Part 9

I am now so well acquainted with the character of American Protestants, and even with American converts to the Romish church, that I know it is difficult to persuade them that the Romish priests of Philadelphia, or other parts of the United States, were so utterly abandoned to degeneracy, as to give credence to these Visions or visits from saints, which I have just spoken of. But let them recollect that practices upon popular credulity are now carried on, and were then carried on, upon as large a scale, as at any period in the existence of the Romish church. Such impositions are encouraged all over the world, even at the present day. The wildest extravagances of intellect have circulated freely for the last thirty years in the world. Read Eugene Sue. He tells us of numerous instances of the kind. Read the last edition of Genin, page 82, and you will find an account of the Medal of the _Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary_, struck only the other day, 1838. Over _two hundred thousand copies_ of this medal have been already sold. The story is this, as now vouched for by the most eminent holy fathers of the infallible church:--That the Virgin Mary showed herself to one of the _Sisters of Charity_ in France, a branch of which holy sisterhood we have in this city of Boston, the capital of New England, and revealed to her the pattern of a medal to be struck for her; the dress she was to appear in, and the kind of rings she was to wear.

This medal has cured, and is now curing, according to the accounts we receive from the holy fathers, all manner of diseases, such as paralysis, epilepsy, cancer, and, according to the belief of some Puseyite moral philosophers, it causes the blind to see, the dumb to speak, and the lame to walk. A capital story is related of the potency of this medal. It is too good to be omitted, especially as many of my Puseyite friends believe it, and no doubt will be glad to hear it repeated.

A Sister of Charity got acquainted with a married couple. The wife was a Papist of the most exemplary character, obedient to holy Mother the church, and her confessor, in all things. The husband had no faith, especially in his wife's confessor. He drank, cursed and swore, "like all possessed." The holy Sister of Charity, seeing him at the point of death, and wishing to rescue his soul from hell, called to see him, and slipped one of these medals between the sheets of this wicked man's bed, and the next morning he gets up as well as ever and goes to confession. Another miracle which was performed by this medal in 1838, deserves notice, and may prove invaluable, if it finds its way into this country. One Marie Laboissiere, aided by her lover, murdered her husband, and forced her son to take part in the murder, to prevent him from being witness against her. The lady and her lover were, however, arrested, tried, and found guilty of the murder. They appealed to a higher tribunal. During the interval between the sitting of the higher and lower courts, one of the Sisters of Charity threw a medal round Marie's neck, and though the court and all saw that she was guilty, and ought to be judicially declared so, they could not do it. The medal would not let them, but obliged them to acquit her. If the reader will take into consideration that such visions as the Rev. Captain fancied he had, were matters of every-day occurrence with pious Papists, and that a belief in them is encouraged and enforced by Popish priests and bishops everywhere, they will cease to be surprised that a man tortured into madness, as my reverend antagonist was, should have visions such as those ascribed to him; nor will they wonder at the effect of his preaching, upon a congregation principally composed of Irish and French Papists.

I was alone, without a clerical friend; not a Protestant preacher, with the exception of one, raised his hand or his voice in my support. They seemed to like the fun, as some of them expressed it, amongst the Papists,--I suppose they considered me one then,--but they came not to my aid. They appeared to me pretty much like the wife when she saw her husband fighting with a bear, and was expected to interfere, but very coolly replied, "I don't care which of them gets licked."

Under these circumstances, I felt discouraged; became utterly disgusted with Popery and its infamous practices, with the holy fathers and their fooleries, and resolved in future to have no more to do with Popery. I collected such volumes as I had of the holy fathers, piled them up into one heap, added to them the lives of the saints, and placing on the top of the pile the Pope's bull of excommunication, which the poor old man thought would frighten me out of my wits, I consigned them, book by book, volume by volume, together with the aforesaid bull, to the warm embraces of a good hickory fire. I knew the day was not far distant, when Americans would see something besides fun in Popish quarrels; and in the mean time, I determined to employ myself in the study of Blackstone, Chitty, &c.; a much more profitable employment, in a pecuniary point of view, than fighting in the cause of American Protestants with European Papists.

It was said of Erasmus, that he laid the egg of the reformation, and that Luther hatched it. I trust it will not be deemed vanity in me to say that I have done as much for American Protestants, as Erasmus did in his day. At least, I have done all I could; but whether they or any of them will do as Luther has done, time alone can decide.

