CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. XXIII., No. 138.—SEPTEMBERR, 1876.

Copyright: Rev. I. T. Hecker. 1876.

THE RISE OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY IN THE UNITED STATES.

The Constitution of the United States has these provisions:

“No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”—Art. VI.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”—First Amendment.

It is thus the case that, as originally framed, the Constitution simply provided that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States,” but did not, in terms, prohibit Congress from erecting a state religion or interfering with the free exercise of religion otherwise than as regards office. The First Amendment was therefore adopted, in order that, as amended, the Constitution should forbid Congress from intermeddling in any way whatever with religious matters; and it has hence passed into the general understanding that the government of the United States has no religious character or powers whatsoever, but is purely a secular organization, contrived and devised for purely secular ends. As stated in the eleventh article of the treaty of Jan. 3, 1797, between the United States and Tripoli, “the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion” (Rev. Stats. U. S., “Treaties,” p. 756).

It being thus the case that religious liberty, as we now understand it, did not spring full-orbed and complete into existence in the United States, it may be of interest to trace the stages of its development. The provision that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion” owes its immediate origin to the representations of the conventions of a number of the States upon adopting the Constitution of the United States (1 Stats. 97), such States being New Hampshire, New York, and Virginia (4 Journ. Cong., 1782-8, App. pp. 52, 53, 55). Back of these representations lay a first cause which can only be understood by a reference to the condition of the colonies at the outbreak of the Revolution. From A View of the Constitution of the British Colonies in North America and the West Indies, at the time the Civil War broke out on the Continent of America—a work published in London in 1783 by Anthony Stokes (a loyalist Welshman, who, as a barrister in the British West Indies from 1762 to 1769, and the royal Chief-Justice of Georgia from 1769 to 1783, had peculiar opportunities of becoming conversant with his topic)—we learn that the Church of England was established by law in most of the colonies in 1776. The View says: “The clergy in America do not receive tithes, but in most of the colonies before the civil war (except the New England provinces, where the Independents had the upper hand) an Act of Assembly was made to divide the colony into parishes, and to establish religious worship therein according to the rites and ceremonies of the Church of England; and also to raise a yearly salary for the support of each parochial minister” (p. 199). With the exception of South Carolina, our author does not specify by name the colonies in which this system obtained, but from other sources we have that information. The charter of New Hampshire provided “that liberty of conscience shall be allowed to all Protestants, and that such especially as shall be conformable to the rites of the Church of England shall be particularly countenanced and encouraged,” which substantial establishment existed in that colony up to the Revolution v. Clark, 9 Cr. 292). The first constitution of New York, that of April 20, 1777, recognizes a like establishment by providing for the abrogation of “all such parts of the common and statute law, and acts of Assembly, as establish any denomination of Christians or their ministers.” Dr. David Ramsay, the contemporary historian of the Revolution, says: “In Connecticut all persons were obliged to contribute to the support of the church as well as the commonwealth.… The Congregational churches were adopted and established by law” (1 Hist. U. S., p. 150); also: “The Church of England was incorporated simultaneously with the first settlement of Virginia, and in the lapse of time it also became the established religion of Maryland. In both these provinces, long before the American Revolution, that church possessed a legal pre-eminence, and was maintained at the expense not only of its own members but of all other denominations” (id. p. 220). As to the establishment of the Church of England in Virginia, see also Terrett v. Taylor, 9 Cr. 43. From art. 34 of the first constitution of North Carolina, that of Dec. 18, 1776, which inhibits taxation “for the purchase of any glebe, or the building of any house of worship, or for the maintenance of any minister or ministry,” it is inferrible that a like establishment existed in that colony. In South Carolina Chief-Justice Stokes mentions the Church of England as established by law (View, p. 199), and the constitution of that State of March 19, 1778, secured “the churches, chapels, parsonages, glebes, and all other property now belonging to any societies of the Church of England, or any other religious societies” (art. 38). In Georgia the Church of England was established by colonial statute of March 15, 1758 (Watkins’ Dig. 52). In Massachusetts a colonial statute of 1716 established a compulsory religious establishment which remained up to the framing of the State constitution in 1780, the Assembly providing all towns declining to do so for themselves with “a minister qualified as by law is provided”—namely, “an able, learned, orthodox minister, of good conversation”—and imposing taxes for his support (Chalmers’ Colonial Opinions, p. 49; I Ramsay, Hist. U. S., p. 150).

From the foregoing it will be gathered that at the outbreak of the American Revolution some form of church establishment ordained by law was familiar to the people of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, New York, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. “In Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey there never was any established religion” (I Ramsay, Hist. U. S., p. 232). One of the incidents of the religious establishments in the colonies where they existed was that the clergy thereunder were governmental appointees. In Massachusetts, under the act of 1716, the Assembly settled ministers in the unprovided towns; in Maryland the proprietary had the advowsons (Chalm. Col. Op., 42); and in the provincial establishments or king’s governments, as New Hampshire, New York, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, the royal governor had the right of collation or appointment (Stokes’ View, p. 199). Another incident was the church rates or taxes, above referred to.

The New Jersey constitution of July 2, 1776, provided “that there shall be no establishment of any one religious sect in this province in preference to another” (art. 19); “nor shall any person within this colony ever be obliged to pay tithes, taxes, or any other rates for the purposes of building or repairing any church or churches, place or places of worship, or for the maintenance of any minister or ministry, contrary to what he believes to be right or has deliberately and voluntarily engaged himself to perform” (art. 18); and so sacred were these provisions deemed that an oath was prescribed for all members of the legislature, engaging them never to assent to any law, vote, or proceeding to annul, repeal, or alter any part or parts thereof (art. 23).

The Virginia constitution of July 5, 1776, declares “that religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force and violence; and therefore all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience, and that it is the mutual duty of all to practise Christian forbearance, love, and charity toward each other” (art. 16); and while this does not in terms equal the New Jersey provisions ante, the Supreme Court of the United States has construed it as equipollent, saying in Terrett v. Taylor, 9 Cr. 43: “Consistent with the constitution of Virginia, the legislature could not create or continue a religious establishment which should have exclusive rights and prerogatives, or compel the citizens to worship under a stipulated form or discipline, or to pay taxes to those whose creed they could not conscientiously believe.”

The constitution of Delaware of Sept. 20, 1776, provides: “No man shall, or ought to, be compelled to attend any religious worship, to contribute to the erection or support of any place of worship, or to the maintenance of any ministry, against his free-will and consent.… Nor shall a preference be given by law to any religious societies, denomination, or modes of worship” (art. 1, § 1).

The North Carolina constitution of Dec. 18, 1776, provides “that there shall be no establishment of any one religious church or denomination in this State in preference to any other; neither shall any person, on any pretence whatsoever, be compelled to attend any place of worship contrary to his own faith or judgment, nor be obliged to pay for the purchase of any glebe, or the building of any house of worship, or for the maintenance of any minister or ministry, contrary to what he believes right or has voluntarily and personally engaged to perform” (art. 34).

The Georgia constitution of Feb. 5, 1777, says: “All persons whatever shall have the free exercise of their religion, provided it be not art. 56).

The New York constitution of April 20, 1777, abrogates “all such parts of the common and statute law, and acts of Assembly, as establish any denomination of Christians or their ministers.”

The early constitutions of Maryland, South Carolina, and Massachusetts enunciated substantially the same principles as the other organic laws above set forth, but did not entirely destroy the connection of church and state. The Maryland constitution of Aug. 14, 1776, says: “Nor ought any person to be compelled to frequent, or maintain, or contribute, unless on contract, to maintain any particular place of worship or any particular ministry: (yet the legislature may, in their discretion, lay a general and equal tax for the support of the Christian religion; leaving to each individual the power of appointing the payment over of the money collected from him to the support of any particular place of worship, or minister, or for the poor of his own denomination, or the poor in general of any particular county).”

The South Carolina constitution of March 19, 1778, says: “No person shall by law be obliged to pay towards the maintenance and support of a religious worship that he does not freely join in or has not voluntarily engaged to support” (art. 38), but in the same article ordains that “the Christian Protestant religion shall be deemed, and is hereby constituted and declared to be, the established religion of this State,” extending this description to “all denominations of Christian Protestants in this State.”

The Massachusetts constitution of March 2, 1780, says: “No subordination of any sect or denomination to another shall ever be established by law” (part i. art. 3), but allowed taxation to support “public Protestant teachers of piety, religion, and morality in all cases where such provision shall not be made voluntarily” (id.), with this qualification, however: that “all moneys paid by the subject to the support of public worship and of the public teachers aforesaid shall, if he require it, be uniformly applied to the support of the public teacher or teachers of his own religious sect or denomination, provided there be any, on whose instruction he attends; otherwise it may be paid towards the support of the teacher or teachers of the parish or precinct in which the said moneys are raised” (id.)

