hren? If that be true, does it seem
to you that that course is honest?

4th. Do you understand that any considerable number of Catholic
laymen, in this country, accept the interpretation which you
put upon the fifteen articles which you quote as principles
of the Roman Catholic Church? Is it not true that the interpretation
is absolutely rejected by the Catholic laity in general, and
that they affirm for themselves as absolute independence of
the Pope or of the clergy in all secular matters as you or
I claim for ourselves in regard to Protestant clergymen?

5th. Are not Italy and France, two Catholic countries, to-
day as absolutely free from any temporal power or influence
of the Pope or the Catholic clergy as is Massachusetts?

6th. I have had sent me a little leaflet, purporting to be
the principles of the American Protective Association, which
you doubtless have seen. When you say, in your third article,
that the American Protective Association is "opposed to the
holding of offices in the National, State or municipal Government,
by any subject or supporter of such ecclesiastical power,"
and in your fifth article, that you "protest against the employment
of the subjects of any un-American ecclesiastical power as
officers or teachers of our public schools," do you mean,
or no, that no Catholic shall hold such National or State
or municipal office, and that no Catholic shall be a teacher
in a public school? You don't answer this question by quoting
the language of church officials in by-gone days or the intemperate
language of some priests in recent times. It is a practical
question. Do you or don't you mean to exclude from such office
and from such employment as teachers the bulk of the Catholic
population of Massachusetts?

7th. Is it you opinion that General Philip H. Sheridan,
were he living, would be unfit to hold civil or military office
in this country? Or that his daughter, if she entertained
the religious belief of her father, should be disqualified from
being a teacher in a public school?

I have no pride of opinion. I shall be very glad to revise
any opinion of mine and, as you state it, I shall be very
glad to "know better in the future," if you will kindly enlighten
me.

You and I, as I have said, have the same object at heart.
We desire, above all things, the maintenance of the principles
of civil and religious liberty; and above all other instrumentalities
to that end, the maintenan