olics, and all of them censured me for saying a word in their favour. "A Catholic controversy is as much out of place in my paper, as a political controversy would be in your magazine. Your main reason, then, for asking the insertion of your communication in the Gazette is overruled. "Judge Gaston's letter was in reply to the charge of Senex,' that he had obtained dispensation from the Bishop of Baltimore to commit perjury, and not in answer to the article in your periodical. He merely mentions that your magazine had made a similar charge against him; but this surely does not make you a party to the controversy, or give you any 'right' to reply through my paper. If Judge Gaston has done you any specific injury, through my paper, most certainly you shall be permitted to redress it; but you must confine yourself to that point." Yet even this compliment, of "the sink of iniquity," and "the enemy of God and man," is not enough to satisfy Mr. Robert J. Breckenridge, and he asserts that the editor's refusal was founded on pretexts. By the by, we would remark, that in this same part of Virginia, where this complimentary notion of the Church of Rome is entertained, ten years have not elapsed since we have been assured by a respectable priest, that only a few months previously he had been obliged to submit to the examination of his head, to satisfy the well-informed and enlightened brethren in the faith of Mr. Robert J. Breckenridge, that he had no horns, after which they took his word for his having no tail. Mr. Breckenridge next states that he applied to the editor of the "Baltimore Gazette," requesting that, as he published Judge Gaston's letter, copying it from the Lexington Gazette," he would publish his reply, and the refusal of the Lexington editor. The editor wrote a respectful reply, which is also given, declining the publication, as, convinced by experience, that it could not be usefully or safely admitted into the columns of a newspaper. Thus disappointed, he wrote to the editor of the "Baltimore Chronicle" the following note: "Baltimore, March 9th, 1836. "Robert J. Breckenridge presents his respects to Mr. Barnes, and begs leave to trouble him, so far as to ask his attention to the subject contained in the packet of letters sent him herewith. "The entire object of this application is to obtain the publication in the Chronicle, of the letter addressed by R. J. B. to the Lexington (Va.) Gazette; and which was refused, first by that paper, and then by the Gazette of this city, for reasons and under circumstances which the letters of Messrs. Baldwin and Gwynn will explain. "He is the more urgent for the publication of the letter which he asks Mr. B. to admit into his journal; because, as he is on the eve of leaving the United States, he wishes Mr. Gaston to see, as early as possible, the position which he is resolved to occupy, as regards a subject with relation to which all the whole Catholics and half Catholics in the country, seem already so perfectly organized for Mr. Gaston, and against the very clearest principles of morality and public virtue. "Alas! sir, if public men are allowed in the most formal, official acts, to take false oaths, and those who love truth well enough to remark on it, are to be held up to public scorn, and then denied the only effectual means of defence, because there is a certain superstition in the country which tolerates false swearing, then, indeed, the public press and the public morals too are sadly out of joint." And, in his publication, he appends to his letter to the editor of the Baltimore Gazette, the following kind and charitable note to the following portion of his text: "It is now above a year since the paper you now edit, (which was then controlled by another person,*) published repeated attacks on me, and refused to allow me to defend myself." After this set of documents, the address is wound up to its conclusion, in the following words: And is it so great a crime to love truth? Has it ceased to be a sin against God, and a good morals, for fraud and falsehood to be formcrime under our laws, and an offence against ally and even officially committed? No, this is not so, by any means. If I had acted as Judge Gaston has, my sect would have deposed me from my ministry-my congregation would have shut my church doors against me-my friends the whole world would have had but one opinion would have wept over me, as one undone-and about it-and that opinion would have been that I was a degraded man. Then, why not mete the same measure to Judge Gaston? I will tell you why. It is because Judge Gaston is a Papist; and his creed admits and approves his conduct. And therefore, let every man that loves God, pity and forgive Judge Gaston; and frown down his pestiferous superstition, as the parent of all vice, and the enemy of every virtue! "But is the public press already Catholic or Infidel? Is the whole editorial corps converted, this is by no means so. subsidized, afraid, or totally indiflerent? No, If a Methodist judge was to take a false oath, or a Presbyterian judge commit a flagrant violation of morality, or an *This