The monachal vows which we have considered in the foregoing chapters
were assumed by all the religious orders prior to the thirteenth
century. At that period orders were inaugurated to assist in the
administration of the public affairs of the church. As these orders
assumed obligations incompatible with the observance of silence and
seclusion, the vows imposing them were not enjoined. But the vow of
poverty, which will be the subject of the present chapter, and the vow
of celibacy and obedience, which will hereafter be considered, were
assumed by all the religious orders, both antecedent and subsequent to
the thirteenth century.
The vow of poverty embraced an unqualified abjuration of all right to
acquire or hold individual property, but granted the privilege of owning
property in a corporate capacity. This privilege was, however, variously
restricted by the terms of different monastic charters. The Carmelites
and the Augustines were permitted to hold such an amount of real estate
as would be sufficient for their support; the Dominicans were limited
to the possession of personal property; while the Franciscans were not
allowed to hold either real estate or personal property.
The vow of poverty assumed by the monks was adopted either from the
instigations of an artful policy, to acquire wealth with the reputation
of despising it, or from a conviction that poverty was a blessing and
wealth an evil. If the first hypothesis is correct, the assumption of
the vow was exceedingly reprehensible; if the second, it was absolutely
absurd.
A condition of poverty, abstractly considered, is a matter of neither
praise nor censure. It is sometimes a source of degredation; often
of crime, and always of inconvenience and embarrassment. Its general
tendency is to weaken in man his inborn sense of personal independence;
to debase his mind with notions of fictitious inferiority; to degrade
his social dignity by inducing sycophantic and obsequious habits; and
to lead him to sacrifice his conscious equality to the demands of
artificial rank. The incessant toil imposed by poverty on the energies
of the poor obdurates their nature; and, allowing no interval for
mental culture, permits nothing to interrupt or soften its tendency. The
mortifying difficulties experienced by this class of society to
obtain, by honest labor, a subsistence for themselves and their natural
dependents, have sometimes led them to become depredators upon society,
when their constitutional principles, unwarped by indigence, would have
secured their obedience to law and their labors for the public
good. Graces have been lost in brothels, and talents extinguished on
scaffolds, which, had tolerable means protected against the cravings
of hunger, might have added lustre to the female character, and heroes,
statesmen and scholars to the scroll of fame. Poverty begetting despair,
and despair destroying hope, the incentive to action, the powers of
genius sunk into the torpidity of stupefaction, and the strength of a
lion slumbered in the inactivity of a sloth. The chill which poverty
breathes over the mind is as unfriendly to the unfolding of the
intellectual germs, as the icy atmosphere of winter is to the
fructification of vegetable seed. The poet or philosopher, hoveled in
penury, without books or scientific instruments, with spare meals and
gloomy forebodings, never creates his brightest gem, nor solves his
profoundest problem. However sweetly Burns may sing or Otway melt, or
however importantly other sons of indigence may have contributed to the
augmentation of the volume of science and literature, yet the world has
never heard their sweetest song, nor read their brightest period; for
the groan of penury has marred the harmony of the one, and the tear of
want has dimmed the lustre of the other.
