It has been observed by an eminent writer, that "book-making is something like pouring water from one vessel into another, and then pouring it back again." There is much truth in the observation; this is obvious to every general reader. There is scarcely a work issued from the press, which is not substantially a copy of something that has been written before upon the same subject The old water-casks, which have been as it were fixtures for centuries, are now being dug out of their places, and the waters contained in them are changed into new casks, having a more sightly appearance, and a more polished exterior. This, however, is more apt to be the case in the writings of theologians, than in those of any other body of men. Limited as my own reading has been, I do not recollect ever having perused a volume upon theology, especially from the pen of an American theologian, which I had not seen or read (at least in part) before. How to account for this I know not. Assuredly this land of freedom has among its theologians and controversialists men of the finest minds—minds like their own rivers, overflowing with the deepest, the clearest, most limpid and purest streams of thought—minds in which the ever-rolling ocean of time has had, as yet, scarcely an opportunity of depositing much of its accumulated impurities—minds which, if their great powers were evolved and brought to bear on the moral and civil condition of our fellow citizens, would give us a new era or a new world of thought and morals—strong, permanent, diffusive, progressive—and as different from those of olden times, as our new and beautiful republic is from some of the aged, faded, sickly and consumptive governments of former days.

It is difficult; I own, to form a new system of any kind, especially a new system of thought or morals; but still such a thing is not impossible. There never was, and never will be, a system constructed without having to encounter great and almost insuperable obstacles; first, in its formation, and secondly, in its application and various bearings.

It was difficult, for instance, to form our own system of civil government. Its very conception was for some time looked upon as a wild theory. Such a thing was not dreamed of in any work upon political ethics taught in our seminaries or schools, in the days of its founders, yet the system was established, and has hitherto fully answered all the expectations of its friends; but even if our comparatively new form or system of government did not entirely succeed—if it even failed and tumbled to atoms, that would not be a sufficient argument against making the experiment, for even in its ruins, fragments may be found which may be useful to posterity. Yes, as the poet beautifully expresses it,

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!!!!!

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.

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.

"The son of a Waldenesean soldier, who served under the conscription of Napoleon, being born in a garrison where there was no Protestant minister, was baptized by a Roman Catholic Priest. He was shortly afterwards brought home to the valleys, was educated as a Protestant, in the communion of his forefathers, attended Protestant worship and received the sacrament in a Waldensean Church. He was married to a Waldensean woman, by a Waldensean pastor, but this marriage is now called a mixed marriage, under the allegation that he is an apostate Roman Catholic, and a process with all its penalties hangs over the family." (Grievances, p. 13.) Now Messrs. Bishops Hughes and Fenwick, do you approve of the manner in which your Popish church has treated this Waldensean soldier? Do you see any difference manifested here towards heretics, and that which the Popes have always shown towards them? Would you not, if you could, persecute every heretic in the United States? Do you not believe that every marriage between Catholics and Protestants in the United States and elsewhere, is invalid and not binding in the sight of God? Does not your Pope, your church, and do you not, yourselves, teach that the parties in such marriages are living in a state of adultery? Do you not teach that if a Catholic lady marries a Protestant, without a dispensation from your church, she is an adulteress and ought to be treated accordingly by your church, which, in the plenitude of her mildness, consigns her body to the holy inquisition, to be broken on the rack, and her soul to hell to perish everlastingly. Do I state the truth, reverend gentlemen? Will either of you contradict me? If you do, I will lay before you Antoine's Moral Theology, De Matrimonio, which some of your priests and myself studied in the same class, in the college of Maynooth, Ireland. Is this persecuting heretics or not? Did Paul IV., or Innocent III., ever show an instance of greater intolerance than you do, under your present Pope, even in these United States? But what would you do had you the power? The past history of your predecessors can best answer this question. Look at yourselves, you impostors of the present day; view yourselves in the mirror of truth, and if you are not too far gone in falsehood and hypocrisy, you must blush at the deceptions and impositions which you are trying to practise upon the citizens and government in this country. You will perhaps say that in 1794, all the edicts in force against the Vaudois, or Waldenses, were repealed by the king of Sardinia. It is more than probable that the soft-headed and brainless minister now at that court from the United States, may inform you, if you have not the fact from any other source, that the Vaudois have full liberty of conscience in the full exercise of their religion and the education of their children.

Our present minister, Wm. H. Stiles, Georgia, at that court, who is nothing better than a living libel upon diplomacy, was elected to Congress by the votes of Irish Papists. He had just tact enough—no fool is without more or less of it—to ingratiate himself with President Polk, and obtain the appointment of Charge to Sardinia, In him you have a pliant tool, who will tell you the king of Sardinia has issued orders to prevent the taking away children, with a view of obliging them to embrace the Catholic religion, and requiring also, that those children which have been taken away, shall be restored. This proves two important facts which cannot be doubted, as the King of Sardinia cannot even be suspected of any want of allegiance or respect for his royal brother, the Pope of Rome. It proves, in the first place, that the Roman church has authorized its members to go into the Alpine valleys, and steal from their Protestant brethren their beloved children, with a view of proselytizing them to the infamous-doctrines of Popery. It shows, in the second place, that the cries of their bereaved parents for their restoration, have been disregarded by those Popish robbers, otherwise the royal order for their restoration need not have been issued.

In spite of these edicts, children are now taken away, as Gilli informs us, under pretence of their being illegitimate. Two lamentable and heart-rending cases occurred in the year, 1828. Mind, take notice, Messrs. Bishops, of the date. This is not an old lie, as you have been pleased to call many of the statements in my books. If it be a lie at all, it is a new one. The case I refer to is this. A Popish priest demanded from a poor Protestant woman, her infant child, in order that it might be brought up in the faith of the infallible church. She refused, of course, to do so, but clung to it the more closely, pressing it to her bosom with a fondness such as a mother only can feel or describe, and fled to the mountains, preferring to perish with it there, rather than to have it brought up in the idolatries of Popery. And what was the consequence? I blush to relate it, for the honor of humanity. This Popish priest, in obedience to the commands of his holy church, did precisely what any Popish priest in the United States would do under similar circumstances. He ordered a small guard of carabineers to pursue her, and bring her, that she might be dealt with according to Popish laws. For many weeks she lived a miserable life, flying from place to place, until the sufferings of the mother and child excited the pity of the Popish monsters who issued the order for her apprehension. The order was withdrawn, but not revoked, and the woman's fears and anxieties continue, while she remains exposed to the same severity. Will you, Messrs. Bishops, after this, presume to say that the Popish church does not sanction the persecution of heretics? will you dare assert that she does not sanction their total extirpation? You cannot do so, and I risk nothing in saying, that you, Messrs. Fenwick and Hughes, would be the first to strike the blow, should a favorable opportunity offer.

In 1840, as Gilli tells us, a fraternity of eight missionaries, of the order of St. Morris and St Lazare, was instituted at Latorre, one of the largest towns of the Vaudois. The object of this institution is to go about making proselytes. To this, as the London Review very properly remarks, there can be no objection. We admit missionaries into the United States. The Popish jackals are among our own valleys, as well as on the tops of our mountains. No American citizen can go many miles from his home, without finding himself in the vicinity of one of those Popish dens called monk-houses, or nunneries. This we cannot, nor are we disposed to prevent; our Constitution allows it; we recognize the right of Papists to send missionaries among us; but it might be questioned still, whether we ourselves are right, or whether the framers of our Constitution have not committed a great error, In the mode of wording that part of our Constitution, granting any right or privilege to any nation, or people, or government, or religion, which was not founded on strict reciprocity. Did it ever occur to Jefferson, Washington, Madison, or the other eminent men who framed our Constitution, that in giving to a Roman Catholic sovereign, king, or potentate, the right of sending missionaries into the United States, they forgot the securing to the United States a reciprocal right? The Papist is allowed to invade our country; but are we allowed to invade Papal States, and build churches there for divine worship, as the Papists are in the United States? The Catholic priest can come here from Rome and build a church, teach a school, and preach whatever and whenever he pleases; but if an American citizen and Protestant freeman go to the city of Rome, or any strictly Catholic country, he is under a legal disability to build his church, or teach or preach. Is this fair? Is there any thing reciprocal in this? Is it not rather a disgrace, and a lasting lampoon upon American freedom, to tolerate this violation of the first principles of reciprocal rights? Let our people take this matter into their own hands; let them call upon their representatives, and demand from them an immediate redress for this national humiliation, which has been entailed upon us by some unaccountable want of foresight on the part of the framers of our Constitution. But, say the Popish bishops in this country, our church never persecutes, she never disturbs heretics, she loves Protestants as brethren, and is willing to pay the most implicit obedience to their laws and institutions. This is the language of that notorious demagogue and disturber of the peace, Bishop Hughes of New York; this is the language of Bishop Fenwick, of Boston, to which Brownson, his Corporal Trim, invariably says yes. These are the men whom I have accused of falsehood—wilful and deliberate falsehood. Have I satisfied my readers that I have stated the truth, and, though not the whole truth,—nothing but the truth? Have I satisfied them that the Popish Church and Papists have ever been the sworn enemies of Protestants? They admit themselves, that great cruelties have, in ancient times, been inflicted by Roman Catholics upon Protestants; but in order to deceive Americans, they very blandly assert that those times have gone by, and that such cruelties do not now exist. Is the reader satisfied yet that this is not correct, and that the only object of these men is further deceit and deeper treachery? Let me again call the reader's attention to another passage from Gilli; it will show more clearly, if possible, than it has hitherto been done, that the malignant hatred of Popery towards Protestants burns now as brightly as it did at any period of Christian history. "They are," says Gilli, speaking of the Protestant Waldenses, "absolutely forbidden by Roman Catholics to exert their parental authority over their own children, if these children, (girls above ten, and boys above twelve years,) are tempted to forsake their faith. In 1836, a child was taken from a family at Lucerne, and in 1842, another from a family at St. Germain, upon the pretext of an inclination expressed by those children to turn Roman Catholics, there being no difficulty in tempting a poor, half-starved boy of twelve, or a girl of ten, to receive instruction offered with a crucifix in one hand, and a loaf or a fish in the other. Thus the parent's heart is to be doubly pierced; first, by encouraging a pretended exercise of judgment on the part of his child, before the understanding is matured; and secondly, by a legalized abduction of the child so tampered with. On the 2d of May, 1839, the child of Jaques Dalmais de David, and Margarite his wife, having been torn from them on the pretence of being illegitimate, was sent to the foundling hospital at Pignerol, although the parents were both natives of Vaudois, born in the commune and parish of Villar Bobi, and lawfully married in that parish, by the pastor thereof. Upon the first abduction, the father took away the infant from the nurse to whose charge it had been committed previously to its being carried to the hospital; and for his refusal to attend the summons of the commandant of the province, he and his wife were thrown into prison, and there remained several days. The child, however, was restored to its parents, after an investigation which lasted many months; the legitimacy of its birth having been fully proved.

In the month of August, 1842, the Prefect of Pignerol ordered a Bible lecture and prayer meeting which was held in a school room at Latour, on Sunday afternoon, to be discontinued.

On the 18th of January, of the following year, a similar order had been issued by the Intendent of the province. The order appeared in the following words: 'The Royal Secretary of State for the Interior, having been informed that every Sunday some Waldenses, Protestants, held congregations in a school house, and that many persons of every age and sex met together to sing psalms aloud, the said Royal Secretary of State has communicated to me that the places being appointed wherein the Waldenses shall worship, no innovation, or increase of the number of the same, can be admitted, and they must be enjoined to discontinue those meetings, or in case of contumacy, the government will adopt measures to prevent them.' Accordingly the Sunday services were discontinued. This is a cruel state of things; and it may well be asked, whether Protestant communities were, or ought to be, considered the friends of civil rights? Ought they not to interfere in correcting such a state of things? And is it not the duty of this country in particular, to be the very first to do so? Shall it be said by any future historian, that republican America shall be outdone in philanthropy and sympathy for the oppressed, by the despots of Europe? Shall it be said that England, in almost every reign, has done more for the advancement of free principles and religious toleration, than republican America? Even Cromwell, despot as he is represented to have been, interfered in behalf of the persecuted Protestants of Vaudois. George I. of England also interfered in their behalf. Cromwell told the Pope, through his ambassador at Rome, that if he did not silence his canons in the valleys of Piedmont, against the Protestant inhabitants thereof, he would silence them himself by his own brass cannons at the gates of the Vatican. And shall it be said that the freemen of America shall witness the oppressions of their Protestant brethren without a word or a threat in their behalf? The following petition or memorial, in behalf of the Protestants, the Vaudois, was sent, in 1842, by a committee appointed in London, for their relief. The Archbishop of Canterbury has immortalized his name by being at the head of this committee. It reads in the following words:

To the Earl of Aberdeen, Her Majesty's principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.

Winchester House, St. James Square,

April 9th, 1842. My Lord,

We the undersigned, members of the London Committee, instituted in 1825, for the relief of the Vaudois of Piedmont, earnestly entreat your Lordship to submit to Her Majesty the Queen our humble entreaty that Her Majesty will be graciously pleased to intercede in behalf of that ancient community, with their sovereign, the King of Sardinia. The sufferings of Vaudois have often excited the sympathy of this nation, and our sovereigns have, from time to time, been pleased to exercise their beneficent offices in the privileges and rights of the Vaudois Church, which have been threatened; and this they have done out of compassion for the afflicted.

Among other aggrievances, it has been represented to us that the Vaudois have now to complain that children are taken from their parents by the priests and local authorities, when one of the parents is said to be a Roman Catholic, under pretence of their being illegitimate; that their religious services are interrupted; that their intercourse and traffic with their fellow countrymen, beyond certain limits, are placed under grievous restrictions; that some of them are deprived of the means of their subsistence, being forbidden to purchase, to farm, or to cultivate lands, except within boundaries too narrow for their population; and that others, to their great disadvantage and detriment, have been ordered to sell property which they have legally acquired beyond the territories to which they are confined.

If these alleged severities were inflicted on the Vaudois for acts of turbulence or dangerous fanaticism, we should not presume to entreat Her Majesty's gracious interposition. But it does not appear that any thing can be laid to their charge, except the profession of religion differing from that of the Roman Catholic Church, and similar, in many particulars of faith and discipline, to the reformed churches in Europe, &c.

This petition has been signed by the following gentlemen: W. Cantuar, W. R. Hamilton, C. T. London, Wm. Cotton, C. R. Winton, T. D. Acland, Geo. H. Rose, W. S. Gilly. R. H. Inglis.

England, as a Christian nation and a Christian people, has done well on this occasion. She has given the world evidence that whatever may have been the crimes or errors of her former rulers, she still retains within the breasts of her people some sense of that great commandment, "Love thy neighbor as thyself." What have we, American citizens, done for our Protestant brethren in the Alpine valleys? We see and know them to be oppressed and ground to the dust—for what? Because they are Protestants. Is there any things else laid to their charge! Nothing. Was there ever any thing else laid to their charge, in justification of the cruelties which, century after century, the Pope of Rome and the blood-hounds of his church have inflicted upon them! I have diligently examined the history of this people. I was induced to do so at an early age, believing it almost impossible that humanity was capable of enduring such sufferings as history informs us were inflicted upon them by the Romish Church; and I am compelled to say, in truth and honesty, that I cannot discover any reason or any cause for their persecution by Roman Catholics, except that they did not believe in the supremacy of the Pope, and the abominations of the Romish Church. And why, under these circumstances, are not Protestant Americans doing something for these their brethren? It is in the power of this country to do much in any just cause. Such an advocate as this government might prove itself to be against the spirit of Popery, even in the Piedmont valleys, would carry gladness to the hearts of many an oppressed brother among them. We have money, which we are throwing away in charity to those who have but few claims upon us; we have genius, which we are scattering all over the country in ranting and ravings and metaphysical discussions, unproductive of any thing useful to man. Why not employ this in espousing the cause of liberty and of our oppressed brethren the Vaudois,—a poor people, who have no standing armies, no treasury,—nothing but their Protestant religion and a good cause to support them. Why is not the genius of our people—why have not their fine minds and fine talents been employed in holding up before the broad light of heaven the villainies, iniquities, abominations and corruptions of the Romish Church? Why are not such imposors and deceivers of the public as the Roman Catholic Bishops of New York and Boston, together with their man Trim Brownson—singled out from among our people? Why does not public opinion write in italics on the countenance-of each of these men, the words deceiver and traitor, that our children may avoid them when they see them in the streets? Why do we not teach even our little ones to pray that the Lord may rescue our brethren the Vaudois from the cruelties of Popery? Why does not every Christian teach his child to exclaim, in the beautiful language of the immortal poet of England, who was himself a true friend of the Vaudois,

Why do Americans allow their children to go to the schools, kept professedly for the propagation of such doctrines as those taught and practised by the Romish church? I myself tremble lest there may be something wrong in the construction of the social system in our republican government. Assuredly, nothing else could induce us to violate the first law of nature, which is self-preservation. Our natural affections, and sympathy with each other, are the sweetest ingredients—-and perhaps the only sweet ones which Providence has thrown into the cup of life, undoubtedly for the holy purpose of rendering it at all palate-able. Take them away and life would be bitter indeed.

A state of society, such as the Popish church, through her agents in this country, desires to introduce amongst us, tends to no better purpose, than to divest man of humanity itself. It would harden his heart and swell him with the morbid humors of vanity, ambition, bigotry, and persecution. It would increase i our natural misery, and leave us no anodyne, but that " filthy and abominable one, auricular confession and I Popish pardons. Does not this deserve the execration of the virtuous and pious of all denominations? And are you prepared, fellow citizens, for such a state of things? I am aware that there are some amongst us, ready to tear from their bosoms, for base and selfish purposes, every thing good, which the God of glory through the merits of his Son, has planted there. There is nothing so absurd that pride and selfishness will not adopt and maintain it. It is said that Alexander did really believe himself to be a god. The vilest and most profligate of the CÆsars demanded Divine honors. Some of the Popes of the Romish church, even when rotting and dropping to pieces, from the effects of disease, brought upon them by licentiousness and dissipation, would have the world believe that they were infallible, and even impeccable; so says Balarmine, an authority not to be disregarded by Papists.

Bishop Hughes tells us that in this country, we cannot prosper as a people, unless we adopt the religion of the Pope, and encourage the Pope's subjects to overthrow this government, and not to be ruled by its laws or its people. Americans shant rule us, is a Popish motto now borne aloft by Papists through the streets of New York, and other cities in the Union. Such language as the above resembles rather the ravings of some poor lunatic, than that of a sober, honest republican, and appears to be more like that of a maniac, sitting in some desolate cell, with a crown of straw, swaying a sceptre of the same material, and fancying himself an Emperor, than any thing else; but to me there is nothing inconsistent and strange in such language or such conduct; I know the pride of a Popish Bishop. I have been too long among them, not to understand well their vanity and arrogant pretensions; and though their conduct may not be such as to fit them for a lunatic asylum, still it never fails to unfit them for all the uses and purposes of civil life, and renders them dangerous citizens. There is nothing extraordinary in this; it seems to be the natural consequence even of the physical organization of man. Inordinate ambition and false pride, are said by anatomists to have a powerful effect in turning the brains of man; but it is truly strange that, shocking as madness is in itself, and terrible as are its consequences, it sometimes affects people in such a manner as to turn our pity into laughter. We have an instance of this,—and a very prominent one,—in the case of the unfortunate changeling, Brownson, who, but the other day, was admitted by Bishop Fenwick into full communion with the Popish church. But nothing else could be expected by those who understand Popery, and see the broad difference between its system of morality, and that of pure Christianity. Modern Popery is made up from the philosophy of the ancient Pagans, and some German writers. It has man attractions in the eyes of superficial Christians; has many aspects, and some of them of an attractive character. Unsophisticated people, such as many American theologians are, see, in the morality of Popery, apparently, much philanthropy and practical Christianity, and these so judiciously blended together by Popish cunning and Jesuitical craft, that its true character—nay even the deeds themselves—are entirely forgotten, in their admiration of the brilliant though false light, in which they appear.

For instance, to take that miserable man, Brownson, by the hand, and raise him from a state of utter destitution, to which his own follies and imprudence reduced him, had in it much apparent philanthropy and practical Christianity; the Popish Fenwick found him in great want, every religious society shunned him, as if the brand of Cain were upon him. There was not even to be found a political party that would have any thing to do with him; he betrayed and left them all in rapid succession, and they in turn left him alone and unaided All the powers of his mind (it is said that he once possessed some) were broken and crushed; there was no peace, no resting place for him. Both theologians and politicians raised their hands and pointed at him the finger of scorn—the former, as a rebel against the King of Glory—the latter, as a traitor to the puny king of their respective parties.

Such was the condition in which the Jesuit Bishop, Fenwick, found him here in Boston; and what, to all appearance, could be more philanthropic, what more practically Christian—what more benevolent deed could the Pope's agent do, for effect—than take this man by the hand and supply him with the necessaries of life. And what, under these circumstances, could be expected from the changeling, Brownson, than that he would devote all his mind to the justification of any falsehood or any errors, which his benefactors might desire to propagate. I find no fault with Bishop Fen-wick for relieving the temporal wants of Brownson; on the contrary, I freely admit, that the act is, in itself, and abstractedly considered, an act of benevolence and charity. We are bound to recognize in every human creature and every human face, the features of a brother and a neighbor. I would not, willingly, even question the motives of the Bishop; they are known only to his God. It would not be fair nor judicious in a physician, to take a body apparently sound and in health, and dissect it, for the purpose of ascertaining whether there were any hidden disease in it He should take it for granted—as a general rule—that when all appearances were good and healthy, there existed no physical defect; and I think and believe it the duty of Christians to take it for granted, that, generally speaking, the motives of a brother are good, when his actions bear upon their face no indication of being otherwise. But when any man or any church, holds up to the view of a whole people or nation, one who has been for years and years an advocate of moral evil, as an object not only of pity and pardon, but of admiration—as Bishop Fenwick does the infidel, Brownson—every true Christian must tremble, and every true lover of civil rights must shudder, lest each sound that he hears should prove to be the death-knell of our religion and the civil rights of man. Unfortunate Brownson! why prostitute thyself to the base purposes of Popery? Thou mightest have been in want; Protestants might have neglected thee; but what of that? What of the sufferings of this transitory and fleeting world? Let me tell you, and let the sound of my words ring forever in your ears, that,

The above beautiful sentiment of the poet, has, I fear, but seldom occurred to you; assuredly it has made no lasting impression on your mind. It is probable that the following stanza, part of a famous monkish ditty, has in it beauties and substantial sentiments, far more congenial to your tastes and thoughts:

But a truce with poor Brownson, for a moment; his days will soon be over. Like the great Mr. Shandy, he has been so long "dancing his white bear forward, that he must soon commence dancing him back again." He has already professed all the religious creeds in this country, and it is fairly to be presumed that he will profess all of them back again; and thus afford himself fresh and full room, for displaying, in connection with them, any additional political or religious vagaries which may spring up in his moonstricken imagination. He may address himself to his patron, parson Fenwick, as Mr. Shandy did Parson Yorrick. "Yorrick, said Mr. Shandy, you see that by this means—that is by going backwards and forwards—every thesis and hypothesis have an offspring of propositions—and each proposition has its consequences and conclusions; every one of which leads the mind back again, into fresh tracks of inquiries and doubtings. The force of this engine—observed Mr. Shandy, in great triumph—is incredible, in opening heads. Brother Shandy, said my Uncle Toby, it is enough to burst them into splinters."

Had Brownson, in the Jesuit parson, Fenwick, a guide, simple, sinless, and guileless, as Parson Yorrick or my uncle Toby, there might be some hopes that he could yet be brought to see and feel the full force of truth. But Brownson will stick to the Jesuit as long as he gives him bread, and the Jesuit appreciates his value too highly not to supply him plentifully. The Jesuit knows well, that the little smattering of theology, which Brownson possesses, can be made useful to him. It is of the German School. The Germans are wild in their theories upon morals and theology, and yet they carry with them the appearance of much honest and persevering research, and never fail—unless in very unskilful hands—to make a strong and terrible impression wherever they are preached or inculcated. Brownson, though, in truth and reality, no scholar, knows enough of this theology, and of Popish Quietism, such as was taught by raving monks and nuns in the sixteenth century, to see that by working them up together, and declaiming this undigested and 22 acrid mass, before an audience unprepared to analyze it, that he can produce just such an effect upon the public mind as Popish priests desire. It helps to create infidelity, and, of course, adds to the number of Papists in our country.

There is a great similitude between the modern German, and the Popish moral philosophy. A popular writer very truly and very beautifully says, "in each we find the same senseless, useless, and aimless encouragement of the mixed produce of the natural mind—the same indiscriminate worship of the good and bad it may please to throw up—every lawless thought, every idle dream, every dangerous imagination suffered to run their unhealthy course, to end in folly and in impurity—piety professed without religion, and virtue without principle—the dictates of their respective creeds, their theory; and the dictates of their hearts, their practice; and wild work between them."

Brownson has some vague notion of this compound philosophy; he has, beside, taken great pains to make himself acquainted with those sesquipidalia, or long-legged words—if I may use such a term—which most mixed audiences mistake for learning. The Jesuit, Hughes, soon measured Brownson; he looked into his past life and soon found him treacherous to every party and to every principle. This is the man for me, says the Jesuit—the Holy Church must have him, though we should be obliged to feed and clothe him for life. The infidel soon closed with the Jesuit,—a bargain was instantly made; but my observations upon human nature have been very unprofitable to me, if the Jesuit does not soon find that he has made a bad trade, as a Yankee would express it; that Brownson is not the man he took him for, nor the scholar he took him for; that he is but an unprincipled infidel, and a kind of monomaniac rhapsodist on subjects which he does not understand himself; in a word, he will find out in time that he can make nothing of him. Can the Jesuit, Hughes, "make any thing else than what it is?" can he "make the lily a rose, or the rose a lily?" can he "make the oak a vine, or the vine an oak?" When he can do those things, and not a second before, can he make a hardened infidel an humble Christian, or a treacherous politician a safe citizen.

