Page:William Penn the Friend of Catholics.pdf/7



The following Historical Paper was read before the Friends' Evening Hour Club of Germantown, on Dec. 7th, 1885, and before the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia, on Feb. 1st, 1886.

The purpose of our American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia, is amply disclosed by its title.

Not only is our concern all that relates to our Church in this country, but in an especial manner all that relates to the history of the Church in our own city is of first importance, and to that has the work of the Society chiefly been devoted.

Organized as we are to collect and preserve all that will tell the story of the founding and expanding of the Church here, it seems fitting that on our first manifestation of the work of the Society it would best accord with the object declared 'especially' that of the Society—the elucidation and preservation of the history of the Church in Philadelphia—if I would speak a word in vindication of the memory of William Penn, the Founder of our State and defend him from the aspersions cast upon his character as a friend of Religious Toleration.

If the history of our Faith in Philadelphia is ever to be written or its development aided by our Society, surely the first point of historical inquiry and patient and conscientious research must be the principles on which our State was founded, and how these principles and the professions according therewith were applied to the early Catholic settlers in the colony Penn established.

Who should be lenient in judgment, tolerant in opinion and disposed to fair examination, if not Catholics, who above all others have suffered most reproach because the enemies of the Church have not examined into the truth of the statements alleged against Her.

Who should not idly speak derogatory of the character or memory of any man unless the truth of history demand, and then judging only by the standard of the times in which the actor was a public character?

Yet, in this have Catholic writers offended. They have done injustice to William Penn as the friend of Religious Liberty. He is charged with denying to Catholics that Liberty of Conscience which he proclaimed as the right of all who came within the lines of his "Holy Experiment."

Thus the minds of our people have been misled, and worse, our children are being taught that Penn and his people were bitterly hostile to our forefathers in the faith in our city. This, too, in Catholic histories, because our children cannot use other histories without being kept in ignorance of the deeds of Catholics in the settlement and development