If we state correctly—as we have not those documents by us—the New Hampshire constitution of June 2, 1784, provided that “no person of any one particular religious sect or denomination shall ever be compelled to pay towards the support of the teacher or teachers of another persuasion, sect, or denomination, … and no subordination of any one sect or denomination to another shall ever be established by law” (part i. art. 6), but that, subject to these provisions, the legislature might authorize local taxation to support “public Protestant teachers of piety, religion, and morality” (id.); and the Pennsylvania constitution of Sept. 28, 1776, provided “that no man can, of right, be compelled to attend, erect, or support any place of worship or to maintain any ministry against Deb. 334); and in the Connecticut Convention Oliver Wolcott, in urging the ratification of that instrument, refers to an inclination in that assemblage to favor a like amendment, and says: “Knowledge and liberty are so prevalent in this country that I do not believe that the United States would ever be disposed to establish one religious sect, and lay all others under legal disabilities. But as we know not what may take place hereafter, and any such test would be exceedingly injurious to the rights of free citizens, I cannot think it altogether superfluous to have added a clause which secures us from the possibility of such oppression” (2 Elliot Deb. 202).

We may thus say that, upon becoming States, the American colonies declared with one voice that no religious establishment should possess a legal pre-eminence in their several jurisdictions. In the Federal Convention Charles Pinckney proposed to make it a part of the Constitution of the United States that “the legislature of the United States shall pass no law on the subject of religion” (Journ., May 29), and thus apply to the general government the rule previously adopted by the States, which proposition failed. Mr. Pinckney then submitted this proposition: “No religious test or qualification shall ever be annexed to any oath of office under the authority of the United States” (Journ., Aug. 20), which was unanimously adopted (Journ., Aug. 30), Mr. Madison giving us this much of the debate: “Mr. Pinckney moved to add: ‘But no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the authority of the United States.’ Mr. Sherman thought it unnecessary, the prevailing liberality being a sufficient security against such tests. Mr. Gouverneur Morris and Gen. Pinckney approved the motion. The motion was agreed to, nem. con.” (5 Elliot Deb. 498). Upon the final revision the words “the authority of” were struck out (Journ., Sept. 12). When the Constitution was submitted for ratification, considerable uneasiness was manifested at the failure of Mr. Pinckney’s resolution that “the legislature of the United States shall pass no law on the subject of religion,” and upon ratifying the instrument the New Hampshire, New York, and Virginia Conventions urged the adoption of an amendment to that effect. The North Carolina Convention, while declining to ratify at its first session, assigned the same emendation as desirable, as did also the Rhode Island Convention upon ratifying; though, as the First Amendment had then been proposed by Congress and was before the people, the action of Rhode Island was not one of the causes leading to its submission. Journ. Cong., 1782-8, App. p. 52). The New York Convention: “That no religious sect or society ought to be favored or established by law in preference to others” (id. p. 55). The Virginia (id. p. 53), North Carolina (id. p. 60), and Rhode Island (1 Elliot Deb. 334) Conventions severally proposed “that no particular religious sect or society ought to be favored or established by law in preference to others.” In the Maryland Convention it was suggested as a desirable amendment “that there be no national religion established by law”; but, that body concluding to ratify the Constitution without proposing amendments at that time, no final action was had on the proposition (2 Elliot Deb. p. 553); and thereupon the change was made.

Thus it became a part of the Constitution of the United States that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” In many, perhaps we may say most, other particulars the Constitution was, when framed, an experiment, but in this the fathers of the republic had the lamp of experience to illuminate their path. While a myth to us, an established church had been a substantial reality to them, and their verdict thereupon was, that upon every ground of justice, interest, and harmony no religious sect or society ought ever to be favored or established by law in preference to others in these United States.

The second clause of the First Amendment, that Congress shall make no law prohibiting the free exercise of religion, is substantially included in the other provisions cited at the opening of this paper, and need not be here specifically considered. It is a casus omissus provision which speaks for itself. The provision that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States” opens, however, another field of inquiry.

At the outbreak of the American Revolution the colonists were deeply imbued with the intolerant spirit of their English ancestors as respects Roman Catholics, infidels, and Jews, and naturally impressed those feelings on their earlier governmental declarations and institutions. As the struggle progressed this aversion wore away, and on the final settlement of the present American system of polity we find the fathers of the republic formally renouncing their original prepossessions in favor of religious tests. So far as regards Jews and infidels, the citations now to be given will need no special comment; but as respects Roman Catholics, it is proper to premise that the ancestral antipathy of the colonists to those of that faith had been particularly sharpened by the old French war, closing by the peace of 1763.

In 1705 the following questions were propounded to the Attorney-General Northey: “Whether the laws of England against Romish priests are in force in the plantations, and whether her majesty may not direct Jesuits or Romish priests to be turned out of Maryland?” In reply he first takes up 27 Eliz., c. 2, making it high treason for any British-born Romish priest to come into, be, or remain in any part of the royal dominions, and says: “It II William III., c. 4, subjecting any popish bishop or priest who shall exercise any ecclesiastical function in any part of the British dominions to perpetual imprisonment, and says: “I am of opinion this law extends to the plantations, they being dominions belonging to the realm of England, and extends to all priests, foreigners as well as natives.” Lastly, he says: “As to the question whether her majesty may not direct Jesuits or Romish priests to be turned out of Maryland, I am of opinion, if the Jesuits or priests be aliens, not made denizens or naturalized, her majesty may, by law, compel them to depart Maryland; if they be her majesty’s natural-born subjects, they cannot be banished from her majesty’s dominions, but may be proceeded against on the last before-mentioned law” (Chalm. Col. Op., 42). And that this was the accepted state of the crown law as late as May 29, 1775, appears from an address of that date of the American Congress to the inhabitants of Canada, wherein they are asked to make common cause with the other colonies, and told: “The enjoyment of your very religion on the present system depends on a legislature in which you have no share and over which you have no control, and your priests are exposed to expulsion, banishment, and ruin whenever their wealth and possessions furnish sufficient temptation” (1 Journ. Cong., p. 75, Way & Gideon ed., Washington, 1823). It was also the case that a number of the royal charters under which the colonists had been accustomed to live denied religious liberty to Roman Catholics. The charter of New Hampshire provided “that liberty of conscience shall be allowed to all Protestants” (Town of Pawlet v. Clark, 9 Cr. 292); that of Massachusetts read: “For the greater ease and encouragement of our living subjects, inhabiting our said province or territory of Massachusetts Bay, and of such as shall come to inhabit there, we do, by these presents, for us, our heirs and successors, grant, establish, and ordain that for ever hereafter there shall be a liberty of conscience allowed in the worship of God to all Christians (except papists) inhabiting, or which shall inhabit or be resident within, our said province or territory” (Chalm. Col. Op., 48). The charter of Georgia, as of force up to 1752, ordains: “There shall be a liberty of conscience allowed in the worship of God to all persons inhabiting, or which shall inhabit or be resident within, our said province, and that all such persons, except papists, shall have a free exercise of religion” (White’s Hist. Coll. Ga., p. 9). The charter of Rhode Island—which recites that it was granted the petitioners therefor because “they have freely declared that it is much on their hearts (if they be permitted) to hold forth a lively experiment that a most flourishing civil state may stand and best be maintained, and that among our English subjects, with a full liberty in religious concernments”; and ordains “that all and every person and persons may, from time to time, and at all times hereafter, freely and fully have and enjoy his own and their judgments and consciences, in matters of religious concernments, Hist. U. S., p. 156).

With this much we come to the Continental Congress which met at Philadelphia Sept. 5, 1774, to consider the relations of the colonies to the parent state. It at once became apparent that one prime grievance alleged against the crown was the act of Parliament (14 Geo. III., c. 83), passed early in that year, respecting the boundaries and government of the Province of Quebec, as Canada was called after its cession to England by the peace of 1763, which extended the limits of that province southward to the Ohio, westward to the Mississippi, and northward to the boundary of the Hudson’s Bay Company; qualified Roman Catholics to sit in the provincial council; applied the French laws, dispensing with juries to civil cases, and the English practice to criminal; and secured the Catholic clergy their estates and full liberty in their religion. Massachusetts was particularly indignant at this statute, and the Congress had scarcely organized before the following resolution was presented with others from Suffolk County in that State: “10. That the late act of Parliament for establishing the Roman Catholic religion and the French laws in that extensive country now called Quebec is dangerous in an extreme degree to the Protestant religion and to the civil rights and liberties of all America; and therefore, as men and Protestant Christians, we are indispensably obliged to take all proper measures for our security” (1 Journ. Cong., p. 11). On the 10th of October Congress, having considered “the rights and grievances of these colonies,” “Resolved, N. C. D., That the following acts of Parliament are infringements and violations of the rights of the colonists; and that the repeal of them is essentially necessary in order to restore harmony between Great Britain and the American colonies, viz., … the act for establishing the Roman Catholic religion in the province of Quebec, abolishing the equitable system of English laws, and erecting a tyranny there, to the great danger (from so total a dissimilarity of religion, law, and government) of the neighboring British colonies, by the assistance of whose blood and treasure the said country was conquered from France.… To these grievous acts and measures Americans cannot submit” (id. pp. 20-22).

