According to Brownson, who never utters a word until it is first approved by the Roman Catholic bishops in the United States, no form of government should be allowed, but such as that now established and sanctioned by the Pope of Rome. The Pope's subjects, and they alone, as Brownson assures us, are fit to bear aloft the standard of liberty. No hands should be permitted to touch or embroider the flag of freedom, but those of chaste nuns and sisters of charity in the Popish church; and no arms should be allowed the honor of defending that flag, but the valorous ones of those who have been pardoned their sins at the holy tribunal of confession. Is this really the state of things? If so, thrice welcome the sisters of charity amongst us, and ten thousand welcomes to those Popish patriots who have confessed their sins and been pardoned by their priests. But what if the government of the Court of Rome should be found not to be, in reality, all that our Popish bishops recommend, and all that Brownson represents it? What if it should be found that the Pope is not an angel, and that his government is far from being perfect? How would it be if his Royal Holiness the Pope, were proved to be a weak and licentious old profligate, unable to rule, and unwilling to obey? What if his government were proved to be one of the most corrupt, avaricious, tyrannical, that ever existed upon earth? This would entirely change the position of affairs, and could not fail to tinge with a blush the cheeks of our citizens who are weak enough to listen to the ranting declamations of the hired infidel Brownson. I have before me the last number of the Westminster Review, a work of great talent and popularity, widely differing in tone and style, and respectability, from a thing called Brownson's Democratic Review. The reader will easily pardon me for quoting a few extracts from it, which will tend to throw some light on the beauties of that Popish republicanism which the bishops of the Catholic church are desirous of introducing into the United States. I beg the particular attention of my readers to it. There is more of good sense, sound judgment, truth, and good taste, in it, than in all the clishmaclaver which has been issued from the Popish presses and Jesuit quarterly reviews in the United States, during the last half century. "We are not here to treat of the Pope, that nominal head of the State—all-powerful for evil—absolutely impotent for 27 good. As a general rule, he may be set down as an old imbecile, thrust into power by a faction of the Cardinals, who share among them the spoils; or as a veteran trafficer in ambition, who settles with his electors the price of his elevation to the Papacy, and who is compelled, at the risk of his life, to observe the conditions of the compact. The real chief is the Secretary of State—Sacretario di Stado—this is he who is the leader of the faction in the conclave. He stands above all authority. He is supposed to receive the responses of the Papal oracle, and to utter them in the name of laws. A few strokes of the pen, forwarded to a tribunal, enable him to annihilate, without publicity, statutory enactments." How would our Western citizens, Wolverines, Suckers, Hoosiers, and Squatters, like such a Secretary of State? How would the citizens of Tennessee, and Illinois, like such gentlemen, as Secretaries for their respective States? How many votes, reader, do you suppose such a man would receive, were he a candidate for re-election as Secretary of State, in Vermont or New Hampshire? Very few, I apprehend; and yet the infidel Brownson, who is a native of Vermont—if I am correctly informed—is trying to establish amongst us a religion which would force upon us the duty of supporting such characters for the highest offices in our government.
