LIBERTY OF THE PRESS.

Brownson in the January number of his able Quarterly Review, thus refutes the charge of hostility to the liberty of the press, lodged against the Catholic Church by the Metho list Quarterly Review, for July 1814.

"The Review charges the Church of Rome with having ever waged a deadly warfare upon the liberty of the press, and promises to exhibit the proofs which sustain it; but these proofs it seems to have forgotten. The editor has apparently presumed his readers prepared in advance to believe any thing which can be said against the Roman Church, and therefore ready to take the assertion, itself for proof. He does not adduce a single fact to prove the assertion, and, more than all that, he cannot. We deny his assertion, and defy him to lay his finger on a single act of the Roman Catholic Church, which indicates the least hostility on her part to a free press. He tells us, and he enters into a long and labored argument to prove, that the Church is now what she always was, and always was what she is now. For this we thank him. We not only concede, but we contend, that she is now what she always was, and always was what she now is, and always will be to the end of time. We hold the Church to be immutable, like Him whom she represents. Will it be pretended, that, prior to the sixteenth century, the Church, ever waged war upon the liberty of the press? Prior to the invention of printing, there was no press, in the modern sense of the term; how could the Church, then, be said to be hostile to its freedom? Is the Methodist reviewer acquainted with the writings of the fathers and monks of the Middle Ages? Does he find in them any want of freedom of thought or of expression? Prior to the invention of printing, the office of the modern press was mainly supplied by the pulpit. Did ever press speak freer than the old Catholic pulpit, when the humble priest dared address the monarch on his throne as a man and a sinner, and the cowled monk feared not to reprove even the Pope himself? But the Church has not changed, and therefore, if it was not hostile to the freedom of the press then, it is not now. "Printing itself was invented before the Reformation, in good old Catholic times, and by a Catholic. Its glory belongs to Catholics, not to Protestants. And who were the first to welcome it, and to sustain the first printers? The dignitaries of the Catholic Church. The first printers in Italy, companions of Faust, were received and protected by the Pope. The earliest patrons of Caxton, the first printer in England, were Thomas Milling, Bishop of Hereford, and the Abbot of Westminster Abbey, and it was in Westminster Abbey that he established his first printing-office. It was by the aid of the Bishop of Holun, that Mathieson was enabled to introduce printing into Iceland, and whoever knows any thing of the subject knows, that the Church of Rome has always encouraged literature and the free multiplication of books.

"But the Review adduces the instance of expurgatory indexes, &c., as proof of hostility on the part of the Church of Rome to the liberty of the press. The existence of such indexes we of course admit; but so far as they concern mere

ly the Pope's own temporal dominions, they come not within the scope of our present argument. The temporal court of Rome is no more responsible for its acts than it is for the acts of the court of France, of Spain, or even of England. The expurgatory indexes concern us, as members of the Roman Catholic Church, only so far as they are designed for the instruction of the faithful throughout the world. But what, after all, are these expurgatory indexes, about which we hear so much, and which are such frightful monsters to our Protestant brethren? They are simply matters of discipline, prepared by the highest pastoral authority in the Church,--not to encroach on the liberty of the press, for no book is likely to find a place in the index, if not published,— but to guard the faithful against the destructive effects of the licentiousness of the press. This is all.

"Nobody, we presume, no matter of what religious persuasion, can recommend to all persons the indiscriminate reading of all manner of books, and tractates which may be published. There are books, and books even not without some value when read by persons prepared to profit by them, which no prudent parent would put into the hands of his children. It is not every book that is suitable for every person's reading. A full-grown man, well grounded in his principles, and strengthened and confirmed by divine grace, may perhaps read without injury almost any publication; but what Christian father would not tremble to find his son, some eighteen or twenty years of age, reading Paine's Age of Reason, Volney's Ruins, or Baron d'Holbach's Systéme de la Nature? or what Christian mother would willingly see her daughter reading Wolstonecraft's Rights of Woman, or the novels of Paul de Kock, Sir Lytton Bulwar, George Sand, or Eugene Sue, before experience, and maturity of thought and sentiment, had secured her against the subtle poison they contain? Books are companions, and bad books are as dangerous as any other species of companions. Evil communications corrupt good manners, and we may be corrupted by reading bad books as well as by frequenting bad company. Every body knows this, and every father of a family, if he deserves at all the name, has virtually an index expurgatorius, which he does his best to enforce on all intrusted to his care. All admit its importance, so far as concerns children or Would the Methodist bishops and elders tolerate Universayoung persons. list, Unitarian, Papistical, or infidel books in their Sunday-school libraries, or recommend them to the members of the flock for family reading? Do not the American Sunday-School Union alter, expurgate, or amend the books they publish, to make them conform to their standard of orthodoxy and propriety? Do not the laws of Massachusetts, New York, nay, of every State in the Union that has a public school system, institute an expurgatory index, by prohibiting all sectarian books from being used in the schools, or introduced into the common school libraries? And so far as relates to common schools of this Commonwealth, what is our Board of Education, with its learned Secretary, but a 'Congregation of the Index ?'

