Chapter VIII: Part 8

The failure of any system, as I have observed, is not a sufficient argument against its practicability, or its ultimate usefulness; and hence it appears to me strange that American minds, so fertile in all expedients to advance the temporal interests of man, should be so barren and unproductive of any system of thought or morals exclusively their own, and entirely independent of the corrupt and vitiated systems which have bewildered Europe and its moral philosophers for so many centuries. It is passing strange that the theologians and professors of moral theology in this New World of ours--if they can do no better--do not unite upon some plan to exclude from among them institutions which all admit to be calculated to demoralize the rising generation.

I am happy to find that there is now a system of thought and morals, or something like it, to be found amongst us, which is peculiarly American; it is denominated or called the _Christian League_. Let me be understood, when I use the term system. By system I mean an arrangement of objects or purposes so as to make them agree and unite. The Christian League I believe may be called a system; its members are united in the accomplishment of given objects. But if not strictly speaking a system itself, it has within it materials out of which a noble one of thought and morals can be formed. It is yet in its chrysalis, but the sun of righteousness, which I trust the dark clouds of superstition that now portentously hang over us shall never be permitted to hide from our view, will soon warm it into maturity, and give it wings to fly and carry with it wherever it goeth, glad tidings of salvation. I do not agree with the leading members of the Christian League, in their modus operandi. I have taken the liberty of suggesting to them a different course of action from that which they have been pleased to adopt; but I am with them, heart and soul. I shall support their measures, as far as I find them calculated to check the progress of Popery in the United States. If I cannot agree with them in their plan to effect this, I shall only say--and I say it with the utmost respect to each and every member of the Christian League!!!!!

"If a better system thine,
Impart it frankly, or make use of mine."

I have suggested to the members of the Christian League, to throw away from amongst them all appearance of sectarianism; but I know not that they have done so; the name or the society would indicate that they had; but do facts warrant such an inference? The very reverse is the case. Their prominent speakers all belong to one denomination; there may be a few exceptions, but there are not many; the public presses which advocate the proceedings of the League, are generally supported by those of a particular creed. What is the inference? It is this: either other presses and other denominations of Christians are indifferent about the success of the League, or the members of the League are unwilling to hold any communion with them. The former cannot be the case; the latter must be, of course. This is not right, and if persevered in, must ultimately neutralize all the measures of an association which, if properly conducted, might evolve and mature one of the finest systems of thought and moral government that has ever been discovered. I have suggested to the members of the Christian League, that they should have but one base, or one great moral trunk. I have advised them to partition this trunk; and divide it into branches, to be spread equally among all the followers of the law of God, and all the friends of civil rights. Then let every man do his duty; let no man fancy that because of his elevation in the Church, or higher salary, his nature has been metamorphosed, or refined by any chemical process; let him not suppose himself sublimated by the sunshine of personal popularity, which is fleeting as the wind; let each individual suppose--and history, as well as my own personal experience, enables me to assure him that he may do so without injustice--that the cause of morals and civil rights has one common enemy in the United States, which must be not only defeated, but annihilated--yes, annihilated. While that enemy lives, the cause of morality cannot flourish, and the civil rights of man are in danger. Need I tell the reader who or what that enemy is? It is Popery. A healthy state of morals, and Popery cannot exist in any country, any kingdom, or any clime; the air which gives vitality to Popery, and sustains its existence, is death to morality--aye, that very morality which, as Americans, we boast of, and consider to be the very incarnation even of our civil rights. It is true, that under the guidance of reason, several forms of government have been established, but all have been imperfect and unsatisfactory to man in the various stages and mutations of the social system. If we look back and examine the history, the nature and character of those improvements which have been made in society ever since its genesis, we shall find that the finger of religion, ever true to its purpose, invariably pointed and invited the attention of man to them; we shall find also that whenever or wherever this has not been the case, the people have not prospered; we find in every thing truly valuable to man, whether in his social or individual capacity, the hand of religion, and the almost omnipotency of moral principle. This is eminently conspicuous at the present day, and perhaps as much so in this as any country in the world, and hence it is that we should be peculiarly grateful and vigilant in removing from among us any and every cause which may directly or indirectly have a tendency to injure the morals of our people; for amid the ruin of our morals shall surely be found the elements of our national downfall.

