ten millions, still it is right that the most | it was urged, among other things, that no rescientific, and the most enlightened division liance was to be placed on the statement of himof our fellow-citizens should know what are self or his witness; that they did not care how the principles of-we will not call them that nothing more was required of them in order they testified, it being a principle of their creed what we believe they approximate to, if to the forgiveness of their sins than to confess they are not, half a million of the inhabitants them to their priest! If so, permit me to ask of this Union-but of 250,000 beings who what a deep and deadly prejudice is such an live, move, and have their being in our re- opinion_calculated to produce? Nothing can public, and which little section holds the more effectually unnerve the arm raised for the same principles as do, perhaps, more than defence of Irishmen in courts of justice. It is a too prevalent complaint among our countrymen, 200,000,000 of the present inhabitants of this that they cannot procure justice when sued for globe; for such is a moderate estimate of in opposition to those of any other nation. And the number of Roman Catholics now in the do we not here discover the cause? Can it be world. And as this large body contains [by] expected that courts and juries influenced by far [the] greater number of the civilized part for confirmation is the end of strife; but if that such an opinion can do them justice? An oath of mankind, their principles cannot be a oath is disbelieved, if the party making it is prematter of indifference to those who are com- sumed to be guided by a belief that whether he pelled to dwell in their society. Not only speaks truth or falsehood he has nothing to fear, are our Protestant fellow-citizens obliged to of what avail is it other than to mock justice? dwell along with us, but to the north they No range of our imagination can embrace in one have Catholic Canada, to the south they those against whom it is entertained. It singles view the mischievous effects of this opinion to have a vast Catholic peninsula, and to the them out as beings dangerous to the peace of southwest they have Catholic Mexico. society, while it deprives them of the power of defending themselves against numerous acts of injustice which persons thus circumstanced are doomed to suffer."

How deplorable, then, must be the situation of our Protestant fellow-citizens, if Catholics have no moral obligation to restrain them from mischief, and if no oath can bind them to any duty, or to the disclosure of truth?

We have been led to these observations

by the facts which it disgusts us to observe upon; but the health of the community sometimes requires that, however offensive may be the matter, a contagious nuisance must be approached for removal. In all civilized societies lawyers are supposed to be gentlemen of information. Yet what has been the exhibition in New York? We take it from the columns of the "Truth Teller." In the publication of August 19th, is a letter signed Juvenis, of which the following is an extract:

"SIR-Catholics complain, and justly, of the misrepresentation of their religious creed. It is a subject equally misunderstood by Protestants and Dissenters in the old and new world. This is greatly to be regretted, as it not only furnishes powerful obstacles to the emancipation of the Catholic at home, but greatly increases the difficulties he has to contend with abroad. If he remains in the land of his nativity, he is enslaved; if he quits it for another, he is destined to encounter prejudices so strong as to place him, in fact, without the protection of the laws. "I have been led into these reflections by a striking instance of the practical effect of these prejudices, in a case which lately came under my observation. A Catholic made application for the benefit of the insolvent act before one of the judges. He was opposed with great pertinacity and virulence. In confirming his own statements, and disproving the allegations of his opponents, he had occasion to examine a number of witnesses of the Catholic persuasion. In the zeal of his adversaries to defeat his application,

Commenting upon which, in his publication of the 26th, the editor of that paper says, amongst other remarks:

bringing with them the true story of their own "In 1620 the Puritans landed at Plymouth, persecution, and the false story of Catholic enormity with which mercenary writers had stained the page of history. Their minds were tainted with the sorry prejudices matured against Roman Catholics during the reign of the virgin They had been taught to regard them as the Elizabeth, the predecessor of the first Stuarts. most idolatrous and abominable of beings, and their belief descended in all its falsity from their children's children to the present generation. Roman Catholics of any country were esteemed bad enough-but Irish Roman Catholics were regarded by them as the very worst of beings. And why this particular prejudice? Because the lying histories, and fabricated calumnies, and matchless vituperations of British authors reached them, and were implicity relied on as authentic and true, at once confirming them in their prejudices, which tradition had excited, and stigma. tizing the character of the miserable Trish Catholic. But does that prejudice now exist? Look to the communication of Juvenis in our last; look into the courts of civil and criminal jurisprudence in America; look to the disposition and feeling of those who should be charitable, if nothing more, towards Irishmen, and the answer is ready. We ourselves know of the existence of that prejudice-because we have seen its malevolence evinced before our very eyes, in many courts of justice. We have seen the book snatched from the hand of a Catholic witness, during the very administering of the oath, because it had no cross on it. We have heard the sneer of contempt as audibly on the introducing of a Catholic Irishman as a witness, as the voice of rejection or discredit could have made it. We

