All have the same interest, whether they know it or not, in the establishment of facts. All have the same to gain, the same to lose. He loads the dice against himself who scores a point against the right.
Absolute honesty is to the intellectual perception what light is to the eyes. Prejudice and passion cloud the mind. In each disputant should be blended the advocate and judge.
In this spirit, having in view only the ascertainment of the truth, let us examine the arguments, or rather the statements and conclusions, of Cardinal Manning.
The proposition is that "The church itself, by its marvelous propagation, its eminent sanctity, its inexhaustible fruitfulness in all good things, its catholic unity and invincible stability, is a vast and perpetual motive of credibility, and an irrefragable witness of its own divine legation."
The reasons given as supporting this proposition are:
That the Catholic Church interpenetrates all the nations of the civilized world; that it is extranational and independent in a supernational unity; that it is the same in every place; that it speaks all languages in the civilized world; that it is obedient to one head; that as many as seven hundred bishops have knelt before the pope; that pilgrims from all nations have brought gifts to Rome, and that all these things set forth in the most self-evident way the unity and universality of the Roman Church.
It is also asserted that "men see the Head of the Church year by year speaking to the nations of the world, treating with Empires, Republics and Governments;" that "there is no other man on earth that can so bear himself," and that "neither from Canterbury nor from Constantinople can such a voice go forth to which rulers and people listen."
It is also claimed that the Catholic Church has enlightened and purified the world; that it has given us the peace and purity of domestic life; that it has destroyed idolatry and demonology; that it gave us a body of law from a higher source than man; that it has produced the civilization of Christendom; that the popes were the greatest of statesmen and rulers; that celibacy is better than marriage, and that the revolutions and reformations of the last three hundred years have been destructive and calamitous.
We will examine these assertions as well as some others.
No one will dispute that the Catholic Church is the best witness of its own existence. The same is true of every thing that exists--of every church, great and small, of every man, and of every insect.
But it is contended that the marvelous growth or propagation of the church is evidence of its divine origin. Can it be said that success is supernatural? All success in this world is relative. Majorities are not necessarily right. If anything is known--if anything can be known--we are sure that very large bodies of men have frequently been wrong. We believe in what is called the progress of mankind. Progress, for the most part, consists in finding new truths and getting rid of old errors--that is to say, getting nearer and nearer in harmony with the facts of nature, seeing with greater clearness the conditions of well-being.
There is no nation in which a majority leads the way. In the progress of mankind, the few have been the nearest right. There have been centuries in which the light seemed to emanate only from a handful of men, while the rest of the world was enveloped in darkness. Some great man leads the way--he becomes the morning star, the prophet of a coming day.
Afterward, many millions accept his views. But there are still heights above and beyond; there are other pioneers, and the old day, in comparison with the new, becomes a night. So, we cannot say that success demonstrates either divine origin or supernatural aid.
We know, if we know anything, that wisdom has often been trampled beneath the feet of the multitude. We know that the torch of science has been blown out by the breath of the hydra-headed. We know that the whole intellectual heaven has been darkened again and again. The truth or falsity of a proposition cannot be determined by ascertaining the number of those who assert, or of those who deny.
If the marvelous propagation of the Catholic Church proves its divine origin, what shall we say of the marvelous propagation of Mohammedanism?
Nothing can be clearer than that Christianity arose out of the ruins of the Roman Empire--that is to say, the ruins of Paganism. And it is equally clear that Mohammedanism arose out of the wreck and ruin of Catholicism.
After Mohammed came upon the stage, "Christianity was forever expelled from its most glorious seats--from Palestine, the scene of its most sacred recollections; from Asia Minor, that of its first churches; from Egypt, whence issued the great doctrine of Trinitarian Orthodoxy, and from Carthage, who imposed her belief on Europe." Before that time "the ecclesiastical chiefs of Rome, of Constantinople, and of Alexandria were engaged in a desperate struggle for supremacy, carrying out their purposes by weapons and in ways revolting to the conscience of man.
Bishops were concerned in assassinations, poisonings, adulteries, blindings, riots, treasons, civil war. Patriarchs and primates were excommunicating and anathematizing one another in their rivalries for earthly power--bribing eunuchs with gold and courtesans and royal females with concessions of episcopal love. Among legions of monks who carried terror into the imperial armies and riot into the great cities arose hideous clamors for theological dogmas, but never a voice for intellectual liberty or the outraged rights of man.
