his duty to resist the laws of Protestant England, and evade, by perjury
or otherwise, their execution. "In no country in the world," says a
modern writer, "are the rights of property so recklessly violated:
amongst no people on the face of the earth are the obligations of an
oath, or the discharge of the moral duties, so utterly disregarded. Any
man, the greatest culprit, can find persons to prove an _alibi_; the
most atrocious assassin has but to seek protection, to obtain it. And
why is this so? Because the religious instruction of the people has
been totally neglected; because their priests have become politicians;
because their bishops, pitchforked from the potatoe-basket to the
palace, have become drunk with the incense offered to their vanity; and
the patronage granted in return for their unprincipled support, instead
of checking the misconduct of the subordinates, stimulate them to still
further violence, and stop at nothing which can forward their objects.
Because the opinions of the people are formed on the statements and
advice of mendicant agitators, who have but one object in view--their
own aggrandizement. Because a rabid and revolutionary press, concealing
its ultimate designs under the motive of affording protection to the
weak, seeks to overthrow all law and order, pandering to the worst
passions of an ignorant and ferocious populace."
Irish priests and Irish bishops complain of poverty and grievances at
home. They complain that men of property leave their homes and spend
their incomes abroad; but as this writer, to whom I have alluded
expresses it, "What encouragement do they give to such as return from
their residences abroad?" Allow me, fellow-citizens, to give you an
instance of the treatment which Protestants of fortune receive from
Irish Roman priests, when they do return to reside upon their estates in
Ireland. I quote from the same author:!!!!!
"The Marquis of Waterford, a sportsman boundless in his charities, frank
and cordial in his manners, not obnoxious on account of his politics,
and admitted on all hands to be one of the best landlords in Ireland,
comes to reside, and spend his eighty thousand sterling per annum,
in the country. He gets up a splendid establishment in the county of
Tipperary; and how is he treated? His hounds and horses were twice
poisoned. There are scarcely any Protestants in the county of Tipperary.
His offices were fired, and his servants, with difficulty, saved their
lives. Compelled to abandon Tipperary--that sink of Popish iniquity,
every nook and corner of which I am acquainted with--this generous and
fine-hearted young nobleman retires to his family mansion, in Waterford;
and how is he received there? I will not tell you; let his parish
priest tell the story. 'Men of Portlan,' says this _holy Romish priest_,
addressing the tenants and neighbors of the Marquis of Waterford, 'you
were the leading men who put down Beresford, in '26 (the marquis's
father); I call on you now, having put down one set of tyrants, to put
down another set of tyrants, the marquis himself.'"
Many of the Romish priests, which we have in this country, are from that
very county of Tipperary, and thousands of the poor Irish amongst us
have had their education, such as it is, from such worthy _apostolic
successors_ as the parish priest of the Marquis of Waterford.
Such are the people to whom you are yielding the destinies of this happy
republic, by allowing them to vote at your elections, or to hold any
office of honor or trust, while they have any connection with the head
of their church, the Pope of Rome. Let the reader pass on from Popish
Tipperary to Protestant Ulster, and he will see that the crimes of the
Irish, and the miseries which many of them suffer, are to be attributed
almost solely to their religion and their priests.
Mr. Kohl, a fair and very impartial writer, at least, upon Ireland, and
who is often quoted by the great agitator, O'Connell, says,--in passing
from that part of the country, where the majority of the inhabitants
profess the Roman Catholic religion to that in which the great bulk of
the population are Protestants or Presbyterians,--"On the other side
of these miserable hills, whose inhabitants are years before they can
afford to get the holes mended in their potatoe kettles, (the most
important article of furniture in an Irish cabin,) the territory of
Leinster and that of Munster begins. The coach rattled over the boundary
line, and all at once we seemed to have entered a new world. I am not
in the slightest degree exaggerating when I say, that everything was as
suddenly changed as if by an enchanter's wand. The dirty cabins by
the road side were succeeded by neat, pretty cottages; well cultivated
fields and shady trees met the eye on every side. At first I could
scarcely believe my own eyes, and thought the change must be merely
local, caused by particular management of that particular state, but the
improvement lasted, and continued to show me that I was among a
totally different people, the Scottish settlers, and the industrious
Presbyterians."
