reproach against any other denomination; no vulgar epithets against our brethren, how far soever removed from us in doctrinal faith. Let us all determine before God, and angels, and men, that, so far as in us lies, we 'will live peaceably with all men;' that we will show the beauty and influence of our Christianity in its power to make all to be our brethren, in bonds of a divine charity. Let us cling to and support the constitution of our country in its just and impartial principles of religious toleration and liberty; and, in a word, let us bless them that curse us, and pray for them that despitedly use us and persecute us.'"' i

We commend this last advice of our blessed Lord, in a special manner, to our Catholic brethren; and we can point to no better example of a compliance with its letter and its spirit, than that presented by the Catholic bishop, clergy, and people of Philadelphia, who, in the midst of trials and sufferings, such as have never before fallen to the lot of any portion of our citizens, have exhibited a patience and forbearance honorable to their holy religion, and worthy of primitive Christianity.

Persecution has ever been the lot of the true Church of Christ; the "disciple is not above the Master;" if the blessed Jesus was persecuted, may not we expect to be? Let us not be discouraged or downcast; if the storms and vicissitudes and persecutions of eighteen centuries have not overturned our Church, the riots of Philadelphia, and a hundred more, will not compass its destruction. If the Diocletians and the Julians, and the Luthers and the Calvins could not destroy our Church, is it likely that its destruction will be brought about by such pigmies as the Bergs, the Brownlees, the Cheevers, the Sparries, and the Breckenridges? The Gordon riots in London were much more terrible and destructive than were the native riots of Philadelphia; but the Gordon riots, instead of annihilating our Church in England, mark the precise date of its incipient growth and prosperity. May we not believe that, with the blessing of God, a similar result will follow the Philadelphia riots? One thing is certain, a God has pledged his solemn word that "the gates of hell shall not prevail against his Church."

1 Olive Branch, p. 20, 21.

XXXV. A CHAPTER ON MOBS,

ANCIENT AND MODERN.

Can Mobs put down truth and virtue?-Nothing new under the sun-Historical retrospect-Past trials and triumphs of the Church-The first Mob crucified Christ-The second stoned St. Stephen -Mobs during the first three centuries-Nero the first instigator of them-Mobs a principal feature in the early persecutions-How they were gotten up-Persecution of slander-Forgery-Early Christians branded as aliens aud traitors-Tertullian's pointed sarcasm-Mob spirit contagiousThe great Roman Mob under Diocletian-St. Basil's graphic description-Sepulchral monument to Christianity-Fate of the persecutors-Mobs powerless-The Cross triumphant-Unalterable meekness of early Christians under persecution-Mobs since the reformation-Are they not similar in spirit to those directed against Christianity during the first three centuries?-A parting word to American Catholics.

Why have the nations raged, and the people devised vain things? . . . . . . He that dwelleth in heaven shall laugh at them; and the Lord shall deride them.-Psalm ii, 1,4.

Blessed are you when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake; rejoice and be exceeding glad, for your reward is very great in heaven.-Matt. v. 11, 12.

IN contemplating the appalling scenes presented by the Philadelphia riots, and by those later exhibitions of the mob spirit which have disgraced many of our principal cities, the Christian philosopher is filled with amazement, and is inclined to drop a tear over the sad perverseness of human nature, when its passions are lashed into fury by maddening appeals, and are unchecked by reason or religion. But, however much he may be afflicted at the spectacle, he will not despair. The sacred cause of truth and justice, though trampled under foot, and crushed for a time, will and must ultimately triumph over reckless falsehood and atrocious oppression. The cause of truth, like that of liberty,

"Though baffled oft, is ever won"

The base arts of the slanderer and persecutor sooner or later recoil, with fatal effect, on their own heads; and the indignation which they have temporarily excited against the innocent and the virtuous ultimately falls, with a hundred fold force, on themselves. Truth, obscured and hidden for a time by the dark intervening clouds of prejudice and misrepresentation, always breaks forth again with renewed lustre and brilliancy; even as the sun bursts forth from the clouds which have for a time concealed his beams. Persecution can no more blot out the truth, than clouds can blot out the sun from the heavens.

