Reading Time: 542 minutes

Chapter XV. Re-entering Spain.

The decree abolishing the Jesuits was accepted by all the Roman Catholic sovereigns and people of Europe as final. It was an exercise of the highest authority of the Church. But it was not accepted by the Jesuits, who, in contempt of this authority, brooded over the purpose to plot stealthily against it until they could obtain its revocation from some sympathizing and pliable pope. Their position was that of condemned criminals—compelled to recognize the authority and jurisdiction of their triers, while secretly endeavoring to find or to create some antagonistic authority from which they could obtain a grant of pardon, or a revival of their power to repeat their offenses without pardon. It counted nothing with them that Clement XIV was canonically pope—their own interest outweighed anything that concerned either pope or Church. They were willing to obey the Church provided the Church favored their society, but not otherwise. Consequently, it may be said of thei then, as at all other times, that they recognized no othr form of Christianity than that which centered in Jesuitism, and no other authority than that of their general at Rome.

When re-established, they came out from their hiding places, and appeared again in all the centers of European influence. Their numbers were sufficient to show that, instead of having considered their society abolished—as they were commanded to do by the decree of Clement XIV— their organization had been secretly and defiantly preserved, without any departure from the principles of the constitution, any abatement of their pretensions, or any perceptible diminution in their numbers. Each one reappeared in the old armor of the order—reburnished for use again. The weapons which Loyola had forged for deadly warfare against Protestantism were re-issued to the “sacred militia” of the order, and its drilled and submissive battalions renewed their old and familiar battle-cry, announcing their determination never to lay down their arms until all the fruits and consequences of the Reformation were exterminated. The possibility of achieving that result stimulated their ardor afresh; and they became more earnestly united than ever in the cause of the Bourbon monarchs, when they realized that Pins VII had assured the “ Holy Alliance” that all the powers of the papacy should be employed to that end, and that they were to be placed, as the special champions of retrogression, in the forefront of the conflict. The times were such that they drew fresh inspiration from them. The jealousies and rivalries among the sovereigns had thrown all Europe into tumult. The French Revolution had been productive of consequences which created a flame of intense excitement, yeaching the outer circumference of the Continent. Society was thrown into an agitated and perturbed condition, and the foundations of the strongest Governments were threatened.

The appearance of Napoleon had alarmed the hereditary sovereigns. He had succeeded in striking what they feared would be a fatal blow at the doctrine of the divine right and hereditary cescent of royal powers. He had shattered Governments «1 destroyed dynasties with reckless audacity, in order to build up new Governments and dynasties obedient to himself. The reigning monarchs were dismayed at the rapidity and success of his movements—being unable to anticipate when or where his quick and decisive blows would strike. But when his star waned, they again applied their united energies to the revival of their claim of divine right and to a closer union of Church and State. They could not fail to see that monarchism was threatened with defeat unless some agencies could be discovered whereby the unwary populations who were striving after freedom could be brought back again into the net which the papacy and secular monarchs had spent centuries in weaving. These terrified sovereigns were seemingly relieved from their embarrassing fears when Pius VII ventured to bring to their aid what he intended should be the whole power of the Church, by restoring life to the dissolved society of Jesuits. They must have rejoiced as drowning men do when seizing upon some object that saves them. The Jesuit spirit did not need to be revived, for it had never been suppressed; and therefore they reappeared fully panoplied for the renewal of the battle against civil and religious liberty, the popular right of self-government, and all the beneficent influences of the Reformation.

Sympathizing with Ferdinand IV of Naples—the most bigoted monarch in Europe, at whose instance they were restored—the Jesuits selected such points of operation as would enable them to strike their hardest blows at the freedom of speech, of the press, and of religious belief; well knowing that where these were allowed, they gave birth to the principle of popular self-government where it did not exist, and strengthened and maintained it where it did. They were encouraged by all who supported the alliance between the papacy and the allied sovereigns, upon the ground that the parties to that alliance were endeavoring to keep Church and State united, as the only certain guarantee for preserving monarchism. They were consequently accepted as co-workers in the cause of absolute imperialism and the enemies of every form of government where the people possess the right of sovereignty. The flag under which they marched had upon it all the symbols of despotism, and no room for a single star to indicate the light of modern progress and development. Having thus reached again a condition of apparent security, they were attracted to Rome by the patronage of the papacy, and the value of their alliance was recognized by the papal authorities, as may be seen in the fact that they had restored to them their property which Clement XIV had confiscated, together with the Roman and German colleges at Rome, and a number of churches. They became more powerful than ever in the States of the Church, and succeeded in bringing all Italy under the dictatorship of their general, except Sardinia and Piedmont, where, in order to avoid a direct breach with the pope, they were tolerated, but not installed. They moved about through Europe, openly where they could do so safely, and secretly where they could not—rejoicing when they witnessed the triumph of monarchism over the rights of the people. Wheresoever a battle was to be fought against these rights, they always aided and encouraged the cause of political despotism. If, in the contests of that period, a single Jesuit could have been found in the ranks of the people, except to betray them, he would have been anathematized by his society.

