But the reader has the right to know something of the dangers through which it has pleased God to make me pass.
Rome is the same to-day as she was when she burned John Huss and Wishart, and when she caused 70,000 Protestants to be slaughtered in France, and 100,000 to be exterminated in Piedmont and Italy.
On the 31st of December, 1869, I forced the Rt. Rev. Bishop Foley, of Chicago, to swear before the civil court, at Kankakee, that the following sentence was an exact translation of the doctrine of the Church of Rome, as taught to-day in all the Roman Catholic seminaries, colleges and universities, through the “Summa Theologica” of Thomas Aquinas (vol. 4, p. 90), “Though heretics must not be tolerated because they deserve it, we must bear with them, till by a second admonition, they may be brought back to the faith of the church. But those who, after a second admonition, remain obstinate to their errors, must not only be excommunicated, but they must be delivered to the secular power to be exterminated.”
It is on account of this law of the Church of Rome, which is to-day, in full force, as it was promulgated for the first time, that not less than thirty public attempts have been made to kill me since my conversion.
The first time I visited Quebec, in the spring of 1859, fifty men were sent by the Bishop of Quebec (Baillargeon) to force me to swear that I would never preach the Bible, or to kill me in case of my refusal.
At 4 o’clock, a. m., sticks were raised above my head, a dagger stuck in my breast, and the cries of the furious mob were ringing in my ears:
“Infamous apostate! Now you are in our hands, you are a dead man, if you do not swear that you will never preach your accursed Bible.”
Never had I seen such furious men around me. Their eyes were more like the eyes of tigers than of men. I expected, every moment, to receive the deadly blow, and I asked my Saviour to come and receive my soul. But the would-be murderers, with more horrible imprecations cried again:
“Infamous renegade! Swear that you will never preach any more your accursed Bible, or you are a dead man!”
I raised my eyes and hands towards heaven, and said: “Oh! my God! hear and bless the last words of thy poor servant: I solemnly swear, that so long as my tongue can speak, I will preach thy Word, as I find it in the Holy Bible!”