The main work of the Congress of 1774 was the famous “Continental Association,” which is, in brief, a solemn engagement on the part of the colonies to break off commercial relations with Great Britain until id. p. 23). The Congress also resolved upon addresses to the people of Great Britain, to the inhabitants of the colonies represented in the Congress, to the king, and to the people of Canada. That to the people of Great Britain says: “Know that we think the legislature of Great Britain is not authorized by the Constitution to establish a religion, fraught with sanguinary and impious tenets, or to erect an arbitrary form of government in any quarter of the globe” (id. p. 27). It then charges that at the close of the French war a plan of enslaving the colonies was concerted “under the auspices of a minister of principles, and of a family unfriendly to the Protestant cause and inimical to liberty,” and says: “Now mark the progression of the ministerial plan for enslaving us.… By another act the Dominion of Canada is to be so extended, modelled, and governed as that, by being disunited from us, detached from our interest, by civil as well as religious prejudices, that by their numbers daily swelling with Catholic emigrants from Europe, and by their devotion to administration so friendly to their religion, they might become formidable to us, and, on occasion, be fit instruments in the hands of power to reduce the ancient, free, Protestant colonies to the same state of slavery with themselves. This was evidently the object of the act; and in this view, being extremely dangerous to our liberty and quiet, we cannot forbear complaining of it as hostile to British America.… Nor can we suppress our astonishment that a British Parliament should ever consent to establish in that country a religion that has deluged your island in blood, and dispersed impiety, bigotry, persecution, and murder through every part of the world” (id. p. 30). The memorial to the colonists also refers to the Quebec act, “by which act the Roman Catholic religion, instead of being tolerated, as stipulated by the treaty of peace, is established,” and says: “The authors of this arbitrary arrangement flatter themselves that the inhabitants, deprived of liberty, and artfully provoked against those of another religion, will be proper instruments for assisting in the oppression of such as differ from them in modes of government and faith” (id. p. 37). To reassure the colonists, it concludes: “The people of England will soon have an opportunity of declaring their sentiments concerning our cause. In their piety, generosity, and good sense we repose high confidence, and cannot, upon a review of past events, be persuaded that they, the defenders of true religion and the asserters of the rights of mankind, will take part against their affectionate id. p. 38). The petition to the king represents as one of the obstacles to a restoration of harmony between the colonists and the crown the act “for extending the limits of Quebec, abolishing the English and restoring the French laws, whereby great numbers of British Frenchmen [sic] are subjected to the latter, and establishing an absolute government and the Roman Catholic religion throughout those vast regions that border on the westerly and northerly boundaries of the free Protestant English settlements” (id. p. 47); reminds the monarch that “we were born the heirs of freedom, and ever enjoyed our right under the auspices of your royal ancestors, whose family was seated on the British throne to rescue and secure a pious and gallant nation from the popery and despotism of a superstitious and inexorable tyrant”; and adjures him “for the honor of Almighty God, whose pure religion our enemies are undermining,” and “as the loving father of your whole people, connected by the same bonds of law, loyalty, faith, and blood,” to withstand the ministerial plan (id. p. 49).

The terrific arraignment of the Roman Catholic religion made in these various state papers will show to what an extent the colonists were unfavorably disposed toward that faith at the inception of the Revolutionary struggle. The fourth and last address, however, adopted remains to be noticed, and in this appears the first indication of that spirit of universal religious liberty and toleration which afterwards became one of the main animating impulses of the American system of government. The Journal, unfortunately, does not disclose the name of the wise and just man who drew up this document, but the internal evidence points to John Dickinson of Pennsylvania, who afterwards prepared the Articles of Confederation (1 Secret Journ., p. 290). Oct. 21, Thomas Cushing of Massachusetts, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia, and Mr. Dickinson were appointed a committee to prepare an address to the inhabitants of Quebec, and, as adopted, this urges the Canadians to make common cause with the other colonists, setting before them their rights as British subjects, and saying: “What is offered to you by the late act of Parliament in their place? Liberty of conscience in your religion? No. God gave it to you; and the temporal powers with which you have been and are connected firmly stipulated for your enjoyment of it. If laws, divine and human, could secure it against the despotic caprices of wicked men, it was secured before” (1 Journ., p. 42). The address then imagines the president, Montesquieu, urging his countrymen to unite with the English colonists, and concludes: “We are too well acquainted with the liberality of sentiment distinguishing your nation to imagine that difference of religion will prejudice you against a hearty amity with us. You know that the transcendent nature of freedom elevates those who unite in her cause above all such low-minded infirmities. The Swiss cantons furnish a memorable proof of this truth. Their union is composed of Roman Catholic and Protestant id. p. 44).

May 10, 1775, another Congress met. Blood had been shed; it was seen the sword must decide the event; and from this time the American Congress may be said to have remained in permanent session until the government under the Constitution was inaugurated. May 26, 1775, John Jay, Samuel Adams, and Silas Deane were appointed a committee to draught a letter to the people of Canada, which, as adopted, urged them to unite with the other colonists, declaring “the fate of the Protestant and Catholic colonies to be strongly linked together”; and adding: “The enjoyment of your very religion, on the present system, depends on a legislature in which you have no share and over which you have no control; and your priests are exposed to expulsion, banishment, and ruin whenever their wealth and possessions furnish sufficient temptation” (id. p. 75). This failing, Congress came closer by directing Robert Livingston, Robert Treat Paine, and J. Langdon, Nov. 8, 1775, to proceed to Canada, and there use their utmost efforts to procure the assistance of the Canadians in Gen. Schuyler’s operations, and to induce them to enter into a union with the other colonies, the instructions mentioning as one inducement to be held out: “And you may and are hereby empowered farther to declare that we hold sacred the rights of conscience, and shall never molest them in the free enjoyment of their religion” (id. p. 170). This also failing, a third effort was made to the same end by appointing Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Chase, and Charles Carroll of Carrollton—the latter not a member of Congress at the time, but selected as a Roman Catholic (2 Ramsay Hist. U. S., p. 65)—commissioners to Canada, May 20, 1776, instructing them: “You are farther to declare that we hold sacred the rights of conscience, and may promise to the whole people, solemnly in our name, the free and undisturbed exercise of their religion; and, to the clergy, the full, perfect, and peaceable possession and enjoyment of all their estates; that the government of everything relating to their religion and clergy shall be left entirely in the hands of the good people of that province and such legislature as they shall constitute; provided, however, that all other denominations of Christians be equally entitled to hold offices, and enjoy civil privileges and the free exercise of their religion, and be totally exempt from the payment of any tithes or taxes for the support of any religion” (1 Journ., p. 290). This failed in turn, but the fathers were long loath to relinquish their hopes of the accession of Canada. The Articles of Confederation provided that “Canada, acceding to this confederation, and joining in the measures of the United States, shall be admitted into and entitled to all the advantages of this Union; but no other colony shall be admitted into the same, unless such admission be agreed to by nine States” (art. 11); and guaranteed that each State should be protected in its religion by the common strength of all (art. U. S., p. 68). This, however, like all the invitations of the American Congress, was in vain. The contemporary fact was—and no doubt the British crown officers took care to have it well known throughout Canada—that while England was enacting laws to exempt the Canadians from her anti-Catholic statutes, and to indulge them with full liberty of conscience in their ancestral Catholic faith, the American Congress was solemnly resolving and declaring “that we think the legislature of Great Britain is not authorized by the constitution to establish a religion fraught with sanguinary and impious tenets in any quarter of the globe.” “Nor can we suppress our astonishment that a British Parliament should ever consent to establish in that country a religion that has deluged England in blood, and dispersed impiety, bigotry, persecution, murder, and rebellion throughout every part of the world.” So sharp a contrast had a powerful effect on the sixty-five thousand Roman Catholics who then inhabited Canada, according to Stokes (View, p. 30), and is, in all human probability, the reason why that extensive country is not a part of the United States to-day. That invaluable contemporary authority, Dr. Ramsay, assures us that the predilections of the Canadian masses were in favor of a union with the other colonies, but “the legal privileges which the Roman Catholic clergy enjoyed made them averse to a change, lest they should be endangered by a more intimate connection with their Protestant neighbors.”

The founders of the republic seem early to have perceived the mistake of yielding to what they termed in their first overture to Canada “the low-minded infirmity” of religious prejudice, and the severe recoil of that error in this case had much to do with their subsequent prohibition of religious tests.