The reintroduction of the Jesuits into Spain teaches a lesson which should not be forgotten. The king, Ferdinand VII, proved himself to be one of the most faithful of their royal pupils. After he had succeeded in becoming freed from the grasp of Napoleon, and returned to his kingdom, he found an existing constitution by which the Spanish people, in his absence, had placed wholesome limitations upon the royal power. With a view to regain possession of authority, he made a solemn pledge that he would obey this constitution and see that it was enforced. Having succeeded, he proved by his subsequent conduct that he was thoroughly conversant with, and wholly approved, the Jesuit doctrine that a monarch is not bound by any promise made to his subjects, or by any oath to obey it, because his authority is divine, and the people possess no rights which he does not of his own accord concede to them. Consequently, when safely in possession of the throne—with Jesuit emissaries crowding about his court to dictate his policy and pardon his perjury—he traitorously proceeded to abolish the Cortes, the legislative body of the nation, and grasp the scepter of absolute government in his own hands. He restored the infamous Inquisition, and the cruelty of his despotism was exhibited in the number of victims who suffered death during his reign of terror. How such a monarch should have enjoyed the favor and protection of Pius VII—the head of the Church—almost passes intelligent comprehension; how he had the approval of the Jesuits is well understood. His enormities became so great, at last, that the Roman Catholic people of Spain, weary of his persecutions, and realizing that the nation could not live unless they were arrested, resorted to revolution to avenge wrongs they could endure no longer, and proclaimed a constitutional form of government, whereby they guaranteed such popular rights as they deemed essential to their own welfare. But the Jesuits were present to counsel the perjured king, and, accepting their casuistical teachings as his guide, he assented to this new constitution, and by the repetition of his solemn promise to observe it, turned away the popular vengeance. Thus he gained time to renew his royal strength, and when he subsequently found the nation seemingly slumbering in a sense of security, again stamped his feet upon the constitution, reassumed his arbitrary authority as king by divine right, independently of the people, forfeited his honor by repeating his perjury, and plunged Spain into the deepest misery. This perjured tyrant was cursed by the Roman Catholic people of Spain, and his enormities drove the Roman Catholic populations of Spanish America to assert their independence. When he had the royal power in his hands he brought the Inquisition and the Jesuits back to Spain; when the people were enabled to enforce the constitution, they drove the Jeswits out of the country. He knew his friends, and the people knew their enemies. But with all the infamies of his conduct resting upon him, he was favored and applauded by Pius VII and venerated by the Jesuits. The contemporaneous events are full of instruction.

To accomplish the objects announced at Vienna, the “Holy Alliance” met again in Congress at Verona, where the sovereigns pledged themselves, in the most solemn form, that they would continue to prevent the establishment of popular governments, and would unite all their energies in preserving monarchical institutions where they existed, and in re-establishing them where they had been set aside by the people. The adoption of a constitution by Spain was considered as in conflict with this decision at Verona, and preparations were at once made to defeat it. Louis XVIII, of France, as one of the allied sovereigns who had undertaken to preserve monarchism and defeat all popular Governments at every hazard, marched an army into Spain for the sole purpose of subduing the people and setting the constitution aside, so that the state of things that had so long existed under Ferdinand VII should continue. It was this unnatural and unjust war that carried back the Inquisition and the Jesuits to Spain. Nothing could have been more grateful to the Jesuits, because they thought they could see in it the triumph of monarchism over the people. They followed this army of invasion with as much delight as famishing people go to a feast. That they exulted when it succeeded in overthrowing the constitution, and when they saw the feet of the perfidious Ferdinand VII again upon the necks of the Spanish people, no reader of history will doubt. They “nestled themselves in the country,” says Greisinger, “more firmly than ever,” seemingly encouraged by the hope that the cause of popular rights was lost forever among the Roman Catholic population of Spain. But this unrighteous triumph was short-lived. Another crisis in the affairs of Spain occurred upon the death of Ferdinand VII, when, after a bloody civil war of six or seven years, the ill-fated Isabella was placed upon the throne, and another liberal constitution was proclaimed—not entirely republican, it is true, but sufficiently representative in form to arrest the usurpations of absolutism and assure the ultimate triumph of popular liberty. Once more the Roman Catholic people of Spain signalized their victory over absolutism by driving the Jesuits out of the country, and avowing their determination.