In this connection, it is not improper for me to state the ultimate fate of this reverend convert to the Romish church. After I retired from Philadelphia, and Hoganism was put down, the Jesuits measurably neglected their convert; a thing very unusual with them, to do them justice. He felt the loneliness of his situation. With a mind enfeebled by drugs, a correct view of his situation could only strike him by glances; but they were terrible and fearful. He saw himself robbed of the one beloved object of all his earthly affections; plundered of a fortune, the fruit of honorable toil and industry. He saw in himself but the mutilated skeleton of what he once was, and the dupe of crafty Jesuits and licentious nuns. He shrunk from the view, and as if God, in his mercy, wished to hide it from him' by means which may appear to us incomprehensible, he fell into fits of real madness, from which he recovered but occasionally. The last I have heard of him was that he was arrested somewhere near Newcastle, Delaware, for attempting to commit a rape on a child nine years old; but the poor maniac was acquitted on the ground of insanity. Several priests were called as witnesses in his behalf; and well they may be witnesses. It was they that caused him to be what he was; it was they that maddened him.

Those who are not familiar with crime, whose hands are unstained by blood, and whose consciences have not been seared and discolored by the blackness of guilt, may hesitate to give credence to these disgusting details. Comparatively short as our national existence is, and though brief the period since we cut loose as a nation from what we deemed the polluted governments of Europe, still there was a time, even in these United States, when such deeds as I have related would not and could not be believed amongst us. There was a time when the ancient Romans did not think that there existed such a crime as patricide; and hence it is. that there was no law against it. There was actually no punishment known to their laws for the commission of such a crime; and why, reader? Did the ancient Romans encourage their children to kill their parents, or to commit patricide? No. Far from it. No people in the world venerated their parents more than the Roman children of the day to which I allude. They had no law against the crime, because they did not believe it possible that such a crime could be committed. Nor is it to be wondered now, that many Americans should consider it almost impossible that such deeds as I have laid to the charge of Jesuits and nuns, should be perpetrated amongst us. But time, that exponent of all things, will soon satisfy our people--as it did the Romans before us--that there is nothing impossible, or even beyond the range of Jesuitical iniquity. The archives of Jesuitical intrigue are now in a measure being thrown open to the world. The diffusion of literature is so general, and human curiosity, at the present period, so great, that nothing can escape its searching inquiries. It is therefore to be hoped that our people will not be much longer in ignorance of the iniquities of Jesuits. Americans can now learn from historical evidence, which admits of no doubt, that Jesuits have been expelled, successively, from thirty-nine different governments; they can also learn, that by intrigue, deception, perjury and poison, they have survived each and every one of those expulsions. They may see,--if they can see anything but money,--that the Jesuits are now making a final struggle for a settlement in this country; and if they are not so stupid as not to see that similar causes must produce similar events, they will infer that Jesuits, who have successively and effectually introduced disunion, discord, and disorganization into thirty-nine governments, cannot fail to do the same in ours. If by poison and assassination they have dethroned the rulers of other countries; if by debauchery and superstition in the confessional, they have seduced their wives and daughters, can it be supposed that our rulers shall escape, our government be secure, or our wives and daughters safe from the daggers or subtle poisons of these notorious fiends?

Let any American take the "Wandering Jew,"--let him read it attentively, and reflect that the writer, Eugene Sue, is a Roman Catholic now living in France,--and say whether there is any crime too daring for a Romish priest or Jesuit. If he doubts what I relate of a young lady in the beginning of this book, who was debauched by a Romish priest, and poisoned by a nun, the mother abbess of a Jesuit seminary of learning, to get rid of her illicit offspring; let him see the history of Charlotte De Cordoville, in the Wandering Jew. He will see in the history of that young lady, distinguished though she was for fortune, beauty and charity, how she was reduced to misery and unhappiness, by the intrigues of Jesuits. You will see how her own aunt was made the instrument of all her misfortunes; but the aunt was first made a Jesuit, and in that capacity she disregarded honor, truth, the relationship of blood, and all the alliances of natural friendship. She caused her to be imprisoned and maltreated. She and her associate Jesuits caused herself and her lover to be poisoned or drugged into an insane stupor;--all for the glory of the infallible church, and with a view of adding to its ill-gotten treasures. For a full account of this transaction, see Eugene Sue.

But Romish priests will not permit their people to read Eugene Sue; it is a forbidden book; his royal holiness, the Pope, has cursed the book and all who read it. He has cursed all who presume to discuss fairly the merits of Popery; but even this will scarcely be believed by Americans. Strange infatuation! Will Americans read a report made to the French Chambers in Paris, by the Duke de Broglie, on the subject of public instruction and Jesuitism? Will they further read a small work written by Messrs. Michelet and Quinet, professors in the French national college? If they do, it may open their eyes to consequences which may be apprehended from even tolerating Jesuits amongst us. They will see that Jesuits are the avowed enemies of liberal education, and that they are sustained in their opposition to it by the curses of the Pope.

