired from active life before the second Plenary Coun- 
 cil or else received episcopal consecration after that date : 
 
 Right Rev. Guy Ignatius Chabrat, D.D., Coadjutor Bishop of Bards- 
 town, (now Louisville.) 
 Right Rev. Thomas Foley, D.D., Bishop of Chicago. 
 Right Rev. Thomas Galberry, D.D., Bishop of Hartford. 
 Right Rev. Celestine de la Hailandiere, D.D., Bishop of Vincennes. 
 Right Rev. Joseph Melcher, D.D., Bishop of Green Bay. 
 Right Rev. John McMullen, D.D., Bishop of Davenport. 
 Right Rev. M. O'Connor, D.D., Bishop of Pittsburg. 
 Right Rev. Anthony Dominic Pellicer, D.D., Bishop of San Antonio. 
 Right Rev. Frederick Rese, D.D., Bishop of Detroit. 
 Right Rev. Augustus M. Toebbe, D.D., Bishop of Covington. 
 Right Rev. James Whelan, D.D., Bishop of Nashville.
 
 LIVES OF THE AMERICAN PRELATES. 
 
 OUTLINE SKETCHES. 
 
 MOST REV. JAMES GIBBONS, D.D., 
 
 AECHBISHOP OF BALTIMORE AND APOSTOLIC DELEGATE. 
 
 Most Rev. James Gibbons was born in Baltimore, July 23, 
 1834. When very small he was taken to Ireland by his father 
 and there received his first education. Entering St. Charles' Col- 
 lege, Howard County, Md., on his return, he graduated in 1857. 
 From St. Charles' College he was transferred to the Seminary of 
 St. Sulpice and St. Mary's University, and was ordained, June 
 30, 1861. He was connected with several churches in the city of 
 Baltimore, until the second Plenary Council, at which he acted as 
 assistant chancellor; he was named to the Vicariate Apostolic of 
 North Carolina, and consecrated titular Bishop of Adramyttura 
 Auffust 16, 1868. He was translated to the See of Richmond 
 July 30, 1872; and appointed coadjutor to the Archbishop of 
 Baltimore May 20, 1877, succeeding to the see October 3, of the 
 same year. He presided over the third Plenary Council of Balti- 
 more, November, 1884, as the Apostolic Delegate of the Holy See. 
 
 3I0ST REV. JOSEPH S. ALEMANY, D.D., 
 
 ARCHBISHOP OF SAN FRANCISCO. 
 
 Most Rev. Joseph S. Alemany was born in Yicli, Spain, in the 
 year 1814, and ordained in Yiatebo, Italy, in 1837. In 1840 he 
 came to America, settling first in Mississippi. After a term of 
 
 (82)
 
 LIVES OF THE A3IERICAN PRELATES. 83 
 
 mission work in various States and Territories, he was consecrated 
 Bishop of Monterey June 30, 1850, and translated to the See of 
 San Francisco July 29, 1853, being its first Archbishop. 
 
 MOST BEV. IIICHAEL AUGUSTINE CORRIGAN, D.D., 
 
 COADJUTOR ARCHBISHOP OF NEW YORK. 
 
 Most Eev. Michael A. Corrigan was born in Newark, N. J., 
 August 13, 1839. He received his classical education at Mount 
 St. Mary's College, Emniitsburg, Md., graduating in 1859. He 
 was among the first students in the American College at Rome, 
 when he made his theological course, being ordained September 
 19, 1863. On his return to America, he was assigned to a pro- 
 fessorship at Seton Hall College, South Oi'ange, N. J., being suc- 
 cessively promoted to the vice-presidency and presidency. In 1868 
 he was appointed vicar general of the Diocese of Newark. He 
 was consecrated Bishop of Newark May 4, 1873; and on October 
 1, 1880, was promoted to the titular Archbishopric of Petra and 
 coadjutor to the Cardinal Archbishop of New Yor' 
 
 MOST REV. WILLIAM HENRY ELDER, D.B., 
 
 ARCHBISHOP OF CINCINNATI. 
 
 Most Rev. "William Henry Elder was born in Baltimore, Md., 
 March 22, 1819. He received his education at Mt. St. Mary's 
 College, Emmitsburg, Md., and in the Urban College of the Propa- 
 ganda, Rome. He was ordained in Rome March 29, 1846, and, 
 on his return to this country, was made director of the Theo- 
 logical Seminary of Mt. St. INIary's College. He was consecrated 
 Bishop of Natchez May 3, 1857; appointed titular Bishop of 
 Avara and coadjutor of Cincinnati, cum jure successionis, January 
 30, 1880 ; and succeeded to the See of Cincinnati on the death 
 of Archbishop Purcell, July 4, 1883.
 
 84 THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 MOST REV. PATRICK A. FEEHAN, D.D.,^ 
 
 ARCHBISHOP OP CHICAGO. 
 
 Most Rev.* Patrick A. Feelian Avas born in County Tipperary, 
 Ireland, August 28, 1829. He was educated at Maynooth Semi- 
 nary, and on coming to America was ordained at St. Louis, 
 November 1, 1852. After a varied experience of mission work 
 and pastoral charges, he Mas consecrated Bishop of Nashville, 
 Tenn., November 12, 1865; and was promoted to the Arch- 
 bishopric of Chicago, September 10, 1880. 
 
 3I0ST REV. MICHAEL HEISS, D.D., 
 
 AECHBISHOP OF MILWAUKEE, WIS. 
 
 Most Rev. Michael Heiss was born April 12, 1818, at Pfahl- 
 dorf, Bavaria. After a course of theological training under such 
 professors as Doellinger, INIoehler and Goerres, he was ordained 
 October 18, 1840. In 1842 he came to America, and was at first 
 engaged in mission work in Kentucky and Ohio. He Mcnt to 
 Milwaukee in 1844 when that see was created. From then up 
 till 1865 he labored in Milwaukee, founding, with the assistance 
 of Dr. Joseph Salzmann, St. Francis' Seminary, of which he was 
 the first president. He was consecrated the first Bishop of La 
 Crosse September 6, 1868 ; appointed coadjutor of INIilwaukee and 
 titular Archbishop of Adrianople March 14, 1880; and succeeded 
 the late lamented Archbishop Henni on his death, September 7, 
 1881. 
 
 MOST REV PETER RICHARD KENRICK, D.D., 
 
 AECHBISHOP OF ST. LOUIS. 
 
 Most Rev. Peter R. Kenrick was born in Dublin, Ireland, Au- 
 gust 17, 1806. He was ordained March 6, 1832. He came to 
 America and settled in Philadelphia in October, 1833. After re-
 
 Most Rev. P. A. Feehaii, D.D.
 
 LIVES OF THE AMERICAN PRELATES. 85 
 
 maining there eight years in successive charge of several parishes 
 he was consecrated November 30, 1841, titular Bishop of Drasa 
 and coadjutor to Right Rev. William Rosati, first Bishop of St. 
 Louis ; succeeded to the Bishopric in 1843 ; and was promoted 
 to Archbishop in 1847. 
 
 MOST REV. JOHN B. LAMY, D.D., 
 
 ARCHBISHOP OF SANTA FE, N. M. 
 
 Most Rev. John B. Lamy was born near Clermont, France, 
 October 11, 1814. He received his preliminary education at the 
 Seminary of Clermont and completed his theological studies at the 
 Seminary of Montferrand, where he was ordained in December, 
 1838. He came to America in 1839, going first to the Diocese 
 of Cincinnati, where he labored for eleven years building churches 
 and establishing missions. He was consecrated Bishop of Santa F^ 
 November 24, 1850, and arrived in his see the following year. In 
 the year 1875 he was created Archbishop. 
 
 MOST REV. FRANCIS X. LERAY, D.D., 
 
 ARCHBISHOP OF NEW ORLEANS. 
 
 Most Rev. Francis X. Leray was born at Rennes, France, 
 April 20, 1825, where he received his secular education. He came 
 to America in 1843, and having studied for a time in Yincennes, 
 Ind., was, in 1849, sent to St. Mary's Seminary, Baltimore, where 
 he completed his theological course. He was ordained at Natchez, 
 Miss., March 19, 1852. In 1853 he succeeded the rector of Jack- 
 son, Miss., who had died of yellow fever during the epidemic 
 of that year. In 1857 he was removed to Vicksburg. He was 
 consecrated Bishop of Natchitoches, April 22, 1877; appointed 
 coadjutor of New Orleans and Bishop of Janopolis, October 23, 1879; 
 and succeeded the late lamented Archbishop Perch6 on his death 
 in 1883.
 
 86 THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 3I0ST BEV. PATRICK W. BIORDAN, D.D., 
 
 COADJUTOR ARCHBISHOP OF SAN FRAXCISCO. 
 
 Most Rev. Patrick W. Riordau ^vas born in Chethain, N. B., 
 August 27, 1841. He made liis theological studies at the Lou- 
 vain University, Belgium, and was ordained at Melines, June 10, 
 1865. On his return to America he went to Chicago, where he 
 was professor of history and dogmatic theology in the Seminary 
 of St. Mary of the Lake for two years. He then became the 
 pastor of Woodstock, 111.; was transferred to St. James', Chicago, 
 and remained there until his consecration as titular Bishop of 
 Casaba and coadjutor Archbishop of San Francisco, September 16, 
 1883. 
 
 3I0ST BEV. P. J. BYAN, D.D., 
 
 ARCHBISHOP OF PHILADELPHIA. 
 
 Most Rev. P. J. Ryan was born at Thurles, Ireland, February 
 20, 1831. He made his classical and theological courses in Dublin 
 and in Carlow College, being ordained September 8, 1852. He 
 came to America the same year, settling in St. Louis, where he 
 was made professor of English literature in Carondelet Theological 
 Seminary. After a varied experience in mission work and pastoral 
 charges, during which he made two trips to Europe, he was con- 
 secrated titular Bishop of Tricomia and coadjutor of the Arch- 
 bishop of St. Louis ; promoted to the titular Archbishopric of 
 Salamis in 1884, and was transferred to the See of Philadelphia 
 November 11, 1884. 
 
 3I0ST BEV. a J. SEGHEBS, D.D., 
 
 ARCHBISHOP OF OREGON CITY. 
 
 Most. Rev. C. J. Seghers was born in Client, Belgium, Decem- 
 ber, 26, 1839. He was educated at the University of Louvain 
 and ordained in June, 1863, at Mechlin. He was first stationed
 
 LIVES OF THE AMERICAN PRELATES. 87 
 
 at Victoria, Vancouver's Island ; was con,.ecrated Bishop of Van- 
 couver's Island June 20, 1873; was translated as coadjutor to the 
 Archbishop of Oregon City by brief of December 10, 1878, and 
 succeeded on the retirement of Most Rev. F. N. Blanchet, Decem- 
 ber 12, 1880. He has been transferred (1884) to Vancouver's 
 Island at his own request. 
 
 HOST REV. JOHN B. SALPOINTE, D.D., 
 
 TITULAR AECHBISHOP OF ANAZANBA AXD COADJUTOR OF THE ARCH- 
 BISHOP OF SANTA FE. 
 
 Most Rev. John B. Salpointe was born at St. Maurice, France, 
 February 22, 1825. He received his preparatory education at the 
 Seminaries of Agen and of Clermont-Ferrand, and made his theo- 
 logical course under the Sulpician priests at Montferrand, where he 
 was ordained December 21, 1851. He spent three years in pastoral 
 charges and five years as professor in the Clermont-Ferrand Seminary. 
 In August, 1859, he came to America, and devoted himself to 
 missionary work in the Diocese of Santa Fe. He was appointed 
 Vicar Apostolic of Arizona in September, 1868, and consecrated 
 June 20, 1869, and was promoted to be coadjutor to the Archbishop 
 of Santa Fe in March, 1884, with the title of Ai'chbishop of 
 Anazanba. 
 
 MOST REV. JOHN JOSEPH WILLIAMS, D.D., 
 
 ARCHBISHOP OF BOSTON. 
 
 Most Rev. John J. Williams Avas born in Boston, Mass., April 
 27, 1822. He went to the Sulpician College, in Montreal, in 
 September, 1833, graduating in 1841. After a course in Seminary 
 of St. Sulpice, Paris, he was ordained there in May, 1845. On his 
 return to America he was appointed assistant at the Boston 
 Cathedral, November 1, 1845; was made rector in 1855; took 
 charge of St. James' in 1857, in which latter post he remained 
 until his appointment as coadjutor Bishop of Boston, January, 1866.
 
 88 THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 He succeeded to the see February 13, 1866, and was consecrated 
 March 11, 1866. He was promoted to the rank of Archbishop 
 February 12, 1875. 
 
 RIGHT REV. PETER J. BALTES, D.D.,^ 
 
 BISHOP OF ALTON, ILL. 
 
 Right Rev. Peter J. Baltes was born at Ensheim, in the 
 Rhenish province of Bavaria, Germany, April 7, 1827. He came 
 with his parents to America in 1833. His theological studies were 
 made at the Sulpician Seminary, Montreal, Canada, where he was 
 ordained May 21, 1853. His first mission was at Waterloo, 
 Monroe county, 111., whence he was sent to Belleville, St. Clair 
 county, in 1855. He was consecrated Bishop of Alton January 
 23, 1870. 
 
 RIGHT REV. JOHN' B. BRONBEL, B.D., 
 
 BISHOP OP HELENA, MONTANA. 
 
 Right Rev. John B. Brondel was born at Bruges, Belgium, 
 February 23, 1842, Avhere he received his secular education. He 
 made his theological studies at Louvain in the American College, 
 and was ordined at Mechlin, Belgium, December 17, 1864. In 
 1866 he went to Washington Territory, succeeding the rector of 
 Heilacoom the following year. In 1877 he was transferred to 
 Walla Walla; returned to Heilacoom in 1878; and was consecrated 
 Bishop of Vancouver Island, at Victoria, December 14, 1879. In 
 1883 he was appointed administrator of the Vicariate Apostolic of 
 Montana, and on March 7, 1884, became the first Bishop of Helena. 
 
 RIGHT REV. CASPAR HENRY BORGESS, D.D., 
 
 BISHOP OF DETROIT. 
 
 Right Rev. Caspar H. Borgess was born at Addrup, in the 
 Grand Duchy of Oldenburg, Germany, August 1, 1826. Coming 
 
 1 Bishop Baltes, on account of illness, did not attend the Council, but was represented 
 by a procurator.
 
 LIVES OF THE AMERICAN PRELATES. 89 
 
 to America in 1834, he made his classical and philosophical studies 
 in Philadelphia and at St. Charles' Seminary. He finished his 
 education at St. Xavier's College, Cincinnati, where he was ordained 
 December 8, 1848. For ten years he was stationed at Colum- 
 bus, O., being appointed in May, 1859, as rector of St. Peter's 
 Cathedral, Cincinnati, where he remained until his promotion to 
 the See of Detroit. He was consecrated titular Bishop of Cali- 
 donia and coadjutor April 24, 1870, and succeeded to the Bishopric 
 of Detroit December 31, 1871. 
 
 BIGHT BEV. TH03IAS A. BECKEB, D.D., 
 
 BISHOP OF W^LMINGTOX, DEL. 
 
 Right Rev. Thomas A. Becker was born in Pittsburg, Pa., 
 December 30, 1832. He made his studies at the Proj^aganda Col- 
 lege, Rome, being ordained in that city June 18, 1859, On his 
 return to America he was assigned to Richmond, Va., whence he 
 was sent to Martinsburg and Berkeley Springs ; returning to Bal- 
 timore at the end of the late war, he was stationed at St. Peter's 
 Church, and afterwards became professor of theology, ecclesiastical 
 history and Sacred Scriptures in Mt. St. Mary's College, Emmits- 
 burg. He acted as one of the chief secretaries of the second 
 Plenary Council, being stationed at the Cathedral when it assem- 
 bled. Afterwards Dr. Becker Avas at the Richmond Cathedral until 
 his appointment in March, 1868, to the new Diocese of Wilmington, 
 for which he was consecrated in the Baltimore Cathedral August 
 16, 1868. 
 
 BIGHT BEV. DENNIS BBADLEY, D.D., 
 
 BISHOP OP MANCHESTER, N. H. 
 
 Right Rev. Dennis Bradley was born in Ireland February 25, 
 1846, and was brought to Manchester, N. H., when a small boy 
 (1854.) Having received his secular education in that city, and 
 made his classical studies at Holy Cross College, AVorcester, Mass.,
 
 '90 THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 he entered St. Joseph's Provincial Seminary, Troy, N. Y., in 1867, 
 and was ordained there June 3, 1871. Immediately afterwards he 
 was assigned to the Cathedral at Portland, Me., where he re- 
 mained for nine years, fdling the offices of chancellor of the 
 diocese and rector of the Cathedral. He was appointed pastor of 
 St. Joseph's Church, Manchester, N. H., in June, 1880, being con- 
 secrated bishop in the same church, which is now his Cathedral, 
 June 11, 1884. 
 
 BIGHT REV. FRANCIS SILAS CHATARD, D.D., 
 
 BISHOP OF VINCENNES, IND. 
 
 Right Rev. Francis S. Chatard was born in Baltimore, Md., 
 December 13, 1834. He was educated at Mt. St. Mary's College, 
 Emmitsburg, Md., and was ordained at the Trinity ordination at 
 Rome in the year 1862. He was successively vice-rector and rec- 
 tor of the American College in Rome. He was consecrated Bishop 
 of Vincennes May 12, 1878. 
 
 RIGHT REV. HENRY COSGROVE, D.D., 
 
 BISHOP OF DAVENPORT, IOWA. 
 
 Right Rev. Henry Cosgrove was born at Williamsport, Pa., 
 December 19, 1834. He received his education at St. Mary's 
 Seminary, and was ordained August 27, 1857. He was first aj)- 
 pointed to St. Margaret's Church, Davenport, Iowa, and after a 
 long experience of mission and pastoral work, was consecrated 
 Bishop of Davenport September 14, 1884. 
 
 RIGHT REV. JOHN JOSEPH CONROY, D.D., 
 
 TITULAR BISHOP OF CURIUM. 
 
 Right Rev. John J. Conroy was born at Greagafulla, Queen's 
 County, Ireland. He came to America, settling in New York, in 
 1832. He made his classical, philosophical and theological studies
 
 LIVES OF THE AMERICAN PRELATES. 91 
 
 at the College of St. Sulpicc, Montreal, and at Mt. St. Mary's 
 College, Emmitsburg, Md., being ordained at Fordham, N. Y., 
 May 21, 1842. He remained at St. John's College, in that place, 
 until March, 1844, when he was appointed pastor of St. Joseph's, 
 Albany. He was designated Bishop of Albany July 7, 1865, and 
 consecrated October 15, of the same year. Having resigned Octo- 
 ber 16, 1877, he was transferred to the titular See of Curium, 
 March 22, 1878. 
 
 BIGHT REV. JOSEPH DWENGEB, D.D., 
 
 BISnOP OF FORT WAYNE. 
 
 Eight Eev. Joseph Dweuger was born in the State of Ohio 
 in 1837. He entered at an early age the Congregation of the 
 Precious Blood ; completed his studies at Mt. St. Mary's of the 
 West, Cincinnati, and was ordained, with papal dispensation, Sep- 
 tember 4, 1859. He was engaged in teaching till 1862; for six 
 years in pastoral work; and from 1868 to 1872 devoted himself 
 exclusively to preaching missions and giving retreats. He was 
 nominated Bishop of Fort Wayne February 10, 1871, and con- 
 secrated April 14, of the same year 
 
 BIGHT BEV. LOUIS 3L FINK, D.D., 
 
 BISHOP OF LEAVENWORTH, KAN, 
 
 Eight Eev. Louis M. Fink was born at Triftersberg, Bavaria, 
 July 12, 1834. He received his elementary and most of his 
 higher education at Eatisbone. Coming to America in 1852, he 
 joined the Benedictine Order of St. Vincent's, Pa., where he fin- 
 ished his studies and was ordained in May, 1857. He was suc- 
 cessively stationed at Bellefonte, Pa.; Newark and several other 
 places in New Jersey ; St. Joseph's, Covington ; and St. Joseph's 
 Chicago, which latter he left in 1868 to be placed at the head 
 of St. Benedict'.s College and to act as pastor of the congregation
 
 92 THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 in charge of the Fathers at Atchison, Kan. He was consecrated 
 Bishop of Eucarpia and coadjutor to Right Rev. John B. Miege, S.J., 
 then Vicar Apostolic of the territory east of the Rocky Moun- 
 tains. He was transferred to tlie newly created See of Leaven- 
 worth May 22, 1877. 
 
 BIGHT REV. EDWARD FITZGERALD, D.D., 
 
 BISHOP OF LITTLE EOCK, AEK. 
 
 Right Rev. Edward Fitzgerald was born at Limerick, Ireland, 
 October 28, 1833. He came to America with his parents in 184^ 
 and immediately entered the preparatory Seminary of St. Mary, 
 Barrens, Mo. Li 1852 he was admitted into the Seminary of Cin- 
 cinnati, and in 1855 he was sent to Emmitsburg, Md., to finish 
 his studies. He Avas ordained August 22, 1857, and placed in 
 charge of St. Patrick's, Columbus, O., where he remained till his. 
 consecration as Bishop of Little Rock, February 3, 1867. 
 
 BIGHT REV. KILIAN C. FLASCH, D.D., 
 
 BISHOP OF LA Cr.OSSE, WIS. 
 
 Right Rev. Kilian C. Flasch was born at Retzstadt, Bavaria, 
 July 16, 1837. He was brought to America in June, 1847, and 
 was sent to school to the Fathers of the Holy Cross, South Bend, 
 Indiana, completing his education for the priesthood at the Semi- 
 nary of St. Francis de Sales, near ]\Iilwaukee. He was ordained 
 December 16, 1869, and consecrated Bishop of La Crosse, August 
 24, 1881. 
 
 RIGHT REY. NICHOLAS A. GALLAGHER, D.D., 
 
 BISHOP ADMINISTRATOR OF GALVESTON, TEXAS. 
 
 Right. Rev. Nicholas A. Gallagher was born at Temperance- 
 ville, Belmont county, Ohio, February 19, 1846. He made his
 
 LIVES OF THE AMERICAN PRELATES. 93 
 
 classical, philosophical and theological studies at Mt. St. Mary's 
 
 Seminary, Cincinnati, and was ordained December 25, 1868, at 
 
 Columbus. He was appointed administrator of the Diocese of 
 
 Columbus October 8, 1878, and transferred to the administration 
 
 of Galveston, Texas, January 10, 1882, being consecrated April 
 30, 1882. 
 
 BIGHT REV. L. DE GOESBRIAND, D.D., 
 
 BISHOP OF BURLINGTON, VT. 
 
 Right Rev. L. De Goesbriand was born in France August 4, 
 1816. He received his theological education at St. Sulpice, Paris, 
 where he was ordained July 17, 1840. He came to America, 
 arriving in Cincinnati in the month of September of the same year. 
 He labored on the missions of Northern Ohio till 1847, when he 
 became vicar general of Cleveland on the creation of that diocese, 
 at which post he remained until his appointment to the newly 
 created See of Burlington, of which he was consecrated Bishop Octo- 
 ber 30, 1853. 
 
 BIGHT BEY. THOMAS L. GBACE, D.D., 
 
 TITULAR BISHOP OF MENNITH. 
 
 Right Rev. Thomas L. Grace was born in Charleston, S. C, 
 November 14, 1814. He was educated at the College of the 
 Minerva, Rome, and was ordained in that city December 21, 1839. 
 On his return to America he was stationed at Memphis, Tenn., 
 where he remained fourteen years. He was consecrated Bishop of 
 St. Paul, Minn., July 24, 1859. He resigned the See of St. Paul 
 April 31, 1884, and was appointed to the titular See .of JSJennith 
 November 13, 1884. 
 
 EIGHT BEV. BICHABD GIZMO VB, D.D., 
 
 BISHOP OF CLEVELAND. 
 
 Right Rev. Richard Gilmour was born in Glasgow, Scotland, 
 September 28, 1824, and came with liis parents to America in
 
 94 THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 1829. When eighteen years of age he was converted to the- 
 Catholic faith. He studied for the priesthood at Mt. St. Mary's 
 Seminary, Emmitsburg, being ordained August 30, 1852. For five 
 years he labored on Missions in Ohio, Kentucky and Virginia ; in 
 1857 he was appointed pastor of St. Patrick's, Cincinnati, retain- 
 ing this post for eleven years; from March, 1868, to July, 1870, 
 he taught at ]\It. St. Mary's of the West ; tlien took charge of 
 St. Joseph's, Dayton, where he remained until his appointment to 
 the Bishopric of Cleveland. He was consecrated April 14, 1872. 
 
 BIGHT REV. W. H. GROSS, D.D., 
 
 BISHOP OF SAVANNAH, GA. 
 
 Right Rev. W. H. Gross was born in Baltimore June 12, 1837, 
 his father having come from Alsace in colonial times and his 
 maternal grandfather being one of the exiles from Ireland in 1798. 
 He was educated at St. Joseph's College and joined the Redemp- 
 torists in 1857. He was ordained March 12, 1863, by Archbishop 
 Kenrick, and was stationed successively in New York and Boston, 
 and engaged in mission work until he finally became Superior of 
 the Redemptorist Home in Boston. On September 2, 1873, he 
 was appointed to the See of Savannah. 
 
 BIGHT BEY. JOHN HENNE8SY, D.D., 
 
 BISHOP OF DUBUQUE. 
 
 Right Rev. John Hennessy, D.D., is a native of the County 
 Limerick, Ireland, where he made his preparatory studies. Coming 
 to America, he finished his classical and theological courses at St. 
 Louis, and was ordained November 1, 1850. After having spent 
 three years in tJie mission he was a])pointed professor of theology 
 in the Diocesan Seminary of St. Louis, where he spent four years, 
 part of the time as vice-president and part of the time as presi- 
 dent of the seminary. He spent six years as pastor in St. Joseph, 
 Missouri. In 1866 he was appointed Bishop of Dubuque, and con- 
 secrated September 30.
 
 LIVES OF THE AMERICAN PRELATES. 95 
 
 BIGHT REY. JAMES A. HE ALT, D.D., 
 
 BISHOP OF PORTLAND, MAINE. 
 
 Right Rev. James A. Healy Avas bora near Macon, Ga., April 
 6, 1830. He received his secuhu- education at Flushing, Long 
 Island, Burlington, N. Y., and Holy Cross College, Worcester, Mass., 
 graduating in 1849. He made his theological course at Montreal 
 and Paris under the priests of St. Sulpicc, and was ordained June 
 10, 1854. He was secretary of Right Rev. J. B. Fitzpatrick until 
 1866, and pastor of St. James', Boston, until 1875, in which latter 
 year, on the 2d of June, he Avas consecrated Bishop of Portland. 
 
 RIGHT REY. THOMAS F. HENDRIGKEN', D.D., 
 
 BISHOP OF PROVIDENCE, R. I. 
 
 Right Rev. Thomas F. Hendricken was born in Kilkenny, Ire- 
 land, May 5, 1827. He was educated at Maynooth and was or- 
 dained in Dublin April 25, 1853. He immediately came to this 
 country, settling first in Providence, R. I., but soon afterwards 
 removing to Waterbury, Conn., where he remained for eighteen 
 years. He was consecrated the first Bishop of Providence April 
 28, 1872. 
 
 RIGHT REY. JOHN J. HOGAN, D.D., 
 
 BISHOP OF KANSAS CITY AND ADMINISTRATOR OF ST. JOSEPH. 
 
 Right Rev. John Joseph Hogan was born in the Diocese of Lim- 
 erick, Ireland, May 10, 1829, where he received his secular edu- 
 cation. He came to America in ' 1848, studied philosophy and 
 theology in the Diocesan Seminary of St. Louis, and was ordained 
 April 10, 1852. He was successively pastor of St. James', Potosi, 
 St. Michael's, St. Louis, and St. Columbanus', Chillicothe, all in 
 Missouri. On September 13, 1868, he was consecrated Bishop of 
 St. Joseph; and- on September 10, 1880, he was transferred to 
 the newly created See of Kansas City, still retaining the admin- 
 istration of the Diocese of St. Joseph.
 
 96 THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 RIGHT REV. JOHN IRELAND, D.B., 
 
 BISHOP OF ST. PAUL, MINN. 
 
 Right Rev. John Ireland was born in Ireland, Se'ptember 11, 
 1838, but came to this country in 1849. He was educated in 
 France and ordained in St. Paul, December 21, 1861. He \szts> 
 consecrated Coadjutor Bishop of St. Paul, December 21, 1875, suc- 
 ceeding to the see on the resignation of Right Rev. Thomas L. 
 Grace, in August, 1884. His earnest work in the cause of temper- 
 ance has gained for him the soubriquet of the " Father Mathew 
 of the West." 
 
 RIGHT REV. FRANCIS JANSSENS, D.D., 
 
 BISHOP OF NATCHEZ, MISS. 
 
 Right Rev. Francis Janssens was born at Tilburg, Holland, 
 October 17, 1843. He studied in the seminaries of his diocese and 
 in the American College, Louvain, Belgium, and was ordained at 
 Ghent, December 21, 1867. He came to 'this country and was 
 stationed at the Richmond, Va., Cathedral, where he remained uutil 
 he w"as consecrated Bishop of Natchez, May 1, 1881. 
 
 ^ RIGHT REV. ^GIDIUS JUNGER, D,D., 
 
 BISHOP OF NESQUALLY, WASH. TEE. 
 
 Right Rev. jFgidius Junger was born at Burtscheid, Rhein- 
 provinz, Prussia, where he received his secular education. He 
 made his classical studies at the Gymnasium of Aix-la-Chapelle, 
 and his theological course at the Louvain University, Belgium, and 
 was ordained at Malines, July 26, 1862. Coming to America 
 the same year, he was appointed to the mission of Walla Walla, 
 in the Diocese of Nesqually, November 6. The next year he 
 was appointed rector at the Cathedral of Vancouver, AVashington 
 Territory. He was consecrated Bishop of Nesqually, October 28, 
 1879.
 
 Most Rev. P. W. Biordan, D.D.
 
 LIVES OF THE AMERICAN PRELATES. 97 
 
 BIGHT BEY. JOHN JOSEPH KATN, D.D., 
 
 BISHOP OF WHEELING, W. VA. 
 
 Right Rev. John Joseph Kain was born at Martinsburg, W. Va., 
 May 31, 1841, of Irish parents. He received his primary educa- 
 tion in his native town ; made his classical studies at St. Charles' 
 College, Md., and his theological course at St. Mary's Seminary, 
 Baltimore. Ordained July 2, 1866, he was stationed at Harper's 
 Ferry, where he remained for nine years, having charge of nine 
 or ten counties in Virginia and West Virginia. He was conse- 
 crated Bishop of Wheeling May 23, 1875, succeeding Bishop Whelan. 
 
 BIGHT BEV. JOHN J. KEANE, D.D., 
 
 BISHOP OF RICHMOND, VA. 
 
 Right Rev. John J. Keane was born at Ballyshannon, County 
 Donegal, Ireland, September 12, 1839. He was brought to America 
 when seven years of age, his family settling in Baltimore in 1848. 
 He received his elementary education in Baltimore schools ; made 
 his classical studies at St. Charles' College, Howard county, Md., 
 and his theological course at St. Mary's Seminary, Baltimore. He 
 was ordained in 1866, immediately after which he was stationed 
 at St. Patrick's Church, Washington, where he remained twelve 
 years. He was consecrated Bishop of Richmond August 25, 1878. 
 
 BIGHT BEY. F. X. KB A UTBA UEB, D.D., 
 
 BISHOP OF GREEN BAY, WIS. 
 
 Right Rev. F. X. Krautbauer was born in the parish of Bruck, 
 near Ratisbon, Bavaria, in 1824. He made liis studies in Ratis- 
 bon and at the University of Munich, returning to the Seminary 
 at Ratisbon and being ordained July 16, 1850. He came at once 
 to America, his first charge being St. Peter's, Rochester, N. Y. 
 In 1858 he became Vicar General of the Diocese, which post he 
 
 G
 
 98 THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL.- 
 
 retained for one year, relinquishing it for the purpose of accepting^ 
 the chaplaincy of Notre Dame in Milwaukee, where he remained 
 for sixteen years. He was appointed Bishop of Green Bay in Feb- 
 ruary, 1875, being consecrated on the 29th of the following month. 
 
 RIGHT REV. JOSEPH P. MACHEBEUF, D.D., 
 
 VICAR APOSTOLIC OF COLORADO. 
 
 Right Rev. Joseph P. Machebeuf was born at Riom, France, 
 August 11, 1852. He received his secular education in the Chris- 
 tian Brothers' schools and the College of Riom, and his theological 
 course at the Seminary of St. Sulpice, Montferrand. He was or- 
 dained December 25, 1836, and was assistant priest in the Diocese 
 of Clermont for three years. He came to this country in 1839 ; 
 labored first in Sandusky City, Ohio ; accompanied Right Rev. J. B. 
 Lamy, tlie newly appointed Vicar Apostolic of New Mexico, as his 
 vicar general to the West. In October, 1860, he was sent to 
 Colorado as a missionary, and built the first church in that terri- 
 tory, at Denver. He was consecrated Bishop of Epiphany and 
 Vicar Aj^ostolic of Colorado August 16, 1868. 
 
 RIGHT REV. MARTIN MARTY, D.D., 
 
 VICAR APOSTOLIC OF DAKOTA. 
 
 Right Rev. Martin Marty was born at Schwyz, Switzerland, 
 January 12, 1834. He made his studies in the Jesuit Colleges 
 of Schwyz and Fribourg and in the Benedictine Abbey of Ein- 
 siedeln, of which last he became a member May 20, 1855. He 
 was ordained September 14, 1860. In September, 1860, he came 
 to America, settling at the Benedictine Priory in Spencer county, 
 Indiana, of which he was appointed the first abbot in September, 
 1870. He went to Standing Rock, Dakota Territory, in 1876, to 
 labor as a missionary among the natives, and was appointed Vicar 
 Apostolic of Dakota, August 8, 1879, and consecrated titular Bishop 
 of Tiberias, February 1, 1880.
 
 LIVES OF THE AMERICAN PRELATES. 99 
 
 BIGHT BEY. CAMILLUS F. MAES, D.D., 
 
 BISHOP OP COVINGTON, KY. 
 
 Eight Rev. Camillus P. ]\Iaes was bora at Courtrai, "West Flan- 
 ders, Belgium, March 13, 1846. He made his classical studies 
 in the college of that city, and his theological course at the Sem- 
 inary of Bruges and the American College, Louvain, being ordained 
 for the Diocese of Detroit, December 18, 1868. On coming to 
 America, he was stationed as pastor of Mount Clemens, Detroit, 
 1869; of St. Mary's, Monroe, 1871: of St. John's, same city, 1873, 
 becoming the secretary of the Diocese of Detroit in 1880. He was 
 appointed to the vacant See of Covington, in September, 1884. 
 
 BIGHT BEY. PATBICK MANOGUE, D.D., 
 
 BISHOP OF GRASS VALLEY, CAL. AND NEV. 
 
 Eight Eev. Patrick Manogue was born at Desart, County Kil- 
 kenny, Ireland. He received his elementary education in Callan, 
 and soon after came to America and settled in New England. He 
 made his theological course at St. Mary's of the Lake and the 
 Sulpician Seminary, Paris, where he was ordained in 1861. After 
 twenty years of labor on mission work and in pastoral charges, 
 he was consecrated coadjutor Bishop of Grass Valley in 1881; 
 and Dromoted to the Bishopric in March, 1884. 
 
 RIGHT REV. D. 3IANUCY, D.D., 
 
 ADMINISTRATOR OF MOBILE, ALA., AND OF THE VICARIATE APOSTOLIC 
 OF BROWNSVILLE, TEXAS. 
 
 Eight Eev. D. Manucy was born at St. Augustine, Fla., De- 
 cember 20, 1823, where he received his secular education. He 
 entered Spring Hill College, Mobile, in 1842, and was ordained 
 August 15, 1850. In the November of the same year he was 
 sent to Warrington, Fla., to organize a congregation and build a
 
 100 THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 church; in March, 1853, was transferred to Apalachicola ; in April, 
 1855, Avas called to the Cathedral of Mobile as assistant ; in De- 
 cember, 1861, Avas put in charge of the Church of St. Vincent 
 de Paul; and in January, 1865, was transferred to St. Peter's 
 -Church. He was consecrated bishop December 8, 1874, and sent 
 to Texas to organize the Vicariate Apostolic of Brownsville, and in 
 December, 1883, was made Bishop of Mobile, taking charge of 
 his see on Passion Sunday, March 30, 1884. 
 
 BIGHT REV. FRANCIS MORA, D.D., 
 
 BISHOP OF MONTEREY AXD LOS ANGELES, CAL. 
 
 Right Rev. Francis Mora was born near Vich, Spain, where 
 he received his secular education, making his theological studies 
 in the seminary of that city. In 1854 he volunteered to come 
 to the mission of California with Right Rev. Thaddeus Amat, by 
 whom he was ordained at Santa Barbara, March 19, 1856. He 
 was successively rector of several churches, becoming finally rector 
 of the Pro-Cathedral of Los Angeles, February 1, 1863, and vicar 
 general in 1865. He was consecrated August 8, 1873, Bishop of 
 Mossynopolis and Coadjutor of Right Rev. Thaddeus Amat, cum 
 jure successionisy and on the death of Bishop Amat, May 12, 1878, 
 he succeeded to the See of jNIontcrey and Los Angeles. 
 
 BIGHT REV. JOHN 310 ORE, D.D., 
 
 BISHOP OF ST. AUGUSTINE, FLA. 
 
 Right Rev. John Moore was born in Delvin, County Westmeath, 
 Ireland, June 27, 1835. In 1848 he went to Charleston, S. C, 
 studying successively in the Collegiate Institute and the Seminary 
 of St. John the Baptist in that city. He completed his studies 
 in the College of Cambree, France, the Roman College and the 
 Propaganda College. He was ordained in Rome, April 9, 1860; 
 was assistant at the Charleston Cathedral for five years ; and was
 
 LIVES OF THE AMERICAN PRELATES. 101 
 
 for twelve years pastor of St. Patrick's and vicar general of the 
 diocese. He was consecrated Bishop of St. Augustine, Fla., May 
 13, 1877, as the successor of Bishop Verot. 
 
 BIGHT REV. TOBIAS MULLEN, B.B., 
 
 BISHOP OF ERIE. 
 
 Right Rev. Tobias Mullen was born in Flushtown, County 
 Tyrone, Ireland, March 4, 1818. Having received his elementary 
 education in the national schools, he entered Maynooth in 1840. 
 Three years later he came to America and was ordained September 
 1, 1884. He Avas consecrated Bishop of Erie, August 2, 1868. 
 
 BIGHT BEV. BEBNABD J. M'QUAID, D.D., 
 
 BISHOP OF ROCHESTER, N. Y. 
 
 Right Rev. Bernard J. McQuaid was born in New York City, 
 December 15, 1823. He was educated at Chambly, Canada, and 
 Fordham College and Seminary, New York. He was ordained in 
 the Catliedral of New York, July 16, 1848, and after twenty 
 years of experience in mission work and pastoral charges, was 
 consecrated Bishop of Rochester, July 12, 1868. 
 
 BIGHT BEV. WILLIA3I GEOBGE IPCLOSKEY, D.D., 
 
 BISHOP OP LOUISVILLE, KY. 
 
 Right Rev. William George McCloskey was born in Brooklyn, 
 New York, November 10, 1823. He made his classical studies in 
 St. Mary's College, his theological course in the seminary, and was 
 ordained in the Cathedral of New York by Archbishop Hughes in 
 1852. Having spent one year on the mission in New York as
 
 102 THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 the assistant of his brother, the Very Rev. George McCloskey, he 
 returned to the "Old Mountain" as one of its professors. In 1857 
 he became director of the Seminary and professor of moral 
 theology and Sacred Scripture. In December, 1859, he was ap- 
 pointed by Pope Pius IX the first president of the American Col- 
 lege, which that Pontiff had just founded in Rome. After pre- 
 siding over this institution Dr. McCloskey was appointed to the 
 See of Louisville and consecrated May 24, 1868 
 
 RIGHT REV. LAWRENCE S. M'3IAH0N, D.D., 
 
 BISHOP OF HARTFORD, COXN. 
 
 Right Rev. Lawrence S. ]\IcI\Iahon was born at St. John, N. B., 
 December 26, 1835, but was brought to * Boston, Mass., in the 
 following year. He made his theological studies at Aix, in 
 Provence, France, and at Rome. He was ordained in the latter 
 city, March 24, 1860. On his return to America he successively 
 served at the Boston Cathedral, as a chaplain in the army, and as 
 pastor of New Bedford. He was appointed Vicar General of the 
 Diocese of Providence in July, 1872, and was consecrated Bishop 
 of Hartford, August 10, 1879. 
 
 RIGHT REV. FRANCIS 31'NEIRNEY, D.D., 
 
 BISHOP OP ALBANY. 
 
 Right Rev. Francis McNeirney was born in Ncav York City, 
 April 25, 1828, where he received his secular education at private 
 schools. Having made his classical studies in Montreal College, and 
 his theological course in the seminary of tlic same city, both under 
 charge of tlie Sulpician Fathers, he was ordained August 17, 1854, 
 in St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York. He was secretary of Arch- 
 bishop, subsequently Cardinal McCloskey, from 1854 to 1872; Avas 
 appointed titular Bishop of Rhesina and coadjutor of Albany, 
 December 22, 1871; was consecrated April 21, 1871; appointed
 
 LIVES OF THE A3IERICAN PRELATES. 103 
 
 administrator of Albany, February 19, 1874, becoming Bishop of 
 the see by right of succession, October 12, 1877. 
 
 BIGHT BEV. HENBY PINCKNEY NOBTHBOP, D.D., 
 
 BISHOP OF CHAELESTOX, S. C, AXD ADMIXISTEATOR OF NORTH 
 
 CAROLINA. 
 
 Eight Rev. Henry P. Northrop was born in Charleston, S. C, 
 May 5, 1842. He received the rudiments of his education at 
 Georgetown College, D. C. (1853-G), whence, on his health failing, 
 he was sent to St. Mary's College, Emmitsburg, graduating in 
 1860. Entering the seminary the same year, he studied there four 
 years, going thence to the American College in Rome, where he 
 was ordained in June, 1865. For some months he was on dutv 
 at the Church of the Nativity, New York; was one year at St. 
 Joseph's, Charleston ; four years at Nev/bern, N. C. ; six years 
 assistant at St. John's Pro-Cathedral, Charleston, and pastor of 
 Sullivan's Island ; and one year pastor of St. Patrick's Church, 
 Charleston. He was made titular Bishop of Rosalia and Vicar 
 Apostolic of North Carolina, January 8, 1882. By brief dated 
 January 27, 1883, he was transferred to the See of Charleston, 
 as the successor of Right Rev. P. N. Lynch, still retaining the 
 administration of the Vicariate of North Carolina. 
 
 BIGHT BEV. JOHN C. NEBAZ, D.D. 
 
 BISHOP OF SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS. 
 
 Right Rev. John C. Neraz was born at Anse (Rhone) France, 
 January 12, 1828. He received his preliminary education at the 
 Seminary of St. Jodard (Loire), and made his theological course 
 in the Sulpician Seminary of Lyons. He came to America in 1852 
 and was ordained in Galveston, Texas, March 19, 1853. After 
 a succession of mission and pastoral charges he was appointed 
 administrator, then Bishop of the Diocese of San Antonio, being 
 •consecrated May 8, 1881.
 
 104 THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 BIGHT REY. EUGENE O'CONNELL, 
 
 TITULAR BISHOP OF JOPPA. 
 
 Right Kev. Eugene O'Connell was born near the cities of Kells 
 and Navan, County Meath, Ireland, June 18, 1815, where he re- 
 ceived his secular education. He made his theological course in 
 the Royal College of St. Patrick, Maynooth, where he was or- 
 dained in June, 1842. After discharging missionary duties in 
 several parishes and being a professor in All Hallows College, he 
 sailed for California, arriving in 1851. He was for a year in 
 charge of the natives of Santa Inez; for three years at the Sem- 
 inary of St. Thomas, near San Francisco, returning in 1854 to 
 All Hallows. The Archbishop of San Francisco recalled him in 1861, 
 Avhen he was created Bishop of Flaviopolis and Vicar Apostolic 
 of Marysville. He w^as translated to the See of Grass Valley 
 (composed of Northern California and Nevada), March 22, 1868, of 
 which charge he was relieved at his own request March 17, 1884, 
 being then appointed titular Bishop of Joppa. 
 
 BIGHT BEV. M. J. O'FABBELL, D.D., 
 
 BISHOP OF TRENTOX, N. J. 
 
 Right Rev. M. J. O'Farrell was born in Limerick, Ireland, 
 December 2, 1832. He was educated at All Hallows, Dublin, 
 and St. Sulpice, Paris, being ordained in his native city, August 
 18, 1855. Having labored on missions for thirteen years, he was 
 stationed at St. Peter's Church, New York, from 1868 to 1881. 
 He was consecrated the first Bishop of Trenton, November 1, 1881. 
 
 EIGHT BEV. JAMES O' CON NOB, D.D. 
 
 VICAIi APOSTOLIC OF NEBRASKA. 
 
 Right Rev. James O'Connor was born in Quecnstown, Ireland, 
 September 10, 1834. Ho came to Philadelphia in 1838, and 
 there completed his preparatory studies at the Seminary of St.
 
 LIVES OF THE AMERICAN PRELATES. 105 
 
 Charles Borroraeo. In January, 1843, he entered the College of 
 Propaganda, at Rome, where he studied philosophy and theology, 
 and returned to the United States in 1848. He commenced his 
 missionary labors in the Diocese of Pittsburg, under his brother, 
 who had been made its first bishop in 1843. He was rector of 
 St. Michael's Seminary for about seven years, vicar general and 
 administrator of the diocese for one year, and, in 1862, returned 
 to Philadelphia. He was then appointed professor of philosophy 
 and ecclesiastical history at St. Charles' Seminary, and, soon after, 
 rector, M'hich position he retained till June, 1872, when he re- 
 signed and was appointed pastor of St. Dominic's Church, Hohms- 
 burg. He was consecrated Bishop of Dibona and Vicar Apostolic 
 of Nebraska, August 20, 1876. 
 
 BIGHT BEY. PAT BIG K T. O'BEILLY, D.D., 
 
 BISHOP OF SPRINGFIELD, MASS. 
 
 Right Rev. Patrick T. O'Reilly was born in Ireland, December 
 24, 1833. He was sent to this country when a small boy. He 
 made his classical studies at St. Charles' College, near Ellicott 
 City, and his theological course at St. Mary's Seminary. He was 
 ordained, August 15, 1857. After much experience of mission work 
 and pastoral charges, he Avas appointed Bishop of Springfield in 
 June, 1870, and was consecrated September 25, 1870. 
 
 BIGHT BEY. JAMES BADEMAGHEB, D.D., 
 
 BISHOP OF NASHVILLE, TENN. 
 
 Right Rev. James Rademacher was born in Clinton County, 
 Mich., December 3, 1840. He made his classical, philosophical and 
 theological studies at St. Vincent's College, Westmoreland county, 
 and at St. Michael's Seminary, near Pittsburg, Pa., being ordained 
 August 2, 1863, in the Cathedral of Fort Wayne, Ind. He was 
 in charge of Attica, Fountain County, Ind., and a number of smaller 
 missions for seven and a-half years ; in Columbia City for eighteen
 
 106 THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 months; at St. Mary's Chapel, Fort Wayne, for eight years, and 
 at St. Mary's Church, Lafayette, Ind., for three years. He was con- 
 ■secrated Bishop of Nashville, June 24, 1883. 
 
 EIGHT BEV. HENRY J. RIGHT ER, D.D., 
 
 BISHOP OF GRAXD TwVPIDS, MICH. 
 
 Eight Ecv. Henry J. Richter was born in Neuenkirchen, Grand 
 Duchy of Oldenburg, Germany, April 9, 1838. In 1854 he came 
 to America. He studied at St. Xavier's College, Cincinnati ; St. 
 Thomas' Seminary, Bardstown, Ky. ; St. Mary's Seminary, Cincin- 
 nati, and at the American College, Rome, in which city he was 
 ordained in 1865. On his return to America he was made presi- 
 dent and vice-rector of St. Mary's Seminary, Cincinnati, which post 
 he retained until 1870, when he became pastor of St. Lawrence's 
 and chaplain of the Sisters of Charity at Cedar Grove. He was 
 consecrated Bishop of Grand Rapids, April 22, 1883. 
 
 RIGHT REV. ISIDORE ROBOT, D.D., 
 
 PREFECT APOSTOLIC OF INDIAN TERRITORY. 
 
 Right Rev. Isidore Robot was born near Avallon, France, July 
 17, 1837. Having joined the Benedictine Order, he came to America 
 in 1873 and took cliarge of a mission in Louisiana. In 1875 
 he settled in Indian Territory, and founded the Sacred Heart Mis- 
 sion. He was raised to the dignity of Abbot in 1877, having 
 received charge of the Prefecture Apostolic of Indian Territory, 
 first created by the Holy See, May 14, 187f3. 
 
 RIGHT REV. STEPHEN VINCENT RYAN, D.D., 
 
 BISHOP OF BUFFALO, N. Y. 
 
 Right Rev. Stephen B. Ryan was born in Ottawa, Canada, 
 January 1, 1825, but was brought, when a child, by his parents 
 to Pottsville, Pa. In 1846 he entered St. Charles' Seminary, Phila-
 
 LIVES OF THE AMERICAN PRELATES. 107 
 
 delpliia, and in 1844 went to Missonri to join the Lazarist Com- 
 munity, finishing his studies at Cape Girardeau and the Barrens, 
 and being ordained at St. Louis in 1849. He was then engaged 
 as professor, president, and visitor to the communities at St. Mary's 
 College, Barrens, St. Vincent's College, Cape Girardeau, and the 
 mother house in St. Louis, until the latter was transferred in 
 1868 to Germantown, Pa. He Avas consecrated Bishop of Buffalo 
 in the cathedral of that city, November 8, 1868. 
 
 BIGHT BEV. BTJPEBT SEIDENBUSH, D.D., 
 
 VICAR APOSTOLIC OF NORTHERN MINNESOTA. 
 
 Eight Kev. Rupert Seidenbush was born at Munich, Bavaria, 
 ■October 13, 1830. He came to America in 1850, and joined the 
 Benedictine Order. Having finished his theological studies at St. 
 Vincent's, Westmoreland, Tenn., he was ordained in June, 1853. 
 After having worked on the missions in the Dioceses of Pittsburg, 
 Erie, Tennessee and Newark, N. J., he was recalled as prior to 
 St. Vincent's Abbey in 1863. In 1866 he was elected* Abbot of 
 the newly erected Abbey of St. Louis (now St. John's), Minn., 
 and blessed May 30, 1867. In the year 1875 he was nominated 
 titular Bishop of Halia and Vicar Apostolic of Northern Minnesota, 
 and consecrated May 30. 
 
 BIGHT BEY. JEBEMIAH F. SHANAHAN, D.D., 
 
 BISHOP OF HARRISBURG, PA. 
 
 Right Rev. Jeremiah F. Shanahan was born at Silver Lake, 
 Susquehanna County, Pa., July 17, 1834. His early studies were 
 made in the local schools, the Academy of Binghampton, N. Y., 
 and St. Joseph's College, Pa., and his theological course at the 
 Seminary of St. Charles Borromeo, Philadelphia. He was ordained 
 July 3, 1859, and immediately appointed rector of the preparatory 
 Seminary of the Philadelphia Diocese, where he remained until his 
 appointment of the new See of Harrisburg. He was consecrated 
 in the Cathedral of Philadelphia, July 12, 1868.
 
 108 THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 BIGHT REV. JOHN TUIGG, D.D., 
 
 BISHOP OF PITTSBUEG AND ADMINISTRATOR OF ALLEGHENY. 
 
 Right Rev. John Tuigg was born in County Cork, Ireland, in 
 1822, and received his education at All Hallows College. He 
 came to Pittsburg in 1850, and was ordained in the May of 
 that year. He was first stationed at the Pittsburg Cathedral, then 
 was the pastor of Altoona, where he remained until appointed to 
 the See of Pittsburg, March 19, 1876, when that diocese was 
 divided. On August 3, 1877, the Diocese of Allegheny was 
 temporarily reunited to that of Pittsburg, and he was appointed 
 administrator of it. 
 
 RIGHT REV, JOHN YERTIN, B.D., 
 
 BISHOP OF MARQUETTE AND SAUT SAINTE MARIE. 
 
 Right Rev. John Vertin was born at Carniolia, Sclavonia, July 
 17, 1844, where he received his secular education. Coming to 
 America in 1863 he made his philosophical and theological course 
 in the Seminary of Milwaukee, Wis. He was ordained August 31, 
 1866, and labored on missions in several States until September 
 14, 1879, when, having been appointed to the see, he was conse- 
 crated Bishop of Marquette in place of Bishop Mrak, who had re- 
 signed the previous year. 
 
 RIGHT REV. J. L. SPALDING, D.D., 
 
 BISHOP OF PEORIA, ILL. 
 
 Right Rev. J. L. Spalding was born at Lebanon, Ivy., in 
 1840. He received his education at St. Mary's College, in Ken- 
 tucky; at Mt. St. Mary's, Emmitsburg, Md., and at St. Mary's, 
 Cincinnati, where he graduated in 1859. In the fall of the same 
 year he went to Louvain, Belgium, and after studying there five 
 years was ordained. Having spent a year in Rome, lie returned
 
 LIVES OF THE AMERICAN PRELATES. 109 
 
 to Kentucky, and was made secretary to the Bishop of Louisville. 
 At the end of three years was appointed to organize a congrega- 
 tion among the colored Catholics of Louisville, and he there built 
 for them a church, school house and pastoral residence. He remained 
 in charge for two years, when he was appointed chancellor of the 
 diocese. In 1872 he went to New York to write a life of Arch- 
 bishop Spalding. When this work was done he remained in the 
 city as assistant at St. Michael's Church, a post he held until his 
 appointment to the newly-created Diocese of Peoria. He was 
 <;onsecrated May 1, 1877. 
 
 BIGHT BEV. EDGAB P. WADHAMS, D.D., 
 
 BISHOP OF OGDEXSBURG, N. Y. 
 
 Eight Rev. Edgar P. Wadhams was born at Lewis, Essex 
 County, N. Y., May 21, 1817. Having received his secular educa- 
 tion in the Middlebury College, he made his theological course at 
 St. Sulpice Seminary, Baltimore, and was ordained in Albany, 
 January 15, 1850. He was stationed in several churches in suc- 
 cession, becoming rector of the Albany Cathedral and vicar general 
 of the diocese in 1866. He was appointed Bishop of Ogdensburg, 
 Eebruary 15, 1872, and consecrated. May 5, 1872. 
 
 BIGHT BEV. JOHN AMBBOSE WATTE BS ON, D.D., 
 
 BISHOP OF COLUMBUS, O. 
 
 Right Rev. John A. Watterson was born in Blairsville, Indiana 
 County, Pa., May 27, 1844. He began his education in his 
 native town's parochial school and in St. Vincent's College, near 
 Latrobe, Pa., completing his classical, philosophical, and theological 
 courses at St. Mary's College, Emmitsbnrg, Md., and was ordained 
 at St. Vincent's Abbey, August 8, 1868. On the invitation of 
 Dr. McCaffrey, he returned to Mount St. Mary's as professor of 
 classics, and was a few years afterwards raised to the chair of
 
 110 THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 theology. In September, 1878, he was elected president of the col^ 
 lege and seminary, and on March 14, 1880, was appointed Bishop 
 of Columbus, Ohio, to succeed Right Rev. Sylvester H. Rosecraus. 
 He "was consecrated by Archbishop Elder in the Cathedral of 
 Columbus on the 8th of the following August, the twelfth anni- 
 versary of his ordination. 
 
 BIGHT REV. WINAND 31. WIGGER, D.D.y 
 
 BISHOP OF NEAVARK, N. J. 
 
 Right Rev. "VVinand M. Wigger was born in New York, De- 
 cember 9, 1841, and received his secular education at St. Francis' 
 College. He entered Seton Hall Seminary, South Orange, N. J., 
 in 1860, where he remained two years, after which he was sent 
 to a college in Genoa, Italy. He was ordained June 10, 1865. On 
 liis return to America he was appointed assistant in the cathedral 
 parish, Newark; became successively rector of St. Vincent's, Madi- 
 son ; St. John's, Orange, and St. Theresa's, Summit. He was con- 
 secrated Bishop of Newark, N. J., October 18, 1881. 
 
 RIGHT REV. A. J. GLORIEUX, D.D., 
 
 VICAR APOSTOLIC-ELECT OP IDAHO. 
 
 Right Rev. A. J. Glorieux was born at Dottignies, West Flan- 
 ders, Belgium, February 1, 1844. He was educated at the College 
 of Courtrai, Belgium, from 1857 to 1863; made his philosophical 
 and theological courses at the American College, Louvain, from 
 1863 to 1867; was ordained at Malines, by his Eminence Car- 
 dinal Sterchx, on August 17, 1867; and left Belgium for Oregon 
 October 13, 1867. He had charge of the Southern Missions of 
 Oregon for two years ; became rector of St. Paul, French Prairie, 
 in 1869 ; took charge of St. Michael's College, Portland, on the 
 28th of August, 1871, and remained in that position until ap- 
 pointed Vicar Apostolic of Idaho in 1884.
 
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 Most Jiev. Francis A'. J.e/yn/, D.D.
 
 PASTORAL LETTER 
 
 MOST REY. ARCHBISHOP OF BALTIMORK 
 
 — ON THE — 
 
 i':e3:i^^id ^iLiE2sr-A.i^"2- coiua^ciiLi, 
 
 TO THK CLERGY AND LAITY OF HIS DIOCESE. 
 
 James Gibbons, by the grace of God, and the favor of the Apos- 
 tolic See, Archbishop of Baltimore and Apostolic Delegate. 
 
 To THE Clergy and Faithful of the Archdiocese of Baltimore : 
 
 Venerable Brethren of the Clergy, and Dearly Beloved Children of the 
 Laity : — Our Holy Father, Leo XIII, out of his paternal solicitude 
 for the welfare of all the faithful committed to his care, has 
 desired all the Bishops of the Church in the United States ta 
 assemble in Plenary Council, to consider the best means for pro- 
 moting the salvation of souls in this portion of our Lord's vine- 
 yard ; and because of the infirm health of his Eminence, the 
 Cardinal Archbishop of New York, who was so well qualified to 
 preside, not only on account of his high office, but also of his 
 
 (111)
 
 112 THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 mature wisdom and weight of merits, his Holiness was pleased 
 to appoint us, to convoke by his Apostolic authority, the Third 
 Plenary Council of Baltimore, and to preside over the same as 
 Apostolic Delegate. 
 
 We therefore, dearly beloved brethren and children, now make 
 known to you, that in virtue of this authority, we have, by our 
 letters of date INIarch 27, of this year, convoked the Third 
 Plenary Council to convene in our Metropolitan Church at Balti- 
 more on the ninth day of November, in this year of our Lord, 
 1884. 
 
 Eighteen years have now elapsed since the last Plenary Council 
 was held, and we have reason to be devoutly thankful to God 
 for the steady progress which religion has made in the United 
 States since that period. It cannot fail to be a source of con- 
 solation and benefit to the chief Pastors of the Church of 
 America to meet again after so long an interval, to recount their 
 trials, their hopes and their success in their respective fields of 
 labor, to interchange views, to enlighten one another by mutual 
 counsel, and to derive that strength and confidence Avhich result 
 from the reunion of earnest men engaged in the same holy 
 mission. 
 
 The steady expansion of the hierarchy and of the faithful 
 during the last two decades of years naturally calls for the 
 enactment of special statutes to meet the exigencies of the times, 
 and our gradual transition from a missionary state to the fixed 
 and normal condition of the Church, demands an adjustment of 
 legislation more suitable to our improved situation. 
 
 Every State and Diocese of the Union will be represented at 
 the approaching Council by Prelates and Priests ; and although 
 they are descended from divers nations, and speak every European 
 tongue, they are all united by the bonds of a common faith, and 
 animated by the spirit of fraternal charity, having " one Lord, 
 one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all." (Ephes. iv.) 
 To them maybe truly applied the words of the Psalmist: "Behold 
 how good and how pleasant a thing it is for brethren to dwell 
 together in unity." (Ps. cxxxii.) 
 
 The object fi)r M'hich this Council is summoned, as you are 
 well .aware, is not to formulate new dogmas of fiiith ; for the 
 only doctrine we preach to you is " the faith once delivered to
 
 PASTORAL LETTER OF ARCHBISHOP GIBBONS. 113 
 
 the saints." (Jude i, 3.) Nor will our deliberations have any 
 political significance, since we have no political grievances to 
 redress nor political aspirations to gratify. The Church of God 
 has no direct relations with politics ; political intrigues form no 
 part of her divine mission ; the kingdom of Christ and of His 
 Church " is not of this world." (John xviii.) She " renders to 
 Csesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that 
 are God's." (Matt, xxii.) 
 
 The enactment of salutary laws for the promotion of piety 
 and sound morals, the correction of abuses, the establishment, as 
 far as practicable, of greater uniformity in ecclesiastical discipline, 
 the development of the Christian commonwealth, the quickening 
 and strengthening of the bonds of charity which should bind us 
 all as members of the Christian family, to our God, and to 
 each other — these are the signal blessings at which we aim in 
 assembling together. 
 
 You know, brethren of the laity, that by our ordination as 
 Priests, and consecration as Bishops, we are irrevocably dedicated 
 to your service. Whether we preach the word, or administer the 
 sacraments, or celebrate the sacred mysteries, or erect temples of 
 worship, it is for your sakes that these labors are accomplished : 
 Our Lord "gave some to be Apostles, and some Prophets, and 
 some Evangelists, and others Pastors and Doctors, for the perfect- 
 ing of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the building 
 up of the body of Christ." (Ephes. iv.) 
 
 If we meet in Council, our object is to make you more 
 upright citizens, by becoming holier Christians ; for " righteousness 
 exalteth a nation, but sin maketh nations miserable." (Pro v. xiv.) 
 
 We have all, both clergy and people, been redeemed by the 
 same blood of Jesus Christ ; Ave are all in the same bark of 
 Peter, and are steering for the same eternal shores ; we have all 
 the hope of the same heavenly inheritance. As our spiritual 
 interests are the same, so should we be actuated by the same 
 zeal for the advancement of religion. 
 
 We, therefore, rely on your generous cooperation, and invoke 
 your pious interest in the successful issue of the Council. We 
 are sure. Brethren of the clergy, and Children of the laity, that 
 following the traditions of your fathers, you will joyfully welcome 
 and hospitably entertain, the prelates and clergy who will be vour
 
 114 THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 honored guests during the Council, and that you will emulate in 
 this regard the veneration of the primitive Christians of whom the 
 Apostle writes : " You received me as an angel of God, even as 
 Christ Jesus." (Gal. iv.) 
 
 " We beseech you especially, brethren, through our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, and by the charity of the Holy Ghost, that you help us 
 by your prayers for us to God." (Rom. xv.) " Praying at all 
 times in the spirit . . . .that speech may be given us, that we 
 may open our mouth with confidence, to make known the mys- 
 tery of the Gospel, for which we are ambassadors." (Ephes. vi.) 
 Pray that God may enlighten the minds, purify the hearts and 
 direct the will of the assembled prelates, that all our acts may 
 contribute to His glory, the propagation of His Church, and the 
 sanctification of its members. May our legislation tend to the 
 stability of the commonwealth, and the maintenance of the peace 
 and tranquility of our beloved country. ]\Iay the Supreme Legis- 
 lator, the source of all light, be the sole Suggestor and Guide of 
 our judgments, so that we may in nowise stray from the path of 
 equity. May we so temper justice with charity, that our deci- 
 sions may be approved by Him by whom "kings reign and law- 
 givers decree just things." (Prov. xiv, 34.) 
 
 With the view of obtaining the divine light by union of 
 prayer, we deem it advisable to ordain and promulgate the fol- 
 lowing exercises of devotion for this archdiocese : 
 
 1. The collect de Spiritu Sancto will be added in the Mass 
 by the priests of the archdiocese henceforward till the close of 
 the Council. 
 
 2. All the religious communities of both sexes will recite, 
 daily, the hymn of the Holy Ghost, Vcnl Creator Sjjiritus. ' 
 
 3. The Litany of the Saints will be publicly recited in the 
 parish churches, either before or after the High Mass, on every 
 Sunday, till the first Sunday of November inclusive. 
 
 This Pastoral Letter will be read in all the churches of the 
 archdiocese on the Sunday after its reception. 
 
 Given at our residence in Baltimore on the Feast of St. 
 
 Augustine, 1884. 
 
 ♦J«James Gibbons, 
 Archbishop of Baltimore, Apostolic Delegate. 
 A. A. Curtis, 
 
 Secretary.
 
 SERMONS 
 
 DELIVERED DURING THE SESSIONS 
 
 •OF THE — 
 
 TX^IITEID :E=IjE3^T-A-:R-^ COTTZbTOIXj 
 
 OF BALTIMORE.
 
 Most Rev. P. J. By an, D.D.
 
 
 SERMOI OF MOST REY. PATRICK JOM RYIH, D.D., 
 
 ARCHBISHOP OF PHILADELPHIA. 
 
 "And Jesus coming spoke to them, saying: All power is given to Me in 
 "heaven and in earth ; going, therefore, teach ye all nations ; baptizing them in 
 the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost : teaching them 
 to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you : and, behold, I am with 
 you all days, even to the consummation of the world." — St. Matthew, c. xviii, 
 V. IS, 19 and SO. 
 
 IT is not without emotion and embarrassment that I presume 
 to address you on the occasion of the opening of this great 
 council. It is difficult to rise to an adequate conception of 
 the importance and the majesty of this scene. In you, Most 
 Reverend Apostolic Delegate, I behold represented the mighty 
 headship of Peter, whom Christ placed supreme pastor over 
 His flock and made the rock on which He built His Church, 
 and because of which the falling rains and rising floods and 
 pelting storms have beaten in vain — and '^ that house fell not, 
 "because it was founded on a rock." And in you, venerable 
 Fathers of the Council, I behold the successors of the other 
 Apostles — unshorn of a single prerogative essential to the 
 Apostolate, as that Apostolate, according to Christ's express words, 
 was to continue until the consummation of the world. I behold 
 you as pillars supporting and adorning the great temple of 
 God, your mitres indicating, like Corinthian capitals, the particular 
 order of sacred architecture in which you belong. I behold 
 you assembled with a ])ower direct from God, not deputed, but 
 ordinary, for the Holy Ghost Himself has placed you "bishops to 
 rule the Church of God." I salute you as a portion of the 
 great senate of the kingdom of God on this earth assembled to
 
 2 SERMONS OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 deliberate and to legislate for its propagation and perpetuation m 
 this new Morld ; and you, beloved brethren of the clergy, secular 
 and regular, assembled in such vast . numbers, you "^dio possess the 
 awful powers of the priesthood of Jesus Christ — you who know 
 best of all the wants of the great body of the people because of 
 your more intimate relations with them, you come to aid us by 
 your experience, your learning and your counsel. And you, dear 
 brethren of the laity, the flock committed to our care by the 
 Eternal Pastor, " our joy and our crown," you come to witness 
 and be edified by this scene, and t:) help us effectually by asking 
 God for the illumination of our intellects and the sanctification of 
 our hearts by His holy grace, that here we may decree what is 
 right, what "seems good to the Holy Ghost," and that after- 
 wards we may have the zeal and fortitude to act out what we 
 shall have decreed. 
 
 Impressive as is this scene to-day, there are circumstances. 
 M'hich intensify that impressiveness for some of us here present,, 
 who beheld a similar spectacle in this cathedral eighteen 
 years ago. The contrast in the number of prelates present is- 
 a fair index to the progress of the Church. Forty-six bishops 
 then represented the Church of these States ; now it numbers 
 over seventy-two, with a proportionate advance in the religious 
 orders and the clergy. Of the forty-six bishops of the last council 
 thirty have since passed away to the great Bishop of our souls. 
 May we not believe that these thirty bishops look down from the 
 celestial sanctuary and the hierarchy of heaven to the scene in 
 this sanctuary to-day? Has not their nearness to God increased 
 their love and zeal for His honor? Does not the possession of 
 their happiness inspire them with a desire that the people they 
 once ruled and loved should be enabled by wise legislation to 
 follow their old pastors to the home of the Good Shepherd, and 
 see and feel how good is our God? Certain it is that the Scrip- 
 tures tell us that Onias, who had been high priest, prayed for 
 the people of God, and Jeremias, who had been prophet, retained 
 his interest in his people, and prayed much for them ; and this 
 is represented as occurring over four hundred years after his 
 death. And, handing Judas Machabeus a sword of gold, Jere- 
 mias said to this valiant chief: "Take this sword, a gift from 
 God, wherewith thou shalt overthrow the adversaries of my people
 
 THE CHURCH IN HER COUNCILS. 3 
 
 Israel." So, beloved brethren, the prelates that have passed away 
 are still united with lis in the communion of saints, pray for us, 
 and by their prayers furnish us with the arms which we must 
 use in the great conflict for the right. 
 
 That conflict is becoming daily more important not only in 
 reference to the world to come, but also as regards our present 
 life. The foundations of the social edifice seem almost shaken, and 
 men are looking for a stronger and more permanent basis for 
 morality. They feel that the tendency is towards greater license 
 still. I believe that the eyes of many thoughtful men of different 
 denominations, and of no denomination at all, are directed towards 
 this council, and they are disposed to say to us : " Can you 
 Catholic bishops and priests do anything to help to stem the tor- 
 rent already so threatening ? " We cannot trust men as we 
 formerly did. Honor, honesty and purity seem on the wane 
 amongst us, and our confidence is daily diminishing. Ah, brethren, 
 men have rashly imagined that honor and principle, to the exclu- 
 sion of religious influences, would be all-sufficient to restrain 
 human passion. They must come back to the sacred shrine of 
 religion to • find security. She, like a wounded but tender mother, 
 will receive and succor them. 
 
 As appropriate to this occasion, I propose, this morning, to speak 
 to you on the subject of the Church in her councils with special 
 reference to her moral, social mission. A fundamental error of 
 our day, and the source of many other errors, is a wrong pop- 
 ular conception of the nature and office of the Church in the 
 Christian system. How often do not men say : " We are desirous 
 to accept Christ and His teachings. We accept the sublime 
 morality of the Sermon on the Mount, and we recognize truth 
 and sanctity in all that is related of Christ's words and deeds, 
 and believe Him the best friend of humanity. But we object to 
 your Churches and theologies as an aftergrowth of human origin." 
 It is important at the very beginning that we should consider 
 this position. No man can accept Christ without that which is 
 inseparably connected with Him, and such is an institution which 
 He calls His Church and which He identifies with Himself, and 
 constituted the living witness in all ages and places of the facts 
 of His life and the teacher of His doctrines and sanctifying 
 morality. AVhat mean these words coming from the same lips
 
 4 SEBMONS OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 and heart as the eight beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount? — 
 " On this rock I buikl My Church, and the gates of hell shall 
 not prevail against it." " He that will not hear the Church, let 
 him be to thee as the heathen and the publican." " He who hears 
 you hears Me, and he who despises you despises Me." "As the 
 Father sent Me, so also I send you." "All power is given to Me 
 in heaven and in earth ; go ye, therefore, and teach all nations ; 
 and behold I am with you all days until the consummation of 
 ages." This identity with Christ is confirmed by this expostulation 
 to the persecutor, Saul: "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?" 
 Now, Saul did not persecute Christ in His sacred Person, but 
 he did it in His mystic body, the Church, and hence Christ said : 
 " I am Christ whom thou persecutest." As if He said : " He 
 who despises you despises Me, and he who strikes you strikes 
 Me." We find here more than justified St. Paul's comparison of 
 the union of Christ with His Church to the union of husband 
 and wife. And, not only did he identify the Church Avith Him- 
 self, but He identified it also with the other two persons of the 
 Holy Trinity. " He who despises you despises Me, and he who 
 despises Me despises Him that sent Me ; " therefore, for the syl- 
 logism is perfect, he who despises you despises Him that sent 
 Me — God the Father. And again, He said He would send God 
 the Holy Ghost to abide with them forever, to be to them a 
 Spirit of truth and consolation — another Paraclete — to be the very 
 life of the future Church, as man's soul is the life of his body. 
 This identification of the Church with God the Holy Ghost is 
 expressly mentioned by the Apostles after their last council in 
 Jerusalem, when they said : " It seemeth good to the Holy Ghost 
 and to us." 
 
 The Church so identified with God has a twofold mission — a 
 mission of verification and sanctification. In the first she bears 
 witness to the facts of our Lord's life and the doctrines He taught, 
 and in the second she sanctifies in His name the individual and 
 society ; and these ends she attains in great part through her coun- 
 cils. " You shall bear witness to Me in Jerusalem and in all 
 Judea and Samaria, and to the uttermost ends of the earth." 
 Her testimony to] Him is written in the blood of her martyrs. 
 For a martyr is not a man who merely dies for an opinion or 
 a conviction ; a martyr means a witness, one who dies, testifying 
 what he has seen or heard.
 
 TEE CEURCE IN EER COUNCILS. 5 
 
 Now Christianity is a religion of facts, and the eye-witnesses 
 and ear-witnesses of the events of our Lord's life died declaring 
 these things to be facts, and have continued to do so, as the 
 Church continued to live. As the sun in the firmament to-day, 
 were he able to speak, or testify to what he saw, could say : "I was 
 there when He made the blind to see and the lame to walk and 
 the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak, and raised the dead to 
 life ; my rays beamed on His thorn-crowned head Avhen Pilate 
 exclaimed to the multitude, ' Ecce Homo ! ' I saw the men tear 
 the garments from His body and nail Him to the gibbet, and as 
 they were about to expose Him to the multitude, I, like Noe's 
 son, averted my face of light and cast the mantle of darkness 
 over my exposed and expiring Lord — ' from the sixth hour, when 
 there was darkness over the whole earth, until the ninth hour.' 
 My evening beams fell on His silent sepulchre, and on the morn- 
 ing of the third day, when He arose, I poured a flood of golden 
 light into His vacant grave. I saw Him ascend, from Mt. Olivet 
 until He passed above the domain of my light into ' the glory 
 which He had before the world was made.' I have seen the perse- 
 cutions which His followers endured in every age for 1900 years." 
 In like manner, beloved brethren, is the Church a witness, in 
 every age, to the great facts on which Christianity is founded. 
 The Church of the first century was the Church of the second, 
 and so until the present century. Her bishops meet in council, 
 bringing together the traditions of their different Churches, and pre- 
 serving unbroken the chains of testimony. Unbroken, because, to 
 use an admirable illustratiouj which I heard in the closing sermon 
 of the council held here eighteen years ago, as the breaking of 
 the Atlantic cable at any point would prevent the transmission of 
 a message from Europe, so, if the chain of testimony be not 
 unbroken, we cannot know with certainty the great fundamental 
 facts of Christianity. She, too, can say : " In the persons of the 
 Apostles, I was there when He performed His miracles. In Peter 
 and John I looked into His vacant sepulclire and testified to the 
 great central fact of His resurrection, and for nearly 1900 years 
 have I chanted my 'Alleluias' over the place where they laid Him. 
 I have testified to Him in the person of my first martyr, Stephen, 
 and my cloud of witnesses has grown thicker and more crimson 
 as it has passed along the firmament of time. I stood in the
 
 6 SBRMOIiS OF TUB THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 Coliseum by Ignatius when the lions bounded \\^\\ him and pul- 
 verized that noble ^ wheat of Christ.' I M'as in Rome with Peter 
 and at Corinth and Athens with Paul. I was down in the Cata- 
 combs, where even the sun's rays could not shine, and testified 
 to my buried and risen Lord. I stood by the throne of the 
 Ctesars when my son Constantino mounted its steps. I went out 
 in the persons of the missionaries. I was a witness to Him ' in 
 Jerusalem and in all Judea, and to the uttermost ends of the 
 earth. ' ' 
 
 Such is the Church as Christ prophesied it should be. Where 
 is it to-day, for it lives with the communicated vitality of God 
 the Holy Ghost, who abides in it? Where is it to-day? Look 
 around and see it represented in part in this great council. Plow 
 glorious it is, how real, how living ! Alive with the life of God 
 and strong with the strength of God, and beautiful with the 
 beauty of God. To it to-day may He say in the words of Scrip- 
 ture : " Thou art made exceedingly beautiful, because of My own 
 beauty, which I have put upon thee." Not beauty in the mere 
 external pomp of ritual, not in the sheen of these golden mitres, 
 ox the splendor of precious vestments. These are but the varie- 
 gated garments of the King's daughter : not even in the inner 
 individual sanctity of any who wear them, but in their official 
 position as representatives of God, " because of INIy OM'n beauty, 
 which I have put upon thee.' 
 
 But the mission of the Church is not only to testify to facts, 
 but also to sanctify the individual and society. She acts on the 
 world through her sovereign head, tlie Pope, through her bishops 
 on their several dioceses, and through her councils. These coun- 
 cils are chiefly of four lands — the Ecumenical, or General Council, 
 consisting of the Sovereign Pontiff in person or representative and 
 the bishops of the world ; the Plenary Council, like the present 
 one, composed of an Apostolic Delegate and the bishops of a 
 particular country; the Provincial Council, consisting of an arch- 
 bishop and the bishops of a particular section known as his 
 province ; and the Diocesan Council or Synod, composed of the 
 bishop and priests of a particular diocese. Now the Church in 
 these councils acts for the benefit of society in three different 
 ways : Fir&t, indirectly, by preserving tlie j)urity and certainty of 
 great truths, which give certain motive to morality; secondly, by 
 the reformation of morals amongst her own chiklren; and thirdly,
 
 THE CHURCH IN HER COUNCILS. 7 
 
 by her solicitude for the poor and suffering memoers of society. 
 The purity of faith she preserves especially by her Ecumenical 
 Councils. The decisions of such councils she regards as unerring. 
 A tribunal like the Supreme Court of a State or of the United 
 States takes cognizance only of overt acts, and may be final 
 without being infallible. But when there is a question of legis- 
 lating for the intellect itself, how can a decision which may be 
 wrong settle a doubt? Now, certainty of faith is all-important 
 for purity of morals. If I have only a vague opinion of the 
 future life, of hell and heaven, and of my personal responsibility 
 for the sins of my life, this opinion will never stand the test 
 of a great temptation. Hence there must be an unerring mode 
 of solving doctrinal doubts. The logical connection of faith with 
 morals is almost ignored in our day. Formerly the cry was 
 "justification by faith alone." Now it is justification by works 
 alone, no matter what men believe, as if works did not depend 
 on faith for their great motives. 
 
 Secondly, she discharges her mission to society by the reforma- 
 tion of abuses that arise amongst the clergy and laity, and this she 
 does in both general, plenary, provincial and diocesan councils. 
 If she does not always succeed in such reformation, we must 
 remember that the influences of the Church, though necessary, are 
 not necessitating. She no more than her spouse can paralyze that 
 tremendous power — free will. Satan in heaven, Adam in paradise 
 and Judas Iscariot at the Last Supper, with all the sanctifying 
 influences around them, most miserably sinned. No man can deny, 
 from an examination of her ethical teaching and sacramental system, 
 as well as from the facts of history, that the Catholic Church 
 has the power to sanctify, and has sanctified, individuals and 
 society. By that power she evangelized, civilized and sanctified 
 Europe in the past. By it she led captive to the feet of Jesus 
 Christ the conquerors of the Roman Empire in the persons of 
 the Northern invaders of Southern Europe. She has the power, 
 and has used it, but she will not and cannot force men to hear 
 and heed her. The individuals and nations that have heard her 
 and neglect her teachings are much more difiicult to convert than 
 those who know her not. I believe that she never had a grander 
 mission in all her history than she has to-day to the noble, 
 generous and fair-minded American people. And in regard to 
 certain parts of Europe only God knows how much worse they
 
 8 SEEMONS OF TUB THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 would be without her influence. And whilst her faith remains 
 there is left the power to bring back these men to the true 
 standard of Christian morality. 
 
 A third mode by which she discharges her mission to society 
 is by the amelioration of the condition of the poor and suffering 
 of our race, and in this great work also she acts in her councils 
 and in imitation of her Founder. The trite saying that "one-half 
 of the world does not know how the other half lives" was par- 
 ticularly true before the coming of Christ. Poverty was virtually 
 a crime and a degradation. Even the divine Plato, the most 
 naturally Christian perhaps of all the pagan philosophers, in his 
 regulations for a model republic would have the poor expelled if 
 they became so numerous as to disturb the peace of the pros- 
 perous. Everywhere in the pagan world was poverty persecuted, 
 when an angelic voice was heard above the pastures of Palestine 
 addressing some poor shepherds in these words : " Fear not, for 
 I bring to you glad tidings of great joy that shall be to all the 
 people, for this day is born to you a Saviour, who is Christ 
 the Lord in the city of David, and this shall be a sign to you : 
 you shall find the child wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid 
 in a manger." The Saviour of the poor. He came in poverty, 
 and defied poverty by uniting His Divinity to it. Soon the 
 kings of the East came, and wealth, royal wealth, was found at 
 the feet of poverty. The first words He spoke in His sermon 
 on the Mount were, " Blessed are the poor," During life He 
 often had not where to lay His head. He died in the embrace of 
 poverty, and as in life He had not place to lay His head, neither 
 had He after death, for they laid Him in a sepulchre that 
 belonged to another. He made care for the needy the condition 
 for obtaining eternal happiness, and neglect of the poor, He said, 
 would be punished with eternal exclusion from the kingdom of 
 God. He will give His benediction or malediction to the children 
 of men acccording to this criterion — " I was hungry and you gave 
 Me meat, thirsty and you gave Me to drink, naked and you 
 clothed Me." So that His identification with poverty, commencing 
 in Bcthleheni; shall continue for all time. We behold this solici- 
 tude for the poor continued in the apostolic days. St. Paul and 
 St. Barnabas were particularly charged, as the former tells us, 
 to take care of the poor, which thing, he says, we were careful 
 to do.
 
 THE CHURCH IN HER COUNCILS. 9 
 
 The Churcli continued this great Avork through pontiflPs, bishops, 
 and priests in lier councils. Thus we find the Council of Csesarea, 
 in 313, commending and praising the assistants of the bishops, 
 especially for their care of the poor. The Council of Aix, in 816, 
 commanded that all ecclesiastical foundations of monks and canons 
 should provide for a certain number of the poor, the sick, widows 
 and strangers. A Council of Lyons in 558, commanded that the 
 clergy should keep lists of the poor in their districts, so that they 
 might be aided. The Council of Ravenna, in 1113, ordered that 
 four or six men should be annually elected, whose business it 
 should be to collect for the poor, and granted forty days' indul- 
 gence to all contributors on the conditions always required for 
 indulgences, that the persons gaining them should be contrite for 
 their sins. The Council of Trent granted extensive powers to bishops 
 to visit the sick poor in hospitals, and we well know the devoted- 
 ness of bishops and priests to such work. 
 
 Now, beloved brethren, this care for the poor is not only a 
 divine and ecclesiastical law, but it is the highest wisdom of the 
 political economist. " One-half of the world does not know how 
 the other half lives," but that other half will soon let them 
 know and assure them that they do not intend to live so any 
 longer. Christian kindness to the poor and the working men and 
 women, and the inculcation of patience in poverty, after the example 
 of our Lord, are the best securities against the communism 
 and anarchy that seem to threaten society. In the same manner 
 did the Church act in regard to prisoners and slaves. We 
 know how cruelly both of these classes were treated before the 
 appearance of the divine Prisoner in the hall of Pontius Pilate. 
 We know how captives were dragged at the chariot wheels of 
 Roman conquerors and imprisoned in dungeons into which the 
 white light of heaven was not permitted to enter until a Christian 
 emperor decreed that the darkness should be dispelled and the cap- 
 tives see the sun. 
 
 The Church in the Councils of Chalcedon, in 541, and Orleans, 
 in 549, provided for the visitation of prisoners, according, says the 
 Council of Chalcedon, " to the traditions of the Fathers," showing 
 that it had always been the custom. So in regard to slaves the 
 Councils of Chalon-sur-Saone, in 550, Celchet, in England, in 816, 
 London, in 1102, and Armagh, in Ireland, in 1172, provided for 
 their gradual emancipation. The Council of Armagli liberated all the
 
 10 JSEBiVONS OF TUB THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 English in Ireland who -were held as slaves. How salutary was 
 the effect on society of such authoritative action on the part of 
 the Church. 
 
 To sum up what I have said : Because society in our day 
 needs regeneration, and morality needs a firmer basis than mere 
 natural honor and integrity, which so easily yield to strong temp- 
 tation ; because Christ is the great Regenerator and the name of 
 Jesus the only name under heaven by which society, like the 
 individual, can be saved ; because the institution called the Church 
 is inseparably connected with Christ, being in truth Himself con- 
 tinued ; because she has in her councils ever sustained morality 
 by increasing faith in the dogmas that give it life and motive ; 
 because she has in these councils endeavored to correct moral abuses 
 within her fold ; because by her principles and institutions she has 
 ameliorated the condition of the poor and the unfortunate and taught 
 them contentment with their lot — therefore have we ground of hope 
 that she will be a great conservative power in this young and 
 promising republic, and that the council that here represents her 
 comes most opportunely in the order of God's providence to sus- 
 tain it. But we must remember, brethren, that it is the super- 
 natural element that is most potent in producing and preserving 
 the good that we seek, for " unless the Lord guard the city they 
 labor in vain who guard it." Therefore let us ask God's blessing 
 on the deliberations of this great council. Let all — bishops, priests 
 and people — " adore and fall down before the Lord who made us, 
 for the Lord is our God ; we are His people and the sheep of 
 His pasture." Let the faithful people cry out, " Send forth Thy 
 light and Thy truth, that they may lead us and those who gov- 
 ern us to Thy holy mountain and unto Thy tabernacles." Let 
 bishops and priests between the porch and the altar cry aloud, 
 " Spare, O I^ord, spare Thy people ; preserve human society from 
 the fierce delirium of its passions." Let bishops, priests and 
 people ask God in profound supplication that the sacrifice of the 
 Mass just offered may be borne by the hands of His holy angel 
 — even the angel of His great council — to His sublime altar in 
 the heavens and in sight of His Divine Majesty, that the par- 
 takers of it may be filled with every grace and celestial benedic- 
 tion, and that the Holy Spirit in whose honor it has been 
 offered " may come and fill the hearts of the faithful, enkindle 
 in them the fire of His love, and thus renew the fiicc of earth."
 
 Mont liev. V. J. iSerjherf, I). I). 
 
 lit. licv. John Jtelavd. /f.JK 
 
 Most. Rev. 1'. It Kenrick, I).l>. 
 
 Most lU-v. John IS. Lcunij. D 1>. 
 
 lit. licv. yEcjidins Jnnrj^r, D.D
 
 
 SBRMOU OF EIGHT KEY. JOHH lEELAID, D.D., 
 
 EISHOP OF ST. PAUL. HIKH. 
 
 "Let every soiU be subject to higher powers: for there is no power but from 
 God: and those that are, are ordained of God." — Bom., c. xiii, v. 1. 
 
 I DO not, I think, mistake the feelings of many of my fellow- 
 countrymen in presence of the Plenary Council now holding its 
 sessions in Baltimore, when I ascribe to them the desire that a 
 statement be made as to the bearings of the Catholic Church in 
 her teachings and her practical acting towards civil society, and 
 notably, perhaps, towards the form of government for society 
 which obtains in the United States of America. Whether they 
 examine or not the claims of the Church to their spiritual 
 allegiance, they know her to be, from the number of her adherents, 
 her closely organized forces, the consistency of her principles in 
 •doctrines and morals, a great power in the land, a most important 
 factor in forming the destinies of the commonwealth ; and, with 
 reason, they believe it to be their right to inquire what the 
 results may be from the continued growth and development of 
 her influence among the citizens of the republic. 
 