Recurring now to the States, we find a religious test prescribed as a qualification to office in a number of the early constitutions. The New Jersey constitution of July 2, 1776, provides “that no Protestant inhabitant of this colony shall be denied the enjoyment of any civil right merely on account of his religious principles; but that all persons professing a belief in the faith of any Protestant sect, who shall demean themselves peaceably under the government as hereby established, shall be capable of being elected into any office of profit, or trust, or being a member of either branch of the legislature, and shall fully and freely enjoy every privilege and immunity enjoyed by others their fellow-subjects” (art. 19). The North Carolina constitution of art. 32). The Georgia constitution of February 5, 1777, says that the members of the legislature “shall be of the Protestant religion” (art. 6). The South Carolina constitution of March 19, 1778, provides for “a governor and commander-in-chief, a lieutenant-governor, both to continue two years, and a privy council—all of the Protestant religion” (art. 3); that “no person shall be eligible to sit in the House of Representatives unless he be of the Protestant religion” (art. 13); and “that all denominations of Christian Protestants in this State demeaning themselves peaceably and faithfully shall enjoy equal religious and civil privileges” (art. 38). In this State the governor was sworn “to the utmost of his power to maintain and defend the laws of God, the Protestant religion, and the liberties of America” (Grimke’s Laws So. Ca., 297). The Delaware constitution of September 11, 1776, provided the following oath to be taken by all members of the legislature: “I, A. B., do profess faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ his only Son, and in the Holy Ghost; and I do acknowledge the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by divine inspiration” (art. 22). The Maryland constitution of August 14, 1776, provided that “a declaration of a belief in the Christian religion” (Bill of Rights, art. 35) should be a qualification to office; and “that every person, appointed to any office of profit or trust shall, before he enters on the execution thereof, … subscribe a declaration of his belief in the Christian religion” (Const., art. 55). The New Hampshire constitution of January 5, 1776, while not expressly prescribing a religious test, is understood by the provision continuing the body of the colonial law in force to have required all members of the legislature to be of the Protestant religion. The spirit occasioning the above tests was remarkably manifested in the convention framing the New York constitution of April 20, 1777. An article granting “to all mankind the free exercise of religious profession and worship” being under consideration, John Jay, afterwards the first Chief-Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, moved to add the following: “Except the professors of the religion of the Church of Rome, who ought not to hold lands in, or be admitted to a participation of the civil rights enjoyed by the members of, this State until such time as the said professors shall appear in the Supreme Court of the State, and there most solemnly swear that they verily believe in their consciences that no pope, priest, or foreign authority on earth has power to absolve the subjects of this State from their allegiance to the same; and, farther, that they renounce and believe to be false and wicked the dangerous and damnable doctrine that the pope, or any other earthly authority, has power to absolve men from sins described in and prohibited by the holy Gospel of Jesus Christ, and particularly that no Life of Gouverneur Morris, vol. i., p. 124). The Pennsylvania constitution of September 28, 1776, required members of the General Assembly and civil officers to sign “a declaration of belief in one God, the creator and governor of the world, the rewarder of the good and the punisher of the wicked,” and also to make “an acknowledgment that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament are given by divine inspiration” (Stokes’ View, p. 81).

It will thus appear that the early constitutions of New Jersey, North Carolina, Georgia, South Carolina, and New Hampshire made a profession of Protestantism, and those of Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvania made a belief in Christianity, a qualification for office; and so the fundamental law of those States remained until after the ratification of the Constitution of the United States.

In 1787 the Federal Convention met, and, as has already been stated, while declining to make it a part of the Constitution that “the legislature of the United States shall pass no law on the subject of religion,” did insert in that instrument the provision that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.” Or, in other words, the Federal Constitution did not inhibit Congress from creating a religious establishment, but did forbid it to prescribe a religious test as a qualification to office; while, per contra, the State constitutions, while prohibiting such an establishment, admitted such tests. We have seen how the States conformed the Federal Constitution to their own in the article of the inhibition of an established church, and are now to inquire how the State constitutions modelled themselves upon the Constitution of the United States so far as respects the prohibition of religious qualifications for office.

When the Federal Constitution was proposed for ratification to the State conventions, considerable opposition was manifested in some of those bodies to this prohibition. It was alleged that, as the Constitution stood, the Pope of Rome might become President of the United States, and there was even a pamphlet published to sustain that objection (4 Elliot Deb., p. 195). In the North Carolina Convention, in particular, a hot debate occurred. Mr. Abbott said: “The exclusion of religious tests is by many thought dangerous and impolitic. They suppose that if there be no religious test required, pagans, deists, and Mahometans might obtain offices among us, and that the senators and representatives might all be pagans” (id. p. 192). Mr. Iredell referred to the deplorable results of religious tests in all ages, and said: “America has set an example to mankind to think more modestly and reasonably—that a man may be of different religious sentiments from our own without being a bad member of society.… But it is objected that the people of America may, perhaps, choose representatives who have no religion at all, and that pagans and Mahometans may be admitted into offices. But how is it possible to exclude any set of men without taking away that principle of religious freedom which we ourselves id. p. 193 et seq.) Gov. Johnston said: “When I heard there were apprehensions that the Pope of Rome could be the President of the United States, I was greatly astonished. It might as well be said that the King of England or France or the Grand Turk could be chosen to that office. It would have been as good an argument.… It is apprehended that Jews, Mahometans, pagans, etc., may be elected to high offices under the government of the United States. Those who are Mahometans, or any others who are not professors of the Christian religion, can never be elected to the office of President or other high office but in one of two cases: First, if the people of America lay aside the Christian religion altogether, it may happen. Should this unfortunately take place, the people will choose such men as think as they do themselves. Another case is, if any persons of such descriptions should, notwithstanding their religion, acquire the confidence and esteem of the people of America by their good conduct and practice of virtue, they may be chosen” (id. p. 198). Mr. Caldwell said: “There was an invitation for Jews and pagans of every kind to come among us. At some future period this might endanger the character of the United States.… I think that in a political view those gentlemen who formed this Constitution should not have given this invitation to Jews and heathens” (id. p. 199). Mr. Spencer said: “Religious tests have been the foundation of persecutions in all countries. Persons who are conscientious will not take the oath required by religious tests, and will therefore be excluded from offices, though equally capable of discharging them as any member of society” (id. p. 200). Mr. Spaight, who had been in the Federal Convention, said: “No test is required. All men of equal capacity and integrity are equally eligible to offices. Temporal violence may make mankind wicked, but never religious. id. p. 208). Mr. Wilson “wished that the Constitution had excluded popish priests from office” (id. p. 212). Mr. Lancaster said: “As to a religious test, had the article which excludes it provided none but what had been in the States heretofore, I would not have objected to it.… For my part, in reviewing the qualifications necessary for a President, I did not suppose that the pope could occupy the President’s chair. But let us remember that we form a government for millions not yet in existence. I have not the art of divination. In the course of four or five hundred years I do not know how it will work. This is most certain: that papists may occupy that chair, and Mahometans may take it. I see nothing against it. There is a disqualification, I believe, in every State in the Union; it ought to be so in this system” (id. p. 215).

In the Massachusetts Convention there was considerable debate on the same clause. Mr. Singletary “thought we were giving up all our privileges, as there was no provision that men in power should have any religion; and though he hoped to see Christians, yet, by the Constitution, a papist or an infidel was as eligible as they” (2 Elliot Deb., p. 44). Several members of the convention urging that the provision “was a departure from the principles of our forefathers, who came here for the preservation of their religion; and that it would admit deists, atheists, etc., into the general government,” Rev. Mr. Shute said: “To establish a religious test as a qualification for offices in the proposed Federal Constitution, it appears to me, sir, would be attended with injurious consequences to some individuals, and with no advantage to the whole.… In this great and extensive empire there is and will be a great variety of sentiments in religion among its inhabitants. Upon the plan of a religious test the question, I think, must be, Who shall be excluded from national trusts? Whatever answer bigotry may suggest, the dictates of candor and equity, I conceive, will be, None. Far from limiting my charity and confidence to men of my own denomination in religion, I suppose and I believe, sir, that there are worthy characters among men of every denomination—among the Quakers, the Baptists, the Church of England, the papists, and even among those who have no other guide in the way to virtue and heaven than the dictates of natural religion. I must therefore think, sir, that the proposed plan of government in this particular is wisely constructed; that as all have an equal claim to the blessings of the government under which they live and which they support, so none should be excluded from them for being of any particular denomination in religion. The presumption is that the eyes of the people will be upon the faithful in the land; and, from a regard of their own safety, they will choose for their rulers men of known abilities, of known probity, of good moral characters. The Apostle Peter tells us that God is no respecter of persons, but in every nation he that feareth him and worketh righteousness is acceptable to him. And I know of no reason why men of such a character, in a community of whatever denomination in religion, cœteris paribus, with other suitable qualifications, should not be acceptable to the people, and id. p. 118).

These utterances form so excellent a commentary on the last clause of the sixth article of the Constitution of the United States that it is to be regretted that we know no more of their admirable and sagacious author than that he was the Rev. Daniel Shute, of Hingham, in Suffolk County, and voted on what the original journal calls “the decision of the grand question” in favor of ratifying the Constitution; as did also his colleague, Major-General Benjamin Lincoln.

Recurring to the debate, Col. Jones “thought that the rulers ought to believe in God or Christ, and that, however a test may be prostituted in England, yet he thought, if our public men were to be of those who had a good standing in the church, it would be happy for the United States” (id. p. 119). Major Lusk “passed to the article dispensing with the qualification of a religious test, and concluded by saying that he shuddered at the idea that Roman Catholics, papists, and pagans might be introduced into office, and that popery and the Inquisition may be established in America” (id. p. 148). Rev. Mr. Backus said: “I now beg leave to offer a few thoughts upon some points in the Constitution proposed to us, and I shall begin with the exclusion of any religious test. Many appear to be much concerned about it; but nothing is more evident, both in reason and the Holy Scriptures, than that religion is ever a matter between God and individuals; and therefore no man or men can impose any religious test without invading the essential prerogatives of our Lord Jesus Christ. Ministers first assumed this power under the Christian name, and then Constantine approved of the practice when he adopted the profession of Christianity as an engine of state policy. And let the history of all nations be searched from that day to this, and it will appear that the imposing of religious tests hath been the greatest engine of tyranny in the world. And I rejoice to see so many gentlemen who are now giving in their rights of conscience in this great and important matter. Some serious minds discover a concern lest, if all religious tests should be excluded, the Congress would hereafter establish popery or some other tyrannical way of worship; but it is most certain that no such way of worship can be established without any religious test” (id. p. 149).