I find myself, once more, not only drifting from my destined port, but, it would seem, that I had turned from it altogether. I intended to devote these pages, almost exclusively, to giving an expose of the abominations of auricular confessions and Popish nunneries, but having by some accident or another, come athwart the great changeling, Brownson, who now acts as trumpeter to Bishop Fenwick of Boston, and is recognized by him and the Popish Church of the United States, as an authorized expounder of their sentiments and doctrines, I felt it my duty to notice him briefly. This man, Brownson, is now sent as a Popish missionary or lecturer throughout the United States; and speaks upon all subjects connected with Popery, ex authoritate.

I find in the January number of Brownson's Review, of the present year, the following effusion, which, for effrontery and shameless falsehood, equals any thing I have ever seen. "We dare affirm," says Brownson, in his Review, January, 1845, page 12, "that no period in the history of our race, of equal length, can be pointed out, so remarkable for its intellectual and literary activity, as the thousand years, dating from the beginning of the sixth century, and extending to the commencement of the sixteenth. Now," continues Brownson, "in order to judge fairly, what the church has done for the human race; whether in reference to religion, morals, literature, or science, we must ascertain what it actually effected. She (that is the church) at the beginning of the sixth century, sets to work to establish schools, the great monasterial schools, cathedral or episcopal schools. In the beginning of the sixth century, arose the cathedral schools, in Spain. All the great, renowned universities, were founded prior to the Reformation. Nearly all the monasteries were graced and enriched by valuable libraries. In each monastery was a scriptorium, and a number of monks employed in copying and binding manuscripts." There is much plausibility in the language of Brownson, now the jackal of Popery in the United States. I am willing to admit that a vast number of colleges and renowned universities, were established before the Reformation, in Rome, Italy and even England. I would also admit that there were scriptoriums and that monks were employed in copying manuscripts and binding books; but has the illustrious changeling, Brownson, told us for what purposes these great universities were established, prior to the Reformation? Far be it from me to deny their existence, that would indeed show that I was but a poor historian, and that I knew but very little of the corruptions of the Romish Church. Sixtus IV., one of the infallible Popes of Rome, established whole colleges at once, and much as I have said against Popery and its corruptions, I have not, as yet, exhibited so flagrant an instance of Popish turpitude, baseness and avarice, as Pope Sixtus IV. leaves on record, by the single act of building these universities. He established offices and titles in each college, which were put up for sale by him, and were sold for sums, varying from one hundred, to one thousand and twenty thousand ducats. It was this illustrious and infallible Pope, Sixtus IV.,—and I pray you will bear it in mind, thou great changeling,—that established a college of a hundred janizaries, and nominated these janizaries for the trifling sum of one hundred thousand ducats. And how, think you, reader, did he pay them their salaries? Was it out of the bonus of a hundred thousand ducats, which he received for chartering or sanctioning the college? Far from it. He paid them some trifling compensation, derived from the proceeds of the sales of bulls. These janizaries were subsequently suppressed. Innocent III.,—and you will recollect, Mr. Brownson, that he was Pope of Rome between the sixth and sixteenth centuries,—founded a university for a bonus of sixty thousand scudi; (a scudi, I believe, is a fraction less than a dollar.) The reader may form some idea of the magnitude and splendor of this university, when I inform him, that this college had twenty-six secretaries, and a proportionable number of other officers; every one of whom paid in proportion to his means, for the office he held.

Pope Alexander VI., who, as you know, was born between the sixth and sixteenth centuries, and whom the changeling's friend Daniel O'Connell, would call a broth of a boy, established a university, and to showed his zeal for the great cause of learning and advancement of morals, he nominated eighty writers of Popish briefs, each of whom had to pay eight hundred and fifty scudi for his appointment. This very Pope, Alexander VI., was one of the greatest debauchees of his age, and died by poison administered by the hand of his own son. Pope Julius II., who also lived between the sixth and sixteenth centuries, added to these offices one hundred writers or copyists of archives, each of whom had also to pay seven hundred and fifty scudi. I have taken Brownson at his word. He affirms that no period in the history of our race, of equal length, can be pointed out, so remarkable for intellectual activity, as that which occurred between the sixth and sixteenth centuries. I have and do hereby affirm, that there has been no period, in the history of Christianity, so remarkable for intellectual depravity and Popish ignorance, as that very self-same period. I have appealed to history and proved my assertion by facts, not taken from prejudiced writers, but facts recorded and gloried in by Popes themselves and Popish writers.

It is said by Papists and authoritatively asserted by their mouth-piece in the United States, that the colleges and universities built by Papists, in the interval between the sixth and sixteenth centuries, were pulled down by the Protestants, Goths and Vandals, who have lived since that period. Admitting that they have been, what then, Mr. Brownson? What man or what people, in their sober senses, would tolerate the colleges established by Pope Sixtus in 1482, where offices were put up at auction, and that under the sacred name of religion; where nothing was taught but the grossest idolatry, and nothing practised but simony and immorality, almost as bad as that of the heathens. Would any man at the present day, with the fear of God before his eyes, or who duly appreciated the blessings of civil liberty, tolerate amongst ourselves, a university such as one of those over which Popes Paul and Sixtus presided, even in the palmiest days of Christianity? According to Brownson, himself, assuredly not. We should pull it down were it amongst us; we should scatter to the winds these Popish brief s, decretals and bulk, which thousands of monks were employed in copying and binding. We should vest in some factory, those thousands and hundreds of thousands of scudi, which were given to Popes for chartering universities of learning—don't laugh, reader—yes, reader, they were called universities of learning—and we would send the lazy, crazy monks, who were by thousands employed in them, to work on our fields or in our factories.

It was between the sixth and sixteenth centuries, that Alexander III., presiding in his official capacity over a synod held at Tours, in 1167, pronounced the Protestant religion of the Vaudois "a damnable heresy of long standing." Do you call this any evidence of the great mental activity which the Popish Church displayed, and for which she and her members were so remarkable, prior to the sixteenth century? There was another synod at Lavoux, in the same year, where the Pope gives another instance of the remarkable intellectual and literary activity of the thousand years between the sixth and sixteenth centuries. The Popish Senate at Lavoux sent a memorial to the reigning Pope, to exterminate the Vaudois, "an heretical pest, generated in olden times, of enormous growth and great antiquity." I believe it was in 1536—recollect, Mr. Brownson, it is within your period of that thousand years, when, according to yourself, Popery flourished in the full blaze of her glory and love of literature—that the poor Protestants, the Vaudois, sent a number of petitions to Francis I., praying that he would tolerate them, and allow them to worship God as they pleased. Francis I. consulted the Pope's legate, who was then at his court, and immediately returned for answer to these poor Protestants, "I am not burning heretics in France, to foster them among the Alps." Remarkable instance of the literary activity of the Popish Church! We have another strong instance of that intellectual and literary activity of which Brownson speaks, in Philip II. of Spain, who, to show his zeal for the holy Catholic faith, determined—with a view, I presume, of leaving some evidence of his Popish literary activity of mind—to despatch an army, under the command of one D'Oppede, with instructions to put to the sword every Protestant man, woman and child whom he might find in the Vaudois valley; and faithfully did he discharge his duty. He has left us, as the changeling Brownson would term it a remarkable instance of Popish intellectual activity* Not a man, woman, or child, was spared by this Popish army. Anquetil, a Roman Catholic himself and in full communion with the Popish Church, gives us a vivid picture of the remarkable intellectual activity of this D'Oppede, and his Popish army. The reader will pardon me for quoting the passage in the writings of Anquetil, containing this picture; it certainly shows a remarkable intellectual and literary activity of Popish minds, during Brownson's thousand years of their unsullied fame as scholars. "After the King of France granted permission to his Roman Catholic General D'Oppede, and his soldiers, to take arms against the Vaudois," says Anquetil, "twenty-two towns and villages were burned or pillaged, with an inhumanity of which the history of the most barbarous nations scarcely affords an example. The wretched inhabitants, surprised in the night, and hunted from rock to rock by the light of the flames which were consuming their habitations, frequently escaped one snare only to fall into another. The pitiful cries of the aged, the women and the children, instead of softening the hearts of the soldiers,—maddened with rage, like their leaders,—only served to guide them in the pursuit of the fugitives, and to indicate the points against which to direct their fury. Voluntary surrender did not exempt the men from slaughter, nor the women from brutal outrages at which nature revolts."

It was forbidden under pain of death to afford them harbor or succor. In one town alone, more than seven hundred men were butchered in cold blood; and the women who had remained in their houses, were shut up in a barn containing a great quantity of straw, which was set on fire, and those who endeavored to escape from the windows, were driven back by swords and pikes. According to orders, these specimens of Popish intellectual literary activity demolished all the houses, cut down the wood, uprooted the fruit-trees, and left nothing behind them but an uninhabited waste. The war-cry of the Papists, as this Roman Catholic writer, whose authority no Papist will question, asserts, was, "Kill! kill!" Dr. Gilli relates an instance of great heroism in one of those poor Protestants, who was among the persecuted. One Aymond De La Voye went through the villages, exhorting his brethren to stand firm in the faith of their forefathers. He was soon discovered by the members of the Inquisition. The first question put to him was, "Who are your associates?" "My associates," he answered, "are those who know and do the will of my Heavenly Father, whether they be nobles, merchants, peasants, or in any other condition." Let it not be forgotten, that this occurred before the sixteenth century, and before the Goths and Vandals of the Reformation, as Brownson calls them, had any existence. One of the Councillors of the Holy Inquisition asked this intrepid man and pious Christian Protestant, "Who is the head of the Church?" He answered, "Jesus Christ" "Is not the Pope the head of the church?" inquired the inquisitor. "No," was the answer. "Is not the Pope the successor of St. Peter?" "Yes," answered La Voye, "if he is like St. Peter, but not else." But such was the remarkable intellectual activity of the infallible Church, that no other questions were deemed necessary, and he was immediately consigned to a tormenting death. But the persecutions of these Protestant Christians did not stop here. So remarkable was the intellectual and literary activity of Papists, between the sixth and sixteenth centuries,—that golden age of Popery,—in dispensing its blessing all over the world, that while enormities like those I have related were being perpetrated on the western side of the Alps, a fresh storm was brewing over their brethren of Piedmont.

Will the reader think me tedious, if I give him a more explicit account, taken from Moreland's history of those people, than I myself can give? I take it from Gilli's appendix.

"There is a certain valley in the county of Piedmont, within five or six miles of Mount Vesulo, which, from the town of Lucerna, is called the valley of Lucerna; and in it there is a little valley, which, from Angrogna, a small river running through it, is called the valley Angrogna. Next adjoining to this are two other valleys; that is to say, the valley of Perosa, so called from the town of that name, and the valley of S. Martino. In these there lie divers little towns and villages, whose inhabitants, assisted by the ministers of God's word, do make open profession of the gospel.

"Moreover, I suppose that there are near eight thousand faithful souls inhabiting in this place. But among the men, who are bred up to endure labor, seeing they have from their childhood been inured to husbandry, you will find very few who know how to engage in combat. From hence it comes to pass that very few of them are ready upon any urgent occasion to defend themselves against public injuries. Yea, and the valleys themselves lie so remote from each other, that they cannot help one another till it be too late. And although these towns and villages have their counts or lords, yet the Duke of Savoy is lord over them all.

"This duke, before he came from Nice into Piedmont, diligently took order with those counts and lords of places, that they should admonish the inhabitants to submit to him and the Pope; that is, that, casting off their ministers, they should admit Popish preachers and the abominable mass. Whereupon our people sent petitions unto the prince, beseeching him that he would take it in good part if they were resolved rather to die than to lose the true religion of Jesus Christ.... but they shall be ready to amend their errors, if any there were, in case it should be manifested to them out of the word of God, to which alone they are to submit in this business; and as to what concerneth them in matters of behavior and tributes, and other things due both to him and their other lords, that he would send and make diligent inquiry whether they have at any time committed any offence, that so due punishment may be inflicted on them, because he should assuredly know they are willing to approve themselves with due reverence most obedient to him in all things.

"These petitions came to the hand of the prince, but availed nothing with him, who was become a sworn enemy with Antichrist against Christ. Thereupon he sent forth edicts, declaring that those who should be present at the sermons of the ministers of the valley?, if but once, should be fined at one hundred crowns, and if a second time, then they should be condemned to the galleys forever. Orders also were given to a certain judge to ride circuit up and down to put the penalties in execution, and to bind Christians and imprison them. The lords also and magistrates of places had the same power given them, and at length the godly were by this most impotent prince utterly given up to be plundered by all sorts of villains, and afflicted with most grievous calamities.

"He sent also a certain collateral judge of his own, first to Carignan, there to act inhuman butchery upon the faithful ones of Christ; whereupon he caused one Marcellinus, and Joan his wife, he being a Frenchman, but she a woman of Carignan, to be burnt alive with fire, four days after they had been apprehended. But in this woman God was pleased to manifest an admirable example of constancy; for, as she was led to execution, she exhorted her husband, saying, 'Well done, my brother, be of good courage; this day doubtless we shall enter together into the joys of heaven.' Some few days after this, there was apprehended also one John Carthignan, an honest, plain man, and truly religious, who, after three days of imprisonment, endured the torments of fire with very great constancy. Who is able to reckon up the several incursions, slaughters, plunders and innumerable miseries, wherewith this most savage generation of men did daily afflict all pious men, because, being exhorted by their ministers to patience, they took no course to defend themselves against injuries! Not long after also they apprehended one John, a Frenchman, and a minister, at a town called St. Germano, and, carrying him to a certain abbey near Pinerolo, there burnt him alive, who left a noble example of Christian constancy. The like was done also to the minister of the town of Maine, who was put to death at Susa by a slow fire, while he in the mean time stood as it were immovable, and not being touched with any sense of so incredible a cruelty, having his eyes fixed upon heaven, breathed out his happy soul.

"Therefore, when things were come to this pass, and these miseries were increased every day more and more, and seeing that the patience and extreme misery of our people could not in any measure allay the fury and rage of these most merciless brutes, they at length resolved by force, as well as they could, to free themselves and their wives and children from that barbarous usage. And although some of our ministers declared it was not well done, yet no admonitions could keep the people from resolving to defend themselves by arms. Hereupon it came to pass that, several encounters falling out, there fell within a few days about sixty of the plunderers. When news hereof was brought to the tyrant, he commanded his men to forbear, and sent two of his noblemen that so they might bring matters to an accommodation with our people; but when it was perceived that all their drift was that our ministers might be cast out and the Pope received, the people would by no means yield to it Wherefore, when the prince came into Piedmont, and resided at Versello, about the kalends of November, 1660, with intent to destroy all in the valleys by fire and sword, he sent an army of about four thousand foot and two hundred horse, under the command of the duke [count] de la Trinite."

The writer then relates the submissions made by certain deputies whom the Vaudois sent to the duke.

"These false brethren, in design to serve their own private ends, persuaded the people, though almost all the ministers cried out against it, that too easily giving credit to the most false promises of their enemies, laying down their arms, and sending deputies to the prince to promise obedience, they might, for sixteen thousand crowns, redeem both themselves and their religion. As soon as all these things were yielded to and promised by the too credulous people, through a vain hope of obtaining peace and religion, and when our deputies arrived at Versello, they were thence carried by the Lord de la Trinite to a certain cloister, there to abide for two months' space, (to the end there might be time for collecting the moneys,) and at length, casting themselves down at the feet of the prince and of the Pope's legate, (who were both there, attended by a great number of the nobility, and men of inferior rank,) they were constrained to supplicate the prince first, then the Pope's legate, that they would take pity on the people from whom they were sent, and to promise them, by an oath, that they would be ready to do all things that should be commanded by them.

"The prince therefore growing confident upon this most solemn promise, immediately sent persons to command our people to receive and embrace that horrid idol of the mass; whereupon, considering the inconstancy of their deputies, and the deceit or rather extreme perfidiousness of the tyrants being discovered, they plainly refused to yield that those things should be ratified which their deputies had unadvisedly transacted, through their own levity, not with the consent of people.... Then the tyrant, as soon as he came to understand this, was much more inflamed than ever before with anger, or rather outrageous fury, against our people; and, collecting a rabble of an army, he gave command to the Lord de la Trinite to waste and destroy all by fire and sword, without any regard of sex or age. Hereupon houses were every where set on fire, nor is there any kind of mischief which was not acted by those most wretched villains; by which means they forced our people, with their wives and children, to have recourse to the more craggy places of the mountains; a thing very lamentable to be seen. For, at the very first assault, they were in a manner astonished, because, being spoiled both of their arms and goods, living in extreme want of all things, they did not see by what means they might be able to undergo so great and troublesome a war.

"But at length, taking heart and trusting in the mercy and help of God, of the goodness of their cause, and being confident, because of the impiety and treachery of their adversaries, they resolved once again to defend themselves. To this end they appointed their guards and garrisons, fortified several places, blocked up passages, and were wholly resolute upon this point, to die rather than they would in any measure obey a perfidious and wicked prince in so abominable a matter. But what need many words? Things were come to such a pass, that in several fights above nine hundred of the enemy were slain, whereas, on our side, hardly fifteen were wanting."

Such was the spirit of Popery during Brownson's thousand years of remarkable intellectual and literary activity! Do you, Americans, wish that the next thousand years of your existence as a nation should be distinguished by a similar intellectual preeminence in mental activity and Christian literature? But, continues Brownson, in his Review of January, 1845, all these things were altered. What things does Brownson mean? The universities? or the remarkable activity of Popish minds between the sixth and sixteenth centuries? Who denies the former? No one who is acquainted with history, or who knows that the world, a large portion of which was then under Popish dominion, needed to be purified from the idolatrous and disastrous doctrines of Popery. The insolence of Brownson is assuredly unequalled. Either that, or his ignorance of history, is unpardonable. "At the period of the English Revolution," says this consummate hypocrite, Brownson, "the mass of the English people were buried in the grossest ignorance. Even long after, when the Wesleys first started, they talked of the ignorance even of the people of London, as they would of the South Sea Islanders." This, as we say up here in New Hampshire, beats all. Was it not about this very period that the world gave birth to the illustrious Milton? Was it not at this period that Dryden was born? Was it not at this period that the brightest lights of literature that ever illumined the world were shining in all their glory? I might here give as many names of illustrious men and illustrious minds as ever adorned humanity; men whose lives were an honor, not only to science, but to religion, to Christianity, and true piety. Did not Erasmus live before the English Reformation? Was he grossly ignorant? Did not Luther live before the Reformation? Neither of those were Papists, but they knew Papist doctrines so well as to break loose from them and appeal to the Christian world to rise as one man and pull down and raze to the ground Popish universities and colleges, as calculated only to cover the world with darkness, by substituting the legends of monks for true science, and the decretals of Popes for the Word of God.

"From the eleventh century," says Brownson, "down to the sixteenth, literature and science received no check." Review of 1845, Jan. No. p. 17. Hear, reader, to this modern Esau, According to him, literature received no check from the years 1100 to 1600. This assertion is made without any qualification or exception. Does this Brownson believe that his readers are all a parcel of ignoramuses? It cannot be so; he must be aware that he states an untruth, and no man who has ever read history can think otherwise. It would be difficult, I apprehend, to meet a school boy in the United States—I may venture the assertion, that it would be impossible to find a child in America, over the age of ten or twelve years,—who does not know that the illustrious Galileo was born during that very period, and who could not tell, that his glorious discovery of the motion of the earth, not only met with opposition from the Church of Rome, but, that the ruling Pope countenaced his incarceration in the dungeons of the inquisition. Did not the Romish Church claim and enjoy the exclusive honor of striking the first blow at a man and a mind such as the world never saw before? Did not Pope Urban VIII., in 1623, declare and pronounce the motion of the earth to be perverse in the highest degree? It was about this time, as a living writer observes, that the whole Catholic Church looked upon all the earth as a condemned world. This absurdity was rejected by Galileo. He established an equality between heaven and earth. He showed that the latter is subject to the same laws and floats in the same splendor as the former; he put serenity and life in the place of mystical theory. For this he was opposed by Popish priests, the sworn enemies of science and literature. See, as the same writer observes, this venerable man, Galileo,—this good man, seventy years old, on his knees, barefooted and stripped to his shirt, before the officers of the holy inquisition; and for what? He tells you himself, in a letter to one of his friends. "They—the inquisitors—look upon my book as more abominable and pernicious to the Church than the writings of Luther." Look at him! you Brownson, thou contemptible cat's-paw of Popery, and say—if your heart has not been seared against the truth with something hotter than the hottest iron—whether literature and science did not receive a check, in the persecutions which your infallible church inflicted upon this great man? "The four hundred years which preceded the Reformation," says Brown-son, "were ages of prodigious activity. In them we meet with the great name of Abelard, under whom Heloisa studied philosophy." Mr. Brownson forgot, I presume, to inform us that he also taught Heloisa moral philosophy. In this latter science she was eminently skilful, and left the world some evidence, at least, of her not being an inapt scholar in the doctrines of genuine Popery. The great changeling, Brownson, could not give more illustrative examples of the beauties of Popery and of the advantages to be derived from a course of education at their schools, than that of Abelard and Heloisa; but he need not have gone so far from home for examples of this kind. There are hundreds of them to be found in the United States. We have schools, such as that which Abelard kept, and to which, Brownson tells us, "great flocks fled for education." One of these schools, my readers may recollect, recently flourished on Mount Benedict, Charlestown, Mass. Abelard, as every reader must recollect, lived in the twelfth century—at the very period, when, according to the great changeling—the Popish Church displayed her remarkable activity of mind in science and literature. Abelard was a learned doctor in the Church of Rome. He was, of course, a confessor; he boarded in the house of a Popish canon in Paris, whose name was Fulbert. This canon had a niece called Heloisa, whom he was anxious to send to a fashionable school and bring up in the doctrines of the infallible Church of Rome. Accordingly he sent Heloisa to attend the lectures of the pious and God-like Abelard, just as many of our American mothers, with the advice and consent of their lords and masters, send their children in this country to be educated, to Popish seminaries, kept by pious priests and saint-like nuns. Heloisa had not gone long to confession, when Abelard, her confessor, seduced her and prevailed upon the poor unthinking girl to become his mistress. In order to conceal this atrocious conduct and finding his dupe likely to become a mother, he sent her to a sister of his who lived at a considerable distance, where she was delivered of a son. It is said, that to appease Fulbert, the uncle of this victim of seduction and priestcraft, Abelard consented to marry his victim privately; but no sooner was he married and the anger of the uncle partially appeased, than he sent her to a monastery or nunnery and compelled her to take a religious habit; thus adding treachery to crime and requiting a pure and simple-minded girl's love, by additional ingratitude and villany. But the poor girl had many friends besides the uncle, who, seeing the cruel manner in which Abelard treated her, determined upon revenge, and they had it They surrounded his chamber at night, and took from his bed this man whom Brownson would hold up to Americans as a model teacher of morality, and had him emasculated. All this was done in the twelfth century. This was one of the great men whom the church produced in Brownson's golden age of Popery.

But what else could be expected of this Brownson? What else could be expected from any man who would hold and profess such sentiments as the following, which we find in his Review of 1840. "For our part," says the great changeling, Brownson, "we yield to none, in our reverence for science and religion; but we confess that we look not for the regeneration of the race from priests and pedagogues." Very respectful language, especially from one who has been a priest and pedagogue himself! "They,—the priests," continues Brownson—"have had a fair trial. They,—the priests—cannot construct the temple of God. They—the priests—cannot conceive its plan. They—the priests—know not how to build it They—the priests—daub with untempered mortar, and the walls they erect tumble down if so much as a fox attempt to go up thereon. We have no faith in priests and pedagogues," says Brownson; "they merely cry peace, when there is no peace and there can be none." Again the same traitor to God and religion, thus spews forth his Popish hatred to pure Christianity. "One might as well undertake to dip the ocean dry with a clam shell, as to undertake to cure the evils of the social state by converting men to Christianity." "For our part," continues Brownson, in another page of his Review, "we are disposed to seek the cause of the inequality of the conditions of which we speak, in religion, and to charge it to the priesthood. Rarely do we find, in any age or country, a man feeling himself commissioned to labor for a social reform, who does not feel that he must begin it by making war upon the priesthood. Indeed it is felt at once, that no reform can be effected without resisting the priests and emancipating the people from their power. Historical research, we apprehend, will be found to justify this instinct, and to authorize eternal hostility to the priesthood. Again, when once the class—that is, the class of priests—has become somewhat numerous, it labors to secure to itself distinction, and increases them. Hence the establishment of priesthoods or sacerdotal corporations, such as the Egyptian, the Braminical, the Ethiopian, the Jewish, the Scandinavian, the Druidical, the Mexican and Peruvian." Fie! fie! Mr. Brownson, the Mexicans belong to the Infallible Church, and like yourself, are strict members thereof. "These sacerdotal corporations," continues Brownson, "are variously organized, but everywhere organized for the purpose of monopolizing power and profit. The real idea at the bottom of these institutions, is only to enslave the mass of the people to the priests, who, by pretending, honestly or not, to possess the secret of rendering the gods propitious, are able to reduce the people to the most wretched subjection, and keep them there, at least for a time." At page 384, of Brownson's Review, of July, 1840, we find the following sweeping anathema against the Christian priesthood—not in the United States alone, but all over the world—and I would defy the most learned historian or impatient infidel upon earth, to produce any thing more blasphemous or more calculated to disturb the peace of man or the good order of society. "But, having traced the inequality we complain of, to its origin, we proceed to ask again, what is the remedy? The remedy is first to be sought in the destruction of the priest. The bad must be removed before the good can be introduced—conviction and repentance precede regeneration; Christianity is the sublimest protest against the priesthood ever uttered, either by God or man. In the person of Jesus, both God and man protest against the priesthood. What was the mission of Jesus but a solemn summons to judgment, and of the human race to freedom. He—Jesus—instituted himself no priesthood, no form of religions worship. He recognized no priest but a holy life, and commanded the construction of no temple but that of a pure heart." Take care, Brownson! don't let the Pope hear you. "He—-Jesus—preached no form of religion." Take heed again! Did he not preach the religion of the Romish Church, think you? Have a care! you will commit yourself, unless I occasionally caution you. "He—Jesus—enjoined no creed." What, sir! not even that of the Pope of Rome? "He—Jesus—set apart no day for religious worship." Not a single one of those numerous holy days which the Infallible Church sanctions? "The priest is universally a tyrant, universally the enslaver of his brethren, and therefore it is that Christianity condemns them. Christianity could not prevent the establishment of a hierarchy, but it prepared for its ultimate destruction by insisting on the celibacy of the clergy." Really, friend Brownson, I am beginning to tremble for your safety in the Popish Church. "Again," says Brownson, in his Review of the same year, page 336, "we insist upon it"—remember, reader, that Brownson is the mouth-piece to Popery in the United States,—"that the complete and final destruction of the priestly order in every practical sense of the word priest, is the first step to be taken towards elevating 'the laboring' classes" Pray, Mr. Brownson, what shall we do with the ten thousand Romish priests which are to be found at the present time in the city of Mexico alone? Has the infallible Church concluded to ship them to our western States? "Priests," says Brownson, "are necessary enemies to freedom; all reason demonstrates this, and all history proves it." Look out, sir! you 're committing yourself again. Where are all those colleges you speak of as having been established between the sixth and sixteenth centuries, and in which you say was displayed a remarkable activity in science and literature? Nothing better than asylums or schools, for the education of men in such sciences as were calculated to overthrow the freedom of man. I told you so a while ago, and proved it too. All reason demonstrates this and all history proves it.

