Pastoral Letter to the Laity

by First Provincial Council of Baltimore

The Archbishops and other prelates in Provincial Council at Baltimore to their children in Christ, the Laity of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States of America Health and blessing: Grace to you, and peace from God our Father, and Lord Jesus Christ, in the unity of the Holy Ghost.

Assembled to consult for the welfare of that portion of the Church entrusted to our care, we have, after mature deliberation with several learned and pious priests, made ordinances, which to us seemed necessary for the regulation of the clergy, the administration of the Sacraments and other Ecclesiastical concerns. These we have transmitted for examination to the See at Rome, in order that we might not in any way swerve from that unity which has been established by the great Pastor of our souls, who collected his faithful children into one flock, under one shepherd. But we cannot separate without addressing you in the sincerity of affection.

When we look around us and behold how, within a few years, our churches have multiplied and our numbers increased, we feel deeply grateful to Him who, being able "from the very stones to rise up children of Abraham," has allured them to the paths of salvation. From the East and the West strangers have come to sit down at our table, and our hearts have rejoiced at this return of the children to that parent from whom they had been too long estranged. The far greater number of those who have thus been clasped in the warm embrace of tender and gratified affection, have edified us by their virtue; several have thus made a suitable return for the talent entrusted to their care. It has added to our satisfaction to have observed that, owing to our admirable civil and political institutions, those results of conscientious conviction have produced scarcely any temporal inconvenience; that they have seldom snapped or ever strained the bonds of Charity. Rejoice with us, therefore, and give thanks to the Lord who has vouchsafed this gladness to our hearts.

The vast tide of emigration which has rolled across the Atlantic during the half century just elapsed, together with the natural growth of a prosperous people under free institutions, with an ample territory and varied soil, in almost every climate, has swelled our population to an extraordinary extent, and our flock has necessarily participated in the increase. Large acquisitions of territory which has been occupied by Catholic nations, were made to the south and the west, and thousands have thus become incorporated with our ecclesiastical body. When our first See was erected our venerable predecessor found himself at the head of a sparse and extended population, with a very insufficient number of assistants in the ministry. The zeal of those good men was ardent, their virtues were conspicuous, and their labours were oppressive. Combining the energy, the poverty and the self-denial of the Apostles, they sometimes were spread abroad in the wilderness, bearing the bread of life, as well as to the remote pioneer of civilization, as to that child of the forest, who yet adhered to the lessons of his first missionary; sometimes in the cities, in the towns and villages, they were found endeavouring to organize and to perpetuate the congregations which had been previously formed, to educate the youth, to direct the adult, to counsel the doubtful, to confirm the wavering, to console the afflicted, to sustain the firm, and despising the evanescent enjoyments or follies of the world, they were found with tender and absorbing interest, in the regions of pestilence, by the side of their dying children, cheering the soul which nature taught to shudder at the portal of death, even though it led to the vestibule of Heaven. Admirable men I What an example for their successors? "In the sight of the unwise they seemed to die, and their departure was taken for misery, and their going away from us, utter destruction: but they are in peace." In their day also the sword of the persecutor had been unsheathed, and even when, by the energy of the nation it was stricken from his hand, their name continued to be as a word of reproach, and they had much obloquy to endure. "In the sight of men they suffered torments. but now their hope is full of immortality: afflicted in a few things," we trust, "they are well rewarded; because God tried them and found them worthy of Himself."

If therefore, in the vast regions we inhabit, we have to deplore the defection of millions from the faith of their fathers, which is also yours and ours, let it not be imagined that the memory of those good men is lessened in our esteem: they exerted their powers to the utmost, but they were too few for the extent of the field; and far removed from their ministry or influence, thousands of those who vainly sought their aid in conveying to them those "waters that spring up to eternal life," wearied and disappointed, "dug cisterns for themselves," or had recourse to those which men had dug, and their children, and their childrens' children now forget the rock from which their progenitors have been separated.

