Meditations on the Actual State of Christianity, and on the Attacks Which Are Now Being Made Upon It.Guizot, François
Religion
Meditations on the Actual State of Christianity, and on the Attacks Which Are Now Being Made Upon It.
Guizot, François
Christianity; Philosophy and religion; Religious thought -- 19th century
"Faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone," says the
Apostle St. James. Christianity has borne abundant fruits since
its awakening at the commencement of this century. I have before
me the "Manual des Œuvres et institutions de charité de Paris,"
published in 1862, by order of the archbishop, M. Sibour.
{95}
Independently of the establishments under the direction of
Government, I find in it 107 charitable institutions or
associations, of every kind, originated and supported by zealous
Christians in the interval between 1820 and 1848. Of these I will
only cite some of the principal ones, to establish their
character and their progress. In the year 1822 the idea struck
two poor servants at Lyons to make the rounds of their parish and
collect weekly one sou from each person, in aid of the conversion
of infidels. This was the origin of the association called
"l'Œuvre de la propagation de la Foi," now under the direction of
two councils, composed of members of the clergy and of the laity,
having their sittings, one at Lyons, the other at Paris. The
report published by this association in June, 1824, showed for
the two years, 1823 and 1824, a receipt of 80,000 fr.,
(3200_l_.) This association received in 1864 the sum of
5,090,041 fr. 48 cent., (203,601_l_. 13_s_.
3½_d_.,) in which amount France alone figures for 3,479,290
fr. 65 cent., (139,171_l_. 12_s_. 6½_d_.,) and it
divided 4,658,672 fr. 56 cent. (186,346_l_. 18_s_.
6½_d_.) among five hundred dioceses, and appropriated those
funds to the support of the Catholic missionaries in the five
parts of the world.
{96}
It counted from the year 1852, 1,500,000 subscribers, and it
distributed 170,000 copies of its "Annals," (Annales de
propagation de la Foi,) which form a sequel to the "Lettres
édificantes," and keep the Christian world informed of their
doings. In May, 1833, eight young men, at the suggestion of
Frederic Ozanam, "wishing," said the Perè Lacordaire, "to give
one more proof of what Christianity can effect in behalf of the
poor, began to ascend to those upper stories which were the
hidden haunts of the misery of their quarter. Men saw youths in
the flower of their age and fresh from school regularly visiting,
without any feeling of repulsion, the most abject habitations,
and conveying to their unknown and suffering tenants a passing
vision of charity."
{97}
Twenty years later, in 1853, Ozanam said at Florence, when on his
death-bed: "Instead of eight only, at Paris alone we are two
thousand strong, and we visit five thousand families, that is to
say, about twenty thousand individuals, or a quarter of the poor
contained in that great city. The conferences in France alone
number five hundred, and we have them too in England, in Spain,
Belgium, America, and even in Jerusalem." Nine years afterward,
in 1862, when the Government, listening to mistaken counsels,
suppressed the General Council of the Conferences of St. Vincent
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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