individual, who, though nominally a Protestant, was, as an editor, the mere creature of the Papist party, and especially of the priests, is now in the Maryland penitentiary, for robbing the Baltimore post-office. I deplore his unhappy fate; but, at the same time, I cannot too gratefully recall the goodness of God, that has so soon brought to light and to just punishment a man whose position gave him great power, a power which he used in the most cruel manner to undermine my character, at the same moment that other minions of the priests were threaten. ing my life. God has thus far signally preserved me from both conspiracies." Episcopal judge outrage public decency, or a Deistical judge be guilty of deliberate perfidy in official affairs, in all these cases, the public press would fully respond to the public feeling-and the judge would be disgraced, if not degraded! Why deal out a different measure to a Catholic judge? I will tell you why. It is because every Catholic in the world makes common cause with every other Catholic in the world, and with the Pope of Rome, as the head of all the world, and with the Catholic church, as the mother and mistress of all the churches in the world! Virtue is nothing, truth is nothing, religion is nothing, country is nothing: the church is ALL: and the Pope its head, and all its true members form one universal conspiracy against every good of man, and the honour of God himself. Printers feel the force, though they may deny the reality of this conspiracy. If Mr. Gwynn abuses me, or any other Protestant, in his paper, no one interferes; it is a personal affair, to be decided on its merits. If he writes ten lines against Archbishop Eccleston, in eight days, his paper would probably be ruined. And this, although every word he has said of him were pregnant with truth, and vital to the public welfare! Oh! then let every man that loves his race, his children, his inestimable rights, his glorious country, rouse himself up to the contemplation of the principles and designs of this atrocious society, which aims at no less than the universal monarchy of the world; and which, though it pursues this object under the guise of religion, is bound by no principle, human or divine. Oh! how will ingly would I become their victim, if that might be the means of making my country feel that every sentiment of patriotism, every emotion of philanthropy, and every principle of true religion equally impel us to suppress, by all lawful means, this unparalleled superstition, as the enemy alike of God and man. "Ro. J. BRECKENRIDGE. "Baltimore, March 12, 1836." We have the honour of knowing Judge Gaston, and we feel pained that so pure and gifted a son of America should be thus assailed, even were it by a maniac. We know something of Mr. Ro. J. Breckenridge, and of the fantastic tricks which he played in Baltimore; and we do know the whole history of what he is pleased to call perjury and dispensation. We have heretofore, through respect for Judge Gaston, abstained from interfering in this matter, and probably we shall act against his wishes and feelings, and judgment, in noticing it even now. The value of oaths in the estimation of Catholics is evident, from the notorious fact, as honourable to one party as it is disgraceful to the other, that the British and Irish Catholics, until 1829, and the American Catholics, until the period of the revolution, were kept under the most galling yoke of a bitter and degrading persecution, merely because they would not do what Mr. Ro. J. Breckenridge asserts Judge Gaston has done, viz., swear that they believed the Protestant religion to be true. The charge then made upon the Catholics, as a body, is utterly false, and false to the knowledge of every man who has cognizance of this fact, and to us it is most strange, if Mr. Ro. J. Breckenridge has yet to learn this portion of history. The charge, as respects the tenets of the Roman Catholic Church, is utterly false, and false to the knowledge of every person who has the least information regarding those tenets; and to us it would appear very strange, that Mr. Ro. J. Breckenridge, who is in his own estimation and in that of thousands of our fellow-citizens, a teacher in Israel, should be destitute of such information. Now we come to Mr. Gaston's case. This gentleman never took any oath is this case, save to do the duties of the office to which he was appointed by the state. He was not required to swear that he believed in the truth or falsehood of any religion. The candidate is not the judge of his own qualifications: the state committed to certain functionaries the selection of certain officers, gave them rules by which they were to be guided in the selection. It was notorious to every one concerned in making the appointment, that Mr. Gaston was a Roman Catholic, he avowed it, he proclaimed it, he gloried in it. Mr. Gaston was no candidate for the office; it was after repeated solicitation from persons who could confer it, that he consented to accept it. It was they who were charged not to confer it upon a disqualified person; they knew that Mr. Gaston was a Roman Catholic; if he was disqualified, it was they who forced the office upon one whom they knew to be disqualified who violated their duty. If it was law that they should not give him the office, the violation of that law was on their side; they, not he, were appointed to execute it. We do not say that he would act correctly in permitting himself to be made the instrument for its violation. We merely have established this point, that if there was an unconstitutional appointment, they who violated their trust, were not Catholics. Many of them were of that sect to which Mr. Ro. J. Breckenridge belongs, and which he says would depose him if he did what they induced Mr. Gaston to do. But the question properly is, whether there was a violation of the law on the part of those who made the appointment. Some years ago, the general impression was upon the minds of the few Catholics in North Carolina, that they were excluded from office, by the article in question-probably Mr. Gaston himself was of that opinion; he is known to have spoken doubt- | qualification was administered, and the copy ingly upon the subject, about fifteen years of the oath of office was furnished to him. since, and to have then alleged as a reason Inquiry was made of the best jurists in the for declining an office which some of his state. Mr. Gaston, not only from the legal friends wished him to take, that he would rank which he occupied, but also from the prefer waiting until he could be better satis- peculiar attention which he must have paid fied as to the full and precise legal effect of to the subject, and from the great respect this very curious and discreditable 32d and confidence entertained for him by the article. bishop, was amongst others naturally called upon; and after a thorough examination, it was distinctly ascertained that the best lawyers in North Carolina were of opinion that whatever the object of the framers of that article may have been, it clearly was not drawn in such a manner as to exclude Catholics from office, and that for any Catholic to refuse office upon that ground, would be to force upon the article a construction which it did not legally bear, and thus to enact a persecution against the body to which he belonged, exactly such as would gratify the kind and courteous Ro. J. Breckenridge, who has escaped so many imaginary dangers to which he has been exposed, through the support which he gives to what he calls religion, by means which we shall not stoop to describe. North Carolina is not in the Diocess of Baltimore, but in that of Charleston, and the very case in question came for examination, in an ecclesiastical point of view, not before the Archbishop of Baltimore, who was not the ordinary prelate, but before Dr. England, the Bishop of Charleston, who was, and is the ordinary, not in the case of Judge Gaston, but in three other distinct cases; and a decision was had several years before Judge Gaston took that oath which Ro. J. Breckenridge has called perjury. In Salisbury, a Roman Catholic was elected chief magistrate, and entered upon office at the request of his respectable fellow-citizens of the various Protestant denominations whilst in office, he desired to be admitted to the sacraments; the clergyman to whom he applied, hesitated to admit him, upon the ground of his having violated the constitution of the state, in accepting an office from which Catholics were excluded by the 32d article. He said that he had been advised by good lawyers, that this was a mistake, that the article could not be so construed, and that he would keep the office to which his fellow-citizens elected him, and also insist upon his religious rights, unless it should be proved that he had been badly advised upon the subject. The priest applied to the Bishop of Charleston, for instructions how to act. The answer of the prelate was to the effect that he should in the first instance be satisfied, not by his own private views, but by the best advice that he could obtain from professional gentlemen, as to the exact meaning of the article in question-and that if by its fair construction Catholics were excluded, the person in question could not be admitted to the sacraments, if he did not resign the office. And further, that if previous to entering into office he was required to swear that he was constitutionally qualified, he had sworn rashly, amidst such doubts, and could not be excused from censure. By a very unusual coincidence, the good Protestants of Wilmington, and of Fayetteville had made similar elections, and the bishop was also consulted respecting the ecclesiastical standing of those two other Catholic magistrates. He was distinctly informed that no oath requiring their declaration of constitutional Thus, it appears from the above statement, that whether erroneously or otherwise, the principal Protestant jurists of North Carolina had assured the Roman Catholics that they were not disqualified for office by the unfortunate article in question; and the Protestants of Salisbury, of Fayetteville, and of Wilmington, acted upon this view of the law, and elected them to