I have alluded to this subject heretofore, in my books on Popery. I did not expect that all would approve of those books. I was aware that many, even among Protestants, would find fault with several of the expressions used in the small volume which I have recently written, entitled _Auricular Confession_ to which these pages are a sequel. That Papists should find fault with all that I have written, does not at all surprise me; but that Protestants should find any--though I am happy to find that very few have found any--is a matter of some surprise to me. It must be owing to the fact that they know not and understand not what auricular confession is, or how it is made. That Americans in general should know nothing upon this subject, and be horrified at the bare relation of its iniquitous details, is a fact which can be easily understood and explained. They have never made auricular confession the subject of their study, and hence the horror they feel at its iniquitous and private abominations. I must frankly confess, however, that it is a matter of surprise that American theologians should be so entirely unacquainted with the writings of popish doctors and popish priests, as not to find all the apparently objectionable expressions in my books in common use among them. There is not to be found a single volume among the writers of the Popish Church, on the subject of auricular confession, in which my statements are not corroborated, and that in language far more objectionable than mine--language so gross and indelicate that I could not in justice to public taste and delicacy introduce it into my books. Those who have read my book on auricular confession, may recollect the questions which I have accused Popish bishops and priests of putting to their young female penitents, and which some liberal Protestants say could not have been the case. I now assert, without any qualification whatever, and without any mental reservation or equivocation, that there is not in the United States a priest nor bishop, who has heard the confessions of married or single women, without asking them such questions as I have given in my book. I ask Bishop Fenwick of this city, or any other Roman Catholic priest or bishop living, to contradict me if he can. I challenge those females, young or old, who have ever been in the habit of confessing their sins to priests, to come forward and say, We have been at confession, and such questions as those contained in Hogan's book have never been put to us.

The charges I have made against Romish priests are of a serious character. If false they can be refuted. I am alone; there are nearly three millions of Roman Catholics in the United States, and if there is among this vast multitude, an individual who can say and give such evidence of the truth of his statement, as will satisfy any Court of Equity, that I have done injustice to popes, priests or bishops, in charging them with tampering with their female penitents in the confessional, in order the more easily to debauch them, I will publicly acknowledge that I am guilty of slander, and have wronged them. I trust that after this, Protestant theologians will take more pains in reading the works of Popish moralists, with which, as far as I have the honor of their acquaintance, they are lamentably unacquainted. I saw a strong instance of this the other evening. I chanced to meet at the house of a mutual friend, with one of the most learned and pious theologians of the Presbyterian Church in this or any other country in the world. He very courteously observed that he did not question my veracity, but that it appeared incredible to him that Popish priests or bishops, would put such questions to married or single women while confessing to them as I have accused them of. I listened in silent wonder to this great and good man; for the moment I knew not what to say.

Here was a venerable American theologian--himself a living, moving theological library--the embodiment of American Protestant theology, doubting, or at least hesitating to credit the fact, that Romish bishops and priests put to their female penitents the gross, licentious, libidinous questions contained in my book on confession. The past, the present and the future, seemed to rise and rush before me in imagination, and I could not help exclaiming in my own mind, woe be to this land of my adoption, woe be to its generous and hospitable people, if even its patriarchs and wise men, such as he who now stands before me, and whose life has been a beautiful comment upon the purity and simplicity of the Christian religion, cannot fully understand, even at this late period, the corruptions which the drag nets of Popery are bringing amongst us and strewing on the paths of our hitherto virtuous mothers and chaste daughters.

It is impossible to find a work on confession written by a Popish priest in full communion with his church, which does not contain almost the very language I have used. I finally satisfied my learned friend that I was correct in all my statements; I explained to him the position of a Romish priest in the confessional, and that of a young lady confessing to him, and never shall I forget the remarks of the venerable gentleman on that occasion. "If," said he, "my wife or daughter were dressed in the finest silk, and then put into a hogshead of mud and rolled down a hill, I should as soon expect to find their dresses without a stain, as find their minds and morals pure and chaste, after going any length of time to confession to a Romish priest." And he was right; the principles of popery, as taught in Romish confessional, and those of purity, are antagonist principles.