The convulsions of Europe, however disastrous to itself, have not been without advantage to us. When the exterminating infidel went forth like to him who sat upon the pale horse of the Apocalypse, Hell followed in his train, and because of the power that was given to him to kill with the sword, with famine, and the plague, many were slain for the word of God, and the testimony which they held, whilst their brethren who were saved for a little time, were scattered to the four winds of Heaven through various regions of the earth. Whilst they bowed in humble resignation to the wise, but mysterious dispensations of Providence, they felt that though in all things they suffered tribulation, they were not distressed; though straightened they were not destitute; though suffering persecution, they were not forsaken; though cast down, they did not perish; but always bearing about in their bodies the dying of Jesus, the life of Jesus was also made manifest in their bodies. By their example rather than by their words, by their utility rather than by their worldly exhibition, numbers of them in our States, as elsewhere, preached not themselves, but Jesus Christ our Lord, and exhibited themselves your servants through Jesus, for God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in their hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God unto you. Thus was our ministry upheld and extended; thus were our seminaries of education founded and improved; and thus were raised up among us several of our most useful priests and promising aspirants. As our congregations have in a great measure been hitherto an emigrant population, so has our ministry been to a considerable extent composed of adopted citizens. But the children of the former, and the successors of the latter have for some time past assumed more of our native character, and must necessarily become chiefly, if not altogether national, henceforth.

During the whole period of our pastoral charge we have felt the utmost want of a sufficient ministry: from every quarter our children call to us for the bread of life, and we have not a sufficient number of those to whom we could entrust its breaking; already the fields are white for the harvest, and we have not a proper supply of labourers, the vintage has ripened, and its clusters are decaying. It is absolutely necessary that by your exertions, we should take the proper steps for remedying this deficiency. Though we have been frequently aided by excellent clergymen from abroad, we cannot expect that other countries will continue their generosity in permitting the most meritorious subjects to withdraw from their own service to our advantage; nor are the situations which we could offer them, so secure or 80 advantageous as such men might find at home. Neither would you desire, nor are we disposed any longer to permit, that priests who have been elsewhere held in disrepute, shall be received into our churches, to create schisms, to encourage strife, to perpetuate abuses, and to disseminate scandal; to degrade that which is holy, and to bring upon a religion that has emanated from God, that obloquy which belongs only to the vices that have been found in the individual man. Beloved children, we have endured much affliction on this score, having been forced by our necessities to dispense with much of that scrutiny and caution which our canons have enjoined. With you it rests to support us; by furnishing the means for educating proper candidates under our own inspection, that we may secure the benefits of religion to you and to your descendants. We feel gratitude to our benefactors, and take some reproach to our province, in stating to you the fact, that almost each of us has received, for this purpose, considerable aid from a benevolent society in France, whilst our flocks have as yet done so little for so important a purpose. Permit us to arouse you to exertion on this head. How shall your remote and destitute fellow-Catholics be attended? How shall the increasing wants of our increasing people be met, if you do not powerfully aid us in the creation and maintenance of our seminaries? Call to mind what you have so generously done for your brethren of the Faith in Ireland; we ask whether you could not make similar exertions for yourselves and your own descendants?

From this topic we naturally pass to that of the education of your children. How important, how interesting, how awful, how responsible a charge! "Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not" says the amiable Jesus, "for of such is the kingdom of Heaven." Yes! the characteristic of the child, as St. John Chrysostom well observes, is the characteristic of the saint. Genuine simplicity without guile, uncalculating ardent devotion to the loving parent, preferring an humble mother in her homely garb, to a queen in her variegated decoration; exercising an irresistible power over the parental heart by the bewitching confidence of helplessness itself. Those children, the dear pledges of your elevated and sanctified affection, deserve and demand your utmost solicitude. For them you brave danger, on their account you endure toil; you weep over their afflictions, you rejoice at their gratification, you look forward to their prosperity, you anticipate their gratitude, your souls are knit to theirs, your happiness is centred in their good conduct; and you cherish the enlightening hope that when you and they shall have passed through this vale of tears, you will be reunited in the kingdom of a common father. How would your hearts be torn with grief did you foresee, that through eternity those objects of all your best feelings should be cast into outward darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth! May God in His infinite mercy preserve you and them from the just anticipation of any such result! But, dearly beloved, this is too frequently the necessary consequence of a neglected or an improper education. God has made you the guardians of those children to lead them to His service upon earth, that they might become saints in Heaven. "What will it avail them to gain the whole world if they lose their souls?" Or could it console you in the progress of eternity to recollect that you had for a time beheld them elevated to power, applauded by fame, entrusted with command, swaying nations, dispensing wealth and honours; but misled by vice and now tortured in disgrace; and, thus to be tortured for eternity? If you would avert this dreadful calamity, attend to the education of your child; teaching him first to seek the kingdom of God and His justice, and having food and raiment to be therewith content. Teach him to be industrious, to be frugal, to be humble and fully resigned to the will of that God who feeds the birds of the air, clothes the lily of the field; and who so loved the children of men that when they were His enemies they were reconciled to him by the death of His Son, that being reconciled they might be saved from eternal death by His life being justified now by His blood.