"Under these circumstances, amid these atrocities and crimes, Mohammed arose, and raised his own nation from Fetichism, the adoration of the meteoric stone, and from the basest idol worship, and irrevocably wrenched from Christianity more than half--and that by far the best half--of her possessions, since it included the Holy Land, the birth-place of the Christian faith, and Africa, which had imparted to it its Latin form; and now, after a lapse of more than a thousand years that continent, and a very large part of Asia, remain permanently attached to the Arabian doctrine."
It may be interesting in this connection to say that the Mohammedan now proves the divine mission of his apostle by appealing to the marvelous propagation of the faith. If the argument is good in the mouth of a Catholic, is it not good in the mouth of a Moslem? Let us see if it is not better.
According to Cardinal Manning, the Catholic Church triumphed only over the institutions of men--triumphed only over religions that had been established by men,--by wicked and ignorant men. But Mohammed triumphed not only over the religions of men, but over the religion of God.
This ignorant driver of camels, this poor, unknown, unlettered boy, unassisted by God, unenlightened by supernatural means, drove the armies of the true cross before him as the winter's storm drives withered leaves. At his name, priests, bishops, and cardinals fled with white faces--popes trembled, and the armies of God, fighting for the true faith, were conquered on a thousand fields.
If the success of a church proves its divinity, and after that another church arises and defeats the first, what does that prove?
Let us put this question in a milder form: Suppose the second church lives and flourishes in spite of the first, what does that prove?
As a matter of fact, however, no church rises with everything against it. Something is favorable to it, or it could not exist. If it succeeds and grows, it is absolutely certain that the conditions are favorable.
If it spreads rapidly, it simply shows that the conditions are exceedingly favorable, and that the forces in opposition are weak and easily overcome.
Here, in my own country, within a few years, has arisen a new religion.
Its foundations were laid in an intelligent community, having had the advantages of what is known as modern civilization. Yet this new faith--founded on the grossest absurdities, as gross as we find in the Scriptures--in spite of all opposition began to grow, and kept growing.
It was subjected to persecution, and the persecution increased its strength. It was driven from State to State by the believers in universal love, until it left what was called civilization, crossed the wide plains, and took up its abode on the shores of the Great Salt Lake. It continued to grow. Its founder, as he declared, had frequent conversations with God, and received directions from that source.
Hundreds of miracles were performed--multitudes upon the desert were miraculously fed--the sick were cured--the dead were raised, and the Mormon Church continued to grow, until now, less than half a century after the death of its founder, there are several hundred thousand believers in the new faith.
Do you think that men enough could join this church to prove the truth of its creed?
Joseph Smith said that he found certain golden plates that had been buried for many generations, and upon these plates, in some unknown language, had been engraved this new revelation, and I think he insisted that by the use of miraculous mirrors this language was translated.
If there should be Mormon bishops in all the countries of the world, eighteen hundred years from now, do you think a cardinal of that faith could prove the truth of the golden plates simply by the fact that the faith had spread and that seven hundred bishops had knelt before the head of that church?
It seems to me that a "supernatural" religion--that is to say, a religion that is claimed to have been divinely founded and to be authenticated by miracles, is much easier to establish among an ignorant people than any other--and the more ignorant the people, the easier such a religion could be established. The reason for this is plain.
All ignorant tribes, all savage men, believe in the miraculous, in the supernatural. The conception of uniformity, of what may be called the eternal consistency of nature, is an idea far above their comprehension.
They are forced to think in accordance with their minds, and as a consequence they account for all phenomena by the acts of superior beings--that is to say, by the supernatural. In other words, that religion having most in common with the savage, having most that was satisfactory to his mind, or to his lack of mind, would stand the best chance of success.
It is probably safe to say that at one time, or during one phase of the development of man, everything was miraculous. After a time, the mind slowly developing, certain phenomena, always happening under like conditions, were called "natural," and none suspected any special interference. The domain of the miraculous grew less and less--the domain of the natural larger; that is to say, the common became the natural, but the uncommon was still regarded as the miraculous.
The rising and setting of the sun ceased to excite the wonder of mankind--there was no miracle about that; but an eclipse of the sun was miraculous. Men did not then know that eclipses are periodical, that they happen with the same certainty that the sun rises. It took many observations through many generations to arrive at this conclusion.