In the Conventions of Virginia (3 Elliot Deb., p. 204), and Connecticut (2 ib. p. 202), and in the South Carolina Legislature (1 id. p. 312), the same clause was discussed, but more briefly, and after the final ratification of the Constitution the principle of the provision seems to have been universally conceded as correct. The Georgia constitution of May 6, 1789, the first new State constitution adopted after the inauguration of the government under the Constitution of the United States, omitted the qualification that members of the General Assembly should be of the Protestant religion; the South Carolina constitution of June 3, 1790, the next adopted, omitted the same test, as also all the former provisions making art. 8, sec. 1), and from this time forward it may be taken as the case that as fast as the States remodelled their constitutions of the Revolutionary era the religious-test provisions were formally omitted, and in the interim passed sub silentio.

The immediate cause of this universal abrogation of religious qualifications for office was, as we have seen, the sixth article of the Constitution of the United States, but beyond this were some potent operative causes. The loss of Canada was one. Dr. Ramsay, who tells us that he had access to all the official papers of the United States up to 1786, when he ceased to be a member of the Congress under the Confederation (pref. 2 Hist. U. S.), says: “The province was evacuated with great reluctance. The Americans were not only mortified at the disappointment of their favorite scheme of annexing it as a fourteenth link in the chain of their Confederacy, but apprehended the most serious consequences from the ascendency of the British power in that quarter” (id. p. 71). It was felt too late that the indiscreet utterances of the Congress of 1774 respecting the Roman Catholic religion had led to this loss.

Another operative cause was the yearning desire of the early statesmen of the United States to invite and secure foreign immigration. As early as the address of Congress of Oct. 21, 1774, it was noticed that the population of Canada was Hist. U. S., p. 220).

Another cause operating in favor of a removal of religious tests to office was the eminent services rendered the States in the establishment of their independence by two Catholic powers, France and Spain. It is currently supposed that it was not until after the Americans, by their capture of Burgoyne at Saratoga in 1777, had demonstrated their power that they received efficient assistance from those nations; but the contrary is the case. Before the Declaration of Independence Silas Deane was sent to France for assistance, and contemporaneous with the Declaration large supplies of money and arms were furnished by that power. Arms, clothing, and ammunition for 25,000 men and 100 field-pieces were asked by Congress, and the response of his Christian majesty was 2,000,000 livres in money and small arms, 200 field-pieces, the best in the royal arsenals, a credit for 1,000,000 livres with the clothier-general of the French forces, and the services of Monsieur Coudray, the best military engineer in the royal army, and as many of his officers as were needed (1 Pitk. Hist. U. S., pp. 387, 500). Spain also assisted the Americans with 1,000,000 livres as early as May, 1776 (id. p. 411). Still another 1,000,000 livres were added by France before the treaty of 1778; and to appreciate fully the various pecuniary aids given by this power to the United States during the struggle, the reader may well consult the treaties with that power of 1782 and 1783 (Rev. Stats., “Treaties,” pp. 214-9). Prior to 1778 some 3,000,000 livres were advanced, and from that time to 1782 some 18,000,000 more were granted and an endorsement given to Holland for 10,000,000 in addition. In 1783 a further grant of 6,000,000 livres was made, making 37,000,000 in all. All expenses of commissions, negotiations, etc., were borne by France and made a present to the United States, as also all the interest accrued during the entire war on the debt, and the total principal of the sums forwarded in 1776, for all of which benefactions the most lively acknowledgments were made by the United States in the treaties referred to above. Nor were French fleets and armies wanting. In July, 1778, a French squadron of twelve line-of-battle ships and four frigates reached the United States under Count d’Estaing (2 Ramsay Hist. U. S., p. 258). In 1779 the same commander appeared off the Georgia coast with 20 ships of the line and 11 frigates, and some 3,500 French troops, infantry and artillery; and at this time occurred the bloody assault on the British entrenchments at Savannah, where Gen. Lincoln, at the head of 600 Continentals, and d’Estaing at the head of the French infantry, charged side by side, 200 of the Americans and 637 of the French being left on the field. In July, 1780, still another French fleet arrived at Rhode Island with 6,000 troops (2 Pitk. 117). In 1781 Count de Grasse arrived with 28 ships of the line and 3,200 French troops under the Marquis de St. Simon (2 Ramsay, p. 427). In 1782 a French fleet of 34 ships of the line, having on board 5,500, rendezvoused in the West Indies to draw off the British by an attack on Jamaica, and here sustained an appalling defeat at the hands of Admiral Rodney. The French troops were so crowded on the vessels that in one ship alone 400 men were killed, and the total slaughter amounted to thousands (id. p. 5). In the same year we find 7,000 French regulars at Yorktown; and from the contemporary accounts the French engineers and artillery were eminently instrumental in forcing the surrender of Cornwallis, particularly Major-General du Portail, Brigadier-General Launcy, Col. Gouvion, and Capt. Rochefontaine, who were thanked and promoted by Congress and warmly commended to their sovereign (id. p. 438; 4 Journ. 290).

Nor was Spain backward in her efforts. Before the Declaration of Independence she sent the Americans 1,000,000 livres (1 Pitk. 411). In 1777 she forwarded several cargoes of naval stores, cordage, sail-cloth, anchors, etc., from Bilboa id. p. 528). In 1779 she declared war against Great Britain, and carried on a campaign in Florida with such vigor as to drive out the British from that province. In 1780 an immense Spanish armament appeared in the West Indies to co-operate with the French in creating a diversion in that quarter, the combined fleet numbering thirty-six ships of the line, crowded with troops (2 Ramsay, 374). In 1782 a grander attempt was made in the same field, the combined French and Spanish navies numbering sixty ships of the line, with an immense number of frigates and smaller armed vessels, and conveying thousands of land forces. The first attempt failed by the appearance of a mortal disease which decimated the Spanish troops, and the latter by the bloody defeat of the French by Admiral Rodney. In the course of the war the Spanish navy received a terrible blow at Cape St. Vincent, though the Spanish admiral, Don Juan de Langara, fought till his flag-ship was a mere wreck and his fleet was sunk or taken. One vessel in particular, the San Domingo, of 70 guns and carrying 600 men, blew up, and all on board perished (id. p. 372).

To sustain American independence, in short, French and Spanish blood was poured out like water. The arms, the gold, the ships, the armies of the two great Catholic powers were given in unstinted measure to the United States, and on the establishment of the present polity of the republic it would have been disgraceful beyond measure to have fixed therein a stigma on the faith of those friends in time of need. In answering the congratulations of the Catholic clergy and laity on his first accession to the presidency, Gen. Washington said: “I presume that your fellow-citizens will not forget the patriotic part which you took in the accomplishment of their Revolution and the establishment of their government, or the important assistance which they received from a nation in which the Roman Catholic faith is professed” (Cath. Al., 1876, p. 63). Possibly, also, the demeanor of the French troops may have removed many misapprehensions and prejudices against their religion. Madison, who was an eye-witness of their march through Philadelphia, where Congress was then in session, in 1782, en route to Yorktown, highly applauds their regularity and decency of conduct in his letters of that date (Mad. Papers); and speaking on the same subject Dr. Ramsay, also then in Congress, says: “The French troops marched at the same time and for the same place. In the course of this summer they passed through all the extensive settlements which lie between Newport and Yorktown. It seldom, if ever, happened before that an army led through a foreign country, at so great a distance from their own, among a people of different principles, customs, language, and religion, behaved with so much regularity. In their march to Yorktown they had to pass through 500 miles of a country abounding in fruit, and at a time when the most delicious productions of nature growing on and near the public highways presented both opportunity and temptation to gratify Hist. U. S., p. 434). Allies of this character were in high favor with the American people, and most gratefully remembered at the time of the final settlement of civil government in the United States, not to speak of the influence of the Continental soldiery, who, no doubt, bore in mind their brethren in arms at Savannah and Yorktown, and recalled Washington’s general order whereby the black cockade of the American army was mounted with a white relief in honor of Catholic France (2 Ramsay, p. 358).

To conclude, then, the provisions of the Constitution of the United States bearing on religion are not mere ill-considered generalities, but positive convictions based upon long and sore experience. The prohibition of a national religion or of any governmental interference with spiritual persuasions owes its origin to the actual existence in former days of church establishments, the hierophants wherein were appointees of the political power, and the expenses whereof were compulsorily borne by those of other creeds. And the inhibition of religious tests for office arises out of the fact that the history of this country demonstrates it equally impolitic, ungrateful, and dishonest to require such qualifications in these United States.

ASSISI.

“St. Francis be my speed!”