We are supposed to have about thirty-six millions of papists--as I have heretofore stated--in the world. Look, American Protestants, at the condition of these your brethren, and tremble lest their present condition be yours at some future period; look over the world, boundless almost as it is, and great, and glorious, and moral as its inhabitants might be; what is it now, when it seems to be undergoing, as it were, a process of self regeneration,--when its hitherto hidden treasures, almost impatient of restraint, seem to leap and bound into existence, to offer themselves to the uses and purposes of man, at the mere bid and beck of science? What is the condition of man in this glorious world or ours, under the influence of popery? The largest, the widest, and most fertile portion of the globe is under Popish influence; the soil of these countries which Papists inhabit is rich, their fields are fair, and their valleys beautiful; all the products of nature thrive in them; the sun of heaven shines over them in all its luminous magnificence; every thing seems to be sent from heaven, for man's use; every thing seems to aspire to heaven and to be happy. Man alone decays in these Popish countries; man alone is unhappy; the longings and heavenward aspirations of his immortal soul are checked, and he withers and degenerates into a being less happy than the beast of the field, and far more degraded, because acquired and superinduced inferiority, is much more degrading than that which is native and original The moral degeneracy which we see in those countries where Popery, with its confessions, extreme unctions, and other debasing fooleries, prevail, is not to be attributed to any decay in the natural vigor of the human mind. We have no reason to suppose that the mind was created in a less vigorous state in countries where Popery prevails, than in others where it does not I have frequently conversed with anatomists of distinguished eminence, who have visited all the countries inhabited by Catholics, as well as those inhabited by Protestants, and I have learned from all that there is no difference in the anatomical construction of their hearts and brains; still, it is evident to all, at least to every man of science and observation, that there is a difference in the mental faculties of those who are born and live under Popish domination, and those who are born and live under a free government of civil rights. Let us, for instance, take a Papist fresh from Italy, Spain, Mexico, or even Ireland; place him in the same condition with a free-born American Protestant, and see the difference between them; the latter is active, quick, intelligent, full of thought, full of life and enterprise; the former in nine cases out of ten, is inactive, of sluggish mind, and rarely aspires to excellence in any thing really useful. See, for instance, a Papist when he lands upon our shores; so tame and so accustomed to Popish tyranny has he been, that he crouches beneath the nod or frown of a priest the moment he sees him. Fear, of course, must become the predominant passion of all people and countries where Popery prevails, and yet, unaccountable as it may appear, this new world of ours is not only admitting but inviting Popery and its adherents into it, and offers them the rights of freemen, with a full knowledge of the fact that they are the subjects of a foreign king,--the Pope of Rome. Popery--that sink of the universe, as an elegant writer, who is himself a Roman Catholic, expresses it,--is invited into the United States, and its votaries cherished by a free, generous, but unsuspecting people. I have often conversed with American Protestants of distinction upon this subject, and regret finding that many of them--especially those of the Unitarian creed--are strong advocates of Popery, and in favor of its introduction among our people. Their arguments are plausible, and no doubt appear to the superficial reader worthy of all consideration. Whatever, say Unitarians, or liberal Christians, have been the vices, profligacies, or ambition, of Popes and Papists in former ages, they should be overlooked, in consideration of the great and grand objects which they had in view, and the vast and mighty interests which were then at stake. Religion--the Christian religion--say the liberals of the present day, was then in its infancy, without any other protection save that which its own god-like purity threw around it; it was committed to the care of early fathers or papas--from which the word Pope takes its origin--of the church; the struggle between them and the priests of Paganism was fierce; it was terrible; and well did the former do their duty--nobly and faithfully did they struggle for the ascendancy of Christianity, and its establishment among the nations of the north. To do this effectually, and to establish a hierarchy exclusively their own, independent of any other, was indispensable. To effect this, was one of the most momentous and grandest projects that ever entered the mind of man at that early period of society. We all know from history, the difficulties which the early Papas or Popes--not of the Romish church, but of the Christian church--had to encounter, in their contest with Paganism. We also know--and no man who believes in the Christian religion doubts it--that great credit is due to them, for what they have done against the Turks. They have left on record many evidences of their ardent zeal, sincere piety, and deep humility. But does it follow, that because the fathers of the Christian church have done so much for Christianity, by being the depositories of its principles, and active defenders of its faith---does it follow, I say, that Romish Popes or Romish Papas, are equally entitled to our respect, support, and confidence?

Do these liberal Christians know that there is as wide a difference between the Papas of the early Christian church, and those of the modern Romish church, as there is between the notorious Himes, of the Millerite church, and the learned Dr. Gannett, of the Unitarian society? Is it sound logic to infer that because the fathers of the Christian church were good men, and should be welcomed wherever they went, that the present fathers of the Romish Church are also good men and must be received into this country, with their interminable retinue of monks, nuns, friars, and other mock reverend and semi-reverend male and female vagabonds, who precede and follow them?

Liberal Christians will pardon me when I say, that nothing but a total unacquaintance with history, with man's nature, with man's rights, and unacquaintance with all that tends to promote human happiness, and to elevate man in the scale of creation, could force them to such a conclusion.

The inference is not to be found in the premises; It is bad logic; it is not warranted by facts, or by history, sacred or profane; indeed, I much fear, that he who knows any thing of the history of Popery in ancient or modern times, and yet encourages its growth in this country, might without uncharitable-ness, or any sectarian prejudice, be classed with infidels and traitors. The man who, with the pages of history open before him, can encourage a system nicknamed religion, and embodying within its fundamental articles of faith, the duty of auricular confession as essential to salvation, has no claim to the name of Christian; nor can he who would cheer on the mad followers of Popery to rend this union to pieces, and substitute in its stead a Popish monarchy, be a true patriot. He is a traitor, in the broadest, fullest, and most unqualified sense of the word.

I have shown, in the first volume of this book, that Popery does those things to which I have just alluded; the accusations which I have brought against Popery, have been of such serious magnitude and traitorous character, that Americans could scarcely credit them, and some have looked upon them as only ebullitions of anger, which reflection would mitigate; and that reason, the legitimate monarch of all the intellectual faculties, would in due time restrain them within proper bounds; but I again reiterate the charges, and assure my readers that all I have said against Popery, as a corrupt system of policy and morals, is not only true, as we see in history, but falls short of what I know of my own knowledge, and which I believe with the certainty of faith.

