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Chosen no: R-1022 a, from: 1888 Year. |
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Romanism And The Schools.
The Christian
Herald says:--
"An
attack on the Public School System is reported from the Northwest. The Roman
Catholics are endeavoring to so curtail the efficiency and development of the
public schools as to fill sectarian schools with the children for whom the
public schools have no provision. The Evening Post mentions several
movements of this character. At Barton,
Wis., the Roman Catholics
attended the annual meeting in force, and passed a resolution that no public
school should be maintained for a year. At Melrose, Minn., the priests
succeeded in getting the public school year shortened, thus giving the parents
the option of letting the children remain idle or sending them to the Romanist
schools. And in Stearns county, Minn.,
the Romanist catechism is openly taught in the schools in defiance of the law,
while religious instruction is given by the priests either at the opening or
closing of the schools."
An
English writer of some note, H. G. Guinness, writes thus:--
"Fifty
years ago there were not 500 Roman priests in Great Britain; now there are 2,600.
Fifty years ago there were not 500 chapels, now there are 1,575. Fifty years
ago there were no monasteries at all in Great Britain; now there are 225. There
were even then sixteen convents, but now there are over 400 of these barred and
bolted and impenetrable prisons, in which 15,000 English women are kept
prisoners at the mercy of a celibate clergy, who have power unless their bequests
are obeyed, to inflict on these hapless and helpless victims torture under the
name of penance. Fifty years ago there were but two colleges in Great Britain
for the training of Roman Catholic priests-- i.e. of men bound by oath to act
in England as the agents of a foreign power, the one great object of which is
avowed to be the dismemberment of our empire and the ruin of our influence in
the world; now there are twenty-nine such schools. And, strangest of all, England, which once abolished monasteries, and
appropriated to national use the ill-gotten gains of Rome, is now actually endowing Romanism in
her empire to the extent of over five million dollars per annum." (The
exact amount is L.1,052,657.)
The
chief result of Home Rule is to be the extirpation of Protestantism in Ireland. Catholic
Progress says: "The woes of Ireland
are due to one single cause--the existence of Protestantism in Ireland. The
remedy can only be found in the removal of that which causes the evil. Would
that every Protestant meeting-house were swept from the land! Then would Ireland recover
himself, and outrages be unknown."
That
this attempt would be made is not to be questioned. Cardinal Manning insists
that it is a sin, and even "insanity," to hold that men have an
inalienable right to liberty of conscience and of worship, or to deny that Rome has the right to
repress by force all religious observances save her own, or teach that
Protestants in a Catholic country should be allowed the exercise of their
religion. "Catholicism," says a Roman magazine, "is the most
intolerant of creeds; it is intolerance itself. The impiety of religious
liberty is only equaled by its absurdity."
A most
important point to be borne in mind in consideration of this question is, that
Romanism is not a religion merely, but a political system. We are of course
bound to allow to Roman Catholics the liberty of conscience which we claim for
ourselves; but we are not bound by any law, human or divine, to allow them the
right of conspiring for the overthrow of our liberties, government, and empire.
Adam Smith well says: "The constitution of the Church of Rome may be
considered the most formidable combination that was ever formed against the
authority and security of civil government, as well as against the liberty,
reason, and happiness of mankind."
W.T. R-1022a : page 2 - 1888r