We see, in this country, the same difference of character and habits,
between the Irish Protestants and the Irish Catholics. The Irish
Protestant, wherever you find him, laboring on his loom in the north
of Ireland, working in a factory in New England, keeping a shop in
New York, or cultivating a plantation in Carolina, values his home and
integrity, as pearls of great price. He is generally temperate, frugal,
and industrious. We seldom, or never, hear him accused of disturbing
the peace, or fraudulently voting at elections; on the whole, he arrives
amongst us a worthy man, and, in time, becomes a useful citizen; and to
what is this owing? It is owing to his education. He has been taught
the Bible in his youth; from this he learned to love his God, above all
things, and his neighbor as himself.
But how is it with the Roman Catholic, who comes amongst you? Scarce
does he land on your shores, when he becomes more turbulent, more noisy,
and more presumptuous, than when he left his native bogs. As soon as he
confesses to his priest, he _hurrahs_ for democracy, by which he means
anarchy, confusion, and the downfall of _heretics_. He must vote; if he
cannot do so fairly, his priest tells him how to evade the obligations
of an oath. He will swear to support a constitution, which he never
read, and never was read to him; he goes again to the confessional,
and leaves that _sacred tribunal_ with an oath upon his lips, that
"Americans shall not rule him." He soon hears the words, "Pilgrim
Fathers;" he goes to his priest, and asks what these words mean; he is
told that they were _vile wretches, pirates_, who came to this country
many years ago, and whose sons were _all cowards_, and thus we see that,
as far as it is in their power, they are trying to reduce this country,
and its native inhabitants, to a level with that in which their vile
religion--Popery---has placed themselves. If we could cast our eyes over
the history of the world, we should be struck with horror at the fatal
consequences of Popery.
Wherever its followers have had an ascendency, or wherever they have it
now, they appear to be conspirators against the happiness of the human
race. What were the means by which Popish kings, emperors, and princes,
conducted their governments--_with the advice and consent, of the Pope
of Rome, the vicegerent of heaven?_ Craft, extortion, fire, and sword.
What are the means by which those governments, which at this day are
under the Pope and his priests, are conducted?
The Pope apes the very thunders of heaven, and such are the "imitative
powers" of his priests and bishops, that they are equally as destructive
as the original. I have alluded to the contrast between the Catholic and
Protestant people of Ireland. The one prosperous and happy; the other
poor, miserable, and degraded. Heaven's vicegerent, as the bishops call
the Pope, and the Papists call the bishops, seldom bestow a thought upon
their subjects, except to gull and inveigle them for the aggrandizement
of their church; and we now see Ireland, one of the fairest countries
upon earth, a country over which God has scattered plenty, and to which
nature is peculiarly bountiful, reduced to want by insolent, haughty
bishops, and vile, profligate priests.
That beautiful land which nature taught to smile with abundance, they
have watered with tears, and with blood, all the result of Popery; and
this has been its effect everywhere. It operates like the east wind,
causing blasting, barrenness, and desolation, wherever it goes, and
nothing but the herculean arm of this young and vigorous republic can
check its progress among ourselves.
But I may be told that nothing is to be dreaded in this country from
Papists; that they have neither numbers, nor means, to accomplish their
designs upon our institutions. Let us see whether this is so. I have
stated, in a former page, the number of bishops, priests, seminaries,
and Papists, in this country. I have also shown you, to a demonstration,
that if the number of emigrant Papists should continue to increase for
the next thirty years, as they have for the last eight, they will be
a majority of the population of the United States, and the Pope our
supreme temporal ruler.
Permit me, now, to give you some idea of what their means are, at least
such portion of them as they derive from Europe, and you can judge
for yourselves what they are in the United States. I will give you the
amount sent from Europe, during the years 1841, 1842, and 1843. I quote
from their own books and receipts.
[Illustration: Table of Irish Immigrants p136]
With such an amount of funds annually, from abroad, in the hands of a
body of men, who understand how to manage and appropriate them, perhaps
better than any other association in the world, with the majority of the
population of these United States, and having but one single object in
view, namely, the supremacy of their Pope and their church; what have
Americans not to fear? They will avail themselves of a corrupt state
of representation; they will procure a majority in your national
legislature, and then, I say, woe be to your liberties.