Alas! beloved children, how many are there, who, yielding to the pride of life, and ashamed of Him who was not, ashamed for our sakes to die upon an ignominious cross, "being made the reproach of men and the outcast of the people," how many such wretched parents have trained up their children to be themselves the victims of passions in time, and of that death from which there is no resurrection in eternity!

How frequently have their brightest hopes faded away into a settled gloom? How often has the foot which they elevated, spurned them? How often whilst the children of revelry occupied the hall of mirth, has the drink of 'the wretched parent been mingled with his tears, and whilst his ungrateful offspring, regardless of his admonition, rose in the careless triumph of enjoyment, have his gray hairs been brought with sorrow to the grave? Believe us; it is only by the religious education of your children that you can so train them up, as to ensure that, by their filial piety and their steady virtue, they may be to you the staff of your old age, the source of your consolation, and reward in a better world. Begin with them in their earliest childhood, whilst the mind is yet pure and docile, and their baptismal innocence uncontaminated; let their unfolding perceptions be imbued with the mild and lovely tints of religious truth and pure devotion; allure them to the service of their creator who delights in the homage of innocence; and give to Their reason, as it becomes developed, that substantial nutriment which it requires, and which our holy religion so abundantly affords; shew your children by your conduct, that you believe what you inculcate; natural affection disposes them to imitate your example, you should, therefore, be awfully impressed by that solemn admonition of the Saviour: "Woe to him that shall scandalize one of these little ones that believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were tied round his neck, and that he were drowned in the depths of the sea." In placing them at school, seek for those teachers who will cultivate the seed which you have sown; for of what avail will it be, that you have done so much, if the germs which begin to put forth, shall now be stifled or eradicated; and should tares be sown where you had prepared the soil? Again, and again, would we impress upon your minds the extreme importance of this great duty, and your responsibility to the God of truth, in its regard. How well would it be, if your means and opportunities permitted, were you at this period to commit your children to the care of those whom we have for their special fitness, placed over our seminaries and our female religious institutions? It would be at once the best mode of discharging your obligations to your children, and of aiding us in promoting the great object which we have already endeavoured to impress upon your minds. Remember also, that not only affection, but, duty requires of you to be vigilant in securing the spiritual concerns of your offspring, during the period of their preparation for business or for professions; that this security can, in general, be far better attained under the parent's roof; or if it be necessary to entrust the sacred deposit of your child's soul to another, it ought to be one of tried virtue, and surrounded by favourable circumstances. Should your family be thus educated, you may naturally expect that they will freely allow your just influence in that most important of all temporal concerns, the selection of a wife or husband; and it becomes you, whilst you pay a proper respect to the affections of those most deeply interested, to be careful that you have more regard to those things which belong to eternity, than to those of a mere transient nature. What we have written might appear importunate. But remember we watch over you in order to render unto God an account of your souls; therefore, it is that we write these things to you, to admonish you as our dearest children, "to confirm your hearts without blame, in holiness, before God and our father," because you are our joy and our crown, and therefore, we labour, whether absent or present, for your advantage, in the word of truth, in the power of God; through honour and dishonour, through infamy and good name, our mouth is open to you, our heart is enlarged; great is our confidence in you, we are consoled by your joy, we are saddened by your sorrow, we write, not as commanding, but as entreating our children in whom we confide.

Amongst the various misfortunes to which we have been exposed, one of the greatest is misrepresentation of the tenets, the principles and the practices of our church. This is not the place to account for the origin and continuance of this evil; we merely remind you of the melancholy fact. Good men,—men, otherwise well informed, deeply versed in science, in history, in politics; men who have improved their education by their travels abroad as well as they who have merely acquired the very rudiments of knowledge at home; the virtuous women who influence that society which they decorate, and yielding to the benevolence of their hearts desire to extend useful knowledge; the public press, the very bench of public justice, have been all influenced by extraordinary efforts directed against us; so that from the very highest place in our land to all its remotest borders, we are exhibited as what we are not, and charged with maintaining what we detest. Repetition has given to those statements a semblance of evidence; and groundless assertions remaining almost uncontradicted, wear the appearance of admitted and irrefragable truth. It is true, that during some years past, an effort has been made to uphold a periodical publication in the south, which has refuted some of those allegations; but we say with regret that it has been permitted to languish for want of ordinary support, and must, we are informed, be discontinued, unless it receives your more extended patronage. Other publications for similar objects have lately been established in Boston and Hartford. We would advise you to encourage well-conducted works of this description. If you look around and see how many such are maintained, for their own purposes, by our separated brethren, it will indeed be a matter of reproach should we not uphold at least a few of our own.