This gave rise to what is known as the Monroe Doctrine, which declares that the United States will consider it threatening to their own independence if European Governments shall interfere with that of any of the American States, that they would no longer be endangered by their presence or annoyed by their intrigues. And thus the Jesuits were compelled to find congenial fields of operations elsewhere in Europe, among those who regarded a constitutional and representative form of government as an offense against the divine law, the people as fit only for servitude, and absolute monarchs as “booted and spurred to ride them.”

Those familiar with the hatred the Spanish people entertained for the Jesuits—not only on account of their bad influences over Ferdinand VII, but because of the tendency of their doctrines to convert men into machines and blunt their moral sensibilities—are not surprised at the detestation in which they were held in Germany. The Spanish people had long been known for obedience to the Roman Church, but had reached a point of intelligence which enabled them to understand the difference between the Church and the papacy, and, therefore, they would not permit even Pius VIL to force the Jesuits upon them—a fact of great significance in forming a true estimate of their character. In Germany, however, where the Reformation began, the remembrance of their former vicious career had not died out, the opposition to them after their re-establishment was more intense than it had been before their suppression; for as the German people increased in enlightenment they were better able to see and understand the irreconcilable hostility of the Jesuits to intellectual development and constitutional government. Their own experience had taught them that reconciliation and concord between Protestants and Roman Catholics were not only possible, but desirable; and they had learned, from that same experience, that, as the Jesuits had participated in all the measures designed to strike down constitutional governments established by Roman Catholic populations, their delight would be increased if, with the same weapons, they could destroy similar governments established by Protestants. Therefore, the German people built around themselves a wall of defense in their own intellectual enlightenment, which Jesuit craft and ingenuity has in vain endeavored to undermine.

France, Austria, and Bavaria were all Roman Catholic countries. France had not forgotten the former fierce and protracted conflict which had given the Gallican Christians their cherished liberties, by assuring to the Government the control of its temporal affairs without papal interference. The recollection of this revived also the remembrance of the fact that the Jesuits had been expelled because of their efforts to destroy these liberties. And, hence, after their reestablishment, even Louis XVIII, with his evident partiality for them as the untiring defenders of absolute monarchism, was unable, although backed by Pius VII, to allow them again openly to re-enter France. Neither in Austria nor Bavaria had there ever been any such struggle as in France; but, nevertheless, the indignation felt towards the Jesuits by the people of both these countries was so undisguised that neither Francis I in the former, nor Maximilian Joseph in the latter, dared to brave public opinion by allowing them free access to either kingdom. These impediments, however, only offered to the Jesuits the opportunity to practice the arts of dissimulation and deception with which they are made familiar by their method of educational training. They surreptitiously entered France under the name of “ Pores de la Foi,” or “Fathers of the True Faith,” and Austria and Bavaria under that of “Redemptionists.” They did not venture, in either of these countries, to avow themselves openly as Jesuits, because of the almost universal indignation felt towards them by these Roman Catholic populations. But gaining admission among them by these false pretenses, they understood well, by skillful training, how to proceed. Having penetrated the skirmish-line of the enemy, they could survey the whole field of battle, and plan accordingly. Every Jesuit who stealthily crept into France or Austria or Bavaria, under these masks of hypocrisy, stood towards the people of these countries as the Italian bandit does to his unsuspecting victim,—ready to strike home his stiletto in the dark. It should excite no wonder, therefore, that, with Pius VII and the allied sovereigns upon their side—all maintaining the divine right to govern, and denying that of the people—these incendiary Jesuits were enabled, at last, to avow openly the name and existence of their order, and to become scattered ini all directions, under the shelter of papal and imperial protection. Thus supported, they extended themselves over the adjacent States, even as far as Rhenish Prussia, opened their colleges and schools, and permitted but little time to elapse before they assumed their former dictatorship over Governments and peoples. Since then they have again revived their old imperial airs among all the nations, especially where they have found shelter under liberal institutions, and seem to be again inspired by the hope, if not the belief, that their ultimate triumph over Protestantism is assured, and that Roman Catholic populations will bow down before them as the only divinely appointed exponents of the true apostolic faith.

