Romanism Everywhere the Same.
COMMENTING on an article in the Nineteenth Century the New York Churchman says:— “The part which the Romish religion plays in creating and perpetuating the peculiarity and separateness of the French Canadians is well illustrated by the like effect which it produces upon the Scotch Highlanders, who remain under the control of that superstition. The writer, whose article is here discussed, points out a fact of much importance, though the true significance of it seems to have escaped him. He says: ‘Highland regiments disbanded in French Canada have become French.’ The reason was that those regiments were composed of Roman Catholic Highlanders, of whom there are large numbers in Canada and the United States. Whether in Canada or elsewhere the Roman Catholic Highlander is much the same as the Roman Catholic French Canadian. Unlike the Protestant Scotchman, he is the same thriftless, unprogressive, superstitious, unaspiring sort of a man, wholly lacking in the mental and moral characteristics which so honorably distinguish the Protestant Scotchman of the same race. “Nothing is more instructive than to note the difference between the Roman Catholic Scotch and the Protestant Scotch of the Highlands, when they settle in this country or in Canada. It is easy to understand that the former should become ‘French,’ when they settle in French Canada. They are, mentally, morally, and socially, like the Canadian French, wherever they are, which goes to show that the religious factor is, after all, the most potent in determining the mental, moral, and social characteristics of a people. If, therefore, the Canadian French are an alien and dangerous element in the Dominion, it is safe to say that ‘the fine Italian hand’ of Romanism has made them so, and keeps them so.”