I have patiently, laboriously, and diligently, examined the doctrines and practices of the Popish Church, especially since the days of Hildebrand, and the result of my serious inquiries has been, that the church and its bishops have been, up to this day, abusing the credulity of mankind, and trying how they could best play upon the passions and degrade the human intellect.

History hands down to us the names of about three hundred popes and anti-popes, and I would challenge even that morbid liberalism, which seems to be gaining ground, and is now ycleped philosophy, whether Paganism in its darkest days, or its history in its vilest pages, ever exhibited to its followers any system of religion or morals so revolting as that which each of those Popes has in succession endeavored to enforce and impose upon mankind. It will be said by some of those philosophers to whom I allude, that I have gone too far in my writings against the Popish church and Popish priests---that I proved too much, and, according to that well received action---"quod nimis probat nihil probat?"--proved nothing; that I have colored my landscape too highly, &c. The reverse is the case; I have not seen Popery at a distance, as these liberalists have, nor as a traveller might see a landscape. The latter may be deceived, he may see or fancy that he sees a brilliant hue upon the summit of a distant mountain, just as the liberalists see Popery at a distance; but upon a nearer approach and closer examination, he will find that no such thing exists, but that it is produced perhaps by the reflection of the sun, which gives it some unreal appearance. That mountain top, which at a distance may seem to the traveller so sublimely beautiful, often on examination is found to be but a vast crater, frightful to look at, emitting nothing but some disgusting substance which carries with it death, destruction, and sorrow, wherever it goes. Will the liberalists, philosophers,--or whatever else they must be called--please to recollect, in their comments upon my books, that I have not viewed Popery at a distance; I have seen It in its roseate as well as in its darkest colors; the former I found unreal and transient as that with which a beautiful setting sun invests the mountain's cold snow-top; the latter I found to be true in every color, even to the minute touch. Will these philosophers examine Popery as I have done: let them stand upon its summit as I have done, and then look into that unfathomable crater, the court of Rome, from which it vomits and spews forth its corruptions, its confessions, its indulgences, its penances, its masses, its purgatories, its pilgrimages, its transubstantiations, its beads, its Jesuits, its treasons, its poisons, its recipes for compounding the best and most subtle poisons, its modes of procuring abortion and checking female fecundity--let him keep a close watch on the movements of Popish bishops in this country, especially Hughes of New York, and Fen-wick of Boston, and others, as I have done for years, and they shall find that, frightful as is the picture which I have given of Popery, it falls short--far short of the reality. I have scarcely touched upon those features of Romanism, which are most abhorrent to the morals, and dangerous to the civil rights of our citizens; but it is not too late; it can be done yet; I owe them much, and if God spares me I will pay them by instalments; I have enlisted without bounty or service money into the ranks of the Christian opponents of Popery--not for any given time, but during the war, or for life. While I live, Popery has in me an opponent, who can neither be bribed nor intimidated; but I regret to see that there are many who call themselves Protestant Christians, exhibiting a wavering and craven spirit, in this general war against Popery which has at length commenced--afraid to come out openly against Popish doctrines, and yet feeling it their duty to do so. I pity such men--from my soul I pity them; church honors and church distinctions seem to be more sought for now, than those of heaven. Hundreds of Protestant clergymen are daily bedizening themselves with D. D.'s and other such fooleries, while the great enemy of religion and civil rights is surrounding them, and ready, when the Pope of Rome gives the word of command, to fall upon them with destructive slaughter.

Already I find myself (sicut meus est mos) imperceptibly drifting from the point I set sail for, nor have I the least doubt that I shall find myself out of my reckoning frequently, before I arrive at the end of my voyage. This, however, will only have the effect of rendering it more tedious, but I trust it will add some value to my observations and discoveries during my voyage.

I commenced this second volume with the single view of defining more clearly, the iniquities practised in the Romish church, under cover of auricular confession, and within the walls of Popish nunneries. I would now resume the subject, and show my fellow citizens, that the crimes and profligacies which 1 have imputed to the Romish church, have not been peculiar to any epoch or age of its existence--that it has been always corrupt--is now while I write corrupt, that its very elements are founded on corruption, and that any contact with it, or between itself and our citizens, cannot fail to be ruinous to the morals and interests of our people. I have a double object in pursuing this course. The first is this: Papists admit that there have been corruptions in the Romish church, but say that they were only local, and never sanctioned by the church authoritatively; secondly, they assert that my books on Popery are all old lies, culled from ancient heretical writers, and that such deeds as I have imputed to their holy and infallible church, and immaculate bishops and priests in this country, have never taken place.

I will here show, in a few words, that the evil deeds and corruptions, with which I have charged the Popish church, were not local, but general; and secondly, I propose to show that they were not peculiar to any age in the church, but have always existed and do exist at the present moment, not only in Europe and elsewhere, but in these United States.