 The American people have had their false prophets wlio strove 
 to create prejudice against the Catholic Church. Again and again 
 from sectarian pulpit and popular rostrum has the accusation gone 
 forth that she is the evil genius of society and of government, 
 and that loyalty to licr means disloyalty to their free institutions. 
 
 I respect too much my fellow-countrymen not to be glad, M'hen 
 the occasion offers, to declare to them the truth and to guard 
 ihem against deceiving tongues. I love too deeply the Catholic 
 Church and the American republic not to be ever ready to labor 
 
 (11)
 
 12 SI:IlJIO^^s of the third plenary council. 
 
 that the relations of the one with the other be not misunderstood. 
 It is true, the choicest field which providence offers in the world 
 to-day to the occupancy of the Church is this republic, and she 
 welcomes with delight the signs of the times that indicate a glori- 
 ous future for her beneath the starry banner. But it is true, 
 also, the surest safeguards for her own life and prosperity the 
 republic will find in the teachings of the Catholic Church, and the 
 more America acknowledges those teachings, the more durable will 
 her civil institutions be made. I speak beneath this cathedral 
 dome no less as an American citizen than as a Catholic bishop. 
 The Church is the mother of my faith, the guardian of my hopes 
 for eternity : America is my country, the protectress of my liberty 
 and of my fortunes on earth. I could not utter one syllable that 
 would belie, however remotely, either Church or republic, and 
 when I assert, as I now solemnly do, that the principles qf the 
 former are in thorough harmony with the interests of the latter, 
 I feel in the depths of my heart that I speak the truth. 
 
 You will permit me to put before you the principles of 
 Catholic theology relating to civil society. These principles will be 
 the proof that the Church, equally opposing anarchy and despotism, 
 is the sure guardian of society, the sure defender of true liberty. 
 
 Man is by nature a being fashioned for society — " civile 
 animal.'^ His instincts, his needs demand society; they demand 
 the guarantees and the encouragements of society. He depends 
 for very existence and for growth to mature life upon the family^ 
 the first of social units ; individual and fiimily again depend 
 for the enjoyment of their most sacred rights upon the higher 
 social form — the State. It is the superior authority of the body 
 politic that secures to all " life, liberty and the pursuit of 
 happiness." The great movements which improve and elevate the 
 human race spring from the emulation which society supplies, and 
 are carried to success through the reduction of separate forces 
 under the law of unity, which is the eternal principle of order, 
 beauty and power. The absence of social organization introduces 
 warfare with his fellows as man's permanent condition, paralyzes 
 his energies for good, consecrates barbarism. Man, as a rational, 
 perfectible being, is impossible outside of society. But society 
 means a central authority, a government, and here we are con- 
 fronted with the great problem underlying all social philosophy —
 
 THE CHURCH— THE SUPPORT OF JUST GOVERNMENT. 13 
 
 the constitution of society upon principles which, while guarding 
 it from anarchy on the one hand, Mill guard it with no less 
 jealousy from despotism on the other. Anarchy is the total dis- 
 ruption of the social frame-work. Authority is needed to avert 
 the evil : but authority suggests the danger of an evil no less 
 fatal, the abuse of authority or despotism, Avhich, under pretense 
 of warding off riotous ruin, crushes out with iron heel the rights 
 it was instituted to preserve. Anarchy and despotism are the 
 Scylla and the Charybdis of the civil community. Death awaits 
 it from either and will come as surely and as swiftly from one 
 as from the other. 
 
 Never in history was the difficulty of the social problem felt as 
 keenly as it is to-day. Society is most unstable ; it reels on its 
 foundations as if drunken through wild passion. At one moment 
 its bulwarks are on the point of being shattered into a thousand 
 fragments amid the clamorings and violences of Communists and 
 Nihilists ; at another we behokl it rushing madly with a shriek 
 of despair into the deathly grasp of military Csesarism, or wor- 
 shiping idolatrously the irresponsible absolutism of the State. 
 Doctrinaires have lied to society. Hearkening to them, it has 
 renounced the principles of life with which its divine Author had 
 endowed it, and it is paying the penalty. What those principles are, 
 the Church, the faithful custodian of the revelation of God, tells us. 
 Her teaching saves society. 
 
 Modern social theorists, led by Hobbes and Rousseau, assert that 
 by nature men are free from all social obligations, society being 
 nothing more than a voluntary pact among themselves, having no 
 existence, no jiowers except as derived from their own consent. 
 The powers of society, mere concessions from individuals, are 
 revocable at will, and bind so far only as individuals are pleased 
 to recognize them. Society is a simple aggregation of men for 
 mutual protection — rather a necessary evil ; obedience is not a 
 moral duty : authority is a creature of the aggregation, the mem- 
 bers of whicli in consequence, Avhether they are the governing or 
 the governed, remain equal in rights of all kind, social as well as 
 natural. With these theorists God counts for nothing in society; 
 He gives nothing to society, and social affairs need have no refer- 
 ence to Him. 
 
 All this is false. Only atheists and materialists may legitimately
 
 14 SERJIOXS OF TUB THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 Avith their j>riuciples propose absurdities of the kind. The pagans 
 of old never uttered the lilce; their cities and empires were sacred 
 to the Divinity. Reason proclaims that society is not a voluntary 
 pact among men : it exists by the force of nature, and con- 
 sequently, by the command of the Author of nature. God may no 
 more be removed from society than He may be from any part of 
 the cosmos. As He made man for it, so He ordained it, and 
 "willing the means together with the end He conferred upon society 
 the authority needed for its preservation. Society is not a simple 
 organization of individuals ; it is a moral entity of itself, a com- 
 plete organism, having its own life and its own authority not 
 derived from and independent of individual members. Society is 
 superior to individuals. Obedience to it is obedience to God. 
 Those who govern, invested with power communicated by God, are 
 the superiors of those over whom they are placed. 
 
 The forgetfulness of the divine origin of society and of govern- 
 ment leaves no choice for the State between anarchy and despotism. 
 
 " By Me," says divine Wisdom, " kings reign and lawgivers 
 decree just things. By Me princes rule and the mighty decree 
 justice." St. Paul teaches : " There is no power but from God : 
 and those that are, are ordained of God. Therefore, he that 
 resisteth the power resisteth the ordinance of God. . . . For 
 he is God's minister to thee for good." The Church repeats the 
 teachings of Scripture and sets forth the practical consequences. 
 In his Encyclical on Socialism in 1879, the present Pontiff^ Leo 
 XIII, condemns the modern atheistic theory of society. " By a 
 new sort of impiety, unknown to the pagans," he writes, " States 
 constitute themselves independently of God, or of the order which 
 He has established. Public authority is declared to derive neither 
 its principle nor its power from God, but from the multitude, 
 which, believing itself free from all divine sanction, obeys no 
 laws but such as its own caprice dictates." ..." They (the 
 Socialists) never cease proclaiming that all men are equal in all 
 things ; and hence kings have no right to command them, nor 
 laws any power to bind unless made by themselves and according 
 to their own inclinations. But, on the other hand, the Gospel 
 teaches that all men are indeed equal, inasmuch as all have the 
 same natufe, all are called to the sublime dignity of children of 
 God. . . . But an inequality of rights and powers emanates
 
 THE CHURCH— THE SUPPORT OF JUST GOVERNMENT. 15 
 
 from the Author of nature Himself, of whom all paternity is 
 named in heaven and on earth. ... As in the Church He 
 has instituted a diversity of degrees and offices, so too He has 
 established in civil society different orders in dignity, in right 
 and power, so that the State, like the Church, might form one 
 body composed of many members, some more noble than others^ 
 but all necessary to one another, and all laboring for the common 
 good." The words of the Enclyclical, in view of what has already 
 been said, need no comment. It is plain that the equality which 
 the Pontiff denies is the social or political equality which excludes 
 the distinction between the governing and the governed, and 
 annihilates society. When power is given by God, they who 
 exercise it are for the time being superior to those over whom 
 it is exercised, however equal in rights they may be as men 
 under the law of nature. Leo XIII refers again to social ques- 
 tions in a later Encyclical of 1884. He reproves the assertions 
 of the Naturalists that " each one is by nature free ;" that " no 
 one has the right to command others ;" tliat " to wish to subject 
 men to the authority of any one, unless that authority has come 
 to him from themselves, is to do violence to them." In saying 
 that no one is " by nature free," the Pontiff means that no one 
 is by nature free from the la"svs of society, no more than he is 
 free from parental authority or other restrictions to which nature 
 subjects him. In asserting the right of some to command others, 
 he does not imply that some men have this right as something 
 proper cr peculiar to them from nature ; he speaks of the 
 acquired social right belonging to all legitimately constituted rulers 
 in society. The words of both Encyclicals, wrested from the 
 context which indicates clearly their limitation to political and 
 social matters, have been to a large extent misconstrued by the 
 public press of both continents, and I quote them at some length 
 that you may correctly understand them. 
 
 I have stated the teaching of the Church on the origin of 
 society and of government : this teaching is the potent break- 
 water against anarchy, the sure foundation of authority in society. 
 
 Society is as a city built upon the mountain Avithin whose 
 bosom burn a thousand volcanic fires. There are ten, thirty, 
 fifty millions of human beings, diftcriug from, opposed to, one 
 another in inclinations and interests. Mutual sacrifices are
 
 16 SUBMOJS'S OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 required, sacrifices often most severe, that union in one body 
 politic be possible. The passions of men know in their fury no 
 control : they must be abated. The jjoor envy the rich ; 
 inferiors hate superiors ; the proud seek to rise upon the ruins of 
 their fellows ; the strong oppress the weak ; humanity must be 
 diverted from these evil tendencies. To repress passion, to obtain 
 that individual interest be sacrificed to that of the common weal — 
 this is the mighty task which devolves upon authority. Under 
 the a^gis of authority, there is order and peace : authority dis- 
 placed, it is the reveling of crime and chaos. 
 
 Authority — do we pause to notice facts too patent ? — loses day 
 by day its sacredness, its power. Socialists and Nihilists, whose 
 lodges honey-comb Europe, have named authority the enemy — the 
 enemy which they are sworn to combat. The Commune of Paris 
 mocked it and spat upon it amid the lurid glare of burning palaces 
 and the savage uproar of murderous riot. Things are better in 
 America. Yet Socialism has immigrated to America ; the mob occa- 
 sionally rules our cities ; a spirit of lawlessness is visible in the 
 population ; lavrs seem mado to be broken, and crowds gather 
 around the voting booth to elect to office men pledged to disregard 
 the edict of the legislator. The question is opportune : whither is 
 society drifting ? what protection will society be able henceforward 
 to aiford to life, liberty, and rights the most sacred? 
 
 Authority is the safeguard ; but if authority is to be something 
 more than an idle name or a lifeless shadow, we must establish it 
 upon grounds that will insure reverence and obedience. 
 
 Will the appeal be to right in government and to duty in 
 subject? Assuredly not, if society is cut off from God, if gov- 
 ernment has no power, no right but what it has received from 
 the people constituting it. If society, as atheistic theorists hold, 
 is but the voluntary aggregation of individuals, and not an ordi- 
 nance of God, if the governing power has no consecration beyond 
 the free acknowledgment of the governed, what right is or can 
 be violated when the individual disobeys, or even withdraws alto- 
 gether from, the pact? No one may complain when all are equal. 
 The "sacred right of insurrection," as rebellion, just or unjust, 
 has been too often termed, whether against certain laws, or a cer- 
 tain government, or society at large, is the inalienable possession 
 of each person. Indeed, there is never rebellion, because there
 
 THE CHURCH— THE SUPPORT OF JUST GOVERNMENT. 17 
 
 exists no authority above the individual himself. Rousseau's theory 
 of society is political Protestantism, the supremacy of the indi- 
 vidual; and as in Protestantism there can be no religious heresy, 
 so in Rosseau's principles there can be no social rebellion. The 
 ruler who would constrain the individual is a tyrant, assuming 
 power not vested in him. The majority of his fellows, were they 
 in the name of number to strive against him, are tyrants. Mere 
 numbers give no power over others, except the power such as 
 robbers and murderers claim. Right does not and cannot exist 
 under the terms of the " Social Contract." No wonder is it that 
 authority is called the enemy. Xo wonder is it that the French 
 Revolution, with all the horrors of Jacobinism, followed the spread 
 through France of Rosseau's teachings. The statue of the Genevan 
 philosopher, standing out from his sarcophagus in the Pantheon, 
 represents him befittingly as holding in his right hand a burning 
 torch. It is the torch of revolution, of social destruction and 
 social ruin. 
 
 Perhaps self-interest will take the place of duty and compel 
 men to submit to authority. The vainest of illusions ! Why, it 
 is self-interest that begets opposition to law and authority. Talk 
 of self-interest to the ambitious, the vengeful, the licentious ! Talk 
 of self-interest to the millions hopelessly doomed to unceasing labor, 
 to suffering and to want ! Talk of self-interest to the many who 
 bear the burdens of society, while the glitter and the pleasure 
 belong to the few ! Say, if you wish, that whatever becomes of 
 the present time and the present individual, the ultimate interest 
 of the race, the general good of the commonwealth, is secured 
 by this labor and this suffering. Philosophers may in their easy 
 chairs dream of such remote results; the masses do not make 
 sacrifices for them. 
 
 Will physical force be invoked? This is on occasions a conve- 
 nient and effective solution of the difficulty. Cannon and dragoons 
 will do much towards scattering a mob ; prison and exile will 
 thin the ranks of rebels ; the silence of death may be called 
 peace. But what is physical force if not despotism most execrable, 
 a hundred times more galling and degrading than the wildest 
 anarchy? Order purchased by despotism is too high-priced that 
 we should desire it. Besides, it will be of but short duration. 
 Despotism intensifies opposition ; it stimulates hidden plottings and
 
 18 SUR210XS OF TUB THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 terrible reactions. Governments, alas ! too often lend a helping 
 hand to social atheism, fancying that armies and bayonets will suf- 
 fice for their maintenance. "And now, O ye kings, understand : 
 
 receive instruction, you that judge the earth When 
 
 His wrath shall be kindled in a short time, blessed are all they 
 that shall trust in Ilim." A godless people will swiftly demolish 
 the stoutest bastiles. 
 
 Well, in the name of God's Church, I will say Avhither the 
 appeal shall be made. Tell men that there is a God in Israel, that 
 authority is divine, that God's majesty encircles with its rays the 
 legislators and rulers of nations. Tell them that they who govern 
 on earth are indeed human, but that back of them stands the 
 Eternal, making their laws His own, whom to serve is kingly honor, 
 towards whom reverence is highest duty. God is the Creator of 
 man, his Master, and God's will is our supreme guidance. Then 
 make the appeal to man's conscience, that divine sense in him 
 which re-echoes the divine command, the sole moral power on earth, 
 the sole power that can repress passion, whether in the individual or 
 in society. Make the appeal to conscience — the sacrifice is sweet ; 
 there is peace in obedience ; the sword may seek its scabbard. 
 
 The Church teaches with St. Paul that disobedience to civil law 
 is a sin. " He tliat resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of 
 God, and they that resist purchase to themselves damnation. . . . 
 Wherefore be subject of necessity, not only for wrath, but also for 
 conscience' sake." In the eyes of the Church loyalty to country is 
 loyalty to God ; patriotism is a heavenly virtue, a high form of 
 holy obedience ; the patriot dying for his country wears the halo 
 of the martyr. The Catholic Church commands, blesses, consecrates 
 patriotism. The true Catholic must needs be the truest patriot. 
 
 Nations, did they but know what is for their Avelfare, should 
 have written in letters of gold the Encyclicals of Leo. His words 
 M'ill save society. High above the storm that threatens devas- 
 tation to all social fabrics his voice rises, even as the voice of the 
 Master amid the winds of Genesareth, bidding us not to fear, 
 and indicating the means of salvation. And thus will it ever be. 
 So long as Peter's throne rests on the Vatican, so long will 
 testimony be given to truth, and the principles of order and 
 authority will be proclaimed to the nations of the earth. 
 
 And now, authority secured, I will speak the word which
 
 THE CHURCH— THE SUPPORT OF JUST GOVERNMENT. 19 
 
 in your hearts j'ou desire to hear from my lips, which will sound 
 as magic to your ears — a word, the inspiration of a thousand 
 battle-fields, which names the dream of nations, the ideal to them 
 of temporal grandeur and felicity — liberty! Did you think that 
 in my zeal for authority I Avas forgetting liberty? Believe me, 
 I, too, love liberty. With deep emotion I speak the word, and 
 I speak it this evening with most confident affection, because, 
 standing in a Catholic pulpit, I can establish it upon ever-enduring 
 foundations — the eternal principles of divine truth. 
 
 Do not imagine a conflict between liberty and authority. 
 License sacrilegiously calls itself liberty, "making liberty a cloak 
 for malice ;" despotism dares usurp the holy name of authority, 
 and the conflict is between license and authority as it is between 
 despotism and liberty. Liberty and authority are one. Liberty 
 presupposes and follows from authority; authority has liberty for 
 its object. Liberty is the untrammeled use of one's powers and 
 faculties; it is, so to speak, the ownership of itself; hence, we 
 all cherish it. It is, at the same time, the j)0ssibility of self- 
 expansion and self-aggrandizement — the spring of movement and 
 progress in society; hence, nations consider it their most precious 
 inheritance. But that ; this ownership of self, this expansion of 
 one's faculties, be possible, protection is required against the 
 invasion of the wayward and the malefactor; authority gives this 
 protection. Authority, furthermore, combines into one force the 
 energies of the many, and renders individual rights the more 
 fruitful and progress the more certain. Liberty, outside of 
 authority, is the freedom of wild beasts to devour one another. 
 " Appoint, O Lord," says the Psalmist, " a lawgiver over them, 
 that they may know themselves to be men." Authority impeding 
 liberty! Do tlie hillsides, nature's barriers, by confining within 
 their bed the waters of the mighty Mississippi lest they divide 
 over adjacent lowlands into shallow and murky marshes imjDcde 
 their free and majestic flow or diminish their strength and beauty 
 in their course to the ocean ? Who they are that should dread 
 authority St. Paul tells us in the Epistle to the Romans, from 
 which I have already quoted : " Wilt thou, then, be afraid of 
 the power ? Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise 
 from the same ; for he is God's minister to thee for good. But 
 if thou do that which is evil, fear, for he beareth not the sword
 
 20 SERMONS OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 ill vain : an avenger to execute wrath upon him who doeth evil." 
 Tlic sacrifices which authority demands from the good and the 
 well-disposed in the community are a hundredfold compensated 
 for in the advantages they obtain and the security accorded to 
 them. While authority is sacred, liberty is safe; Mhcn authority 
 is assailed, a death-blow lias been leveled at liberty. 
 
 " There is no power but from God ; and those that are, are 
 ordained of God." The same principle of Catholic teaching which 
 consecrates authority confines it to just limits. If civil power is 
 from God, it is to be used for the purposes intended by God — 
 the preservation of society, the defence of rights of individuals and 
 families. Beyond those purposes rulers have no power, and, when 
 their acts unjustly invade the rights they were appointed to protect, 
 they are in opposition to God. 
 
 The Catholic Church the enemy of liberty ! This lias been said, 
 but with what truth I will ask you to judge after I will have 
 made a few further statements as to her principles on civil 
 authority, and the use to be made of it. 
 
 Authority, I have said is from God, and civil governments 
 rule by right divine. But remark in what way, according to 
 Catholic teaching, civil governments are constituted. God does not 
 appoint for a people a particular form of government, as he has 
 done for instance in the case of the Church, nor does he select 
 the particular men who are to wield authority. All this is 
 remitted to the people. They select the ruler and make choice of 
 the form of government : God vests in tile people's candidates the 
 sovereignty, subject to the conditions and limitations with which they 
 have circumscribed it. There are no kings or rulers by divine 
 right in the sense that specified men or families are directly called 
 by God to reign, or that specified governments arc authorized 
 by Him. Rulers govern by the will of the people, and derive 
 their just powers from the consent of the governed in the sense 
 that the consent, the choice, of the governed is the condition upon 
 which heaven conveys authority. 
 
 The principle of the intervention of tne people in the selec- 
 tion of their government is the primary constituent of civil liberty. 
 The people decide for themselves in what manner sovereignty shall 
 be exercised over them : they are parties to the contract with 
 their rulers. They decree whether the full sovereignty shall be
 
 THE CHURCH— THE SUPPORT OF JUST GOVERNMENT. 21 
 
 confided to one person or divided between several ; whether a 
 ruler shall hold office for a number of years or for his life-time ; 
 whether his sovereignty shall be concluded Mith himself or trans- 
 mitted by him to his heirs. Room is made for an absolute mon- 
 arch, for a king with lords and commons, for a jiresident with 
 senators and representatives, as the nation may sec fit to elect. 
 "There is no prohibition to nations, the rules of justice being 
 otherwise observed," says Leo XIII in his Encyclical of June, 1881, 
 " to choose for themselves that sort of government which befits 
 their temper or accords with the traditions and customs of their 
 race." Republic, monarchy, empire — all fare alike before the 
 Church; the authority in all is divine, and obedience towards all 
 is obligatory. 
 
 Let me, however, make some observations in order that Catho- 
 lic teaching be in nothing misunderstood. The choice once made, 
 the conditions of the government once traced, the people cannot, 
 at will, through mere whim or fancy, dethrone their rulers or 
 revoke their constitutions. Stability is an essential element of 
 order in society, and changes, without the gravest reasons, destroy 
 stability. Society, a divinely ordained institution, may not commit 
 suicide ; no right is conceded to prince or to people, to the mul- 
 titude collectively or distributively, that tears down instead of 
 building up the social frame-work. When mention is made of the 
 intervention of the people, we are to understand the people at 
 large, as they express the general national will, not individuals 
 singly or parcels of individuals. Once chosen directly or indirectly 
 by the people and invested with divine power, civil rulers are, 
 in fact and right, the superiors of those whom they govern, and 
 they should act for the general good as their consciences dictate ; 
 they are not the mere mouth-pieces of subjects to repeat their 
 orders, the mere servants of their constituents to obey" their whims. 
 The sovereignty resides in them, and not in the pcojile, and upon 
 them lies the responsibility for the ])roper exercise tliereof. 
 
 Listen now, while I repeat in the words of tlie " Angel of 
 the Schools " the principles of the Church on the use and the 
 extent of sovereignty : " Law is a rule dictated by reason, the 
 aim of which is the public good, and promulgated by him who 
 has the care of society." " The Avill to have the force of law 
 must be guided by reason. In this sense only can the will of
 
 22 seemoj^s of tub third plenary council. 
 
 a sovereign be said to have the force of law ; in any other sense 
 it would not be law, but injustice." "Human laws, if they are 
 just, are l)inding in conscience, and they derive their power from 
 the eternal law from Avhich they are formed." " Laws may be 
 unjust in two ways, either by being opposed to the common weal 
 or by having an improper aim, as when a government imposes 
 upon its subjects onerous laws, which do not serve the common 
 interest, but rather cupidity and ambition ; or on account of their 
 author, as Avhen one makes a law beyond the power vested in 
 him. Such laws are rather outrages than laws." " The kingdom 
 is not made for the king, but the king for the kingdom ; for 
 God has constituted kings to rule and govern, and to secure to 
 every one tlie possession of his rights ; such is the aim of their 
 institution ; but if kings, turning things to their own profit, should 
 act otherwise they are no longer kings but tyrants.". (St. Thomas, 
 " De Leg. et de Reg. Princ," jpassim.) Never were words more 
 grand written on civil liberty than those penned by Aquinas. 
 According to the principles laid down by him, all power is from 
 God : God grants no power to rulers against Himself. His own 
 laws, the supreme dictates of righteousness and goodness, must never 
 be violated. In their official, as well as in their private life, rulers 
 are subject to them. God is " the King of kings and the Lord of 
 lords," and nations, as well as individuals, are His creatures. 
 Human laws contradicting the divine have no binding power : " They 
 are rather injustices than laws." The "higher law" limits all civil 
 power. Even the monarch who could say in his mightiness, " I am 
 the State," had to hear the solemn monition : " Hitherto thou shalt 
 come, and thou shalt go no further." Amid apparent absolutism an 
 impregnable citadel remains to liberty — the conscience, whose cry of 
 Mar against tyranny has never been stilled in the world since the 
 first prince of the Church exclaimed in Jerusalem: "If it be just 
 in the sight of God to hear you rather than God, judge ye." 
 Nor is this all. Civil power in tlie hands of rulers is a trust, 
 the aim of which is the public good ; reason must direct its use. 
 The good pleasure of the sovereign docs not make law. The State 
 is not for the ruler, but the ruler is for the State. The maxim 
 of tlie Roman poet is false — that " tlie human race lives for the 
 ])rofit of the few." In the intent of the trust the ruler becomes 
 the servant of the people, and when he does not serve them, but
 
 THE CHURCH— THE SUPPORT OF JUST G0VERN3IENT. 23 
 
 heeds rather his ambition, his pride, his cupidity, he is a tyrant, 
 and his lawo are "injustices," "outrages." Equally despotic is the 
 ruler who violates the conditions upon which he was chosen by 
 the people as their superior ; he is bound as much as they by 
 the fundamental laws, written or traditional, by the charter or con- 
 stitution of the nation. Authority deserves obedience only when 
 " deriving its power from the eternal law." Otherwise the nimbus 
 of divine majesty vanishes from the ruler's brow. The human 
 remains ; the human demanding to reign is despotism, and obedi- 
 ence to it were slavery. This, assuredly, is civil liberty — law " a 
 rule dictated by reason, the aim of which is the public good." This 
 is liberty in its truest, fullest measure. Liberty we take to be 
 the alliance of social protection and individual rights with as little 
 curtailment of the latter as the case may permit. The Catholic 
 definition of law is the consecration of this alliance. 
 
 The zeal of theologians for liberty goes farther than to call 
 the edicts of despotism injustices and outrages, and to declare that 
 they do not bind in conscience. A revolution, the dethronement 
 of power, the Church holds, and rightly, to be a fearful occur- 
 rence. Society quakes from the shock to its deepest foundations ; 
 with difficulty will it ever recover its equipoise; and yet, when 
 despotism lowers its heavy hand over a people, and representation, 
 counsel and entreaty fail to ward it off, the nation — rather tlian 
 let liberty die for evermore — may, we are told, rise up with all 
 its miglit and, in a supreme effort for life, hurl against despotism 
 the thunders of war. Tliis right belongs not to an individual nor 
 to a few ; the people only may say when the time for insurrection 
 has come. " In extreme circumstances," says Balmcs, " non-resistance 
 is not a dogmatical prescription. The Church has never taught 
 such a doctrine; if any one will maintain that she has, let him 
 bring forward a decision of a council or of a Sovereign Pontiff 
 to that effect. St. Thomas of Aquin, Cardinal Bellarmine, Suares, 
 and other eminent theologians were well-versed in the dogmas of 
 the Church ; and yet, if you consult their works, so far from 
 finding this doctrine in them, you will find the opposite one." 
 " Bossuet and other authors of repute," Balmes adds, " differ from 
 St. Thomas, Ballarmine, and Suares ; and this gives credit to the 
 opposite opinion, but does not convert it into a dogma. Upon 
 certain points of the highest import the opinions of Bossuet suf- 
 fered contradiction."
 
 24 SFRMOIfS OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 Those principles of Catholic teaching are the very core of the 
 tree of civil liberty. They give us the substance, nothing that 
 is merely external and superficial, as we too often receive where 
 professions are the loudest. The world is easily deceived : words 
 win above realities. Liberty is bidden to cast the veil of its 
 name now over anarchy and again over despotism. Be the name 
 what it may, there is no liberty where law is not the dictate of 
 reason, and where it is there needs must be liberty. External 
 forms of government, so far as true liberty is concerned, are 
 largely accidental : they neither create nor necessarily impede liberty. 
 The spirit of the people is of incomparably greater importance 
 than the form of their government. An empire or a monarchy 
 may secure tlie fulness of liberty to the subject, and despotism 
 may reign in a republic. The republic may in the name of brutal 
 numbers, ignore justice, prostitute to private ends the public power, 
 trample under foot the rights of minorities, and with liberty's own 
 wand crush out her life. An American publicist says of repre- 
 sentative democracy : " The tyranny of tlie majority is worse than 
 the tyranny of one man or a few men, because it has no 
 restraint." Gibbon says of the expiring republic of Rome : " The 
 provinces, weary of the oppressive ministers of the republic, were 
 willing to submit to the authority of a single master ; " and never 
 were the rights of minorities and of individuals more unscrupu- 
 lously sacrificed than in the recent repu])lics of a Gambetta in 
 France and a Castelar in Spain. The foulest form of despotism — 
 Statolatry or the deification of the State — is a temptation of all 
 forms of government. The despotic State, be it called monarchy 
 or republic, allows no higher authority than itself; it assumes to be 
 the supreme arbiter of right and wrong, of the spiritual and the 
 temporal, controlling the school and the Church, thought and con- 
 science, as it docs army maneuverings and real estate taxation, 
 and refusing the recognition of all right, except what its own. will 
 authorizes. It is the most complete incarnation of despotism. The 
 pagan State was nearly always constituted on this basis, and con- 
 sistently with the doctrine the ^' jpatria " received divine honors. 
 Our own too popular maxim, " Vox populi, vox Dei," is a form 
 of Statolatry, implying that the sovereign people can never do 
 wrong, and that their will is the highest law. Modern political 
 Socialism, now so vigorously striving in the very name of liberty
 
 THE CHURCH— THE SUPPORT OF JUST GOVERNMENT. 25 
 
 for supremacy, goes beyond the claims of the pagan State, assert- 
 ing that the State is all in all, and the individual nothing — 
 the individual having no right to own property, to speak, to think, 
 to train his childrei\ except as the State directs and allows in 
 the supposed interest of the common good. Never, perhaps, more 
 than in our century has it been necessary to keep before the minds 
 of men the vital principles of civil liberty. 
 
 The value of Catholic principles is not realized by considering 
 their intrinsic truth and beauty. We have to consider, in addi- 
 tion, the power of the living organism which thinks them and 
 proclaims them. The principles of civil liberty taught by the 
 Church can never become in the world a dead letter : they are 
 never allowed to be forgotten by men. No tyrant can shelve 
 them with the tomes on whose pages they might be inscribed, 
 as he would the sayings of philosophers, beyond the reach and 
 the hearing of his subjects. They palpitate with the vigorous life 
 of mother Church, whose noble progeny they are. Their voice 
 surges in far-reaching waves from the Enclyclicals of Popes, the 
 lectures of doctors, the sermons of humblest pastors. It reaches 
 down to the poorest peasant and to the most oppressed slave, 
 and begets in their souls a sense of right, a spirit of personal 
 dignity and of manly independence. It passes through the serried 
 ranks of satellites which encircle the throne of the tyrant and 
 rings into his ear notes of terror, reminding him of the penalty 
 of despotic wrong-doing. It reaches through every age and over 
 every land. The spirit of liberty is Catholic and immortal, because 
 its parent and guardian is the Church Catholic and immortal. 
 
 Objection has been raised in the name of the State against 
 the Catholic Church as if she interfered with the duties of citizen- 
 ship by dividing the allegiance of subjects. No less a name than 
 that of William E. Gladstone has been connected with this objec- 
 tion. We cannot but wonder that it was ever raised. There is 
 no ground for it. " Render to Ccesar the things that are Cnesar's, 
 and to God the things that are God's" — this is a supreme rule 
 of Catholic policy. Reserving strictly to her own direct jurisdiction 
 the things that are God's, the Church has never sought — she can 
 never without manifest contradiction seek — to interpose in the 
 things that are Csesar's. The temporal administration, the practical 
 methods of government, are matters for the State exclusively.
 
 2Q SFEJIO^^S OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 The Church simply proclaims the principles of justice and of 
 morality which are binding upon men, whether as individuals 
 or as communities. To bid her be silent is to make the 
 State supreme alike in morals and in secular concerns, and 
 to remove all restraint from despotism. No remedy would be 
 found in substituting for the teaching of the Church the individual 
 conscience uninstructed save by the light of private reason. This 
 on the one hand would establish each individual the judge of the 
 State and open the door to anarchy, and on the other by leaving 
 the individual alone and unprotected it facilitates the triumph of 
 despotism over the country. There is gain both for authority 
 and for liberty in the existence of a spiritual power which, in 
 God's name, gives final sentence upon principles of religion and of 
 morals. 
 
 Among the brightest pages of history, and the most honorable 
 for the human race, are those which tell the battles of the Church 
 in defence of liberty. She fought for the possession by her- 
 self of liberty. Never did the Catholic Church bend the neck 
 under the yoke of temporal prince. She held directly from Christ, 
 and she permitted ho sovereign of earth to rule over her. The 
 ambition of tyrants was ever to enslave the spiritual power. In 
 imperial Rome the ruler was at the same time " imperator " and 
 " j)ontifcx'^ — the high-priest and the commander-in-chief of the 
 armies. The pagan union of the two powers was often coveted 
 in Christendom. Henry IV, in Germany, took upon himself to 
 dispose of the bishop's crozier as he would of the vassal's sword. 
 Henry II, in England, allowed in his kingdom no rights to tlie 
 Church not deriving from his own will. This was the tyranny 
 in later years of Henry VIII, King and Pope of England, and 
 in our own days, of Chancellor Von Bismarck, of Prussia, whose 
 May laws make the State as powerful in the sanctuary as in the 
 military garrison or the revenue bureau. The victory always 
 remained with the Church; it was no more her own victory than 
 the victory of civil liberty. It was not the hatred of religion that 
 led rulers to war with the Church : it was the hatred of liberty. 
 They could not brook the existence of a power independent of 
 them, to which their people could appeal, which reminded subjects 
 that there is a limit to the authority of masters. Coesar was not 
 omnipotent, so long as the Church refused him " the empire of
 
 THE CHURCH— THE SUPPORT OF JUST G0VERN2IENT. 27 
 
 minds," and he raged against the Church. Fortunately a Canossa 
 ever awaited him, and liberty Avas saved to the Avorld. " But for 
 the intervention of the Papacy," says a Protestant writer in the 
 Edinburgh Review, alluding to the excommunication of Henry IV 
 by Pope Gregory VII, " the vassal of the West and the serf of 
 Eastern Europe would, perhaps, to this day be in the same state 
 of social debasement, and military autocrats would occupy the place 
 of paternal and constitutional governments." 
 
 The Church fought the battles of personal liberty against slavery 
 and serfdom. The "rights of man" were first made known to the 
 world by her Pontiffs and her councils. Her dogma of a common 
 brotherhood under the one divine paternity struck to the ground the 
 manacles which heartless man "vvas always too willing to impose 
 upon his weak fellow. No social law or feudal caste could long 
 resist the example of the great Church that never refused her own 
 dignities to slave and serf, and that placed them, when her own 
 princely insignia waved from their shoulders, in social rank above 
 the highest lord and lady in the land. "In 1167," says Voltaire, 
 " Pope Alexander III declared in the name of the council that all 
 Christians should be exempt from slavery." " This laAv," adds the 
 same writer, " alone should render his memory dear to all people." 
 In the same spirit Gregory XVI, during our own century, raised 
 his powerful protest against the African slave trade, and led the 
 way to the total abolition of negro slavery in civilized lands. 
 
 The Church fought the battles of civil liberty. During the 
 Middle Ages she was recognized as the arbiter of nations : her 
 Popes judged and deposed sovereigns. They always acted in the 
 interest of the people, in the interest of civil liberty. Report comes 
 to us that Philip, Henry, Frederick, oppresses his subjects — this 
 the usual tenor of the pontifical letters bringing sovereigns to trial, 
 and telling the world in thundering tones that right is above might, 
 and that despotism is a crime of high treason against society. 
 The solemn condemnation of a Barbarossa or a Henry sufficed 
 to thrill all Christendom with the spirit of liberty, and to awaken 
 from their slumbers all rights of humanity, whether in high or 
 low estate. The result was that in the Middle Ages, as Mon- 
 talembert expresses it, "the world was bristling with liberty. The 
 spirit of resistance, the sentiment of individual right, penetrated 
 it entirely; and it is this which always and everywhere consti-
 
 28 SEEITONS OF TEE THIRD PLEXARY COUNCIL. 
 
 tutes the essence of freedom." Feudalism was at the time strongly- 
 entrenched in Europe, and opposed powerful obstacles to the develop- 
 ment of liberty. The Church was alone capable of resisting its 
 influences. " If the Christian Church had not existed," says 
 Guizot (" Hist, de la Civil.," 2e lecon), " the entire world would 
 have been delivered up to mere material force. The Church alone 
 exercised a moral power." Hume himself writes (" Hist, of the 
 House of Tudor ") that without the Papacy " all Europe would 
 have fallen very early into one or many caliphates, and would 
 have submitted infallibly and disgracefully to Turkish sway and 
 to Oriental oppression and stupefaction." 
 
 Strange fortune of the Catholic Church ! She battled for cen- 
 turies in giant warfare, and saved Europe to liberty, and yet the 
 accusation has gone abroad against her that she befriends despotism 
 and crushes out free institutions. Her work for liberty, for civiliza- 
 tion, for progress was culminating in the beginning of the sixteenth 
 century, when Protestantism appeared on the horizon and the credit 
 of a long and tedious work of ages has been awarded to the new 
 religion. 
 
 Protestanism did nothing for liberty. It introduced into the 
 world no one new principle that favored liberty. Its claim to 
 private judgment in religion was religious anarchy; if it was 
 anything in civil and political matters, it was political anarchy, 
 the reaction from which always leads to despotism. Protestantism 
 is not an organized force, and its contribution of positive power 
 to any cause must necessarily be next to nothing : whatever Is 
 seemingly done under its sway is done by other causes than 
 itself. It weakened the elements of resistance to the encroachments 
 of despotism by dividing them, and as a fact despotism followed 
 everywhere in the wake of its earliest advances. Never during- 
 Christian ages, except in Protestant countries, was the subjection 
 of the spiritual to the temporal an accomplished fact. The Pro- 
 testant prince was made the head of the Church in his realm, 
 and he ruled souls as well as bodies. Henry VIII became the 
 keeper of the consciences of the people of England; his daughter 
 Elizabeth demanded more servile obedience from her bishops than 
 from her lieutenants and her sheriffs, and Gustavus Adolphus 
 was equally despotic over the Church in Sweden. In Protestant 
 Germany the political maxim prevailed, " cujus rcg'io illius rellgio/'
 
 TEE CEUBCE—TEE SUPPORT OF JUST GOVERNMENT. 29 
 
 and every petty prince shaped out in his cabinet dogmas and 
 rules of morals which subjects had to accept or lose their heads. 
 The doctrine of passive resistance, according to which a prince, 
 however despotic, can never be dethroned, was brought into its 
 greatest prominence by Anglican divines under James I, and 
 however much Guizot, a Protestant, praises the Reformation, he 
 is compelled to confess that as a fact " absolute monarchy tri- 
 umphed simultaneously with it throughout Europe." No ; Protest- 
 antism retarded instead of advancing the growth of liberty. If 
 in later times liberty has asserted herself in Protestant lands, she 
 but recovered by her own energies her pristine vigor, and wherever 
 to-day she thrives her strength conies to her from the principles 
 proclaimed and defended during the whole course of the Christian 
 era by the Catholic Church. 
 
 The relations of political to civil liberty I take to be as those 
 of a means to an end. I call political liberty the diffusion of 
 the State sovereignty among large numbers of the citizens, and the 
 intervention as direct as it may be made of the people in the 
 affairs of the government. The republic is the special embodiment 
 of this liberty. The presumption is that the people will guard 
 with great care their civil liberty — the free, untrammeled enjoy- 
 ment of their rights — by giving personal attention to the govern- 
 ment rather than by abdicating the whole sovereignty into the 
 hands of one ruler. The general principles bearing upon authority, 
 which I have so far explained, remain inviolate. The representa- 
 tives of power, once placed in office, no matter how numerous 
 they be, or how brief their term of authority, are for the time 
 being the superiors of the community, and hold their power from 
 God within the limitations assigned to their several charges by 
 the constitution. 
 
 Do you ask the attitude of the Catholic Church towards a 
 republican form of government? The reply is substantially given 
 in what I have heretofore said on the rights of the people. The 
 Church teaches that the choice of constitutions and of rulers lies 
 with the people. Whether they will have an empire, a monarchy 
 or a republic it is their own privilege to decide, according as their 
 needs may suggest or their desires may lead. Tlie Church is from 
 her own principles without a voice in this matter. This is the 
 emphatic declaration of Pope Leo in his Encyclical of June, 1881.
 
 30 SEBMONS OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 It is for the people to speak ; for the Church to consecrate and 
 enforce their will. When the people have under due conditions 
 constituted a government over themselves, whatever form in itself 
 legitimate this government may have, the Church commands obedi- 
 ence to it. It is the Catholic doctrine that in America loyalty ta 
 the republic is a divine virtue, and resistance to its laws a sia 
 crying to heaven for vengeance. The republic in America will 
 receive from the Church all the honor and respect due to the rep- 
 resentative of divine authority in temporal matters, and her prayer 
 for the republic will be that it may secure to the people what its- 
 professions permit them to expect — the largest possible share of civil 
 liberty. 
 
 I lose all patience when I hear prejudice still surviving to the 
 extent to assert that the Catholic Church is not the friend of 
 free institutions. Could her teachings be more explicit? Has her 
 history belied those teachings ? The soul, the life of a republic, 
 is an intense love of civil liberty : has not the Church ever 
 labored to create and strengthen this love? Have not her efforts 
 been always in the direction of personal dignity, and of the rights 
 of the individual ? Did not the Middle Ages under her guidance- 
 gradually emerge from Roman despotism and barbarian feudalism 
 into the possession of political liberty, so that we may truly say 
 she started the nations on the road to the highest forms of lib- 
 erty ? "What power but the Church, by the abolition of slavery 
 and serfdom, widened the ranks of freemen and citizens ? Were- 
 not her bishops parties to all the charters of liberty wrenched 
 from absolute monarchs ? Were not parliaments and trial by jury 
 the institutions of Catholic ages ? Were not the fueros and com- 
 munes of the Middle Ages the freest forms of municipal regimes f 
 Are not the names of the Italian republics of Genoa, Pisa, Sienna, 
 Florence, Venice familiar to all students of history ? Does not 
 Switzerland, that classic land of mountain liberty, shoot into remote- 
 Catholic centuries the roots of her republican institutions ? I may 
 add in all truth, if the world is to-day capable of enduring and 
 understanding political liberty, it is due to the Church's long and 
 painful parturition of European civilization. I presume our Rad- 
 icals wonder that the hordes led by Attilla and Genseric were 
 not at once educated by the Church into the intricacies of parlia- 
 mentary debate and presidential campaigning. The action of the'
 
 THE CHURCH— THE SUPPORT OF JUST GOVERNMENT. 31 
 
 Church in the world is as the action of God, strongest when, 
 mildest, sowing seeds in due season, and awaiting due season ta 
 reap the harvest, educating nations as a parent educates its child. 
 This much certainly is manifest from her history, that she encour- 
 aged the fullest development of personal freedom and personal 
 rights, and that so far as political liberty is compatible with civil 
 liberty, and avoids anarchy no less than despotism, the Churcli 
 will rejoice in its widest expansion. 
 
 I do not say that Catholics the world over will profess, or 
 that Catholics of all past ages would have professed, my own 
 love and admiration for the republican form of government. The 
 choice of governments the Church leaves to nations, and as in 
 all questions left to free discussion, men differ. Catholics in 
 other places see matters from peculiar standpoints ; they judge 
 from experiences near to them ; they may, too, be influenced by 
 public opinion or prejudices in their several countries. This much,, 
 however, I know, that if they prefer other forms they are not 
 compelled in their choice by Catholic principles or Catholic history. 
 This much too, I know, that I transgress no one iota of Catholic 
 teaching when I speak forth my own judgment this evening, and 
 salute the republic as the government I most cordially cherish. 
 
 The great Augustine (" De Lib. arbitrio") wrote: "If the 
 people are serious and temperate ; and if, moreover, they have 
 such a concern for the public good that each one would prefer 
 the public interest to his own, is it not true that it would be 
 advisable to enact that a people should choose their own author- 
 ities for the administration of their affairs ?" and the answer 
 given is, " certainly." Remark the conditions : " If the people 
 are serious and temperate," etc., etc. The one fear for the 
 republic is that it gives more freedom than poor humanity deserves 
 or can endure. No form of government as much as a republic 
 demands wisdom and virtue in the people. The many control 
 the ship of State ; the many, consequently, must be able to 
 control their own passions, else swift shipwreck awaits it. Rome 
 lost her liberties when the Romans had lost the stern morality of 
 their early history. Virtue is but a name, where religion, the 
 deep sense of man's obligations to God, is not deeply imbedded 
 in the hearts of the people. To Americans, then, who love the 
 republic, I fearlessly say, your hope is in the Catholic Church,.
 
 32 SUMMONS OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 because she is the mighty power to-day to resist unbelief and 
 vice. Do you not see that outside of the Catholic Church the 
 most important doctrines of Christianity are melting away, and 
 that a moral chaos is threatening, most vital virtues said to be 
 no longer of significance, and the fount of all social life, the 
 family, breaking up under the pressure of violent passion? The 
 most valued aids to the republic from the Church are not her 
 direct enunciations on liberty, but her powerful labors in the 
 cause of religion, of purity, of honesty, of all the heavenly virtues 
 that build up the Christian man and the Christian family. 
 
 Republic of America, receive from me the tribute of my love 
 and of my loyalty. I am proud to do thee homage, and I pray 
 from my heart that thy glory may never be dimmed — Esto 
 jjerpctua! Thou bearcst in thy hands the brightest hopes of the 
 human race. God's mission to thee is to show to nations that 
 man is capable of the highest liberty. Oh ! be ever free and 
 prosperous that liberty triumph over the earth from the rising to 
 the setting sun. Esto pc;"j:»c^ita — but forget not that religion and 
 morality can alone give life to liberty and preserve to it a never- 
 fading youth. Believe me, thy surest hope is from the Church 
 which false friends would have thee fear. Believe me, no hearts 
 love thee more ardently than Catholic hearts, no tongues speak 
 more loudly thy praises than Catholic tongues, and no hands will 
 be lifted up stronger and more willing to defend thy laws and 
 thy institutions in peace and in war, than Catholic hands. Again — 
 Esto pervetua !
 
 Most Rev. Michael A. Corrigan, D.D-
 
 ^^rrtub— ^tttt ^umd frrf^te. 
 
 SERMOK OF MOST REY. M. 1. CORRIdAI, D.D., 
 
 COADJUTOR-ARCHBISHOP OF KEW YORK 
 
 ♦'Remember your prelates who have spoken the Word of God to you." — Jleb., 
 c. xiii, V, 11. 
 
 OF the forty-six Fathers who sat in the second Plenary Council 
 only sixteen still survive. More than this : During the few 
 years that have since elapsed not only have thirty bishops and 
 archbishops gone to the house of their eternity, but in several 
 instances, their successors, too, have passed away, so that the 
 Solemn Requiem oifered this morning for the prelates who have 
 died since the last council is chanted for forty-two consecrated 
 rulers. For these, " as it is a good and wholesome thought to 
 pray for the. dead," we send up our sighs and our prayers in the 
 spirit of fraternal charity, and as a tribute of love and gratitude 
 to our Fathers in the faith who have borne the burdens of the 
 day and the heat, and who now rest from their labors. "Blessed 
 are the dead who die in the Lord. From henceforth now, saith 
 the Spirit, .... for their works follow them." 
 
 In the commemorative services and solemn supplications offered 
 in this cathedral, the first place, dear brethren, is deservedly due 
 to your own lamented archbishops, the Most Rev. Martin John 
 Spalding, late Delegate Apostolic, and his successor in this time- 
 honored see, the Most Rev. James Roosevelt Bayley. Then, we 
 affectionately remember the venerable and Most Rev. Archbishop 
 Purcell, dean, at the time of liis death, of the episcopate of the 
 United States. "VVe have to pray also for the Most Rev. Arcli- 
 bishop Odin, of New Orleans, and his successor, the Most Rev. 
 
 3 (33)
 
 34 SEEJIOyS OF TUB THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 Archbishop Perche ; for Archbishop Henni, of Milwaukee ; Arch- 
 bishop Bhmchet, of Oregon City ; Arclibishop Wood, of Philadelphia. • 
 
 Besides these, memory turns, with fond regret, to a long list 
 of llight lleverend prelates, who were all present at the late 
 Plenary Council, and who have since, one by one, passed away, 
 namely : Bishop Timon, of Buffalo ; Bishop Lavialle, of Louis- 
 ville ; Bisliop Baraga, of Marquette ; Bishop Carrell, of Coving- 
 ton ; Bishop Juncker, of Alton ; Bishop Lefebre, of Detroit j 
 Bishop Demers, of Vancouver ; Bishop Luers, of Fort Wayne ; 
 Bishop McGill, of Richmond; Bishop O'Gorman, of Omaha ; Bishop 
 Whelan, of Wheeling ; Bishop McFarland, of Hartford ; Bishop 
 Bacon, of Portland ; Bishop INIartin, of Nachitoches ; Bishop Verot, 
 of St. Augustine ; Bishop De Saint Palais, of Yincennes ; Bishop 
 Rappe, of Cleveland ; Bishop Domenec, of Pittsburgh ; Bishop 
 Amat, of Monterey ; Bishop Rosecrans, of Columbus ; Bishop Lynch, 
 of Charleston ; Bishop Quinlan, of Mobile. 
 
 We mourn, moreover, the loss of the Rt. Rev. Dr. Miege, pre- 
 vented by illness from attending the last National Synod, and 
 who departed this life only a few months ago ; and we mourn 
 as well eleven other prelates who had either retired from active 
 duty before the celebration of the second Plenary Council, or who 
 received Episcopal consecration after that date, namely : The Rt. 
 Rev. Dr. Chabrat, Coadjutor of Bardstown ; Rt. Rev. Bishoj) R^s6, 
 of Detroit; Rt. Rev. Dr. O'Connor, of Pittsburgh; Rt. Rev. Bishop 
 Whelan, of Nashville ; Rt. Rev. Bishop De la Hailendiere, of 
 Vincennes ; Rt. Rev. Bishop Melcher, of Green Bay ; Rt. Rev. 
 Bishop Galberry, of Hartford; Rt. Rev. Bishop Foley, of Chicago; 
 Rt. Rev. Bishop Pellicer, of San Antonio ; Rt. Rev. Bishop Mc- 
 MuUen, of Davenport ; Rt. Rev. Bishop Toebbe, of Covington. 
 
 As we repeat each well-known name, hosts of pleasant memories 
 come crowding on the mind just as by-gone scenes are awak- 
 ened to new life by some sweet strain of once familiar music. 
 Venerable forms loom up again before us with, the paternal kind- 
 ness, the distinguished presence, the winning ways we knew so well 
 of old ; and while the vision lasts we seem to hear a still, small 
 voice saying : " To-day for me, to-morrow for thee," or the echo of 
 the words spoken by the wise woman of Thecua to the king on 
 his throne: "We all die, and fall down into the earth, like waters 
 that return no more."
 
 DE MORTUIS—OUR DECEASED PRELATES. 35 
 
 "Star differeth from star in glory." The bishops, whose virtues 
 we commemorate, diiFered in gifts of mind, in habits of thought, 
 in nationality, in early training, in personal experience, in almost 
 everything else but their common faith. This golden bond united 
 them to each other and to us. There was still another point of 
 resemblance and another link that bound them all together — the 
 participation in the divine work of the Good Shepherd which was 
 laid upon them all. 
 
 We cannot attempt this morning to review the lives of forty 
 prelates one by one; but we can at least give a passing glance 
 at their labors, and so realize to some extent how much we owe 
 them. 
 
 "Nothing in this world," says St. Augustine, "is more difficult, 
 more laborious, more perilous than the office of a bishop; yet 
 nothing more blessed in God's sight if the work be so executed 
 as our heavenly Commander enjoins." "The bishop," he continues, 
 "is not for himself, but for those to whom he preaches the divine 
 word and dispenses the holy sacraments." 
 
 From its very nature, therefore, the episcopate is a name not so 
 much of honor as of labor and of burden. Among the heathens, 
 for instance, at this very hour, to the devoted bishops, who carry 
 their lives in their hands, the episcopate is a name of untold 
 hardship and of peril. Apart from open persecution, it is a name 
 of consuming anxiety, even in so-called Catholic countries where 
 the free action of the Church is hampered by the State, the out- 
 ward splendor of the office but too often concealing a hidden yet 
 a bitter bondage. Once more: even when the Church is free, and 
 religion has long been established, the episcopate is still a name 
 of awful responsibility on account of the great multitudes of souls 
 to be cared for. 
 
 In our beloved country, dear bretliren, although the edge of the 
 sword, the jealousy of interfering governments, and swarming Catho- 
 lic populations, as in Europe, have thus far been wanting ; yet our 
 deceased prelates have certainly not been exempt from the trials 
 of their office. Let me recall to mind a single characteristic fact. 
 Of the two and forty chief pastors whose loss we deplore no fewer 
 than twenty-three were the first bishops of their sees, that is, 
 founders of new dioceses, and if the term may be used, pioneers 
 of religion. Kow, if we consider all that the life of a pioneer
 
 36 SUMMONS OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 implies, in overcoming difficulties, in creating resources, in facing 
 hardships, privations, unknown dangers, in displaying untiring steadi- 
 ness of purpose, energy and courage, carried even often to heroism, 
 the humble pioneer stands before us an humble missionary no 
 longer, but transfigured with shining light, in all the majesty, the 
 supernatural loveliness, the glory of an apostle. Yet such were 
 the labors, more or less, such the lives of all our deceased pre- 
 lates, and from this chair of truth we may well proclaim our deep 
 indebtedness for the work they accomplished. 
 
 We owe their memory lasting thanks, dear brethren, because 
 they achieved : (1.) great results, (2.) In a short time, (3.) In spite 
 of many difficulties. 
 
 And, first of all, a vast work was given them to do. Take, 
 for instance (as a typical case, although by no means one of the 
 most embarrassing), the case of your late Archbishop, and my 
 beloved predecessor. Bishop Bayley. Named first Bishop of Newark, 
 he found a diocese with twenty-five priests and as many churches, 
 but unprovided with a single house of learning, with no religious 
 orders, no charitable institutions, except a small frame building, 
 rented as a temporary orphan asylum, under the care of five Sister's 
 of Charity. The field was large and inviting, the harvest not only 
 not ripe, but the seeds hardly yet planted. Situated between two 
 great cities, the new bishopric received the surplus of an overflow- 
 ing tide of immigration rich, indeed, in prospective blessings, like 
 the inundations of the Nile, but bringing also multitudinous wants 
 demanding instant attention. To meet and direct the rising flood 
 it was necessary to multiply, first of all, the number of devoted 
 laborers ; then religious orders had to be introduced as auxiliaries, 
 so that churches, schools, hospitals, asylums, might be erected every- 
 where. I need not dwell on the results accomplished. Suffice it 
 to say that such was the growth of religion that a single parish 
 had to be divided eighteen times over in as many years — thirty- 
 six priests doing duty in a district where a few years previously 
 three stood watch and guard over the interests of souls. 
 
 From the Atlantic let us pass to the distant Pacific coast. It 
 is not yet half a century since a Canadian Missionary, Father Francis 
 Norbert Blancliet, afterwards bishop and archbishop, penetrated the 
 wilds of Oregon, Avhere, at that time, there was neither church nor 
 priest. At the date of his consecration, in 1843, his entire clergy
 
 DE MORTUIS—OUR DECEASED PRELATES. 37 
 
 consisted of the distinguished Father De Smet and four other devoted 
 Jesuit Fathers. But remember the size of his vicariate. It embraced 
 375,000 square miles, a tract of territory larger than England, 
 France and Italy put together, or than all our Atlantic sea-board 
 States, from Maine to Florida, both included. "With all our actual 
 appliances for annihilating distance, this would still constitute an 
 immense field of labor. What must have been the toil of travers- 
 ing it before the building of railroads forty years ago, on foot or 
 on horseback. 
 
 Leaving now our sea-coasts, separated from each other by thou- 
 sands of miles, let us pass to the interior and recall the labors of 
 another pioneer and founder — the INIost Rev. Archbishop Henni. 
 During the sixth Provincial Council of Baltimore he was nominated 
 to the See of Milwaukee, then a far distant frontier city, in which 
 the Holy Sacrifice had been offered for the first time only seven 
 years before. At his installation he found in his new diocese four 
 priests, four or five churches and about 8,000 faithful people. At 
 his death there were 185 clergymen, 258 churches, 125 schools, 
 200,000 Catholics, and these figures whould be still larger had not 
 the diocese meanwhile been divided and subdivided. 
 
 But all this, and much more of the same character that could 
 be added, is a familiar tale to you, dear brethren, \vho, to use 
 the phrase of Cardinal Barnabo at the opening of the American 
 College, Rome, live in a country " in Avhich cities arc not built, 
 but improvised." AVhat elsewhere is the steady, gradual and pro- 
 gressive growth of centuries had to be accomplished here in a 
 single lifetime. 
 
 The country advanced with more than giant strides. The 
 Church had to keep equal pace, if not, indeed, to lead the march 
 of progress. In justice to the dead, may we not say that their 
 work was most successfully, as well as expeditiously, accomplished? 
 Take the Seminary of St. Charles, at Overbrook, that monument 
 of the late noble-hearted Archbishop of Philadelphia. In point of 
 elegance of construction, of comfortable accommodation, and of 
 architectural beauty, is there in the Catholic world a finer semi- 
 nary? And as regards system and organization, thoroughness of 
 equipment, attention to sanitary laws and personal comfort, may 
 not many institutions of benevolence and charity established under 
 the auspices of our deceased prelates compare quite favorably, to 
 say the least, with the very best productions of Europe?
 
 38 SERMONS OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 Thus far we have seen that the bishops l)ad a vast work to 
 do, and to do it quickly. " Being made perfect in a short space 
 they fulfilled a long time." There remains a third considera- 
 tion — they had to discharge their labors in the midst of many 
 obstacles. 
 
 First of all, there was the manifest want of funds. They had 
 no princely patrons, no overflowing coffers to depend on, but 
 only the mites of the poor and the living springs of Christian 
 charity. 
 
 Next there Avas tlie want of men — of a numerous and well- 
 trained clergy. In a diocese in which all things are duly ordered, 
 according to the law of the Cliurch ; where the bishop is sur- 
 rounded by vicars-general, canons and a competent staff of other 
 officials ; where all the duties of routine labor are equally dis- 
 tributed, and each department of work has its own head, its own 
 organization, the task of presiding is rendered comparatively easy; 
 just as a commander-in-chief rules and directs an army. But 
 with us, hitherto, instead of attaching to himself a corps of offi- 
 cials and so lightening his own labors, the bishop gave the first 
 thought to the pressing needs of souls, and hence he was obliged 
 to do the work of many others single-handed and unassisted. All 
 the difficulties of the diocese meanwhile came swelling up to him, 
 as a pyramid rises to its apex. 
 
 New issues, with new complications not contemplated in ordinary 
 ecclesiastical jurisprudence, were continually forming, so that the 
 chief pastor, besides attending to a large correspondence and the 
 discharge of episcopal functions, was compelled to act as theologian, 
 parish priest, architect, lawyer, financier — " to become all things 
 to all men, to gain all to Christ." In the language of St. 
 Augustine, he was emphatically not for himself, but for others — 
 the servant of the servants of God. 
 
 Nor must we omit to notice another serious difficulty incidental 
 to a country so large and vast as ours. 
 
 The United States, Ireland, France, Germany, Austria, Spain, 
 Belgium, Italy, Canada, Switzerland, all contributed to form our 
 hierarchy, and the bishops whose memory we are celebrating 
 received a varied training in Rome, at St. Sulpice, in Paris, and 
 in Baltimore, in Mount St. Mary's and elsewhere. Nine of the 
 deceased bishops were members of religious orders ; four were
 
 DE 3I0RTUIS~0UR DECEASED PRELATES. 39 
 
 selected from the Lazarists, two were Jesuits, one a Sulpician, 
 one an Augustinian, one a Trappist. Now this unavoidable variety 
 was both a cause of danger ; and, also, in God's providence, by 
 which "all things work together unto good," an instrument of 
 blessings. 
 
 It was a source of danger, for as each prelate was left largely 
 to his own inspirations in mapping out his course and forming 
 traditions for his diocese in harmony with local surroundings, as 
 these surroundings varied in almost every case, so difference of 
 discipline would naturally ensue, with deviations more or less 
 permissible from the customs of the universal Church. In fact, 
 even at this hour, considering the vast extent of the country and 
 the cosmopolitan character of its inhabitants, it is almost as diffi- 
 cult to secure uniform ecclesiastical legislation for the United 
 States alone as it M'ould be for the whole of Europe. Neverthe- 
 less, it became necessary to provide, as far as practicable, for 
 uniformity of discipline. "With this view, in this historic cathedral, 
 between 1810 and 1849, seven Provincial Councils were convened; 
 while during the same period, with the exception of the Synod 
 of Tuam in 1817, not a single Provincial Council had met in 
 all Europe. In 1849 the late Sovereign Pontiff raised that apos- 
 tolic voice which never goes forth in vain, exhorting the bishops 
 of the Catholic world to revive the salutary discipline of assem- 
 bling in Provincial Councils ; and within the remaining years of 
 his Pontificate, a larger number of such synods were assembled 
 than the world had seen during the two preceding centuries. The 
 bishops of France, England, Ireland, Germany, Austria, Italy, 
 obeying the voice of Peter, held council after council, pouring 
 forth those rich treasures of sacred erudition which come ordinarily 
 of " ojiportunity of leisure." And now the bread cast on the 
 waters by the American Church came back to the givers. The 
 late Delegate Apostolic, observing the full and harmonious exposi- 
 tion of law and of discipline, with which these councils abound, 
 conceived the design of preparing for this country also a body of 
 law, complete in its kind and comprehensive — a body of law 
 which would resume in itself all the legislative enactments of his 
 predecessors — which would bring us all closer together in our 
 customs and local usages by uniting us all more closely with 
 the Holy Komaa Church j which, foreseeing future growth and
 
 40 SUBMONS OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 development, would introduce the normal life of the Church, 
 intended to abide in perpetuity. The result was the second Plenary 
 Council of Baltimore, embodying a code of national canon law, 
 in which the spirit of moderation, of appropriateness to our pecu- 
 liar condition, of practical good judgment, that breathes throughout, 
 is made still more attractive and persuasive by the dignity, the 
 grace and the elegance of expression, so that the reader knows 
 not which most to admire, the wisdom of the decrees or the 
 consummate beauty with which they are presented. 
 
 All subsequent legislation in this country has felt thus far, and 
 will long continue to feel, the impress of the second Plenary 
 Council. An advance has been made in Church polity and dis- 
 cipline from which we may no longer recede, even if we would. 
 Hence, generations to come will have reason to bless the memory 
 of Archbishop Spalding and the other prelates and divines who 
 co-operated with him in accomplishing so beneficial a result. It 
 sets the seal of perpetuity on their labors ; for it would, after 
 all, have been little to have achieved a vast material success, 
 unless the result were to be enduring. " You liave not chosen Me, 
 but I have chosen you, and have appointed you, that you should 
 go and bring forth fruit, and your fruit should remain." 
 
 And now, in conclusion, I cannot leave this pulpit — his pulpit, 
 formerly — without an affectionate allusion to him, dear brethren, who 
 consecrated your cathedral, and who — to employ the phrase nsed 
 in his panegyric on this very spot — bequeathed you his best legacy 
 in providing " so good a successor." Oh ! my brethren, how noble, 
 honest, and spotless was his soul ! How genial, bright, and gen- 
 erous his character ! How much grace and sunshine dwelt in all 
 his ways, before that last, fatal malady fastened on him. 
 
 Your late archbisliop, dear brethren, was always frank from 
 childhood and outspoken, retaining through life that transparent 
 sincerity, that unswerving loyalty to truth, that constant courage 
 of his convictions which, under divine Providence, led him origi- 
 nally to the Church. 
 
 It is now about half a century since a handsome young student 
 in Middletown, Conn., sat poring over the acts of the Council 
 of Chalcedon, in the well-stored library of a distinguished Episco- 
 palian divine. Suddenly a flash of light seemed to beam upon 
 his mind, and he asked his preceptor the following question:
 
 DE MORTUIS—OUR DECEASED PRELATES. 41 
 
 " Doctor, are the acts of this council authentic ? " " Most assuredly," 
 was the answer. The passage he had been reading was this : 
 " The Fathers with one voice exclaimed : this is the faith of our 
 Fathers ! This is the faith of the Apostles ! Peter has spoken 
 by the mouth of Leo — Pdrus per Leonem locutus est." The quick 
 inference and deduction came, that if Peter spoke through his 
 successor then, in the fifth century, he ought also to speak through 
 him now. This was the first gleam of light leading gradually 
 to the aurora and to the perfect day. His sorrowing friends told 
 liini later in reply that Rome was corrupt, and if he would but go 
 to Rome he would recognize the fact and relinquish his delusion. 
 He went to Rome to examine honestly for himself, and there he 
 was received into the Church, to become later your eighth 
 archbishop. 
 
 He had large natural gifts, acute powers of observation, an 
 unfailing fund of humor, a rare acquaintance with books, and a 
 retentive memory. These qualities combined made him a delight- 
 ful conversationalist and a great favorite in society. But back of 
 all this was a deep, sincere and tender piety. Like St. Francis 
 de Sales, his cherished patron, even while so well fitted to shine 
 in the world, he longed for the peacefulness and privileges of a 
 religious life. The week before he died, alluding to the subject, 
 he said he was twice on the point of becoming a religious — first, 
 in Rome on the occasion of his reception into the Church, and 
 next, shortly before receiving episcopal consecration. Li both cases 
 it was thought best he should remain in the secular clergy, and 
 there exercise the many gifts he possessed for the good of others. 
 How well he used the talent confided to him, particularly that 
 of organization, his labors in Xew York, New Jersey and Balti- 
 more still bear testimony. 
 
 Seven years ago he died. I remember well his last conver- 
 sation, a little before he lost consciousness. He had been talking 
 of the dread responsibility that presses on the shoulders of a 
 bishop — of the severe account to be rendered to the Supreme 
 Judge, and the thought was suggested to him that God's mercy 
 is above all his works. 
 
 "Yes," he replied, "this reflection has often encouraged me. 
 For, after all, humanly speaking, I could liave had no reason to 
 expect the gift of faith, considering my early associations and sur-
 
 42 SEEJIONS OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 roundings. And that our Lord called me to His Church, and to 
 His service, has always been to me a proof of His love and 
 special mercy in my regard of His will to save me, because 
 He brought me to the faith." And so the last conscious thought, 
 as far as I know, of the dear archbishop, was kindred to that 
 which supported the great St. Teresa in her agony, " After all, 
 O Lord, I die a child of the Church." 
 
 As I began, so let me end, dear brethren, M'ith the words of 
 St. Augustine : " Nothing in this world is more difficult, more 
 laborious, more perilous than the office of a bishop, yet nothing 
 more blessed in God's sight, if discharged as our heavenly Leader 
 desires." 
 
 The responsibility is terrible, the laljor long and unceasing, 
 and no day is exempt from anxiety. But the end is peace. The 
 grace of God is with His own work. As the straining eyes look 
 up to heaven, a voice of consolation comes to the faithful pastor 
 as to the patriarch of old : " Fear not I am thy Protector, and 
 thy Reward exceeding great."
 
 Most Rev, Wm. Henry Elder, D.D.
 
 
 SERMOH OF MOST REY. ¥. H. ELDER, D.D., 
 
 ARCHBISHOP OF CIHCIKHATI. 
 
 " Ego elegi vos, et posui a'os ut eatis et fructum efferatis; et ut fructus vester 
 maneat." — >S'^. John, c. xv, v. 16. 
 
 IN the spectacle before our eyes we witness a part of the 
 accomplishment of this mission. The AVord of God is effica- 
 cious ; what it declares it also effects. His Word said : " Let 
 there be light : and there was light." " Young man, I say to thee : 
 Arise. And he that was dead sat up and began to speak." So 
 when our Lord commissioned His Apostles to produce fruit among 
 men His efficacious Word went forth with them, and they did 
 , produce the fruit ; and the fruit has remained, and this day's 
 assembly is at once an evidence of its greatness, its extent and 
 its endurance, and at the same time a j)ro vision under God that 
 it shall continue and multiply in the future as it has done in the 
 past. The gathering in this cathedral is a compendium of what 
 is seen over the entire world — Christ living in those whom He 
 has sent, and through them living in the civilized world and 
 infusing life into tlie uncivilized. We see here spiritual teachers 
 and rulers from all parts of our republic, itself constituted of 
 descendants of all races and all nations ; around these teachers, 
 their faithful children in the Church, and mingled Avith these 
 many not Catholics, not acknowledging these teachers as their own, 
 and yet enlightened by the truths which He commissioned His 
 Church to teach. Because these truths are diffused through the 
 whole moral atmosphere of civilization : so that both within and 
 
 (43)
 
 44 SEIi3I0IiS OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 "without the Church they reach iu various degrees the minds and 
 hearts and daily lives of all. 
 
 And who are these spiritual teachers ? Priests of God, holding 
 the priesthood of Christ, the Son of God. It was through His 
 priesthood that He redeemed man ; and through that same priest- 
 hood He continues to give life in each successive generation till 
 the end of time to those who are willing to receive it. He 
 exercises His priesthood on earth through the mortal priest, to 
 whom He gives His own power and in whom He lives. " All 
 power is given to ]\Ie in heaven and on earth. As My Father 
 sent Me, so I also send you. And behold, I am with you all 
 days, even to the consummation of the Avorld." What is this 
 priesthood of Christ ? AVhat is the priesthood in the Church ? 
 "What fruit has it produced and by what means ? To what degree 
 do we owe it to our civilization ? These are questions which we 
 shall dwell upon this morning ; not to answer them fully, but 
 to suggest some points of the answers — points for us all to med- 
 itate on, each one to produce in his own life his own portion 
 of the fruits. 
 
 Among men Christ's priesthood is His mediation between 
 sinful man and God outraged by man's sins. Our first parents 
 rebelled against God, and thereby forfeited all claim to His favor 
 for themselves and their children. And alas ! his children have 
 added their own sins to their parents', and thus sunk themselves 
 still lower into misery, binding themselves in helpless slavery 
 to their most hateful enemy. They needed a mediator. Even 
 at the time when their crime was still fresh upon their souls, 
 even before their punishment was all of it actually inflicted, 
 already God's mercy was' moved to promise them a mediator 
 who should bring them pardon and reconciliation and triumph 
 over the tyrant to whom they had so shamefully betrayed the 
 precious gifts of their Creator. This was fulfilled when the 
 ever Blessed Virgin Mary, by the power of the Holy Ghost, 
 brought into this world our Lord Jesus Christ, giving to the 
 Eternal Word a human nature — both soul and body. " And the 
 Word Avas made flesh and dwelt among us." 
 
 AVith infinite condescension He came down to be our Brother 
 on earth, that he might raise us up to be His brethren in the 
 kingdom of His Father. And He did this by His priesthood.
 
 THE PRIESTHOOD. 45 
 
 *' To as many as received Iliiu He gave power to become the 
 sons of God." 
 
 The highest act of the priesthood is sacrifice. All our Lord's 
 earthly life ■was one continued sacrifice, consummated when He gave 
 up that life for us upon the cross. By sacrifice Ave mean, in its 
 perfect and divine character, an act or sign which fully and ade- 
 quately expresses the acknowledgment by a creature of the supreme 
 dominion and infinite majesty of God over all His creatures. And 
 this is the highest worship, containing all other acts of worship. 
 Men can, indeed, express an acknowledgment of this dominion 
 by words and by various signs ; but all these expressions are 
 imperfect, and therefore not adequate ; imperfect very often, because 
 words do not prove the sincerity of the man who utters them ; 
 imperfect essentially, because all signs and all acts of creatures 
 are finite. They can never, therefore, reach up to express ade- 
 quately Avhat is infinite in all perfection — the domain and majesty 
 of God. It would seem, then, as if the Creator never could 
 receive an adequate sacrifice or perfect worship from His creatures, 
 since all creatures are infinitely beneath their Creator. Much less 
 could He receive such an adequate acknowledgment from men 
 sunk into sins and enslaved to God's hateful enemy. But God's 
 goodness surpasses the conceptions of all His creatures, and His 
 infinite wisdom and mercy, coming down to the help of creatures, 
 even of His ungrateful creatures, the sons of man, devised a 
 means by which the creature could offer this adequate acknowledg- 
 ment in a perfect sacrifice; a sacrifice of infinite and divine value, 
 by which man could render homage equal to all that God could 
 ask; infinite and divine as God's divinity itself. This was through 
 means of the adorable mystery of the Incarnation. 
 
 In this crowning mystery of God's love and wisdom, God the 
 Son Himself, infinite, eternal God, having the one individual divine 
 nature with the Father and the Holy Ghost, took to Himself 
 likewise a human, nature : so that He was at the same time 
 divine and human — Creator aud creature. Some illustration of 
 this mystery we can sec in tlie constitution of our own human 
 being. Man is composed of body and soul — of spirit and matter 
 each in its nature utterly and entirely distinct from the other. 
 His body is matter, utterly incapable of thinking or willing or 
 of any act of consciousness. The soul is spirit, having neither
 
 46 SFEJIOXS OF TUB THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 shape nor weight nor any other property belonging to matter. 
 And vet so constituted man is one single human person. All 
 our acts, whether done through the soul or tlirough the body, 
 arc equally human acts. In like manner our divine Lord, being 
 one divine Person with two natures, divine and human, all His 
 acts were divine, whether done through His divine or His human 
 nature. "When, therefore, our Lord, God and man, made acknow- 
 ledgment of the subjection of His human, created nature to Almighty 
 God and declared the supreme dominion and majesty of God, His 
 absolute right of life and death over Himself and all creatures — 
 this confession and homage was a perfect and adequate act of 
 sacrifice. 
 
 It was made by a creature, and yet it was perfect and ade- 
 quate and infinite, because it was the act of God, a divine act, 
 as the acts of our bodies are human acts. 
 
 But our Lord not only confessed this dominion; He submitted 
 Himself to it in all the acts of His life. "I am come not to do 
 My own will, but the M-ill of Him that sent Me." He lived all 
 His human life in obedience to it, and he filled up the measure 
 of all possible obedience by suffering every pain of body, every 
 anguish of soul that His human nature was capable of suffering ; 
 consummating His homage to His Father by laying down His life 
 itself — the highest possible confession of God's dominion. " Christ 
 became obedient for us unto death — even to the death of the 
 cross." And while this suffering was endured in His human nature, 
 yet since He Avas God Avho suffered, it, therefore, had a divine 
 dignity and value. It was infinite, worthy of God Himself, and, 
 therefore, an adequate, a perfect, an infinite sacrifice. 
 
 This was the completion, the filling up of the priesthood of 
 Christ. But although it was the completion, it was not the termi- 
 nation either of His sacrifice or of His priesthood. They both 
 endure for all eternity. " Thou art a priest forever." 
 
 Having risen from the dead and ascended to the right hand 
 of God the Father, He did not cease to confess and declare the 
 supreme dominion of the divine majesty over His own human 
 nature as over all creatures. On the contrary. His very presence 
 in heaven in His human nature, with his adorable body still 
 marked with the sacred wounds He suffered in His obedience, is 
 an authentic confession of that dominion, a perfect and divine.
 
 THE PRIESTHOOD. 4T 
 
 praise, an eternal sacrifice. And thus Christ continues in heaven 
 His eternal priesthood. 
 
 Let me relate a parable : A dutiful son, after years of toil en- 
 dured for the love of his honored father and of liis younger 
 brothers, gathered means to purchase a valuable estate, and he con- 
 veyed this to his father as a testimony of honor and gratitude to 
 him, and as a provision for the livelihood and education of his 
 brothers. His gift was completed, when he duly executed the deed 
 of conveyance. But this was not the end of his pious work. It. 
 was the beginning, rather. For after this his father continued, as 
 long as he lived, to receive, year after year, the comforts and honors 
 accruing from the estate, and year after year the younger brothers 
 continued to receive the livelihood, the education, the enjoyments,, 
 the society, which their brother's love had put within their reach. 
 
 The deed of conveyance was executed once, and never to be 
 repeated; but the gift endured during the life-time of the family. 
 
 And so is it with the gift of our elder Brother — the Son of" 
 God made man. "Having died once. He dieth now no more." 
 " He entered once into the holy place, having obtained eternal 
 redemption." But His sacrifice. His confession of God's absolute 
 dominion, His purchase of life and graces for His brothers in 
 the flesh, as sinful men — this endured and shall continue tO' 
 endure. " He hath an everlasting priesthood," says St. Paul,. 
 " whereby He is able to save forever them that come to God by 
 Him, always having to make intercessions for us." (Heb. vii, 24.) 
 
 The eternal priesthood of Christ, then, may be said to be the 
 ultimate end God had in view in the entire work of creation; for 
 it is the perfection of the glory which He receives from all His 
 creatures. We need not wonder, therefore, that His priesthood was 
 declared from early ages, and confirmed by the solemnity of an 
 oath from God in those mysterious words : " The Lord hath sworn,, 
 and it shall not repent Him : Thou art a priest forever." Such 
 is the priesthood of Christ in its essence. 
 
 Now, what is the priesthood on earth — the priesthood exercised 
 by mortal men — the priesthood we see in this assembly ? It is 
 the continuation of this essential priesthood of Christ through the 
 ministry of men. The sacrifice which He is always offering before 
 His Father in heaven, invisible there to us, that same sacrifice He 
 is pleased to offer on our earth, made visible to our mortal eyes-
 
 48 SERMONS OF TEE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass; and by this He gives us a 
 perfect worship. 
 
 In this adorable mystery our Lord, in His own flesh and blooa, 
 under the appearance of bread and wine, truly and really comes 
 upon our altar ; and there before our eyes offers to His Father 
 the same testimony of adoration, obedience and love — the same 
 thanksgiving for all His gifts to creatures, the same atonement for 
 the sins of men, the same supplication for new favors and renewed 
 mercy — which He once sealed by His death, and which He is per- 
 petually offering before the choirs of heaven. He wishes to make 
 this offering visible and audible for our mortal senses. And, there- 
 fore. He has appointed visible mortal men to be His priests, and 
 authorized them to utter His own words, with power to produce 
 the same effect as when He uttered them with His mortal lips. 
 The priest takes in his hands the bread and wine; he repeats the 
 mysterious words of Christ ; and on this utterance, the bread and 
 wine are changed. Our Lord, in His real Body and Blood, 
 descends uj)on the altar. By the hands of His priest He is ele- 
 vated for the people's adoration; by the hands and the lips of His 
 priests. He is offered to tlie Father in behalf of all the people ; 
 by His priest Pie gives Himself to His faithful disciples, , to be 
 the food of their souls, their strength and their life on earth and 
 the pledge of their eternal life in heaven. " He that eateth Me, 
 the same also shall live by INIc." " Do this as a memory of Me." 
 This is wliat we mean by the Christian priesthood; it is in this 
 sense Christ's priesthood is communicated to mortal man. There 
 is no other priesthood but the one, and that one is Christ's own. 
 The mortal man is the agent of Christ, through whom He makes 
 sensible on earth His perpetual sacrifice in heaven ; through whom 
 He exercises His one eternal priesthood. 
 
 " Sacrifice and priesthood," says the Council of Trent, " are so 
 associated together by the ordinance of God that both have existed 
 together under every law that God has given to men." (xxiii, 1.) 
 
 From the very beginning of the human race God appointed that 
 there should be priests among men, and that these in the name 
 of their brctlu'cn should offer sacrifice. Under the original law, 
 given to our first parents and their children, commonly called the 
 Law of the Patriarchs, it was ordinarily the first-born son, though 
 others too were sometimes authorized, as we see in Abel. Under
 
 THE PRIESTHOOD. 49 
 
 "the law given to Moses on Mount Sinai, it was the sons of Aaron, 
 himself the elder brother of Moses. So deeply rooted was tliis 
 original tradition among men of God's requiring to be worshiped 
 by sacrifice, and some men to be set aside who should oifer sacri- 
 fice in the name of their brethren, so agreeable was this to tlie 
 common sentiments of mankind in their dealings with God, that no 
 people seem to have been ever ignorant of it. Pagans, idolators, 
 and even savages who had lost the knowledge of almost every- 
 thing else concerning God, still preserved this truth. They knew 
 they must worship Him hy sacrifice, and that the sacrifice must be 
 ■offered by those who were constituted priests. 
 
 This was always the worship that God required from man — the 
 offering of sacrifice. The appointed priest offered the victim in the 
 name of all. The people stood around and united their prayers 
 and praise with those of the priest. But it was the sacrifice that 
 made their prayers agreeable to God, because the sacrifice united 
 them with the future Great High Priest who was to offer the per- 
 fect sacrifice on Calvary. 
 
 And now in the Holy Mass the fiiithful gather around the altar 
 •where the divine victim offers Himself. 
 
 With Him they offer their adoration, their thanksgiving, their 
 cries for mercy, their supplication for God's graces, and He receiv- 
 ing them from the lips and hearts of His brethren makes them 
 all His own, and offers them to His eternal Father. Thus, in 
 the Mass, each one of us can render a perfect and infinite wor- 
 ship through our Great High Priest. 
 
 Nay, more ; as He gave Himself for us on the cross, so He 
 gives Himself to each of us upon the altar. Each one of us can 
 claim the Victim as our own, and thus, in the Mass, each one 
 of the faithful present becomes himself in a secondary manner a 
 priest, because each one of us offers the divine Victim. Each one 
 of us can say with truth : Almighty and most Holy God — 
 unworthy sinner as I am — I offer Thee a worship wortliy of 
 Thyself. " Look upon Me for the face of Thy Christ," and receive 
 His homage and supplication as my own — since Thou delivered 
 Him for us — and He gives Himself to us. Thus is fulfilled the 
 declaration of St. Peter addressed to every Christian : " Ye are 
 a holy people, a royal priesthood." (ii Peter.) 
 
 The old sacrifices appointed by God, such as the slaying of
 
 50 SERMONS OF TUB THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 victims, the immolating of fruits, and other articles that give life 
 and service to man — all tliese were inadequate of themselves. 
 They were appointed by God, and they had a value in His eyes as 
 types of the future sacrifice of Christ. They all pointed to Mount 
 Calvary ; they were all acts of faith in the Messiah who was to 
 come, and they had their value from His mysterious sacrifice upon 
 the cross. When this was once offered, then the reality was 
 accomplished. There was no more room for types, and all typical 
 sacrifices were set aside by God. And now the one, true, perfect 
 and divine sacrifice is offered every day all over the earth, by 
 the one living divine priest, Jesus Christ, through the visible 
 ministry of His mortal priests, and thus is fulfilled the prophecy 
 of Malachy, " From the rising of the sun to the going down 
 of the same in every place there is sacrifice, and there is 
 offered to My name a clean oblation." (Mai. i, 2.) 
 
 But the priesthood of Christ was not only a homage to God, 
 it was also an office of mediation to reconcile fallen man with 
 God. Besides worshiping God, our Redeemer came to lift men 
 up from their fallen state, and give them means to be children 
 of God. " I, when I shall be lifted up, I shall draw all things 
 to Myself." 
 
 He brought to men light and strength. He not only brought 
 these, but He was Himself the light and the life. He was the 
 very Word of God, by whom all things were made, from whom 
 all tilings have their being, and, therefore, the light of our souls 
 is to see Him, and the life of our souls is to live by Him. We 
 see Him when we see what He did and said — when we listen to 
 the Gospel. We live by Him when Ave eat of His Flesh and 
 receive His graces. " I am the light of the world. He that fol- 
 lowetli Me walketh not in darkness." " As I live by the Father, 
 so he that eateth the same also shall live by Me." 
 
 This is the fruit to men of Christ's coming on earth : that 
 men's souls be enlightened by His truth, and receive life from 
 His own life, even as the branch has all its life from the sap 
 of the vine which bears it. " I am the vine ; ye are the branches ; 
 without JNIe you can do nothing" — nothing for your eternal life 
 in heaven. This, then, is the fruit which our Lord commissioned 
 His Apostles to bring forth — fruit that shall remain till the end 
 of the world, and shall continue to ripen and to multiply, and
 
 THE PRIESTHOOD. 51 
 
 give peace and joy on earth ; and which, for all eternity, shall 
 remain in the happiness of the saints and the glory they shall 
 give to God in heaven ; in the sanctification of sonls enlightened 
 and sanctified in various degrees, according to the measure in 
 which they shall know Christ, and fill themselves with the spirit of 
 Christ. And from this sanctification of souls arises the civilization of 
 Christian society. For what is civilization, as our present illustrious 
 holy Pontiff, Leo XIII, has said, but the development of man 
 living in society ? And what is the development of man hut the 
 unfolding of that which makes man to be man, and not a mere 
 animal — that is, the image of God in his soul ? " Let us make 
 man after our own image and likeness ; " and we develop this image 
 in the measure in which Ave copy Christ and walk in His life. 
 
 This communication of the light of the life of Christ was the 
 office of His priesthood. It was begun by Himself. It was spread 
 through the world by the Apostles — the first whom He called and 
 sent with the powers of His priesthood. "As the Father sent Me, 
 so I also send you. Go teach all nations; baptize them in the 
 name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost ; and lo ! 
 I am with you." 
 
 It has been spread wider and wider, and has been kept clear 
 before men during these eighteen centuries by the preaching of 
 those to whom that priesthood was handed down : the bishops, who 
 hold it in all its fullness : and the j^riests of the second order, 
 who hold not indeed its fullness, but its sublimest powers and 
 those most needed for each individual soul — the j^ower and grace 
 to preach with authority and effect ; the power to offer the Holy 
 Sacrifice ; the power to purify souls by loosing them from their 
 sins ; the power to sanctify them by blessing and by all the other 
 means of grace. 
 
 It would have availed little to have these truths of salvation 
 once proclaimed if they had not been preserved by living teachers. 
 Many of them had been declared by God in the beginning. But 
 they had been lost to men for want of priests devoted to their 
 teaching. Because men's earthly inclinations, their sensualitv, their 
 pride and their passions led them to violate His laws; and soon 
 the truths on which those laws are based became obscured and 
 many of them entirely blotted out from their souls. Even the 
 primary truth that underlies all others had been abandoned, and.
 
 52 SEBJIONS OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 instead of one personal God, Creator of all things, a loving Father 
 yet jealous of His honor, a just Judge uho renders to every one 
 according to his works, they imagined to themselves a multitude 
 of gods like unto men and with passions similar to their own. 
 Even the most refined nations held gods as patrons of the coarsest 
 vices. They had a god of drunkenness, a god of thieving, and gods 
 of shameless indecencies. 
 
 All this, because they had not a living priesthood to keep the 
 truth always before their minds, and to enforce its teachings in the 
 j)ractice of their lives. Some kind of priests, indeed, they had. 
 For this need of priests, we have already seen, was a truth that 
 survived, even wdien the truth of one God Mas lost. Yet they were 
 not priests of God, they were self-made priests, or priests made by 
 the civil power ; priests given only to the pomp of outward Mor- 
 ship ; not caring to teach the truths of morals. Indeed, like the 
 people, they had not tliose truths themselves. 
 
 Only the Jews preserved the original truths given to man, 
 because only the Jews had a divine priesthood, with authority and 
 command from God to teach. "The lips of the priest shall keep 
 knowledge, and they shall seek the law from his moutli." "All 
 things whatsoever they teach, observe and do." Even the Jewish 
 priests, however, were such only in figure, since they had only a 
 typical sacrifice, and consequently even their ministry Avas weak ; 
 the fruits of it were fast dying out when our Lord appeared on 
 earth. 
 
