Part 28

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.