That Papists and myself may understand each other clearly, and that the public may understand both of us, I propose to the Papist to name any age of the Church he pleases, or any Pope he pleases, and I will show him that in that very age, and under that very Pope, nearly all the iniquities of which I have accused his Church, were justly charged, and sanctioned _authoritatively_ by her then ruling _executive_, or infallible head, just as she pleased to call it, whether that infallible head was a Pope or a General Council I say Pope, or General Council, because the question is not yet settled between Popish theologians, whether their boasted infallibility be invested in the Pope, speaking _ex cathedra_, or in a General Council legitimately--according to their understanding of the term--convened.

Come on, Mr. Popish Bishop or Priest; advance, Mr. Bishop Hughes, of Jesuit and intrigue notoriety; hold up your head, thou demure, plotting dunce, Bishop Fenwick, of Boston. Let us select the latter end of the eleventh, and beginning of the twelfth centuries. This is as favorable an epoch in the Infallible Church as you can possibly choose, to show the purity, loveliness, morality, and chastity, of her Popes and bishops.

You recollect, right reverend and immaculate gentlemen, that Lothair Conti, afterwards called Innocent III., was then Pope; now, gentlemen, I ask you, and I pray you may answer me fairly and honestly, whether your infallible church was, even in that age, exempt from the abominations of which I have accused her? Be honest, for once in your life; let me be able to record, in my future writings, one instance of truth being found among Jesuits and Popish priests, when speaking upon church affairs.

Are you prepared to deny the fact that your church was then filled with the grossest abominations, and that every one of those abominations were sanctioned by Pope Innocent III.? If you are prepared to deny this fact, I am prepared to brand upon the forehead of each of you, in letters which can never be erased, the words wilful and deliberate liar. You both, right reverend gentlemen, already know that I do nothing by halves; and if I convict you of falsehood, you may rely upon it, that the iron with which I will brand you with the above letters, shall be heated to the very point of fusion, so that you shall be known as the sworn enemies of truth, religion, and the rights of man. Innocent III. is looked upon in the Roman Church, and by you, of course, as a perfect model of what a Popish bishop or priest ought to be; any deviation from the faith which he professed, or example which he gave, in morals or politics, would be, and is now considered, by every true son of the Infallible Church, as heresy and treason against Popery. Let us now see what the faith of this inimitable model was; we can best judge of it by his works; "the tree is known by its fruits." A very beautiful modern writer gives us the true character of Innocent III. It is fair to judge of all the Popes as this man has been judged; he is a correct model of the whole, and I doubt not but, taking him all and all, he is the best model that has been given of a Romish Pope. His greatest admirers admit its correctness; the picture is true to the life, and if that ancient axiom, "_ex ano disce omnes"_ be true, that is, if we can judge of all by one, a precious model of morals and policy is this Pope Innocent III.

I call the attention of my readers to the character of this man, or if Papists will have it so, of this god Pope, as given by an elegant writer of the present age:

"In his actions, principles, and the effects produced by both, we scarcely recognize a human being. He takes a stand wholly above that class of figures which form the ordinary pattern of history. The circumstances of his time, and the faculties of his nature, make us seek rather for his resemblance in one of those wanderers from some higher star, or spirit dropped by accident among us, and in the garb of a man allowed to follow his original propensities, and to do evil which throws human malignity into the shade, by some power which in all cases exceeds the dimensions of human nature. _Without charging the Pope with being altogether a devil_, it must be acknowledged, that in many of his actions he nearly resembles that character."

The pontificate of Innocent III., which we can find, upon examination,, closely resembles that of all other Popes, is worthy the serious attention of statesmen of this country. Here our presidents, cabinets, senators, representatives, and governors, may learn how temporal power and Popish functions may be united together; they will see the nature, and understand better what is meant by that spiritual allegiance which Papists, even in this country, swear to the Pope of Rome, and which for twenty odd years I have been appealing to Americans to crush; or deprive of the rights of citizenship, or punish as traitors every man who avowed such allegiance to a foreign king, which the Pope of Rome is acknowledged to be. Will Americans hear to the definition which Pope Innocent III. gives of a Romish Pope? It is admitted to be a correct definition, by every Roman Catholic, whether bishop, priest, or layman, in the United States. Hear you, then, Americans! listen, you republicans--whigs, democrats, and all--and know ye henceforth, that a Pope is defined to be the _vicegerent of Christ_. If less than God, he is greater than man; the luminary of day; the civil authority being only the pale orb of night How would you, Americans, like to have such a man at your head? Take heed--there are three millions now of his subjects amongst you, and about thirty-three millions besides all over the world. Ask yourselves whether it is not at least possible that they may gain an ascendency in these United States, and wrest from you and your posterity the inheritance which your forefathers left you? Do not forget--I entreat of you never to forget--the alarming fact that during the last sixteen years, 731,380 foreigners have arrived at the port of New York alone. Three-fourths of these may be presumed to be Papists, and sworn to maintain the supremacy of their king, the Pope.