 But the Christian priest has Christ living in him, speaking by 
 his lips and giving divine efficacy to his words. • " He that heareth 
 you heareth Me." Hence it is by the priests His truths have been 
 handed down to our day with the same clear sound, and the 
 same certain meaning, and the same exactness, and the same intrin- 
 sic, living energy that they had from the mouths of the Apostles : 
 because they are always the words of the same priest, Jesus Christ, 
 having all the attributes which His divine priesthood gives to 
 them. 
 
 Last Sunday you were shown how these truths have been 
 steadfastly proclaimed to all the world by the great High Priest, 
 the Sovereign Pontiff, and how they are reaffirmed to separate 
 peoples by councils like our own. But to-day we are con- 
 sidering how they are brought home to every family, and
 
 THE PRIESTHOOD. 63 
 
 impressed on every mind, and enforced in every life ; to all who 
 use their free will for the end for which God gave it to them. 
 And this is done by the ministry of the priest. 
 
 If only these truths were kept commonly known among men 
 in general, even this would be an advantage that paganism never 
 had. But it is vastly more that they are drunk in by little 
 children, so that men grow up with them from before the days 
 of their earliest recollections ; and as increasing years develop their 
 mental powers and new relations in life give them need of more 
 particular knowledge, so new knowledge is ever offered to them. 
 And as new occupations tend to crowd out of sight these early 
 teachings, they are ever renewed in their minds by continued 
 repetitions and fresh explanations and illustrations. And who are 
 God's instruments for thus keeping His truths fresh in each indi- 
 vidual soul ? They are the priests — the pastors of His Church — 
 in their continued preaching and instructions. 
 
 For what men need — what all of us need — is not that the 
 truth be once stated and received, but that it be kept before our 
 eyes, so that we may never forget it, or once forgetting may soon 
 be reminded of it again. 
 
 Let the most earnest Christian reflect what would be the state 
 of liis soul at this moment if, for the last ten or twenty years, 
 he had never heard repeated the truths that he learned in cliild- 
 hood. If, with all his pressure of business, with all the daily 
 solicitations of his evil passions, he had never heard the sacred 
 admonitions of the priest — never had these truths renewed in his 
 soul by the living words that Christ has addressed to' him by the 
 living priest. And still more : AYhat would be the general con- 
 dition of society if, for the last flfty or a hundred years, there 
 had been no living priest to teach to the last three generations 
 the truths of Christianity ? We see it from time to time. We 
 saw it most forcibly in the last century, when large masses of 
 men, ignorant of many of these truths, or AvilfuUy renouncing 
 them, undertook to reform society, as in the excesses of the 
 French Hevolution, and in the outburst only fourteen years ago 
 of the Communists and the petroleuses of Paris. 
 
 It was in the name not of Jesus Christ but of Christ's 
 enemies (the new made religion of humanity), that the streets of 
 Paris were drenched in the blood of her best citizens, that
 
 54 SEBMONS OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 brothers denounced their own brothers, and children gave their 
 fathers to the guillotine ; that women and children were massacred 
 as dangerous enemies. And even now, when in many places 
 society is held in fear by the rumblings as of a threatened earth- 
 quake beneath their feet ; who arc those restless masses that are 
 kept down only by the pressure of an armed government? They 
 are those who know not or who reject the truths which our Lord 
 commissioned His priests to teach : the fear of God ; the obliga- 
 tions we all owe to our fellow-men, and the obligation to subdue 
 our passions, to bear the evils that we cannot cure without doing 
 wrong to others : and the great truth, deterring us from all evil 
 and comforting us in all troubles, that man's only complete hap- 
 piness is in the eternal joys of heaven, and that this life is given 
 us to purchase these joys by our virtues and our patient bearing 
 of the crosses that God lays on us. These are the men who hate 
 God's priests. 
 
 Now, wliv has not the whole world run into those excesses 
 and been buried under those miseries ? Because the truths ot 
 Christianity and His life are preserved in man. They are kept 
 before their minds, and kept not as abstract truths, but made 
 living and practical in the model life of our Lord Himself on 
 earth and of the saints of all ages, who have endeavored to copy 
 His life and holiness in their own ; in all good Christians, and 
 in men who hold only a portion, but still a portion of them. 
 And who are they that hold up this mirror of truth and holiness, 
 but the priests whom He Himself has appointed ; whom He has 
 prepared under the training of His Church ; to whom He has 
 given the power and commission to tcacli these truths ; to whom, 
 in the Holy Sacrament of Orders, He has communicated the grace 
 to preach them with fidelity ; whom He strengthens every day 
 with the divine food of His own adorable Body and Blood in 
 the Holy Sacrament of the Mass? 
 
 It is they to whom the whole world is indebted for the pre- 
 serving of these truths. Even when the sun is hidden from our 
 eyes by clouds we still walk and work by the light of the sun. 
 So men and even whole peoples who do not acknowledge* the 
 priests of God's Church, yet hold these truths from the tradi- 
 tions of society, and from public opinion ; and these traditions 
 are kept in vigor by the constant teaching of the Church. A
 
 THE PRIESTHOOD. 55 
 
 great writer, learned in history and human nature has said that 
 had not the Popes been unyielding in upholding the bond of 
 marriage the sovereigns of Europe would come to live like the 
 sultans of Constantinople. 
 
 But, dearly beloved, this is only a portion of what God gives 
 us through His priests. When the Israelites were forty years 
 journeying through the desert to reach the Promised Land ; besides 
 the multitude of lesser favors with whicli God blessed them, there 
 were two continuous ones which overshadowed all the rest, and 
 which indeed were the very means that enabled them to enjoy all 
 the rest : the pillar of cloud that showed them the road by which 
 God designed them to travel ; and still more necessary, the 
 manna which every morning fell from the clouds to be their food 
 for each day's journey. AVithout these, with all their courage, 
 they would soon have perished in the wilderness. 
 
 All these things, St. Paul tells us, were given in figure of the 
 sublimer and richer realities that God was prepai'ing for the world 
 through the priesthood of His Son. 
 
 As we are journeying through the wilderness of this life, 
 with all its fatigues and dangers, to the promised land of heaven. 
 He has not only given His divine word as light to guide us, but 
 He has likewise provided Food to strengthen us. 
 
 Alas ! we know too well by our experience that it is not enough 
 to know God and to know our duties. In spite of our knowledge 
 the temptations around us are not always resisted; the passions 
 within us are not always kept in due subjection ; the enemies 
 assailing us are often too strong to be repelled. And therefore 
 has He furnished us with abundant Food, falling not from the 
 clouds, but coming down from the highest heavens above. And 
 this Food He has appointed should be furnished to us every day 
 by His divine Son through those who continue His priesthood on 
 earth. 
 
 This Food I need not tell you, in its perfection, is the ador- 
 able Eucharist of Our Lord's Body and Blood, brought down to 
 the earth every morning in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. And 
 while this is the perfection and the essence of that Food, He 
 has furnished a number of other forms under which the virtue 
 and the life of Christ is communicated to our souls, till we can 
 say with St. Paul : " I live now ; not I, but Christ liveth in 
 me."
 
 56 SUEMO:!^S OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 The ricliest of these forms are His holy Sacraments. They 
 all derive their efficacy from the Body of Christ, which was 
 delivered for us, and the Blood of Christ, the price of our 
 redemption. And each of thcni brings with it a multitude of 
 graces especially adapted to the needs of our soul in its journey. 
 
 And besides these again He has appointed, through His Church, 
 another multitude in rich variety of blessings of sacred objects 
 and sacred ceremonies, of forms of prayer and worship each one 
 of which has its own peculiar efficacy, suited to all the multitude 
 of our spiritual wants. They make vivid His truths ; they defend 
 us against our enemies; they heal our souls of their sins and 
 infirmities ; they console us in our trials ; they encourage us in 
 our difficulties ; they enlighten us in our perplexities ; they com- 
 fort us in our fears, and elevate us in our hopes. And all these 
 again, as they are fruits of Christ's priesthood, so He continues 
 as our priest to give them to tis through those Avhoni He has 
 empowered to exercise that priesthood continually among us. 
 
 It was the priest who received us from our mother's arms — 
 poor outcasts from paradise — children of the fallen Adam — nay, 
 as St. Paul says, children of wrath — and in the waters of Bap- 
 tism He gave us the new birth — to be called and to be the 
 children of God. It was the priest who, when we were still too 
 tender to listen to his own teachings, kept our mothers reminded 
 of their duty, and enforced it on them, to give us the first knowl- 
 edge of God, of the divine Child of Bethlehem, and of His 
 Blessed Mother — our mother likewise. It was the priest who took 
 up our mother's teachings, and led us to a deeper knowledge of 
 the life and sufferings of our Blessed Redeemer, of the power of 
 prayer, of the Commandments of God and of His Holy Church, 
 and of all the means of sanctifying our souls. And when our 
 souls had been wounded by sin — perhaps wounded unto death — it 
 Avas the priest to whom we confided our weakness and our unhappy 
 falls. It was he that set before us the motives of contrition and 
 pointed out the ways to avoid future falls. It was ho that 
 encouraged us to trust in God's mercy, and he that applied that 
 mercy to our souls in the pardon that he had power to issue to 
 us in the name of God. And when we shall come to that dread 
 moment when earthly friends can do nothing more for us, it is 
 through the priest that God Himself will come to cleanse us.
 
 THE PRIESTHOOD. 57 
 
 once more from all the sins of our life, to feed us with the 
 heavenly bread that shall strengthen us like Elias to complete our 
 journey to the mountain of God ; to anoint us for our last deci- 
 sive struggle with the enemy of our souls ; to purify our eyes, 
 our ears and our lips, before they close on earth to open in 
 heaven where we shall see and hear the things which no earthly 
 eye hath seen, no ear hath heard, nor hath it entered into the 
 mind of man to conceive. In a word, dearly beloved, all those 
 things on earth which do make life well worth living, all come to 
 us from our Great High Priest Jesus Christ through those whom He 
 sends — as His Father sent Him — His earthly priests. The life that 
 is worth living, is a Christian life, the life of the sons of God. 
 This life, like the air we breathe, we are drinking in almost 
 unconsciously daily and hourly in all the unnoticed means of grace 
 which our High Priest provides. And as besides the air we breathe, 
 our bodies are nourished (from time to time) with various kinds 
 of food, and healed with medicines, and refreshed with delicacies, 
 so our souls, from time to time, are nourished by some of the 
 sacraments, or healed from sin by others : or they are led to 
 higher perfection by the various devotions and religious exercises 
 of the Church. And all these are ministered to us by men like 
 ourselves, mortal and weak and liable to sin, yet strong and divine 
 in the works they do through the ministry of the priesthood of 
 Christ. 
 
 Such is the love of Jesus for your souls. Because it is for 
 you He gives these blessings. For you He appoints His priests 
 and gives them their wondrous powers not for their exultation and 
 pride, but they may furnish your souls with light and life. You 
 are the fruits He wishes to gather. God grant that you may 
 never disappoint His loving heart. God grant that you may fill 
 your minds with the knowledge of Him, and your hearts with 
 the love of Him, so that united here in this sacrifice that you 
 may join in His worship and share in His eternal priesthood. 
 
 And to you, venerable Fathers of the Episcopate, Eeverend 
 Brothers of the Priesthood, I will not presume to address any 
 exhortation of my own. I speak to you rather in the words of 
 one whose life of self-sacrifice so filled him with the spirit of our 
 great High Priest, that for more than four hundred years this 
 book has been teaching to both priest and laity the perfect 
 Following of Christ.
 
 58 SUBMOI^S OF TUB THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 "Oh! liow great and honorable is the office of priests, to conse- 
 crate with sacred words the Lord of majesty, to bless Him with 
 their lips, to hold Him with their hands, to receive Him with 
 their mouth, and to administer Him to others. Oh ! how clean 
 ought those hands to be, how pure that mouth, how unspotted 
 the heart of a priest, with whom tlie Lord of purity so often 
 enters. When a priest celebrates he glorifies God, he rejoices the 
 angels, he edifies the Church. He helps the living, he obtains 
 rest for the dead, and makes himself partaker of all that is good." 
 
 Let thy grace, O Almighty God, assist us, that we who have 
 undertaken the office of the priesthood may serve Thee worthily 
 and devoutly in all purity and good conscience. 
 
 And if Me cannot live in so great innocency as we ought, 
 grant us at least to bewail the sins we have committed, and in 
 the spirit of humility and the resolution of a good will, to serve 
 Thee more fervently for the time to come.
 
 lit. Rev. F. Manogue, U.D. 
 
 lit. lit-v. J. .1. Aaiii. J>.I). 
 
 lit. Jier. Win. II. Gross, U.D. 
 
 lit. Rev. J. F. Shanahan, D.I). 
 
 JlI. ;.Vf. ./. JUhi, t.s,sy, D.U 
 
 Rt. Rev. U. J. Mrt^iiaUl, D.I). 
 
 Rt. Rev. John LouijIUin, D.D. 
 
 Rt. Rev I'. J. IkUltn. D.J). 
 
 Rt. Itev. 'JobiUK Mullen, D.D.
 
 %l\^ ^mtg ifi Up ^limt^, 
 
 SERMOU OF EiaST REY. J. F. SHAMHAH, D.D., 
 
 BISHOP OF HARRISBURG. 
 
 "God is faithful: by whom you are called unto the fellowship of His Son, Jesus 
 Christ our Lord. Now, I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no schisms among 
 you; but that you be perfect in the same mind, and in the same judgment." — 
 I. Cor., c. i, V. 9-10. 
 
 YOU "witnessed this morning, Fathers ana brethren, une opening 
 of this new Plenary Coun^^il, and you could hardly fail to 
 be stri>ck, as I was, with the solemnity of th.e occasion. You 
 saw new evidence, if evidence were needed, of the wondrous 
 spiritual organization that brings together at the call of authority 
 such a body of prelates and clergy from every part of this vast 
 country — from Canada to the Gulf, from the Atlantic to the 
 Pacific — to confer together for a period, and wiact such legis- 
 lation as may seem most conducive to the spiritual, welfare of the 
 multitudes of the faithful committed to their keeping. You have 
 seen before you men of many distant nationalities, men of many 
 divergent opinions, doubtless, in secular matters — and it may be, 
 too, in minor points of ecclesiastical discipline — and you know 
 they have come together ready to sink individual preferences 
 in the common good, because they have come as brethren of 
 one household united in faith and charity. 
 
 This spirit of unity, calling us unto the fellowship of Jesus 
 Christ, as the Apostle says, is a token of the mighty society of 
 which those leaders are members, made compact with you in 
 Christ, dearly beloved of the faithful. We are all of the one 
 household of faith. And the Apostle exhorts us, like the Corin- 
 thians, to be perfect in one mind and one judgment. 
 
 (59)
 
 60 SURMOIfS OF TUB THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 God calls us unto the fellowship of Christ His Son ; we obey 
 His call ; we are united in this supernatural fellowship ; we stand 
 within the hallowed circle of Christian unity; we are citizens of 
 God's kingdom on earth ; we are members of His holy and 
 enduring Church. It has been thought well that after what has 
 been said — and said so eloquently — to-day on " The Church in Her 
 Councils," something should be presented to-night on " The Unity 
 of the Church." Hence the text I have chosen and the words 
 I have so far uttered, as intending to lead to a fuller develop- 
 ment of the subject. 
 
 The Church, we say, is one. She must be one or she is no 
 Church. AVhat do we mean when we say that the Church is 
 one — when we speak of the unity of the Church ? How is the 
 Church one ? 
 
 " Because," says our catechism, the essence of theology, " all its 
 members agree in one faith, are all in one communion and are 
 all under one head." 
 
 Her members agree in one faith. Unity of faith is the com- 
 mon belief in all the articles of faith which have been revealed 
 by Christ, and so declared by His Church. Her membe3;s agree 
 in communion. Unity of communion is the union in one society 
 of all who profess this faith, with participation in the same 
 sacraments and the same prayers, under the guidance of their 
 legitimate pastors, and all under the Roman Pontiff, who is their 
 head upon earth. Unity of communion preserves the unity of 
 faith. Union with and submission to the legitimate pastors pre- 
 serve the unity of communion. 
 
 There can, in the nature of things, be but one true faith. 
 Truth is one under every aspect. Its opposite is error. There 
 are numberless errors, for there are numberless ways of opposing 
 the truth. God gave man the true faith that he might embrace 
 it and not fall into error. AVhy else should He have revealed 
 it? He willed, then, that man should have unity of faith. To 
 secure this unity among men scattered throughout the world and 
 differing in language, habits and propensities. He established a 
 unity of communion — that is, from such conflicting elements He 
 formed a single spiritual society; and, leaving the members sub- 
 ject to their own governments, laws and institutions. He gained 
 their willing adhesion to lofty religious precepts, and their loving
 
 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 61 
 
 allegiance to a settled ecclesiastical authority. He founded a society, 
 in a word, of which all the xiierabers M'ould agree in one faith, 
 be all in the same communion, and be all under one head. 
 This society, need I say, is the Church. 
 
 The Church being thus formed through unity of faith and 
 unity of communion, there are two ways of separating from her : 
 one by renouncing the faith — this is heresy ; the other by with- 
 drawing from the communion of her prayers and rites, and 
 rejecting her authority — this is schism 
 
 Men are scattered over the world. How is it possible to' pre- 
 serve this unity of faith and communion among them? God in 
 His wisdom has provided a means. He has instituted a ministry 
 for His Church commissioned and charged to teach the faith, to 
 administer the Sacraments, officiate in divine worship and govern 
 the Church. This ministry is made up of several orders called 
 the hierarchy. You see the great body of priests discharging their 
 sacred functions over broad areas under the jurisdiction of a 
 minister of a higher order called a bishop. You see him again 
 holding close communion with the other bishops of a province or 
 nation. 
 
 But these bishops, numerous as they are, and often remote 
 from each other, with their differences of race and habits of 
 thought, might teach different doctrines and form conflicting socie- 
 ties or schools of opinion which they might set up as Churches. 
 Without going so far, they might deviate widely in ceremonial and 
 Church government. How are these dangers averted? Behold the wis- 
 dom of God ! You see bishops coming together from afar, as during 
 these days, in solemn council to confer with each other and with 
 their brethren of the other orders of the clergy, in the light of 
 the spirit of God, as to the best means of preserving uniformity 
 of discipline and guarding against loss of unity of faith. But 
 they come not together of themselves. Their enactments are not 
 effective until ratified by higher authority. Christ has set one as 
 bishop of bishops over all the rest whose office is to confirm his 
 brethren, as Christ said to Peter — whose prerogative it is to kccj^ 
 the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. On him Christ has 
 conferred the primacy of honor and of jurisdiction, and placed him 
 on high to look over and guard the whole Church and be her 
 visible centre of unity.
 
 62 ^"iUBiiojsrs OF the third plenary council. 
 
 " Thou art Peter and upon this rock will I build My Church," 
 says our Lord. " I will give thee the keys of the Kingdom of 
 Heaven." "Feed My sheep." "Confirm thy brethren." The 
 primacy of Peter being destined to preserve the unity of the 
 Church, it must have duration and permanence. His prerogative, 
 like that of the other Apostles, has been given in the Church 
 and for the Church. It is not personal merely, but through him 
 for the Church, and therefore, cannot perish with his death. If 
 the primacy of Peter is the rock on which the Church is built, 
 it must last as long as the Church will last. Peter is the shep- 
 herd of the flock of Jesus Christ. His pastoral ministry then must 
 extend to all times and all places. By the institution of the 
 episcopacy, the particular Churches have a grand principle of unity. 
 The universal Church has then greater need of a bishop of bishops 
 to keep the body of the Lord from dismemberment. "Upon Peter," 
 says St. Cyprian, "is founded the unity of the whole Church; 
 he has transmitted his primacy to the Roman Church, which is 
 the See of Peter with which all the other Churches must be in 
 accord." 
 
 The primacy of the Pope is a necessary deduction from the very 
 idea of the Church. It is the one, living, personal representation 
 of the grand principles of authority, alone capable of preserving the 
 unity of faith, and of directing with strong and sure hand towards 
 the sovereign end, the activity and energy of all the orders and 
 of all the members of this glorious organism which w-e know as 
 the Church. 
 
 The supremacy of Rome in the Church is the arrangement of 
 God. AVhy else should the Churches yield to her such free and 
 willing obedience? And so you find in her a combination of 
 admirable though seemingly opposite qualities : strictness with moder- 
 ation ; unshaken resolve with tenderest indulgence ; ceaseless guard 
 over the deposit of the faith with noblest encouragement to true 
 temporal and material progress. Thus does she divinely rule the 
 Church and uphold its essential unity. 
 
 According as the Church extended her limits and the nations 
 flocked to her shelter, it was necessary that the central power 
 should be stronger and stronger, and the unitive power of the 
 Popes be exercised with ever increasing energy. And so, whenever 
 the storms broke loose with more fury, threatening to engulf the-
 
 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 63 
 
 bark of Peter ; whenever pride above or revolt below maae tlie 
 danger of schism imminent, the nations turned towards Rome, eager 
 to liear tlie voice of Peter, which was always the voice of truth 
 and right. We wonder at the energy and tenacity of ancient Rome 
 in establishing her dominion through the policy of lier senate and 
 the valor of her armies. Christian Rome aftbrds us a grander 
 spectacle. She surpasses pagan Rome in the heroism of her faith. 
 She founds the universal Church on the supremacy of her ecclesi- 
 astical spirit and the spontaneous submission of the faithful. If 
 Christianity has not confined itself in some obscure corner like a 
 sect ; if it has not crystalized in its forms like the religion of the 
 Hindoos ; if European energy has not sunk enervate in luxury and 
 bondage as in the East ; we owe it solely to that principle of life 
 and unity; we owe it to this, that the Church forms one compact 
 whole under tlie direction of a ciiief whose eye takes in the whole 
 world, whose word all listen to with respect, who is the father 
 and teacher of Christendom, to whom Jesus Christ has communicated 
 his full powers in the person of St. Peter, to feed, to guide and 
 govern the universal Church. 
 
 No kingdom, no government of the world has ! furnished the 
 model of the glorious constitution of the Church or can attain its 
 perfection. The Church is a monarchy, since it has a ruler who 
 holds the plenitude of power, who commands all, and all obey. 
 The Church is an aristocracy, for with the supreme ruler there is 
 the episcopate, sharing with him the government of the Church and 
 holding its place, too, by divine institution. The Church is a democ- 
 racy, for in this kingdom all offices, even to the highest dignity, 
 even to the triple diadem of the sovereign liead, may be gained 
 by the humblest born citizen. The Church, then, combines in her 
 constitution the chief features of the three forms of civil society, 
 hitherto best known in history. Through the primacy she possesses 
 the strength and grandeur of that unity by which she embraces the 
 nations of the earth, becoming thus, in truth and by exceptional 
 privilege, the universal, the Catholic Church, as called for by the 
 very notion of Christianity, which is the religion of mankind. 
 
 This wondrous constitution of the Church, received from Christ, 
 it is that makes her strong — so strong that the gates of hell 
 cannot prevail against her. Thus organized, she, and she alone, 
 bears the recognized marks of her divinity. She is one, holy.
 
 64 SERMONS OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 Catholic and Apostolic. We proclaim this in our creed. It is 
 as one, indeed, that we are regarding her ; but, what, in few words, 
 are those four signs, but the essential qualities of revelation itself, 
 made manifest always and everywhere — in every age, in every 
 clime? What are they, tell mc, but the prolonged action of Jesus 
 Christ ever living in His Church and permeating it with His 
 spirit? Whatever religious society wants any of these marks is 
 wanting in a quality essential to the M'orkings of Christ, and 
 cannot therefore be the true Church. 
 
 Look at this more closely. The fundamental character of Chris- 
 tian revelations is the authority of the infallible Word of God, 
 by means of which all men come by the shortest way to knowl- 
 edge of the truth. Its object is the unity of the Church on the 
 basis of unity of fiith and ecclesiastical communion. For, the 
 prototype of the Church, one God in three persons, is one. Christ 
 is one with His Father : " The Father and I are one." The 
 kingdom of the elect is one with Christ and the Father. Those 
 regenerated in Him through the Church must be one, as by their 
 corporeal birth they are one race in Adam. In the sight of the 
 spirit of God mankind is also one, forming an organism whose 
 characteristic is unity; a society of life and love in God, if its 
 raenibers are true to Him, the household of the chosen, mIio dwell 
 in the new terrestrial paradise, the Church. The Lord is come 
 to gather together those whom sin and error had dispersed. Unity 
 was the object of the prayer He addressed to His Father just 
 before His passion. 
 
 It is by her unity that the Church will be known by the world 
 as the true spouse of Christ by being of one body and one spirit. 
 The Apostle exhorts the faithful to unity: "I beseech you, brethren, 
 by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the 
 same thing, and that there be no schisms among you." ",The very 
 derivation of the word Church," says St. Chrysostom, "means unity 
 and unanimity. In that unity the Church is beautiful like unto 
 God, the eternal beauty; like unto heaven, which knows not the 
 deformity of sin — sin which alone is the cause of division. For 
 moral division goes before national and sectional separation. Unity, 
 while it is the beauty of the Church, is also her strength. Her 
 unity it is that makes her invincible." 
 
 Why is there a Church at all? Is it not for the sanctificatiou of
 
 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 65 
 
 man through the truth? Is it not to win him from sin to virtue? 
 to lead him from earth to heaven? Then, holiness is a second 
 characteristic of the Church, just as the sanctity of the doctrines 
 of Christ is proof of His divine mission. But, He came on earth 
 and died for all. He placed salvation within reach of all. His 
 Church, then, must be Catholic or universal — no territorial limits — 
 spread over the whole earth. But, furthermore, it must have come 
 down through the ages by unbroken succession from the Apostles, 
 and must be ever the same to the end of the world. It is, then. 
 Apostolic. Reject one of these marks, and you reject the Church 
 itself; you blot out Christianity, since you destroy one of its 
 essential attributes. 
 
 AYhere, then, do you find this one, holy, Catholic and Apostolic 
 Church ? You see numbers who have gone out from her group- 
 ing themselves together and calling themselves Churches. But, the 
 one grand, easily recognized mark of the true Church is, that it is 
 always one and the same ; while the others are always contradic- 
 tory to her and at variance with each other. Their record is the 
 record of their variations. None of the sects dares seriously to 
 claim the title of Catholic ; or if individuals here and there attempt 
 it, they are put down as absurd even by their co-religionists. 
 There is but one Church found all over the world, and embracing 
 all classes in one faith, in one form of worship, with a stable 
 hierarchy, and spoken of in tongues without number as the one, 
 holy, Catholic Church. 
 
 She is Catholic solely because she is one, endowed with the 
 principle of her unity, the ever-living authority of a teaching, in- 
 fallible body, with its infallible head and living centre of unity, 
 the Pope, the Vicar of Christ. 
 
 It is in her alone that is found tlie grand and incontestable 
 seal of God and of His truth — unity, in which alone the human 
 mind is satisfied in its aspirations, and by which the work of God 
 is made manifest through the ages. The history of the Church is 
 but the history of the struggles of the Church to preserve that 
 unity in spite of the elements of discord and the spirit of nation- 
 ality, and the forces of heresy and schism, ever trying to rend her 
 asunder. And in this never-ending battle, sometimes the Church 
 succeeds in winning back to herself tlie foes of her unity ; some- 
 times she is compelled, when the disease is incurable, to cut off 
 the gangrened parts to save the healthy members.
 
 66 SER2I0XS OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 How different the course of civil societies ! States would perish 
 if they did not make compromises and modify their legislation 
 under pressure of circumstances. But no peril, no disaster, can 
 force the Church to modify a single dogma. It is not strange, 
 says a philosopher, that one should save himself from ruin, by 
 knowing how to give way on occasion, but that the Church 
 should ever stand inflexible marks her divinity. Rome has never 
 bowed before heresies, no matter how alarming. The emperors of 
 the East proved recreant ; the barbarian hordes that overran the 
 empire became overwhelmingly Arian, and threatened the subver- 
 sion of Rome ; but Rome held fast to Catholic unity. She cut 
 off" the Greek Church from her communion, with sorrow indeed, 
 yet undismayed by the fact that she was cutting off the half of 
 the Christian world. Being one, she is the divine embodiment of 
 Christianity, the body of the Lord who continues to become incar- 
 nate and take form in her, and yet is ever her life-giving prin- 
 ciple. Being one, she must be exclusive. Outside of her pale she 
 sees sects, professions, schools of active thought, earnest working 
 associations. Churches with limiting designations ; but not the one, 
 Catholic Church. As she cannot lose nor deny her prerogative of 
 Spouse of Christ, of the Body of the Lord, she cannot admit 
 other bodies on an equality with her. 
 
 Take away unity, and Catholicity is impossible. Tired out with 
 dividing and subdividing into sects, men will seek soon some kind of 
 reunion, some shadow of compactness. Rulers see their opportu- 
 nity, and so-called national Churches spring into ephemeral exist- 
 ence. This nationalizing of religion has ever been the anguish of 
 the universal Church. Admit this principle, and you have, at 
 best, but an aggregation of independent Churches with their inev- 
 itable and rapidly growing antagonisms. To neutralize such ele- 
 ments of dissolution, a sole, a central and unitive power must 
 exist in the Church. Our modern creeds have followed the steps 
 of the ancient national systems where the frontier of the State is 
 the frontier of the religion. 
 
 And wlicre government influences do not directly control them, 
 as witli lis, yet do we not see a similar tendency to sectional or 
 political division? Have Ave not seen a Church North and a Church 
 South — a Church endorsing this or that candidate or party on mere 
 political grounds ? What wonder that members with opposite views
 
 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH, 67 
 
 on financial or industrial questions resent this j)ulpit antagonism 
 to their honest opinions on secular matters, and class their Church 
 with the other political agencies! AVhat wonder that youth soon 
 learn to covertly despise, and as they grow older, to scoflf at all 
 religion. What wonder, in the face of all these disentegrating 
 causes, that faith dies out; that doubt prevails; that indifference to 
 a future state is widespread; that reckless indulgence of every pas- 
 sion seems the creed of growing multitudes; that agnosticism is 
 the fashion of the cultured, and God is a mere form of expres- 
 sion; while infidel blasphemy is applauded by the crowd. 
 
 The very expression, national or sectional Church, implies a con- 
 tradiction in terms. In its very nature the Church rises above 
 nationality. If the whole Church were parcelled out into national 
 Churches, what would become of Christianity? It would soon be 
 no more than the institutions of Greece and Rome, a matter of 
 interest and speculation for the historian or archseologist. A terri- 
 torial Church inspires no respect, no true devotion. Government 
 power and national pride are its support. The government protects 
 it for its supposed influence with the masses; but the masses, at 
 heart, despise it in spite of the protection of power, or rather 
 because of such protection. So much for the want of a bond of 
 unity. 
 
 But if the Church would be free from the trammels of the State ; 
 if she would assert her freedom of action in her own sphere in 
 the world, she is far from wrapping herself up in a cold and 
 haughty disdain of the world. Her mission, on the contrary, is to 
 penetrate the world with her spirit. She takes human nature as it 
 is to ennoble and sanctify it. Man has not an idea in his mind, 
 a desire in his heart, an aspiration in his soul to which the 
 Church does not assign its proper end and assure its development 
 and exercise and legitimate object. Within her pale genius finds 
 room to spread its wings and take boldest flight towards the 
 sublimest truth. The pious, humble soul, content to love and 
 wait in peace and recollection, there finds the happiness he seeks. 
 The Church has a place at her banquet-table for the man of the 
 world and the recluse, for the scholar and the artist ; for the 
 monarch and the struggler for his daily bread. Well, then, may we 
 say, with a profound observer, the Catholic regards the Church 
 with deepest reverence and devotion. To rise up against her is
 
 68 suBMO^''S OF the third plenary council, 
 
 abhorrent to his nature ; to destroy unity is a heinous crime. The 
 idea of community of prayer and feeling with his brethren of the 
 faith satisfies his reason and imagination and coincides Avith his 
 loftiest notions of duty. How grand, indeed, the thought, that those 
 myriads scattered over the world, with free-will to indulge in any 
 wild vagary of error, and with every peculiarity of race and char- 
 acter, yet make up one great brotherhood in Christ to promote 
 each others spiritual welfare ; becoming one day reconciled and united 
 with each other in the faith, as mankind are reconciled with God 
 through the incarnation and death of His Son. 
 
 As Christ is one and His work is one, as there is but one 
 truth, and it is only truth that makes us free, so He can have 
 intended but one Church — for the Church rests on Him, and her 
 mission is simply to announce Him and His work. The human 
 mind, on the other hand, is everywhere the same, created for the 
 truth. Its essential spiritual wants, no matter what change of time 
 or place, no matter what degree of culture and education, remain 
 always the same. AVe all have sinned. We all stand in need of 
 grace ; and the faith of the simplest-minded toiler is the faith of the 
 sublimest genius, even were he to possess tlie concentrated learning 
 of all past generations. Thus, the oneness of the mind, as well as 
 the oneness of truth, justifies the notion of the one true Church. 
 
 But, just because she is the one true Church, and the deposi- 
 tory of the fulness of truth, she is the object of the attacks of 
 those who reject the truth or have preserved but its fragments. 
 Those who make everything of fiiith, and nothing of reason, accuse 
 her of rationalism, because she grants reason its rights in connec- 
 tion with faith ; while others declare her the enemy of reason, 
 because she holds to the supernatural character of mysteries which 
 are above reason. She refuses not her approval to the interior 
 life, to peaceful contemplation, and she is accused of favorin.g 
 fanaticism, mysticism and laziness. She lays down for the guidance 
 of the Christian life laws, rules and fixed principles, and she is 
 therefore accused by others of degenerating into outward and empty 
 routine, or a dead formalism. She strives to secure Christian 
 education for her children, and she is branded as a foe to liberty 
 and the State. She exercises her well-established rights in the 
 appointment of her ministers and the care of her faithful people, 
 and she is driven into exile as thwarting the secular idea and as
 
 TEE UNITY OF TEE CEURCE. 69 
 
 dangerous to the government. She suffers not Christ and His law 
 to be the sport of a tyrant's caprice, of passing opinions, of intoler- 
 ant passions ; that is enough for her to be assailed and stricken 
 down as obstinate, and not knowing how to conform to the spirit 
 of the age. She gives the greatest sinner pardon if he repents, 
 and she is reproached with laxity. Knowing she is Catholic, and 
 therefore striving to embrace the world and penetrate into every 
 condition of human life — it being her mission, as the salt of the 
 earth, to preserve all from decay — she is set down as meddlesome 
 and domineering. On the other hand, as she continues the preach- 
 ing of the Apostles, and says : " Fear God and honor the king." 
 Obey your rulers. Be true to your allegiance. Support lawful 
 authority as the expression of the authority of God. As she con- 
 demns violence and the violation of rights, she is accused of 
 sycophancy. When she admits development and progress, the Greek 
 schism charges that she is destroying the foundations of faith ; 
 and when she guards the foundations of faith against the count- 
 less assaults of modern error, at once goes up the cry of fossilism 
 and stagnation. What do these contradictory charges prove? 
 Nothing, unless that the Church is above all contradictions, and 
 is the living exponent of the one living truth. 
 
 And so, through unity, no matter what the obstacles, ever 
 goes on the divine action of the Church. However limited her 
 domain, the duty of the Church as the depository of revealed 
 faith is ever the same. Need we wonder, then, that we find the 
 same faith shared by the rich and the poor, the learned and the 
 ignorant, the king and the peasant? Need we wonder that we 
 find it the same in the days of persecution, in the days of tol- 
 eration, in the days of security and peace ? The same fountains 
 of grace are flowing for all ; everywhere the same waters of bap- 
 tism, the same rite of confirmation, the same words of absolu- 
 tion, the same bread of life, the same nuptial blessing, the same 
 unction for the dying, the same requiem for the dead. The 
 world over the same Supreme Pastor is known and revered. Let 
 sorrows overwhelm him as to-day; lot him be robbed of his 
 rights, and deprived of his freedom, and calamities fidl on the 
 Church ; the same loving obedience is paid him as in the palmi- 
 est days of the papacy ; the same loving prayers go up for him 
 even with deeper fervor from all parts of the earth. For this
 
 70 SERMONS OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 unity of the head with the members is maintained under every 
 condition, as Christ is one with the Church. We are one here 
 below dearly beloved, as we hope to be one through eternity. How 
 sweet the union, too, with the faithful who have gone before us. 
 They have made their pilgrimage ; they rest in the Lord ; but 
 even beyond the tomb they are sharers in our prayers. Are we 
 not united with them in the communion of saints? Oh, indeed, 
 how precious it is for brethren to dwell together in unity, not 
 merely in the unity of natural affection, but in the supernatural 
 unity of faith and communion. And why should we grow weary 
 in our prayers to the one eternal God that the days of religious 
 discord and dissension may be shortened ; that the spirit of union 
 and peace may overshadow the erring, and with sweet attraction 
 win them from wanderings to the one true fold of Jesus Christ. 
 Pray, dear brethren, for this happy consummation, especially now 
 during this period of prayer and labor for the interests of God's 
 Church in this land. With earnestness pour out your supplica- 
 tions that the work of this holy council may be efficacious, not 
 only in keeping those within the Church from going astray, but 
 in bringing back those who are wandering. Think of the solicitude 
 of Jesus for souls ; think of His touching prayer for unity on 
 the very night when one of His Apostles went out and betrayed 
 Him ; and join with Him now in His pleadings to His eternal 
 Father : " Holy Father, keep them in Thy name whom Thou 
 hast given Me, that they may be one as We also are one. And 
 not for them only do I pray, but for them also who through 
 their word shall believe in Me ; that they all may be one as 
 Thou, Father, art in Me and I in Thee ; that they also may be one 
 in Us, that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me; 
 and the glory which Thou hast given Me I have given to them 
 that they may be oue, as We also are one."
 
 %\lt ^Hmm to i^^ ^t^ilmi ft^lt 
 
 5ERM0I OF RiaHT REY. W. H. GROSS, D.D. 
 
 BISHOP CY SAYAHKAH, GA. 
 
 THIS is a very grave and important question, because there are 
 about eight millions of colored people living in our midst. There 
 is hardly a town in the United States in which colored people are 
 not more or less numerous. In some States and in some coun- 
 ties and towns they are in a majority over the whites. 
 
 We know the history of this people. In their native country, 
 Africa, they were sunken from time immemorial in barbarism ; and 
 their religion, Fetichism, . was the most depraved that the world has 
 ever known. Africa has done great things for religion, as evidenced 
 in Egypt, in the great monks of the desert — Anthony, Anthanasius, 
 Cyril, Cyprian of Carthage, and others. Africa produced one of the 
 greatest doctors of the Church in the person of St. Augustine, of Hippo. 
 But our colored people came from that part of Africa where the light 
 of Christianity has never penetrated. Here their condition was 
 improved, though they were in a state of slavery. After two cen- 
 turies of bondage they are suddenly set free. While slaves they 
 could exercise no political influence; they had no equality with the 
 whites before the law ; they Avere excluded from all professions, and 
 from a majority of the trades; they were the hewers of wood and 
 the carriers of water for the M'hites. Now they will enter the pro- 
 fessions, and with that wonderful power of the ballot select our 
 rulers and lawgivers, and be themselves elected to such trusts. 
 Therefore, in the highest sense of the word, they will wield an im- 
 portant influence, socially and politically, on the country. 
 
 (71)
 
 72 SEBMOJS'S OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 "We must remember that these eight millions of people are con- 
 stantly increasing, as the last census shows. Consequently their 
 power must increase for good or bad. The question arises, "What 
 is to be done with them ? " There is only one thing that will 
 do any good, and that is to elevate them morally ; make them 
 honest men, chasto women, obedient, law-abiding citizens, having 
 the real welfare of the State at heart. Morality is the basis of 
 the true j^rospcrity of every country. This can come only from the 
 pure faith that is embraced in the Catholic doctrines that civilized in 
 reality the barbarous Goths, Vandals and Huns, the forefathers of 
 the present enlightened nationalities of Europe and America. We 
 know as a fact that at present the colored people know very little 
 if anything of these great truths of holy faith, whence all morality 
 must grow. As a general thing, their ministers are poor colored 
 men, the vast majority of them uneducated, and they only make a 
 travesty of religion — "the blind leading the blind." Even the 
 white ministers of Protestantism are so disunited and divided on 
 doctrines and dogma that they could not teach these fundamental 
 truths were they to go among them, which, as a general thing, 
 they do not, especially in the South. 
 
 But besides dogma and doctrine there must be something else. 
 Man has a fallen nature, and it is not necessary for me to state 
 that the poor colored people do not stand very high in the scale 
 of morality. The preaching of the Apostles in itself could not 
 break the bond of bad passions and save the world, if they had not" 
 with their "words God's grace. God's grace is absolutely necessary, 
 and without it Ave can do nothing. 
 
 The Catholic Church, in her magnificent system of sacraments, 
 possesses the grand channels of grace for the individual and for 
 society. A cliild is sanctified by holy baptism. Matrimony is the 
 foundation of the family and of all Christian society. It is not a 
 mere contract between man and woman, but the great sacrament 
 that brings the man and woman the grace to discharge properly the 
 many duties towards themselves and their children. 
 
 Consider the influence the woman wields as wife, mother, and in 
 society. The Catholic Church can alone give to the colored woman 
 her proper elevation and make her influence widespread for good. 
 By her great doctrines the Church holds up the Virgin ]\Iary as the 
 second Eve, and as the great model of woman — and of woman's
 
 THE MISSI02y^S FOE TUB COLORED PEOPLE. 73 
 
 greatest prize and charm — chastity. Outside of Christianity, women 
 nrc degraded, as can be seen among the Turks and pagans, but 
 slie is elevated by Catholicity. The influence of women is but 
 slightly appreciated. Take from the white race her influence, and 
 there would be a lapse into barbarism. 
 
 Some sixty years ago. Mother Seton began in Baltimore her 
 foundation of the Sisters of Charity. The work, so small in its 
 commencement — a little grain of mustard seed — has become a 
 mighty tree whose branches already fill the land. What services 
 the Sisters of Charity have rendered in educating the young, in 
 caring for the sick and poor, is well known. I am proud to 
 think that Baltimore has witnessed the founding of another great 
 work — the Oblate Sisters of Providence. 
 
 That the Catholic Church can elevate the colored women is evi- 
 denced by the fact, that here in Baltimore, exists this wonderful 
 institution of the Oblate Sisters of Providence, a colored convent 
 where women make vows of perpetual virginity and rival their white 
 sisters by going among their race to educate the young, to take in 
 the poor little orphan and help the sick and dying. Thus is it shown 
 that the colored woman can be elevated to a place where she can 
 bring blessings on her race equal to the beneficent influence which 
 the white woman as a wife, mother, sister and holy nun has con- 
 ferred upon the white race. 
 
 The great sacrament of confirmation gives the Holy Ghost in 
 reality to the recipient, and fortifies him, like a soldier, to fight the 
 battles of life. We have penance, where the soul, wounded by sin 
 in the turmoil of life, may regain health and strength. Above all, 
 Ave have that sacrament of the altar, where Jesus Christ is present 
 in reality, and to Him those heavenly burdened can have recourse 
 for help. We have the high act of religion possessed in the divine 
 sacrifice of the Mass, wherein is represented the sacrifice of Cal- 
 vary. What streams of grace will flow from this on those who 
 devoutly assist at it the lives of the saints can testify. Even for 
 poor man, when dying — that terrible moment, the most grievous 
 and critical in our existence — we have the sacrament of extreme 
 unction. 
 
 No wonder, therefore, that armed with this magnificent system 
 of dogma and sacraments the Catholic Church has spread the flowers 
 of religion in all the lands where she has been welcomed, and
 
 74 S:EIiMON'S OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 our colored people will not prove an exception to the rule. It is 
 true that so long as slavery existed the Catholic priest, as a general 
 rule, had no opportunity of coming in contact with the colored 
 people. In Georgia and generally in the slave States, the slavehold- 
 ers, -with a few exceptions, were Protestants. But some works hav6 
 already been started, and their success is gratifying in the highest 
 degree. 
 
 I have spoken of the colored man to show his influence upon 
 civil society, and that it is wise and patriotic for every citizen to 
 wish for his elevation to the highest point of morality. I have 
 shown the Catholic Church can do that, and has abundant means 
 for it. But we Catholics must remember that the colored people 
 should be dear to us from an even higher motive. They were 
 created by the same God, are children of the same common father 
 und mother — Adam and Eve — and were destined to see God and 
 possess Him for all eternity. Remember that Jesus Christ shed 
 His last drop of blood to redeem their souls, and that they are, 
 therefore, inconceivably dear in His eyes.
 
 lit. Eev. ./. L. Spalding, D.D. 
 
 lit. llev. T. F. llendricken, D.D. 
 
 111. net. John Home, D.D. 
 
 lit. Kev. J A. Walterson, D.D. 
 
 at. Ilet. J. J. Kiane, D.D. 
 
 Ul. JUv. John Tuigg, D.D. 
 
 fiT*^!, 
 
 M-igeiii 
 
 HI. Ji'ev. D.nuis M. Hiad/ei/, D.D. 
 
 St. Rev. J P Machebeuf D D. 
 
 in. L'ev. 1'. T. O'J.'eilly, D D.
 
 ^mw${ta ^iltt^^twrt. 
 
 SERMOI OF RIGHT REY. J. L. SPILDIIG, D.D., 
 
 EISHOP OF PEORIA, ILL. 
 
 THE subject which I have been asked to treat is the higher 
 education of priests, which, I suppose, is the highest educa- 
 tion of man, since tlie ideal of the Christian priest is the most 
 exalted, his vocation the most sublime, liis office the most holy, 
 his duties the most spiritual, and his mission, whether we consider 
 its relation to morality which is the basis of individual and social 
 welfare, or to religion which is the promise and the secret of 
 immortal and godlike life, is the most important and the most 
 sacred which can be assigned to a human being. 
 
 Religion and education like religion and morality are nearly 
 related. Pure religion, indeed, is more than right education, and 
 yet it may be said with truth that it is but a part of the best 
 education, for it co-operates with other forces, with climate, cus- 
 tom, social conditions and political institutions, to develop and 
 fashion the complete man, and the special instruction of teachers, 
 which is the narrow meaning of the word, is modified, and to a 
 great extent controlled, by these powers which work unseen, and 
 are the vital agents that make possible all conscious educational 
 efforts. 
 
 The faith we hold, the laws we obey, the domestic and social 
 ■customs to which our thoughts and loves are harmonized, the cli- 
 mate we live in, mould our characters and give to our souls a 
 deeper and more lasting tinge tlian any school, though it were 
 the best. 
 
 My subject, however, does not demand that I consider these 
 general and silent agencies by which life is influenced; but leads 
 
 (75)
 
 76 SUEMONS OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 me to the discussion of the methods by which man, with con- 
 scious purpose, seeks to form and instruct liis fellow-man j to the 
 discussion of the special education which brings art to the aid of 
 nature and becomes the auxiliary and guide of the forces which 
 contribute to the development of our being. 
 
 In this age when all wlio think at all turn their thoughts to 
 questions of education, it is needless to call attention to the inter- 
 est of the subject, which, like hope, is immortal and fresh as the 
 innocent face of laughing childhood. 
 
 Is not tlie school for all men a shrine to which their pilgrim 
 thoughts return to catch again the glow of gladness of a world 
 wherein they live by faith and hope and love, when round the 
 morning sun of life the golden purple clouds were hanging and 
 earth lay hidden in mist beneath which the soul created a new 
 paradise? To the opening mind all things are young and fair, 
 and to remember the delight that accompanied the gradual dawn 
 of knowledge upon our mental vision, sv/cet and beautiful as the 
 upglowing of day from the bosom of night, is to be forever thank- 
 ful for the gracious power of education. And is there not in 
 all hearts a deep and abiding yearning for great and noble 
 men, and therefore an imperishable interest in the power by 
 which they are moulded? When fathers and mothers look upon 
 the fair blossoming children, that cling to them as the vine 
 wraps its tendrils round the spreading bough, and when their 
 great love fills them with ineffable longing to shield these tender 
 souls from the blighting blasts of a cold and stormy world, and 
 little by little to prepare them to stand alone and breast the 
 gales of fortune, do they not instinctively put their trust in the 
 power of education? 
 
 When at the beginning of the present century Germany lay 
 prostrate at the feet of Napoleon, the wise and patriotic among 
 her children yielded not to despondency, but turned with confi- 
 dence to truer methods and systems of education, and assiduous 
 teaching and patient waiting finally brought them to Sedan. 
 
 When in the sixteenth century heresy and schism seemed near 
 to final victory over the Church, Pope Julius III declared that 
 the evils and abuses of the times were the outgrowth of the 
 shameful ignorance of the clergy, and that the chief hope of the 
 dawning of a brighter day lay in general and thorough ccclesias-
 
 UNIVERSITY EDUCATION. 77 
 
 tical education. And the Catholic leaders, who finally turned back 
 the advancing power of Protestantism, re-established the Church 
 in half the countries in which it had been overthown, and con- 
 verted more souls in America and Asia than had been lost in 
 Europe, belonged to the greatest educational body the world has 
 ever seen. What is history but examples of success through 
 knowledge and righteousness and of failure through lack of under- 
 standing and of virtue ? 
 
 Wherein lies the superiority of civilized races over the barba- 
 rians if not in their greater knowledge and superior strength of 
 character? And what but education has placed in the hands of 
 man the thousand natural forces, which he holds as a charioteer 
 his well-reined steeds, bidding the winds to carry him to distant 
 lands, making steam his tireless ever-ready slave, and commanding 
 the lightning to speak his words to the ends of the earth? 
 What else than this has taught him to map the boundless heavens, 
 to read the footprints of God in the crust of the earth ages 
 before human beings lived, to measure the speed of light, to 
 weigh the imperceptible atom, to split up all natural compounds, 
 to create innumerable artificial products with which he transforms 
 the world and with a grain of powder marches like a conquering 
 god around the globe ? 
 
 What converts the meaningless babbling of the child into the 
 stately march of oratoric phrase or the rythmic flow of poetic 
 language ? What has developed the rude stone and bronze imple- 
 ments of savage and barbarous hordes into the miraculous 
 machinery which we use ? By what power has man been taught 
 to carve the shapeless rock into an image of ideal beauty, or 
 with it to build his thought into a temple of God, where the 
 soul instinctively prostrates itself in adoration ? 
 
 Is not all this, together with whatever else is excellent in 
 human works, the result of education, which gives to man a second 
 nature with more admirable endowments ? And is not religion 
 itself a kind of celestial education which trains the soul to god- 
 like life? 
 
 No progress in things divine or human is made by man except 
 through eiFort, and effort is the power and the law of education. 
 The maxim of the spiritual writers that not to struggle upward 
 and onward is to be drawn downward, applies to every phase
 
 78 SERMONS OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 of our life. AVhence do we derive strength of soul but from 
 the uplifting of the mind and heart to God which we call prayer? 
 To pray is to think, to attend, to hold the mind lovingly to its 
 object, and this is what we do when we study. Hence prayer, 
 which is the voice of religion, is a part of education, nay, it& 
 very soul, breathing on all the chords of life, till their thousand 
 dissonances meet in rythmic harmony. What is the pulpit but the 
 holiest teacher's chair that has been placed upon the earth ? 
 
 And as the presence of a noble character is a more potent 
 influence than words, so sacramental communion with Christ is 
 man's chief school of faith, of hope and love. There are worthy 
 persons who turn, as from an unholy thought, from the emphatic 
 announcement of the need of the best human qualities for the 
 proper defence of the cause of God in the world. Such speech 
 seems to them to be vain and unreal, for God is all in all, and man 
 is nothing. But in our day it is easier to go astray in the direction 
 of self-annihilation than in that of self-assertion ; since the com- 
 mon tendency now of all false philosophies is pantheistic, and issues 
 in unconscious contempt of individual life. If man is but a bubble 
 merging forth and reabsorbed, without past or future, then, indeed, 
 both he and Avhat he seems to do sink into the eternal flow of 
 matter and are undeserving of a thought. This certainly is not 
 the Christian view, to which man is revealed as a lesser god and 
 co-worker with the Eternal, whose thoughts can reach the Infinite 
 and whose will can oppose that of the Omnipotent. In Christ, 
 God co-operates with man for the salvation of the world, and in 
 the Church man co-operates with God in the same end. The more 
 complete the man, the more fit is he to work with God. Even 
 bodily disfigurement is looked upon as an obstacle ; how much more 
 then shall lack of intelligence and want of heart render us un- 
 worthy of the divine office? I certainly shall never deny that 
 love which the Apostle exalts above faith and hope, is higher alsa 
 than knowledge. The light of the mind is as that of the moon — 
 fair and soft and soothing, without heat, without the power to 
 call forth and nourish life ; but the light of the soul, which is 
 love, is the sunlight, whose kiss, like a word of God, makes 
 the dead to live and clothes the world in strength and beauty. 
 Character is more than intellect, love is more than knowledge, 
 religion is more than morality, and a great heart brings us closer
 
 UNIVERSITY EDUCATION. 79 
 
 to God, nearer to all goodness than a bright mind. Education 
 is essentially moral, and the intellectual qualities themselves, whicli 
 we seek to develop, derive their chief efficacy from underlying^ 
 ethical qualities upon wliich they rest and from which they receive 
 their energy and the power of self-control. Inequality of will is 
 the great cause of inequality of mind, and the will is strength- 
 ened by the practice of virtue as the body by food and exercise. 
 If this is a general truth, with what special force must it not 
 apply to the ministers of a religion, the paramount and ceaseless aim 
 of which is to make men holy, so that at times it has almost 
 seemed as though the Church were indifferent as to whether they 
 are learned or beautiful or strong? She pronounces no man a 
 doctor, unless he be also a saint, and when I insist that the 
 priest shall possess the best mental culture of his age, that, with- 
 out this, he fights with broken weapons, speaks with harsh voice 
 a language men will neither hear nor understand, teaches truths 
 which, having not the freshness and the glow of truth, neither 
 kindle the heart nor fire the imagination, I do not forget that 
 without the moral earnestness which is born of faith and purity 
 of life, mere cultivation of mind will not give him power to 
 unseal the fountains of living waters which refresh tiie garden of 
 God. The universal harmony is felt by a pure heart better than 
 it can be perceived by a keen intellect. To a sinless soul the 
 darker side even of life and nature is not wholly dark, and the 
 mental difficulties which the existence of evil involves, in no way 
 weaken the consciousness of the essential goodness that lies at the 
 heart of all things. In the religious, as in the moral world, men 
 trust to what we are rather than to what we say, and the teacher of 
 spiritual truth is never strong, unless his life and character inspire 
 a confidence which arguments alone do not create ; for in questions 
 that reach beyond the sphere of sensation, we feel that insight is better 
 than reason, and hence we instinctively prefer the testimony of a 
 godlike soul to the conclusions of a cultivated mind ; and indeed 
 our Blessed Lord ever assumes that the obstacle to the percep- 
 tion of divine truth is moral and not intellectual. The pure of 
 heart see God : the evil-doer loves darkness and shuns the light. 
 St. Paul goes even farther and associates mental cultivation with a 
 tendency directly opposed to religious faith, which is humble. ' 
 "Knowledge puffeth up." But the words of the Apostle should
 
 80 SUE3I0NS OF TUB THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 not be stretched beyond his purpose, M-hich is to point to pride 
 as a special danger of the intellectual as sensuality is a danger of 
 the ignorant. For man to have aught is to run a risk and hence 
 to do as little as possible is in the thought of the timid a mark 
 of prudence. And indeed if fear be nearer to wisdom than cour- 
 age, then should "\ve fear everything, for danger is everywhere. A 
 breath may sow the seed of death ; a look may slay the soul. In 
 knowledge, in ignorance, in strength, in weakness, in wealth, in 
 poverty, in genius, in stupidity, in company, in solitude, in inno- 
 cence itself danger lurks. But God docs not abolish life that 
 danger may cease to be, and they who put their trust in Him 
 wdll not seek to darken the mind lest knowledge lead man astray, 
 but will rather in a righteous cause make the venture of all things, 
 as St. Ignatius preferred the hope of saving others to the 
 certainty of his own salvation. And may we not maintain, since 
 we hold that there is no inappeasable conflict between God and 
 nature, between the soul and matter, between revelation and science, 
 that the .apparent antagonism lies in our apprehension and not in 
 things themselves, and consequently that reconcilement is to bq 
 sought for through the help of thoroughly trained minds ? The 
 poet speaks the truth : "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing." 
 They who know but little and imperfectly, see but their knowl- 
 edge, if so it may be called, and walk in innocent unconsciousness 
 of their infinite nescience. The narrower the range of our mental 
 vision, the greater the obstinacy witli which we cling to our opin- 
 ions ; and the half-educated, like the weak and the incompetent, 
 are often contentious, but wliosoever is able to do his work does 
 it and finds no time for dispute. He who possesses a disciplined 
 mind, and is fiimiliar with the best thoughts that live in the great 
 literatures, Avill be the last to attach undue imi)ortance to his own 
 thinking. A sense of decency and a kind of holy shame will keep 
 him far from angry and unprofitable controversy ; nor will he mis- 
 take a crotchet for a panacea, nor imagine that irritation is enlighen- 
 mcnt. The blessings of a cultivated mind are akin to those of 
 religion. They are larger liberty, wider life, purer delights and a 
 juster sense of the relative values of the means and ends which 
 lie within our rcacli. Knowledge, like religion, leads us away from 
 Aviiat appears to what is, from what passes to what remains, from 
 what flatters the senses to that which speaks to the soul. Wisdom
 
 UNIVERSITY EDUCATION. 81 
 
 and religion converge, as love and knowledge meet in God ; and 
 to the wise as to the religious man, no great evil can happen. 
 Into prison they both carry the sweet company of their thoughts, 
 their faith and hope, and are freer in chains than the great in 
 palaces. In death they are in the midst of life, for they see that 
 what they know and love is imperishable, nor subject even to 
 ■atomic disintegration. He who lives in the presence of truth yearns 
 not for the company of men, but loves retirement as a saint loves 
 solitude ; and in times like ours, when men no longer choose the 
 desert for a dwelling-place, the passionate desire of intellectual ex- 
 •cellence co-operates with religious faith to guard them against dissi- 
 pation and to lift them above the spirit of the age. The thinker 
 is never lonely as he who lives with God is never unhappy. Is 
 not the love of excellence, which is the scholar's love, a part of 
 "the love of goodness which makes the saint? And are not intel- 
 lectual delights akin to those religion brings? They are pure, they 
 elevate, they refine, [time only increases their charm, and in the 
 Avinter of age, when the body is but the agent of pain, contempla- 
 tion still remains like the light of a higher world to tinge with 
 beauty the clouds that gather around life's setting. How narrow 
 .and monotonous is sensation ! how wide and various is thought ! 
 They who live in the senses are fettered and ill at ease ; they 
 Avho live in the soul are free and joyful. And since the priest, 
 unless he be a saint, must have, like other men, some human joy, 
 and since he dwells not in the sacred circle of the love of wife 
 and children, in which the multitudes find repose and contentment, 
 what solace, what refreshment, in the midst of cares and labors, 
 shall we offer him? If there be aught for him, that is not un- 
 worthy or dangerous, except the pleasures of the mind, to me it 
 is unknown, and though a well-trained intellect should do no more 
 than to enable us to take delight in pure and noble objects, it 
 would be a chief help to worthy life. And when the whole tend- 
 ency of our social existence is to draw men out of themselves 
 and to make them seek the good of life in what is external, as 
 money, display, position, renown, is it not a gain, if while we 
 ■open their minds to the charm of intellectual beauty, we make 
 them see that this eager striving for Avealth and place is a vulgar 
 <3hase ? And does not the spirit of refinement in thought, in speech, 
 in manner, add worth and fairness to him whom it inspires, though 
 
 6
 
 82 SUBMONS OF TUB THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 the motive which preserves him from what is low or gross be nO' 
 higher than a fastidious delicacy and self-respect ? 
 
 To deny the moral influence of intellectual culture is as great 
 an error as to affirm that it alone is a sufficient safeguard of 
 morality. Its tendency unquestionably is to make men gentle, 
 amiable, fair-minded, truthful, benevolent, modest, sober. It curbs 
 ambition, teaches resignation ; chastens the imagination and miti- 
 gates ferocity ; dissuades from duelling because it is barbarious, 
 and from war because it is cruel ; and from persecution because 
 it trusts in the prevalence of reason. It seeks to fit the mind 
 and the character to the world, to all possible circumstances, so- 
 that whatever happens we remain ourselves — calm, clear-seeing,, 
 able to do and to suffiir. At great heights, or in the presence 
 of irresistible force, as of a mighty waterfall, we grow dizzy and 
 in the same way, in the midst of multitudes, in the eagerness 
 of strife, in the whirlwind of passion, equipoise is lost and we 
 cease to be ourselves, to become part of an aggregate of forces 
 that hurry us on whither we know not. To be able to stand in the- 
 presence of such power, and to feel its influence and yet not to lose 
 self-possession, is to be strong, is, on proper occasion, to be great ;. 
 and the aim of the best education is to teach us the secret and 
 the method of this complete self-control ; and in so far it is not 
 only moral, but also religious ; though religion walks in a more 
 royal road, and bids us love God and trust so absolutely in Him 
 that life and death become equal, and all the ways and work- 
 ings of men as the storm to one who on lofty mountain peak,, 
 amid the blue heavens, with the sunlight around him and the 
 quiet breathing of the winds, sees far below as in another world, 
 the black clouds and lurid lightning flash and hear.s the roll of 
 distant thunder. 
 
 It is far from my thought, it is needless to say, that mental 
 cultivation can be made to take the place or do the work of 
 religion even in the case of the very few for whom the best 
 discipline of mind is possible. My aim is simply to show that 
 the type of character which it tends to create is not necessarily 
 at variance with religious principle and life, as is, for instance, 
 that of the mere worldling, but that it conspires with Christian 
 faith to produce, if not the same, at least similar virtues, though 
 its ethical influence is comparatively superficial, and the moral
 
 UNIVERSITY EDUCATION. 83 
 
 qualities which it produces lack consistency and the power to 
 withstand the fire of the passions. It is enough for my purpose 
 to point out that if intellectualism is often the foe of religious 
 truth, there is no good reason why it should not also be its ally. 
 No excellence, as I conceive, of whatever kind, is rejected by 
 Catholic teaching, and the perfection of the mind is not less 
 divine than the perfection of the heart. It is good to know as 
 it is good to hope, to believe, to love. A cultivated intellect, 
 an open mind, a rich imagination, with correctness of thought, 
 flexibility of view, and eloquent expression, are among the noblest 
 endowments of man, and though they should serve no other pur- 
 pose than to embellish life, to make it fairer and freer, they 
 would nevertheless be ^possessions without price, for the most nobly 
 useful things are those which make life good and beautiful. Like 
 virtue they are their own reward, and like mercy they bear a 
 double blessing. It is the fashion with many to affect contempt 
 for men of superior culture, because they look upon education as 
 simply a means to tangible ends, and think knowledge valuable 
 only Avhen it can be made to serve practical purposes. This is 
 a narrow and false view ; for all men need the noble and the 
 beautiful, and he who lives without an ideal is hardly a man. 
 Our material wants are not the most real, for being the most 
 sensible and pressing, and they who create or j)reserve for us 
 models of spiritual and intellectual excellence are our greatest 
 benefactors. "Which were the greater loss for England, to be with- 
 out Wellington and Nelson, or to be without Shakespeare and 
 Milton ? Whatever the answer be, in the one case England would 
 suffer, in the other the whole world would feel the loss. Though 
 a thoroughly trained intellect is less worthy of admiration than a 
 noble character, its power is immeasurably greater ; for, example 
 can influence but a few and for a short time, but when a truth 
 or a sentiment has once found its best expression, it becomes a 
 part of literature and, like a proverb, is current for evermore, 
 and so the kings of thought become immortal rulers, and without 
 their help the godlike deeds of saints and heroes would be buried 
 in oblivion. " Words pass," said Napoleon, " but deeds remain." 
 The man of action exaggerates the worth of action, but the philoso- 
 pher knows that to act is easy, to think, difficult; and that great 
 deeds spring from great thoughts. There are words tJiat never
 
 84 SFBIIOI^S OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 grow silent, there are words that have changed the face of the 
 earth, and the warrior's wreath of victory is entwined by the 
 muse's hand. The power of Athens is gone, h-er temples are in 
 ruins, the Acropolis is discrowned, and from Mars' Hill no voice 
 thunders now, but the words of Socrates, the great deliverer of 
 the mind and the father of intellectual culture, still breathe in the 
 thoughts of every cultivated man on earth. The glory of Jerusa- 
 lem has departed, the broken stones of Solomon's Temple lie hard 
 by the graves that line the brook of Kedron, and from the 
 minaret of Mount Sion, the misbeliever's melancholy call sounds 
 like a wail over a lost world, but the songs of David still rise 
 from the whole earth in heavenly concert, upbearing to the throne 
 of God the faith and hope and love of countless millions. And 
 is not the Blessed Saviour the Eternal Word ? And is not the 
 Bible God's Word? And is not the Gospel the Word, M'hich like 
 an electric thrill runs to the ends of the world? ''Currit verbuin" 
 says St. Paul, " man lives not on bread alone, but on every word 
 that cometh from the mouth of God." Nay, there is life in all 
 the true and noble thoughts that have blossomed in the mind of 
 genius and filled the earth with fragrance* and with fruit. 
 
 Shall I be told that the intellectual cultivation and discipline, 
 which gives to man control of his knowledge, the perfect use of 
 his faculties, justness of perception with ease and grace of expres- 
 sion, cannot bring serviceable advocacy or defence to the cause of 
 divine truth ? What does truth need but to be known ? And since 
 to reach the mind and heart of man it must be clothed in words, 
 what is so necessary to it as the garb and vesture, the form and 
 color, the warmth and life, which shall so mark it that to be 
 loved it need but be seen? And who shall so clothe it if not 
 he who has the freest, the most flexible, the clearest, the best dis- 
 ciplined mind? In the apostolic age, when the manifestations of 
 miraculous power accompanied the announcement of Christian doc- 
 trine, the lack of persuasive words of human eloquence was not 
 felt. Let him who can drink poison and touch scorpions, and not 
 suffer harm, despise the aid of learning; but for us who are not 
 so assisted, no cultivation of mind or preparation of heart can be 
 too great, and to appear in the garb of a savage were less un- 
 seemly than to speak the holiest and the highest truths in the 
 barbarous tongue of ignorance.
 
 UNIVERSITY EDUCATION. 85 
 
 Our way here cannot be doubtful. Either we must hold with 
 certain peculiar heretics that learning is a hindrance to the effica- 
 cious teachings of religious truths, or denying this, Ave must hold, 
 since mental culture is serviceable, that the best is most serviceable. 
 
 May we not take this for a principle — to believe that God does 
 everything, and then to act as though He left everything for us 
 to do ? Or this : since grace supposes nature, the growth and 
 strength of the Church is not wholly independent of the natural 
 endowments of her ministers ? 
 
 As a matter of fact we Catholics are constantly speaking and 
 acting upon principles of this kind. We maintain that without a 
 proper education our children must lose the faith, and that without 
 careful moral and mental training no man is likely to become a 
 good priest, and all that I further insist upon is that if he is to 
 do the best work, he must have the best intellectual discipline. In 
 an intellectual age, at least, he cannot be the worthy minister of 
 worship unless he is also the accomplished teacher of truth. In 
 vain shall we clothe him in rich symbolic vestments, place him in 
 majestic temples, before marble altars, in the midst of solemn music, 
 in the dim sober -tinted light, w^ith the great and noble looking out 
 upon him, as from a spirit world — in vain shall all this be if 
 when he himself speaks, his words are felt to be but the echo of 
 a coarse and empty mind. And hence our enemies would gladly 
 leave us to the poetry of our worship, would even enter our 
 churches to be comforted, to be soothed, to seek the elevation and 
 enlargement of thought and sentiment which comes upon us in the 
 presence of what is vast, mysterious and sublime, if we would but 
 confess that it is only poetry, good and beautiful only as art is 
 good and beautiful. The spirit of the time, in fact, it seems to me, 
 is more and more disposed to grant us everything except the pos- 
 session of intellectual truth. That the Catholic Church is a mar- 
 velous power ; that her triumphs have been so enduring and so 
 unexpected that only the foolish or the ignorant Avill predict her 
 downfall ; that she overcame paganism ; that she saved Christianity 
 when Rome fell ; that she restrained the ferocity of the barbarians, 
 protected the weak, encouraged labor, preserved the classics, main- 
 tained the unity and sanctity of marriage, defended the purity and 
 dignity of woman, espoused the cause of the oppressed, and in a 
 lawless and ignorant age proclaimed the supremacy of right and
 
 86 SUEMONS OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 the worth of learning — that to these signal services must be added 
 her poM'er to give ease and pleasantness to the social relations of 
 men, keeping them equally remote from puritan severity and pagan 
 license; her eye for beauty and grace, -^vhich has made her the 
 foster-mother of all the arts ; her love of the excellent and noble, 
 mIucIi has enabled her to create types of character that are im- 
 mortal; her practical wisdom, giving her the secret of dealing with 
 every phase of life, so that her saints are doctors, apostles, mystics, 
 philanthropists, artists, poets, kings, beggars, warriors, peasants, bar- 
 barians, philosophers — all this, if I mistake not, unbelievers even 
 are more and more Milling to concede. Nor are they slow to ex- 
 press their admiration of the strength and majesty of this single 
 power amid Christian nations, wdiich reaches back to the great 
 civilizations that have perished, which has preserved its organic 
 unity intact amid the social revolutions of two thousand years, 
 and which is acknowledged still to be the greatest moral force in 
 the world. But underlying all they say and think is the assump- 
 tion that the foundations of this noble structure are crumbling, tliat 
 the world of faith and thought in which it was upbuilt is become 
 a desert where no flower blooms, no living soul is found; that 
 the temple is beautiful only as a ruin is beautiful, where owls 
 hoot and bats flit to and fro. "There is not a creed," we are 
 told, "wdiich is not shaken, nor an accredited dogma which is not 
 shown to be questionable; not a received tradition whicli does not 
 threaten to dissolve." 
 
 The conquests of the human mind in the realms of nature 
 have produced a world-wide ferment of thought, an intellectual 
 activity which is without a parallel : they have increased the 
 power of man to an almost incredible degree, have given him con- 
 trol of the earth and the seas, have placed within his grasp 
 undreamed-of forces, have opened to his view unsuspected myster- 
 ies ; they have placed him on a new earth and under new heavens, 
 and thrown a light never seen before upon the history of his 
 race. As a part of this vast development new questions have 
 risen, new theories have been broached, new doubts have suggested 
 themselves ; and because we liave changed, all else seems lo have 
 changed also. And since, underlying all questions, there is found 
 a question of religion, the discussion of religious and i)hilosophic 
 problems has in our day become a social necessity, and the science
 
 UNIVERSITY EDUCATION. 87 
 
 of criticism, together with the physical sciences, has driven the 
 disputants upon new and difficult ground, where the battle must 
 be fought, and where retreat is not possible. 
 
 As well imagine that society will again take on the form of 
 feudalism, as that the human mind will return to the point of 
 view from which our ancestors looked on nature. 
 
 And this world-view shapes and colors all our thinking, in 
 -theology as in other sciences, so that truths Avhich were latent 
 have come to light, and principles Avhich have long been held 
 :find new and wider application. 
 
 Never has the defence of religion required so many and excel- 
 lent qualities of intellect as in the present day. The early 
 apologists who contrasted the sublimity and purity of Christian 
 faith with a corrupt paganism had not a difficult task. In the 
 Middle Ages the intellect of the world was on the side of Christ. 
 The controversy which sprung up Avith the advent of Protestanism 
 -was Biblical and historical, and its criticism was superficial. The 
 anti-Christian schools of thought of the eighteenth century were 
 literary rather than philosophical, and the objections they urged 
 were founded chiefly upon political and social considerations. In 
 all these discussions the territory in dispute was well defined and 
 relatively small. But into what a different world are not we 
 thrown ! These earlier explorers sailed upon rivers, whose banks 
 were lined by firm-set rocky cliffs, by the overshadowing boughs 
 of primeval forests, with here and there pleasant slopes of green 
 where they might lie at rest amid the fragrance of wild flowers ; 
 but from our Peter's bark we look out upon the dark unfathomed 
 seas toward an unknown world whose margin ever fades and 
 recedes as we seem to draw near the haven of our desire. 
 
 As in the beginning of the twelfth century, the cry, " God 
 wills it," rang through Europe, and from all her lands armies of 
 mailed knights sprang into battle array and turned their faces 
 towards the Holy City, resolved to wrench from infidel hands the 
 Sacred Tomb of Christ, so now, from her thousand watch-towers, 
 science sounds her clarion note with quite other intent, urging on 
 to the attack of the citadel of God in the heart of man, renew- 
 ing upon lower fields the war in which immortal spirits contended 
 with the Almighty "in dubious battle on the plains of heaven 
 and shook His throne." As he jests at scars that never felt a
 
 88 SERJIO^iS OF TUB THIRD PLENARY COUXCIL. 
 
 ■wound, so here the lesser knowledge makes the bolder man. Not 
 that difficulties should create doubts, or that objections may not 
 be answered, or that it is necessary to refute each hypothesis 
 that appears and fades like a dissolving view, or to notice each 
 unwarrantable inference from unquestioned facts, or that it is worth 
 while to address ourselves to minds whose nebulous and shifting 
 opinions make it impossible that they should receive correct im- 
 pressions ; but the field upon which attacks upon religion are 
 made is' so vast, the confusion of thought into which new dis- 
 coveries and speculations have thrown the minds of even educated 
 men is so bewildering, the methods for the ascertainment of truth 
 are so tangled and misapplied, the rushing on of the multitudes 
 to discuss problems which have hitherto been left to philosophers, 
 and which they alone can ever rightly enunciate, is so stupefying, 
 that those Avho have the clearest perception of the mental state 
 of the modern world, and who are able to take the finest and the 
 most comprehensive view of the religious, philosophic and scien- 
 tific controversies of the day, seem loth to enter into a struggle 
 where the ground continually changes, and where victory is only 
 partial, and but leads to further contest. It is well to remember, 
 also, that in the intellectual arena to attack is easier than to 
 defend, and any shallow, incoherent talker or Avriter can propose 
 difficulties which the keenest thinker will find great trouble ta 
 explain. Since we and our works fall to ruin and pass aM'ay, 
 we seem instinctively to take the side of those who seek to un- 
 dermine and overthrow systems of thought and belief which claim 
 to be indestructible, and the human heart is half a traitor to the 
 Church which declares that she is indefectible and infallible. Is 
 there not, indeed, however we account for it, in all nature, a kind 
 of dread and horror of the supernatural, such as one who hides 
 within his bosom a secret of dark gu'ilt, feels in the presence of 
 the conscience of mankind? And docs not this make the world 
 lean to the side of those who would eliminate God from nature? 
 And yet, since man's heart is the home of contradictions, is it 
 not also true to say that .he is naturally religious? His faith in 
 God is as deep and unwavering as his faith in the testimony of 
 the senses, and if there are atheists there are also men who hold 
 that all things are unreal and only appear to be ; tliat the M'orld 
 is but a myriad-formed, a myriad-tinted idea — the dream of a sub-
 
 UNIVERSITY ED UCA TION. 89 
 
 stanceless dreamer. Not only do wc believe in God and in the 
 soul, but all that we love, all that we hope for, all that gives to 
 life charm, dignity and saeredness, is interpenetrated, perfumed and 
 illumined by this faith. If men could be persuaded that the un- 
 conscious is the beginning and the end of all things, what good 
 would have been gained? The light of heaven would fade away 
 and the soul's high faith be made a lie ; the poor would have no 
 friend and the rich no heart ; the wicked would be without fear 
 and the good without hope ; success would be consecrated and death 
 alone would remain as the refuge of the unfortunate. Even animal 
 indulgence, in sinking out of the moral order, would lose its 
 human charm. If then in our day there is widespread skepticism, 
 a sort of vague feeling that science is undermining religion and 
 that the most sacred beliefs are dissolving, the cause of this lies 
 not so much in the natural tendencies of the mind and heart, as 
 in social conditions, in passing phases of thought, in the shifting 
 of the point of view from which men have hitherto been accus- 
 tomed to look on nature, and the continuance and tlie progress of 
 doubt, and consequently of indifference, is, to some extent at least, 
 to be ascribed also to the fact, that the most earnest believers in 
 God and in Christianity have for now more than a century, been 
 less eager to acquire the best pliilosophic and literary cultivation 
 of mind, than others who having lost faith in the supernatural 
 seek for compensation in a wider and deeper knowledge of nature 
 and in the mental culture which enables them to enjoy more keenly 
 the high thoughts and fair images which live in literature and art. 
 As a well-trained intellect, in argument with the unskillful, easily 
 makes the worse appear the better cause, so in an age or a country 
 where the best discipline of mind is found chiefly among those who 
 are not Christians, or at least not Catholics, public opinion will 
 drift away from the Church, until the view finally becomes general, 
 that whatever she may have been in other times, her day is past. 
 Kor will aught external, however fair or glorious, secure her against 
 this danger. How often in the history of nations and of religions 
 is not outward splendor the mark of inward decay ? When Home 
 was free, a simple life sufficed, but when liberty fled, marble palaces 
 arose : the monarch who built Versailles made the scaffold on which 
 French royalty perished; and so a dying faith, like the setting sun,
 
 ^0 suBJioys OF THE third plenary council. 
 
 may drape itself in glory. The kingdom of God is within; there 
 is the source of life and strength, without which nor numbers, nor 
 wealth, nor stately edifices, nor solemn rites avail. Nor can we be 
 certain of men's love when we cease to have influence over their 
 thoughts. The proper appeal is to the heart through the mind, 
 and even a mother loses half her power when she ceases to be 
 the intellectual superior of her children. How then shall the 
 heavenly Mother of the soul keep ]icr place in tlie world, if those 
 who speak in her name, mar by imperfect and ignorant utterance 
 the celestial harmony of lier doctrines ? 
 
 Ah ! let us learn to see things as they are. In face of the 
 modern world, that which the Catholic priest most needs, after 
 virtue, is the best cultivation of mind, which issues in compre- 
 hensiveness of view, in exactness of perception, in the clear dis- 
 cernment of the relations of truths and of the limitations of 
 scientific knowledge, in fairness and flexibility of thought, in ease 
 and grace of expression, in candor, in reasonableness ; the intel- 
 lectual culture which brings the mind into form, gives it the 
 ■control of its faculties, creates the habit of attention and develops 
 firmness of grasp. The education of which I speak is expansion 
 and discipline of mind rather than learning ; and its tendency is 
 not so much to form profound dogmatists, or erudite canonists, or 
 acute casuists, as to cultivate a habit of mind, which, for want 
 of a better word, may be called philosophical, to enlarge the in- 
 tellect, to strengthen and supple its faculties, to enable it to take 
 connected views of things and their relations, and to see clear 
 amid the mazes of human error and through the mists of human 
 passion. I speak of that perfection of the intellect, which, to use 
 the words of Cardinal Newman, " is the clear, calm, accurate 
 vision and comprehension of all things as far as the finite mind 
 can embrace them, each in its place and with its own character- 
 ictics upon it. It is almost prophetic from its knoNvledge of his- 
 tory ; it is almost heart-searching from its knowledge of human 
 nature ; it has almost supernatural charity from its freedom from 
 littleness and prejudice ; it has almost the repose of faith because 
 nothing can startle it ; it has almost the beauty and harmony of 
 heavenly contemplation, so intimate is it with the eternal order 
 of things and the music of the spheres." This is, indeed, ideal,
 
 UNIVERSITY EDUCATIOX. 91 
 
 but they who believe not in ideals were not born to know the 
 real worth of things : 
 
 Si:)ite of proudest boast 
 Eeason, best reason is to imperfect man, 
 An effort only and a noble aim — 
 A cro^vn — an attribute of sovereign power, 
 Still to be courted — never to be won. 
 
 It is plain that education of this kind aims at something 
 -quite diifereut from the mere imparting of useful knowledge. It 
 takes the view that it is good to know, even though knowledge 
 should not be a means to wealth or power or any other common aim 
 of life. It regards the mind as the organ of truth and trains it 
 for its own sake without reference to the exercise of a profes- 
 sion. Hence its distinguishing characteristic is that it is liberal 
 -and not professional. It holds cultivated faculties in liigher esteem 
 than learning, and it makes use of knowledge to improve the 
 intellect, rather than of the intellect to acquire knowledge. Hence, 
 •one may be a skillful physician, a judicious lawyer, a learned theo- 
 logian, and yet be greatly lacking in mental culture. It is a 
 •common experience to find that professional men are apt to be 
 narrow and one-sided. Their mind, like the dyer's hand, is sub- 
 dued to what it works in. They want comprehensiveness of view, 
 flexibility of thought, openness to light and freedom of mental 
 play. They think in grooves, make the rules of their art the 
 measure of truth, and their own methods of inquiry the only 
 valid laws of reasoning. These same defects may be observed in 
 those who are given exclusively to the study of physical science. 
 When they sweep the heavens with the telescope and do not find 
 Ood, they conclude that there is no God. When the soul does 
 not reveal itself under the microscope, they argue it does not 
 €xist ; and since there is no thought without nervous movement, 
 they claim the brain thinks. 
 
 Now, if it is desirable that those who are charged with the 
 teaching and defence of divine truth, should be free from this 
 narrowness and one-sidedness, this lack of openness to light and 
 freedom of mental play, the education of the priest must be more 
 than a professional education ; and lie must be sent to a school 
 higher and broader than the ecclesiastical seminary, which is simply 
 a training college for the practical Avork of the ministry. The
 
 92 SUBJIONS OF TUB THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 purpose for which it was instituted is to prepare young men for 
 the worthy exercise of the general functions of the priestly office, 
 and the good it has done is soo great and too manifest to need 
 commendation. But the ecclesiastical seminary is not a school of 
 intellectual culture, either here in America or elsewhere, and to 
 imagine that it can become the instrument of intellectual culture 
 is to cherish a delusion. It must impart a certain amount of pro- 
 fessional knowledge, fit its students to become more or less 
 expert catechists, rubricists and casuists, and its aim is to do this, 
 and whatever mental improvement, if any, thence results, is acci- 
 dental. Hence its methods are not such as one would choose who 
 desires to open the mind, to giv^e it breadth, flexibility, strength, 
 refinement and grace. Its text-books are written often in a bar- 
 barous style, the subjects are discussed in a dry and mechanical 
 way and the professor wholly intent upon giving instruction, is 
 frequently indifferent as to the manner in which it is imparted, 
 or else not possessing himself a really cultivated intellect, he holds 
 in slight esteem expansion and refinement of mind, looking upon 
 it as at best a mere ornament. I am not offering a criticism 
 upon the ecclesiastical seminary, but am simply pointing to the 
 plain fact that it is not a school of intellectual culture, and con- 
 sequently, if its course were lengthened to five, to six, to eight, 
 to ten years, its students would go forth to their work with a 
 more thorough professional training, but not with more really cul- 
 tivated minds. 
 
 The test of intellect is not so much what we know as the 
 manner in which it is known; just as in the moral world, the 
 important consideration is not what virtues we possess, but the 
 completeness with Avhich they are ours. He who really believes 
 in God, serves Him, loves Him, is a hero, a saint ; whereas he 
 Mdio half believes may have a thousand good qualities, but not a 
 great character. Knowledge is not education any more than food 
 is nutrition ; and as one may eat voraciously, and yet remain with- 
 out bodily health or strength, so one may have great learning 
 and yet be wholly lacking in intellectual cultivation. His learning 
 may only oppress and confuse him, be felt as a load, and not as 
 a vital principle, which upraises, illumines and beautifies the mind; 
 mentally he may still be a boy, in whom memory predominates, 
 and whose intellect is only a receptacle of facts.
 
 UNIVERSITY EDUCATION. 93 
 
 Memory is the least noble of the intellectual faculties, and the 
 nearest to animal intelligence, and. to know Avell is, in the eyes 
 of a true educator, of quite other importance than to know much. 
 But a memory, more or less well-stored, is nearly all a youth 
 ■carries Avith him from the college to the seminary, and here he 
 enters, as I have already pointed out, upon a course not of in- 
 tellectual discipline, but of professional studies, whose object is not 
 ^^to open the mind, to correct it, to refine it, to enable it to 
 know, and to digest, master, rule and use its knowledge, to give 
 it power over its own faculties, application, flexibility, method, 
 critical exactness, sagacity, resource, eloquent expression," but 
 simply to impart the requisite skill for the ordinary exercise of 
 the holy ministry. Hence it is not surprising that priests, who 
 iire zealous, earnest, self-sacrificing, who to piety join discretion and 
 good sense, rarely possess the intellectual culture of which I am 
 speaking, for the simple reason that a university and not a semi- 
 nary is the school in which this kind of education is received. 
 That the absence of fuch trained intellects is a most serious 
 obstacle to the progress of the Catholic faith, no thoughtful man 
 will doubt or deny. 
 
 Since the mind is a power, in religion as in every sphere of 
 thought and life, the discipline which best develops and perfects 
 its faculties will fit it to do its work, whatever it may be, in the 
 most effective manner. Hence, though the education of which I 
 speak does not directly aim at being useful, it is in fact the most 
 useful, and prepares better than any other for the business of life. 
 It enables a man to master a subject with ease, to fill an office 
 with honor, and whatever he does, the mark of completeness and 
 finish Avill be found upon his work. He sees more clearly, judges 
 more calmly, reasons more pertinently, speaks more seasonably, 
 than other men. The free and full possession of his faculties gives 
 him power to turn himself to whatever may be demanded of him, 
 Avhether it be to govern wisely, or to counsel judiciously, or to 
 write gracefully, or to plead eloquently. Wliatcver course in life 
 he may take, whatever line of thought or investigation he may 
 pursue, his intellectual culture will give him superiority over men 
 who, with equal or greater talents, lack his education. And he 
 possesses Avithal resources within himself, which in a measure make 
 him independent of fortune, and which, when failure comes and the
 
 94 SEIiMO^^S OF TUB THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 world abandons liim, remain, like faith, Or hope, or a friend, to 
 make him forget his misfortunes. 
 
 Of the English universities, ■with all their shortcomings, Cardinal 
 Ne\Yman says : "At least they can boast of a succession of heroes- 
 and statesmen, of literary men and philosophers, of men conspicu- 
 ous for great natural virtues, for habits of business, for knowledge 
 of life, for practical judgment, for cultivated tastes, for accomplish- 
 ments, who have made England what it is — able to subdue the 
 earth, able to domineer over Catholics." It is only in a university 
 that all the sciences are brought together, their relations adjusted, 
 their provinces assigned. There natural science is limited by meta- 
 physics, morality is studied in the light of history, language and 
 literature are viewed from the standpoint of ethnology, the criticism, 
 which seeks beauty and not deformity, which in the gardens of the 
 mind takes the honey and leaves the poison, is applied to the 
 study of eloquence and poetry ; and over all religion throws the 
 warmth and life of faith and hope, like a ray from heaven. The 
 mind thus lives in an atmosphere in which the comparison of 
 ideas and truths with one another is inevitable, and so it grows, 
 is strengthened, enlarged, refined, made pliant, candid, open, equitable. 
 
 When numbers of priests will be able to bring this cultivation 
 of intellect to the treatment of religious subjects, then Avill Cath- 
 olic theology again come forth from its isolation in the modern 
 world ; then will Catholic truth again irradiate and perfume the 
 thoughts and opinions of men ; then will Catholic doctrines again 
 sink into their hearts, and not remain loosely in the mind to be 
 thrown aside, as one casts away the outworn vesture of the body; 
 then will it be felt that the fascination of Christian faith is still 
 fresh, supreme, as far above the charm of science, as the joy of 
 a poet's soul is above the pleasures of sense. The religious view 
 of life must forever remain the true view, since no other explains 
 our longings and aspirations, or justifies hope and enthusiasm ;, 
 and the worship of God in spirit and in truth, which Christ has 
 revealed to the world, the religion not of an age or a people, 
 but of all times and of the human race, must eternally prevail 
 when brought home to us in a language which we understand ; 
 for Ave place the testimony of reason above that of the senses. 
 To the eye the sun rises and sets ; to the mind it is stationary, 
 and we accept, not what is seen, but what is known. Is there
 
 UNIVERSITY EDUCATION. 95 
 
 need of stronger evidence, that the power within, which is our 
 real self, is spiritual? And is it not enough to see clearly to 
 perceive that in the struggle of mind with matter, which is the 
 essential form of the conflict of spiritualism with materialism, of 
 religion with science, the soul, in the end, will be victorious and 
 rest in the real world of faith and intuition and not in the 
 pictured world of the senses ? 
 