"Next to the Secretary of State," continues the Westminster Review, "comes a Cardinal. His titles confer upon him the Presidency of the Apostolic Chamber, and the management of the customs and the mint.... His titles would lead one to infer that the general direction of the postal department was intrusted to him, though he has nothing to do with it The posts are under a separate and independent jurisdiction.... More definite in duty, but equally unaccountable as to performance, is the Treasurer General, who completes a supreme triumvirate of the Papal States. He is the real minister of finance, though with the usual rule of misrule, several branches of that head are entirely independent He attends to the collection of the revenue, and appoints the provincial receivers; he contracts loans, and orders the sale of public property. He never gives account to any one of his administration, nor of the distribution of the funds that enter the treasury; neither has any one a right to demand an account. He can only be dismissed from his office by being promoted to the office of Cardinal; he then leaves on his desk a key, supposed to be that of the treasury, being the only formality that is indispensable." This is taking the responsibility, with a vengeance! The reason why the Popish Church gives this unlimited power to the secretary of her treasury, deserves peculiar notice. Americans should view it closely. All Protestant governments and Protestant countries should examine it attentively. The Pope and his government are aware that if their Secretary of the Treasury were compelled to give a correct account of the monies he received, and the uses for which they were appropriated, their plans, their bribes, their subornation of witnesses, their intrigues, and various modes of overthrowing Protestant governments and Protestant churches, could not fail to be discovered, and then the Unanimous voice of mankind would cry aloud, Down v with Popery! down with the Beast! down with the old harlot of Rome! If the Pope's treasurer were compelled to account for the millions upon millions which Jesuits and Popish priests wring from the hard earnings of mankind, the Romish church could not exist an hour longer, and there is not a Protestant government upon earth, that would allow within its jurisdiction a Popish college, bishop, seminary, nunnery, or monk-house. Were the treasurer of the Romish church obliged to give a fair account of the uses to which he appropriated the funds received and expended by him, Americans could soon know where Bishop Hughes of New York receives the vast sums of money which he has been expending for several years back, in erecting colleges and nunneries, into which he may decoy the children of Protestant Americans. It would then be known where Bishop Purcel of Ohio, obtained the funds with which he clandestinely, and without giving them any notice, purchased the buildings occupied by the Misses Beecher and others, in the city of Cincinnati, as a seminary for the education of young ladies. The Popish Bishop Hughes of New York never owned a dollar of his own; it is but a few years since he was employed as a gardener in the college of Georgetown or Emmetsburg, I forget which. Bishop Purcel of Ohio was equally poor and destitute; but now these right reverend Jesuits have at their command any amount of money which they in their judgment may deem necessary to proselytize American heretics, and overthrow their republican form of government.
Could we but know how the treasurer of the Pope disposed of the funds of his church, the Jesuit Bishop Fenwick of Boston, could no longer conceal from the citizens of Massachusetts, where he found means to build a Popish college at Worcester; to which, I understand, he soon intends adding an extensive nunnery and a Foundling' Hospital, in which fatherless orphans, or rather the bastard children of Jesuits, are to be provided for.
It is sound policy, in the Popish Church, not to require from the Pope's treasurer, any account of the mode or manner in which he disposes of the funds entrusted to his charge. And I cannot withhold from them due credit for this admirable stroke of policy, wicked and demoralizing as it is in reality.
"Yet lower, beneath the class of principals and subalterns, swarms, as reptiles in filth, a hideous race, not to be hinted at in good society, but whose abnormal existence must be proclaimed in our effort to make intelligible the nature of papal government—a race of varlets, parasites, prostitutes, trafficers in vice, legions of familiar demons, who crawl from the basement to the very summit of the edifice. The celibacy of the clergy,—the occupiers of every avenue to power,—is the source of their influence....... For ages past, the interior corruption, and the power exercised at Rome by domestics and women of gallantry, has been notorious; but before the time of Pius VI. (Pius died only about fifty years ago) the profligacy of the priests, though more brazen, had not, in general at least, stained the family hearth. The natural children of Popes Cardinals, and Bishops, impudently recognized, by their