As a condition of poverty is, in the abstract, a subject of neither
praise nor blame, so also is a condition of wealth. Wealth, however, is
the ablest means of advancing individual and social progress, as well as
the sole remedy for the evils of poverty. If it cannot be adduced as
a ground of esteem or of respectability, or as an apology for the
ignorance, stupidity, pomposity, vanity and vulgarity with which it
may adventitiously be associated, yet, as it amplifies the means
of beneficence, and protects the weakness of human nature against
temptation arising from indigence, its honest acquisition is always
consistent with the severest principles of rectitude; and its pursuit
is recommended by the honorable pride of personal responsibility,
the motives of prudence and forecast, and the consideration of every
domestic and social obligation. Without its aid the world would have
remained in a state of primal barbarism; the commercial intercourse of
nations, the first element of civilization and the principal source of
national prosperity, power and greatness, would never have been
known; agricultural, manufacturing, mechanical and mining interests,
unstimulated by the lucrative traffic of supplying a foreign demand
for surplus domestic production, would never have been extensively
developed; the knowledge, the exotic luxuries, and the improvements
in the comforts and conveniences of civilized life derived from
international trade, could never have been obtained; the great bond of
the amity of nations, and the power created by the pecuniary advantages
of exchanging with one-another the products of their different climates,
and which, by dissipating mutual prejudices, suspicion, vanity and
self-conceit, has united them in friendly and beneficial intercourse,
would never have existed; and, as the first altars were erected for
the exposure of merchandise for sale, as the first offerings were the
currency by which goods were purchased, penalties satisfied, salaries
paid, and amity and friendship expressed; and, as the first temples
were market-houses built for the accommodation of the traffic of the
caravans, and to protect the goods against plundering barbarians, who
understood not the conventional rights of property, had it not been for
the fact that in the pursuit of wealth, communities felt the importance
of establishing convenient centres of trade and modes of exchange, the
ceremonies of religion would never have been invented. ( See Heeron's
Historical Researches, translated by Bancroft).
As neither a condition of poverty nor a condition of wealth is a subject
of praise nor censure; but, as the former inflicts on humanity its worst
evils, and the latter confers on it incalculable advantages, a vow of
poverty can have no innate sanctity to commend it, but must have all
constituents that can render it objectionable. When it is further
considered that there is a modifying reciprocity incessantly acting
between the conditions of the different members of the human family,
making the prosperity of one advantageous to all, and the indigence of
one disadvantageous to all, we may find not only a selfish, but also a
patriotic incentive in availing ourselves of any pecuniary right of our
being. No one can be indigent without decreasing the wealth of another,
nor opulent without contributing to the subsistence of others, nor
industrious without adding to the sum of national wealth, nor indolent
without consuming that for which he renders no equivalent. Now, as the
vow of poverty is inconsistent with the virtues and obligations created
by the mutual dependence and reciprocal influence of the condition and
circumstances of mankind on each other; as it fosters all the evils that
demoralize the social state; as it multiplies the number of paupers,
discourages industry, sanctifies pernicious influences, and burdens
society with the support of indolent and useless members, it is at
variance with the interests of man and the prosperity of government.
National wealth is the aggregate of individual wealth. The greater is
the amount of individual wealth in a nation, and the more equally it is
distributed among the inhabitants, the less are the evils of poverty,
the more independent and responsible are the citizens, the more
energetically are the agricultural, mineral, manufacturing, and
commercial interests developed, the more generally and intimately
are the interests of the people interwoven with the fabric of the
government, the greater will be the nation's prosperity, the more
formidable its arms, the more peaceful its internal condition, and the
more durable its prosperity.
A reformatory institution, to be efficacious, must be adapted to the
nature of man and his social condition. Its principles must be his
principles. Its measures must tend to aid his fullest development. To
accomplish this object it must seek to abolish all restrictions on his
rights, to remove whatever vitiates his sense of independence, to incite
his industry by making labor honorable and its rewards certain, and
to annul the immunities, exemptions, privileges and monopolies which
degrade the masses by indigence and invidious distinctions, and corrupt
the few by luxury and fictitious dignity. But the monachal institution,
which sanctions poverty, the most prolific source of crime; which
denounces individual wealth, the great element of civilization, and of
individual and national improvement; which inculcates indolence, the
parasite that feeds on the vitals of society; which discourages
the avocations of industry, the parent of personal independence and
responsibility; and which aims at a monopoly of wealth, itself the
source of political inequality, of despotic government and of popular
servitude--can advance no claim to a magnanimous mission. To esteem it
a virtue to be poor, pleasing to infinite intelligence to renounce the
best means of self-improvement, criminal to protect human integrity
against the assaults originating in a condition of poverty, are ideas of
such an absurd nature that the inference can scarcely be avoided, that
the source whence they originated must have been utterly destitute, not
only of moral principle, but of common sense.
