LI B R.AFLY OF THL UNIVERSITY or ILLI NOIS cop .*5 HIST. SURVEY DR. BEECHER'S PLEA FOR THE WEST. PLEA FOR THE WEST. BY LYMAN BEECHER, D. D. Second Edition. CINCINNATI : PUBLISHED BY TRUMAN & SMITH NEW- YORK : LEAVITT, LORD & CO. 1835. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1835, BY TRUMAN & SMITH, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Ohio. ADVERTISEMENT. THE within is a discourse recently delivered by the writer in several of the Atlantic cities, while on an agency for the Cincinnati Lane Seminary. Those who heard it will perceive that it is as it was delivered, with a little enlargement on a few points which demand a more ample illustration. Cincinnati, 1835. 1* A PLEA FOR THE WEST. Who hath heard such a thing? who hath seen such things 1 Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day! or shall a nation be born at once 1 for as soon as Zion tra- vailed, she brought forth her children. ISAIAH Ixvi, 8. EVER since the era of modern mis- sions, sceptical men have ridiculed the efforts of the church to evangelize the world, and predicted their failure. " What," say they, " do these Jews build 7 if a fox do but go up upon the wall, it will fall. The world can never be converted to Christianity by the power of man." And full well do we know it, and most deeply do we feel it, and in all our supplications for aid, 8 DR. BEECHER'S most emphatically do we confess our utter impotency ; and could no power but the power of man be enlisted, it would be indeed of all experiments the most ridiculous and hopeless. But be- cause man cannot convert the world to Christianity, cannot God do it ? Has he not promised to do it, and selected his instruments, and commanded his people to be fellow workers with him 7 And hath he said, and shall he not do it 1 Instead of its being a work of diffi- culty and dilatory movement, when the time to favor Zion comes, it shall outrun all past analogies of moral causes, as if seed-time and harvest should meet on the same field, or a nation should in- stantly rush up from barbarism to civi- lization. But as all great eras of prosperity to the church have been aided by the civil condition of the world, and accomplished by the regular operation of moral causes, PLEA FOR THE WEST. 9 I consider the text as a prediction of the rapid and universal extension of civil and religious liberty, introductory to the triumphs of universal Christianity. It is certain that the glorious things spoken of the church and of the world, as affected by her prosperity, cannot come to pass under the existing civil organization of the nations. Such a state of society as is predicted to per- vade the earth, cannot exist under an arbitrary despotism, and the predomi- nance of feudal institutions and usa- ges. Of course, it is predicted that revolutions and distress of nations will precede the introduction of the peace- ful reign of Jesus Christ on the earth. The mountains shall be cast down, and the valleys shall be exalted and he shall " overturn, and overturn, and over- turn, till he whose right it is, shall reign King of nations King of saints." It was the opinion of Edwards, that 10 DR. BEECHER'S the millenium would commence in America. When I first encountered this opinion, I thought it chimerical ; but all providential developments since, and all the existing signs of the times, lend corroboration to it. But if it is by the march of revolution and civil liber- ty, that the way of the Lord is to be prepared, w r here shall the central energy be found, and from what nation shall the renovating power go forth 1 What nation is blessed with such ex- perimental knowledge of free institu- tions, with such facilities and resources of communication, obstructed by so few obstacles, as our own ? There is not a nation upon earth which, in fifty years, can by all possible reformation place itself in circumstances so favora- ble as our own for the free, unembarras- sed applications of physical effort and pecuniary and moral power to evange- lize the world. PLEA FOR THE WEST. 11 But if this nation is, in the provi- dence of God, destined to lead the way in the moral and political emancipation of the world, it is time she understood her high calling, and were harnessed for the work. For mighty causes, like floods from distant mountains, are rush- ing with accumulating power, to their consummation of good or evil, and soon our character and destiny will be ste- reotyped forever. It is equally plain that the religious and political destiny of our nation is to be decided in the West. There is the territory, and there soon will be the population, the wealth, and the politi- cal power. The Atlantic commerce and manufactures may confer always some peculiar advantages on the East. But the West is destined to be the great central power of the nation, and under heaven, must affect powerfully the 12 DR. BEECHER'S cause of free institutions and the liberty of the world. The West is a young empire of mind, and power, and wealth, and free institutions, rushing up to a giant man- hood, with a rapidity and a power never before witnessed below the sun. And if she carries with her the elements of her preservation, the experiment will be glorious the joy of the nation the joy of the whole earth, as she rises in the majesty of her intelligence and be- nevolence, and enterprise, for the eman- cipation of the world. It is equally clear, that the conflict which is to decide the destiny of the West, will be a conflict of institutions for the education of her sons, for pur- poses of superstition, or evangelical light ; of despotism, or liberty. I propose to consider in this dis- course- PLEA FOR THE WEST. 13 I. What is required to secure the civil and religious prosperity of the West. II. By whom it must be done. III. How it must be done. And IV. The motive to do it. 1. The thing required for the civil and religious prosperity of the West, is universal education, and moral culture, by institutions commensurate to that result the all-pervading influence of schools, and colleges, and seminaries, and pastors, and churches. When the West is well supplied in this respect, though there may be great relative de- fects, there will be, as we believe, the stamina and the vitality of a perpetual civil and religious prosperity. 2. By whom shall the work of rearing the literary and religious institutions of the West be done 7 Not by the West alone. The West is able to do this great work 2 14 DR. BEECHER'S for herself, and would do it, provided the exigencies of her condition allowed to her the requisite time. The subject of education is no where more appreciated ; and no people in the same time ever performed so great a work as has alrea- dy been performed in the West. Such an extent of forest never fell before the arm of man in forty years, and gave place, as by enchantment, to such an empire of cities, and towns, and villages? and agriculture, and merchandise, and manufactures, and roads, and rapid navi- gation, and schools, and colleges, and libraries, and literary enterprise, with such a number of pastors and churches, and such a relative amount of religious influence, as has been produced by the spontaneous effort of the religious de- nominations of the West. The later peopled states of New-England did by no means come as rapidly to the same state of relative, intellectual and moral PLEA FOR THE WEST. 15 culture as many portions of the West have already arrived at, in the short period of forty, thirty, and even twenty years. But this work of self-supply is not completed, and by no human possibility could have been completed by the West, in her past condition. No people ever did, in the first gene- ration, fell the forest, and construct the roads, and rear the dwellings and public edifices, and provide the competent sup- ply of schools and literary institutions. New-England did not. Her colleges were endowed extensively by foreign munificence, and her churches of the first generation were supplied chiefly from the mother country ; and yet the colonists, of New-England were few in number, compact in territory, homoge- neous in origin, language, manners, and doctrines ; and were coerced to unity by common perils and necessities ; and 16 DR. BEECHER'S could be acted upon by immediate legis- lation; and could wait also for their institutions to grow with their growth and strengthen with their strength. But the population of the great West is not so, but is assembled from all the states of the Union, and from all the nations of Europe, and is rushing in like the wa- ters of the flood, demanding for its moral preservation the immediate and univer- sal action of those institutions which discipline the mind, and arm the con- science and the heart. And so various are the opinions and habits, and so re- cent and imperfect is the acquaintance, and so sparse are the settlements of the West, that no homogeneous public sen- timent can be formed to legislate imme- diately into being the requisite institu- tions. And yet they are all needed im- mediately, in their utmost perfection and power. A nation is being " born in a day," and all the nurture of schools and PLEA FOR THE WEST. 17 literary institutions is needed, constantly and universally, to rear it up to a glori- ous and unperverted manhood. It is no implication of the West, that in a single generation, she has not com- pleted this work. In the circumstances of her condition she could not do it ; and had it been done, we should believe that a miraculous, and not a human power had done it. Who then, shall co-operate with our brethren of the West, for the consumma- tion of this work so auspiciously begun ? Shall the South be invoked ? The South have difficulties of their own to encoun- ter, and cannot do it ; and the middle states have too much of the same Work yet to do, to volunteer their aid abroad. Whence, then, shall the aid come, but from those portions of the Union where the work of rearing these institu- tions has been most nearly accomplish- ed, and their blessings most eminently 2* 18 DR. BEECHER'S enjoyed 1 And by whom, but by those who in their infancy were aided ; and who, having freely received, are now called upon freely to give, and who, by a hard soil and habits of industry and economy, and by experience are quali- fied to endure hardness as good soldiers and pioneers in this great work 7 And be assured that those who go to the West with unostentatious benevolence, to identify themselves with the people and interests of that vast community, will be adopted with a warm heart and an unwavering right hand of fellowship. But how shall this aid be extended to our brethren of the West in the man- ner most acceptable and efficacious 1 Not by prayers and supplications omy, nor by charities alone, nor by colo- nial emigrations ; for these, though they might cultivate their own garden, would for obvious reasons be fenced in, and exert but a feeble general influence be- PLEA FOR THE WEST. liJ yond their own inclosures. Those who go out to do good at the West should go out to mingle with the people of the West, and be absorbed in their multi- tude, as rain drops fall on the bosom of the ocean and mingle with that world of waters.* * I am happy, since my return, to find myself so ably sustained in this opinion by my friend Judge Hall, late of Illinois, whose long residence at the West, and extensive opportunities for observation, entitle his opinions on this subject to great respect. In the Illinois Monthly onjf831, speaking of emigra- tion, he says : " We have heard lately of several colonies which have been formed in the eastern states, for the pur- pose of emigrating to Illinois ; and we always hear such information with regret. Not that we have any objection to emigration in itself; on the contrary, few have done more than we, to encpurage and pro- mote it. We ardently long to see the fertile plains of Illinois covered with an industrious, an enterpri- sing, and an intelligent population ; we shall always be among the first to welcome the farmer, the me- chanic, the school teacher the working man, in short, of any trade, mystery, or profession and we 20 DR. BEECHER'S Nor is it by tracts, or Bibles, or itinerating missions, that the requisite intellectual and moral power can be applied. There must be permanent, powerful, literary and moral institutions, which, like the great orbs of attraction and light, shall send forth at once their power and their illumination, and with- out them all else will be inconstant and ephemeral.* Let it not, however, care not from what point of the compass he may come ; but wish to see them come to Illinois, with a manly confidence in us, and 'with the feelings, not of New-Englanders, or Pennsylvanians, but of Ameri- cans." * In confirmation of these views, it gives me pleasure to refer again to Judge Hall, in his warm hearted eulogy on the friends of the Redeemer in an eastern state, for their benevolent enterprise and munificence in aiding in the establishment of female schools and Sabbath schools in the state of Illinois. It is contained in a letter to the editor of the Sab- bath School Treasury of 1831. " I am happy to say to you, that the persons who PLEA FOR THE WEST. 21 for a moment be supposed, that the schools of the West are to be sustained have been induced by your representations to re- move to Illinois, are generally well pleased, and are doing well. The best schools that we have now in Illinois, are those established by the young ladies who came out for that purpose. The school at Ed- wardsville, conducted by two young ladies, is very popular, and deservedly so. The Vandalia school commenced with five scholars, a month ago, and has now thirty -two, which, for a female school in this quarter, is quite encouraging. Miss L is doing very well, and is said to be very useful at Carrollton. Miss S has gone to Hillsborough, to keep an infant school. There will be several other female schools established shortly. " We owe a debt of gratitude to the friends of the Redeemer in Massachusetts, for their great liberality in providing us with Sabbath school books, which we shall not for many years be able to repay. The day will assuredly come, however, when the doings of the present generation of Christians will be looked back to with feelings of admiration and gratitude, and when Illinois will remember Massachusetts as a benefactor. ' He is ever merciful and lendeth,' is the language used in Scripture to describe a good 22 DR. BEECHER'S by the emigration of an army of instruc- tors from the East. For though for the present necessity, the aid of qualified in- man; and surely if .the lending, or giving, our money or goods to another is praiseworthy, it is still more so to bestow intellectual riches, and the means of Christian instruction. For my part, I feel grate- ful, and am glad to have the opportunity of saying so to you. " Multitudes have assented to the proposition, that Sabbath schools are among the most efficient means of grace ; and other multitudes recognize in them valuable instruments for the dissemination of know- ledge and morality but we are totally destitute of the facilities for setting such persons in motion. We need, especially, TEACHERS and BOOKS. The latter I consider as most imperiously and immediately requi- site, because the former may, in some places, be supplied, while for the books we must at all events be indebted to you, or to other of the friends of hu- manity. * * * We are also greatly in want of teach- ers, and give to this part of your plan our cordial approbation. Pious persons coming out with this intention, and having callings to support them, need be under no fear, if frugal and industrious, of doing well." PLEA FOR THE WEST. 23 structors is not to be repelled, but invi- ted ; yet for any permanent reliance, it is but a drop of the bucket to the ocean. Nothing is more certain, than that the great body of the teachers of the West must be educated at the West. It is by her own sons chiefly, that the great work is to be consummated which her civil, and literary, and religious prospe- rity demands. But how shall the requisite supply of teachers for the sons and daughters of the West be raised up 1 It can be accomplished by the instrumentality of a learned and pious ministry, educated at the West. Experience has evinced, that schools and popular education, in their best estate, go not far beyond the suburbs of the city of God. All attempts to legis- late prosperous colleges and schools into being without the intervening influence of religious education and moral prin- 24 DR. BEECHER'S ciple, and habits of intellectual culture which spring up in alliance with evan- gelical institutions, have failed. Schools wane, invariably, in those towns where the evangelical ministry is neglected, and the Sabbath is profaned, and the tavern supplants the worship of God. Thrift and knowledge in such places go out, while vice and irreligion come in. But the ministry is a central lumina- ry in each sphere, and soon sends out schools and seminaries as its satellites by the hands of sons and daughters of its own training. A land supplied with able and faithful ministers, will of course be filled with schools, academies, libra- ries, colleges, and all the apparatus for the perpetuity of republican institutions. It always has been so it always will be. But the ministry for the West must be educated at the West. The demands on the East, for herself and for pagan lands, forbid the East ever to supply our PLEA FOR THE WEST. 25 wants. Nor is it necessary. For the Spirit of God is with the churches of the West, and pious and talented young men are there in great numbers, willing, desiring, impatient to consecrate them- selves to the glorious work. If we pos- sessed the accommodations and the funds, we might easily send out a hun- dred ministers a year a thousand mi- nisters in ten years around each of whom schools would arise, and instruc- tors multiply, and churches spring up, and revivals extend, and all the ele- ments of civil and religious prosperity abound. But we have said that the ministry for the West must be a learned and talented ministry. No opinion is more false and fatal than that mediocrity of talent and learn- ing will suffice for the West. That if ,a minister is a good sort of a man, but somehow does not seem to be popular, 3 26 DR. BEECHEfc'S and find employment, he had better go to the West. No ; let him stay at home ; and if among the urgent demands for ministerial labor here, he cannot find employment, let him conclude that he has mistaken his profession. But let him not go to the West. The men who, somehow, do not succeed at the East, are the very men who will succeed still less at the West. If there be in the new settlements at the West a lack of schools and educated mind, there is no lack of shrewd and vigorous mind ; and if they are not deep read in Latin and Greek, they are well read in men and things. On their vast rivers, they go every where, and see every body, and know every thing, and judge with the tact of perspicacious common sense. They are disciplined to resolution and mental vigor by toils and perils, and enterprises ; and often they are called to attend as umpires to PLEA FOR THE WEST. 27 the earnest discussions of their most able and eloquent men, which cannot fail to throw prosing dullness in the ministry to a hopeless distance. No where, if a minister is deficient, will he be more sure to be " weighed in the balance and found wanting." On the contrary, there is not a place on earth where piety, and talent, and learning, and argument, and popular eloquence are more highly appreciated, or re- warded with a more frank and enthu- siastic admiration. There are chords in the heart of the West which vibrate to the touch of genius, and to the power of argumentative eloquence, with a sensibility and enthusiasm no where surpassed.