Again, Brownson says, in the same page of his Review, "There must be no class of men set apart and authorized, either by law or fashion, to speak to us in the name of God, or to be the interpreters of the word of God." Is it so, indeed, Mr. Brownson? I thought the Pope was authorized to do so, and that he and his church were especially empowered, to the exclusion of all, without distinction, to interpret the word of God. The word of God, you say again, "never drops from the priest's lips." What! do you mean to say that the word of God never drops from the Pope's lips? Rest assured, my worthy friend, that if you repeat that again to Bishop Fenwick, he will put you on short allowance. "The priests were always a let and hindrance to the spread of truth." Assuredly you cannot mean the Romish priests. You tell us, in your Review of this year, that the four hundred years which preceded the Reformation were ages of prodigious activity, and that during that time Abelard, St Bernard, Albert the Great, and Thomas Aquinas, were remarkable men. All these were priests; yet you say that priests have always been the enemies of freedom, and a let and hindrance to the spread of truth. You thought, the other day, that these were good men and learned men, especially Abelard. What do you think of them, now that you have become a Roman Catholic? You believe all of them to be saints, and you know many of them have been canonized. We have not your opinion of them since July, 1840. Let us hear what you thought of them then. We quote from page 387 of your Quarterly of that year. You ask the following question yourself, and you also answer it. Here are your words, viz: "What are the priests of Christendom, as they now are? Miserable panders to the prejudices of the age; loud in condemning sins nobody is guilty of, but miserable cowards when it is necessary to speak out for God. They are dumb dogs; as a body, they never preach a truth till there is no one whom it will indict; the imbecility of an organized priesthood, and its power to demoralize the people, is beginning to be seen; we have had enough of Christianity" Have you, indeed, Mr. Brown-son? Well, we have not; therein you and I differ. "Christianity," says Brownson, in the next line, "is powerless for good, but by no means powerless for evil; it now unmans us, and hinders the growth of God's kingdom." It is high time, brother Fenwick, that I should wish you joy. You have an acquisition to your church, in the great changeling Brownson, and you show a depth of wisdom rarely to-be found now-a-days, except among Jesuits, in sending your convert Brownson all over this country, to preach the pure and unsullied doctrines of your Infallible Church; your apostle Brownson is assuredly a fit man for your purposes. History does not inform us that there is a solitary instance since the establishment of your church, of any government having escaped its machinations; and worse than purblind indeed must that mail be, who cannot see at a glance that the primary object which Popish bishops have in commissioning this heartless, unprincipled infidel Brownson to go abroad lecturing among the happy people of this country, is to disturb the present order of society, and finally to overthrow this government, and erect upon its ruins the Papal throne.

This Brownson is unquestionably an object of great pity, or well-merited contempt I could turn from the bare mention of his name with nausea and disgust It is but a few months since that he represented the whole system of Christianity as a gross imposition upon mankind, and our holy religion one of the blackest impositions that ever was practised upon our race. But now he has become a Roman Catholic. Now that he is in the pay of the Pope and his Jesuits, like another Esau he turns round, betraying everything that he ever professed, and pretends to discover that in the Church of Rome are to be found all the elements of pure Christianity; that her priests are an exception to the great body of those priests against whom he pronounced his anathema a while ago.

How many months is it, Mr. Brownson, since you became a Papist, and found out that you had been all your life a victim of delusion and Protestant priestcraft? Ten, twelve, or eighteen, is it? Well, suppose it is. Is that enough to give you a thorough knowledge of Popery, and to satisfy you that the Popish Church is composed of purer materials than any of those numerous churches in which you have believed successively and alternately for the last thirty years, and from each of which you have been successively expelled and excommunicated? For, as you tell us yourself, in your Quarterly Review, so infamous and infidel were your principles, that even the Universalists could not tolerate you amongst them, and excommunicated you from their communion without one dissenting voice. So notoriously profligate and abandoned did they consider you, in mind, sentiment, thought, and language, that although their doctrine teaches them that Christ died for all, and that all are to be saved through him, they excepted you, and you alone, as far as I am aware. Wide as the range of that belief is, all-comprehensive as their charity is, and all-sufficient for the salvation of man as they believe the death of Christ to be, yet they could not believe that you were entitled to any benefit from it, and accordingly they formally excommunicated you. I can tell you, Mr. Brownson, that you have taken a false step, in your last move; you have plunged thoughtlessly into the labyrinth of Popery, without knowing any thing of its intricacies, certainly not enough to say much for or against. As yet you have scarcely been admitted behind the curtain of this vast theatre in which you have engaged to play a character. And believe me when I assure you that if you have undertaken any other part than that of a buffoon, you will be hissed off the boards before long. You may, perhaps, soon be let into the green room of the vast Popish theatre where you have made a short engagement, and there some of the machinery of Popery may be opened to your view. But mind what I tell you; when you see the hidden and concealed springs, the wheel within wheel, and the dirty workmen who set them in motion, you will behold sights and experience a stench which will strike you with an offensiveness as loathing and disgusting as if you had put your head into a common sewer. Nothing will you see there but covetous-ness, the weakest vanity, and the most unrestrained indulgence of the vilest passions—one general system of artifice and intrigue for power and opportunities for debauching females. Never before could I realize the belief that man was so entirely and totally corrupt as he is, until I was admitted as a Popish priest into the theatre and great machine-shop of Popery.

I have already given to the public some of those scenes which were witnessed by me in the Romish Church. They were new to some, and—as I expected—incredible to many Americans: but Americans—at least the well-informed amongst them—ought to know that I have related nothing new, or at least very little. My revelations have had, in point of fact and substantially, full publicity many years before my birth. The very facts I have stated had long been registered in the archives of literature, and might have been found on the shelves of the libraries of our own country. Some of them have been published by me with the sole view of scattering them amid our people in such form and at such a price as may be acceptable and accessible to all. Many of my statements might have seemed dark and cloudy, but truth and justice compel me to say that they were nothing in comparison with those which are to come. They bear no more likeness to what I shall give hereafter, than the fleeting clouds which we see floating here and there, denoting the approach of a storm, bear to the storm itself. But alas! I fear that it is perfectly useless for me to attempt to awaken the American mind to a due sense of the dangers to be apprehended from the introduction of Popery among us. The general answer which I receive to all my warnings is, "We care not for what Papists can do; we are a free people." It would be useless to reply to such childish argument as this, nor shall I attempt it; but I feel really humiliated at seeing such a people as the free citizens of the United States permitting themselves to be deluded, and the minds of their children poisoned by such doctrines as are preached by the infidel Brownson, now employed by the Pope of Rome, as the apostle of Popery in this country. It is also a source of deep regret to me to see Roman Catholics, especially the poor Irish, who owe this country more than any other people in the world, become its deadliest foes, and ready at the beck of their tyrant priests and bishops to trample under foot its glorious constitution, which guarantees to them what they never had before, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and equal rights. "Americans shant rule us," say this poor, misguided people, the Irish. This drives me, nolens volens, to a farther exposure of some of the deceptions practised upon them and upon mankind in general, by faithless Romish priests, trusting, in the mercy of Providence, that if I can show them that they are deceived in one way by their priests, it may put them on their guard in future against further deception.

I will now return to, or rather resume the consideration of, the doctrine of auricular confession, which formed in part the subject of the first volume of this work.

Before I enter on the disgusting subject of auricular confession, let me give the reader an idea of how it is made. And lest it may be questioned whether the form I herein give is correct, I shall give it first in Latin, and then in English, and appeal to any Roman Catholic priest or bishop in the world, whether so far I misstate or misrepresent facts. The following is the form:

"Confiteor Deo omnipotenti beatas Marias semper Virgini, beato Michaeli Archangelo, beato Johanni BaptistÆ, Sanctis Apostolis Petro et Paulo, omnibus Sanctis et (tibi Pater) quia peccavi nimis cogitatione verbo et opere (pectus) mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. Ideo precor beatam Mariam semper Virginem, beatum Michaelum Archangelum, beatum Johannem Baptistam, sanctos Apostolos Petrum et Paulum, omnes sanctos et (Pater) orane pro me ad Dominum Deum nostrum."

Translation of the Above:

"I confess to Almighty God, to blessed Mary ever virgin, to blessed Michael the Archangel, to blessed John the Baptist, to the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, to all the saints, and to you, father, that I have sinned exceedingly, both in thought, in word, and deed, through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault. Therefore I beseech the blessed Mary ever virgin, blessed Michael the Archangel, blessed John the Baptist, the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, and all the saints, and you father, to pray to our Lord God for me."

Such is the form of confession made by every Roman Catholic who goes into a confessional box, or who in any other place confesses to a priest.

It is not my intention here, to show that no such form of confession as the above was ever used in the Christian Church for more than half a century after its establishment. The whole prayer of this confession is an innovation unknown to the early Christians. It is an impure deposit in the sacred fountains of Christianity, thrown into them and mixed up with them, by the unclean hands of the Romish Popes and priests. Who or which of the primitive Christians, was ever known to pray to saints? Name him, Papists, and I will give you credit for the discovery. You contradict yourselves and some of your most fundamental doctrines in praying to saints. Even the Council of Trent, which you consider infallible, goes no farther than to say,—"It is good and profitable to invoke the prayers of the saints." And how do you, Popish priests, justify yourselves in imposing on your deluded people, the idolatrous practice of praying to saints? Answer the question yourselves. As I stated before, it is not my intention here, to enter into the merits or demerits of your form of confession. I shall confine myself, almost exclusively, to pointing out some of the fatal consequences to society, of introducing such a practice as that of auricular confession, amongst any people. The reader will pardon me, if I quote largely from Michellet, an admirable writer of the present day, and which cannot fail to be very satisfactory to the reader, from the fact, that he is a Roman Catholic and, of course, entitled to credit, as it is not to be presumed that any man will bear witness against himself or against the doctrines which he avowedly professes. The language of Michellet is beautiful, as the Protestant Quarterly Review expresses it He gives a graphic portraiture of a French wife. The reader will keep in mind that Michellet is a Frenchman, that he looks upon France as the world and that therefore his portraiture of a French wife, is a portraiture of any woman in the same position. The fact that Michellet's work is approved of by the Quarterly Review, of the American Protestant Association, is the highest encomium that can be passed upon it. The Review is edited by the Rev. Rufus Griswold, one of the most elegant, chaste and beautiful writers of the day, and whose commendation Michellet's work could not have, were it not eminently entitled to it We have few such writers among our American controversialists as the Rev. Mr. Griswold, and I know not that I am hazarding truth, when I say, that we have not a more patriotic citizen, a more accomplished scholar, nor a more humble and devoted Christian. I shall here quote from Mr. Griswold's translation of Michellet, page 287 of the Quarterly Review of the American Protestant Association.

"When I think of all that is contained in the words confession, direction,—those little words, that great power, the most complete in the world,—when I essay to analyze all that is in it,—I am alarmed. It appears to me that I am descending by an infinite spiral line, a deep and dark mine. I have had pity heretofore for the priest; now, I dread him. We must not be alarmed, we must look it in the face. Let us frame with simplicity the language of the confessor." The reader must suppose here, a priest sitting in the confessional with a young lady kneeling by his side, 2 whose lips almost press his. I know by experience, having often myself heard confessions, that this is the exact position of the parties. The lady is supposed, by Michelet—and he supposes so correctly—to be addressed by the priest in the following words. 'God hears thee; hears thee through me; by me God will reply to thee; but thou tremblest, thou darest not tell to this terrible God thy weak and childish acts.' (The reader will not forget here, that the young lady penitent and the priest are both young.) 'Well, then, tell them to thy father, a father has a right to know the secrets of his child,—an indulgent father who wishes to know them in order to absolve them. He is a sinner, like thyself; has he the right then to be severe? Come then, child, come and speak. That which thou hast never dared to whisper in thy mother's ear, tell me; who will ever know it?' Then, among sighs from the swelling, throbbing breast, the fatal word mounts the lips; it escapes and is concealed. He who has heard it has acquired a great advantage, which he will preserve. God grant that he does not abuse it He who has heard it—be careful—is not wood, the black oak of the old confessional; he is a man of flesh and blood. And this man now knows of this woman what the husband has never known in the long outpouring of the heart by night and day. That which a mother does not know—who believes that she knows her entirely, having held her so often naked on her knees—this man knows; he will know. Do not fear that he forgets; if the avowal is in good hands so much the better, for it is forever. She also knows well that she has a master over her inmost thoughts. She will never pass before that man without lowering her eyes. The day on which this mystery was made common, he was very near her; she felt his presence. Seated above her, he weighed her down by an invisible ascendancy. A magnetic force conquered her, for she did not wish to speak, and yet she spoke in spite of herself. She was fascinated, like the bird before the serpent.

Up to this point there was, perhaps, no art on the side of the priest. The force of things did all; that of the religious institution and that of nature. As a priest he received her at his knees, at the listening box. Then, master of her secret, of her thought,—of the thought of a woman,—he was discovered himself to be a man; and without wishing it—without perhaps knowing it—he has placed on her, feeble and disarmed, the heavy hand of a man. And the family now! the husband! who will dare to say that his situation is the same as before? Every one who reflects, knows very well, that thought is, in a person, that which most controls him. The master of the thoughts is he to whom the person belongs. The priest holds the soul as soon as he has the dangerous gauge of the first secrets, and he will hold it faster and firmer. An entire division is made between the husband and wife, for now there are two; the one has the soul, the other the body. Note, that in this division, one of the two has everything; the other, if he keeps anything, keeps it by grace. Thought, from its very nature, is dominant, absorbing. The master of the thought, in the natural progress of his sway, will go on constantly subjecting the part which remains to the other.

It will be already much, if the husband, widowed of the soul, reserves the involuntary, inert, and dead possession.

Humiliating thing, only to obtain your own but by permission and indulgence! to be seen, followed into the most intimate intimacy, by an invisible witness, who regulates you, and assigns to you your part—to meet in the street a man who knows better than yourself your most secret acts and weakness,—who humbly salutes you, turns aside and laughs.

Who can read the above extract from Michelet on auricular confession, without fancying that it is nothing more than one of those effusions with which rich fancies like his frequently abound? Men unacquainted with anything but the ordinary business of life, cannot fancy, much less realize, truth in the above. Is there even a Roman Catholic to be found, who can realize or believe the fact, that while he supposes himself the only possessor of his wife,—that she is his own—heart and soul—whole and undivided, yet is not so? It is well perhaps for those who have the misfortune to be Roman Catholics themselves, or equally unfortunate in having Roman Catholic wives, that they have no idea of the influence which a Roman Catholic Confessor has over woman. Could any man live in happiness or enjoy the pure blessings of matrimony, if he knew that all the intimacies and secrets, which existed between him and his wife, were far better known to the priest to whom the wife confesses, than to himself? It is well then perhaps, after all, that while such reptiles as Popish confessors are allowed a place in society, that the secrets of the confessional should be confined to themselves alone.

But there is no untruth in the beautiful extract which I have taken from Michelet The picture which he gives is neither over-drawn or over-colored. The wife who goes to confession, is, in reality, more the wife of the priest than the wife of her married husband. Her soul is the priest's, her thoughts are the priest's, and the priest controls all her actions. How beautifully has Michelet expressed the priest's control over her "He has placed on her, feeble and disarmed, the heavy hand of a man."

Many instances of the influence which the priest exercises over married women in the confessional have come to my own knowledge, while I was a Popish confessor. The reader will bear with me while I relate one or two, from hundreds, which I have witnessed in the course of my life.

In the year 1822, and in the city of Philadelphia, an elegant carriage, with servants in livery, drove up to my door, in Fourth street, between Walnut and Spruce, where I then lived; and a lady, dressed in the extreme of fashion, unceremoniously stepped up to my door and opened it without rapping, announcing herself a stranger who wished to see me on particular business. I knew, almost by intuition, what this particular business was. I asked no questions and of course received no answers. The lady, however, said she wanted to confess and get absolution. My duty was plain, I was a Popish priest But you have not the worst of it yet, reader; so far, there was nothing evil in the matter save the infatuation of the lady in believing that a man could forgive her sins, and my worse than infatuation and weakness in believing that I had such power. The substance of this confession was the following, which fully verifies the truth of Michelet's statement This lady had been in the habit of going to confession to a Popish bishop, who lived in a neighboring state, and frequently had criminal intercourse with him, going to his room whenever he directed her, under pretence of going to confession, though at the time she was a married woman. It will be asked why she came to me. The reason was this: her paramour being a bishop, was unwilling to have his crimes known to any priest in his own diocese, and directed her to come to another; and believing, as all Catholics do, that one priest can forgive sins as well as another, she selected me, as I was then comparatively a stranger in the country. But the worst of the tale is not told yet. That part of it which corroborates the statement of Michelet remains still to be heard.

Soon after the departure of this lady from my house, an English gentleman, with whom I had the pleasure of an acquaintance some years previously in London, and with whom I occasionally dined at a well-known and fashionable boarding-house, not far from my own house, called on me and insisted that I should dine with him that day, holding out as a particular inducement the pleasure of introducing me to a lady and gentleman of the highest respectability, whom I should meet at dinner. I accordingly went to dine; and the reader may imagine my surprise at finding the very identical lady who had been at confession with me a few hours before, and her husband—the respectable lady and gentleman to whom my friend promised an introduction. Respectable they truly Were, as far as this world is capable of appreciating respectability; and happy they were also, to all appearance; but was not Michelet right in saying of a woman who goes to confession to a priest, "She will never pass before that man without lowering' her eyes?" Could that lady pass before me without lowering her eyes? or could I, if hardened in the iniquitous practice of hearing confession much longer than I was then, pass that lady without lowering mine? Did I not, as Michelet expresses it, "hold the soul" of that lady? Did I not, were I iniquitously disposed, as her bishop was, hold her body also? But when I looked at the husband of this lady—the elegant, accomplished, and gentlemanly husband—when I reflected on his humiliating position—when I reflected that this elegant man was widowed, not only of the soul, but partly of the body, of his beautiful, and as I can easily fancy, once innocent and virtuous wife, by a Popish bishop in the confessional, I could almost have cursed the hour that gave me birth in a land of Popery. My very soul froze within me, and I almost regretted that God in his mercy had not made me something else than a being who could have broken the cords of that pure and unmingled love between that elegant man who sat before me, and his once elegant and virtuous wife. Humiliating indeed, as Michelet said, must be the condition of that man whose wife goes to the confessional. When he walks the streets, he is met by the confessor of his wife, who, as Michelet properly says again, "salutes him humbly, turns aside, and laughs." O, how true this is! and would to God I could brand it upon the heart of every man whose wife goes to confession. Is it true that God lives? is it true that the earth moves? is it true that man has a soul? is it true that mind is not matter? is it true that the sun rises and sets? O! it is still more true, if possible, that there are such things as Popish priests—saints in appearance, but demons in practice,—who laugh at the ruin and division they have made between man and wife. I do not know that I was ever so lost to every feeling of honor, when a Romish priest, as, when I passed through the streets, to laugh at the husband whose wife was persuaded and fascinated away from him in the confessional; but I have often walked the streets with Romish priests, in Europe especially, where Popery predominates, and there is no sort of amusement upon those occasions which they enjoy more than calling each other's attention to some of their neighbors, as they pass along, and whispering into each other's ears, "Look at that gentleman; how fond he seems, of his wife. It was yesterday she was at the confessional with me; poor fool!" This chit-chat terminates in a hearty laugh, all at the expense of the husband. The reader, I trust, will not think me tedious, if I give him another instance of the evils of Popish confession. It will be borne in mind that the fact which I am about to state is not taken from history, though history abounds with similar cases. It is one within my own knowledge.

A short time previous to my coming to this country, and soon after my being installed as confessor in the Romish Church, I became intimately acquainted with a Popish family of great respectability. This family consisted of a widowed father and two daughters and never in my life have I met two more interesting young ladies than the daughters were. These ladies lived not far from the church where I officiated, and were frequently in the habit of going to mass to my church, and calling upon me when service was over, to take breakfast with them at their father's house. This custom of having young ladies call upon Roman Catholic clergymen to accompany them home to breakfast after mass is over, is very prevalent in Europe, among the most fashionable members of the Popish Church; it is particularly so in the city of———, where I then officiated, and where the melancholy circumstance which I am about to relate took place. The father of the two young ladies to whom I have alluded, was a gentleman of about the age of fifty-five, distinguished for his charity and benevolence. He was wealthy; and whenever any object which might advance the good of his fellow beings was suggested or proposed, he was among the first to advocate and support it. His influence and his money were never wanting, when either could promote the happiness of his fellow beings. It may easily be imagined that the daughters of such a gentleman were well educated and accomplished. It may also be supposed that their home, being a home of plenty and abundance, was one of peace, happiness, charity, and domestic love. It was truly so, when I had the honor of first knowing the family. But the serpent found its way into this little garden of happiness.

In less than two months after my first visit to this family, at their peaceful and hospitable breakfast table, I observed the chair which had been usually occupied by the elder of the two sisters, occupied by the younger, and that of the latter vacant I inquired the cause, and was informed by the father that he had just accompanied her to the coach which left that morning for Dublin, and that she went on a visit to the sister of the Rev. B. K. I, of course, made no further observations, but I suspected that something was wrong; I also knew full well, that whatever the cause was, I should learn the particulars of it in my capacity as confessor. As time advanced, I made the usual inquiries for this young lady, who was then only about eighteen years old. The answers were such as any one acquainted with the world might expect, and entirely satisfactory to all who knew nothing of the iniquitous practices encouraged and fostered in the Romish confessional.

I will here pass over an interval of about three months. A detail of the private occurrences in any particular family can have no general interest. At or about the expiration of that period, the younger sister complained of indisposition, and it was found necessary to send her also on a visit to Dublin.

Now the whole truth broke upon me at once. I knew there was foul play somewhere, and soon enough did the fact in all its particulars come to my ear. It seems that both the daughters of whom I have spoken, went to a school attached to the Ursuline Nunnery in the city of————. The confessor, whose duty it was to hear the confessions of the pupils of this institution, was one Rev. Mr. B. K., a friar of the Franciscan order, who, as soon as his plans were properly laid, and circumstances rendered matters ripe for execution, seduced the elder lady; and finding that the fact could no longer be concealed, arranged matters with a friend in Dublin, so that the victim of his iniquity might be concealed and privately supplied with all the usual attendants which her situation required.

She was confined at the house of his friend, and her illicit offspring given to the managers of the Foundling Hospital in Dublin.

But the most horrible part of the story remains yet to be told. No sooner was this elder lady provided for, than this incarnate demon, B. K., commenced the seduction of the younger lady. He succeeded, and ruined her, too. But there was no difficulty in providing for them; both became nuns. And here, you people of Massachusetts in particular, be it known to you, fathers and mothers, who have sent your daughters to be educated in the Ursuline Convent, Charlestown, Massachusetts—I mean that which you felt it your duty to pull down, a few years ago, and which was situated upon Mount Benedict—that both these nuns held high stations in the convent which you pulled down, and that at the very period of its destruction. Pools, "dolts, double dolts," as the Jesuit Rodin calls all who contribute to the support of Popish nunneries, are you not ashamed of yourselves? Are females who have been the prostitutes of priests in foreign countries, and who in nine cases out of ten continue to be so here, the only teachers competent to instruct your daughters? Are there no American ladies—no Protestant ladies—capable of teaching your children? Must American parents go to Europe, and take from the 546 purlieus of Popish convents, instructors for their children? A poor compliment to American Protestant ladies, and a sad commentary it is upon the total ignorance of American theologians respecting Popish morals in Europe.

Here we have a case in point This is not an old lie, as Popish priests and their supporters call all accusations against them; it is a new one, if a lie at all; it is one which I know myself, and can prove. I knew these nuns personally, before they came to this country. I was acquainted with them before they became nuns. I saw them in the convent at Mount Benedict. They were great favorites of Bishop Fenwick.

They were spoken of by some of the first families in the city of Boston, as models of piety; and to my own knowledge, two or three young ladies—and these the daughters of New England Protestants—were counselled by their mothers to take particular notice of the manners of those two nuns in particular, and imitate them, as nearly as possible. Nor can any one be surprised or scandalized, if I acknowledge my weakness in stating that I could not resist an involuntary impulse to laugh at them "in my sleeve." Does Bishop Fenwick desire the names of these two nuns? It is true, they might be Magdalens, but "credat Judeas Apella, sed non ego."

When these things are permitted in the very centre of New England—when they are permitted to exist in the enlightened city of Boston—the capitol of a State whose people, as a body, I may venture to say, are not equalled in the world, for intelligence and general information—what can save the people of the United States from corruption, and from gradually declining into its very depth? When the impure waters of Popery are permitted to flow into our lakes and fresh streams, must not all be contaminated, in time? Must not the atmosphere of our freedom be impregnated with immorality, disease, and final death? What, under these circumstances, can save us? God alone may do it He alone can do it, and he will do it; but we must ask him for his interposition; we must humbly pray that he would save us, for he has promised us nothing without asking for it And so sure as we ask him in a proper spirit, we shall receive. He has himself made us this promise—the word of the Great I AM is pledged—He will redeem it.