have listened with astonishment to the interro

gatories of court, counsel, and jury, when put to a Catholic under direct as well as cross examination. We have wondered again and again at their ideas with respect to that holy religion from which their fathers were apostates. They seem ingly have thought, and continue still to think, that the precepts of Christianity, as taught without either looseness or vitiation by the successors of the Apostles, had and still have a direct tendency to moral depravation; that Irishmen who are Catholics are infinitely below belief, even when they are under oath, and are sensibly feeling that the wrath of an offended God awaits their want of verity. And this is the belief of those of whom JUVENIS has spoken!—and depraved the heart must be, and corrupted must be the intellect, that would, in spite of education, give credence to such opinion. The man who is conscious of the rectitude of his own heart, is slow to credit another's baseness.'

6

As to the idea that a Catholic does not consider the oath binding unless there be a cross marked upon the book, it is not peculiar to New York. We state, and from our knowledge of the judges and bar of Charleston, both of which we highly respect, and for many members of each of which we have sincere and ardent friendship, we regret to be obliged to state that several are so absolutely ignorant of the principles of the creed of the great bulk of the civilized world, as to imagine that we do not consider ourselves bound upon oath unless there is a cross marked on the book of the Gospels. When we first heard that such ignorance existed in a body which ought to be enlightened,

we were really incredulous; but we now know it by our own experience. This we could pass over with the mere expression of our regret that gentlemen of education should be so ignorant, and have acted upon an offensive calumny. But in another part of this state, in the District of York, an exhibition took place last year, for the correctness of our statement of which we have the authority of the learned judge who presided. A criminal was put upon his trial, and the testimony against him was conclusive; a lawyer who was engaged for the defence had the effrontery to contend that there could be no conviction, because the principal witness was not a man whose oath could be safely relied upon, for there were witnesses of undoubted veracity to prove that it was strongly suspected that the principal witness was a Roman Catholic. The learned judge reprobated in becoming terms such gross misconduct. But what is to be said of the learned gentleman who urged the objection? What a yell would ring from every printing office in the United States, if in any of our southern republics it would be urged by a learned lawyer that a Protestant was not to be believed upon oath in the court of justice! The demoralizing influence of Popery, the gross ignorance of Papists, the outrage upon Protestant honour!!! We could not dare to utter one syllable in defence. But as it was only said of Catholics, the whole thing is just and right, and the lawyer is learned and liberal.

REMARKS ON THE USURPATION OF THE TITLE "CATHOLIC."

[The following brief article, which was written at about the time when the Oxford Controversy was first becoming a matter of general interest in this country, is extracted from the United States Catholic Miscellany" for March 6, 1841. It will be seen from the date, that it was written but a year and one month before the death of Bishop England; and although evidently not intended as a formal and laboured argument, it has been thought by the editors, that it might have some interest, as showing the way in which his strong and emphatically common-sense judgment threw aside, with a motion partly playful and partly indignant, that claim to a Catholicity out of the Communion of Rome, which he did not live to combat with more powerful and carefully prepared weapons.]

to exclude all the others. To this we have very little to observe, beyond asking with St. Paul:* "Is Christ divided?" Seriously, do our brethren say that "Antichrist" is Christ; that the "Lady of Babylon" is his pure and immaculate spouse, for which he "delivered himself up.... that he might present it to himself, a glorious Church, not

WE have, of late, been not a little amused | pellation "Catholic" to one alone, would be at some curious essays that fell under our view, in which the writers seriously undertook to show that the "nicknames" which are given to us by our friends, and by our enemies, in the several Protestant societies, are by no means uncourteous," ," and that we have no reason to complain of their want of urbanity. It is said, that all the divisions of the Church of Christ form His Catholic Church; and, that to give the ap

* 1 Cor. i. 13.

having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish?" We were always under the impression that the Saviour had but "one fold," under "one Shepherd;"+ [that] this one church was one body, and one spirit," as there is but "one Lord, one faith, one baptism." Nay, we even thought that its fidelity was to be exhibited, by all its members, so far as doctrine is concerned, "speaking the same thing, that there be no schisms among them." But it seems that we were in error;-that this was a delusion; -that the church is a conglomeration of battling disputants, excommunicating each other, denouncing each other, charging each other with destructive error, each proclaiming that the other has substituted his own delusions and mistakes for the teaching of Christ.