Your school-houses, which now ring, at stated hours, with the praises
and glories of God on high, wherein children are given to drink of
the waters of life, will be converted into monk-houses, and
lying-in-hospitals; prayers to God will no longer be heard in them;
vagabond saints and wooden images will be the only objects of adoration;
ignorance and vice will take the place of intelligence and virtue;
idleness will take the place of industry; and the free American who,
heretofore, was taught to walk erect before God and man, will shrivel
and dwindle into a thing fit only to crouch before a tyrant Pope, and
become a hewer of wood and drawer of water, for lazy and gluttonous
priests, who, for centuries, have been trying to extinguish the light
of reason and science, and who, even at the present moment, aye, at
our very doors, are trying to abolish some of the finest productions of
genius.
Witness the prohibition, recently, in France, of the publication of the
Wandering Jew. Witness the prohibition of its circulation in Cuba;
and why is it prohibited? Because it exposes some of the trickery of
Jesuitism--because it lays bare some of the intrigues of that hellish
association--and because holy mother church knows full well, that no
honest or honorable man could see her in her native deformity, without
a shudder of disgust--because she knows that herself and her priests are
but whited sepulchres, filled not with dead men's bones, but with the
living fires of despotism, avarice, lust, and treachery--because she
knows that Eugene Sue, who has written the Wandering Jew, is a Roman
Catholic, well acquainted with the practices of Jesuits, sanctioned by
the church. A continuation of the Wandering Jew, and its circulation,
might show the world, even if there were no better authority, that
monasteries and nunneries, under the control of Jesuits, were but vast
Sodoms and prisons, full of crime and pollution.
Eugene Sue could, and I believe would, show the world, if his health
had not failed him, that Roman Catholic priests and bishops, though
forbidden, under pain of _excommunication_, to marry, were allowed to
keep concubines. I refer the reader to the memoirs of the Romish bishop,
Scipio de Ricci, for the truth of this assertion. I also refer you to
another valuable work, _Binnii Concillia_, first volume, page 737. You
will find the same in a work called _Corpus Juris Canonici_, page 47,
to be had in the Philadelphia Library. You will find the same permission
sanctioned by the council of Toledo, at which Pope Leo presided. The
only restriction put upon the licentiousness of priests, by the council
of Toledo, was to forbid them from "keeping more than one concubine at a
time, _at least in public_."
Cardinal Campeggio expressly says, "that a priest who marries commits
a more grievous sin than if he kept many concubines." St. Bernard, who
died about the beginning of the twelfth century, and who must have been
a very charitable man, as all Catholics now pray to him, tells the
world that "bishops and priests commit acts in secret, which it would be
scandalous to express."
Pope John XII., was convicted by a general council, of _fornication,
murder, adultery, and incest_, but these were not sufficient to
depose him. He still believed in holy mother, the church, and his own
infallibility. There is not an individual who reads these statements,
and is at all acquainted with history, who does not know that Pope Paul
III., who convened the council of Trent, had made large sums of money
from licenses given to houses of ill fame in that city.
The holy church to this day, in the city of Mexico, to my own knowledge,
receives large sums from the same sources, and these are supported
principally by monks, friars and priests. No wonder, then, that the
publication of the Wandering Jew should be prevented in Catholic
countries. The writer, Mr. Sue, is a man of the world, he has read the
book of nature with as much attention as he has those in his library.
He is a well-read historian, and possesses an admirable faculty of
communicating his ideas. He clothes them with a simplicity and beauty,
almost peculiar to himself. The man that could depict _Rodin_, the
sanctimonious Jesuit, in his true character, as Mr. Sue has done, must
necessarily be silenced in a Catholic country. It must not be known
that Jesuits may come among us in the garb of merchants, or in any other
disguise which they may please to assume; no intimation must be given,
that the poisoned cup, the assassin's dagger, the desperate sea-captain,
or the valiant soldier, could be concealed under a Jesuit's cowl, or
that he may throw off that cowl, at his pleasure, and exchange it for
a pea-jacket, a dancing pump, the violin, the fencing foil, or even the
costume of a barber, or tamer of wild beasts.