office, and Mr. Gaston, after still further investigation and consultation, had every shadow of doubt removed from his mind, and told the writer of this article, that he did not know a respectable jurist in Carolina, who had any hesitation as to the eligibility of Catholics. Thus, after years of examination and reflection, the whole Protestant legal talent of the state gave to this very article a construction upon which the executive and legisla tive bodies have acted in concord in making the appointment of Judge Gaston to the bench, and because he accepts the office and takes the usual oath to discharge its duty, the Rev. Ro. J. Breckenridge dares to arraign for perjury one of the most deservedly respected men, for purity of principle, for high honour, for moral worth, for legal and political conduct, and for talent, taste, and information that his state possesses. We have heard some persons charge Ro. J. Breckenridge with having taken his peculiar mode of polemics for the purpose of attracting more attention, and getting better supported by his party, whilst others ex cused him on the plea of a peculiarity of head. To us, it matters nothing whether he acts from calculation, from insanity, or from delusion. We leave him and his vile and vulgar productions, to their admirers, whilst we deeply regret the connexion, even as a calumniator, of the name of Ro. J. Breckenridge, with that of Will. Gaston. CATHOLIC SCHOOLS-EDUCATION AND INSANITY-AND NEW YORK SCHOOL QUESTION. [The first of the three short articles that follow, which may have an interest for some, as a reminiscence of "Bishop England's School," is extracted from the United States Catholic Miscellany, No. 9 of Vol. I., for 1822. The second, though a mere jeu d'esprit, apparently thrown off to amuse an idle moment, and to fill a vacant column, alludes to a subject which furnishes matter for deep and philosophical reflection, and, as it were, in one or two broken hints, points out one most special way in which the Catholic religion is a blessing, and Protestantism à curse to the human race; the first, by producing and preserving mental health-the latter, by causing and perpetuating mental disease. This article is taken from the United States Catholic Miscellany, No. 6 of Vol. XVIII., for 1838. The third, valuable, as the only article, so far as is known to the editors, written by Bishop England, upon a topic which, at the time, was one of absorbing interest, was published in the Catholic Miscellany, No. 34 of Vol. XX., for 1841.] CATHOLIC SCHOOLS. PROTEUS, A WRITER WITH FOUR NAMES. JUST before the publication of our last number, and too late for insertion therein, we received a letter with the signature Candor, written at full length, an imperfect attempt at a signature commencing with H., and another commencing with Fair-the two last imperfectly blotted; so that the writer forgot his own name. It reminded us of the story of an old gentleman of the Society of Friends, who was sometimes rather absent, and calling at the post-office to inquire, "Hast thou any letters for me?" "Your name, sir," the clerk not being a Friend. "My name-my name-verily I have forgotten." Having walked off a few paces, an acquaintance met him, and saluted Friend Grub;" upon which, returning, he immediately told the clerk, "Now, friend, I recollect my name is Grub." But he was more happy than H., Fair, or Candor, or An Observer-for truly, instead of two, our friend has four names. Between addressing to us his letter of three signatures, and to the Southern Intelligencer that of one signature, he evidently forgot his name; we hope he may keep this as a memorandum, to recollect his name in future. As the substance of both letters is the same, though their diction is quite dissimilar, the publication of one will suffice. We, therefore, to save ourselves, and our printer trouble, give that which appeared in the "Southern Intelligencer" of Saturday; another motive for our doing so is, that Mr. Proteus, because we think a man who changes his "From an editorial article headed' France.' in the Catholic Miscellany, of July 17, 1822, I extract these remarks: "There are schools of infidelity and schools of religion, and there are schools of mere human learning. The first, are, indeed, schools of perdition, and such schools, the philosophists wish for; the second, the missionaries would support, and exert themselves, nay, sacrifice themselves to maintain and uphold; the third they approve of, but look upon to be imperfect, because they believe man is made for the next world. not for this; but establish a school upon the two last principles, and those missionaries will endure a martyrdom to uphold it.' "Let the reader mark those words which I have italicised. Permit me to inquire, is the Catholic school in our city, an imperfect one? or according to the sentiments here expressed, is it one of those which the missionaries would exert themselves to maintain and uphold-is it a school for religion, and not merely for human learning? If it be not an imperfect school,' why are not the public informed? and then Protestants would know how they