Pius VII was encouraged by the success of the Jesuits, and endeavored first to make them available in France to promote the interests of the papacy. Finding Louis XVII submissive to his authority, he proposed to him a Concordat with provisions intended to destroy the Gallican liberties, and bring France into the condition struggled after so hard by Boniface VIII; that is, of absolute submission to the papacy in temporal as well as spiritual affairs. Louis XVUI was weak enough to agree to this Concordat, manifestly under Jesuit influence. But the Roman Catholic people of France were not so easily entrapped as the pope and the king had supposed; and the latter soon learned that even his royal authority was not sufficient to enforce this odious measure. He was compelled, therefore, by the force of public sentiment, to abandon it, although France still submitted to the presence of the Jesuits. The failure of the Condordat, however, was a sore defeat; but defeat only incensed the passions of Pius VII.

The hatred of the Jesuits in Germany was shared alike by Protestants and Roman Catholics. These two bodies of Christians agreed that they would unite in maintaining freedom of worship; that is, they would return to the old order of things, which existed before peace and harmony had been disturbed by the Jesuits at their first appearing in Germany. They signed a Concordat to that effect, and sent it to Pius VII for his approval, intending that he should realize how easy it was for Christians to live together in harmony, notwithstanding differences of religious belief prevailed among them. The importance of this movement can not be overestimated. If the pope had thrown his great influence in its favor, its bene. ficial results would have been universally felt. But Pius VII, seeming not to know that such a union among Christians was possible, positively and peremptorily refused his assent to this just and liberal arrangement, declaring that it would “compromise his temporal and spiritual power.” All classes of German Christians—howsoever they otherwise differed— rebuked his illiberality, and adhered to their conciliatory course towards each other. Pius VII, realizing the necessity of fulfilling his obligation to the allied sovereigns, and of keeping the Jesuits in the active service of the papal and imperial cause, became intensely excited at this German persistence, and expressed his indignation in strong language. His course is thus explained by Cormenin: “He rallied around him the kings of the Holy Alliance, declared a terrible war against liberal ideas, fulminated excommunications against the Democrats of France, the Illuminati of Germany, the Radicals of England, and the Carbonari of Italy,” which includes everything that tended, at that period, towards liberalism and popular government. Manifestly, however, his anger was specially aroused at the thought of religious toleration, which, looked at from the papal standpoint, meant the loss of monarchical power and, consequently, heresy. With this tremendous combination confronting them— composed, as it was, of the papacy, the allied sovereigns, and the Jesuits—what other remedy but revolution was within reach of the people? How else could they prevent the continued union of Church and State, the complete triumph of monarchism, and the crushing defeat of constitutional and popular government? Nobody needs to be told to what extremities the allied sovereigns were ready and willing to go to accomplish these results; and when supported by a pope like Pius VII, and he by the Jesuits, whose society he had re-established for that express purpose, they possessed an organization of such a character, so formidable and vast in its proportions, that there was left to the multitude no other possibility of escape than by asserting, as the people of the United States had done, their natural right to civil and religious liberty. No question about the form of religious faith was involved, except in so far as the pope, the allied sovereigns, and the Jesuits were united in maintaining that the only true religion was that based upon the joint monarchism of Church and State—in other words, that the faculties of the human mind should remain undeveloped in order to fit the people for inferiority and passive obedience to authority.

Hence, when the Roman Catholic populations came to realize what Protestantism had done in a few centuries to enlighten and elevate multitudes of people, it required but little intelligent thought to see that the combination which threatened to deprive them of liberties essgntial to their welfare was violative of the true faith of the Church they revered, and from whose proper teachings they were unwilling to depart. They could readily understand that it was the papacy, and not the Church, that had led them to the very edge of a fearful precipice. They were animated by the inspiring influence of liberty—always broad, generous, conciliatory. Yielding, therefore, to the instinctive teachings of nature, they found themselves no less desirous than others to enjoy the protection of constitutional government, and no less willing than others to resort to the ultimate remedy of revolution when assured that their just rights could not otherwise be obtained. Thus only are we enabled to account intelligently for the revolutions in the Roman Catholic States—organized, as they were, to resist the tremendous conspiracy of European monarchists, in both Church and State, to defeat the formation of popular constitutional governments, and to overthrow them where they had been formed.