It has ever been so. The annals of history proclaim the fact, in language not to be misunderstood, that falsehood and brute violence have

never yet destroyed a good, nor firmly established a bad cause. Thanks to the wise and benevolent Author of our nature, there is inherent in its constitution a reactive energy, which powerfully stimulates it, when led astray by passion and misrepresentation, to return once more to the right path. And though falsehood, in its fierce and unprincipled grappling with truth, may, even for a long time, seem to retain the mastery, yet truth will, and must, in the nature of things, ultimately regain the ascendency. Philosophy, religion, and history combine to sustain this position.

The wisest of men has said: "There is nothing new under the sun." Human nature has been the same in every age; the same in its passions, in its prejudices, in its capabilities both for good and for evil. If we search the annals of history we will find that recent occurrences, which at first struck us as new and startling, are really but old things under a new form. Similar events have occurred hundreds of times before, and often, too, under circumstances of much deeper atrocity. The Philadelphia riots were bad enough, but they might have been much worse, of much longer continuance, and much more extensive in their ravages. There are many instances in the history of the past, in which the efforts of slander and of brute force to crush the truth have been marked by much greater fierceness, and by much more appalling and wide spread ruin, The Catholic Church has in past ages triumphed, again and again, over much more formidable opposition; she has come out unscathed from much more fiery ordeals. She has triumphed over flood and conflagration, over devastation and ruin, over time and revolution, over barbarian incursion and the desperate efforts made for two hundred and fifty years by the all-powerful iron empire of Rome to crush her; and is it likely that the puny efforts of modern bigots, and the burning of a few of her churches will now put her down? No, no. "He who dwelleth in heaven shall laugh at them; and the Lord shall deride them." He whose word cannot pass away, though heaven and earth may pass away, hath built His church on a rock, and hath pledged His eternal veracity that "the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."

To enable our readers the more easily to take this rapid retrospective glance at the past, is the object of this brief Chapter on Mobs. One lesson we will glean, if no other, from this historical retrospect-that we need never despond nor yield even slightly to discouragement under persecution, no matter how galling it may be; no matter how seemingly hopeless, humanly speaking, may be the prospect of escape or redress. Still darker clouds have often hung over the pathway of our Catholic ancestors, and yet they despaired not, and those clouds have passed away. What has been will be again. Persecution has ever been the heritage of truth; it was the lot of Him, the pure and spotless Lamb of God, who was Himself" the way, and the truth, and the life." And He foretold that it should be the lot of His disciples; He led us to expect it as a thing of course; He consoled us under its anticipated or present pressure with the golden declaration "The disciple is not above the Master."

The first Mob of which we read in the annals of sacred history, was that which fiercely clamored for the blood of the Man-God, and made the streets of Jerusalem ring with the maddening and demonical shout:

Crucify him! crucify him!!" The first Mob in Christian times imbrued its hands in the blood of a God, and was guilty of the monstrous crime of deicide! And be it remembered, too, that those who composed that first Mob were goaded into reckless fury by inflammatory appeals made to their worst passions, by men who made a parade of their sanctity, boasted of their superior righteousness, and wore the sacred garb of God's ministers! The awful crime of deicide was committed in the name of religion, for the defense of religion, at the instance of men who were the ministers of religion!

And how was this dreadful result brought about? How was that giddy multitude which had, but five days before, filled the streets of the sacred city with joyous hosannas to the Son of David, so suddenly changed in feeling and sentiment? The change was brought about by the busy circulation of base slanders affecting the character of the Son of God,slanders as baseless and as wholly unfounded in truth, as they were fatal in their results. What but the shouts of that vile Mob, and the pusillanimous fear of displeasing them and of being deemed an enemy of Cæsar, induced the weak governor of Judea reluctantly to sign the fatal sentence, the crying injustice of which his own conscience fully testified?

