lves; to
the system of free education. No people understand better than the
Catholics the power of religious teaching in connection with education.
Hence they are the foe to all religion in connection with education
that is not Catholic. Rome is the friend of education and religion when
that education is priestly and that religion Romish; otherwise she is
the enemy of both. Hence those who support Catholic schools foster the
deadliest foe of our religious liberties. There will ever be,
therefore, an irrepressible conflict between Roman Catholicism and
Christian culture. Let him who doubts this study impartially the
history of Catholic countries. We ask no more.

The idea is fast passing away, and it can not pass too rapidly, that
the mass of the people need no other culture than that which fits them
for their various vocations. The world is beginning to learn that
culture is due to our _nature_, not to our _calling_. It is not the
calling nor the place of residence that makes the man. It is what a man
_is_, not what he does, that makes him great. True greatness is in the
man, not in circumstances. True greatness and worldly fame are two
widely different things. The greatest men of earth may be but little
known. As force of thought measures intellectual, so force of principle
measures moral, greatness. There is more true greatness in the huts of
poverty than in the palaces of kings, only it is undeveloped. Here,
therefore, is where we need true Christian culture. I can not better
express my appreciation of obscure greatness, which culture should
develop, than by repeating the words of Dr. Channing: "The greatest
man," says he, "is he who chooses the right with invincible resolution,
who resists the sorest temptation from within and without, who bears
the heaviest burdens cheerfully, who is calmest in storms and most
fearless under menace and frowns, whose reliance on truth, on virtue,
on God, is most unfaltering; and is this a greatness which is apt to
make a show, or which is most likely to abound in conspicuous stations?
The solemn conflicts of reason with passion; the victories of moral and
religious principles over urgent and almost irresistible solicitations
to self-indulgence; the hardest sacrifices of duty, those of
deep-seated affection and of the heart's fondest hopes; the
consolations, hopes, joys, and peace, of disappointed, persecuted,
scorned, deserted virtue; these are of course unseen, so that the true
gr