Let it not be forgotten by American statesmen, that Papists have been at the bottom of every crusade that has ever been formed against the civil rights of men. Was it not a Pope, and that Pope no less a personage than Innocent III., that tried to dethrone King John of England? Was it not a Pope that fomented a crusade against the Hungarians, and endeavored to overthrow the King of Norway? And finally, was it not a Pope, and that Pope the infallible Innocent III.--whom Bishops Hughes, Fenwick, and myself, have agreed upon as a fair sample from about three hundred Popes, who preceded and succeeded him--that waged a war of extermination against the unoffending and blameless Waldenses? Was it not a Pope, and that Pope Innocent III., who in one year, by virtue of his divine authority, gave away three royal crowns? This Innocent III. employed the infernal inquisition against the Albigenses. Will Americans take all these historical truths into consideration. Let them read my books again, and then say whether I have done the Pope, bishops, and priests of the Romish Church any injustice. I declare, in the language of another, that there is not to be found in the whole range of history, any body of men, who have inflicted upon humanity a greater amount of evil, than the Popes of Rome and their allies: and the grand instrument which enabled them to accomplish all this with impunity, and without detection, was the infamous and diabolical practice of auricular confession. "To rivet the chains of slavery," as another expresses it, "on souls as well as the bodied of men, too firmly to be thrown off, private, or as it is called, auricular confession of sins to a priest, was made an imperative duty of all Papists, at certain seasons of the year." "Of all the practices of the Romish Church," says the same writer, "this is the one which has proved most injurious; and if it be regarded in connection with the celibacy of the clergy, will explain why the cause of morals is always worse in Popish than in Protestant countries. The uses of conscience were at an end, when given for safe keeping to a Romish confessor; actions were no longer measured by the standard of right and wrong, but by a casuistry and a pernicious process of reasoning, by which it was intended to make man satisfied with himself. The result of this has been, and is at the present moment, even in these United States, that law is the only restraint upon a Papist; he is taught to believe that by confessing his crimes to a Romish priest, he can obtain pardon. The blackest murderer, if he can escape the hangman or the penitentiary, is no farther concerned about the deed; he believes his priest can forgive him, and all is at rest."

This was a doctrine which Pope Innocent tried with all his might to enforce upon his people. The reader has now a fair specimen of a Romish Pope. "Voila Rome." Look, Americans, and examine this faultless picture of a Pope, and perfect model of a Romish priest! Do you desire that an engraving should be made of it, and scattered through the land? Do you desire to establish in your midst, colleges and schools for the purpose of bringing up your children in the faith and practices of Pope Innocent? I tell you, if you do, the rising generation will be without religion or morals, and this glorious republic will die in the arms of despotism. I am aware that Americans will say--at least it will be said by a portion of them, who are not Christians indeed--that such a man as Innocent III. could not live in this country; that he would be plunged into the next river, if he dared to interfere in the administration of our laws. Facts do not warrant Americans in jumping at this conclusion. Who, at least in Boston, forgets the destruction of the Ursuline Convent? Did not Bishop Fenwick and his nuns publicly boast that they had "twenty thousand stout Papists ready at their beck, to reek their vengeance on the peaceable citizens of Boston?" Might not the Pope's agent--had he not crouched before a superior force--have said to this twenty thousand madmen, as Innocent III. said to his French followers, when they landed in England, "Sword, sword, leap from thy scabbard! sword, whet thyself for vengeance!" and would not those men have obeyed him, had he not had the prudence to see their comparative weakness, and advise them to keep the peace, under pain of being cursed by him? Had there been force enough upon the spot to have put to the torture and to death every Protestant in Boston, it would have been done. And why, or for what? Merely because the people thought proper to pull down a legalized house of prostitution, surreptitiously erected in their midst! Will it be said that I am also incorrect in my charges against the Ursuline nuns of Charlestown, Massachusetts?