But whenever conduct becomes enigmatical, and principles are avowed
contradictory to human reason, passion and interests, an ordinary
knowledge of the craft of ambition is apt to suggest a suspicion, that
these singular abnegations have not sprung from a sanctity that has
elevated the avowers above human nature, but from the injustice of their
designs and the profundity of their dissimulation. Conscious that
candor would be defeat, they have endeavored to accomplish objects by
pretending to oppose them. The church never being too strongly fortified
in holiness not to practise the advantageous vices of the world, has
invariably been betrayed into the adoption of this crafty policy; but,
always fanatical, she has never been discreet. Not only has she denied
her real designs, but, in order to conceal them, has imposed vows of
such an absurd and inconsistent import, as could not fail to reveal
the hypocrisy and craft that dictated them. The vow of poverty was not
assumed to become indigent, but to become opulent. It was a financial
manoeuvre, designed to facilitate the routine of business; and it proved
a very efficacious means of self-emolument. It won a reputation for the
holy beggars, that humbled imperial dignity at their feet, Theodosius
refused sustenance until a monk who had anathematized him, nullified
it by absolution. The Empress of Maximus, in her own palace, at her own
table, esteemed it a high honor to be permitted to wait as a servant on
St. Martin of Tours. While the assumption of unnatural vows invested the
mendicant monks with the credit and importance of supernatural beings,
and elevated them above the dignity of emperors and empresses, it opened
to their avarice the treasures of the world, and enabled them not only
to fill their coffers with the people's money, but to win their blessing
in the act of defrauding them. Such was the haughty indifference of the
Abbot Pambo, who seemed to imagine, with his church, that he was the
owner of the wealth of the world, that when Malaria, a rich sinner,
presented him a donation of plate for his monastery, and intimated that
its weight was about three hundred pounds, replied: "Offer you this to
me or to God? If to God, who weighs the mountains in a balance, he need
not be informed of the weight of your plate." The real design and value
of the monastic vows was once forcibly expressed by a Benedictine monk,
who remarked: "My vow of poverty has given me one hundred thousand
crowns a year; my vow of obedience has raised me to the rank of a
sovereign prince." An incident occurred in Paris, in relation to
two ecclesiastical dignitaries which illustrates the cupidity and
unapostolic character of the church. Innocent IX, and St. Thomas Aquinas
having met together in Paris, and a capacious plate, piled with gold,
the proceeds of the sale of indulgences, being brought into the room in
which they were seated, the enraptured Pope exclaimed: "Behold, the days
are past when the church could say, gold and silver have I none." But
the saint truthfully remarked: "The days are also past when the church
could say to the paralytic, arise and walk." Praetaxtatus, a Pagan
philosopher, viewing the princely revenues of the church, declared that
if he could become bishop of Rome, it might even remove his scruples
about believing in Christianity. Assuming the strongest possible
obligations to maintain a perpetual condition of absolute poverty, the
monks yet found it compatible with the principles and teachings of
the church, to convert their religious organizations into a financial
corporation, and to conceal its character and design under a veil
of angelic piety. The wealth which they apparently scorned, they
unscrupulously amassed; the power which they scoffed at as profane, they
attempted to monopolize; to whatever they seemed the most indifferent,
they the most sedulously labored to acquire; and whatever they professed
with their lips they violated in their practice. This consummate
hypocrisy might be condemned by the profane sceptic, but the _means_
crowned the _end_ with too high a degree of success not to be justified
by the piety of the religious orders.
