there can be little question that Catholics are far more tolerant toward Protestants than Protestants are toward them. That is notably the case right here among us;

you will seldom see hatred on the part

any signs in this country of of Catholics for Protestants; that of Protestants for Catholics is manifested continually. We do not altogether set this down to malice, however. It is plain that it is for the most part caused by the dense ignorance, wilful, it is true, to some extent, but still ignorance all the same, which still prevails among Protestants regarding the Catholic faith. And on the basis of this ignorance, the hatred becomes more or less excusable. If our beliefs and practices were really what most Protestants still insist on believing them to be, in spite of the most earnest and often repeated denials on our part; if even a tenth part of the old calumnies which they are continually handing down from generation to generation against us were true, there would really be ground for believing us to be dangerous enemies to society and to the moral, intellectual, and material progress of humanity.

We have no desire, and cannot very well have any, to persecute our countrymen; for this reason, even were there no others, that they are not, as a rule, wilful apostates from the known truth, but rather sufferers from a darkness and mental confusion coming down to them from

centuries of ancestral error; our feeling is rather one of pity than of anger. When Protestants awake to the truth, see the actual state of the case, and understand our doctrines and position as we understand theirs, there will be for us as little danger of persecution from them as there is now for them from us. Our hope and prayer is that that time may soon

come.

I

CHAPTER XXVII.

THE CATHOLIC LAWS OF MARRIAGE.

HAVE spoken in the last chapter but one of the belief of the Catholic Church on the subject of marriage, and of the legislation she would desire in this matter. It will be well to explain this more fully; for many misapprehensions exist regarding it.

Those who are not Christians may naturally consider themselves free to speculate, and to legislate as far as possible on this matter, without admitting any end to be secured by it except merely natural well-being, or any guide or light regarding it except that which is furnished by human reason. But Christians, at least those who believe, as the vast majority of Christians do, in the teaching of the Bible, who recognize the words of Christ and His apostles

as there recorded as being really the Word of God, cannot stand on this ground. They must and do believe marriage to be a Divine institution, which man is not at liberty to tamper with according to his own will or fancy. And as the legislation of nations having a considerable Christian population may at the present day easily fall into the hands of unbelievers, there is evidently a probability here of such legislation being contrary to the Christian conscience, and therefore such that it cannot be recognized or obeyed by Christians. No Christian, indeed no sincere believer in any religion, nay, more, no genuinely conscientious man, can always recognize human legislation as supreme or beyond appeal.

And there is no matter on which a conflict between any Church and the State is more likely now to occur than on this. The State of today recognizes marriage simply as a contract, subject to secular legislation as completely as any other contract; Christians, whether Catholic or Protestant, on the other hand, regard it as a Divine institution subject to laws with which the State cannot interfere.

In principle or theory there is no difference between the attitude which a Catholic or that which any other religious or conscientious man may have to assume in some cases toward the law of the State on this subject. And in no

case does such attitude warrant a charge of opposition or enmity to free institutions, or to the nation to which we belong; certainly it does so no more than did the conscientious objection which many Northerners had before the war to the returning of fugitive slaves, which was required by national legislation. Such oppositions of conscience to law must occur occasionally, unless we abandon conscience itself and substitute for it a principle of blind obedience to a sovereign or to a majority; but conscience is really the strongest sanction to law that can exist; so that nothing, even on the mere ground of expediency, would be gained, but much would be lost by the change. The most conscientious man is radically the best and most loyal citizen; and he is also effectively so-that is, he supports actually existing laws, on the whole, better than any other man, since the occasions on which he cannot support them are few and far between.

Indeed, even on this matter, in which there is such a great divergence of theoretical view, the actual practical difficulty arising from the opposition of Church and State laws is comparatively small. To see this, let us consider the actual laws of the Church regarding marriage; it will also be worth while for its own sake. In the first place, these laws, properly socalled, do not affect the unbaptized. The

Church makes laws for none but those who are, by right at least, her members. She does indeed recognize Divine laws applicable to all men in the matter of marriage, as in other matters; she regards, for instance, a decree of divorce as not only illicit, but as null and void; and she believes that no man can validly marry his sister, or have more than one wife at the same time. The principal practical application of her belief on these matters is, that a Catholic cannot conscientiously marry a divorced man or But if the Catholic in question believes the teaching of the Church on this point, he does not complain; and surely no one else has a right to. Neither could there be much complaint if Catholics should be able to bring about a great modification or even a complete destruction of the civil laws regarding divorce; Christians generally would approve, and unbelievers would have no more right to object to this than to any other action endorsed by the majority.

woman.

It is not, then, on these matters that trouble would be likely to arise. It is rather on the special laws which the Church does make for those belonging to her fold, which laws, of course, a non-Catholic state will not, as a rule, recognize.

These laws are principally to the effect of prohibiting or invalidating marriage under cer