* A hundred ministers of * The following is an extract from a letter which the author wrote to a friend of Professor Stowe, more than a year before this sermon was prepared, which shows his views at that time : " All your reasoning in favor of Professor Stowe 's 28 DR. BEECHER'S cultivated mind and popular eloquence might find settlement in an hundred places, and without the aid of missions, and only to increase the demand for an hundred more. Most unquestionably the West de- mands the instrumentality of the first order of minds in the ministry, and thoroughly furnished minds, to com- mand attention, enlighten the under- standing, form the conscience, and gain better adaptation for New-England than for the West is founded in a great and injurious mistake concerning the character and condition of the West. It is a mistake, that the talents and ac- quirements of Mr. S. would not be as highly and as justly appreciated here as in New-England. A full proportion of the minds that are filling up the new states of the West, are of the first order of intel- lectual vigor, and often of taste and learning, and intellectual action ; and a large portion of the peo- ple who are not educated, are persons of shrewd tnind, and quick discernment to perceive the empty pretensions of men to learning and talents, and will respond respectfully, yea, gladly, to the touch of PLEA FOR THE WEST. 3 the heart, and bring into religious or- ganization and order the uncommitted mind and families of the great world ; and many a man who might guide respectfully a well-organized congrega- tion here of homogeneous character, and moving onward under the impetus of long continued habits, might fail utterly to call around him the popula- tion of a new country. Of course, the institutions which are to lead in this great work of rearing the real talent. But Ohio is not a frontier state, or Cincinnati a new settlement, or the work demanded here that of a pioneer. On the contrary, Cincin- nati is as really a literary emporium as Boston, and is rapidly rising to an honorable competition. In- deed, at the present time, I firmly believe that there is, according to the number of her inhabi- tants, as much intellectual and literary activity here as in Boston, constituting an atmosphere which he would breathe with great pleasure, and in which his literary attainments would not pass undiscovered or unappreciated." 3* 30 DR. EEECHER'S future ministry of the West should be second to none in their endowments and adaptation to this end. For it is such a work in magnitude as human instrumentality was never before con- centrated upon. All other nations have gone up slowly from semi-barbarism to a civilized manhood, while our nation was commenced with the best materi- als of a nation at that time the most favored nation in the world, and yet was delayed in its growth, through two centuries, by policy, and power, and war, and taxation, and want of capital. It is less than fifty years since our re- sources have begun to be developed in great power, and we have entered upon the career of internal improvement and national greatness ; and at the East, until recently, these movements were slow, as capital gradually increased, and agriculture, and commerce, and art led the way. But the West is fill- PLEA FOR THE WEST. 31 ing up as by ocean waves ; and such is her prospective greatness, that the capital of the East and of Europe hold competition for her acceptance and use, so that in a day, she is rising up to the high eminence that all other nations have approached progressively through the revolution of centuries. But what will become of the West, if her prosperity rushes up to such a majesty of power, while those great institutions linger which are necessary to form the mind, and the conscience, and the heart of that vast world. It must not be permitted. And yet what is done must be done quickly; for pop- ulation will not wait, and commerce will not cast anchor, and manufactures will not shut off the steam nor shut down the gate, and agriculture, pushed by millions of freemen on their fertile soil, will not withhold her corrupting abundance. We must educate ! We must edu- 32 cate ! or we must perish by our own prosperity. If we do not, short from the cradle to the grave will be our race. If in our haste to be rich and mighty, we outrun our literary and religious institutions, they will never overtake us ; or only come up after the battle of liberty is fought and lost, as spoils to grace the victory, and as resources of inexorable despotism for the perpetuity of our bondage. And let no man at the East quiet himself, and dream of liberty, whatever may become of the West. Our alliance of blood, and political institutions, and common interests, is such, that we can- not stand aloof in the hour of her cala- mity, should it ever come. Her destiny is our destiny ; and the day that her gallant ship goes down, our little boat sinks in the vortex ! . It was to meet these exigences of our common country in the West, that the Lane Seminary was called into PLEA FOR THE WEST. 33 being by the munificence of the sons of the West ; first by a donation from the two gentlemen whose name it bears, followed by the gift of sixty acres of land, on which the institution is located, by Mr. Elnathan Kemper, and the sale of fifty more at a reduced price and long credit by the same benefactor ; to which have been added fifteen thou- sand dollars by the citizens of Cincin- nati and the West, for the construction of two college buildings and two pro- fessors' houses. To this has been ad- ded by our friends on this side of the mountains, twenty thousand dollars from one individual, for the endowment of the professorship of Theology ; and by others, thirty thousand, for the en- dowment of the two professorships of Biblical Literature and Ecclesiastical History. What we now need is a chapel for the accommodation of students and a 34 DR. EEECHER'S fast increasing community with a place of worship ; the endowment of a pro- fessorship of Sacred Rhetoric, and a library. For the first, we have dared to rely on our friends in Boston and its vicinity. The library we hope to re- ceive from our friends in New- York; and for the Professorship of Sacred Rhetoric we look up, hoping and be- lieving that God will put into the heart of one or more individuals to endow it. The motives which call on us to co-operate immediately in this glorious work of consummating the institutions of the West, essential to the perpetuity of her greatness and glory, are neither few, nor feeble, nor obscure. The territory is eight thousand miles in circumference, extending from the Alleghany to the Rocky mountains, and from the Gulf of Mexico to the Lakes of the North ; and it is the largest ter- PLEA FOR THE WEST. 35 ritory, and most beneficent in climate, and soil, and mineral wealth, and com- mercial facilities, ever prepared for the habitation of man, and qualified to sus- tain in prosperity and happiness the densest population on the globe. By twenty-four thousand miles of steam navigation, and canals and rail roads, a market is brought near to every man, and the whole is brought into near neighborhood. When I first entered the West, its vastness overpowered me with the im- pression of its uncontrollable greatness, in which all human effort must be lost. But when I perceived the active inter- course between the great cities, like the rapid circulation of a giant's blood ; and heard merchants speak of just stepping up to Pittsburgh only six hundred miles and back in a few days; and others just from New-Orleans, or St. Louis, or the Far West ; and others going thither; and when I heard my 36 DR. BEECHER'S ministerial brethren negotiating ex- changes in the near neighborhood only one hundred miles up or down the river and going and returning on Sa- turday and Monday, and without tres- passing on the Sabbath; then did I perceive how God, who seeth the end from the beginning, had prepared the West to be mighty, and still wieldable, that the moral energy of his word and spirit might take it up as a very little thing. This vast territory is occupied now by ten states and will soon be by twelve. Forty years since it contained only about one hundred and fifty thousand souls ; while it now contains little short of five millions. At the close of this century, if no calamity intervenes, it will contain, probably, one hundred millions a day which some of our children may live to see; and when fully peopled, may accommodate three hundred millions. It is half as large as PLEA FOR THE WEST. 37 all Europe, four times as large as the Atlantic states, and twenty times as large as New-England. Was there ever such a spectacle such a field in which to plant the seeds of an immortal harvest ! so vast a ship, so richly laden with the world's treasures and riches, whose helm is offered to the guiding influence of early forming institutions! The certainty of success calls us to immediate effort. If we knew not what to do, if all was effort and expense in untried experiments, there might he some pretext for the paralysis of amaze- ment and inaction. But we know what to do : the means are obvious, and well tried, and certain. The sun and the rain of heaven are not more sure to call forth a bounteous vegetation, than Bi- bles, and Sabbaths, and schools, and seminaries, are to diffuse intellectual light and warmth for the bounteous fruits of righteousness and peace. The 4 38 DR. BEECHER'S corn and the acorn of the East are not more sure to vegetate at the West than the institutions which have blessed the East are to bless the West . But these all-pervading orbs of illu- mination and centres of attraction must be established. Such is the gravitating tendency of society, that no spontaneous effort at arms-length will hold it up. It is by the constant energy and strong attraction of powerful institutions only that the needed intellectual and moral power can be applied : and the present is the age of founding them. If this work be done, and well done, our coun- try is safe, and the world's hope is secure. The government of force will cease, and that of intelligence and virtue will take its place ; and nation after nation cheer- ed by our example, will follow in our footsteps, till the whole earth is free. There is no danger that our agriculture and arts will not prosper : the danger is, PLEA FOR THE WEST. 39 that our intelligence and virtue will fal- ter and fall back into a dark minded, vicious populace a poor, uneducated reckless mass of infuriated animalism, to rush on resistless as the tornado, or to burn as if set on fire of hell. Until Europe, by universal educa- tion, is delivered from such masses of feudal ignorance and servitude, she sits upon a volcano, and despotism and revo- lution will arbitrate her destiny. Consider, too, how quickly and how cheaply the guarantee of a perpetual and boundless prosperity can be secur- ed. The West needs but a momentary aid, when almost as soon as received, should it be needed, she will repay and quadruple both principle and interest. Lend a hand to get up her institutions, to give ubiquity to her schools and Sab- baths and sanctuaries, while her forests are falling and her ocean floods of popu- lation rolling in, and afterwards we will 40 DR. BEECHER'S not come here to ask for aid ; for there is a wealth and chivalrous munificence there, which, when it has first perform- ed the necessary work of self-preserva- tion, will pour with you a noble tide of rival benevolence into that river which is " to make glad the city of our God." All at the West, is on a great scale, and the minds and the views of the peo- ple correspond with these relative pro- portions. Already, where churches are formed, they give more liberally than churches of the same relative condition at the East ; and I have no doubt the time is at the door, when the abundance of her means and enterprise will take the lead in those glorious enterprises which are to emancipate the world. It is not parsimony which renders momentary aid necessary to the West : it is want of time and of assimilation for the consciousness and wielding of her powers. And how cheaply can the aid PLEA FOR THE WEST. 41 be rendered for rearing immediately the first generation of her institutions 5 cheaper than we could rear the barracks to accommodate an army for the de- fence of our liberty, for, a single cam- paign; cheaper than tire taxations of crime and its punishment during the same period, in the absence of literary and evangelical influence. Consider, also, that the miffhty re- sources of the West are worse than useless, without the supervening influ- ence of the government of God. To balance the temptation of such unrivaled abundance, the capacity of the West for self-destruction, without religious and moral culture, will be as terrific as her capacity for self-preserva- tion, with it, will be glorious. But all the moral energies of the government of God over men, are indissolubly associa- ted with " the ministry of reconcilia- tion." The Sabbath, and the preaching 4* 42 DR. BEECHER'S of the gospel, are Heaven's consecrated instrumentality for the efficacious ad- ministration of the government of mind in a happy, social state. By these only does the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in his beams ; and ignorance, and vice, and superstition encamp around evangelical institutions, to rush in when- ever their light and power is extinct. The great experiment is now making, and from its extent and rapid filling up is making in the West, whether the per- petuity of our republican institutions can be reconciled with universal suf- frage. Without the education of the head and heart of the nation, they can- not be ; and the question to be decided is, can the nation, or the vast balance power of it be so imbued with intelli- gence and virtue, as to bring out, in laws and their administration, a perpe- tual self-preserving energy ? We know that the work is a vast one, and of great PLEA FOR THE WEST. 43 difficulty ; and yet we believe it can be done. We know that we have reached an appalling crisis ; that the work is vast and difficult, and is accumulating upon us beyond our sense of danger and deli- berate efforts to meet it. It is a work that no legislation alone can reach, and nothing but an undivided, earnest, de- cided public sentiment can achieve; and that, too, not by anniversary resolutions and fourth of July orations, but by well systematized voluntary associations ; counting the worth of our institutions, the perils that surround them, and the means and the cost of their preserva- tion, and making up our minds to meet the exigency. I am aware that our ablest patriots are looking out on the deep, vexed with storms, with great forebodings and fail- ings of heart for fear of the things that are coming upon us ; and I perceive a 44 DR. BEECHER'S spirit of impatience rising, and distrust in respect to the perpetuity of our repub- lic ; and I am sure that these fears are well founded, and am glad that they exist. It is the star of hope in our dark horizon. Fear is what we need, as the ship needs wind on a rocking sea, after a storm, to prevent foundering. But when our fear and our efforts shall cor- respond with our danger, the danger is past. For it is not the impossibility of self-preservation which threatens us ; nor is it the unwillingness of the nation to pay the price of the preservation, as she has paid the price of the purchase of our liberties. It is inattention and inconsideration, protracted till the cri- sis is past, and the things which belong to our peace are hid from our eyes. And blessed be God, that the tokens of a national waking up, the harbinger of God's mercy, are multiplying upon us ! There is at the West an enthusias- PLEA FOR THE WEST. 45 tic feeling on the subject of education and nothing has so inspired us with hope as to witness the susceptibleness of the East on the same subject, and the na- tional fraternal benevolence with which you are ready to put forth a helping hand. We have been sad, but now we are joyful. We see, we feel that East and West, and North and South are waking up upon the subject : a redeeming spirit is rising which will save the nation. We did not, in the darkest hour, believe that God had brought our fathers to this goodly land to lay the foundation of reli- gious liberty, and wrought such wonders in their preservation, and raised their descendants to such heights of civil and religious prosperity, only to reverse the analogy of his providence, and abandon his work, and though now there be clouds and the sea roaring, and men's hearts failing, we believe there is light behind the cloud, and that the eminence of our 46 DR. BEECHER'S danger is intended, under the guidance of Heaven, to call forth and apply a holy, fraternal fellowship between the East and West, which shall secure our preservation, and make the prosperity of our nation durable as time, and as abundant as the waves of the sea. I would add, as a motive to immediate action, that if we do fail in our great experiment of self-government, our de- struction will be as signal as the birth- right abandoned, the mercies abused and the provocation offered to beneficent Heave.n. The descent of desolation will correspond with the past elevation. No punishments of Heaven are so severe as those for mercies abused; and no in- strumentality employed in their inflic- tion is so dreadful as the wrath of man. No spasms are like the spasms of expir- ing liberty, and no wailings such as her convulsions extort. It took Rome three hundred years to die; and our death, if PLEA FOR THE WEST. 47 we perish, will be as much more terrific as our intelligence and free institutions have given to us more bone, and sinew and vitality. May God hide me from the day when the dying agonies of my coun- try shall begin ! O, thou beloved land bound together by the ties of brother- hood and common interest, and perils, live forever one and undivided ! But whatever we do, it must be done quickly: for there is a tide in human things which waits not, moments on which the destiny of a niticn balances, when the light dust may turn the right way or the wrong. And such is the con- dition of our nation now. Mighty influ- ences are bearing on us in high conflict, for good or for evil, for an immortality of wo, or blessedness; and a slight effort now may secure what ages of re- pentance cannot recover when lost, and soon the moment of our practical preservation may have passed away. 48 We must educate the whole nation while we may. All all who would vote must be enlightened, and reached by the restraining and preserving ener- gies of Heaven. The lanes and alleys the highways and hedges the abodes of filth and sordid poverty must be en- tered, and the young immortals sought out, and brought up to the light of intel- lectual and moral daylight. This can be done. God, if we are prompt and willing, will give us the time. But if, in this our day, we neglect the things that belong to our peace, we shall find no place for repentance, though we seek it carefully and with tears. But the vast amount of uneducated population in our land already calls upon us loudly to set about the work of rearing every where the institutions requisite for universal education. According to the most accurate esti- mation which can be obtained, there PLEA FOR THE WEST. 49 are in the United States about a million and a half of children without the means of education, and about an equal number , of adults, either foreigners or native Americans, that are uneducated. These large masses of unenlightened mind lie in almost every portion of this nation, and frightful statistics have been offi- cially given by legislative investigation in several of our states. In one of the smaller eastern states there are nearly thirty thousand adults and children that cannot read or write. In one of the largest there are four hundred thousand adults and children who have had no in- struction, and no means provided. In one of the western states, one third of all the children in the state are destitute of any provision for education. These are the states who have taken the lead in making legislative investigation. Equal- ly appalling developments await many of the other states so soon as they have 5 50 DR. BEECHER'S public spirit enough to take the same method for information. Every where, and in all ages, such masses of ignorance are the material of all others most dan- gerous to liberty ; for, as a general fact uneducated mind is educated vice. But the safety of our republic depends upon the intelligence, and moral principle, and patriotism, and property of the nation. These, whatever topical inflamma- tion may break out and push on to des- perate measures, will by a common in- stinct of self-preservation recoil when the precipice appears, and will unite in measures of common safety. But if in this moment of recoil there be a popu- lace behind, a million of voters with- out intelligence, or conscience, or patri- otism, or property, and driven on by demagogues to forbid recoil and push us over, in a moment all may be lost. Haifa million of unprincipled, reckless voters, in the hands of demagogues, may, in PLEA FOR THE WEST. 51 our balanced elections, overrule all the property, and wisdom, and moral prin- ciple of the nation. This danger from uneducated mind is augmenting daily by the rapid influx of foreign emigrants, the greater part unacquainted with our institutions, un- accustomed to self-government, inac- cessible to education, and easily acces- sible to prepossession, and inveterate credulity, and intrigue, and easily em- bodied and wielded by sinister design. In the beginning this eruption of revo- lutionary Europe was not anticipated, and we opened our doors wide to the influx and naturalization of foreigners. But it is becoming a terrific inundation ; it has increased upon our native popu- lation from five to thirty-seven per cent, and is every year advancing. It seeks, of course, to settle down upon the un- occupied territory of the West, and may at no distant day equal, and even out- u. OF ILL ua 52 DR. BEECHER'S number the native population. What is to be done to educate the millions which in twenty years Europe will pour out upon us ?