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.
I refer to the case of those primitive Christians as corroborative of
my charges against Popery, and to show that her corrupt and persecuting
spirit has always been the same, and that nothing better could be
expected from the great changelings Brownson, or any other convert to
her dogmas, than a compliance with all her injunctions. Unfortunate
Brownson! while you tried to support yourself and family, by alternately
lecturing and publishing your sceptical and unintelligible theories, the
community in which you lived, and who knew your circumstances, felt a
kind and deep sympathy for you. They knew--and every man knows--that
theoretical scepticism, and some sentiments of honor, are not always
incompatible. A man may be a sceptic and not entirely destitute of
honor. A man may be a sceptic and yet an honest man. Your fellow
citizens imagined that you might have been among that class of people;
but now they know you. They know that for twenty or thirty years, you
have not only been a sceptic in theory, but a practical doubter, saying
yes to one thing, and again yes to the contrary. You must not, of
course, be surprised at seeing yourself sink in morals and principles,
until you lose all claims to the sympathies of society. If any
individual should think it an object worth his notice or time, to
satirize or lampoon you, the best and bitterest way would be, to bind up
into one volume, all the twattle you have written upon religion, morals
and metaphysics, and send it to you. I could with sincerity reproach
myself for having thus deviated from the subject of these pages, to
notice this unhappy individual, Brownson, for I believe there is not
a well-informed gentleman in the United States, who does not know that
there never was a period in the history of Popery, when the Pope and
Papists were not the implacable enemies of Protestants. Even Papists
themselves offer no defence against this charge, but that
Stale and hackneyed falsehood, Popery is not now what it was in old
times; this seems plausible to Americans, but let us see what are the
facts in the case. Let us inquire whether Popery is, at all different
now, from what it was in the days of Paul IV. and Innocent III. Is its
persecuting spirit the same? Are its tenets more liberal, its doctrines
more mild, and its Popes, from the last century up to the present
moment, less ambitious and more tolerant? Papists say they are; Bishop
Hughes of New York, and Bishop Fen-wick of Boston, say they are; and
their Corporal Trim, Brownson of Boston, touches his hat and nods his
head. I say they are not We are now at issue. The question between us
is one of veracity. The Bishops and Trim are liars, or I am one, in
this matter. How are the public to know which? There is but one mode of
ascertaining this. Let us appeal to history, and to facts. One of the
best and I believe the most recent authorities to which we both can
appeal, is a work recently written by Wm. S. Gilli, D. D., and published
in London. I call it one of the best authorities, because many of the
truths which he gives us, confirm my assertion, and are matters of
profane history, and connected, indirectly, with national treaties,
with which we are all more or less acquainted. This connexion throws
an additional light on, and gives more force to the statements of Dr.
Gilli; besides, it gives a strength and momentum to my charges against
Popery, which no Popish casuistry can check. The work which I allude to,
is entitled "The _Waldensian Researches._" This excellent work
commands great and deserved popularity among all parties, religious and
political, in Europe. It is a matter of historical truth, that as early
as 1690, and on the 20th of October of that year, a treaty was made
between Holland and England,--then the two-great Protestant powers of
Europe,--securing to the Vaudois, or Waldenses, the free exercise of
their religion and safe enjoyment of their property, This treaty was
assented to by all the powers of Europe. The Vaudois were a small
community of Christians, living in the valleys at the foot of the Alps,
whose origin is involved in some obscurity. They give us, themselves, no
record of their antiquity, prior to the ninth century, but are supposed
by antiquarians to have been the descendants of a band of Apostolic
Christians, who fled from Italy to escape the fury of barbarians, which
had overrun that country during the decline of the Roman empire, and who
sought for shelter in the secluded valleys of the Alps, in the western
part of Piedmont; though, as far as we know, they have in a measure
escaped the mad and bloody fury of the northern barbarian, in their
lonely valleys, they had not been able to escape that of a still more
bloody barbarian, the Pope of Rome. All Europe, who had any knowledge of
this people in their lonely valleys, felt great sympathy for them. They
were comparatively few in number, their wants few and easily supplied
by their own industry; their valleys were to them a second paradise, but
they were not long so, when the great serpent of Rome entered it, and
brought upon them such an amount of misery, hardships and persecutions,
as probably never were heard of before in the annals of history. I will
refer to this hereafter. Let us first see what becomes of the treaty to
which I have alluded. It was solemnly made and formally sanctioned;
they were promised full protection, by his royal holiness the Pope, only
about one hundred and forty years ago. How did the Pope act? How did he
keep his faith with this poor harmless people? History tells the tale.
He summoned the Inquisition, and threatened Victor Amadeus, a good Roman
Catholic, with excommunication, if he did not violate his treaty in
favor of the Vaudois, and renounce all treaties which he had ever made
with the heretics; and he called upon his subjects, that is, upon all
Catholics, Bishops and Inquisitors, to proceed against heretics, and
look upon all compacts and treaties made with heretics as null and void.
Passing over, for the present, the sufferings of the Waldenses in former
times, let us see what their condition is now. This will satisfy the
reader that the church still persecutes heretics, and refuses to hold
any communion with them. It proves also that Popish bishops, who assert
that Popery is different now from what it was formerly, and that Hughes
and Fenwick, of New York and Boston, together with their Corporal Trim,
Brownson, have deliberately misstated facts. Hear to what Mr. Gilli says
of the spirit of Popery as it existed the other day.