But not only are the misrepresentations of which we complain, propagated so as to "affect the mature; but with zeal worthy of a better cause, and which some persons have exhibited in contrast with our seeming apathy, the mind of the very infant is predisposed against us by the recitals of the nursery; and the school-boy can scarcely find a book in which some one or more of our institutions or practices is not exhibited far otherwise than it really is, and greatly to our disadvantage: the entire system of education is thus tinged throughout its whole course; and history itself has been distorted to our serious injury. We have during a long time been oppressed by this evil, and from a variety of causes, have found it almost impossible to apply any remedy; but we have deemed it expedient now to make some effort towards a beginning. We have therefore associated ourselves and some others, whom we deem well qualified for that object, to encourage the publication of elementary books free from any of those false colourings, and in which whilst our own feelings are protected, those of our fellow-citizens of other religious denominations shall be respected. We should desire also to see other histories corrected, as that of England has been by the judicious and erudite Doctor Lingard; that our standard books should be carefully and faithfully printed under proper supervision, and even that temperate and useful explanatory essays to exhibit and vindicate truth, should be written without harsh or unkind expressions, and published, so that our brethren might have better opportunities of knowing us as we really are, and not imagine us to be what in bad times, unprincipled and interested men have exhibited as our picture.

One of the most precious legacies bequeathed to us by the Apostles and Evangelists is the sacred volume of the Holy Scriptures, which, having been written under divine inspiration, is profitable for the pastor, who is a man of God, to teach, to reprove, to correct, to instruct unto justice; for much of the revelation of God is contained therein; it is also profitable when used with due care, and an humble and docile spirit, for the edification and instruction of the faithful; but it must not be had recourse to, for the purpose of raising "vain questions and strifes of words from which arise envies, contentions, blasphemies, evil suspicions, conflicts of men corrupted in mind and who are destitute of the truth, esteeming gain to be piety;" neither should it be approached with; arrogant self-sufficiency, for it contains "some things hard to be understood, which the unlearned and unstable wrest to their own perdition. You therefore knowing these things before, beware lest being led away by error of the unwise you fall from your own steadfastness." When in the moments of leisure and reflection you take up the sacred book, be impressed with the conviction that you then converse with God himself; commence therefore by prayer, to obtain that it may be to you a lamp to guide your feet in safety through the shades of this valley of death. We cannot give to you a better rule than that of the holy council of Trent, where it informs us "that the divine writings are to be understood in that sense, which our holy mother the church, to which alone it belongs to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the scriptures, has always held and does hold; and that we should never take and interpret them otherwise than according to the unanimous consent of the fathers." And dearly beloved children, the word of God being unalterable truth, cannot vary its meaning with the fluctuating opinions of men. The heavens and the earth may pass away, but the word of God remains the same, "Jesus Christ yesterday, today, and forever the same." The Apostles, who were the first fathers, received the explanations of his doctrines from the lips of the Saviour himself, and they were still more confirmed in their minds by that Spirit of Truth, the Paraclete whom the Father sent in his name to lead them unto all truth and to teach them all things, and to bring to their minds whatsoever he said to them. From the lips of those witnesses, the fathers of the next age received what they transmitted to their successors, and thus thro' a series of ages, has this cloud of holy witnesses gone before us, to guide us to the true land of promise, by their blazing glory in the night of doubt and error, and as a pillar of truth in the day of steady faith. Neither the improvement of science nor the progress of the arts can make false, that which Christ revealed as true; nor make that truth, which he declared to be error. The perfection of faith is to be found in the unchangeableness of doctrine, and the meaning of his word is that which was proclaimed by his Apostles. Thus, new and arbitrary interpretations of the sacred volume would be, not the declaration of the doctrine of redemption, but would be the substitution of human opinion for the testimony of God.