It will not answer the purposes of the holy church, that a man should
live and write, who is capable of raising the curtain which hides its
do-signs, and conceals the instruments, which she has ever used, and is
now using, for the destruction of liberty. Such a man is the author of
the Wandering Jew.
No man can look at the picture which he has drawn of Ignatius Morok,
without recognizing, in its every feature, those of a Jesuit and a
villain. He travelled about, in the assumed character of a "tamer of
wild beasts," but in reality, he was a Jesuit missionary, and sent by
that order, with full power to accomplish, by _any_ means within his
power, one of the most infamous acts of fraud that over was committed by
man.
He was accompanied, (as the reader of Eugene Sue will find,) by a
_lay_ Jesuit, named Karl, and I cannot give my readers a better idea of
Jesuitism, as it ever has been, and is now, than by requesting of them
to observe the course adopted by those two villains in accomplishing
the object of their errand. Look at their treatment of the honest and
faithful Dagobert. Look at the cruelties which they inflicted on the
two innocent orphans, committed to his charge. See the schemes, by which
they have made even the wife of Dagobert subservient to their designs.
See the arts by which Jesuit priests crept into families, under various
disguises, sowing amongst them discord, hatred, and domestic strife.
They have put the father against the son, and the son against the
father; husband against wife, and wife against husband; brother against
sister, and sister against brother. See how they have contrived to filch
from the poor and almost starving, the last sou they possessed, to
have masses said for the repose of the souls of those who were actually
living, to the knowledge of the priest, though represented by him at the
confessional, to have been long since dead!
See how one of those vagabond Jesuits, in the assumed character of
a physician, aided by one of the sisters of that order, Madam de St.
Dizier, imposed upon the heiress, Mademoiselle de Cardoville. He offered
his services to accompany her to visit a friend of hers, but had
a private understanding with a _lay Jesuit_ in the 'disguise of a
hack-driver, to take them to a lunatic asylum, where he deposited
the heiress. I will not quote from the "Wandering Jew," it would be
depriving my readers of much pleasure; but I would recommend the perusal
of it, in order to become acquainted with some of the prominent features
of Jesuitism. The work appears as a romance, but it contains many sad
and serious facts. It is a compendium of Jesuitism, and should be looked
upon as a warning to the citizens of this new world. Americans will
scarcely believe that we have any such Jesuits in this country, as are
described in the Wandering Jew. I tell them they are mistaken; we have
them in every state in the Union, but especially in New York, Maryland,
District of Columbia, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts. I speak from my
own knowledge.
"Bred in the harem, all its ways I know."
A word to those who have daughters, and fortunes to give them; and also
to those young ladies, who have fortunes in their own right.
Jesuits will leave nothing undone, to form acquaintance with the
children of such as are supposed to be wealthy. The Catholic bishops of
the United States, in their annual and semiannual _despatches_ to Rome,
boast that they are peculiarly _fortunate_ in gaining _converts_ from
such families, and I trust a word of caution from me will not prove
useless.
The mode which Jesuits have adopted, in approaching such families, are
various: but the most general, and hitherto the most successful is, to
induce their children to go to their colleges and schools. In these,
every male and female teacher is to bend the minds of their scholars
towards Popery, and to report progress twice a week to their
_superiors_. But when parents do not send their children to Jesuit
schools, the next expedient is to get Roman Catholic servants into the
family, who are instructed in the _confessional_ by the priests how to
proceed, especially with their young daughters, in prepossessing their
minds in favor of the Romish church, and the great beatitudes of a
single life.
I have known cases myself, where it was not deemed prudent to go so far
as to say one word in favor of the Catholic church, or of a single life.
The young ladies may be _engaged_, and their young hearts _pledged_. A
different course must now be pursued, and the Popish domestic has her
instructions accordingly. She must find out to whom the lady is, or is
likely to be, engaged; and it must be broken off, not abruptly--that is
not the way Jesuits do things--it is to be done gradually. Their
young minds must be poisoned, but the poison must be given in small
quantities, until finally it produces the desired effect; and then
the happiness and the glories of a _nun's_ life are to be the theme of
conversation, more or less, according to the instructions received in
the confessional.