Bishop Fenwick represents them as models of purity and chastity, and recently assures his Holiness the Pope, that he is making converts from the first families of Boston to the religion and pure faith of these nuns. I have something to say of two, at least, of those nuns, who were in that convent when an indignant people leveled it to the ground. I knew two of those nuns personally, and I knew them both far advanced in the family way, in their own country, when I left it. They were both seduced, and their _seducer was their confessor_,--a Roman Catholic priest of the order of St. Augustine. That priest is now living, and those ladies whom he seduced, and who fled from their native country to the Ursuline Convent in Charlestown, are now living, I believe, in Quebec Do those sympathizing ladies in Boston, some of whom have been educated by these two sisters--not of charity, but of crime--wilful, constant, persevering crimes--wish to hear their names? I am tempted to give them, and I would do so, if I thought it might have the effect of opening the eyes of Protestant mothers, and prove a warning to them not to send their daughters, in future, to be educated in a Popish nunnery, or to confession to a Popish priest But to return: Protestants have no mercy to expect from Papists. A true Catholic is not allowed to hold any communion with a Protestant, nor will his bishop or priest permit him to be buried in the same ground with a Protestant He is not allowed to go to the funeral of a Protestant: and if he does go, he commits a sin which the priest is not allowed to forgive him, without a special license from the Church. In the technical language of the Romish Church, the case of a man who attends a Protestant funeral is a reserved case; that is, a case or a crime which no ordinary priest can forgive, without a particular license to do so. Going into a Protestant church, and hearing a Protestant minister preach, is another reserved case. Saluting or speaking to a Protestant, or heretic, is also among the reserved cases. Speaking, for instance, to Eugene Sue, the author of the Wandering Jew, whom--"_horribile dictu_"--the Roman Catholic Bishop of Lyons, in France, has excommunicated, is another reserved case, which no one except the aforesaid Bishop of Lyons, or some person delegated by him, can pardon or forgive. Speaking to any member of the Christian League--that arch heretic, Rev. Mr. Kirk, for instance--is a reserved case, which no priest in Boston, except Bishop Fenwick, or some one delegated by him, can pardon or forgive; for be it known to all the inhabitants of the world, that he, and his brother colleagues of the Christian League, have been excommunicated by the present Pope. It is a reserved case to speak to me. Speaking to me is a crime of peculiar atrocity, and can be forgiven by no power, save the Pope of the Infallible Church. I have accused the Pope of sin, of folly, and depravity. This is altogether inadmissible, and deserves eternal damnation; the idea that a Pope of Rome can commit sin, or can do wrong, is inconsistent and incompatible with true religion, as Papists understand that term.

The Pope of Rome, according to Papists, cannot sin; he is not only _infallible_, as the most eminent Popish writers assert, but _impeccable_; see Belarmine, a standard writer in the Popish Church. But I will no longer detain the reader on this particular subject of reserved cases, and Popish follies of ancient times. Bishop Fenwick, and the rest of the right reverend brethren: of the Popish Church, will say that my statements are all "old lies;" that the holy Roman Catholic Church never did, nor does it now, prevent her subjects from speaking to heretics, or those who differ from her in their belief. I will venture the assertion, that if any Protestant theologian call upon any Roman Catholic bishop in the United States, he will deny this fact, or give an equivocal answer, though there is not to be found a solitary work on Popery in any library in the United States, or elsewhere, which does not sustain me in the assertions I have made. But we will not go to ancient times for authority. I will state to the reader a case to the point, which occurred about the year 1822, and to the truth of which thousands of our fellow citizens in Philadelphia can bear testimony. When I first opposed Popery in that city, by recommending that the Bible should be circulated among the people, and that the children of the poor Catholic Irish should be sent to school to be educated in its pure and unsullied doctrines, the Roman Catholic Bishop of that city, a poor, little, irritable Irishman, by the name of Conwell, prohibited his people, or his subjects, as he called them, from speaking to me, the heretic Hogan, or his followers, Hoganites; and the most amusing part of it was, that by way of giving his subjects good example, whenever we passed each other, even on opposite sides of the street, his lordship took off his hat and crossed himself, repeating the AVE MARIA! This he never failed to do, wherever we passed, much to the amusement of the Protestant inhabitants of that city, and to the great edification of the Papists. It may appear exceedingly strange or amusing to Bostonians, should I tell them that a similar belief in the criminality of speaking to heretics is taught in Boston, the capital of New England; but this is a fact, and if Papists term it a new "lie," it cannot be helped, for what I am about to state occurred only the other day. I chanced to meet, in a book store in Washington street, a convert to Popery, just fresh from the hand of Bishop Fenwick. I had never seen the gentleman but once before, and he was then, as well as during most of his previous life, one of those men in whose faith I had not the least confidence. I did not know that he was present when I entered the store, and was in the act of inquiring for a vile thing, called Brownson's Quarterly Review, which he published in the month of July, 1840. During my inquiries for this Review, the author, Brownson, addressed me, as nearly as I can recollect, in the following words: "I know you, sir; you once owned a whig press in Savannah; you criticized my Review. I marked you--but I am not allowed by my Church to speak to a heretic." I looked around me in some astonishment I did not expect to hear such language on the land of the Puritans; but sure enough, there stood Brownson, a Roman Catholic, fresh from the anvil of Popery! There he stood, _totus teres adque rotundus_, full-blooded and fully developed; the very Brownson himself, who has been consistent in nothing but infidelity and unbelief, now a good Roman Catholic; the very Brownson who has never been true to either his Maker or to his church, now a good Roman Catholic, whose church and whose conscience would not allow him to speak to a heretic! I never noticed the man much before, but now I fixed my eye upon him, and I shall not easily forget his countenance. On first intuition, I could scarcely imagine it was the Rev. Mr. Brownson who stood before me. My imagination presented to me a different character. I could not suppose that one who was once a clergyman would entertain the sentiments which I had the misfortune of subsequently hearing him utter. I was, however, mistaken. It was the Rev. gentleman. He strongly reminded me of characters between whom and himself there existed a strange similitude; but comparisons might offend the delicate sensibilities of some of my readers.