Ordinary rains became "natural," floods remained "miraculous."
But it can all be summed up in this: The average man regards the common as natural, the uncommon as supernatural. The educated man--and by that I mean the developed man--is satisfied that all phenomena are natural, and that the supernatural does not and can not exist.
As a rule, an individual is egotistic in the proportion that he lacks intelligence. The same is true of nations and races. The barbarian is egotistic enough to suppose that an Infinite Being is constantly doing something, or failing to do something, on his account. But as man rises in the scale of civilization, as he becomes really great, he comes to the conclusion that nothing in Nature happens on his account--that he is hardly great enough to disturb the motions of the planets.
Let us make an application of this: To me, the success of Mormonism is no evidence of its truth, because it has succeeded only with the superstitious. It has been recruited from communities brutalized by other forms of superstition. To me, the success of Mohammed does not tend to show that he was right--for the reason that he triumphed only over the ignorant, over the superstitious. The same is true of the Catholic Church. Its seeds were planted in darkness. It was accepted by the credulous, by men incapable of reasoning upon such questions. It did not, it has not, it can not triumph over the intellectual world. To count its many millions does not tend to prove the truth of its creed.
On the contrary, a creed that delights the credulous gives evidence against itself.
Questions of fact or philosophy cannot be settled simply by numbers.
There was a time when the Copernican system of astronomy had but few supporters--the multitude being on the other side. There was a time when the rotation of the earth was not believed by the majority.
Let us press this idea further. There was a time when Christianity was not in the majority, anywhere. Let us suppose that the first Christian missionary had met a prelate of the Pagan faith, and suppose this prelate had used against the Christian missionary the Cardinal's argument--how could the missionary have answered if the Cardinal's argument is good?
But, after all, is the success of the Catholic Church a marvel? If this church is of divine origin, if it has been under the especial care, protection and guidance of an Infinite Being, is not its failure far more wonderful than its success? For eighteen centuries it has persecuted and preached, and the salvation of the world is still remote.
This is the result, and it may be asked whether it is worth while to try to convert the world to Catholicism.
Are Catholics better than Protestants? Are they nearer honest, nearer just, more charitable? Are Catholic nations better than Protestant?
Do the Catholic nations move in the van of progress? Within their jurisdiction are life, liberty and property safer than anywhere else? Is Spain the first nation of the world?
Let me ask another question: Are Catholics or Protestants better than Freethinkers? Has the Catholic Church produced a greater man than Humboldt? Has the Protestant produced a greater than Darwin? Was not Emerson, so far as purity of life is concerned, the equal of any true believer? Was Pius IX., or any other vicar of Christ, superior to Abraham Lincoln?
But it is claimed that the Catholic Church is universal, and that its universality demonstrates its divine origin.
According to the Bible, the apostles were ordered to go into all the world and preach the gospel--yet not one of them, nor one of their converts at any time, nor one of the vicars of God, for fifteen hundred years afterward, knew of the existence of the Western Hemisphere. During all that time, can it be said that the Catholic Church was universal? At the close of the fifteenth century, there was one-half of the world in which the Catholic faith had never been preached, and in the other half not one person in ten had ever heard of it, and of those who had heard of it, not one in ten believed it. Certainly the Catholic Church was not then universal.
Is it universal now? What impression has Catholicism made upon the many millions of China, of Japan, of India, of Africa? Can it truthfully be said that the Catholic Church is now universal? When any church becomes universal, it will be the only church. There cannot be two universal churches, neither can there be one universal church and any other.
The Cardinal next tries to prove that the Catholic Church is divine, "by its eminent sanctity and its inexhaustible fruitfulness in all good things."
And here let me admit that there are many millions of good Catholics--that is, of good men and women who are Catholics. It is unnecessary to charge universal dishonesty or hypocrisy, for the reason that this would be only a kind of personality. Many thousands of heroes have died in defence of the faith, and millions of Catholics have killed and been killed for the sake of their religion.
And here it may be well enough to say that martyrdom does not even tend to prove the truth of a religion. The man who dies in flames, standing by what he believes to be true, establishes, not the truth of what he believes, but his sincerity.
Without calling in question the intentions of the Catholic Church, we can ascertain whether it has been "inexhaustibly fruitful in all good things," and whether it has been "eminent for its sanctity."