to seek the truth, but to propagate falsehood.
The man without religion is a slave of the most degrading superstition. Instead of worshipping the true, free, living God, who governs all things by His Providence, he bows before the horrid phantom of blind chance or inexorable destiny. He is a man who obstinately refuses to believe the most solidly-established facts in favor of religion, and yet, with blind credulity, greedily swallows the most absurd falsehoods uttered against religion. He is a man whose reason has fled, and whose passions speak, object and decide in the name of reason.
The man without religion often pretends to be an infidel merely in order to appear fashionable. He is usually conceited, obstinate, puffed up with pride, a great talker, always shallow and fickle, skipping from one subject to another without even thoroughly examining a single one. At one moment he is a Deist, at another a Materialist, then he is a Sceptic, and again an Atheist; always changing his views, but always a slave of his passions, always an enemy of Christ.
The man without religion is a slave of the most shameful passions. He tries to prove to the world that man is a brute, in order that he might have the gratification of leading the life of a brute. I ask you, what virtue can that man have who believes that whatever he desires is lawful, who designates the most shameful crimes by the refined name of innocent pleasures? What virtue can that man have who knows no other law than his passions; who believes that God regards with equal eye truth and falsehood, vice and virtue? He may indeed practise some natural virtues, but these virtues are in general only exterior. They are practised merely out of human respect; they do not come from the heart. Now the seat of true virtue is in the heart, and not in the exterior. He that acts merely to please man and not to please God, has no real virtue.
The man without religion often praises all religions; he is a true knave. He says: "If I were to choose my religion, I would become a Catholic, for it is the most reasonable of all religions." But in his heart he despises all religion. He is a man who scrapes together all the wicked and absurd calumnies he can find against the Church. He falsely accuses her of teaching monstrous doctrines which she has always abhorred and condemned, and he displays his ingenuity by combating those monstrous doctrines which he himself has invented, or copied from authors as dishonest as himself. The infidel is a monster without faith, without law, without religion, without God.
There are many who call themselves "free-thinkers," many who reject all revealed religion, merely out of silly puerile vanity. They affect singularity in order to attract notice, in order to make people believe that they are strong-minded, that they are independent. Poor deluded slaves of human respect! They affect singularity in order to attract notice, and they forget that there is another class of people in the world also noted for singularity. In fact they are so singular that they have to be shut up for safe keeping in a mad-house.
What is the difference between an infidel and a madman? The only difference is, that the madness of the infidel is wilful, while the madness of the poor lunatic is entirely involuntary. The one arouses our compassion, while the other excites our contempt and just indignation.
Finally, the man without religion says: "There is no God." He says so "in his heart", says Holy Writ; he says not so in his head, because he knows better. Let him be in imminent danger of death, or of a considerable loss of fortune, and you will see how quick, on such occasions, he lays aside the mask of infidelity; he makes his profession of faith in an Almighty God; he cries out: "Lord save me, I am perishing! Lord have mercy on me!" and the like.
There is still another proof to show that the infidel does not believe what he says: why is it that he makes his impious doctrines the subject of conversation on every occasion? It is, of course, first to communicate his devilish principles to others, and make them as bad as he himself is; but this is not the only reason. The good Catholic seldom speaks of his religion; he feels assured, by the grace of God, that his religion is the only true one, and that he will be saved if he lives up to his religion. This, however, is not the case with the infidel. He is constantly tormented in his soul. "There is no peace, no happiness for the impious," says Holy Scripture.—(Isa. xlviii. 22.) He tries to quiet the fears of his soul, the remorse of his conscience. So he communicates to others, on every occasion, his perverse principles, hoping that he may meet with some of his fellow-men who may approve of his impious views, and that thus he may find some relief for his interior torments. He resembles a timid night-traveller. A timid man, who is obliged to travel during a dark night, begins to sing and to cry in order to keep away too great fear. The infidel is a sort of night-traveller; he certainly travels in the horrible darkness of his impiety. His interior conviction tells him that there is a God, who will certainly punish him in the most frightful manner. This fills him with great fear, and makes him extremely unhappy every moment of his life. He cannot bear the sight of a Catholic church, of a Catholic procession, of an image of our Lord, of a picture of a saint, of a prayer-book, of a good Catholic, of a priest; in a word, he cannot bear anything that reminds him of God, of religion, of his guilt, and of his impiety. So he cries, on every occasion, against faith in God, in all that God has revealed and proposes to us for our belief by the Holy Church. What is the object of his impious cries? It is to deafen, to keep down in some measure, the clamors of his bad conscience. Our hand will involuntarily touch that part of the body where we feel pain. So, in like manner, the tongue of the infidel touches, on all occasions, involuntarily as it were, upon all those truths of our holy religion which inspire him with fear of the judgments of Almighty God. He feels but too keenly that he cannot do away with God and His sacred religion, by denying His existence.
I have given you the true portrait—the true likeness—of the man without religion. Were you given to see a devil and the soul of an infidel at the same time, you would find the sight of the devil more bearable than that of the infidel. For St. James the Apostle tells us, that "the devil believes and trembles."—(Chap. ii. 19.) Now the Public School system was invented and introduced into this country to turn the rising generations into men of the above description.
Spread of Infidelity through Bad Education in America; or, The Object of the Public School System.
Mr. O. A. Brownson, in his book "The Convert," Chaps. VII. and VIII., gives us the following information on the origin of the Public Schools in this country:
"Frances Wright was born in Scotland, and inherited a considerable property. She had been highly educated, and was a woman of rare original powers, and extensive and varied information. She was brought up in the utilitarian principles of Jeremy Bentham. She visited this country in 1824. Returning to England in 1825, she wrote a book in a strain of almost unbounded eulogy of the American people and their institutions. She saw only one stain upon the American character, one thing in the condition of the American people to censure or to deplore—that was negro-slavery.
"When, in the next year, Mr. Owen came, with his friends, to commence his experiment of creating a new moral world at New Harmony, Frances Wright came with him, not as a full believer in his crotchets, but to try an experiment, devised with Jefferson, Lafayette, and others, for the emancipation of the negro-slave.
"Fanny Wright, however, failed in her negro experiment. She soon discovered that the American people were not, as yet, prepared to engage in earnest for the abolition of slavery. On more mature reflection she came to the conclusion that slavery must be abolished only as the result of a general emancipation, and a radical reform of the American people themselves.
"The first step to be taken for this purpose was to rouse the American mind to a sense of its rights and dignity, to emancipate it from superstition, from its subjection to the clergy, and its fear of unseen powers, to withdraw it from the contemplation of the stars or an imaginary heaven after death, and fix it on the great and glorious work of promoting man's earthly well-being.
"The second step was, by political action, to get adopted, at the earliest practical moment, a system of State schools, in which