* But what if this emigration, self- moved and slow in the beginning, is now rolling its broad tide at the bidding of the powers of Europe hostile to free institutions, and associated in holy alli- ance to arrest and put them down ? Is this a vain fear ? Are not the continen- tal powers alarmed at the march of * Our language precludes any reference in these remarks to intelligent, virtuous, and industrious emigrants ; nor do we fail to appreciate the many high minded and valuable citizens among this class. Neither are we- unmindful of the rapid advance of internal improvements from the physical aid of the poor. But the excellence and intelligence and value of a portion, do not avert the danger to be appre- hended from the ignorant and vicious ; and the good derived from internal improvements can never be an offset for the moral and political evils which threaten our permanent prosperity and liberty. PLEA FOR THE WEST. 53 liberal opinions, and associated to put them down ? and are they not, with the sickness of hope deferred, waiting for our downfall? It is the light of our i republican prosperity, gleaming in upon their dark prison house, which is inspi- ring hope, and converting chains into arms. It is the power of mind, roused by our example from the sleep of ages and the apathy of despair, which is send- ing earthquake under the foundations of their thrones ; and they have no hope of rest and primeval darkness, but by the extinction of our light. By fleets and armies they cannot do it. But do they, therefore, sleep on their heaving earth and tottering thrones ? Has Met- ternich yet to form an acquaintance with history 1 Does he dream that there is but one way to overturn repub- lics, and that by the sword 1 Has he yet to learn how Philip, by dividing her 54 DR. BEECHER'S councils, conquered Greece 7 and how, by intestine divisions, Rome fell 1 If the potentates of Europe have no design upon our liberties, what means the paying of the passage and emptying out upon our shores such floods of pau- per emigrants the contents of the poor- house and the sweepings of the streets ? multiplying tumults and violence, fill- ing our prisons, and crowding our poor- houses, and quadrupling our taxation, and sending annually accumulating thousands to the polls to lay their inex- perienced hand upon the helm of our power ? Does Metternich imagine that there is no party spirit in our land, whose feverish urgency would facilitate their naturalization and hasten them to the ballot box 7 and no demagogues, who for a little brief authority, however gained, would sell their country to an everlasting bondage ? A foreign in- PLEA FOR THE WEST. 55 fluence acting efficaciously on the coun- cils of a republic, has always been re- garded and always proved itself to be among the most fatal to liberty. But in no form can it assume such power as in the form of a consolidated mass of alien voters, to balance in contested elections the suffrages of the nation ; rendering foreigners the most favored and most courted people, and giving an easy predominance to foreign influence in our national councils. The wily po- litician does not sleep over our prospe- rity, or despair of our overthrow. But he exults full of hope that we sleep while he is sowing with broad cast among us the elements of future strife, and preparing our ruin by the only means by which republics have ever fallen. It is the testimony of American tra- velers, that the territorial, civil and ec- clesiastical statistics of our country, and 56 DR. BEECHER'S the action and bearing of political causes upon our institutions, are more familiar at Rome and Vienna, than with us ; and that tracts and maps are in circu- lation, explanatory of the capacious West, and pointing out the most fertile soils and most favored locations, and inviting to emigration. These means of a stimulated expatriation are corro- borated by the copious and rapidly in- creasing correspondence of those who have already arrived, and the increas- ing facilities of transportation. But if, upon examination, it should appear that three-fourths of the foreign emigrants whose accumulating tide is rolling in upon us, are, through the me- dium of their religion and priesthood, as entirely accessible to the control of the potentates of Europe as if they were an army of soldiers, enlisted and officered, and sjpreading over the land ; then, indeed, should we have just occa- PLEA FOR THE WEST. 57 sion to apprehend danger to our liberties. It would be the union of church and state in the midst of us. The church and the state both in Europe, and the pliant colonial church here. Her priest- hood educated under the despotic governments of Catholic Europe, and dependent for their office, support and honors upon a foreign temporal prince, on whose sanction to their laws and doings they are as dependent as the colonies were upon George the Third,* and this prince, too, elected by Austrian influence and sustained by Austrian bayonets, and of course subservient to Austrian policy :| a priesthood not * In the account of the last convocation or coun- cil of the Catholic church in the United States, sent to Europe, they say : " It was not thought proper to publish its acts until they had been approved at Rome, whither they had been sent. Quarterly Register, vol. 3, p. 96. f Lest the charge should seem gratuitous, of the pope being the creature of Austria, it may be well 58 DR. BEECHER'S elected by their people, or dependent on them during good behavior, or accountable to them for their deeds, but dependent on a foreign jurisdiction, to subjoin the language of an intelligent American who was in Rome during the deliberations of the conclave respecting the election of the present pon- tiff. He says : " It was interesting to hear the speculations of the Italians on the probability of this or that cardi- nal's election. Couriers were daily arriving from the various despotic powers, and intrigues were rife in the ante-chambers of the Quirinal palace ; now it was said that Spain would carry her candidate, now Italy, and now Austria, and when cardinal Capel- lani was proclaimed pope, the universal cry, mixed too with low-muttered curses, was, that Austria had succeeded. The new pope had scarcely chosen his title of Gregory XVI., and passed through the ceremonies of coronation, before the revolution in his states gave him the opportunity of calling in Austria to take possession of the patrimony of St. Peter, which his own troops could not keep for an hour ; and at this moment Austrian soldiers hold the Roman legions in subjection to the cabinet of Vienna. Is not the pope a creature of Austria ?" PLEA FOR THE WEST. 59 and to a great extent on foreign pa- tronage. This would, indeed, be a church and state union another na- tion within the nation the Greek in the midst of Troy. The simple fact, that the clergy of the Catholic denomination could wield in mass the suffrage of their confiding people, could not fail, in the competi- tion of ambition and party spirit, to occasion immediately an eager compe- tition for their votes, placing them at once in the attitude of the most favored sect; securing the remission of duties on imported church property, and copi- ous appropriations of land for the en- dowment of their institutions ; shielding them from animadversion by the sensi- tiveness of parties on account of their political ends ; and turning against their opponents, and in favor of Ca- tholics, the patronage and the tremen- dous influence of the administration, 60 DR. BEECHER'S whose ascendency and continuance might, in closely contested elections, be thought to depend on Catholic suf- frage. Should it be asserted that the clergy of every denomination, can or do exert as decisive a political influence over their people as the Catholic clergy, the assertion is notoriously untrue. The ministers of no Protestant sect could or would dare to attempt to regu- late the votes of their people as the Catholic priests can do, who at the confessional learn all the private con- cerns of their people, and have almost unlimited power over the conscience as it respects the performance of every civil or social duty.. There is another point of dissimi- larity of still greater importance. The opinions of the Protestant clergy are congenial with liberty they are cho- sen by the people who have been edu- cated as freemen, and they are depen- PLEA FOR THE WEST. 61 dent on them for patronage and support. The Catholic system is adverse to liberty, and the clergy to a great extent are dependent on foreigners opposed to the principles of our government, for patronage and support. Nor is this all the secular patro- nage at the disposal of an associated body of men, who under the influence of their priesthood may be induced to act as one, for those who favor and against those who oppose them, would enable them to touch far and wide the spring of action through our cities and through the nation. How many presses might they influence by their promised patronage or threatened with- drawrnent ? How many mechanics, merchants, lawyers, physicians, in any political crisis, might they reach and ren- der timid, and temporizing, and prudent not to say sturdy, eulogists of Catho- lics, lest they should lose the patronage of a sect, who alone can yield a pa- 6 62 tronage to favor or to punish those who favor or obstruct their views. And if while they are few and feeble, compared with the whole nation, their consolida- ted action gives them such various and extended influence, how will its power extend and become omnipresent and resistless as emigration shall quadruple their numbers and action on the po- litical and business men of the na- tion? No government is more complex and difficult of preservation than a republic, and in no political associations do little adverse causes produce more disastrous results. Of all the influences, none is more pernicious than a corps of men acting systematically and perseveringly for its own ends upon a community un- apprized of their doings, and undisci- plined to meet and counteract them. A tenth part of the suffrage of the nation, thus condensed and wielded by the Catholic powers of Europe, might de- PLEA FOR THE WEST. OO cide our elections, perplex our policy, inflame and divide the nation, break the bond of our union, and throw down our free institutions. The voice of history also warns us, that no sinister influence has ever intruded itself into politics, so virulent and disastrous as that of an am- bitious ecclesiastical influence, or which demands, now and always, keener vigi- lance or a more active resistance. But before I proceed, to prevent misapprehension, I would say that I have no fear of the Catholics, consider- ed simply as a religious denomination, and unallied to the church and state establishments of the European govern- ments hostile to republican institutions. Let the Catholics mingle with us as Americans and come with their chil- dren under the full action of our com- mon schools and republican institutions, and the various powers of assimilation, and we are prepared cheerfully to abide 64 DR. BEECHER'S the consequences. If in these circum- stances the Protestant religion cannot stand before the Catholic, let it go down, and we will sound no alarm, and ask no aid, and make no complaint. It is no ecclesiastical quarrel to which we would call the attention of the Ameri- can nation. Nor would I consent that the civil and religious rights of the Catholics should be abridged or violated. As na- turalized citizens, to all that we enjoy we bid them welcome, and would have their property and rights protected with the same impartiality and efficacy that the property and rights of every other denomination are protected ; and we should abhor the interposition of law r - less violence to injure the property or control the rights of Catholics as vehe- mently as if it were directed against Protestants and their religion. For when the day comes that lawless force pre- PLEA FOR THE WEST. DO vails, argument and free inquiry are ended, and law and courts are impotent and useless, and liberty is extinct, and anarchy by its terrors will compel men to call in the protection of despotic power to save them from the pursuing hell. The late violence done to Catholic pro- perty at Charlestown is regarded with regret and abhorrence by Protestants and patriots throughout the land, though the excitement which produced it had no relation whatever to religious opin- ions, and no connection with any reli- gious denomination of Christians. We are equally opposed to any at- tempt to cast odium upon Catholics of the present generation for any maxims, doctrines or practices of past ages, which are now by the competent authority of the pope or a general council disavowed. But for all the political bearings of their unchangeable and infallible creed, and for all the deeds of persecution and 6* 66 DR. BEECHER'S blood, JUSTIFIED BY THEIR PRINCIPLES and perpetuated by Catholic powers, and not disavowed by his holiness or by a council, THE CATHOLIC CHURCH is ACCOUNTABLE, whatever may be the personal opinion of particular individuals or particular departments of that great community. In our animadversions, however, even on these things, a declamatory, virulent, contemptuous, sarcastic, taunt- ing, denunciatory style is as unchristian as it is in bad taste and indiscreet. The invidious technics of the old controversy have gone into oblivion, and it is impos- sible to bring back the image and body of the times gone by as they stood in dreadful reality around our persecuted fathers; and however the urgency of oppression in a rough age may palliate the use of such terms by them, sound argument with meek firmness had been better even then : and it is one of the most hopeful signs of the present times, PLEA FOR THE WEST. 67 that public sentiment demands such courtesy of all religious controvertists now, and will not endure a dialect of rudeness, ill-temper and violence. If the reaction upon Catholics for the use of such language is not as stern and powerful as on Protestants, it is only because as strangers and a minority, more aggressive language will be tole- rated in them than the Protestant ma- jority will be permitted to hurl back ; while even they, in the use of invidious terms, and the manifestation of a viru- lent, discourteous arid contemptuous spirit, are fast using up both the sympa- thy and patience of the community in their behalf. Besides, the Catholics in great num- bers are with us, and their increase by emigration, if it can be regulated, can never be wholly prevented. Our rich unoccupied territory, our national works and their poverty and oppression at home 68 DR. BEECHER'S will as certainly bring over adven turers as a vacuum will call in the circumjacent atmosphere ; and it is impossible to avert the danger from so much exile popula- tion but by a friendly approximation, and the ubiquity and powerful illumination of our institutions, and the overcoming influence of Christian enterprise and Christian love. It is not the striking of the fist which will disarm them, but words and acts of kindness and the warm beating of our heart; while contemptu- ous treatment will augment their hatred of Protestants, and rivet their preju- dice, and deliver them over double bound to the power of their priesthood, already too great for their happiness and our safety. In this view of the subject, I cannot but regret the manner in which the con- troversy between the Catholics and Pro- testants has in various instances been conducted, in which the style and temper PLEA FOR THE WEST. 69 as the means of doing good, were the very worst that could have been chosen, and the very best as the means of aiding the cause they were intended to oppose. Important facts and powerful argu- ments have been given, but so mingled with invective and taunt, and sarcasm, and reviling, as to injure the cause as much by the disgust occasioned, as it was aided by the power of argument. It is to the political claims and cha- racter of the Catholic religion, and its church and state alliance with the po- litical and ecclesiastical governments of Europe hostile to liberty, and the ten- dency upon our republican institutions of flooding the nation suddenly with emigrants of this description, on whom for many years European influence may be exerted w r ith such ease, and certainty, and power, that we call the attention of the people of this nation. Did the Catholics regard themselves 70 DR. BEECHER'S only as one of many denominations of Christians, entitled only to equal rights and privileges, there would be no such cause for apprehension while they peaceably sustained themselves by their own arguments and well doing. But if Catholics are taught to believe that their church is the only church of Christ, out of whose inclosure none can be saved, -that none may read the Bible but by permission of the priesthood and no one be permitted to understand it and worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience, that heresy is a capital offence not to be tolerated, but punished by the civil power with dis- franchisement, death and confiscation of goods, that the pope and the councils of the church are infallible, and her rights of ecclesiastical jurisdiction universal and as far as possible and expedient may be of right, and ought to be as a matter of duty, enforced by the civil power, PLEA FOR THE WEST. 71 that to the pope belongs the right of in- terference with the political concerns of nations, enforced by his authority over the consciences of Catholics, and his power to corroborate or cancel their oath of allegiance, and to sway them to obedience or insurrection by the power of life or death eternal : if such, I say, are the maxims avowed by her pontiff^ sanctioned by her councils, stereotyped on her ancient records, advocated by her most approved authors, illustrated in all ages by her history, and still UNREPEALED and still acted upon in the armed pro- hibition of free inquiry and religious liberty, and the punishment of heresy wherever her power remains unbro- ken : if these things are so, is it invi- dious and is it superfluous to call the attention of the nation to the bearing of such a denomination upon our civil and religious institutions and equal rights ? It is the right of SELF-PRESER- 72 DR. BEECHER'S VATTON, and the denial of it is TREASON Or the? INFATUATION OP FOLLY. It is the duty also enforced by the unparalleled novelty and urgency of our condition ; for since the irruption of the northern barbarians, the world has never witnessed such a rush of dark- minded population from one country to another, as is now leaving Europe, and dashing upon our shores. It is not the northern hive, but the whole hive which is swarming out upon our cities and unoccupied territory as the effect of overstocked population, of civil oppres- sion, of crime and poverty, and political and ecclesiastical design. Clouds like the locusts of Egypt are rising from the hills and plains of Europe, and on the wings of every wind, are coming over to settle down upon our fair fields ; while millions, moved by the noise of their rising and cheered by the news of their safe arrival and green pastures, PLEA FOR THE WEST. 73 are preparing for flight in an endless succession. Capitalists and landholders, who feel in Europe the premonitions of coming evil are transferring their treasures to our funds, and making large investments in land, and facilitating emigration to augment the value of their property. Our unoccupied soil is coming fast into the European market, and foreign capi- talists and speculators are holding com- petition with our own. So that, were there no political and no ecclesiastical ends to be accomplished, the rapid in- flux upon us of such masses of uneduca- ted mind of other tongues and habits would itself alone demand an immediate and earnest national supervision, on the same principles of self-preservation