These revolutions followed each other so rapidly as to prove the existence of a common purpose; and the nearer they were to Rome, the more violent were the passions which incited and followed them. The masses of the people were unwilling to submit longer to their own humiliation, even in face of the fact that Pius VII had, by assuming infallibility never authorized, placed the Church in the attitude of approving the doctrines and purposes of the “Holy Alliance.” They accepted, with reverential fidelity, the faith proclaimed by “the fathers” of the Apostolic Age, the Conciliar Decrees and the true traditions of the Church, but were unwilling to have it perverted by either the papacy or the Jesuits, so that it should be made the pretext for holding them and their posterity! in vassalage. They courageously determined, therefore, to free themselves from bondage— being no longer willing to be bound with fetters, whether drawn from the arsenals of the papacy or newly forged in the workshops of the Jesuits. These revolutions might have been avoided, and might have been arrested after they broke out, by the authority of the Church in the hands of a pope less intent upon the possession of temporal and monarchical powers than Pius VII, and less willing than he to patronize the Jesuits and participate in the purposes of the “Holy Alliance” for political and ambitious ends, But Pius VII was constrained by the circumstances surrounding him, as the representative of the papacy, to discard all other considerations except such as promised success to the allied powers, to whose triumph over the people he contributed, as far as he could, all the authority of the Church. To him the Jesuits appeared merely as “ experienced rowers,” who could “break the waves” of the revolutionary sea; and having taken them on board the papal bark, freighted with the richest treasures, he defied alike the complaints of the oppressed peoples and the dangers of shipwreck.

That Pius VII was not disposed to abate in the least the claim to universal sovereignty which some of his predecessors had asserted for the papacy, and was therefore incompetent to deal compromisingly with any of the pending questions, is abundantly demonstrated by the history of his pontificate. His assumption that he occupied God’s place upon earth, and was so clothed with divine authority that no human tribunal could rightly inquire into his conduct or motives, placed him in the attitude of bold defiance to the sentiment of liberalism then rapidly permeating the whole body of the people. He mistook the papal dogmas of Gregory VII, Innocent III, and Boniface VIII, and a few other popes, for the Christian doctrines of the nineteenth century. After Napoleon had extended the empire of France over Italy, it became necessary to adjust the relations between the spiritual and the temporal powers. He accordingly addressed a letter to Pius VII, wherein he said: “I will touch in nothing the independence of the Holy See;” that is, that in all spiritual matters he would leave the independence of the pope undisturbed. He made this clear by continuing: “Your holiness will have for me in temporals the same regard I bear for you in spirituals.” The obvious meaning of Napoleon was that Church and State should be separated, and that each should be independent of the other in its own proper sphere. The pope was to be left “sovereign in Rome,” with all the temporal powers necessary to local government, but Napoleon should remain the emperor with the general jurisdiction pertaining to that office. In effect it was, substantially, a restoration of the relations which existed between the Church and the Emperors Constantine and Charlemagne.

If Pius VII had accepted this proposition, it would have gone far towards allaying the revolutionary excitement in Europe, because the people would have seen in it a desire on his part to become reconciled to the progressive spirit of the nineteenth century. It would have been accepted as a recognition of the fact—of which European society had then become conscious—that the wonderful advancement of the United States was attributable mainly to the separation of Church and State. But this was what Pius VII intended neither to concede nor recognize; for it was plain to him that if Church and State were separated in Italy, the papacy would come to an end. Therefore, after reminding Napoleon that he considered his proposition as offensive to “the dignity of the Holy See,” and an invasion of his “rights of free sovereignty,” although it left all his spiritual powers not only unimpaired but fully protected, he emphatically and indignantly rejected it. After declaring that “it is not our will, it is that of God, whose place we occupy on earth,” he proceeds 1o define the relations between the spiritual and the temporal powers in these unequivocal words:

“We can not admit the following proposition: That we should have for your majesty in temporals the same regard that you have for us in spirituals. This proposition has an extent that destroys and alters the notions of our two powers. A Catholic sovereign is such only because he professes to recognize the definitions of the visible head of the Church, and regards him as the master of truth-and the sole vicar of God on earth. There is therefore no identity or equality between the spiritual relations of a Catholie sovereign and the temporal relations of one sovereign to another.”

