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indirectly, or as a means to an end. It does not come into the world as a political or social reformer, a merchant, a manufacturer, a broker, or a railroad financier; and has nothing to do with them, further than to tell them it profits a man nothing, if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul; and to impress upon them their obligations to maintain justice and honesty in all their transactions. Christianity, Mr. Derby himself will concede, if he reflects a moment, is a spiritual kingdom, the kingdom of God on earth,-instituted for the direction and government of men in this world indeed, but not for this world; and the goods it proposes, and commands and aids us to seek are not the goods of this earthly life, but the goods of the life to come. Its mission is not to make us rich in this world's wealth, but to make us godly. Hence our Lord bids us seek, not the goods of this life, for that is what the heathen do, but the kingdom of God and His justice,-to set our affections on things above, to labor not for the meat that perisheth, but for that which endureth unto everlasting life; and says, "Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth; where the rust and the moth consume, and thieves dig through and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither the rust nor the moth doth consume, and where thieves neither dig through nor steal."* This is undeniably the teaching of Christianity, and its influence is undoubtedly to make us prefer spiritual to material goods, to detach us from this world, and moderate our desires for the much boasted material civilization of our age. It is true, our Lord says, "Seek first the kingdom of God and his justice, and all these things— the goods of this life-shall be added unto you." But the adjicienda are not proposed as the end, or as the reason why we are to seek the kingdom of God and His justice. They are not offered as the prize to be run after, and are not added because sought, but because they are not sought. No doubt the Christian is a happier man in this world than the non-Christian, but he is so precisely because he lives not for this world, is above it while in it, and has in living for another world, a never-failing source of internal joy and

* St. Matt. vi. 19, 20, 31-33.

consolation which this world can neither give nor take away. In teaching and aiding men to live for truth and justice, for God and heaven, in filling their hearts with Christian love and humility, in moderating their worldly desires, and in subduing their passions, it undoubtedly refines, improves, and civilizes the world, as an incidental or indirect effect, so that human society even in this world is in fact a great gainer by Christianity. But this is not its direct aim, its direct end, the end for which our Lord came into the world, instituted and sustains his religion. To suppose it, were to suppose Christians had no higher aim than had the heathen, and to fall into the error of the old carnal Jews, who applied the prophecies to this life, expected in the Messias a temporal prince, and rejected our Lord because he came only as a spiritual prince, teaching self-denial and detachment from the world, and promising his followers, not temporal greatness and prosperity as their reward, but eternal life in the world to

come.

If this be so, the Christian criterion for judging the respective merits of Catholic and Protestant countries is not that which our jurist and railroad financier has chosen, nay, not that which is chosen by most of the enemies of the Church in Great Britain and the United States. The Christian test is not and cannot be that of material civilization. Be it true, if you will it, that Protestant nations surpass in material greatness and prosperity Catholic nations, it does not move us. The question turns not on that civilization, for that is in the natural order, and not in the Christian order, even when not opposed to it; but it turns on the moral and spiritual virtues of Catholics and Protestants respectively. examining a Catholic country we are to form our judgment from the moral and spiritual virtues, the sanctity, the heavenly tone and temper, the pure and elevated spirit of the individuals who belong to the Catholic communion, and who believe firmly what the Church teaches and observe faithfully whatever she directs or commands. If we find in her communion a single saint made so by believing her doctrines and obedience to her precepts and her counsels, she must be accepted as the Christian Church, for the forming of one saint is, in the Christian

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judgment, a greater work of God than all His other works besides. Now take this criterion, a criterion, which not even Mr. Derby will dare refuse to accept, and we shall find that the assumption that Catholicity is attended by debasement and degradation, and Protestantism by the reverse, or by different results, is rashly made, and is wholly unwarranted by the facts in the case.