that would dyke out the ocean or turn the mountain torrent from carrying deso- lation over our fields. For the causes are mighty and radical which threaten 7 74 DR. BEECHER'S us : while the peculiarity of our organ- ization in national and state govern- ments gives potency to their action and imbecility to our resistance. But if this tremendous tide of Europe- an emigration is from two-thirds to three quarters of it under the direction of the feudal potentates of Europe, associated to put down at home and abroad the liberal institutions of the world, and to reach us are availing themselves of a religion which has always sustained their thrones and been sustained by them despotic in its constitution and doctrines, and in all ages found in the ranks of despotism, contending against the civil and religious rights of man a religion which extinguished the lin- gering remains of Roman liberty, and warred for thirty years against the resurrection of civil and religious lib- erty in modern Europe, and holds now the mind in unmitigated bondage PLEA FOR THE WEST. 75 wherever its power is unbroken, and is the mainstay of opposition to the efforts of European patriots to' break the yoke and ameliorate the condition of man; if this religion is rising in the midst of us, by floods of annual emigration, by its undivided suffrage to balance our elections and sway our destiny, and by the aid of royal munificence to endow our institutions, and by underbidding and gratuitous instruction to monopo- lize the education of the coming gene- rations, why should we shut our eyes, and stop our ears, and cry, Peace, while destruction is coming ? There is no despotism so terrible as a popular despotism under the names and forms of liberty, where ignorance and prejudice, and passion and irreligion, and crime are wielded by desperate po- litical ambition and a corrupting for- eign influence ; and if ever our liberties perish, it will be by the explosion of the 76 DR. BEECHER'S volcanic power of the European and American populace, and foreign influ- ence and American demagogues in bad alliance, who will ride in the whirlwind and direct the storm. This I am aware is strong language. But strong lan- guage is demanded ; for this giant nation sleepeth and must be awaked. For obvious and imminent as is the danger, its development is recent, and the ac- tion of it on many minds is prevented by a multitude of careless, common- place, fallacious maxims pouring con- tempt on fear and holding the commu- nity spell-bound ; some of which I must note and expose. It is nothing but a controversy about religion, it is said a thing which has nothing to do with the liberty and pros- perity of nations, and the sooner it is banished from the world the better. As well might it be insisted that the sun has no influence on the solar sys- PLEA FOR THE WEST. 77 tern, or the moon on the tides. In all ages, religion, of some kind, has been the former of man's character and the mainspring of his action. It has done more to fill up the eventful page of his- tory, than all moral causes beside. It has been the great agitator or tranquil- izer of nations, the orb of darkness or of light to the world, the fountain of purity or pollution, the mighty pow- er of riveting or bursting the chains of men. Atheists may rage and blas- pheme, but they cannot expel religion of some kind from the world. Their epidemic madness, like the volcano, may at times break out, and obscure the sun, and turn the moon into blood, and extend from nation to nation the cup of God's displeasure, covering the earth with the slain and the fragments of demolished inst ilutions.But it can reconstruct nothing. It must be tem- porary, or it would empty the earth of 7* 78 DR. BEECHER'S its inhabitants. It will be temporary, because so bright are the evidences of a superior power, and so frail and full of sorrow are men. and so guilty and full of fears, that if Christianity does not guide them to the true God and Jesus Christ, superstition will send them to the altars of demons. But it is a contest, it is said, about religion and religion and politics have no sort of connection. Let the religion- ists fight their own battles ; only keep the church and state apart, and there is no danger. It is a union of church and state, which we fear, and to prevent which we lift up our voice : a union which never existed without corrupting the church and enslaving the people, by making the ministry independent of them and de- pendent on -the state, and to a great extent a sinecure aristocracy of indo- lence and secular ambition, auxiliary to PLEA FOR THE WEST. 79 the throne and inimical to liberty. No treason against our free institutions would be more fatal than a union of church and state ; none, when perceived would bring on itself a more overwhelm- ing public indignation, and which all Protestant denominations would resist with more loathing and abhorrence. And is there, therefore, no danger of a church and state union, because all denominations cannot unite, and no one can elude the vigilant resistance of the rest? Is there no other door at which the innovation can come in? How has the union been constituted in times past? Not as coveted by the church, and secured by her artifice or power ; but as coveted by the state, and sought for purposes of secular ambition to strengthen the arm of despotic power. It was Constantine who invited the church into an alliance with the state, nay, forced upon her the corrupting 80 DR. BEECHER'S honor. It was the kings of the earth who gave their protection to a despotic form of corrupted Christianity;, from which, when the power of superstition overmastered the sceptre, they have been taking it away. But in republics the temptation and the facilities of courting an alliance with church power may be as great as in governments of less fluctuation. Amid the competitions of party and the strug- gles of ambition, it is scarcely possible that the clergy of a large denomination should be able to give a direction to the suffrage of their whole people, and not become for the time being the most favored denomination, and in balanced elections the dominant sect, whose influ- ence in times of discontent may perpe- tuate power against the unbiased ver- dict of public opinion. The free circu- lation of the blood is not more essential to bodily health, than the easy, unob- PLEA FOR THE WEST. structed movement of public sentiment in a republic. All combinations to fore- stall and baffle its movements tend to the destruction of liberty. Its fluctua- tions are indeed an evil ; but the power to arrest its fluctuations and chain it down is despotism ; and when it is accomplished by the bribed alliance of ecclesiastical influence in the control of suffrage, it appears in its most 'hateful and alarming form. It is true, that the discovery might produce a reaction, and sweep away the ecclesiastical inter- meddlers. But in political crises, ca- lamities may be inflicted in a day, which ages cannot repair ; and who can tell, when the time comes, whether the power will be too strong for the fetters, or the fetters for the power? For none but desperate men will employ such measures for the acquisition of power; and when desperate men have gained power they will not relinquish it with- out a struggle. 82 DR. EEECHER'S The Lord deliver us from the alli- ance of any church with the state ; for it will be the alliance of ambition with ambition, of corruption with corruption, of despotism with despotism, and of a persecuting irreligion with a persecuting Christianity. It will produce a reac- tion, should the alliance ever take place ; but the conflict will be dreadful, and blood will flow. We say, then, with the objector, only keep the church and state apart, and there will be no danger. But while you watch the door at which the alli- ance never did come, do not forget to watch the door at which it always has entered the door of the state, inviting the alliance of church power to sustain its own weakness, and nerve its arm for despotic dominion. " But why so much excitement about the Catholic religion ? Is not one religion just as good as another ?" There are some who think that PLEA FOR THE WEST. 83 Calvinism is not quite as good a religion as some others. I have heard it de- nounced as a severe, unsocial, self-right- eous, uncharitable, exclusive, prosecu- ting system dealing damnation round the land compassing sea and land to make proselytes, and forming conspira- cies to overturn the liberties of the na- tion by an unhallowed union of church and state. There have been those, too, who have thought it neither meddle- some nor persecution to investigate the facts in the case, and scan the republi- can tendencies of the Calvanistic sys- tem. Though it has always been on the side of liberty in its struggles against arbitrary power; though, through the puritans, it breathed into the British constitution its most invaluable princi- ples, and laid the foundations of the re- publican institutions of our nation, and felled the forests, and fought the colo- nial battles with Canadian Indians and 84 DR. BEECHER'S French Catholics, when often our desti- ny balanced on a pivot and hung upon a hair; and though it wept, and prayed, and fasted, and fought, and suffered through the revolutionary struggle, when there was almost no other creed but the Calvanistic in the land ; still it is the opinion of many, that its well-doings of the past should not invest the system with implicit confidence, or supersede the scrutiny of its republican tendencies. They do not think themselves required to letCalvmistS alone; and why should they ? We do not ask to be let alone, nor cry persecution when our creed or conduct is analyzed. We are .not an- noyed by scrutiny ; we seek no conceal- ment. We court investigation of our past history, and of all the tendencies of the doctrines and doings of the friends of the Reformation ; and why should the Catholic religion be exempted from scru- tiny ? Has it disclosed more vigorous PLEA FOR THE WEST. 85 republican tendencies ? Has it done more to enlighten the intellect, to purify the morals, and sanctify the hearts of men, and fit them for self-government 1 Has it fought more frequently or suc- cessfully the battles of liberty against despotism ? or done more to enlighten the intellect, purify the morals, and sanctify the heart of the world, and pre- pare it for universal liberty? I protest against that unlimited abuse with which it is thought quite proper to round off declamatory periods against the religion of those who fought the battles of the reformation and the battles of the revolution, and that sensi- tiveness and liberality which would shield from animadversion and spread the mantle of charity over a religion which never prospered but in alliance with despotic governments, has always been and still is the inflexible enemy of liberty of conscience and free inquiry^ 8 86 DR. BEECHER'S and at this moment is the main stay of the battle against republican institutions, A despotic government and despotic reli- gion may not be able to endure free inquiry, but a republic and religious liberty CANNOT EXIST WITHOUT IT. Where force is withdrawn, and mil- lions are associated for self-government, the complex mass of opinions and inte- rests can be reduced to system and order only by the collision and resolu- tion of intellectual and moral forces. To lay the ban of a fastidious charity on religious free inquiry, would termi- nate in unthinking apathy and the intel- lectual stagnation of the dark ages. Whatever European nations may do, our nation must read and think from length to breadth, from top to bottom. It is a perilous experiment we have ad- ventured upon ; but it is begun, and we cannot go back. For mind has felt its own power, and is girding itself for PLEA FOR THE WEST. 87 efforts never yet made, and with means and motives never before pos- sessed, and on such a field as before was never opened, and it is only the mighty salutary action of mind which can carry us through. It is an anti-republican charity, then, which would shield the Catholics, or any other religious denomination, from the animadversion of impartial criticism. Denominations, as really as books, are public property, and demand and are benefited by criticism. And if ever the Catholic religion is liberal- ized and assimilated to our institutions, it must be done, not by a sickly senti- mentalism screening it from animad- version, but by subjecting it to the tug of controversy, and turning upon it the searching inspection of the public eye, and compelling it, like all other reli- gions among us, to pass the ordeal of an enlightened public sentiment. 88 DR. BEECHER'S " But are not the Catholics sincere? why not, then, let them alone T That they are sincere in their faith there can be no doubt. But what the republican tendency of their faith is, depends on what they believe, and not on the simple fact that they do believe it. If they believe in the rights and duties of uni- versal education, of free inquiry, of reading and understanding the Bible, and in the liberty and equality of all religious denominations, and that they and we are accountable only to God and the laws of the land, it is well. But if they believe that the pope and the church are infallible, that his ecclesiastical jurisdiction is universal, that he and the priests have the power of eternal life or death, in the bestow- ment or refusal of pardon as they obey or disobey them, that no man may read the Bible without the permission of the priesthood, or understand it but PLEA FOR THE WEST. 89 as they interpret, and that every Catholic is bound to believe implicitly as the church believes, and that all non-Catholics are heretics, and heresy a capital offence, and the extermination of heretics by force duty, then the more anti-republican the elements of their faith are, the more terrific is their sincerity, which on the peril of their soul would make them the instruments of a foreign policy in overturning our institutions for the establishment of those of their own church. " But have there not been great and good men in the Catholic Church 7" Doubtless. Luther was a great and good man while he was in the church, or he had never left it ; and others have given evidence of piety who never did abandon her communion. But does the existence of a few good men in a church and state union sanctify the system ? are all systems contain- 8* 90 DR. BEECHER'S ing men of talents and piety of good republican tendency ? There may be great and good men in Russia, and Prussia, and Austria, and Italy; but does that prove the republican tenden- cies of their religious systems ? It might be well to ascertain, too, whether the great and good men in the Catho- lic church have ever exerted a predo- minant influence in it, and have not rather endured what they could not reform, and if not persecuted, were tolerated in an impotent minority for the credit their virtues gave, without the power of changing the maxims and tendencies of the system? Whether Catholics are pious or learned, is not the question ; but what are the republican tendencies of their system ? I am press- ing upon republican America that it is better for her to educate her popula- tion by her own sons and money, than to rely on the school-masters and PLEA FOR THE WEST. 91 charitable contributions of the despotic governments of Catholic Europe and the more piety, and talent, and learning they should bring to our aid, the more deep and indelible would be the im- pression they might make adverse to our religious and political institu- tions. "But have not the Catholics just as good a right to their religion as other denominations have to theirs 7" I have said so. I not only admit their equal rights, but insist upon them ; and am prepared to defend their rights as I am those of my own and other Protestant denominations. The CatJwlics have a perfect right to proselyte the nation to their faith if they are able to do it. But I too have the right of preventing it if I am able. They have a right freely to propagate their opinions and arguments; and I too have a right to apprise the na- tion of their political bearings on our 92 DR. BEECHER'S republican institutions. They have a right to test the tendencies of protestant- ism by an appeal to history ; and I, by an appeal to history, have a right to illustrate the coincidence between the political doctrines and the practice of the Catholic church, and to show that always they have been hostile to civil and religious liberty. The Catholics claim and exercise the liberty of ani- madverting on the doctrines and doings of Protestants, and we do not complain of it : and why should they or their friends complain that we in turn should animadvert on the political maxims and doings of the Catholic church ? Must Catholics have all the liberty their own and ours too ? Can they not endure the reaction of free inquiry 1 Must we lay our hand on our mouth in their presence, and stop the press ? Let them count the cost and such as cannot bear the scrutiny of free inquiry return where there is none ; PLEA FOR THE WEST. 93 for though we would kindly accommo- date them in all practicable ways, we cannot surrender our rights for their accommodation. But are not the Catholic priesthood useful to keep in order their unlettered population, to secure the restitution of property, and in cases of popular tumult, by the waving of the hand to allay ex- citement and obviate violence ? But how much better it were if their people were so educated as not wrong- fully to take the property of their neigh- bors. And what per centage do you imagine ever returns to the owner by the instrumentality of the confessional and the priesthood. And as to the power of stilling tumults by waving the hand were it not better so to educate their people as to prevent such insurrections of wrath. And in what sort of elementary prepa- ration for naturalization at the polls is the mind of a mob whose rage may be 94 DR. BEECHER'S tamed and their purpose controlled by the waving of a bishop's hand? and what if this hand should wave onward instead of off? And how felicitous the condition of American citizens, who de- pend gratefully upon the hand and will of a Catholic bishop to protect them from elubs, and conflagration, and the knife ! For what was the city of Boston for five nights under arms her military upon the alert her citizens enrolled, and a body of five hundred men con- stantly patrolling the streets? Why were the accustomed lectures for public worship, and other public secular meet- ings, suspended ? Why were the citi- zens, at sound of bell, convened at mid-day in Fanuiel Hall? to hear Catholicism eulogized, and thanksgiv- ings offered to his reverence the bishop, for his merciful protection of the chil- dren of the pilgrims ! And why by the PLEA FOR THE WEST. 95 cradle of liberty, and under the sha- dow of Bunker's Hill, did men turn pale, and whisper, and look over their shoul- ders and around to ascertain whether it were safe to speak aloud, or meet to worship God 1 Has it come to this ? that the capital of New-England has been thrown into consternation by the threats of a Catholic mob, and that her temples and mansions stand only through the forbearance of a Catholic bishop ? There can be no liberty in the presence of such masses of dark mind, and of such despotic power over it in a single man. Safety on such terms is not the protection of law, but of single handed despotism. Will our great cities con- sent to receive protection from the Catholic priesthood dependent on the Catholic powers of Europe, and favored by his holiness, who is himself governed by the bayonets of Austria 1 I do not forget that non-Catholics 96 were first in the aggression, or depre- cate the proper conduct of the bishop in restraining the indignation of his people at the wrong which had been done them. I am answering an argu- ment often urged in favor of the Catho- lic religion, viz : the influence of its clergy in protecting us against popular tumults; and my answer is that the population which can be governed thus by the power of superstition is a dange- rous population and the power which governs it a dangerous power and I allude to the panic and military array in Boston to illustrate the peril and commotion which a small body of Ca- tholic population may produce in spite of clerical power and to place in me- rited contempt, the idea that the Catho- lic religion should be advocated on the ground of its power of protecting Pro- testant republicans, against the violence of its own people. And I am sure I PLEA FOR THE WEST. 97 express but a small portion of the dis- gust which was