The true meaning of this was well understood at the time, and can not now be disguised by any method of interpretation. According to Pius VII, therefore, a “Catholic sovereign” must accept whatsoever the pope shall define in the domain of faith and morals, whether spiritual or temporal, because he alone is “the master of truth,” and stands in the place of God on earth, and is, consequently, without any superior, or even equal; that in no other way can a pope be such a supreme sovereign as he ought to be; that it is his divine right to command, and the duty of temporal sovereigns to obey; and that, no matter what temporal relations shall exist among sovereigns, there can be no equality between them and the pope, who shall rule them all, in whatsoever concerns faith and morals, as “the sole vicar of God on earth.” If in this Pius VIL is to be taken to have defined the only form of government which the papacy can recognize as rightful, then it is clear that none such now exists in the world—not even in Italy since the abolition of the pope’s temporal power. The European people at the time understood him sufficiently well to foresee that all their efforts to limit the monarchical power by constitutions would be unavailing if the papal policy announced by him should prevail. The Roman Catholic populations, already upon the verge of revolution, were specially indignant when they realized that the papacy was thus availing itself of the authority of the Church, not only to defeat the popular will, but to require them to accept these teachings as essential parts of the faith. Hence, the revolutionary spirit was increased, so that by the time of the death of Pius VII, in 1828, it had become evident that it could not be arrested unless the papacy abated its pretensions and became reconciled to the existing condition of affairs. Pius VII fretted out his life because of the tendency of the times to liberalism; and if it be said in his behalf that he lived at a stormy period, when the waves of the political sea ran high, it may well be replied that if he had possessed a conciliatory spirit he could have done more than any other living man to bring the discontented and jarring elements into harmony. But instead of this, he turned loose upon society the odious and condemned Jesuits, whose very presence increased the popular discontent, as the storm rages more violently when the imprisoned winds are unchained.

Under the pontificate of Leo XII, the immediate successor of Pius VII, the revolutionary fervor was increased. He found the Jesuits actively engaged in disturbing the peace among all who were reached by their influence, and lost no time in assuring them of his benediction in their efforts to exterminate everything that tended to liberalism and free, popular institutions. With the view of bringing France completely under the papal scepter, he demanded that the clergy there should be made independent of the Government and irresponsible to its laws. But the public sentiment of France was so outraged by this demand that even Louis XVIII was constrained to condemn it by royal ordinance. Failing in this, he turned his attention elsewhere in Europe, adopting the Jesuit tactics of stirring up Protestant populations against their kings, and Protestant kings against their subjects. In this way he, manifestly, hoped to allay, if not suppress, the revolutionary spirit, which was threatening to destroy his temporal power and deprive him of his crown. For a time he seemed to feel assurance of success in Germany and elsewhere, and under the influence of this assurance visited his maledictions upon the modern philosophers, characterizing their opinions as “phalanxes of errors,” and their toleration of different religious opinions as “ indifference to all religion ”—leading to infidelity. So as not to be misunderstood, he represented them as “teaching that God has given entirely freedom to every man, so that each one can, without endangering his safety, embrace and adopt the sect or opinion which suits his private judgment.” He makes this statement thus clear so that there may be no misconception of his unqualified condemnation of the freedom of religious belief, not only as it is taught by these modern philosophers, but as it constitutes the foundation of Protestantism and the civil institutions it has built up, especially those of the United States. Centering his wrath in a single anathema, he said: “This doctrine”—that is, the freedom of conscience—”though seducing and sensible in appearance, is profoundly absurd; and I can not warn you too much against the impiety of these maniacs.” Then, passing to “the deluge of pernicious books” which inundated Europe, he specially selected the Holy Scriptures in the vernacular languages as prominent in this class. “A society,” said he, “commonly called the Bible Society, spreads itself audaciously over the whole world, and in contempt of the traditions of the holy fathers, in opposition to the celebrated decree of the Council of Trent, which prohibits the Holy Scriptures from being made common, it publishes translations of them in all the Languages of the world. Several of our predecessors have made laws to turn aside this scourge; and we also, in order to acquit ourselves of our pastoral duty, urge the shepherds to remove their flocks carefully from these mortal pasturages. . . . Let God arise! Let him repress, confound, annihilate this unbridled license of speaking, writing, and publishing.”

