Frederick Marryat – The Complete Collection

Chapter 63

And the author of a Voice from America observes--

"The Roman Catholic church bids fair to rise to importance in America. Thoroughly democratic as her members are, being composed for the most part, of the lowest orders of European population, transplanted to the United States with a fixed and implacable aversion to everything bearing the name and in the shape of monarchy, the priesthood are accustomed studiously to adapt themselves to this state of feeling , being content with that authority that is awarded to their office by their own communicants and members."

[The Rev Dr Reid observes:--

"I found the people at this time under some uneasiness in relation to the spread of Romanism. The partisans of that system are greatly assisted from Europe by supplies of money and teachers. The teachers have usually more acquired competency than the native instructors; and this is a temptation to parents who are seeking accomplishments for their children, and who have a high idea of European refinements. It appeared, that out of four schools, provided for the wants of the town (Lexington, Kentucky) three were in the hands of Catholics."

To which we may add Miss Martineau's observations:--

"The Catholics of the country, thinking themselves now sufficiently numerous to be an American Catholic church, a great stimulus has been given to proselytism. This has awakened fear and persecution; which last has again been favourable to the increase of the sect. While the Presbyterians preach a harsh, ascetic, persecuting religion, the Catholics dispense a mild and indulgent one; and the prodigious increase of their numbers is a necessary consequence. It has been so impossible to supply the demand for priests, that the term of education has been shortened by two years."]

Now, I venture to disagree with both these gentlemen: It is true, as Mr Tocqueville observes, that the Catholic church reduces all the human race to the same standard, and confounds all distinctions--not, however, upon the principle of equality or democracy, but because it will ever equally exert its power over the high and the low, assuming its right to compel princes and kings to obedience, and their dominions to its subjection. The equality professed by the Catholic church, is like the equality of death, all must fall before its power; whether it be to excommunicate an individual or an empire is to it indifferent; it assumes the power of the Godhead, giving and taking sway, and its members stand trembling before it, as they shall hereafter do in the presence of the Deity.

The remark of the author of the Voice from America , "that aware of the implacable aversion of the people to monarchy, the priesthood are accustomed studiously to adapt themselves to this state of feeling ," proves rather to me the universal subtlety shown by the Catholic clergy, which, added to their zeal and perseverance, so increases the power of the church. At present Catholicism is, comparatively speaking, weak in America, and the objects of that church is, to become strong; they do not, therefore, frighten or alarm their converts by any present show of the invariable results; but are content to bide their time, until they shall find themselves strong enough to exert their power with triumphant success. The Protestant cause in America is weak, from the evil effects of the voluntary system, particularly from its division into so many sects. A house divided against itself cannot long stand; and every year it will be found that the Catholic church will increase its power: and it is a question whether a hierarchy may not eventually be raised, which, so far from advocating the principles of equality , may serve as a check to the spirit of democracy becoming more powerful than the government, curbing public opinion, and reducing to better order the present chaotic state of society.

Judge Haliburten asserts, that all America will be a Catholic country. That all America west of the Alleghanies will eventually be a Catholic country, I have no doubt, as the Catholics are already in the majority, and there is nothing, as Mr Cooper observes, to prevent any state from establishing that, or any other religion, as the Religion of the State ; ["There is nothing in the constitution of the United States to prevent all the states, or any particular state, from possessing an established religion."-- Cooper's Democrat ] and this is one of the dark clouds which hang over the destiny of the western hemisphere.

The reverend Mr Reed says:--"It should really seem that the Pope, in the fear of expulsion from Europe, is anxious to find a reversion in this new world. The crowned heads of the continent, having the same enmity to free political institutions which his holiness has to free religious institutions, willingly unite in the attempt to enthral this people. They have heard of the necessities of the West; they have the foresight to see that the West will become the heart of the country, and ultimately determine the character of the whole; and they have resolved to establish themselves there. Large, yea princely, grants have been made from the Leopold society, and other sources, chiefly, though by no means exclusively, in favour of this portion of the empire that is to be. These sums are expended in erecting showy churches and colleges, and in sustaining priests and emissaries. Everything is done to captivate, and to liberalise in appearance, a system essentially despotic. The sagacity of the effort is discovered, in avoiding to attack and shock the prejudices of the adult, that they may direct the education of the young. They look to the future; and they really have great advantages in doing so. They send out teachers excellently qualified; superior, certainly, to the run of native teachers. [The Catholic priests who instruct are, to my knowledge, the best educated men in the states. It was a pleasure to be in their company.] Some value the European modes of education as the more excellent, others value them as the mark of fashion; the demand for instruction, too, is always beyond the supply, so that they find little difficulty in obtaining the charge of protestant children. This, in my judgment, is the point of policy which should be especially regarded with jealousy; but the actual alarm has arisen from the disclosure of a correspondence which avows designs on the West, beyond what I have here set down. It is a curious affair, and is one other evidence, if evidence were needed, that popery and jesuitism are one."

I think that the author of Sam Slick may not be wrong in his assertion, that all America will be a Catholic country. I myself never prophesy; but, I cannot help remarking, that even in the most anti-Catholic persuasions in America there is a strong Papistical feeling ; that is, there is a vying with each other, not only to obtain the best preachers, but to have the best organs and the best singers. It is the system of excitement which, without their being aware of it, they carry into their devotion. It proves that, to them there is a weariness in the church service, a tedium in prayer, which requires to be relieved by the stimulus of good music and sweet voices. Indeed, what with their anxious seats , their revivals , their music and their singing , every class and sect in the states have even now so far fallen into Catholicism, that religion has become more of an appeal to the senses than to the calm and sober judgment .

VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER FORTY FOUR.

REMARKS--SOCIETIES AND ASSOCIATIONS.

Although in a democracy the highest stations and preferments are open to all, more directly than they may be under any other form of government, still these prizes are but few and insufficient, compared with the number of total blanks which must be drawn by the ambitious multitude. It is, indeed, a stimulus to ambition (and a matter of justice, when all men are pronounced equal), that they all should have an equal chance of raising themselves by their talents and perseverance; but, when so many competitors are permitted to enter the field, few can arrive at the goal, and the mass are doomed to disappointment. However fair, therefore, it may be to admit all to the competition, certain it is that the competition cannot add to the happiness of a people, when we consider the feelings of bitterness and ill-will naturally engendered among the disappointed multitude.

In monarchical and aristocratical institutions, the middling and lower classes, whose chances of advancement are so small that they seldom lift their eyes or thoughts above their own sphere, are therefore much happier, and it may be added, much more virtuous than those who struggle continually for preferment in the tumultuous sea of democracy. Wealth can give some importance, but wealth in a democracy gives an importance which is so common to many that it loses much of its value; and when it has been acquired, it is not sufficient for the restless ambition of the American temperament, which will always spurn wealth for power. The effects, therefore, of a democracy are, first to raise an inordinate ambition among the people, and then to cramp the very ambition which it has raised; and, as I may comment upon hereafter, it appears as if this ambition of the people, individually checked by the nature of their institutions, becomes, as it were, concentrated and collected into a focus in upholding and contemplating the success and increase of power in the federal government. Thus has been produced a species of demoralising reaction; the disappointed units to a certain degree satisfying themselves with any advance in the power and importance of the whole Union, wholly regardless of the means by which such increase may have been obtained.

But this unsatisfied ambition has found another vent in the formation of many powerful religious and other associations. In a country where there will ever be an attempt of the people to tyrannise over everybody and everything, power they will have; and if they cannot obtain it in the various departments of the States Governments, they will have it in opposition to the Government; for all these societies and associations connect themselves directly with politics. [See Note 1.] It is of little consequence by what description of tie "these sticks in the fable" are bound up together; once bound together, they are, not to be broken. In America religion severs the community, but these societies are the bonds which to a certain degree reunite it.

To enumerate the whole of these societies actually existing, or which have been in existence, would be difficult. The following are the most prominent:--

List of Benevolent Societies, with their Receipts in the Year 1834 .

+====================================================+============+ Ý ÝDolls Cts. Ý +----------------------------------------------------+------------+ ÝAmerican Board of Commissioners for Foreign MissionsÝ 155,002 24Ý +----------------------------------------------------+------------+ ÝAmerican Baptist Board of Foreign Missions Ý 63,000 00Ý +----------------------------------------------------+------------+ ÝWestern Foreign Mission Society Ý Ý +----------------------------------------------------+------------+ Ýat Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Ý 16,296 46Ý +----------------------------------------------------+------------+ ÝMethodist Episcopal Missionary Society Ý 35,700 15Ý +----------------------------------------------------+------------+ ÝProtestant Episcopal Foreign Ý Ý +----------------------------------------------------+------------+ Ýand Domestic Missionary Society Ý 26,007 97Ý +----------------------------------------------------+------------+ ÝAmerican Home Missionary Society Ý 78,911 24Ý +----------------------------------------------------+------------+ ÝBaptist Home Missionary Society Ý 11,448 28Ý +----------------------------------------------------+------------+ ÝBoard of Missions of the Ý Ý +----------------------------------------------------+------------+ ÝReformed Dutch Church (Domestic) Ý 5,572 97Ý +----------------------------------------------------+------------+ ÝBoard of Missions of the General Assembly of the Ý Ý +----------------------------------------------------+------------+ ÝPresbyterian Church (Domestic) estimated Ý 40,000 00Ý +----------------------------------------------------+------------+ ÝAmerican Education Society Ý 57,122 20Ý +----------------------------------------------------+------------+ ÝBoard of Education of the General Assembly of the Ý Ý +----------------------------------------------------+------------+ ÝPresbyterian churches Ý 38,000 00Ý +----------------------------------------------------+------------+ ÝNorthern Baptist Education Society Ý 4,681 11Ý +----------------------------------------------------+------------+ ÝBoard of Education of the Reformed Dutch Church Ý 1,270 20Ý +----------------------------------------------------+------------+ ÝAmerican Bible Society Ý 88,600 82Ý +----------------------------------------------------+------------+ ÝAmerican Sunday School Union Ý 136,855 58Ý +----------------------------------------------------+------------+ ÝGeneral Protestant Episcopal Sunday School Union Ý 6,641 00Ý +----------------------------------------------------+------------+ ÝBaptist General Tract Society Ý 6,126 97Ý +----------------------------------------------------+------------+ ÝAmerican Tract Society Ý 66,485 83Ý +----------------------------------------------------+------------+ ÝAmerican Colonisation Society Ý 48,939 17Ý +----------------------------------------------------+------------+ ÝPrison Discipline Society Ý 2,364 00Ý +----------------------------------------------------+------------+ ÝAmerican Seamen's Friend Society Ý 16,064 00Ý +----------------------------------------------------+------------+ ÝAmerican Temperance Society Ý 5,871 12Ý +----------------------------------------------------+------------+ Ý Ý8,910,961 31Ý +====================================================+============+