The measures and designs of this false and crafty policy harmonized too
well with the pretensions of the Pope, and furnished his purposes with
too able and ingenious an auxiliary, not to command his fostering care
and protection. Equal in duplicity and rapaciousness, he exempted the
mendicant orders from all secular and ecclesiastical jurisdiction,
privileged them to demand alms without restriction, invested them with
the exclusive power of selling indulgences, and conferred on them the
lucrative prerogative of accepting legacies under the evasive name
of offerings. By this munificent lavishment of spiritual favors, the
mendicant orders soon found themselves transported from an apparent
condition of pauperism to a real condition of princely wealth and power;
enjoying at the same time all the sympathy that indigence could excite,
and all the luxury that money could purchase. Exempted from secular
jurisdiction, they were empowered to plunder, ravish and murder with
impunity; privileged to demand alms of all, they were the masters of
the fortunes of all; endowed with the exclusive power of vending
indulgences, they enjoyed a monopoly of the most lucrative trade that
was ever projected; and, allowed to receive legacies, they were enabled,
after having wheedled the devout out of their treasure while in health,
to take advantage of their dotage, and to stand over their dying pillow,
and dictate the terms of their last testament to the advantage of the
church, and to the disadvantage of natural heirs.
Avarice, like the cormorant, is insatiable; the more it is gorged, the
keener is its appetite; and this rapacious demon having taken complete
possession of the monastic body, every dollar that its craft wrung from
the devout only inflamed its greediness the more. When it had exhausted
the gold of a penitent, its covetous eye became fascinated by his
land; and, what avarice craved, financial sagacity quickly perceived an
available method of obtaining.
The church possessing no inherent moral vitality, sank with the middle
ages into barbarism; her power was then supreme, but insecurity of
life and property prevailed, and under her auspices temporal power
degenerated to a system of rapine and plunder. Had she been divine, she
would then have beamed as a lone star on a tempestuous ocean; but being
earthy, she resembled the other earthy compounds; nor could she well
be distinguished from the barbarians and savages with whom she mingled,
except by her imperfect notions of morality and justice, and her
superior financial skill in speculating on public calamity. The barons,
in the support of their interminable wars, had taxed their subjects to
an extent which produced general dissatisfaction. As the monasteries
enjoyed inviolability and freedom from taxation, they offered the
disaffected a refuge from an oppressive taxation, if they would become
lay monastic members, and convey their worldly goods to the church.
A wish to inhale the supposed holy atmosphere of the monasteries, to
partake of their luxuries, to enjoy the indulgence they accorded to the
commission of sin, to evade an impoverishing taxation, and at the same
time to retain some degree of personal freedom, induced wealthy persons
of both sexes to conclude contracts with the monasteries, by which
they became penniless, wholly dependent for subsistence on them, and
irrevocably subjected to their despotic domination.
Beside this shrewd speculation on public calamity, the excitement and
irruption of the crusades afforded the monks another opportunity for
the exercise of their financial skill. With the instinctive foresight of
cupidity, they had perceived the pecuniary advantages which would accrue
to their order in the course of the holy war about to be inaugurated;
and as they had fanned its first sparks into a general conflagration,
they could hardly have any conscientious scruples in remunerating
themselves, by concluding such sharp and profitable bargains as occasion
presented and vows facilitated. They well knew the commercial art of
bartering that which was worthless for that which was valuable; and
of advancing the market price of an article by a monopoly of it, or
depressing its value by increasing the supply beyond the demand.
In consequence of the public excitement real estate became greatly
depressed in value, and holy war-horses, clubs, lances, battle-axes,
and other sacred instruments of destruction, proportionally advanced
in price. The sagacious providence of the monks having in advance
accumulated vast military stores, very obligingly accommodated the
devout crusader, by exchanging an inconsiderable portion of them for
a very considerable tract of his land. By such operations the church
obtained very extensive domains in exchange for objects of trifling
value, or for very inadequate sums of money. The success of the
sacerdotal financiers becoming notorious, land speculation grew into a
contagious mania. Even kings came into the market to buy up the domains
of their deluded vassels. The competition between monks and monarchs was
as great as it was amusing; but sacerdotal craft was the more successful
negotiator. The oil with which the priests had been anointed at their
ordination was supposed to endow them with the power of bestowing
blessings and curses at will, and the high reputation for sanctity which
they had acquired by vows of absolute poverty, conferred advantages of
trade on them which crowns and sceptres could not command. Kings could
purchase only with money; but the monasteries had an exhaustless bank of
indulgences, of parting blessings, of promised prayers, and of promised
masses for departed souls. This bogus currency may provoke the levity
of the profane, but it was, nevertheless, prized by the saints above
the value of silver or gold, and held by the monasteries at its highest
marketable price. With the command of such unlimited resources, the
monasteries could successfully outbid princes, and purchase without
impoverishment what monarchs could not without bankruptcy.