But let the disciple of Christ ever bear in mind, for the strengthening of his faith, and for his consolation under persecution, that though a Mob compassed the death of the blessed Jesus, and consigned Him, in fiendish triumph, to the tomb, yet it could not prevent His speedy triumph over death, and His glorious resurrection. In spite of all the watchfulness and precautions of His enemies; in spite of Pharisaic spies and Roman guards, He rose again, as He had clearly predicted, on the third day; He arose to die no more; His triumph was permanent and eternal. In Him truth triumphed most signally over error, innocence over slander, virtue over persecution. And His unalterable meekness and patience under suffering and death, and His glorious triumph over His enemies, present a type of what was subsequently to happen to His disciples and to His Church. The Church might expect to be slandered, to be persecuted, to be nailed to the cross with her blessed Founder and Spouse; like Him, she was to bear all these indignities without a murmur; and like Him, too, she was to arise again, with renewed life and vigor, from the tomb to which her enemies had thought, in the folly of their hearts, that they had forever consigned her. As we shall soon see, the history of the Church clearly establishes this great leading fact.

The next Mob of which we read in sacred history was that which compassed the death of the blessed Stephen, the great Christian protomartyr. This noble youth was privileged, the first of all the disciples of Christ, to drink of the bitter chalice of his divine Master; to show forth His meekness and patience under suffering, and to share in His posthumous glories. He dazzled all by the splendor of his miracles, and confounded

his adversaries by his surpassing eloquence. They were convinced, but not persuaded. Instead of yielding to the truth, they were filled with rage at the triumphant arguments of the young Christian deacon. They were discomfited; they could not answer argument by argument; and hence they summoned to their aid the brute force of an ignorant and excitable multitude.

"They stirred up, therefore, people, and the ancients, and the scribes ; and running together, they took him, and brought him before the council, And they set up false witnesses who said: this man ceaseth not to speak words against the holy place and the law. . . . And all they who sat in the council, looking earnestly upon him, saw his face as it were the face of an angel."

The result is known. The noble eloquence and triumphant defense of Stephen availed him nothing; it mattered not that he had "the face," and the eloquence, too, "of an angel: " the Mob whom he addressed, like all other Mobs in ancient and modern times, were both deaf and blind; they were filled with rage at his splendid appearance, commanding eloquence, and unanswerable arguments; and, "hearing these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed with their teeth at him. .. And they, crying out with a loud voice, stopped their ears, and with one accord rushed violently upon him. And having cast him out of the city, they stoned him." Stephen, with his last breath, wafted to heaven, which was already open to his view, a prayer for his persecutors and assassins: "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when he had said this, he fell asleep in the Lord."""

We need not dwell on the many fierce Mobs which were excited against St. Paul at Philippi, at Ephesus, at Lystra, and in other places. They are all recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, and they present almost the same features as the other Mobs of which we have already spoken, and as those of which we shall speak in the sequel,

Come we now to the period of the Church's greatest trials and sufferings. During the first three centuries of the Christian era, the sword of persecution was seldom returned to the scabbard. From the time that the imperial monster Nero declared a war of extermination against the Christian name, in the year 64, to the close of the persecution under Diocletian and his colleagues, in the year 313, there was but little respite to the sufferings of the Christians. They were hunted down like wild beasts, by day and by night; they were plied with the rack; they were torn by flesh-hooks and by pincers; they were nailed to crosses; they were cast to wild beasts; they were roasted on gridirons. During that period of two hundred and fifty years, ten successive Roman emperors, wielding the omnipotent scepter of the Caesars, and controlling the destinies of the world, issued edicts for the total extirpation of the Christian religion from the face of the earth. The execution of those bloody laws was entrusted to willing instruments-to proconsuls, prætors, and governors, scattered over the various provinces of the vast empire

1 Acts vi, 12, 13, 15.

2 Acts vii, 54, 56, 57.

3 Ibid. 59.