It is with great reluctance that I dwell any longer on these impure subjects, but a sense of duty compels me to do so. It is useless to do otherwise; "the impurities of Popery must be known;" they have been comparatively hidden in this country—they have been long buried in the cells, pits, and caves, of the Romish Church—they must be dug up, even if the whole superstructure of the nation should be undermined thereby; for what is a nation without morals? Who, if he had a house partly built, and only then discovered that the foundation was not a secure one,—who, I say, under these circumstances, would not arrest the progress of the workmen thereon, and order them to undo what they had already done? No prudent man would hesitate in such a case, even at the expense of levelling to the ground what he had already accomplished. And why should a nation act differently from an individual, in many circumstances, at least?

An eminent philosopher of olden times exclaimed, and not without much indignation, "Quid leges sine moribus?" and might we not say with equal propriety, Quid republica sine moribus? If our Republic, or any part of it, is based upon a hollow or unsafe foundation, or if there be any part of that foundation defective, or likely to give way, to the imminent danger of the superstructure, should not that defect be entirely removed? Undoubtedly; prudence and economy would require it; and when worldly prudence and all temporal concerns require such a course, should not the great moral interests of the country require it at the hands of the people as a duty, to lay their foundation on nothing but what is sound, and to allow no substance to be introduced into any portion of the superstructure, which may be in any way defective, or in any way endanger its permanency?

Popery now seems to form an ingredient, if not a part of our national structure of morals, and until that rotten and defective part is removed, the superstructure can never be raised with safety to its proper and legitimate height. This is the only consideration which induces me to dwell longer, or even so long as I have done, upon the obscene subject of auricular confession. All I have said on the subject might have been comprised within a more narrow space than I have allotted to it, and thus many disgusting sights might have been hidden from the eye of the reader. There are some, I am aware, who wish to hear the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; but even among those, I find many who, though they admit the truth of my statements, still contend that the cases I have stated are isolated, and endeavor to show that I draw general conclusions from particular premises. Even Popish priests admit—because they cannot do otherwise—that many of my statements cannot be questioned, but contend that though these may be true, it does not follow that Popish priests or nuns can, as a body, be accused of immorality. "A particalari ad generate non valit conclusion" say these profound logicians. But suppose I admit that thus far they are right, and that there are exceptions to the sweeping accusations which I have made against them as a body; does this prove any thing for them? Is the general rule or general principle to be denied because there are exceptions to either? Surely not; were there a thousand exceptions to a general rule; were there a million of exceptions, to one single and general principle, it would not falsify the rule itself, or invalidate the principle. Papists are doing much to justify their doctrines. That unfortunate Brownson, to whom I have alluded heretofore, is recognized by them as their apostle and the expounder of their faith in the United States; but the crowd of words which he uses in his discourses and lectures, in justification of Popery and on the morality of its priests and nuns, is too thick and too dense for a single idea, much less a single fact, to be dragged from it, and it so happens that he does more harm than good. Nor can it be otherwise; a net woven too thick is useless to the fishermen; a tree with too many leaves and blossoms seldom has any fruit, and is unproductive to the husbandman; so it is with the lectures and teachings of Papists and their apostle. They are made up of words meaning nothing, proving nothing, and in reality aiming at nothing but deception, which ultimately must fail, for we are told upon high authority, and every man's experience adds force to the saying, "truth must prevail."

It is therefore my duty to state facts generally true, no matter how numerous the exceptions may be. I therefore hesitate not to reiterate the general charge, that Popish priests and nuns are corrupt and immoral almost beyond conception.

I must ask the reader's indulgence once more. He will, I trust, not feel fatigued or impatient, while I relate to him another instance of immorality perpetrated by a Popish priest, and sanctioned, at least, by three of the most respectable Popish bishops in the United States, and by the whole body of an order of nuns in the United States, called sisters of charity. The case which I am about to relate is one which I give not upon hearsay, nor even upon the positive testimony of others; it is one within my own knowledge; I know the parties to this whole transaction; I have known them for years back; they are now living, and if Bishop Hughes or Fenwick has the least curiosity upon the subject, I will furnish him with the names of the principal actors in this tragedy.

Would that I could write so that what I write should become visible to the eye, and musical to the ear! O! that I could only leave behind me a correct picture of what I have known of Popery! Could I scatter it before me, dash it around me, and fling it behind me—would Protestants aid me, so as to place it where no one could miss seeing it—Americans would shrink from it as they would from a frozen corpse.

But as I cannot do all that I should wish to do, and as Americans seem so wrapped up in their present wants as to care but little for their posterity, I must only do what I can under existing circumstances, and leave the event in the hands of Providence.

Soon after my arrival in Philadelphia, and just about the time that Papists disapproved of my endeavors to circulate the Bible among the poor, a Roman Catholic priest of the name of O. S. called on me, and showed me letters of recommendation which he had from Bishop T. of————, Ireland, and countersigned by the Roman. Catholic Bishop of New York, to Bishop England, of South Carolina, He stated to me that he was in want of money and clothing, and asked me to lend him fifty dollars and pay his passage to Charleston, South Carolina, assuring me that he would immediately remit me any amount that I might expend on his account, by the first opportunity. I took him with me to my tailor's and gave him an order for such clothes as he might want, amounting, cloak and all, to one hundred and ten dollars. From that I took him down to one of the packets which then ran betwixt Philadelphia and Charleston, and commanded, I think, by Captain Crofts; paid fifty dollars for his passage, and bespoke the kind attentions of the worthy Captain, who, I understood afterwards, left nothing undone to render the voyage as comfortable as possible. He arrived in Charleston in due time, and was well received by Bishop England, who, to do him justice, possessed many of the kindest feelings of the human heart, and exhibited through life one of the strangest mixtures of religion and infidelity, of charity and bigotry, of republicanism and toryism, of Christianity and idolatry, and of humility and intolerance, that perhaps ever existed in the Popish Church in this country. But, "nihil de mortuis nisi bonum" he and I have had some severe sparring at each other; we were friends in private, but enemies in public; he knew I was right, but was afraid to acknowledge it; he wished me well, but dared not avow it; he loved his mitre, but I despised it, and though I would cherish the head that wore it, I would kick in the dust the Popish gewgaw itself. But, "adrem" Bishop England, soon after the arrival of the priest O. S., advised him to enter on a retreat, in order to prepare himself for the mission on which he was about to send him. He did so; and after a due course of instruction upon the arduous and delicate duties of a confessor, he appointed him parish priest of————, in one of the Stales over which he, as he modestly termed it, had spiritual jurisdiction.

There lived in the parish to which this now Rev. confessor was appointed, a gentleman of respectability and wealth. Bishop England supplied this new missionary with strong letters of introduction to this gentleman, advising him to place his children under his charge, and assuring him that they should be brought up in the fear of God and love of religion. The family was large,—there were several daughters, some partly grown up, and others quite young. Those alone who know the joyous and happy life of a planter's family, in good circumstances, can form any adequate idea of the bliss and happiness that reigned among these children.

——— MISSING PAGES —— 553-554 ———

His conscience would not permit him to call upon me. I had just renounced the Pope of Rome as the beast spoken of in the scriptures. I was a heretic, and no good Popish Christian was permitted even to pay me my just debts. He passed on, and what, think you, Americans, were the fruits of his mission? He prevailed upon the eldest daughter of the respectable gentleman to whom he was introduced, to go to confession to him, and the next I heard of him was, that he had been seen passing at full speed, in a light sulky, through the village where I kept my office; and what, think you, was the cause of this speed? what drove him in such haste from his parochial residence? Do you not know reader? can you not anticipate? Has not the insight which I have given you into the immorality of Popish priests, already suggested to you that this individual was a fugitive from some crime, and that its avenger was in pursuit of him? It was so, reader.

This Reverend Popish wretch seduced the eldest daughter of his benefactor, and the father, becoming aware of the fact, armed himself with a case of pistols and determined to shoot the seducer. But there was in the house a good Catholic servant, who advised the seducer to fly. He did so, in the manner I have stated, with the insulted father in full pursuit of him; but the fugitive was in time to take steam and thus eluded his pursuer. He soon arrived in Charleston, the Right Reverend Bishop understood his case, advised him to go to confession, absolved him from his sin, and having washed him white and immaculate as a snow-drop, sent him on to New York to preach morality to the Gothamites, who enjoy the superlative beatitude of being under the spiritual jurisdiction of Bishop Hughes.

But this is only the beginning of the tale, and distasteful as it must be to you, Right Reverend guardians of the morality of the Popish Church, you must sit still awhile. I am well aware of your impatience: you dislike control of any kind; so do all people of rude manners, narrow intellects, and sour tempers, such as all Popish bishops, with whom I have been acquainted, possess. One single happy recollection of the past, a single grateful feeling, has never elevated nor sweetened the life of a Popish bishop, as far as I have ever known; and it is perhaps requiring too much of you, my beloved brethren,—brethren you know we are, in spite of what heretics can do,—to ask you to sit down patiently and hear me out You will have to do it though, and I trust it may be for your benefit hereafter.

As soon as your erring brother disgraced and debauched the daughter of an American citizen, and obtained remission for so doing from his ghostly father, in the confessional, his victim, after a little time, having given birth to a fine boy, goes to confession herself and sends her child of sin to the Sisters of Charity residing in ————, to be taken care of as 'nullius filius!.' As soon as this child was able to walk, a Roman Catholic lady, who knew the whole transaction, adopted the child as her own; and states now, as she has done all along, to her acquaintances, that it was a poor unknown orphan whom she found in the streets, without father or mother to claim it. But the very gist of the story is to come yet. The real mother of the child soon after removed to the city of————, told the whole transaction in confession, to the Roman Catholic Bishop of————, who, knowing that she had a handsome property, introduced her to a highly respectable Protestant gentleman, who soon after married her. Nor is this all the kind Bishop has done. He soon after introduced to this gentleman the sister of charity who had provided for the illicit offspring of this priest, concealing its parentage and representing it as having no father nor mother living. The gentleman was pleased with the boy,' and the holy Bishop finally prevailed upon him and his wife to adopt the child as their own. Here is a pretty specimen of Jesuitism! The boy is the child of a priest, the wife is the mother of the child, and the husband is the dupe of the Bishop, adopting as his own child that of a priest by his own wife. Here is a pretty specimen of a Jesuit web. Would that I had the talent of a Eugene Sue to unravel it and stretch it from one end of this country to the other. Look at the affair yourselves, Americans; examine it in all its atrocious bearings, from beginning to end, and say if you have ever heard or read of a more brutal outrage upon morality and domestic happiness. A Popish bishop sends one of his priests on a mission, with the ostensible view of converting American citizens from the evil of their ways, and the errors of their Protestant doctrines. Americans receive him hospitably; he selects from among them one of their most fascinating daughters; seduces her in the confessional, the Infallible Church makes provision for the illicit offspring of the seduction; the crime and the consequence are both concealed by the bishop. He induces a respectable man to marry this prostitute, and contrives, by the secret machinery of Popery, to dupe him still farther, by prevailing on him to adopt the offspring of his prostituted wife as his own son; and the whole of this is effected, at least so far as the adoption of the child is concerned, through the instrumentality of a sister of charity now living and residing in the city of————. The mother knew at the time, that the child whom her deceived husband adopted as a destitute orphan was her own. The husband is now living, a worthy and respectable man, and the scoundrel priest, who brought sorrow into the house of his father-in-law and sent him prematurely to his grave, has been frequently a guest at his table.

Do Bishops Hughes and Fenwick desire the names of the parties to this tragic and villanous outrage upon American credulity? They are known to me personally. The seduction took place about eighteen years ago, and the Reverend Popish seducer has been, not long since, and perhaps is now, located somewhere in the vicinity of Worcester, Mass.

Dolts, double dolts, as the Jesuit Rodin, of Eugene Sue notoriety, observed of all who are the dupes of Papists,—how long will you permit yourselves to be the dupes of Popish priests and Jesuits? You are now building a college—aye, a Jesuit college—in the very centre of New England,—Worcester, Mass. You do not wish, I presume, that the race of Jesuits should be extinct amongst you; and if you cannot obtain them otherwise than by importation, you are naturally fearful that such may be the case; hence it is, perhaps, that you are liberally contributing your money to build colleges for the education of priests, and schools for sisters of Charity. Your great anxiety for encouraging domestic manufactures might have influenced you in this respect, and you may rest assured—or even take my word for it—that as long as you have Popish colleges and Popish nunneries side by side, your semi-annual dividends of Jesuits and nuns, amongst the States of the Union, will be entirely satisfactory to you. But, to be serious, if Popery be studied as it should be by Americans, it will prove a useful lesson to the rising generation.

For twenty years this country has been more imposed upon than any other, for the same length of time, by Popish priestcraft; so much so that the people are now become accustomed to the repetition of their enormous frauds, and are no longer surprised at them. I confess that it is the gross impostures which I saw practised upon Americans, that first prompted me to expose them. I have tried, and am now trying, to give some rational account of the extraordinary phemomenon that Popery should predominate among a people almost proverbial for their intelligence and inquiring disposition. I thought, and do now think, that nothing can be more acceptable and valuable to Americans, than a well-authenticated statement of some of the practices adopted by Papists to impose upon the Protestants of this country; nor did I see any other manner of removing the almost national insanity of our citizens, in relation to the Romish Church, than by laying before them facts and acts, to many of which I have been myself an eye-witness. How American Protestants could continue for any length of time—even for a month or week—ignorant of the schemes of the Church of Rome, or her de* signs for the overthrow of this republic, has often been to me a matter of no little surprise; it can only be accounted for by a supposition almost as extravagant, viz., that Popery has never been properly studied by Americans. I have proposed all along, and I now repeat the proposal to Americans, to accompany me in the study of Popery. If the Romish Church be studied as it ought to be, by the young and the old of our citizens, it will prove a useful lesson to the present and coming generations,—but that lesson must be studied well. It must not be run over carelessly; its elements must be examined in order to understand the whole machinery of Popery; the whole plan of it must be remodelled; and in order to effect this, it must be taken to pieces, and every piece carefully and separately examined. It has been long hidden from the public eye; it has been along time considered a treasure exclusively belonging to the Popish priests. They have buried it for safe keeping in the dark and dreary vaults of corrupt Rome. These vaults must be opened, the gilded columns with which they are surrounded must be torn down, and all must be laid bare to the naked eye. The divine laws or systems of morality, intended for the government of man, should be always open to his inspection, and nothing short of the steady effort of our people can effect this or rescue ourselves or our country from the evils with which we are now threatened by the machinations of the Popish Church. The crimes and immoralities of Romish priests have long been crying to heaven for vengeance; they now cry for it from every quarter of the globe. I have said that they have been crying for vengeance, for centuries back. I have proved the fact to the satisfaction of any man who is not wilfully blind to truth. But I shall not rest here; I will give you other proofs. Cardinal Campaggio, who was sent to England to arrange the divorce of Queen Catharine, informs us—every English historian knows this fact—"that a priest, who marries, commits a greater sin than if he kept many concubines." Here is a specimen of pure Popish morality, promulgated by a Cardinal, a man next in office to the Pope himself with the full sanction of the said Pope, and the whole conclave of Cardinals of which he was a member; and yet the religion of this man, and that of Bishop Hughes, and Bishop Fenwick, is the very religion which Americans are now endeavoring to introduce into this country, and fasten upon the souls and consciences of our people.

Let us now see what St Bernard says,—and here I entreat the reader, to keep in mind the fact, that St Bernard lived between the sixth and sixteenth centuries; that very time, at which the Popish Church in the United States tells us, through its apostle Brownson, that it displayed a remarkable degree of activity. St Bernard lived in the twelfth century, and as Bishop Hughes, Bishop Fenwick, and their mouthpiece, the infidel Brownson, inform us, was one of the greatest and best men of the age. There was no appeal, in his day, from the opinion of St. Bernard; he was looked up to by the whole Romish Church, as a model for the imitation of the Romish clergy, and it is not at all likely that he would calumniate, traduce, or do any injustice to a body of men of which he was himself a member. What does St Bernard say of the priests of his day? Hear it, Americans! hear it, you sympathisers! you who can scarcely read my accusations against the priests of the United States. Listen! all you who bow the knee, and kiss the hands, the rings, the robes and the other gewgaws worn by these angels, Hughes and Fen wick; listen! all of you, to what St. Bernard says. "Priests commit such acts of turpitude in secret as it would be scandalous to express." Chamancis, a Romish priest and an orthodox writer, well known to Bishops Hughes and Fenwick—if they know any thing besides political intriguing—declares, and calls the attention of his readers to the fact, that the adultery, impiety, and obscenity of priests [Romish] is beyond description, "They crowd," says he, "into houses of ill fame; in gambling and in dancing, they are seen to pass from the company of infamous women, from the altar to the mass. To veil a woman in these convents," continues Chamancis, "is synonymous with prostituting her," This distinguished writer, and virtuous reprover of the Popish priesthood, died about the middle of the fourteenth century, just at the period when, according to Popish writers in the United States, Popery flourished in all its glory. Mezerey, a French historian, and as good authority as Papists can desire, he being a Papist himself, assures us, that before the English Reformation, the whole body of the Romish priesthood were fornicators.

What say the sympathisers of Popery to this? Has Mezerey told an old lie? Has Chamancis told an old lie in telling us that it was a common practice in Popish countries, for Catholic bishops and priests to pass from houses of ill fame, and from the company of infamous women, to the altar and to the mass.

This will not be believed in the United States. "There is not a word of truth in it," says the professed infidel. "I will not believe a word of it," says the busy Puseyite, Prude; "it cannot be that the dear priests would be guilty of such things." I will frankly confess that it is difficult to believe statements so entirely abhorrent to human nature as those given by Popish priests against their own brethren, and I will not deny, that it took me a long time, before I could yield more than a reluctant assent to many of them; nor did I ever fully give them sanction until I had made a personal examination into their truth. But, now that I have made that examination, I declare most solemnly, upon the honor of a man, that, as Chamancis expresses it, it is a common practice for priests, in all the Roman Catholic countries in which I have been, to go direct from houses of ill fame to the altar and to the mass. This I have seen and witnessed myself.

But it will be asked, "how do you know? you must have been in those places yourself." I plead guilty to the charge, if charge the enemy of morality will make of it. While in the cities of Mexico and Havana, about two years ago, at considerable personal expense, I visited many of the dens frequented by Popish priests, especially in, the city of Mexico. 1 went there for the benefit and better information of my fellow beings. I did not then, neither do I now, accuse myself of any violation of the first principles of morality; I believe, on the contrary, that I am entitled to some degree of commendation from my Protestant fellow citizens, for the efforts which I have made, in Mexico and Havana, to ascertain the truth or falsehood of those complaints which we daily hear against the immoralities of Popish bishops, priests, and nuns. How many have we seen plunging themselves into the midst of disease, contagion, and death, for the good of their fellow beings, and for the sole purpose of advancing the science of medicine! and is nothing to be done, or shall nothing be done for the science of morals? Must we stand and fold our arms while the malaria of Popery is stalking all over our land, carrying death and disease with it wherever it goes? Paralyzed be that arm which would fold itself in such a case!

I have often seen men who were ornaments to society, who were the pride, the comfort, and perhaps the sole support of their wives and children, whom they loved and almost adored, plunging themselves into the midst of yellow fever, or perhaps Asiatic Cholera, for the benefit of mankind and almost at the certain peril of their own lives; and shall a man who loves religion and the cause of morals, do nothing to exalt, to glorify the great cause of salvation? shall he not risk something, to confirm the statements which are crowding upon us day after day, in relation to the immorality of Popish priests?

During my residence in Mexico, the following circumstance occurred, to my own knowledge: an English gentleman, then, and I believe now residing in Mexico, met me by appointment, at my hotel, soon after dusk in the evening. The object of his calling upon me was to comply with a request, which I had previously made, that he would accompany me to one of the most fashionable houses of ill fame and gambling, where he knew the higher orders and dignitaries of the Roman Catholic Church were in the habit of visiting, and making assignations, with the wives and daughters of the members of their respective congregations. He stated that an entrance to the house where he was going to carry me would cost me a doubloon, and that if I wished to become thoroughly acquainted with the mysteries of the place and obtain access to it in future, I should spend two or three more doubloons at the game of Monte, a favorite game of priests and women of loose habits in Mexico. Chamancis immediately occurred to me; I recollected the account which he had given of the priests of the Romish Church. Here was an opportunity of testing the accuracy of his statements; here was a chance of knowing, from the testimony of my own senses, whether Popish priests were or were not the incarnate demons which he and others represented them to be; and I determined to avail myself of an opportunity which might never again occur. Accordingly I accompanied my friend, and, by his advice, took notes of the transactions of that evening of my life. It will not be expected, I presume, that I should give here, a transcript of those notes; it would be improper to do so; delicacy forbids it; it probably might do more harm than good. There is such a thing as driving a screw too far; it may be forced so as to split the timber it was designed to secure. I shall avoid this, if possible, but there is a circumstance which it is my duty to mention, and which shows in a clearer light than any other I could adduce, the utter degradation, and worse than idolatry, of those unfortunate beings who are strictly educated in the practices of Popery, but particularly in Popish confession.

Let the reader fancy to himself one of the most splendid residences in the city of Mexico; let him further place himself in imagination in a gorgeously furnished suit of rooms, occupied by a number of the most lascivious-looking females, most of them wearing veils. Let him further fancy a Romish priest entering those rooms, and one of those women advancing to meet him, and then prostrating herself on her knees to ask his blessing and kiss the hem of his garment Let him further fancy this debased wretch of a priest imparting his blessing to this daughter of sin and error, and he will form a better idea of the immorality of Popish priests, and the incalculable evils which, under the mask of sanctity, they are capable of doing, than it is in my power to give him. Let the reader, if he will, fill up the space between the entrance of this solemn-looking villain into the synagogue of Satan, and his departure from it, and then say whether Chamancis exaggerated the enormities of those sins and hidden crimes committed and sanctioned by Popish priests. I kept my eye upon one of those priests, from the moment he entered this house of ill fame until twelve o'clock at night. At the moment the clock struck twelve, he and I were drinking champagne, and I sat with him from that until four o'clock in the morning, when I accompanied him to mass. He had no idea of my being a Protestant; and believing me to be a Roman Catholic, all restraint was laid aside, and thus I enjoyed the sorrowful pleasure, if I may so say, of witnessing Popery in "puris naturalibus." Revolting and repugnant as the scene which I witnessed appeared to me, there was still something in it which struck at my heart a heavier blow than that which met my eye. Ignorance—Popish ignorance—was at the bottom of all this. What but ignorance—ignorance of her rights—of nature's rights—ignorance of all that tends to elevate nature, could induce those women to go and prostrate themselves before a common partner in their guilt, and ask his blessing? Oh! the sceptre which Popish ignorance sways over mankind is an iron sceptre. Popery sways it over some of the finest regions inhabited by man. Witness-Mexico. Under its icy influence there can arise no generous, no daring spirit of adventure in the cause of God; subjection and fear soon become the predominant passions of humanity; all the noble faculties of man are chilled and frozen. Robe ignorance in purple, as it is in the Romish Church, and everything must wither before its march; there can be no contemplative delights or pleasures where Popery rules. There can be nothing pure, nothing intellectual, to raise man from the mire of sensuality to any degree of excellence, dignity, or honor; all must be reduced to that state in which we now find the people and priests in Mexico. Without knowledge or the means of obtaining it, the mind of man necessarily falls into a state of weakness and imbecility. Education, and that the education of the Bible, is to the mind of man what food is to the body. Have you ever observed, reader, that a mind destitute of a Bible education invariably acquires a sort of low cunning? It is intent upon no higher purpose than something mean and selfish. Is it not so in the whole population of Mexico? and I ask the candid historian if it is not so in every country where Popery prevails?

A degradation of the understanding, and an ignorance like that which we now see in Mexico, among the poor Irish, and among the poor of all Catholic countries, is in all cases accompanied by what is worse than ignorance, if possible,—great wickedness and depravity of heart. They are not able in Mexico, or in those other countries under Popish sway, to occupy themselves in the energies of thought, in honorable action, in refined manners and conversation, in trade, in learning, in national improvements, in navigation, manufactures, canals, and railroads. No; the very reverse is the fact I appeal to history to sustain the assertion. The dupes of Popery in Mexico, Spain, Ireland, Italy, and elsewhere, are engaged in mischievous trifles, wanton habits, and wickedness, which render them the most useless and troublesome citizens in the whole circle of society.

Fallen indeed they are, from what they ought to be. Who can recognize—notwithstanding their external configuration—in the Papists of the present day, their lineal descent from the Egyptians, Grecians, Romans, and Maletians,—the glory of their times, the instructors of the world, and the benefactors of humanity. God stamped his image upon these men. He stamped it upon every created being at the hour of his birth. He created man in little less than the angels; but the glorious image seems obliterated; the divine stamp seems to have been broken, and man can scarcely now be known by his resemblance to his Maker. Popery, that curse of the earth, that scourge of mankind, that source of moral evil and fountain of death and sin, has been allowed to flow in upon us, and thus the great land-marks of humanity have been removed,—the divine stamp almost ceases to be visible.