 Religion, indeed, like morality, is in the nature of things, and 
 Catholic faith is Una's Red Cross Knight, on whose shield are old 
 dints of deep wounds and cruel marks of many a bloody field, 
 who is assailed by all the powers of earth and of the nether 
 world, armed with whatever weapons may hurt the mind or cor- 
 rupt the heart, but whom heavenly providence rescues from the 
 jaws of monsters and leads on to victory. 
 
 But what true believer thinks himself excused from effort, 
 because Christ has declared the gates of hell shall not prevail 
 against His Church ? Does he not know that though, when we 
 consider her whole course through the world, she has triumphed, 
 so as to have become the miracle of history, yet has she at 
 many points suffered disastrous defeat? Hence, those who love 
 her must be vigilant and stand prepared for battle. And in an 
 age when persecution has either died away or lost its harshness, 
 when crying abuses have disappeared, when heresy has run its 
 course, and the struggle of the world with the Church has 
 become almost wholly intellectual, it is not possible, assuredly, 
 that her ministers should have too great power of intellect. And 
 consequently it is not possible that the bishops, in whose hands 
 the education of priests is placed, should have too great a care 
 that they receive the best mental culture. And if this be a 
 general truth, with what pertinency does it not come home to us 
 here in America, who are the descendants of men who, on account 
 of their faith, have for centuries been oppressed and thrust back 
 from opportunities of education, and who, when persecution and 
 robbery had reduced them to ignorance and poverty, were forced 
 to hear their religion reproached with the crimes of her foes? 
 And now, when at length a fiircr day has dawned for us in 
 this new world, what can be more natural than our eager desire 
 to move out from the valleys of darkness towards the hills and 
 mountain tops that are bathed in sunlight? What more praise-
 
 96 SERMOXS OF THE THIRD PLEXARY COUXCIL. 
 
 Avorthy than the fixed resolve to prove that not our faith, but 
 our misfortunes made and kept us inferior? And, since we live 
 in the midst of millions who have indeed good will towards us, 
 but who still bear the yoke of inherited prejudices, and who, 
 because for three hundred years real cultivation of mind was 
 denied to Catholics who spoke English, conclude that Protest- 
 antism is the source of enlightenment, and the Church, the mother 
 of ignorance, do not all generous impulses urge us to make this 
 reproach henceforth meaningless? And in wliat way shall we best 
 accomplish this task? Surely not by writing or speaking about 
 what the influence of the Church is, or by pointing to what she 
 has done in other ages, but by becoming what we claim her 
 spirit tends to make us. Here, if anywhere, the proverb is 
 applicable — verba movent, exempla trahunt. As the devotion of 
 American Catholics to this country and its free institutions, as 
 shown not on battlefields alone, but in our whole bearing and 
 conduct, convinces all but the unreasonable of the depth and 
 sincerity of our patriotism, so when our zeal for intellectual excel- 
 lence shall have raised up men who will take place among the 
 first writers and thinkers of their day, their very presence will 
 become the most persuasive of arguments to teach the world that 
 no best gift is at war with the spirit of Catholic faith, and that, 
 while the humblest mind may feel its force, the lofty genius of 
 Augustine, of Dante and of Bossuet, is upborne and strengthened 
 by the splendor of its truth. But if we are to be intellectually 
 the equals of others, we must have with them equal advantages 
 of education, and so long as wo, look rather to the multiplying 
 of schools and seminaries than to the creation of a real university, 
 our progress will be slow and uncertain, because a university is 
 the great ordinary means to the best cultivation of mind. The 
 fact that the growth of the Churcli here, like that of the country 
 itself, is chiefly external, a growth in wealth and in numbers, 
 makes it the more necessary that we bring the most strenuous 
 eflbrts to improve the gifts of the soul. The whole tendency of 
 our social life insures the increase of churches, convents, schools, 
 hospitals and asylums ; our advance in population and in Avealth 
 will be counted, from decade to decade, by millions, and our 
 worship will approach more and more to the pomp and splendor 
 of the full ritual; but this very growth makes such demands upon
 
 UNIVERSITY EDUCATION. 97 
 
 our energies, that we are in danger of forgetting higher things, or 
 at least of thinking them less urgent. Few men are at once 
 thouglitful and active. The man of deeds dwells in the Avorld 
 around him ; the thinker lives within his mind. Contemplation, in 
 widening the view, makes us feel that what even the strongest can 
 ■do, is lost in the limitless expanse of space and time, and the soul 
 is tempted to fall back upon itself and to gaze passively upon the 
 ■course of the world, as though the general stream of human events 
 were as little subject to man's control as the procession of the sea- 
 sons. Busy workers, on the other hand, having little taste or time 
 for reflection, see but the present and what lies close to them> and 
 the energy of their doing circumscribes their thinking. 
 
 But the Church needs both the men who act and the men 
 "who tliink, and since with us everything pushes to action, wisdom 
 demands that we cultivate rather the powers of reflection. And 
 this is the duty alike of true patriots and of faithful Catholics. 
 All are working to develop our boundless material resources ; let 
 a few at least labor to develop man. The millions are building- 
 cities, reclaiming wildernesses, and bringing forth from the earth 
 its buried treasures ; let at least a remnant cherish the ideal, culti- 
 vate the beautiful, and seek to inspire the love of moral and 
 intellectual excellence. And since we believe that the Church which 
 points to heaven is able also to lead the nations in the way of civiliza- 
 tion and of progress, why should we not desire to see her become a 
 beneficent and ennobling influence in the public life of our country? 
 She can have no higher temporal mission than to be the friend 
 of this great republic, which is God's best earthly gift to His 
 children. If, as English critics complain, our style is inflated, it 
 is because we feel the promise of a destiny which transcends our 
 powers of expression. Whatever fault men may find with us, let 
 them not doubt the world-wide significance of our life. If we 
 keep ourselves strong and pure, all the peoples of the earth shall 
 yet be free ; if we fulfill our providential mission, national hatred 
 shall give place to the spirit of generous rivalry, the people shall 
 become wiser and stronger, society shall grow more merciful and 
 just, and the cry of distress shall be felt, like the throb of a 
 brother's heart, to the ends of the M'orld. Where is the man 
 who does not feel a kind of religious gratitude as he looks upon 
 the rise and progress of this nation? Above all, where is the 
 
 7
 
 98 SERMONS OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 Catholic whose heart is not enlarged by such contemplation? 
 Here, almost for the first time in her history, the Church is 
 really free. Her worldly position does not overshadow her spiritual 
 office, and the State recognizes her autonomy. The monuments of 
 her past glory, wrenched from her control, stand not hero to point, 
 like mocking fingers, to what she has lost. She renews her youth 
 and lifts her brow, as one who not unmindful of the solemn 
 mighty past, yet looks Avith undimmed eye and unfaltering heart 
 to a still more glorious future. Who, in such a presence, can 
 abate hope, or give heed to despondent counsel, or send 
 regretful thoughts to other days and lands ? Whoever at any time, 
 in any place, might have been sage, saint or hero, may be so 
 here and now ; and though he had the heart of Francis, and the 
 mind of Augustine, and the courage of Hildebrand, here is work 
 for him to do. 
 
 In whatsoever direction we turn our thoughts, arguments rush 
 in to show the pressing need for us of a centre of life and light 
 such as a Catholic university would be. Without this we can have 
 no hope of entering as a determining force into the living con- 
 troversies of the age ; without this it must be an accident if we 
 are represented at all in the literature of our country ; without 
 this we shall lack a point of union to gather up, haromonize and 
 intensify our scattered forces ; without this our bishops must remain 
 separated and continue to work in random ways ; without this the 
 noblest souls will look in vain for something larger and broader 
 than a local charity to make appeal to their generous hearts ; 
 without this we shall be able to oflfcr but feeble resistance to the 
 false theories and systems of education which deny to the Church 
 a place in the school ; without this the sons of wealthy Catholics 
 will, in ever increasing numbers, be sent to institutions where 
 their faith is undermined ; without this we shall vainly hope for 
 such treatment of religious questions and their relations to the 
 issues and needs of the day, as shall arrest public attention and 
 induce Catholics themselves to take at least some little notice of 
 the writings of Catholics ; without this in struggles for reform and 
 contests for rights we shall lack the wisdom of best counsel and the 
 courage which skillful leaders inspire. We are a small minority 
 in the presence of a vast majority; we still bear tlie disfigure- 
 ments and weaknesses of centuries of persecution and suffering;
 
 UNIVERSITY EDUCATION. 99 
 
 we cling to an ancient faith in an age when new sciences, dis- 
 coveries and theories fascinate the minds of men and turn their 
 thoughts away from the past to the future ; Ave preach a spiritual 
 religion to a people whose prodigious wealth and rapid triumphs 
 over nature have caused them to exaggerate the value of material 
 progress ; we teach the duty of self-denial to a refined and intel- 
 lectual generation, who regard whatever is painful as evil, whatever 
 is difficult as omissible ; we insist upon religious obedience to the 
 Church in face of a society where children are ceasing to rever- 
 ence and obey even their parents ; if in spite of all this we are 
 to hold our own, not to speak of larger hopes, it is plain that 
 we may neglect nothing which will help us to put forth our full 
 strength. 
 
 I do not, of course, pretend that this higher education is all 
 that we need, or that, of itself, it is sufficient, but what I claim 
 is that it would be a source of strength for us who are in want 
 of help. God works, in many ways, through many agencies, and 
 I bow in homage to the humblest effort in a righteous cause of 
 the lowliest human being. There are diversities of graces, but the 
 same spirit ; diversities of ministries, but the same Lord. Num- 
 qukl omncs dodoresf asks St. Paul. But since he places teachers 
 by the side of apostles and prophets, surely they will teach to 
 best purpose who to the humility of faith add the luminousness of 
 knowledge. To those who reject the idea of human co-operation 
 in things divine I speak not; but we Avho believe that Ave are 
 co-operators Avith Christ cannot think that it is possible to bring 
 to this god-like work either too great preparation of heart or too 
 great cultivation of mind. Nor must Ave think lightly even of 
 refinement of thought, and speech and behavior, for Ave know that 
 manners come of morals, and that morals in turn are born of 
 manners, as the ocean breathes forth the clouds, and the clouds 
 fill the ocean. 
 
 Let there be then an American Catholic university, Avhere our 
 young men, in the atmosphere of faith and purity, of high think- 
 ing and plain living, shall become more intimately conscious of 
 the truth of their religion and of the genius of their country, 
 where they shall learn the repose and dignity Avhicli belong to 
 their ancient Catholic descent, and yet not lose the fire Mhicli 
 glows in the blood of a new people ; to Avhich from every part
 
 100 SEEJIONS OF TUB THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 of tne land our eyes may turn for guidance and encouragement, 
 seekino: lisjlit and self-confidence from men in whom intellectual 
 power is not separate from moral purpose ; who look to God 
 and His universe from bending knees of prayer ; who uphold 
 
 The cause of Christ and civil liberty 
 As one and moving to one glorious end. 
 
 Should such an intellectual centre serve no other purpose than 
 to bring together a number of eager-hearted, truth-loving youths, 
 what light and heat would not leap forth from the shock of 
 mind with mind ; what generous rivalries would not spring up ; 
 what intellectual sympathies, resting on the breast of faith, would 
 not become manifest, grouping souls like atoms, to form the sub- 
 stance and beauty of a world. 
 
 O solemn groves that lie close to Louvaiu and to Freiburg, 
 whose air is balm and whose murmuring winds sound like the 
 voices of saints and sages whispering down the galleries of time, 
 what words have ye not heard bursting forth from the strong 
 hearts of keen-witted youths, who. Titan-like, believed they might 
 storm the citadel of God's truth ! How many a one, heavy and 
 despondent, in the narrow, lonesome path of duty, has remembered 
 you, and moved again in unseen worlds, upheld by faith and 
 hope ! Who has listened to the words of your teachers and not 
 felt the truth of the saying of Pope Pius II — that the world 
 holds nothing more precious or more beautiful than a cultivated 
 intellect ? The presence of such men invigorates like mountain 
 air, and their speech is as refreshing as clear-flowing fountains. 
 To know them is to be forever their debtor. The company of a 
 saint is the school of saints ; a strong character develops strength 
 in others, and a noble mind makes all around him luminous. 
 
 "Why may not eight million Catholics upbuild a home for great 
 teachers, for men who, to real learning and cultivation of mind, 
 shall add the persuasiveness of easy and eloquent diction, whose 
 manifest and indisputable superiority shall put to shame the self-con- 
 ceit of American young men, our most familiar intellectual bane 
 and an insuperable obstacle to all improvement — self-conceit, Avhich 
 is the beatitude of vulgar characters and shallow minds ? If our 
 students should find in such an institution but one man, wlio, 
 like Socrates, with ironic questioning, might make for them the
 
 UNIVERSITY EDUCATION. 101 
 
 discovery of the new world of their own ignorance, the gain 
 would be great enough. 
 
 Why may we not have a centre of light and truth which will 
 raise up before us standards of intellectual excellence which will 
 enable us to see that our so-called educated men are as far from 
 beins: scholars as the makers of our horrible show-bills are from 
 being artists, which will teach us that it is not only false, but 
 vulgar to call things by pretentious names ; as, for instance, to 
 call a politician a statesman, a declaimer an orator, or a Latin 
 school a university ? 
 
 Ah ! surely as to whether an American Catholic university is 
 desirable there cannot be two opinions among enlightened men. 
 But is it feasible? A true university is one of the noblest foun- 
 dations of the great Catholic ages when faith rose almost to the 
 height of creative power, and it were folly in me to maintain 
 that such an undertaking is not surrounded by many and great 
 difficulties. To begin with the material for foundation, money is 
 necessary, and this, I am persuaded, we may have. A noble 
 cause will find or make generous hearts. Men above all we need, 
 for every kind of existence propagates itself only by itself. But 
 let us bear in mind that the best teacher is not necessarily or 
 often he who knows the most, but he who has most power to 
 determine the student to self-activity ; for in the end the mind 
 educates itself. As distrust is the mark of a narrow intellect or 
 a bad heart, so a readiness to believe in the ability of others 
 is not only a characteristic of able men, but it is also the secret 
 charm which calls around them helpers and followers. Hence, a 
 strong man, who loves his work, is a better educator than a half- 
 hearted professor who carries whole libraries in his head. 
 
 To bring togetlier in familiar and daily life a number of young 
 men, chosen for the brightness of their minds and an eager yearn- 
 ing for knowledge, is to create an atmosphere of intellectual warmth 
 and light, which invigorates and inspires the master, while it stimu- 
 lates his disciples. In such company it will not be difficult to 
 form teachers. But will it bo possible to find young men, who Mill 
 consent when after years of study they have finally reached the 
 priesthood, to continue in a higher institution the arduous and con- 
 fining labors to the end of which they have looked as to the begin- 
 ning of a new life ? In other lands such students are found and if 
 with us there is a tendency to rusli with precipitancy and insufficient
 
 102 SERMONS OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 preparation to whatever work we may liave chosen, this is but a 
 proof of the need of special efforts to restrain an ardor which 
 springs from weakness and not from strength. Haste is a mark 
 of immaturity. He who is certain of liimself and master of his 
 tools, knows that he is able, and neither hurries nor worries but 
 Avorks and waits. The rank weed shoots up in a day and as 
 quickly dies, but the long-growing olive tree stands from century 
 to century and drops from its gently waving boughs ripe fruit 
 through the quiet autumn air. The Church endures forever, and 
 we American Catholics, in the midst of our rapidly-moving and 
 ever-changing society, should be the first to learn to temper energy 
 with the patient strengLh which gives the courage to toil and 
 wait through a long life, if so we make ourselves worthy to speak 
 some fit word or do some needful deed. And to whom shall this 
 lesson first be taught if not to the clerics whose natural endow- 
 ments single them out as future leaders of Catholic thought and 
 enterprise, and where can this lesson so well be learned as in 
 a school whose standard of intellectual excellence shall be the 
 highest ? 
 
 AVhile we look, therefore, to the founding of a true university, 
 we will begin, as the University of Paris began in the twelfth 
 century, and as the present University of Louvain began fifty 
 years ago, with a national school of philosophy and theology, 
 which will form the central faculty of a complete educa- 
 tional organism. Around this the other faculties will take their 
 places, in due course of time, and so the beginming Avhich we 
 make will grow, until like the seed planted in the earth, it shall 
 wear the bloomy crown of its own development. 
 
 And though the event be less than our hope, though even 
 failure be the outcome, is it not better to fiiil than not to at- 
 tempt a worthy work which might be ours ? Only they who do 
 nothing derive comfort from the mistakes of others, and the say- 
 ing that a blunder is worse than a crime is doubtless true 
 for those who have no other measure of worth and success than 
 the conventional standards of a superficial public opinion. We at 
 least know : 
 
 There lives & Judge 
 To whose all-pondering mind, a noble aim 
 Faithfully kept is as a noble deed : 
 In whose pure sight all virtue doth succeed.
 
 4 ,. 
 
 HI. Jlev. Wm. Qvlnn. 
 
 'eiy Ji'ti. J. M. Farley 
 
 Kt. Rev. Thos. S. Preston. 
 
 
 liev. Michael Kelly. 
 
 JU. lif.v. Geo. U. Doane. 
 
 Itti. J. 1'. O't'oiiiitU, D.J). 
 
 Very Ilev. Henry Clwccr, D.D. 
 
 Vtry litV.Jvliii T. iSuUaaii.
 
 %l\t ^^w^^itu i^i "^tnhimu 
 
 SERMOI OF RIGHT REY. R. aiLMOUR, D.D., 
 
 BISHOP OF CI.EVELAIID. 
 
 IN discussing the problems of the age there are two or three cur- 
 rents of thought tolerably M'ell marked. Among these are a 
 sharply defined attack upon authority, and a pretty well accepted 
 determination to make man the beginning and end of himself. In 
 the sixteenth century reason was made the judge of faith. What it 
 accepted it held to be true; what it rejected it held to be false. 
 
 The results of thought are not the products of a day, so when 
 reason was made its own master, and society was committed to its 
 guidance, it required time, not only to accept the new, but to get rid 
 of the old. The united and uniform teaching of the Church for 
 sixteen hundred years had so moulded and formed public thought 
 that time alone could change or destroy its work. But thought once 
 started and fliirly accepted will in time work its logical results. The 
 human mind is fairly logical, and principles once accepted are in 
 time pushed to their legitimate conclusions. 
 
 The actors of the French Revolution attempted to push to its 
 legitimate conclusion the doctrine of the sixteenth century that 
 "Reason was its own guide," but society was not then sufficiently 
 advanced to deify reason, or to accept the horrors of unbridled 
 passion. But since that the work has been steadily, and of late 
 rapidly, going on, giving as legitimate results, the Communist and 
 Nihilist as the advance guard of our Freethinkers, Agnostics, and 
 Rationalists, to whom is to be added that vast army of No- 
 Churchmen, steadily but imperatively coming up to fill the swelling 
 
 (103)
 
 104 SERJIO^iS OF TUB THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 ranks of the advance guard, who boastingly proclaim themselves the 
 thinkers of the age, and the true exponents of what is known as 
 "Modern Thought." 
 
 The phrase " Modern Thought " expresses two forms of pro- 
 gress — one material, the other spiritual. That the present age has 
 made rapid and successful progress in the development of natural 
 science and material comfort is undeniable. The press and the 
 railroad are rapidly breaking down the lines between nations, and 
 steadily moulding the human race into a homogeneous whole. As 
 long as " Modern Thought " confines itself to the development of 
 the natural, it is to be commended and encouraged. But more 
 than mere material jirogress is needed for the safety of society 
 and the Avell-being of man. There is needed the cultivation of 
 the soul and the maintenance of the moral law. " Thought,'^ 
 whether ancient or modern, that neglects the soul, must not only 
 be condemned, but rejected, let it be modern or no modern. 
 
 Now what is "Modern Thought?" What is its drift? 
 
 " Modern Thought " is not of modern origin, nor is it a single 
 thought. It is the resume of the thoughts of the last three 
 hundred years, and has for its basal thought : " Reason is supreme, 
 and physical science is the sole test of truth?" 
 
 In the discussions of the day we hear much of science and 
 discovery, progress and liberty; but little of God and the souL 
 " Modern Thought " seems centered on man and nature. God and 
 the supernatural are either denied or but grudgingly tolerated.. 
 Dogma and creed are passing away. Heresy has attacked every 
 cardinal doctrine of Christianity and been defeated. The contro- 
 versy of the age, stripped of its verbiage and reduced to its simple 
 form is, the Natural versus the Supernatural. In other words, does 
 God exist in society? Has He any rights that man is bound ta 
 recognize ? 
 
 I know quite well that the great mass of society has not yet 
 reached this advanced position, but I do also know that thought 
 never rests, and that once the human mind has fairly accepted 
 a thought, it will in time push it to its logical conclusion. 
 AVhen the Reformation made reason the judge of God's law, it 
 had no intention of pushing the consequences to their present po- 
 sition ; nor did the authors of the Fi'cnch Revolution intend to 
 end in the deification of a prostitute. But both came, and the
 
 THE NECESSITY OF REVELATION. 105 
 
 siffns of the times arc that it is but a matter of time when the 
 non-Catholic workl will have abandoned Christian faith and 
 dogma. As it is, the non-Catholic Churches are rapidly losing 
 their hold on the masses, and society is seeking in man and 
 nature what must be got in God. Under the cry of "science" 
 revelation is being rejected ; and under the cry of " progress " the 
 supernatural is scouted. To such length is this going that now 
 the question is no longer, " Which of the Christian Churches is 
 the true Church?" but, "Is there a Supernatural?" "Is there 
 Revelation ? " 
 
 The man, or Church that to-day boldly declares, " God reigns," 
 requires both courage and vigor. Courage, to assert ' the doctrine ; 
 vigor, to maintain it. "All power comes from the people," says 
 the modern statesman : "All knowledge comes from nature," says 
 the modern teacher. These two propositions cover the whole 
 ground. In the first, man is made the beginning and end of 
 himself; in the latter, nature is made the limit of man's hopes 
 and ambitions. By them the Supernatural is denied. Revelation 
 rejected, and God dethroned. For the supernatural is substituted, 
 nature ; for revelation, reason ; for God, man. 
 
 Is there then a Supernatural ? Is there a Revelation ? 
 
 Nature in its widest sense means the entire collection of 
 things created : hence the distinguishing mark of the term Nature 
 is, that it is contingent, finite, limited. Nature from this point 
 of view includes every species of creature from the invisible atom 
 to the noblest of the angelic host. By this definition we also see 
 that Nature is the creature of an eternal, self-oxisting being, who 
 in se is above Nature. With the naturalist pure, who makes 
 nature its own creator, we have, and can have no controversy, for the 
 simplest of reasons that Nature can not be its own Creator. Nor 
 will we contend with the pantheist, who would make all nature 
 God. The controversy of the day is Avith those who admit a 
 God, but deny that man has a supernatural end, and with this, 
 deny revelation as given us in the Old and New Testament. 
 
 The assumption of these Naturalists, who admit a God Creator 
 is, that God having created man, left him with the powers that 
 He had given him to work out his own destiny; and further, 
 that man has no supernatural end. These Naturalists, who are so 
 glib and ready to tell us all about Nature and God, also assume
 
 106 SUMMONS OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL, 
 
 that when God created the world He imposed upon Nature laws, 
 that even He could not change, and on this assumption they deny 
 the possibility of miracles, sneer at the idea of prophecy, and the 
 power of prayer. 
 
 You will please notice, all this is pure assumption and asser- 
 tion, for which these Naturalists offer not a single particle of 
 proof. Their whole mode of reasoning is, to assume certain con- 
 clusions and from them build up a system of laws. So they 
 assume, Keason is its own beginning and its own end, and hence 
 that all truth is subjective, and is only truth so far as Reason 
 accepts it. It was on this principle that Protestantism adopted 
 " Private Interpretation of the Bible " as its foundation stone, a 
 principle that has led to the melancholy spectacle of the present 
 age, in which we see society seeking in Nature, and Science, and 
 human power, what alone can be found in God, — the true and 
 only supernatural. 
 
 I think truth is entirely too delicate with error. It is the 
 duty of " Modern Thought " to prove its assumptions and verify 
 its assertions. These modern theorists assume that God having 
 created Nature lost all further control over it, and has no further 
 interest in it. Now this assumption knowingly and brazenly ignores 
 the fact, that cannot be denied or disproved, "that God precedes 
 creation and from Him creation gets all it has." It is therefore 
 the clear duty of these modern assumption ists to prove their as- 
 sumption ere they attempt to rob God of what is clearly His. 
 God is in posseession, and it must be shown that He has lost 
 possession ere " Modern Thought " can be permitted to assert its 
 conclusions. 
 
 God is supernatural, and though He could have created man 
 as He now is — the effects of the Fall excepted — and left him to 
 the enjoyment of a natural happiness, yet as a matter of fact He 
 did not ; on the contrary, from the beginning God destined man 
 for a supernatural end, and coeval with man's creation God re- 
 vealed Himself to man and added grace to nature, so that from 
 the first moment of man's existence he had, and knew he had a 
 supernatural end. 
 
 Theoretically we can consider man at the moment of creation, 
 with all his powers of nature in a state of perfection. Con- 
 sidered in this state of pure nature it is permissible to teach
 
 THE NECESSITY OF REVELATIOX. 107 
 
 that man had within himself all the power needed lo reach his 
 natural beatitude. But as a matter of fact, man v,'as at no 
 moment of his existence in a state of pure nature, nor is he 
 now. Before the fall man had what theologians call integral 
 nature, that is, pure nature elevated to the supernatural by grace 
 xind revelation. The Fall did not destroy nature, though it weak- 
 ened it by depriving man of grace by which, without other help, 
 he would have reached the supernatural. Man in his present 
 state cannot be discussed as if he were in the condition he was 
 before the Fall. Then he was with the powers of nature unim- 
 paired, and in the fullness of grace ; now he is with grace lost 
 and nature weakened, and passion impelling him on to evil. We 
 must then take man as he is, not as he was, nor as he can be 
 conceived. Now it is a fact of individual and universal exper- 
 ience, that man in his present state cannot, with his present 
 powers, unaided by grace, reach a state of natural perfection, far 
 less supernatural. On the contrary, it is certain man, as he now 
 is, cannot of himself keep the natural law. This inability comes 
 not from the insufficiency of pure nature for itself, but from the 
 inefficiency of pure nature for the end above pure nature to 
 which man has been graciously called by God. Besides man's 
 inability, in his present state, to keep the whole law of nature, 
 it is a demonstrated fact that at no time and under no form of 
 human existence has man been able, without the aid of revelation, 
 to formulate a system of religion capable of sustaining him, or 
 keeping him within the law of nature. At his worst, in the 
 savage state, man is little less than brute. At his best, in 
 Greek and Roman society, passion was deified and man without 
 hope. Here and there may be seen a glimpse of higher thought 
 and purer morality, as in Socrates and Plato, and Cicero and 
 Seneca, but this was either a remnant of the primitive revelation, 
 which was never entirely lost, or it came from the Jewish law, 
 which was tolerably well known throughout the East. Yet a 
 Christian child, taught the first rudiments of his religion, knows 
 more of God and creation ; of man and his powers and destiny, 
 than the wisest of pagan philosophers. 
 
 If then man in his present state, and as we now find him, is 
 unable of his own power to keep the whole law of nature ; and, 
 further, if man of his own powers is unable to create a system of
 
 108 SFRJIONS OF TUB THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 religion fit to govern and purify society, then we are forced either 
 to admit the existence of revelation, or to charge God with liaving 
 created man and then left him without the means of reaching 
 reasonable perfection here and ultimate perfection hereafter. But 
 such assumption is impossible, as God is not only just, but gen- 
 erous, and hence could not and did not leave man without the 
 means of reaching his end. It is therefore imperative to conclude, 
 that as man cannot, by the powers of nature keep nature's law, nor 
 devise a system of religion fit to govern society, then God hath 
 given grace and revelation, that by them man may be saved and 
 society directed, and this is entirely in conformity with man's 
 nature and with the whole history of the human race. 
 
 The tradition of a primitive revelation is a permanent, con- 
 tinuous fact of history. It permeates its every page and forms the 
 basal thought of every tribe and people. Everywhere there is the 
 memory of the creation and the fall : a heaven, a hell, a Redeemer, 
 a God supreme. The wail of the human race is and has been 
 for a beatitude once possessed, but now lost. The cravings of 
 the human heart are for happiness beyond the grave, all proving 
 not that a revelation is necessary, but that a revelation has already 
 been made. 
 
 The history of the world is explicable only on the assump- 
 tion of a supernatural revelation. The Jews are a proof of this ; 
 the Church is a proof of this ; the traditions of every race and 
 people, even in their rudest condition, is a proof o£ this. It is 
 the fact of history, and is found in every form and phase of 
 detail in the Gentile, Jewish and Christian world. Any attempt 
 to explain the history of the Jews, or the rise and continuance of 
 Christianity without the existence of a supernatural Providence is 
 a failure. Gibbon tried to explain the rise of the Church, exclud- 
 ing God and revelation, and failed ; Voltaire tried it, and failed ; 
 Macaulay tried it, and failed ; our modern infidels and rationalists 
 have tried it, and failed. 
 
 Admit the fact of revelation and all history is not only 
 explainable, but the aspirations of the soul and the cravings of 
 the heart are explainable. Admit the fact of revelation and the 
 object of human existence and rational life is explainable. Admit 
 that man has a soul and at once you bring him into relation 
 with God and the supernatural, and give a reason for immortality
 
 THE NECESSITY OF REVELATION. 109 
 
 and the complement of his being. History is an undeniable fact, 
 and in it is found written on every page thereof the clear perma- 
 nent evidence of a primitive revelation that has never been 
 entirely lost, and is the underlying and enlightening element of all 
 •Gentile thought. Tiie creation, the fall, a Redeemer, a heaven, a 
 hell, a supreme God, are found in multiplied variety amid every 
 tongue and people past and present. The force of this testimony 
 ■cannot be ignored nor overlooked ; on the contrary it is a most 
 powerful and overwhelming argument in proof of the existence of 
 a supernatural revelation. 
 
 Man is composed of body and soul. The body is mortal, the 
 soul immortal. From the first moment of man's existence he was 
 conscious of the spirituality and immortality of his soul. Down 
 through the ages of history, amid civilized and savage, man's 
 immortality has ever, and everywhere been accepted and taught, 
 corrupted if you please, but the doctrine simple has always been 
 accepted as the faith of mankind. As a part of this immortality, 
 the soul has certain inherent longings for a higher and nobler 
 end than life here can give. This longing is not confined to the 
 enlightened, the sage or philosopher. It is felt by the lowest, it 
 is proclaimed by the highest. The feticism of the savage, as well as 
 the poetic creations of the polished Greek and Roman are founded 
 •on it. Another world where the soul will dwell, blessed for the 
 good, or punished for the evil done in life, has been and is a 
 ■doctrine co-extensive with the human race. This longing reaches 
 beyond any created good, and will be satisfied with nothing less 
 than God, the supreme good. Even God as attainable by nature 
 Avill not suffice, nothing less than God in the supernatural com- 
 pletely satisfies these cravings of the soul. Whether these longings 
 and cravings were inherent in man's heart as a part of pure 
 nature matters not, as at no moment of man's existence was he 
 limited to a state of pure nature. These longings exist. They 
 enter into all man's acts and thoughts. Reason admits there is 
 an unknown reality beyond the limits of rational knowledge. 'Now 
 whence comes this universal longing, this universal belief? The 
 longing comes from the nature of the soul, the belief comes from 
 the primitive tradition given to man at the moment of creation. 
 This longing, and this tradition are not denied even by the 
 incredulous. Philosophy leads to faith, faith to the beatific vision.
 
 110 SUEJIONS OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL, 
 
 Science, says tlie modern teacher, destroys faith, because it lays bare 
 and exhibits to reason and the senses what faith teaches, forget- 
 ting that science ends in nature, while faith begins in super-nature, 
 that is, science ends where faith begins. But faith is revelation,, 
 and revelation is an exterior manifestation of a supernatural truth 
 made by God to man, which may, or may not, be discoverable 
 by human reason. If, like the existence of God and the immor- 
 tality of the soul, the doctrine revealed can be discovered by 
 reason, then revelation but confirms reason; but if the revelation 
 cannot be discovered by reason, then tlic truth of the revelation 
 will depend upon the credibility of the witness. 
 
 If God in person makes the revelation directly to man, as he 
 did to Adam, He first proves that He is God. If He makes 
 the revelation through others, as He did through Moses and the 
 prophets, then He proves by miracles that He speaks through 
 them. The miracles attest the witness, and the witness attests the 
 revelation. 
 
 Miracles and prophecy are infallible evidence that God speaks,, 
 as none but God can work a miracle, and none but God can 
 foretell the future. Magicians and soothsayers may by the power 
 of the devil work wonders and for a moment deceive ; so may 
 diviners make happy guesses. But a miracle or prophecy in its 
 true meaning can only be by the power and knowledge of God. 
 
 When Moses appeared before Pharaoh and the Israelites, he 
 proved by miracles that he was sent by God. When the prophets 
 came, they not only proved their mission by miracles, but the 
 fulfillment of their prophecies hundreds of years after proved the 
 revelations made were of God. When Christ came He proved 
 by miracles that He was God, then He made His revelations and 
 proclaimed His law. The miracle proves the veracity of the wit-^ 
 ness, and the fulfillment proves the truth of the prophecyo And 
 the miracle and the prophecy prove the revelation. Now, has God 
 wrought miracles? Has God given prophecies? 
 
 The infidel denies both, but the testimony of the whole Jew- 
 ish people proclaims the miracles of Moses, and Josue and the 
 prophets. The Apostles and the multitude saw the miracles of 
 Christ, and they were so clearly the works of God that even the 
 ignorant exclaimed, " God hath visited His people." The prophe- 
 cies of the patriarchs and prophets read like a page of past his-
 
 THE NECESSITY OF REVELATION. Ill 
 
 tory, so complete are they in their fulfillment and minute in 
 every detail of time, and place, and person. If human testimony 
 is evidence of fact, then the existence of miracles and proph- 
 ecy is not only beyond doubt, but beyond the possibility of 
 rational discussion. But miracle and prophecy are the evidence 
 that God hath spoken, and the word of God is direct revelation 
 from God to man, giving us the supernatural and all that is- 
 embraced in the word, religion. 
 
 But if God hath spoken and given man divine revelation, as 
 undoubtedly He has, then revelation must be accepted. God's 
 word is not an empty sound. God is the beginning and the end, 
 the creator and preserver of all there is or can be. From Him 
 and by Him nature gets her laws and man his being, and with- 
 out Him there is and can be nothing. Man is but a breath, and 
 creation but the fiat of His will. He is supreme. His law is 
 supreme. What we have is His. What we can do is by Him. 
 Of ourselves we can not add a hair to our head, nor an hour to 
 our lives. He made us as v^q are, the eflPects of sin excepted. 
 We have therefore no rights as against God, and therefore no right 
 to gainsay His word, or discuss His law. When He speaks there 
 remains but obedience, but obedience founded on reason, which 
 tells us God is truth and can not deceive. 
 
 But says the man of " Modern Thought " this is the doctrine 
 of master and slave, and I am a freeman and must act according 
 to reason. But in obeying God you do act according to reason, 
 nay, exercise the highest powers of reason, because reason teaches 
 us to give to every one his due. Now we owe to God all we 
 are, have, or can do. We are absolutely His, body and soul. He 
 is therefore our Sovereign Lord and Proprietor with the absolute 
 right, as absolute owner, to do what He will with us. When 
 therefore God reveals Himself to man, there remains for man but 
 to accept the revelation, but it is the duty of God to prove that 
 it is God who speaks, and not till God has proved to reason that 
 it is God who speaks, has God a right to demand from reason 
 obedience and acceptance. 
 
 Catholic doctrine teaches that reason precedes faith and that 
 faith confirms reason. It farther teaches that faith is above reason 
 but never contradicts reason. When therefore God comes before 
 reason it is the duty of God to prove that He is God. But.
 
 112 iSFBMOI^S OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL, 
 
 when by miracles He has proved that He is God then reason is 
 bound to accept Him and all He says or does. When God ap- 
 peared to Adam, He proved He was God ; when He appeared to 
 the patriarchs and prophets, He proved He was God; when Christ 
 appeared upon earth He proved He was God ; in each case by 
 such signs and works as left no possible doubt that it was God 
 who spoke. "When God thus speaks by signs and miracles reason 
 is bound to accept what God says, if reason will act according to 
 reason. 
 
 !Now, when God created man. He not only endowed him with 
 the powers of nature, but at the same moment He made Him- 
 self known to man and proposed to him a supernatural end. In 
 the course of time when God would add to the primitive revela- 
 tion, He called to himself patriarchs and prophets and sent them 
 forth with signs and miracles to speak the words which He 
 placed in their mouths. So marked were these miracles and so 
 clear and minute the prophecies, that only the malicious unbeliever 
 can disbelieve or doubt. 
 
 It is easy to doubt. It is easy to pretend to disbelieve, scout 
 prophecy, and pretend that miracle is impossible, but it is impos- 
 sible to ignore the fact, that from the day of creation down to 
 the present time revelation is, and has been the cardinal fact of 
 history, just as Christ has been the cardinal fact of revelation. 
 It cannot be ignored nor denied. It will not down, and though 
 at times individuals, or large portions of society may deny it, or 
 in part reject it, yet revelation ever returns to stare the world 
 in the face and demand a hearing and acceptance. At the present 
 moment "Thought" has started in a current of exaggerated 
 humanity, by which man is pitted against God, and under the cry 
 of liberty, progress and the rights of man, God and religion are 
 assailed — in Europe by open hostility to the Catholic Church, in 
 America by widespread indifference to religion. The basal thought 
 of the present non-Catholic world is, that religious forms and beliefs 
 are matters of indifference, if the heart is right. To such extent has 
 this gone tliat outside the Catholic Church religion is banished from 
 the school ; and our youth are reared without God or religion. 
 
 The sky looks dark indeed. Morality is on the wane, and the 
 standard of truth and justice steadily sinks. Our public men are no 
 longer chosen for their lionesty and ability, but for their availability.
 
 THE NECESSITY OF REVELATION. 113 
 
 The unity of marriage has ended in divorce and polygamy. Our 
 youth are irreverent, blasphemy stalks the land, and drunkenness 
 and lust are a stench in the nostrils. Material progress has replaced 
 religion, the temporal is preferred to the eternal, the body to the 
 soul, man to God. 
 
 In such state of things it behooves us not only to defend 
 revelation, but to insist upon its acceptance. It is the heresy of 
 the day that man is not bound to accept religion. It is true man 
 is not bound to accept religion from man, and therefore as man 
 against man, we can assert religious freedom, but as man against 
 God, man is bound to accept religion; nay more than that, he is 
 bound to accept pure and simple the- religion God gives him. 
 
 It is true, by the gift of free will man has the power to dis- 
 obey God and reject his law, but there is a vast difference be- 
 tween the power to disobey and the right to disobey. Man has 
 no right to disobey God, or to reject his law. But revelation 
 is the law of God to man, hence man has no right to reject 
 revelation, or to substitute man's word for God's word. God's word 
 must be accepted. Revelation must be accepted. Religion must be 
 accepted. Tlie Church must be accepted, because she is the voice 
 of God to man. It behooves us as Catholics, it behooves .t»he 
 non-Catholic Christian world to rally round the standard of God, 
 and to say to infidelity and irreligion : " Thus far and no 
 farther." If we will save our country, we must build on religion. 
 If we will save our youth, we must build on morality. If we 
 will save our laws and institutions, we must build on truth and 
 justice. Our youth must be taught reverence, passion must be 
 bridled, drunkenness suppressed, marriage sanctified, and lust 
 subdued. 
 
 We must cease permitting sentiment to rule, teach religion and 
 replace God in society. The State must take from the Church, 
 as the Church takes from God, and both must work for a 
 <;oramon end. It is folly to assert that the State can prosper 
 without the Church, or society exist witthout religion. God must 
 rule, man must obey. Religion must be accepted and revelation 
 maintained.
 
 hnlm MmUm, 
 
 SERMOI OF MOST REY. C. J. SEaHEES, D.D., 
 
 ARCHBISHOP OF OREGON CITY. 
 
 "She reacheth therefore from end to end mightily and ordereth all things sweetly." 
 • — Wisdom, e. viii, v. 1. 
 
 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS fitted out his ship to sail in 
 search of a western route to India ; European monarchs sent 
 their viceroys to take possession of newly discovered tracts of 
 land and to add them to their domains ; adventurers left Europe 
 in quest of gold ; merchants dispatched their vessels to supply the 
 markets of the Old World with the produce of the new conti- 
 nent ; but over all that bustle and that feverish activity there 
 was, in the designs of God and in the mind of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, a lofty object kept in view, to which these actions of 
 men were made subservient, as means are used to reach an end; 
 and that was to call to the true faith numerous tribes seated in 
 darkness and in the shadow of death, to make known to them 
 the glad tidings of the Gospel, to throw open to them the por- 
 tals of the Church and to point out to them the road towards 
 heaven. 
 
 Ask me not why Divine Wisdom deferred till the fifteenth 
 century to communicate the treasures of the new law to the inhab- 
 itants of the New World. When we view tlic vicissitudes of things 
 and the fluctuation of events to which the preaching of the Gospel 
 and the professions of the true faith have been subject in both parts 
 of this continent, we may thank God for the existence and the 
 vitality of the Church here in these days. Other countries in the 
 Old World received the true faith much earlier than this continent,, 
 
 (114)
 
 Ihr. F. Ooller. 
 
 Rev. V. P. Grannan, D.D. 
 
 Very lien. F. Viayrich, O.ii'S.Ji. 
 
 r^ 
 
 Very liev. D. E. Lyman, V. F. 
 
 Bev. T. P. Tlwrpe. 
 
 Most Bev. J. J. Lynch, D.l). 
 
 lit. liev J. V. Vleary, 1). I). 
 
 Rt. Rev. John Walsh, D.D. 
 
 Rt. Rev. J. J. Carbery, D.D.
 
 INDIAN MISSIONS. 115 
 
 but they lost it completely long ago. Perhaps America received the 
 true faith later to keep it forever. 
 
 Alas ! for the wickedness of man. The antecedent will of God 
 and the desires of the Sacred Heart of Jesus are often frustrated by 
 our evil actions. Devoted men, apostolic priests, zealous mission- 
 aries were not wanted in the past to undertake the work of 
 the conversion of the aborgines of America. And when the Do- 
 minican Las Casas, the Jesuits Marquette, Breboeuf and Goupil, 
 the Franciscan Junipero Serra, and a host of others crossed the 
 ocean, mountains, lakes and rivers to penetrate into the forest in 
 search of the erring sheep, the angels looked down upon these 
 apostles - of the cross with joy and admiration and exclaimed : 
 " How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of them that 
 bring good tidings and that preach peace." (Isaias, ii, 2.) For 
 if there is joy in heaven at the sight of one sinner that does 
 penance, what must have been the rejoicings of the angels and 
 saints at the prospect of millions about to be converted and made 
 holy? 
 
 But when we review the work of the last three centuries in 
 both the northern and southern part of this continent, we are prone 
 to ask "Has the white race done justice to the red man? We 
 hear, indeed, of flourishing Christian communities of Indians, in 
 Canada, in Mexico, in California, in Paraguay, recorded by historians 
 with terms of admiration; but the rapacity of the adventurer, the 
 tyranny of the ruler, the evil passions of the profligate, the anti- 
 Christian spirit of certain secret organizations and other causes 
 beyond the reach of my research have prevented the spread of 
 Christianity in some places, and rooted up the Church in others. 
 St. Paul speaks of an interchange of spiritual and temporal things 
 between those that impart the Christian doctrine and those that 
 receive it ; the latter receive spiritual, the former receive temporal 
 things. (Gal., vi, 6.) We are in possession of the red man's country, 
 we occupy his hunting ground, we are masters of the soil where 
 his wigwam stood; have we communicated to him the light of the 
 Gospel that is in us? Daniel speaks of the angel of the Persians 
 and of the angel of the Greeks. (Dan., x, 20.) We infer therefrom 
 that every nation is placed by Almighty God under the guidance 
 and protection of an angel. Behold the angel of the Indian race : 
 his countenance is not lit up with gladness, his eyes do not beam
 
 116 SI:RMO^''S of tub third plenary council. 
 
 with joy, his lips bear not the graceful curve of a pleasing smile ; 
 he ]ioints to the soil of this continent, bleached with the bones, 
 red with the blood and l^laek Avith the ruins of a destroyed race 
 of men. Let us .draw a veil over this gloomy picture. 
 
 The Apostle of the Gentiles when deploring the reprobation 
 of his countrymen, exclaims Mith the prophet Isaias, (Rom. ix. 27), 
 "Reliquiae salva iient — a remnant shall be saved;" let us say the 
 same, in our age, of the remnant of the Indian race. If vast 
 numbers of them have disappeared from the earth, if instead of 
 bringing to them the olive branch of civilization, we have followed 
 towards them a policy of extermination, let at least those that 
 remain be an object of our charity. Arise, zealous missionaries, 
 apostles of the cross, and continue the work begun by holy men ! 
 Your mission is a noble one. When our Lord was requested by 
 St. John to give proof of the divine origin of His work, He did 
 not say, " The rich are evangelized," but He answered, " Pauperes 
 evangelizautur." "The poor have the Gospel preached to them." 
 What better proof do we wish that the work of the Gospel 
 among the aborigines is a continuation of the work of Christ ? 
 Blessed therefore be the memory of Norbert Blanchet, Modeste 
 Demey and Father De Smet, who like Abraham went out of 
 their country and of their kindred, to cross the lofty range of the 
 Rocky ]\Iountains and proceeded as far as the shores of the 
 Pacific, because they could go no further. Blessed those that walk 
 in their footsteps. Blessed also those that continue the good work 
 in the Indian Territory, in Dakota, Nebraska, Montana, Wisconsin 
 and other States and Territories. I say they are blessed, for do 
 you not remember, beloved brethren, that our Lord pronounced 
 His curse on the man who scandalizes the little ones and " through 
 whom evil cometh?" If, therefore, the one who gives scandal and 
 does spiritual evil to his neighbor is anathematized by our Lord 
 Jesus Christ, is it not evident that he is blessed that does good 
 to and edifies and sanctifies and saves the little ones ? Who are 
 those whom Christ, in another place, calls the least of His brethren ? 
 Are not the Indians the least of the brethren of Christ? The 
 least — yes, the poorest, the most ignored and the most despised. 
 Blessed, I repeat it, those who contribute to the work of their 
 edification and sanctification. 
 
 In the address I am making to you this evening, beloved
 
 INDIAN MISSIONS. 117 
 
 brethren, I have for object to secure your favor, to enlist your 
 sympathy in behalf of this good, great and meritorious work of 
 christianization and civilization of the aborigines. I say chris- 
 tianization and civilization, for, say what they will, the people of 
 this country will never convert and civilize the Indians by schools, 
 unless the latter be based upon the Christian faith and permeated 
 with ' a Christian atmosphere. Religion and civilization go hand in 
 hand ; discard religion and you prepare the condition of the bar- 
 barian or the savage. 
 
 But how shall I succeed in making you feel interested in this 
 work? It seems to me that I cannot find a more successful way 
 than by giving a description of our missionary work among the 
 Indians, and this I will do by dwelling on the difficulties we 
 met with, or the obstacles we have to overcome. Let me premise 
 two remarks : 1. I desire chiefly to speak of the work of the 
 conversion of the Indians as we find them in their primitive, 
 untutored and savage condition. 2. I wish to dwell chiefly on facts 
 that have come within my own knowledge and personal observ^ation. 
 I trust, therefore, you will excuse and pardon me if I refer often 
 to myself, if I often speak of myself. Not wishing to state 
 things which I know from hearsay, I will speak of things I saw 
 with my own eyes and heard with my own ears. 
 
 The diocese about to be confided to my care consists of two 
 parts — Vancouver Island and Alaska, formerly known as Russian 
 America, and now a part of this republic. Originally these terri- 
 tories formed part of an immense vicariate apostolic, embracing 
 the whole western part of North America, from California to the 
 Arctic Ocean, but that immense vicariate was subsequently divided 
 into dioceses, and Vancouver Island welcomed her first bishop, the 
 late Modeste Demers, in 1851. 
 
 Vancouver Island is nearly three hundred miles in length, and 
 the population consists partly of whites, who dwell chiefly in the 
 towns of Victoria, Nanaimo and Esquimalt, and in the settlements of 
 Saanich, Cowichan and Comox, and of Indian tribes numbering 
 about 11,000. There are but eleven priests in the whole island 
 to minister to all these people, and the absence of pecuniary 
 resources places an obstacle in the way of increasing the number 
 of the faithful. 
 
 An Indian tribe numbering 4,000, and occupying the western
 
 118 SEEMONS OF Tim THIRD PLENARY COUJS^CIL. 
 
 shore of the island, was seated in the darkness of error and in 
 the shadow of death until 1874, when, being then Bishop of Van- 
 couver Island, and accompanied by one priest, I visited the twenty- 
 one villages into which that tribe is divided, preaching to them 
 the lioly faith ; and we succeeded in the course of that year in 
 teaching all those Indians all the Catholic prayers in their own 
 language, besides several religious canticles, and in baptizing 960 of 
 their children under seven years of age. And there, where before 
 my first visit in 1869 no priest had ever set foot, are now three 
 churches and four priests laboring to evangelize and Christianize 
 those poor people. Alaska, formerly Russian America, which is 
 larger than all the New England States together, contains 60,000 
 Indians as yet unconverted to the faith. In 1879 I built a 
 church and stationed a priest at Wrangel, a small town in the 
 southern part of that territory, but he was later on recalled to 
 Vancouver Island, where his services were indispensable, so that in 
 this immense country, and among that multitude of souls, there is 
 now not a single Catholic priest. After the father's departure an 
 Indian woman Avas seen Sunday after Sunday kneeling before the 
 closed door of the church, beseeching our Lord to send a priest 
 again to that mission. Who can refuse aid, so that this poor 
 woman's prayer may be heard, and the door of the church opened 
 
 once more 
 
 9 
 
 In 1879 I left the Diocese of Vancouver Island to become 
 Archbishop of Oregon, and I was called to Rome last year with 
 the other Archbishops of the United States to assist in preparing 
 for the next Council in Baltimore. And when in November last 
 the Cardinal Prefect of the Propaganda expressed his grave appre- 
 hensions for the future of Catholicity in the Diocese of Vancouver 
 Island, which was vacant, and which there was no prospect of 
 providing with a bishop, I volunteered to leave Oregon and to 
 return to my former Diocese of Vancouver Island. My offer was 
 both gladly accepted by the Propaganda and approved by the 
 Holy See. 
 
 More priests are needed to establish new missions both on the 
 island and in Alaska, for the harvest indeed is great, but the 
 laborers few. Brothers, too, are needed to educate the Indian 
 children. Then the necessary vestments and sacred vessels for the 
 suitable celebration of divine worship are wanting. Furthermore,
 
 INDIAy 3IISSI0NS. 119 
 
 a new clmrch and a new house for the clergy are urgently needed 
 in Victoria, the bishop's place of residence in Vancouver Island. 
 The present cathedral is a wooden structure, 75 feet long, and can 
 last but a few years longer. The bishop's house, also of wood, is 
 fast decaying, and its unhealthiness exposes the clergy to serious 
 danger. Such are, in brief, the reasons that have determined me 
 to travel from country to country, from town to town, yes, from 
 house to house, to solicit the aid of my brethren in the faith.
 
 ^ffnsttatt '^«f«8j^, 
 
 SEEHOH OF RIGHT EEY. M. J. O'FARRELL. D.D., 
 
 BISHOP OF TREHTOK, K. J. 
 
 Test: — SL Paul to the UpJiesians, c. v, v. 22-31. 
 
 DURING the past week you listened to some admirable ais- 
 courses upon the Christian Church, her constitution, her 
 mission and her characteristic marks. You also heard a most 
 eloquent lecture on Christian education, its necessity, its extent 
 and its advantages. But there is another great truth underlying 
 them both. They describe the magnificent building, rising lofty 
 and beautiful, challenging the attention and exciting the admiration 
 of thoughtful observers. But beneath there must be a solid basis 
 to support the weight. To bear up this mighty structure, whose 
 beauty and majestic proportions have so arrested our gaze, there 
 must be broad and strong foundations. So whilst we admire the 
 strength and durability of the Christian Church, whilst we exalt 
 the merits and advantages of Christian education, let us remember 
 that underlying all is the Christian flimily. All Christian society, 
 the whole edifice of Christian civilization, rest upon it. There is no 
 Christian society without the Christian family, and no Christian 
 family without Christian marriage. Thus we are naturally led to 
 the subject of this evening's discourse. 
 
 Again, on the other hand, when we cast our eyes around and see 
 the many evils that afflict our modern society — family ties loosened 
 and family honor so frequently stained; paternal authority losing its 
 force and treated with disrespect; filial obedience constantly declining; 
 domestic quarrels and discords so often darkening our social life* the 
 
 (120)
 
 Vtry iitf. Al. Aibeiick-. 
 
 Very Rev. Joseph M. Lesen, O.M.C. 
 
 Jit. Rev. Mw. O'Bara, D.D. 
 
 •"^w "^i^ 
 
 Xery Uev. Edward McCoUjun, V. (i. 
 
 \ 1/ !/ /.■<(■. A'. So/ III, I .H.C 
 
 Very Rev F. A. iStanton, O.H.A. 
 
 'Mm*M^. 'i-^^^^^ 
 
 Very Rev. Thomas Uteffaninl, CI'. 
 
 Rt. Rev. I. Robot, O.fi.n. 
 
 Very Uev. Leo J)a iSarracena^O.S.F.
 
 CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE. 121 
 
 sacred obligations of wife and mothei* cast aside in so many 
 instances, as too irksome to be borne ; shameful crimes and horrible 
 excesses, that should not even be mentioned amongst Christians, so 
 well known and in some places so common ; the very laws of nature 
 wantonly and unblushingly trampled under foot — when we see these 
 and many other evils we naturally ask what can have given rise 
 to them and whence do they spring? If we make the examination 
 seriously we shall find that, for the greater part, they arise from 
 ignorance or contempt of the true nature of Christian marriage 
 or violation of its laws. Through false teaching and the lawless 
 tyranny of unrestrained passions many have lost the true notion 
 of the institution of marriage, such as God and nature has 
 established. 
 
 It becomes then our duty, particularly at a season like this, 
 when the representatives of the entire Catholic Church in this 
 great country are gathered together in this Plenary Council, to 
 announce the full truth concerning the nature and obligations of 
 Christian marriage. We owe it to you, dear brethren, faithful 
 children of holy Church, in order to warn you and fortify you 
 against the false and corrupt maxims of the age ; and we owe 
 it also to our fellow-countrymen, to whatever religious denomina- 
 tion they may belong — "for we are debtors to all" — that they 
 too may learn these important truths and all society be blessed 
 through the knowledge. 
 
 Marriage was instituted by God Himself for the propagation and 
 preservation of the human race. It differs from all other con- 
 tracts made by men, which derive their binding force from the will 
 of the contracting parties and from human laws which sanction 
 them. They depend entirely on the conditions affixed to them. 
 They are limited both in duration and force by the terms of the 
 agreement. Men can place their conditions upon every other con- 
 tract; they buy or sell, lend or borrow, as they may agree, and 
 human laws will ratify the compact, unless it should be considered 
 injurious to the public good. 
 
 But in marriage it is not so; for marriage is of divine institu- 
 tion and can exist only on the conditions fixed by God Himself. 
 Christian marriage, in its essence, can be governed only by the laws 
 of the divine legislator of the Christian Church. Society did not 
 institute marriage, for marriage was established before all society.
 
 122 suEMo^''s OF tub third plenary council. 
 
 Without it society could not have existed. The same God who 
 -established society and communicated to it the powers necessary 
 for its preservation, instituted marriage as the foundation upon 
 which all society rests. We must then first examine the manner of 
 its establishment and the conditions and laws assigned to it, and 
 accept them as coming from God. No human laws can avail against 
 divine ones. Society cannot legislate against the eternal Law Giver. 
 The fundamental and primordial law of marriage and the absolute 
 <!ondition of Christian marriage is its unity and indissolubility. Mar- 
 riage is the union of one man with one woman for purposes intended 
 by the Creator, and this union must be forever. Such was mar- 
 riage at the beginning of the world. Such did it become again when 
 our divine Saviour restored it to its primitive state, and even 
 raised it higher still, making its unity and indissolubility more 
 perfect by appointing it one of the sacraments of His law and 
 the type of the perfect union existing between Himself and His 
 Church. 
 
 The words of Christ laying down the doctrine of marriage are 
 found both in His Sermon on the Mount, in St. Matthew, 5th 
 chapter, 31st verse, but still more at length in the 19th chapter 
 of the same Evangelist, 4th and following verses, to ^hich I shall 
 more particularly refer. 
 
 The circumstances which led to this declaration deserve our 
 consideration. There were amongst the Jews at that time two fac- 
 tions which held different opinions M-ith regard to the causes 
 which would justify divorce, as the Jewish law permitted it. One 
 party maintained that divorce was lawful for any cause, no matter 
 how trivial. The other faction held that for no cause, except for 
 adultery on the part of the wife, could the marriage tie be dissolved. 
 The Pharisees hoped to ensnare the Saviour, and by obliging Him 
 to give a decision that He would certainly displease either one of the 
 factions and make new enemies for Himself. " They therefore 
 asked Him," says the Scripture, " tempting Him : Is it lawful for 
 a man to put away his wife for any cause ? " How admirably 
 Jesus avoids the snare, and yet still makes known His will and 
 doctrine about marriage. " Have you not read," says He with gen- 
 tle irony — " you learned men, so profoundly skilled in the Sacred 
 Scriptures — have you not read that He who made man in the 
 beginning, made them male and female ? " And He said : " For
 
 CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE. 123 
 
 this cause shall man leave father and mother and shall cleave 
 unto his wife, and they two shall be in one flesh. "Wherefore 
 they are no more two, but one flesh. What, therefore, God has 
 joined together let no man put asunder." (St. Mat., xix, 4-G.) 
 
 In those clear words the Saviour takes them back to tlie origi- 
 nal institution of marriage, to the beginning of all things. When 
 God created man He made only two persons, only one man and 
 one woman, not one man and several women. He thus indicated 
 by the very fact of their creation the unity of the marriage tie. 
 
 Not only by facts and the mode of creation did God manifest 
 the unity of marriage, but also by His words : " Wherefore shall 
 man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave to his wife, 
 and they who were two shall be one." Our Lord here attributes 
 to God Himself these words, which, as we learn from Genesis, M'ere 
 uttered by Adam ; because it was God's inspiration and in the 
 spirit of prophecy that he pronounced them. " For this cause," 
 that is, as the woman had been created from the side of man, 
 and thus formed part of his being, that she was bone of his 
 bone and flesh of his flesh ; as the man and the woman had 
 been one before the separation, so they must become one again 
 when God unites them; j)roptcr hoc, for this cause, shall man 
 give up all else, his nearest and dearest affections, even father 
 and mother, and shall cleave to his wife with the deepest love, 
 and be united to her in the closest of all relations ; so intimate, 
 so sacred that " now these two are but one flesh." And to make 
 this point still clearer, our Lord Himself draws the conclusion 
 from all that preceded — "therefore they are no more two, but 
 one flesh." See how He insists upon this ; therefore they are 
 after marriage only one, where they had been two before. Finally 
 He lays down the supreme principle and the final conclusion — 
 "what therefore God hath joined together let no man put asun- 
 der." Remark how He does not even say ^' ichom God has joined," 
 but '■^wliat God has joined" — the contract which God has thus 
 formed, the one person thus constituted out of two by God Him- 
 self, no man can put asunder. No human power can break this 
 bond. This union is the work of the Omnipotent Creator ; let 
 not man dare to meddle with it. 
 
 The Pharisees, disconcerted at this reply, so entirely unex- 
 pected, urge strongly an objection. If that be as you state, if
 
 124 SEEJIOJiS OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 marriage be naturally indissoluble, " why, then, did Moses command 
 to give a bill of divorce and to put away?" Our Lord gently 
 corrects their exaggeration. " Moses, because of the hardness of 
 your hearts, jjermittcd you to put away your wives." Moses did 
 not command the divorce, he only tolerated it on account of 
 your stubborn dispositions, to avoid greater evils. " But from the 
 beginning it was not so." Before Moses granted the permission, 
 from the very foundation of the world, marriage was indissoluble. 
 And now I, greater than Moses, I who have come to give a 
 more perfect law than that of Moses, I withdraw this toleration, 
 I restore marriage to its primitive purity and unity — " I say to 
 you, whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornica- 
 tion, and shall marry another, committeth adultery; and he who 
 shall marry her that is put away committeth adultery." The 
 whole Catholic Church firmly holds that the apparent exception stated 
 by our Lord does not destroy the marriage tie; that the guilty 
 wife may be dismissed from her home, but the marriage remains 
 unbroken. This is not the place to enter fully into all the rea- 
 sons which justify this doctrine. It is sufficient here to indicate 
 that the whole context and tenor of Christ's discourse, and the 
 entire purpose of His argument, absolutely requires this sense ; 
 that the greatest of the Fathers of the Church asserted it ; that 
 the entire Latin Church for fifteen hundred years before the 
 Reformation, and the whole Catholic Church since, has always 
 maintained it. The arguments to prove these diilerent points 
 would be out of place in a plain discourse like this to-night, 
 and Avould require it to be prolonged beyond all reasonable limits. 
 I will simply refer to this reasoning which you can all follow. 
 When the other Evangelists, St. Mark and St. Luke, relate this 
 scene and quote the words of the Saviour they affirm absolutely 
 the law and make no mention of the supposed exception. Thus,. 
 in St. Mark, x, 11, it is stated that when the disciples asked 
 their Master to explain His Avords, He thus replied in the most 
 general terms : " Whosoever shall put away his wife and marry 
 another committeth adultery against her. And if the wife shall 
 put away her husband and be married to another, she committeth 
 adultery." Again, in St. Luke, xvi, 18 : " Every one that putteth 
 away his wife and marrieth another committeth adultery: and he 
 that marries her that is put away from her husband committeth
 
 CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE. 125 
 
 adultery." Here there is no exception to the law, nor any excuse 
 for making an exception, "Whoever marries the' woman that is 
 put away by her husband, no matter on what ground or pretext 
 she was put away, commits adultery." Therefore, the , first mar- 
 riage is never broken, for if it were, the woman put away would 
 be free to marry again, and he who should marry her could not 
 be guilty of adultery in so doing. Therefore, the words of the 
 Saviour must be taken in their plain, literal sense as the only 
 -one that the early Christians who might have only the Gospel 
 of St. Mark or that of St. Luke could possibly attach to them. 
 Again let us see how the Apostles understood the law. St. 
 Paul, the great Apostle of the Gentiles, will serve as interpreter 
 for all. Here is what he declares in his Epistle to the Romans, 
 viii, 2, 3 : " For the woman that hath a husband, whilst her 
 husband liveth, is bound to the law ; but if the husband be dead, 
 she is loosed from the law of her husband. Wherefore,' whilst her 
 husband liveth, she shall be called an adulteress, if she be with 
 another man: but if her husband be dead, she is free from the 
 law of her husband ; so that she is not an adulteress if she be 
 with another man." Again, 1 Cor., vii, 10, 11: "To them that 
 are married, not I, but the Lord commandeth, that the wife 
 depart not from her husband, and if she depart, that she remain un- 
 married." And in the same chapter, v. 39 : " A woman is bound 
 by the law as long as her husband liveth; but if her husband 
 die, she is at liberty, let her marry whom she will." Thus it 
 is clearly stated by St. Paul that marriage is indissoluble, — tliat 
 the woman is bound to her husband as long as he lives, and 
 that nothing but death, no human enactment, no State or eartlily 
 power, can loose the bonds which bind them together. Finally the 
 same doctrine is placed upon even higher grounds in the beau- 
 tiful words of my text — Epistle to the Ephesians, v. 22, where 
 he declares that the union of man and wife is typical of the 
 union between Christ and His Church, and must last forever, 
 for as Christ shall never be separated from His Spouse, the 
 Church, M-hich He loved and for whicli He delivered Himself 
 up, that He might sanctify it, so also men ought to love their 
 wives as their own bodies. "He that loveth his wife, loveth 
 himself" Hence he can no more be separated from his wife than 
 he can from himself, or than Christ from His Church.
 
 126 SERirO^^S OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 Such was the doctrine laid down by the Apostle of nations ,- 
 such was the doctrine taught the entire world by the Christian 
 Church : and it was by virtue of this law and this divine insti- 
 tution of marriage that she undertook to regenerate corrupt and 
 dissolute peoples. 
 
 It is impossible to describe the degraded condition into which 
 the world had fallen when the Christian Church began her mis- 
 sion. Society was rotten to the core. The true notion of the 
 family had disappeared, — and w^oman was little better than a slave 
 in the household, entirely dependent on the caprices or tyranny 
 of the husband, — at one time his plaything, — at another his victim. 
 Home — home as w-e understand it, with all its sweet memories 
 and hallowing associations — was entirely unknown. The Chris- 
 tian Church renewed all. She reconstructed the family and made 
 it the firm basis of the new Christian society. She raised up 
 woman from her social degradation. She gave the Avife an as- 
 sured position that no tyranny could deprive her of. She made 
 her the queen of the domestic circle, — the guardian angel of the 
 home, the partner of her husband, his true helpmate and com- 
 panion, — increasing his joy, sharing in his sorrows, ever associated 
 Mith him in the responsibilities of the family. The Christian 
 mother was invested with a sacred dignity such as paganism 
 never recognized. Her children looked up to her with the most 
 loving reverence and called her and made her truly blessed. With 
 this elevation of woman in the family circle by the assured cer- 
 tainty of her position in her home, the Church laid the founda- 
 tion of a new society. Christendom was formed by the Christian 
 family, — as the family itself by Christian marriage. To this was 
 Christendom indebted for the higher civilization which it attained 
 above the rest of the world. The noblest energies of man were 
 developed, and the most heroic qualities manifested. Christian 
 marriage elevated the nations of Europe to the highest degree of 
 true civilization, whilst polygamy corrupted and degraded the peoples 
 of Asia. Had the Church not fought bravely and unremittingly 
 the battle for the indissolubility of marriage, Europe would have 
 sunk into the same degradation as the INIahometan nations. But 
 the Catholic Church never faltered. Against the fierce passions of 
 the half-barbaric tribes, — against the unbridled lusts of despotic 
 rulers, she constantly asserted the divine rights of marriage. The
 
 CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE. 127 
 
 Sovereign Pontiffs, the faithful defenders of truth and morality, were 
 ever foremost in the struggle. Again and again throughout the 
 Middle Ages did this voice proclaim to the world, with no doubt- 
 ful sound, the unity and indissolubility of marriage. In vain did 
 haughty kings and powerful emperors seek to make their own 
 passions the sole standard of right, by trampling upon God's law ; 
 to them, as to the humblest of their subjects did the Pope reply : 
 Non licet, — you cannot break the bond which God has tied, — you 
 cannot dismiss your lawful wife. For the sake of helpless women, — 
 a betrayed or forsaken wife, the Popes of Rome braved the anger 
 of the most despotic tyrants, and exposed themselves to the ter- 
 rible vengeance of their disappointed passions. Witness the strug- 
 gle of the Pope against Philip Augustus^ when all France was 
 laid under an interdict until the king consented to receive his 
 lawful wife and abandon his second sacrilegious marriage. History 
 tells of the heroic contest of Gregory VII against the emperor, 
 Henry IV of Germany, in defence of a wronged and banished 
 wife. And do you not all kuow how Clement VII refused to 
 abandon the rights of Catherine of Aragon, whom the lustful pas- 
 sions of Henry VIII Avished to discard, even though by his refusal 
 all England should be lost to the Church? But the divine prin- 
 ciple of the unity of marriage could not be sacrificed, no matter 
 what the consequences might be. During all those ages the Ro- 
 man Pontiffs sedulously guarded and bravely defended this fun- 
 damental principle. 
 
 How differently the Reformers proceeded. In England the new 
 Church was built upon the broken marriage vows and adulterous 
 passions of a most brutal king. In Germany it sprang from the 
 broken religious vows of disorderly monks, and was fostered by 
 the greed and lust of princes. Scarcely had the German Reforma- 
 tion begun when l)y an act unexampled amongst Christians the 
 very leaders of tlie movement, Luther and Melancthon, allowed in 
 writing to Philip of Hesse that he might have two wives at the 
 same time without even pretending to divorce the first. If the 
 Popes had thus acted Europe would most certainly have lost 
 Christian civilization, and would have descended to the level of 
 the barbarous nations of Asia, degraded and demoralized by the 
 practice of polygamy. If now the Christian woman enjoys so much 
 consideration ; if the name of wife and mother be so holy and
 
 128 SEBMOXS OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 venerable ; if the memories of home be so clear to the heart of 
 every true man, it is due to the blessed influence of Christian 
 marriage. 
 
 But there are agencies at work around us that threaten to sap 
 and destroy this holy institution. The system of divorce and the 
 laws establishing it in the various States are certainly a fearful 
 danger to the welfare of society; and all who believe in God's 
 law as supreme above all the laws of men, and all who wish to 
 preserve our country from moral ruin should seriously consider 
 the consequences that will necessarily follow if the sacredness of 
 the marriage tie be destroyed or even tampered with. 
 
 For divorce destroys the unity of marriage and introduces 
 virtual polygamy with many of its worst consequences. The people 
 of this great country, whose instincts are so generally Christian, 
 hold in detestation the doctrines of Mormonism and consider them 
 a disgrace and a curse to the nation. Yet in what does Mor- 
 monism really differ from the system of divorce ? Mormonism 
 allows men to have several wives at the same time, while divorce 
 permits them one after the other. Divorce allows a man to be 
 married twice, three times, etc., no limit fixed, while the first wife 
 is still living. In wliat does that really differ from Mormonism ? 
 It is just as much opposed to the real ends of marriage, to the 
 mutual love of the married couple, and the proper education of 
 children ; and it is much more adapted to gratify the basest pas- 
 sions, as it offers a greater freedom from the embarrassments of 
 open polygamy. With whatever disgust then we view the shame- 
 ful doctrines of Mormonism, with even greater dislike should we 
 treat the question of divorce. For, as I have just said, it is 
 opposed to the natural ends of marriage and disturbs the laws 
 established by the Creator. It destroys the mutual love which 
 should unite the liusband and wife, it develops all the causes 
 which can lead to their unhappiness, it stimulates the worst pas- 
 sions of our nature and leads often to the foulest crimes. When 
 married persons know that they are united for good or ill until 
 death, they will naturally cultivate mutual love and mutual for- 
 bearance ; they will support each other's defects and overlook many 
 imperfections. For their own sake they feel that tliey must over- 
 come many petty dislikes and make the most of tlie good quali- 
 ties of their companions. Divorce encourages these quarrels and
 
 CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE. 129 
 
 fosters them. It leads even to the worst evils. For if a married 
 person know that by personal quarrels or by crimes the marriage 
 can be broken, what an inducement to foster dissension or to fall 
 into foul sins ! Nay, even snares and pitfalls are thus often pre- 
 pared by one of the parties to entrap the unwary steps of the 
 other, in order to have a pretext for the dissolution of marriage. 
 It is not a very rare thing that the husband should agree • before- 
 hand with the seducer to secure the proofs of his wife's unfaith- 
 fulness in order to have the right to divorce her. I pass over 
 in silence many things ; the shocking revelations of the divorce 
 courts cannot even be alluded to. You can judge from what I 
 have said if divorce be not injurious to the ends of marriage. 
 The woman becomes degraded by such a law. She is no longer 
 certain of her position in the household ; for under one pretext or 
 another she can be driven from her home. 
 
 It is no longer even for crime that divorce is granted. The 
 most frivolous charges, the most futile reasons are considered suffi- 
 cient in many places. Nay, even without the knowledge of one of 
 the parties it can be obtained by the other. These causes are so 
 multiplied that in some of our States nothing is more easily 
 granted. Hence we see the rapid and fearful increase in the 
 number of broken marriages, — and the horrible fact that in many 
 places divorces come as high as one in every twelve or ten or 
 even nine marriages. Divorce then is simply a legalized prostitu- 
 tion ; and marriage itself no better than a temporary • cohabitation, 
 stigmatized as a very foul crime in all Christian lands. But 
 even this is not the whole malice of divorce. It prevents tlie 
 proper training and education of children, which is one of the 
 essential ends of marriage. The true education of the child requires 
 both father and mother to bring it to completion — the strong 
 authority of the father, and the loving affection of the mother. 
 But where can we get this necessary co-operation on the part 
 of the parents, if divorce be permitted? To whom will the 
 child belong? AVho shall take charge of him when father and 
 mother are torn asunder ? If he be sufficiently advanced in years, 
 he must decide for himself Cruel alternative, unhappy decision, 
 when he has to reject one or the other parent. If he be very 
 young, how heart-rending this separation becomes. Shall the young 
 child be torn from the frantic grasp of a broken-hearted, wretched
 
 130 SBEJIOXS OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 mother, driven from her liome and her little ones ? Ah ! you can 
 recall many such scenes ; our daily papers often give us the har- 
 rowing details. And there, too, we read of the desperate efforts 
 of the father to recover possession of his children. But what shall 
 become of the miserable children themselves, thus parted from 
 their natural guardians ? Shall they grow up in the principles of 
 honor and integrity, or rather shall they not become indifferent 
 to all virtue ? And how shall they regard in after years the 
 parents who brought such shame and ruin upon them ? 
 
 I have said enough, I trust, to convince you of the many evil 
 consequences which necessarily flow from divorce ; yet I have not 
 enumerated more than a part. When men break down the bar- 
 riers which God Himself has raised up to curb the passions, no 
 one can adequately foresee the fearful havoc and widespread ruin 
 produced when the full torrent of these passions finds an outlet 
 for their fury. The exceptions allowed may at first seem without 
 danger, but they soon create the necessity for granting others. The 
 little rills soon swell into a mighty torrent that sweeps away every- 
 thing in its resistless force. Just as in some countries dykes and 
 banks have been erected to prevent the waters of the ocean from 
 covering the land ; the country is safe while the dykes remain 
 uninjured. But let a little rift be made in them; let the slightest 
 break occur, and little by little, through the incessant action of the 
 sea, the fis'sure is widened, the breach is gradually enlarged, until at 
 length the full fury of the angry w^aters bursts through all bounds, 
 and then widespread ruin and devastation follow, and the land, with 
 all its riches and beauty, its cultivated plains and smiling gardens, 
 is entirely submerged. So around society, for its preservation, the 
 Almighty erected the strong barriers of holy marriage with its 
 unity and indissolubility, as the powerful safeguards of our best 
 interests. Let but a slight break be made in its binding force, 
 let but even one exception be admitted, and very soon through 
 the fierce snrging of human passion, — t'hrough the constant cravings 
 of the ever restless heart of man, the whole structure will be 
 overturned and society be flooded with countless evils. 
 
 Let us then, dear brethren, firmly hold that Christian marriage 
 is one and indissoluble ; that it is the union of one man with 
 one woman and forever. Let us firmly believe that this is God's 
 ordinance from the beginning of the world, and that this is the
 
 CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE. 131 
 
 law of Jesus Christ, the Legislator of the new Covenant. For us 
 Catholics there can be no hesitation. It is the doctrine of our 
 Church. No matter then what human enactments may be framed, — 
 no matter what laws of divorce may be published, — no matter 
 how few or many — whether one or twenty, — causes of divorce be 
 admitted ia the government of our States, — our duty is plain, — 
 we cannot accept them nor profit by them to break a lawful 
 marriage sanctioned by the Church of God. Our duty is to 
 honor ourselves this great sacrament, and to teach others to prize 
 it by our words and examples. Our duty is to prepare ourselves 
 worthily for its reception and to live worthily in it after its 
 reception : to understand its sacredness and its inviolability when 
 we receive it, and ever after by Christian lives manifest all the 
 true, blessed fruits of Christian marriage : thus fulfilling the words 
 of St. Paul cited in my text. (Eph. v, 22, 23.)
 
 ^bi^^ir^ti^in ^f ^^^$t$. 
 
 SMMOI OF RIGHT REY. S. Y. RYM. D.D., 
 
 EISHOP OF BUFFALO, K. Y. 
 
 ''And a voice came out of the cloud, saying: This is my beloved Son in whom 
 I am well pleased." — St. Luke, c. ix, v. 35. 
 
 THE ineffable mystery of the Incarnation opens to the eyes of 
 faith fiithomless depths of love and mercy. " God so loved 
 the world as to give His only begotten Son." (John, iii, 16.) 
 
 We love to gaze in spirit at the ravishing beauty of that 
 divine countenance. We love to contemplate Jesus, the God Man, 
 coming forth from the throne of His eternity, clothed with all the 
 splendor of divinity, " the splendor of His Father's glory, the fig- 
 ure of His substance," and we stand enraptured with the three 
 privileged disciples on Mount Tabor, where we see Him trans- 
 figured. His countenance as bright as the sun, His garments white 
 as the driven snow ; and yet, my brethren, it is in His character of 
 Master, Teacher and Legislator that the Eternal Father presents 
 Him to our view. " Behold my beloved Son in whom I am well 
 pleased, luar ye Him." 
 
 In this character, then, we must consider Him. Jesus came 
 to be our Saviour, to teach to us the truths of faith, to make 
 known to us the ways of eternal life. " I am the way," He says 
 of Himself, "the truth and the life." (John, xiv, 6.) "I am 
 come that ye may have life, and may have it more abundantly." 
 (John, X, 10.) " This is eternal life, that they know Thee, the only 
 true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent." (John, xvii, 3.) 
 " If thou wouldst enter into life, keep the Commandments." (Mat., 
 xix, 17.) Thus Jesus spoke, thus the well-beloved Son of the Father 
 
 (132)
 
 lit. J!ec. S. V. Ryan D.D. 
 
 lit. liev. E. P. mul/iams, D.D. 
 
 lit. liev. L. i>. Mcilahon, D.D. 111. Rev Francis McNeirny, D.D. 
 
 HI. Eev, James A. Ileahj, D.D. 
 
 lit. Rev. John Vet tin, D I), 
 
 lit. Jlev. J. /lademacher, D.D, 
 
 lit. Rev, Thomas A Becker., D.D,
 
 THE OBSERVATION OF FEASTS. 133 
 
 taught all through His public ministry, after His glorious resurrection, 
 and even to the clay " when, giving commandments by the Holy Ghost 
 to the Apostles whom he had chosen. He was taken up." (Acts, 
 i, 2.) The mission of Jesus was not to close with His mortal 
 life. His office of Teacher, Master and Law-giver was to be per- 
 petuated down through the ages. He came to save all men, and 
 " there is no other name under heaven whereby we can be saved 
 but the name of Jesus." Belief in His revealed truths and obedi- 
 ence to His laws are made the essential conditions of salvation. 
 " He that believeth not shall be condemned." " If thou wouldst 
 enter into life keep the Commandments," These truths must then 
 be taught, these Commandments made known and enforced, and 
 hence Jesus bequeaths His powers with His divine mission to the 
 Apostles. "As the Father sent Me, I also send you. Going, 
 teach all nations, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever 
 I have commanded you." And thus Jesus is to-day, in this nine- 
 teenth century, as truly and as certainly our Teacher, Master and 
 Legislator as when from that bright overhanging cloud the Father's 
 voice proclaimed, " This is My beloved Son, hear ye Him." The 
 Church of God was thus to continue His mission ; and as her 
 mission was not to invent new doctrines, nor to reveal new 
 articles of faith, but sacredly and jealously to guard the deposit 
 of faith, unerringly to explain and interpret revealed truth, and 
 infallibly to define faith and morals ; so, in like manner, her office 
 is not to make new commandments, though invested with all need- 
 ful authority to legislate for her children ; her office is not to 
 impose new burdens on the consciences of her children, but rather 
 to expound and interpret and enforce the divine law ; and hence 
 the precepts of the Church are generally only determinations of 
 God's commandments, more explicit, full and detailed reiterations 
 of what God's holy law commands. This is obviously the case 
 in regard to the commandments of the Church, to which I have 
 been requested this evening to direct your thoughts, and to which, 
 because of its vital importance, its vast far-reaching influence 
 on society, on the religious and moral character of the people, I 
 would most respectfully ask your serious attention. The first com- 
 mandment of the Church is, then, the sanctification of the Lord's 
 day and religious festivals — to hear Mass, and rest from servile 
 work on Sundays and holydays of obligation.
 
 134 SEBMOIIS OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 In order not to trespass too much on your kind indulgence, I 
 will try this evening to confine myself to the consideration of the 
 obligation incumbent on all Christians of keeping the first com- 
 mandment of God's Church and the means of observing it, the 
 grounds on which it rests, and the duties which it imposes. Besides 
 the observance of the Sabbath, under the Jewish dispensation, other 
 festivals w^ere by God's own command to be kept holy, religious 
 rites and other holy sacrifices were prescribed on other days 
 besides the Sabbath. So, also, from the earliest ages, the Chris- 
 tian Church instituted and religiously solemnized various feasts, 
 differing in different countries, and varying according to times and 
 circumstances, principally intended to keep in grateful and loving 
 memory the chief mysteries of our blessed Saviour's life, the glories 
 and prerogatives of His immaculate Mother, the example and heroic 
 sanctity of the saints. These religious festivals are often epochs 
 in our lives, hallo^ved by sweetest memories, to which we look 
 forward W'ith pleasing anticipation ; to which we look back with 
 unmingled pleasure. Blessed festivals, they are green, refreshing 
 oases in the desert of our dreary, plodding life, and not a doubt, 
 but they tend materially to keep alive the spirit of piety, to 
 impress more deeply on Christian souls the great mysteries of 
 religion, to serve as outposts to guard the citadel of faith ; and 
 hence we should ever cherish these festivals of our Church, and 
 although I may not stop now to dwell upon the wisdom of tlie 
 Church in instituting festivals, more or less directly connected with 
 the leading mysteries of faith, or to urge the many pressing 
 motives that should impel dutiful children to be faithful in the 
 observance of these religious holydays, it will suffice to say that 
 we are bound under pain of mortal sin to observe them as the 
 Church commands, in virtue of the ecclesiastical precept, by hearing 
 Mass, and resting from all unnecessary servile works, unless when 
 compliance with the precept would entail a grievous inconvenience, 
 amounting to a physical or moral impossibility. 
 
 Apart from the strict obligation of obedience to the precepts of 
 the Church, the pious Catholic will never fail on them to assist 
 at the offices of the Church, to renew his fervor and rekindle de- 
 votion, and reap for himself the rich harvest of grace and spiritual 
 blessings attached to their religious observance. We must ever 
 remember with St. Augustine, "that no man can have God for
 
 THE OBSERVATION OF FEASTS. 135 
 
 liis Father who has not the Church for his mother." Obedience 
 to the Church is identical with obedience to God; "He that hears 
 you, hears Me." 
 
 The observance of the precepts of the Churcli will be the criterion 
 of our fidelity to the divine law, and this in turn will be the true 
 test and measure of our love of God. " If you love Me keep 
 My Commandments." 
 
 But, my dear brethren, we are principally concerned Avitli the 
 •observance of the Sunday, the Christian Sabbath — only premising 
 that the general observance of the Sunday throughout the Chris- 
 tian world is a glorious testimony to the authority and traditions 
 of the Church of God — for only to her authority and her vener- 
 able traditions can the Christian appeal in justification of the law 
 abrogating the Jewish Sabbath and substituting the Christian 
 Sunday. Tliis substitution implies not only the abrogation of the 
 Jewish Sabbath day, but it implies that the ancient provisional 
 dispensation lias been replaced by the new and more perfect law 
 of grace, that the Church has supplanted the Synagogue, that 
 Christ, who came not to destroy the law but to fulfill it, having 
 entered into His rest, has become the Mediator of a better 
 testament, the High Priest of the new alliance, and that the 
 priestliood of Aaron has been succeeded by the everlasting priest- 
 hood of Christ; that the sacrifices of the old law have been 
 superseded by that "one oblation of the body of Christ by which 
 He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified," by that one 
 pure and holy sacrifice, which, according to the prophet, " from 
 the rising of the sun to the going down thereof shall be offered 
 to the name of the God of Hosts." 
 
 The Christian Church, prescribing for Christians the observance 
 'of the Christian Sabbath without trenching on the substance of 
 the divine law, has made it obligatory upon us to hear Mass 
 and rest from servile work. Though the observance of the par- 
 ticular day and the ceremonial rites has been altered and abrogated, 
 the law itself of keeping the Sabbatli holy substantially remains. 
 The obligation of observing this divine law in substance and in 
 spirit has not been and could not be abolished; resting on the 
 imprescriptible law of nature itself, it goes back to a higher 
 source than any mere positive enactments. 
 
 Learned doctors, and among them the Angel of the Schools,
 
 136 SERMONS OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 regard the duty of observing a certain fixed day, recurring at 
 regular intervals of about seven days, as appertaining to the 
 moral law, imprinted by the Creator's hand upon the human soul. 
 The antiquity, universality and unanimity of its observance by all 
 nations and peoples and tribes and tongues, from the cradle of 
 the human race to our own day, prove it rooted in our very being, 
 flowing from the first principles of reason, born of primitive 
 instincts, and consequently the obligation of observing it we can 
 neither ignore nor repudiate. To this law of nature was super- 
 added a positive command of God even before the written tablets 
 were given on Sinai's Mount. Even anterior to the patriarchal 
 times the Sabbath was kept holy. From creation's dawn, when 
 the morning stars sang together and the sons of God made joyful 
 melody in praise of their Maker, the voice of man was attuned 
 to the music of the spheres, praising the Eternal in thanksgiving 
 for the great benefit of creation, commemorating the Maker's rest 
 from His work. 
 
 This divine ordinance thus imprinted on the heart of man, 
 thus universally recognized and observed, received an additional 
 sanction, a new promulgation amid the thunders of Mount Sinai, 
 and became, as it were, divinely and indestructibly stereotyped 
 when the finger of God sculptured in stone the command, 
 " Remember thou keep holy the Sabbath day." 
 
 Thus this divine Commandment comes to us with holiest sanc- 
 tions, and this law of God our Maker, our Master, our Sovereign 
 Lord, who can claim the homage of our whole lives, and to whom 
 all our days and years belong on the title of creation, so unde- 
 niably sacred in its origin, so variously promulgated, so divinely 
 sanctioned, it were surely a grievous sin to disobey. 
 
 To this law the Church of God has added a new consecration. 
 In the Christian disi)ensation the Christian Sabbath commemorates 
 a work infinitely transcending the material creation — the work of 
 redemption consummated and crowned by the resurrection of Jesus, 
 sealed by the pentecostal advent of the divine Spirit ; and there- 
 fore the Church adds her sanction to the law inaugurating her 
 work of saving souls made in the image of God, redeemed by 
 Christ, sanctified by His Holy Spirit, and thus consecrating to 
 the ever adorable Trinity a day already on so many titles sacred.. 
 Whether, then, we consider the authority which commands it or
 
 THE OBSERVATION OF FEASTS. 137 
 
 the glorious mysteries clustering around and hallowing it, we 
 cannot fail to realize the sacredness of the day therein blessed and 
 the obligation of keeping it holy. 
 
