Nor has Protestantism the right to point with scorn to the Catholic
_Index_, and to lay stress on the fact that nearly every really
important book in the last three centuries has been forbidden by
it, so long as young men in so many American Protestant
universities and colleges are nursed with "ecclesiastical pap"
rather than with real thought, and directed to the works of
"solemnly constituted impostors," or to sundry "approved courses of
reading," while they are studiously kept aloof from such leaders in
modern thought as Darwin, Spencer, Huxley, Draper, and Lecky.
It may indeed be justly claimed by Protestantism that some of the
former strongholds of her bigotry have become liberalized; but, on
the other hand, Catholicism can point to the fact that Pope Leo XIII,
now happily reigning, has made a noble change as regards open
dealing with documents. The days of Monsignor Marini, it may be
hoped, are gone. The Vatican Library, with its masses of historical
material, has been thrown open to Protestant and Catholic scholars
alike, and this privilege has been freely used by men representing
all shades of religious thought.
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