"Your obedient servant,
"William Law."
Judge Law resides now in Savannah. He has retired from the bench, and practises law in copartnership with senator Berrien, of Georgia. I need not say who Judge Law is. He is well known, as one of the most eloquent and learned advocates of the American bar; nor is he more distinguished for his legal knowledge, than for his Christian virtues and exemplary life. He is at present, and has been for many years, an elder of the Presbyterian church, in that city. I believe that I have the honor and the friendship of this worthy man, up to the moment I write. Every earthly interest I have is in this country. Its prosperity will advance mine. The overthrow of its government would bury in its ruins all I have to support me. Who then is to be believed by Americans,—the Jesuit bishop of Strasburg, whose country is the world, whose queen is the Popish church, and whose kindred are monks and Romish priests? Am I unreasonable, under these circumstances, in asking a jury of Americans for a verdict in favor of my veracity, my word and my honor, in preference to the honor of a foreign Jesuit bishop of Strasburg, or any other Popish priest or bishop in the United States? You, Americans, are the best judges. In addition to these facts and circumstances, I will take the liberty of stating that nearly the whole delegation to Congress from the State of Georgia, where I have so long resided, have borne testimony to my correct conduct, by recommending me to high and lucrative offices under this government. Among these were the names of the Hon. J. M'Pherson Berrien, then a next door neighbor of mine, the Hon. Thomas Butler King, William C. Dawson, and the lamented Richard W. Habersham, of Savannah. This last named gentleman is no more, but he has not left behind him one whose confidence and friendship I valued more. He was, indeed, the noblest work of God, an honest man. His name is now revered in Georgia, and will be there venerated as long as she has records to preserve it. I have in my possession the most friendly and affectionate letters from this Christian patriot up to within a few weeks of his death, which occurred about two years since. I may further add to these distinguished names, that of the Hon. Wm. C. Preston, of South Carolina, the Hon. Isaac Holmes, of the same State, and the Hon. Judge Wayne, of Savannah, one of the judges of the Supreme Court of the United States. I have evidence in my possession, up to a few weeks ago, of the personal friendship of that elegant and accomplished gentleman Judge Wayne. I have studied law more than twenty years ago with the Hon. Mr. Holmes, and never since has his friendship towards me been interrupted. As a literary man and finished classical scholar Mr. Holmes has scarcely a superior in the country. With such testimonials as these of my Americanism, honor and veracity, I dread not the verdict of an American jury in the case now pending between me and the Jesuit bishop of Strasburg.
But before you make up your verdict, I beg to submit to you the following sketch of a debate, which took place the 5th of last March, in the Swiss Diet in Switzerland, on the subject of Jesuits in that country. It is taken from a speech of the Hon. Mr. Neuhaus, a representative from Berne. The debate commenced by the chancellor laying before the assembly petitions from the people of Switzerland, signed by 120,000 persons, praying that the Jesuits might be expelled from that country.
Neuhaus said that the question of the Jesuits, which was raised last year, had made great progress since that time, and its importance might be estimated by the impression which it had produced on the population, the anxiety with which the result of the deliberations of the diet was looked forward to, and the care taken by all the great councils of the cantons to have their opinions duly represented. * * According to the eighth article of the federal compact, the diet took all the measures necessary for the internal and external safety of Switzerland. That right on the part of the diet was incontestable, and had been put in force on former occasions within memory. The question, therefore, was not whether the diet had a right to take steps against the Jesuits, but whether the Jesuits had compromised and were compromising the safety of Switzerland. It was therefore the question of fact only that he would approach. Were the Jesuits dangerous or not? Were they particularly dangerous as respected Switzerland? Yes, the Jesuits were dangerous.
1. Because of their morality. They taught the people to commit, without remorse of conscience, the most culpable actions. Their morality necessarily exercised on those exposed to their influence a deleterious effect; and a writer of the eighteenth century had said, with great truth, that he detested the Jesuits because they were an order aboutissant. But in republics morality was wanted above all things.
2. The Jesuits were dangerous because they made use of the ecclesiastical character to carry disorder into families, and to divide the members of them, in order the more easily to govern them. Examples abounded, and, if necessary, he could cite many.
3. They were dangerous because the order required of all its members a blind obedience, an absolute submission. He who was a member of the society, whether he were a Jesuit properly so called, or merely belonged to the order under another denomination, could no longer have either opinions or will. As soon as the leaders gave orders, those who were enrolled in that militia were obliged to obey, without examination; and if the chief ordered the members and their associates to work in secret to subvert republican governments, they were obliged to obey, without examination, whether they thought it right or wrong. But what was necessary to the people of Switzerland, if they wished to maintain their independence, was the sentiment of liberty and moral force, and that sentiment the Jesuits annihilated.
4. The Jesuits were dangerous because they had neither family nor country. As soon as a Swiss citizen entered the order of the Jesuits, he only belonged to that body. On this account the governments of the cantons would do well to make a law that any one entering the order of the Jesuits should lose his natural rights. When a man was obliged to lay aside his feelings of family, to disown his cantonal as well as federal country, he was no longer a Swiss; he as nothing but a Jesuit and a stranger to every country. 5. The Jesuits were dangerous because they endeavored everywhere to seize upon power. In despotic and monarchical governments, where the head was invested with extended authority, they might be tempted to make use of the Jesuits as auxiliaries. As long as the Jesuits did not dominate, they would consent to serve a master; but when they had attained their end, they took advantage of services which they had rendered to establish then domination over those who had recourse to them. This was what made all the governments of Europe banish them from their states. They were dangerous to monarchies, and still more to republics, where the authorities did not possess the elements necessary to counterbalance their pernicious influence. 6. They were especially dangerous to Switzerland, because one of the principal ends of the order was to extirpate Protestantism. Without doubt, the Swiss Catholics had a right that their Protestant brethren should respect their religious convictions; but the Protestants had also rights which should be respected by the Catholics; and the deputies of the canton of Berne would demand, if those Catholic cantons which tolerated, and even invited into their bosoms an order, the object of which is the extirpation of Protestantism, conducted themselves like good confederates towards the reformed cantons; if they fulfilled the federal duties, and if those states had not the right to say to the states which received the Jesuits, 'We have no congregation which labors for the extirpation of Catholicism, and we ask of you not to tolerate a corporation so hostile to us as the Society of Jesus.' These were the principal reasons which made the canton of Berne consider the Jesuits as dangerous; but there were many others which he could state, and among others, the recent events in the country were a strong proof of the danger of the Jesuits. The only legal way to settle the question was, by taking the opinions of the cantons in the diet, and if twelve of the cantons voted that the Jesuits were dangerous, the others must submit. M. Neuhaus concluded by reading his instructions from his canton, which were to demand a decree for the expulsion of the Jesuits from every part of Switzerland.
"The action of the diet is already known." The reader may see from the above, proofs almost positive of the truth of every crime with which I have charged Popish Jesuits. The Hon. M. Neuhaus, a representative from a people proverbially generous, distinguished as a nation for honesty and simply integrity. Switzerland and chivalry are almost synonymous since the days of William Tell. Switzerland, honesty, virtue and piety are understood to be almost one and the same thing. Even among ourselves, in the United States, a Swiss Protestant emigrant needs no recommendation but a certificate of his nativity. We trust him; we confide in him, because he is honest; we believe him because he is truth himself. All the finer qualities of uncorrupted humanity seem to be his by birthright. One hundred and twenty thousand of these honorable men petitioned their Legislature to pass a law for the expulsion of Jesuits from their country, and their representative, M. Neuhaus, the embodiment of their virtue and integrity, supports the prayer of their petition, charging those Jesuits to their teeth, proving from the history of their past and present lives, that they are collectively and individually immoral and treacherous men, the sworn enemies of freedom and disturbers of the peace. He accuses them of being leagued together, and bound by the most awful oaths, to overthrow the government and exterminate the Protestants of Germany. He accuses them of maintaining spies in Protestant families, of tampering with their children, and introducing disobedience and disorder amongst them.