felt in Boston at the sycophantic eulogies of the Catholic religion, and of the Catholic bishop as if he had immortalized himself, and placed Boston under everlasting obliga- tions for having done what was as much the dictate of a sagacious policy as it was also the dictate of duty. But, it is said, " the Catholics do not interfere at all with the religion of their Protestant pupils. They have no such design. They promise not to do it, and only require as a matter of decency and order a conformity to the rules of the school." They cannot help interfering with the religion of their pupils. The known opinions and kind attentions of instruct- ors sedulous to please, and a constant familiarity with their example and reli- gious instruction and the doctrines, pray- ers, ceremonies and worship of the 9 98 DR. BEECHER'S church, cannot fail to affect the mind of Protestant youth allaying appre- hension, conciliating affection, inspiring confidence and undermining their Pro- testant education until they became either sceptics, or devotees, or at least the friends and apologists and auxiliaries of Catholics. You may as well sus- pend the attraction of gravity, or inter- cept the connection between cause and effect, as to prevent the adverse action of a Catholic education on the minds of Protestant children. " But they have no design to subvert the religion of Protestant children." And what if they have no design 7 Will the absence of a deliberate pur- pose stay the influence or avert the effects of such powerful tendencies constantly acting upon the youthful mind? The action of physical and moral causes is not dependent on de- sign. Fire will burn, and poisons PLEA FOR THE WEST. 99 destroy, independent of the malignant purpose in the application. But have they no design ? Is not the system of instruction, and every rela- tion and circumstance of the condition of their pupils, a matter of deliberate arrangement 1 and is it not as well adapted to produce effect as it could be? and are not the consequences con- tinually witnessed? Do they not studiously withhold Catholic children from the action of such causes in Protestant schools, and tax their own people, and supplicate the royal munifi- cence of Catholic Europe to rear schools and colleges for the cheap and even gratuitous education of Protestant children, high and low, while thou- sands of Catholic children are utterly neglected and uncared for, and aban- doned to ignorance and vice ? And is all this without design ? " But they promise not to interfere 100 DR. BEECHER'S with the religion of their Protestant pupils, only so far as is implied in conformity to the regulations of the school," i. e. they will not coerce and persecute them, nor assail them by direct disputation and argument which would preclude the access of pupils; while the entire associations and influences and instruction of the school are in the most dexterous man- ner possible contrived to effect that which they promise not to attempt. There is an inhibition of such free con- versation and discussion on disputed points by the students among them- selves, as would be calculated to sus- tain Protestant opinions and associa- tions. The entire absence of all Pro- testant books touching religion, with the presence of those which are Catho- lic; while by separate beds, and si- lence, and the presence of an overseer in the lodging room and in all their PLEA FOR THE WEST. 101 amusements and walks and ways, the action of every thing Protestant is sus- pended, and the active, universal, con- stant action becomes Catholic. Every day they assist, i. e. they unite in Catholic worship engage in and com- ply with their forms and ceremonies commit their catechisms, recite their prayers to the Virgin Mary and for the repose of the dead, and make the crosses and genuflexions. They are not permitted to attend Protestant worship, but hear points of Catholic doctrine explained, discussed arid defended.* In short, they receive as pefect a Catho- lic education as the Catholic children themselves who are educated among them. * A gentleman who passed four years in the seminary at Bardstown, stated to a friend of mine recently, that in the whole time he never heard but two sermons which were not in explanation and defence of some point of Catholic faith. 9* 102 DR. BEECHER'S In St. Mary's College, Baltimore, " No books foreign to the course of study are SUFFERED to circulate in the College, unless signed by the presi- dent." In Georgetown, D. C., " The exer- cises of religious worship are Catholic. It is required that members of other religious denominations assist at the public duties of religion with their companions." At the AthenaBum, Cincinnati, "it is not deemed an infringement of liberty that all our pupils should assist together at religious exercises." At St. Joseph's College, Bardstown, Kentucky, the students of other deno- minations are received upon the sole condition of attending morning and evening prayer daily, and catechism and divine service on Sundays and holy days. What more could Catholics do, or PLEA FOR THE WEST. 103 Protestant parents permit to be done 7 What more do Protestants do to edu- cate their children in the Protestant faith, than is avowed and permitted and done to convert Protestant children to the Catholic faith 1 and all under the trifling reservation of " expected conformity to the regulations of the school." They hold up to the ear of unreflect- ing credulity, the promise of non-inter- ference with the religion of the pupils. But do they promise that they will not by studied attention seek to gain their confidence and affection'? and that by dextrous insinuation and remark, they will not attempt to undermine their confidence in the religion of their pa- rents 1 That they will not heave the sigh nor drop the tear in their presence, that their parents should be heretics, and their beloved pupils aliens from the only church in which they can possi- 104 DR. BEECHER'S bly be saved. If they do, then doubtless they break their promise. For pro- mises are obligatory in the sense in which they are known to be understood by those to whom they are made. But Catholics know that Protestants would not send their children to their schools, if they believed their children would be made Catholics, or their prin- ciples undermined and understand them to promise that nothing of this kind shall be done; while Catholics know that the influence under which the children are placed, is as wisely and powerfully adapted to do this as a system of means can be ; and by long experience they know and admit and exult in it that it produces just this effect, and call upon their European friends to aid them in rearing semina- ries because of their admirable influ- ence in conciliating Protestant children toward the Catholic religion. And if PLEA FOR THE WEST. 105 Protestants are justly punished for their carelessness and credulity, that is no justification or excuse for the disappoint- ments of the honest confidence which the Protestant community have reposed in these promises. They do promise not to interfere with the religion of Protestant children committed to their schools. But what do they say, when writing to their missionary patrons in Europe, as to the effect on Protestant children of this confidence reposed in their promises by their parents? The quotations which follow are translated from a French Catholic mis- sionary publication called the " An- nales," by a friend of the writer, whose ability and integrity are unquestioned ; and from a report of the doings of the general convention of the whole Catho- lic church in the United States, held in Baltimore. Both these publications were circulated among Catholics in 106 DR. BEECHER'S Europe, to enkindle their missionary zeal and secure contributions, and fell accidentally into the hands of a Protes- tant gentleman travelling in Europe, by whom they were sent home for translation. " Mr. Flaget has established in his diocese many convents of nuns devoted to the education of young females. These establishments do wonderful good. Catholics and Protestants are admitted indiscriminately. The latter, after having finished their education, return to the bosom of their families, full of esteem and veneration for their instructresses. They are ever ready to refute the calumnies, which the jealousy of heretics loves to spread against the religious communities : and often, when they have no longer any op- position of their relations to 'fear , they embrace the Catholic religion'' 1 Quar- terly Register, vol. 2, 1830 page 194. They promise not to interfere with PLEA FOR THE WEST. 107 the religion of their Protestant pupils, and simple-hearted Protestant parents confide in their promises ; and thus are they requited by those who, it seems, knowingly spread the snare for their feet, and to their friends in Europe exult in their success. The bishop of Bardstown, Kentucky, says : " Had I treasures at my disposal, I would multiply colleges and schools for girls and boys ; I would consolidate all these establishments, by annexing to them lands or annual rents ; I would build hospitals and public houses : in a word, I would compel all MY KENTUCKIANS to admire and love a religion so benificent and generous, and perhaps I should fin- ish by converting them" Quarterly Re- gister, vol. 2, 1830 page 194. The next year the same bishop writes : " I have the greatest confidence we 108 DR. BEECHER'S shall be able in a short time to liquidate our debts; and shall then have the opportunity of educating gratis a much larger number of pupils in our seminary for the good of the church in Kentucky." Quarterly Register, vol. 2, 1830 page 195. Again he says : " Since the holy Catholic religion has exhibited itself in Kentucky with a certain splendor, since schools for girls and boys, into which all sects are admitted, have been multiplied, our many churches built, and our doctrine clearly and solidly explained in them on Sundays and festivals, the most hap- py revolution is effected in her favor. To the most inveterate prejudices have succeeded astonishment, admiration, and the desire of knowing our princi- ples. Now the conversions are nume- rous. In twelve jubilees, wherein I have presided, more than forty Protestants PLEA FOR THE WEST. 109 have entered the church ; a great num- ber still are preparing to share the same happiness, and I have hardly gone over the half of Kentucky." Quarterly Register, vol. 2, 1830 page 197. In the proceedings of the Catholic convention sent to the missionary pa- trons of -Europe, they say it was propo- sed to form a central seminary for the whole metropolitan jurisdiction where young persons should be educated at a low cost, and prepared for the functions of the priesthood, at a low cost, remem- ber, and that they especially invite in their seminaries Protestant pupils. In the same reports, they say : " There is also a society of men who do for boys what is done by the ladies for girls. These schools are frequented not only by the Catholic, but also by Protestant children, many of whom em- brace the Catholic religion, or at least receive impressions in its favor, which 10 110 DR. BEECHER'S they carry into the bosom of their fami- lies" Quarterly Register, vol. 3, 1831 page 98. The Sisters of Charity began their establishment at Baltimore in 1809. In 1810 they removed to Emmetsburgh, in Maryland. Seventy in number pro- fessed, or novices, and a hundred female boarders. " From that place they have sent co- lonies to Baltimore, Washington, Fred- erick, Montagne, Philadelphia, New- York, Albany, Harrisburgh, and St. Louis. In these different places, they receive and instruct orphans, and have a school for unfortunate children, the number of which is enormous. There are some schools containing from five to six hundred. At Baltimore, besides the asylum and free school, they have the care of the lying-in-hospital belong- ing to the medical school. Those of St. Louis have also the care of the hospital PLEA FOR THE WEST. Ill of that city. All these different branches are connected with a central government, in the parent house at Emmetsburgh. They form together but one body. They live under the rule of St. Vincent de Paul, with a little variation, thought indispensable by the ecclesiastical supe- riors. One of these is the boarding es- tablishment of the parent house, with the double object of giving a Christian education to Protestants as well as Catho- lics, (a want deeply felt in these regions.)" Quarterly Register, vol. 3, 1831- page 98. What are the motives of these Ca- tholics in neglecting the education of their own children, and extending such cheap and even gratuitous facilities of education to Protestants 1 and what is it which all at once has warmed the heart of pope and cardinals, potentates, princes, prime ministers and nobles, to endow for us Protestants such ample 112 DR. BEECHER'S means of cheap instruction 1 We per- ceive in the preceding extracts, and the one which follows, what the motives are which the Catholics of this country, in their communications, press upon their patrons in Europe, and which bring out their exuberant charities. " The missions of America are of high importance to the church. The superabundant population of ancient Europe is flowing toward the United States. Each one arrives, not with his religion, but with his indifference. The greater part are disposed to embrace the doctrine, whatever it may be, which is first preached to them. We must make haste ; the moments are precious. Ame- rica may one day become the centre of civilization; and shall truth or error establish there its empire ? IF THE PROTESTANT SECTS ARE BEFOREHAND WITH US, IT WILL BE DIFFICULT TO DESTROY THEIR INFLUENCE. PLEA FOR THE WEST. 113 "'Mgr. Fenwick,' adds the editor, ' is laboring with an admirable zeal to combat this influence of the Protestant sects in the mission entrusted to him. Numerous conversions have already crowned his efforts ; and he has even been able to establish a convent, all the nuns of which are Protestants, who have abjured their former faith.' " Quarterly Register, vol. 2, 1830 page 198. And now, in view of these disclo- sures, let me ask, can a Protestant pro- fessor of religion, covenant to train up his children in the nurture and admoni- tion of the Lord, and then deliver them over to a Catholic education, and not violate his vow ? and can patriots swear to be faithful to the constitution of the United States, and commit the education of their republican children to Catholic schools and seminaries, and do no violence to their oath ? Can Jesuits 10* 114 DR. BEECHER'S and nuns, educated in Europe, and sus- tained by the patronage of Catholic powers in arduous conflict for the des- truction of liberty, be safely trusted to form the mind and opinions of the young hopes of this great nation 1 Is it not treason to commit the formation of re- publican children to such influences ? It is time to awake out of sleep on the subject, and that the sanction of a correct, concentrated, all-powerful pub- lic sentiment should stamp infatuation and shame upon it. Nothing fills the Catholics with such amazement and high hopes as the simple-hearted credu- lity and recklessness of Protestants, in committing their children to their form- ing hand; and nothing certainly can be more wonderful or more fatal in its in- fluence on our republican institutions. But, it is said, " this outcry of a con- spiracy to overturn our republican insti- tutions by immigration and ecclesiasti- PLEA FOR THE WEST. 115 cal influence is a false alarm. There is no such design." If there be no such design, the facts in the case are as adverse to our safety as if they were the parts of a settled plan. The number of the immigrants, who lack of information, their unac- quaintance with the principles of our go- vernment, their superstition and implicit confidence in their ecclesiastical teach- ers, and the dependence of these on Rome, and of Rome upon Austria, all constitute an influence of dangerous ac- tion in themselves, and offer to the pow- ers of Europe, easy and effectual means of disturbing the healthful action of our institutions, which, if it did escape their design to contrive, cannot be expected long to escape their sagacity to employ. It is like a train of powder between an enemy's camp and our own magazine ; which, though laid by accident, may not be expected long to escape observation and use. 116 DR. BEECHER'S But if the civil and ecclesiastical powers of Europe have no such design, they lack the ordinary discretion and conduct of men in their condition, an- noyed and endangered, as they feel themselves to be, by our republican in- stitutions. If they have no design to extend their influence by ecclesiastical power, they have forgotten also all the past analogies of supposed duty, their faith authorizing and requiring them to extend the Catholic religion the world over, by persuasion if they can, and by force if they must and are able. And when or where has their executive zeal fallen in the rear of their physical ability. If they have no design, they do not pursue the analogy of their past policy in similar circumstances, which has been always to compensate for losses at home by new efforts to extend their in- fluence abroad. It was the boast of the Catholic church, when she lost half PLEA FOR THE WEST. 117 Europe by the Reformation, that she had more than compensated her loss by the new enterprise of her Jesuit mis- sionaries in India and South America. But during the last half century her power in Europe has been as much cur- tailed by infidelity and revolution, as before it had been by the Reformation. " The spirit of the age," which Bona- parte says dethroned him, is moving on to put an end in Europe to Catho- lic domination, creating the necessity of making reprisals abroad for what liberty conquers at home. Their policy points them to the West, the destined centre of civilization and political pow- er once their own, and embracing now their ancient settlements and institu- tions and people, and not a little wealth bounded on the north by a Catholic population, and on the south by a con- tinent not yet emancipated from their dominion, and agitated by the at pre- 118 sent successful conflicts of the Catholic priesthood to extinguish free institutions and reconstruct those of despotic power there can be no doubt that Catholi- cism in St. Domingo and South America is destined to feel the quickening ener- gies of the political powers of Europe, as the only means remaining to them of combating the march of liberal in- stitutions ; and it cannot be denied that those empires of superstitious mind offer the fairest opportunity now remaining to the Catholic church of making a stand, and perpetuating for a season her political and ecclesiastical dominion. But why is it so flippantly said, and so confidently believed, that there is no design on the part of the powers of Europe to annoy us by the introduction of a disturbing political religious influ- ence among us ? What can evidence design, if obvious and powerful motives, frank declaration, and the extensive PLEA FOR THE WEST. 119 and vigorous adaptation of means to the end, do not ? But American tra- velers at Rome and Vienna, assure us, that in the upper circles the enterprise of reducing our western states to spirit- ual subserviency to the see of Rome is a subject of avowed expectation, and high hope, and sanguine confidence, while the correspondence of the Catholic bish- ops and priests in this country to their noble and royal patrons in Europe are full of the same predictions and high hopes, as motives to their immediate and copious charities to establish Cath- olic institutions at the West. The bishop of Bardstown, Ken- tucky, says : " Had I treasures at my disposal, I would multiply colleges, and schools for girls and boys ; I would consolidate all these establishments, by annexing to them lands or annual rents ; I would build hospitals and public houses : in a 120 DR. BEECHER'S word, I would compel all MY KENTUCK- IANS to admire and love a religion so beneficial and generous, and perhaps I should finish by converting them."