We do not suppose that Mr. Derby consciously holds that material civilization is the real end of Christianity, or the supreme good of man or of society. No man born and bred in a community once Christianized can believe any such thing. He no doubt holds that the moral is above the material, and the eternal above the temporal. But some how or other he blends the two together, and regards them either as inseparably connected, or one as uniformly the measure of the other. His difficulty is to separate worldly prosperity and material greatness from Christian sanctity, and poverty from degradation, vice, and crime. He is unable to separate thrift and godliness, and to comprehend that godliness is itself a great gain. He cannot grasp the radical distinction between Christianity and Judaism as a national institution. The Jew was promised a temporal reward for his fidelity to the law given by Moses, and Mr. Derby has a confused thought that it must be the same with the Christian; that he too is promised temporal prosperity as his reward for fidelity to the law of Christ. The Mosaic law was a temporary and a temporal institution, and therefore obedience to it was rewarded by temporal prosperity, and disobedience by temporal adversity; but Christianity is spiritual, and the rewards and punishments it contemplates are like itself spiritual and eternal. Under the Christian law men are judged for what they are in themselves, not by their worldly position or possessions. Our Lord nowhere connects poverty with vice or disgrace, or riches with sanctity and honor. He judges not as the world judges. There was a certain man whose grounds brought forth abundantly, and who had to enlarge his barns and storehouses. Having filled them, he said to himself, Soul, eat, drink, and enjoy thyself, for thou hast goods laid up for thee for many years. Thou fool, said our Lord, this night shall God demand thy soul. Here, what the world calls wisdom God

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E. H. Derby to his Son.

calls folly. Let us understand that the Gospel neither proposes, encourages, nor smiles upon this material civilization, and never confounds it or inseparably connects it with moral and spiritual civilization,-that practice of justice and charity, that love of truth and sanctity which characterize the truly Christian nation. Let us understand this. Christianity judges not the eternal by the temporal, but the temporal by the eternal, the seen by the unseen, the human by the divine, and counts a thing good or evil as it does or does not contribute to the ultimate end of man, union with God in the beatific vision. In the judgment of the true Christian, that social or civilized state will rank highest which offers fewest obstacles to the growth of individuals in the peculiarly Christian virtues, and that nation will stand highest in which these virtues are most abundant, although it may be lowest in regard to trade, manufactures, agriculture, the mechanic arts, and military power. That poor beggar woman who truly loves her God, and lives the life of faith and hope, stands infinitely above that proud lordling, rolling in wealth and thinking only of his own gratifications. Lazarus was infinitely above the rich man at whose gate he lay, and with the crumbs from whose table he begged to be fed. This is a solemn truth, if there be any truth in Christianity. Mr. Derby does not perhaps, any more than thousands of others, lay this to heart, and he may be unconsciously regarding his worldly prosperity as the measure of his growth in sanctity; but even he dare not deny the superiority in the sight of God of Lazarus whose sores the dogs came and licked, to the rich man who fared sumptuously every day, and who when he died went to hell. Like too many of his countrymen, he no doubt associates poverty and sin, and wealth and virtue, but he knows that in doing so he is not judging as a Christian, hardly as a man of natural good

sense.

Now let us as Christians compare Catholic and nonCatholic nations. Mr. Derby asserts that the Catholic system has been attended by debasement and degradation, and that the Reformation has been attended with different results. Is this the fact? We will take a case the most favorable to the Protestant and the least favorable to the Catholic, that can be selected. We will take Protestant

England and Catholic Ireland. England is the country of all others in which Protestantism has had the fairest scope for its development, and where it has been best able during three hundred years to prove its capabilities. Catholic Ireland is the country of all others where Catholicity has labored under the greatest worldly disadvantages. Catholic Ireland has been governed as a conquered country, and governed too by Protestants. The government for three hundred years has been Protestant, and till within the last quarter of a century has done all in its power to trammel the Catholic religion, and to debase and degrade the Catholic population. It deprived Catholics of all political power; it robbed them of all their churches, schools, and seminaries, outlawed their religion, hunted down their clergy as wild beasts, and prohibited, by heavy penalties, all education by Catholics, even the teaching of letters to his child by a Catholic father. It seized all the revenues of the Church, confiscated the estates of Catholic proprietors, even prohibited Catholics from acquiring landed property, or of owning a horse of more than five pounds value. In a word, the Protestant government aided by a Protestant faction in Ireland, far worse than the government itself, has during three hundred years done all in its power to impoverish, to debase, and brutalize the Catholic population. Well, compare Catholic Ireland and Protestant England as we find them to-day, and say which stands highest, judged by the Christian standard? I deny not that there are many Irishmen at home and abroad who are no credit to their religion; I deny not that there are many Irishisms which are not to my taste, and that sometimes annoy me; but no man competent to judge can for one moment hesitate to assert that in a moral and religious point of view, in moral dignity of character, and in the peculiar Christian virtues, those which have the promise of eternal life, the pre-eminence belongs unmistakably to the Catholic Irish. Catholic Ireland is far more moral than Protestant England, has absolutely and relatively fewer crimes, fewer vices, and far less intemperance. You look in vain for that moral debasement and degradation among the Irish peasantry that you meet at every step in the English peasantry, operatives, and miners. Your humblest Irishman who has not lost his religion, has a self

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