Professors Michelet and Quinet, in 1843, were discussing, in public, the influence of the different religious orders. They had, as we are told, commented upon that of the Templars, and were speaking of the society of Jesuits, its origin and its interference in political affairs; and though the professors themselves were Roman Catholics, though they lectured in a Roman Catholic country and to Roman Catholic people, under the sanction of a law of the land, yet Jesuits attempted to disturb those lectures, by creating an uproar among the audience; just what they are doing in this country. But what renders their conduct on this occasion more strange, is the fact, that the very existence of Jesuits, as a society is illegal in France. There is a law in France against secret associations, and under this law they cannot exist. How pregnant with instructions to Americans is this single historical fact! A few years ago, Charles X. and his family had to fly from France, because, under the influence of Jesuitism he violated his faith, he broke his royal word and oath to the people. The people of France hunted him and the Jesuits out of that country, as they would so many wild beasts. Such then was the indignation of Popish France against that infernal society, the Jesuits, that not one of them dared ta show his face in the streets of Paris, without trembling for his life. Like dastardly cowards, as all dishonorable and bad men are,--I never knew an exception,--these wretches moved about like beasts of chase, "stealing from one cover to another;" the representatives of all that was base and dishonorable; the embodiment of all that was vile, false and treacherous; the incarnation, the sentiment and the sediment of all that was odious in fallen humanity. But see them now, in 1843 and '44, and see the conduct of these very French people towards them. Though the law forbids their existence, they have the hardihood to interrupt the legitimate professors of the college of France, in their inquiries into the spirit and influence of Jesuitism; and they are supported by a portion of the very people, who, but a few years ago, pelted them with rotten eggs and dead cats, through the streets of Paris. And what effected this extraordinary change in popular sentiment? It is accounted for in various ways; but I contend that the only fair solution of the problem is to be found in the fact, that republican, democratic North America hats opened her hospitable doors, and without suspicion, or without dreaming that she was entertaining her deadliest foe, has spread her tables to feed, and opened her purse to build asylums for these scapegoats of the human family.

In 1830, Jesuits were crushed in France; they fled to the United States, collected together their broken phalanxes, told brother Jonathan they were a persecuted people, prevailed on him to build colleges for them, and they have risen again, not only in this land of the brave, but even in France, under the present king, Louis Philippe.

But notwithstanding these truths, the inquiry is sometimes made,--the question has often been put even to myself,--"Are there really any Jesuits in the United States?" "Do you believe that females are seduced into nunneries?" "Do you believe they attempt to tamper with our children or our wives?" I allude to the subject of privately tampering with the wives and daughters of Americans thus frequently, because I think it is all-important that they should thoroughly understand the dangers to be apprehended from having any intercourse whatever with Jesuits and nuns. Many a man asks this question, who accompanies it with saying, the nunnery to which my daughter goes to school is not a Jesuit nunnery. The priest to whom my wife confesses is not a Jesuit. The priest to whom my daughter and servants go to confession is not, and never was, a Jesuit; and consequently there is no danger from this source. Many a man asks this question, and states these circumstances in good faith, and feels secure that all is right, as nothing in his opinion is to be feared but from Jesuits. This is a delusion. This man's wife is already-governed by Jesuits through her confessor. It even happens sometimes that the confessor himself is unconscious of the part he is acting. The confessor acts under the immediate advice of his bishop, to whom alone, in most cases, the Jesuits will entrust their plans, unless the confessor is personally known to them; and unless the confessor professes and solemnly swears to observe,--I use the words of the oath,--"obedience, courage, secrecy, patience, craft, audacity, perfect union among ourselves, having for our country, the world; for our family, our order; for our queen, Rome."

Few of the confessors in this country, except the bishops, are entrusted with the plans of the Jesuits; perhaps not ten, except they are of the Jesuit order. It is through those confessors, that many of our American youth, both male and female, are seduced into Popish schools, where they become, with few exceptions, spiritless, false, slaves of abject superstition, and the victims of a superficial education. No time is given, no room left, as a modern writer expresses it, for the energies of the mind to develop themselves. No sustenance is provided to nourish the finer feelings of the heart. The intellect is checked, the flow of imagination is stemmed, and all the warm and generous affections of the soul are poisoned in their very bud.