It is not long since I met with a Protestant friend of mine, and in
the course of conversation, some allusion was made to the subject of
nunneries. He observed that their schools were excellent; that his
daughter had just finished her education there, and had returned home in
perfect ecstacy with her school, with the lady abbess who presided over
it, and with all the nuns by whom she had been educated. "It is said,"
observed this gentleman to me, "that nuns try to tamper with the
religious opinions of their pupils, and endeavor to make 'nuns of them,'
but there is no truth in this; they never interfered with my daughter's
religious opinions, nor did they insinuate to her the most remote idea
of _taking the veil,_ or _becoming a nun._"
I made no reply--courtesy forbade it. I might easily have answered my
friend, but I feared the answer, which truth compelled me to give, would
hurt his feelings. I might have said to him, Sir, your daughter had not
a dollar in her own right, neither had you one to give her, and you must
know that Jesuits seldom covet penniless applicants for the black or
white veil You should have also known that, although your daughter may
have seemed very beautiful in your eyes, she was probably devoid of
those external charms which would attract the libidinous eye of a
Jesuit. When ladies are taken into a convent by Jesuits, they must be
possessed of something more than ordinary attractions. These reverend
Jesuits, having the liberty of choosing, are rather fastidious. _Verbum
sat_.
Truly, and from my heart, I pity the female, who risks herself in the
school of Jesuit nuns. She hazards all that is dear to her. Though she
may leave it, single-minded and innocent as she entered,--as I believe
they all do who do not become nuns,--still the peril of going there at
all is eminently hazardous and dangerous. But woe be to those who become
_nuns_. I have been chaplain to one of those nunneries; and I assure my
readers, on the honor of a man, who is entirely disinterested, and whose
circumstances place him in an independent position, who wants neither
favors nor patronage from any individual, that the very air we breathe,
or the very ground upon which we walk, is not made more obedient or more
subservient to our use, than a nun, who takes the _black veil_, is to
the use of Popish priests and Jesuits.
The internal economy and abominations of a convent are horrible in the
extreme. I dare not mention them, otherwise my book would, and ought to
be, thrown out of every respectable house in the city. I will only call
my reader's attention to the fact, that, in all Catholic countries,
nunneries have _foundling hospitals_ attached to them. This any man can
see who goes to France, Spain, Portugal, or Mexico.
It will be seen, even in this country, that they have their private
burying places and _secret vaults_. It is not more than five or
six years, since a number of Jesuits, in Baltimore, petitioned the
legislature of Maryland for leave to run a _subterraneous passage_
from one of their chapels to a nunnery, distant only about five hundred
yards. The object of the petitioners was too plain. It was the most
daring outrage ever offered any deliberative body of men; but, much to
the credit of the legislature of Maryland, they rejected the petition
with undisguised marks of indignant scorn.
These statements will be rather unpalatable to Jesuits, but my only
regret is, that decency forbids a full development of the crimes
committed, with perfect impunity, in Popish convents. In New York, every
effort seems to be making, by the present legislature of that state, to
suppress immorality. A bill is now before that body, making adultery a
penitentiary offence; yet Popish priests are building _nunneries_ there,
and if Roman Catholic ladies think it proper to hold a fair to collect
money for the building of those nunneries, these very New Yorkers will
contribute their money freely; and thus, this ill-placed liberality,
which Americans bestow, not only there but elsewhere, becomes the cause
of evils which they seem desirous to crush.
How is it with us in Massachusetts? Look at our statute book, and if we
are to judge from that, of the utter detestation with which our people
look upon immorality of every kind, we deserve to be considered paragons
of propriety. Should there be amongst us a house, even of _equivocal
fame_, our guardians of the night and civil officers are allowed to
demand entrance into it at any hour, and if refused, they may use
force. Yet we have _convents_ amongst us, _nunneries_ and nuns too. Poor
helpless females are confined in them, but not an officer in the state
will presume to enter. If admission is asked, it may or may not be given
by the mother abbess or one of the reverend bullies of the institution;
but no force must be used. The poor imprisoned victims, whether content
or not with her station, must bear it without a groan or a murmur.