Charles X succeeded Louis XVIII as King of France, and the Jesuits, encouraged by the policy of Leo XII, renewed their efforts in that country. They desired to get control of the young, as they have always done, and therefore demanded that all public instruction in colleges and schools should be confided to them. If assent to this demand had depended upon the king alone, it would doubtJess have been obtained, because it was an essential part of the policy which brought about the alliance of the Bourbon and other sovereigns with the papacy. But the people of France knew the Jesuits too well to intrust their children to their care, and were so united in resisting this demand, that Charles X was compelled to refuse their request. And in order to rebuke the Jesuits as signally as possible, the public authorities provided by law that no one should be employed in teaching who belonged to any religious congregation—a fact. which shows how far they felt justified in going in order to escape what they deemed a serious evil. This provision, however, for an exclusively secular education was made in full accordance with the Gallican Catholic and Protestant sentiment of France, and was intended, not as tending in the least degree to irreligion, but as a necessary step towards the complete separation of Church and State.

Leo XII died pending these agitations. When his successor was elected—-as near our own time as 1829—and took the name of Pius VIII, the revolutionary embers needed only a little more stirring to break out into a flame. The success of constitutional government was becoming more and more apparent, and it was evident to the allied sovereigns that unless the current beating against them could be set back, they were in danger of being overwhelmed. As the idea of Church and State united was involved in the entire papal and royal policy, those, therefore, who were struggling after constitutional guarantees of the freedom of the press, of speech, and of religious belief, had no difficulty in understanding that these great natural rights were specially anathematized by the late Pope Leo XII, for the reason that they constituted the fundamental principles upon which that form of government must rest. Consequently, the masses of the people—Roman Catholics and Protestants alike—became more and more united and clamorous for these rights; not only because they were in themselves of inestimable value, but because they had come to realize that the nations which maintained them were advancing in prosperity, happiness, and enlightenment, far more rapidly than those which suppressed and denied them. Pius VIII could not avoid realizing all this, as well as the obligation resting upon the papacy, as the spiritual patron and guardian of monarchism, to arrest the popular tendency towards constitutional government. Accordingly, he had scarcely entered upon his pontificate when, wedded to the policy of retrogression, like his immediate predecessors, Pius VII and Leo XII, he endeavored to ingraft the teachings of the Jesuits more firmly than ever upon the doctrines of the Church. He addressed a circular letter to “the bishops of Christendom ”—which, being to the whole Church and concerning the faith, was, necessarily, ex cathedra—wherein he pointed out some of the existing errors they were commanded to extirpate. This, according to the Jesuit teaching, was an act of infallibility, and required implicit obedience from all who were faithful to the papacy. It would have been well suited to the Middle Ages. After condemning “secret societies ”—overlooking, of course, the Jesuits—and the “fierce republicans,” or supporters of popular government, as the “enemies of God and kings,” he arraigned them for “breaking the bridle of the true faith and passive obedience to princes,” and thus opening “the way to all crimes.” He insisted that they were endeayoring “to hurl religion and empires into an abyss.” And when he reached the culminating point he expressed himself in these words: “We must, venerable brethren, pursue these dangerous sophists; we must denounce their works to the tribunals; we must hand over their persons to the Inquisitors, and recall them by tortures to the sentiments of the true faith of the spouse of Christ.”

These denunciations and threatenings were intended for those Roman Catholic populations who had always venerated the Church of Rome, in order to turn them away from their revolutionary course. But their increasing enlightenment enabled them to understand that they were papal interpolations upon the primitive faith. Not being disposed to make open war upon the pope, whose sacred office they revered, they attributed them to the undue influence of the Jesuits over him. This was especially the case in France, where, during the pontificate of Pius VIII, as we have seen, the efforts to bring the Government in subjection to the papacy were attributed to Jesuit intrigue. This gave the general sentiment throughout France a tendency towards liberalism, as was indicated, not only by frequent popular demonstrations during the reign of Charles X, but specially at the period here referred to by an election of the Chamber of Deputies. In July, 1830, an overwhelming majority of liberal members were elected to the Chamber, which alarmed the monarchical and royal party, and increased the activity of the Jesuits. To counteract the influence of this election, an effort was made to turn the popular attention away from it by exciting the national pride in favor of royalty, in consequence of the successful termination of the war with Algiers. The royalists made this the cause of great rejoicing, and when they supposed that the people, impelled by their ideas of national glory, had become sufficiently enthusiastic, resolved upon a step designed to crush out the popular spirit of liberalism. The king’s minister, Polignac, the Archbishop of Paris, and the Jesuits, succeeded in inducing the king to defy public opinion by issuing a royal edict to prevent the assembling of the liberal Chamber of Deputies. This edict was composed of three ordinances: 1. Suspension of the liberty of the press; 2. Dissolution of the Chamber of Deputies before it met; 3. Changing the plan of elections by placing the returns in the hands of prefects in the pay of the Government.’ By this high-handed and arbitrary act all Paris was thrown into commotion. Within the course of three days the spirit of revolution, which had been slumbering, but was not suppressed, became thoroughly aroused. The public indignation was exhibited among all classes of the population, except those enlisted in the cause of retrogression. The people demanded the rights which had been secured to them by public charter. The deputies of the Chamber assembled. Barricades were thrown up in the streets. The popular revolt soon ripened into active revolution, which terrified the king, who, unable to pacify the people, attempted, as a last resort, to do so by offering to rescind the tyrannical and obnoxious ordinances. But he was too late. The offense against popular rights was too flagrant to be so easily forgiven. The result was that Charles X—the last of the Bourbons—was ignominiously driven from the throne and from the country, and Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans, made King of France. And thus did a Roman Catholic population fix the stamp of their reprobation upon the policy which the king, the papacy, and the Jesuits had designed for their enslavement.