For an instance of the fatal consequence of such an education as this, I would call the attention of Americans, once more, to the Wandering Jew. See the effects of a Jesuitical education upon the noble and generous mind of Gabriel, the adopted son of the honest Dagoberth. What could be more lovely than the disposition of this young man. His sentiments were as upright and as chaste as fallen humanity would permit. But the Jesuit society laid its impure hands upon him at an early period of life; they persuaded his guileless adopted mother to go to confession,--not to a Jesuit,--but to a _Cure_ of another order of priests; and the bishop of this Cure gave him his instructions how to manage the mother of Gabriel. The bishop knew that this adopted son of the virtuous and craftless wife of Dagoberth, was one among other heirs of an immense estate, and he directed the Cure to prevail upon this simple woman, while at confession with him, to send Gabriel to a Jesuit school, and have him become a Jesuit priest. Americans, read the sequel, and in that you will find a warning, stronger and louder than I can give you, never to send a child of yours to a Jesuit seminary. Let mothers read the history of Dagoberth's wife, and if, after careful and honest perusal of it, they will again commit their daughters to the care of a nurse who goes to confession, I must only conclude that they are either infidels or mad, or both. "_Quem Deus vult perdere prius dementat_." Gabriel,--the virtuous and good Gabriel,--was nursed by Dagoberth's wife. From his infancy, it seems he had no inclination to become a Jesuit; he appeared to have an innate aversion to the order of Jesuits; he struggled against uniting himself with them, as far as a sense of gratitude and a feeling of affection for his adopted mother, the nurse of his childhood, would permit. But all to no purpose; the mother was the dupe of her confessor. He was instructed to win over the youth by any and every means; and, with the advice and cooperation of Jesuits, the confessor of this really honest, but deluded woman, succeeded, by perseverance and increased fondness for her adopted child, in neutralizing his aversion towards Jesuit priests.

In an evil hour he joined them; their traps were too well laid, and without being seen in the business themselves, they accomplished their iniquitous purposes through the instrumentality of this affectionate and charitable woman. All was done through the confessional. How many similar cases have I witnessed myself, in the course of my life, but particularly while acting as a Romish priest in the confessional! How often have I known some of the best of women, belonging to the Roman Catholic church, unconsciously made the dupes of priests! How often have I seen women, who, had they been properly educated, and under different circumstances, would be an honor to any religious denomination, made the instruments of all that was vile and flagitious, by Popish confessors! How often have I seen Roman Catholic servant-maids in Protestant families, inveigled by their _ghostly fathers_, in the confessional, into treachery, deception and ingratitude, towards their employers and benefactors! How often, as I have stated in my book on Popery, have these Roman Catholic servants stolen the infants from their Protestant mothers, and brought them to myself to be baptized!

There is now, in the state of Massachusetts, a young Protestant clergyman, distinguished for his talents and piety, an honor to his profession as a minister of the gospel, and to the state of Massachusetts as a republican citizen, who was baptized by myself in Philadelphia, when acting as a Roman Catholic priest. The name of the gentleman and the date of his baptism were duly registered by me; but the clerical Goths and Vandals, who succeeded me in St. Mary's church in that city, _expunged_ the register which I kept, not deeming it safe to leave in existence, if possible, any records of the iniquities taught or practised in the Romish church.

There are in all bodies and in all denominations of clergymen, certain individuals by whom it becomes fashionable to get married and baptized; and during my residence in Philadelphia, I held rather a conspicuous place among them. The congregation of St. Mary's church was a large one. Notwithstanding my _schismatic_ doctrines,--I was not then deemed a heretic,--crowds attended the church, and I believe,--though I cannot tell the exact number,--that I baptized more children than any clergyman in the city. Among these there were hundreds of Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Methodists and Baptists, brought to me for that purpose, by their Roman Catholic nurses, without the knowledge or consent of their Protestant mothers.

This has ever been the treacherous practice of the Romish church, from the days of Hildebrand down to the present moment. Dagoberth's wife is not a solitary instance of the undue influence which Romish priests have over those women who go to confession to them. Show me the house of a Protestant family in the United States where there is a Roman Catholic, male or female, who goes to confession and communion in the Romish church, and I will show you a watch, a spy upon every act and deed and movement of that family. There is not a letter that comes into such a family, that is not watched by Popish servants. They soon know from whom it comes, or whether anything is to be gained by intercepting it. The confessor is immediately consulted, and it is ascertained, from some servant in the house where it was written or where it was received, what was its purport, or what it contained.