 Well, then, may we repeat that this law of sanctifying the 
 Sunday conies to us with the very highest and holiest sanctions — 
 the law of nature dictates it, primordial revelation enjoins it, the 
 positive law of God prescribes it, the ecclesiastical law commands 
 it. But this obligation is incumbent on society as well as on 
 individuals. That is, man, not only as an individual person, but 
 as a member of society, must pay homage to God. It does not 
 suffice to praise God in private ; we must worship God in public. 
 Deists as well as Christian doctors teach that the obligation of 
 public worship, of worshiping God in public, and not merely in 
 private, is of the very essence of the law of nature. Hence w'e 
 find that this unalterable law of consecrating one day in the w^eek 
 to the public worship of God, Christian society has everywhere 
 recognized and enforced, and so from earliest Apostolic times the 
 observance of the Sunday became of civil as well as ecclesiastical 
 precept. 
 
 Civil rulers in all Christian lands, following the lead of the 
 first Christian emperor, have accepted, sanctioned and enforced the 
 universal ordinance of God's Church, and, therefore, besides all 
 this solemn sanction already mentioned, the sanctification of the 
 Sunday has the sanction of the civil law. 
 
 This brings us at length to the second most important, because 
 most practical, consideration : How are we as Christians bound to 
 sanctify the Christian Sabbath? The authority tliat has transferred to 
 the Sunday its binding obligation is unquestionably the best quali- 
 fied to determine the nature, conditions and extent of the obligation 
 imposed, and therefore, though ours is not a Jewish or a Puritan 
 Sabbath, it Avere a great mistake, it were indeed a pernicious 
 error to suppose that the Catholic Church could sanction, connive 
 at, or in any way be made responsible for the sinful desecration of 
 the Sunday by those who set at defiance the law of God and her 
 own solemn injunction, declaring the Sunday holy, prescribing for 
 its due observance not only rest from servile work, but attend- 
 ance at divine worship — the holy Mass. 
 
 Whilst we can have no sympathy with the gloomy, cheerless 
 and fanatical spirit that would take all the sunshine and joyous-
 
 138 si:emojvs of the third plenary council. 
 
 ness out of a day commemorating events that make every Chris- 
 tian soul thrill with religious joy, a day gladdened by the glory 
 and triumph of the risen Saviour, a day made bright by the 
 advent of the spirit of light and life coming to irradiate the 
 Christian world, and to inflame all Christian hearts, yet we must 
 say that we rejoice exceedingly to see the general observance of 
 the Sunday in our cherished land, and we congratulate our fellow- 
 ■citizens of all religious denominations at this evidence of Chrisianity 
 and this glorious tribute to Christian faith. 
 
 "We devoutly hope and we fervently pray that our fellow-citizens 
 of all religious denominations may ever jealously guard this point 
 of revealed faith, and that the spirit and the law of our land 
 may ever be in harmony, as it is now, with the spirit of the 
 Church and the laAV of God. Catholics, surely, who recognize the 
 Church as the spouse of Jesus Christ, the organ of the Holy 
 Spirit, the divinely commissioned interpreter of God's holy law, the 
 infallible teacher of faith and morals, can have no excuse for the 
 profanation of a day which she commands her children to keep 
 holy. To spend in dissipation, riotous excesses, debauchery or 
 sinful indulgence the day consecrated to God and claimed by Him, 
 on so many titles, were indeed a crime, a sacrilege, and an out- 
 rage on public morality. No wonder, then, that zealous pastors, 
 holy Popes, Provincial and Plenary Councils should most earnestly 
 exhort the faithful to fidelity in the observance of the Sunday ; 
 no wonder that they should raise their voices, and, in sharp, clear 
 and ringing tones, denounce abuses by which the Sunday is pro- 
 faned, God robbed of the homage due Him, faith, " that cometh 
 by hearing," imperiled, the Word of God neglected, the public 
 conscience debauched and society demoralized. Religion reprobates 
 these scandalous abuses, and all good men, irrespective of religious 
 .creed or political affinity, should frown down the attempt to change 
 the religious Sabbath rest of the Lord's day into public carousing 
 by the unrestricted sale and excessive use of intoxicating drink, 
 by promiscuous excursions, picnics and other similar demoralizing 
 public nuisances. 
 
 Whilst, then, we would enter a solemn protest against the 
 growing tendency of assimilating the Sunday to the ordinary week 
 days, and thus forcing the laboring classes, the poor but noble sons 
 of toil, to forego on the Sunday needed rest of mind and body,
 
 THE OBSERVATION OF FEASTS. 139 
 
 robbing them of needed relaxation, which the law of nature and 
 nature's God, as well as the law of God's holy Church, legiti- 
 matizes and approves — to fulfill a duty of conscience in the in- 
 terest of religion and morality, and for the honor of our holy 
 mother Church, we must raise our voice against a still more 
 crying evil, and abuse more to be deprecated, that of making an 
 exception in favor of Sunday commerce in intoxicating drink, thus 
 making this a privileged traffic, and those engaged in it a favored 
 class, while imposing restrictions on and prohibiting on the Sun- 
 day all other honest trades, all other honorable avocations by which 
 men gain their livelihood. This, we fear, would be to invite the 
 profanation of the Lord's day, to expose our good people, and 
 especially the young, to dangerous occasions; in a word, to open 
 such places of business on the Sunday, just as on the ordinary 
 week day, is to put a premium on the sale of liquor, to encourage 
 the vice of intemperance, and open an avenue to licentious ex- 
 cesses of all kinds on the Sunday. This no Christian community 
 could tolerate ; this no man who loves his country or his kind 
 will sanction ; this the Catholic, who has the honor of his Church 
 and the salvation of souls at heart, must reprobate. Catholics, 
 distinguished, as they confessedly are, for the religious observance 
 of the Sunday, should tolerate nothing that has even the appear- 
 ance of evil, or that might appear to bring a stain on the fair 
 name of their holy Church. And think not, dear brethren, that in 
 thus enforcing the sanctification of the Sunday we are innovating; 
 think not that it is only the pastors and the Popes and the councils 
 of to-day that insist on the strict religious observance of the Sun- 
 day; believe not that this is an invention of narrow-minded fanaticism 
 or bigoted Puritanism. Such legislation is thoroughly Catholic, it 
 breathes the very spirit of Christianity, and the Church from the 
 earliest ages has insisted upon the stringent and religious observance 
 ■of the Sunday. From the earliest ages pastors of the Church and 
 civil magistrates were at one, acted in concert in enforcing the ob- 
 servance of the Christian Sabbath. At the solicitation of bishops of 
 the Church laws were enacted by the Roman emperors protecting 
 the faithful against scandalous and criminal diversions on the Lord's 
 day, and in the year 425 the Council of Carthage petitioned 
 the Emperor Theodosius to protect tlie people against similar 
 abuses. The great St. Charles Borromeo, the ter-ceutennial of whose
 
 140 SEEJIONS OF THE THIRD PLEXARY COUXCIL. 
 
 blessed death, in unison -with the whole Christian world, we cele- 
 brated but a few days before the opening of our council, in at 
 least two of his famous Councils of jNIilan, positively declares that 
 sotting in taverns and ale-houses on Sundays and festivals is a most 
 criminal and scandalous sin. A Council of Cologne in 1536 orders 
 taverns to be closed, and no riotous or excessive drinking on Sun- 
 day to be tolerated. In 1557 a Council of Paris ordained the 
 same in almost identical terms. Thus we find that the Church 
 of God, from the very commencement, has insisted mo^ urgently on 
 the avoidance of those things that are calculated to scandalize 
 others, or may become a source of danger and of sin to her own 
 children, and in doing so she has but interpreted and enforced 
 the divine law, " Remember thou keep holy the Sabbath day," and 
 faithfully expressed the mind and will and law of Jesus Christ, 
 who declares that " He came not to destroy the lav/ but to fulfill 
 it," to perfect it, to Christianize it. 
 
 For the unsought and unexpected honor of being able during- 
 this great Plenary Council of ours to raise my humble voice ta 
 plead for the strict observance of a law of our holy Church, 
 wliich we hold to be of the last importance, for the preservation 
 of the faith, for the growth of the Church and the prosperity of 
 religion in these United States, I am most thankful. To spend 
 the Sunday in sinful dissipation and scandalous profanation is a 
 sacrilege, an insult to God, on a day by Himself called holy ; it 
 is, too, an outrage on Christian morals, whose tendency is to 
 blunt the moral sense of the community and destroy the last 
 remaining vestige of respect for revealed religion and Christian 
 faith. It begets a spirit of lawlessless and contempt for all 
 authority — civil, ecclesiastical and divine — enjoining the observance 
 of the Sunday, and hence it is a loosening of the very foundation 
 of society ; and, therefore, it behooves all good men who have 
 the interest of society and religion at heart, to pause and reflect 
 whither this growing disregard for the sacredness of the Christian 
 Sabbath is leading us. For Catholics, however, it is not enough 
 that the Sunday should not be a day of sin and sacrilege and 
 a Sabbath of Satan ; it must not be a day of idleness and sloth 
 and a Sabbath of the brute irrational beasts ; it must in reality 
 be a holy day, sanctified by the holy observance wliich the Church 
 commands, and did time permit I would fain dwell a few moments
 
 THE OBSERVATION OF FEASTS. 141 
 
 upon that holy Mass which we are bound to hear, and which 
 the Church prescribes in order to sanctify the Sunday. I can, 
 my dear brethren, only call your attention to the fact that this 
 holy Mass gives to God true divine homage, fulfills all the ends 
 of sacrifice, enables man to discharge the obligations of adoration, 
 thanksgiving, propitiation and supplication which he owes to God, 
 and thus the pure oblation, foretold by the prophet, supersedes 
 all the ancient sacrifices, and becomes the source of blessing and 
 of heavenly grace to the Christian world. 
 
 Let us then, my dear brethren, faithfully keep the Sunday 
 holy; it is truly the Lord's day; let us then consecrate the day, 
 and not simply a half hour of it but the whole day, as far as 
 possible, to Him to whom it belongs, in the spirit of Christian 
 faith and Catholic piety, according to the prescriptions of the 
 Church of God, and thereby give glory to God, edification to our 
 neighbor, and bring grace and salvation to our own souls.
 
 ^»itft mt\ %tum, 
 
 SERMOI OF EiaHT REY. J. 1. WATTERSOI, D.D.„ 
 
 BISHOP OF COLUMBUS 
 
 THE subject assigned to me by the Most Rev. Apostolic Dele- 
 gate, " The Education of the Laity," was a very congenial one 
 to me ; but, as much of my ground was covered by his Lordship 
 of Peoria in the discourse you listened to last night, it has been 
 suggested to me to change my theme. I trust, that what I will 
 therefore say to you this evening on another topic will be neither 
 uninteresting nor uninstructive, especially in these days of ration- 
 alism and naturalism, in which religion seems to consist in giving 
 as much as possible to man, and as little as possible to Almighty 
 God. 
 
 A great number of persons, particularly young persons, are 
 governed by fashion in the formation of their opinions. Some, 
 without any pains to form opinions for themselves at all, allow 
 their language and outward actions to take their form and coloring 
 from those with whom they associate. Many a young man has 
 been fool enough to say, not in his heart, but with his lips, 
 " there is no truth in revelation," because he hoped to gain eclat 
 by the bold impiety of his language. Many another, without 
 knowledge, without examination, without reflection, has scoffed at 
 all belief in miracles and mysteries, in order to win the name 
 of thinking for himself and bowing to no authority, but that of 
 his own individual reason. Irreligion is fashionable, and therefore 
 contagious. Incredulity is tempting, as the shortest Avay to a very 
 pitiful kind of Ingersollian distinction. This evil, the bad legacy 
 of three hundred and fifty years of disputation, doubt and denial 
 
 (142)
 
 HI. Rev. \Vm. Geo. McVtoskey, D.D. 
 
 Kt. R'ev. F. Jamsens, D.D. 
 
 m.liev. W. M. \Mrjger,D.D. 
 
 ml^mr^ 
 
 
 at. Rev. John V. Neraz, D.V. 
 
 
 ^H^" :^!^H 
 
 B 
 
 Rt. Rev. Henry Cosgrove, D.D. 
 
 Rt. Rev. 11. p. NoHhrop, D.D. 
 
 m. Rev. N. A. aaUafjkti\ D.D. 
 
 Rt. Rec. J>. Manuoj, D.D. 
 
 Rt. Rev. V. 1'. Maes, D.D,
 
 FAITH AND REASON. 14S 
 
 in religious matters, is not yet completely exorcised. This anti- 
 Christian spirit, though often rebuked, is not yet banished. A long 
 period must elapse, before the world will see again what has been 
 briefly, but happily, described as an age of faith, an age in which 
 all the civilized nations of the earth will form a Christendom 
 once more ; when all Avill be united in the belief of the same 
 religious truths and in the bonds of a common Christian charity 
 and a common Christian brotherhood. We may salute that blessed 
 epoch from afar ; we may long for its advent, and each one in 
 his own way and measure do something to hasten its return ; but 
 no one of us may reasonably hope to witness its arrival, and then 
 sink to rest in peace with the nimo dimittis on his lips : " Now 
 dost Thou dismiss Thy servant, O Lord, in peace, because mine 
 eyes have seen Thy salvation." But it seems to me, that we are 
 advancing towards it. The spirit of doubt and denial has nearly 
 run its course ; and it is time for the human mind, worn and 
 desolate with its long and weary flight over the ocean of uncer- 
 tainty, to return to the ark of salvation, which is its only 
 resting-place. The idolatry of reason, of man's individual reason, 
 must succumb at last, like the old pagan idolatries, to the divine 
 authority of faith. 
 
 Attempting to show you this evening the utter inadequacy of 
 reason, whether as a substitute for faith, or as the judge and 
 arbiter of faith, I have not the slightest fear, that I will lay 
 myself open to the charge of being an enemy of reason. To the 
 right use of reason I am not opposed. To reason herself I can 
 have no hostility. In fact I am going to appeal to reason 
 throughout the course of my observations. It is the abuse of 
 a good thing, it is the idolatry of reason, that I oppose; and 
 it is a most criminal abuse of reason to attempt to substitute 
 her teachings for the revelation of Almighty God, or to make her 
 the judge of Him and of His infallible declarations. 
 
 There is a philosophy, which, fixing itself on the firm basis 
 of revelation, so far as religion and morals are concerned, is con- 
 tent with hunting arguments and illustrations from history, analogy 
 and experience, in fiivor of the truths which it reveres. It knows 
 full well that the supernatural is far above the sphere of its con- 
 tracted powers ; that its true province is the wide field of nature, 
 in which it has room enough to expatiate and employ in fruitful
 
 144 SERMONS OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 researcli its principles of natural science, which would only be 
 misapplied, if brought to bear upon the supernatural. It is no 
 iiireverent scrutinizer of majesty ; it does not strive, with rash 
 and impious hand, to lift the veil of mystery, but, approaching 
 the sanctuary of God, the Holy of Holies, it bows in humble 
 adoration before His throne, and acknowledges His supreme au- 
 thority. This is the right use of reason ; this is true philosophy. 
 
 But there is another philosophy, which, professing not only 
 ignorance, but also disbelief of all revealed truth, undertakes to 
 give us the speculations of pure, unaided reason, as all-sufficient 
 to guide us through this life and prepare us for the next ; and 
 this is the substitute which is kindly offered us for that religion, 
 which has civilized and reformed, enlightened and blessed mankind. 
 Now, my dear brethren, it cannot be wrong to examine what 
 titles to our respect and confidence are possessed by this bold 
 pretender ; what certain truths requiring our belief, what lessons 
 of wisdom to be reduced to practice, have been taught or can 
 be taught by this mere philosophy of reason. 
 
 The most important and deeply interesting questions to the 
 human mind are those which concern the nature, attributes and 
 providence of God, our relations with Him and our duty towards 
 Him, our origin, tlie purpose of our present existence, our future 
 destiny and the causes of the evils which surround us. These 
 are the great problems Avhich reason has tried to solve from the 
 very dawn of history to the present day. Now, what progress had 
 she made towards a right solution of any one of them ? Can it 
 be shown that of herself she ever discovered one single, solitary 
 truth regarding even one of them ? On the contrary, is it not 
 certain to a demonstration, that she has fldlen into the most 
 serious errors on each and every one of them ? Every scholar 
 will admit, that the wisest and best of the philosophers of pagan 
 antiquity did but little credit to reason by their researches into 
 these matters. Their ignorance and blindness surprise us ; their 
 degrading errors seem to us almost inconceivable. Yet it must be 
 observed, that while the mistakes and absurdities, which abound in 
 their speculations, are their own, whatever fragments of truth may 
 be found amid their masses of error are just as certainly not their 
 own, are not discoveries of reason, but vestiges of revelation. It 
 is one thing for reason to discover a ' truth, and quite another
 
 FAITH AND REASON. 145 
 
 tiling to recognize the form and lineaments of truth in that which 
 is proposed to her as such. We would laugh at the silly arro- 
 gance of the man who would pretend to have discovered the 
 propositions of Euclid or the theory of Newton, merely because he 
 believed in them and could repeat their demonstrations. 
 
 Reason herself, though unenlightened by revelation, cannot deny, 
 on the contrary, must admit as a probability at least, that our 
 Creator, at the very origin of our race, may have manifested 
 .something of His wisdom, power and goodness to His rational 
 and therefore responsible creatures, may have prescribed their 
 duties to Him and to each other by imposing laws upon them ; 
 may have held out to them the hope of rewards and the fear 
 of punishments hereafter. Now, this is precisely what we know 
 to have been done on the testimony of the inspired writings, 
 which give us an authentic account of the facts, and are corrob- 
 orated by all the monuments and traditions of our race. I read 
 a book some time ago, called "La Bible saiis la Bible/' ("The Bible 
 without the Bible,") written by the Abbe Gainet, in which he 
 shows that, even though the records of the ancient Testament had 
 perished, all the salient facts that are chronicled in the book of 
 Genesis regarding the general welfare of our race, would be sub- 
 stantially known to us from the monumental and traditionary 
 history of the various nations of the globe. The dogmas of the 
 existence of the Creator and Ruler of the universe, the necessity 
 of sacrifice, priesthood and religious worship generally, the immor- 
 tality of the soul, future rewards and punishments, and the fall 
 and promised restoration of our race, were not the fruits of 
 philosophic inquiry. Revealed by the Almighty to our first parents, 
 to be transmitted to all their descendants, found among the most 
 rude and barbarous as well as the most civilized and refined 
 nations of tlie ancient world, they were the common inheritance 
 of the human race, the traditionary religion of mankind. In the 
 course of time, however, that same neglect and indifference, which 
 are still exhibited by so many, and to which every man is liable, 
 if he is not faithful to the grace of God, the power of passion 
 and vice to darken the mind, and the pride of reason exercised 
 about things entirely above her sphere of comprehension, gradually 
 so dimmed and weakened the remembrance of these great truths 
 of primitive revelation, blended with them so many errors and 
 
 10
 
 146 SERMONS OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 absurdities, and engrafted so many superstitions on them, that the- 
 fair image of trutli was barely to be recognized in the monstrous 
 systems of polytheism and idolatry, which prevailed in every nation 
 but one of the ancient world, and which still prevail, wherever 
 the Christian revelation is not yet received. Look, for example,, 
 at China and Japan. It is the boast, that their books and public 
 schools antedate Christianity itself. They are intellectually cultivated 
 and commercially prosperous, and have been so for centuries and 
 centuries. Their philosophy has been studied with interest by 
 keen observers, and yet with all their enterprise and culture, they 
 are still groping in the darkness and groveling in the filth of 
 the most abominable idolatry. 
 
 The philosophers of the Grecian States and of the Roman 
 Empire were certainly men of the highest genius and ability. 
 While the world lasts, the monuments they have left us will bear 
 witness to their herculean and collossal powers of mind. Indeed 
 it is claimed, that the human intellect, in point of natural reason,, 
 attained its highest excellence in the old pagan days. The heathen 
 philosophers were acute, subtle, earnest, eager, energetic, persevering 
 in their search for truth. They devoted themselves, body and 
 soul, heart and mind, to moral, metaphysical and theological 
 investigations. In their ardent inquiries they could discern absurd- 
 ity and folly in the religion which they practiced ; and by visiting- 
 in person, or collecting the reports of travellers who had visited 
 the East, they occasionally caught some echoes of the faith of a 
 chosen and separate people, who worshiped one only God in 
 spirit and in truth. And yet, with all their adv'antages, they 
 were only groping in the dark ; and their own conclusions were 
 so far from satisfying their minds, from appeasing the mighty 
 hunger of their souls, that we find them all confessing their 
 doubts, uncertainty and ignorance, and some of them openly 
 declaring that reason had utterly failed, that philosophy could not 
 enlighten them, that there was no hope for man but in a revela- 
 tion from above. They never dreamed of reforming the popular 
 religions of their respective countries. They might as well have 
 attempted to command the tempest, chain the winds or check the 
 tides ; for, supposing them to have had what they unquestionably 
 had not, tlic will to sacrifice themselves in such a cause, and 
 the power to force un2)alatable truths upon unwilling multitudes,.
 
 FAITH AND REASON. 147 
 
 who were ready to stone or burn them for their pains, they had 
 no truths to teach, no doctrines which they firmly believed, even 
 on the first and what are sometimes called the fundamental points. 
 They had done what man, left to himself in this dark world, 
 could do to arrive at truth. We know the state of their minds, 
 the extent of their knowledge and their ignorance ; for their opin- 
 ions are recorded in their writings ; and we confidently summon 
 them as witnesses to prove the utter insufficiency of reason to 
 guide us through this life or prepare us for the next. 
 
 Let us select one or two of tlie questions, which are obvi- 
 ously most important and Avould necessarily claim the first atten- 
 tion ; for example, the doctrine of God, Creator of all things. 
 This tenet was originally revealed, and was always believed by 
 those who retained that pristine revelation. By arguing from effect 
 to cause they were able to reason out the existence of God Avith 
 the natural power of intellect alone ; but the proper attribute of 
 creative power was too great, too vast for the comprehension of 
 unaided reason ; and that pure, simple and sublime idea of om- 
 nipotence, which the Israelite and Christian acquire in childhood, 
 never entered the minds of the wisest sages of antiquity. To 
 create is to make out of nothing, to draw into being from no 
 being, from a state of possibility to actual existence without any 
 pre-existing materials whatsoever. Now, reason by herself could 
 not conceive how anything could be created in the proper sense 
 of that term. Matter exists ; therefore it must have existed from 
 all eternity. It might be shaped or fashioned into diiferent forms, 
 differently combined, variously modified, as it is on a small scale 
 by the hand of man, or the machinery of man's invention; but 
 drawn from nothing ! called into being by the fiat of Almighty 
 will ! reason by her own efforts never reached this sublime, but 
 now familiar belief. This may seem to some a purely speculative 
 question ; but there are practical consequences of the highest mo- 
 ment, resulting from the utter failure of reason to realize the 
 truth of a God Creator. For, according to any system of phi- 
 losophy or to any religion, save that revealed to us, God was 
 not regarded as the Creator of man in the proper sense of that 
 term; and man, therefore, did not look upon himself as the 
 creature of God. He did not owe his existence to God, but at 
 most his form and mode of being. This is evident from the
 
 148 SEBMOI^S OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL 
 
 old pagan fables concerning the origin of man. He could not, 
 therefore, call God his Father. He knew not whether the Deity 
 cared for him or not. He might fear His superior power, but 
 he could not love Him. The idea of loving Him never entered 
 his mind. Having read a good many of the pagan writings, I 
 confidently assert to-night, that, in the whole range of the Greek 
 and Latin classics, there is not a phrase to show that the first 
 and greatest Commandment, " Thou shalt love the Lord, thy God, 
 with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with all thy 
 strength, and all thy mind," was ever thought of by them. 
 And looking at the evils, to which he was subject, the miseries 
 of that condition, in which the Deity had placed him, and the 
 apparent moral disorder of the world, man could scarcely feel 
 that he owed either gratitude or love to a Supreme Being, whom 
 he did not know as his Creator and his Father. No, my dear 
 brethren, in all the loftiest flights that philosophy ever took, she 
 was never able to reach the sublime simplicity of that M'ondrous 
 prayer, which we learn from the lips of our blessed Saviour on 
 the Mount: "Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy 
 name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is 
 in heaven." Another practical consequence of the utter failure 
 of reason was an almost total ignorance of the second great 
 command, which is like unto the first : " Thou shalt love thy 
 neighbor as thyself, for God's sake." Hence, that heartless 
 indifference to human suffering, that cruel barbarity, that blood- 
 thirstiness, which disgraced every pagan nation, exhibited by them 
 in peace as well as in war, in the heroism of Horatius, in the 
 patriotism of Brutus, in the cruel treatment of prisoners and 
 slaves, in their inhumanity to women and children, in their human 
 sacrifices, in their bloody gladiatorial shows, and in the practice 
 which universally prevailed, as it still does in China and every 
 nation not enlightened by divine revelation, the practice of ex- 
 posing infants to death as soon as they were born, which both 
 law and philosophy sanctioned among Greeks and Romans in the 
 days of their greatest refinement, and Avhich was never declared 
 illegal, until the first Christian emperor, Constantine the Great, 
 ascended the throne in the beginning of the fourth century of the 
 Christian era. Looking at the frequency of feticide, infanticide and 
 abortion, seeing how shamefully and almost barefacedly they are
 
 FAITH AND REASON. 149 
 
 practiced in our large towns and cities at tlie present day, may 
 we not rationally fear that with all our boasted progress and 
 enlightenment, we are going back to paganism instead of advancing 
 towards the perfection of our race? AVe have all sympathized with 
 the pagan audience that rose in the great Roman theatre one day 
 to applaud this sentiment of an actor: ^^ Homo sum; humani 
 nihil a me alienum puto — I am a man, and feel an interest in all 
 that concerns my fellow-men." Why is it never noted that the 
 Avhole plot of this play of Terence turns on the foct, that the 
 father, who utters this noble sentiment, discovers his child, sup- 
 posed to be lost, because exposed to death in its infancy according 
 to a custom, Avhicli was so well regulated, legalized and sanctioned, 
 that when the new-born child was presented to its father, if he 
 did not take it in his arms, if he turned his back upon it, it was 
 to die as a matter of course ? We hear men in our own days 
 repeating the ancient sentiment : " We are men and think nothing 
 foreign to us that concerns the human race." Humanitarianism is 
 fast becoming a substitute for religion ; and yet, with all our pre- 
 tended philanthropy, rtien, ignoring the fatherhood of God, are fast 
 forgetting the common brotherhood of men, as is evident from 
 the conflicts between rich and poor, capital and labor, authority 
 and obedience, the strikes and riots and revolutions that have so 
 often convulsed society during the present century. 
 
 The idea of creative power being totally lost, all religion might 
 have perished with it, but that the imperfect remains of tradi- 
 tionary truth, the feeling sense, that religion after all is the first 
 great want of humanity, the hunger and thirst of the soul for some 
 object of supreme veneration and worship, the idea of Divinity 
 originally and indelibly stamped on the mind of the whole human 
 race drew men back from the dark gulf of atheism, at least 
 practical atlieism, towards which reason was hurrying them by her 
 restless efforts to measure with her feeble powers the infinite and 
 iflcomprehensible. 
 
 ' Let us interrogate philosophy as to the fruits of her researches 
 on another point of importance and vital interest to all mankind. 
 Divine Providence, a superintending care of the moral and physical 
 universe, was merely a question, on both sides of which reason 
 had much to say. Fate, blind, inexorable destiny, a po\ver superior 
 to gods as well as men, was commonly supposed to be the ruler
 
 150 SERMONS OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 of tliG universe. Moreover, the question of a Providence was com- 
 plicated b}' the want of a clear and firm belief in the unity of 
 God. The philosophers, who listened to the voice of tradition, 
 and thus received an intimation of this important truth, still fell 
 short of any just conception of the relative or moral attributes of 
 the Supreme Being, whose existence and absolute attributes they 
 indistinctly knew. Some regarded Him as the soul of the uni- 
 verse, animating the whole frame of nature ; others as an inert 
 being, indiifcrent to the affairs of men, or committing their gov- 
 ernment to inferior gods. AVhethcr He could be propitiated by 
 man, whether prayer, sacrifice, or any other religious act was neces- 
 sary or could aught avail, they professed themselves utterly unable 
 to determine. The Epicureans released all their gods from every 
 sort of care, and to that extent there are thousands of Epicureans 
 also at the present day. The Stoics thought that man was all- 
 sufficient for himself; and accordingly they pronounced it wealaaess 
 to pray for bodily blessings, and waste of time and folly to peti- 
 tion heaven for the goods of the mind ; and in that sense there 
 are plenty of Stoics also in our own times. The Peripatetics 
 were doubtful and contradictory, and the Academicians ready on 
 this, as on every other point, to maintain either side of the ques- 
 tion. In fact there was more of truth in the popular supersti- 
 tions than in the speculations of philosophy. The peo])le prayed 
 to their false deities ; they called on gods that could neither hear 
 nor help them ; they offered their petitions to beings more vicious 
 than themselves, and oftentimes for objects most unholy. But 
 still they recognized the sacred duty, the principle of prayer. The 
 philosopher, on the contrary, guided by pure reason, scoffed at 
 this divine instinct of our nature ; this in-born tendency of our 
 being ; this universal sentiment of our race. He proposed to rob 
 poor human nature of its last defence of prayer, the language of 
 faith, tlie voice of hope, the cry of weakness and of -want, the 
 only refuge from despair — prayer, tlie bond of union between man 
 and his Creator, the homage which we offer Him in concert with 
 the heavenly hosts that minister round His everlasting throne, the 
 one of all our acts and occupations wliich immediately and of 
 itself prepares and practices and fits us for heaven. And if he, 
 who at the pressent day acknowledges no higlicr phih^sophy than 
 that of reason, does sometimes bend the knee in supplication to
 
 FAITH AND REASON. 151 
 
 his Maker, it is not from any certainty that his philosophy gives 
 him of the necessity or efficacy of prayer ; for how can reason 
 assure him that the Deity wishes to be invoked, or that He who 
 has foreseen, predetermined and predestined all things, will hearken 
 to the petitions of weak and erring mortals ? AYhcn, therefore, he 
 prays, he is obeying a higher voice than that of reason — the voice 
 of conscience, enlightened by some rays of Divine revelation. 
 
 On the question of the immortality of the soul, reason 
 may be expected to speak a more confident language. It 
 is emphatically the faith of the human race. It was clearly 
 revealed from the beginning. The soul, whose immortality is in 
 question, is our own ; and through consciousness we have some 
 .natural knowledge of it as the substance which thinks, remembers, 
 wills, and differs in all its ascertained properties from body or 
 matter. It might then be inferred, without the help of revelation, 
 that the soul is not subject to the decay or dissolution to which 
 the body is liable ; and could only be destroyed by the same 
 Omnipotence which called it into being. Yet human philosophy, 
 by its ceaseless questionings, has been able to overshadow even 
 this subject with its gloomy doubts. The wisest and best men of 
 antiquity affirmed that the soul was immaterial, and therefore 
 indestructible. They shrunk with instinctive horror from the 
 prospect of annihilation ; they fondly hoped to live beyond the 
 grave ; they thought that the universal traditionary belief must be 
 right. At all events they would rather err on this side, if err 
 they must ; they Nvould cherish the delusion, if it were a delusion ; 
 they would cling to the belief in a hereafter, as the only adequate 
 motive and recompense of virtue, the solace of adversity, the sup- 
 port of wronged and suffering innocence, the last hope of trembling 
 humanity. 
 
 Those who are versed in Greek and Roman lore will recognize 
 the argument, while at the same time they will sympathize with 
 the feelings of these ancient advocates of the immortality of the 
 soul ; but, after all, what is the character of this argument ? It 
 is mainly not an appeal to reason, but to the instincts and senti- 
 ments of our race. How different, too, is tliis opinion or persua- 
 sion of theirs from the firm, immovable and unwavering confidence 
 which revelation gives ! How unlike the Christian's " Credo in 
 resurrectionem mortuorum d vitam cetcrnam. Amen — I believe in
 
 152 SERMONS OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. Amen." But 
 philosopliy never did and never will produce a Credo. It never 
 did and never will construct a creed. On this subject it held not 
 so much the language of certainty, as of hope and desire blended 
 W'itli fears and haunted with doubts, which philosophy had not the 
 power to exorcise. For then as now there were those who, vindi- 
 cating the rights of reason, claimed some firmer foundation for their 
 faith and would not believe what did not present to their minds 
 the character of evident and indisputable truth. "We want proofs,'* 
 these philosophers exclaimed : " we want proofs from reason ; we 
 want conclusive arguments addressed to reason ; and you offer us 
 hopes and fears, instinctive feelings, a natural dread of annihilation y 
 you offer us vulgar superstitions, and your crude notions of the, 
 substance of the soul, which we do not feel bound to admit, which 
 you cannot prove true, and which science may hereafter refute.'* 
 
 Pressed by sucli difficulties, the nobler spirits among the old 
 philosophers felt, that reason alone was but a treacherous guide, and 
 turning reproachful looks upon her, and uttering a cry of distress, 
 a prayer for help, took refuge, so to speak, in the temple of 
 hope, resolved to wait there, until their ignorance should be 
 enlightened by some messenger from above. In truth, the strongest 
 testimonies of the absolute insufficiency of reason to determine 
 this and similar questions, abound in the writings of Cicero and 
 Plato, and may be found in the declarations of other philosophers. 
 On this very subject, and after a full discussion of it, Cicero, 
 though persuaded of the immortality of the soul, says in his 
 Tusculan questions : " It would require a God to decide which of 
 the opinions is true : as for ourselves, we cannot even determine 
 which is the more probable." Plato, in his work called Phaedo, 
 had previously put into the mouth of Socrates the following lan- 
 guage, speaking also of the immortality of the soul : " The clear 
 knowledge of these things is in this life impossible, or at least 
 very difficult. The philosopher, therefore, should hold to that 
 which aj)pears more probable, unless he has some surer light, or 
 the word of God Himself to guide him." This is remarkable lan- 
 guage from a pagan ; but stranger still that rationalists of the 
 present day have not risen even to its height. 
 
 Now, we ask whether reason, which could not rise to anything 
 higher than a mere probability, a cherished though possibly a
 
 FAITH AND REASON. 153 
 
 delusive persuasion on a matter so clearly proposed to it by the 
 belief of mankind, could ever have discovered this truth, if it 
 had not been primitively revealed to our race? It is very easy for 
 a man at the present day to say : " My reason teaches me to know 
 and adore God ; my reason teaches me to believe in a Providence ; 
 my reason teaches me to expect an immortal life hereafter ; my 
 reason teaches me this, that and the other thing." He stands on 
 the vantage ground, to which Christianity, not philosophy, has 
 raised him. He lives in the light of divine revelation, though, 
 like some African tribes that we read of, he may curse and 
 blaspheme the luminary that vivifies and irradiates his mind. 
 Had he not been reared in a Christian land, under the influence 
 of Christian ideas, Christian traditions and Christian faith, he 
 might, with that same boastful reason for his guide, be to-day a 
 groveling and superstitious idolator, or at best a doubting and be- 
 wildered inquirer after unknown truth. 
 
 Reason, then, is not that pillar of light which is to guide us 
 safely through the desert of this life to the promised land that lies 
 beyond. We needed a revelation, and a revelation has been given 
 us. Knowing how the wisest and the best of the philosophers of 
 antiquity longed for the dawning of this heavenly light, we would 
 suppose that its appearance was hailed with universal joy. But 
 history tells us quite a diifcrent story ; and the erring reason, the 
 proud, rebellious reason of man, was not the least potent and con- 
 spicuous among the formidable antagonists of early Christianity, just 
 as it is not the least powerful of the adversaries of Christianity at 
 the present day. The Cross of Christ was indeed a stumbling- block 
 to the Jews, but to the Greeks, the educated, refined, the aesthetic 
 and philosophic Greeks and Romans, it was downright folly, as it is 
 downright folly to the £esthetic and philosophic pagans of our modern 
 times. It happened then, as it often happens now, that reason was 
 ready with her line and plummet, her compass and her square, to 
 sound the depths and take all the dimensions of truths, which 
 reached from the highest heavens even to the lowest abyss of hell; 
 and when her line was out, she was sure that she had fathomed the 
 fiithomless, and when her compass was stretched to its very utmost, 
 she was quite sure that she had measured Infinitude itself. It is 
 a great question, no doubt, whether the doctrines of revelation are 
 to be implicitly believed, or subjected to the examination of reason.
 
 154 S£EJIO^^S OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 But to state the question is to solve it. It is the most presump- 
 tuous folly that can possibly be conceived, for man, with the 
 powers of unaided reason, to undertake to determine what God must 
 say, when He speaks to His rational and responsible creatures. It 
 is a most blasphemous inversion of order for the creature to 
 attempt to give laws to the Creator. 
 
 To seize the biilance and the rod, 
 Rejudge His justice, be the God of God. 
 
 It is the finite measuring the infinite ; weak, puny, human 
 reason declaring herself the judge and arbiter of divine, eternal 
 reason. When, therefore, anything is proposed to me with the 
 seal of revelation on it, if my reason cannot fathom it, if it 
 surpass my powers of comprehension, am I, therefore, to pronounce 
 it false and reject it as unreasonable? Would not such a rule 
 as this be destructive of revelation itself? Would it not throw 
 us back into the condition of the old pagan philosophers, lost 
 like them, but without their excuse, in the mazes of human 
 opinion ? What doctrine of revelation could stand such a foolish 
 test ? It has been applied to all of them successively, and as a 
 consequence of its application, all of them have been successively 
 rejected. If it enable you to-day to reject some article of my 
 faith, will it not enable some other man to-morrow to overturn 
 your peculiar belief? And descending step by step through all 
 the grades and forms of religious opinion, must it not inev- 
 itably lead to naked deism? And since there is nothing so 
 incompreheusible as Almighty God Himself, nothing so incredible 
 to reason as creation out of nothing, nothing more difficult to 
 understand than a Being self-existent, infinite, independent, eternal, 
 omnipresent in all space and in every minutest point of space, 
 must it not end by denying Him entirely? What other limit 
 has it than downright atheism ? Reason then is not, in this sense, 
 the judge of revelation. No one is authorized to reject a doctrine 
 simply because he cannot comprehend it. I speak as a Christian 
 philosopher, not in the interest of my own creed alone, or of any 
 peculiar dogma now, but as the advocate of a common Chris- 
 tianity ; and I solemnly denounce a principle, which is not only false, 
 but subversive of human reason as well as divine revelation. Reason 
 herself then, if truly enlightened, will direct us to believe what
 
 FAITH AND REASON. 155 
 
 we cannot comprehend, when its trnth is duly attested. While, 
 therefore, not the judge of revelation, she may be the judge of the 
 evidences of revelation. They who do not comprehend the truths 
 of geometry would exhibit little wisdom in pronouncing them 
 false. The immense majority of men who understand nothing of 
 the "calculation of an eclipse or the return of a comet, or the 
 nature and velocity of wind currents, should not therefore refuse 
 all credence to the predictions of astronomical and meteorological 
 .science. The tribes that live within the tropics are not admired 
 for their extensive knowledge and profound philosophy, when they 
 will not believe that water can become solid, so that men may 
 walk on it, and the huge elephant move securely over its stony 
 surface, though they do not and cannot understand how this may 
 be. The true position evidently is, that our inability " to com- 
 prehend a fact or doctrine does not by itself authorize us either 
 to affirm it or deny it ; but when we have satisfactory evidence 
 of its truth, then we are bound to believe it, whether we com- 
 prehend it or not, Now, the dogmas of revealed religion must 
 surpass our comprehension, because they relate to God and to the 
 future life, which to us are subjects essentially mysterious and 
 incomprehensible. The believer is the first to proclaim that such 
 is their nature. He knows that, if you strip them of their char- 
 acter of mystery, you take away one of the most evident marks 
 of their divine origin. He knows, too, that mysteries are not 
 confined to revelation. The most familiar facts in nature are 
 often the most incomprehensible. The union of soul and body, 
 and their mutual action and reaction on each other, the princi- 
 ple of intelligence and affection in brutes, gravitation, electricity, 
 •galvanism, magnetism, all the so-called known laws of the phys- 
 ical universe, arc so many mysteries, in regard to which we 
 believe the facts that have been ascertained, though we do not 
 and cannot satisfactorily account for them. You all, I trust, hear 
 me to-night. If you do, you know the fact ; you know that my 
 voice puts certain waves of air in motion, and these striking the 
 drum of your ears convey the sounds to your outward sense of 
 hearing and my thoughts to the inward intelligence of your souls. 
 You know the fact of this, but how it happens, neither reason 
 nor science is able to explain. There is not a blade of grass, or 
 flower of the field, or dew-drop sparkling on its leaves, or tiniest
 
 156 SEBMONS OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 insect nestling in its chalice, that may not present to the reflect- 
 ing beholder a multitude of questions, which reason cannot answer. 
 And shall the intellect, which at every turn and every glance is 
 so forcibly reminded of its ignorance and impotence, presume to 
 require of Almighty God a full and perfect explanation of every 
 truth, which He in His wisdom declares to us, before it will 
 condescend to believe His divine attestation? 
 
 There is another point of view in which enlightened reason 
 must admit her perfect incompetency to deal with revelation any 
 otherwise than by submissive assent and lowly adoration. I refer 
 to that most extravagant of all the extravagancies of the human 
 mind, its pretended right to improve or amend, in any manner 
 whatsoev^er, the doctrines and institutions, the system of faith and 
 practice, once declared to us on the part of the Most High. To' 
 believe in Christianity, because its Author was the incarnate Son 
 of God, and its promulgators His inspired Apostles, and then t» 
 maintain that what was divine at the origin of our faith must 
 change and undergo revision and correction, that it may keep pace 
 with the pretended march of intellect, the progress of human 
 knowledge, the material improvement of our race ; to imagine, in 
 a word, that we of the present day can manufacture a better 
 Christianity than the Son of God has made for us and entrusted 
 to our hands is indeed to verify the expressions of the poet, that 
 
 Fools nish ill, 
 
 Where angels fear to tread ; 
 
 And 
 
 Man, weak man. 
 
 Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven, 
 
 As make the angels weep. 
 
 It would be just as rational to pronounce the sun an obsolete 
 and antiquated luminary, quite good enough to give light and 
 warmth and gladness to the world some two or three thousand 
 years ago, but now totally behind the times, utterly unsuited to 
 the increased knowledge, enlarged philosophy and higher wants of 
 this grand and glorious nineteenth century. We might as well cry 
 out: "Down with the sun, and up with Edison and his electric 
 light ! ^' though he has not yet succeeded in making it a respect- 
 able substitute for even the smallest star that twinkles its steady
 
 FAITH AND REASON. 157 
 
 twinkle in the quiet midnight sky. Why, if one of the Apostles, 
 rising from the grave, or if an angel from heaven (we are but 
 repeating the energetic language of him who was wrapped to the 
 third heavens), if an angel from heaven M'ere to offer us a new 
 Gospel, a pretended revelation, differing but in one iota from that 
 which the Son of God has given us, our only salutation to the 
 rash innovator must be anathema. 
 
 Resting on this firm foundation, the believer is delighted with 
 every effort to enlarge the boundaries of science, and hails with 
 joy every new discovery of truth. He never dreams that Chris- 
 tianity can be endangered by the progress of science. He knows 
 that every tenet of Christian faith is an infallible truth, based on 
 the sure authority of Him who has revealed it. How can that 
 which is true ever be proved false ? Or how can any one truth 
 €ver be at war with any other truth ? Truth is truth eternally. 
 The believer may sometimes hesitate to accept the mere theories 
 ■of science. He may question, for a while, the arguments on which 
 they rest ; but as soon as they work themselves out of the region 
 of scientific theory, and work themselves into the region of dem- 
 onstrated scientific fact, they become scientific truths, and no be- 
 liever in revelation can have a moment's fear that religion will 
 in any way be injured by them. Thus the Church hesitated for 
 a, time, to abandon even a mere traditional interpretation of a 
 Scriptural text at the demand of Galileo. The Copernican system 
 Tvas afterwards demonstrated to be objectively true ; but in its 
 theoretic stage it was subjectively uncertain. Some of the argu- 
 ments, which Galileo urged in support of it, were false and had 
 to be rejected; and so the Church, always cautious and conser- 
 vative, hesitated, until the false was separated from the true and 
 the system stood on the solid basis of scientific fact; and then 
 she readily accepted it in its bearing upon Holy Writ. Had 
 Galileo been content to teach the system merely as a theory and 
 to leave the issue to such scientific tests, as would eliminate all 
 uncertainty and doubt, history to-day would be without one of 
 its notable sensations. Again, geology has been urged as contra- 
 dicting the revealed history of the creation of the world. Some geol- 
 ogists have presumed, that the six days of Genesis must be taken as 
 days of twenty-four hours each. The Church, however, the guardian 
 and interpreter of revelation, has never so defined them ; but from
 
 158 SERJlO^^S OF TUB THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 the beginning, as is evident from the opinions of many of the early- 
 Fathers, she has left us free to accept them either as natural days or 
 as indefinite periods of time ; and, waiving the question of the 
 possibility of creation in six days of twenty-four hours each, she 
 leaves the fact entirely to science. Faith is in no M'ise involved ; 
 and geology itself has not yet emerged from its tlicoretic period. 
 "Who imagines that the demonstrations of mathematical science will 
 ever be refuted? Who is afraid that any of the conclusions of 
 geometry will be disturbed by the progress of discovery? Yet no 
 Christian philosopher will pretend that mathematical certainty is 
 higher than the certainty of divine revelation. If this comparison 
 appear bold and hazardous to any one, it can only be because he 
 does not understand the very meaning of the term revelation. 
 He who holds a system of doctrines which he thinks may have 
 been revealed, while he is not perfectly, that is, infallibly certain, 
 that they have been revealed, cannot venture on such a comparison. 
 The reason is obvious. He docs not believe truths divinely 
 revealed ; he entertains opinions about what has been revealed, and 
 these opinions may be partly true and partly false, or wholly 
 true or wliolly false. Such a man is or should be an inquirer, 
 a seeker after the sure and perfect and infallible truths that God 
 has revealed. A believer, a man of Christian faith, he is not 
 and cannot be, as long as a shadow of doubt or uncertainty rests 
 upon his mind. 
 
 But reason still claims to be the judge of revelation, so far 
 at least as to feel authorized to choose among revealed dogmas, to 
 give a decided preference to some, and a cold, if not a contemptu- 
 ous, look to others. According to "this notion, some doctrines are 
 essential and must therefore be believed. Others are unimportant, 
 and you may believe them, if you choose, or deny them, dispute 
 about them, proclaim them false, or treat them as altogether un- 
 worthy of consideration. The first class of doctrines are funda- 
 mental. Tliis is the favorite phrase. They must be retained, 
 because they are supposed to be the foundation, on which the 
 whole edifice of Christianity is based. Admitting the distinction 
 only for the sake of argument, still I would ask, what are the 
 foundations without the superstructure? Surely tlie foundations of 
 a building will be of very little service when the walls and roof 
 and all the other parts are forcibly taken away. But we are
 
 FAITH AND REASON. 159" 
 
 also compelled to ask, liow is reason to determine which doctrines 
 are fundamental and which are not? AVhat appears so to the 
 mind of one man may seem very vmimportant to another ; and 
 experience proves this to be an insuperable difficulty ; for they wliO' 
 have assumed the principle in question have never yet been able 
 to designate precisely the fundamental dogmas of Christianity, or 
 to give such a definition or description of them as may enable 
 us to recognize and identify them when we see them. But the 
 principle is a bad one, not only false and impious, but also 
 clearly irrational ; for it presumes a revelation only to destroy 
 what it presumes. A revelation supposes that God has spoken to 
 His rational creatures ; that He has made known certain things 
 to them which are above their natural comprehension ; that He 
 has declared certain truths, given us certain laws and established 
 certain institutions, to enable us to know and attain the end for 
 which we are created. And is it not blasphemy to say that any^ 
 truths which He in His wisdom has declared to us are of so little 
 consequence, that they may be disputed, denied, spurned with con- 
 tempt? Is it not a bold defiance of the Omnipotent for man to 
 disregard, to set aside as trivial and useless, to nullify on any 
 pi'etext whatever any law that God has given him ? Is it not 
 ingratitude and insult, combined in the highest degree, to make 
 light of and reject any institution, whether the Church in general 
 or the sacramental system in particular, which He, through infi- 
 nite mercy and condescension, has established for our sanctification 
 in this life and our eternal happiness in the next? There is 
 wisdom in the homely saying that " beggars should not be choosers." 
 There is a good deal of rugged truth in the old Shakspearean 
 adage : " Put a beggar on horseback and he is sure to ride to 
 the devil." Only mount the beggar man upon the balky steed 
 of human reason, and it is not hard to tell in what direction he 
 will gallop ; for he has been going in but one direction ever since 
 he cast off the authority of faith. For if it be reason's privilege 
 to play the lord and master with the Word of God, to canvass 
 the merits and demerits of divine truths, to discuss their com- 
 parative value and worthlessness, to sift the supposed wheat from 
 the supposed chaff, to treat them as a pile of rubbish containing 
 some hidden gems, or as a decayed and ruinous and rotten fabric, 
 which must be cleared away to the very foundations before we
 
 160 SER3I0NS OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 can get any good out of it, then I say to you to-night, my 
 dear brethren, welcome deism, welcome atheism, welcome anything 
 else, which will only be consistent with itself and not give the 
 lie to its own silly pretensions ! 
 
 If then we are asked, what is the province of reason in relation 
 to revealed religion, we answer, to seek the light of revelation, if 
 it has not been found, and to follow its guidance, if it has been 
 found. If the farther question is put, how shall reason distinguish 
 and recognize revealed truth; without attempting to give a complete 
 answer to the inquiry now, we will simply say that she must weigh 
 the evidences of revealed religion, but weigh them with prayer as 
 well as study and investigation ; and God, who has said : " Ask 
 and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall 
 be open unto you," will grant the needed gift of faith. Reason 
 has the undoubted right to question and reject whatever comes to 
 her in the guise of mere human opinion. She cannot fairly be 
 required to admit as revealed what does not purport to be such.- 
 All the truths of revelation are unchangeable, infallible, divine. 
 Doctrines which have these characters stamped upon them claim 
 the assent and submission of human reason. AVith anything else 
 she may deal as she pleases. But the unchangeable, infallible, 
 divine truths of revelation are given us from heaven to be accepted 
 and believed, not to be the themes of philosophic criticism or 
 theological speculation. We may indeed examine them so as to be 
 able to "give a reason for the faith that is in us:" but the 
 investigation must be carried on in the spirit of faith and humble 
 adoration.
 
 i 
 
 Bev. Th07Jias Broyderick. 
 
 Rev. John S. Foley, D.U. 
 
 Utx. George W. Veviue. 
 
 Rev. Joseph Graj. 
 
 Rev. J. L. Andieis. 
 
 Very Rev. I'. L. C/iajietle, D.H. 
 
 Rev. li. J. McMaitus. 
 
 Rev 1). J. O'CoiUiM, D.D. 
 
 I en/ RiV. II. Gubriets, DR.
 
 ^i\t 4»tf|alit 4^k^mi\ m i^t '^mid ^\nk^. 
 
 SERMOI OF EiaHT REY. BERIIRD J. HcQUAID, D.D.. 
 
 EISHOP OF ROCHESTER. 
 
 THE growth of the United States Avithin the century of their 
 existence as an independent sovereignty, in population, in 
 <;ommerce and manufactures, in extension and development of ter- 
 ritory, in literature and fine arts, in diffusion of elementary 
 knowledge among the masses of the people, in successful trial of 
 government of the people by the people, is unparalleled in the 
 history of the world. 
 
 Scarely had peace between the mother-country and the thir- 
 teen revolted colonies been declared, after a trying and bloody 
 struggle of seven years, than the emancipated colonists resolutely 
 set to work to construct a form of government that should keep 
 in view the best and largest interest of the people while strongly 
 upholding law »and order. These colonies threw wide open their 
 vast domain and invited the oppressed and down-trodden of Eu- 
 ropean countries to enter into possession. There were forests to be 
 felled and fields to be broken up and cultivated. There was no 
 room for the idler, the drone or the dreamer. It was a new 
 country of immense resources for the hardy sons of toil. It offered 
 the freedom and dignity of self-respecting manhood to lovers of 
 liberty and independence. 
 
 The readiness with which the invitation was accepted is known 
 to all. From every country and from every class of life the bravest 
 and most venturesome, longing for escape from the thraldom of the 
 old countries of Europe, flocked to the shores of the young Republic. 
 The narrow strip of seaboard running from Massachusetts to Georgia 
 
 1^ (161)
 
 162 SERMONS OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 rapidly widened westward to the Mississippi, and thenj without more- 
 tlian a temporary break, reached to the Pacific. It is a mighty 
 empire bounded by the two oceans, the great lakes on the north and 
 the gulf on the south. The three millions of revolutionary days 
 have increased to the fifty-five millions of to-day. The thirteen 
 colonies are replaced by thirty-eight States. The experiment of gov- 
 ernment by the people has withstood successfully rude shocks, serious 
 defects, conflicts of material interests, even a civil M'ar. All avenues 
 of advancement to wealth and honor have been thronged with the 
 children of intellect and industry. The home, the freedom and the 
 prosperity promised in the invitation have been found by millions. 
 The dire forebodings of eventual disruption and ruin have come 
 to naught. The predictions of anarchy to befall a government so 
 largely entrusted to the people have not been verified. The old 
 country first pitied us, tiien fought us, and again defeated, feared 
 us. It is now compelled, most reluctantly, it is true, to learn 
 from us the advantage and necessity of entrusting to the people a 
 larger share in the direction and control of political affairs. Ours 
 is a government of the people by the people, in the largest sense 
 consistent with the maintenance of good order and the equal rights 
 of its citizens. 
 
 It is assigned to me to speak of the growth of the Catholic 
 Church in a country such as the one here described. 
 
 In no better way can I place before you the growth of the 
 Church than by grouping the statistics of Church M'ork, such as we 
 have them, at three periods of the century just ended. 
 
 1. The condition of the Catholic Church in 1784. 
 
 2. Her progress after fifty years, in 1834. 
 
 3. The Church as she is to-day, in 1884. 
 
 In 1783 the number of Catholics, according to Bishop Carroll's- 
 calculation, as quoted by Shea, might amount in Maryland to six- 
 teen thousand souls ; in Pennsylvania, to seven thousand ; and in 
 the other States, to fifteen hundred ; not as many all told as may be 
 counted to-day in a single parish in some of our large cities. 
 Mass Avas commonly celebrated in private houses. There were few 
 or no churches. There was no bishop, and in the judgment of 
 the eighteen or twenty missionaries who ministered to the spiritual 
 M'ants of these scattered members, as expressed in a letter to 
 Home, there was no need of a bishop, inasmuch as a vicar
 
 THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES. 163 
 
 apostolic, in spiritualibus, Avould suffice. There was no college, 
 school, asylum or hospital. Of religious communities of men or 
 women there was not one. It is a bare picture on a large can- 
 vass that is here presented to our view. 
 
 The See of Baltimore was erected by Pius YI on the 6th 
 day of November, 1789, and in 1790 its first Bishop, Rev. John 
 Carrol], was consecrated. The establishment of a hierarchy placed 
 the Churcli in America in line with her sister Churches in other 
 parts of the world, and gave her officials a rule to work by. In 
 a diocese tlie bishop is the recognized conservator of Catholic faith 
 and morals, in unity and harmony with the head Bishop of the 
 Universal Church. With this first bishop began the regulation of 
 discipline and the founding of institutions needed for the growth 
 and stability of the Church as an organized body. 
 
 Bishop Carroll, and others after him, planned to place bishops 
 in every extended geographical district. It was rightly judged that 
 these bishops would give a start and direction to the Church's 
 work from the beginning. In this sense Bishop Connolly, of New 
 York, \Yrote to the Cardinal Prefect of the Propaganda on the 28th 
 of February, 1818: " Bisliops ought to be granted to whatever 
 State here is willing to build a cathedral, and petition for a bishop 
 as Norfolk has done." On the 31st of October, 1818, he wrote 
 to Archbishop Marechal : '' I approve of erecting Charleston into a 
 bishopric, tind wish that every one of the seventeen United States 
 had each a bishop." Indeed there was no delay in carving up 
 the country with episcopal sees ; bishops sometimes preceded the 
 priests. There were only four priests in New York when Bishoj) 
 Connolly came to his diocese ; two in that of Charleston, com- 
 prising the States of North and South Carolina and Georgia, when 
 Bishop England took possession of his allotted district; the same 
 number preceded Bishop Brute's arrival at Vincennes. At a later 
 date. Bishops Loras and Miles prepared the way for the coming 
 of the first priest into the Dioceses of Dubuque and Nashville. 
 
 Vast territory, slow and tedious modes of traveling, few helpers 
 in the work, the poverty of the Gospel fell to the lot of our 
 American pioneer-bishops. That they were apostolic men of God 
 no one can doubt. They were eminently far-seeing and hopeful 
 laborers in an unbroken and rough field — in a wilderness of 
 spiritual destitution.
 
 164 SERMONS OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 Six prelates met for the holding of the first Provincial Coun- 
 cil of Baltimore in 1829, and ten for the second in October, 
 1833. Their work, as seen in the decrees of these councils, gave 
 evidence of wisdom, prudence and learning, in adapting discipline 
 to the peculiar circumstances in which they, their priests and the 
 faithful under their care were placed. From the first tlieir thoughts 
 and efforts were directed towards the education of tlie young. 
 Colleges and academies sprang into existence ; Christian free 
 schools, such as are known to-day, for want of religious commu- 
 nities, devoted to the education of the people's children, languished 
 when set agoing and were few in number. The duty of providing 
 churches, ever so small and poor — mere shanties and log-cabins 
 oftentimes — engrossed the time and means of bishops. 
 
 From the beginning of the century until 1834, Catholics who 
 had known suffering and persecution in Maryland and Europe, 
 moved among their fellow-citizens quietly and with exceeding hu- 
 mility and meekness. They were specially careful not to offend 
 their separated brethren, and received in return becoming pity 
 and tolerance. No one feared tliem ; they were so few in num- 
 ber, so inconsequential and so anxious not to offend. The condi- 
 tion of tolerance was accepted as a boon rather than demand the 
 right of equality before the law to which they were born. 
 
 About this time, however, the steady influx of immigrants 
 from all the countries of Europe, but chiefly of Catholics from 
 Ireland, the building of large and costly churches in important 
 cities, as here in Baltimore and in New York, the opening of 
 colleges and convents, the multiplying of bishops and priests, 
 turned pity into fear. The Fathers of the second Council refer 
 to this change of feeling and treatment in their pastoral letter. 
 " We notice with regret," they write, " a spirit exhibited by 
 some of the conductors of the press engaged in the interests of 
 those brethren separated from our communion which has within a 
 few years become more unkind and unjust in our regard. Not 
 only do they assail us and our institutions in a style of vitupera- 
 tion and offence, misrepresent our tenets, vilify our practices, 
 repeat the hundred-times-refuted calumnies of days of angry and 
 bitter contention in other lands, but they have even denounced 
 you and us as enemies to the republic, and have openly pro- 
 claimed the fancied necessity of not only obstructing our progress,
 
 THE CATBOLIG CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES. 165 
 
 but of using their best efforts to extirpate our religion.'^ This 
 is a mild arraignment of an exhibition of fanatical bigotry that 
 suddenly burst on the Church. Secular and religious press alike, 
 and all the pulpits fr.om Maine to Louisiana, weekly and oftener 
 poured out torrents of rancorous abuse and calumny, and left 
 unused no art or device with which to fan the flame of religious 
 hate and passion in the minds and hearts of their readers and 
 hearers. In the August of 1834 the answer to this temperate rebuke 
 of the bishops was the setting fire to the convent of the Ursuline 
 Nuns of Charlestown by citizens of Boston town and vicinity. 
 Gallant men burned over the heads of defenceless women and 
 school-girls their rightful home, even as less than a century before 
 savage Indians, wrought to rage by many wrongs, had set ablaze 
 the huts and cabins of the early settlers in Massachusetts. 
 
 While noting this phase of intolerance as a hindrance to the 
 growth of the Church within the first half of the century, it will 
 not be out of place to refer to the continuance of the same spirit 
 of opposition, amounting to persecution, which furiously manifested 
 itself in 1844 and in 1854. This malevolent spirit deepened and 
 grew bolder among our non-Catholic fellow-citizens as soon as our 
 numbers, wealth and activity arrested attention by the building 
 of churches, convents and schools. These outbursts of malignant 
 hate and fear were like to the upheavings of volcanoes ; slumbering 
 for years, suddenly masses of fire and burning stones shoot into 
 the air, and, falling, roll in hot streams down the side of the 
 mountain, carrying devastation in their path. 
 
 The angry passions engendered by persistent onslaughts in press 
 and pulpit, outrageous calumnies, unmanly insinuations, fearful 
 forebodings and warnings of evil to come upon the country 
 at a time when it was struggling into existence, prepared the 
 minds of bigots for barbarous deeds. Maria Monk's " Disclosures," as 
 the utterances of an abandoned woman were called, the stock in 
 trade of venal book-publishers and fanatical parsons, deceived and 
 led astray many who honestly desired to live at peace with their 
 neighbors. The riots and burnings of 1834 were the outcome of 
 years of guilty misrepresentation. In 1844 politicians, always 
 dragging their nets in foul waters, thought they saw political cap- 
 ital in the still seething religious ignorance and prejudice prevalent 
 among the people. The bad elements already existing among our
 
 166 si:e3ioi\^s of tub third plenary council. 
 
 own population had been considerably augmented by recent arrivals 
 from Europe, too ready to revive in America the religious 
 wars in which they had been engaged at home. The Philadelphia 
 riots, church burnings and murders followed as a consequence. 
 Disturbances in other parts of the country broke out at the same 
 time and from similar causes. The riots and murders of 1854 
 were akin in character and cause to those of 1844 ; they had 
 their source in religious rancor and political scheming trading on 
 the passions of ignorant bigots. There were no riots in 18G4. 
 The civil Nvar, just ending, had put a stop to the diabolical ma- 
 chinations of bigots and politicians. Men who had stood shoulder 
 to shoulder in the hour of danger, who had rested side by side 
 under the shelter-tent, had learned forbearance and mutual respect, 
 and to treat with contempt the old-time calumnies and all who 
 uttered them. The politician's objection to Catholics because they 
 were foreigners was valid as against Columbus in the mind of the 
 aboriginal natives, and will end only when America forgets the 
 hospitality she owes to the down-trodden of the world, and which 
 the progenitors of her citizens of to-day had received in their 
 turn. The reign of insults and wrongs that lasted from 1830 
 to 1860 proved a formidable hindrance to the advance of the 
 Church. The timid, the ill-instructed, the ambitious, the vain, 
 feared to belong to a body of so little esteem in the world's 
 eye, and fell away. Fanaticism and proselytism worked hand in 
 hand. Money was lavishly spent in perverting the minds of the 
 young. The spenders of it thought that they were doing God's 
 work. Because the enemies of the Church arc not working on 
 the same lines to-day, it is not to be inferred that the battle is 
 over, and that all danger has passed. 
 
 But the main cause of defections must be looked for in the 
 years from 1784 to 1834, and be attributed to the scarcity of 
 priests and churches. Bishop England, of Charleston, in a letter to 
 the Society of the Propagation of the Faith in France, estimated 
 these losses at three millions and a-half at the time of his 
 writing, in 1839. He gives, however, no trustM'orthy data on which 
 to base such a conclusion, and I cannot but consider it as greatly 
 exaggerated. Yet it must be confessed that the number of those 
 that lost the faith, or, that having no means of hearing the "Word 
 of God and of receiving the helping graces of the sacraments,
 
 THE CATIIOLIG CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES. 167 
 
 lapsed into indifference, is startlingly great. Even when parents 
 never apostatized, their chiklren succumbed to the influence of their 
 surroundings, and learned to despise and deny the belief and prac- 
 tices of their parent's religion through the adverse and malignant 
 pressure of companionship and daily intercourse with revilers of 
 Catholic doctrines. Social seductions and fashions overmaster the 
 young and lead them captive. When mixed marriages in such con- 
 ditions of society intervened to increase the danger, the children 
 had no hope and were invariably lost. AVithout Catholic lessons 
 at home, with neither Church nor priest to teach and support 
 them, they fell an easy i)rey to the vigilant and zealous labors 
 ■of the enemies of the Catholic Church. In spite of all disadvan- 
 •tages and losses from peculiar and unavoidable evils, the Church 
 made headway. The French emigrant priests driven to our shores 
 by the revolution of 1789 were men of learning and piety. They 
 had passed through the fires that try men's souls. Their zeal 
 •was unbounded, and their success was marked in holding many 
 Catholics to the practice of religion and in winning the esteem and 
 good will of non-Catholics whose antagonism they disarmed. 
 Chevereux and Matignon, Dubois and Brute, Flaget and his com- 
 panions in the West, Dubourg in the South, and the Sulpicians 
 who chose Baltimore for their field of labor, performed noble work 
 and laid broad and solid foundations. Nor should we forget to 
 ispeak a word of praise of the Society of the Propagation of the 
 Faith, established in Lyons, whose generous and unfailing pecuniary 
 lielp came to the assistance of the American Church in her days 
 of struggling infancy. It was this help which set a-going dioceses 
 and institutions and enabled bishops and priests to live while 
 seeking after the wandering sheep of a widely scattered flock. 
 
 By 1834, after fifty years of faithful perseverance under 
 most trying difficulties, the Church of the United States Avas able 
 •to show an archbishop, eleven bishops, two hundred and fifty 
 priests, about thirty colleges and academies, but not a dozen 
 parochial schools for the half million Catholics who comprised our 
 population at that time. This exhibit may not strike one as very 
 xemarkable, but its merits should be judged by the greatness of 
 the sacrifices, the zeal of the laborers, their small number and 
 limited resources. 
 
 Between 1830 and 1850 the tide of immigration began to set
 
 168 seemoj^s of the third plenary council. 
 
 ia strongly. Poverty, famine and revolutions swelled the crowds of 
 fleeing emigrants. Disasters at sea and long voyages could not 
 hold back men and women whose hearts were turned toward the 
 promised land. The first immigrants coming in large numbers 
 were from Ireland. Of all the peoples of Europe they were the 
 best fitted to open the way for religion in a new country. Brave 
 by nature, inured to poverty and hardship, just released from a 
 struggle unto death for the faith, accustomed to the practice of 
 religion in its simplest forms, cherishing dearly their priests whom, 
 they had learned to support directly, actively engaged in building 
 humble chapels on the sites of ruined churches and in replacing 
 altars, they were not appalled by the wretchedness of religious 
 equipments and surroundings in their new homes on this side of 
 the Atlantic. The priest was always the priest, no matter where 
 they found him, or from what country he had come ; the Mas& 
 was always the Mass, no matter where it was offered up. They 
 had liv'ed among the bitterest of foes and had never quailed or 
 flinched ; misrepresentations and calumnies, sneers and scorn, made 
 no impression on their faithful hearts. Men who prefer death to 
 denial of Clirist are not cowards or traitors. In such a school 
 of discipline they had been trained to do missionary work. They 
 and their descendants have not in a new hemispliere unlearned 
 the lessons taught at home. 
 
 Quickly following the Irish came the Germans from all parts of 
 the fiitherland. They, too, were a sturdy race, able to hold their 
 own. Many of them had also known persecution for religion's 
 sake ; most of them remembered the stories of bloody times which 
 had come down to them among the traditions of their hearths. 
 They were prompt to rival their Irish brethren in building up the 
 Church. At home they had their old parish churches, with the chants 
 and ceremonial, which lend to religion much that is consoling and 
 instructive. The religious traditions and glories of the old land 
 they have sought to emulate in this. Better than all, they have 
 stood fast by the duty of maintaining Christian schools for Chris- 
 tian children. There is much that they can copy from the Irish, 
 and much that the Irish can learn from the Germans. Both have 
 bravely led the way in the Church's march. All the other nation- 
 alities of Europe can kneel at their feet and imbibe salutary and 
 profitable lessons.
 
 THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES. 169 
 
 Before proceeding to account for losses to the Church, even dur- 
 ing tliis favorable period from 1834 to 1884, a brief summary of 
 statistics, as found in Sadlier's Directory, will show at a glance 
 what has been accomplished in church work. 
 
 A Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, the Most Eminent 
 and Illustrious Archbishop of New York ; an Apostolic Delegate, 
 the Most Reverend and Illustrious Metropolitan of this See of 
 Baltimore ; thirteen other archbishops, and coadjutor archbishops, 
 and sixty-one bishops and vicars apostolic rule over God's Church 
 in this republic ; 6,835 priests, under the leadership of these 
 successors of the Apostles, in 7,763 churches and chapels, feed 
 their flocks with the bread of life and devotedly care for their 
 souls. In 708 seminaries, colleges and academies, the higher 
 education of clerics and of the youth of both sexes is carried 
 forward by learned professors and accomplished nuns. Many 
 thousands of brothers and sisters, of all the teaching orders and 
 communities, assist these priests and jierform a part that, without 
 their services, would be left undone. Our orphans, the aged, the 
 abandoned, are sheltered in 294 asylums, and our sick are 
 nursed in 139 hospitals. The crowning glory of the Church's 
 work, however, is derived from her success in providing, not for 
 the exceptional members of her household, the few who are 
 bereaved, sick and helpless, but for the many who constitute her 
 army of able, active and self-maintaining members. For the children 
 of the Catholic community, for the offspring of the parents who 
 build churches, asylums and hospitals, she has within these fifty 
 years built and she now sustains 2,532 Christian schools, in which 
 secular learning is imparted without sacrificing instruction in the 
 belief and observances which the Lord commanded His Apostles 
 and their successors to preach to the end of time. During the 
 year 1883, 481,834 pupils frequented these Christian schools, built, 
 fostered lovingly and supported for the people's children without 
 aid from the State. The charity which comes to the relief of the 
 sick and the fatherless is beautiful indeed, and the blessing of 
 heaven falls hourly on those who tend and those who help; but 
 the duty of instructing the many, the hope of the future, cannot 
 be omitted without punishment in this world and the next. 
 
 The Directory estimates the Catholic population at 6,623,176. 
 It is easy to see that these figures are not based on correct
 
 170 SEE3I0NS OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 information. The editor fulfills his task in accurately counting 
 up the numbers sent to him. But estimates of population, year 
 after year the same, in rapidly growing dioceses, must be at 
 fault for they are clearly wide of the mark. An estimate that 
 Avould place our Catholic population at eight millions, would, in 
 my judgment, not be far from the truth. A few years lience, 
 with priests in abundance, having pai'ishes restricted within terri- 
 torial limits, so that a pastor may be able to know his parish- 
 ioners, and when baptisms, marriages and deaths are faithfully 
 recorded and reported, it may be possible to reckon our numbers 
 without guessing. 
 
 The dry figures here submitted for consideration give no ade- 
 quate idea' of the amount of work performed during these fifty 
 years. They do not tell of the sacrifices of the poor people who 
 furnished the money, often drawing out of purses all but empty ; 
 they do not tell that the stone church of to-day, monumental in size 
 and beauty of architecture, replaced an humbler one of brick, which 
 in its turn had displaced the first modest wooden structure ; they 
 do not tell that driven by State monopoly in school teaching, up- 
 held by unlimited expenditures of money from the public treasury, 
 Catholics are forced to make their school buildings and furniture 
 unnecessarily expensive and grand ; that needless costliness is forced 
 upon them to maintain the honor and good name of their schools 
 in the face of State extravagance ; they do not tell that the bur- 
 den and the cost of these churches and schools have for the most 
 part fallen on poor people and poor priests ; they do not tell of 
 the many priests that, broken in health and spirit, sank into 
 untimely graves, victims to toil of body and anxiety of mind 
 more than nature could endure. 
 
 Again, the bald figures summing up the number of cathedrals, 
 churches, colleges, convents, etc., do not convey an idea of the 
 character of these edifices. There are among them edifices which 
 Europe of modern days cannot, equal in size, grandeur and com- 
 pleteness. What has Europe to place by the side of the New York 
 cathedral as her contribution to church building in the nineteenth 
 century? Look at the seminary buidings at Overbrook, Baltimore, 
 Boston; at our collegiate buildings in the East and in the West ; 
 at convents and monasteries innumerable ; at our charitable institu- 
 tions. These arc not State buildings erected with money from the
 
 THE CATHOLIG CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES. 171 
 
 ■State treasury. The people's pence and the personal sacrifices and 
 savings of priests, brothers and nuns have built them. Not much 
 help has come from our rich members. They testify what can be 
 accomplished by a believing flock when untrammelcd by govern- 
 mental interference. Free and unhampered, upheld by the fidelity 
 and generosity of the masses of her children in Christ, growth 
 -and prosperity have marked the course of the Church along every 
 line of work — in every agency and force. If material and intellec- 
 tual America can point with exultation of soul to its marvellous 
 accomplishments, so can spiritual and intellectual Catholic America 
 hold up its head as not unworthy of its predecessors in the faith 
 in any country and in any age. If non-Catholic America can with 
 just pride call attention to its colleges and universities, the noblest 
 of modern times in wealth of endowments, the gifts to learning of 
 its millionaire friends and patrons, so can Catholic America bespeak 
 •consideration for what zeal, devotion and the generosity of the poor 
 have brought into existence. In this study of successful work we 
 must ever keep in mind who Avere the workers and what was 
 the treasury from which the required millions were drawn. 
 
 With the proof here presented of large and substantial growth, 
 giving well-founded hope of continuance and permanence, the Catho- 
 lics of the United States can face their brethren in any quarter 
 of the world and bid those whose surroundings are at all like 
 ours to compare work with work, success with success, loss with 
 loss. We frankly admit that we have not always held our own. 
 But we in America do not take reproof from our brethren in 
 Europe with amiability and good grace. Many of the Christians 
 they have turned out on our shores have not been models of piety 
 and holiness; nor does the light of faith burn brightly in their 
 souls. They accept the services of religion as a compliment to the 
 priest rather than as a necessary fulfillment of duty. They must 
 be helped rather than be a help. Thousands already perverted by 
 the soul-destroying influences of secret societies and the demoral- 
 izing notions of socialism, so prevalent in Europe, impede our 
 onward course. Our humble Catholics are amazed at the loose- 
 ness of principles in the hearts of many who come to us, and are 
 disedified. We cannot but ask : Are there no losses to the Church 
 on the other side of the ocean? Corrupted in faith and morals 
 before they leave home, they bring corruption with them.
 
 172 SEE3I0^^'S OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 The hindrances to our growth in the first half of the century , 
 were not unknown in the second half. The one which came from 
 the low social standing of Catholics in most parts of the country, 
 little by little yielded to claims that could not be ignored. 
 Wealth, education and refinement asserted their rights. Political,, 
 commercial and professional pre-eminence, in many quarters, told in 
 our favor. Members of our Church were of marked distinction in 
 every walk of life — on the bench, at the bar, in the medical pro- 
 fession, in the army and navy — wherever brightness of intellect and 
 capacity for work are needed they are to be found. Even in the 
 political arena, while their religious connection does not advance 
 their interests, it is ceasing to be an actual impediment, and it is 
 discovered that political punishment for religious belief is becoming 
 a dangerous experiment. 
 
 AVhilc all admit that the social status of our numbers has- 
 changed for the better in cities and towns, it is highly satisfactory" 
 to know that in rural and agricultural districts, where so many 
 of our body are found to-day and where their homes will be 
 greatly multiplied in the future, our farmers and their families win 
 the respect due to their worth and useful citizenship. They can- 
 not be, nor are they, despised. When known, they advance in the 
 esteem of their neighbors. 
 
 Misrepresentations and evil reports still are heard, but news- 
 papers that care for their reputation do not repeat fiilse charges 
 that will not be believed by their readers. Fair play and a love 
 for the truth on the part of non-Catholics have put a stop to- 
 low abuse of their neighbors and associates in business, whom 
 they know to be honorable and upright men, and whose wives and 
 daughters they know are pure, gentle and amiable. The people's 
 good sense reformed pulpits and newspapers. 
 
 Church contentions and squabbles, having their origin in a 
 faulty understanding of the rights and duties of the clergy and 
 laity in the management of temporalities and money transactions, 
 have led to heavy losses. When the century began men's minds 
 were warped by non-Catholic ideas with regard to the tenure- 
 of ecclesiastical property. It was thought that the freedom and 
 independence in political affairs, common in the country, should 
 extend to church matters. Good Christians were easily led astray 
 by one or two cunning and infidel minds in a congregation. Ant
 
 THE CATHOLIG CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES. 173 
 
 occasional mistake or blunder on the part of an ecclesiastic served 
 ivs an excuse for fault-finding. But in what other profession or 
 in what other line of commercial and monetary transactions have 
 the mistakes been so few and tlie failures so infrequent? And 
 when ecclesiastics have blundered in business concerns, has it not 
 been because other responsibilities than those rightly within the 
 sphere of their work have been assumed by them? The better 
 to understand the cogency of this argument, it is no more than 
 just to remember that hundreds of millions have passed under 
 the control and use of priests within the half century. It is 
 simply a marvel that in the handling and disbursing of these 
 large sums of money so little has been lost and so seldom have 
 pastors forfeited the confidence of their flocks. Pastors can do 
 nothing without the co-operation of their parishioners, and soon 
 learn that a wise appreciation of the rights of those who freely 
 open their purses at the call of religion or charity best secures 
 a generous response. Both then work hand in hand for God's 
 glory; the frictions incidental to human nature are little noted, 
 and the few in a congregation who are ill-disposed find no encour- 
 agement from the majority. This well-ordered and happy condition 
 of church management, based on the proper consideration of the 
 rights and duties of priests and people, is a gratifying note of 
 stable growth. 
 
 It is often remarked that a country which does not furnish a 
 supply of priests for its altars will lose the faith. This saying 
 oannot be predicated of a new land into which thousands and 
 hundreds of thousands are year by year flowing. These immigrants 
 must bring their priests with them. But when the newly arrived 
 families have had time to settle down in their new homes the 
 developing of vocation begins. No one fosters piety and zeal for 
 God's honor in a child's soul like a devout, God-fearing mother. 
 You cannot have homes in which the Christian virtues are culti- 
 vated without vocations to the priesthood and the religious life. 
 In our young republic vocations abound. Our preparatory and 
 theological seminaries are filled with promising aspirants to the 
 work of the sanctuary ; our convents are thronged with holy virgins 
 bringing to the service of religion whatever of bodily strength, 
 intellectual capacity and devotion of soul they have to oifer and 
 that can be used. Our schools would be empty buildings but for
 
 174 SFBJIOXS OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 the armies of teaching Brothers and Sisters who fill' so well the- 
 office of instructors. Here, too, is evidence of fiiith and stability. 
 
 Christian families demand Christian schools. The father and 
 mother most exact in the religious education of their children are 
 the most earnest in providing Christian schools. Their own efforts 
 to teach their young ones convince them of the necessity of the 
 every-day school to supplement and enforce their words and lessons^ 
 Parents who rarely give a lesson to their children are the loudest 
 in protesting against schools strictly Catholic. They do not know 
 the value of a child's soul, often as they may have heard that Christ- 
 died to save it. 
 
 Scarcely had the work of building churches for our rapidly 
 increasing population been taken in hand by priests and people 
 than a yet heavier task was imposed on them. Churches might 
 suffice for the elders of the flock, who, trained to religion in a 
 Catholic atmosphere at home, could neither be cajoled nor deterred 
 from its practices ; but what was to become of children growing 
 up in an atmosphere not simply innocuous, but positively dangerous 
 and hurtful. Bishops and priests were most unwilling to 
 add to the burden already weighing down their congregations. 
 They sought, as well in justice they might, that a portion of 
 their own money paid to the State might come back to them. 
 Unkindly, rudely, contemptuously, their reasonable request was 
 spurned. Politicians and parsons were our fiercest antagonists. 
 When passions are aroused it is useless to argue. The passions 
 of a nation cool slowly. There were some Catholics who hoped 
 that an education purely secular might be made to answer. No 
 doubt it will give to the children -of secularists the husks of 
 education — all they ask. They wonder that Catholics seek for more. 
 They cannot comprehend our doctrine that the school for the child 
 is as necessary as the church for the parent. Without further 
 argument or dispute, but, nevertheless, grieving and groaning under 
 the wrong put upon us by process of law and tlie vote of the 
 majority. Catholics gathered their children into their own schools, 
 that therein they might breathe a Catholic atmosphere while 
 acquiring secular knowledge. Without these schools, in a few 
 generations our magnificent cathedrals and churches would remain 
 as samples of monumental folly — of the unwisdom of a capitalist 
 who consumes his fortune year by year without putting it out at
 
 THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES. 175 
 
 interest or allowing it to increase. The Church has lost more in 
 the past from the want of Catholic schools than from any other 
 cause named by me this evening. The 2,500 schools, with a half 
 million of scholars, which now bless our country, tell Catholics and 
 non-Catholics that the question of religious education is settled, so 
 far as we are concerned. The good work so well advanced will 
 not halt until all over the land the children of the Church are 
 sheltered under her protecting care. The establishment of these 
 schools and their improvement in management and instruction is 
 our surest guarantee of future growth and fixedness. 
 
 The gross exaggerations of writers who substitute imaginings 
 for facts, in asserting that millions upon millions of our Catholic 
 people have lost their faith, are not deserving of much notice. 
 The immigrant who landed on our shores faced two dangers which 
 affi'ighted him. If, in the early days of our history, he sought 
 a home out in the agricultural districts, there was neither churcli 
 nor priest ; if, deterred by dangers to his faith from settling on 
 farm-land, he clung to cities and factory towns, he lived without 
 a home and his children perished in infancy, victims to the mis- 
 eries of tenement-life. The immigrants of to-day can find healthful 
 homes in all parts of the United States near to churches, schools 
 and priests. They have no excuse for settling far from a church 
 or from a neighborhood that will soon be blessed with one. 
 
 I bring to a close my allotted task. No one more than my- 
 self feels how inadequately it has been executed. Compressing so 
 extensive a subject into a small compass has been difficult. Memory 
 goes back to early days in our history. My first lessons in re- 
 ligion came from some who were among the pioneers of the 
 Church in our country. My first years of priesthood were spent 
 as a missionary in New Jersey. While journeying through this 
 district, hunting up the stray sheep of the fold, the experience 
 was acquired that without churches and schools our children, and 
 especially those of mixed marriages, would be lost. No doubt every 
 missionary's experience has been the same. 
 
 But what a change since those days ! There were among the 
 first bishops and priests men who conceived and planned great 
 things for the Church's welfare ; their plans when enunciated seemed 
 visionary, the speculations of dreamers, of impracticable Avorkers. 
 A few years demonstrated that their plans were insufficient and
 
 176 SUMMONS OF TEE TEIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 too restricted for the wants of the country. We plan to-day with 
 the light of the past to guide us. Another generation may smile 
 at our narrowness of vision and weakness of heart. 
 
 A noble duty, worthy of a man's labor and life, the building 
 up of Christ's Church in a great, growing and free republic, falls 
 to our lot. God and country, most dear to us, claim love and 
 service. It is for us to help say to the world that government 
 of a free people by the people, whose conceptions of morality are 
 based on God's law, can safely be entrusted to the people, and 
 that this largeness of trust gives ample scope to the Christian's 
 ambition in furthering a sacred cause. No man's help is beneath 
 consideration. The humblest layman, the very child in the school, 
 their capable and devoted teachers, they who pray in cloisters, mis- 
 sionaries who live in the saddle, priests who minister in crowded 
 cities, professors in our seminaries, bishops who rule, have each and 
 every one a part to take. What glowing words of praise may 
 justly be spoken in commendation of our predecessors! They 
 fought the good fight, they laid a solid foundation, they showed the 
 way, they illustrated their teachings by their lives. Let us not 
 prove unworthy of them and their examples.
 
 lit. Iter. L.M.Ftnk,D.D. 
 
 lit. Rev. John B. Brondel, D.l). Most Rev. J. B. Salpointe, D.l). 
 
 Hi. li'ev. iJdwanl Filzcjerald, D,D. m. Rev. R. tSeidenbusli,, D.l). 
 
 Rt. Rev, T. L. Grace, D.D. 
 
 tit. Rev. M. iMartij, D.Ik 
 
 Rt. Rev. James O' Connor, D.D. 
 
 III. Rev. J. J. Hogan, D.D.
 
 %l\it $mxfm 4 tl}^ M^^^^ 
 
 SERMOH OF RIGHT REY. E. FITZGERALD, D.D., 
 
 BISHOP OF I.ITTLE ROCK, ARK. 
 
 "For Christ, being present a High. Priest of the good things to come, by a 
 greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this 
 creation : neither by the blood of goats nor of calves, but by His own blood, 
 entered once into the sanctuary, having obtained eternal redemption." — Heb., 
 c. ix, V. 11-12. 
 
 BEHOLD I am with you all days even to the consummation of the 
 world." The abiding presence of Christ in His Church, my 
 l)rethren, may be considered from two points of view. We may 
 regard it as the Mind enlightening her and guiding her unto all 
 trath; or as the Heart giving her life, strength, courage. Of Christ 
 regarded as the Light of His Church, you have heard several 
 times these days past from this pulpit; for, if the Church teaches 
 with infallible authority and if we are bound to listen to her 
 voice it is because He is with her, and " whosoever hears her 
 hears Him." Of Christ, the Life of His Church, ever present 
 with her in the sacraments, but more especially in the Sacrifice 
 of the Eucharist, which is the Heart of Catholic worship and 
 action, I shall offer you a brief consideration this morning ; for, as 
 the heart receives and again distributes the vital current throughout 
 the bodily frame, so from the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, wiiich 
 is one with the cross, do wa receive all grace and strength, and 
 through it do we pay back to God that worship of adoration, 
 ])raise, thanksgiving, prayer and expiation which we owe to Him. 
 The Mass, the highest act of our worship, is most sacred in the 
 eyes of the Catholic for what it is in itself; and for the ven- 
 erable ceremonies with which the Church has environed it as a gem 
 in its setting. Even to the non-Catholic it will be a subject of 
 
 12 (177)
 
 178 suhmons of the third plenary council. 
 
 great interest If he reflects that it is the public worship of 
 400,000,000 of civilized people on the face of the globe to-day; 
 and that for 1500 years it Avas the public worship of his fore- 
 fathers, no less than of ours. 
 
 I will go farther and lay down a proposition which may be a 
 little startling at first, but which I hope to make clearer as we 
 proceed : that while the Mass is eminently the Christian sacrifice,, 
 it is also in a certain sense the sacrifice of all ages, and has. 
 been offered up uo God from the " constitution of the world." 
 
 There is a modern view of God and of His relations with 
 mankind — one high in fiivor A^ith certain modern physicists — that 
 God (if there be a God) when He created this universe (if the 
 universe was created) gave to nature certain fixed and unchange- 
 able laws, which He Himself cannot transgress. The Creator thus 
 becomes the slave of His own laws ; He has no freedom of 
 action in the creation which is the Avork of His hands ; and 
 everything is reduced to tlie law of inflexible, mechanical necessity. 
 Such a God is not the God of hupianity. The instincts of the 
 human race are more philosophical. They tell us of a God who 
 has not renounced His freedom of action in the creation ; who 
 manifests Himself to man in a manner suited to man's own free 
 will and rational nature ; who is more human, as it were ; and 
 whom, therefore, we may approach ; move by prayer and oblation j 
 and when offended, propitiate by sacrifice. This view of God's 
 relations with His rational creatures — and who shall say that it is 
 not more reasonable? — lets in at once the supernatural, if that 
 can be called supernatural, which is after all only natural in 
 man's present and actual condition. For the Church teaches — the 
 traditions and instincts of humanity bear her out — tliat man never 
 existed on this earth in a purely natural condition ; that from the 
 very beginning he was elevated to the supernatural state ; a 
 supernatural destiny was set before him, and the means given him 
 to attain it. Man fell ; but even in his fall retained a dim per- 
 ception of his first estate : 
 
 For even in savage bosoms 
 
 There are longings, yearnings, strivings, 
 
 In the good they comprehend not. 
 