Think of being taken into Umbria, preternatural Umbria, where every olive-sandalled mountain is full of mysterious influences, and every leaf and flower of the smiling valleys seem to breathe out some sweet old Franciscan legend, by a steam-engine bearing the name of Fulton! It was hard. Not but we have the highest respect for—nay, a certain pride in—that great inventor; still it seemed a positive grievance to find anything modern in what was to us a world of poetry and mediæval tradition. We wished, if not to gird ourselves humbly with the cord like Dante, at least to put ourselves in harmony with one of the most delicious regions in the world, where at every step the lover of the classic, of art, or of the higher mystic lore finds so much to suit his turn. The name of Fulton sounds well along the Hudson, but to hear the shriek of an engine awaken the echoes of the Apennines, and see it go plunging insensibly through the very heart of poetical Umbria, along the shores of “reedy Thrasimene,” through “the defiles fatal to Roman rashness,” was a blow difficult to recover from. It required the overpowering influences of this enchanting region, as every one will believe, to restore our equanimity.

Umbria is a mountainous region of the Ecclesiastical States that gradually ascends from the Tiber toward the Apennines, now called the Duchy of Spoleto. It is full of sweet, sunny valleys enclosed St. Margaret; Perugia dolente, which Totila only took after a seven years’ siege, and which Charlemagne placed under the sweet yoke of the Papacy; Montefalco, like a falcon’s nest on the crest of the mountain, famous for its virgin saint and its frescos of Benozzo Gozzoli; and picturesque Marni, where the Blessed Lucy when a child played with the Christorello. We pass Orvieto, with its wonderful proofs of past cultivation; the lake of Bolsena, with its isle where a queen died of hunger, and its shores verdant with the glorious pines sung by Virgil, at the foot of which Leo X., when a guest at the Farnese villa, used to gather around him the artists and poets of the day, to indulge in intellectual converse till “the azure gloom of an Italian night” gathered around them with hues that spoke of heaven.

But over all hovers especially the grand memory of St. Francis, with which the whole of this beautiful region is embalmed. Along its valleys and mountain paths he used to go with Fra Pacifico, the poet laureate of Frederick II., singing their hymns of praise, calling themselves God’s minstrels, who desired no other reward from those who gathered around them but the sincere repentance of their sins. There is the lake of Perugia, where he spent forty days alone on an island among the sad olives, fasting in imitation of our Saviour, in continual communion with God and the angels—a spot now marked by a convent whose foundations are washed by the waters of the lake. There is the blue lake of Rieti, to which, in his compassion for God’s creatures, he restored the fish alive, with the four Franciscan convents on the hills that enclose it. There is Gubbio, with the legend of the fierce wolf he tamed, to which the people erected a statue—an unquestionable proof of its truth. There is the

where

Above all, there is Assisi with his tomb, one of the most glorious in the world after that of Christ, around which centred all the poetry and art of the thirteenth century. We caught our first glimpse of it at Spello—Spello on its spur of red limestone—where we were shown the house of Propertius, “the poet of delicate pleasures,” in full sight of Assisi, where was born Santa Maria degli Angeli, which encloses the sacred Porziuncula. We were now in the very “land of wonder, of miracle, and mysterious influences,” the first glimpse of which one can never forget. Think of a railway station close by the Porziuncula! We went directly there on descending from the cars.

St. Mary of the Angels is a vast church that stands almost solitary in the plain. It is modern also, and out of keeping with the venerable traditions of the place, which was a disappointment. The old church was nearly destroyed by an earthquake in 1854. The present one is of noble proportions, however, and has been compared to the garments of a queen that now clothe the humble sanctuary of the Porziuncula which stands beneath the dome, the first thing to strike the eye on entering the church. We hastened towards it at once, to pray where St. Francis so often wept and prayed, and where so many generations since have wept, and prayed, and found grace before God. It was here Picca, his mother, often came to pray before he was born, and where his birth was announced by mysterious songs attributed to the angels. St. Francis loved this spot above all places in the world; for it was here he was called to embrace the sublime folly of the cross, and where he laid the foundations of the seraphic order. It was here, in the year 1222, he beheld Christ and his holy Mother surrounded by a multitude of angels, and prayed that all who should henceforth visit this chapel with hearts purified by contrition and confession might obtain full pardon and indulgence for all their sins. This was the origin of the celebrated indulgence of the Porziuncula, which the grave Bourdaloue regarded as one of the most authentic in the church, because granted directly by Christ himself. The treasures of the church were not dealt out so generously in those days as now, and thousands came hither from all parts of Christendom, in the middle ages, to gain this wonderful indulgence. When St. Bernardine of Siena came in the fourteenth century, he found two hundred thousand pilgrims encamped in the valley around. St. Bridget spent the whole night of one 1st of August praying in the Porziuncula; and still, when the great day of the Perdono comes (it lasts from the Vespers of the 1st of August till the Vespers of the following day), thousands flock down from the mountains and come up from the extremity of southern Italy. The highway is lined with booths where eatables and religious objects are sold. Processions come with chants and prayer. The great bell of Predicazione, originally cast for Fra Elias, is heard all over the valley from the Sagro Convento, announcing the indulgence. When the church doors open, an overwhelming crowd pours in with cries, and invocations, and vivas for the Madonna and St. Francis with true Italian exuberance of devotion.

The Porziuncula has wisely been left in its primitive simplicity, with the exception of the front, on which Overbeck, in 1830, painted the above-mentioned vision to St. Francis with true pre-Raphaelite simplicity. The remainder is just as it was in the time of the saint; only

Back of the Porziuncula is the low, dark cell St. Francis inhabited, and where he ended his days. It was here, while he was dying, two of the friars sang his Hymn of the Sun, which breathes so fully his love for everything created. And when they ceased, he himself took up the strain, to sing the sweetness of death, which he called his “sister, terrible and beautiful,” in the spirit of Job, who said to corruption: Thou art my father; to the worm: Thou art my mother and my sister.

Then we were taken into the recess where St. Francis so often chastised his body, which he regarded as his beast of burden that it behoved him to beat daily and to lead around with a halter. When dying, he is said to have begged pardon of this old companion of the way for inflicting so many stripes on it for the good of his soul. There is also the Cappella delle Rose with the Spineto—a little court once filled with coarse brambles, but now aflush with roses. Here St. Francis, being tempted to renounce a life in which he was consumed with watchings and prayers, for his only reply threw himself among the thorns, which, tinged with his blood, were immediately changed into roses. They bloom here still, but without thorns, and their petals are stained as with blood. If transplanted elsewhere, the stains are said to fade away and the thorns to come forth again. It was twelve of these roses, six red and six white, the saint bore with him into the Porziuncula when the great Perdono of the 2d of August was granted—roses that for ever will embalm the church, and that have been immortalized by artists all over Italy and Spain.

The immense convent of Observantine friars adjoining is now solitary and desolate. The Italian government has turned the inmates out of this cradle of their order, with the exception of two or three, who are left as guardians of the church. The hundreds of poor, once fed at their gates in time of need, now take revenge on the passing traveller, and fasten themselves on him with pertinacious grasp. But who can refuse a dole where St. Francis has made Poverty for ever glorious?

From St. Mary of the Angels we went winding up the hill to Assisi. Its base is clothed with the olive, the vine, and the fig, but its sides are as nude and destitute as the Bride of St. Francis. Above, on the right, rises the tall campanile of Santa Chiara over the tomb of St. Clare. At the left is the fortress-like edifice of the Sagro Convento on the Hill of Paradise, once known as the Colle d’Inferno, where St. Francis desired to be buried among malefactors. This monastery against the mountain side stands on a long line of double arches that seem hewn out of the very cliff. It is one of the most imposing and most interesting monuments in Italy, and astonishes the eye by its bold, massive, and picturesque appearance, quite in harmony with the old mediæval city. It has been called the Sagro Convento ever since its consecration by Pope Innocent IV. in 1243—the Sacred Convent, par excellence. Santa Chiara and this convent of St. Francis seem like two strongholds at the extremities of the town to protect it from danger. Between them it rises in terraces, crowned

Half way up the hill we came to the Spedalicchio—the ancient ’Spital where St. Francis so often came to take care of the lepers. It was here, as he was borne on a litter to the Porziuncula by the friars, a few days before his death, he begged them to stop and turn him around, not to take a last look at the city he loved—for the eyes that had wept so many tears were now blind—but to bless it with uplifted hands, in solemn, tender words that have been graven over one of the gates:

Benedicta tu civitas a Domino, quia per te multæ animæ salvabuntur, et in te multi servi Altissimi habitabunt, et de te multi eligentur ad regnum æternum.—A city blessed of the Lord art thou, because by thee many souls shall be saved, and in thee shall dwell many servants of the Most High, and from thee many shall be chosen to reign for ever and ever!

With what emotion one enters its gates!… We drove through old, narrow, ascending streets, silent and monastic, named after the saints; past old rock-built houses of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, with the holy names of Jesus and Mary over nearly every door; flower-pots with pinks and gillyflowers in all the windows, even the poorest, or on ledges, or set in rings projecting from the walls; and women spinning under the old archways like St. Clare, who, we are told, even when wasted and enfeebled by her austerities, sat up in bed and span linen of marvellous fineness.