elevation to the highest dignities, were not the offspring of their neighbors' wives.... At a later period, the depravity general in Europe, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the examples set by Cardinals Richlieu, Mazarin, and Alberoni, and the morale of theology disseminated by Jesuits,—masters in the art of inciting the human passions, to turn them in the end to their own account, and of fostering covert infamy, to lord it over their penitents by the possession of their secrets (in the confessional,)—taught, by Roman Cardinals and Bishops, that it was more convenient, and less scandalous, to insinuate their seduction, where it was the interest of all parties to conceal it," The Westminster Review is good authority upon any subject; but I have adopted a general rule, in my controversy with Papists, never to quote from Protestant authorities, except when I know, of my own knowledge, that the facts stated by them are true, and susceptible of proof. This is not—as the reader may easily imagine—because I doubt the veracity of Protestant writers, but because Jesuits will persuade their followers, that my statements are only a repetition of old lies, fabricated by heretics. I have unqualifiedly accused the Roman Catholic priests and bishops of this country, and elsewhere, of using the confessional for the infamous purpose of seducing, females. I have charged upon nunneries, that they were nothing better than legalized houses of prostitution, and established among us, by the Pope of Rome and his bishops, for the sole purpose of affording them better opportunities and greater security in their immoralities and high-handed profligacies; and I appeal to Americans, of all denominations, whether I have or have not established my charges against them. I ask any well-read American, who is acquainted with the private history of Cardinal Richlieu, whether he was not one of the greatest profligates of his day? Is it not well known, that Cardinal Mazarin was so notorious a profligate, that no man's wife was safe in his society, or proof against his political influence and extravagant expenditures. He was Prime Minister to Louis XIV. of France; he had, in his gift, nearly all the offices under the government; and it was well understood, throughout all France, that it was perfectly useless for any man whose wife was not young and beautiful, to apply to him for office. There is not to be found, a well informed man, who has not read the life of Cardinal De Retz, and who does not know that his house, and his soirees, were places of rendezvous for gay women, and especially for that portion of them whose character for chastity was not the best Let it be observed here, that the parish priests and cures were all in the pay of these Cardinals, and employed to procure and select for them, through the confessional, the most beautiful and desirable women in Paris; and faithfully did these Popish pimps discharge their commissions. But still, the Jesuits of this country, and that miserable outcast mouth-piece of theirs, Brownson, talk of the infallibility of the Romish Church, and the superior beauties of its democratic form of government. Can it be possible that the enlightened Republicans of the United States, have patience to listen to the diatribes of this man against Protestant governments and Protestant Churches? Yet so it is; and I have not the least doubt, that many of the indignant expressions, which I make use of in speaking of him and Jesuits, will be found fault with, as they have been before, by many of the mawkish sympathizers with Popery, in the United States.
There are to be found, among the good and virtuous of our Protestant people, many who think that I should use milder language than much of that contained in my books,—that some of it is too harsh,—that it shows a bad spirit, a bad temper, and is—pro tanto—an indirect evidence, that I possess not a Christian feeling towards Popery or its advocates. That I am not what a Christian ought to be, in thought, word, and deed, 1 will freely admit. But those sympathizers, whether Infidels or Christians, who think that I should use milder language in my controversy with Papists, know but very little—as I have often told them before—of the spirit and elements of Popery, or the mode of warfare adopted by its Jesuits; and hence it is, that whenever they themselves enter the lists of controversy with Popish priests, and Jesuit presses, they are invariably and ingloriously defeated. I would ask these gentlemen, who find fault with the apparent asperity of my language, whether they could, collectively or individually, silence the howlings of a northeast storm by softly whistling Yankee Doodle, or humming Hail Columbia? When they can do this—but I doubt much if it can be done sooner—then they can silence scurrilous Jesuits in their abuse of Protestant religion, and check the efforts of the Popish presses in the United States, by using mild, charitable, and gentlemanly language, in all controversies with them. The fact is, Protestants and Protestant theologians too, must alter their mode of warfare with Papists.