And this is the ONE CATHOLIC CHURCH! Be it so. It is an improvement upon Christianity, effected by placing the Catholic Church somewhat in that point of view [in which] Pope St. Leo the Great, once placed pagan Rome. "Magnam existimabat se habere religionem, quia nullum respuebat errorem," "She eswas, we think, his expression. teemed herself to have great religion, because she rejected no error." Thus, all the errors and heresies that exist in Christendom are found in the Catholic Church of Christ!

This is a glorious manifestation! Who, now, can deny that the discovery of the art of printing, the mariner's compass, the blowpipe, and the application of the force

Eph. v. 25, 27. + Eph. iv. 4, 5.

+ John x. 16. 1 Cor. i. 10. I [Magnam sibi videbatur assumpsisse religionem, quia nullam respuebat falsitatem. Serm. 1. In Natal. Pet. et Paul. Op. S. Leon.

P. 73. Edit. Raynaud.]

[It may seem to some that this consequence cannot be strictly charged upon those who make the claim of Catholicity only for Episcopal churches. But though individuals may be acquitted of holding it in all its breadth and length-yet, it is certainly deducible from the principles which they have advanced against the Roman Church; moreover, these heresies are found within the pale of their Episcopal Church, and intentionally tolerated by her authority; persons of great weight in their own party, excuse all the eastern heretics; some, have excused the continental Protestants; and the same kind of vague, miscalled Catholicism which they advocate, is now put forth by many persons out of the Episcopal communion, for other sects, with as much plausibility as by themselves. Thus, it may be truly said, that according to the theory which separates Catholicity from the visible unity of the Catholic Church centred in the Roman See, "all the errors and heresies that exist in Christendom" may claim a place within the Church of Christ.]

of steam, have each and all essentially
contributed to enable men better to ascer-
tain what Jesus Christ taught to his Apostles
eighteen hundred years ago, in Judea?

Thus, in this one, holy, Catholic and
Apostolic Church, we are taught that God
revealed to us, that in his one nature, there
are three divine persons; and that there are
not three divine persons: in that one, holy,
Catholic Church we are taught, that God
has, by an unchangeable decree from all
eternity predestined a large portion of the
human family to eternal damnation, with-
out any regard to their disposition, or their
correspondence with grace; and we are
also taught that he did not so predestinate
them without such regard. We are taught
that man is free, and has power to correspond
with grace; and we are taught that he has
no such freedom or ability. We are taught
in that one Catholic Church, that Christ is
the incarnate God, whom all men should
adore; and, that he is not God, and that it
is damnable idolatry to adore him. We are
taught that he instituted bishops to govern
his church, and that they are an order su-
perior to priests. We are also taught that
he not only did not so distinguish the orders,
and make the institution, but that he con-
demned as impious and arrogant the prin-
ciple on which such teaching rests. In that
one Catholic Church we are taught, that by
the divine institution the sacraments confer
In this one Catholic
grace; and we are also taught that they do
not confer grace.
Church we are taught ten thousand other
contradictions; and this one Catholic Church
is described by St. Paul, as the "pillar and
* of it the Saviour
ground of the truth;'
"And if he will not hear the church,
says:
let him be to thee as the heathen and pub-
lican;" [and, again:] "He that believeth
not, shall be condemned."

But which side of the contradiction is to be believed? Yea, even that will not save; for, if one proposition taught by this newlyinvented Catholic Church is believed, the contradictory proposition which she teaches is not believed. And thus the believer is an unbeliever, and every believer is to be condemned for his unbelief! What an exhibition of Christian truth;-of Christian logic;-of human reason, and of divine wisdom. What a church is this, to triumph over the folly of infidelity? With this one, Catholic Church we, at least, have no concern.