Popery has in its spirit something malignant, something hateful and hostile to all who profess a different creed. All acquainted with the history of Popery, can bear testimony to the fact that there is an undying hope and wish in the mind of all Catholics, that the Protestant religion should be entirely extirpated. There may be, and there undoubtedly are, exceptions to this rule; so there are to every other rule; but there is no denying the general truth, that the extirpation of the Protestant religion, and of the whole Protestant race, together with the confiscation of Protestant property, and the overthrow of all Protestant governments, are among the fondest hopes of the Popish Church. This cannot be disguised, at least from those who have been educated in the doctrines of the Popish church. Many Catholics there are, I admit, who would be glad, and who even endeavor to disguise this from themselves; but they cannot do it; it is a truth as well established as any other; it is as plain as the sun in the heavens, however they may try to conceal it This, like other truths, will be denied in the United States; but it is perfectly useless to conceal the fact from our people. Watch the progress of Popery in a neighboring country; see the efforts which O'Connell is making in Ireland, under the immediate sanction of the Pope of Rome, to overthrow the Protestant government of England, and to reduce that country to obedience to the court of Rome; look at the proceedings of the bishops of the Romish Church in this country, and ask yourselves what they are aiming at. "Ireland for the Irish," says O'Connell, the Pope's agent at the other side of the Channel. "Americans shant rule us," say the Pope's agents in the United States. Can language be plainer than this? Can treason be expressed in stronger or more emphatic language? O'Connell means Ireland for the Pope. Bishop Hughes of New York, and the other Popish agents in this country, clearly mean, and wish to be understood so—the United States for the Pope. I ask any man whether the language of O'Connell and the Pope's agents in this country, is even susceptible of any other interpretation? What meaning can we attach to the words of Bishop Hughes, who is the Pope's organ in the Empire State of New York, except that which is plain and obvious—Americans shant rule us. Who, then, does this Popish agent want to rule them? Obviously the Pope of Rome. I can scarcely suppose him or his brother bishops subject to such lunacy as to fancy for a moment that he could bring this great nation into subjection to the Pope of Rome; but must we not admit, at the same time, that his language, and the entire political course of his Popish brethren, during the last year or two, have looked very much like it. Have not Papists all over the world, during the last few years, assumed a more daring and menacing attitude? Have not their language and measures, even in this country, become more turbulent and insurrectional? Let Americans ponder well upon this. It is not long since O'Connell, the Pope's mouth-piece for this country, as well as Ireland, addressed the deluded Irish in the following language; and remember, Americans, that I tell you Bishop Hughes of New York, and every other Popish bishop in the United States, will soon make use of similar words to their respective flocks in this country: "Force and violence are not to be used. If the time for using them were to come, there is one here will tell you that the time has come." You will also recollect, Americans, that I tell you that they will receive for answer that which the Pope's agent received in Ireland—"we will follow" Popish bishops and priests will preach peace to their people, but let not Americans forget that they have confessionals, where they can infuse into their minds the poison of rebellion and treason. When a Popish bishop preaches peace, he means it not; he means war to the knife with heretics and heresy. Robespierre, shortly before the French Revolution, delivered a series of lectures against capital punishment; and sooner should I trust him for sincerity, than I would a Popish priest when he cries peace with heretics. That blood-thirsty and sanguinary villain, Robespierre, exhorted his followers not to confiscate the property of those who might be found guilty of opposition to the people; but much safer should I consider the property or estate of him who incurred the displeasure of Robespierre, than I should that of an American Protestant citizen who fell into the hands of the Pope's agent and executioner in the United States.

Murat, a character well known to the readers of the history of the French Revolution, lectured loudly against capital punishment; but what was his conduct? He consigned more to the guillotine than any other man in France. His hands were stained with blood; but bloody as his hands were, and thirsty for more blood as his heart was, much sooner would I have trusted myself to him, and much safer should a Protestant feel himself in such hands, than in those of a Popish bishop or priest. But it is not my present purpose to expatiate upon the cruelties of Popery; I will only state incidentally that the Protestant citizens of this country have much to fear from the influx of Papists amongst them, not only in a moral, but a political point of view. Nearly the whole body of Irish Roman Catholics have resolved to migrate to this country. They will do so, if that treacherous disturber of their peace and happiness, Daniel O'Connell, does not succeed in overthrowing the Protestant government in England. Extensive preparations are already being made in this country for their reception, together with their leader, if they can effect his escape from the gallows. The Catholic population of Ireland is at present 6,620,000. This immense body are united, to a man, in that abominable belief. Heretici destraindi sunt. This is a fundamental article of Popish faith.

No faith is to be kept with heretics. It is firmly believed by the six millions and upward of Irish Roman Catholics, that the Pope is the lawful head of their church. Disguise this as they may, entangle it as they can, in Popish sophistry, the fact is not the less true. Assuming it to be so, Americans can easily fancy the inevitable danger of admitting Catholics among them without strong and safe restrictions.

Many there are, and those, too, men of great moral worth, who do not deem it necessary or proper to impose any restrictions whatever on the admission of Papists amongst us; they seem to think, and maintain their opinion with some show of reason, that Popery may now, as in former times, prove advantageous to society. These philanthropists evidently mistake Popery for Christianity. I have had occasionally many interesting conversations with some of my fellow citizens, on the subject, and have found that not a few of them have taken up the strange idea, that because Popery, or rather Christianity, was greatly instrumental in checking the first inroads of martial power and barbarity upon civil society and Christian peace, its progress in this country, comparatively new, must be accompanied by similar blessings. Papists frequently and tauntingly ask Protestants "Where would be your Bible, were it not for our Church?" and let it be understood, that they invariably mean, by our Church, the Church of Christ. Many of the poor followers of the Pope are sincere in asking this question; and so totally ignorant are they of the very elements of Christianity, that they really believe the Bible could not exist, if their church were overthrown.

It is questioned by statesmen, and by many political philosophers, whether it is good policy to disturb thia delusion. European statesmen contend that it is not, and it is much to be regretted that many of our American statesmen seem to incline to the same opinion. The French philosophers—at least their political philosophers—seem all of one mind upon the subject, and contend, with great plausibility, that opinions which have stood the test of time for a given number of years, had better be left undisturbed.

Many have gone even so far as to say that "ignorance is bliss;" but this sentiment, and such philosophy, is too stale for the present generation. It has had its day; Popery lent to it its powerful aid in the middle ages, and bitter indeed were its fruits. The Popish church, too, has had its day; so had the Jewish church, and much is due to both for the good which they have done. Many in both those churches, and during their respective influence, could see no farther than that "ignorance was bliss" to the savage hordes who first formed the nucleus of social and civil society. Did they know in their savage state the extent of their animal power, without mind to direct its force and capability of evil, the consequences would be, not social order or distributive justice, but universal chaos and general confusion. Ignorance may be said to have been bliss to these unlettered hordes and savages; science and literature, had they blazed upon them in their full noon brilliancy, would not have been appreciated by them, they would only have dazzled and confounded them still more. It would be dangerous to place within the reach of a thirsty savage a bowl of Prussic acid; he might drain to the dregs the fatal poison, and thus that which, in the hands of science, might have been useful and legitimate, would become the instrument of death.

It would be unsafe to place a lighted torch in the hand of a sportive child, and send him to play with it in a powder magazine; the consequence might be death to him and to all around him. It was probably so at one time with science and learning. It was perhaps, in a great measure, bliss to be without them, until the human mind was prepared to make a proper use of both; it is so even in the animal and vegetable world, and why should it not be so in the world of mind and thought? Who, for instance, would place on a horse a harness which youth and want of exercise did not enable it to carry? Who would sow wheat in a soil unprepared to receive it? No prudent man would do either; and certainly much credit is due to those early Christians, and even to Jews and Papists, for what they have done, and for anything they have effected in preparing the minds, especially those of northern barbarians, for the reception of the sciences, but particularly the glorious science of the Christian religion, with all its saving truths and holy principles.

Infinite indeed are the obligations under which our ancestors have placed us, in opening our minds and preparing them for the reception of so many moral and scientific truths; and if the Popish church has contributed in any measure to this, I am as willing to thank her and give her full credit for all she has done, as the most hypocritical Jesuit that ever lived, or the most liberal Christian that practically denies human 25 depravity. But are there no more truths to be evolved, ether in moral or civil science, than those which have seen open to our view in the infancy of the Romish church, and for which I, for one, am willing to give her credit in all that she has done? Were there not many sources opened, even in the days of the glories of the Jewish Church, and Romish Church, too, which lave been closed up, and must remain closed forever? Was not the Jewish religion, when it first dawned upon that devoted people, like the early beams of some fresh morning, fragrant and cheering to the captive in his cell? But that religion has passed away. It was glorious in its time; but does it follow, did it follow, or can it follow, that we should now embrace it? Must we hug the shadow, when the substance ceases to exist?

The outward form of the Romish church was once attractive and beautiful in the extreme; its gorgeous ceremonies, its high masses, the vestments of its priests, its music, its processions, its indulgences, its semi-pagan, or rather worse than pagan, idolatries, had in them much that was imposing, and well suited to their times; they were calculated to overawe northern barbarians,—then the enemies of Christianity and of civil rights. The Church of Rome did much to prevent the few among these barbarians from trampling to the dust the rights of their serfs, who constituted a vast majority of the people, and for this I am as willing as any other to give her credit; but the Church of Rome has done her work long since; her days of glory are numbered—her sun has long since set-not in triumph, but in blood—not in victory, but in death.

But Popery seems now to be gathering up her energies—at least she is endeavoring to do so—and looks upon this new country as a proper field to make the experiment; and there are serious doubts upon the minds of some, whether she will not succeed, at least in a measure, in partially re-establishing her ancient power in this new country. She is disposed to struggle hard for it Already has the tocsin of war been sounded along her lines—her recruiting officers are abroad—she has her depots here and there and everywhere—her paymasters and spiritual recruiting sergeants are to be met with at all points. Go to the woods of Oregon,—travel along its meandering and fertilizing streams,—and you will find them there, preaching freedom, liberty of conscience, and equal rights. Go into the swamps of Texas, and you find them there, too, advocating civil rights, liberty of conscience, and perpetual slavery. In Oregon and New England we find Papists shouting O'Connell, the Pope, and the abolition of slavery. In the Southern States of the Union and in Texas, they hurrah for slavery—slavery not for a day, for a year, or a term of years—but forever! In the Northern States they brand the slaveholders with the epithets—robbers, slave-breeders, and stealers of men. In the South and in Texas, they denounce the Northerners as fanatics, pirates, and sons of pirates. How long Americans will tolerate these wolves in sheep's clothing among them, it is difficult to say; but one thing I fear is certain, that as long as they have oats, and Americans countenance among them Barn-burners, But-Enderst Repealers, and Empire Clubs, under the popular name of Democrats, the evil to which I allude will continue.

It is said that Popery is on the increase in the United States, and there are not wanting some arguments to prove it. But though 1 have taken some pains, and perhaps as much as any other man in the country, to ascertain the truth of this assertion, I am still unconvinced on the subject It is also asserted that Popery is on the increase all over the world, and must continue to increase. Upon this, too, I have doubts; I even believe that the contrary is the fact.

If by the increase of Popery is meant the number of square miles, or the extent of country which they own or occupy, it may be said, with some propriety, that if Popery is not advancing, it is not retrograding; but if by the increase of Popery is meant that its creed and idolatrous doctrines are gaining ground, I flatly deny the assertion. As another expresses it, a system that degrades can never advance. And that the doctrines of the Church of Rome do degrade, I think I have already proved. The Romish Church and its doctrines have crushed the spirit, and deadened the life of every country, and every people, that ever believed or maintained it; and shall our free spirits and bold intellects, in the nineteenth century, be broken and bowed down like those in Popish countries? It can never be. But this is not the question, exactly. The question is, or ought to be, Is the Popish religion on the increase? Does it gain upon the Protestant religion, or is it going ahead of it, as some even in these United States will have it? This question can be easily answered; and for that answer, which I am about to give, I acknowledge myself much indebted to an anonymous but elegant writer in the Protestant Quarterly Review for the month of January, 1846. "Ask yourselves which religion,—Protestant or Popish,—will spread widest in an age of science and knowledge—which is best fitted to the growth of the human mind? In all Protestant countries, wealth, intelligence, and a high civilization! are everywhere seen; in all Catholic countries, dead-ness and decay rest upon everything which nature made beautiful. Under Protestantism, every department of science has made rapid progress. The very spirit of freedom breathes through the Newtonian and Baconian philosophy. Everywhere, from the harsh, barren soil of northern nations, sprang up life and light England, Scotland, Prussia, in men of strong intellect, are superior to any of the older nations, in any preceding age. Mathematics, natural philosophy, metaphysics, ethics, commerce, agriculture, legislation—the whole extent of modern civilization—date from the Reformation, and exist only in Protestant countries. And those nations of Europe which caught but a glimmer of liberal opinions, but which in the Catholic or Popish reaction were again subjected to Rome, are far in advance of those countries, beautiful as they are, in the South of Europe, which never saw Protestantism. A single glance into the history of modern science, literature, and politics, will fully convince any candid mind of this. The entire spirit of northern institutions, their great progress, their growing intelligence, are all owing to Protestantism. They date their birth from it, they are thoroughly imbued with its spirit, they must live still in its spirit Firm governments and wise laws; just and liberal rulers; free and intelligent people; nobler views of man; nobler views of God; more knowledge; more liberty; more faith;—these have the genius of Protestantism imparted, and in their ever-growing life it will live. How different from this is the condition of the old Catholic States! The noble palaces of Italy are deserted; banditti infest the beautiful shores of Campania. The Dantes, the Petrarchs, the Tassos, are gone forever. The poetry, the chivalry, the bright southern romance, the fiery southern valor, have passed away; miserable want and beggary, vagabond recklessness, and sullen, obstinate, threadbare pride, are the remains of fair Italy. Ireland with her poetry and merriment is silent and desponding; her laughter has mournfully died away; her sweet melodies, equally beautiful, whether sung sadly or gaily, are chanted by lips quivering with emotion and parched by hunger and thirst Popery has degraded and saddened her very soul.

"Austria, tyrannous and bigoted,—an enemy to all freedom, whether of thought or action,—with her degrading institutions, and decaying principles, is rather worse than poor Ireland. It is better to die than to kill Spain, the birth-place of Loyola; the valiant opponent of the crescent and turban, for near eight hundred years; the land of brave knights and fair ladies; of song and dance; of literature, refinement, and elegant culture,—is wretched indeed. Squalid, seditious, fiercely proud and cruel, it now excites little compassion, still less of hate or fear.

"How are we to account for this immeasurable difference between the realms of Protestantism and those of Catholicism? Are the Italians inferior by nature to the Scotsmen, or the Spanish to the Danes? We cannot admit this; all history and philosophy disprove it. Yet now, in their degradation, they can scarcely appreciate their ancient grandeur; while the heavy nations of the north, have suddenly leaped far beyond their utmost limit The only cause which can be assigned for this, is the vast difference in the genius of the two religious influences: Catholicism has blighted, Protestantism has advanced and strengthened. Can this ever be undone? Has all modern science been preaching a lie? Have the last three centuries been pushing forward in the face of truth, and acting out the lie? Can the onward sweep of civilization be retarded? and must the work pause, and wait till the huge car of Rome can rumble slowly up and bear it onward into the caves of night again? Forbid it Heaven, I cannot believe it."

But the Papist will say, "it is evident, from the recent course of events in France, Spain, Italy, Ireland, nay, to some extent, in the United States, that Popery is gaining ground and making extraordinary efforts to insure ultimate success." Be it so. Even admitting that they are attempting and strenuously trying to advance, that does not insure victory or final success, There are two broad and undeniable facts, which forbid this result. One is, that from the beginning of the world to the present hour, man has steadily advanced in progressive intelligence; and the other is, that the roman mind has never been known to run backwards. Papists will say, and it is now said from their pulpits, in these United States, "that Popery can accommodate, and will suit itself to the advancing acquirements of man, and finally conform to our free institutions." Let us look at this question, and fairly examine its truth or falsehood. Upon a correct understanding of this subject, and upon it alone, can be founded a correct estimate or view of the ultimate fate of Popery in the United States. I flatter myself that I have proved, to the satisfaction of all Americans who have done me the honor of reading my books, that Popery has not changed in its doctrine or discipline; or, that if any change has been effected in either, it is decidedly for the worse. A recent French writer, well known to the readers of history—La Mennais—has tested the doctrines of Popery by the principles of intellectual advancement. He proved that Popery and civil rights were incompatible with each other, and could not co-exist under any government nor under any form or state of society. No argument could be more beautiful, more eloquent, or more convincing, than that by which he demonstrated to the world that human liberty and Christian liberty are antagonistic to Popery. He required no more from the Church of Rome than to conform to the simple principles of Christian freedom. His works are now extant, and I believe are to be had in all well furnished libraries in the United States. They can be seen and read by our fellow citizens, and they will find in perusing them that what I state is correct The writings of La Mennais soon came to the ears of the Pope and his Inquisitors, and they were not long in discovering that if the principles contended for by La Mennais were admitted, the Popish Church must fall. There was no medium; either that, or every other doctrine must be denied, and all arguments in favor of the civil rights of man had no foundation in fact. How did his Holiness, the Pope, act on this occasion? I do not allude here, to any Pope of ancient times, I allude to the Pope who now lives, and presides over the Infallible Church. He cursed La Mennais; he damned him and his writings. He insisted that La Mennais should write no more on the subject, and I blush for the honor of humanity, of mind, of talents, of genius, and liberty of thought, to state that La Mennais submitted to this tyrant Pope, and that only the other day, in 1833, though he declared to his friends, that, while he bowed to the Pope's, supremacy, he felt that he was putting his name to the blasphemous admission that the Pope was God.

The Popish bishops of this country have the hardihood to say, that Popery is the friend and advocate of pure democracy, and that miserable tool of theirs, Brownson, says amen. They depute him to lecture upon this subject in almost all the large cities throughout the Union. He may do some injury to the morals of our people, but his reign cannot be of long duration; such is the character of the man, that whatever he says cannot fructify. He is, among our fellow citizens, what the ant is among a heap of corn; it takes it to its winter store house to feed itself alone, but whoever will carefully examine the grain or corn which it takes from others, will find that it has no bud; it destroys that, and thus selfishly and mischievously prevents 25* the grain from fructifying and enlarging. Brownson takes with him, and appropriates to himself, many plausible arguments from the works of eminent men, but the slightest contact, on his part, with the purest characters, is sufficient to destroy their vitality. If he were even to carry with him into the pulpit, the soundest principles of morality, his very presence, and past infidel life, would destroy their force; and a correct examination of them would show the Christian who might examine them, that they had no bud or vital principle within them and could produce no fruit It is said that some men come into this world with two left hands, two crooked eyes, a good deal of brains, and little or no organization of its faculties. Brown-son is one of those characters. He has two left hands, and was never known to do anything right; whatever he touches he is sure to despoil and disfigure. Both his eyes are crooked; he has never yet been known to see anything straight; so crooked are they, that he sees things only through the eyes of others. Hence it is, perhaps, that he never writes anything which is his own, but upon all subjects gives us the views of others, and as no two think alike, in general, Brown-son's writings invariably contradict themselves. Add to this that great defect of order in his brain, and we cannot apprehend that his lectures will do much permanent injury. This Brownson has appeared to me, during the short time I have been noticing his movements and opinions, to be, in reality, a shallow-pated bombastic pretender to science and literature. He seems to know books just as some people know great men, they only learn their names, and then boast of an intimate acquaintance with them. He talks very fluently about his intimacy with Tasso, Dante, Petrarch, Boccacio, and others. He and Boccacio seem to be as intimate as pickpockets (to use a common though vulgar phrase.) I wonder if Mr. Brownson recollects any of those anecdotes related by Boccacio about certain nuns, who lived in the vicinity of his lather's residence? Will the illustrious changeling permit me to bring one or two to his recollection? One probably will be enough, as my readers may already have had sufficient information concerning the amusements practised by nuns and sisters of Charity in their convents.

It seems there was a large establishment of nuns in the neighborhood were Boccacio resided. The mother Abbess was of noble descent, a fine fair-haired girl, young and beautiful. There happened to be, adjoining the nunnery, a friary; among these friars, as Boccacio tells us, in a work of his, which has since been suppressed by the Popes, was a young man of fine personal appearance, and who possessed, in a remarkable degree, the power of assuming any character he pleased. He was, besides, a ventriloquist, and could thus personate and imitate any character or any voice he chose. The mother Abbess took an extraordinary fancy to this young friar, and tried by every means in her power to have him appointed confessor and spiritual guide to the nuns. But the Superior of the friary was not easily deceived. He peremptorily refused to listen to the most pious entreaties of the mother Abbess, and positively declined giving the friar faculties to hear her confession.

What was to be done in this case? The holy nun soon hit upon an expedient. She sent for the friar, who always had admission to an iron grating in the wall, which separated these holy nuns from this sinful world! She told the friar that her establishment was much in want of a gardener, and advised him to change his whole appearance, assume the character of a very old and feeble man, imitate his voice, and come the next day, with his spade on his shoulder, to apply for the situation of gardener to the nunnery. He accordingly came the next morning, thoroughly-metamorphosed, and in the most doleful and piteous tones of distress and want, begged of the holy mother Abbess, for the love she bore the blessed virgin Mary, to give him employment, whereby he might support himself and his poor half-starved and bed-ridden wife. The holy nun moved by charity, and nothing else, of course, employed him as gardener; and moved by compassion for the weak and feeble old man, she occasionally sent for him to her cell to nourish him with some wine and water. Verbum sat. The Protestant reader will not forget that Boccacio was a Roman Catholic and is quoted by Brownson, in his Review, as one of those luminaries which adorned the Popish Church between the sixth and sixteenth centuries.

There was another, among the luminaries who flourished "betwixt the sixth and sixteenth centuries," named Rabalais. I am rather surprised that Brownson has not quoted him, as a model of a Christian bishop. He was a Roman Catholic bishop, and died in full communion with the Romish Church. He was laid in his coffin dressed in his episcopal robes. The works of Rabalais are very little read now-a-days, nor could I conscientiously recommend them to the attention of any Christian reader; I allude to him with the sole view of giving Popish advocates the full advantage of the testimony and example of a Roman Catholic bishop in their favor.

There was not, perhaps, in all France, a more obscene writer than Rabalais. He was remarkable however for the depth and keenness of his satire. He felt the degradation of his position as a Popish bishop, but he wanted moral courage enough to renounce so advantageous a position in society as that which the Romish Church assigned him. The only alternative left him, under these circumstances, was to try to effect some reform in his Church and the morals of its priests. He turned against them the arrows of his ridicule, and though the wounds and scars, which they left behind them, were broad and painful, yet there was so much justice in all his statements, that the Infallible Church dared not raise a finger against him. I refer Bishops Hughes, Fenwick, and their corporal, Brownson, to his writings. They may, in all probability, find some similitude between themselves, their Popes, and other bishops, to those illustrious characters, Carragantua, Pantagruel, Trippet, and others so conspicuously alluded to in the works of Rabalais. I expect nothing else than censure for the bare mention of some of those writers to whom I have referred-It seems to have become quite fashionable now-a days with pulpit orators, to censure anything like gen-real reading; at any rate, no fault must be found with the sins of the times. I have seldom heard a discourse or lecture, from infidels of the present day, where they have not found fault with all those writings in which sin and immorality are denounced in plain scriptural language. There are, among our modern Liberal Christians, many who seem shocked at the idea that Eugene Sue, for instance, should have dared to satirize Popery, or that Guinet, or Michelet, should presume to denounce Jesuitism or warn mankind against giving it any encouragement amongst them. The argument used by these Liberal Christians or philosophers—for they are all philosophers, every one of them—is this; if evangelical Christians should succeed in suppressing Popery, we philosophic, and Liberal Christians, shall be their next victims; ergo, Eugene Sue, Michelet, Gui-net, and all who write against Popery, deserve no encouragement from us. Admirable logicians, these Liberal Christians! Profound and deep historians, these modern philosophers! Evangelical Christians have never persecuted Liberal Christians. I would challenge them to produce an instance where they have ever acted upon the offensive. Let them analyze the creed of evangelical Christians; let them dissect it; let them break it up, word by word, and cut each word into the most minute fractions; and if they can show me, among those words or fractions, a solitary particle, or an isolated idea, which teaches them to persecute any man on account of his religious opinions, I will acknowledge that Liberal Christians are right in preferring the ascendancy of Popery to that of evangelical Christianity. But how is it in the Popish creed? Let these Liberal Christians turn back to the pages of history, and they will find that the creed and canons of Popery, as well as the decretals of its Church, all teach that Liberal Christians are to be dealt with by civil law, and that by civil law is to be understood the Inquisitorial law, which consigns every one of them to the sword, fire, and faggot. Do these gentlemen recollect the fate of Arius and his followers? Do they forget thar the disciples of Arius were all Liberal Christians, and numbered, at one time, a vast and large portion of those who professed any belief in the doctrines of Christ, either as God or man? Pause, gentlemen, I entreat of you,—recollect that the reason why Papists are silent in relation to your doctrines, is simply this: they look upon you as damned, beyond a possibility of salvation. They place you and the Jews on the same level, and consider both as blasphemers of the name of Christ, and as altogether beneath the notice of all men who profess the Christian religion in any form whatever; and rely upon it, when I assure you, that I myself, who have been a Popish priest, have studied the doctrines of that Church to little purpose, if you are not the very first whom Papists will destroy, and whose property they will confiscate to the use of their Infallible Church, should they ever have the power to do so.

It is a question with me, whether many of the lecturers of the present day, in their unqualified anathemas against modern literature and general reading, are not doing more harm than good. Assuredly they are injuring, more or less, the cause of liberty, and giving all the advantages they possess, to arbitrary power; especially to the factious, despotic, and violent power of the tyrant court of Rome. Those lecturers who denounce the writings of Eugene Sue, Guinet, and others, against the Popish Church, are bringing upon this country—unconsciously, I believe—all the evils of foreign tyranny, without any consolation. They are helping to destroy themselves, and must be destroyed in time by a superior power. Charity obliges me to suppose these lecturers sincere, and if they were equally discreet, might be useful auxiliaries in promoting the moral and political interests of our country. They are the instruments of cool-headed, dispassionate politicians, who see nothing, and care to see nothing, but their own private interests.

Besides all this, these declaimers against modern literature and general reading are injuring the cause of science. He who from his pulpit, or in a lyceum hall, disapproves of the writings of Eugene Sue against Popish domination, merely because he relates many facts and circumstances which are not proper to be seen or read by some of his hearers,—aims his blows at many of the noblest sciences which God has permitted man to study, and for reasons which could scarcely be satisfactory to a child, viz: because "some passages in his writings are rather indelicate." This is certainly as strong a reason as Dr. Sangrado, of Quixotic notoriety, gave to his patient, when asked why he did not prescribe cold water; "I have," said the Doctor, "already prescribed hot water." The reason given for not reading Eugene Sue may apply with equal force against the study of surgery; and I should not be in the least surprised, if before long some of those gentlemen denounced and forbade the study of the noble and almost heavenly science of anatomy. Assuredly, beautiful, symmetrical, and lovely as the human frame is externally, it presents to the human eye, when dissected and exposed, in its native and naked proportions, no very pleasing object to contemplate. But does it follow that the science of anatomy should not be studied? Does it follow that works upon that science should not be read? Certainly not; and he who would contend for the contrary would be well suited by assigning to him an abode in some lunatic asylum.

I admit that there are some passages in the writings of Eugene Sue, Guinet, and others, against Popery, that seem rather indelicate. But is that a reason why the moral anatomy and structure of the body Papal should not be dissected? The external body of Popery, like the human body, may be fair to the eye, lovely to the senses, and beautiful to the imagination; but like the human body, it has its deformities, and I see no reason why its defects should not be anatomized, studied, and exposed, if necessary to the moral welfare of the human family. How can the evils of Popery be known, unless they are exposed to public view, and seen by those who are competent to judge of their evil tendencies? And who are more competent to form a correct estimate of their nature and character, than such men as Eugene Sue, Guinet, and others, who have studied Popery? Guinet and Michelet are now living. They are both Roman Catholics by birth and education. They understand the doctrines of Popery thoroughly. It is idle—it is worse than idle—for American Protestant writers to attempt to prevent the circulation of Michelet's works, or those of Eugene Sue, in the United States. But it will be said, and it is said, that there is much romance about them, and that many passages are to be found, in Guinet especially, savoring strongly of infidelity. Admitting even this to be the case, it does not follow, by any means, that the enemies of Popery, which some Protestant journals and lecturers pretend to be, should reject and censure the many and undeniable truths which they contain on the subject of Popery. The fact is—and I regret that it is so—many of the journals which come out with flaming notices of their determination to stand by the Protestant religion, and oppose the introduction of Popery into this country, are not always sincere in their professions. Many of them are theorists. I may add here, en passant, that few of those "heroes of discussion meetings," and editors of newspapers, are at all qualified for the task which they undertake. It is, however, a source of consolation to me, that there axe some public lecturers and editors of Protestant newspapers, who are sincere and disinterested in their opposition to Popery; who see its destructive fruits now springing up in the fairest fields of our Republic; who know that Popery is corrupt in itself, that corruption of mind and morals is the natural result to be expected from its prevalence amongst our people These worthy men and well-informed editors of many of our presses, are determined, cost what it will, that Popery shall be fully understood in this country: that it shall no longer be hid in a corner, and that those Jesuit wolves who profess it shall no longer be permitted to appear in sheep's clothing.

Among the presses which now boldly stand forth in defence of the Protestant religion and the civil rights of man, I am happy to enumerate the Boston Recorder, the Olive Branch, and others, among the various presses in the city of Boston. There are also many among the political presses in our country, which are doing good service to the cause of Protestantism and the civil rights of man. J. T. Buckingham, of the Boston Courier, has generously and disinterestedly thrown himself and his fine talents between the intrigues of Papists and their designs upon our institutions, and the civil rights of his countrymen. These presses have not blushed to quote largely from Eugene Sue; they have not tried to hide from their readers, nor prevented them from reading, the faithful expose which Eugene Sue, Guinet, La Manais, Michelet, and others, have given of the iniquities and treasonable designs of Popish priests and Jesuits against Protestant governments and the civil rights of man. These presses have not put their hands to the plow and looked back. They love their God and their country too well to crouch before the puerilities—as the learned Bishop Eastburn of Boston expresses it—or the treasonable designs of Jesuits. The reader will here indulge me, and I trust the editors of the Boston Recorder will pardon me, for quoting largely from their paper of January 15th, 1846. "M. Pascal, a devoted member of the Romish Church, has set forth in his provincial letters the opinions of several distinguished Jesuits, as to the duty of loving God, and especially in answer to the question, 'When and at what time is a man obliged to have an actual love or affection for God?' One Jesuit, Saurez, says, 'It is enough if we love him a little before we die, without fixing any time.' Another, Vasquez, says that 'it is enough to love him at the point of death.' We marvel at such answers. But this is Jesuitism seeking to relieve itself of the painful obligation of loving God. No order of men,—no society that ever existed, has been so universally execrated as that of the Jesuits. Everywhere intriguing, plotting, and dangerous, they have been everywhere dreaded, hated, and opposed. And not by Protestants alone. The society of Jesuits has been at different periods expelled from all the States of Europe; and last of all, France has denounced and rejected it The order, as every one knows, began with Loyola, in the beginning of the sixteenth century, and was intended as a spiritual crusade against heresy; the particular heresy aimed at being the Reformation, under Luther, who was contemporary with Loyola. In 1773, the institution of the Jesuits was suppressed by a bull of Clement XIV. They were accused of 'too great avidity of terrestrial goods,' of 'criminal plots,' of having in their favor only the exterior of regularity, disgraced in their maxims, and to render themselves more powerful, given up to commerce, stock-jobbing, and politics.'

"But the time came when Rome needed the arms of the Jesuits, and their society was re-established in 1814. The Romish Church still defends the Jesuits, and stands before the world as their accomplice." The Recorder continues, and indirectly severely censures those presses and those timid and irresolute editors who seem to think that they cannot conscientiously read, or permit their readers to receive into their houses, the writings of Eugene Sue or Michelet, against the degrading and traitorous doctrines of Popery.

"The attempt of the Jesuits," continues the pious and talented editor of the Recorder, "to get the control of education in France, aroused some powerful spirits, among whom the most distinguished were Michelet and Guinet, Professors in the College of France. These men are Catholics, but too excellent and conscientious to receive the appellation in its bad sense. They are high authority, and we quote a few of their opinions, publicly uttered in college lectures within the last year or two." What think you of the above language, you editors of the would-be evangelical Protestant presses?—you who have pledged your sacred honor and fortunes to stand by the Church and the Gospel of Christ, and still censure Michelet, Guinet, and even my own humble efforts to oppose the spread of Popery among mankind. "Michelet," continues the Recorder, "calls the spirit of Jesuits the spirit of intrigue—of holy detraction. God give us, he says, political tyranny, military tyranny, and all other tyrannies, ten times over, rather than that such a police—that of the Jesuits—should sully our France." Will the reader permit me to add my petition to this, and will he join me in beseeching the Throne of Grace to receive it graciously? God give us, American citizens, political tyranny, military tyranny, and all other tyrannies, ten times over, rather than that Jesuitism should disfigure the fair face of our beautiful Republic The Recorder continues his observations on the writings of Michelet. "He (Michelet) challenges men to study, and tells them that at the end of ten years they will find in the history of Jesuits but one meaning—the death of liberty." "This bold lecturer," (Michelet) continues the Recorder still, "bounds in passages like the following: 'What is the nature of the Jesuit? He has none; he is fit for everything. The Jesuits are a formidable machine for war, invented for the most vile combat in the sixteenth century. The simple and natural means which have generally succeeded with the Jesuits is to catch wild birds by means of tame ones?" "I speak," says Michelet, "of Jesuitesses, polished and gentle, adroit and charming, who always, going before the Jesuits, put everywhere oil and honey, smoothing the way." How true this is; and is it not strange, beyond account, that Americans cannot see it? When Jesuits first came into Boston, they sent before them Jesuitesses, young, polished, gentle, and charming. These tame Popish birds were not long amongst us, when they caught whole flocks of our wild Yankee birds, and are now catching them in almost every State in the Union. But the Yankee, with all his cuteness, cleverness, and supposed cunning, will be caught He is no match for the Jesuit. "The Jesuits," says Michelet, again, "have employed the instrument of which Jerome speaks—poor little women, all covered with sins." He alludes to the Sisters of Charity, the Ladies of the Sacred Heart, the Mother Abbesses, &c., all which are directed and governed by the Jesuits.

Was there ever a truer picture of the operations of Jesuits than this? And the Americans who cannot see its truth and fidelity, must be blinder than the bats which flutter in the caves and caverns of their mountains. Had we not, the other day, on Mount Benedict, in the vicinity of Boston, the capital of New England, some of those poor little women, covered with sins—meek, and gentle, and angelic-looking little beings? Sweet little innocents! They had a nunnery there, too. They had a fashionable school attached to it. And our Protestant Jonathans—poor dolts—sent their daughters to these poor little women—these Sisters of Charity—to be educated in the principles of Christianity! True it is that none are so blind as those who will not see.

The reader will bear with me in quoting a few more passages, which the Boston Recorder selects from the writings of Guinet, on the subject of Jesuitism. "The nations which are sickest in Europe, those which have least credit and authority, are those in which the society of Jesuits has its hearth. The mission of Jesuitism, in the sixteenth century, was to destroy the Reformation; the mission of Jesuitism, in the nineteenth century, is to destroy the Revolution, which supposes, includes, and envelopes, the Reformation. What cannot fail to strike you, is the rapidity with which this society has degenerated. Where shall we find any thing like it in any other order? The public voice has been raised against it from its very cradle. Already the society was driven out from a part of Spain in 1565, from the Low Countries and Portugal in 1578, from all France in 1594, from Venice in 1606, from the Kingdom of Naples in 1622. I speak only of Catholic countries. We may add, that France condemned the Jesuits in 1762, and actually drove them from the kingdom, and that she has since repeated her sentence of reprobation in 1845."

"Now let it be considered," says the Recorder—and I look upon that venerable journal, and its editors, as high authority—"that these very Jesuits, dreaded and loathed, in the old countries, looked upon as the offscouring of all things, the dregs even of Catholic states, are coming to this country by hundreds, [The Recorder might have said by hundreds of thousands] seeking here a field for their horrid operations, determined to regain all and more than they have? lost at home. It is well understood that the Catholic officials who profane our soil, are of the Jesuit order,—desperate men, 'fit for everything,' whose very breath is the 'death of liberty.' Their mission is to deceive and victimize the American people. The people, therefore, ought to be aware of their character and operations.

"Some will say," continues the Recorder, farther, "it is not so,—there is no danger—these priests are a very harmless people. In this provoking stupidity lies our danger. Before they get their eyes open, the language of Michelet will be applicable. *Are these Jesuits? A man asks this question, whose wife they already govern by a confessor of their own—the wife the house, table, hearth, bed. To-morrow they will have her child.' There is little reason to suppose that Jesuits will be forcibly expelled from this country. So much the greater is the necessity that they should be watched, exposed, and resisted. Their movements here, are of special moment to Americans. We are called upon to watch around the 'altar of our liberty.' The Jesuits and the Pope, would rejoice to see us directing our attention to Italy,—to draw our attention there, even while they are choosing and fortifying their position here. Mr. Hogan may be right in suggesting that this is their 'plot.' If so, while they are plotting, let the Americans be adopting vigorous means of self-protection—such means especially, as religion and education can best furnish." Thus speaks that truly evangelical and independent press, the Boston Recorder, of Jesuitism, and the writings of Sue, Michelet, and Gurnet. And it is to me a source of consolation and cheering encouragement, to find that it does not disapprove of my own humble efforts upon the same subject, nor of any of those authorities which I have called to my aid.

I fully agree with the Recorder, that education—biblical education—is the best means and defence we can make against the intrigues of Jesuitism in this country. Our sole and only hope of success against them, is the general diffusion of education, and that education must be of a scriptural character. Until the people can read, they cannot think; and until they can think, they cannot reason, nor consequently distinguish between error and truth. A vast number of the citizens of this country are foreigners, from Popish countries, who have no education but such as they received from their priests; and the history of the world informs us of the wretched character of that instruction which they have received from that source. We all can see the condition of the poor Irish, who for centuries back, have been walking by the light of some 'magic lantern, held by their priests.' We can see how prevalent the influence of Popish priests has been, in the education—or rather want of education of the Irish,—by referring to a Report of Commissioners appointed to take the census of Great Britain and Ireland in 1841. I here quote from the London Quarterly Review for June, 1845. "On the present state of Irish education, and its previous progress, the Commissioners have taken great pains to collect and communicate information, of which the result is, that the diminution of ignorants, that is, of persons unable to read and write, is, during the last fifty years, from forty-eight to thirty-five per cent, of males, and from sixty to forty-five per cent, of females." What must have been the condition of this poor people previous to the last fifty years, when they were educated exclusively by bishops, priests, monks, and nuns? And how grateful should they feel to the Protestants of Great Britain and elsewhere for the great diminution which has since taken place in the number of males and females who could then neither read nor write. It is creditable to government—the Protestant government of Great Britain—that out of the number of Irish, which are now in the military service of Great Britain, sixty per cent, of those between the ages of sixteen and twenty-five can both read and write. How is this to be accounted for? Popish priests have nothing to do with the education of the children of those who are in the service of Great Britain. They are indebted to Protestant teachers, and Protestant officers, for the blessings of education which they enjoy. How are the people educated in Popish France? We can learn from the lectures of Michelet, Professor of Literature in the College of France; it is wretched in the extreme. But some of our sympathizers and mawkish journalists may question the authority of the gentleman. I would refer them to other authority M. Boulay tells us that more than half the population of France can neither read nor write. He assures us this is a fixed fact—and he is no contemptible authority. What does Bishop Fenwick's Corporal Trim think of this? He assured us, the other day, on his honor and consistency, that the inhabitants of Catholic countries were the best educated people in the world Ah! Corporal, thou shalt never die while imposture and Popery live in the United States. Let us compare the condition of the Irish, who are educated by Popish priests and Jesuits, with that of Americans, who have received their education from Protestant teachers, and we shall see—as the London Quarterly Review expresses it—in strong contrast, the effect of an almost total, and a very partial Papal eclipse. Taking the whites—in America—as the analogous population, we find that persons above the age of twenty years, who can neither read nor write, are not quite four per cent (3.87.) To make this, however, a fair subject of comparison, we must consider that the numbers under twenty are not half the whites, (1.38,) so that we must reckon the ignorants to be eight pet cent, of the whole. How different this from the forty per cent of the Irish Papists, and the fifty or sixty per cent of the French Papists, all of whom are educated by Jesuits and Papists! What becomes here, of Corporal Brownson's assertion, that "the people are better educated, in general, in Popish than Protestant countries"? The fact is, my friend Brownson, you had better shut up shop; you are a man of no bottom; you possess no solid and useful information; and easily humbugged, as you and your brethren the Jesuits think the American people to be, no man can retain long among them, the character of a learned and honest man, if he have not some solid bottom of his own to stand upon. It is a bold attempt on the part of Jesuits, to try to persuade the American people, by means of their agent Brownson, that the mass of Papists are better educated than Protestants. But, as the learned Dr. South expresses it, "there is, in the effort to do what is glaringly false, such a mixture of the fool, as quite spoils the project of the knave." And I am much mistaken if the knavish Jesuits who infest this country, do not soon find that the observation of Dr. South is correct.

Jesuits and their agents in the United States, have taken and are now taking, great pains to persuade our Protestant citizens, that Papists are not only better educated than Protestants, but better provided for in every other respect They have always charged Protestants with neglecting the poor, and over-working them in every department of labor. Some of the Puseyite philosophers of the present day, unite with Jesuits in urging this charge against Protestants. This is peculiarly worthy of the attention of the Americans, and shows as clearly as any other circumstance can, the extent and depth of Jesuit intrigue amongst us. The great mass of the people, in every country, is composed of the laboring classes, or, as we term them, operatives. And Jesuits know full well that if they can persuade the great body of Americans, that Popery gives more encouragement to labor, and requires less of it for a given price, than those who profess Protestantism, it is an important point gained; in truth, if this be admitted,—if the Popish Church gives more encouragement and better pay to laborers, than the Protestant Church, I, for one, would not and could not withhold from her my full and hearty commendation thus far. If it be true,—as that great Idealist and Puseyite, Mr. Ward, of England, contends,—that the poor and neglected and oppressed, in those countries where Protestant government prevails, are much better provided for under Popish governments, the fact ought to be well understood, and in place of wishing to overthrow these governments and prevent the farther growth of Popery, we should pause, and look seriously into the question.

But is it true that labor is more encouraged and better paid, under Catholic than Protestant governments? Is it true that operatives—say for instance those who work in factories—are more humanely dealt with, better paid, and not required to work as many hours, under Popish as under Protestant governments? I call the attention of American Protestants to this question. It is one of vital importance.

Both Puseyites and Jesuits allege this as positive, We have them here on the platform of unequivocal allegation of fact. "We have them on the hip." I am now willing to grapple with Jesuits and Puseyites upon this question. It cannot be evaded by them. It must be yes or no. Jesuit sophistry can avail them nothing, and if I can show our operatives, and laborers in our factories, that those Jesuits and Puseyites who are now overspreading our Republic, are trying to deceive them and reduce them to farther hardships, I trust they will rise as a body, men, women, children, and all, and hoot them from our shores. It is wrong to deceive any one; and no honest man or true Christian will do so; but it is cruel to deceive the poor laborer or operative, who lives by the sweat of his brow.

If the reader will accompany me across the Atlantic, I will show him the condition of the operatives in some of those countries where the government is Popish, and where the religion of the people is that of Jesuits and priests. Let us visit France, a Catholic country. Let us examine a Report made by M. Delambre, the head of the department of Manufactures, in the office of the Minister of Commerce, in 1838. From that Report it appears, that the actual work of children, in factories, is never less than twelve hours, and extends from that minimum amount, to fourteen hours, in the twenty-four. It is also stated by him, that in the chief manufactories, it is not unusual with them to work all Saturday night and Sunday morning. So much for Popish clemency and Jesuit lenity to the poor operative. Let us cross over the Channel to England, a Protestant government and a Protestant country. How is it with operatives and children in factories there? I refer the reader, for an answer, to Horner on the Employment of Children in Factories, page 28. "In England, under a Protestant government, no child under thirteen can be employed for more than eight hours a day; nor can any young person, just emerged from childhood, be employed more than twelve hours a day." On Saturday the hours of work were only nine, when Mr. Horner wrote, and I am informed by the London Quarterly Review, of January, 1845, to which I am indebted for much of the information which I here give on the subject of factory laborers,—that a new Act of Parliament, fixing the maximum of labor, for children, at six and a half hours per day, has recently been passed. What becomes, now, of the assertions of Puseyites and Jesuits on the subject of Popish charity and humanity to the poor? The truth is, that I may challenge them to show me mankind, in any condition or any situation, or any clime or country, under Catholic or Protestant government, where they are not more oppressed, more degraded, more abused, and more ignorant under Catholic than Protestant governments. How then can it be, with this fact before their eyes, that Americans—Protestant Americans—give any countenance to Popery and Jesuits in the United States? or how can we account for the still more extraordinary fact, that one of the most learned Christian Associations that ever have been established in this country—The Christian League—-does not devote its whole and undivided energies to the removal of Jesuits and Jesuitism from amongst us. I cannot account for the fact I have conversed with a learned member of this Association, a gentleman of distinguished talents and deserved popularity. I asked him why the Association did not spread its forces, extend its lines, and devote its funds of intellect, as well as of money, exclusively to the removal of Jesuitism from our happy country. His answer was, "we do not deem it prudent to do so; we cannot fail to kill Jesuitism in Italy, and there will be an end of it."

Gendemen of the Christian League! I once before entreated you to withdraw your troops from Italy. You can do no good in that country. But suppose you did kill Popery in Italy—suppose that Jesuitism was dead and buried in that ill-fated country—I tell you that it will rise in this, and that in the shape of a tremendous, unformed spectre, in a far more terrific guise than ever before overpowered the imagination of man. I may not live to see it; many of you may not live to witness it; but that does not alter the truth of my prediction.

I have deviated far and wide from the point for which I set out at the commencement of this book. As usual, I have paid no attention to order, literary style, or argumentative consecutiveness. Let this, however, not be attributed to any want, on my part, of due respect for the good opinion of my readers. My sole object in writing this book was to state facts, a knowledge of which I deemed necessary and useful to my fellow citizens; and as I knew full well that it was perfectly immaterial to the majority of them, how or in what manner these facts were stated, provided they were true, I have given them at random, just as they occurred to me—currente calamo. Besides this, I am pretty much of the opinion of Swift, and value not the rules of art as high as others do:

"Nature, I thought, performed too mean a part, Forming her movements to the rules of art."

I will now return to the subject of auricular confession, and the gross immorality practised by priests in the Popish confessionals. But I must say, as I have often done before, that it is impossible to prove to the Protestant inhabitants of the United States all, or even many of the particulars of those various accusations which I have advanced against Popish bishops and priests. The system of confession itself, and the manner in which it is made, render the thing impossible. No one can understand the doctrine of Popish confession, except those who have been Popish priests, and have acted themselves in the capacity of confessors. The man who has not been a Free Mason, for instance, may accuse that ancient society of Free and Accepted Masons of sanctioning, or even perpetrating crimes, but all his accusations will go for nothing, if he has not been a Mason himself, for the very obvious reason that he knows nothing, and could know nothing of Masonry, from his own knowledge; and hence it is that we find Jesuit priests and Popish presses turning into ridicule, and not without some cause, many Protestant writers and Protestant newspapers for accusing them of things they know nothing at all about. Here I have had the advantage of Popish priests and Popish presses, and hence it probably is that my books against Popery have had such extensive circulation, and have silenced, as it were by magic, almost every Roman Catholic Press in the United States. And let it not be deemed vanity in me, should I recommend to those editors who have established presses with the avowed intention of exposing Popery, to be cautious in their charges against the Papists, for one unfounded charge is apt to destroy the weight of a thousand which may be true; and I am sorry to see that many such charges are made by pious men, and even by learned men on other subjects, but who seem far in advance of their prudence. No man can detect a flaw in an argument sooner than a Jesuit, and no press can turn it into more bitter ridicule than a Jesuit press. No matter who the reputed editor of the press may be, every article in it is revised and corrected by a Jesuit bishop or his deputy, before it meets the public eye; and hence, perhaps, arises much of the popularity of my books. I have never advanced a charge against Jesuits or Popish priests, which I did not know to be true; I have never accused them, as a body, of being guilty of a crime in the confessional, which I did not know, of my own knowledge, to be undeniably true; and to do them justice, they have never denied it.

That the Romish confessionals are sinks of unparalleled corruption, seduction, and the most revolting impurities, is but too well understood in Papal countries. Michelet understands it in France, so does Eugene Sue; but still far better does John Ronge understand it in Switzerland, because he has been, but the other day, a Roman Catholic priest himself. The Catholic priests in almost all Germany understand this, and seem now determined, through their fearless champion Ronge, to lay before the view of mankind the wicked impurities practised in the Romish confessional; and indeed it is a matter of astonishment that any people should sanction amongst them the practice of sending young females to confession to priests who are taught and commanded by their church to question them on subjects so indelicate and gross that of necessity impure thoughts must arise in their young minds. I can of my own knowledge say, that if it had been the intention of any body of men to corrupt the morals of the human race, to habituate the children of both sexes to impurity, filth and profligacy, it would be impossible to devise a scheme more completely adapted to produce that effect than the practice of confessing to priests, and the establishment of Popish nunneries amongst them. The common sense of mankind, the ordinary feelings of morality, would have made it impossible to carry into effect such a project, unless it had assumed the mask of a religious duty to God.

It is said in the United States that if priests were so immoral as I have represented them to be, and in the habit of taking such liberty with females at the confessional as I have accused them of, that virtuous females—and there must be some such among Roman Catholics—would not continue long to go to confession to those priests who take indelicate liberties with them. One would suppose that such females would leave the church altogether. How little—I repeat it for the hundredth time—do Americans know of the wheels within wheels in the great machine of Popery! guilty priests who have made attempts to seduce virtuous females at the confessional, and found that they could not succeed, understand how to manage their case well. The church, in her infallible wisdom, has made provision for such events. It is well known in Europe, and let it be henceforward known in the United States, that there are two distinct and separate orders of priests—seculars and regulars. The secular order is composed chiefly of parish priests and their curates, whose duty it is to hear the confessions of their parishioners. The order of regulars is composed of friars, who are sub-divided into several minor orders, and who have no parochial duties to discharge, unless especially deputed to do so by the Bishop or his deputy of the diocese in which they may be located. It is so arranged by the secular priests, that whenever they fail in seducing their penitents, and are detected by them, that one of these friars shall immediately be at hand to hear the confessions of all such females, and forgive them their sins on condition that they shall never reveal to mortal being the thoughtless peccadillo of their parish priest, who for the moment forgot himself and whose tears of repentance now moisten the ground on which he walks!

Let me make this more plain by supposing a case or two, by way of illustration. Suppose the Popish bishop of New York were a young, athletic, amorous man; suppose he fixed his eye upon a young married woman, or some fascinating lady of his flock—the supposition is a very wild one, I admit—suppose he try to seduce one or either at the confessional, and she reject his criminal overtures,—how would his Popish lordship act on this occasion? He always has at his elbow some friar, and that friar a foreigner, whom he directs to go, instanter, and hear the confession of those ladies. The friar knows his duty too well to disobey the orders of the Pope's viceroy in New York, and the whole affair is hushed up, perfectly to the satisfaction of the ladies, who are absolved from their sins, and entirely to that of his lordship, who Knows full well that the affair will never be heard of again. This friar is a sort of spiritual rover, and as soon as he has done his business in New York, is despatched to Boston, or elsewhere, until he visits perhaps every diocese in the Union. He then returns home to Rome, never to visit this country again. Another is sent in his place, and thus the work of seduction and immorality goes on, from year to year, in Popish confessionals, and almost under our very eyes, without our knowledge, while the guilty monsters, priests and bishops, are rioting at our hospitable tables, feasting upon our richest viands, and sipping our oldest wines. Things are so arranged in the Popish church, that the crimes of the priests in or out of the confessional, are seldom known to the great mass of the people. Such are the means adopted by the church of Rome to cloak and conceal from the public eye the profligacies of her priests and bishops, that it is almost impossible to detect these culprits and bring them to legal punishment. If, for instance, a priest commit a crime in Boston, which the representative of the Popish church in that city thinks may, by possibility, come to light, and throw any discredit upon the church, or diminish his own personal influence in that city, funds are placed in his hands by the church, to meet the expenses of removing him to any part of the world he chooses, and the guilty priest needs only what is technically called an exeat, to insure him a warm reception from any Popish bishop in the universe. It is a general practice of the bishops in the Romish church, to exchange guilty priests with each other; they are very punctual in reciprocating such favors. When nuns or Roman Catholic females commit crimes in convents, which can no longer be concealed, the holy and infallible church provides means for their instant removal to a different diocese. But should they still persevere in their iniquities, and should it be found impossible to prevent further illicit intercourse between them and their confessors, means are provided to send them to some foreign country. We have now several foreign nuns in the United States. By foreign nuns I do not mean foreigners who became nuns in this country. I mean those who became nuns in foreign countries, and who have been sent amongst us as such, for the purpose of educating our children, and educating them in the doctrines of their pure religion. And I positively assert, to the best of my own belief, and partly of my own personal knowledge, that there is not to be found among them an individual, much of whose previous life has not been spent in criminal intercourse and illicit connexion with their confessors and priests. This is no random assertion of mine. I make the allegation with shame and sorrow, but the cause of truth demands it; and justice to my fellow citizens who are in the habit of sending their children to school to these consummate hypocrites, renders it imperative upon me that I should declare the truth, however unpalatable it may be.

Will the reader indulge me, while I quote a passage or two from the London Quarterly Review, for June, 1844? The editors of that periodical are gentlemen of great respectability, and men of well-established veracity, whose statements confirm some of my assertions. "The heads of the Church themselves, admit the liability of abuse through the confessional, and frequent exhortations are published, desiring all women, who have improper solicitations made to them there, to denounce the confessor; but a moment's consideration will show the inutility of this exhortation; and one instance, which we shall give, must suffice for all. An Italian gentleman of our acquaintance, removed with his family, from the place of his nativity, to a town in another State; soon after their arrival the wife went to the confessional, in the parish church, where improper proposals were made to her; she ran home and acquainted her husband; he made a formal complaint to the proper authorities, in her name; a day was appointed for the examination of the charge; and when the time arrived, the lady naturally declined to appear. It is obvious that just in proportion as the person offended, is delicate, and the offence gross, there will be the greater difficulty in inducing the complainant to come forward." The truth of this is obvious to all, and here lies one great security against detecting a licentious and criminal priest. Were it not for this, our citizens would hoot at them as they walked our streets. Were it not for this, Popish priests and confessors would never be admitted into their houses, or occupy a seat at the table of any decent or virtuous family. I know so well, of my own knowledge, the nature of those questions and solicitations, that are offered by Popish priests to women in the confessional, that I can scarcely believe any woman could be found, who would appear in the presence of men, or before any tribunal, civil or ecclesiastical, and repeat the language by which her ears have been insulted.

Popish priests understand human nature well; they know the timid and shrinking disposition of a virtuous woman. They feel that they are safe from public prosecution, so long as their solicitations and criminal overtures are known only to women of reputation. If it were not for this, our criminal courts could not contain the number of those reverend wretches, among Popish priests, who should appear before our criminal tribunals. Even Roman Catholic laymen, of rank and intelligence, have no idea of the enormities committed by their priests. Effectual means are taken, by the Church of Rome, to conceal their enormities from the public eye. The extent of immorality is so great in Catholic countries, in Germany, France, and, sub rosa, in Ireland, that it is considered an evidence of prudence, in a priest, to keep a mistress, rather than be a public scandal. It is thought by the Irish that their priests are peculiarly chaste and virtuous; they boast of this. I know the Irish priests as well as any other man living; I have lived among them; I was one of them; I acted as a confessor among them, and held in that capacity a higher position than any of my age in the country; and I solemnly declare, that I never knew a chaste man among them. Every parish priest that ever I knew in Ireland, kept a mistress whom he called a housekeeper, or some female whose duty or whose apparent business it seemed to be, to superintend his wardrobe or some such thing; but such is the credulity of the poor Irish, and such their idolatrous veneration for their priests, that I really believe, if they detected one of them in flagranti crimine, they would not credit the testimony of their own senses. It occurs, sometimes,—though very seldom,—that one of those Irish priests is detected; the punishment, in that case, is simply his removal to another parish. I have known immoralities committed in the houses of Irish parish priests, so heinous that they cannot be put to paper; and yet the poor Irish Catholics, who seem fated to be the victims of every species of delusion and imposture, look upon their priests as perfect models of piety-; and consider their agent, Daniel O'Connell,—that enemy of peace and happiness,—as one of the most perfect specimens of patriotism that ever basked in the pure air of freedom. The poor Irish believe, most implicitly, in the necessity of Auricular Confession; and such is their delusion, that many of them, even in this country, will not be persuaded, at this day, that their priests take any pay for absolving them from their sins and forgiving their crimes. It is not many days ago since a respectable physician in Boston told me that an Irish Roman Catholic, in that city, offered to bet him five hundred dollars that Roman Catholic priests demanded no pay for pardoning sins. Can this be delusion, or infatuation, or is it a species of witchery that thus deceives, enchains, and blinds a people, in all other respects of quick imagination and natural talents? I am free to confess, that I know not how to account for it myself. I am perfectly at a loss what to call it; but there it is, strange as it may appear.

I would ask that gentleman who offered to make the above bet, or any other Roman Catholic who ever lived in Ireland, whether he has heard of such a thing as stations of confession, which are held two or three times a year by every parish priest in Ireland; or whether he has ever heard of such a thing as the Viaticum, which is given to the sick, after confession, and in arliculo mortis. I cannot suppose that there is, in this country, an Irish Roman Catholic who has not seen and heard of both, and who does not know that these are modes and practices adopted by Irish priests for the purpose of collecting payment for the pardon of sins. There are regulations published in each diocese in Ireland, and put forth among the priests, by episcopal authority, regulating clerical dues. Specific sums are laid down for mass, and for auricular confession,—which the Church of Rome calls a sacrament, by the name of penance,—for marriage, for baptism, extreme unction, &c. The parish priest selects two or more houses in each parish,—invariably those the most wealthy among the farmers,—and gives notice from the altar, the Sunday previous, that on a certain day, of the coming week, he will hold a station of confession at the house of A————; this notice is equivalent to saying,—and is understood in no other sense, all of you who have not come to confession for a certain time, or who wish to go to confession now, come forward and pay me my dues. The wily priest never says, come and pay me for pardoning your sins; that would never do. Protestants may hear it, and it would surely go abroad that Irish priests were not entirely disinterested, and that they could no more live by prayer alone than other people. I have, by order of the parish priest, for whom I acted as curate during a short time, held many of those stations of confession, and never did a Yankee pedler drive a harder bargain with his customers, than I was compelled to make with those who came to confession to me, for payment for pardoning their sins; 'crediti amici,' however strange the declaration may appear to you; I have been ordered by the same Popish priest, in Ireland, to administer what is called, in Popish parlance, the Sacrament of Extreme Unction, and to give to the dying patient the Viaticum; I have done so hundreds of times, but never until, by order of the same priest, payment was made to me in advance, whenever there was the least doubt of the ability of the patient or his friends to pay. Before the Viaticum is given, or permitted to be given by the Irish bishops, it is required that the dying sinner should confess; for be it known, the poor Irish Catholic is persuaded, that this Viaticum or wafer, made of flour and water, is the great God himself. The Viaticum is contained in a small box, called a pixis, and large enough to contain from ten to fifty of these wafers or Gods, and is carried in the breeches pocket of the priest. Do not laugh, American Protestants, or imagine that I am dealing in fables; I have gone, hundreds of times, to hear the confessions of dying Irish Papists, and given them one of these Viaticums or Gods, fifty or sixty of which, I have often carried at a time in my pocket My orders were, upon all occasions, never to give absolution or the Viaticum, to any one, until payment was first insured to me; otherwise I had to pay the parish priest out of my own funds. Scenes which take place on such occasions, are truly heart-rending. The poor sick and simple Irish Catholic, believes that he shall be damned to all eternity, if he is not anointed and forgiven his sins by the priest. He would cheerfully pay him if he had the means; he would cheerfully sell the blanket that shelters him from the cold blasts of winter, to pay the hard-hearted priest; but the blanket is often worth nothing, is often but a filthy, lousy rag, such as no American can form the least conception of, though the well-fed priest lives in luxury. I have known some curates in Ireland, who had no means of their own, to take the chickens, the ducks, or turkeys of poor men whom they anointed, and who had no money to pay the priest for pardoning their sins, and tie the legs of those fowls together, throwing them across their saddles, and carrying them home to pay the parish priest The poor curate perhaps was not worth a dollar, and dare not return to the priest without bringing with him his dues.

It is extremely unpleasant to dwell upon the disgusting scenes which are daily witnessed in the sick rooms of the Irish peasantry. The idea of dying without obtaining absolution and extreme unction from a Roman Catholic priest, is agonizing and intolerable to a poor Irish Papist, and it is considered as an everlasting stigma even upon his posterity. Every effort is therefore made to procure a shilling, which is the minimum charge made by a priest for administering extreme unction. Any man may judge of the feelings and mental distress of a dying man who believes that he has not an hour longer to live, and that his eternal salvation depends upon the absolution of his sins and the application of extreme unction, or blessed oil, by his priest. But the dying individual is not the only one who suffers; the wife, the children, and grandchildren, participate in his mental sufferings; and those warm-hearted creatures would give, and do give, the last potato from their table, or the last basket of turf in their possession, to a priest, rather than witness any longer the sufferings of the dying parent. It must seem strange that this people should not make some effort to shake off the chains with which their priests have bound them to the car of Popery; but they will not. Such is the influence of superstition over their minds, that they will suffer on forever, unless Protestant Christians do something to relieve them. The Protestant government of Great Britain would willingly break those chains which bind this generous and warm-hearted people to Popery, but they will not have them broken. The Popish bishops of Ireland have recently refused to accept the provision which the Protestant government of Great Britain seems willing to make for the support of the Roman Catholic church and priests in Ireland. That demon in human shape—that traitor in the guise of a patriot and Christian—Daniel O'Connell, advises the Roman Catholic bishops of Ireland not to accept the state provision which Great Britain is willing to make for the priests of the Irish Catholic church. This man's drafts upon the credulity of mankind are very large—so large that I believe they cannot be honored much longer. Why do Irish priests refuse the state provision which Great Britain is willing to make for them? Why do they not accept it from that source, rather than drag it from the poor, in shillings, in chickens, ducks, turkies, barrels of potatoes, pounds of butter, cishes of turf, &c. &c.? Why does Daniel O'Connell advise them, in his traitorous harangues, not to receive the liberal provision which the British government seems willing to make for them? The reason is plain to the most careless and superficial thinker. The traitor knows very well that the ultimate success of all his ambitious designs depends upon the cooperation of the Popish church and its priests in Ireland. He knows full well that if the priests were paid by the State, they would lose their influence with the people, and that he would lose the cooperation of both in his treacherous designs to overthrow Protestant governments and Protestant religion in England and elsewhere. Disguise it as he may, cover it over with Jesuitical varnish of what thickness or depth be pleases, it is evident that the overthrow of Protestantism in Church and State is the grand object which O'Connell and the Popish church have in view, in their present movements, both in Ireland and in the United States. The Popish bishops and O'Connell are aware that the moment the parish priests and curates of Ireland were paid their dues, they (the bishops and O'Connell) must lose their influence with the great mass of the people. This is evident to myself. But what sort of influence would they lose? Must they lose that influence which a Christian minister of the gospel would like to possess over his flock, and which every good man likes to see in all evangelical religions? I answer in the negative, and I challenge fair contradiction. They could lose nothing which a pious Christian or a good citizen would desire to retain. They could only lose their influence as rebels to God and traitors to the rights of man.

Will Americans reflect for a moment that we have about three millions of the disciples of O'Connell and Popish bishops in this country? Let every lover of our constitution ponder seriously upon this fact.

How do Popish bishops persuade their people to blind submission to their will, and to the will of the traitor O'Connell? It is done through the confessional.

That is the channel through which the poison of treason and idolatry is infused into the minds of Papists. But let that O'Connell take heed, lest the fate of Dante, once as good a Roman Catholic as himself, should overtake him. Apropos, Corporal Brownson, Bishop Fenwick's mouth-piece in Boston, makes a boast of the fact that Dante was a Roman Catholic, and assures us that he was an honor to the Popish Church. I wonder whether the Corporal has ever read Dante's poem on Hell? If he has, I would advise him to have written on the door of every Popish confessional, that caution which Dante recommended to be posted on its portals. I have not a copy of Dante in my possession, but it was something to this effect, "Pause before you enter this gate" This caution should be written in large letters upon the door of every Romish confessional in the civilized world. I can assure those who enter that accursed tribunal, that they may as well enter the hell described by Dante. I owe an apology to the public for the frequent mention of the name of Brownson, in these pages; but he has proved to me so great and prolific a source of mixed sadness and merriment, that I could not avoid frequent allusion to his name. I verily believe that were it not for him, I could scarcely write the present volume.

"Without thee [Corporal Browson ] nothing lofty could I sing; Come, then, and with thyself thy genius bring."

The Corporal, I understand, is now lecturing in Philadelphia, on the infallibility of the Romish church,—and the simple purity of its democratic form of government.

According to Brownson, who never utters a word until it is first approved by the Roman Catholic bishops in the United States, no form of government should be allowed, but such as that now established and sanctioned by the Pope of Rome. The Pope's subjects, and they alone, as Brownson assures us, are fit to bear aloft the standard of liberty. No hands should be permitted to touch or embroider the flag of freedom, but those of chaste nuns and sisters of charity in the Popish church; and no arms should be allowed the honor of defending that flag, but the valorous ones of those who have been pardoned their sins at the holy tribunal of confession. Is this really the state of things? If so, thrice welcome the sisters of charity amongst us, and ten thousand welcomes to those Popish patriots who have confessed their sins and been pardoned by their priests. But what if the government of the Court of Rome should be found not to be, in reality, all that our Popish bishops recommend, and all that Brownson represents it? What if it should be found that the Pope is not an angel, and that his government is far from being perfect? How would it be if his Royal Holiness the Pope, were proved to be a weak and licentious old profligate, unable to rule, and unwilling to obey? What if his government were proved to be one of the most corrupt, avaricious, tyrannical, that ever existed upon earth? This would entirely change the position of affairs, and could not fail to tinge with a blush the cheeks of our citizens who are weak enough to listen to the ranting declamations of the hired infidel Brownson. I have before me the last number of the Westminster Review, a work of great talent and popularity, widely differing in tone and style, and respectability, from a thing called Brownson's Democratic Review. The reader will easily pardon me for quoting a few extracts from it, which will tend to throw some light on the beauties of that Popish republicanism which the bishops of the Catholic church are desirous of introducing into the United States. I beg the particular attention of my readers to it. There is more of good sense, sound judgment, truth, and good taste, in it, than in all the clishmaclaver which has been issued from the Popish presses and Jesuit quarterly reviews in the United States, during the last half century. "We are not here to treat of the Pope, that nominal head of the State—all-powerful for evil—absolutely impotent for 27 good. As a general rule, he may be set down as an old imbecile, thrust into power by a faction of the Cardinals, who share among them the spoils; or as a veteran trafficer in ambition, who settles with his electors the price of his elevation to the Papacy, and who is compelled, at the risk of his life, to observe the conditions of the compact. The real chief is the Secretary of State—Sacretario di Stado—this is he who is the leader of the faction in the conclave. He stands above all authority. He is supposed to receive the responses of the Papal oracle, and to utter them in the name of laws. A few strokes of the pen, forwarded to a tribunal, enable him to annihilate, without publicity, statutory enactments." How would our Western citizens, Wolverines, Suckers, Hoosiers, and Squatters, like such a Secretary of State? How would the citizens of Tennessee, and Illinois, like such gentlemen, as Secretaries for their respective States? How many votes, reader, do you suppose such a man would receive, were he a candidate for re-election as Secretary of State, in Vermont or New Hampshire? Very few, I apprehend; and yet the infidel Brownson, who is a native of Vermont—if I am correctly informed—is trying to establish amongst us a religion which would force upon us the duty of supporting such characters for the highest offices in our government.

"Next to the Secretary of State," continues the Westminster Review, "comes a Cardinal. His titles confer upon him the Presidency of the Apostolic Chamber, and the management of the customs and the mint.... His titles would lead one to infer that the general direction of the postal department was intrusted to him, though he has nothing to do with it The posts are under a separate and independent jurisdiction.... More definite in duty, but equally unaccountable as to performance, is the Treasurer General, who completes a supreme triumvirate of the Papal States. He is the real minister of finance, though with the usual rule of misrule, several branches of that head are entirely independent He attends to the collection of the revenue, and appoints the provincial receivers; he contracts loans, and orders the sale of public property. He never gives account to any one of his administration, nor of the distribution of the funds that enter the treasury; neither has any one a right to demand an account. He can only be dismissed from his office by being promoted to the office of Cardinal; he then leaves on his desk a key, supposed to be that of the treasury, being the only formality that is indispensable." This is taking the responsibility, with a vengeance! The reason why the Popish Church gives this unlimited power to the secretary of her treasury, deserves peculiar notice. Americans should view it closely. All Protestant governments and Protestant countries should examine it attentively. The Pope and his government are aware that if their Secretary of the Treasury were compelled to give a correct account of the monies he received, and the uses for which they were appropriated, their plans, their bribes, their subornation of witnesses, their intrigues, and various modes of overthrowing Protestant governments and Protestant churches, could not fail to be discovered, and then the Unanimous voice of mankind would cry aloud, Down v with Popery! down with the Beast! down with the old harlot of Rome! If the Pope's treasurer were compelled to account for the millions upon millions which Jesuits and Popish priests wring from the hard earnings of mankind, the Romish church could not exist an hour longer, and there is not a Protestant government upon earth, that would allow within its jurisdiction a Popish college, bishop, seminary, nunnery, or monk-house. Were the treasurer of the Romish church obliged to give a fair account of the uses to which he appropriated the funds received and expended by him, Americans could soon know where Bishop Hughes of New York receives the vast sums of money which he has been expending for several years back, in erecting colleges and nunneries, into which he may decoy the children of Protestant Americans. It would then be known where Bishop Purcel of Ohio, obtained the funds with which he clandestinely, and without giving them any notice, purchased the buildings occupied by the Misses Beecher and others, in the city of Cincinnati, as a seminary for the education of young ladies. The Popish Bishop Hughes of New York never owned a dollar of his own; it is but a few years since he was employed as a gardener in the college of Georgetown or Emmetsburg, I forget which. Bishop Purcel of Ohio was equally poor and destitute; but now these right reverend Jesuits have at their command any amount of money which they in their judgment may deem necessary to proselytize American heretics, and overthrow their republican form of government.

Could we but know how the treasurer of the Pope disposed of the funds of his church, the Jesuit Bishop Fenwick of Boston, could no longer conceal from the citizens of Massachusetts, where he found means to build a Popish college at Worcester; to which, I understand, he soon intends adding an extensive nunnery and a Foundling' Hospital, in which fatherless orphans, or rather the bastard children of Jesuits, are to be provided for.

It is sound policy, in the Popish Church, not to require from the Pope's treasurer, any account of the mode or manner in which he disposes of the funds entrusted to his charge. And I cannot withhold from them due credit for this admirable stroke of policy, wicked and demoralizing as it is in reality.

"Yet lower, beneath the class of principals and subalterns, swarms, as reptiles in filth, a hideous race, not to be hinted at in good society, but whose abnormal existence must be proclaimed in our effort to make intelligible the nature of papal government—a race of varlets, parasites, prostitutes, trafficers in vice, legions of familiar demons, who crawl from the basement to the very summit of the edifice. The celibacy of the clergy,—the occupiers of every avenue to power,—is the source of their influence....... For ages past, the interior corruption, and the power exercised at Rome by domestics and women of gallantry, has been notorious; but before the time of Pius VI. (Pius died only about fifty years ago) the profligacy of the priests, though more brazen, had not, in general at least, stained the family hearth. The natural children of Popes Cardinals, and Bishops, impudently recognized, by their elevation to the highest dignities, were not the offspring of their neighbors' wives.... At a later period, the depravity general in Europe, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the examples set by Cardinals Richlieu, Mazarin, and Alberoni, and the morale of theology disseminated by Jesuits,—masters in the art of inciting the human passions, to turn them in the end to their own account, and of fostering covert infamy, to lord it over their penitents by the possession of their secrets (in the confessional,)—taught, by Roman Cardinals and Bishops, that it was more convenient, and less scandalous, to insinuate their seduction, where it was the interest of all parties to conceal it," The Westminster Review is good authority upon any subject; but I have adopted a general rule, in my controversy with Papists, never to quote from Protestant authorities, except when I know, of my own knowledge, that the facts stated by them are true, and susceptible of proof. This is not—as the reader may easily imagine—because I doubt the veracity of Protestant writers, but because Jesuits will persuade their followers, that my statements are only a repetition of old lies, fabricated by heretics. I have unqualifiedly accused the Roman Catholic priests and bishops of this country, and elsewhere, of using the confessional for the infamous purpose of seducing, females. I have charged upon nunneries, that they were nothing better than legalized houses of prostitution, and established among us, by the Pope of Rome and his bishops, for the sole purpose of affording them better opportunities and greater security in their immoralities and high-handed profligacies; and I appeal to Americans, of all denominations, whether I have or have not established my charges against them. I ask any well-read American, who is acquainted with the private history of Cardinal Richlieu, whether he was not one of the greatest profligates of his day? Is it not well known, that Cardinal Mazarin was so notorious a profligate, that no man's wife was safe in his society, or proof against his political influence and extravagant expenditures. He was Prime Minister to Louis XIV. of France; he had, in his gift, nearly all the offices under the government; and it was well understood, throughout all France, that it was perfectly useless for any man whose wife was not young and beautiful, to apply to him for office. There is not to be found, a well informed man, who has not read the life of Cardinal De Retz, and who does not know that his house, and his soirees, were places of rendezvous for gay women, and especially for that portion of them whose character for chastity was not the best Let it be observed here, that the parish priests and cures were all in the pay of these Cardinals, and employed to procure and select for them, through the confessional, the most beautiful and desirable women in Paris; and faithfully did these Popish pimps discharge their commissions. But still, the Jesuits of this country, and that miserable outcast mouth-piece of theirs, Brownson, talk of the infallibility of the Romish Church, and the superior beauties of its democratic form of government. Can it be possible that the enlightened Republicans of the United States, have patience to listen to the diatribes of this man against Protestant governments and Protestant Churches? Yet so it is; and I have not the least doubt, that many of the indignant expressions, which I make use of in speaking of him and Jesuits, will be found fault with, as they have been before, by many of the mawkish sympathizers with Popery, in the United States.

There are to be found, among the good and virtuous of our Protestant people, many who think that I should use milder language than much of that contained in my books,—that some of it is too harsh,—that it shows a bad spirit, a bad temper, and is—pro tanto—an indirect evidence, that I possess not a Christian feeling towards Popery or its advocates. That I am not what a Christian ought to be, in thought, word, and deed, 1 will freely admit. But those sympathizers, whether Infidels or Christians, who think that I should use milder language in my controversy with Papists, know but very little—as I have often told them before—of the spirit and elements of Popery, or the mode of warfare adopted by its Jesuits; and hence it is, that whenever they themselves enter the lists of controversy with Popish priests, and Jesuit presses, they are invariably and ingloriously defeated. I would ask these gentlemen, who find fault with the apparent asperity of my language, whether they could, collectively or individually, silence the howlings of a northeast storm by softly whistling Yankee Doodle, or humming Hail Columbia? When they can do this—but I doubt much if it can be done sooner—then they can silence scurrilous Jesuits in their abuse of Protestant religion, and check the efforts of the Popish presses in the United States, by using mild, charitable, and gentlemanly language, in all controversies with them. The fact is, Protestants and Protestant theologians too, must alter their mode of warfare with Papists.

The Popish press in the United States, has always endeavored, and never failed in the attempt—as far as I know—to place our Protestant presses in a position of defence. A single thrust from their journals, inflicts a wound which requires months to heal; the prescription alone, which is necessary for a cure, occupies whole columns of our presses and periodicals, and thus they have a great advantage over their Protestant opponents. I have never given them this advantage, and until my Protestant fellow laborers in the glorious cause of religion and civil rights, follow my example, in their controversies with Papists, they may as well 'pile arms' at once, and retire from the arena. I have carried the war with Papists, into Africa, but not until all overtures for peace proved ineffectual. I have inflicted upon them wounds, which it will require some time to heal. The result has shown the policy of my course towards them. It is scarcely twelve months, since repeal meetings,—which in reality were meetings held for the ill-disguised purpose of overthrowing the Protestant Church and government in this country,—were held in every hall and place of public meeting in our cities. I have exposed the covert intentions of those meetings, in pure Saxon language. I have called the priests and Jesuits who encouraged them, as well as the presses which advocated them,—traitors, and enemies to religion and the civil rights of our people. What has been the consequence? We scarcely hear now, of a repeal 27* meeting. Its advocates have been silenced, and they are obliged to abandon the cause, or support it under some other name or title, which I understand they are doing now, in Boston, under the infamous disguise of taking up contributions for the starving Irish. The Popish bishops, finding me rather a troublesome customer, and well versed in Jesuitical fencing,—parrying and thrusting with as much skill and precision as they themselves, having been taught in the same school with them, and by the same masters,—have come to the wise conclusion, that they had better let me alone, and tacitly admit the truth of every accusation which I have brought against them. They seem, however, resolved to die hard, and recently commissioned the notorious infidel Brownson to defend them, and, if possible, to exculpate them from the enormous and vile crimes of seduction and treason, which I have brought against them. I fondly hoped that when this Brownson took the field in defence of Popery, some of those meek, bashful theologians, and editors of religious journals, who think my language too harsh, would come against him and his Jesuit masters. There is not a scurrilous epithet in the English vocabulary, which Brownson and his Jesuit masters, have not applied to Protestants and Protestant presses. He has encouraged, by advice of Jesuits, treason to this government, by recommending the government of the Pope, as a better and more republican system; and still, I find—much to my regret—that there-is not a single Protestant divine in the country, or a single Protestant periodical—as far as I can discover—willing to raise his voice or publish an article against him. They all seem alive to the paramount necessity of finding fault and condemning what they term cheap literature, as calculated to demoralize the community. Eugene Sue, and Michelet, are special objects of their censure. It was only the other day, that an orthodox clergyman, who holds a high station and receives a high salary from his church, delivered, in New York, a philippic of nearly two hours' length, against Eugene Sue's "Wandering Jew," and concluded with a Jeremiad, bemoaning that so many copies of it should have been distributed in the book stores in New York. "The work,"—observed this learned but mistaken lecturer,—"is flooding the country." Very true, it is flooding the country; but is not Popery flooding the country? Are not Jesuits flooding the country? Are not Popish concubines, denominated nuns and sisters ters of charity, flooding the country? Is not Brownson, the Pope's Agent, flooding the country with infidel principles and treason against our government? Which of these floods does the reverend gentleman to whom I allude, prefer? He is now fairly between Scylla and Charybdis; he must fall upon one; and which does he choose? The Popish flood, which Eugene Sue is trying to dam, or the flood occasioned by the sale of the Wandering Jew in New York and elsewhere? The former is a torrent which flows forever; the latter—even if it were destructive for the moment, is but a land flood, that may cover the meadows to-day, but disappear on the morrow. Utrum horam mavis accipe. Let the reverend lecturer, and those who maintain similar opinions of modern and anti-Popish writers, take their choice.

There is no proportion, I apprehend, to be found between the zeal of those lecturers and their knowledge of human nature. The fact is, that very few of them have travelled far into the regions of general science; each seems to be confined within the circle of his own creed, and many of them vainly endeavor to lay the foundations of morality much higher than the existence of moral agency itself. They resemble, in a great measure, some of those ancient philosophers who supposed that the essences of things existed before the things themselves made their appearance, or could assume any shape or form. For instance, they imagined the essence of black and white, red, blue, pink, &c., had existence before there was any such thing as color. There were many philosophers who supposed that the essence of square and circle existed before there was any such thing as form. Many of our modern moralists and lecturers upon morality are little less extravagant in their ideas; and if they do not check their imaginations and unmeaning deviations from common sense, in some of their public lectures, they must soon share the fate of those ancient dreamers to whom I have alluded. Lecturers now-a-days must recollect that men are permitted to exercise—and that freely—their own judgment. We find it very difficult to accompany many of our speakers in their extraordinary flights to the regions of morality, in which the common sense and sound doctrine of moral agency, are entirely lost sight of. The lecturer who would condemn the efforts of Eugene Sue to arrest the progress of Jesuitism, shows but a very limited knowledge of this world, and impliedly denies the efficacy of human agency. He will soon find that his own efforts to impede the progress of Popery will prove ineffectual; they will be lost in those regions of fanciful perfection which his own imagination has created. Theologians of all denominations are peculiarly apt to run into extremes; many of them take certain standards of morality, which cannot be defended, and which need not be sustained, and they are very apt to pronounce all who differ from them to be in error, when in fact charity and good sense demand from them a frank acknowledgment, that though they themselves may be right, it does not follow that others are wrong. Eugene Sue condemns not only the religious doctrines of Jesuits, but severely censures their political creed. He holds the latter up to the world as dangerous and destructive to the happiness of the human kind. He knows man, in every state of society, and he writes to convince him in each. He is well versed in the elements of political government, and knows that it is upon the preservation and maintenance of it in a healthy form, that the happiness of man, in this world, depends. It is therefore perfectly idle, and worse than idle, for those lecturers who perhaps have no other ideas of the moral and political duties of man than those which they have learned from Baxter's Saint's Rest, Four Fold State, or his Crook in the Lot, to declaim against Eugene Sue, or any other man, whose better experience in the world teaches him to pursue a different course in trying to accomplish the same object. Let it not be supposed that I mean to speak disrespectfully of Baxter, or that a thorough knowledge of his works and writ* ings would prove useless to any one; but no man of sense or prudence could suppose for a moment, that he was a match for Jesuits, or that a knowledge of his and similar works would enable any lecturer to encounter Jesuits on the field of controversy.

The policy which Jesuits would introduce into this country, and force upon us, by the authority of their church, could not long fail to divide this Union into fragmentary sections, and embroil our citizens in scenes of blood and slaughter, such as never have been witnessed before. We should soon have State armed against State; and in place of one united army and one commander-in-chief, we should have twenty? eight armies, and as many generals-in-chief. This is precisely what the Jesuits and the Popish church are aiming at This would give them, united, a superior power, and to them we should have to appeal for the settlement of our difficulties. The policy of the Popish church has always been a curious combination of ecclesiastical and democratic pretensions. In theory, it is democratic enough for our most rabid Locofocos; but in practice, it requires from man the most thorough subjection. Let us look back to history, and the truth of this will appear evident Any opposition to the Pope of Rome, from any sovereign, or any other authority whatever, is considered by the Popish church as treason against God and man.

Every historian will recollect the murder of the Guises in France. The disturbances of the times, and the causes which led to them, are well known to the readers of history; and let it not be forgotten, that the Popish doctrines and Popish republicanism which then existed in France, are now covertly and treacherously taught in these United States. In 1589, some of the French people entertained scruples whether it was lawful or not to depose a legitimate sovereign, or put him to death, after swearing allegiance to him. The question was one of great anxiety among the people, and something was to be done to quiet it Meetings were called in different places, and it was finally determined by them to lay the subject before the Popish theological faculty of the University of Paris: This faculty had full power from his Holiness the Pope, to give judgment in the case, and the Catholics of France were bound to obey it. Accordingly, on the 7th of January, 1589, the great, and holy, and infallible doctors of Popish divinity in the College of Sorbonne met, by authority, and pronounced the following decision: "Having heard the nature and free counsels of the Magistri, and after many and divers arguments heard, drawn, for the most part, verbatim from holy writ, the canon law, and the Papal ordinances, it has been concluded, by the Dean of the faculty, without any dissenting voice, first, that the people are absolved from the oath of fidelity and allegiance sworn by them to the King. Furthermore, that the said people may, without any scruple of conscience, combine together, arm themselves, and collect money, for the maintenance of the Roman Catholic Apostolic religion, against a king." This is republicanism, as taught by Jesuits and Papists. This is the republicanism which they teach through the confessional in the United States, and this is the democracy which they have commissioned the infidel Brownson to spread over our country. This is the republicanism which Eugene Sue is cautioning mankind against introducing amongst them, and Eugene Sue is the man whose writings many of our philanthropic, but mistaken lecturers, are trying to suppress. Eugene Sue has done more to stem the torrent of Popish democracy in this country, than any man who has written against Papists. He has attacked it in its very bud. He knew where it germinated. Our Protestant lecturers know not the source from which it springs, and therefore they had perhaps better let it alone altogether, until they become thoroughly acquainted with the principle that gave it birth, and the influences that sustain it. Eugene Sue knew full well that the Popish confessional was the source and substance of all Jesuit treasons, immoralities, plots, and murders. He is a man of the world, and knows that licentiousness and despotism are more closely allied than is imagined by our simple-minded and pious lecturers; he knows that both are inconsistent with liberty,—which should be the true end of all governments,—and he has therefore deemed it prudent to bring all his energies to bear against the Popish confessional, knowing full well that if that were destroyed, together with the supremacy of the Pope of Rome, mankind could not fail to be benefited. He has attacked that confessional, not by whining over the immoralities of the times, or the romance of modern literature,—this any old woman can do,—but he has fallen upon it with the club of Hercules, whose well-aimed blows I pray heaven no lecturer may weaken. It is far from my intention to be disrespectful to any well-meaning lecturer against Popery, and it is still much further from my mind to be uncourteous towards any of those Protestant divines who disagree with me in regard to the anti-Popish writings of Eugene Sue; but I must do my duty, as I understand it myself. I am not unmindful that there was a time when general knowledge was a scarce article among the people, and when the clergy engrossed the largest portion of it; and I doubt whether it is not a great misfortune that many of our lecturer derive most of their knowledge of mankind from the study of works written in those times. Hence much of their unfitness to criticise the writings of men of the world. It is, however, an easy matter to condemn the writings of any man; but when a Protestant theologian publicly finds fault with Eugene Sue, or any other writer against Popery, it is reasonable to expect him to supply something better of his own. A good anecdote is told of Margaret, Governess of the Netherlands. When Luther first commenced writing against Popery, he handled the Pope and his Jesuit priests rather roughly; he knew them of his own knowledge, just as I do myself. Margaret upon one occasion had around her some of her courtiers, who were chatting most politely and courteously, and commenting on the inelegance and uncourtliness of many of the expressions used by Luther in his writings. Margaret, suddenly turning round, asked one of the most garrulous and verbose amongst them, "Who is this Martin Luther?" "He is," replied the courtier, "a rough and uncouth man," and from the "coarseness of his language, I should suppose he was an ignorant man." "Yes, he is," exclaimed the whole circle of exquisite theologians and fashionables. "I am glad of it," replied Margaret. "You are learned men, possessing refined minds, and no doubt you will give us something better than he has written. I wish you would do so as soon as possible, and furnish me a copy of your production." Can the sapient critics to whom I have been alluding take a hint? Eugene Sue understands much better the strength and power he has to contend with, than our American theologians do. If I estimate them correctly, or if it be proper to judge of all by any one of them, I would say they know nothing whatever of the strength of Popery. I recollect having recently seen and read a speech delivered by a distinguished member of the Christian Alliance, at a meeting held in Boston, and the following passage in that speech made so vivid an impression on my mind, that I have not forgotten it since; nor could I help inferring that if the speaker were a fair sample of the whole, they formed a very incorrect estimate of the power of that wily enemy to civil rights, the Pope of Rome. The following are literally the words of the speaker to which I allude: "I thought the Pope was a man of learning, but he aint; he's a granny." This sentiment, and the mode of expressing it, may be satisfactory to the learned gentleman who uttered it, but to one who may be entirely indifferent, it is a much stronger evidence of the grannyism of the speaker, than of the Pope. I refer to this with no other view than to show how unacquainted some American theologians are with Popery, in every shape and form. This gentleman should know that if the Pope were a granny, it would be no argument against Popery, or any preventive of the evils with which it threatens us. Suppose a meeting of citizens were held, on the subject of our difficulties with Great Britain, we can easily fancy some spouter to rise in his place and say, "We have nothing to dread from that nation; the Queen is but a silly woman; she is but a mere granny." Would not any sensible man at the meeting advise this spouter to sit down, and no longer intrude upon their time by such nonsense? It might be known to the meeting, that the government of England was not managed by the Queen, but by her Cabinet, composed of men well versed in the science of diplomacy and government intrigues. It is immaterial whether the sovereign of England is in her cradle, flirting at a ball, or in her dotage—the power of England is not the less to be dreaded.

Had our American theologians as much worldly tact, and knowledge, as they have of single mindedness and true piety, they might easily know, that it is a matter of perfect indifference,—so far as the power of Rome is concerned,—whether the Pope be a granny or a sage. The affairs of his court are managed by unprincipled, crafty, and licentious men, who thirst for power and patronage. They are not without friends in this country. Many fear them, politicians sympathize with them, and they are gaining ground, in spite of the friends of liberty in the United States. But let not the friends of freedom or of religion despair. Popish influence cannot long prevail over the good sense and cool reflection of our Protestant people. No man has ever measured the strength and dangers of Popery more accurately that Eugene Sue. He knows that Popery has in view, not exclusively the propagation of its religion, but also the increase of its wealth and temporal dominion. It is accomplishing both, in the United States, while it is losing the latter, in every other country in the world; and it is my deliberate opinion, that if Eugene Sue and Michelet, were put into the hands of every American who can read, they would do more towards shutting up the floodgates of Popery, which are now open upon this country, than any other means we could adopt towards effecting so desirable an object. Americans may suppose—and it will be extremely difficult to persuade them to the contrary—that however the Popish Church may succeed in propagating her religion amongst them, she can never get possession—at least to any extent—of their property or temporal power. In this they are mistaken—egregiously mistaken.

I beg leave to lay before my readers one instance—and let this one suffice for all—of the secret and fraudulent manner, in which the Church of Rome, through her agents, is gaining power and acquiring property in the United States.

I had the honor, a few weeks ago, of receiving a letter from the Hon.————, an eminent and distinguished member of the Philadelphia Bar, of which the following is a copy:

Philadelphia, Nov. 14th, 1845. To Wm. Hogan, Esq.

I make no apology for troubling you with this communication, having read your books and thereby perceived that you are willing to serve the cause of truth and justice.

A suit has been instituted against the county of Philadelphia, by a Society calling themselves "the Brothers of the Order of Hermits of St. Augustine," to recover damages—laid in the declaration, at one hundred thousand dollars—for the destruction of the church of St. Augustine of this city. The Act of Assembly, upon which the suit is founded, gives the remedy to the owners of the property, and it is a part of my duty, in defending this suit, to see that the suit is brought by the rightful persons, as a recovery by the wrong ones, would not bar those justly entitled, in a second action. You perceive, therefore, that it becomes important to know who these Brothers are. I have searched the records of their enrolment in vain for their charter and deeds. None are to be found, and indeed everything in relation to them is involved in such mystery that it is difficult to get along.

As you resided a long time in the city and were, doubtless, intimate with some of the parties, would you do me the favor to enlighten me on the following points?

1. Who are the Brothers of the Order of Hermits of St. Augustine? by whom instituted? are they enabled to hold property?

2. What property and estate do they hold? I perceive that, in 1820, they were composed of the following persons; Michael Hurley; Prince Galligzen, Catholic pastor at Bedford, Pennsylvania; Lewis Debarth, pastor of St. Mary's Philadelphia; Patrick Kenney, pastor at Coffee Run, Chester county, Pennsylvania; and J. B. Holland, pastor at Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

Did any of these churches belong to this Order? and if so, which of them?

3. It has been often said that the Pope was the real owner of the Catholic churches in the United States. Is that true? and if so, how shall I be able to prove this upon the trial of the cause?

4. It has been confidently asserted, that this Order of Hermits, is confined to ecclesiastical duties, and is prohibited from holding real estate. Is this true, and if so, how shall I be able to prove it? An early answer, if it suits your convenience, will much oblige yours,———!!!!!

We see, from the above letter, the modus operandi of the Romish Church in acquiring temporal power in this country. It is an axiom, and one as well understood by Americans as any other people in the world, that "money is power," and Papists understand it equally well. These artful encroachers upon liberty, are not deceived in the effects which must result from the possession of property. Give them money, give them real estate, give them space and room for their followers, and they will ask no more from Americans,—the rest they will have in spite of them.

I would call the attention of any intelligent American, to the above letter. I wish he would sit down with me and calculate, for a moment, the probable amount of property which the Popish Church now owns in the United States. In Philadelphia, one church possessed by an individual member of a comparatively obscure order of friars, is estimated to be worth one hundred thousand dollars. Let us suppose that this order of friars owns or claims ownership to fifty such churches in the single State of Pennsylvania. That would give the Order of Hermits of St. Augustine five million dollars' worth of property in Pennsylvania alone, without even taking into consideration the appurtenances and real estate belonging to these churches; and if we admit that the "Brothers of the Order of Hermits," own far themselves, or as the Pope's agents, property worth five millions of dollars in Pennsylvania, what must be the amount owned by other different orders of friars, priests, and Jesuits, in that State? The amount, if correctly estimated, would baffle my limited powers of calculation. But Pennsylvania is not the only state in the Union where Popish friars and priests are getting possession of real estate. They own millions upon millions' worth of property in almost every slate in the Union, but especially in Maryland, Louisiana, South Carolina, Ohio, New York, and Massachusetts. But it will be said, and I have heard it said in Boston, that the Popish Church cannot possibly own much property without the knowledge of our citizens, and can consequently acquire no influence of any amount from that source. There again Americans are deceived, and literally, as we term it, gulled by the Church of Rome. This is exemplified in the case alluded to in the above letter. There were but few in Philadelphia,—if any besides Popish priests,—who knew even of the existence of such an Order as that of the "Brothers of St. Augustine." I have searched in vain, says my correspondent, "for an enrolment of their charter." There was no record of it to be found; yet the Order exists, and lays claim to damages amounting to one hundred thousand dollars, for the burning of a church, which forms but a fraction of that property which they allege to be their own. In vain do we examine our tax books, to ascertain the amount of property claimed as belonging to the Popish Church. We may look them over till the day of judgment and not be the wiser. Millions are now owned in the single city of Boston by the Popish Church, of which the Bostonians, with all their shrewdness, have not the remotest idea. It is owned under cover, under fictitious names, and otherwise. It may be regularly appraised; its taxes may be regularly paid, but who it belongs to, or who has the beneficial interest of it, is what cannot be known until the arrival of the time when the law requires, and imperatively demands, that a legal ownership should be established, as happens to be the case in Philadelphia.

It will be asked what reply I have made to my correspondent in Philadelphia. I answer none at all; at least I have made none to the questions propounded to me. It may farther be asked, why not? It is for the very reason which my correspondent assigns for propounding his questions to me. I wish to serve the cause of truth and justice, but I have no desire to interfere in party questions, except in the way of my profession, on the emolument of which I am chiefly dependent for the means of subsistence. Were I to pause, in the course of my opposition to Popery, and turn aside to interfere in particular cases of controversy, I should soon lose the influence which I may now have in advancing the moral interest of the community at large. I should soon be considered, not the friend of abstract "truth and justice," but a party barrator, unworthy the confidence and respect of my fellow citizens. There is, besides, another reason for not yielding to the wishes of my respected correspondent I have resided, as he himself states, "for some years in Philadelphia," and never have I ceased, during that time, to warn its inhabitants against the encroachments of Popery amongst them. But they heeded not my warning, and permitted the Papists of that city to heap upon me the grossest abuse that man ever endured. I have, over and over again, appealed to the Protestant inhabitants of Philadelphia, to come to my aid in my efforts to guard their religion and civil rights against the rapacious and impious efforts of the Court of Rome to destroy and rob them of both. I have offered them my personal services gratis for five years, if they would supply me with a church or pulpit, where I could preach and protest against the following doctrines; viz., Auricular Confessions, the Supremacy of the Pope of Rome, the Popish Latin Mass, and the idolatrous doctrine of Transubstantiation. I made this offer through one or two of the public presses in Philadelphia, but the offer was entirely rejected by some, and coldly received by others. Here I must state—though with great regret—that not a single Protestant clergyman, of any denomination whatever, either in Philadelphia or elsewhere in the United States, offered me his pulpit, his aid, or his counsel. The doctrines, which I was willing to maintain then, were precisely those which John Ronge is disseminating in Germany; and there is not a Protestant clergyman in that country, who would withhold from him the use of his pulpit, or his influence, in so holy a cause as that in which he is engaged. But I can see a shade of difference, and not a very slight one, between German and American Protestants. The heart of a German Protestant can be approached, through the medium of his understanding and conceptions of his moral obligations; that of an American Protestant, in many instances, can be touched only through his pocket. There is a sort of magnetic communication, or something else, between gold and the souls of some American Protestants. Solomon says that money can do all things; and had he alluded to this country alone, the saying of the wise man would have been doubly true.

But happily a change seems to have come over the spirits of our Protestant Christians. They are coming up to the work of gospel labor with a noble zeal. There is but one voice among them on the subject of Popery, and may that voice be heard throughout the four corners of the globe. Down with the Pope Down with Popery! and may the God of mercy save and convert the poor deluded Papists. I believe I am safe in saying that there is not at present an evangelical clergyman in the United States, who would refuse the use of his pulpit or church to any individual, properly qualified to expose the errors and idolatries of the Popish church. I have had, myself, applications from some of the most eminent men in the Orthodox church in this country, to preach and lecture from their pulpits, and should most cordially have accepted the friendly offer, if my feeble state for the last few months, had not entirely forbidden it. The same cause also at present forbids it.

I have here digressed from the purpose of this volume. But the Subject towards which the digression is made, is of too much importance to be fairly discussed within the limits of any digression, however wide or extensive it may be. It is one which must soon occupy the serious attention of our most talented and best informed Christian writers. It demands the consideration of all who understand the blasting influence of Popery upon the morals of the rising genera-. tion. Protestant theologians must come up to the work; they must open their churches, and pulpits, and lend their influence and their talents to put down Popery, or Popery will put them down. Nor let them suppose that when I charge them with apathy in this good cause, I am indulging any feelings of personal disappointment, or moved by any fitful, fretful, or angry thoughts towards them. On the contrary, it is because I entertain no such sentiments, that I speak with freedom of things as they once struck me. I should be as silent as the grave on the subject, were it in the power of any man living to attribute to me pecuniary or interested motives.

But to return to the point from which we have, in a measure, digressed. Such is the deception practised upon Roman Catholics, through the confessional, by their church, priests and their agents, that they (the Catholics) will not believe the plainest truths, unless sanctioned by them. I have often known them to discredit the testimony of their own senses, and I have now before me a case in point, confirming this almost incredible assertion. It appears that some time ago, when much anxiety was manifested in England and elsewhere, in regard to the alleged destitute condition of the Irish tenantry, the London Times accused O'Connell, the Pope's agent in Ireland, of being himself one of the most oppressive landlords, and reducing his tenants to the most wretched condition. This was a serious charge against the Pope's vicegerent It could not, it must not be admitted. It will be recollected by the reader, that O'Connell and the Popish priests of Ireland have been for years, without any intermission whatever, accusing Protestant landlords and Protestant clergymen of oppressing their tenants, and reducing them to the very extreme of want and penury. The proprietors of the London Times, aided by several philanthropic Protestant gentlemen, resolved to send over to Ireland a few gentlemen of known veracity, to ascertain the truth or falsehood of this serious accusation. They accordingly entered upon the discharge of their duty, proceeded forthwith to Ireland, and reported the condition of affairs just as they found them. According to their report, the charge against Protestant landlords had no foundation in fact, and was pronounced in the Times to be utterly groundless. No sooner had the Times reached the Island of Saints, than the whole body of saints, angeles, and archangels—by whom we are to understand Popish priests, bishops, and archbishops—rose in a body, together with their presses, pamphleteers, periodicals, &c, and pronounced the statement of the commissioners a base falsehood, and the Times itself a vile and scurrilous press. The proprietors of the Times and their friends were not, however, to be put down by this bullying; they were not to be put down by this shameless beggar, inflated gascon and traitor, O'Connell. They proposed to O'Connell to send over six gentlemen, to meet any six whom he and his Popish friends might appoint, to examine the condition of the tenants upon O'Connell's own estate, taking that as a fair and most impartial specimen of the condition of the Irish tenantry. Nothing fairer than this could be offered. Surely, if all the misery of the Irish tenantry were fairly to be attributed to the Protestant church and Protestant landlords, no portion of it could be found on those estates owned and held by Roman Catholics. But what was the course of O'Connell upon this occasion? He called a meeting of the saints, angels, and archangels, and laid before them the proposal of the Times; but lo! and behold! he and they shrank from the proposition. On the receipt of their refusal, a competent individual was sent from the Times' office, to accompany the commissioners back to Ireland, and to take note of what they saw in presence of Mr. O'Connell, or any of his friends whom he might appoint. The commissioners proceeded to the estate of Mr. O'Connell, in the county of Kerry, Ireland. They spent three days walking over it, going into every cottage and making personal inquiries. The result was published in the Times of December 25th, 1845. It speaks for itself, and cannot fail to be satisfactory to any man of truth and honor. The first day, the commissioners were accompanied by an agent of Mr. Hartop, under whom Mr. O'Connell holds some lands as a middleman. The second day they were accompanied from Valentia by Mr. O'Conner's own steward, throughout the whole of their inspection. The third day they were accompanied by one of O'Connell's sons, Morris O'Connell. They inspected his father's estates from Waterville to Derrynane Beg. At Ardcara,—a town land which Mr. O'Connell holds on a lease of his own life, and sublets to a middleman,—the condition of the huts was perfectly horrible. The commissioners thus conclude their report upon the condition of the poor tenantry on the lands of Daniel O'Connell, the great liberator of Ireland—he who is sacrificing his time, his fortune, for the amelioration of the condition of mankind at large, but especially the Irish. It is with difficulty I can restrain a tear of sorrow, while I read the report which is given of the poor creatures who are the tenants of this cold-blooded hypocrite, O'Connell. I can already fancy the impatience of my readers to hear the conclusion of it Here it is. Listen to it, I pray you, American Protestants. Hear it, you simple-hearted Irishmen in the United States, who have contributed thousands and tens of thousands to support in luxury this heartless impostor, O'Connell. "We have?" say the commissioners, "been all over England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, and we declare solemnly, that in no part of the United Kingdom is such neglected wretchedness, such filth, such squalor, such misery of every kind, to be seen, as we saw on Mr. O' Connell's estate, in the presence of his son, Morris O'Connell."

There was a law among the Athenians, which provided that he who accused another of crime, and failed to substantiate or make good the accusation, should forfeit his head. Some doubted the wisdom of this law; but there was one good in it which no man can question. It showed that he who accused another justly, was a man of principle, bold and intrepid in the cause of truth and justice. It showed, besides, that the crime of false swearing, or falsely accusing another, was looked upon as a crime hateful in its character, and of the utmost magnitude.

If this old Athenian law were in force in Ireland, where now would be the head of O'Connell? Just where it ought to be, on the point of a spear at the top of some steeple, where the passer-by might point at it and say, there is the head of Daniel O'Connell, the false accuser of his Protestant countrymen. Where would be the heads of the Roman Catholic Bishops and Archbishops of Ireland? Where would be the heads of Bishops Hughes of New York, Fenwick of Boston, Purcel of Cincinnati, and the other Popish bishops of this country, who accuse American Protestants, and their clergymen, of persecuting Roman Catholics? They might be found rolling in the dust.

We should thank Heaven that no such law is to be found under the sanction of our free Constitution. But, though these men do not legally forfeit their heads, they lose all claim to the respect and confidence of every man of veracity and honor in any country. What now must be thought of the veracity of O'Connell, the would-be Liberator of Ireland? What must an American Christian think of those Popish bishops, who vouch for the truth of O'Connell's statements? I know not, but my mind has long since been formed and long since frankly expressed. They may not, perhaps, be worse than others similarly situated, but the position of these men, in this country at least, renders them, morally and politically, iniquitous, and Americans should keep a watchful eye on them. Americans are not a very suspicious people; freemen are seldom so. But let not even freemen ever forget, that the world is governed by men, and that men are governed by their passions and interests. It is peculiarly the duty of the citizens of the United States, to observe closely, the movements of O'Connell and Irish priests among them.

There are many of the latter mixed up with Americans, and exercising a mighty influence over their political destinies; and it is the business of our laws to restrain them. Inquiries are now being made, to ascertain how far the governments of Europe are interfering with our Republican Institutions. Some movements to that effect have recently been made in Congress, and I beg to assure him who has originated this inquiry, that if he perseveres and carries it through, he will find that there is not in Europe, a monarchical power, or a Popish power, under whatever name it may appear, that is not engaged in endeavoring to overthrow this Republic They have been planning this for years, and finding that all other means were likely to prove inefficacious, they have concluded to introduce a Trojan horse into the citadel of our liberties, taking good care to fill it with Popish traitors fully armed and equipped.

The limits of this volume do not permit me to dwell farther on this subject, but graviora manent.