The Popish press in the United States, has always endeavored, and never failed in the attempt—as far as I know—to place our Protestant presses in a position of defence. A single thrust from their journals, inflicts a wound which requires months to heal; the prescription alone, which is necessary for a cure, occupies whole columns of our presses and periodicals, and thus they have a great advantage over their Protestant opponents. I have never given them this advantage, and until my Protestant fellow laborers in the glorious cause of religion and civil rights, follow my example, in their controversies with Papists, they may as well 'pile arms' at once, and retire from the arena. I have carried the war with Papists, into Africa, but not until all overtures for peace proved ineffectual. I have inflicted upon them wounds, which it will require some time to heal. The result has shown the policy of my course towards them. It is scarcely twelve months, since repeal meetings,—which in reality were meetings held for the ill-disguised purpose of overthrowing the Protestant Church and government in this country,—were held in every hall and place of public meeting in our cities. I have exposed the covert intentions of those meetings, in pure Saxon language. I have called the priests and Jesuits who encouraged them, as well as the presses which advocated them,—traitors, and enemies to religion and the civil rights of our people. What has been the consequence? We scarcely hear now, of a repeal 27* meeting. Its advocates have been silenced, and they are obliged to abandon the cause, or support it under some other name or title, which I understand they are doing now, in Boston, under the infamous disguise of taking up contributions for the starving Irish. The Popish bishops, finding me rather a troublesome customer, and well versed in Jesuitical fencing,—parrying and thrusting with as much skill and precision as they themselves, having been taught in the same school with them, and by the same masters,—have come to the wise conclusion, that they had better let me alone, and tacitly admit the truth of every accusation which I have brought against them. They seem, however, resolved to die hard, and recently commissioned the notorious infidel Brownson to defend them, and, if possible, to exculpate them from the enormous and vile crimes of seduction and treason, which I have brought against them. I fondly hoped that when this Brownson took the field in defence of Popery, some of those meek, bashful theologians, and editors of religious journals, who think my language too harsh, would come against him and his Jesuit masters. There is not a scurrilous epithet in the English vocabulary, which Brownson and his Jesuit masters, have not applied to Protestants and Protestant presses. He has encouraged, by advice of Jesuits, treason to this government, by recommending the government of the Pope, as a better and more republican system; and still, I find—much to my regret—that there-is not a single Protestant divine in the country, or a single Protestant periodical—as far as I can discover—willing to raise his voice or publish an article against him. They all seem alive to the paramount necessity of finding fault and condemning what they term cheap literature, as calculated to demoralize the community. Eugene Sue, and Michelet, are special objects of their censure. It was only the other day, that an orthodox clergyman, who holds a high station and receives a high salary from his church, delivered, in New York, a philippic of nearly two hours' length, against Eugene Sue's "Wandering Jew," and concluded with a Jeremiad, bemoaning that so many copies of it should have been distributed in the book stores in New York. "The work,"—observed this learned but mistaken lecturer,—"is flooding the country." Very true, it is flooding the country; but is not Popery flooding the country? Are not Jesuits flooding the country? Are not Popish concubines, denominated nuns and sisters ters of charity, flooding the country? Is not Brownson, the Pope's Agent, flooding the country with infidel principles and treason against our government? Which of these floods does the reverend gentleman to whom I allude, prefer? He is now fairly between Scylla and Charybdis; he must fall upon one; and which does he choose? The Popish flood, which Eugene Sue is trying to dam, or the flood occasioned by the sale of the Wandering Jew in New York and elsewhere? The former is a torrent which flows forever; the latter—even if it were destructive for the moment, is but a land flood, that may cover the meadows to-day, but disappear on the morrow. Utrum horam mavis accipe. Let the reverend lecturer, and those who maintain similar opinions of modern and anti-Popish writers, take their choice.
There is no proportion, I apprehend, to be found between the zeal of those lecturers and their knowledge of human nature. The fact is, that very few of them have travelled far into the regions of general science; each seems to be confined within the circle of his own creed, and many of them vainly endeavor to lay the foundations of morality much higher than the existence of moral agency itself. They resemble, in a great measure, some of those ancient philosophers who supposed that the essences of things existed before the things themselves made their appearance, or could assume any shape or form. For instance, they imagined the essence of black and white, red, blue, pink, &c., had existence before there was any such thing as color. There were many philosophers who supposed that the essence of square and circle existed before there was any such thing as form. Many of our modern moralists and lecturers upon morality are little less extravagant in their ideas; and if they do not check their imaginations and unmeaning deviations from common sense, in some of their public lectures, they must soon share the fate of those ancient dreamers to whom I have alluded. Lecturers now-a-days must recollect that men are permitted to exercise—and that freely—their own judgment. We find it very difficult to accompany many of our speakers in their extraordinary flights to the regions of morality, in which the common sense and sound doctrine of moral agency, are entirely lost sight of. The lecturer who would condemn the efforts of Eugene Sue to arrest the progress of Jesuitism, shows but a very limited knowledge of this world, and impliedly denies the efficacy of human agency. He will soon find that his own efforts to impede the progress of Popery will prove ineffectual; they will be lost in those regions of fanciful perfection which his own imagination has created. Theologians of all denominations are peculiarly apt to run into extremes; many of them take certain standards of morality, which cannot be defended, and which need not be sustained, and they are very apt to pronounce all who differ from them to be in error, when in fact charity and good sense demand from them a frank acknowledgment, that though they themselves may be right, it does not follow that others are wrong. Eugene Sue condemns not only the religious doctrines of Jesuits, but severely censures their political creed. He holds the latter up to the world as dangerous and destructive to the happiness of the human kind. He knows man, in every state of society, and he writes to convince him in each. He is well versed in the elements of political government, and knows that it is upon the preservation and maintenance of it in a healthy form, that the happiness of man, in this world, depends. It is therefore perfectly idle, and worse than idle, for those lecturers who perhaps have no other ideas of the moral and political duties of man than those which they have learned from Baxter's Saint's Rest, Four Fold State, or his Crook in the Lot, to declaim against Eugene Sue, or any other man, whose better experience in the world teaches him to pursue a different course in trying to accomplish the same object. Let it not be supposed that I mean to speak disrespectfully of Baxter, or that a thorough knowledge of his works and writ* ings would prove useless to any one; but no man of sense or prudence could suppose for a moment, that he was a match for Jesuits, or that a knowledge of his and similar works would enable any lecturer to encounter Jesuits on the field of controversy.
The policy which Jesuits would introduce into this country, and force upon us, by the authority of their church, could not long fail to divide this Union into fragmentary sections, and embroil our citizens in scenes of blood and slaughter, such as never have been witnessed before. We should soon have State armed against State; and in place of one united army and one commander-in-chief, we should have twenty? eight armies, and as many generals-in-chief. This is precisely what the Jesuits and the Popish church are aiming at This would give them, united, a superior power, and to them we should have to appeal for the settlement of our difficulties. The policy of the Popish church has always been a curious combination of ecclesiastical and democratic pretensions. In theory, it is democratic enough for our most rabid Locofocos; but in practice, it requires from man the most thorough subjection. Let us look back to history, and the truth of this will appear evident Any opposition to the Pope of Rome, from any sovereign, or any other authority whatever, is considered by the Popish church as treason against God and man.
Every historian will recollect the murder of the Guises in France. The disturbances of the times, and the causes which led to them, are well known to the readers of history; and let it not be forgotten, that the Popish doctrines and Popish republicanism which then existed in France, are now covertly and treacherously taught in these United States. In 1589, some of the French people entertained scruples whether it was lawful or not to depose a legitimate sovereign, or put him to death, after swearing allegiance to him. The question was one of great anxiety among the people, and something was to be done to quiet it Meetings were called in different places, and it was finally determined by them to lay the subject before the Popish theological faculty of the University of Paris: This faculty had full power from his Holiness the Pope, to give judgment in the case, and the Catholics of France were bound to obey it. Accordingly, on the 7th of January, 1589, the great, and holy, and infallible doctors of Popish divinity in the College of Sorbonne met, by authority, and pronounced the following decision: "Having heard the nature and free counsels of the Magistri, and after many and divers arguments heard, drawn, for the most part, verbatim from holy writ, the canon law, and the Papal ordinances, it has been concluded, by the Dean of the faculty, without any dissenting voice, first, that the people are absolved from the oath of fidelity and allegiance sworn by them to the King. Furthermore, that the said people may, without any scruple of conscience, combine together, arm themselves, and collect money, for the maintenance of the Roman Catholic Apostolic religion, against a king." This is republicanism, as taught by Jesuits and Papists. This is the republicanism which they teach through the confessional in the United States, and this is the democracy which they have commissioned the infidel Brownson to spread over our country. This is the republicanism which Eugene Sue is cautioning mankind against introducing amongst them, and Eugene Sue is the man whose writings many of our philanthropic, but mistaken lecturers, are trying to suppress. Eugene Sue has done more to stem the torrent of Popish democracy in this country, than any man who has written against Papists. He has attacked it in its very bud. He knew where it germinated. Our Protestant lecturers know not the source from which it springs, and therefore they had perhaps better let it alone altogether, until they become thoroughly acquainted with the principle that gave it birth, and the influences that sustain it. Eugene Sue knew full well that the Popish confessional was the source and substance of all Jesuit treasons, immoralities, plots, and murders. He is a man of the world, and knows that licentiousness and despotism are more closely allied than is imagined by our simple-minded and pious lecturers; he knows that both are inconsistent with liberty,—which should be the true end of all governments,—and he has therefore deemed it prudent to bring all his energies to bear against the Popish confessional, knowing full well that if that were destroyed, together with the supremacy of the Pope of Rome, mankind could not fail to be benefited. He has attacked that confessional, not by whining over the immoralities of the times, or the romance of modern literature,—this any old woman can do,—but he has fallen upon it with the club of Hercules, whose well-aimed blows I pray heaven no lecturer may weaken. It is far from my intention to be disrespectful to any well-meaning lecturer against Popery, and it is still much further from my mind to be uncourteous towards any of those Protestant divines who disagree with me in regard to the anti-Popish writings of Eugene Sue; but I must do my duty, as I understand it myself. I am not unmindful that there was a time when general knowledge was a scarce article among the people, and when the clergy engrossed the largest portion of it; and I doubt whether it is not a great misfortune that many of our lecturer derive most of their knowledge of mankind from the study of works written in those times. Hence much of their unfitness to criticise the writings of men of the world. It is, however, an easy matter to condemn the writings of any man; but when a Protestant theologian publicly finds fault with Eugene Sue, or any other writer against Popery, it is reasonable to expect him to supply something better of his own. A good anecdote is told of Margaret, Governess of the Netherlands. When Luther first commenced writing against Popery, he handled the Pope and his Jesuit priests rather roughly; he knew them of his own knowledge, just as I do myself. Margaret upon one occasion had around her some of her courtiers, who were chatting most politely and courteously, and commenting on the inelegance and uncourtliness of many of the expressions used by Luther in his writings. Margaret, suddenly turning round, asked one of the most garrulous and verbose amongst them, "Who is this Martin Luther?" "He is," replied the courtier, "a rough and uncouth man," and from the "coarseness of his language, I should suppose he was an ignorant man." "Yes, he is," exclaimed the whole circle of exquisite theologians and fashionables. "I am glad of it," replied Margaret. "You are learned men, possessing refined minds, and no doubt you will give us something better than he has written. I wish you would do so as soon as possible, and furnish me a copy of your production." Can the sapient critics to whom I have been alluding take a hint? Eugene Sue understands much better the strength and power he has to contend with, than our American theologians do. If I estimate them correctly, or if it be proper to judge of all by any one of them, I would say they know nothing whatever of the strength of Popery. I recollect having recently seen and read a speech delivered by a distinguished member of the Christian Alliance, at a meeting held in Boston, and the following passage in that speech made so vivid an impression on my mind, that I have not forgotten it since; nor could I help inferring that if the speaker were a fair sample of the whole, they formed a very incorrect estimate of the power of that wily enemy to civil rights, the Pope of Rome. The following are literally the words of the speaker to which I allude: "I thought the Pope was a man of learning, but he aint; he's a granny." This sentiment, and the mode of expressing it, may be satisfactory to the learned gentleman who uttered it, but to one who may be entirely indifferent, it is a much stronger evidence of the grannyism of the speaker, than of the Pope. I refer to this with no other view than to show how unacquainted some American theologians are with Popery, in every shape and form. This gentleman should know that if the Pope were a granny, it would be no argument against Popery, or any preventive of the evils with which it threatens us. Suppose a meeting of citizens were held, on the subject of our difficulties with Great Britain, we can easily fancy some spouter to rise in his place and say, "We have nothing to dread from that nation; the Queen is but a silly woman; she is but a mere granny." Would not any sensible man at the meeting advise this spouter to sit down, and no longer intrude upon their time by such nonsense? It might be known to the meeting, that the government of England was not managed by the Queen, but by her Cabinet, composed of men well versed in the science of diplomacy and government intrigues. It is immaterial whether the sovereign of England is in her cradle, flirting at a ball, or in her dotage—the power of England is not the less to be dreaded.