Deeming it therefore to be their most sacred duty, the Bishops of the Church have scrupulously preserved unchanged through the innovations of time and the alterations of ages, the testimony of Faith, and as a most precious portion thereof, the written word of God. Equally anxious to fulfil our important trust, we too desire to guard you against mistake and error. We therefore earnestly caution you against the indiscriminate use of unauthorised versions, for unfortunately many of those which are placed within your reach are extremely erroneous and defective. The Douay translation from the vulgate of the Old Testament, together with the Remish translation of the New Testament, are our best English versions; but as some printers have undertaken in these States, by their own authority, without our sanction, to print and publish editions which have not been submitted to our examination, we cannot hold ourselves responsible for the correctness of such copies. We trust that henceforth it will be otherwise. We would also desire to correct that irregularity by which prayer books and other works of devotion and instruction are produced from the press, in several instances, without authority or correction: some of the books thus published are rather occasions of scandal than of edification. We would entreat of you not to encourage such proceedings.

We would also draw your attention to another subject, upon which we have too often felt much pain, but thanks be to our Lord, the evil has greatly diminished. Beloved children in Christ, you are aware that the constitution of our church was formed by our blessed Saviour, and that although we are commissioned to legislate to a certain extent in its concerns, we have no power to alter that constitution. By it the mode of our government is unchangeably fixed, and the great founder of our hierarchy, Christ himself, according to his promise, built his church upon Peter, as the basis upon which it was to remain secure, not only against the winds and floods, but against the efforts of the gates of hell. And some indeed he gave in this unit of faith and government to be "Apostles, and some prophets, and other some evangelists, and other some pastors and doctors' for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ." "And now as the body is one, but hath many members, though they may be many, yet are only one body." So it is in the church of Christ. "If the foot should say, because I am not the hand, I am not of the body: is it not therefore of the body? And if the ear should say, because I am not the eye, I am not of the body; is it, therefore, not of the body? If the whole body were hearing, where would be the smelling? But now God hath set the members, every one of them, in the body as it hath pleased him," "and the eye cannot say to the hand: I need not thy help, nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you. Yea, much more those that seem to be the more feeble members of the body, are more necessary;" but God hath tempered the body together, giving the more abundant honour to that which wanted it, that there might be no schism in the body, but that the members might be mutually careful one for another, and if one member suffer anything, all the members suffer with it; or if one member glory, all the members rejoice with it. Now you are the body of Christ and members of member. To us, unworthy as we are, the same Apostle who thus describes the knitting together of our members into compact unity, addresses himself, warning that we "take heed to ourselves and to all the flock over which the Holy Ghost hath placed us Bishops to govern the church of God, which he hath purchased with his blood." And indeed we may truly say with the Apostle, that "we think God hath set us forth as the last" amongst you, because "we are made a spectacle to the world, to angels and to men," we are assimilated to him in many things, though we follow only at a distance in his footsteps, "we write not these things to shame you, but to admonish you as our dearest children." Let no man take us to be foolish if we imitate even in this, the great model, after whom we would gladly copy. "Seeing that many glory according to the flesh, we will glory also. Are we not found for your sakes in journeys often, in perils of rivers, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in labour and painfulness, in watching often, in hunger and thirst, in many fastings, in cold and heat? Besides all those things that are without; our daily instances, the solicitude for all the churches; who is weak and we are not weak, who is scandalized and we do not burn? And in all this what can be our object?—We have not sought the stations which we fill, but with a full knowledge of their difficulties, not relying upon our own sufficiency, but upon the grace of God and your co-operation, we boldly say before the God who will judge us, that it was for your sake and for that of your children, we have taken the yoke upon us. We ask not your riches; for ourselves they would be useless, having food and raiment we are satisfied; we have no families to provide for, we have no relatives to enrich; to your service we have devoted ourselves, solemnly pledging our souls to God for your advantage; for you we would willingly spend and be spent. What we could save from your contributions, what we could obtain in foreign nations by entreaty, what charity has entrusted to our own disposal; all this we have expended for the establishment of religion amongst you. For the truth of our assertions we appeal to yourselves.—Are we then unworthy of your confidence? Has our conduct been domination? Before God we are conscious of many faults, and we confess and lament our imperfections; but as regards you, we have kept back nothing that was profitable to you, but have preached it to you, and taught you publickly, and from house to house, testifying penance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, wherefore we take you witness today, that we are free from the blood of all; for we have not been wanting to declare to you all the counsel of God.

