The Influence of Civil and Religious Liberty on Roman Catholicism in the United States of America PDF Download

Author:
Publisher: Forgotten Books
ISBN: 9781391788111
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 24

Get Book Here

Book Description
Excerpt from The Influence of Civil and Religious Liberty on Roman Catholicism in the United States of America: Read at the Conference of the Evangelical Alliance at Geneva, Sep. 7th, 1861 The discoveries of John and Sebastian Cabot gave to England her claim to a large portion of the Atlantic coast of North America and when she successfully commenced the colonization of that coast in 1607, the French were in possession of the northern part of it, and the Spanish the southern. Several of the charters which the English monarchs gave to the colonies planted under their auspices affected to give a title to the country westward as far as the South Sea, or what we call the Pacific Ocean. The colonies, even in the outset, with one tem porary exception, were Protestant - including those from Holland and Sweden. But when these colonies began to push their way across the Allegheny Mountains into the great central valley, they found it stud ded over with French villages and Jesuit missionaries. Du Quesne, (now Pittsburgh, ) Detroit, Vincennes, St. Louis, Kaskaskia, Natchez, New Orleans, Mobile, were Roman Catholic settlements, - as much so as Montreal and Quebec in Canada, and St. Augustine in Florida. But how great the change In Louisiana, where the Roman Catho lic Church had great. Advantages, and where there was not one Protest ant Church in 1803, Protestantism has now a vast influence, if not a complete ascendency. Out of the original province or territory that bore that name, _a'nd was acquired from France during the Consulate of Napoleon I., there have been formed no less than five if not six large states, in all except one of which, Protestantism is the religion of the majority of the people. In Florida, Texas and California, Romanism is now an insignificant element. In only one city or town of importance, (that of New Orleans, ) in all the great valley of the Mississippi does the Roman Catholic Church have a majority of the people, even in those in which it was the dominant communion at the commencement of this century. In Maryland, which was, in an important sense, a Roman Catholic colony, the Roman Catholic ascendancy lasted but a little while. Whatever may have been the cause - whether it is to be sought in the political movements which severed the French and Span ish colonies spoken of, from their respective mother-countries, or in the superior qualifications of the Teutonic or Saxon race over the Latin for colonization, or the divine (energy of 'the Gospel, which Protest antism carries with it, or all these combined, - certain it is, that Ro manism has nowhere held its own when brought into contact with' Protestantism in that part of North America which now constitutes British America and-the United States. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.