 He is a prodigal from liis Father's house, who has dissipated his 
 goodly inheritance, and fallen so low as to contend with swine
 
 THE SACRIFICE OF THE 31 ASS. 179 
 
 for the husks of existence; but who in his uttermost degradation 
 still retains a consciousness of what he has lost ; feels that some- 
 how the Great Father's heart goes out to him as to none of His 
 insensible or irrational creatures ; and he longs to return, and, throw- 
 ing himself at his Father's feet, win back his forgiveness. Only on 
 this principle docs the universal custom of prayer become intel- 
 ligible — for who would pray to a God who could not be moved? — 
 of oblation, which is the outward embodiment of prayer ; of sacri- 
 fice, which is the expression of the need of expiation ; and of the 
 universal belief, though often expressed in the most grotesque 
 forms, in an incarnation of the Deity. Christianity tells us the 
 meaning of the half-utterances of the pagan world. They are the 
 attempt of the human soul, "naturally Christian," to grasp and give 
 expression to the great truths of the primitive revelation: and in 
 this broad sense we may say that all religions are one : for the 
 "unknown God whom you worship without knowing is what I 
 preach to you," says the Apostle, "God, who made the world and 
 all things that are in it, . . . . who giveth life and breath, 
 and all things, .... hath made of one, all mankind to dwell 
 upon the whole face of tlie earth." (ActSj xvii, 23, et seq.) 
 
 Yes, my brethren, in all ages mankind prayed and " sought 
 God, if haply they may feel after Him : although He be not far 
 from any of us." (Acts, xvii, 23.) But man also felt the need of 
 giving outward body and expression to the spirit of prayer. 
 Hence the act of oblation, or the offering to heaven of the ele- 
 ments of food and drink (usually bread and wine), by which life 
 is sustained, as symbolizing the belief that we owe our life to 
 the sustaining hand of our Greater. Hence, also, the universal 
 practice of sacrifice. Man felt he had sinned ; the traditions of 
 the Fall are found everywhere. Therefore the need of expiation, 
 and of expiating through the awful rite of the shedding of blood. 
 This was always and everywhere regarded as the highest act of 
 worship. The idea of it appears to be this : that life is a direct 
 emanation from the Deity. (I do not mean, of course, from His 
 substance, but from His power or virtue ; though undoubtedly 
 many of the pagans believed the former). The body is subject to 
 the ordinary laws of matter, and of itself tends to dissolution. A 
 more direct recognition of God's power over life and death is 
 made therefore when the blood of the victim is shed before the
 
 180 SERMONS OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 altar, and the gift of life is again given back to heaven by the 
 sacrificial act. And if we go back to the beginnings of the human 
 race, Ave may gather the necessity of sacrifice from the pages of 
 the inspired volume. Cain and Abel offered victims, the one of 
 the first fruits of the earth, the other of the firstlings of his 
 flock. The patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Melchisedech, wor- 
 shiped in this manner, and their worship was accepted by 
 heaven. The pagan nations, as has been said, enlightened by 
 primeval traditions, or obeying that law written on the fleshly 
 tablets of their hearts, sacrificed to their idols, which they took 
 for the true God. Everywhere in ancient times, and no less in 
 modern times, even among the heathen tribes do you find the 
 altar, and the priest, and the knife, and the smoke of the sacri- 
 fice ; nay, in some nations, so strangely had the light of nature 
 been dimmed, the awful rites of human victims offered in sacri- 
 fice were the only ones supposed to be capable of appeasing the 
 anger of an offended deity. 
 
 In like manner when mc come to the history of the chosen 
 people we find God Himself carefully and zealously prescribing 
 the quality, manner, number and place of the various sacrifices 
 which He would be pleased to accept from their hands, as may 
 be seen from Leviticus and Deuteronomy, and indeed from their 
 whole history up to the time of Christ. We may, therefore, 
 conclude, as it has always been observed, that sacrifice belongs to 
 the essentials of religion ; and therefore that Me Christians to-day 
 must "have an altar of which they cannot cat who serve the 
 tabernacle." 
 
 For, my brethren, as the old dispensation in its entirety was 
 only provisional and a promise of " better things to come," we 
 must conclude that the chiefest part of its worship, sacrifice, 
 gave way to a greater and higher act of w'orship, which sliould 
 give meaning to what was only prefigured by the ancient rites. 
 The ancient rites were temporary, shadows of coming events, 
 symbols which had no meaning of themselves, and apart from the 
 things which they symbolized. They had no virtue or efficacy in 
 themselves, except as referring to another and completing sacrifice. 
 " For it is impossible that with the blood of goats and of oxen 
 sins should be taken away," says the Apostle, " for if," he says 
 again, " the blood of goats and of oxen and the ashes of a heifer
 
 THE SACRIFICE OF THE MASS. 181 
 
 being sprinkled can sanctify such as are defiled, how much more 
 shall not the blood of Christ clean our conscience to serve the 
 living God?" (Heb., ix, 13.) As though he should say, God is 
 pleased to accept the sacrifices which you offer, all nothing as 
 they are, because they symbolize the shedding of the blood of the 
 great Victim through whom we are saved. Being, therefore, in 
 their own nature temporary, the sacrifices of the Old Law were to 
 cease ; which is further shown by the destruction of the temple or 
 place of sacrifice. With the abolition of the old sacrifices, therefore, 
 the world would be left without " an offering for sin," except we 
 have a Christian sacrifice, which the Catholic. Church believes and 
 teaches to be the Mass. 
 
 This was also clearly foretold by the jn-ophet Malachias. In this 
 well-known passage (Mai., i,) the prophet foretells : 1. That the 
 ancient sacrifices would cease to exist. 2. That for the many of 
 of the Old Law, one would be substituted. 3. That this would be 
 offered not in the temple, but everywhere. 4. That it would be 
 offered by people, not of Jewish lineage only, but of Gentile 
 blood as well. "Where is the prophecy fulfilled if not in the 
 Mass ? 
 
 Again, our Lord is styled by St. Paul a priest according to 
 the order of Melchisedech, which has no meaning except Ave admit 
 the Mass, which, under the forms of bread and wine, Melchisedech's 
 oblation, contains the victim of salvation. Anil in the Acts, the 
 Apostles are described as " serving the Lord," a word being used 
 which signifies sacrifice ; and again St. Paul, contrasting the Christian 
 altar with the Jewish, plainly shows that we have a Christian 
 sacrifice, which Avere not true if we have not the sacrifice of the 
 Mass. This, therefore, is the culmination of the figures of the 
 Old Law, the fulfillment of the prophecies, as the Church teaches, 
 and as has been held by her from the beginning. Plerc is one 
 High Priest ; here one Victim ; here the altar of propitiation for 
 the sins of the living and the dead. 
 
 But, how ? Or, in other words, what is the Mass ? I do not 
 know that I can answer in better language than that of the little 
 catechism : " The sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ which 
 are really present upon our altars, and are offered to God for 
 the living and the dead. The sacrifioe, because it is an oblation 
 of a victim to God by a lawful priest, to represent by the act of
 
 182 SURMONS OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 oblation and the slaying or other destruction of the victim/' His 
 supreme dominion over life and death. The egsence of sacrifice 
 does not, however, cease in oblation, otherwise every oblation 
 would be a sacrifice, which is not true. Neither in the slaying 
 of the victim, otherwise every killing would be a sacrifice. It con- 
 sists rather in the symbolism of the act, by separating the blood, 
 " which is the life," from the body of the victim, and laying it on 
 the altar. In what more expressive way can tbe sacrificing priest 
 show forth the utter dependence of man upon God for his life 
 and everything in life which he possesses ? 
 
 " Of the Body and Blood of Christ, w^iicli are really present on 
 our altars, and are offered up to God for the living and the dead." 
 Our faith teaches us that by a wonderful condescension Christ gave 
 to the priests of His Church the power of drawing Him down 
 from heaven and placing Him on our altars ; or, if transforming 
 the Bread and Wine of the Sacred Mysteries into His adorable 
 Body and Blood, God obeys the voice of a man, and at his call. 
 He who annihilated Himself in taking our human nature and in 
 bearing the ignominy of the cross, again conceals the majesty of 
 His Divinity under the appearance of a morsel of bread and a 
 few drops of wine. I am not arguing the question of the Real 
 Presence this morning, my brethren. I will but say that Chris- 
 tianity were not Christianity if it had no mysteries ; that He who 
 changed water into wine at Cana of Galilee can change bread and 
 wine into His Body and Blood ; that it is not harder to believe 
 the Mystery of the Real Presence than that of the Incarnation 
 or adorable Trinity; indeed, I might go farther, and say, than 
 many of the mysteries of nature with which we are surrounded. 
 
 The Body and Blood of Christ, who was broken for us, who 
 was nailed to the cross, are present on our Christian altars ; and 
 the priest sacrifices them, that is, makes an offering or presenta- 
 tion of them to God the Father for the living and the dead. 
 The Mass is therefore identical with the sacrifice of Calvary. It is 
 the same Victim, offered by the same High Priest, Jesus Christ, 
 through the ministration of His visible priesthood, to the same God 
 and for the same purposes of sacrifice. But while Calvary was a 
 bloody sacrifice, this is an unbloody one; while the former was 
 an absolute sacrifice, this is representative. TJiat is, while Christ 
 really died for us on Calvary, and with that " one act of obla-
 
 THE SACRIFICE OF THE MASS. 183 
 
 tion perfected forever them who were to be saved," this presents 
 anew His death as symbolized by the separate consecration of the 
 elements of bread and wine, and His atonement through death; 
 while on Calvary He offered Himself, here He is offered through 
 His minister. Perhaps our meaning will be more clear if we 
 compare the Mass with the Old Law sacrifices. They had no 
 virtue or efficacy of themselves, as St. Paul declares, (Heb., ix, 13), 
 <'for it is impossible that the blood of goats and oxen should take 
 away sin." Yet they were efficacious, because they related to Calvary; 
 they were the preliminary steps to Calvary; they were Calvary, in a 
 word, being all integral parts of the one supreme act of which Cal- 
 vary was the completion and perfection. As therefore the ancient 
 sacrifices availed as representative of and a part of Calvary yet to 
 come, so the Mass, but in a much higher sense, avails as repre- 
 sentative and part of Calvary's sacrifice, made eighteen hundred 
 years ago ; and in a higher sense, for in the ancient sacrifices 
 you had only shadows, figures, symbols — " weak elements." Here 
 you have the reality, the thing symbolized, the very Victim Him- 
 self, the very Body that was broken and the very Blood which was 
 shed for us ! 
 
 Bat in all this, my brethren, we are using human language 
 and speaking of things as they present themselves to our human 
 vision and apprehension. We speak of eighteen hundred years 
 ago ; of Calvary, of other places. To God there is no time nor 
 place ; no succession of minutes, and hours, and days, and years, 
 and centuries ; no distance of place from place, but one simple, 
 single act ; and one ever presence everywhere. In His eyes, 
 therefore, the Mass is not a repetition or re-presentation of Calvary, 
 as we have called it in our human way. To Him Calvary is 
 everywhere and always present. We cannot understand this ; but 
 even modern science may be used to give us an insight into the 
 mysteries of heaven. Distance has been annihilated in respect to 
 sound by the telephone, and in respect to time by the phono- 
 graph, so that with the aid of these two instruments one can 
 hear the identical voice of another though hundreds of miles and 
 hundreds of years may separate them. It is said, with Avhat 
 truth I do not know, that an instrument has been invented which 
 will do for light what the instruments mentioned do for sound, 
 and that the identical rays of light proceeding from a given body
 
 184 SBBMOJVS OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 may be transmitted to a distance of, say, one thousand miles. If 
 this be so, and I would not say it is impossible in this age of 
 marvels, time and distance are annihilated; and I may be heard 
 and seen in hundreds of places and at the same moment hun- 
 dreds of miles apart! Truly a marvel of human invention! What 
 must it be, tlicn, with the mysteries of heaven? And while we 
 shall never fully comprehend it, we may see, as it were in a glass 
 darkly, how the one act of sacrifice on Calvary in the eyes of God 
 is not yet a thing of the past, or of distant Judea, but one, ever- 
 lasting and ever-present oftering up of the " Lamb that was slain 
 from the constitution of the world." 
 
 Therefore we have in the Mass a sacrifice Avhich not only 
 completes the figur^^s of the ancient sacrifices of the people of 
 God, but also enables us to understand the struggles of the Gen- 
 tile world to give expression to the hereditary religious feelings of 
 the race, all overlaid as they were by the errors and impurities 
 of the pagan worship and superstition. It is Christ, the- expec- 
 tation of the Gentiles, and the hope of the people of Israel, again 
 and again pleading His wounds, sufferings and blood for us ; once 
 indeed, and once only, shed, but ever bleeding, an open fountain 
 for the redemption of the sinner, and " making peace through the 
 blood of His cross, both as to the things that are on earth, and 
 are in heaven," (Col. i, 20) ; and the Lamb whom we offer 
 here below, is the same Christ who, sitting at the right hand of 
 the Father, makes continual intercession for us. The Mass here 
 below is the counterpart of the heavenly Jerusalem. The sacred 
 ministers, the lights, the incense are but the reflection of the 
 supernal glory, and a visible representation of that majesty of God 
 which no man may look on and live. And now lift up your 
 eyes higher — sursum corda: "I saw a new heaven," says the 
 inspired Apostle; "I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, 
 coming down from God out of heaven." Perhaps this very church 
 is heaven ! Heaven is not a place. It is wherever God. and His 
 blessed spirits are. Oh, I see this church in which we are assem- 
 bled filled Avith the brightness of the heavenly Jerusalem, for the 
 Lamb that was slain from the foundations of the world is the 
 light thereof. I see here His throne, and under the throne the 
 bodies of the martyrs, which are the prayers of the saints ; and 
 in the attendants of the altar I see the four-and-twenty ancients
 
 THE SACRIFICE OF THE MASS. 185 
 
 Avho minister unto Him ; and in the sheen of^ the sacred vest- 
 ments I see the radiance of the celestial hosts; and in the chant 
 I hear the song of the angels ; and in this throng of devout wor- 
 shipers I see the twelve thousand sealers of each of the twelve 
 tribes of Israel, and that immense multitude whom no man could 
 number of all nations, and tribes, and peoples and tongues, stand- 
 ing before the throne, and in the sight of the Lamb clothed with 
 white robes, and palms in their liands, and saying : " Amen, bene- 
 diction and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, honor, power and 
 strength to one God for ever and ever. Amen." (Ap. vii.) 
 
 Brethren, I am not drawing on imagination ; I am stating the 
 sober facts. The heavenly spirits are not visible to our mortal 
 eyes ; but they are here, and encircling this altar which God has 
 made His throne and are visible to the eye of faith. Can we 
 believe this, believe that we so nearly touch God, and yet go on 
 in our old ways? Believe that the drama of Calvary is re-enacted 
 in this place, and before our very eyes, and yet come so cold, 
 and undevout, and perhaps with the burden of our irrepentance 
 on our hearts ? Believe this to be the " Mountain of the Lord," 
 and His holy place, and yet presume to come whither only the 
 " innocent of hand, pure of heart may ascend ? " " Can man 
 see God and live ? " Can anything defiled enter heaven ? Oh, 
 pray God we may be cleansed. Sprinkle me, O Lord, with hys- 
 sop and I shall be cleansed; wash me, and I shall be made 
 whiter than snow. And thus cleansed and free from every defile- 
 ment, " we may go with confidence to the throne of grace ; that 
 we may obtain mercy, and find grace in seasonable aid." (Heb., 
 Sv, 16.)
 
 SERMOU OF RIGHT REY. J. L. SPlLDIHa. D.D., 
 
 BISHOP OF PEORIA, ILL. 
 
 THE practice, wliicb, with us, has now grown to be national, of 
 appointing one day in the year for general thanksgiving to God, 
 the Creator and Giver of all good, has seemed to the Fathers of 
 the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore consonant with the princi- 
 ples of faith and witli tlie promptings of the heart of a 
 Christian people, and they have, therefore, determined to recog- 
 nize and commend, in a public and solemn way, a custom 
 which declares our dependence upon God, both as a nation and 
 as individuals, while it tends to strengthen the sjjirit of gratitude 
 and to increase our confidence in His all-wise and Fatherly Prov- 
 idence. The appeal made by the civil authorities of our country, 
 requesting all citizens to cease from work and business on this 
 day, and to raise their thoughts to God, while they bring to 
 mind the great and numberless blessings which He continues to 
 shower upon them and their country, is a call to which we 
 gladly hearken. The duty of religious thankfulness is constantly 
 urged by the Church, and in this age, when many call in ques- 
 tion the good of life, even when most fortunate, we should more 
 than ever cherish the spirit of gratitude, which springs from the 
 faith and feeling that God is all good and merciful, and that 
 life is a blessing even to the most wretched, if they look to 
 Him and walk in the ways of His Commandments. Surely we, 
 whether as Catholics or as Americans, can never lack reasons for 
 thankfulness. 
 
 In common with all other Americans, we have here a home 
 
 186
 
 THANKSGIVma DAY. 187 
 
 and a country, in which we enjoy the rights of freemen, and 
 opportunities to use the powers which God has given us in a 
 way never before granted to men, nor offered to them now even, 
 except in America. Whatever fills the hearts of our fellow-coun- 
 trymen with joy and pride when they contemplate the marvelous 
 growth and ever-increasing prosperity of our common country, sends 
 -also a thrill of gladness through our Catholic hearts. We join 
 with them in looking with delight upon this noblest experiment in 
 self-government ever made by men. We feel a common joy in 
 the thought that we have grown, within a century, from three 
 millions to fifty-five millions of people, from an obscure and 
 almost unknown people, to one of the most powerful and influen- 
 .tial nations of the earth. Our prodigious wealth, our unrivalled 
 success in developing the almost inexhaustible resources of our 
 ■country, our popular cities which, by tens and twenties, have 
 sprang np as by the enchanter's w-and, our numberless happy 
 homes, where men of every race and every tongue enjoy the 
 blessings of liberty and peace, under the sway of wise and just 
 laws, are to us sources of gratitude and joy, not less than to 
 -other Americans. When we reflect that we, the freest of peoples, 
 have probably the most stable government in the world, that 
 the terrible conflict, the seeds of which were planted like an in- 
 herited taint in our blood, and which arrayed in fierce battle half 
 ^he States against the other half, has only served to strengthen the 
 bonds of national unity, and to bring the whole people into fuller 
 harmony with the great principles which underlie our civil con- 
 stitution ; our belief in the sublime destiny of our country is 
 strengthened, and we look with higher hopes and sercncr confi- 
 dence to the future. We are, in a word, a part of this great 
 people, and whatever is good for our country is good for us. 
 This New World was discovered by a great and deeply religious 
 Catholic hero. Catholics were the first to proclaim and put in 
 practice here the principles of religious toleration, and they will 
 he the last to renounce or to violate the Christian chart of free- 
 dom of conscience. American Catholics shed their blood for our 
 independence, and the aid which we received from Catholics of 
 'Other lands was the Providential means which enabled us to come 
 forth victorious from the struggle and to establish ourselves as a 
 free and separate people.
 
 188 SEB210XS OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 Catholics, who bore a chief part in tlie founding of this great 
 republic, must ever feel that it is their duty to labor to make 
 it perpetual. The Church holds the fulness of God's supernatural 
 bounties, and the republic His richest earthly gift to His children. 
 Both have a world-wide mission to purify, elevate, ennoble and 
 enlighten men, to free them from slavery, whether of soul or body, 
 of heart or mind. The republic gives liberty to the Church, the 
 Church strengthens the spirit of obedience and devotion to the 
 republic, and both co-operate to make prevail the will of God, 
 which is justice, righteousness, peace, goodness. There is a natural 
 harmony between the Catholic religion, which is wide, strong and 
 enduring, and the character of a great and free people. Among a 
 narrow or enslaved race its action is narrowed ; but amid half a 
 world of freemen the vigor of its godlike life expands and pushes 
 forth in every direction. Hence it is in the nature of things that 
 Catholic faith should make headway in a country like our own. 
 
 What cause for thankfulness have we not when we recall the 
 progress of the Church in America during the last hundred years?' 
 From a few thousand we have grown to be eight millions. Then 
 we were without organization. Now this solemn council, more- 
 numerous and more free than any which could be assembled else- 
 where, is the most striking evidence of our perfect organization^ 
 Then we had no schools ; now nearly half a million children 
 receive instruction in Catholic schools. Then churches were few 
 and poor ; now they are counted by thousands, and many of them 
 are monuments to the taste and generosity of their builders. But 
 I may not stop to tell the story of the rise and spread of the 
 Church in the United States. Like the growth of the country, 
 progress has been so rapid and so manifest that words but enfeeble 
 the impression stamped upon all minds by the facts themselves. 
 
 But while we recall the blessings and privileges which God 
 grants us as Catholics and as Americans, let us bear in mind 
 that Avhat we most need is not wealth or numbers, but virtue, 
 which alone can prevent the bountiful gifts of the Creator from 
 becoming dangerous and hurtful to us. Only they are truly 
 grateful who seek to render themselves worthy of the good they 
 receive, and only in this way can we have the well-founded hope 
 that the blessings we enjoy shall continue. Morality is the basis 
 both of religion and of civil liberty, and if the Church and the
 
 THANKSGIVINa DAY. 189 
 
 country are to remain strong and free, the cause of virtue and 
 of public morality must find in us earnest defenders. Let 
 American Catholics, therefore, ever uphold and show forth in their 
 lives the great principles which underlie free government. Let 
 them, in the spirit of religion and of self respect, lend a willing 
 obedience to law and stand on the side of those who seek to 
 correct abuses and maintain intact the practices and institutions 
 which are the outgrowth of Christian faith, and which have been 
 the great instruments in elevating and purifying human 'conduct. 
 Let them be sober, honest, peaceful and true to all the obligations 
 which bind them as members of the Church and as citizens of 
 a free country. So shall they become less unworthy of God's 
 blessings and the sense of gratitude growing from year to year 
 and lifting them to higher and nobler life will make them more 
 able to defend both the cause of religion and the cause of 
 patriotism which both work to one end.
 
 4 1 
 
 SERMOI OF RiaHT REY. J. J. KEME, D.D., 
 
 BISHOP CF RICHMOKD. 
 
 "As the body is one, and hath many members," etc. — /. Cor., c. xii, v. 12-27, 
 
 IN the discourses addres'sed to us since the opening of this coun- 
 cil, we have been contemphxting, in its various phases, the 
 beauty of the Church of God. Reminded this evening by St. 
 Paul that the Church is the Body of Christ, and knowing that 
 the beauty of the Body of Christ is the beauty of our Incarnate 
 God, we understand how truly it was said, in the opening dis- 
 course, that God hath put upon the Church His own beauty. 
 And this, too, is the sublime thought of the Prophet Isaias, who, 
 foretelling the splendors of the kingdom of Christ, says of it : 
 "They shall see the glory of the Lord and the beauty of our 
 God." (Is., XXXV, 2.) 
 
 In the preceding discourses we have meditated on the most 
 glorious and exalted constituents of the Church. We have con- 
 templated its divine Head, our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, 
 from whom the whole body receives its growth and its life. We 
 have reflected on its divine Spirit, the Holy Ghost, who proceeds 
 from the Father and the Son, and who has been bestowed by the 
 Father and the Son to be the soul of the Church, the source of 
 its unity, its infallibility, its holiness and its perpetuity. We have 
 considered its heart and arteries and life-blood — namely, the eternal 
 priesthood of our Lord, poured forth through the priesthood of 
 the New Law, and sending through them, by its own divine pulsa- 
 tions, the graces of His redemption to every soul that receives 
 their ministrations. We have gazed upon the majestic symmetry 
 
 190
 
 Very Her. J. N. Reinbolt, S.F.M. 
 
 Very Rtv. E, F. Schauet\ V.S.S.R. 
 
 Very JUr. M. li. LiU.,, u.l\ 
 
 Very liev. A. Magnien, S.S. 
 
 \ery litv. V. Fvtirnur, V.-'i V. 
 
 Very Rev. L. Busharl, S.J. 
 
 Very Rev. John B. Ilogan, S.S. 
 
 Very Rev. V. .1. .UcFroi/, O.s.a. 
 
 Veiy liev. A. M. Gentile, S.J.
 
 CATHOLIC SOCIETIES. 191 
 
 of its well-knit frame, the perpetual apostolic hierarchy, which 
 Christ our Lord formed with such divine art and endowed with 
 such divine strength, that it stands erect with the vigor of per- 
 petual youth in the midst of a changing and crumbling world. 
 And we have seen the energy which it puts forth to turn the 
 lives of men heavenward, to " renew the face of the earth," to 
 pour abroad to the ends of the world the glorious sonship of the 
 children of God. 
 
 This evening the words of the holy Apostle invite us to the 
 consideration of an humbler theme, but not, therefore, less import- 
 ant, nor, I trust, less interesting. He tells us of the eye and 
 the ear and the foot and the hand, of the parts of the body which 
 may be in themselves less comely or less honorable, but which 
 all share, nevertheless, in the dignity and comeliness of the one 
 same body of which they are members, and whose functions,, 
 though humbler, may yet be very important and even essential 
 to the well-being of the body. It is in this light that I deem 
 it best to treat the subject which has been assigned to me by 
 the Most Reverend Apostolic Delegate, namely, " Catholic Societies."' 
 There is too often a tendency to view societies from a merely or 
 principally utilitarian stand-point. But the data in a utilitarian 
 problem are very fluctuating and its conclusions uncertain. I 
 prefer to view the subject in the light of principles, and these 
 the principles given us in Holy Writ. I invite you, therefore,, 
 beloved brethren, to reflect with me on the life of the laity, the 
 action and work of the laity, and their combination in associations 
 for the better realization of their work — but to reflect upon it all 
 in the light of this divine fact, that the laity are members of 
 the Body of Christ, that their legitimate action and work as 
 Christians is a participation in the life and work of our divine 
 Head. First, therefore, let us see what is this life of the Body 
 of Christ. 
 
 "Christ came," says St. Paul "to be the second Adam, to give 
 life to a dead world." "In Him was life," says St. John; and He 
 says Himself, "I liave come that they may have life, and that 
 they may have it more abundantly." This life which lie came to 
 bestow — His own divine life — to use his own comparison. He com- 
 municated to His members, as the vine coramuicates its life to its 
 branches: "I am the vine; ye are the branches;" or, to use the
 
 192 SUBMOJS'S OF TUB THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 figure of St. Paul, as the members live by the life of the body. 
 It is the life of God poured forth on His creatures through the 
 mystery of the Incarnation. 
 
 By that bestowal of the life of God He renews in us the 
 image and likeness of God. In the beginning that image and like- 
 ness was bestowed on man through the divine \Vord, who is 
 declared to be the perfect image of the Father ; and, therefore, 
 when that image was disfigured in man by sin, it was the same 
 divine Word who came to renew it in us. But, now think what it 
 is to be in the image and likeness of God. God's life is essentiallv 
 ■one of action. He is called by the great theologians " actus purissi- 
 mits " — that is, " most pure act." This means that in God there is 
 nothing inert, nothing inactive. Inertia is the imperfection of finite 
 things. Therefore, to be in the image and likeness of God, is to 
 have the action of all the powers of our nature made like to the 
 action which is the life of God. Let us, then, look further, and 
 see how this can be and what it means. 
 
 We can view tlie action, the life of God, in two ways — either in 
 His own being, or in the external works which His act produces. 
 To see that action, that life, that beauty of God in Himself, and 
 in its full clearness, is the beatitude of heaven. "Here," says St. 
 Paul, " we see through a glass darkly ; but there, face to fiice. 
 Here I know in part ; but there I sliall know even as I am 
 known." And then adds St. John: "AVe know that we shall be 
 like unto Him, because we shall see Him as He is." The image 
 and likeness of God shall, then, be made perfect in us in the full 
 presence of the adorable Original ; and, filled with the overwhelming 
 beatitude of that vision and that likeness, our whole being sliall 
 eternally breathe forth the song of ecstacy, " Holy, holy, holy." 
 Here below wq see that life of God in Himself, although obscurely 
 and imperfectly, through divine revelation, througli the grace of fiiith, 
 through the embrace of divine love, in contemplative prayer; and, 
 though obscure and imperfect, yet so far is even this sight of the 
 life of God in Himself above all the sweetness and beauty of earthly 
 things, that the soul is forced to cry out, like St. Augustine, " Too 
 late have I known Thee, too late have I loved Thee, O Beauty ever 
 ancient and ever new ! " 
 
 The second way of viewing God's action is in the external 
 works which it has produced. Freely, and of his own bounteous
 
 CATHOLIC SOCIETIES. 193 
 
 love, God gave existence to the universe of created things. 
 Everything that He has made bears the stamp of God, and tells 
 of the infinite power, the infinite wisdom and the infinite love 
 which gave it being. St. Augustine exclaims : " God hath made 
 the mighty angels in heaven and the little worms in the earth ; 
 and He is not more wonderful in the angels, not less wonderful 
 in the little worms." It is only stunted and darkened minds that 
 do not thus see God in His works. Let me illustrate this by a 
 ■comparison. We all know how beautifully round and symmetrical an 
 orange is, notwithstanding the little furrows which cover its surface. 
 Now, imagine one of those tiny animalcules, which are so small 
 that they can be discerned only by the aid of the most powerful 
 microscopes, trying to make its way over an orange. The poor 
 little thing would find itself surrounded with mountains which 
 it could not scale and abysses which it could not bridge over, 
 and it would seem lost in a chaos of confusion. In like manner, 
 to minds that have been dwarfed and blinded by losing or 
 shutting out the light which beams from the face of God, the 
 universe is a puzzle, over which they may wail like poor John 
 Stewart Mill, or curse like the pessimists of our day. But, to 
 him who views things, as holy David did, in the light of Him 
 from whom they come, the universe is a mirror which shows 
 forth the beauty of God ; all things declare His glory, and even 
 the shades introduced by the sin and folly of the creature only 
 serve to enhance the glorious light of the picture, and blend into 
 the beauteous harmony of the Creator's wisdom, justice and love. 
 
 As it is witli the life and action and beauty of God, so it is 
 'with the life and action and beauty of our divine Saviour. We 
 can consider them either in Himself or in His works. We can 
 contemplate them in Himself, pondering with adoring gratitude the 
 wonders which constitute the mystery of the Incarnation ; or we 
 can meditate on the mighty power that goes forth from Him, on 
 the beauty and grandeur of the kingdom of God which He has 
 established on earth. 
 
 So, again, it is with the Church. We may view her life and 
 action and beauty in her own organism, in which the divine action 
 of our Lord and the Holy Ghost is so wondrously united with 
 the human action of her ministry and her members, even as the 
 divine nature and the human nature are united in Christ, her 
 
 13
 
 194 SEEJIO^''S OF THE THIRD PLEXARY COUNCIL. 
 
 divine Head ; or Ave may dwell upon the admirable work whicb 
 she accomplishes externally, enlightening the world's darkness,, 
 purifying the world's corruption and covering the earth with the 
 fruits of civilization, learning and holiness. 
 
 And so, in fine, we may consider the divine life bestowed on, 
 each Christian soul. We may stndy its interior silent growth in 
 the beauty of faith, hope, charity and religion ; the more and more 
 perfect development of that " kingdom of God which is within 
 us ;" the higher and higher advance, as on the ladder of Jacob's 
 vision, from earth and earthiness up towards the bosom' of God,, 
 and the greater and greater perfection of its likeness to Him as- 
 it draws nearer to Him. Or we may view the divine life within 
 it reaching out in good works— as it does in God and in Christ and 
 in the Church — in godlike works, that is, works done in the grace- 
 of God, and for ' the love of God, and by the promptings of the- 
 Spirit of God, and after the example of Jesus, the Man-God. 
 
 Philosophy tells us that it is through created things that reason 
 comes to the knowledge of the Creator. Thus, too, it is by our 
 external godlike works that the life of God Avithin us is made mani- 
 fest; for it is the good tree which must bring forth good fruit, and 
 which is known by its fruit. Tlierefore does St. John lay down the- 
 jn'inciple and the test: "If you love not your brother, whom you 
 see, how can you say that you love God, whom you see not ?"■ 
 HencCj also, the test which, our divine Lord has told us, shall be 
 applied in the judgment — the presence or absence of the divine life 
 in the soul, and its consequent fitness or unfitness for heaven, shall 
 be decided by its having done, or not done, the godlike works of 
 faith and charity. For, again, life is action, and action must show 
 itself in works. 
 
 Thus, beloved brethren, we are led to understand clearly that, in 
 the divine plan of creation, the image and likeness of God, which 
 was bestowed on man, was to consist in his being like to God,, 
 not only in the spirituality and immortality of his soul, but also in 
 the noble, holy and useful external works in which his being was- 
 meant to exert itself. Thus, also, we understand why, in the plan 
 of divine Providence for the carrying on of the world's life, while 
 the Almighty could easily supply all the wants of all His crea- 
 tures by His own power and action alone, He has left much of 
 the work to man; has made human action an integral part in the
 
 CATHOLIC SOCIETIES. 195 
 
 economy of His Providence ; has ordained that the welfare of His 
 creatures and the harmony of the world should largely depend on 
 the right or wrong action of men towards one another, in order 
 that man might be a sharer in the glorious work of Providence, 
 in the action and life of his Creator. And hence we likewise 
 understand the two ends for the realization of which our divine 
 Lord established His Church. The first is the advancement of 
 souls in interior holiness and perfection. The second is, the direc- 
 tion of human action in the channels which 'will be the most useful 
 to mankind and give the greatest glory to God. She is the mother 
 of the contemplatives, whose sublime vocation it is to spend their 
 lives in closest communion with God, and to breathe the atmos- 
 phere of heaven around them in this cold earthly world. But she 
 is also the mother of the myriads of holy toilers, whose labors 
 have transformed the face of the earth ; and the great bulk of 
 her saints have been the most active and hardworked of men. 
 
 I remember reading, not long since, of the daring project of 
 some one who wished to turn the momentum of Niagara and the 
 other cataracts of the country into electric force. He saw in the 
 tremendous rush of the great waterfall a mighty jjower that was 
 only wasting itself in churning and grinding away its bed, and 
 he asked why it should not be transformed into a force that could 
 be used for lighting and heating our homes and moving our ma- 
 chinery. In like manner, the Church beholds the vast amount of 
 human activity which, all the Avorld over, is lying dormant, or 
 wasted on trifles, or spent on purposes which do not rise above 
 the earth ; and her desire is to rouse all inertness into action, 
 and to turn all action towards God — to purify it, to energize it, 
 to direct it to the noblest ends, after the model of the divine Mas- 
 ter, who " hath given us an example, that as He hath done, so we 
 also may do;" in a word, to deify it by transforming it into the 
 life and action of the Body of Christ. 
 
 Now, one of the chief characteristics of God and of His works, 
 is unity. As, in the adorable Trinity, the Father, the Son, and 
 the Holy Ghost, while distinct in Personality, meet in the unity 
 of the divine Being, so in all God's works the endless multitude 
 of things is everywhere rounded by harmonious order into the 
 unity of the divine plan. From the glorious hierarchy of the 
 angels, down to the shaping of a crystal or the organism of the
 
 196 SEBIIONS OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 tiniest insect that floats in the sunbeam, all action is orderly, sym- 
 metrical, the tendency everywhere being from isolated force to 
 combined action, and to shapely organisms, and to regnlar classes, 
 and to the grand order of the universe. So it is likewise with 
 the Church, the Body of Christ, both in her interior life and in 
 her external action. Her interior life of faith, hope, charity and 
 prayer takes shape in her majestic liturgy, culminating in the ador- 
 able Sacrifice of the altar, in which all the homage and supplications 
 of all creatures meet in the one masterful homage and supplica- 
 tion of the Immaculate Lamb, through whom all find acceptance 
 before the throne of God. And the outpouring of that interior 
 life in the external works of faith, charity and zeal of all her 
 countless members obeys the same divine law and shapes itself 
 into united and orderly action in thousands of associations. Let 
 us glance at these associations in detail. 
 
 First, the craving for Christian perfection, for entire consecra- 
 tion to God's love and His holy service, moulds itself into the 
 Church's religious orders. Obedient to the breathing of the Holy 
 Spirit, to the drawing of His grace, to the impulse of the divine 
 life within them, thousands upon thousands of chosen souls in all 
 ages leave all earthly cares and ambitions, to liave God for their 
 only portion and His work for their only occupation. The influ- 
 ence of the Holy Spirit gathers and unites their action, under the 
 control of wise rulers and holy superiors, and the garden of God 
 blooms with the harmonious beauty of monastic perfection. The 
 Carmelites and Carthusians make the solitudes of earth melodious 
 with their chants of adoration to God and of tender love to the 
 Virgin Mother. The Benedictines swarm forth from their con- 
 vents like a mighty army of zeal and love to conquer a barbarous 
 and heathen world to civilization and to God. The Franciscans 
 cluster around the Seraph of Assisi, and, set on fire by him with 
 love of Jesus Crucified, they carry the sweet example and the 
 irresistible power of our Lord's poverty, humility and suiferings 
 unto the ends of the earth. The Dominicans baud together, a 
 great phalanx of sacerdotal learning and zeal, to win a heedless 
 world to Christ by the attraction of the brilliancy and the fervor 
 symbolized by the torch of their illustrious founder. The sons of 
 Ignatius rally around the chair of Peter like a rampart impreg- 
 nable to all the attacks of error, and from the centre of religious
 
 CATHOLIC SOCIETIES. 197 
 
 life they carry to every land the light of the Gospel and the 
 blessings of a true Christian education. And so, as the ages roll 
 on and the needs of the world vdry and multiply, we see a St. 
 Charles Borromeo, a St. Philip Neri, a St. Vincent de Paul, a 
 St. Francis de Sales, a St. John of God, a St. Alphonsus, a St. 
 Paul of the Cross, a Father Olier and other such giants of 
 ability, holiness and zeal, become centres of attraction for chosen 
 souls and mainsprings of concerted action for great and noble 
 ends. And we see thousands upon thousands of holy men and 
 women filled with cravings and aspirations which nothing but God 
 could satisfy, rejoicing to leave all things for the divine Master's 
 work, and gathering according to the direction of the divine impulse, 
 around one or another of these providential leaders, shaped for 
 united and systematic effort by wise constitutions and rules, con- 
 secrated to God and their work by holiest vows, toiling at their 
 allotted tasks in the earnest fervor of that consecration, and pouring 
 the healing, comforting, saving ministrations of Christ and of His 
 Church into millions and millions of grateful hearts. 
 
 Then we see the same divine action and life pervading all the 
 ranks of the laity, moving every member and tissue and fibre 
 of the Body of Christ, rousing them to holy desires and efforts, 
 combining them for concerted and efficient action, and making the 
 world teem with organized Christian endeavor for good. First we 
 see the laity combining for distinctively religious ends in confra- 
 ternaties and sodalities, each animated by some special prompting 
 of divine love, all the members striving to increase their own 
 fervor by their united devotion and to kindle the sacred fire, as 
 our Lord desires, in all the hearts around them. Thus the devo- 
 tion of the faithful increased towards the loving heart of our dear 
 Lord, towards His adorable Sacrament, towards His Immaculate 
 Mother ; and by the example of saintly patrons, by the guidance of 
 wise rules and pious directors, the members are moulded to habits 
 of prayer, to the frequentation of the Sacraments and to the prac- 
 tice of Christian virtues. In every place where these holy associa- 
 tions are carefully and zealously directed, they are centres of piety, 
 from which the spirit of devotion is breathed forth into every 
 home and almost into every heart in the parish. There are few 
 parishes, if any, that do not need them ; there are none that are 
 not the better for them. And the same may be said of individual
 
 198 SERMONS OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 souls. There are very few that are not greatly helped in the spiritual 
 life by membership of some well-conducted sodality or confraternity, 
 and there are surely not many who can honestly say that they 
 have no need of such spiritual aids. We live in a world that 
 is full of distractions to lead our minds and hearts from God, 
 full of influences that chill devotion and breed distaste for prayer 
 and piety. If we appreciate this fact, and if we recognize that 
 such a chilling and drying up of the soul is a misfortune to be 
 dreaded and guarded against, then we must recognize too that it 
 is a wise thing to seek spiritual help in these pious confraternities, 
 nay, that it should require very good reasons to excuse one from 
 using then\, and that spiritual laziness is certainly not such a 
 reason, but the very contrary. 
 
 It would be a most interesting study, did time permit, to see 
 how the Providence of God has, in successive ages, caused the 
 Church's interior piety to take external shape in one or another 
 predominant form of popular devotion. Thus, in our own age, 
 when the rush after material interests makes it so difficult for men 
 to find time and heart for God, it has been the divine Will 
 that the great popular devotion should be that to the Sacred 
 Heart of Jesus, the adorable furnace of holiest love for God 
 and tenderest love for men, whose contemplation must surely 
 suffice, if anything can, to keep our hearts Avarm and tender 
 and faithful towards our Saviour and God. And now the Provi- 
 dence of God is unlocking that Sacred Heart, that we may under- 
 stand whence its flames proceed, that Ave may sec that its love is the 
 Holy Ghost, the love eternally proceeding from the Father and the 
 Son, and finding in the Sacred Heart of Jesus our Mediator the 
 channel through Avhich its sweet and blessed flames are poured 
 forth upon mankind. Thus we are given a clearer insight into the 
 mysteries of the Incarnation and the Redemption, and are animated 
 to a more intelligent, a more interior, a more truly spiritual piety. 
 Hence in our days of universal aspiration after popular enlighten- 
 ment, filled with so many dangers from mistaken science, unspiritual 
 aims and mere externality of life, even among good people, it has 
 pleased God to breathe forth the first beginnings of a special devo- 
 tion to the Holy Ghost, and to give it form in the Confraternity 
 of the Servants of the Holy Ghost. I am convinced that the time 
 is not far distant when the devotion to the Paraclete, the Spirit of
 
 CATHOLIC SOCIETIES. 199 
 
 light and love, will be the predominant devotion of the Church. 
 Happy are they who have the grace of tasting and appreciating its 
 first fruits. 
 
 Next in dignity and importance to the associations which arc the 
 embodiment of popular devotion, come those Avhose object is to 
 co-operate with the clergy in spreading throughout the world the 
 Gospel of Jesus Christ, and in establishing, maintaining and per- 
 fecting every appliance of the kingdom of God for the enlighten- 
 ment and salvation of men. Throughout the whole Body of Christ, 
 we behold the same zeal which sends the missionaries to the ends 
 of the earth, banding together the multitudes of the faithful in 
 associations for supplying the means which will carry the mission- 
 aries to their destination, support them in their arduous labors, 
 and erect the churches and schools Avhich their missions need. 
 8uch are the world-wide associations of the Propagation of the 
 Faith and the Holy Childhood ; such the kindred associations for 
 supporting the missions among the Indians and the colored people 
 of our country; such the mission unions to aid poor dioceses in 
 building up the Church within their borders ; such the admirable 
 societies for supplying poor churches with decent vestments and proper 
 ornaments for the altar and the tabernacle ; such the associations 
 for supporting Catholic education, like the noble Young Catholics' 
 Friend Society, which is such an honor to this archdiocese ; such 
 the various Catholic publication societies for supporting the Catholic 
 press and for the diffusion of Catholic books and periodicals ; such 
 too, the Catholic academies, like the Academy of St. Thomas and 
 the Academy of History, established in Rome by Leo XIII, the 
 Catholic academy founded in London by Cardinal Wiseman, and 
 other similar associations, in which bodies of leai-ned men come 
 together to study science, philosophy and history in the glare of 
 light which modern thought and research have thrown upon them, 
 and to demonstrate the glorious accord between reason and revela- 
 tion, between science and religion, between the Church and civiliza- 
 tion; such, in fine, the great national and international combinations 
 which have taken shape in the Catholic congresses of Europe, and 
 which in faithful Germany have banded together the Catholics of 
 the country as a rampart of adamant for the protection of the 
 inalienable rights of conscience against injustice and tyranny. In 
 all these various ways the members of the Body of Christ labor
 
 200 SFEMOJ}fS OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 directly for the glory of God, for the salvation of souls, for the 
 building up of the Church of Christ; and whoever loves God 
 ought to be anxious to have a hand in the -work. Nor is it a 
 matter of supererogation, of merely superfluous zeal, that God's 
 creatures should thus seek to take a part in God's work. On the 
 contrary, we have seen that this exercise of human activity, this 
 co-operation of the creatures in the designs of the Creator, is an 
 integral part in the plan of divine Providence ; and whoever shirks 
 his part in the toil wrongs both God and his fellow-creatures, and 
 becomes a rusty, broken wheel in the great machine of humanity — 
 a hindrance rather than a help. " He that is not with Me, is 
 against Me," says our Lord, " and he that gathereth not Avitli Me, 
 scattereth." If we have time and strength, we owe them to His 
 work ; and if Ave have not time or strength, we must help with 
 our pecuniary means ; and if we have neither time nor strength, 
 nor money, then we must do our best with our prayers, our 
 sympathy, our encouragement, our moral assistance. No one can 
 be selfish, or indifferent, or negligent, and stand excused before the 
 divine Master. There must be no dead, inert members in the 
 Body of Christ. 
 
 Closely allied to these associations for the spread and mainte- 
 nance of the work of Christ, are those whose aim is the sup- 
 l^ression of immoral influences which resist the cause of Christ. 
 The ministry of the Church strive for the suppression of immo- 
 rality by their labors in the pulpit, in the confessional, in their 
 daily contact with the people ; but all the faithful must co-operate 
 with them. As all the nerves and forces of the human system co- 
 operate for the expulsion of noxious humors, so must all the 
 members of the Body of Christ work together for the expulsion 
 of evil. " If one member suffer anytliing," says St. Paul, " all 
 the members suffer with it." As our divine Lord deigned to suf- 
 fer in His mortal body weariness, hunger, pain and outrage, while 
 His Divinity was almighty, glorious and impas^sible, so is it the 
 providence of God that His mystical body should be afflicted with 
 the ailments of poor sinful human nature, even while its Head 
 is Christ the Son of God, and its vivifying Spirit God the Holy 
 Ghost. But ah ! what a grief to the heart of our Lord are the 
 sinfulness and defilements of His unworthy members ! And, as 
 love prompted Veronica to burst through the mocking crowd and
 
 CATHOLIC SOCIETIES. 201 
 
 wipe away the defilements which marred the beauty of His sacred 
 tiice, and Magdalen to kiss and soothe His pierced feet, so does 
 the love of Christ prompt generous hearts to labor for the re- 
 moval from His mystical body of the disfigurements that are 
 unworthy of it. 
 
 Now the evils which beset the poor frail members of the Body 
 of Christ are of two classes. Some of them shun the light, and 
 do their Avretched work in the' hidden secrecy of individual souls; 
 and the Spirit of Christ combats these hiddenly, by the silent 
 influences brought to bear on the individual conscience in the con- 
 fessional, or in the sanctuary of a good home, or by friendly 
 fraternal correction. Others, on the contrary, are public and ag- 
 gressive, and strive openly to build up the kingdom of the Evil 
 One on earth ; and these have to be resisted openly, publicly, by 
 concerted action. It is needless for me to inform any one who 
 knows the state of society that chief among these open, public 
 and aggressive immoral influences, is the vice of intemperance. It 
 fights against God in the noonday ; it plants its batteries of de- 
 struction along all our thoroughfares ; it seizes on innumerable 
 victims in every class of society, and drags them down to tem- 
 poral and eternal ruin ; it wrecks lives, blasts homes, undermines 
 society, and brings disgrace on the Church of God ; it bands its 
 leaders and their minions into a mighty host to control politics 
 and to sway legislation. 
 
 Therefore does tlie Spirit of God rouse thousands upon thousands 
 of earnest souls to a holy indignation against this monstrous evil, and 
 band them together in societies to oppose it, to check its ravages, 
 and, if possible, to banish it, if not from the whole social body, at 
 least from -the Church, the Body of Christ. This is the providen- 
 tial origin of our Catholic temperance societies ; this their spirit 
 and their aim. Who that has in his heart any love for humanity, 
 any love for Christ, but must sympathize lieartily and practically 
 with their endeavor? Who that loves his brethren but must long- 
 to save them from this curse? Who that loves Christ but must 
 yearn to wipe this foul stain from His mystical body, as Veronica 
 wiped the defilements from His blessed face ? Into our temperance 
 societies, therefore, flock those who have felt the curse and flung 
 it olf, and those who have experienced the danger and escaped 
 it; but their main strength lies in the great number of good and
 
 "202 SEB3I0NS OF TUB THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 zealous men who have never felt the pollution of the monster's touch, 
 but who hate it and combat it, because they love Christ and His 
 Church, and the souls He died to save. They know from the 
 ;sad experience which is to be found too abundantly around us, 
 that for those who once have been poisoned by the tempter's fang 
 total abstinence is their only safety. Therefore, these lovers of 
 iheir brethren not only go among the fallen and the tempted ones 
 to reason with them, but add to their words the stronger influ- 
 ence of example, and cheerfully take upon themselves the self- 
 denial of total abstinence, that they may the better save the souls 
 for whom Christ denied Himself all things. They who love sinful 
 indulgence, or they who derive profit from it, may scoiF and sneer ; 
 honest but mistaken men may hesitate and doubt ; but the work 
 is prompted by the Spirit of God, and it must go on. So long 
 as the Church of Christ mourns over the scandalous and devastat- 
 ing work of intemperance, so long must her loving and earnest 
 and self-sacrificing children labor for the abatement of the evil and, 
 if possible, for its cure. Brethren, look at this matter in its true 
 light, and if, as I am confident, you are worthy to be members 
 of the Body of Christ, then will you be sure to give to this 
 great moral movement your practical co-operation, or, at least, your 
 heartfelt sympathy and encouragement. God bless our Catholic 
 temperance societies ; God bless our Catholic Total Abstinence 
 Union ; and God bless the good and zealous men — bishops, priests 
 and laymen — who are leading and directing them. Our Holy 
 Father, the Pope, has repeatedly blessed them ; and to his blessing 
 may that of every bishop and priest and Catholic in the land be 
 added. They are doing a most important work, yea, considering 
 our circumstances, a most essential work in the Church. May 
 their success be glorious, and their reward great and everlasting. 
 Thus is the Church, like her divine Head, ever intent on 
 " saving her people from their sins." But, besides saving them 
 by delivering them from sin, she longs to save them by preserv- 
 ing them from it. Her fondest desire is to take her members Avhile 
 they are sinless, and keep them sinless. Hence, with true maternal 
 instinct her heart goes out especially towards the young, and her 
 arms encircle them with especial care. She strains every nerve to 
 provide for them the most important of all the blessings of their 
 life — a good Christian education. But education is not confined to
 
 CATHOLIC SOCIETIES. 203 
 
 school and school-days. School-days are the spring-time, the seed- 
 time of education. The growth and the harvest must develop 
 under the scorching summer sun of subsequent life in the world. 
 The time after school days is the critical j)eriod of life, when it 
 is decided whether the carefully-planted seed shall be cultivated 
 and brought to fruit, or allowed to wither away and rot. Besides, 
 the young are naturally gregarious. The old may love solitude, 
 •but the young crave companionship ; and on the nature of their 
 companionship will largely depend the fortune of their lives. 
 Therefore does the life-force of the Body of Christ naturally put 
 itself forth in the formation of associations for the guidance and 
 improvement of youth, and especially of young men, with whom 
 i;he danger and the need are greatest. From the day they leave 
 school they are prone to give up all care for their intellectual 
 improvement; therefore they are to be surrounded with incentives 
 to the acquisition of sound knowledge and of a taste for good 
 reading. They are beset with allurements to dangerous amusements 
 .and ruinous companionships; therefore are they to be supplied with 
 means of innocent recreation with good companions of their own 
 faith. They are apt to fall into neglect of their religious duties; 
 hence the need of inducements to their approaching the Sacra- 
 ments regularly. 
 
 These are the objects aimed at in our Catholic young men's 
 associations — whether sodalities, lyceums or institutes. To any one 
 who appreciates the dangers to which our young men are exposed, 
 210 arguments can be needed to demonstrate the importance of pro- 
 viding them with these safeguards. They arc the natural outgrowth 
 of the Church's maternal solicitude and practical good sense. 
 Pastors, above all, who are so well acquainted with the propensi- 
 ties and perils of young men, must recognize the absolute necessity 
 'of making special provision for their welfare ; and if they desire, as 
 of course they must desire, to mould into true Christian men the 
 youth on whom the future hopes of their congregations depend, they 
 cannot fail to see that the assiduous paternal direction of young 
 men's societies must form an integral and most important part in 
 their pastoral solicitude. This has been again and again urged on 
 tlie attention of the pastors of the Church by our Holy Father 
 Leo XIII. And our young men must remember that on their 
 iseeking, and cheerfully accepting, and dutifully aleiding by this
 
 204 SBBJIOXS OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 guidance, the usefulness and success of their societies must almost 
 entirely depend. If united with the clergy, and heartily in sym- 
 pathy with their guidance, then their society draws its life directly 
 from the channels of the Church's life, and will be a powerful 
 means for making them intelligent, energetic and thoroughly prac- 
 tical Catholic men. 
 
 But should a mistaken spirit of false independence creep in and 
 alienate them from the clergy ; should they begin to prefer their 
 own way of thinking and acting rather than the Church's way; 
 should they begin to take the attitude of "we are a society of 
 Catholics, not a Catholic society;" then they may rest assured 
 that their society will not only be no comfort to their pastor, and 
 no blessing to the parish, but it will be an injury rather than a 
 benefit to themselves. It will breed a set of half-hearted Catholics,, 
 in little or no sympathy with their Mother, the Church, and they 
 will be only a drag on the wheels of her progress, a hindrance 
 to the extension of the kingdom of Christ. There is great truth 
 in the old saying : " Corruptio optimi 2)(^ssima " — that is, " the very 
 best, when corrupted, becomes the very worst ; " and this is pre- 
 eminently true of societies. It behooves both our young men and 
 their pastors to see, therefore, that they avoid the two evils of 
 neglecting to use so powerful a means of vigorous Catholic life as 
 the young men's societies are, and of j^ermitting the societies to 
 languish and go to ruin for want of proper direction. But let 
 the priests and the young men stand together and work together,, 
 and then we may rest assured that we are forming a generation 
 of thorough Christians, of loyal Catholics, of devoted soldiers of 
 the Cross of Christ. 
 
 Next to the various associations for the spread and preservation 
 of Catholic faith and virtue, we may well place those whose aim 
 is the exercise of Catholic charity. How tender was the heart of 
 Jesus ! He never saw a tear but He longed to wipe it away ; 
 He never met a bruised heart but He longed to heal and soothe 
 it. These charitable societies are channels through which the ten- 
 derness of the heart of Jesus is poured out upon the suffering 
 and the sorrowful. Among them all wc may mention as worthy 
 of special honor the St. Vincent de Paul Society, whose conferences 
 are fountains of benediction to the poor in nearly every country of 
 the world. They prove themselves worthy to bear the name of
 
 CATHOLIC SOCIETIES. 205 
 
 the Apostle of charity under whose patronage they labor. Gladly 
 "svould I, if time permitted, speak of the thousand contrivances 
 through which the Church exercises that loving care for the poor, 
 which is one of the cliief characteristics of Christian civilization. 
 Gladly would I do honor to the myriads of noble hearts who 
 ■devote their hours of leisure, and many their whole lives, to the 
 fiweet task of binding up the wounds of suffering humanity. 
 •Gladly woald I enumerate the almost countless associations who 
 take charge of destitute little children or of helpless old age ; of 
 the poor in their homes and the poor who are homeless ; of the 
 •working woman's little ones while she is at her work, and of 
 poor servants who can find no work ; of the lonely girl who is 
 tottering amid dangers, or the poor neglected bootblack or newsboy; 
 •of the needy sick and the friendless dead. Their name is legion, 
 ;and not one is missing from the Book of Life. We bless and 
 praise them now, and one day they will hear the Master say: 
 •^'As often as ye did it to these My least ones, ye have done it 
 unto Me." Oh ! let them remember that it is upon Him they 
 bestow their charity, and let them do it with all the tenderness 
 and thoughtful considcratencss which He deserves. Let them give 
 not merely food and clothing to the body, but sympathy and affec- 
 tion to the suffering heart. Let them pray as they approach the 
 poor man's door, that they may see Jesus there, and deal with 
 Him reverently and lovingly; and, if they find some whom mis- 
 fortune has discouraged, and hardship has hardened, and whom 
 temptation has led astray from God, let them here see their highest 
 and best work, and cease not till the sweet influences of genuine 
 ■charity have melted the hardness and brought the wanderer back 
 to the Good Shepherd. Let them, after the example of St. Vincent 
 iind of our divine Lord, aim at making the poor really better and 
 happier, that they may be worthy of the glorious position which 
 they hold as the dispensers of the tender charity of Christ and of 
 His Church. 
 
 There is another class of societies which, though they may not 
 l)e considered to flow directly from the Spirit of Christ, so as to 
 be functions of His mystical Body, are in perfect harmony with 
 it and deserving of our commendation. These are the societies which 
 are formed for the promotion of social union among Catholics, or 
 to secure their pecuniary assistance to one another in times of
 
 206 SEEMONS OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 sickness and death. These objects are the natural dictates of prac- 
 tical good sense ; and there is always sure to be found a close 
 relationship between practical good sense and the religion of Christ. 
 It is unquestionably the will of God that we should associate fra- 
 ternally with one another, and aid one another in times of need ; 
 and as the Church loves to see her people industrious and thrifty, 
 so does she love to see them band together for the better securing 
 of even their temporal comfort and prosperity. 
 
 But these societies have another great advantage. They are a 
 strong safeguard against the allurements of societies which conceal 
 evil or dangerous designs under the attractive cloak of benevolence 
 and mutual assistance. A great writer has well said that the 
 devil is the ape of Almighty God, always counterfeiting the ways 
 of divine Providence, in order to lure men astray by the glitter 
 of his false coin. AVe all know how cunningly and how success-* 
 fully lie is now using for that purpose the specious but delusive 
 and pernicious brotherhood of secret societies. It is not my province 
 to enter into any detailed examination of their nature. The Vicar 
 of Christ has lately given to the world a summing up of the 
 Church's long experience in dealing with them. He has shown that 
 in many countries they stand arrayed in open hostility to the religion 
 and the Church of Jesus Christ, and that elsewhere they contain 
 the same evil tendencies, at least in germ. We have all heard 
 expressions like these : " I Avill be a good enough man if I am 
 as good as my society would make mo," " If I can live up to 
 the spirit of my society, that will be religion enough for me," 
 and other declarations of a similar sort. Now, no matter how 
 good a thing may be in itself, if it put itself forward as a sub- 
 stitute for the religion and Church of Jesus Christ it becomes a 
 counterfeit, a delusion and a snare. Natural religion or natural 
 benevolence is good, as far as it goes, as a vestibule to super- 
 natural religion and Christian charity ; but should it wish to 
 make itself the religion of the world, and thus virtually supplant 
 Christ our Lord, then it is " Satan clothed as an angel of light." 
 The Church is convinced, from her long and world-wide experi- 
 ence, that such is the tendency and the aim of the secret societies,, 
 whose ramifications now cover the earth. Therefore she warns her 
 children against them, and forbids membership in them under pen- 
 alty of exclusion from her communion and Sacraments. And she
 
 CATHOLIC SOCIETIES. 20T 
 
 rejoices at the multiplication of thoroughly Catholic benevolent and 
 beneficial associations, in which the natural virtues are brought 
 into their proper relation with supernatural religion, and in which 
 Catholics are guarded against the inducements held out by bad 
 or dangerous societies. 
 
 And now, beloved brethren, let us glance back and conclude. 
 We have studied, although very briefly and imperfectly, the provi- 
 dential work of the laity in the Church of God. We have glanced 
 at the various associations in which they are banded together by 
 the instincts of nature and the guidance of grace for holy and 
 admirable purposes — for increasing popular piety, for extending and 
 establishing the kingdom of Christ, for resisting the destructive 
 influence of an aggressive and scandalous vice, for moulding our 
 youth into sterling Christian men, for bringing comfort and relief 
 to the suffering poor, for promoting fraternal union and co-operation 
 among Catholics, and thus rendering harmless the attractions of 
 dangerous societies. We have seen how naturally their activity in 
 all these good works flows from their being members of the Body 
 of Christ, living by its life and moved by its action. We have 
 seen how, by zealous activity in the prosecution of these noble 
 ends, they are made worthy of our divine Head, and are perfected 
 in the image and likeness of our heavenly Father, the ever activo 
 and infinitely loving God. And we have seen how naturally and 
 how profitably individual zeal is combined and shaped for concerted 
 action by Catholic associations. 
 
 In the light of these facts, no one surely can question whether 
 Catholic societies are advisable or not. As well might one ques- 
 tion whether the members of the Body of Christ should act, and 
 should act harmoniously and efficiently. If, in any particular 
 instance. Catholic societies are found not to work satisfactorily, it 
 must be that they are not acting in harmony with the spirit of the 
 Church, because they are not acting in union with her. They must 
 have in some manner drifted away from the paternal direction of 
 the clergy ; they have got outside of the Church's guidance ; they 
 are not moved by her life. It is a great misfortune when zeal 
 and energy are tlms wanted and perhaps misused for want of being 
 rightly directed ; and it behooves both societies and pastors to see 
 to it that no such drifting loose, no such waste or misdirection 
 of energy be allowed. Catholic activity is not so abundant that
 
 208 SEBMONS OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL, 
 
 Ave can aiford to let any of it go to loss. Let priests and people, 
 therefore, be careful to keep united, that all their action may be 
 harmonious and useful, as becomes the Body of Christ. 
 
 Kor again can any one, with all these facts before him, ques- 
 tion whether it is advisable or not for every individual Catholic 
 to take an active interest in the work of Catholic societies. As 
 well ask whether it is allowable to a Catholic to feel indiiferent 
 about the advance of religion, the spread of the Church, the tem- 
 poral and eternal welfare of his brethren ; or, whether he might 
 not confine his interest in them to a mere sentimental sympathy, 
 without active co-operation. The notion carries with it its own 
 condemnation, and is repugnant to the instincts of every truly 
 Catholic heart. There must be no cold, inert, sluggish members 
 in the Body of Christ. Above all, there must be no carping, 
 sneering members, who try to palliate their own inaction by 
 decrying the activity of others. If the spirit of God is in us, let 
 us show it by the untiringness of our Catholic action, and let our 
 hearts, like that of our dear Lord, be eaten up with zeal for tlie 
 honor and beauty of the Church of God. Let time, and strength, 
 and money, and loving encouragement be all employed assiduously 
 and to the utmost, in pushing on the Mork of God and in 
 strengthening every organization that is engaged in it. Let the 
 motto of every Catholic society and of every individual member 
 of the Church be that of tlie illustrious founder of the Society 
 of Jesus : " Omnia ad majorcni Del gloriam — All for the greater 
 glory of God."
 
 %^t 4^^\m^ mti ^tmu, 
 
 SERMOI OF RiaHT REY. THOMAS 1. BROKER, D.D., 
 
 BISHOP OF WILMIKGTOH, DEL. 
 
 •' The house of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and 
 ground of truth." — St. PauVs First Epistle to Timothy, c. Hi, v. 15. 
 
 WHETHER we consider the actual existence of the Catholic Church 
 presenting herself before the world, and claiming to be the 
 mother Church of Christianity, or examine her history in the records 
 of Holy Scripture and the chronicle of every age, one fact must 
 necessarily challenge our admiration — namely, she is the only constant 
 •quantity in the midst of evanescent variables. This peculiarity, cer- 
 tainly not communicated to any other moral organization, has caused 
 thinking minds, accustomed to and fond of change, to give an almost 
 scientific classification to the Catholic Church as something apart, and 
 they deem her at least a wonderful fossil, the precise nature of 
 which, perhaps, even as a conservative power, they can hardly 
 imagine. It is our duty to point out as concisely as we can what 
 are some of the claims and essential characteristics of the Church, 
 of which "the Maker and Founder is God," for it is of her that 
 our Lord and Redeemer speaks when He says emphatically, "I will 
 build My Church," (Matt., xvi, 18,) and of her St. Paul uses the 
 remarkable words of the text, describing to his beloved disciple in 
 the faith how lie was to conduct himself as a bishop in the "House 
 of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and 
 ground of truth." (I. Timothy, iii, 15.) 
 
 By the Church in the Old Law was clearly meant that society 
 which God had chosen and called forth from among all other 
 nations to be the recipient of His gracious promises, and to be 
 
 14 (209)
 
 210 SEEirOJVS OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 the chosen people when the Redeemer should come as the Ruler 
 of the whole world. That society had a divine protection, since 
 through it the glory of God wixz to be made known by the salva- 
 tion of men. More definite words cannot be found than those used 
 by the Apostle of the nations, St. Paul, when writing to the Romans 
 in the 9th chapter, 4tli and 5th verses, he describes the claim of 
 the Church in the Old Law : " To whom belongeth the adoption 
 of children, and the glory, and the covenant, and the giving of 
 the law, and the service of God, and the promises : whose also 
 are the fathers, and of whom is Christ, according to the fleshy 
 who is over all things God blessed forever. Amen." In this 
 Church, which was indubitably a divine institution. Almighty God 
 set forth His power in the most distinctively evident manner. 
 Not only did He appear to the patriarchs, but by his wonders left 
 that permanent impression upon the Hebrews which to this day 
 they retain as the best corroborative testimony of their records. 
 They cannot be understood, as a people, without a knowledge of 
 their religion. Their religion is maimed, and inexplicable unless by 
 the Church, which bore the promise of a Redeemer. This promise 
 was fulfilled in Him who was born according to the prophecy of 
 Isaias. All, therefore, which had preceded the coming of Christ 
 was simply the promise ; here is the fulfillment, for He came not 
 to destroy, but to fulfill. (St. Matt., v, 17.) To one of His 
 disciples He makes ampler declarations, almost appalling in their 
 wondrous extent. He speaks of that one chosen to be the head 
 over his brethren, that he should be a rock on which Christ would 
 build His Church and the gates of hell should not prevail against 
 it ; that to him should be given the keys of heaven, and that 
 his loosing and binding on earth should be ratified in heaven. 
 (St. Matt., xvi, 19.) And to the same person, carefully mentioned 
 by name and surname, the Lord, risen from the dead, gives triple 
 faculties beyond his brethren ; after having exacted from him a 
 triple attestation of fealty, to feed His lambs, feed His sheep, to 
 feed His whole flock, (St. John, xxi, 15, 16, 17,) in order that it 
 might be a fold in unity, indivisible. Christ was therefore, when 
 on earth, the whole teaching Church. He possessed all truth, com- 
 plete authority, and permanently infallible magistracy. He promised 
 to give all that He possessed to His Church, that which He had 
 as the Redeemer and the Teacher of mankind. He promised this 
 to His society, which is the Church.
 
 THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE. 211 
 
 But this teaching was for the benefit of men to the end of 
 time. The permanency of Christ's teaching was to be provided by 
 Himself. He would send the Holy Ghost to lead His Church 
 into all trutli. (St. John, xiv, 26) '^ But the Paraclete, the Holy 
 Ghost, Avhom the Father will send in My name, He will teach 
 you all things, and bring all things to your mind, whatsoever I 
 shall have said to you." And, finally, as the last blessing He 
 says, " Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in 
 the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; 
 teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded 
 you, and behold I am with you all days, even to the consum- 
 mation of the woild." (Matt., xxviii, 19-20.) This, then, is the 
 theory ; this, also, is the practice of the Church of God, which 
 is the House of the living God, the pillar and ground of truth. 
 She claims to be, and she is, the sole possessor of all the rich 
 heritage of authority from her divine Founder, and, like all absolute 
 truth, she is intolerant of rivals. She would be untrue to her 
 divine Founder were she to abate one jot or one tittle of that 
 deposit which belongs to her as the " pillar and ground of truth." 
 
 Nor is it possible to have the full consciousness of Catholic 
 truth until we have entirely grasped the idea of authority with 
 which the Church teaches. It is exactly the same teaching authority 
 as is that of Christ. It was especially in this that the teaching 
 of Christ differed from that of the doctors of the law, since it 
 is most distinctly asserted of Him that "He taught with authority, 
 and not as the scribes." (St. Mark, i, 22.) When, therefore, it is 
 thoroughly understood by thinking men the Church Catholic is 
 simply, truly and really Christ continuing his mission, living in 
 the world, according to His gracious promises, " even to the con- 
 summation of ages," (St. Matt., xxviii, 20,) and teacliing all men 
 " who wish to come to a knowledge of the truth " the entire 
 system of revelation, they feel the vigor of St. Paul's admirably 
 graphic description of that perennial society, concerning wdiich he 
 says that she is "the House of God, the pillar and ground of 
 the truth." 
 
 Thus we have by anticipation a universal solvent of all difficul- 
 ties, however plausible they may be presented against the Church; 
 for she is made out to be the very voice of the living Saviour, 
 guiding our footsteps in all that belongs to the supernatural life. 
 We have an impregnable position, since the promise is divine,
 
 212 SERMONS OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 that the gates of hell shall not prevail against that house which is 
 built upon a rock. It was chiefly for the higher manifestation of 
 His Godhead that He performed miracles, since these were, in their 
 nature, transient ; but His teachings were enduring. The truths 
 which He revealed were such as reason could not have known, and 
 they belonged to a sphere as much beyond mere worldly interests 
 and favor as the soul is above the body. It would, therefore, 
 be insulting to right reason to suppose a conflict possible, since 
 parallel lines cannot meet. It is only science falsely so called 
 which by the malice of men is perverted to seem antagonistic to 
 the Church. Systems from this source have often presented a 
 bold front. Chiefly remarkable for their newness of expression, 
 they have had their little day, and the unchangeable Church saw 
 them born, and calmly watched their funeral. 
 
 On the other hand, while the Church logically insists on the 
 great truth, " what does it profit a man to gain the whole world 
 and lose his soul," (St. Matt., xvi, 26), yet she can appeal with 
 equal truthfulness to the facts of history concerning her develop- 
 ments of science and learning. She has, like a vestal virgin, fed 
 the earthly flock in arts and sciences with celestial nutriment, and 
 can count among her faithful children the best intellects and first 
 discoverers in every branch of knowledge. Are examples of phi- 
 losophy required ? Who can compare with St. Thomas, the Angel 
 of the Schools ? Do we desire to take up an indefinite amount of 
 time recounting the Fathers and doctors of the Church? In archi- 
 tecture, we point to those glorious cathedrals, which, like perma- 
 nent prayers, proclaim in stone the glory of that sublime religion 
 which produced them and gave them life and voice. In painting, 
 the theme was furnished by her history, and the execution faith- 
 fully performed through the inspiration of her genius, while life 
 was breathed into the marble by those who, at her bidding, caused 
 the virtues of the saints to take enduring form in the stead of 
 the apotheosis of vices, or earthly praise of mere human prowess. 
 In music, who can compare with those transcendent intellects born 
 of the Catholic Church, who blended the harmonies of the angels 
 with the human voice in honor of Him "whose kingdom shall 
 have no end?" (St. Luke, 1.) Not an art exists but she has 
 chained in loving obedience to her triumphal chariot, not a science 
 can exist but is at once made subservient to her sway.
 
 THE CnURCU AND SCIENCE. 213 
 
 It is true, she Aveighs well her conclusions, and being eternal, 
 she can afford to wait until the sober thought of matured judg- 
 ment shall have corrected hastily drawn inferences. The Sacred 
 Scriptures, for instance, under her protection — where alone they can 
 be properly understood — have undergone innumerable attacks on the 
 part of intellects so keen and indwelt by a hatred so far beyond 
 expression that no future reinforcements can arise to equal either 
 their ability or audacity, when battling against the Word of God 
 and His Church. Yet, the Scriptures, defended by the invulnerable 
 panoply of the Church, stand forth unchanged and unscathed, and 
 both remain sublimely calm and beautiful after the battles of cen- 
 turies, as the rainbow Avhich smiles upon the earth after the tem- 
 pest. It is right and logical to draw an inference from the past, 
 and since no antagonism has hitherto been able to be proved be- 
 tween divine revelation and true human science, we may unhesi- 
 tatingly assert that no contradiction can ever be conceived. Their 
 objects or aims are different, but by no means contradictory; they 
 are diverse, yet never opposite. Revelation has in its very nature 
 to give us a knowledge of the invisible world, the superior, nay, 
 even the immortal part ; science must treat of the empirical, the 
 material, the transient. The former is fixed truth, which depends on 
 the veracity of God ; the latter must be tried or experimented 
 upon — is subject to progress or even neglect. Experimental evi- 
 dence is the ultimate barrier beyond Avhich it dares not go. 
 
 Here the Church steps in, and, using the highest formula of 
 science as her lowest stepping stone, claims within her own ambit 
 the power and potency of all things. She gives to an intelligent 
 Cause the first act of creation, which atheists unintelligibly ascribe to 
 senseless matter, which they should logically fall down and worship 
 as the author of their highest and most perfect realizations. We 
 prefer to rise from effect to cause ; from the visible to the invisi- 
 ble ; from thought to the Author of mind ; from the creature en- 
 dowed with noble intellect to the Creator. In this the Church 
 fears no examination ; she dreads no investigation. Unthinking and 
 superficial views she fears. She beseeches men to lay aside the 
 prejudices by which they have been enwrapped, and pleads with all 
 to consider her claims as the constant guide ; her Avorks as the 
 fruits of her teacliings ; her history as the constant quantity which 
 can no more diminish than that truth, of which she is the pillar 
 and foundation, and wliich is for men the voice of the living God.
 
 ^Ij^ ^^tln^Iidta 4 tli^ ^\\\mlh 
 
 SERMOI OF RIGHT REY. JAMES O'COfflOR, D.D., 
 
 YICAR APOSTOLia OF NEBRASKA. 
 
 Going, therefore, teacli ye all nations. — 3Iatt., c. xxviii, v. 10. 
 
 THE subject on which I have been asked to address you this 
 evening, dear brethren, is " The Catholicity of the Church." 
 Catholicity, or universality, is an essential attribute of the Church 
 of Christ. She is necessarily Catholic, and she alone is or can 
 be such. Her mission, the object for which she was established, 
 is Catholic, and she must needs be Catholic. She was instituted 
 to lead men to a knowledge of the true God, to train them to 
 the practice of the Christian virtues, and, by so doing, to pre- 
 pare them for eternal happiness. This she was to do, not by 
 writing, but by teaching and by administering to every individual 
 visible sacraments. Faith was " to come from hearing." No one 
 could enter into the kingdom of heaven except by baptism. No 
 one could have life in him who did not " cat the flesh of the 
 Son of Man, and drink His blood." 
 
 But the Church could not do this sort of work, could not 
 teach and administer sacraments, where she did not exist. Hence 
 our Lord commissioned and positively commanded His Apostles 
 to put themselves in a position to perform it in the very natural 
 manner in which He had prescribed it should be done. "All 
 power," He said to them, " is given to Mc in heaven and on 
 cartli. Going, therefore, teach ye all nations, baptizing them in the 
 name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. 
 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded 
 you. And behold I am with you all days even to the consumma- 
 tion of the world." 
 
 (214)
 
 THE CATHOLICITY OF THE CHURCH. 215 
 
 He had previously restricted their teaching to the Jewish people. 
 *' Go not," He said, " into the Avay of the Gentiles, and into the 
 city of the Samaritans enter ye not." The Law was for the 
 Jews. " In Judea," said the Psalmist, " God is known." This 
 restriction He now removes, and throws open the whole world to 
 their preaching. Now the kingdom of God is to be taken from 
 the Jews, " and given to a nation yielding the fruits thereof." 
 ^'And I will say to that which was not My people, thou art My 
 people." 
 
 The diffusion of the Church over the world was to take place 
 without fail. It was not left to depend on the unaided efforts 
 of the Apostles. Our Lord Himself guaranteed its success, when 
 He said : " I am M'ith you all days, even to the consummation of 
 the world." But for this assurance the Apostles would have shrank 
 appalled from the task assigned them. When the Lord commanded 
 Moses to free his people from the bondage of the Pharoes, the 
 Patriarch exclaimed in very natural surprise : " Who am I that 
 I should go to Pharoe, and bring forth the people of Israel out of 
 Egypt ?" But when he heard that " I will be with thee," and 
 received power to work miracles in proof of his mission, he hesi- 
 tated no longer, well knowing that what M'as impossible to him 
 would, with the divine aid, be not only possible but easy. 
 
 But the voice of the Apostles, or their teaching, was not to 
 reach every individual beyond the confines of Judea. Many would 
 be found unworthy of such a favor. Their culpable idolatry and 
 infidelity, their violations of the natural law written on their 
 hearts, the shameful vices to which the majority of them were 
 addicted, would keep from them the apostolic message. They would, 
 indeed, always have sufficient grace to merit it, but, not correspond- 
 ing with this grace, the message would not be delivered to them. 
 
 And we know that, in point of fact, many who heard it, did 
 not heed it. They "loved darkness rather tlian the light," for the 
 light led to the narrow way in mIucIi only the few care to walk. 
 Or, "they neglected, going their way, one to his farm, and another 
 to his merchandise ;" or, they laid hands on the servants of the 
 King, and, having treated them contumeliously, put them to death. 
 
 These two classes, they who do not deserve the grace of faith, 
 and they who reject it, liave constituted the great majority of men^ 
 in every age, and will continue to do so to the end of time.
 
 216 SFEirOIfS OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 For, "many are called, and few are chosen." And wide is the 
 gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many 
 there are who go in thereat. How narrow is the gate and straight 
 the way that leadeth to life, and few there are that find it. 
 
 The Catholicity of the Church, then, was to be not physical, 
 but moral. She was to be morally, not physically. Catholic. She 
 was not to include all men within her fold, or even the majority of 
 them, but a sufficient number, nevertheless, to show that she had 
 fulfilled the commission of her divine Founder, to " teach all 
 nations." These words, "all nations," in this text and other texts 
 quoted in this connection cannot, from what has been said, be 
 taken in a physical sense. They cannot mean absolutely all men.. 
 They must, then, be taken in, at least, a moral sense. The Church 
 ^yas to be so diffused as that she could be said with truth to be 
 world-wide. Catholic, universal, though actually embracing only a 
 minority of those in the world. 
 
 Again, the Catholicity of the Church was not to be simply a 
 material Catholicity, a Catholicity of mere numbers, the Catholicity 
 of a crowd, or of a vast number of crowds scattered over the face 
 of the earth. No ; it Mas to be a formal, organic Catholicity, a 
 Catholicity in unity. The- Church was to grow as the vine grows. 
 She was to grow as the grain of mustard seed, "which is the least 
 of all seeds, but which, when it is grown up, is greater than any 
 herbs, and becometh a tree, so that tho birds of the air come and 
 dwell in tlie branches thereof." She was, in a word, to be a 
 growth, not an aggregation, and, in growing, she was, by the very 
 law of growth, to preserve her identity. Spread and increase as 
 she might, she was always to remain that same Church on which 
 the Holy Ghost had descended on the day of Pentecost. Then 
 the Church was a society, an independent, perfect society, and she 
 must needs grow as a society grows, by bringing her newly ac- 
 quired members under obedience to a common autliority, directing 
 them by general laws, and the same means, to the attainment of 
 a common end, and thus assimilating them to and incorporating 
 them in herself. 
 
 Her mission, the work she had to do, required her to be 
 Catholic, and to be Catholic always. Her very nature and her con- 
 stitution made her Catholicity formal and organic. She was to be- 
 come Catholic by teaching and baptizing, and her teaching and
 
 THE CATHOLICITY OF THE CHURCH. 217 
 
 governing authority was to j)reserve and perpetuate her Catholicity. 
 It was well calculated to do so. It was an external, visible, 
 sjDeaking authority, caj^able of explaining itself, so that no one 
 could possibly mistake its meaning. It was a divine authority, 
 which all were bound to obey under pain of eternal death, for He 
 who gave it had said: '^He that hears you, hears Me;" "those 
 that do not believe shall be condemned." 
 
 Men, indeed, were to be physically free to recognize that au- 
 thority or not, or having submitted to it, to again reject it. 
 Those who were invited to the marriage feast would not come ; 
 and the Apostle tells us, " there must be also heresies." But this 
 Avas not to hinder or destroy the Catholicity of the Church. If 
 some would refuse the Gospel, others would accept it. If, in the 
 lapse of ages, many would fall away from Catholic unity, others 
 would take their places, and thus, '' the wedding would be filled 
 with guests." 
 
 From Avhat has been said, it is, I think, evident that Catho- 
 licity is an essential quality or attribute of the Church of Christ. 
 Let me now endeavor to show you that it does not and cannot 
 belong to any of those Christian societies not in communion with 
 the Church of Rome. 
 
 'If we consider those societies singly and apart, there is not 
 one of them that can claim even material Catholicity. Each is 
 restricted to a particular country ; or, if we find societies of the 
 same name in two or more countries, we shall find that they 
 diifer more or less in doctrine, and are wholly independent of each 
 other in government. They are different organizations, different 
 societies, and therefore different Churches. Some of them, indeed, 
 have insignificant make-believe missionary stations in pagan lands, 
 but these exercise no appreciable religious influence on the people 
 amongst whom they have been established. 
 
 And if we take those societies collectively, whatever may be 
 said of their material Catholicity, they certainly have not formal 
 Catholicity. Yet without this formal Catholicity, though they miglit 
 count their adherents by hundreds of millions, they would have no 
 claim whatever to be regarded as the Church of Christ. They 
 are not one but many Churches, differing as widely from each other 
 as do the civil governments under which tliey live, and to which 
 several of them belong. Such of them as are State Churches, are
 
 '218 SEEJIOJ^^S OF TUB THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 organized ou national, not Catholic lines, and these as well as those 
 that are not State institutions, make it a standing objection to us, 
 that we recognize a supreme authority outside the countries where we 
 -are. They thus, implicitly at least, deny the Catholicity of the 
 Church of Christ, for how could she be Catholic without a supreme 
 general authority such as we acknowledge in the Bishop of Rome ? 
 
 " The Church," says St. Augustine, " is everywhere, and heresy 
 is everywhere. But the Church is everywhere one and the same ; 
 lieresies are not the same, but most different. They do not recog- 
 nize each other, and are not, therefore. Catholic." Nor is there 
 anything in any of those societies that would give hope of their 
 formal Catholicity in the future. Quite the contrary. In each and 
 every one of them, private judgment is the fundamental rule of 
 faith, and private judgment sooner or later reduces religious life 
 to individualism, and makes authority, which is the formal bond 
 of every society, civil and religious, a usurpation and a contra- 
 diction. If every one of those societies is not what Macaulay calls 
 the Church of England, "a hundred sects battling within one Church," 
 and that, let me add, a Church which nowadays teaches no 
 doctrine and condemns no heresy, and which, as Dr. Pusey said, 
 '^ has made England a numerous nation of heathen," it is always 
 in a fair way to become such. 
 
 Then Protestantism, it should be borne in mind, was not 
 diffused by teaching the nations, but by detaching men from 
 the Church, and that chiefly by misrepresenting her doctrines, by 
 appeals in the first instance to the grosser passions, and by brute 
 force. Kor has it acquired any new territory since the Reforma- 
 tion, except by colonization. On the contrary, it has everywhere 
 lost ground, and nowhere more than in its former strongholds. 
 Germany and Switzerland are now dominated by infidelity. The 
 Protestant theologian Claude Harms, said of Germany, that " he 
 could write ou his thumb nail, all the doctrines of the reformers, 
 still universally held there," and another Protestant writer quoted 
 by the Catholic World for last June, compares its condition to 
 "that of pagan Rome, just before the advent of Christ, when the 
 people had ceased to bring sacrifices, and cared no more for their 
 idols, yet had nothing to put in their place." Let it suffice to 
 add, in this connection, that the poor remnant of orthodox Prot- 
 estantism in Prussia, is now fighting for its life in the Catholic
 
 THE CATHOLICITY OF THE CHURCH. 219 
 
 Centre of the Reichstag, under the leadership of the eloquent 
 Windthorst. For more than a century, Protestants did not even 
 <lream of evangelizing the heathen. The Synod of Dort declared 
 that, for any one to expose himself to the danger of doing so, 
 without a special mission from on higli, would be to tempt God. 
 Not thus thought St. Paul, the " vessel of election " that had been 
 chosen to carry the name of Christ before the Gentiles. "A necessity 
 lieth upon me," said he, " for woe is unto me if I preach not the 
 Gospel." He, indeed, and the other Apostles had a special mission 
 to teach the Gentiles, but to restrict that mission to the Gentiles 
 of apostolic times would be simply absurd, and would be to blame 
 the action of even modern Protestants, who at least attempt the 
 conversion of the heathen. Nor did Protestants undertake anything 
 of importance in this matter, till the beginning of the present 
 century. Since then they have spent millions yearly on foreign 
 missions, but with no other result than to show the utter barren- 
 ness of such enterprises. Protestant missioners have succeeded as 
 traders ; they have in some places succeeded as school teachers, — 
 there is no reason why they should not have done so — but they 
 have made no converts to speak of. They have been able to 
 convince many of their pupils of the folly of idolatry and poly- 
 theism, — any mere deist might have done this, — but the scholars 
 as a rule became infidels, not Christians. Why, it is enough to 
 say, that a table compiled by the writer in the CathoIlG World 
 already referred to from the latest edition of " Christian Missions," 
 gives but eight hundred and fifty converts, such as they M'crc, for 
 all the Protestant missions in Asia, Africa and Australasia ! 
 
 How could it be otherwise? "If any one," says Christ, "abide 
 not in Me, he shall be cast forth as a branch, and shall wither." 
 
 And, now, if we turn our thoughts to the Church in communion 
 with Rome, what a different state of things do we not find! From 
 immemorial time she has had material Catholicity. At the very be- 
 ginning of the second century the Proconsul Pliny wrote to the 
 Emperor Trajan that Christianity had spread so widely in Bithynia 
 that " the temples were nearly deserted and the sacrifices suspended." 
 ^' There is," says St. Justin JNIartyr, in the same century, " no peo- 
 ple, whether Greek or barbarian, among whom prayers and thanks- 
 giving are not offered to the Father and Creator of the world, in 
 the name of Christ crucified." "We arc of yesterday," says
 
 220 suEjroys of the third plenary council. 
 
 Tertullian, " and we fill all places, leaving to you only the tem- 
 ples." "Everywhere," says the same Father, "are to be found the 
 disciples of the Crucified, among the Parthians and Medes, the 
 Elamites and Mesopotamians, in Armenia and Phrygia, Cappadocia 
 and Pontus, Asia Minor, Egypt and Cyrene, mingled with the 
 various tribes of the Getuli and Moors in Gaul, in Spain, in 
 Britain and Germany." 
 
 This was in the days of persecution. This was in times when 
 to profess Christianity exposed men to the danger of losing all that 
 is most precious in life, and life itself even, under tortures the 
 most appalling. After the conversion of Constantino, when the 
 Church was able to walk in the light of day, we see her lines 
 extending across all known lands — in Europe, Africa and Asia — till 
 they lose themselves in the wastes and forests of the outside bar- 
 . barians. Indeed, so completely has she filled the Avorld since that 
 time that, looking back through the centuries, Ave see little else but 
 her. Her history since then may be said to be the history of the 
 civilized world. 
 
 Heresies and schisms, formidable by their numbers and their 
 influence, went out from her from time to time, but her conquests 
 more than compensated her for the losses thus sustained. The 
 empire fell, but she survived it, tamed and softened its fierce- 
 destroyers, and formed them into the Christendom of the Middle Ages. 
 