Yet there have been found amongst you, men who, not fully acquainted with the principles of our church government, either presumed to reform it upon the model of those who have separated from us, or claimed imaginary rights from the misapprehension of facts and laws with which they were badly, if at all acquainted; they have sometimes been abetted by ignorant or unprincipled priests; and disastrous schisms have thereby occasionally arisen. We have shed bitter tears when we beheld those usurping and frequently immoral delinquents, standing in the holy places, and profaning the services of the living God; we have deplored the delusion of their adherents. But we trust those evil days have passed away, and forever. Still we feel it to be our duty to declare to you, that in no part of the Catholic Church does the right of instituting or dismissing a clergyman to or from any benefice or mission, with or without the care of souls, exist in any one, save the ordinary prelate of the diocess or district in which such benefice or mission is found. We, of course, consider our holy father the Pope, as the ordinary prelate of the whole church, yet it is not usual for him to interfere, save on very extraordinary occasions; this right never has been conceded by the church to any other body, nor could it be conceded, consistently with our faith and discipline.—We further declare to you, that no right of presentation or patronage to any one of our churches or missions, has ever existed or does now exist canonically, in these United States, and, moreover, even if it were desirable to create such right, which we are far from believing; it would be altogether impossible, canonically to do so, from the manner in which the church-property in these states is vested; and that even did we desire to create such right, it would not be in our power, after what we have learned from eminent lawyers in various states, to point out any mode in which it could be canonically created; the nature of our state constitutions and the dispositions of our state legislatures regarding church-property, being so perfectly at variance with the principles upon which such property must be secured, before such right could be created. It is our duty, as it is our disposition, so to exercise that power which resides in us, of making or changing the appointments of your pastors, as to meet not only your wants but your wishes, so far as our conscientious convictions and the just desires and expectations of meritorious priests will permit, and we trust and that in the discharge of this most important and most delicate duty, we shall always meet with your support; as our only object can be your spiritual welfare, for the attainment of which we are, at the risk of our eternal salvation, to lay aside all prejudice and partiality respecting those whom we appoint.

Beloved children, we exhort you to "be zealous for the better gifts, and we yet show to you a more excellent way." If you had the appointment to all the churches, and yet had not the benefit of the sacramental institutions, it would profit you nothing.—"Except you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, you cannot have life in you." The great object of religion is the creation and the perpetuation of this life; this is "the vocation in which you are called." Alas! How often have our spirits been depressed, and our hearts smitten whilst we walked amidst the dry bones that lay scattered on the plain, entrusted to our care? Once they were covered with sinews and flesh, and animated with the spirit of God; those bodies were the tabernacles of the Holy Ghost; delighted angels hovered round, to enter into holy converse with the kindred souls which dwelt within; the elastic air was fragrant with the breathings of prayer; the soft eye of pious gratitude reflected in its effulgence the complacency of Heaven; it was like to another Eden where God vouchsafed to become familiar with the children of dust; it was well for us to be there; how we desired to build tabernacles and to make it our abode! But alas, the serpent came, sin was entertained, death triumphed, and the silence of desolation and the ruins of mortality are spread around.

O! that our voice could effect in you, the change which that of the Prophet was destined to produce upon the house of Israel. "Say not our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost, and we are cut off," for the Lord God who first breathed into Adam a living soul, has commanded us to proclaim to those slain by sin, that they may live again. We entreat you, therefore, that deserting the ways of iniquity, you "be now converted to the pastor and bishop of your souls," "who, when we all were as sheep going astray," "his own self bore our sins in his body upon the tree, that we being dead to sin, might live to justice; by whose stripes we are healed." You acknowledge the power of the tribunal which he has himself established when he "breathed upon his disciples, and said to them, receive ye the Holy Ghost, whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose you shall retain they are retained." Have recourse thereto. Our Holy Father Pope Pius VIII. the successor of St. Peter, the head of the Catholic Church, unites his supplication to ours, beseeching you to have pity upon your own souls, and offers you the benefits of a plenary indulgence in the form of a jubilee, to excite and encourage you to advance. If then, this day, through our ministry, you hear the voice of the Lord, harden not your hearts, lest having filled up the measure of your iniquities, he should swear in his wrath; and the time of mercy be no more. We are edified by the piety of thousands who regularly partake of the sacred gifts; we entreat you who have been hitherto remiss, to fill up the measure of our consolation by uniting ourselves to them.

