As soon as tea was over, we went to the court-house, and it was crowded. In a little time the bishop arose, and without any introductory services, gave out his text: “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” He went on to define “the gates of hell” as the various Protestant sects, and wound up by trying to prove that Peter was the first pope, and got the keys, and that the successors of Peter still held the keys, and no one could enter heaven without going through the Catholic church. His sermon was delivered with earnestness and eloquence, and made a deep impression, as very few of all present were well informed on those matters.
He made much for his cause out of the denominational strifes with which that region had been afflicted, and I heard many say “Amen” to some of his thrusts. He announced that he would preach the next morning from the text, “Search the scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they which testify of me.”
We returned to brother Q——’s, and sat to a late hour consulting what we had better do. Here was a man of Jesuitical cunning, misrepresenting Protestantism before a community ill qualified to form correct opinions. I urged Mr. Q—— to contradict some of his false statements; and after praying over the matter, we retired.
The next morning, at the appointed hour, the house was crowded, though there were not one dozen Roman-catholics in the community. Owing to the crowd, Mr. Q—— and I got separated. I lost sight of him, and for want of a seat elsewhere, got up into a window. In a little while the bishop announced the text, “Search the scriptures,” and also announced that he would preach at night from the text, “These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they searched the scriptures daily.”
The ground taken in this sermon was, that searching the scriptures by the common people had led to all the religious heresies in the world, and had raised up more sects than there were chapters in the Bible. That there was but one true church, and out of all only one could be right. That Protestants called Luther a great reformer, and he was told there were no Lutherans in that town; consequently, if Luther was right they were all wrong; and if they were right, Luther was wrong, and could not be a great reformer.
He said the Catholic church could not be wrong; that she was infallible; she was “the pillar and ground of the truth.” He pictured the quarrels among Protestants in the most hideous manner, and described a heaven full of such uncongenial characters, till the picture was ridiculous; and I saw that many present were delighted with it.
At the close of his sermon, or tirade against the Protestant religion, he sat down. I rose up in the window, much excited, to see if the Rev. Mr. Q—— would not call him to an account, when I was much gratified to see the meek and gentle form of Mr. Q—— slowly rising about the middle of the house. Said he:
“Bishop, you said in your sermon last night that there were now two hundred millions of faithful Catholic children in the world, against which the gates of hell could not prevail. Will you be kind enough to tell us where they are?”
The bishop rose with a half-courteous and half-disdainful smile, and said, “You need not ask me such a question as that; the regions they occupy are all marked on your own Protestant geographies; your little boys in the streets can point you to them, where they have been marked in black lines,” and took his seat.
“Well,” said Mr. Q——, “I would prefer you would name the countries to which they belong.”