 She increased steadily from age to age, and her growth has been 
 most rapid during the last four centuries, when defections from her 
 ranks were most numerous and the opposition of her enemies was 
 most formidable. A table showing the gradual growth of the 
 Church from the first century to the present time was published 
 recently in Germany by some non-Catholic statisticians. According^ 
 to it, she had in the first century five hundred thousand mem- 
 bers, in the second two millions, in the third five millions, in the 
 fourth ten, and so on to the nineteenth, when, in 1876, she could 
 count two hundred and sixty millions. 
 
 There can then be no doubt as to her material Catholicity. 
 But her formal Catholicity is equally beyond question. St. Ireneus 
 says of the Roman Church : "For with this Church, on account of 
 her more powerful principality, it is necessary that every Church, 
 that is, the faithful who are on all sides, should agree." This 
 saint was a Greek, a disciple of St. Polycarp, who Avas a disci-
 
 THE CATHOLICITY OF THE CHURCH. 221 
 
 pie of St. John the Evangelist, and carried with him into Gaul, 
 in the second century, the apostolic traditions of the East. The 
 Bishops of Eome have ever insisted on this agreement, and de- 
 fmed its limits. They have always claimed a primacy of honor 
 and jurisdiction over all the Churches of Christendom, or, as St. 
 ■Chrysostom expresses it, " the presidency of the universal Church," 
 which Christ committed to Peter after his fall, and the claim has 
 teen acknowledged everywhere and always. This is simply matter 
 of fact, but of fact that can be established by whole volumes of 
 evidence, and which, I doubt not, will be satisfactorily established 
 in the course of these evening sermons. 
 
 " In virtue of his office," says Archbishop Kenriolc, " the Pon- 
 tiff teaches with authority, and directs his teaching to all the 
 •children of the Church, wherever they may be found, pastors and 
 people; he pronounces judgment on all whose faith is suspected, 
 to whatever rank they belong ; he condemns heresy wherever it 
 may have originated, or by whomsoever it may be supported; he 
 calls on his colleagues, the bishops, to concur in the condemna- 
 tion; he assembles them in council to investigate and judge with 
 liim the controversies that are raised, or to concur, by their har- 
 monious judgment and action, in rooting out condemned errors; 
 he promulgates their definitions of faith, and incessantly guards 
 the sacred deposit of divine doctrine. All these acts have been 
 performed in all ages of the Church by the Bishop of Rome, as 
 successor of St. Peter, and have been universally acknowledged to 
 be the prerogatives and duties of his office." 
 
 AVhoever is anxious to see the proofs of these general state- 
 ments of your late illustrious archbishop, will find them in his 
 work on "The Primacy," published in this city in 1857. 
 
 And, I need not tell you, that this authority of the Pope over 
 the universal Church is exercised more fully and more freely to-day 
 than at any former time. A writer in a recent number of the 
 {Contemporary Review says of the reigning Pontiff, Leo XIII, in 
 this connection: "On May 28, 1878, he creates the Diocese of 
 Chicontrini in Canada ; on June 21, the Apostolic Vicariate of 
 Kansuh in China; on July 31, he converts the Apostolic Vicari- 
 ate of Montevideo into a bishopric; on September 13, he cuts 
 off a tract of territory from the See of Canstantineh and annexes
 
 222 SEI^MO^■>s of tub third plenary council. 
 
 it to that of Algiers ; on December 20, he divides the Diocese of 
 Beverly to make a new Diocese of Leeds ; and, in September of 
 the next year, makes the Church of St. Anne its Cathedral ; on 
 January 20, 1880, he raises the Vicariate of Cracow into an epis- 
 copate, and gives it a new territorial definition ; on May 25, he 
 halves the Diocese of Yucatan, in Mexico, and forms that of 
 Sabasco ; on July 29, he divides, in the same way, the Archiepis- 
 copal See of Santa Fe de Bogola, in New Granada, and forms the 
 Diocese of Sunza; on July 5, 1881, he constitutes an episcopal 
 hierarchy in Bosnia and Herzigovina ; on September 30, he reduces 
 the number of the Portuguese bishoprics, and remodels their terri- 
 torial distribution." 
 
 " Every thought of the pontifical heart," observes the same 
 Avriter farther on, " dilates and broadens to embrace the world. 
 He is the only power in existence whose inherent and essential 
 obligation it is to go on incessantly acquiring and extending ovjiv 
 all civilized, and even all barbarous, nations, an intellectual and 
 moral ascendency." 
 
 Yet it should be borne in mind that these are only a very few 
 acts of the universal jurisdiction exercised by the present Pope 
 since his elevation to the Chair of Peter. 
 
 It is then evident that the Churches in communion with Rome, 
 whilst having each her own local government, have ever been in- 
 tegral parts of one great Church, under one supreme head, and 
 that this Church, and this alone, has been always Catholic in num- 
 bers, in doctrine, in government, in nnity, and has had in the 
 teaching and governing authority of her chief bishop a principle 
 preservative of her unity and her Catholicity. She alone, then, is 
 the Church of Christ. For a church that is not Catholic cannot 
 teach all nations, cannot do the work, to do which Christ estab- 
 lished His Church. In her, too, and in her alone, are fulfilled the 
 prophecies in regard to the Catholicity of Christ's Church. 
 
 She is that "city of God" of which "glorious things are said." 
 She is that Church promised by the eternal Father to His only 
 begotten Sou, when He said : "Ask of Me, and I will give Thee 
 the Gentiles for Thy inheritance, and the utmost parts of the earth 
 for Thy possession." 
 
 In her all nations praise the Lord. She speaks to-day as she 
 spoke on the day of Pentecost, " in diverse tongues, as the Holy 
 Ghost gives her to speak."
 
 THE CATHOLICITY OF THE CHURCH. 22S 
 
 They were her children in whose name the ancients sang : 
 " Thou hast redeemed ns to God, in Thy blood, out of every tribe,, 
 and tongue, and people, and nation, and hast made us to our God 
 a kingdom and priests, and we shall reign on the earth." 
 
 She, in fine, is the Church Avhich, her struggles and her suffer- 
 ings in this world at an end, will form "that multitude which 
 no man can nlimber, of all nations, and tribes, and peoples, and 
 tongues, that will stand before the throne, in sight of the Lamb, 
 and sing His praises for ever and ever."
 
 Cif^ ^^ttttitg ^{ tti^ 4^imtk^ 
 
 SEEIOH OF RiaHT REY. JOHI HEHESSY, D.D., 
 
 BISHOP OF DUBUQUE. 
 
 " Husbands, love your wives as Christ also loved the Church and delivered Himself 
 ■up for it, that He might sanctify it, cleansing it by the laver of water in the word 
 of life, that He might present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot or 
 wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish." — EpJie- 
 sians, c. 5, v. 25-27" 
 
 IN the verses just read, St. Paul sets before us two stages in the 
 life of the Church, one in time and the other in eternity, one 
 a stage of preparation and the other of perfection ; one of sanc- 
 tification and the other of glory, in which she shall appear without 
 spot or wrinkle or tiny such thing. She is at present on the M'ay 
 to what she will be. Our Lord delivered Himself up to sanctify 
 her by the laver of water in the word of life ; that is, by faith 
 and baptism, or by teaching and the dispensation of mysteries. 
 That His sacrifice Avas not without fruit of sanctity is declared 
 implicitly by the Apostle when he speaks of Christ's love for His 
 Church, and proposes it as a model to every Christian husband. 
 Knowing the relations between husband and wife and the indis- 
 soluble love by which they are united, the Apostle surely wished 
 and desired that the love of the husband for his wife be constant 
 and unremitting. To make good His argument, the model love 
 should not be less perfect than its imitation. He could never have 
 proposed to a Christian husband as His model a love which could 
 be interrupted, whicli could degenerate into hate ; therefore, the 
 love of Christ for His Church must be permanent — perpetual. "No 
 man ever hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it as 
 also Christ doth the Church." Between Christ and the Church 
 
 (224)
 
 nm 
 
 ^ P^ 
 
 Very -t'ev. L. Ooilbe, 
 
 'Hfttev. James' Slnih, C.S.Sjk 
 
 Very llev, John -V. Lemmens, 
 
 Tnj-mvi'yt7T:-i
 
 THE SANCTITY OF THE CHURCH. 225 
 
 there never can be hate. As the object of Christ's love in the 
 Church is her sanctity, it follows that it also must ever remain 
 continuous, unbroken, v/ithout interruption of any kind. It must be 
 as lasting as the laver of water and the word of life that produce 
 it. This has been the faith of the ages. It is the teaching of 
 the Apostles and of the Fathers of Nice in the creeds they have left 
 ns. It is found unmistakably in the noble epithets so often applied 
 to the Church throughout the New Testament, such as, "Kingdom 
 of Heaven," "City of God," "Temple of the Holy Ghost," "Body of 
 Christ." It is the crowning attribute of God's Church. All her 
 other properties are subservient, to it ; all her agencies and activities 
 conspire to produce it. It is the life of all and the end here 
 Lelow of their existence and energies. 
 
 Of this heavenly property of the visible society which Christ 
 instituted; of this undying life of the Church of God called sanc- 
 tity, it is my privilege to speak this morning. I shall endeavor to 
 show you in what it consists, how it is produced fundamentally, 
 and where it is found among men. 
 
 The word holy has various significations. It is applied to things 
 as well as to persons. Churches, altars, chalices and other sacred 
 vessels are called holy because tliey are consecrated to the service of 
 God. Doctrine, Sacraments and laws are called holy also because they 
 serve to produce holiness in the individual and to protect it. 
 Personal sanctity is moral rectitude before God, implying a re- 
 semblance to Him and union with Him. It is a cleanliness of 
 soul from the defilement of sin which in the present state of 
 nature is produced by the infusion of sanctifying grace and super- 
 natural virtues. Sanctity under this twofold aspect is a property 
 of the Church, which as a Avhole is dedicated to the service of 
 God as each of its members is consecrated thereto in the Sacra- 
 ment of Baptism. It has a holy doctrine and Holy Sacraments, 
 and always has and must have holy members. 
 
 Doctrine and Sacraments are called holy not alone because they 
 come from God, but because they are given to produce personal 
 sanctity and are capable of doing so. Nor is it necessary that 
 they should produce that effect in every instance, since sanctity 
 in the adult is the result of two fiictors, one of which is the 
 co-operation of the free will of man. As this co-operation varies^ 
 in different persons, and as it may be wholly denied, it follows 
 
 15
 
 226 si:iiMOJ\^s of the third plenary council. 
 
 that the consequences, spiritual death or weakness; are not attribu- 
 table to the Church which has no part whatever in their produc- 
 tion, for they occur in spite of her, but are to be set down 
 wholly and solely to the malice of the individual or to his im- 
 perfect dispositions. 
 
 By the sanctity of the Church is not meant that all its mem- 
 bers are holy. That they are not is a fact declared by our Lord 
 in j^arables wliich He has Himself explained. According to these 
 the Church is like a field in which good grain and cockle grow 
 up together till tlie harvest time, when the angels come to sepa- 
 rate them. It is like a net in which there are good and bad 
 fishes ; in other words, it is a society composed of good and bad 
 members, of sinners and saints, and it will continue to be such 
 to the end of time. Nor does the sanctity of the Church require 
 that the saints outnumber the sinners, though no doubt this is 
 always the fact ; it is enough that the Church is able to produce 
 saints, and always does produce them in notable numbers. As 
 nations are called prosperous where prosperity is within the reach 
 of all, and the possession of many in a remarkable degree, while 
 others tln-ough their own fault are poor and miserable; so the 
 Church is called holy since all her members may be holy, though 
 many through weakness or malice are pitiable sinners. Hence, to 
 find fault with the Church because there are sinners in her 
 communion ; to reproach her with scandals which exist in spite of 
 her, and which like the cockle in the field are the work of the 
 wicked one; to deny on this account her divine institution, and 
 reject her, is to betray ignorance of our Lord's description of her 
 or to act dishonestly. The misdeeds of sinners belong to themselves; 
 the Church has no share in them ; they have no force as objec- 
 tions to her sanctity. 
 
 As the measure of grace, whicli is according to the giving of 
 Christ, is different for different persons, and as co-operation there- 
 Avitli varies with the dispositions of tliose receiving it, it follows 
 that in those who are holy there will be always found different 
 degrees of sanctity. There are usually reckoned three such degrees.. 
 The first or lowest is that of those who keep out of mortal sin, 
 but are not solicitous to avoid venial fixults. The second degree 
 aims at avoiding deliberate venial sins and employs means adapted 
 to that end. This is said to include also the observance of the
 
 THE SANCTITY OF THE CHURCH. 227 
 
 counsels in the religious state. Each of these degrees has different 
 grades. The third degree is that of those whose virtue is heroic, who 
 uniting to extraordinary grace the most intense fervor, and soaring 
 on the wings of charity to the very presence of God, so far sur- 
 pass the saints of their day in the practice of every virtue as to 
 seem like to the God-man Himself. These degrees and grades and 
 countless shades of sanctity, differing from one another as " star 
 doth from star in brightness," form the heavenly vesture of the 
 bride of Christ. They are the golden robes decked Avith every 
 variety of ornament, in which the Royal Prophet saw the spouse 
 of Christ clothed when he said to the king, " The queen stood on 
 thy right hand in gilded clothing surrounded with variety." Her 
 robes reveal the queen ; sanctity marks the spouse of Christ and 
 proclaims to the world her heavenly origin. 
 
 To sanctify His Church and prepare it for that stage in which 
 it should appear without spot or wrinkle, our Lord established 
 therein a ministry. This ministry was to take up His work tmd 
 continue it forever. It Avas to apply the merits of His passion to 
 those for whom He died. He made it perpetual. He gave it the 
 whole world as its field of labor and all time as the duration of its 
 mission. He gave it a vitality that could not know death, a prin- 
 ciple of growth and a power of attraction and assimilation to meet 
 all its wants. He rooted it in His own priesthood. He took it by 
 the hand to walk with it and work with it through the ages, and 
 the nations bless its labors and make them fruitful. He sent His 
 Holy Spirit to dwell in it and abide with it forever. 
 
 To these ministers He gave all His doctrine, the whole Gospel, 
 and secured to them its possession. He gave them a Sacrifice and 
 Sacraments for the sake of His people. He made them priests, 
 dispensers of the mysteries of God, and rulers of His Church. 
 
 The Apostles were the first members of this ministry. They were 
 sent to teach all nations, baptizing them, etc. They did as they 
 were commanded. They taught by the grace of God, they pro- 
 duced faith and thereby brought the proud intellect of man to the 
 feet of God. They baptized. By baptism they cleansed the soul 
 from all defilement of sin, and made the human will subject to 
 the law of God. They brought the whole man to the foot of 
 God's throne. They (Established God's sovereignty over man and 
 secured his obedience. They harmonized all the powers of the
 
 228 i^ERlIOA^S OF TUB THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 soul, set it at peace with God, made it holy and thereby fitted it 
 for heaven, " He that believes and is baptized shall be saved." 
 They Avho were baptized were born again of water and the Holy 
 Ghost; they received a new birth; in tlie strong language of the 
 Apostle they were made new creatures, with new powers and a new 
 destiny; they were lifted into the supernatural order, where they 
 could lead lives meritorious of heaven. 
 
 The life given in baptism, like every other life, comes from 
 God. Like every other life, vegetable, animal, human, it depends 
 for its continuance and preservation on secondary causes. Like 
 these, it has a nutriment and safe-guard of its own order. In the 
 economy of God, it was to be nourished by the blessed Eucha- 
 rist, true bread from heaven, developed, strengthened and perfected 
 by the Holy Ghost and His gifts and graces in the Sacrament 
 of Confirmation. It was to be restored by penance when lost by 
 sin, and was to be preserved in a trying hour against the final 
 and fierce assaults of principalities and powers by the mysterious 
 influence of the last anointing. To give and preserve this life 
 was the work of Christ's ministers. They were to carry it to the 
 nations that were given to Him as an inheritance and to the 
 ends of the earth which were to be His possession. The power 
 of working miracles was to be a means to this end. It was 
 promised to thera by our Lord. It is numbered by the Apostle 
 among the gifts of the Holy Ghost. They exea'cised this power 
 as the spirit prompted for the sake of the infidel, on whose ac- 
 count it was given. Like our Lord Himself, they proved to 
 him thereby the divinity of their mission, established their un- 
 doubted claim to his reasonable service, and if not converted, left 
 him without excuse in his unbelief. As commanded, they taught 
 those whom they baptized to obsen^c all things whatsoever Christ 
 commanded or delivered to them, (" quoeumque mandavi vobis "), to 
 observe the whole Gospel which they were to preach to every 
 creature, counsels as well as precepts, poverty, chastity and obedi- 
 ence as well as justice and brotherly love. As the commission to 
 teach, thus rooted in Omnipotence — "All power is given to Me in 
 heaven and on earth," etc. — aided efficaciously by our Lord all 
 days even to the consummation of the world, brooded over and 
 blessed by the Holy Ghost, could not fa'il of effect, could not 
 prove barren ; as it must succeed and prove fruitful, it follows
 
 THE SANCTITY OF THE CHURCH. 229 
 
 that the observance of the whole Gospel counsels as well as com- 
 mands must ever characterize the life of God's Church and be 
 inseparable from her sanctity. The whole Gospel, as a living fact 
 in the hearts of her children, is the sanctity of the Church, and 
 this fruit of a divine ministry can never be dissevered from fe- 
 cundity and the gift of miracles. 
 
 How this sanctity embracing all the virtues of the Gospel with 
 the gifts of fruitfulness and miracles is produced, Avill be better 
 understood by a further analysis of the constitution of the Church. 
 The supernatural society instituted and organized by Christ has 
 two elements, a divine and human, so united and so related that 
 the Church is thereby a striking image of the mystery of the 
 Incarnation. As the mystery of the Incarnation is the ineffable 
 and indissoluble union of God and man in the person of Jesus 
 Christ, so is the Church the marvellous and indissoluble union 
 of humanity and divinity. To regard the Church as composed of 
 men only, even admitting its divine institution, is an error similar 
 to that which would declare Christ to be a mere man. As a 
 correct conception of our Lord and Redeemer embraces two natures, 
 a divine and human united forever, so does a correct conception of 
 the Church require two elements, a divine and human united 
 indissolubly. Any error regarding either element, the nature of 
 their union and mutual relations, is fundamental and mus^prove 
 the fruitful source of many others. 
 
 The Church is frequently compared in the Sacred Scriptures 
 with the human body, living and active. As the soul is in the 
 body, the Holy Ghost is in the Church. He was promised at 
 the Last Supper. He was given to her at Pentecost to be in her 
 and to abide with her forever. Numerous texts of Scripture con- 
 firm this truth ; tradition in a variety of forms repeats it. St. 
 Paul, in his letter to the Corinthians, says that the Holy Ghost 
 distributes graces in the Church : " There are diversities of graces 
 but the same Spirit." (I. Cor., c. xii, v. 4.) Among these graces 
 he names that of miracles, and concludes by saying: "All these 
 things one and the same sj^irit worketh, dividing to every one 
 according as he will." And St. Ircnajus says: "Where the Church 
 is, there is the Spirit of God. And where the Spirit of God is, 
 there is the Church and every grace." The Church, the Holy 
 Ghost and every grace, that is all the virtues, the observance of
 
 230 SL'Eiiojys OF tub tiiied plenary council. 
 
 the whole Gospel, counsels and commandments arc inseparable for- 
 ever. Find one and you have the others. The union of the Holy 
 Ghost ^Yith the Church is perpetual, indissoluble. It is not like 
 tlie union of tlie soul and body which is severed by death ; nor 
 like that of the soul with God by grace which is destroyed by 
 grievous sin ; it is attended with no conditions, it depends on the 
 will of no man or set of men, it is an absolute fact made so by 
 an act of the omnipotent will of God. As He placed the sun in 
 the heavens to rule the day, and the moon and stars to rule the 
 night, and no man can interfere with these ordinances, so did 
 He place the Holy Ghost in His Church to do His work therein 
 and abide there forever. 
 
 Not only is the Holy Ghost in the Church as the soul in 
 the body, but every member of the Church is, as it were, formed 
 by Him, passes, so to speak, through His hands. "Unless a 
 man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost lie cannot enter 
 into the kingdom of God." As He formed the human body of 
 God's eternal Son, by the will of heaven, in the chaste womb of 
 the Virgin Mary, out of her virginal flesh and blood, and made it 
 a temple in which He has never since ceased, and never will cease, 
 to dwell, so in like manner, the formation of the second body, 
 the mystic Body of Christ in every member out of the great mass 
 of hgkianity, is His work and His dwelling place forever. His 
 special work in the Church is its sanctification. It is the proper 
 object of His temporal mission. This is the idea the Apostles 
 meant to convey by the words of the Creed : " I believe in the 
 Holy Ghost, the holy Catholic Church." They not only believed 
 in the Holy Ghost as one of the persons of the most adorable 
 Trinity, but expressed their belief in Him as an agent here below 
 doing a visible work, that is, operating in the Catholic Church 
 and making her holy. As they professed their faith in God the 
 Father as the Creator of heaven and earth, and in God the Son 
 as tlie Iledeemer of the world, so did they in God the Holy 
 Ghost as the spirit by whom the Church is sanctified. With good 
 reason therefore did St. Irenaeus say : " AVhere the spirit of God 
 is there is the Church and every grace, that is the sum of all 
 the virtues." 
 
 The Holy Ghost is the vivifying principle of the Church, because 
 Christ, whose spirit He is, is its divine Head. In speaking of the
 
 THE SANCTITY OF THE CHURCH. 231 
 
 Church, St. Paul very frequently compares it with the human body. 
 It is a living body, of which Christ is tlie Head, as the Holy 
 Ghost is the soul. The relations between the Church and Christ, 
 its Head as described by the Apostle, throw a flood of light on 
 the question of her sanctity. Employing his favorite comparison, 
 St. Paul writes to the Romans : " For as in one body we have 
 many members, but all the members have not the same office, so 
 we being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members 
 of another." (Rom., c. xii, v. 4.) That is, no matter how numer- 
 ous are the members of the Church, be they counted by millions 
 or by billions, no matter how varied their offices, they all are one 
 body in Christ and by reason of their union with Him, they are 
 members one of another. To the Corinthians he writes : " For 
 as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members 
 of the body, whereas tliey are many, yet are one body, so also is 
 Christ; that is, as tlie human body is one, though it has many 
 members, so is the Body of Christ or the Church one, though it 
 has many members." (I. Cor., c. xii, v. 12, 13.) But instead of 
 saying Church, which he compares to the human body, he says 
 Christ, as if Church and Christ were synonyms. Again he says : 
 " For in one spirit were we all baptized into one body, now you 
 are the Body of Christ and members of member." (Cor., c. xii, 
 v. 13-27.) Speaking to the Ephesians of the love of Christ for 
 His bride, the Church, he says : " No one ever hated his own 
 flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it as also Christ doth the 
 Church. For we" — that is, all true Christians as w^ell as St. Paul 
 and the Ephesians — "are members of His body, of His flesh and 
 of His bones." (Eph., c. v, v. 29-30.) We are members of His 
 humani^-y, for the Cliurch is the second Eve taken from the side 
 of the second Adam as He slept on Calvary. And as Adam said 
 of Eve when presented to him by God : " This is bono of my bones 
 and flesh of my flesh," (Gen., c. ii, v. 23,) so does Christ say of His 
 Church by the lips of His inspired Apostle: "We are members of His 
 body, of His flesh and of His bones." He took our nature by be- 
 coming man; became bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. He 
 made that nature His own; He made it the nature of our Head. 
 And this He gives back to us in baptism — not to speak of the 
 Blessed Eucharist — purified, elevated, all but deified. 
 
 Discoursing on the power and pre-eminence of Christ, the Apostle
 
 232 SERMONS OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 says : "And He (the Father) hath subjected all things under His 
 feet, and hath made Him Head over all the Church, which is 
 His body, and the fulness of Him Avho is filled all in all." 
 (Epli., c. i., V. 22-23.) "And He is the head of the body .... 
 because in Him it hath well pleased the Father that all fulness 
 should dwell." (Colos., c. i, v. 18-19.) That is, the fulness of 
 the body comes from the head, and all the members according ta 
 their place or office, thus filled, furnish the head with a body 
 suitable to it, a body which is the fulness of Him wdio is filled 
 all in all. 
 
 In the fourth chapter of his letter to the Ephesians he says : " And 
 He gave some Apostles and some Prophets and other some Evan- 
 gelists and other some pastors and doctors for the perfecting of 
 the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the 
 Body of Christ." . . . . " By doing the truth in charity we 
 may in all things grow up in Him, who is the Head, even Christy 
 from whom the whole body being compacted and fitly joined to- 
 gether, by what every joint supplieth, according to the operation 
 in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto 
 the edifying of itself in charity." (Eph., c. iv, v. 11-16.) To 
 the Collossians he writes of heretics : "And not holding the Head, 
 from which the whole body, by joints and bands being supplied with 
 nourishment and compacted, groweth unto the increase of God." 
 (Colos. c. ii, V. 19.) These grand and sublime passages of St. Paul 
 regarding the union of Christ and His Church, the relations between 
 them and the mysterious operation by which she lives and grows, 
 set before us boldly and vividly the economy by which her sanc- 
 tity is produced and made permanent. The teaching of the Apostle 
 in the texts cited may be briefly summed up as follows : That all 
 the faithful united to Christ the Head, and through Him to each 
 other, form one body, and this body, the Church, is called Christ 
 by the Apostle, as if Church and Christ were one. That all Chris- 
 tians are so united by baptism to the humanity of Christ, and so 
 formed from it that they are bone of His bone and flesh of His 
 flesh, or, as the Apostle more boldly puts it, members of His body, 
 of His flesh and of His bones. That in Christ the Head, by the gift 
 of the Father, dwells permanently and absolutely the plenitude of 
 grace and truth and all virtue, and from this fulness diffused 
 throughout all the members comes the fulness of the body which
 
 THE SANCTITY OF THE CHURCH. 233 
 
 completes, so to speak, the Head by its adaptation to it. That this 
 Head, when glorified on the right hand of the Father, after having 
 led captivity captive, gave gifts to men, even His own Spirit; that 
 these gifts were made to a ministry composed of Apostles, Prophets, 
 Evangelists, pastors and doctors; that this ministry, by the use of 
 •these gifts, build up the Body of Christ unto the perfecting of the 
 saints, that is, unto perfect sanctity; that by these ministrations each 
 member of the body, according to its office, dispositions and the 
 measure of grace vouchsafed to it, grows up in the head Christ, 
 and that this increase in all the members, collectively considered, 
 which is the growth of the body in charity, is also called by the 
 Apostle in his letter to the Collossians, with his wonted vigor, the 
 growth of God. This growth of the body, this growth of God and 
 the life that underlies it, is the sanctity of the Church which exter- 
 nally manifested as it must be, being the life and growth of a 
 visible society, distinguishes that society from all others, and marks 
 it clearly as the dwelling place of God with men. 
 
 Unless you realize that the Holy Ghost is in the Church as 
 the soul is in the Body, preserving doctrine, distributing gifts and 
 graces, building up the Body of Christ and working unceasingly 
 for its sanctification ; unless you realize that Jesus Christ is the 
 head of the Church which He loves as His own Body, as His 
 bride to whom He is indissolubly united by a mystic marriage, 
 with a love stronger than death, for He died to sanctify her ; 
 unless you realize that all her fulness, all her truth and grace 
 and beauty are from Him, communicated by a most mysterious 
 operation through the appointed channels ; unless you realize the 
 existence of two elements in the Church, the divine and the hu- 
 man, their union and relations, how the divine acts on the 
 human as the soul on the body, how the human responds to such 
 action and co-operates with it as the brain and nerves and senses 
 do to the action of the soul; unless you realize all this and more, 
 you can have no correct conception of the Church of God, and 
 consequently none of the great and incommunicable attribute of 
 her sanctity. 
 
 These two elements are as essential to the Church as two 
 natures are to Jesus Christ. As Christ was not God only nor a 
 mere man, but God and man at once, so the Church is not a 
 divine society or a human society only, but is a union of both.
 
 :234 SERMOXS of the third plenary council. 
 
 a society at once divine and human. As the human will of 
 Christ, though free, was so controlled by the divine nature that 
 it could neither sin nor be for an instant out of harmony with 
 the divine will ; so the Church, the Body of Christ, though com- 
 posed of those whose wills are free, and intellects weak, and pas- 
 .sions strong, is so governed, directed and influenced by her divine' 
 Head, that she can never for an instant betray the truth confided 
 to her by God for the sake of His people, or lose the charity 
 with which tlie Holy Ghost filled her on the glorious feast of 
 Pentecost. The divine nature of Christ so filled His humanity 
 with heavenly gifts through their mysterious union, that there is 
 betAveen both an interchange of attributes, so that God is man 
 and man is God. So true is this of the elements of tlie Church, 
 of the Church and her Head, that the Apostle calls the Church 
 Christ, and that they who hear the Church hear Clu'ist, and they 
 who persecute the Church persecute Christ. As the only begotten 
 Son of God took a human body by the power and operation of 
 the Holy Ghost to redeem man and reinstate him in God's friend- 
 ship ; as it Mas in that body He dwelt among men, commencing 
 by it the fulfillment of an eternal plan ; as it was in it and by 
 it He taught them, blessed them, healed their infirmities, offered 
 sacrifice for them, and enriched them with gifts; so, according to 
 the same eternal plan, it is in a human body, a human society, 
 formed also by the Holy Ghost, that He continues the work of 
 teaching, ruling, blessing, offering sacrifice and dispensing mysteries 
 in order to sanctify His Church and make to Plimself a spouse 
 without spot or wrinkle. As the divine nature of Christ acting on 
 the human, to which it was united, filled the soul to overflowing 
 with grace and truth, vested the body with the glory of the trans- 
 figuration, made the members thereof instruments of miraculous 
 powers, communicating this virtue even to the hem of its gar- 
 ment; so the same God-Man, Head of the Church, by His Holy 
 Spirit, in His ovrn way, through appointed channels, fills the soul 
 of His beloved spouse with grace and truth, producing in her 
 thereby faith and hope and charity, clothes her with all the vir- 
 tues of the Gospel as with a precious robe of peerless beauty, 
 makes her members instruments of divine power, and imparts that 
 gift not alone to their relics or to the hem of their garment, but 
 even to their very shadow as they walked along the streets in
 
 THE SANCTITY OF THE CIIURCn. 235 
 
 the clays of their probation. Nearly nineteen hundred years ago 
 a man revealed to men on the hills and in the valleys, by lake 
 iind river in Judea the presence of the eternal Son of God as their 
 Redeemer, and proved that presence not alone by signs and won- 
 ders, but by a life of superhuman perfection ; ever since, a society 
 of men organized by God as His body and filling the earth, 
 found everywhere, reveals to the world the abiding presence of 
 Jesus Christ and His Spirit, and proves it by the same line of 
 argument, by the same powers, and the same virtues. The biogra- 
 phy of Christ is complete only in two chapters or volumes, to 
 wit : the Gospels and Church history. The life of the Church 
 is the second chapter ; it is the life of Christ and His Holy 
 Spirit in society, and that life, like His life in the flesh, is 
 and ever must be holy, wonderful, fruitful, and visible. It is our 
 great argument that God is with us. Now you can understand 
 why the Church is called in the New Testament "the Kingdom of 
 God, the Kingdom of Christ, the Kingdom of Heaven, the Holy 
 City, the New Jerusalem, the House of God, the House of Christ, 
 the Great House, the Temple of God, the Holy Temple of God, the 
 Temple of the Living God, the Temple of the Holy Ghost, one Body, 
 and that the Body of Christ;" why the holy Fathers apply to it 
 half a hundred epithets of similar import ; why the Royal Prophet, 
 as he gazed on it in spirit, called it the holy mountain, as if 
 sanctity were its chief or sole attribute ; why tlie Prophet Isaias 
 said of the Church that her stones would be laid in order and 
 her foundations laid with sapphires, that her bulwarks would be of 
 jasper, her gates of graven stones, and all her borders of lovely 
 stones — that she should be as a crown of glory in the hand of 
 the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of her God — that her 
 children should be taught of God, and that great should be their 
 peace — that is, sanctity — a peace or sanctity which the Psalmist de- 
 ■clared should abound and flow over and last till the moon be 
 taken away, that is, forever. 
 
 Sanctity such as I have endeavored to describe it is an at- 
 tribute of the Church. Its external manifestation is a mark of it. 
 It is essential to the Church and incommunicable, that is, only 
 the Church of God can possess it, and being visible it is before the 
 world, and may be seen by all. "Whatever Christian society possesses 
 it, that and only that is the Church of God. What Christian
 
 236 SUEMOJS'S OF TUB TRIED FLENABY COUNCIL. 
 
 society does possess it is the question now before us. Or to put 
 this question more fully and pointedly, what society of Christians 
 instituted by Jesus Christ, and therefore existing since His time, 
 organized and compacted into one body, His own Body, all whose 
 members are knitted together like those of the human body, 
 having teachers, rvilers, dispensers of mysteries in the successors 
 of the Apostles to build up that body to perfection, can justly 
 lay claim to all tlie virtues that constitute sanctity, to all the vir- 
 tues of the Gospel, point to the means that have produced them 
 and to the miraculous gifts that have accompanied them? Can 
 Protestantism do this? Even if it represented a society, or a body,, 
 or a temple, or a kingdom, which it does not even in the re- 
 motest manner ; even if it were not a motley multitude of warring^ 
 sects, each of which may become the fruitful parent of many others, 
 it would be debarred by its youth from claiming with any show 
 of plausibility the essential and incommunicable attribute of a 
 society fifteeen centuries older. 
 
 The visible society on which God set this mark, that all may 
 know it to be His, and which, as a property, is the very object 
 of its existence, has been laboring among men eighteen hundred 
 years openly in all parts of tlie earth. This settles the question 
 of the Protestant claim when suck happens to be made, for you 
 Avill be surprised to learn that the Church of England is said to 
 deny (has denied, in fact, according to Dr. Murray) that sanctity 
 is an essential attribute of the Church of God. To enquire further 
 into the grounds of such a claim on the part of Protestants is 
 a superfluous work. Nor is it an agreeable one. Did not such 
 a question manifestly come within the scope of this instruction, 
 did it not form its chief aim in a certain sense ? I should for 
 obvious reasons gladly pass it over, but as I cannot do so alto- 
 gether without a notable void, I shall touch it as lightly as possible 
 and in a half-hearted fashion, leaving those who feel so disposed 
 to compare Protestantism and its principle with the picture I have 
 endeavored to give of the Church and her sanctity. I have no 
 'inclination whatever to examine the lives of the leaders of that 
 religious rebellion of the sixteenth century which brought so many 
 and varied disorders in its train ; of those men who set themselves 
 up as reformers of the bride of Christ, the object of His un- 
 dying love, and ended by discarding her, though such an enquiry
 
 THE SANCTITY OF THE CHURCH. 237 
 
 would be very much to the point. To speak of Martin Luther, 
 a Roman Catholic priest, an Augustinian monk, bound to religion 
 and to God by the sacred vows of poverty, chastity and obedi- 
 ence, who, by a farcical marriage, became the reputed husband 
 •of a nun who had contracted before God similar obligations — to 
 sj^eak of his sottish habits, lils boorish manners, his vulgar, ob- 
 scene conversation, his ungovernable temper, his rabid fury when 
 contradicted, his scurrilities, his blasphemies — to speak of his asso- 
 <3iatcs and imitators, Zwingli, Calvin, Beza, Henry VIII, etc., who, 
 in a certain sense, even improved on his work — is not at all to 
 my taste, however much my subject should require it. Let them 
 pass. They, are too well known. Who that has any idea of the 
 religion of Christ could think of them in connection with an 
 apostleship? I shall only say, then, and have done with this point 
 when I do so, that whoever reads the history of Protestantism in 
 Germany, Switzerland, France, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, England, 
 iScotland, throughout Northern Europe, calmly, critically, honestly, 
 at the best sources of information, will find that virtue and in- 
 telligence had nothing to do with its production; that pride and 
 lust and rapine rocked its ci'adle ; that persecution, plunder, conlSs- 
 cation, violence, sacrilege, tlie horrid desecration of everything sacred, 
 tracked its blighting course and chiefly fostered its rank, rapid, but 
 short-lived progress. 
 
 Have the sects, as they swarm, any earthly resemblance to the 
 Body of Ciirist as described by St. Paul? Have their teachings, 
 like the tongues around Babel, any resemblance whatever to the 
 utterings of the Spirit of Truth? Has Protestantism means to pro- 
 duce holiness? Has it a holy doctrine? It has no doctrine. 
 It has only conflicting, contradictory opinions, and even these are 
 as changeable as the winds or the fashions, and this, not by acci- 
 dent, but as the result of its boasted principle, private judgment, 
 which, nevertheless, it takes up and lays down according to circum- 
 stances and to suit its convenience. It has nothing certain; nothinjr 
 that can beget an act of divine faith without which it is impossible 
 to please God, and without Avhich there can be neither hope nor 
 charity nor any other virtue, for it is the very root of every virtue 
 in tlie soul. 
 
 Justification by faith, even though an act of faith on Protestant 
 principles, is impossible; that is, no matter what a man does if
 
 238 SERMONS OF TJIE THIRB PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 lie believes he is justified. Good works are not necessary. The- 
 grossest sins do not hurt the elect. God is the author of sin, 
 and at the same time the avenger of it. Once in grace one is 
 always in grace, how grievous soever the sins he may commit. 
 There is no free will in man ; God sees no sin in believers ; no 
 sin, unbelief excepted, can cause damnation. These are samples of 
 the teachings of Protestantism. Are these teachings holy? Do 
 they lead to holiness ; or rather, do they not remove every check 
 that God has put to the grovelling propensities of a fallen nature? 
 Do they not remove every restraint, awaken every passion, arouse 
 and excite every vicious inclination, whet their appetite for indul- 
 gence, since their gratification has no influence whatever, unless it 
 be a favorable one, on man's eternal destiny? 
 
 I know that all these propositions are not now held by Protest? 
 ants. I suppose they never were by any one sect. I am sure that 
 many of them, I hope most of them, reject and reprobate them from 
 their hearts ; but Protestantism, of which I am speaking, has held 
 them and taught them, and is responsible for them. They hold, 
 however, the principle that gave them birth, private judgment in 
 opposition to divine authority, the mother of the sects and the isms 
 and all their progeny yet to come, the principle that has unsettled 
 the human mind, severed it from God, shut out from it the light 
 of heaven, and made it in matters of religion the sport of every 
 whim. They hold the principle that has blighted the human heart, 
 dried up the springs that would irrigate and enrich it, sapped the 
 foundation of the social edifice by desecrating the great sacrament of 
 marriage and undoing its tie in the face of God's prohibition, broken 
 up families and scattered them to tLe four winds of heaven, de- 
 stroying in them charity and creating for them misery. This is 
 the principle that has brought man down from his high estate in 
 the supernatural order, where the light of heaven was around him 
 and in him, where the bread of life was on his tongue and the 
 blood of the Lamb on his soul, making it fair as the angels, 
 where heaven was his home and God his Father and the saints 
 his friends and brethren — down to that depth of darkness and desti- 
 tution in v,'hich, blind to the future, seeing nothing to live for 
 beyond time, all his energies seem absorbed in the pursuit of 
 wealth and pleasure, as if in them, and in them only, human hap- 
 piness, whatever there is of it, is to be found.
 
 Till:] SANCTITY OF THE CHURCH. 239 
 
 It is at the root of the evils that darken our day and infect our 
 atmosphere, that fester in the social body, waste it like a cancer and 
 make it loatlisome and offensive, growing evils which good men see 
 and deplore, but Avhich they try in vain to remedy from their 
 unfortunate standpoint. 
 
 Protestantism has no sacraments or channels of grace. The 
 Lord's Supper is not one, and as to baptism, their claim to it is 
 no better than would be that of a literary club, since any man 
 or woman may administer it. 
 
 Is it fruitful ? It has never made any heathen nation, or any 
 notable part of one. Christian. It never thought of attempting such 
 a thing before the end of the seventeenth century. On the 
 result of its efforts since, read Marshall's " Christian Missions," the 
 most exhaustive work ever written on the subject, and you will 
 find on the testimony of Protestant Avriters, eye-witnesses of what 
 they relate, that it has only made the heathen worse and Chris- 
 tianity a laughing stock. Though some missionaries were good men, 
 learned, eloquent and earnest, though all the elements of success 
 that men could give them were placed at their service, though 
 they had Bibles by the shipload and money by the million, and 
 all the influence that social position and the prestige of a dominant 
 race could give them, yet was there a blight on their work and 
 death in the atmosphere they breathed. Distributing Bibles, bribing 
 the heathen, perverting Catholics, manufacturing false reports for 
 home societies in view of further aid, keeping out of the way of 
 danger, living genteely, watching for an opportunity to better his 
 fortune is a mild presentment of the ordinary occupation of the 
 average Protestant missionary in pagan lands. 
 
 As to miracles, they only laugh at them, as if it were ridicu- 
 lous to connect them with the Body of Christ, or absurd to at- 
 tribute to it or Him such power. They scoff at them, they reject 
 them — not because they are unsustained by evidence, but in the 
 face of the strongest, most varied, irrefragable testimony, ever ad- 
 duced in a human court; they reject them for the sole reason, as 
 Middleton ingeniously confesses, that if they admit the testimony 
 they must accept the facts and with them the institution they so 
 luminously illustrate. Originating in insubordination to the estab- 
 lished and recognized authority of God, without doctrine, or sacra- 
 ments, without men or means to make anyone or anything holy.
 
 240 SERMONS OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 without divine faith or the virtues tliat spring from it, or any 
 element of the supernatural life, without the blessing of God or 
 any testimony of His favor. Protestantism, as a religion, is a bar- 
 ren fig-tree; it bears no fruit of life, it never will bear any. It 
 is to the sanctity of tlie Church of God what a pale, cold corpse 
 is to the fire, and flush, and healthy glow of manhood's blooming 
 prime. 
 
 Does the Catholic Church bear the mark of sanctity? She is 
 a society that goes back to the days of Christ. Her history com- 
 mences with the acts of the Apostles. Look at her to-day. Her 
 children throughout the world of every clime and color number 
 over two hundred millions. Divided into parishes or missions, 
 they are governed by some two hundred thousand priests, who also 
 teach them in the name of God and dispense mysteries to them 
 by His authority. People and priests divided into dioceses or dis- 
 tricts are governed by one thousand bishops. All are governed 
 by the Bishop of Rome. They have tlie same faith, and sacrifice, 
 and sacraments in China and in the United States, in Australia 
 and in Italy. Look at that society again, view it closely, search 
 it thoroughly, examine its constitution, its doctrine, its practice. Is 
 it not one, is it not compact and closely jointed? Viewed even 
 from a human standpoint, do you know any government that can 
 be compared with it? Well, as you see it to-day, such it has 
 been since the days of St. Peter. The chain of rulers that binds 
 Leo XIII to Peter in this great society is as real anl substantial 
 and visible as that which binds Chester Arthur to George Wash- 
 ington in the government of our own great republic. Throw out 
 the ages like a map, unfold the scroll, put the Pontiffs between 
 Leo and Peter in line, two hundred and fifty-eight in number, and 
 seven or eight years apart on an average. Around each of these 
 Pontiffs sweep a circle whose circumference will reach to the ends of 
 the earth. These circles will intersect and grasp and bind each other 
 fast as the links of a triple chain. Place within each of these 
 circles around the Sovereign Pontiff the hundreds of bishops, the tens 
 of thousands of priests, the millions of every tribe and tongue and 
 nation that in his day he governed. Look at these two hundred 
 and fifty-eight circles that have Rome as centre and the uttermost 
 bounds of the earth as circumference ; look at the bishops, priests 
 and people along the whole line ; listen to their teaching, pro-
 
 THE SANCTITY OF TEE CHURCH. 241 
 
 ceeding as if from one mouth ; listen to their act of faith as it 
 sweeps through the years and rings through the earth ; look at 
 their ministrations, their dispensation of mysteries, and tell me, has 
 the world ever seen a government or a society such as that? Is 
 there anything in all history to be even remotely compared with 
 it? Now, if the Father and Son sent the Holy Ghost on that 
 glorious Pentecost Sunday, eighteen hundred years ago, to animate 
 the society which Christ had formed to be its soul, its internal 
 teacher ; to distribute gifts and work therein for its sanctification 
 and abide with it forever, as Ave are taught to believe through 
 several chapters of the Gospel of St. John ; if before St. Paul 
 wrote to the Romans, Corinthians, Ephesians or Collossians, Jesus 
 Christ was the head of a society which Avas to last forever, to 
 which He Avas bound indissolubly as to a bride by a mystic mar- 
 riage tie, which He was ever to love and cherish as His own 
 body, bone of His bones, and flesh of His flesh; if this be so — and 
 if not, you may fling Gospels and Epistles, and even the facts of 
 history, to the winds — if this be so, does not history compel you 
 to admit that such a society is the Roman Catholic Church, for 
 there is no other ; and you must remember that the society in 
 which these divine persons dwell is like a mountain on the top 
 of the hills, like a city on the mountain top lighted up from 
 heaven, brighter than the moon at night or the sun in his noon- 
 day splendor. 
 
 The history of heresies confirms this fact. They have tracked the 
 course of the Roman Catholic Church throughout her history. With 
 the sword of the spirit she cut the rebels from her communion. 
 Severed from her, they began at once to show signs of decay, of 
 death, of corruption. In being separated from her they were evi- 
 dently cut oft" from the living Body and Christ and from all the 
 fountains of supernatural life. From that day forward neither 
 learning, nor eloquence, nor wealth, nor the support of kings, nor 
 the strength of armies, nor any other force from earth or beneath 
 it, could galvanize them into anything like a semblance of the holy 
 Church of the living God. In spite of everything that man could 
 do for them, there they lie before the world's gaze like sapless 
 branches or amputated limbs, scattered here and there along the 
 higliways of history. 
 
 Has the Roman Catholic Church means of sanctification? Has 
 
 16
 
 242 SFEMO^^S OF TUB THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 she a holy doctrine and holy institutions ? I cannot examine these 
 points in detail now. I shall only say that they are to-day and 
 always have been such as they came from the lips of the divine 
 Founder of the Church. The Catholic Church claims infallibility. 
 Surely the body of Christ and the temple of the Holy Ghost ought 
 to be infallible. The Catholic Church not only claims infallibility 
 but proves the justice of her claim, and with her history of 
 nineteen centuries before the world, she boldy, confidently defies the 
 lights of this, as of every other age, to name -a single doctine that 
 she has ever changed one iota, the time and place and circumstances 
 and history of the change, to name a doctrine of the past that she 
 does not teach still, or any doctrine of the present time that she did 
 not teach in all the past, every day during the centuries of her 
 existence, explicitly or implicitly. The endowment of infallibility 
 is the equivalent of sanctity in the matter of doctrine. To say that 
 the Church is infallible and to prove it, is to prove that her doc- 
 trine is the primitive teaching in all its details, and therefore as 
 holy as when it came from the lips of God as a means of sancti- 
 fication. 
 
 Has her mission been fruitful ? She had converted all Europe 
 before the birth of Protestanism, and her labors since in every 
 pagan land, in China, in India, in Japan, in Africa, have encountered 
 no such obstacle as the scandal given by the sects which, by their 
 numbers and contradictions, made the heathen think that Christianity 
 had more Christs than paganism had gods. 
 
 As to her miracles throughout her long, long history, they are 
 like the stars in the heavens, as countless and as brilliant. 
 
 Has she had always holy members ? The myriads of martyrs 
 of the early ages of every age and sex and condition, who, in 
 the coliseum or other amphitheatres of the Roman empire, sur- 
 rounded by every instrument of torture that human barbarity could 
 employ, face to face with death under his most terrific aspect,, 
 dared, in the very teeth of tyranny, as they writhed in agony^ 
 to profess Christ and Him crucified, were, whether bishops, priests 
 or people, members of the Roman Catholic Church. So were the 
 anchorites, these holy men of old, who, fleeing from the corrup- 
 tion of the great cities, retired to the desert that they might be 
 more with God, who, in an age of sensuality, lived as if they 
 were out of the body, and who, by prayer, meditation, study of
 
 THE SANCTITY OF THE CHURCH. 243 
 
 the Sacred Scriptures and conferences after sun-down, while they 
 were still fasting, did more jjerhaps to counteract the evil influ- 
 ences of the fldse teaching and bad principles of the Eastern 
 schools than any other body of men then living. The names of 
 the Popes for eight hundred years, with three or four excep- 
 tions, emblazon the ^ catalogue of the saints of God. The apos- 
 tles of the nations and the missionaries who accompanied them, 
 who, by their indomitable zeal and heroic virtue, extended the 
 stakes and multiplied the tents of the Christian conquest, were 
 bishops and priests of the Roman Catholic Church. The sixty 
 tomes of the lives of the saints by the Bollandists give us but 
 a mere fraction of the multitudes of her sainted children. The 
 Benedictines, the Augustinians, the Trappists, the Dominicans, 
 the Franciscans, the Jesuits, the Redemptorists, all the orders 
 and communities of religious men and women scattered all over 
 the ages and the nations, who have consecrated their lives on 
 the altar of religion to the service of God and their neighbor 
 by the holy vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, who cannot 
 call anything on this earth their own, who have stripped themselves 
 of everything to give no hold to the enemy, who have lived the whole 
 Gospel, the counsels as well as the precepts, in their efibrt to be 
 perfect as their Father in heaven is perfect — these angels in the 
 flesh, these holocausts of charity are not only Catholics, the pride 
 and flower, and crown, and glory of the Catholic Church, but 
 they are the precious stones spoken of by the prophet — the jas- 
 per, the sapphire, the emerald, the topaz, the beryl, the amethyst, 
 that blaze in beauty in the golden vesture of the bride of Christ. 
 
 The widow, the orphan, the blind, the lame, the deaf, the 
 dumb, the victims of yellow fever and cholera deserted by their 
 nearest friends, the dying soldier on battle's bloody field nursed 
 and comforted by the Sister of Mercy or Sister of Charity, all 
 the children of misfortune lift their eyes and hearts to heaven 
 invoking blessings on the sons and daughters of the Catholic Church 
 for their godlike charity. 
 
 The Catholic Church is now and ever has been the altar of every 
 sacrifice, the home of every charity, the asylum of every misery, 
 for she is the body of Him Avho died to save us, who is still 
 our Sacrifice, our Priest and Victim. Of all the societies ever seen 
 on this earth, she alone can say with her divine Founder to her
 
 244 SEE3I0NS OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 enemies: "Who can convict me of sin? If I had not done among 
 them works that no other society hath done, they would not have 
 sin. They hated me without cause." And pointing to her teach- 
 ing, to her sacrifice, to her sacraments, to her altars, to her pulpits, 
 to her confessionals, to her hospitals and asylums, for every misery 
 to which fallen nature is heir, she can say to all who doubt or 
 deny her mission and her character what our Lord said to the 
 vacillating messengers of the imprisoned Baptist : " The blind see, 
 the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead 
 rise again, the poor have the Gospel preached to them, and blessed 
 is he that shall not be scandalized in Me." Her works and vir- 
 tues proclaim the sanctity and make manifest the divinity of the 
 Catholic Church, and the voice of God thundering through the 
 ages and the nations in the unmistakable language of signs and 
 wonders confirms with the great seal of heaven the incommunicable 
 holiness of the bride of Christ.
 
 %\lt "fnl i^i If!^ 4^«ndl. 
 
 SEEMOI OF RIGHT EEY. J. L. SPlLDIXa, D.D., 
 
 EISHOP OF PEORIA. 
 
 "I believe in the Holy Ghost, and in one, holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church." 
 
 AT this closing session of the largest and most important council 
 of Catholic bis-hops ever held in America it is altogether befit- 
 ting that some expression be given to the thoughts which so august 
 an assembly suggests. Even a casual observer can hardly fail to per- 
 ceive in this venerable body something of the marks which stamp 
 the Church with the impress of God's hand. Here are men, born 
 in many lauds, speaking many tongues, and bringing with them 
 from distant parts of the earth the thousand varying shades of 
 thought and sentiment, which spring from difference of climates, 
 customs and laws. They show forth in their bearing and charac- 
 ters the action of the forces which diversify human life and throw 
 nations and individuals into rivalry and antagonism. But when 
 they meet in council these differences and oppositions of opinion 
 and feeling are merged in the unity of faith; and the harmony 
 which reigns in the Universal Cliurch, in spite of the divergent and 
 conflicting influences that work in its members, breathes also in the 
 deliberations of this venerable body, and moves all minds and hearts 
 to the enactment of wise aud just laws. Thus we have here a 
 type of the Unity and of the Catholicity of the Church. At the 
 call of the Vicar of Christ this council has assembled under the 
 presidency and guidance of the Apostolic Delegate, Avhose authority 
 IS derived from Pope Leo XIII, who succeeds through Pius IX, 
 Gregory XVI, Leo XII and a line of Pontiffs, stretching through 
 eighteen centuries to Peter, to whom Christ said : " Thou art Peter, 
 and upon this rock I will build INIy Church, and the gates of hell 
 
 (24-)
 
 246 SERMONS OF Tim THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 shall not prevail against it ; " and so the Apostolicity of the Church is 
 visible in this body, which professes the faith first delivered to the 
 saints and proclaimed at Jerusalem,' at Nice and in all the councils 
 since held throughout the Catholic Avorld, and handed down from 
 Pope to Pope, who each in his day taught the whole Church in 
 the name of Him wlio said to Peter : " Feed My sheep, feed 
 My lambs ; " and again : ". I have prayed for thee that thy fliitli 
 fail not, and thou once converted, confirm thy brethren." 
 
 And the mark of holiness too, — the essential mark of true re- 
 ligion — is not absent from this reverend body. I may not indeed 
 speak of the lives of the venerable men who are here assembled, 
 of the sacrifices they have made, of their zeal, their trials and 
 labors; of the generous devotion with which they have given their 
 whole strength to the service of their fellow-men, preaching tbe 
 Gospel to the Indian and the African with the same love with 
 which they announce its glad tidings to those who are bound to 
 them by ties of race and country. But, apart from this let me 
 ask what motive has led them hither from distant parts of this 
 vast continent, from the towns and cities of this great and pros- 
 perous land? To this question I can find but one answer: — the 
 desire to work with God in uplifting men to higher, purer and 
 freer life. No one could listen to their long and earnest discussions, 
 or witness the reverent thought and patient cure with which they 
 examined each subject as it came up for debate, without being 
 convinced of the truth of what I affirm. The various subjects 
 which have been the matter of our deliberations during the four 
 weeks of the council's sittings, liave all a direct bearing upon the 
 welfare, religious, moral, intellectual and social, of the people with 
 whose spiritual care we are charged, and therefore upon the welfare 
 and prosperity of our country itself. Our sessions have been 
 private, but the only secrecy which need be observed, is that 
 necessary to the free and untranicled action of the Sovereign Pon- 
 tiff to whose final judgment wliatever we have done must be 
 submitted. Tlie expression of opinion upon all points which have 
 come up for discussion has been full and frank; no restraint has 
 been felt or exercised; and the spirit of fairmindedness, of candor 
 and thoroughness has pervaded all our deliberations. In tlie spirit 
 which lived in the councils of earlier ages, and brought to the 
 defence and protection of the slave, of the child, of the poor
 
 THE WORK OF THE COUNCIL. 247 
 
 and of woman, the moral power of the Christian religion, which 
 led the way to representative government and parliamentary rule, 
 the American bishops, living in a country where slavery has ceased 
 to exist, where the child is held in reverence, woman in honor, 
 and the poor are cared for, have turned their thoughts to the 
 giving of new impulses to the forces which work for the cause 
 of God in the world, which is also the cause of man. And, first 
 of all, they feel that what is most necessary to individuals and 
 to nations is the strength which comes of true religious faith, 
 by which we are held in living and loving communion with the 
 Author of our being, the Source of life and truth and goodness. 
 Such faith is the support of noble aims and the vital principle 
 of worthy deeds ; it is the safeguard of morals and the best in- 
 centive to efforts to improve both ourselves and the society in 
 which we live ; and so it becomes the foundation of national pros- 
 perity. 
 
 History teaches that epochs of faith are epochs of progress, 
 while in the atmosphere of skepticism the intellects and consciences 
 of men are darkened and weakened, and the way to general decay 
 is prepared. Hence the ^Fathers of the Council know that in seek- 
 ing to create an intenser and more living faith in God and His 
 Church, they are laboring not only to fit men for an immortal 
 and God-like destiny, but are also giving necessary aid to what- 
 ever tends to make the earthly life of man more worthy and 
 blessed. And since the Christian religion, like all religions that 
 have left a deep and lasting impress upon the peoples which they 
 have influenced, is essentially sacerdotal, the Fathers of this 
 Council have turned their thoughts first of all to the priesthood 
 itself, and by the enactment of laws which have been drawn up 
 and discussed with the greatest care, they have sought to regulate 
 the relations of bishops and of priests, and priests and people, in a 
 Avay which will bring about more perfect harmony, more complete 
 sympathy, and a nearer approach to the ideal upheld by the Saviour 
 when He said : ' By this shall men know that you are My disci- 
 ples, if you 'love one another.' 
 
 The character of the true priest demands that he possess 
 both great virtue and great knowledge. The bishops, therefore, 
 have labored not only to inspire a deeper love of holiness, a more 
 ardent zeal and a stricter observance of the ecclesiastical discipline,
 
 248 SBBMOIfS OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 which is the practical expression of the wisdom of the saints in 
 many hmds and many ages, but they have also given most serious- 
 thought and consideration to plans and methods whereby the 
 standard of priestly education may be raised. They have not been 
 slow to give exxression to their conviction that only the best 
 discipline and cultivation of mind can fit the priest in an age and 
 country like our own to be the accomplished and effective teacher 
 of divine truth. They have adopted measures which will insure a 
 more thorough elementary education of candidates for the priesthood. 
 They have lengthened and deepened the course of philosophy and 
 theology, and have emphasized the importance and necessity even of 
 literary and scientific acquirements. And in this connection they have 
 laid the foundation of what they believe will in due time grow to 
 be a real American Catholic University. But their attention has 
 not been confined to sacerdotal education. Thoy perceive and affirm 
 the fact that all men need education, but they hold to the prin- 
 ciple that a system of education whicli fails to recognize that re- 
 ligion is essential both to right thinking and right living is neces- 
 sarily defective. Hence they have sought to organize and perfect 
 our system of parochial schools, so that- our children may there 
 receive not only proper training of the heart and conscience, but 
 may also enjoy opportunities for the improvement of the mind 
 equal to those afforded in the best schools of the country. They 
 have also insisted that it is the urgent duty of priests and people 
 to provide Catholic schools for Catholic children. 
 
 A Catholic congregation without a Catholic school is like a 
 family without a mother. The formal service may be there, but 
 the deep heart of love and wisdom, with power to shape and 
 mold character, is wanting; and in due time, the showy temple will 
 become only a monumental mockery standing in the midst of an 
 unbelieving generation. Man is a religions being, and a system of 
 education Avhich excludes the teaching of religious truth and morality, 
 rests upon unsound principles, and must prove hurtful to the 
 strength and permanency of free government. 
 
 In Europe, who are the advocates of secular educatioli? Are 
 they not almost without exception the enemies of positive religion? 
 Bring together the infidels of the Avorld of every shade of opinion, 
 from the teachers of naked atheism and materialism to the pro- 
 fessors of the various forms of deism, and you will find that in.
 
 THE WORK OF THE COUNCIL. 249 
 
 the midst of a thousand conflicting and contradictory tenets they 
 all agree in their opposition to religious education. And they, and 
 they alone, are logical in taking up this position. Since they reject 
 all positive religious doctrines as superstitious and absurd, they are 
 consistent in seeking to exclude them from the class-room. 
 
 The originators of the public school system of this country 
 certainly had no irreligious intention, and the purely secular char- 
 acter of this system is the result of circumstances rather than of 
 a deliberate purpose. But this does not affect the necessary ten- 
 dency of such education to produce religious indifference, and 
 consequently to destroy the power and influence of religion : and 
 hence whatever may be the intention or purpose of those who 
 maintain this system, they are in point of fact the most effective 
 allies of the propagators of unbelief. The Fathers of the Council 
 are not opposed to universal education, or to free education, or 
 to taxation for the support of schools, or to methods and con- 
 trivances of whatever kind, by which knowledge and enlightenment 
 may be diffused through the masses of the people : but tliey are 
 opposed, necessarily and unalterably opposed, to any and all systems 
 of education which either ignore or exclude religious knowledge, 
 since they believe and hold this knowledge to be the primal and 
 most essential element of true human culture : and consequently that 
 it should form the basis of instruction and discipline in the school 
 as in the family and in the Chureli. The v.ork of developing 
 and moulding human character is difficult enough when these three 
 centres of influence are in harmony and co-operate ; but to throw 
 them into antagonism is to undermine the work of each ; and in 
 a society where this state of things exists, the Church M'ill lose 
 its sacredness, tlie family its authority, and the school, acting upon 
 the intellectual fliculties alone, will but serve to show how little 
 and helpless man is when his life is not breathed upon by love 
 and .hope and faith in higher things. 
 
 The Fathers of the Council have not been unmindful of the inti- 
 mate relations of the school with the family, or of their duty to 
 watch over and foster that first and more sacred school — the 
 Christian Home — which springs from tlie Sacrament of Matrimony, 
 and rests upon the unity and indissolubility of marriage, and which 
 consequently is the out-growth of Catholic teaching, practice and 
 influence. More than by any other agency the characters of men
 
 '250 SERMONS OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 are moulded by their home-life. When this is religious, pure and 
 sweet, the virtues that sanctify and adorn life blossom like the 
 flowers in the Avarm and gentle air of spring, but when the tender 
 bud of childhood is blighted in this, its earliest sanctuary, all hope 
 of fragrant bloom and ripe fruit is lost. The relations of the 
 Church to conjugal and domestic society are essential and inti- 
 mate ; and whenever Catholics are permitted to lose sight of this 
 truth, religious zeal and practical piety decay. "All paternity," says 
 St. Paul, " in heaven and on earth, derives its name from God :" 
 and hence marriage, in its essence, its ends and its authority, as 
 well as from the fact of its institution, is sacred and of divine 
 origin ; and in the religion of Christ, it is also a Sacrament. If 
 the presence of God is not recognized and confessed at the home 
 fireside, the spirit of Christian faith and filial piety dies out of the 
 family ; and irreverence and indifference take possession of the 
 hearts of the young. Indeed, if the family be suffered to lose its 
 religious character, it were folly to think that even the best system 
 of Catholic schools can prevent the decay of faith and the ruin 
 of souls. The first and most indispensable school, that which is 
 the basis of all others, which lays the foundation of character, 
 moulds the heart, gives to the mind its original turn, to the imagi- 
 nation its primal and ineffaceable tinge, is the family: and if it 
 is secular, or pagan, or religiously divided, or indifferent, what hope 
 oan there be of saving the children to the Church and to God? 
 We hold it as a principle that he who wislies to enter the priest- 
 hood should try himself and be tried through a long course of 
 years, lest he unworthily or rashly assume a ministry in which 
 he shall have to answer for the souls of men, redeemed by the Blood 
 of Christ; but the all-wise and all-just Judge will not first or 
 chiefly hold the priest accountable. He will demand the soul of 
 the child first of all from the father and the mother, through 
 whom it was brouglit into the world. When we look around us, 
 it is difficult to believe that Catholics realize this truth ; so 
 thoughtlessly, so frivolously, do tlicy take upon themselves the 
 greatest of responsibilities. Too often, like unbelievers, they act, 
 as though they were free, in this matter, to follow their whims 
 and fancies without regard to the divine law or the command- 
 ments of the Church. Their present passion is their only guide, 
 and in many instances, a life of misery and a death of modified
 
 THE WORK OF THE COUNCIL. 251 
 
 despair, is the penalty. Of the existence of this evil the Fathers 
 of the Council, consider that there is no more lamentable proof, 
 than the custom, for such it has grown to be with us, of inter- 
 marrying with those who have no faith or a religion different from 
 our own. Such marriages arc, in their very nature, unchristian, 
 and have in all ages been so regarded by the Church; and if a 
 sort of forced consent is given, it is as a mother, who despairs of 
 offering effective opposition, consents to the marriage of a daughter 
 with one who she knows will break the heart of her child. 
 
 How can people who disagree concerning interests which are 
 eternal, absolute, of infinite moment, and nearest to the most 
 sensitive and central nature of the soul, be truly united in any- 
 thing? The greatest evil, however, in this marriage of people, 
 who, in regard to their soul's faith, stand on opposite sides of 
 a chasm which neither is likely to pass over, is not in the fact 
 that, in such marriage, there can be no perfect union of heart, 
 Jio complete sympathy, no entire revelation of each to each, and 
 consequently not that peace and contentment which the marriage 
 union should bring; but it is found in this other fact, that in 
 such wedlock, deep religion and earnest piety are almost impossible, 
 while the children of these religiously divided families, grow up 
 in indifference, and sooner or later fall away from the faith. The 
 bishops of the Plenary Council therefore call upon Catholics 
 to bear ever in mind that marriage is a holy state ; that to 
 be good it should be consecrated by sacramental grace ; and 
 since it is permanent and durable as life, it should be entered 
 into with serious thought and reverent intention. Let them re- 
 member that fatherhood and motherhood which spring from this 
 sacred union, are a kind of priesthood which imposes upon parents 
 the duty of constant watchfulness over their children : for, to quote 
 the words of the great Apostle : " If any one have not care of 
 his own, especially those of his own household, he has denied 
 the faith and is become worse than an infidel." From the society 
 of the family, the Fatliers of the Council have gone on to con- 
 sider other associations, and they have approved and encouraged 
 all societies, which based upon true principles of faith and reason, 
 have for their object, the promotion of the cause of religion and 
 morality, the protection and defence of the weak and the wronged, 
 or the correction of abuses which are harmful to the growth of
 
 252 SI:EMo^^s of the third plenary council. 
 
 the Church, and to the permanence of free and just government. 
 In an especial manner liave they spoken in commendation of the 
 Catholic Temperance Societies, -which are laboring with zeal and 
 not -without good results to diminish the evils of drunkenness and 
 to lead men to the beauty, dignity and freedom of a sober life. 
 The many and great evils -which flow from the vice of intem- 
 perance are not unknown to any of us. More than any other, 
 this vice disrupts families, makes orphans, digs untimely graves, 
 breaks mothers' hearts, takes bread from hungry mouths, fills 
 asylums, peoples prisons, and drives its unhappy victims along 
 the highway which leads to shame, despair and the loss of God. 
 In the presence of all this, the pastors of Christ's flock may not 
 be silent. Vae mihi, says St. Paul, si non ^jredicavero. It is hard 
 to understand how any one can love the Church and not be 
 zealous against the vice of drunkenness : for though there are other 
 sins which doubtless are more grievous, there is none which 
 brings so much obloquy upon our holy faith or which so much 
 retard its progress in this country. 
 
 It is the unfortunate tendency of tliis vice to parade its hideous 
 features before the public gaze, to multiply itself, to seek evil 
 company and to combine with evil-doers ; to be noisy and to create 
 disturbance, to advertise itself by oaths, blasphemies, quarrels, rows,^ 
 assaults and murders. It enters into the general history of crime : 
 and its loud breath rising from the slums and purlieus that sur- 
 round the police court, is perceptible also in higher circles, throw- 
 ing its unmistakable odor over the daily calendar of embezzlement, 
 fraudulent bankruptcy, seduction and divorce. And in this con- 
 nection, the American bishops, with a deep sense of the intimate 
 relations of free government with morality, have urged Catholics 
 to cultivate the spirit of obedience to the laws of their country, and 
 to hold in reverence those who are clothed with civil authority, 
 which, not less than religious authority, comes from God. Let them 
 set their faces against all abuses which tend to deaden the public 
 conscience and to lower the standard of conduct. Let them bear in 
 mind that the faithfid observance of the Lord's Day is not only 
 of vital importance to our religious life, but scarcely of less im- 
 portance to the prosperity of our country. 
 
 The bishops have also approved and commended certain associa- 
 tions whose object is to protect and guide the immigrants who>
 
 THE WORK OF THE COUNCIL. 253 
 
 oome in such multitudes to our shores, and appeal to us in the 
 name of Him who said : " I was a stranger and you took Me 
 in." They have also given their approval to societies formed for 
 the purpose of assisting our poor people who are huddled to- 
 gether in the squalid quarters of great cities and manufacturing 
 towns, to get homes in the country, where bodily life is healthier 
 and moral life is purer. But since associations may be made the 
 instruments of evil not less than of good, the Fathers of the 
 Council have raised their voice to warn Catholics of the dangers 
 of societies whose object is immoral or unlawful, or whose rules 
 and constitutions are not framed in accordance with sound Catho- 
 lic principles. 
 
 So enlightened a body as tliis could not fail to recognize the 
 great services which the press is capable of rendering to the cause 
 of religion : and hence the bishops have considered the means by 
 which the influence and circulation of Catholic newspapers may be 
 ■extended. A few good journals Mill render greater help than a 
 multitude of inferior newspapers, and they have therefore deter- 
 mined that each ecclesiastical province shall create or build up 
 some one Catholic journal, to which all may look as an able and 
 enlightened advocate of the Church. Careful and serious attention 
 has also been given to the claims upon our Christian sympathy 
 and help of the colored people and the Indians. They are our 
 countrymen, our brethren, redeemed by the Blood of Christ, and 
 if we can do aught to soften the hardships of their lot, or to 
 lighten the weight of the wrongs by which they have so long been 
 oppressed — above all, if we can point out some surer way to a 
 higher and better world, we shall thank God for the opportunity 
 of so beneficent and holy a mission. 
 
 Thus have I briefly and lightly touched some of the questions 
 Avhich have engaged the thoughts of the Fathers of this tliird 
 Plenary Council- of Baltimore, which doubtless will mark an epoch 
 in the history of the Church in the United States. 
 
 No age seems Monderful to those who live in it ; no work 
 seems great to him who docs it; but in other centuries men will 
 look back not Avithout gratitude to what has been accomplished here. 
 AVho can look upon the uprising of the Church in this New World 
 without comforting thoughts, without a sense of deeper trust and 
 higher courage ? As from amidst sullen waves and swollen clouds,
 
 254 SERMONS OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 the sun breaks forth to run his heavenly course, so, from the 
 darkness, as of the grave, in Avhich throughout the English speak- 
 ing Avorld, the Church had been buried for centuries, she comes 
 forth again all luminous and young, to lead anew, in tliis other 
 world, the life which for two thousand years has been the foun- 
 tainhcad of truth, of goodness, of peace to men. Ah ! surely there 
 is here some higher vital principle, some divine source of energy, 
 some heavenly guidance, which enables the Church to renew her 
 strength and to walk forever young amid the graves and ruins of 
 the generations that die.
 
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 SEEMOS OF RIGHT REY. F. S. CHITARD. D.D. 
 
 EISHOP OF YIKCEMKES. 
 
 IN the ages of faith, v/hen men fought and died for their belief, 
 shedding around their race a supernatural halo from noble 
 and brilliant deeds done to roll back the flood of Mohammedan 
 invasion, and rescue from desecration the holy sepulchre of our 
 Lord, it was a pious custom to invoke the patronage of God's 
 saints, and to fight under the inspiring influence of their names. 
 The gallant hosts of France invoked St. Denis; the chivalrous 
 knights of Spain called upon St. James; the fleets and soldiers of 
 Venice fought under the banner of St. Mark; while the cry of 
 St. George for England animated the brave warriors of the Isle 
 of Saints. It was a wholesome and noble idea, besides being one 
 intensely Christian. The A^orld has changed much since then. The 
 coins of some once truly Catholic peoples still are found, now and 
 then, with an image, or an inscription, that recalls the memory 
 of the custom ; but it is not the fashion now for nations to 
 stand before the world as clients of any saint. How could this 
 be expected, when the tendency is to set aside the God of sanctity 
 Himself? So, far from invoking the saints, the world of to-day, 
 if it do no more, smiles at Avhat it calls the poetic credulity of 
 the past, and scoffs at any attempt to revive what it has con- 
 cluded to look upon as antiquated and superstitious. It is not my 
 purpose, dearly beloved friends, to demonstrate at length the 
 correctness of the practice of our forefathers in the faith, in their 
 veneration of the saints and in their devotion to them. But I 
 cannot, in passing, withhold saying a word on the subject. Consult 
 the records of the human race, and everywhere you will find a 
 
 (255)
 
 256 SEBMONS OF TEE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 tendency to honor heroes, to deify them, and to believe in 
 their protection. Call it what you will, it is there, and an evi- 
 dence of a universal inclination of the human mind ; and where 
 such universal disposition exists, the germ of it comes from the 
 Creator of nature Himself. It rests therefore on a truth, — the 
 truth of the immortality of the soul, and of the power of the 
 good with God ; and this truth the revealed religion of Jesus 
 Christ has vindicated most splendidly. The teaching, therefore, of 
 revelation came to direct and exalt this natural tendency, and 
 render it a most powerful and beneficial influence in the social 
 life of nations. In doing this God's Church had to battle with 
 the inborn superstition of the human race, even as now; a super- 
 stition which has its reason of being in facts that convince men 
 of the existence of agencies above nature, and which more or less 
 always shows itself; just as it does now in the consultation of 
 departed spirits, and in seeking from creatures of another order 
 knowledge and power men cannot otlierwise have. Witness the 
 result in the number of unfortunate occurrences, of mental perver- 
 sion, of insanity, and of death even, familiar to all readers of 
 the daily press. The Church of God, which is given us as " a 
 light in a dark place," to use the expressive phrase of the great 
 Apostle (II Peter, i, 19), separates the truth from the falsehood, 
 the fact from the superstition. She points to the passages of Holy 
 Writ where the intercessory power of the angels is affirmed ; 
 where holy men are shown " to pray much for the people " (II 
 Mace., XV, 14), and where supernatural aid was vouchsafed the 
 hosts that fought for the true God. She bids us look to those 
 remains of antiquity which have been providentially preserved, to 
 let us see M'hat was the belief and practice of those centuries, 
 which even the most violent of her opponents are forced to ac- 
 knowledge as pare in foith. In the subterranean crypts of the 
 Roman Campagna she has found treasures of antiquity, and these 
 demonstrate tlie honor in wliich the early Christians held God's 
 saints; how they invoked them — asked their help. The eloquent 
 appeals of those who cliose to be laid to rest near the martyrs, 
 as we read them on their tablets, the prayers to St. Petronilla, 
 to Januarius, and to others ; the prayers of flithers and mothers, 
 of brothers and of sisters to their dear departed, "because they 
 know they are in Christ," awaken not alone the sense of faith
 
 OUR LADY, PATRONESS OF THE UNION. 257 
 
 in the great doctrine of the Communion of Saints, but stir the 
 well-spring in the heart of those high and beautiful feelings of 
 Christian love, which ennoble the soul and raise it up to follow 
 after that which is lofty, holy, ^id sublime. 
 
 Of all the saints in whom God has manifested the wonders of 
 His power and of His grace, no one Mill deny that the greatest 
 is she whom He chose to be the Mother of His divine Son, and 
 adorned with all the beautiful prerogatives that befit her un- 
 speakably exalted dignity, — the ever Blessed Virgin Mary. 
 
 It is a signally fortunate circumstance that by the vuianimous 
 •choice of the bishops of the sixth Provincial Council of the Church 
 in the United States, and by the act of the Sovereign Pontiff, Pius 
 IX, of holy memory, she M'as named to bo the Patroness of the 
 Church of the United States ; and I think, dearly beloved brethren, 
 you will agree with me when you will have heard the reasons on 
 which I base the assertion. 
 
 In the first place, we should consider what is meant by the 
 custom of having a patron for a nation, a church, a diocese, or 
 even a parish. It is not merely to have a name, not merely to 
 have a special feast, to have an advocate to look to in time of 
 need. It is more properly to have a bright and beautiful ex- 
 ample of Christian virtue ; a hero, who, though in all like unto 
 ■ourselves, met and overcame the same obstacles, the same dangers, 
 the same opposition we find in our daily life, and before which 
 we so often fall. The life of every saint is a gift God makes to 
 the world to draw men to Him, and stimulate them to ways of 
 virtue. AVe in America, being young as a people, with institutions 
 not perfect certainly, in every respect, but which are so favorable 
 to the development of the best qualities of men in every position, 
 where human nature, under healthy influence of true freedom, is 
 full of promise, which we pray may, under the fostering care of 
 -God and His Church, be realfzed in its budding forth and bear- 
 ing flowers and fruits acceptable to God; we, I say, may be 
 pardoned for looking on ourselves as a providential people, of the 
 foremost, destined to show, as perhaps none other has done, what 
 Christian civilization and Christian liberty can do with man. To 
 effect this, however, a high ideal must be reached, and the ideal 
 ' of the highest life of virtue we have in her to whom we are 
 bid direct our eyes as to our model and patroness — in Mary Im- 
 
 17
 
 258 SBEMO^'^S OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 maculate, Mother of God. All Christian antiquity unites, dearly 
 beloved brethren, in extolling her as the perfect realization of all 
 beautiful virtue. An old work of the Egyptian or Coptic Chris- 
 tians salutes Mary in these words, than which nothing can more 
 fully speak her excellence : " H'ail glory of the angels ! Hail 
 Thou ! chosen above the hosts of heaven and of earth, above every 
 cherubim." (Passaglia, " De Immaculato Conceptu," t. Ill, p. 1158.) 
 An old Father of the Church, Petrus Cellensis, writes, (Book 
 ix, Epistle 9) : " Every privilege is to be granted the Blessed Vir- 
 gin which it is not proven was positively and efficaciously denied 
 her; and every presumed assertion of excellence is to be held 
 as good unless the contrary be proven." The greatest of theolo- 
 gians, known as the Angelic Doctor, St. Thomas Aquinas, approves 
 this rule, and in his work, 3 Sent. dist. 2, q. 1, art. 1, says : 
 '' It is by all means to be believed that every gift was bestowed 
 on Mary that could have been conferred." Tlierefore, we can never 
 imagine anything too good or too holy in the Immaculate Virgin. 
 Is it not a cause for congratulation that such a model should in 
 a special way be placed before our growing people to make them 
 aim at something of the perfection we see in Mary? In fact, as 
 man comes from the hand of God, and as his ultimate perfec- 
 tion consists in attaining the end for which God has made him, 
 the possession of truth itself and of the sovereign good, which is 
 God, it follows that man's highest development is inseparably 
 bound up with his advancement in moral excellence. The proposi- 
 tion is self-evident. For moral excellence is the observance of the 
 natural law — the law of conscience which recognizes God and obeys 
 His precepts. The sanction of that law is ignorance and the slavery 
 of passion. The observance of it brings as its result and reward 
 the elevation and the development of the mind, and manly self- 
 control Avhich enables us to coerce any inclination hostile to the 
 development of the mind and to the rectitude of the heart ; while 
 it aids us to select and use those means which are adapted ta 
 the attainment of an intellectual and moral perfection. Even the 
 pagans saw this, and appreciated it. Seneca, in his book of Con- 
 troversies, recommends to studious youth a moral life, and goes 
 on to say that there is nothing so fatal to intellects as luxury 
 or vice. Cicero, in his work on the republic, speaks in praise 
 of the deeply-laid foundation of modest reserve in the youthful
 
 OUR LADY, PATRONESS OF THE UNION. 259 
 
 heart. Before these, the great Aristotle developed the same idea. 
 (Caprara, " Dissertatio ad Legem Codicis do Professoribus.") These 
 heathen writers, by the light of mere natural wisdom, understood 
 the value of a life of virtue as a requisite for the attainment of 
 the culture man can acquire. It is with tlio greatest reason then, 
 my dear friends, that we should hail most thankfully the presen- 
 tation to us, as a national patroness and model, of one who is the 
 glory of the moral order ; for in imitating her we do that which 
 is most conducive to individual progress of mind and heart ; for 
 that progress requires as a condition the imitation of the resplendent 
 virtue of the Immaculate Virgin Mary. 
 
 But not only to the individual is the patronage of this great 
 type of moral worth useful ; it is especially so to our people in 
 a social sense. On the excellence of Avomanhood undoubtedly rests 
 the good and stability of society. As long as„ the woman is good 
 just so long will morality hold its sway undisputed. Let woman 
 become corrupt, and the social fabric, too, becomes rotten to the 
 core. For it is on woman that the education of man depends. 
 The lips of the mother are the first to teach the child the lessons 
 that are to guide its steps in life, and those lessons are the most 
 deeply impressed on a man's mind, and the most influential in 
 their bearing on his after life. Who of us does not recall with 
 fond affection, and filial reverence, the admonitions Ave received 
 from her Avhom we loved to address with the beautiful name 
 of mother? Who of us but must recall the many times her 
 words have returned to chide or encourage us in our jour.ney 
 through life? How many of us must attribute our success in life 
 to the wise and loving counsels we had from her ! I remem- 
 ber reading the words of a gifted and exemplary Cardinal of the 
 Holy Church, his Eminence the Archbishop of Westminster, spoken 
 on two occasions of solemnity at an interval of eight or ten years. 
 He Avas preaching at the obsequies of tliose tAvo most estimable pre- 
 lates — the Right Rev. Dr. Goss, of Liverpool, and the Right Rev. 
 Dr. Vaughn, of Plymouth. He aa^ovo the panegyric of their virtue 
 and good Avorks, and gaA'e his audience the source Avhence they 
 came: "It Avas," he exclaimed, "because he had a good mother!" 
 
 Since such is the undoubted and acknoAvledged influence of a 
 
 mother on hej^ children, the paramount importance of the correct 
 
 Immoral training of . Avoman cannot be exaggerated. Any influence
 
 260 SERMONS OF TUB THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 that can be brought to further so desirable an end is a great 
 boon to society. If wq needed anything to convince us of this it 
 ■would be to see how all the false systems of Avorship of past and 
 present times, and how tlie secret societies of to-day in Europe, 
 have labored and do labor to get possession of the female mind, 
 and hold up as a model to the young some one of Avhom the 
 doctrines of Christianity cannot approve. 
 
 Simon Magus had as his aid in disseminating his anti-Christian 
 teaching her Avhom he styled the Wisdom of the Divinity. INIohammed 
 degraded woman while wielding the terrible power that came from 
 her degradation. Luther overthrew the beautiful type of the Chris- 
 tion virgin and gave his following as a, model an apostate nun, 
 whom he chose as his companion. Henry VIII, like him, trod 
 under foot every precept of the inspired Word, and by his licen- 
 tious example destroyed the veneration in which holy purity liad 
 been held in England. Heresy and treason to God's Church thus 
 show an instinctive horror of holy virginity, and too often set up 
 idols ©f abomination for the worship of youth with the most fotal 
 result to society. And the reason of this is, that as only the grace 
 of God can make man curb his strong passions, go the act of cast- 
 ing oiF relations witli God's Church, the only source .of grace, 
 loosens the reins of those passions, and man is carried on irre- 
 sistibly to spiritual destruction. 
 
 How diiferent and consoling the effect of holding to that faith 
 once delivered to the saints! And how the heart warms with grati- 
 tude to God that He should have given us the fruit of His work in 
 the world, the spotless example of Mary, to teach us how to live, 
 and so correct the evil tendency of corrupt nature ! The Church 
 presents us in her the type of the maiden pure and undefiled ; of 
 the spouse faithful, humble and obedient ; of the mother loving, 
 solicitous, strong and full of sublime virtue. Oh, how this day of 
 ours needs the teaching of this varied and exhaustive example, 
 suiting every condition of womanhood! What a blessing to our 
 young Christian maidens that tliey should have their eyes directed 
 always to that greatest of creatures, INIary Immaculate. What a 
 benefactress to our whole people does not the Church show herself 
 to be in insisting on the development of that education which 
 places Mary in the school-room as the guardian of* innocence and 
 as the model of life. How the perfumes of Mary's virtue linger^
 
 OUR LADY, PATRONESS OF THE UNION. 261 
 
 in the memory of the Catholic chi'ld on wliom, in her studies, the 
 loving eyes of her Blessed Mother looked down from the picture 
 on the wall, rude it may be, \n\t like a pre-Raphaelite, though 
 inexact in detail, possessing a soul that spoke to hers. The life 
 of Mary enters in this manner into every circumstance of woman's 
 daily life. As a child, she teaches by her example obedienee, in- 
 dustry, prayer ; as a maiden, modesty, purity, humility ; as a wife, 
 obedience to her husband, patience, attention to the duties of her 
 household and of hospitality ; as a mother we see in her every 
 virtue that makes a mother worthy of admiration, for she devotes 
 herself without reserve to the welfare of her Offspring, suffering 
 every hardship for His sake, and even shares in His ignominy as 
 He hangs on a gibbet. Let Christian mothers learn from her to 
 love their children and not seek to avoid the cares of motherhood, 
 or throw their burden of duty on strangers. Let them recognize 
 that theirs is a most sacred obligation to watch over the budding 
 mind of the child, to see that in its soul no seeds of evil shall 
 fall and no weed of vice spring up through her carelessness. For 
 no one so represents the authority and the love of God for His 
 creature as a mother to Avhom God has given that love of her 
 child in order that she may preserve it for Himself. No Rachel 
 mourns her lost ones as the Heart of God weeps over the child 
 that has strayed away, and of a mother will He dem^id a strict 
 account. 
 
 But useful as is the influence of Mary's virtues, on the individual 
 and on society, there is a greater benefit still, which flows 
 from the patronage of Mary under the title of Immaculate Con- 
 ception. The will is a blind power and is directed by the mind. 
 It is the will which is engaged in the practice of that virtue 
 which makes life happy and beautiful. The office of tlie mind is 
 to recognize first what virtue is, in what its beauty consists, and 
 why the will should love it and go after it. Everything, there- 
 fore, depends on the mind, on its synderesis, on the principles 
 that bind it and compel it to conclude what is to be done prac- 
 tically ; and that conscience is to be followed. Now, what is so 
 powerful in this as the principle of faith ? And what is so es- 
 sential to the very idea of faith as the supernatural? Acceptance, 
 therefore, of the existence of the supernatural is an essential con- 
 dition of faith. In believing in the Immaculate Conception of
 
 262 iSEHMONS OF THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 Mary we profess ia the most 'solemn and eifective manner our 
 acceptance of this supernatural order. What, in fact, is the doctrine 
 of the Immaculate Conception if not a reiteration of the doctrine 
 of St. Paul, that we have all sinned in Adam, as the exceptian 
 in her case but confirms the rule ? She alone of all men was 
 preserved from original sin through the merits of her divine Son. 
 And, therefore, as we proclaim Mary immaculate. Me hold her up 
 to a material world as a type of the supernatural. The great 
 want of the day is the belief in the supernatural. Men are en- 
 gulfed in matter, they wish to think of nothing save what tends 
 to the pleasure and prosperity of life, and the writers whose works 
 are most read are they whose opinions are most grossly positivist 
 and material. Men of the liighest position, on whom rests the 
 responsibility of leading society, have been known to declare, in 
 the midst of a people claiming to be Christian, that all men are 
 born good. There arc days when the most obscuring and fatal 
 forms of Pelagianism, so valiantly opposed by the greai African 
 Doctor, St. Augustine, and so triumphantly dispelled by the rays 
 of the sun of truth shining through the decisions of tlie councils 
 of the Church, find favor with the people everywhere and destroy 
 utterly all hope of spiritual life. To meet and overcome this 
 hurtful and lethargic error that like an Upas trej3 is blighting 
 the higher ^ife of our people, whose teachers continually show that 
 the idea of the supernatural is obliterated from their minds, the 
 Church of God has recourse to her of whom we sing : " Thou, 
 alone, hast destroyed all heresies throughout the whole world." 
 Once more the words are verified, and her privilege convicts the 
 world of heresy and of unbelief. 
 
