It is much worse with primary instruction. This task is given to the local authorities. But, as they have no money, they generally shirk this duty, and, if they do set up a school, are unable to maintain it.[71] On the other hand, as instruction must be laic and Jacobin, "almost everywhere,"[72] the teacher is an outcast layman, a fallen Jacobin, some old, starving party member, unemployed, foul-mouthed and of ill-repute. Families, naturally, refuse to trust their children with him; even when honorable, they avoid him; and the reason is that, in 1800, Jacobin and scoundrel have become synonymous terms.
Henceforth, parents desire that their children should learn to read in the catechism and not in the declaration of rights:[73] as they view it, the old manual formed polite and civilized youths and respectful sons; the new one forms only insolent rascals and precocious, slovenly blackguards.[74] Consequently, the few primary schools in which the Republic has placed its people and imposed its educational system remain three-quarters empty; in vain does she close the doors of those in which other masters teach with other books; fathers persist in their repugnance and distaste; they prefer for their sons utter ignorance to unsound instruction.[75] - A secular establishment, created and provided for by twenty generations of benefactors, gave gratis, or at a much lower rate, the first crumbs of intellectual food to more than 1,200,000 children.[76] It was demolished; in its place, a few improvised and wretched barracks distributed here and there a small ration of moldy and indigestible bread. Thereupon, one long, low murmur, a long time suppressed, breaks out and keeps on increasing, that of parents whose children are condemned to go hungry; in any event, they demand that their sons and daughters be no longer forced, under penalty of fasting, to consume the patent flour of the State, that is to say a nauseous, unsatisfactory, badly-kneaded, badly-baked paste which, on trial, proves offensive to the palate and ruinous to the stomach.
VI. ReligionThe Spirit and Ministrations of Catholicism. - How the Revolution develops a sense of this.
Another plaint is heard, deeper and more universal, that of all souls in which regret for their established church and forms of worship still subsists or is revived.
In every religious system discipline and rites depend upon faith, for it is faith alone which suggests or prescribes these; they are the outcome and expansion of this; it attains its ends through these, and manifests itself by them; they are the exterior of which it is the interior; thus, let these be attacked and it is in distress; the living, palpitating flesh suffers through the sensitive skin. - In Catholicism, this skin is more sensitive than elsewhere, for it clings to the flesh, not alone through ordinary adhesiveness, the effect of adaptation and custom, but again through a special organic attachment, consisting of dogmatic doctrine; theology, in its articles of belief, has here set up the absolute necessity of the sacraments and of the priesthood; consequently, between the superficial and central divisions of religion the union is complete. The Catholic sacraments, therefore, are not merely symbols; they possess in themselves "an efficacious power, a sanctifying virtue." "That which they represent, they really work out."[77] If I am denied access to them, I am cut off from the fountains to which my soul resorts to drink in grace, pardon, purity, health and salvation. If my children cannot be regularly baptized, they are not Christians; if extreme unction cannot be administered to my dying mother, she sets out on the long journey without the viaticum; if I am married by the mayor only, my wife and Ilive in concubinage; if I cannot confess my sins, I am not absolved from them, and my burdened conscience seeks in vain for the helping hand which will ease the too heavy load; if I cannot perform my Easter duties, my spiritual life is a failure; the supreme and sublime act by which it perfects itself through the mystic union of my body and soul with the body, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ, is wanting. - Now, none of these sacraments are valid if they have not been conferred by a priest, one who bears the stamp of a superior, unique, ineffaceable character, through a final sacrament consisting of ordination and which is conferred only on certain conditions; among other conditions, it is essential that this priest should have been ordained by a bishop; among other conditions, it is essential that this bishop[78]
should have been installed by the Pope. Consequently, without the Pope there are no bishops; without bishops no priests; without priests no sacraments; without the sacraments no salvation. The ecclesiastical institution is therefore indispensable to the believer. The canonical priesthood, the canonical hierarchy is necessary to him for the exercise of his faith. - He must have yet more, if fervent and animated with true old Christian sentiment, ascetic and mystic, which separates the soul from this world and ever maintains it in the presence of God. Several things are requisite to this end: