Jesuits and their agents in the United States, have taken and are now taking, great pains to persuade our Protestant citizens, that Papists are not only better educated than Protestants, but better provided for in every other respect They have always charged Protestants with neglecting the poor, and over-working them in every department of labor. Some of the Puseyite philosophers of the present day, unite with Jesuits in urging this charge against Protestants. This is peculiarly worthy of the attention of the Americans, and shows as clearly as any other circumstance can, the extent and depth of Jesuit intrigue amongst us. The great mass of the people, in every country, is composed of the laboring classes, or, as we term them, operatives. And Jesuits know full well that if they can persuade the great body of Americans, that Popery gives more encouragement to labor, and requires less of it for a given price, than those who profess Protestantism, it is an important point gained; in truth, if this be admitted,—if the Popish Church gives more encouragement and better pay to laborers, than the Protestant Church, I, for one, would not and could not withhold from her my full and hearty commendation thus far. If it be true,—as that great Idealist and Puseyite, Mr. Ward, of England, contends,—that the poor and neglected and oppressed, in those countries where Protestant government prevails, are much better provided for under Popish governments, the fact ought to be well understood, and in place of wishing to overthrow these governments and prevent the farther growth of Popery, we should pause, and look seriously into the question.
But is it true that labor is more encouraged and better paid, under Catholic than Protestant governments? Is it true that operatives—say for instance those who work in factories—are more humanely dealt with, better paid, and not required to work as many hours, under Popish as under Protestant governments? I call the attention of American Protestants to this question. It is one of vital importance.
Both Puseyites and Jesuits allege this as positive, We have them here on the platform of unequivocal allegation of fact. "We have them on the hip." I am now willing to grapple with Jesuits and Puseyites upon this question. It cannot be evaded by them. It must be yes or no. Jesuit sophistry can avail them nothing, and if I can show our operatives, and laborers in our factories, that those Jesuits and Puseyites who are now overspreading our Republic, are trying to deceive them and reduce them to farther hardships, I trust they will rise as a body, men, women, children, and all, and hoot them from our shores. It is wrong to deceive any one; and no honest man or true Christian will do so; but it is cruel to deceive the poor laborer or operative, who lives by the sweat of his brow.
If the reader will accompany me across the Atlantic, I will show him the condition of the operatives in some of those countries where the government is Popish, and where the religion of the people is that of Jesuits and priests. Let us visit France, a Catholic country. Let us examine a Report made by M. Delambre, the head of the department of Manufactures, in the office of the Minister of Commerce, in 1838. From that Report it appears, that the actual work of children, in factories, is never less than twelve hours, and extends from that minimum amount, to fourteen hours, in the twenty-four. It is also stated by him, that in the chief manufactories, it is not unusual with them to work all Saturday night and Sunday morning. So much for Popish clemency and Jesuit lenity to the poor operative. Let us cross over the Channel to England, a Protestant government and a Protestant country. How is it with operatives and children in factories there? I refer the reader, for an answer, to Horner on the Employment of Children in Factories, page 28. "In England, under a Protestant government, no child under thirteen can be employed for more than eight hours a day; nor can any young person, just emerged from childhood, be employed more than twelve hours a day." On Saturday the hours of work were only nine, when Mr. Horner wrote, and I am informed by the London Quarterly Review, of January, 1845, to which I am indebted for much of the information which I here give on the subject of factory laborers,—that a new Act of Parliament, fixing the maximum of labor, for children, at six and a half hours per day, has recently been passed. What becomes, now, of the assertions of Puseyites and Jesuits on the subject of Popish charity and humanity to the poor? The truth is, that I may challenge them to show me mankind, in any condition or any situation, or any clime or country, under Catholic or Protestant government, where they are not more oppressed, more degraded, more abused, and more ignorant under Catholic than Protestant governments. How then can it be, with this fact before their eyes, that Americans—Protestant Americans—give any countenance to Popery and Jesuits in the United States? or how can we account for the still more extraordinary fact, that one of the most learned Christian Associations that ever have been established in this country—The Christian League—-does not devote its whole and undivided energies to the removal of Jesuits and Jesuitism from amongst us. I cannot account for the fact I have conversed with a learned member of this Association, a gentleman of distinguished talents and deserved popularity. I asked him why the Association did not spread its forces, extend its lines, and devote its funds of intellect, as well as of money, exclusively to the removal of Jesuitism from our happy country. His answer was, "we do not deem it prudent to do so; we cannot fail to kill Jesuitism in Italy, and there will be an end of it."
Gendemen of the Christian League! I once before entreated you to withdraw your troops from Italy. You can do no good in that country. But suppose you did kill Popery in Italy—suppose that Jesuitism was dead and buried in that ill-fated country—I tell you that it will rise in this, and that in the shape of a tremendous, unformed spectre, in a far more terrific guise than ever before overpowered the imagination of man. I may not live to see it; many of you may not live to witness it; but that does not alter the truth of my prediction.
I have deviated far and wide from the point for which I set out at the commencement of this book. As usual, I have paid no attention to order, literary style, or argumentative consecutiveness. Let this, however, not be attributed to any want, on my part, of due respect for the good opinion of my readers. My sole object in writing this book was to state facts, a knowledge of which I deemed necessary and useful to my fellow citizens; and as I knew full well that it was perfectly immaterial to the majority of them, how or in what manner these facts were stated, provided they were true, I have given them at random, just as they occurred to me—currente calamo. Besides this, I am pretty much of the opinion of Swift, and value not the rules of art as high as others do:
"Nature, I thought, performed too mean a part, Forming her movements to the rules of art."
I will now return to the subject of auricular confession, and the gross immorality practised by priests in the Popish confessionals. But I must say, as I have often done before, that it is impossible to prove to the Protestant inhabitants of the United States all, or even many of the particulars of those various accusations which I have advanced against Popish bishops and priests. The system of confession itself, and the manner in which it is made, render the thing impossible. No one can understand the doctrine of Popish confession, except those who have been Popish priests, and have acted themselves in the capacity of confessors. The man who has not been a Free Mason, for instance, may accuse that ancient society of Free and Accepted Masons of sanctioning, or even perpetrating crimes, but all his accusations will go for nothing, if he has not been a Mason himself, for the very obvious reason that he knows nothing, and could know nothing of Masonry, from his own knowledge; and hence it is that we find Jesuit priests and Popish presses turning into ridicule, and not without some cause, many Protestant writers and Protestant newspapers for accusing them of things they know nothing at all about. Here I have had the advantage of Popish priests and Popish presses, and hence it probably is that my books against Popery have had such extensive circulation, and have silenced, as it were by magic, almost every Roman Catholic Press in the United States. And let it not be deemed vanity in me, should I recommend to those editors who have established presses with the avowed intention of exposing Popery, to be cautious in their charges against the Papists, for one unfounded charge is apt to destroy the weight of a thousand which may be true; and I am sorry to see that many such charges are made by pious men, and even by learned men on other subjects, but who seem far in advance of their prudence. No man can detect a flaw in an argument sooner than a Jesuit, and no press can turn it into more bitter ridicule than a Jesuit press. No matter who the reputed editor of the press may be, every article in it is revised and corrected by a Jesuit bishop or his deputy, before it meets the public eye; and hence, perhaps, arises much of the popularity of my books. I have never advanced a charge against Jesuits or Popish priests, which I did not know to be true; I have never accused them, as a body, of being guilty of a crime in the confessional, which I did not know, of my own knowledge, to be undeniably true; and to do them justice, they have never denied it.
That the Romish confessionals are sinks of unparalleled corruption, seduction, and the most revolting impurities, is but too well understood in Papal countries. Michelet understands it in France, so does Eugene Sue; but still far better does John Ronge understand it in Switzerland, because he has been, but the other day, a Roman Catholic priest himself. The Catholic priests in almost all Germany understand this, and seem now determined, through their fearless champion Ronge, to lay before the view of mankind the wicked impurities practised in the Romish confessional; and indeed it is a matter of astonishment that any people should sanction amongst them the practice of sending young females to confession to priests who are taught and commanded by their church to question them on subjects so indelicate and gross that of necessity impure thoughts must arise in their young minds. I can of my own knowledge say, that if it had been the intention of any body of men to corrupt the morals of the human race, to habituate the children of both sexes to impurity, filth and profligacy, it would be impossible to devise a scheme more completely adapted to produce that effect than the practice of confessing to priests, and the establishment of Popish nunneries amongst them. The common sense of mankind, the ordinary feelings of morality, would have made it impossible to carry into effect such a project, unless it had assumed the mask of a religious duty to God.
It is said in the United States that if priests were so immoral as I have represented them to be, and in the habit of taking such liberty with females at the confessional as I have accused them of, that virtuous females—and there must be some such among Roman Catholics—would not continue long to go to confession to those priests who take indelicate liberties with them. One would suppose that such females would leave the church altogether. How little—I repeat it for the hundredth time—do Americans know of the wheels within wheels in the great machine of Popery! guilty priests who have made attempts to seduce virtuous females at the confessional, and found that they could not succeed, understand how to manage their case well. The church, in her infallible wisdom, has made provision for such events. It is well known in Europe, and let it be henceforward known in the United States, that there are two distinct and separate orders of priests—seculars and regulars. The secular order is composed chiefly of parish priests and their curates, whose duty it is to hear the confessions of their parishioners. The order of regulars is composed of friars, who are sub-divided into several minor orders, and who have no parochial duties to discharge, unless especially deputed to do so by the Bishop or his deputy of the diocese in which they may be located. It is so arranged by the secular priests, that whenever they fail in seducing their penitents, and are detected by them, that one of these friars shall immediately be at hand to hear the confessions of all such females, and forgive them their sins on condition that they shall never reveal to mortal being the thoughtless peccadillo of their parish priest, who for the moment forgot himself and whose tears of repentance now moisten the ground on which he walks!