PERILS. — ROMANISM. 75 



McQuaid in a lecture at Horticultural Hall, Boston, 

 February 13, 1876, declared: "The state has no 

 right to educate, and when the state undertakes the 

 work of education it is usurping the powers of the 

 church." 



If there remains in any mind a lingering doubt as to 

 the irreconcilable hostility of the Roman hierarchy 

 toward our public school system it would be dissipated 

 by reading, "Tlie Judges of Faith vs. Godless Schools," 

 a little book written by a Roman Catholic priest and 

 " Addressed to Catholic Parents." It bears the indorse- 

 ments of Cardinals Gibbons and Newman, and of various 

 dignitaries of that church. The prefatory note states that 

 the book contains, "the conciliar or single rulings of no less 

 than three hundred and eighty of the high and highest 

 church dignitaries. There are brought forward, twenty- 

 one plenary and provincial councils ; six or seven dioce- 

 san synods; two Roman pontiffs; two sacred congrega- 

 tions of some twenty cardinals and pontifical officials; 

 seven single cardinals, Avho with thirty-three archbish- 

 ops, make forty primates and metropolitans; finally, 

 nearly eiglity single bishops and archbishops, deceased 

 or living, in the United States." All this mass of author- 

 ity is against our public schools ; and the animus of these 

 ecclesiastics toward this cherished institution is indi- 

 cated by such epithets and appellations as the following: 

 " mischievous," " baneful to society," " a social plague," 

 "Godless," "pestilential," "scandalous," "filthy," "vi- 

 cious," "diabolical," places of " unrestrained immoral- 

 ity," where things are done the recital of which would 

 " curdle the blood in your veins." 



Rome has never favored popular education. In Prot- 

 estant countries like Germany and the United States, 

 where there is a strong sentiment in favor of it. she has 

 been compelled in self-defence to open schools of her own. 

 But her real attitude toward the education of the masses 

 should be inferred from her course in those countries 

 where she has, or has had, undisputed sway ; and there 

 she has kept the people in besotted ignorance. " The 