* The bishop of Cincinnati, on the same page, says : " The missions of America are of high importance to the church. The superabundant population of ancient Europe is flowing toward the United States. Each one arrives, not with his religion, but with his indifference. The greater part are disposed to em- brace the doctrine, whatever it may be, which is first preached to them. We must make haste ; the moments are precious. America may one day be- come the centre of civilization ; and shall truth or error establish there its empire? IF THE PROTESTANT SECTS ARE BEFOREHAND WITH US, IT WILL BE DIFFICULT TO DESTROY THEIR INFLUENCE. * Quarterly Register, vol. 2, 1830 page 194. PLEA FOR THE WEST. 121 " l Mgr. Fenwick,' adds the editor, 1 is laboring with an admirable zeal to combat this influence of the Protestant sects in the mission entrusted to him. Numerous conversions have already crowned his efforts ; and he has even been able to establish a convent, all the nuns of which are Protestants, who have abjured their former faith.' "* A Catholic priest, writing appa- rently from Cincinnati to a friend in Europe, says : " Since the Bishop's arrival, a great number of persons have presented themselves for instruction in the true religion. I hope, if the Lord blesses our efforts, we shall be able to finish the cathedral and found a college. We shall see the truth triumph, the temples of idols overthrown, and the seat of falsehood brought to silence. This is the reason that we conjure all * Quarterly Register, vol. 2, 1830 page 198. 11 122 DR. BEECHER'S the Christians of Europe (i. e, all the Catholics) to unite in order to ask of God the conversion of those unhappy infidels or heretics. What a happiness, if by our feeble labors and our vows, we shall so merit as to see the sava- ges of this diocese civilized, and all the United States embraced in the same unity of the Catholic church, in which dwells truth and temporal hap- piness."* Bishop England, in his late address to the clergy of his diocese, on his return from Rome, speaking of the pre- lates of the church of Ireland, says : " They are ready, as far as our hierarchy shall require their co-opera- tion, to give it their best exertions in selecting and forwarding, from amongst the numerous aspirants to the sacred ministry that are found in the island of saints, a sufficient number of those * Quarterly Register, vol. 2, 1830 page 198. PLEA FOR THE WEST. 123 properly qualified to supply our defi- ciencies." Such is the language employed by Catholics in this country, to stimulate the hopes and efforts of Catholics in Europe, and especially the royal pa- trons of the three powerful missionary societies one at Rome, the other at Vienna, and the third in France but the centres, no doubt, of correspondence throughout Catholic Europe, and the reservoirs of her copious charities. We have accidentally fallen upon the items of fifty thousand dollars in one dona- tion, and sixty thousand in another, and twenty thousand, besides the frequent recognition in their correspondence of efficacious aid, the amount of which ifr not named. Bishop England says : "During my absence, I have not been negligent of the concerns of this diocese. I have endeavored to interest 124 DR. BEECHER'S in its behalf several eminent and digni- fied personages whom I had the good fortune to meet ; and have continued to impress with a conviction of the pro- priety of continuing their generous aid, the administration of those societies from which it has previously received valuable succor. In Paris and at Lyons I have conversed with those excellent men who manage the affairs of the association for propagating the faith. This year their grant to this diocese has been larger than usual. I have also had opportunities of commu- nication with some of the Council which administers the Austrian associ- ation ; they continue to feel an interest in our concerns. The Propaganda in Rome, though greatly embarrassed, owing to the former plunder of its funds by rapacious infidels, has this year contributed to our extraordinary ex- penditure ; as has the holy father him- PLEA FOR THE WEST. 125 self, in the kindest manner, from the scanty stock which constitutes his private allowance." But we need not the list of donations. The results that are starting up before our eyes, as if by magic, lift the veil, and discover that a portion of the re- sources which potentates once squan- dered in war are beginning to be appro- priated in munitions for the moral con- flict the battle of institutions and that the field of battle is the American republic, and especially the West. Four years ago the Catholic popu- lation was estimated at half a million, and in the single year of 1832 one hun- dred and fifty thousand were added, and the numbers every year since have greatly increased, and the Catholics predict still greater numbers the cur- rent and coming years. A great pro- portion of them are poor ; and though in various forms an oppressive taxation 126 DR. BEECHER'S swallows up all the earnings they do not consume or squander, the revenue fails, it is said, by the Catholics them- selves, to support their clergy. Their multiplied and multiplying institutions, cathedrals of royal splendor, and colle- ges, and nunneries, and cheap schools, and free schools rise therefore to attest the sincerity and energy of political Eu- ropean patronage. But the numerical power, without augmentation, would be too small to accomplish the end ; and, therefore, Catholic Europe is throwing swarm on swarm upon our shores. They come, also, not undirected. There is evidently a supervision abroad and one here by which they come, and set down to- gether, in city or country, as a Catholic body, and are led or followed quickly by a Catholic priesthood, who maintain over them in the land of strangers and unknown tongues an ascendency as PLEA FOR THE WEST. 127 absolute as they are able to exert in Germany itself. Their embodied and insulated con- dition, as strangers of another tongue, and their unacquaintance with Protes- tants, and prejudices against them, and their fears and implicit obedience of their priesthood, and aversion to instruc- tion from book, or tract, or Bible, but with their consent, tend powerfully to prevent assimilation and perpetuate the principles of a powerful cast. Hence, while Protestant children, with unceas- ing assiduity, are gathered into Catholic schools, their own children, with a vigi- lance that never sleeps, and is upon them both when they go out and come in, and is conversant with all their ways, are kept extensively from Sabbath schools, from our republican common schools, and from worship in Protestant families, and from all such alliance of affection as might supplant the control of the 128 DR. BEECHER'S priesthood over them; so, that, as the bishop of Cincinnati said, to a Protes- tant, " We multiply by securing all our Catholic children, so that every family in process of time becomes six." If they associated with republicans, the power of caste would wear away. If they mingled in our schools, the re- publican atmosphere would impregnate their minds. If they scattered, unas- sociated, the attrition of circumstances would wear off their predilections and aversions. If they could read the Bible, and might and did, their darkened in- tellect would brighten, and their bowed down mind would rise. If they dared to think for themselves, the contrast of Protestant independence with their thraldom, would awaken the desire of equal privileges, and put an end to an arbitrary clerical dominion over trem- bling superstitious minds. If the pope and potentates of Europe held no do- PLEA FOR THE WEST. 129 minion over ecclesiastics here, we might trust to time and circumstances to miti- gate their ascendency and produce as- similation. But for conscience sake and patronage, they are dependent on the powers that be across the deep, by whom they are sustained and nurtured ; and receive and organize all who come, and retain all who are born ; while by argument, and a Catholic education, they beguile the children of credulous unsuspecting Protestants into their own communion. No design ! How does it happen that their duty, and the analogy of their past policy, and their profession in Europe, and their predictions and exultation in this country, and their deeds, all well adapted to their end, should come to- gether accidentally with such admirable indications of design ? If such compli- cated indications of design may exist without design, as well may the broader 130 DR. BEECHER'S mechanism of the world be regarded as the offspring of chance. Had the Catholic power of the holy alliance declared their purpose in due time to subdue us by force, and sent out fleets, with munitions and men and offi- cers, in bright array to move through the land, seizing passes, fortifying emi- nences, and every where rearing bar- racks, arsenals and forts, and military schools for the gratuitous instruction of our sons, the evidence of a designed assault would not surpass the prepara- tions for our subjection by a conflict of institutions. They do design the subversion of our institutions ; so far as a Catholic ascen- dency of literary institutions and eccle- siastical and political influence would be their subversion ; and according to their views they ought to, for their time or ours is short. If our light continues, their darkness passes away ; and if our pros- PLEA FOR THE WEST. 131 perity continues, their overturnings can- not be stopped till revolution has traveled round the globe, and the earth is free. It is said again, " the conspiracy, if real, to overthrow our republic by immi- gration and a foreign religion, is impo- tent and chimerical a thing which can- not be done." Indeed ! Is our republic, then, so ma- ture, and solid, and strong, as to bid de- fiance to peril ? Our wisest men have regarded its preservation, when formed of native citizens, only as an experiment, urged on by high hopes, indeed, and strenuous efforts, but amid stupendous difficulties, and not yet consummated. And though hitherto our ship has weath- ered every storm, has it been accom- plished with such ease and safety as to justify the proud contempt of greater dangers ? Nothing is more easy than the per- version of associated mind ; or difficult, 132 DR. BEECHER'S than its recovery to sanity and a health- ful self-government. To let out the storm, and roll up the angry wave, is easy; but to still the tumult of the peo- ple lies often only within the reach of that power which holds the winds, and stilleth the tumult of the sea. We have surmounted past difficulties also by means of a comparative homogenity of character, opinions and interests, the result of our colonial training and revo- lutionary struggle, and while the ship was navigated by those who aided in her construction and launching. But another generation has arisen ; and great difficulties are yet to be encountered, demanding equal wisdom, unity, and firmness, and decision, and rendering the accumulation of a powerful adverse in- fluence justly alarming. And of all others, a religious influence, in the hands of ecclesiastics, and perverted to pur- poses of secular intrigue and political PLEA FOR THE WEST. 133 intermeddling, is most to be feared. While religion, pure and undefiled, is as indispensable to the perfection of society and the propitious results of government, as the sun is to light, and order, and ve- getation, and life, it becomes such only by being kept in its own department, to send out through all relations its mild, purifying, tranquilizing, but mighty and all-pervading energy. But it is too much for one class of men to unite in the same hands the power of both worlds. Instead of coalescing, they should be vigilantly and efficaciously kept apart. With sincere approbation and thanks- giving to God, I regard the article of our constitution prohibiting forever an alliance of any church with the state. And though I regard as needless and just, the constitutional exclusion of the clergy in some states from eligibility to office, as if the people were incompetent 12 DR. EEECHER'S to be trusted in the selection of their own servants ; yet did I believe that they were incompetent, and that they would not as a general fact confine the clergy to their own vocation, I should much prefer that the exclusion had been universal. For I have never witnessed a clergyman active in the collision of party politics, or absorbed in secular cares of legislation, without feeling and perceiving that others felt, that the man was out of his place, and religion dis- graced.* * No doubt such avowals will surprise many, who have been led to suppose that the writer, and the Congregational and Presbyterian denominations with which he has been associated, are in the van of ambitious desire, and sinister intrigue, and unholy plotting to compass a union of church and state in their own behalf. I have only to say, that the sen- timents on this subject avowed in this discourse, are the sentiments of my whole life, and the regulators of my conduct ; and have been repeatedly, in various forms, published within the last ten years ; PLEA FOR THE WEST. 135 The purse and the sword includes too much power to be united in the same hands. But how is the peril aug- mented when both these, with the sanc- tions of God's eternal government, are concentrated in clerical hands, and di- rected to political purposes, in the gov- ernment of nations. Such a priesthood, as a body, cannot be spiritual, or pure, or safe, but always has been, and always and are in accordance with the views of the great body of the Congregational and Presbyterian minis- ters whom I now know, and have ever known. Should any, however, be still troubled in mind at the apprehension of our .machinations, they may well be tranquilized if they will search the records of legislation and political office in this nation, and in all the states, and witness how harmless and im- potent our intrigues must have been to secure either legislative power or official trust ; and how large a portion of popular and governmental favor has fallen, happily for us, as I think, upon clerical men without the sphere of the Congregational and Presbyterian denominations. 136 DR. BEECHER'S will be, a corrupt and intriguing priest- hood, perverting its spiritual power over the consciences of men, to the control of their physical and civil action in ac- cordance with his own will and the purposes of a despotic government. The history of five hundred years attests the baleful influence which one of the feeblest political powers of Eu- rope has been able to exert upon the governments around him, by his spirit- ual dominion over the consciences of their subjects. There never was a time when the pope could by the power of arms control the policy of surrounding nations ; and yet for ages, by the terrors of his spiritual power over the con- sciences of their dark-minded subjects, he bound kings in chains and princes in fetters of iron, because, if they diso- beyed his will, he could by his power over the consciences of their subjects, in a moment blast them with a curse PLEA FOR THE WEST. 137 and interdict, which would cause them to be shunned like leprous men, or sent out like Nebuchadnezzar to graze among oxen. It is the spiritual power of the pope over the civil destiny of na- tions, through the medium of his priest- hood and the consciences of men, which has in all periods rendered the election of the pope a subject of such high interest and earnest competition and intrigue by the different nations of Europe. By the Reformation, half Europe was disenthralled from the action of this dreadful power. And the exten- sion of commerce and the arts, the illu- mination of science, the power of scep- ticism, and the advance of liberal opin- ions and of revolution and reform, have done much in Germany, Switzerland, France, Spain, and Portugal, to annihi- late this power of religion, perverted to secular ends. But in Austria, and Bo- hemia, and Ireland, the spell is not bro- 12* 138 DR. BEECHER'S ken ; and the perverted power of both worlds is concentrated to darken and enslave mind, and perpetuate civil and ecclesiastical despotism ; while in the nations named, there are millions upon millions, whose physical and civil action can be controlled by the influence of their priesthood, through the medium of their religion, as implicitly, and as ac- curately as the soldiers of Frederick could be moved to fight his battles. But it is notorious, that the Catholic immigrants to this country are generally of the class least enlightened, and most implicit in their religious subjection to the priesthood, who are able, by their spiritual ascendency, to direct easily and infallibly the exercise of their civil rights and political action. And it were easy to show, were this the time and place, that they do interfere in the ex- action of fees, in the control of children, and in the article of marriage, as no PLEA FOR THE WEST. 139 Protestant minister ever did or would dare to attempt; and that a secular in- fluence is beginning to be exerted over the political action of their dependent, confiding people. And is there no danger from a popu- lation of nearly a million, augmenting at the rate of two or three hundred thou- sand a year by immigration ; whose phys- ical power, and property, and vote, are, as entirely as in Europe, within the reach of clerical influence ? Is it, then, a vain hope of European potentates, endan- gered by our free institutions, that they shall be able to clog, and perplex, and stop their movements by thrusting in such a disturbing force, rearing up in fact a distinct nation of their own sub- jects, organized and wielded by them, in the midst of us 1 Is a perverted reli- gious power so feeble and innoxious, that its threatened agency in our politi- cal movements is to be slept over or 140 DR. BEECHER'S despised ? Religion is the most power- ful, dreadful cause, when perverted, which ever mingled a malignant influ- ence in the politics of nations ? But for the alliance of religion with the state, and the intrigues and power of the priesthood, Europe had been for ages comparatively tranquil, instead of being, like a volcano, in continued action, or a ship in battle, in a constant blaze. How dreadful were the wars of the Reformation in Europe, and the civil wars which followed, which could at any time have been quenched, but that a perverted religious zeal inflamed them. The politics of the nation could at any time have been adjusted, but the religion never. Far, far from us be the plague of that burning which will break out and rage among us as it never raged on earth, should a perverted religious influ- ence introduce among us this curse of nations. For holy as religion is, all the PLEA FOR THE WEST. 141 bad passions gather about its perverted standard, and under the sanctions of its hallowed name, and by all the aug- mented motives of eternity, let loose the malignant passion of the desperately wicked heart. And let me ask again, whether the Catholic religion in its union with the state, has proved itself so unambitious, meek, and unaspiring so feeble, and easy to be entreated, as to justify a proud contempt of its avowed purpose and systematic movements to secure an ascendency in this nation ? Is it acci- dental that in alliance with despotic governments, it has swayed a sceptre of iron, for ten centuries, over nearly one third of the population of the globe, and by a death of violence is estimated to have swept from the earth about sixty- eight millions of its inhabitants, and holds now in darkness and bondage nearly half the civilized world 1 142 DR. BEECHER'S In all this long career of evil it is not the personal character of individu- als which perverted the system and sent out the results, but the system which perverted personal character. It was the energy of an absolute spiritual do- minion in corrupt alliance with political despotism displaying their perverting power and acting out their own nature. It is the most skillful, powerful, dreadful system of corruption to those who wield it and of debasement and slavery to those who live under it, which ever spread darkness and desolation over the earth. And yet over all its track of blood it has thrown the exterior of high devo- tion, great sanctity, and eminent purity and benevolence. It boasts a venerable antiquity, and claims a lineal descent from primitive Christianity, and blazons on its roll of fame the names of many holy and illustrious men. Some of its PLEA FOR THE WEST. 143 doctrines are true, and some of its in- stitutions are wise, and the self-denial and good deeds of some of its clergy and sisters of charity, in the visitation of the sick and the education of the poor, are worthy of imitation. But it is a religion exclusive in its claims and awful in its sanctions, and terrific in its power of declaring sins remitted or re- tained. By the confessional it searches the heart, lea-rns the thoughts, and mo- tives, and habits, and condition of indi- viduals and families, and thus acquires the means of an unlimited ascendency over mind by the united influence of both worlds. It is majestic and impo- sing in its ceremonies, dazzling by its lights and ornaments, vestments and gorgeous drapery, and fascinating by the power of music and the breathing mar- ble and living canvas, and all the di- versified contributions of art strong in the patronage of the great, and the 144 DR. BEECHER'S power of wealth and the versatilities of art, and unlimited in its powers of ac- commodation to the various characters, tastes, and conditions of men. For the profound, it has metaphysics and philos- ophy the fine arts for men of taste, and wealth, and fashion signs and wonders for the superstitious forbear- ance for the sceptic toleration for the liberal, who eulogize and aid her cause enthusiasm for the ardent -lenity for the voluptuous, and severity for the austere fanaticism for the excited, and mysticism for moody musing. For the formalist, rites and ceremonies for the moral, the merit of good works, and for those who are destitute, the merits of the saints at accommodating prices for the poor, penance extreme unction for the dying, and masses for the spirits in prison, who, by donation, or testa- ment, or by their friends, provide the requisite ransom. PLEA FOR THE WEST. 145 This is the religion so powerful in the combined energies of earth and heaven "so dextrous in their applica- tion so gigantic in its past energies so enslaving and terrible in its recorded deeds, and yet in its present appearance, so mild, meek, unassuming, and muni- ficent, which is coming in among us, a comparative stranger the records of its history denied, or forgotten, or cov- ered by a charity that would belt the zones, and span the earth coming by numbers to outnumber us, and by votes to outvote us, and by the competitions of European munificence to secure aa ascendant influence in the education of the young republicans of our nation. This religion is wielded by a priest- hood educated, for the most part, in the despotic governments of Europe, of re- cent naturalization and retaining the ecclesiastical and political partialities of their country and early associations. 