Be constant at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass with becoming dispositions of heart, for "God is a spirit" and seeks true adorers "in spirit and in truth." Be frequent at the other public offices of the Church, carefully observe the commandments of God; and steadily obey the precepts of that spouse of Christ, "the pillar and the ground of truth," of which he declares himself, "he that will not hear the Church, let him be to you as a heathen and a publican;" "let no man deceive you with vain words, for because of these things cometh the anger of God upon the children of unbelief. Be ye not, therefore, partakers with them." You know "that no fornicator nor unclean, nor covetous persons which is a serving of idols, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God." "Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them." "Be not drunk with wine wherein is luxury, but be ye filled with the Holy Ghost." You cannot be partakers of the sacraments of the church whilst you condemn her authority or disregard her precepts. The laws of fasting and abstinence are part of the earliest, the most necessary, and most wholesome discipline of the church, yet there are many, and we write it with affliction of soul, who profess to be of our body, and who disregard those sacred ordinances, making themselves slaves to gluttony rather than servants of God, who prefer the gratification of their appetite to the practice of religion, "enemies of the Cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is their shame, who mind earthly things." —Others, through a discreditable pusillanimity, blush to be consistent in observing the usages of a church to which they are known to belong; they violate its ordinances to escape the sneer of the unbeliever, who cannot himself avoid despising the weakness which dreads the smile of a man, rather than the displeasure of God. We entreat of you to be more consistent in your practice with your profession.

Whilst we caution you against that demoralizing and unreasonable semblance of liberality now so prevalent, which confounds truth and error, by asserting that all religions are alike, as if contradictory propositions could be at the same time true; we exhort you to charity and affection towards your citizens of every denomination. To God and not to you, nor to us, do they stand or fall; to him and not to us is reserved the judgment of individuals. We know it to be clearly declared by the inspiration of heaven, as it is also manifest from the plain evidence of reason, that there cannot be now upon this earth, two true churches. We know that we have preserved the deposit of, the faith, which we ought to adorn by our virtue, and whilst we testify those facts to you we exhort you to imitate the glorious and creditable example of those good men who first sowed the mustard seed of our faith in this part of our continent.—They were so fully convinced of those great truths which we now proclaim, that they suffered joyfully every description of persecution rather than swerve from that one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church to which you and they and we belong. Yet neither the principles of that faith, nor the affliction which they endured, created any unkind feeling in their benevolent hearts; and though even at this side of the Atlantic, upon their arrival, they found persecution everywhere armed with the implements of torture, inflicting pain and death under the pretext of piety, they ventured to introduce a milder, a better, a more Christian like principle; that of genuine religious liberty, which though it declares that truth is single, that religious indifference is criminal in the eye of God, and that religious error wilfully entertained is destructive to the soul; yet also proclaims that the Saviour has not commanded his gospel to be disseminated by violence, and therefore they enacted, that within their borders, all other Christians should securely repose in the enjoyment of all their civil and political rights, though they were in religious error. If our brethren of other denominations have, since that period, adopted the principle, and now cherish it, they will not be displeased at our gratification that it emanated from the body to which we belong, and at our inculcating upon you, to preserve the same spirit that those good men manifested not only in our civil and political, but also in your social relations with your separated brethren.

"Therefore stand fast, and hold the traditions which you have learned, whether by word or by epistle." "Pray for us, that the word of God may run, and may be glorified even as among you: for we have confidence in the Lord concerning you that the things which we command, you will do: and the Lord direct your hearts in the charity of God and the patience of Christ." "For the rest, beloved children, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are modest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever holy, whatsoever amiable, whatsoever of good repute, if there be any virtue, if any praise of discipline, think on these things."— "The things which you have both learned and received' and heard and seen, these do ye, and the God of peace be with you." "And the peace of God, which surpasseth all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus."

Given in Council, at Baltimore, this 17th day of October, in the year of our Lord, 1829.

+JAMES, Archbishop of Baltimore.
+BENEDICT JOSEPH, Bishop of Bardstown.
+JOHN, Bishop of Charleston and V. G. of East Florida.
+EDWARD, Bishop of Cincinnati.
+JOSEPH, Bishop of St. Louis and Adminr. of New Orleans.
+BENEDICT JOSEPH, Bishop of Boston.
+WILLIAM MATTHEWS, V. A. and Administrator of Philadelphia.

EDWARD DAMPHOUX, D.D., Secretary.

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