Part 25

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.