Part 27

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.