 Permit me, my dear friends, briefly to place before you what 
 is involved in the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of 
 Mfny, that you may the better appreciate the unspeakable benefits 
 that flow from it, and more directly to us Avho are under the 
 sweet influence of its protection. The «world was astounded when, 
 in 1854, on the 8th day of December, that great Pontiff of holy 
 memory, Pius IX, gave to the Church his dogmatic definition, to 
 the glory of the Mother of God and to the greater exalting of 
 God's power. Most men did not understand it, and with blind 
 prejudice assailed the Pope and the bishops with every term of 
 hate and denunciation. Others did understand it, and in propor-
 
 OUR LADY, PATRONESS OF THE UNION. 263 
 
 tion to their leaning to the current theories of the day, attacked 
 that authority which dared to mark their favorite ideas with the 
 stigma of error and of ignorance. Good reason had they to cry 
 out, for the doctrine of Immaculate Conception was the reassertion 
 of God's empire in the Morld, of the havoc, wrought by the 
 spirit of evil and by sin in mankind. What had the Sovereign 
 Pontiff, the Doctor of the Universal Church, said ? He had sol- 
 emly declared : " To the honor of the Most Holy and Undivided 
 Trinity ; to the ornament and glory of the Virgin JNIother of God ; 
 to the exaltation of the Catholic faith, and to the increase of the 
 Christian religion, that the doctrine vv'hich holds the Blessed Vir- 
 gin Mary, in the very first instance of her conception, was by a 
 singular grace and privilege of Almighty God, in view of the 
 merits of Jesus Ciu'ist, the lledeemer of the human race, pre- 
 served free from all stain of original sin, has been revealed by 
 God, and is, therefore, to be firmly and perpetually believed by all 
 the faithful." 
 
 In making this solemn declaration the Pope took his stand ou 
 the tradition of the Church of which he is the divinely appointed 
 judge, and relied on that assistance, vouchsafed him by the Holy 
 Ghost, in virtue of the prayer of Christ : " Rogavi pro te ut 
 non deficiat fides tua," and whom God sent down on the Apos- 
 tles on the day of Pentecost, " the Spirit of Truth, who was to 
 abide with them forever" (John xiv, 17), and "bring all things to , * 
 their mind whatsoever He liad told them " (John v, 26). 
 
 In casting a glance over the writings of the Fathers and the 
 Liturgies of the Church, we are not surprised to find them speak- 
 ing in the terms of unlimited admiration of the holiness of the 
 Mother of God, especially when we bear in mind the rule of 
 Petrus Cellensis, and of the Angelic Doctor, of which I spoke a 
 few moments ago : " It is by all means to be believed that 
 every gift was bestowed on Mary that could have been conferred." 
 The Sovereign Pontiff, therefore, had no difficulty in finding innu- 
 merable passages that show the belief of past ages, from the 
 beginning, that there was no spot or stain in Mary ; that the foe 
 of mankind never had dominion over her. Thri, for example, if 
 we take the verse of the XLIV Psalm : " The Most High has 
 sanctified His Own Tabernacle" — words which apply primarily to 
 Jerusalem, then prophetically to the Church — we find these words
 
 264 SUIiJUO^i'S OF TUB THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 used, by accommodation, with reference to the Mother of God, by 
 many Fathers. Methodius, speaking of Simon and Anna (Passag- 
 lia, " De Immacuhito Conceptu," t. 11, p. 735), says of Mary : 
 " Thou among all created things, visible and invisible, far beyond 
 all, shinest with honor. Happy the root of Jesse, and blessed 
 the house of David in which thou didst bud forth. God is in the. 
 thee and thou shalt not bo moved; for the Most High hath sancti- 
 fied His Tabernacle." 
 
 John, Bishop of Eubea, celebrating the Blessed Virgin's own 
 conception, says : " Sing, exult, and praise ! Lo ! the devil is 
 overcome, who had reduced our nature to his tyranny. Behold a 
 throne is erected on earth more admirable than that of the cheru- 
 bim, of which it is Avritten : God is in the midst of it, and it 
 shall not be moved." 
 
 In like manner writes Germanus, the Bishop of Constantinople. 
 St. John Damascene calls her " something new under the sun," 
 and others apply the verse to Mary. The Greek Church also 
 speaks, in its turn, of Mary as the tabernacle of the Most High, 
 and ends with the exclamation : " O, Lady in every way immacu- 
 late ! " 
 
 The Jesuit Fathers, in their work on the Immaculate Concep- 
 tion, the direction of which was given to Professor Passaglia, one 
 of their number, thus sum up the words of the Fathers and the 
 testimonies of the Greek Church quoted : 
 
 " The Fathers have taught : I. That when Mary was conceived a 
 throne was prepared more admirable than that of the cherubim. II. 
 That Mary first existed as a temple built by the spiritual Solomon, 
 and as a city aided by God lest it should be taken. III. That 
 she came as something new iinder the sun, as the miracle of 
 miracles, as abounding with grace, wholly beautiful and next to 
 God. IV. That Mary, not created other than as Eve, came from 
 the very hands of God. V. That no dishonor attached to God 
 from the creation of Mary, because she was brought into exist- 
 ence as a Mork pleasing to God. VL That the triumph over 
 Satan, to be fully achieved by Christ, began with the origin and 
 primodial existence of Mary." 
 
 The Sovereign Pontiff moreover had the support of the public 
 opinion of the Church, in which as a soul the Holy Ghost dwells, 
 making all of one mind, and that public opinion was in accord-
 
 OTJR LADY, PATRONESS OF THE UNION. 265 
 
 ance with the writings and testimony of learned and pious Fathers. 
 As teacher of the Church, his power of unerring, authoritative ex 
 cathedra decision in matters of controversy has been gloriously 
 vindicated by the (Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, and it is 
 a point of Catholic faith that he has that assistance of the Holy 
 Ghost whereby the Church is infallible. 
 
 But this regards only the statement of the doctrine ; we have 
 to do with the effects of it — its influence on the world, and 
 especially on our country, of which Mary Immaculate is the Pa- 
 troness. What is that effect? To condemn naturalism and to 
 exalt the supernatural; to make all understand the absolute neces- 
 sity of the spiritual life. 
 
 Our Most Holy Father, Pope Leo XIII, in his recent Ency- 
 clical has, with great care and precision, noted the existence of 
 naturalism, its characteristics and tendencies, and Avith equal firm- 
 ness, and with inexorable, logical conclusion, has condemned it. It 
 is the evil of the day. It is to be found everywhere. More es- 
 pecially is it to be encountered where education is most advanced 
 and most widespread. It has enthroned itself in the great uni- 
 versities of non-Catholic countries, as the legitimate outcome of 
 so-called free thought. I say so-called, for I will not concede the 
 sacred name of freedom to rebellion against God and against reason; 
 and if ever there has been rebellion against God and against 
 reason, it Avas when the principle of private judgment in matters 
 of faith was asserted : for the teachings of faith came from God, 
 and reason tells us to accept without question Avhat wo know God 
 reveals. From non-Catholic universities naturalism has spread to 
 Catholic peoples and even to wliat were once Catholic universities, 
 but which now, under the influence of the ideas fostered by 
 European Freemasonry, the great teacher and propagator of natu- 
 ralism, have become arch-professors of error ; denying the existence 
 of the supernatural, and consequently of grace. From the uni- 
 versities, naturalism has spread to the press, and the press has 
 popularized it nowhere more than here in America, till you can 
 hardly take up any great daily without finding it openly taught, 
 or lurking in articles Avritten with every beauty of style, and on 
 subjects that vividly interest. And as the direct consequence of 
 naturalism is to destroy the idea of sin, so you find the writers 
 of these articles speaking with light raillery of sin, and insiduously
 
 266 SFE3I0NS OF TUB THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 
 
 undermining the ideas most essential to Christian morality. Es- 
 pecially is this the case with regard to holy purity ; and the 
 result is that not only do young persons of both sexes laugh at 
 the assertion that impure thought is sinful, but they even declare 
 openly that the most shameful vices are not sins at alL This is 
 a very terrible state of thiugs ; but I have put the case , most 
 temperately, as any one who has had the experience that even I 
 had, must say. What the future of society is to be with such 
 ideas gaining ground, it makes one shudder to think of. AVhat 
 is the remedy ? Where is the counteracting influence ? The Cath- 
 olic faith with its clear definitions, its fearless and consistent 
 preaching of the supernatural order, and especially in its pre- 
 senting to the people types of virtue in the saints, and pre- 
 eminently in the definition of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, 
 which not only epitomizes the teachings of the supernatural order, 
 but gives us a type of moral beauty and of the spiritual life of 
 grace, so excellent, that the human intellect is not adequate to 
 grasp it. The Immaculate Conception epitomizes the teachings of 
 the supernatural order, because it reaffirms the existence of original 
 sin, and its universal incurrence, the Mother of God being the 
 only exception ; it reaffirms the necessity of justification, and that 
 through the merits of Jesus Christ alone ; and as a consequence, 
 it reaffirms the existence of the grace of God, and the need we 
 all have of it ; finally, it reaffirms all the teachings of St. 
 Augustine in the fourth century, and of the second Council of 
 Orange in the sixth, against Pelagianism and Semi-Pelagianism ; the 
 former of which denied the existence of grace, and the latter 
 attributed the beginnings of conversion to man, contrary to what 
 Christ Himself said : " No man can come to ]Me save My Father 
 draw him." (John vi.) " Without ]\Ie you can do nothing." 
 While the great inspired Apostle, St. Paul, writes : " What hast 
 thou that thou hast not received ; and if thou hast received it, 
 why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it?". 
 
 That the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception presents us 
 a supernatural type of moral beauty, of spotless purity, and 
 of a spiritual life of grace, does not need demonstration after what 
 I have said. With the Church we can speak of this Immaculate 
 Virgin as " Candor lucis eternre et speculum sine macula," as 
 the reflected " brightness of eternal light and the mirror without
 
 OUR LADY, PATRONESS OF THE UNION. 267 
 
 spot ! " What the effect on the mind and heart of such a perfect, 
 brilliant and beautiful model ia, you and I, dearly beloved brethren, 
 know. Oh! what a blessing to have Mary before our eyes, the 
 thought of her holiness in our minds, the perfume of her virtues 
 ever drawing us on ; " in odorem unguentoruni tuorum currimus ; " 
 so that we run in the ways of the Lord whither that delightful 
 odor leads us ! Let us give devout thanks to God, that we are 
 • especially placed under her protection. May that protection ever 
 hover over this beloved country of ours ; may its benign influence 
 ever foster in it everything that is true, everything that is beau- 
 tiful, everything that is holy ! Amen.
 
 PASTORAL LETTER 
 
 Ti3:iK;X) p'LEi^j^i^.ir ooun^oiL 
 
 OF BALTIMORE.
 
 y. Jitv. Bonaventure Frey, O.M.Cap. 
 
 Ven/ liev. James McGrath, O.M.I. 
 
 Veil/ Ker. ]). liueslng, O.S.F. 
 
 \eiij Itti . .1. Atijiitrjitr^e, S.l'.M. 
 
 Vev}/ liev. Ihjaciiilli Fpp^O.Jl.Vaii 
 
 *»\A 
 
 Jif. liev. F. CoHiad, S.IJ. 
 
 in. Rev. A. Edeltjiock, O.S.B. 
 
 )it. Jiev. F. MundtviM\ O^S.B. 
 
 lll^ JitV. B. ]\ iiiitmr, 0.
 
 PASTORAL LETTER 
 
 — OF THE 
 
 IRGHBISHOPS IHD BISHOPS OF THE UNITED STATES 
 
 ASSEMBLED IN THE 
 
 THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL OF BALTIMORE, 
 
 TO THE CLERGY AKD LAITY OF THEIR CHARGE. 
 
 The Archbishops and Bishops of the United States, in Third Plenary 
 Council assembled, to their clergy and faithful people — "Grace unto you 
 and peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ." 
 
 Venerable Brethren of the Clergy, 
 
 Beloved Children of the Laity : 
 
 Full eighteen years have elapsed since our ])re(lecessors were asserablcil 
 in Plenary Council to promote uniibrinity of discipline, to provide for the 
 exigencies of the day, to devif^e new means for the maintenance and diffu- 
 sion of our holy religion, which should be adequate to the great increase 
 of the Catholic population. In the interval, the })relates, clergy and 
 faithful have been taught by a wholesome experience to appreciate the 
 zeal, piety and prudence that inspired the decrees of those venerable 
 Fathers and to listen with cheerful submission to their authoritative voice, 
 whether uttered in warning, in exhortation or positive enactment. And 
 the whole American Church deeply feels and cordially proclaims her
 
 2 PASTORAL LETTER OF 
 
 gratitude for the treasure bequeathed to us by their wise and timely legis- 
 lation. Its framers, in great part, have gone before us with the sign of 
 Faith and now sleep the sleep of peace. But their work, after following 
 them (Apoc.) to the dread tribunal of the great Judge to plead in their 
 behalf and insure their reward, has remained upon earth a safe-guide and 
 rich blessing for the clergy and people of their generation. 
 
 Since that time, however, the body of our clergy and religious has 
 grown to wonderful dimensions, our Catholic institutions have been multi- 
 plied tenfold, with a corresponding increase in the number of our faithful 
 laity. The territory, likewise, over which they are spread, has been 
 greatly enlarged. The land of the far West, that was once desolate and 
 impassable, through God's providential mercy, now rejoices and flourishes 
 like the lily. Under His guiding hand, it has been taught to bud forth 
 and blossom and rejoice with joy and praise. The wilderness has ex- 
 changed its solitude for the hum of busy life and industry; and the steps 
 of our missionaries and Catholic settlers have invariably either preceded or 
 accompanied the westward progress of civilization. Forests have given 
 away to cities, where Catholic temples re-echo the praises of the Most 
 High, where the priceless perfume of the " Clean Oblation," foretold by 
 Malachi, daily ascends to heaven, and where the life-giving sacraments of 
 Holy Church are dispensed by a devoted clergy. In view of this great 
 progress of our holy religion, this marvellous widening of (he tabernacles 
 of Jacob, it has been judged wise and expedient, if not absolutely neces- 
 sary, to examine anew the legislation of our predecessors, not with any 
 purpose of radical change, much less of abrogation, but to preserve and 
 perfect its spirit by adapting it to our altered circumstances. And as 
 every day gives birth to new errors, and lapseof time or distance of place 
 allows abuses to gradually creep into regular discipline, we have judged it 
 the duty of our pastoral officg to check the latter by recalling and en- 
 forcing established law, and to guard our flock against the former by timely 
 words of paternal admonition. 
 
 Such, too, has been the expressed wish and injunction of our Holy 
 Father Leo XIII, happily reigning, tx) whom, as Supreme Pontiff and 
 successor of the Prince of the Apostles, by inherent right belongs the power 
 of convoking this our Third National or Plenary Council, and of appoint- 
 ing (as he has graciously done) an Apostolic Delegate to preside over its 
 deliberations. 
 
 One of the most important events that our age has witnessed was the 
 assembling by Pius IX, of happy memory, of the General Council of the 
 Vatican. It was held three years after the close of our Second Plenary
 
 TEE TEIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 3 
 
 Council, and all, or nearly all, of its members, and many besides of the 
 prelates now assembled in this Third Plenary Council, enjoyed the rare 
 privilege of sitting with the other Princes of the Church in the only Ecu- 
 menical Synod vouchsafed these latter ages. Its appointed task was to 
 condemn the most influential and insidious errors of the clay, and to com- 
 plete the legislation on weighty matters of discipline that had been contem- 
 plated and discussed, but left undecided, by the Council of Trent. Like 
 its predecessor, the Council of the Vatican was interrupted by the disturbed 
 condition of Europe; and the Fathers, leaving the work of their delibera- 
 tions unfinished, returned to their homes, some to this Western continent, 
 others to remote regions of the East. But we would fain cherish the hope, 
 and lift up to heaven our earnest prayer, that the Father of mercies and 
 God of all consolation, who is ever ready to comfort His Church in all her 
 tribulations, who holds in His hand the counsels of princes and the devices 
 of peoples, may deign, in His own good time, to reunite the prelates, or their 
 successors, over the tomb of St. Peter or elsewhere, as may seem best to 
 His infinite wisdom. The Vatican Council, however, during its short 
 session of seven months, gave solemn, authoritative utterance to some great 
 truths which the Church had unvaryingly held from the days of Christ 
 and His Apostles; but which she found it once more necessary to recall 
 and inculcate against the widespread skepticism and unbelief of our day. 
 Besides condemning the philosophy, no less wicked than false and teeming 
 with contradictions, of the last two centuries, and especially of our own 
 times, she had to uphold (such is the lamentable downward course of those 
 who rebelled against her divine commission to teach all nations !) the truth 
 and divinity of the Sacred Books against the very children of those, who 
 once appealed to Scripture to disprove her teachings, and to maintain the 
 dignity and value of human reason against the lineal descendants of those, 
 who once claimed reason as the supreme ftnd only guide in picking out 
 friDm her creed what mysteries they would retain, what mysteries they 
 would reject. Nobly did she perform her duty and assert in the face of a 
 forgetful or unbelieving world that reason is God's highest and best gift to 
 man in the natural order, and that this most salutary aid of his weakness 
 is not only not impaired, but strengthened, supplemented and ennobled by 
 the supernatural gift of Divine revelation. 
 
 We have no reason to fear that you, beloved brethren, are likely to be 
 carried away by these or other false doctrines condemned by the Vatican 
 Council, such as materialism or the denial of God's power to create, to 
 reveal to mankind His hidden truths, to display by miracles His almighty 
 2)ower in this world which is the work of His hands. But neither can we
 
 4 PASTORAL LETTER OF 
 
 close our eyes to the fact that teachers of skepticism and irreligion are at 
 work in our country. They have crept into the leading educational insti- 
 tutions of our non-Catholic fellow-citizens, they have (though rarely) made 
 their appearance in the public press and even in the pulpit. Could we rely 
 fully on the innate good sense of the American people and on that habitual 
 reverence for God and religion which has so far been their just pride and 
 glory, there might seem comparatively little danger of the general diffusion 
 of those wild theories which rejector ignore Revelation, undermine moral- 
 itv, and end not unfrequently by banishing God from His own creation. 
 But when Ave take into account the daily signs of growing unbelief, and 
 see how its heralds not only seek to mould the youthful mind in our col- 
 leges and seats of learning, but are also actively working amongst the 
 masses, we cannot but shudder at the dangers that threaten us in the future. 
 When to this we add the rapid growth of that false civilization which hides 
 its foulness under the name of enlightenment — involving, as it does, the 
 undisguised worship of mammon, the anxious search after every ease, com- 
 fort and luxury for man's physical well-being, the all-absorbing desire to 
 promote his material interests, the unconcern or rather contempt for those 
 of liis higher and better nature — we cannot but feel that out of all this 
 must grow a heartless materialism, which is the best soil to receive the 
 seeds of unbelief and irreligion, which threaten to desolate the country at 
 no di-tant day. The first thing to perish will be our liberties. For men, 
 who know not God or religion, can never respect the inalienable rights 
 which man has received from His Creator. The State in such case must 
 become a despotism, whether its power be lodged in the hands of one or 
 many. 
 
 To you, beloved brethren, who possess the treasure of Catholic faith,, 
 we may safely address the reiterated injunctions of the Lord to the chosen 
 leader of His people. 
 
 "Take courage and be strong . . . take courage and be very valiant. 
 . . . Behold I command thee, take courage and be strong. Fear not 
 and be not dismayed, because the Lord thy God is with thee.''^ The latter- 
 clause gives the reason why we should take courage and be strong. An 
 intermediate verse gives the means of securing God's assistance : " Let 
 not the book of this law depart from thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate 
 on it day and night, that thou mayest observe and do the things that are 
 •written in it." Keep, then, day and night, before your eyes the Law of" 
 God and His teachings through that Holy Church that He has appointed 
 mother and mistress of all men. Fly the reading of all infidel books, and 
 keep them from your children, as you would the poison of asp or basilisk.. 
 
 I Josue, i, 6, 7, 8, 9.
 
 THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 5 
 
 Teach them that you and they, in listening- to Holy Church, have the 
 guidance of Him who said, " I am the way, the truth and the life." Let 
 others doubt or deny, but with the Apostle, you know whom you have 
 believed, and you are certain that He will make good the trust vou have 
 reposed in Him.^ 
 
 Christ our Lord commissioned His Apostles to teach mankind the 
 truths they had been taught by Him. They received no commandment 
 to write on any doctrine, mucli less to draw up a body of articles of faith 
 such as our children now learn from the catechism. They preached and 
 taught by word of mouth; or, when occasion offered itself, they wrote as 
 the Divine Spirit prompted them. AVhat they wrote and what they de- 
 livered by oral instruction are equally God's Word. And this two-fold 
 AVord, written and unwritten, is the Deposit of divine truth, committed to 
 the keeping of the Catholic Church, and chiefly to him on whom the 
 Church was built — the only Apostle who, in the full sense of the words, 
 yet lives and rules in the person of his successors, and from his unfailing 
 chair imparts to all who seek it the truth of Christian faith. ^ It is his 
 office to confirm his brethren, and the history of the Church exhibits him, 
 from the beginning and through all ages, as faithfully fulfilling the charge 
 entrusted to him by his Master.^ From the earliest ages down to our own, 
 the voice of Peter has been foremost in condemning all deviations from 
 apostolic doctrine. No threats of worldly power could subdue or silence 
 that voice. To such threats Peter, through his successors, has ever given 
 the same answer that he gave at Jerusalem to the assembled priests and 
 ancients.* No pleading of princes and potentates could ever win Rome's 
 sympathy for error; no heresy under false semblance of Catholic truth 
 ever yet eluded her vigilant eye.^ As soon as any novelty appeared, all 
 hearts and eyes were turned towards the Chair of Peter, and when that 
 Chair gave its decision, the Christian people yielded obedience. Those 
 who would not were cut off from the communion of the Church, and be- 
 came thenceforth as the heathen and the publican. 
 
 This doctrine, therefore, which had so thoroughly wrought itself into 
 the life and action of the Church, the Vatican Council deemed proper to 
 consecrate by a solemn definition. Hence, that no one in future may 
 craftily pretend not to know, how and whence to ascertain what the Church 
 officially teaches ; above all, that no one may henceforth scatter the bane- 
 ful seeds of false doctrine with impunity, under the mask of an appeal 
 from the judgment of the Holy See (whether it be to learned universities, 
 
 1 II. Tim., i, 12. 3 Luke, xii, 32. 
 
 2 See Bpist. S. Petri Chrysologi inter Epp. S. Leonis M. « Acts, iv, 19-20. 
 
 "> Cf . St. Cyprian. Ep. lix.
 
 6 PASTORAL LETTER OF 
 
 or State tribunals, or future councils, particular or general, as was done by 
 JiUther and the Jansenists), the Church of the living Go<l, through the 
 Fathers of the Vatican Council, has unequivocally declared that her 
 authentic spokesman is the successor of St. Peter in the Apostolic See of 
 Rome, and that what he, as Head of the Church, official ly decides is part 
 of the Deposit of Faith intrusted to her keeping by Christ Our Lord, and 
 hence subject to neither denial, doubt nor revision, but to be implicitly 
 received and believed by all. 
 
 In tins authoritative declaration there is nothing new, nothing to give 
 cause for wonder. It is only setting the solemn seal of definition upon 
 what has always been the belief and practice of the Church. Yet "the 
 gates of Hell," the powers of darkness that forever assail the Church built 
 on Peter — though knowing (for the very devils believe and tremble in 
 believing)^ that they cannot prevail against it nor make void God's 
 promise- — seem to have been stirred to their very depths by the procla- 
 mation of this great truth. And their impotent rage has found its echo 
 uj)on earth. The definition evoked a storm of fierce obloquy and reckless 
 vituperation, such as has been seldom witnessed amongst our opponents. 
 And a wretched handful of apostate Catholics " went out from us, but they 
 were not of us."' 
 
 But, what was far more serious, the kings of the earth stood up and the 
 princes assembled together against the Lord* and against His annointed 
 Vicar, because of the definition. They revived the old war-cry raised by 
 the Jews against our Saviour^ and so often renewed by the persecutors of 
 the Church. They pretended that by defining the infallibility of St. 
 Peter's successor, she had made herself the enemy of Cfesar. Herein we see 
 plainly verified the strong language of Scripture: " Iniquity hath lied to 
 itself."^ The Pope, even after the proclamation of his infallibility, is no 
 more the enemy of Caesar and of human governments, than was the infalli- 
 ble Peter the enemy of Nero, or Christ our Lord, who is infallible truth 
 itself, the enemy of Augustus and Tiberius under whom He was born into 
 the world, taught and suffered. The governments by which, three centu- 
 ries ago, the new tenets of Luther, Zwingli and Calvin had been imposed 
 on reluctant peoples by the sword, were the first, indeed the only ones, to 
 again unsheathe it against Catholic believers, and especially against the 
 bishops and clergy. It was their purpose to exterminate by degrees the 
 Catholic hierarchy, and replace it by a servile priesthood that would subor- 
 dinate its preaching and ministry to the will of the State. To do thisj 
 
 1 Credunt et contremiscunt, J ames ii, 19. * Acts, i v, 26. 
 
 ' Malth., xvi, 18. ^ John, xix, 12, 15. 
 
 3 John, ii, 19. • Ps., xxvl, 19.
 
 THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 7 
 
 they had to trample on solemn treaties and organic laws. But the Catho- 
 lics of Prussia, clergy and people, while proving themselves most devoted 
 and faithful to their country's laws, stood up like a wall of adamant against 
 the tyranny of its rulers. With generous vigor and admirable constancy, 
 they availed themselves of every legal and constitutional means to check 
 the advances of despotism and save their own freedom at)d that of their 
 country. They have given to the world a glorious cxarn])]e, wliich it is 
 to be hoped the victims of tyrannous Liberalism in Catholic countries may 
 some day have the wisdom or the courage to imitate. The struggle has 
 now lasted fourteen years; but the very friends of this ])er,secuting legisla- 
 tion have been driven at last to acknowledge that it has proved to be a 
 miserable failure; and no better proof of it could be found than the fact, 
 tiiat the rulers of Prussia have had to fall back on the patriotism of the 
 Catholic body to stay the threatening march of socialism and revolution. 
 In Switzerland, too, the persecution has yielded to the policy of mildness 
 and conciliation adopted by Our Holy Father, Leo XIII. 
 
 Beloved brethren, we have no need to encourage you to hold steadfastly 
 to this doctrine of the Vatican Council ; for you were trained from infancy 
 to believe it, as were your fathers before you, while it was not yet invested 
 with the formalities of a definition, just as the early Christians held firmly 
 to the divinity of the Son and of the Holy Ghost three hundred years be- 
 fore the Church found it necessary to define them in the Councils of Nice 
 and Byzantium. 
 
 And in our own country, writers and speakers who know the Church 
 only by the caricatures drawn by prejudice, have occasionally re-echoed the 
 same charge; but despite local and temporary excitements, the good sense 
 of the American people has always j)revailed against the calumny. We 
 think we can claim to be acquainted both with the laws, institutions and 
 spirit of the Catholic Church, and with the laws, institutions and spirit of 
 our country ; and we emphatically declare that there is no antagonism 
 between them. A Catholic finds himself at home in the United States; 
 for the influence of his Church has constantly been exercised in behalf 
 of individual rights and popular liberties. And the right-minded American 
 nowhere finds himself more at home than in the Catholic Church, for 
 nowhere else can he breathe more freely that atmosphere of Divine truth, 
 Avhich alone can make him free.^ « 
 
 We repudiate with equal earnestness the assertion that we need to lay 
 aside any of our devotedness to our Church, to be true Americans; 
 the insinuation that we need to abate any of our love for our 
 
 1 John, viii, 32.
 
 8 PASTORAL LETTER OF 
 
 country's principles and institutions, to be faithful Catholics. To 
 argue that the Catholic Church is hostile to our great Republic, because 
 she teaches that " there is no power but from Gocl;"i because, therefore, 
 back of the events which led to the formation of the Republic, she sees the 
 Providence of God leading to that issue, and back of our country's laws 
 the authority of God as their sanction, — this is evidently so illogical and 
 contradictory an accusation, that we are astonished to hear ifc advanced 
 by persons of ordinary intelligence. We believe tliat our country's 
 heroes were the instruments of the God of Nations in establishing this 
 home of freedom ; to both the Almighty and to His instruments in the 
 work, we look with grateful reverence ; and to maintain the inheritance 
 of freedom which they have left us, should it ever — which God forbid — 
 be imperilled, our Catholic citizens will be found to stand forward, as 
 one man ready to pledge anew " their lives, their fortunes, and their 
 sacred honor." 
 
 No less illogical would be the notion, that there is aught in the free 
 spirit of our American institutions, incompatible with perfect docility to 
 the Church of Christ. The spirit of American freedom is not one of an- 
 archy or license. It essentially involves love of order, respect for rightful 
 authority, and obedience to just laws. There is nothing iu the character of 
 the most liberty-loving American, which could hinder iiis reverential sub- 
 mission to the Divine authority of Our Lord, or to the like authority del- 
 egated by Him to His Apostles and His Church. Nor are there in the 
 world more devoted adherents of the Catholic Church, the See of 
 Peter, and the Vicar of Christ, than the Catholics of the United 
 States. Narrow, insular, national views and jealousies concerning ecclesias- 
 tical authority and Church organization, may have s})rung naturally enough 
 from the selfish policy of certain riders and nations in by-gone times; but 
 they find no sympathy in the spirit of the true American Catholic. His 
 natural instincts, no less than his religious training, would forbid him to 
 submit in matters of faith to the dictation of the State or to any merely 
 human authority whatsoever. He accepts the religion and the Church 
 that are from God, and he knows well that these are universal, not 
 national or local, — for all the children of men, not for any special 
 tribe or tongue. We glory that we are, and, with God's blessing, 
 shall continue to be, not the American Church, nor the Church of the 
 United States, nor a Church in any other sense exclusive or limited, 
 but an integral part of the one, holy, Catliolic and Apostolic Church of 
 Jesus Christ, which is the Body of Christ, in which there is no distinction 
 of classes and nationalities, — in which all are one in Christ Jesus. 2 
 
 1 Horn., xiii, 1. 2Gal.iii.2S. 
 
 I
 
 THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL, 9 
 
 While the assaults of calumny and persecution directed against the 
 Church since the Vatican Council have abundantly shown how angry the 
 powers of evil have been at the Council's luminous utterances of Divine 
 truth, our Holy Father the Pope has been, naturally enough, the main 
 object of attack. And Divine Providence has been pleased to leave him, 
 for a while at the mercy of his enemies, in order that their impious violence 
 might work out the demonstration of its own injustice; that the true char- 
 acter and the indestructibility of the oflliceof St. Peter might be made mani- 
 fest to the world; that the wisdom of the Providence which has guarded 
 the independence of that office in the past, might be vindicated and reaffirmed 
 for the future. The great and beloved Pius IX died the "Prisoner of the 
 Vatican," and Leo XIII has inherited his Apostolic trials, together with 
 his Apostolic office. Day after day he has seen the consecrated patrimony 
 of religion and charity swept into Cfesar's coffers by the ruthless hand of 
 spoliation and confiscation. At this moment, he sees that same grasp laid 
 upon the property of the Propaganda, piously set apart for spreading the 
 Cospel of Jesus Christ throughout the missionary countries of the world. 
 So utterly unjustifiable an act lias called forth a cry of indignant protest 
 from the Catholics of all countries, and from no country has the cry 
 gone forth clearer and louder than from our own. We thank our gov- 
 ernment for the action that saved the American College from confisca- 
 tion; and we hope that the protest and appeal of all governments and 
 peoples that " love justice and hate iniquity " may yet shame the spoiler 
 into honesty. Meanwhile the hearts of all Catholics go out all the more 
 lovingly towards their persecuted Chief Pastor ; and from their worldly 
 means, be they abundant or scanty, they gladly supply him with the means 
 necessary for carrying on the administration of his high office. Such has 
 been your liberality in the past, beloved brethren, that we hardly need 
 exhort you to generosity in the collection for the Holy Father, which will 
 continue to be made annually throughout all the dioceses of the country. 
 Let your devoted affection be shown by your deeds, and the persist- 
 ency of injustice be more than matched by the constancy of your faithful 
 and generous love. 
 
 While enduring with the heroism of a martyr the trials which beset 
 him, and trustfully awaiting the Almighty's day of deliverance, the energy 
 and wisdom of Leo XIII are felt to the ends of the earth. He is carrying 
 on with the governments of Europe the negotiations which promise soon 
 to bring peace to the Church. In the East he is preparing the way for 
 the return to Catholic unity of the millions whom the Greek schism has 
 so long deprived of communion with the See of Peter, and is following
 
 10 PASTORAL LETTER OF 
 
 the progress of exploration in lands hitherto unknown or inaccessible 
 Avith corresponding advances of Catholic missions. To the whole world 
 his voice has again and again been gone forth in counsels of eloquence 
 and wisdom, pointing out the path to the acquisition of truth in the 
 important domain of philosophy and history — the best means for the 
 improvement of human life in all its phases, individual, domestic and 
 social — the ways in which the children of God should walk — " that all 
 flesh may see the salvation of God." 
 
 But in all the wide circle of his great responsibility, the progress of 
 the Church in these United States forms, in a special manner, both a 
 source of joy and an object of solicitude to the Holy Father. With loving 
 care his predecessors watched and encouraged her first feeble begin- 
 nings. They cheered and fostered her development in the pure atmosphere 
 of freedom, when the name of Carroll shone with equal lustre at the head 
 of her new-born Hierarchy, and on the roll of our country's patriots. 
 Step by stop they directed her progress, as with marvellous rapidity, 
 the clergy and the dioceses have multiplied ; the hundreds of the faithful 
 have increased to thousands and to millions ; her churches, sci)ools, asy- 
 lums, hospitals, academies and colleges, have covered the land with homes 
 of divine truth and Christian charity. Not yet a century has elapsed since 
 the work was inaugurated by the appointment of the first Bishop of Balti- 
 more, in 1789 ; and as we gaze upon the results already reached we must 
 exclaim: "By the Lord hath this been done, and it is wonderful in 
 our eyes."^ 
 
 In all this astonishing development, from the rude beginnings of 
 pioneer missionary toil, along the nearer and nearer approaches to the 
 beauteous symmetry of the Church's perfect organization, the advance sa 
 gradual yet so rapid has been safely guided in the lines of Catholic 
 and i^postolic tradition, by the combined efforts and wisdom of our local 
 Hierarchy an<l of the successors of St. Peter. It was in order to take 
 counsel with the representatives of the American Hierarchy concerning the 
 important interests of religion in this country, that the Holy Father, last 
 year, invited the Archbishops of the United States to Kome. And the 
 object of the present council is to j)ut into practical shape the means of 
 religious improvement then resolved upon or suggested. 
 
 EDUCATION OF THE CLERGY. 
 
 One of our first cares has been to provide for the more perfect education 
 of aspirants to the holy Priesthood. It has always been the Church's 
 endeavor that her clergy should be eminent in learning. For she ha& 
 
 1 Matt., xxl, 42; Ps., cxvil, 22.
 
 THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 11 
 
 always considered that nothing less than this is required by their sacred 
 office of guarding and dispensing Divine truth. " The lips of the 
 priest shall keep knowledge," says the Most High, " and the i)eople shall 
 seek the law at his mouth." This is true in all times; for no advance in 
 secular knowledge, no diffusion of popular education, can do away with 
 the office of the teaching ministry, which Our Lord has declared shall last 
 forever. In every age it is and shall be the duty of God's priests to pro- 
 claim the salutary truths which our Heavenly Father has given to the 
 world through His Divine Son ; to present them to each generation in the 
 way that will move thoir minds and hearts to embrace and love them ; to 
 defend them, when necessary, against every attack of error. From this it is 
 obvious that the priest should have a wide acquaintance with every depart- 
 ment of learning that has a bearina: on relio;ious truth. Hence in our 
 age, when so many misleading theories are put forth on every side, when 
 eve«ry department of natural truth and fact is actively explored for objec- 
 tions against revealed religion, it is evident how extensive and thorough 
 should be the knowledge of the minister of the Divine Word, that he 
 may be able to show forth worthily the beauty, the superiority, the neces- 
 sity of the Christian religion, and to prove that there is nothing in all that 
 God has made to contradict anything that God has tajght. 
 
 Hence the priest who has the noble ambition of attaining to the high level 
 of his holy office, may well consider himself a student all his life; and of 
 the leisure hours which he can find amid the duties of his ministry, he will 
 have very few that he can spare for miscellaneous reading, and none at 
 all to waste. And hence, too, the evident duty devolving on us, to see 
 that the course of education in our ecclesiastical colleges and seminaries 
 be as perfect as it can be made. During the century of extraordinary 
 growth now closing, the care of the C'hurch in this country has been to 
 send forth as rapidly as possible holy, zealous, hard-working priests, to 
 supply the needs of the multitudes calling for the ministrations of 
 religion. She has not on that account neglected to prepare them for 
 their divine work by a suitable education, as her numerous and admirable 
 seminaries testify ; but the course of study was often more rapid and 
 restricted than she desired. At present our improved circumstances make 
 it practicable both to lengthen and widen the course, and for this the 
 Council has duly provided. 
 
 We are confident, beloved brethren, that you feel as deeply interested 
 as ourselves in the accomplishment of these great results. This you have 
 hitherto manifested by the zealous liberality by which you have enabled us to 
 build and support our seminaries ; and we are well assured that you will not
 
 12 PASTORAL LETTER OF 
 
 be found wanting, should even greater efforts be necessary, to enable us to 
 make the education and usefulness of the clergy as perfect as we desire. 
 In the future, as in the past, look upon your annual contribution to the Semi- 
 nary fund as one of your most important duties as Catholics, and let your 
 generosity be proportioned to the dignity and sacredness of the object for 
 which you offer it. 
 
 And here we remind those among our Catholic people to whom God 
 has been pleased to give wealth, that it is their duty and their privilege to 
 •consider themselves the Lord's stewards, in the use of what His Providence 
 has placed in their hands; that they should be foremost in helping on the 
 work of the Church of Christ during life, and make sure to have God 
 among their heirs when they die; and we recommend to them as specially 
 useful the founding of scholarships, either in their diocesan or provincial 
 Seminaries, or in the American College in Rome, or elsewhere, as circum- 
 stances may suggest. 
 
 PASTORAL EIGHTS. 
 
 No small portion of our attention has been bestowed on the framing 
 of such legislation as will best secure the rights and interests of your 
 pastors, and of all ranks of the clergy in this country. It is but natural, 
 beloved brethren, that the first and dearest object of our solicitude should 
 be our venerable clergy. They are our dearest brethren, bound to us 
 by ties more sacred than those of flesh and blood. Our elevation to 
 a higher office only draws them to us more closely, since their happiness 
 and welfare are thereby made the first object of our responsibility, and 
 since upon t-heir devoted labors must mainly depend the welfare of 
 the souls entrusted to our charge. We need not tell you, beloved 
 brethren, how admirably they fulfil their sacred trust. You are wit- 
 nesses to their lives of toil and sacrifice. And to them we can truly say 
 in the words of St. Paul, "You are our glory and our joy."^ 
 
 The rights of the clergy have reference chiefly to their exercising the 
 sacred ministry in their missions, to the fixity of their tenureof office and to 
 the inviolableness of their pastoral authority within proper limits. It is 
 the spirit of the Church that the various grades of authority in her organi- 
 zation should in no wise be in rivalry or conflict, but orderly and harmo- 
 nious. This she has secured by her wise laws, based upon the experience 
 of centuries, and representing the perfection of Church organization. It 
 is obvious that in countries like our own, where from rudimentary begin- 
 nings our organization is only gradually advancing towards perfection, 
 the full application of these laws is impracticable; but in proportion as 
 
 1 I. Thcs., ii, 20.
 
 THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 13 
 
 they become practicable, it is our desire, not less than that of the Holy 
 See, that they should go into effect. For we have the fullest confidence in 
 the wisdom with which the Church devised these laws, and we heartily 
 rejoice at every approach towards perfect organization in the portion of the 
 -vineyard over which we have jurisdiction. This has been to some degree 
 accomplished by regulations enacted during recent years, and still more by 
 the decrees of the present Council. 
 
 But while it is our desire to do all on our part that both justice and affec- 
 tion can prompt, for fully securing all proper rights and privileges to our 
 priests, let us remind you, beloved brethren, that on your conduct must their 
 happiness chiefly depend. A grateful and pious flock is sure to make a happy 
 pastor. But if the people do not respond to their pastor's zeal, if they 
 are cold and ungrateful or disedifying, then indeed is his lot sad 
 ^nd pitiable. Since, therefore, the Priests of God leave all things to 
 ■devote themselves to your spiritual welfare, show by your affection, by 
 your co-operation with their efforts for your spiritual improvement, and even 
 by your care for their physical comfort, that you appreciate their devotedness 
 and the reciprocal obligation which it imposes. Look upon your 
 priests as your best friends, your trustiest advisers, your surest guides. If 
 •duty sometimes calls upon them to admonish or rebuke you, remember that 
 the reproof is meant for your good, and take it in the spirit in which it is 
 given. And if perchance they have to speak to you oftener than is pleas- 
 ant about church finances and the demands of charity, understand tliat it 
 must be at least as disagreeable to them as it is to you ; that 
 it is not for themselves, but for the needs of the parish church or school, 
 which are intended for your benefit, or of the parish poor, who are your 
 •charge, that they have to plead ; and that, while they are to bear in mind 
 the advisability of speaking of money as seldom as possible, you 
 must be mindful to make your generosity equal to the need, and thereby 
 save both your pastors and yourselves the painful necessity of frequent 
 appeals. 
 
 And here we deem it proper to say a few words concerning church 
 properties a«d church debts. The manner of holding the legal titl^ to 
 these properties is different in different places, according to the require- 
 ments of local civil laws; but whether the title be held by the bishop, or 
 by boards of diocesan or parish trustees, it always remains true that the 
 properties are held in trust for the Ciiurch for the benefit of the people. 
 One generation buys or builds, another generatiw improves and adorns, 
 and each generation uses and transmits for the use of others yet to come, — 
 bishops and priests having the burden of the administration and being 
 «acred]y responsible for its faithful performance.
 
 14 PASTORAL LETTER OF 
 
 In the discharge of this duty it often becomes necessary to contract 
 church debts. Where the multiplication of the Catholic population has 
 been so rapid, rapid work had to be done in erecting churches and schools. 
 And if, under such circumstances, pastors had to wait till all the funds 
 were in hand before beginning the work, a generation would be left 
 without necessary spiritual aids, and might be lost to the Church and to 
 God. We fully recognize, beloved brethren, how strictly we are bound 
 to prevent the contraction of debts without real necessity ; and this we 
 have endeavored to secure by careful legislation. Still, despite all our 
 efforts, it must inevitably happen that the burden imposed on us by our 
 gigantic task of providing for the spiritual wants of the present and the 
 rising generation will always be heavy, and will weigh upon us all. But 
 the special Providence of God towards our country, which has made the 
 work and the need so great, has never failed hitherto to inspire our people 
 with a zeal equal to the demand. You have rivaled your pastors in the 
 ardor of their desire for the building up of the Church of Christ and the 
 extension of His Kingdom ; and we are confident that you will preserve 
 your zeal unto the end, and transmit it undiminished to your descendants. 
 It is our earnest wish that existing debts should be liquidated as soon as 
 possible, in order that the money now consumed in paying interest may 
 be employed in the great imjirovements still to be made, and especially in 
 helping on the glorious work of Christian education. 
 
 CHRISTIAN EDUCATION. 
 
 Scarcely, if at all, secondary to the Church's desire for the education of 
 the clergy, is her solicitude for the education of the laity. It is not for 
 themselves, but for the people, that the Church wishes her clergy to be 
 learned, as it is not for themselves only, but for the people that they are 
 priests. Popular education has always been a chief object of the Church's 
 care; in fact, it is not too much to say that the history of civil- 
 ization and education is the history of the Church's work. In the rude 
 ages, when semi-barbarous chieftains boasted of their illiteracy, she suc- 
 ceeded in diffusing that love of learning which covered Europe 
 with schools and universities ; and thus from the barbarous tribes of the 
 early middle ages, she built up the civilized nations of modern times. 
 Even subsequent to the religious dissensions of the sixteenth century, 
 whatever progress has been made in education is mainly due to the 
 impetus which she had previously given. In our own country notwith- 
 standing the many difficulties attendant on first beginnings and unexampled 
 growth, we already find her schools, academies and colleges everywhere.
 
 THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 15 
 
 built and sustained by voluntary contributions, even at the cost of great 
 sacrifices, and comparing favorably with the best educational institutions 
 in the land. 
 
 These facts abundantly attest the Church's desire for popular instruc- 
 tion. The beauty of truth, the refining and elevating influences of knowl- 
 edge, are meant for all, and she wishes thetn to be brought within the 
 reach of all. Knowledge enlarges our capacity both for self-improvement 
 and for promoting the welfare of our fellow-men ; and in so noble a Mork 
 the Church wishes every hand to be busy. Knowledge, too, is the best 
 weapon against pernicious errors. It is only " a little learning " that is 
 " a dangerous thing." In days like ours, when error is so pretentious and 
 aggressive, every one needs to be as completely armed as possible with 
 sound knowledge, — not only the clergy, but the people also that they may 
 be able to withstand the noxious influences of popularized irreligion. In 
 the great coming combat between truth and error, between Faith and 
 Agnosticism, an important part of the fray must be borne by the laity, 
 and woe to them if they are not well prepared. And if, in the olden days 
 of vassalage and serfdom, the Church honored every individual, no matter 
 how humble his position, and labored to give him the enlightenment that 
 would qualify him for future responsibilities, much more now, in the era 
 of popular rights and liberties, when every individual is an active and 
 influential factor in the body politic, does she desire that all should be 
 fitted by suitable training for an in'^elligent and conscientious discharge of 
 the important duties that will devolve upon them. 
 
 Few, if any, will deny that a sound civilization must depend upon 
 sound popular education. But education, in order to be sound and to 
 produce beneficial results, must develop what is best in man, and make 
 him not only clever but good. A one-sided education M'ill develop a 
 one-sided life; and such a life will surely topple over, and so will every 
 social system that is built up of such lives. True civilization requires that 
 not only the physical and intellectual, but also the moral and religious, 
 well-being of the people should be promoted, and at least with equal care. 
 Take away religion from a people, and morality would soon follow; 
 morality gone, even their physical condition will ere long degenerate 
 into corruption which breeds decrepitude, while their intellectual attain- 
 ments would only serve as a light to guide them to deeper depths of vice 
 and ruin. This has been so often demonstrated in the history of the past, 
 and is, in fact, so self-evident, that one is amazed to find any difference 
 of opinion about it. A civilization without religion, would be a civiliza- 
 tion of •' the struggle for existence, and the survival of the fittest," in
 
 16 PASTORAL LETTER OF 
 
 which cunning and strength would become the substitutes for principle^ 
 virtue, conscience and duty. As a matter of fact, there never has been a 
 civilization worthy of the name without religion ; and from the facts of 
 liistory the laws of hwman nature can easily be inferred. 
 
 Hence education, in order to foster civilization, must foster religion. 
 Now the three great educational agencies are tlie home, the Church, and the 
 school. These mould men and shape society. Therefore each of them,, 
 to do its part well, must foster religion. But many, unfortunately, 
 while avowing that religion should be the light and the atmosphere 
 of the home and of the Church, are content to see it excluded from the 
 school, and even advocate as the best school system that which necessarily 
 excludes religion. Few surely will deny that childhood and youth are 
 the periods of life when the character ought especially to be subjected to 
 religious influences. Nor can we ignore the palpable fact that the school is 
 an important factor in the forming of childhood and youth, — so important 
 that its influence often outweighs that of home and Church. It cannot, 
 therefore, be desirable or advantageous that religion should be excluded 
 from the school. On the contrary, it ought there to be one of the chief 
 agencies for moulding the young life to all that is true and virtuous, and 
 holy. To shut religion out of the school, and keep it for home and the 
 Church, is, logically, to train up a generation that will consider religion 
 good for home and the Church, but not for the practical business of real 
 life. But a more false and pernicious notion could not be imagined. 
 Religion, in order to elevate a people, should inspire their whole life and 
 rule their relations with one another. A life is not dwarfed, but ennobled 
 by being lived in the presence of God. Therefore the school, which princi- 
 pally gives the knowledge fitting for practical life, ought to be pre-emi- 
 nently under the holy influence of religion. From the shelter of home 
 and school, the youth must soon go out into the busy ways of trade or 
 traffic or professional pract«ice. In all these, the principles of religion 
 should animate and direct him. But he cannot expect to learn these 
 principles in the work-shop or the office or the counting-room. Therefore 
 let him be well and thoroughly imbued with them by the joint influences 
 of home and school, before he is launched out on the dangerous sea of life. 
 
 All denominations of Christians are now awaking to this great truth, 
 which the Catholic Church has never ceased to maintain. Reason and ex- 
 perience are forcing them to recognize that the only practical way to secure 
 a Christian people, is to give the youth a Christian education. The 
 avowed enemies of Christianity in some European countries are banishing 
 religion from the schools, in order gradually to eliminate it from among.
 
 THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 17 
 
 the people. In this they are logical, and we may well profit by the lesson. 
 Hence the cry for Christian education is going up from all religious bodies 
 throughout the land. And this is no narrowness and "sectarianism" on 
 their part; it is an honest and logical endeavor to preserve Christian truth 
 and morality among the people by fostering religion in the young. Nor is it 
 any antagonism to the State; on the contrary, it is an honest endeavor to- 
 give to the State better citizens, by making them better Christians. The 
 friends of Christian education do not condemn the State for not imparting 
 religious instruction in the public schools as they are now organized; 
 because they well know it does not lie within the province of the State to 
 teach religion. They simply follow their conscience by sending their 
 children to denominational schools, where religion can have its rightful 
 place and influence. 
 
 Two objects therefore, dear brethren, we have in view, to multiply our 
 schools, and to perfect them. We must multiply them, till every Catholic 
 child in the land shall have within its reach the means of education. 
 There is still much to do ere this be attained. There are still thousands of 
 Catholic children in the United States deprived of the benefit of a Catholic 
 school. Pastors and parents should not rest till this defect be remedied. 
 No parish is complete till it has schools adequate to the needs of its chil- 
 dren, and the pastor and people of such a parish sliould feel that they have 
 not accomplished their entire duty until the want is supplied. 
 
 But then, we must also perfect our schools. We repudiate the idea 
 that the Catholic school need be in any respect inferior to any other 
 school whatsoever. And if hitherto, in some places, our people have 
 acted on the principle that it is better to have an imperfect Catholic 
 school than to have none, let them now push their praiseworthy ambition 
 still further, and not relax their efforts till their schools be elevated to the 
 highest educational excellence. And we implore parents not to hasten to 
 take their children from school, but to give them all the time and all the 
 advantages that they have the capacity to profit by, so that, in after life, 
 their children may "rise up and call them blessed." 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN UOME. 
 
 We need hardly remind you, beloved brethren, that while home 
 life would not, as a rule, be sufficient to supply the absence of good 
 or counteract the evil of dangerous influences in the school, it 
 is equally true, that all that the Christian school could accomplish would 
 be inadequate without the co-operation of the Christian home. Christian 
 schools sow the seed, but Christian homes must first prepare the soil, and 
 afterwards foster the seed and bring it to maturity.
 
 18 PASTORAL LETTER OF 
 
 1. Christian Marriage. — The basis of the Christian home is Christian 
 marriage; that is, marriage entered into according to religion, and cemented 
 by God's blessing. So great is the importance of marriage to the 
 temporal and eternal welfare of mankind, that, as it had God for its Founder 
 in the Old Law, so, in tiie New Law, it was raised by Our Divine Lord to 
 the dignity of a sacrament of the Christian religion. Natural likings 
 and instincts have their own value and weight; but they ought not 
 by themselves be a decisive motive in so important a stpp as Christian 
 marriage ; nor are they a safe guarantee for the proper fulfillment of the high 
 ends for which marriage was ordained. That Christian hearts and lives 
 may be wisely and rightly joined, God must join them, and religion 
 sanctify the union; and though the Church sometimes permits the con- 
 traction of mixed marriages, she never does so without regret and without 
 a feeling of anxiety for the future happiness of that union and for the 
 eternal salvation of its offspring. 
 
 2. The Indissoluhility of Marriage. — The security of the Christian 
 home is in the indissolubility of the marriage tie. Christian marriage, 
 once consummated, can never be dissolved save by death. Let it be well 
 understood that even adultery, though it may justify '^separation from 
 bed and board," cannot loose the marriage tie, so that either of the parties 
 may marry again during the life of the other. Nor has "legal divorce" 
 the slightest power, before God, to loose the bond of marriage and to make a 
 subsequent marriage valid. "Whom God hath joined together, let not 
 man put asunder."^ In common with all Christian believers and friends of 
 civilization, we deplore the havoc wrought by the divorce-laws of our 
 country. These laws are fast loosening the foundations of society. Let 
 Catholics, at least remember that such divorces are powerless in conscience. 
 Let them enter into marriage only through worthy and holy motives, and 
 with the blessings of religion, especially with the blessing of the Nuptial 
 Mass. And then, far from wishing for means of escape from their union, 
 they will rejoice that it cannot be divided but by death. 
 
 3. Home Virtues. — The pervading atmosphere of the Christian home 
 should be Christian charity — the love of God and of the neighbor. It 
 should be the ambition and study of Christian parents to make their 
 home a sanctuary, in which no harsh or angry, no indelicate or profane 
 word, should be uttered, — in which truth, unselfishness, self-control, 
 should be carefully cultivated, in which the thought of God, the desire to 
 please God, should be, sweetly and naturally, held before the children as 
 their habitual motives. From the home sanctuary, the incense of prayer 
 should ascend as a most sweet morning and evening sacrifice to the Lord. 
 
 > Matt.,xix, 6.
 
 THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 19 
 
 How beautiful and rich in blessings is the assembling of parents and chil- 
 dren for morning and evening prayer ! Our hearts are filled with consola- 
 tion when, in the course of our pastoral visits, we meet families in which 
 this holy practice is faithfully observed. In such families, we are sure to 
 find proofs of the special benedictions of heaven. Faith, religion and vir- 
 tue are there fostered to luxuriant growth, and final perseverance almost 
 assured. We earnestly exhort all parents to this salutary custom. And 
 if it be not always feasible in the morning, at least every evening, at a 
 fixed hour, let the entire family be assembled for night prayers, followed 
 by a short reading from the Holy Scriptures, the Following of Christ, 
 or some other pious book. 
 
 4. Good Reading. — Let the adornments of home be chaste and holy 
 pictures, and, still more, sound, interesting, and profitable books. No 
 indelicate representation should ever be tolerated in a Christian home. 
 Artistic merit in the work is no excuse for the danger thus presented. 
 No child ought to be subjected to temptation by its own parents and in its 
 own home. But let the walls be beautified with what will keep the 
 inmates in mind of our Divine Lord, and of his saints, and with such 
 other pictures of the great and the good as will be incentives to civic and 
 religious virtue. 
 
 The same remark .applies equally to books and periodicals. Not 
 only should the immoral, the vulgar, the sensational novel, the inde- 
 cently illustrated newspaper, and publications tending to weakeu faith 
 in the religion and the Church of Jesus Christ, be absolutely ex- 
 cluded from every Christian home, but the dangerously exciting and 
 morbidly emotional, whatever, in a word, is calculated to impair or lower 
 the tone of faith or morals in the youthful mind and heart, should be 
 carefully banished. Parents would be sure to warn and withhold their 
 children from anything that would poison or sicken their bodies ; let 
 them be at least as watchful against intellectual and moral poison. 
 But let the family book-shelves be well supplied with what is both 
 pleasant and wholesome. Happily, the store of Catholic literature, as well 
 as works which, though not written by Catholics nor treating of religion, 
 are pure, instructive and elevating, is now so large that there can be no 
 excuse for running risk or wasting one's time with what is inferior, 
 tainted, or suspicious. Remember, Christian parents, that the develop- 
 ment of the youthful character is intimately connected with the de- 
 velopment of the taste for reading. To books as well as to associations 
 may be applied the wise saying : " Show me your company and I will tell 
 you what you are." See, then, that none but good books and newspapers,
 
 20 PASTORAL LETTER OF 
 
 as well as none but good companions, be admitted to your homes. Train 
 your children to a love of history and biography. Inspire them 
 with the ambition to become so well acquainted with the history and doc- 
 trines of the Church as to be able to give an intelligent answer to any 
 honest inquiry. Should their surroundings call for it, encourage them, as 
 they grow older, to acquire such knowledge of popularly mooted questions 
 of a scientific or philosophical character as will suffice to make them firm 
 in their faith and proof against sophistry. We should be glad to see 
 thoroughly solid and popular works on these important subjects, from able 
 Catholic writers, become more numerous. Teach your children to take a 
 special interest in the history of our own country. We consider the estab- 
 lishment of our country's independence, the shaping of its liberties and laws 
 as a work of special Providence, its framers " building wiser than they 
 knew," the Almighty's hand guiding them. And if ever the glorious 
 fabric is subverted or impaired it will be by men forgetful of the 
 sacrifices of the heroes that reared it, the virtues that cemented it, and the 
 principles on which it rests, or ready to sacrifice principle and virtue to 
 the interests of self or party. As we desire therefore that the history of 
 the United States should be carefully taught in all our Catholic schools, 
 and have directed that it be specially dwelt upon in the education of the 
 young ecclesiastical students in our preparatory seminaries ; so also we 
 desire that it form a fiivorite part of the home library and home reading. 
 We must keep firm and solid the liberties of our country by keeping 
 fresh the noble memories of the past, and thus sending forth from our 
 Catholic liomes into the arena of public life not partisans but patriots. 
 
 5. The Holy Scriptures. — But it can hardly be necessary for us to re- 
 mind you, beloved brethren, that the most highly valued treasure of every 
 family library, and the most frequently and lovingly made use of, should be 
 the Holy Scriptures. Doubtless you have often read A'Kempis's burning 
 thanksgiving to our Lord for having bestowed on us not only the ador- 
 able treasure of His Body in the Holy Eucharist, but also that of the Holy 
 Scriptures, " the Holy Books, for the comfort and direction of our 
 life."^ And you have before your eyes, prefixed to the Douay version of 
 the Holy Bible, the exhortation of Pope Pius the Sixth in his letter to 
 the Archbishop of Florence, that " the faithful should be moved to the 
 reading of the Holy Scriptures; for these," he says, "are most abundant 
 sources which ought to be left open to every one to draw from them purity 
 of morals and of doctrine, to eradicate the errors which are so widely dis- 
 seminated in these corrupt times." And St. Paul declares that " what 
 things soever were written, were written for our learning; that through 
 
 > Fol. of Christ, B. 4, c. il.
 
 THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 21 
 
 patience and the comfort of the Scriptures we might have hope."* We 
 hope that no family can be found amongst us without a correct version of 
 the Holy Scriptures. Among other versions, we recommend the Douay, 
 which is venerable as used by our forefathers for three centuries, which 
 comes down to us sanctioned by innumerable authorizations, and which was 
 suitably annotated by the learned Bishop Challoner, by Canon Haydock, 
 and especially by the late Archbishop Kenrick. 
 
 But in your reading remember the admonition of A'Kempis : " The 
 Holy Scriptures must be read in the same spirit in which they were 
 written; if thou wilt derive profit, read with humility, simplicity and 
 faith." 2 And keep ever before your mind the principle laid down by St. 
 Peter in the first chapter of his second Epistle : " Understanding this first, 
 that no prophecy of Scripture is made by private interpretation, for 
 prophecy came not by the will of man at any time, but the holy men of 
 God spoke, inspired by the Holy Ghost." And this other given by St. 
 John, in the fourth chapter of his first Epistle, in the name of the Apos- 
 tolic teaching Church : " Dearly beloved, believe not every spirit, but try 
 the spirits if they be of God. We are of God ; he that knoweth God 
 heareth us ; he that is not of God heareth us not ; by this we know the 
 spirit of truth and the spirit of error." In these two divinely inspired 
 rules you have aways a sure safe-guard against the danger of error. 
 
 6. The CatholiG Press. — Finally, Christian parents, let us beg your 
 earnest consideration of this important truth, that upon you, singly and 
 individually, must practically depend the solution of the question, 
 whether or not the Catholic press is to accomplish the great work which 
 Providence and the Church expect of it at this time. So frequently and 
 so forcibly has the providential mission of the press been dwelt upon by 
 Popes and prelates and distinguished Catholic writers, and so assiduously 
 have their utterances been quoted and reqaoted everywhere, that no one 
 certainly stands in need of arguments to be convinced of this truth. But 
 all this will be only words in the air, unless it can be brought home to 
 each parent and made practical in each household. If the head of each 
 Catholic family will recognize it as his privilege and his duty to contribute 
 towards supporting the Catholic press, by subscribing for one or more 
 Catholic periodicals, and keeping himself well acquainted with the infor- 
 mation they impart, then the Catholic press will be sure to attain to its 
 rightful development and to accomplish its destiued mission. !But choose 
 a journal that is thoroughly Catholic, instructive and edifying ; not one 
 that would be, while Catholic in name or pretence, uncatholic in tone 
 
 ' Rom. XV, » B. 1, c. V.
 
 22 PASTORAL LETTER OF 
 
 and spirit, disrespectful to constituted authority, or biting and uncharitable 
 to Catholic brethren. 
 
 Beloved brethren, a great social revolution is sweeping over the world. 
 Its purpose, hidden or avowed, is to dethrone Christ and religion. Tlic 
 ripples of the movement have been observed in our country; God grant 
 that its tidal wave may not break over us. Upon you, Christian parents, it 
 mainly -depends whether it shall or not ; for, such as our homes are, such 
 shall our people be. We beseech you, therefore, to ponder carefully all 
 that we have said concerning the various constituents of a true Christian 
 home, and, to the utmost of your ability, to carry them into effect. 
 And we entreat all pastors of souls to bear unceasingly in mind, that upon 
 the Christian school and the Christian homes in their parishes must mainly 
 depend the fruit of their priestly labors. Let them concentrate their efforts 
 on these two points, — to make the schools and the homes what they 
 ought to be; — then indeed will they carry to the Lord of the harvest full 
 and ripe sheaves, and the future generation will bless them for transmitting 
 unimpaired the priceless gifts of faith and religion. 
 
 THE LORD'S DAY. 
 
 There are many sad facts in the experience of nations, which we may 
 well store up as lessons of practical wisdom. Not the least important of 
 these is the fact that one of the surest marks and measures of the decay of 
 religion in a j)eople, is their non-observance of the Lord's Day. In travel- 
 ing through some European countries, a Christian's heart is pained by 
 the almost unabated rush of toil and traffic on Sunday. First, grasping 
 avarice thought it could not afford to spare the day to God ; then unwise 
 governments, yielding to the pressure of mammon, relaxed the laws which 
 for many centuries had guarded the day's sacredness, — forgetting that there 
 are certain fundamental principles, which ought not to be sacrificed to popu- 
 lar caprice or greed. And when, as usually happens, neglect of religion had 
 passed, by lapse of time, into hostility to religion, this growing neglect of 
 the Lord's Day was easily made use of as a means to bring religion itself 
 into contempt. The Church mourned, protested, struggled, but was 
 almost powerless to resist the combined forces of popular avarice and 
 Caesar's influence, arrayed on the side of irreligion. The result is the 
 lamentable desecration which all Christians must deplore. 
 
 And the consequences of this desecration are as manifest as the desecra- 
 tion itself. The Lord's Day is the poor man's day of rest; it has been 
 taken from him, — and the laboring classes are a seething volcano of social 
 discontent. The Lord's Day is the home day, drawing closer the sweet
 
 THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 23 
 
 domestic ties, by giving the toiler a day with wife and children ; but 
 it has been turned into a day of labor, — and home ties are fast losing 
 their sweetness and their hold. The Lord's Day is the church-day, 
 strengthening and consecrating the bond of brotherhood among all men, 
 by their kneeling together around the altars of the one Father in heaven; 
 but men are drawn away from this blessed communion of Saints, — and 
 as a natural consequence they are lured into the counterfeit communion 
 of Socialism, and other wild and destructive systems. The Lord's 
 Day is God's Day, rendering ever nearer and more intimate the union 
 between the creature and his Creator, and thus ennobling human life in all 
 its relations ; and where this bond is weakened, an effort is made to 
 cut man loose from God entirely, and to leave him, according to the 
 expression of St. Paul, "without God in this world."^ The profanation 
 of the Lord's Day, whatever be its pretext, is a defrauding both of God 
 and His creatures, and retribution is not slow. 
 
 In this country, there are tendencies and influences at w'ork to bring 
 about a similar result ; and it behooves all who love God and care for soci- 
 ety, to see that they be checked. As usual, greed for gain lies at the bottom 
 of the movement. Even when the pretence put forward is popular conve- 
 nience or popular amusement, the clamor for larger liberty does not come 
 so much from those who desire the convenience or the amusement, as 
 from those who hope to enrich themselves by supplying it. Now far be 
 it from us to advocate such Sunday-laws as would hinder necessary 
 work, or prohibit such popular enjoyments as are consistent with the 
 sacredness of the day. It is well known, however, that the tendency is to 
 rush far beyond the bounds of necessity and propriety, and to allege these 
 reasons only as an excuse for virtually ignoring the sacredness of the day 
 altogether. But no community can afford to have either gain or amuse- 
 ment at such a cost. To turn the Lord's Day into a day of toil, is a blight- 
 ing curse to a country; to turn it into a day of dissipation would be 
 worse. We earnestly appeal, therefore, to all Catholics without dis- 
 tinction, not only to take no part in any movement tending toward a 
 relaxation of the observance of Sunday, but to use their influence and 
 power as citizens to resist in the opposite direction. 
 
 There is one way of profaning the Lord's Day which is so prolific of 
 evil results, that we consider it our duty to utter against it a special con- 
 demnation. This is the practice of selling beer or other liquors on Sun- 
 day, or of frequenting places where they are sold. This practice tends 
 more than any other to turn the Day of the Lord into a day of dissipa- 
 tion, to use it as an occasion for breeding intemperance. While we hope 
 
 Ephes., ii, 12,
 
 24 PASTORAL LETTER OF 
 
 that Sunday-laws on this point will not be relaxed, but even more rigidly- 
 enforced, we implore all Catholics, for the love of God and of country, 
 never to take part in such Sunday traffic, nor to patronize or countenance 
 it. And we not only direct the attention of all pastors to the repression 
 of this abuse, but we also call upon them to induce all of their flocks that 
 may be engaged in the sale of liquors to abandon as soon as they can the 
 dangerous traffic, and to embrace a more becoming way of making a living. 
 
 And here it behooves us to remind our workingmen, the bone and 
 sinew of the people and the specially beloved children of the Church, that 
 if they wish to observe Sunday as they ought, they must keep away from 
 drinking places on Saturday night. Carry your wages home to your 
 families, where they rightfully belong. Turn a deaf ear, therefore, 
 to every temptation ; and then Sunday will be a bright day for 
 all the family. How much better this than to make it a day of 
 sin for yourselves, and of gloom and wretchedness for your homes, 
 by a Saturday night's folly or debauch. No wonder that the Prelates of 
 the Secon<l Plenary Council declared that " the most shocking scandals 
 which we have to deplore spring from intemperance." No wonder that 
 they gave a special approval to the zeal of those who, the better to avoid 
 excess, or in order to give bright example, pledge themselves to total absti- 
 nence. Like them we invoke a blessing on the cause of temperance, and 
 on all who are laboring for its advancement in a true Christian spirit. 
 Let the exertions of our Catholic Temperance Societies meet with the 
 hearty co-operation of pastors and people; and not only will they go far 
 towards strangling the monstrous evil of intemperance, but they will also 
 put a pov/erful check on the desecration of the Lord's Day, and on the evil 
 influences now striving for its total profanation. 
 
 Let all our people " remember to keep holy the Lord's Day." Let them 
 make it not only a day of rest, but also a day of prayer. Let them sanc- 
 tify it by assisting at the adorable Sacrifice of the Mass. Besides the 
 privilege of the morning Mass, let them also give their souls the sweet 
 enjoyment of the Vesper service and the Benediction of the Blessed Sacra- 
 ment. See that the children not only hear Mass, but also attend the Sun- 
 day-school. It will help them to grow up more practical Catholics. 
 In country places, and especially in those which the priest cannot visit 
 every Sunday, the Sunday-school ought to be the favorite place of reunion 
 for young and old. It will keep them from going astray, and will 
 strengthen them in the faith. How many children have been lost to the 
 Church in country districts, because parents neglected to see that they 
 observed the Sunday properly at home and at Sunday-school, and allowed 
 them to fall under dangerous influences !
 
 THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 25 
 
 FORBIDDEN SOCIETIES. 
 
 One of the most striking characteristics of our times is the universal 
 tendency to band together in societies for the promotion of all sorts of 
 purposes. This tendency is the natural outgrowth of an age of popular 
 rights and representative institutions. It is also in accordance with the 
 spirit of the Church, whose aim, as indicated by lier name Catholic, is to 
 unite all mankind in brotherhood. It is consonant also with the spirit 
 of Christ, who came to break down all walls of division, and to gather all 
 in the one family of the one heavenly Father. 
 
 But there are fevf good things which have not their counterfeits, and 
 few tendencies which have not their dangers. It is obvious to any reflect- 
 ing mind that men form bad and rash as well as good and wise designs; 
 and that they may band together for carrying out evil or dangerous as 
 well as laudable and useful purposes. And this does not necessarily 
 imply deliberate malice, because, while it is unquestionably true that 
 there are powers at work in the world which deliberately antagonize the 
 cause of Christian truth and virtue, still the evil or the danger of purposes 
 and associations need not always spring from so bad a root. Honest but 
 weak and erring human nature is apt to be so taken up with one side 
 of a question as to do injustice to the other; to be so enamored of 
 favorite principles as to carry them to unjustifiable extremes; to be so 
 intent upon securing.some laudable end as to ignore the rules of prudence, 
 and bring about ruin instead of restoration. But no intention, no matter 
 how honest, can make lawful what is unlawful. For it is a fundamental 
 rule of Christian morals that " evil must not be done that good may come 
 of it," and "the end can never justify the means," if the means are evil. 
 Hence it is the evident duty of every reasonable man, before allowing 
 himself to be drawn into any society, to make sure that both its ends and 
 its means are consistent with truth, justice and conscience. 
 
 In making such a decision, every Catholic ought to be convinced that his 
 surest guide is the Church of Christ. She has in her custody the sacred 
 deposit of Christian truth and morals ; she has the experience of all ages 
 and all nations ; she has at heart the true welfare of mankind ; she has the 
 perpetual guidance of the Holy Ghost in her authoritative decisions. In 
 her teaching and her warnings therefore, we are sure to hear the voice of 
 wisdom, prudence, justice and charity. From the hill-top of her Di- 
 vine mission and her world-wide experience, she sees events and their 
 consequences far more clearly than they who are down in the tangled 
 plain of daily life. She has seen associations that were once praise- 
 worthy, become pernicious by change of circumstances. She has seen
 
 26 PASTORAL LETTER OF 
 
 others, which won the admiration of the world by their early achieve- 
 ments, corrupted by power or passion or evil guidance, and she 
 has been forced to condemn them. She lias beheld associations which 
 had their origin in the .spirit of the Ages of Faith, transformed by 
 lajDse of time, and loss of faith, and the manipulation of designing 
 leaders, into the open or hidden enemies of religion and human 
 weal. Thus our Holy Father Leo XIII has lately shown that the 
 Masonic and kindred societies, — although the offspring of the ancient 
 Guilds, which aimed at sanctifying trades and tradesmen with the 
 blessings of religion ; and although retaining, perhaps, in their 
 "ritual," much that tells of the religiousness of their origin; and 
 although in some countries still professing entire friendliness toward 
 the Christian religion, — have nevertheless already gone so far, in many 
 countries, as to array themselves in avowed hostility against Christianity, 
 and against the Catholic Church as its embodiment; that they virtually 
 aim at substituting a world-wide fraternity of their own, for the uni- 
 versal brotherhood of Jesus Christ, and at disseminating mere Katiiralisra 
 for the supernatural revealed religion bestowed upon mankind by the 
 Saviour of the world. He has shown, too, that, even in countries where they 
 are as yet far from acknowledging such purposes, they nevertheless have 
 in them the germs, which, under favorable circumstances, would inevitably 
 blossom forth in similar results. The Church, consequently, forbids her 
 children to have any connection with such societies, because they are either 
 an open evil to be shunned or a hidden danger to be avoided. She would 
 fail in her duty if she did not speak the word of warning, and her chil- 
 dren would equally fail in theirs, if they did not heed it. 
 
 Whenever, therefore, the Church has spoken authoritatively with regard 
 to any society, her decision ought to be final for every Catholic. He ought 
 to know that the Church has not acted hastily or unwisely, or mistakenly; 
 he should be convinced that any worldly advantages which he might 
 derive from his membership of such society, would be a poor substitute for 
 the membership, the sacraments, and the blessings of the Church of Christ; 
 he should have the courage of his religions convictions, and stand firm to 
 faith and conscience. But if he be inclined or asked to join a society on 
 which the Church has passed no sentence, then let him, as a reasonable 
 and Christian man, examine into it carefully, and not join the society until 
 he is satisfied as to its lawful character. 
 
 There is one characteristic which is always a strong presumption against 
 a society, and that is secrecy. Our Divine Lord Himself has laid down the 
 rule : " Every one that doth evil, hateth the light and cometh not to the
 
 THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 27 
 
 light, that his works may not be reproved. But he that doth truth cometh 
 to the light that his works may be made manifest, because they are done in 
 God."i When, therefore, associations veil themselves in secrecy and dark- 
 ness, the presumption is against them, and it rests with them to prove that 
 there is nothing evil in them. 
 
 But if any society's obligation be such as to bind its members to secrecy, 
 even when rightly questioned by competent authority, then such a society 
 puts itself outside the limits of approval ; and no one can be a member of 
 it and at the same time be admitted to the sacraments of the Catholic 
 Church. The same is true of any organization that binds its members 
 to a promise of blind obedience — to accept in advance and to obey what- 
 soever orders, lawful or unlawful, that may emanate from its chief 
 authorities ; because such a promise is contrary both to reason and con- 
 science. And if a society works or plots, either openly or in secret, 
 against the Church, or against lawful authorities, then to be a member of 
 it is to be excluded from the membership of the Catholic Church. 
 
 These authoritative rules, therefore, ought to be the guide of all Catholics 
 in their relations with societies. No Catholic can conscientiously join, or 
 continue in, a body in which he knows that any of these condemned features 
 exist. If he has joined it in good faith and the objectionable features 
 become known to him afterwards, or if any of these evil elements creep 
 into a society which was originally good, it becomes his duty to leave it at 
 once. And even if he were to suffer loss or run risk by leaving such a 
 society or refusing to join it, he should do his duty and brave the conse- 
 quences regardless of human considerations. 
 
 To these laws of the Church, the justice of which must be manifest to 
 all impartial minds, we deem it necessary to add the following admonition 
 of the Second Plenary Council: 2 "Care must be taken lest workingmen's 
 societies, under the pretext of mutual assistance and protection, should 
 commit any of the evils of condemned societies ; and lest the members should 
 be induced by the artifices of designing men to break the laws of justice, 
 by withholding labor to which they are rightfully bound, or by otherwise 
 unlawfully violating the rights of their employers." 
 
 But while the Church is thus careful to guard her children against 
 whatever is contrary to Christian duty, she is no less careful that no injus- 
 tice should be done to any association, however unintentionally. While 
 therefore the Church, before prohibiting any society, will take every pre- 
 caution to ascertain its true nature, we positively forbid any pastor, or 
 other ecclesiastic, to pass sentence on any association, or to impose eccle- 
 
 I John, 111, 20, 21, » No. 519
 
 28 PASTORAL LETTER OF 
 
 siastical penalties or disabilities on its members without the previous 
 explicit authorization of the rightful authorities. 
 
 CATHOLIC SOCIETIES. 
 
 It is not enough for Catholics to shun bad or dangerous societies, they 
 ought to take part in good and useful ones. If there ever was a time when 
 merely negative goodness would not suffice, such assuredly is the age in 
 which we live. This is pre-eminently an age of action, and what we need 
 to-day is active virtue and energetic piety. Again and again has the voice 
 of the Vicar of Christ been heard, giving approval and encouragement to 
 many kinds of Catholic associations, not only as a safeguard against the 
 allurements of dangerous societies, but also as a powerful means of accom- 
 plishing much of the good that our times stand in need of. Not only 
 should the pastors of the Church be hard at work in building up "the 
 spiritual house,"* "the tabernacle of God with men,"^ but every hand 
 among the people of God should share in the labor. 
 
 In the first place, we hope that in every parish in the land there is 
 some sodality or confraternity to foster piety among the people. We 
 therefore heartily endorse anew all approbations previously given to our 
 many time-honored and cherished confraternities, such as those of the 
 Sacred Heart of Jesus, of the Blessed Sacrament, and of the Blessed Virgin. 
 
 Next come the various associations for works of Christian zeal and 
 charity : the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, and the Holy Child- 
 hood, than which there are none more deserving; societies for the support 
 of Catholic education ; Christian doctrine societies for the work of Sunday- 
 schools; societies for imj)roviug the condition of the poor, among which 
 stands pre-eminent the Society of St. Vincent de Paul ; church-debt socie- 
 ties; societies for supplying poor churches with vestments and other altar 
 requirements; local sanctuary societies; and other methods of uniting the 
 efforts of the peojile of the parish for useful and holy purposes. It ought 
 to be the comfort and the honest pride of every Catholic to take an active 
 part in these good works; and if any are hindered from contributing a por- 
 tion of their time and labor, they should contribute as liberally as they 
 can out of their pecuniary resources. 
 
 Then there are associations for the checking of immorality, prominent 
 among which are our Catholic Temperance Societies. These should be 
 encouraged and aided by all who deplore the scandal given and the spiritual 
 ruin wrought by intemperance. It is a mistake to imagine that such 
 societies are made up of the reformed victims of intemperence. They should 
 be, and we trust that they everywhere are largely composed of zealous 
 
 > T. Pet., ii, 5. s Apoc, xxi, 3.
 
 THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 29 
 
 ^Catholics who never were tainted by that vice, but who mourn over the 
 great evil and are energetically endeavoring to correct it. 
 
 We likewise consider as worthy of ])articular encouragement associations 
 for the promotion of healthful social union among Catholics, — and especi- 
 ally those, whose aim is to guard our Catholic young men against dan- 
 gerous influences, and to supply them with the means of innocent amuse- 
 ment and mental culture. It is obvious that our young men are exposed 
 to the greatest dangers, and therefore need the most abundant helps. 
 Hence, in the spirit of our Holy Father Leo XIII, wo desire to see 
 the number of thoroughly Catholic and well organized associations for 
 their benefit greatly increased, especially in our large cities; we exhort 
 pastors to consider the formation and careful direction of feuch societies as 
 one of their most important duties; and we appeal to our young men to 
 put to good profit, the best years of their lives, by banding together, 
 under the direction of their pastors, for mutual improvement and encour- 
 agement in the paths of faith and virtue. 
 
 And in order to acknowledge the great amount of good that the "Cath- 
 olic Young Men's National Union" has already accomplished, to promote 
 the growth of the Union and to stimulate its members to greater efforts in 
 the future, we cordially bless their aims and endeavors and recommend the 
 Union to all our Catholic young men. 
 
 We also esteem as a very important element in practical Catholicity, 
 the various forms of Catholic beneficial societies and kindred associations 
 •of Catholic workingmen. It ought to be, and we trust is everywhere 
 their aim to encourage habits of industry, thrift, and sobriety; to guard 
 the members against the dangerous attractions of condemned or suspicious 
 organizations ; and to secure the faithful practice of their religious duties, 
 on which their temporal as well as their eternal welfare so largely depends. 
 
 With paternal affection we bestow our blessing upon all those various 
 forms of combined Catholic action for useful and holy purposes. We desire 
 to see their number multiplied and their organization perfected. We beseech 
 them to remember tliat their success and usefulness must rest in a great 
 measure, upon their fidelity to the spirit of the Church, and on their guard- 
 ing carefully against influences that might make them disloyal. The more 
 closely pastors aud people are united in good works, the more abundantly 
 will those associations be blessed and their ends accomplished, the more 
 perfectly will all Christians be united in fraternal charity, and the more 
 widely and firmly will the Kingdom of Christ on the earth be established.
 
 30 PASTORAL LETTER OF 
 
 HOME AND FOREIGN MISSIO. 
 
 The duties of a Christian begin with his own household and his own 
 parish ; but they do not end there. The charity and zeal in his heart must 
 be like that in the heart of the Church, whose very name is Catholic, — 
 like that in the heart of Christ, who " died for all men, and gave Himself 
 a redemption for all."^ The Divine commission to the Church stands 
 forever: "Go, teach all nations; preach the Gospel to every creature j"^ 
 and every one who desires the salvation of souls, should yearn for its ful- 
 fillment, and consider it a privilege to take part in its realization. The 
 more we appreciate the gift of faith, the more must we long to have it 
 imparted to others. The heart of every true Catholic must glow as he 
 reads of the heroic labors of our missionaries among heathen nations in 
 every part of the world, and especially among the Indian tribes of our 
 country. The missionary spirit is one of the glories of the Church and 
 one of the chief characteristics of Christian zeal. 
 
 In nearly all European countries there are Foreign Mission Colleges, 
 and also associations cf the faithful for the support of the missions by their 
 contributions. Hitherto we have had to strain every nerve in order to 
 carry on the missions of our own country, and we were unable to take any 
 important part in aiding the missions abroad. But we must beware lest 
 our local burdens should make our zeal narrow and uncatholic. There 
 are hundreds of millions of souls in heathen lands to whom the light of 
 the Gospel has not yet been carried, and their condition appeals to the 
 charity of every Christian heart. Among our own Indian tribes, for whom 
 we have a special responsibility, there are still many thousands in the same 
 darkness of heathenism, and the missions among our thousands of Catholic 
 Indians must equally look to our cliarity for support. Moreover, 
 out of the six millions of our colored population there is a very large 
 multitude, who stand sorely in need of Christian instruction and missionary 
 labor; and it is evident that in the poor dioceses in which they are mostly 
 found, it is most difficult to bestow on them the care they need, without the 
 generous co-operation of our Catholic people in more prosperous localities. 
 We have therefore urged the establishment of the Society for the Propaga- 
 tion of the Faith in every parish in which it is not yet erected, and also 
 ordered a collection to bo made yearly in all the dioceses, for the 
 foreign missions and the missions among our Indians and Negroes. We 
 have done this through a deep sense of duty, and we trust that our noble- 
 hearted people will not regard it as a burden imposed on them, but as an 
 opportunity presented to them of co-operating in a work which must be 
 specially dear to the Heart of our Divine Saviour. 
 
 1 II. Cor., V. 15 ; I. Tim., ii, 6. s Mat., xxviii, 19; Mark, xvl, 16.
 
 THE THIRD PLENARY COUNCIL. 31 
 
 These are the leading matters, venerable and beloved brethren, which 
 have engaged our attention during this Council. The objects of our 
 deliberations have been the same that have occupied the energies of the 
 Church and her pastors ever since the days of the Apostles, — namely, the 
 extension of the kingdom of God, the building up the Body of Christ, the 
 giving greater '^glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth to men of 
 good will," by shedding abroad more abundantly the blessings of religion, 
 and the graces of redemption. Our legislation is not intended to impose 
 burdens or limitations upon you, but, on the contrary, to enlarge and 
 secure to you "the liberty of the children of God." The path of duty 
 and virtue is clearly marked and pointed out, not to restrain your free- 
 dom, but that you may journey safely, that you may live wisely and 
 virtuously, that you may have happiness temporal and eternal. 
 
 And now we write you these things, that you may be partners in our 
 solicitude, that every heart may cry out " Thy Kingdom come," that every 
 hand may be active in establishing and extending it. Accept with willing 
 and loving minds these lessons which spring from hearts full of love for 
 you, and entirely consecrated to your service. Give joy to us and to our 
 Divine Lord by putting them faithfully in practice. And may the bless- 
 ing of Almighty God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, descend 
 upon you abundantly, and abide with you forever. 
 
 Given at Baltimore, in the Plenary Council, on the 7th day of Decem- 
 ber, in the year of our Lord 1884. 
 
 In his own name and in the name of all the Fathers, 
 
 •J* JAMES GIBBOI^S, 
 
 Archbishop of Baltimore and Aposto/ic Delegate.
 
 THE CATHEDRAL ORGAN. 
 
 As the new organ which was placed in the Cathedral just before the opening^ 
 of the council ranks amongst tlie most remarkable, if not the largest in the world, 
 we deem it of sufficient interest to herewith present a cut of its exterior, and a 
 few words descriptive of its most important features. It is indeed a magnificent 
 instrument, and the latest triumph by Mr. ITilborne L. Roosevelt, in the art of 
 organ building. 
 
 The instrument is located in the transept gallery at the north side of the 
 dome, in the same position that the old organ occupied, though it covers more 
 floor space and is of greater height. The old organ was built in 1821 by Thomas 
 Hall, who was then a leading organ builder of New York City, and, at the date 
 of its construction, was one of the largest and finest instruments in America, con- 
 taining what were then considered many novelties, and an unusually complete Pedal 
 Organ, Its grand and rich old case, with the addition of new wings at each side, 
 has been renovated and repaired, and now contains the new instrument. The organ 
 contains three Manuals and a Pedal Organ, and includes in its specification 37 
 speaking stops, 7 Couplers, 5 Mechanical Accessories, 11 "Roosevelt Adjustable Com- 
 bination Pistons," and 5 Pedal Movements, making a grand total of 65 stops and 
 appliances, the pipes numbering in all 2,340. The complete control of the in- 
 strument by means of its wonderful and perfect mechanism, the great delicacy 
 and characteristic quality of tone in the different stops, the dignified power of 
 "full organ" without harshness, and the perfect blending of the whole into an 
 agreeable and massive tone, yet not lacking in brilliancy, were all demonstrated 
 most satisfactorily to the public on October 23d by Mr. Frederic Archer, the well- 
 known organist, who gave a most delightful recital in the evening of that day. 
 
 One of the most noticable musical effects mechanically obtained is the crescendo 
 and diminuendo of startling intensity produced by the Swell Pedals, owing to the 
 fact that, in addition to the amplitude of the Swell Organ, the Choir Organ is 
 independently enclosed in another Swell-box, which also contains the mutation work 
 and reeds of the great organ, and which it would be impossible to produce under 
 other circumstances. Considering the manual stops, this places 24 out of the total 
 33 iinder the influence of the tv/o Swell Pedals, which are conveniently located 
 so that they can be operated independently or simultaneously by either foot. 
 
 The "Roosevelt Adjustable Combination Action" is another novelty which 
 affords the organist the most absolute and complete control of the instniment. By 
 tliese means he can manipulate liis stops in any manner he may see fit with the 
 aid of the 11 Combination Pistons and 2 pedals, which are adjustable in a manner 
 which our space will admit us to describe. The adjustability which enables the 
 organist to arrange liis corabinatioiis specially to suit every jiece he plays has 
 never been attempted by any other builder, and is here most eminently successful. 
 
 The Wind chests throughout the organ are not such as the other builders use. 
 but are a form invented and used exclusively by Mr. Roosevelt. They afford a 
 separate pallet for every pipe, and have many advantages over the slide chests
 
 THE CATHEDRAL ORGAN. 
 
 ordinarily employed, such as not being affected by changes in the condition of the 
 atmosphere, and producing even a more perfect repetition than that of a grand 
 piano, while the touch is most agreeable, light and elastic. 
 
 The wind system is also far better than that usually met with, the supply 
 being copious and cihsoluidy steady, owing to the use of "regulators" and 
 " lungs." The Feeders are operated by a " Jacques Hydraulic Engine," placed 
 in the cellar beneath. 
 
 Everything is easy of access, and the keyboards and their surroundings, which 
 are indeed a work of art, are so arranged as to afford the most convenient con- 
 trol to the organist. Wherever one looks in the organ, one cannot help being 
 impressed by the perfection and superiority of the workmanship and materials in 
 every detail.
 
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