With an air of piety and benevolence, but with an unscrupulousness that
regarded neither truth nor principle, the monks invented every fiction,
and adopted every possible method of augmenting the stores of their
wealth. Well aware that human piety is more easily inflamed by the
prospect of gold than by the prospect of heaven, they manufactured
extravagant reports of the wealth of Jerusalem; representing it as
a vast storehouse of gems and precious metal. So glowing were these
descriptions that the piety of the crusaders became excited into frenzy,
and their devotion into irrepressible vociferousness; a delightful
anticipation rapt them into heavenly ecstacies; and impatience for the
glorious results of the coming combat appeared to be the only unpleasant
ingredient that marred their happiness. On huts and farms, on palaces
and domains, they looked down with scornful indifference; for they felt
that wealth surpassing the treasures of the Indies, and palaces more
gorgeous than Europe could build, would inevitably reward their pious
adventure. The cool-headed priest, too well informed to partake of
the general delusion, deliberately viewed the enthusiasm, and calmly
calculated by what means it might be sustained and augmented, and how it
could most judiciously be made to administer to the pecuniary advantage
of the church. While the coldness with which the reason and conscience
of priests secretly regarded the general lunacy, was well disguised, the
masses, on the contrary, were all flame and fury, and wrought up to
such a pitch of anxiety to wrest the holy land from the Infidels and
appropriate it to themselves, that they became indifferent to the
treasure and land that they already possessed. In this unhealthy state
of the public mind, it was an easy task for spiritual advisers to
relieve their confiding pupils of their revenues, and ultimately to
become the proprietors of many of their domains.
The method by which this magnificent object was accomplished, was not
only by the treachery of exchanging trumpery for valuables, but also by
inducing the soldiers of the cross to devolve, during their absence,
the care of their land and revenues on the monasteries, and to make them
their heirs-at-law in case of death abroad. As but few of the crusaders
of some of the expeditions ever returned, as many of all of them
perished abroad, we must accord the credit of extraordinary shrewdness
to the calculating cupidity of the monks, who could make the love,
devotion, lunacy and enthusiasm of the devout, their life at home and
death abroad, equally advantageous to the monastic coffers. As
the infatuation, so beneficial to the church, was general; as the
convulsions of the times rendered property of all descriptions
exceedingly insecure; and, as many of the devout, equally frantic
with the crusaders, were restrained, either by infirmity or other
circumstances, from embarking in the holy enterprise, it was not
difficult for the monks, amid the general frenzy, to induce such persons
to become lay members of the monasteries, and to place their domains
under the protection of those powerful institutions; an advantageous
encumbrance which they always assumed with obliging avidity.
With such money-making devices and sharp practices, and many others of
a similar nature, the mendicant orders, united in an avaricious and
arrogant confederacy, enjoying the protection of the Pope, and the
confidence and homage of Christendom, and released from all secular and
ecclesiastical jurisdiction, seemed, while abjuring the possession of
property as a crime, and professing poverty as a virtue, to be rapidly
monopolizing the wealth of the world--the domains of princes, the
traffic of merchants, and the political power of governments. Under such
circumstances monastic opulence, without the intervention of a miracle,
must have prodigiously increased, and their domains augmented to
provinces.