"In all communities there are large numbers who are childran as long as they live. Every clergyman, no matter of what denomination, can point to not a few in his congregation, who are by no means qualified for reading with profit, or without detriment, all manner of books or publications which may be issued ; and we know no clergyman that does not use his utmost influence to prevent the members of his flock from reading such works as in his judgment may prove injurious to them. Indeed, we see not how he could answer it to his conscience and to his God, if he should not. Is he not, by virtue of his office, set as an overseer, to watch over, guard, and promote their spiritual welfare? Our early acquaintance with the Methodists, with whom in a good measure we were brought up, has led us to believe that their ministers are by no means remiss in this duty. Indeed, all the sects, unless we must except the Unitarians and Universalists, do their best to prevent their respective members from reading publications hostile to their peculiar tenets. The Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, and Congregationalists, are as strict in this respect as Catholics themselves. Each denomination has an expurgatory index, as much as the Church of Rome,-only it does not publish it,-and an index equally exclusive, to say the least. What, then, but rank hypocrisy, is this outcry against Wherein is her peculiar offence? Is it in the fact that she publishes her index for the guidance of the faithful throughout the world, and does not profess one thing and do another?

the Catholic Church?

But, as we have said, the index is merely an affair of discipline, and simply points out the books not approved by the Church, which are not sound in the faith, or which cannot be read without danger to piety or morals. Yet the reading of the books placed in the index is not absolutely prohibited; it is simply remitted to the discretion of the bishops or pastors, and may be allowed to any one, when any good reason can be assigned why it should be.

"But we are told, or may be told, that the Church of Rome establishes a rigid censorship of the press. Not the Church of Rome, but the court of Rome; and not for the Church Universal, but for the Pope's temporal dominions. How rigid this censorship may be we know not, nor does it concern us, who are not temporal subjects of the Pope, to inquire. The Pope, as a temporal prince is an independent sovereign, and is at liberty to govern his subjects in his own way, as much so as any other temporal prince. But it must be remembered that this question of the censorship of the press has two sides, or at least has something to be said in its favor; for there is no country on earth that tolerates the unlimited freedom of the press. There are some Protestant countries in Europe,-Prussia, for instance,-which subject the press to the most rigid censorship; so rigid, that the censors have been known to erase the word liberty, as "treasonable." England, indeed, boasts that her press is free; she establishes no censorship; and yet she restrains its liberty by treating as blasphemous libels the publications which contain certain doctrines. George Houston,-at present, we believe, one of the editors of the New York