13 146 DR. BEECHER'S Were they allied to us by family and ties of blood, like the ministry of all other denominations, there would be less to be feared, and common interests would produce gradually but certainly an unreluctant assimilation. But as it is, they stand out from society, a sepa- rate, insulated male ecclesiastical asso- ciation, with property and interests pe- culiarly their own; with an irresponsible and despotic power over the conscien- ces, and physical and civil action of numbers, quite too great and influential for the safety of republican institutions, where every thing depends on the free and enlightened action of public senti- ment. This anti-republican tendency of clerical influence is augmented in our nation, by the fact that the control of suffrage, and secular patronage, and education, and power of conscience, is under the predominant influence of the PLEA FOR THE WEST. 147 society of Jesuits ; an order of men as- sociated at the reformation, to stay its progress, and sustain and extend the cause of the Papacy clothed with high privileges and devoted by oath to im- plicit obedience to his holiness possess- ing the advantages of an efficient or- ganization, and the energy of a despotic will, equal to the control of a com- mander-in-chief over every officer and private in his army, and wielding the power which belongs to talent, learning, wealth, numbers, and a deep knowledge of human nature, and the means of touching dextrously every spring of ac- tion, and securing every complexity of movement for religious and political purposes trained as courtiers, confes- sors, teachers, diplomatists, saints, spies, and working men, to influence and con- trol the destiny of nations, and guided also by a morality which permits the end to sanctify the means. An asso- 148 DR. BEECHER'S elation of more moral and political power than was ever concentrated on the earth twice suppressed as too for- midable for the crowned despotism of Europe, and an overmatch for his holi- ness himself and twice restored as indispensable to the waning power of the holy see. And now with the ad- vantages of its past mistakes and ex- perience, this order is in full organiza- tion, silent, systematized, un watched, and unresisted action among us, to try the dexterity of its movements, and the potency of its power upon unsuspecting, charitable, credulous republicans. That the Jesuits will ever regain their former ascendency is not to be apprehended ; but is no influence of their secret organization and intrigue, short of its former terrific energy, to be feared ? Was ever a more ample field for intrigue opened before them than our country presents, or more accessi- PLEA FOR THE WEST. 149 ble and unwatched, or filled with ma- terials more powerfully adapted to per- plex the movements of our government, and make confusion worse confounded 7 Doubtless, the Catholic religion can never acquire a permanent ascendency in this nation by force, and a formal union of church and state ; but a king- dom or nation divided against itself is brought to desolation. And is it impos- sible to embody such an amount of Catholic influence by copious immigra- tion, and unity of action, and Jesuit intrigue, as to divide us 1 Is the task so impossible, or difficult, as to throw contempt upon the systematized action of an order of men, once the most pow- erful that ever conspired against liberty, or held competition with despotic pow- ers ? Were we all, as Americans and re- publicans, apprised of the danger, and united in mild and efficient measures, 13* 150 DR. BEECHER'S it would still be a subject of deep in- terest and great difficulty. If none were indiscreet and violent, and none sympathized with the Catholics, as abused and persecuted, and none from a greater hatred of the Protestant than the Catholic religion and none from secular interest, and political favoritism, sympathized with them, the floods of unprepared, confiding mind, rolling in upon us to augment the power of a Jesuit priesthood, might well awaken solicitude and demand circumspection. But who can preclude, in so exciting and delicate an emergency, all but wise councils and discreet action, or prevent the affinities of prejudice, and hate, and political ambition from gathering nom- inal Protestants about the Catholic standard ; and who can abide the day, should the politics of this nation become perplexed and infuriated with the viru- lence of a religious controversy. PLEA FOR THE WEST. 151 It is true that Catholicity in Europe is on the retreat before the march of liberal opinions and institutions ; but it is no less true that it is still, in numbers, wealth, and political dominion over mind, a terrible power, and precisely such an enemy as has often given a desperate battle; and inspiration teaches that the dying struggles of this system will be among the most gigantic and terrible, and such are the existing prog- nostics of its destiny. If^the Catholic religion were simply an insulated system of religious error, it might be expected to fade away with- out a struggle before the augmenting, overpowering light of truth ; but it has always been, and still is, a political re- ligion, a religion of state; and though its ambitious encroachments reconciled the potentates of Europe to its waning power, the experience of the last thirty years has taught them, that they have overacted in the humiliation of his holi- 152 DR. BEECHER'S ness and the church, that her downfall opens the door to revolution and the march of liberty, that the Catholic church is as indispensable to the throne, as the throne is to the church, and that without her influence over mind, they cannot meet and stem the spirit of the age ; and now they are beginning, with new decision, to rally again around the church, and to give to her their secu- lar aid, while she repays them by the energy of her spiritual dominion over mind. Hence it is, that under the auspices of the Greek church, the emperor of Russia declares, " as long as I live, I will oppose a will of iron to the pro- gress of liberal opinions," and has pre- scribed to the ill-fated Poles a catechism in equal quantities of despotism and blasphemy. The empire of Austria is also her- metically sealed against the admission of light. PLEA FOR THE WEST. 153 A late intelligent American traveler in Austria, says : "And what are the people of Austria 1 They are slaves, slaves in body and mind, whipped and disciplined by priests to have no opinion of their own, and taught to consider their emperor their God. They are the jest and by- word of the northern Germans, who never speak of Austrians but with a sneer, and " as slaves unworthy the name of Germans ; as slaves both mentally and physically."* In accordance with this Austrian policy of keeping out the light and maintaining the empire of darkness, his present holiness, pope Gregory XVI, lamenting, in 1832, the disorders and infidelity of the times, says : " From this polluted fountain of ' Indifference,' flows that absurd and erroneous doctrine, or rather raving, in * Dwight, 154 DR. JBEECHER'S favor and defence of ' liberty of con- science;' for which most pestilential error, the course is opened for that en- tire and wild liberty of opinion, which is every where attempting the over- throw of religious and civil institutions ; and which the unblushing impudence of some has held forth as an advantage to religion. Hence that pest, of all others most to be dreaded in a state, unbri- dled liberty of opinion, licentiousness of speech, and a lust of novelty, which, according to the experience of all ages, portend the downfall of the most pow- erful and flourishing empires." " Hither tends that worst and never sufficiently to be execrated and detested LIBERTY OF THE PRESS, for the diffusion of all manner of writings, which some so loudly contend for, and so actively promote." He complains, too, of the dissemina- tion of unlicensed books. PLEA FOR THE WEST. 155 " No means must be here omitted, says Clement XIII.) our predecessor of happy memory, in the Encyclical Letter on the proscription of bad books ' no means must be here omitted, as the ex- tremity of the case calls for all our exertions, to exterminate the fatal pest which spreads through so many works ; nor can the materials of error be other- wise destroyed than by thejlames, which consume the depraved elements of the evil.' " And to aid him in the work of burn- ing liberal books and crushing the efforts of patriots to break their chains and secure liberty, Austrian bayonets are placed at his disposal. " In the year 1828 the celebrated Frederick Schlegel, one of the most distinguished literary men of Europe, delivered lectures at Vienna on the Philosophy of History, (which have not been translated into English,) a great DR. BEECHER'S object of which is to show the mutual support which Popery and Monarchy derive from each other. He commends the two systems in connection as de- serving of universal reception. He at- tempts to prove that sciences, and arts, and all the pursuits of man as an intel- lectual being, are best promoted under this perfect system of church and state ; a Pope at the head of the former ; an Emperor at the head of the latter. He contrasts with this, the system of Pro- testantism ; represents Protestantism as the enemy of good government, as the ally of Republicanism, as the parent of the distresses of Europe, as the cause of all the disorders with which legiti- mate governments are afflicted. In the close of lecture 17th, vol. ii. p. 286, he thus speaks of this country : ' The TRUE NURSERY of all these destructive princi- ples, the REVOLUTIONARY SCHOOL for France and the rest of Europe, has been PLEA FOR THE WEST. NORTH AMERICA. Thence the evil has spread over many other lands, either by natural contagion, or by arbitrary com- " But who is Frederick Schlegel ? He may be a great scholar, but what is his situation that so much weight is to be attached to his opinions 1 I will give my readers a brief account of him, abridged from the Encyclopedia Americana, (edited by a German) suf- ficient to enable them to judge if too much stress is laid upon his opinions. : Frederick Schlegel, (one of the great literary stars of Germany) went over to the Catholic faith, at Cologne, and in the year 1800 repaired to Vienna. In 1809 he received an appointment at the head quarters of Arch Duke Charles, where he drew up several powerful proclamations. When peace was con- cluded, he again delivered lectures in Vienna on modern History and the 14 158 DR. BEECHER'S literature of all nations. In 1812, he published the German Museum, and gained the confidence of Prince Metter- nich by various diplomatic papers, in consequence of ivhich he was appointed Austrian counsellor of legation at the diet in Frankfort. In 1818 he returned to Vienna, where he lived as SECRE- TARY OF THE COURT and COUNSELLOR OF LEGATION, and published a view of the Present Political relations [of Austria] and his complete works.' In 1828 he delivered his lectures on the Philosophy of History, in which his views as I have stated them are fully developed. " This is the man whose opinions on the relation of Popery and Monarchy, and Protestantism and Republicanism, and of the influence of the United States, have been followed by the ac- tion of the Austrians, in the formation of the St. Leopold foundation. He was. part and parcel of the government ; he PLEA FOR THE WEST. 159 Was ONE OF THE AUSTRIAN CABINET, THE CONFIDENTIAL COUNSELLOR OF PRINCE METTERNICH.''* It is doubtless in the exertion of this plan of resuscitating the Catholic reli- gion on account of its political subser- viency to the thrones of Europe, that St. Domingo is coming into remem- brance, and that efforts are making to establish in that island the spiritual dominion of a Catholic priesthood ; and that in all the South American conti- nent the cause of liberty is on the wane, before the united influence of military chieftains and the Catholic priesthood. All the signs of the times indicate the coming on of that next European conflict of which prophetic Canning spoke, as long and dreadful, a war of opinion a war of liberty against des- potism, and which is to terminate in the * Preface to " Foreign Conspiracy" pages 17, 18, and 19. 160 DR. BEECHER'S emancipation or hopeless bondage of the world. In this view of the subject, the Catholicity of this nation, and its rapid increase, cannot be safely regarded as a mere insulated religion, but rather as one department of a comprehensive ef- fort to maintain despotic government against the march of free institutions, by an invigorated union of ecclesiasti- cal and political power ; and though the Catholics among us may, as a body, be unapprized of this policy, and ought not to be reviled, or denounced, or falsely accused, or assailed by rumor, and in- vidious epithets, neither are they to be unwatched, or entrusted with the edu- cation of the nation, or the balance of her suffrage. No opinion is more unfounded or pernicious than the one so often ex- pressed, that the Catholic church stands on the same foundation, in respect to PLEA FOR THE WEST. 161 its republican tendencies, with all the other religious denominations in our land. There is no denomination but the Catholic which acknowledges im- plicit subjection to the spiritual domin- ion of a foreign prince in whom the church and state are united, and whose political relations modify, by the in- trigues of the European powers, his ecclesiastical decisions a prince de- pendent on the protection, and under the control of one of the most despotic governments of Europe. There is no church but the Catholic in our land which claims infallibility, and the right of a universal spiritual jurisdiction, and makes heresy a capital offence, punish- able with political disfranchisement and with torture and death none whose clergy are chiefly foreigners, dependent for investiture, and honor, and support,* * The bishop of Kentucky, writing to Europe, says : " Generally, we ought to consider all the 14* 162 DR. BEECHER'S on a foreign jurisdiction, and whose most active correspondence, and strong- est sympathies, and most powerful mo- tives of action, lie abroad and cluster about thrones, and dominions, and prin- cipalities, and powers, adverse to our institutions none which claims and exercises the right of inhibiting the reading of the Bible but with express permission of a priest, and denounces the right of private interpretation, and inculcates, wholly, the obligation of believing implicitly as popes and coun- cils have believed. There is in this country, beside the Catholic, no denom- ination, any principles of whose religion are anti-republican, or whose influen- tial officers denounce republican insti- bishoprics of America as sees destitute of all re- sources, which can never be solidly established unless, for half a century, they are aided by rich and pious souls in Europe." Quarterly Register, vol. 2. p. 196. PLEA FOR THE WEST. 163 tutions, free inquiry, and the liberty of the press, as they have been denounced by the reigning pope, and opposed by Catholic potentates of Europe none which makes the confidential confes- sion of sin to a priest indispensable to forgiveness, or claims the right of selling indulgences for sins past, or to come of selling prayers for the deliverance of souls from purgatory none whose in- terests are in the hands of a secret as- sociation of men, bound by oath to obey, implicitly, his holiness in the pro- pagation of the Catholic religion the most powerful secret organization that ever existed, and now sustained by the royal munificence of European Catho- lics, and occupied in rearing powerful institutions for the education of our sons and daughters. There is in this country no religion but the Catholic which claims the right of interfering with the political affairs of nations by the inter- 164 DR. BEECHER'S position of ecclesiastical authority, re- leasing subjects from their oaths of alle- giance, and putting down and setting up the powers that be, or who have manifested a desire, or commenced the attempt, by the exclusion of lay trus- tees, to secure all church property in ecclesiastical hands. Among the deliberations of the late Catholic convention, at Baltimore, they say, in their European correspondence, that one subject of consideration was, " What is necessary to be done in regard to trustees, and the means of re- pressing their pretensions ? It is known what disputes and scandals have arisen on this subject, and, it may be said, it is one of the greatest scourges of the church in the United States ; and one of the priests, writing to a mutual friend in Europe, says : ' The bishop has the happiness of governing his churches without church wardens. By this me- PLEA FOR THE WEST. 165 thod you see we are at peace, although without help. Were we to establish them, they might be very useful to us ; but we should fear schisms and dissen- sions; of all evils the greatest despo- tism exercised against the pastors, and division and disorder in many other churches, assure us fully of this. Better then is poverty and dependence on the charity of the faithful, than tyranny.' "* The desire seems here to be avowed of securing the entire property of the Catholic church in the United States, by some means, in the hands of the clergy, regarding the inspection and in- fluence of lay trustees, even though Catholics, as tending to schisms, despo- tism against the pastors, and constitu- ting one of the greatest scourges of the church. But it 'is said the Catholic religion is not what it used to be, the claims and * Quarterly Register, vol. 3. pp. 91 and 96. 