Our hotel was close to the Sagro Convento, and, though extremely fatigued, we at once hastened to the church, not to examine its treasures of art, but to pray and find repose of heart overburdened by the flood of memories that come over one in such a place as Assisi. Then we returned to our room, and sat at the window looking off at the setting sun and golden sky, and the shining dome of St. Mary of the Angels, and the broad plain where was held the famous Chapter of Mats in St. Francis’ time, with its narrow river winding through it. It was like the page of a beautiful poem laid open before us. St. Francis loved these hills clothed with the pale olive, this valley covered with harvests and the vine, the free air and azure heavens, the running stream, a fine prospect; and we sat long after the rich, glorious convent bells rang out the Ave Maria, gazing at the fair scene before us. Purple shadows began to creep up the rugged sides of the hill, the golden light faded away in the wrest, the dome over the Porziuncula grew dim, and the valley was covered with the rising mists. It was time to close the window.

We spent most of the following day in the church. It is the very inflorescence of Christian art, a great epic poem in honor of St. Francis. A pope laid the corner-stone. All Christendom sent its offerings. The most celebrated architects and painters of the time lent the aid of their genius. One would think it had grown out of the hill against which it is built. Its azure vaults starred with gold, its ribbed arches that bend low like the boughs of a gloomy forest, the delicacy of its carvings, its marble pavement, its windows with their jewelled panes, and above all its walls covered with mystic paintings that read like the very poetry of religion, need almost M. Taine says: “No one, till he has seen this unrivalled edifice, can have any idea of the art and genius of the middle ages. Taken in connection with Dante and the Fioretti of St. Francis, it is the masterpiece of mystic Christianity.” It was the first Gothic church erected in Italy.[192] It is built in the form of a cross, in memory of the mysterious crucifixion of St. Francis. Its walls are of white marble, in honor of the Immaculate Virgin; and there are twelve towers of red marble, in memory of the blood shed by the Holy Apostles. It consists of two churches, one above the other, and a crypt beneath, where lies the body of St. Francis. The upper church is entered from a grassy terrace on the top of the Hill of Paradise. The lower one opens at the side into an immense court surrounded by an arcade. This under church, with its low Byzantine arches, full of the mysterious gloom and solemnity so favorable to pensive contemplation and prayer, has often been supposed typical of the self-abasement and mortified life of St. Francis. Its delicious chapels, with their struggling light, are well calculated to excite sadness, penitence, and tears. The crypt beneath, with its horrible darkness, its damp walls and death-like stillness, and its one tomb in the centre awaiting the Resurrection, is a veritable limbo; while the upper church, with its lofty, graceful, upspringing arches, all light and joy, is symbolic of the transfigured soul of the seraphic Francis in the beatitude of eternal glory.

But how can we go peering around this museum of Christian art, as if in a picture-gallery? It would be positively wicked. The knee instinctively bends before the saintly forms that people the twilight solemnity of the lower church. It was thus we gazed up at Giotto’s matchless frescos of the three monastic virtues on the arches over the high altar, which stands directly above the tomb of St. Francis—Poverty, Chastity, and Obedience—fit crown indeed for that “meek man of God.” We remember seeing them during the Forty Hours’ Devotion, when the candles lit them up wondrously; the figures came out in startling relief; the angels seemed actually hovering over the divine Host below. The most celebrated of these paintings is the Spozalizio sung by Dante—the mystic espousals of St. Francis with Poverty, the lady of his choice.

This was not an original conception of Giotto’s or Dante’s. They only gave a more artistic expression to the popular belief. There was not a cottage in Umbria that did not believe in these espousals of St. Francis with Lady Poverty, who had, says the Divine Poet, lived more than a thousand years bereft of her first bridegroom, Christ; and it was from the lips of the poor and lowly they gathered the significant allegory. It was also before their time St. Bonaventura wrote: “St. Francis, journeying to Siena in the broad plain between Campiglia and San Quirico, was encountered by three maidens in poor raiment, exactly resembling each other in age and appearance, who saluted him with the words: ‘Welcome, Lady Poverty,’ and suddenly disappeared. The brethren not irrationally concluded that St. Francis, and that by the three poor maidens were signified Poverty, Chastity, and Obedience, the sum and beauty of evangelical perfection, all of which shone with equal and consummate lustre in the man of God, though he made the privilege of poverty his chief glory.”

Dante with all his pride, and Giotto with his repugnance to poverty, even when consecrated by religion, chose one of the most democratic of subjects when they depicted these sacred espousals of St. Francis; for it was the people he identified himself with in this union. He wedded for better and worse the sorrows and misery, the misfortunes and groans, of Italy,[193] and when dying,

The church teaches that the poor are Christ’s suffering members; that it is he who is hungered and athirst in the sick and destitute; to him is every alms given. St. Francis gave his whole being to Poverty thus identified with Christ—a bride chosen only by a few elect souls in these days of luxury and self-indulgence, but in whom the Christian philosophers of the middle ages found an infinite charm. Plato represents Love with bare feet and tattered, disordered garments, to signify the forgetfulness of self that gives all and reserves nothing. It is in this sense the choice of evangelical poverty is one of the highest expressions of love to God in the Catholic Church.

“O hidden riches! O prolific good!” exclaims Dante. And no one ever understood its value more than St. Francis, the glorioso poverello di Christo, who was, says Bossuet, “perhaps the most desperate lover of poverty ever known in the church.”

“O Lord Jesus!” cries St. Francis, “show me the ways of thy dear Poverty.… Take pity on me and my lady Poverty whom I love with so much ardor. Without her I can find no peace. And it is thou, O my God! who hast inspired this great love. She is seated in the dust of the highway, and her friends pass her by with contempt. Thou seest the abasement of this queen, O Lord Jesus! who didst descend from heaven to make her thy spouse, and through her to beget children worthy of thee, who art perfect. She was in the humility of thy Mother’s womb. She was at the manger. She had her part in the great combat thou didst fight for our redemption. In thy Passion she alone did not abandon thee. Mary, thy Mother, remained at the foot of the cross, but Poverty ascended it with thee.[194] She clung more closely than ever to thy breast. It was she who lovingly prepared the rude nails that pierced thy hands and feet; she who didst present thee with gall when thou wast suffering from thirst.… Thou didst die in her loving embrace.… And even then this faithful spouse did not forsake thee. She had thy body buried in the grave of another. She wrapped thy cold limbs in the tomb, and with her thou didst come forth glorious. Therefore thou hast crowned her in heaven, and chosen her to mark thy elect with the sign of redemption. Oh! who would not choose Lady Poverty above all other brides? O Jesus! who for our sakes didst become poor, the grace I beg of thee is the privilege of sharing thy poverty. I ardently desire to be enriched with this treasure. I pray thee that I and mine may never possess anything in the world of our own, for the glory of thy name, but that we may only subsist, during this miserable life, on that which is given us in alms.”

How foreign this seems to the spirit of our age; and yet it is the

“It is a noble doctrine that teaches how slight a thing is Poverty; what riches, nay, treasures untold, a man may possess in the midst of it, if he does but seek them aright; how much of the fiend’s apparent bulk is but a fog vapor of the sickly and sophisticated mind. It is a noble endeavor that would bring men to tread the fear of this phantom under their firm feet, and dare to be poor!”

Giotto represents St. Francis receiving his bride from the hands of Christ himself. Her head is crowned with roses and light, but her feet are bleeding from the thorns of the rough way. Her cheeks are hollow and pale, but her eyes are full of fire. Her garments are worn and in tatters, but she is beautiful with modesty and love. Hers is the tempered spiritual beauty of one who has been chastened by misfortune, but there is nothing of the degradation of human passion. It is the poverty of country life, free, modest, unabashed, but ennobled by an expression that religion alone can give. Worldlings attack her with blows, and a dog, that last friend of the poor, is barking at her with fury. Angels, beaming with joy and admiration, encircle these mysterious nuptials. Below, in one corner, are the vices of the times personified—the rapacity of the nobility, and the greed of monks who have become unmindful of their obligations. At the left is the youthful Francis sharing his mantle with a beggar, while an angel above is ascending with the garment to heaven. The central figure in the painting is the radiant form of Him who took upon himself the likeness of the poor, on whose condition he now confers fresh dignity by perpetuating a love of poverty in the person of Francis and his order. Over all are angels of sacrifice offering to God the riches that have been abandoned for the love of him.

Philosophy, poetry, and religion are all in this wonderful allegory, which has shone here nearly six hundred years as a memorial and a perpetual admonition to the followers of St. Francis.

Chastity is represented under the veiled form of a maiden who has taken refuge in the tower of a fortress, defended by a triple wall, and guarded by Innocence and Fortitude. She is kneeling in the attitude of prayer, while angels bring her a crown and a palm. Before the castle gates are depicted the divine means of purifying the human soul: Baptism, with the cardinal virtues in attendance, and an angel bearing the robe of innocence; Penance, in her hood and garb of serge, or, as some say, St. Francis receiving new members into his fold, among whom may be seen Dante in the habit of the Third Order; and angels of Expiation consigning unseemly vices to the purifying flames of a yawning gulf.