But, again, we are mistaken; for the essayists inform us that the "Romanists," as they are pleased to baptize us, are in this Catholic Church: [the title] "Catho

* 1 Tim. iii. 15. † Matt. xviii. 17; Mar. xvi. 16.

lic" belongs to them, but not exclusively to them. We cannot but feel grateful for the generosity of the writers. But "we will none of it." If we can have no better claim than this to the name, we are done with it. We will prefer, like the mother whom Solomon discovered, to let our competitors and would be partners, have the entire child, than [that] it should be thus mangled, in order to bestow upon us an useless and decaying shred.

had many adherents; they formed a sepa rate body; they did not unite with any society previously in existence; they proclaimed the Catholic Church which they had left, to be unsound, erroneous, tyrannical, and so forth. Yet it was known to be the Catholic Church. Zuinglius also left it. "He proclaimed Luther to be an obstinate heretic, and a perverter of God's truth; Luther returned the compliment; both stood aloof from the Catholic Church, and King Henry VIII., wrote against the declamations of both, and supported the Catholic Church. In 1529, the princes who espoused the cause of Luther, protested at Spires, against a decree of the Diet; and they were known as Protestants, and frequently described themselves by that appellation. The opinions of Zuinglius were sustained and modified by Calvin; and the body which adhered to them took the names of "Reformers," and called their society-The "Reformed Church." The Catholic Church was accused by them, as well as by the Protestants, of remaining incorrigibly and unchangeably attached to her old errors. She retained also the great bulk of her children in her communion;-she kept her doctrine, her government, and her name: but They say that "Papist" should not offend her opponents now commenced giving to us, because the Papa, or Pope, is our first her and her children a great variety of pastor. The fact is admitted to the same "nicknames;" and this, we say, was to extent, and in the same manner, as that give it a very mild appellation, exceedingly which we have just noticed respecting discourteous." She remained unchanged Rome. What then is the discourtesy! We in doctrine; and kept her name unchanged. answer-it is discourteous to attempt to de- The other folk came out from her; and, prive us of our old family name; it is dis- amongst other foul tricks, they called her courteous to attempt to give it to our oppo- ugly names, and would not give her the apnents; it is discourteous to attempt to sub-pellation which she had from the beginstitute "nicknames" in its stead.

The essayists then enter into a variety of pretty disquisitions to show that "Romanist" is not a name at which we should take offence: for the prelate whom we acknowledge as our chief is the Bishop of Rome. We admit all the fact, nor do we quarrel with what is to us a source of high congratulation and satisfaction, that we adhere to Rome, the see of Peter; that glorious church where Paul poured out all his doctrine with his blood, as St. John Chrysostom* declares. We are proud of being Roman Catholics; and we say there is no claim to "Catholic," where there is separation from Rome. The discourtesy and the injustice do not consist in giving us the title of "Roman;" for we always claimed and always possessed it.

Let us look to facts, and not to etymologies. In [A. D.] 1500, there existed in Europe a Catholic Church universally admitted to be so-whether it taught truth, or error, is not the question. It was then distinct from every other; and it stood alone, bearing this title. Martin Luther was a member of that Catholic Church. In 1515, Luther, Zuinglius, and King Henry VIII. of England, were members of that Catholic Church. John Calvin, was also at that period in the bosom of that Church. It then had been, time out of mind, in possession of the title "CATHOLIC." We care not why it was given the possession, and the exclusive possession were notorious. In 1517, Luther left that Catholic Church, he

[* The Bishop appears to have inadvertently ascribed to St. Chrysostom the well-known passage from Tertullian: "Ista quam felix Ecclesia, cui totam doctrinam apostoli, cum sanguine suo profuderunt." De præscr, c. xxxvi.]

ning.

King Henry quarrelled also with the Catholic Church, every one knows why;-but his son Edward, and his daughter Elizabeth went farther than he did. And by acts of the British Parliament, and by the public acts of the clergy of the newly modelled religion, their society was called the "Protestant Church of England," and they, too, lost their manners and called nicknames.

[That the Protestant Reformed Religion as it is established by law," (Cor. Oath William and Mary,) is the legal and state-religion of England. is unquestioned. Those who distinguish this from the faith and discipline of the Church of England, which they wish to consider as an independent and purely spiritual corporation, deriving its laws and teaching from the Catholic Church, are wont to allege in their support, that the convocation of the clergy, which they say is the only tribunal which has authority to represent their church, has never by any formal act acknowledged the name of "Protestant." But there has been a series of "public