From the fifth century, in every section of Christendom, monastery
after monastery continued to rise, generally constructed with stupendous
proportions, and in sumptuous style; furnished with every species of
luxury, and polluted by every description of vice. St. Bernard, who, by
the assumption of the vow of absolute poverty, renounced a considerable
private inheritance, and who subsequently scorned the proffers of
lucrative dignities, could, nevertheless, by means of his monachal power
and opulence erect ten monasteries, make nobles and Popes tremble at his
authority, and even kings submit to his dictation.
The Jesuits, who enjoyed all the privileges of the mendicant and secular
orders, excelled them both in duplicity and rapaciousnes. Animated by
a crafty and unprincipled zeal for the emolument of their order, they
established mission-houses among savage nations, under the pretext of
civilizing them and saving their souls. But this specious pretext
was but a pious mask, under which was concealed an infamous scheme of
swindling the natives abroad out of property, and wheedling the devout
at home out of liberal donations, and splendid legacies. Their extensive
mission-houses were neither designed for temples of devotion, nor for
converting idolaters; their walls less frequently witnessed the monks
at devotion, than they did at plotting schemes of plunder. Like ancient
temples, and more recent churches, mosques and fairs, they were designed
as centres of trade to facilitate commercial transactions; and, as they
were the grand resort of the people for exchange of commodities, they,
like the former, gave rise to the numerous villages, towns and cities,
whose names they bear. Pagan simplicity has never been a match for
monkish craft; and no sooner had the gold and gems of the natives
inflamed the zeal and sharpened the shrewdness of the monks, than they
were wrung from them by some swindling transaction, Possessing the arts
of civilized society, they were enabled to astonish the natives with
miracles, and successfully to impose on their ignorance and simplicity.
They boasted of having induced multitudes to embrace Christianity; but
as their object was not to convert Pagans from idolatry, but to defraud
them out of their land and gold, they were careful not to offend them
by demanding a renunciation of the practice of idolatry, but contented
themselves with entreating their converts simply to adore Christ and his
mother when worshiping the images of their gods. With this ambiguous,
but insinuating modification of Christianity, they made fortunes out of
the devout at home and savages abroad.
In 1743, this avaricious sacerdotal order established a mission-house
at the island Martinique; and so adroitly did they manage their
Christianizing business operations, that in a short time they
monopolized the trade of that island, and of the surrounding islands.
Their success naturally excited the jealousy of the secular merchants;
and as they were generally regarded as destitute of commercial honor,
and unprincipled in their ambition, a formidable opposition was
easily fomented against them. This opposition, apparently justified by
self-preservation, and the necessity of inaugurating a more liberal and
enlightened commercial policy, impaired to a considerable extent the
interest and popularity of the sacerdotal establishments. At this stage
of their history, a circumstance occured which culminated in their
disgrace. Two valuable cargoes had been consigned to them by their
French correspondents. These cargoes were captured by the English, with
whom the French were at war. In conformity with maritime usage, the
consignors demanded indemnity of the Jesuits. The Jesuits denied the
legality of the demand, and refused to give the satisfaction asked. An
appeal was consequently taken to the King of France, who, deciding
in favor of the consignors, demanded the Jesuits to make the required
restitution. But their presumptuous piety led them to scorn his
authority in the same temper in which they had rejected the prayer of
his mercantile subjects. This insolent and treasonable conduct led
the king to investigate the principles of their order; and finally to
abrogate it in all the states of France, as a political organization
projected for the acquisition of power and riches.