Herald,-was imprisoned two years and a half in London, for publishing an infidel work, entitled "Ecce Homo." Robert Taylor, also, was long imprisoned in Oakham jail for writing certain infidel works. We, in this country, claim to have a free press; and yet Abner Kneeland, a few years since, was imprisoned in Boston for writing a certain newspaper paragraph; and one Dr. Knowlton was also, a short time before, imprisoned for publishing a certain infamous book. There are publications which no civilized people can tolerate, and which no Christian people can suffer to circulate freely. All have their index expurgatorius. Some place more works in it, others fewer. The question between them is not one of principle, but one of more or less. The only difference in principle, too, between those nations which profess to have a free press, and those which have a censorship, is, that the latter endeavour to prevent the mischief from being done, while the former only seeks to punish the authors of it, after they have done it. Which is the wiser course we shall not undertake to decide. But one thing we will say, the licentiousness of the press should alarm every one who regards the moral and spiritual health of the people. The floods of obscene and corrupting novels and other cheap publications, which have of late inundated the country, are not to pass off without leaving terrible waste and destruction behind; and unless the moral portion of the community, especially the clergy, in the bosoms of their several flocks, use their utmost endeavours, and exert all their pastoral authority, to prevent these works from being read by the young, the unsuspecting, and the impressible, the most frightful corruption of morals and manners will soon spread over the whole land. The Methodist Quarterly Review, instead of bringing false charges against the Church of Rome, would do a much greater service to God and the country, if it would use its influence to guard our young community, from the blasting effects of the recent licentiousness of the Boston and New York presses. Here is an object worthy of all its holy zeal."

MOUNT-SERRAT.

The ceremony of the translation of the image of our Lady of Mount-Serrat to its ancient and celebrated Sanctuary, whence it had been removed to Barcelona during the unhappy days of Espartero, took place lately with great pomp, and to the great joy of the faithful. The Sanctuary, which is one of the most venerated and frequented in Spain, had been closed up to the present day. We translate the following description of this celebrated Sanctuary from a valuable work of the abbé Orsini.*

"Of all the Sanctuaries of Mary, that of Mount-Serrat, as to its site, is the

La Vierge; Histoire de la Mere de Dieu, completee par les traditions d' orient, les ecrits des Saints Peres et les moeurs des Hebreux; par l''abbe Orsini. Deuxieme edition. Paris: tom. 11. p. 197.

most picturesque and singular. Imagine to yourself an assemblage of cones or immense cylindrical pyramids, standing upon an enormous base of isolated rocks in the midst of a plain, and rising more than three hundred feet above its level. It is this remarkable configuration that has obtained for this immense pyramid the name of Mount-Serrat (cloven mountain.) This mountain, penetrated by superb grottoes, covered with trees and plants forming tufts of magnificent verdure upon its sides, and plunging its cloud-capped head into the sky, looks like a primitive temple erected to the Deity by the hands of nature herself. Here the Catholics, upon a massive pile of rocks, about midway up the mountain, have constructed the celebrated convent of Our Lady of MountSerrat. The historians of Catalonia have assigned to this pilgrimage an origin full of mystery and marvel. An inscription of the year 1239, preserved in the convent, over a grand tableau of the same epoch, thus relates the foundation of this sanctuary of Mary. In the year 880, under the government of Geoffroy-le-velu, Count of Barcelona, three young shepherds having one night seen a bright light fall from heaven, and heard the strains of melodious music in the air, acquainted their parents with the circumstance. The Bailiff and the Bishop of Manresa having repaired to the spot with a host of other persons, also beheld the celestial light; and after some examination, they discovered the image of the Virgin, which they wished to carry to Manresa, but when they came to the place where the monastery now stands, they could proceed no further. This wonderful event determined the Bailiff and the Bishop to build a Chapel on the spot now occupied by the great altar of the Church. It was Borell, the Count of Barcelona, who gave the mountain to the Benedictines, who built thereon the Monastery.'

"The Convent of Mount-Serrat is a building of vast extent, situated on a narrow plateau, and backed by the mountain. It is surrounded by many out buildings dependent upon it, which form a mass of edifices as great as the nature of the locality admits of. It looks, says Mr. Humboldt, as if the mountain had opened its bosom for the reception of men.

"The inhabitants of the mountain-divided into monks, hermits, choristers and lay-brothers-succeed each other in uninterrupted prayer. Such is the construction of the place that, from many of the hermitages, they hear the chants of the Monastery; and the bells of the different hermits, re-echoed from rock to rock, roll their deep tones through all the devious wanderings of the mountain.

"Among the choristers (twenty-four in number) are to be seen the sons of the first families of Spain, whose parents consecrate them from their youth to the service of the Virgin. The traveller visiting this holy mount, passes alternately from the singing of birds to the music of heaven,-from the fragrance of aromatic herbs to the odour of incense,-from the wonders of the Creator to the sublimity of his worship.

"Princes and Kings of Spain often climbed on foot up the steep ascent that