I looked at him a second time, and I could not restrain the involuntary exclamation--Popery, thou child of sin, treachery, and intrigue, bad as thou art, is it come to this--that thou must take by the hand as thine advocate and supporter this wretched being, who for thirty years has been sporting with the attributes of the great God, alternately extolling and ridiculing them, as best suited the ungovernable bent of his unstable mind, which thou mightest read in the demoniac-looking face of this man? But this is one of the secrets by which Popery spreads itself all over the United States. The Popish Church will admit any men or women, be they saints or devils, into full communion with them, if they swear allegiance to the Pope of Rome. This is one of the grand causes of the success of Jesuitism in this country. How different is it in some of the Protestant Churches! It requires some tact and church generalship in any man who has not been brought up a Protestant, to obtain admission into them upon any terms. Far be it from me to insinuate that Protestants should follow the example of the Papists, in admitting such things as Brownson into communion with their Churches: Nor should I mention the fact of the admission of Brownson at all, into the Romish Church, if I did not look upon this circumstance as a prominent instance of the corrupt evils of its infamous practices, and an irrefragable argument against its alleged good. But Brownson has been purified from all his sins by some Popish chemical process; he has gone to confession, is no longer a sinner, and therefore he is too pure, too immaculate, and too strong in the faith of the Popish Church, to render it otherwise than sinful in him to speak to a heretic! It is said that the Pope has recently given his subjects in the United States a dispensation, by which they are allowed to transact business with heretics, and speak to them in case of necessity. Wonderful condescension this!

Such statements as I here make, must appear incredible to American Protestants. Many will suppose that I am dealing in fables--that such rigmarole and such silly pretences as I have charged the Papists with, have never been countenanced in any age or among any people, much less American freemen; but let us see what are the facts in the case. I would not ask the reader to take my word for it. In 1555, Pope Paul IV, in his famous bull against heretics, supports me in every assertion I make; charging Papists with deeming it unlawful and criminal, to hold any intercourse with Protestants. Will the reader be pleased to attend to what this infallible Pope says, and that, only between three and four hundred years ago? I call upon our civil authorities to ponder and weigh well the import of his words, and never to forget, that there is no Catholic in this country or elsewhere, who will dare to say that the decretals and commands of Paul IV., are of less force or less binding upon them than those of the present Pope. "All heretics, viz. Protestants, be they kings or subjects, are accursed." Mind that, Mr. Polk, President of the United States! attend to it, you Governors and Magistrates! you are each and every one of you accursed, and none of our citizens are allowed to speak to you 21 without a dispensation from the present Pope. That identical Pope, Innocent III.,--of whom I have just been speaking, and who has, without any objection from either party, been selected, by Bishops Hughes, and Fenwick, and myself, out of about three hundred Popes, as a fair sample of a good Pope,--has declared it to be unlawful for any Protestant Executive, | whether King or President, to require any allegiance from a Roman Catholic. Take heed, Mr. President Polk! it is said you are a Presbyterian; ask no allegiance from a Roman Catholic; he is not allowed by the present Pope,--who of course follows in the footsteps of his illustrious predecessors, Paul IV. and Innocent III.,--even to speak to you without a dispensation. It is utterly useless to multiply cases of this kind. No article of the Romish faith is better established, than that which teaches them to hold no communion with heretics, and try by every means in their power to overthrow all Protestant governments. Will this statement too be called an old lie? If it is a lie, it is assuredly a very old one, and a very new one too. Will the reader go back with me, to the history of ancient times? It will afford me pleasure if he does. The source of truth is as open and accessible to him as to me, and if he thirsts for it sincerely and honestly, he can slake it to his heart's content at its very fountain.

The general reader knows that at a very early period of Christianity, a considerable number of native Christians was found in the Peninsula of India; I believe they were first discovered by the Portuguese. They have been represented as harmless, guileless, and gentle in the extreme. They professed the pure doctrines of the bible. Even the Portuguese who discovered them, admitted that their lives were blameless, and that they were true Christians in every respect, except that they did not believe in the infallibility of the Pope and the supremacy of the Romish church. Here was an opportunity for the Romish church, of showing her charity, if she or her pioneers had any. These native Indians never did them any harm; they never before heard of a Pope or a Romish church; they believed in the Lord Jesus Christ and in the all-sufficiency of his atonement for the sins of man, but never heard of a Pope; such a word was not found in their simple, native vocabulary; this was a crime not to be forgiven by their ignorant Popish discoverers; and how were these simple people treated by them? I refer the reader to that admirable work, written by Lacroze, for a full account of the manner in which they were treated by these jackals who discovered them. Suffice it to say that they were at once reduced to obedience to the Pope of Rome, to acknowledge the Pope's church as infallible, and compelled to worship the images of a set of vagabonds called saints and virgins, who if living now-a-days amongst us, should be considered fit subjects for our penitentiaries and work houses. The reader will also see an account of the condition and character of this people in Buchanan's Researches.