166 DR. BBECHER'S dogmas, and bigotry, and persecuting maxims, and superstitions of the Catho- lic church have passed away. She has felt the spirit of the age, and yielded to its demands, and henceforth, and espe- cially in this country, we have to anti- cipate only a revised and corrected edi- tion of the Catholic church. As republicans and Christians, we certainly hail the day when the Catho- lic church shall be reformed, and we are not reluctant to believe, on proper evi- dence, that the Catholics of this country perceive and renounce the past unscrip- tural and anti-republican claims, max- ims, and deeds of the church of Rome. We only desire that their professions and disclaimers should not be received in evidence that the Roman church is reformed, till the same authority which enacted her erroneous maxims and au- thorized the unchristian conduct, has conceded her fallibility and repealed PLEA FOR THE WEST. 167 the criminal decisions of her popes and councils, and professed repentance for her evil deeds, and made proclamation that she admits her members to rights of conscience, and free inquiry, and civil liberty ; but so long as the infallibility of the church is claimed, and all her maxims remain unrepealed, and are rigidly enforced wherever the march of liberal opinions has not compelled a relaxation. Such disclaimers can be regarded only as evidence of what ne- cessity extorts and expediency dictates, and the accommodating policy of the church has always permitted to her loyal sons. Who is it then that makes the pro- clamation, that the Catholic Church has discovered her mistakes in past ages and is reformed 1 Has the pope announced it 1 Has the general council decreed it 1 Has the Catholic conven- tion at Baltimore placed it upon their 168 DR. BEECHER'S records ? Has a single Catholic bishop or priest admitted or claimed that the Catholic church has been, by the proper authorities, revised and corrected in any material point of doctrine, discipline, or practice. Not one and no Catholic will say it, who has any character to Jose, or frowns to fear from superior power. The church cannot be reformed as a church only by the pope and a general council. The question of revision and change is therefore simply a matter of historical fact. When, where, and in what respect^, has the pope and a gene- ral council changed the claims, maxims, doctrines, or established usages of the church ? When and where has it been decreed that liberty of conscience, and civil liberty, are the birth-right of man that reading the Bible is the right of man and not a privilege to be conferred that private interpretation is the duty PLEA FOR THE WEST. 169 of man instead of implicit confidence in the exposition of others that persecu- tion for conscience sake is tyranny, and the deeds of the inquisition an abomina- tion in the sight of God. What one of her maxims, avowed centuries ago, has she expunged and does not rather en- force to the present hour at Rome and Vienna ? What are the powerful prin- ciples of collision which now agitate Europe and South America but those of civil liberty and despotic power 7 And on which side, when uncoerced, is his holiness, and his cardinals, and bishops, and priesthood ? Every where in Por- tugal, in Spain, in France, and in Italy, and South America, on the side of mo- narchical, and in opposition to liberal institutions. But we have documentary evidence which settles the questions. The fol- lowing is from a treatise by M. Aignan, of the French Academy, the second edi- 15 170 DR. BEECHER'S tkm of which was published at Paris in 1818. " Passing to the 10th article of the Concordat, in which it is said that His Most Christian Majesty shall employ, in concert with the Holy Father, all the means in his power to cause to cease, as soon as possible, all the disorders and obstacles which obstruct the welfare of religion, and the execution of the laws of the church were [the Protestants] to ask, (although the profuse shedding of their blood might have informed them,) ' what are the laws of the church?' the acts of Pius VII. himself, and the writings on which the church rests her authority would answer, THE EXTERMINATION OF HERETICS, THE CONFIS- CATION OF THEIR GOODS, AND THEIR PRIVA- TION OF EVERY CIVIL PRIVILEGE." To this the author subjoins in a note : " Certain portions of real estate, which had belonged to ecclesiastics,had passed PLEA FOR THE WEST. 171 into the hands of Protestant princes. Pius VII. in 1805, complained of it to his nuncio residing at Vienna ; and re- minded him that, according to the laws of the church, not only could not heretics possess ecclesiastical property, but that also they could not possess any pro- perty whatever, since the crime of heresy ought to be punished by the confiscation of goods. He added, that the subjects of a prince, who is a heretic, should be released from every duty to him, freed from all obligation and all homage. c In truth,' said he, ' we have fallen on times so calamitous, and so humiliating to the spouse of Jesus Christ, that it is not possible for her to practise, nor ex- pedient to recall so holy maxims ; and she is forced to interrupt the course of her just severities against the enemies of the faith. But if she cannot exercise her right to depose the partisans of heresy from their principalities, and 172 DR. BEECHER'S declare that they have forfeited all their goods ; can she ever permit that, to enrich themselves, they should de- spoil her of her own proper dominions 1 What a subject of derision would she not present to these very heretics and unbelievers, who, while they insulted her grief, would say they had discovered the method of rendering her tolerant V " The same pontiff, in his instructions to his agents in Poland, given in 1808, professes this doctrine, that the laws of the church do not recognize any civil privileges as belonging to persons not Catholic; that their marriages are not valid ; that they can live only in concubi- nage ; that their children, being bastards, are incapacitated to inherit; that the Catholics themselves are not validly married, except they are united accord- ing to the rules prescribed by the court of Rome ; and that, when they are mar- ried according to these rules, their mar- PLEA FOR THE WEST. 173 riage is valid, had they, in other respects, infringed all the laws of their country"* The present pontiff declares that " From this polluted fountain of ' In- difference/ flows that absurd and erro- neous doctrine, or rather raving, in favor and defence of ' liberty of conscience ;' from which most pestilential error, the course is opened for that entire and wild liberty of opinion, which is every where attempting the overthrow of reli- gious and civil institutions ; and which the unblushing impudence of some has held forth as an advantage to religion. Hence, that pest, of all others most to be dreaded in a state, unbridled liberty of opinion, licentiousness of speech, and -a lust of novelty, which, according to the experience of all ages, portend the down- fall of the most powerful and flourishing empires." * Quarterly Register, vol. 3, page 89. 15* 174 DR. BEECHER'S " Hither tends that worst and never sufficiently to be execrated and detested LIBERTY OP THE PRESS, for the diffusion of all manner of writings, which some so loudly contend for, and so actively promote." He complains, too, of the dissemina- tion of unlicensed books. " No means must be here omitted," says Clement XIII., our predecessor of happy memory, in the Encyclical Let- ter on the proscription of bad books " no means must be here omitted, as the extremity of the case calls for all our exertions, to exterminate the fatal pest which spreads through so many works; nor can the materials of error be other- wise destroyed than by the flames, which consume the depraved elements of the evil." To the question, " What is to be done 1" I would say a few things to obviate misapprehension, and indicate PLEA FOR THE WEST. 175 what would seem to be the plain prac- tical course. In the first place, while the language of indiscriminate discourtesy towards immigrants, calculated to wound their feelings, and cast odium on respectable and industrious foreigners, is carefully to be avoided ; an immediate and ener- getic supervision of our government is demanded to check the influx of immi- grant paupers, thrown upon our shores by the governments of Europe, corrupt- ing our morals, quadrupling our taxa- tion, and endangering the peace of our cities, and of our nation. It is equally plain, also, that while we admit the population of Europe to a participation in the blessings of our institutions and ample territory, it is both our right and duty so to regulate the influx and the conditions of natu- ralization, that the increase shall not outrun the possibility of intellectual and 176 DR. BEECHER'S moral culture, and the unregulated ac- tion of the European population bring down destruction on ourselves and them. In what manner the means of self-preservation shall be applied, it does not belong to my province to say. Doubtless a perfect remedy may be difficult, perhaps impossible ; but should we therefore look upon the appalling scene in pale amazement and trembling impotency ? It would be the consum- mation of infatuation, and the precursor of ruin. Nothing is impracticable for the preservation of our liberty and na- tional prosperity ivhich ought to be done, and nothing can ruin us but presump- tuous negligence or faintness of heart. But we must act, and act quickly, and with decision, or the stream will be too deep and mighty to be regulated, and will undermine foundations and sweep away landmarks, and roll the tide of desolation over us. Nor can the pa- PLEA FOR THE WEST. 177 triotic solicitude of the people, and the states, and the nation, be brought to bear on this subject, immediately, to the extent of our political wisdom and practical energy, and not mitigate the evil, and avert the danger. But our past utter neglect on this subject, is as wonderful as the carefulness of the nations of the continent. Not an indi- vidual from this country can traverse Europe without the inspection of a host of spies and police agents, who make his person, character, and business, as well known to the government as they are known to himself, and no small portion of this vigilance is for the pur- pose of precluding the, possibility of any political republican action, adverse to their institutions. While we, around the entire circumference of our nation, leave wide opened the door of entrance, and all the vital energies of our institu- tions, accessible to any influence which 178 DR. BEECHER'S the anti-republican governments of Eu- rope may choose to thrust in upon us. Do these governments indulge a vain fear in thus environing the political in- fluence of Americans, though only tem- porary residents, and even wayfaring men? And have we nothing to appre- hend while European paupers flood us, and Europeans occupy the soil, rear institutions, wield the press, control suffrage, and rush up rapidly to a^com- petition of numbers ? Is our government so compact and iron-sinewed as to bid defiance, safely, to every possible dis- turbing influence from abroad, which can be made to bear upon it 7 Ought there not to be a governmental super- vision of the subject of immigration, which shall place before the nation, annually, the number and general cha- racter of immigrants, that the whole subject may experience the animadver- sion of an enlightened public sentiment, PLEA FOR THE WEST. 179 and the voice of the people aid in the application of the remedy? We entered upon the experiment of self-government, when a homogenous people, with diffidence, and multiplied checks, and balances in our constitution, and have watched and encountered, with decision and care, the dangers de- veloped in the progress of its adminis- tration ; but why should there be such vigilance to guard our institutions from domestic perils, and such reckless impro- vidence in exposing them, unwatched, to the most powerful adverse influence which can be brought to bear upon them from abroad? In respect to the Catholic religion, and its political bearings, there is an obvious and safe course. It is the me- dium between denunciation and impli- cit confidence, between persecution and indiscriminate charity. It includes a thorough knowledge of the principles, DR. BEECHER'S history, and present conduct of the papal church, where its power is unob- structed. To this end, a book is emi- nently needed, containing the authentic documents of the Catholic church, ac- * cessible to ministers and intelligent lay- men of all denominations. These now are scattered through massy folios, or quoted in versatile discussions, and cannot be readily appealed to or con- sulted. A book of well authenticated documents, without note or comment, would nearly supersede the necessity of controversy, and afford ample mate- rial for public sentiment to act upon, which, while it would not encroach on the rights of Catholics, would, by no means, confide to their care the education of large and influential por- tions of our republic. A book of this description would not be invidious. If the Catholic system does not con- tain principles and usages adverse to PLEA FOR THE WEST. 181 free institutions, it would clear it of un- merited odium ; and if it does contain such principles it is the right and duty of the nation to know it. There is nothing in Catholic more than in Pro- testant human nature, to demand im- plicit confidence, or preclude investiga- tion and vigilance. No denomination of Christians, and no class of politi- cians, are so good as to justify implicit confidence, or supersede the necessity of being watched. Responsibility to an enlightened public sentiment is the only effectual guarantee of unperverted lib- erty and political prosperity. But to a correct and universal obser- vation must be added efficient universal action, to rear up, immediately, those institutions, literary and religious, which are indispensable to the intellectual and moral culture of the nation. Our own population is fast outrunning the influ- ence of Christian and literary institu- 16 182 DR. BEECHER'S tions ; and if to us republicans it seems evil to supply them if it grieves us to encounter the expense of maintaining the discipline which is necessary to the perpetuity of government in our way, we have no cause to complain that the powers of Europe should extend to us a gratuitous education, which shall en- able them to avert the annoyance of our example, and govern us their way. If we do not provide the schools which are requisite for the cheap and effectual education of the children of the nation, it is perfectly certain that the Catholic powers of Europe intend to make up the deficiency, and there is no reason to doubt that they will do it, until by immigration and Catholic education we become to such an extent a Catholic nation, that, with their peculiar power of acting as one body, they will become the predominant power of the nation, or if not predominant, sufficient to em- PLEA FOR THE WEST. 183 barrass our republican movements, by the easy access and powerful action of foreign influence and intrigue. We have no right to complain that the Cath- olics of this country, aided from Europe, should seek to accomplish a work which we neglect, and we do not com- plain either of his holiness of Rome or of his majesty of Austria, or his wily minister Metternich. They pursue the policy in supplying our deficiency of ed- ucation, which, with their views of right and self-preservation, they ought to pursue, and the Catholics in this coun- try have a perfect right to gather funds from Europe to purchase lands rear ca- thedrals multiply churches and sus- tain immigrant ministers, and to sustain the unendowed bishoprics for fifty years to come, and establish nunneries, and support the sisterhood, and establish cheap and even gratuitous education amid all the destitute portions of our 184 land. They have a right to do it. and. according to their principles, they ought to do it, and they are doing it, and they will do it, unless as a nation of repub- licans, jealous of our liberties, and prompt to sustain them by a thorough intellectual and religious culture as .well as by the sword, we arise, all de- nominations and all political parties, to the work of national education. " The sole object of this argument touching the Catholics is not to repu- didate them, but to present the facts in the case, and appeal to the nation, whether it will sustain its own institu- tions for the education of its own peo- ple, or depend on the charity of the Catholic despotic governments of Eu- rope. I do it because when the facts are stated, and the eye of the nation is fixed on the subject, unless infatuation has fastened on us, there can be no doubt of the result. Education, intel- PLEA FOR THE WEST. 185 lectual and religious, is the point on which turns our destiny, of terrestrial glory and power, or of shame and ever- lasting contempt, and short is the period of our probation. Indolence and neglect will soon extend over the land the la- mentation, " The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved." The things which belong to our peace are now before our eyes, and our suf- ficiency to secure them is vast and man- ifold. As a nation we are disincum- bered of debt, and from our perilous resources might at once make provi- sions to endow forever the colleges, academies, and schools of the land. Each state, alone, is able to endow its own institutions, and were all legisla- tive provision withheld, there are in the nation individuals of sufficient wealth and patriotism, and munificence, when they perceive the perils and the safe- guards of our liberty, to call into being 16* 186 DR. BEECHER S all those orbs of light which are indis- pensable to the safety and perpetuity of our institutions. And were even those unmindful of their privilege and duty, a republican phalanx, such as once fought the battles and paid the taxes of the revolutionary war, would now command institutions for the de- fence of liberty to arise, as their fathers did the forts and munitions of their day. Every denomination would or- ganize its willing multitude to give and toil till intelligence and holiness should cover the land as the waters cover the sea. But this various and superabun- dant ability and willingness of the na- tion must be called forth in plans of peaceable efficacy the means must be multiplied of providing and sustaining the requisite host of qualified instruc- tors. Institutions, male and female, must be endowed to secure cheaply, the requisite qualification. The national PLEA FOR THE WEST. 187 intellect and morals, will never rise to the exigencies of our preservation, ac- cidentally, or spring up under the hand of ephemeral and inexperienced instruc- tors. The early culture of the national intellect, and heart, is worthy of becom- ing' a profession, and must become a profession, in the hands of duly quali- fied men and women embracing the experience of the past, and the accu- mulating knowledge of coming gener- ations. The education of the nation the culture of its intellect the forma- tion of its conscience, and the regula- tion of its affection, heart, and action, is of all others the most important work, and demands the supervision of persons, of wise and understanding hearts consecrated to the work, and supported and highly honored in ac- cordance with their self-denying, disin- terested, and indispensable labors. It is here that we faulter, and that the 188 DR. BEECHER'S Catholic powers are determined to take advantage of our halting by thrusting in professional instructors and under- bidding us in the cheapness of education calculating that for a morsel of meat we shall sell our birth-right. Ameri- cans, republicans, Christians, can you, will you, for a moment, permit your free institutions, blood bought, to be placed in jeopardy, for want of the requisite intellectual and moral culture. One thing more only demands at- tention, and that is the extension of such intellectual culture, and evangeli- cal light to the Catholic population, as will supercede implicit confidence, and enable and incline them to read, and think, and act for themselves. They are not to be regarded as conspirators against our liberties, their system com- mits its designs and higher movements, like the control of an army, to a few governing minds, while the body of the PLEA FOR THE WEST. 189 people may be occupied in their execu- tion, unconscious of their tendency. I am aware of the difficulty of access, but kindness and perseverance can ac- complish any thing, and wherever the urgency of the necessity shall put in re- quisition the benevolent energy of this Christian nation the work under the auspices of heaven will be done. It is a cheering fact, also, that the nation is waking up a blind and in- discriminate charity is giving place to sober observation, and a Christian feel- ing and language towards Catholics is taking the place of that which was petulant, and exceptionable. There is rapidly extending a just estimate of danger. Multitudes who till recently regarded all notices of alarm as without foundation, are now beginning to view the subject correctly, both in respect to the reality of the danger, and the means which are necessary to avert it. and 190 PLEA FOR THE WEST. both the religious and the political pa- pers are beginning to lay aside the language of asperity and to speak the words of truth and soberness. Under such auspices we commit the subject to the guardianship of heaven, and the intelligent instrumentality of our be- loved country. X <