Sancta Obedientia, the least pleasing of these paintings, is represented by the monastic yoke placed on the shoulders of a novice. Prudence and Humility are at his side; the former, entrenched behind a barrier with mirror and compass, has two faces, one examining the past and the other considering the future. Humility is bearing a torch. The old Adam of the human heart, under the form of a centaur, is put to flight by these virtues.[195]

St. Francis radiant with holiness, in a rich deacon’s dress, on a throne of gold, and surrounded by angels who hymn his praise. Never was mortal more glorified on earth than the humble St. Francis, out of whose tomb has grown this richest flower of mediæval art.

On the wall of the left transept is a sublime painting of the Crucifixion by Pietro Cavallini—one of the most important monuments of the school of Giotto, who was one of the first to soften the representations of the awful sufferings of Christ by an expression of divine resignation and beauty of form. The Byzantine type of the twelfth century, still scrupulously adhered to, was repulsive and expressive only of the lowest stage of human suffering, as all know who have seen the green, livid figures of Christ on the cross by Margaritone, who died of grief at seeing his standard of excellence set aside and despised. Cavallini, whose piety was so fervent that he was regarded as a saint, had scruples, however, about condemning as an artist what he had knelt before in prayer, though he widely departed from the old school. Nothing could be more beautiful or pathetic than the angels in this picture, who are weeping and wringing their hands with anguish around the dying Saviour.… Among the figures below is Walter de Brienne, Duke of Athens, then (in 1342) at the head of the Florentine republic, for whom this picture was painted. He is on horseback with a jewelled cap, clothed in rich robes, and, strange to say, with a nimbus around his head, which seems to have been a symbol of power as well as sanctity in those days.

It was one of Cavallini’s Christs[196] that spoke to St. Bridget at St. Paul’s without the walls of Rome; and he was the architect of the shrine of Edward the Confessor at Westminster Abbey.

At the foot of the altar beneath the Crucifixion is buried Mary of Savoy, granddaughter of Philip II. of Spain, a member of the Third Order of St. Francis, who often came here to venerate his tomb and seek counsel of St. Joseph of Copertino, then an inmate of the Sagro Convento.

All the chapels of this lower church are famous for their frescos by noted artists. Simone Memmi, the friend of Petrarch, and painter of Laura, has covered one with the life of St. Martin, who, like St. Francis after him, divided his cloak with a beggar, remaining for ever a symbol of the divine words: I was naked and ye clothed me. The Maddalena Chapel is covered with the legend of the

by Puccio Capana, who became so attached to Assisi that he settled there for life.

The melancholy Giottino adorned the chapel of St. Nicholas with his usual harmony of color. On the arches of the chapel of St. Louis of France a Franciscan tertiary, Adone Doni, painted the beautiful Sibyls which Raphael admired and imitated at Santa Maria della Pace in Rome. Taddeo Gaddi, the godson and favorite pupil of Giotto, has also left here many touching and beautiful paintings. In fact, all the renowned artists of the day seemed to vie with each other in adorning this monument to the memory of St. Francis, and some of their works were offerings of

In the sacristy is the most authentic portrait of St. Francis in existence, by Giunta Pisano—a lank, wasted form that by no means reflects the charm the saint most certainly had to attract so many disciples around him, to say nothing of his power over the beasts of the earth and the birds of the air. Two marble staircases lead down to the sepulchral chamber where lies the body of St. Francis. This crypt, or third church, as it is sometimes called, is of recent construction, and, though not in harmony with the upper churches, is a prodigious achievement, dug as it is out of the rock on which the whole edifice rests. It is of the Doric order, and in the form of a Greek cross, and lined with precious marbles. It is dark and tomb-like, being lighted only by lamps around the bronze shrine, which stands in the very centre. The body of St. Francis had lain nearly six hundred years in the heart of the mountain, shrouded in a mystery that had given rise to many popular legends. When brought here in 1230, it was still flexible as when he was alive, and the mysterious stigmata distinctly visible. This was four years after his death. It was then shown to the people in its cypress coffin, amid the flourish of trumpets and the shouts of the multitude, and put on a magnificent car drawn by oxen which were covered with purple draperies sent by the Emperor of Constantinople, and escorted by a long procession of friars with palms and torches in their hands, chanting hymns composed by Pope Gregory IX. himself. Legates, bishops, and a multitude of clergy followed. But the car was guarded by the magistrates of Assisi, and so fearful were the people lest the body of their saint should be taken from them that, when it arrived at the Colle d’Inferno, they would not allow the clergy to take possession of it, but buried it themselves in the very bowels of the earth. Hence a certain mystery that always hung over the tomb.

It is related that the third night after his burial the mountain was shaken by an earthquake and surrounded by an unearthly light. The friars, hastening to the place where they knew their patriarch lay hidden, found the rock rent asunder and the saint standing on his tomb with transfigured face and eyes raised to heaven. Gregory IX. is said to have come to witness the prodigy, and left this inscription on the wall: Ante obitum mortuus; post obitum vivens—Before his death, dead; after death, living.

It became a popular belief that this body, which bore the impress of the Passion of Christ, would never see corruption, and that he would remain thus, ever living and praying, in the depths of his inaccessible tomb.

In 1818 Pius VII. authorized the Franciscans to search for the body of their founder. After continued excavations in the rock for fifty-two days, or rather nights (for they worked in the silence and secrecy of the night), they came to an iron grate that protected the narrow recess where lay the saint. It was then the crypt was constructed to receive the sacred body. The same old grate is before the present shrine, and the sacristan thrust his torch through the bars, that we might catch a glimpse of the remains of one

Around this glorious tomb all the Franciscans of Assisi, before they were suppressed by the present Italian government, used to gather every Saturday at the vesper hour, to chant, with lighted tapers in hand, the Psalm Voce mea ad Dominum clamavi, sung by St. Francis when he was dying. It has been set to music by one of the friars in a grand air known as the Transito because it celebrates the transit of the saint to a higher life. This became one of the attractions of the place which kings and princes considered it a favor to hear, but of course it is no longer sung. Let us hope that this forced suspension is only transitory.

At the door of the crypt are the statues of Pius VII., in whose pontificate it was constructed, and Pius IX., a member of the Third Order, who has surrounded it with twelve bas-reliefs representing the life of the saint.

A long flight of stone steps leads from the lower court to the terrace before the upper church, which is grassy and starred with daisies. This church is as lofty and brilliant with light as the other is gloomy and low-browed. Cimabue and Giotto adorned its walls with paintings that are now sadly defaced, but they have a fascination no modern artist can inspire, and we linger over them as over the remembrance of some half-forgotten dream, hoping to catch a clearer view before they fade for ever away. Above are scenes from the Holy Scriptures—a glorious Biblia Pauperum, indeed, it must have been when fresh from the artist’s hands; and this is especially the church of the people, as the lower one is that of the friars. Below is the wondrous life of St. Francis, a poem in twenty-eight cantos, by Giotto, the painter of St. Francis par excellence, who never seemed weary of his favorite subject.

There are over one hundred stalls in the choir, delicately carved by Sanseverino, with curious intarsia-work representing the popes, doctors, and saints of the Franciscan Order.

The beautiful lancet windows of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries are “suffused with lessons sweet of heavenly lore,” glorious in color, which gives marvellous hues to Cimabue’s angels who hover in the arches with “varied plume and changeful vest.” The lower church is that of poor mortals who struggle with earth and grope for the light. This one depicts the glory of the saints, and is a symbol of Paradise.

Connected with the church is the Sagro Convento, which is entered by an arched passage lined with portraits of distinguished Franciscans. There are four large cloisters, now solitary but for the ascetic forms painted on their walls, and the silent tombs of the dead friars. Long corridors, lined with saints of the Order, lead to the narrow cells intended for the living. Two refectories were shown us, one large enough to contain two hundred and fifty persons, with Silentium in great letters on the wall over the fine Cenacolo by Solimena. Opposite the latter is a Crucifixion by Adone Doni, with Jerusalem and Assisi in the background, and SS. Francis and Clare at the foot of the cross. Narrow tables extended around the room, with seats against the wall on which the Benedicite is carved.

But the most striking feature of this vast monastery is the immense gallery on the western side, like an arcade on the brink of a precipice, with IV., whose statue is at one end. It affords a grand view over the whole Umbrian valley. Montefalco, Spello, and Perugia are in full sight; below is the Porziuncula; in the distance the purple Apennines, with the glorious Italian sky over all. One needs no better book of devotion than this page of nature.

On the other side of the monastery the windows look down on the garden of the friars with charming walks on the side of the mountain amid olives and cypresses.

It was not till the second morning we began to explore Assisi. What queer old lanes, up and down hill, we passed along, the walls covered with moss and ferns out of which green lizards darted! The streets were grassy and noiseless, being mostly inaccessible to carriages. Coats-of-arms are sculptured over many of the massive old portals, accompanied, perhaps, with some religious symbol. On one was Viva Gesu e Maria! Another had Ubi Deus ibi pax. Every few moments we came to a lovely fresco of the Madonna—too beautiful a flower to bloom on the rough highways of life. Everything was old and quaint, and in harmony with the traditions of the place; everything redolent of the middle ages and of the memory of St. Francis. Assisi is full of monuments that perpetuate some incident of his life. There is San Francesco il Piccolo—Little St. Francis—an oratory on the site of the stable where he was born, with the inscription: