Part 4

Upon the subject of religious toleration by the Catholics, you seem to have fallen into the same error adopted by the Hon. Mr. Stephens, of Georgia--a man for whom you have great regard now, but who, in the days of _Clay Whiggery_, was a stench in your Locofoco nostrils! Mr. Stephens made the assertion, in a public speech in Augusta, that "the Catholic Colony of Maryland, under Lord Baltimore, was the first to _establish_ the principle of free toleration in religious worship." The Colony of Maryland was a Catholic Colony, and the "Toleration Act" was written by Lord Baltimore himself. That Act is dated 21st April, 1649, when Lord Baltimore was in the zenith of his glory. Here is the language of that "Act" of religious toleration:

"Denying the Holy _Trinity_ is to be punished with _death_, and confiscation of land and goods to the Lord Proprietary, (Lord Baltimore himself!). Persons using any reproachful words concerning the Blessed Virgin Mary, or the Holy Apostles or Evangelists, to be fined L5, or in default of payment to be publicly whipped and _imprisoned, at the pleasure_ of his Lordship, (Lord Baltimore himself!) or of his Lieutenant-General." _See Laws of Maryland, at large, by T. Bacon_, A. D. 1765. 16 and 17 _Cecilius's Lord Baltimore_.

God deliver us from such toleration! _Death_ was the penalty for expressing certain religious opinions, not acceptable to Lord Baltimore and the Holy Catholic Church! Fines and _whipping at the post_ was the penalty for speaking against the image-worship of the Catholic Church. But I need not pursue this subject further: the _onus propandi_ is on your side.

Speaking of Mr. Wesley, you say:

"If Wesley were alive, what would he think of your midnight plots, and open tirades against Papists? But a letter of his has been going the rounds of the newspapers, which the Know Nothings obviously think gives the sanction of that good man to their movement. Not so. Mr. Wesley was not the man to write as inconsistently as their version of this letter makes him write."

Why, sir, Mr. Wesley goes much further in his political opposition to Roman Catholics than the American party have ever proposed to go. The American party say only that they will not vote for Catholics, or put them in office, because their principles are antagonistic to the spirit of Republican institutions. Mr. Wesley lays down the comprehensive, but _true doctrine_, in this very letter, that "_no government not Roman Catholic ought to tolerate men of the Roman Catholic persuasion_." And to show how fully and clearly he sustains this position, I quote from his letter at length. You will find the letter in Vol. 5, page 817, of Wesley's Miscellaneous Works, dated January 12th, 1780. It was originally addressed to the Dublin Freeman's Journal. Here is what Mr. Wesley says, in the very letter you seek to _deny out of_:

"I consider not whether the Romish religion is true or false: build nothing on one or the other supposition. Therefore, away with all your common-place declamation about intolerance and persecution for religion! Suppose every word of Pope Pius's creed to be true! Suppose the Council of Trent to have been infallible; yet I insist upon it that no government not Roman Catholic ought to tolerate men of the Roman Catholic persuasion.

"I prove this by a plain argument--let him answer it that can--that no Roman Catholic does or can give security for his allegiance or peaceable behavior. I prove it thus: It is a Roman Catholic maxim, established not by private men, but by public council, that 'No faith is to be kept with heretics.' This has been openly avowed by the Council of Constance; but it has never been openly disclaimed. Whether private persons avow or disavow it, it is a fixed maxim of the Church of Rome. But as long as it is so, nothing can be more plain than that the members of that Church can give no reasonable security to any government for their allegiance and peaceable behavior. Therefore, they ought not to be tolerated by any government, Protestant, Mohammedan, or Pagan. You say, 'Nay, but they take an oath of allegiance.' True, five hundred oaths; but the maxim, 'No faith is to be kept with heretics,' sweeps them all away as a spider's web. So that still no governors that are not Roman Catholics can have any security of their allegiance.

"Again, those who acknowledge the spiritual power of the Pope can give no security of their allegiance to any government; but all Roman Catholics acknowledge this: therefore they can give no security for their allegiance. The power of granting pardons for all sins--past, present, and to come--is, and has been for many centuries, one branch of his spiritual power. But those who acknowledge him to have this spiritual power can give no security for their allegiance, since they believe the Pope can pardon rebellion, high treason, and all other sins whatever. The power of dispensing with any promise, oath, or vow, is another branch of the spiritual power of the Pope: all who acknowledge his spiritual power must acknowledge this. But whoever acknowledges the dispensing power of the Pope, can give no security for his allegiance to any government. Oaths and promises are none: they are as light as air--a dispensation makes them null and void. Nay, not only the Pope, but even a priest has power to pardon sins! This is an essential doctrine of the Church of Rome. But they that acknowledge this, cannot possibly give any security for their allegiance to any government. Oaths are no security at all; for the priest can pardon both perjury and high treason. Setting their religion aside, it is plain that, upon principles of reason, no government ought to tolerate men who cannot give any security to that government for their allegiance and peaceful behavior. But this, no Romanist can do; not only while he holds that 'no faith is to be kept with heretics,' but so long as he acknowledges either priestly absolution, or the spiritual power of the Pope.

"If any one pleases to answer this, and set his name, I shall probably reply. But the productions of anonymous writers I do not promise to take any notice of.

"I am, sir, your humble servant,

"JOHN WESLEY.

"CITY ROAD, January 12, 1780."

But, sir, you know as well as any living man that the history of the Church, from the days of the first Pope down to the iniquitous reign of Pius IX., sustains Mr. Wesley in his views on this subject, and justifies the steps taken by the American party. Notwithstanding the oft-repeated profession of Catholic liberality and Romish toleration, so triumphantly paraded by you, and other interested aspirants and unprincipled demagogues, the Catholic Church has invariably shown herself to be destitute of both, whenever she had the opportunity of using them. Sir, _intolerance_ is an element of her faith, and _persecution_ a specimen of her piety; and no man knows it better than you do. In taking upon herself the obligation of "true obedience to the Pope," the Catholic Church imposes upon herself a task that proves beyond all doubt she cannot, under any circumstances, remain faithful to that obligation, and yet maintain "allegiance" to such a government as ours!

Sir, I have no patience with a Protestant minister who stands forth as the apologist of Catholicism; nor have I any confidence in one who does it, provided he is a man of _intelligence_, as I admit you to be. The only excuse I can render for your strange and inconsistent conduct is, that you are in your dotage; that you are a violent old partisan; and that you are the tool of designing demagogues, infamous disunionists, and unmitigated repudiators. I shall not be at all surprised to hear that you have apostatized from the Methodist Church, and gone over to the Roman Catholics. I learn from the Little Rock Gazette, a Democratic paper, that but the other day, Gov. E. N. Carway, of Arkansas, a member of the Methodist Church, had actually apostatized from Methodism, and the Protestant faith, and united with the Roman Catholics. And what makes his defection from the faith of his fathers still more notorious, his organ is down upon the Protestant clergy in bitter and unrelenting denunciations! I believe that _you_ are preparing to go over to the Roman Catholics; and to justify your change, when the time comes, you now assert, "in humiliation but in candor," you say, that the people "have _ten thousand times more_ to fear from Methodists than from Catholics." If you believe this, you ought to leave the Methodist Church _instantly_, even without the formalities of a withdrawal or expulsion--even though you should be denied admittance into the Catholic Church! I deny that we have "_ten thousand times more to fear_" from the _Devil_ than we have from the Catholics; and according to your argument, _the Methodists are worse than the Devil_! This, their most bitter revilers and enemies do not believe; and for obvious reasons. The Methodist Church has no St. Bartholomew's Day, with its rivers of blood staining her garments: she never indiscriminately slaughtered the Albigenses, or Waldenses, or Huguenots: she never established an infernal Inquisition: she never lit up the fires of Smithfield: never burned the Holy Bible, and prohibited, upon pain of eternal death, the printing and circulating of God's word; and last, but not least, she has not sought to keep the people in ignorance. Wherever Methodism has been planted, the people have become great and happy. If you please, wherever _Protestantism_ has prevailed, the people have been prosperous and happy. But look to Old Spain, Italy, the German Confederacies, Sardinia, Naples, Austria, Belgium, Portugal, Bavaria, Baden, South America, and Mexico, where Romanism is the established religion, and the places of her influence are a hissing and a by-word in the eyes of the civilized world! Protestantism has done more for the world in the last hundred years than the Roman Catholic Church has for the _eighteen hundred years_!

Sir, the Puritans, of New England; the Hollanders, of New York; the Quakers, Lutherans, and German Reformed, of Pennsylvania; the Baptists, of Rhode Island; the Episcopalians and Presbyterians, of Virginia; the Lutherans and followers of Wesley and Whitefield, of Georgia; the Huguenots and Episcopalians, of the Carolinas; and the Seceders in several of the States, who were the religious pioneers of these States, were all Protestants and Know Nothings; and if they were living, they would be ashamed of you and your teachings. They selected this wilderness country as their home, in order that they might enjoy those religious privileges from which they had been debarred in the old world, by the very Church and people you are seeking to vindicate.

But you will say, as you have done in substance, that this is no longer the characteristic of Romanism. Why is it not? Has she ever changed for the better? When did she renounce her doctrines and practices? Never! Rome is the same tyrannical system now, where she has the power, that she ever has been, and for ever must be. Wo to this land of ours, if ever Rome gets the ascendancy here! Her creed is the same here and now, in this respect, that it has everywhere been, and must always be. It is her boast that she is always right, and knows no change. She practices her unholy inquisitorial and Jesuitical doctrines in this country, as far as she can and dare act them out. Her whole system is adverse to our republican institutions and she hesitates not to declare it. She has publicly burned our Bible in different States in this Union, and recently, in New York and Pennsylvania. Archbishop Hughes, the Head of the Catholic Church in this country, has taken an oath, administered by the Pope of Rome, of which this is a part:

"Heretics, schismatics, and rebels to our said Lord (the Pope) or his aforesaid successors, I will, to my utmost power, _persecute and wage war with_."

The Church of Rome declares all who are not its members to be heretics. It is painful, in view of all these things, to see an old Protestant minister, whose head has been withered by the frosts of seventy winters, openly in the field advocating a Church whose Bishops, Priests, and members are "drunken with the blood of saints."

There is but one remaining feature of your singular address to Know Nothing Methodist Preachers to be replied to, and I am through. You assail the new party on the score of its _secrecy_, and of its _concealment_ of its acts from the public. Had this objection come from any one but a Methodist Preacher, and a known advocate of _Class-meetings being held with closed doors_, I would now dispose of it without occupying as much space as I shall do in my concluding remarks!

Notwithstanding all the _secrecy_ in the new Order of Know Nothings has been set aside by the act of the National Council which created it; and notwithstanding our members tell all about their Councils, where and when they meet, and our orators read out and publish to the world our obligations, rules, and principles, it is still objected that ours is a secret Order, liable to be used for bad purposes; that we travel about with dark lanterns; that our proceedings are not restrained by the wholesome check of public opinion!

Now, this, the great objection to our Order, comes from men who belong to Lodges of Free Masons and Odd Fellows, and who have taken all the _binding_ oaths attached to the different _degrees_ of these respective Orders! The same objection is urged against the American party, by men who belong to the Order of Sons of Temperance, who have deemed a _rigid secret organization_ necessary to combat successfully a _domestic_ evil! It is urged in bitterness against the Order, by demagogues and partisans, who have acted for years with the _secret political conclaves_ of their respective parties, who have held their meetings with _closed doors_--kept their _places_ of meeting a profound secret--and when they have adjourned, they have enjoined _secrecy_ upon all present! Last, but not least, this _secret feature_ is urged against the American organization by the vile apologists for the Catholic Church, and its corrupt Priesthood and membership, in this country. These demagogues know that the Roman Catholic Church is a _secret society_, directed by a talented, designing, and villainous HIERARCHY--absolutely controlled by an _anti_-Republican Priesthood, to a degree which has never been exercised by any political party in the known world! The _Confessional_ is a secret tribunal, before which every member of that Church is required to make known, not only _immoral_ actions, but every thought and purpose of the heart, and upon pain of incurring the anathema of the Church, which is equivalent to a sentence of eternal damnation! The corrupt order of JESUITS, the infamous society of SAN FEDESTI, and the infinitely infernal society of IRISH RIBBON MEN--these are all oath-bound societies of the Catholic Church, connected directly with the horrid operations of the "_Holy Inquisition_."

Now, I put the question to any man of reason and common sense, if Roman Catholics and their _patriotic Democratic_ admirers and advocates, in this country, are not the last men on earth who should object to the _secret_ doings of the order of Know Nothings, even if their secrecy were kept up? Every Roman Catholic in the known world is under the absolute control of a secret society, by considerations not only of a _temporal_, but of an ETERNAL WEIGHT!

But I am not done with these _Democratic_ opposers of SECRECY. The Convention which formed the Constitution of the United States, sat in the old State House in Philadelphia, _with closed doors, from the 25th of May to the 17th of September_, wanting only eight days of four months. That body of men had a Doorkeeper and Sergeant-at-arms, both under oath, to keep their doors barred, and all their proceedings a secret. So says Mr. Jefferson's biography! And such men as Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, Harrison, Hancock, Hopkins, and others, composed that body! During the war of the Revolution, General Washington, Generals Lee, Wayne, Marion, and others, organized a _secret American Society_, with its branches extending from North to South, having their _passwords_, _signs_, and _grips_, and writing to each other in figures, and "an unknown tongue," as the Know Nothings have been doing, and all, too, with a view to oppose Foreign intrigues and oppressions! It is as well known as any political truth, that General WASHINGTON, at the time of his death, was the _President_ of the Cincinnati Society, a secret political society, in which, we see it stated on unquestionable authority, no man was eligible to membership unless he was a _native American_. The _Columbian Order_, known as the "_Tammany Society_," was a secret political society, and highly influential, and maintains its existence to this day, and without danger to the liberties of the country. Gen. SAM HOUSTON publishes to the world that himself and Gen. JACKSON were members of this Society. What say the _anti_-Americans to all these facts? Do they believe that Gen. Washington, or Jackson, would have united with any association or order not purely American? Would either have entered into any political league, when _secrecy_ was enjoined, if he had not approved of the principle of secrecy in political associations? Never! From the characters of Washington and Jackson--the sacrifices they made for their country, united with their fervid patriotism, and their known preference for every thing _American_, I do not doubt for one moment, that if they were both now living, they would unite with the veritable Order of Know Nothings!

I believe the hand of God to be in this very movement, and as much in the _secrecy_ of it, in the outset, as in any other feature. I regard the movement as one growing out of a great crisis in the affairs of our country, and a precursor of a sound, healthful, and vigorous nationality, and which will ultimately prevent the liberties of this country from being destroyed, by the machinations of such demagogues and factionists as now seek to _excuse_ Romanism, and fellowship Foreign Pauperism. Secret societies are only dangerous to despots and tyrants, and history shows that these above all others have made war upon them. They have denounced and proscribed Masonry in every quarter of the globe, where they have had the power. The Pope, with the aid of his Cardinals, has crushed the ancient order of Free Masons in his dominions. There is not a Masonic Lodge in Italy. In our own country, not a single Catholic is to be found associated with the order of Free Masons; and why? Masonry is founded upon the Bible, and requires the reading of the Protestant Bible in all its Lodges, and this don't suit Romanism. We state these general and historical facts, without knowing any thing of our own knowledge of Masonry.

In the young and growing city of Knoxville, it is within our own knowledge, that many of the Irish Catholics attached themselves to the Order of the Sons of Temperance, with a view, as they said, of throwing around them the wholesome restraints of the Order. On the first visit of a priest to the city, commonly called "Father Brown," these Irish Catholics began to drop off one by one, until not one of them is now in the Order, and most of those who were, are daily seen drunk in our streets. Indeed, some of them in withdrawing had the candor to acknowledge that the priest required them to do so! And why? Because, in all the Divisions of the Sons of Temperance here, we have the Protestant Scriptures read, and have Protestant prayers offered up. This don't suit the Church of Rome!

I have the honor to be, very truly and frankly,

W. G. BROWNLOW.

TO THE RIGHT REVEREND AARON V. BROWN, M. S.

SIR:--I have received by mail a pamphlet copy of your "Letter to the Bishops, Elders, and _other_ Ministers, Itinerant and _Local_, of the Methodist Episcopal Church South," covering twenty-eight octavo pages. I thank you for a copy of your _Pastoral_ address; and I am happy to be able to _infer_ from its teachings that you have made a profession of religion, before taking upon yourself "Holy Orders." I suppose the _time_ of your conversion, you date back to the memorable period when you "saw sights" on Mount Pisgah, and had conferred on you the degree of _Modern Seer_, and entered upon the duties of "High Priest" of Democracy! As I am one of the parties addressed, and the customs of the Church and the country require a response to so grave a document, I have felt it incumbent upon me to perform the task. I may style this the _Last_ epistle of Aaron, the Priest, and illustrious Chief of Foreign Catholic Sag Nicht Locofocoism!

My first impulses were, upon reading your address, to call for your _credentials_, and to examine into your _authority_ for assuming to dictate to the entire Ministry of the Southern portion of the Methodist Church. You must either enter the Ecclesiastical ring under the _imposition of the hands_ of BISHOP SOULE or _Andy Johnson_. If BISHOP SOULE ordained you for the Ministry, and set you apart as the Lieutenant-General of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, the presumption is that he examined you on doctrinal points, and upon all questions affecting the government of the Church, as was his duty, and is our custom, and that he found you orthodox! It follows, as a matter of course, that you renounced your heresy you advocated in the Hartford Convention, held at Nashville, and that you obtained forgiveness for that and numerous other "sins of omission and commission"--aye, for the whole catalogue of your inward and outward iniquities, which so _eminently_ disqualified you for the work of the Ministry! But if _Andy Johnson_ ordained you for the work, of which there is no sort of doubt, the Church South, through me, protests against your authority, and utterly refuses to submit to your teachings. Our Church does not agree with Johnson on the "White Basis" issue, or the great question of slavery; and in proof of this, I cite to the fact of her separation from the North, in 1844, upon this very question. She has within her bounds of communion, rich men and poor, educated and uneducated, and is unwilling to unite with him in arraying the poor against the rich, or the unlearned against the learned. Nor does our Church believe that Jesus Christ was a Locofoco, as Johnson asserts in his Inaugural, and held that Christianity and Democracy, in converging lines, led to the foot of Jacob's Ladder, and thence to heaven, _via_ Mount Pisgah, from whose lofty summit you first beheld the promised land!

It therefore follows, that, in presenting yourself as a spiritual leader in the Church, called to the work, as you have been, by _Andy Johnson_, your case is fully met by a quotation from Job:

"Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and _Satan_ came also among them."

A second passage, from the Book of Jeremiah, meets your case, and leaves no doubt that the inspired Prophet had you in his eye:

"We have heard the pride of Moab, (he is exceedingly proud,) his loftiness, and his _arrogance_, and his pride, and his haughtiness of heart.

"I know his wrath, saith the Lord; but it shall not be so; his _lies_ shall not so effect it."