What is the difference between an infidel and a madman? The only difference is, that the madness of the infidel is wilful, while the madness of the poor lunatic is entirely involuntary. The one arouses our compassion, while the other excites our contempt and just indignation.
Finally, the man without religion says: "There is no God." He says so "in his heart", says Holy Writ; he says not so in his head, because he knows better. Let him be in imminent danger of death, or of a considerable loss of fortune, and you will see how quick, on such occasions, he lays aside the mask of infidelity; he makes his profession of faith in an Almighty God; he cries out: "Lord save me, I am perishing! Lord have mercy on me!" and the like.
There is still another proof to show that the infidel does not believe what he says: why is it that he makes his impious doctrines the subject of conversation on every occasion? It is, of course, first to communicate his devilish principles to others, and make them as bad as he himself is; but this is not the only reason. The good Catholic seldom speaks of his religion; he feels assured, by the grace of God, that his religion is the only true one, and that he will be saved if he lives up to his religion. This, however, is not the case with the infidel. He is constantly tormented in his soul. "There is no peace, no happiness for the impious," says Holy Scripture.—(Isa. xlviii. 22.) He tries to quiet the fears of his soul, the remorse of his conscience. So he communicates to others, on every occasion, his perverse principles, hoping that he may meet with some of his fellow-men who may approve of his impious views, and that thus he may find some relief for his interior torments. He resembles a timid night-traveller. A timid man, who is obliged to travel during a dark night, begins to sing and to cry in order to keep away too great fear. The infidel is a sort of night-traveller; he certainly travels in the horrible darkness of his impiety. His interior conviction tells him that there is a God, who will certainly punish him in the most frightful manner. This fills him with great fear, and makes him extremely unhappy every moment of his life. He cannot bear the sight of a Catholic church, of a Catholic procession, of an image of our Lord, of a picture of a saint, of a prayer-book, of a good Catholic, of a priest; in a word, he cannot bear anything that reminds him of God, of religion, of his guilt, and of his impiety. So he cries, on every occasion, against faith in God, in all that God has revealed and proposes to us for our belief by the Holy Church. What is the object of his impious cries? It is to deafen, to keep down in some measure, the clamors of his bad conscience. Our hand will involuntarily touch that part of the body where we feel pain. So, in like manner, the tongue of the infidel touches, on all occasions, involuntarily as it were, upon all those truths of our holy religion which inspire him with fear of the judgments of Almighty God. He feels but too keenly that he cannot do away with God and His sacred religion, by denying His existence.
I have given you the true portrait—the true likeness—of the man without religion. Were you given to see a devil and the soul of an infidel at the same time, you would find the sight of the devil more bearable than that of the infidel. For St. James the Apostle tells us, that "the devil believes and trembles."—(Chap. ii. 19.) Now the Public School system was invented and introduced into this country to turn the rising generations into men of the above description.
Spread of Infidelity through Bad Education in America; or, The Object of the Public School System.
Mr. O. A. Brownson, in his book "The Convert," Chaps. VII. and VIII., gives us the following information on the origin of the Public Schools in this country:
"Frances Wright was born in Scotland, and inherited a considerable property. She had been highly educated, and was a woman of rare original powers, and extensive and varied information. She was brought up in the utilitarian principles of Jeremy Bentham. She visited this country in 1824. Returning to England in 1825, she wrote a book in a strain of almost unbounded eulogy of the American people and their institutions. She saw only one stain upon the American character, one thing in the condition of the American people to censure or to deplore—that was negro-slavery.
"When, in the next year, Mr. Owen came, with his friends, to commence his experiment of creating a new moral world at New Harmony, Frances Wright came with him, not as a full believer in his crotchets, but to try an experiment, devised with Jefferson, Lafayette, and others, for the emancipation of the negro-slave.
"Fanny Wright, however, failed in her negro experiment. She soon discovered that the American people were not, as yet, prepared to engage in earnest for the abolition of slavery. On more mature reflection she came to the conclusion that slavery must be abolished only as the result of a general emancipation, and a radical reform of the American people themselves.
"The first step to be taken for this purpose was to rouse the American mind to a sense of its rights and dignity, to emancipate it from superstition, from its subjection to the clergy, and its fear of unseen powers, to withdraw it from the contemplation of the stars or an imaginary heaven after death, and fix it on the great and glorious work of promoting man's earthly well-being.
"The second step was, by political action, to get adopted, at the earliest practical moment, a system of State schools, in which all the children from two years old and upward should be fed, clothed, in a word, maintained, instructed, and educated at the public expense.
"In furtherance of the first object, Fanny prepared a course of Lectures on Knowledge, which she delivered in the principal cities of the Union. She thought that she possessed advantages in the fact that she was a woman; for there would, for that reason, be a greater curiosity to hear her, and she would be permitted to speak with greater boldness and directness against the clergy and superstition than would be one of the other sex.
"The great measure, however, on which Fanny and her friends relied for ultimate success, was the system of public schools. These schools were intended to deprive, as well as to relieve, parents of all care and responsibility of their children after a year or two years of age. It was assumed that parents were, in general, incompetent to train up their children, provide proper establishments, teachers and governors for them, till they should reach the age of majority.
"The aim was, on the one hand, to relieve marriage of its burdens, and to remove the principal reasons for making it indissoluble; and, on the other hand, to provide for bringing up all children, in a rational manner, to be reasonable men and women, that is, free from superstition, free from all belief in God and immortality, free from all regard for the invisible, and make them look upon this life as their only life, this earth as their only home, and the promotion of their earthly interests and enjoyments as their only end. The three great enemies to earthly happiness were held to be religion, marriage, or family and private property. Once get rid of these three institutions, and we may hope soon to realize our earthly paradise. For religion is to be substituted science, that is, science of the world, of the five senses only; for private property, a community of goods; and for private families, a community of wives.
"Fanny Wright and her school saw clearly that their principles could not be carried into practice in the present state of society. So they proposed them to be adopted only by a future generation, trained and prepared in a system of schools founded and sustained by the Public. They placed their dependence on education in a system of Public Schools, managed after a plan of William Phiquepal, a Frenchman, and subsequently the husband of Fanny Wright.
"In order to get their system of schools adopted, they proposed to organize the whole Union, secretly, very much on the plan of the Carbonari of Europe. The members of this secret society were to avail themselves of all the means in their power, each in his own locality, to form public opinion in favor of education by the State at the public expense, and to get such men elected to the Legislatures as would be likely to favor their purposes. This secret organization commenced in the State of New York, and was to extend over the whole Union. Mr. O. A. Brownson was one of the agents for organizing the State of New York. He, however, became tired of the work, and abandoned it after a few months."
"The attention of so-called philanthropic men in all parts of the country, was directed