By means of their Christianizing establishments in Paraguay and Uruguay,
the Jesuits ruled the natives with despotic power, and acquired an
immense amount of wealth. In 1750, Spain having by a commercial treaty
ceded to Portugal seven districts of these domains, the monks at the
head of an army of fourteen thousand men, compelled the contracting
nations to annul the treaty; but an attempt being afterwards made to
assassinate the King of Portugal, the government declared the order of
the Jesuits to be a treasonable organization, and confiscated all
their possessions in the dominion. The order of the Catholic Knights,
incorporated for the defense and propagation of the true faith, by the
force of arms, like the monks, rapaciously acquired an incredible amount
of riches while under the solemnest obligation to maintain a perpetual
condition of absolute poverty. These holy organizations were exclusively
military; the sword was the only argument they used. The Knights of
St. John, with the vow of poverty on their lips, but with the sword of
conquest in their hand, amassed such extensive domains, that they
gave their chief an annual salary of one million guilders. The Knights
Templars, while they vowed absolute poverty, acquired by arms, forced
loans, donations, bequests and other means, such a prodigious amount of
wealth that they erected nine thousand vast and princely palaces, each
enriched with extensive territory, and all powerful enough to maintain
immunity from the jurisdiction of the sovereign in whose kingdom they
were located. The Teutonic Knights, while they abjured the rights of
property, and swore never, to allow its possession to tarnish their
sanctity, wrung from Sweden all the territory that extends from the Oder
along its banks to the Gulf of Finland. It is reported by travellers
that the Shaggians, a barbarous tribe of Egypt, when meeting a foe, will
exclaim: "Peace be with you," and thrust a lance in his heart. The
wild mockery of these uncouth savages at avowed principles has been
far exceeded by the conduct and profession of the monachal and military
orders of the Catholic Church, whose vows were meant for imposition, and
whose life was a scene of perjury.
By the aid of magnificent revenues, the various orders of the religious
paupers were enabled successfully to negotiate for the most lucrative
dignities of the church, and enjoyed the fairest prospects of becoming
either bishops, cardinals or popes, and of obtaining the luxurious
indolence, idolatrous reverence, and impious adulation they secured. The
hypocritical devices of the ancient and modern Brahmins, of the Hindoo
and Mohammedan monks, and of the priests and prophets of ancient Pagan
nations have, in Christian countries, where no prejudice pleads in their
favor, and where their origin and claims are candidly investigated, been
justly exposed to the scoffs and contempt of common sense; and it
is possible that under the same circumstances, the monks, priests,
ceremonies and dogmas of Catholicism, which resemble them as nearly as a
type can its prototype, would sink to the same level.
When we calmly reflect on the monastic institution, and observe
the financial principles on which it is organized, the variety and
prodigious traffic which has distinguished its career, the immense
treasure and domains it has acquired by fraud and artifice, it seems
like some gigantic financial corporation, projected for speculating in
land, and for making money by the tricks of trade. When we call to
mind the avarice by which it has been actuated, the duplicity it has
practised, and the impositions of which it has been guilty, it appears
to be a corporation organized to make money, regardless of every maxim
of justice, and every principle of honor. When we consider how basely it
has prostituted its privileges and immunities; becoming superior to law
to violate the principles of rectitude; professing absolute indigence to
demand, like a highwayman, a tribute of every one it chanced to meet, if
not with a pistol in its hand, yet with an anathema at its disposal
more dreaded by the superstitious than thousands of pistols, it looms
up before the imagination as a corporation of outlaws, whose right is
might, whose object is money, and whose profession is to plunder. When
we reflect on its pretention of vending for gold the pardon of sin,
the favor of God, immunity for guilt, and protection against the future
retribution of heaven, it appears like a corporation of fiends which
arrogates the prerogatives of deity, traffic in the hearts and souls of
men, sport with their hopes and fears, and merchandise heaven and hell,
time and eternity. And when we remember that the Roman Catholic Church
has incorporated these infamous religious orders in her constitution,
and has officially pronounced them to be her most useful members, and
has thus sanctioned and made her own, all their duplicity, all their
rapacity, all their swindling operations, all their highway robbery, and
all their profanity, immorality and blasphemy, she seems like some black
and midnight monster, dripping with human gore, an embodiment of every
deformity, an incarnation of every loathsome, hideous and unsightly
demon, and a just representation of the character and principles of the
arch-fiend.