ought to act. They would have a view of the whole ground. "Again: Are not all the clergy of the Roman Catholic Church considered as missionaries? The French missionaries support schools of religion, and do not the American missionaries do the same? Are the latter less zealous than the former? If an American missionary of Rome sets up a school, will he set up an imperfect one, or the contrary? will he not 'support,' exert 'himself, nay, sacrifice himself,' and 'endure a martyrdom' 'to uphold' a school for religion? Finally, is it not candid in the French missionaries to say that they prefer to the Lancasterian school, a school of religion—and that their schools are not intended merely to inculcate human learning? "AN OBSERVER. "P. S. Will not the Catholic schools in America, in due season, be improved to the French standard, if they are not already formed on the perfect plan which is only known at present to the initiated? Have they not a common object with the Miscellany and the Cathedral?" Now, to answer these fourteen questions would be very troublesome, and, besides, Proteus could not expect that we should lead him into all our arcana, nor into those of the conductors of "the Catholic school in this city." First, we will not lead him into ours, for we are great rogues, and rogues do not like to tell secrets; secondly, we will not lead him into those of the conductors of "the Catholic school of this city," because we do not know such a school, nor such conductors, and to tell him the secrets of non-existents, would be a hard task. We suppose, by Catholic school, he means the seminary under the inspection of the Catholic bishop, in which the religion of the children is neither known nor inquired into; but in which, we believe, the number of Catholic children is the smallest, in proportion to the others. If this be his meaning, his object is apparent. His letter is but the public repetition, by insinuation, of a vile calumny, which has been industriously propagated through this city, during the last six months, and disseminated by individuals whom we, at one time, mistook for gentlemen and men of honour; as well as by the herd whose character was always too well marked, and too plainly known, to admit the possibility of deception. sought to undermine it. The parents and the friends of their pupils, well know how to estimate the weight of the insinuations; and to those and the pupils themselves, they will leave to answer the writers and the whisperers, who would endeavour to make the city of Charleston the theatre of bigotry, and to draw into private life, and across the social circle, the line which should be confined to mark only the public boundaries of religion. Not content with publicly insinuating what every person knows to be false, the writer more than insinuates against the Roman Catholic bishop, charges of hypocrisy, deliberate lying, and the worst species of deceit-for that gentleman publicly pledged himself in the prospectus, that no religious be introduced into the seminary. instruction, of any kind whatsoever, should Roman Catholic missionaries approve of For ourselves, we repeat our assertionschools of mere human learning, though they consider them to be imperfect, because they teach only the learning of this world, not that of the next, which is better;" and of this latter learning, they are more ready to be the channels of communication; but, they may feel convinced, that they are bound by a solemn contract, publicly made, and upon the faith of which, the parents of children who differ from them in religion, have entrusted their sons to their charge; when they violate this, we shall be amongst the first to declare, that they have forfeited the public confidence by the breach of their contract, and to say that no child, of any denomination, should be placed under their care. WANT OF EDUCATION. THE gross ignorance of the majority of the English peasantry and mechanics, is eminently discreditable to the Legislature and to the Establishment. The Sun thus laments the fact, and, in part, accounts for it : It is not a little humiliating to England, so superior, in some respects, to continental states, that she stands almost at the bottom of the scale as regards the general education of the people. Holland and Prussia are infinitely superior in that respect; France is superior, and making every year rapid progress in rivalling these two national education in Ireland, divided by the ancountries, nay, even more has been done for tipathies and prejudices of two contending religi We will venture to say, that the conduc- ous sects, than has been done in Protestant tors of the Philosophical and Classical Semi-England. According to the last report of the nary, will give themselves as little concern about the fickle being who now openly assails the institution, as they have done about the moles, who, at an earlier period, Commissioners, 1,300 schools are fully esta blished in Ireland, in which instruction is given to about 170,000 children, more than two-thirds of whom are in the provinces of Leinster and Ulster, where Protestants are most numerous. |