It was impossible any longer to disguise or to mistake the true character of the issue between progress and retrogression—between constitutionalism and monarchism. It did not, therefore, take long for these events in France to impart their influence to Roman Catholic populations elsewhere. Throughout the central parts of Europe the people were stirred up to inquiry, to protest, to revolution. Having by this time fully realized that the chief calamities which afflicted them proceeded from the union of Church and State, and that a constitutional guarantee of protection was impossible so long as that union continued, their first efforts were directed to a separation of these powers, and the assignment to each its proper and independent sphere of duties. Many centuries of struggles had demonstrated that in no other way could political equality be obtained, or provision be made for assuring to them their natural and inalienable rights. The task was most difficult, because the papacy had been permitted to enlarge its powers by means of false decretals and constitutions, which the ambitious popes had employed without scruple, after they sundered their allegiance to the Eastern Empire and divided the Church. Nevertheless, they resolved upon the effort, hazardous as it was, rather than remain longer. in their humiliating condition of vassalage while the Protestant nations were moving forward in their careers of progress and improvement. A brief glance at the condition of Europe will show that they were favored by the times, as if Providence were then specially shaping the destiny of the world, so as to put a stop forever to the usurpations by which the union of Church and State had been so long maintained, to the prejudice of the Church and the cause of Christianity, no less than to the natural rights of mankind.

The Netherlands contained a population united only under a Government maintained by the combinations which had arisen out of the “Holy Alliance.” In the north, Protestantism had the ascendency; in the south, Roman Catholicism prevailed. This latter part of the population, imitating their Christian brethren in France, desired separate independence, so that their civil institutions should be placed under their own control. They desired a constitution by which proper restraints could be placed upon the royal power, while, at the same time, they did not desire to destroy entirely the principle of monarchism; but rather that it should continue to exist under proper limitations, so as to escape from the absolutism which had hitherto borne so heavily upon them. Being unable to accomplish their object in any other way, they inaugurated an insurrection in Brussels, which soon became a revolution, and resulted in a declaration of independence. The revolution soon acquired strength enough to establish the Government of Belgium, which then became separated from Holland. A king was chosen by an elected Congress, but the constitution tied his hands, and instead of being an absolute, he became a dependent monarch. In this there was no attempt to escape from the just and rightful influence of the Church, for which the population retained the attachment they had long felt. But it severed the bond of union between Church and State by placing in the hands of the people such portion of the powers of Government as they deemed it proper to assert, so that instead of submitting to the absolute domination of the papacy, they protected their own rights and interests by constitutional guarantees. It practically condemned the doctrines of the Jesuits, which denounce revolution against absolute monarchism as sin, and laws proceeding from a tribunal of the people as heresy, and rightfully subject to resistance.

France and Belgium having, therefore, both accepted revolution as a remedy for grievances which could no longer be endured, it excited no surprise when the same sentiment was imparted to other Roman Catholic populations of Europe. The masses were moved, almost everywhere, by the impulse to escape the influences of the old régime, and place themselves under institutions of their own creation, responsible only to themselves. The people of the different nations were beginning to understand and to sympathize with each other more than ever before. They were coming nearer together by means of the facilities of inter-communication, for which they were indebted to the spirit of Protestant progress. They were learning, from the marvelous successes of the advancing nations, that the real sources of national greatness were in their own hands, and depended for proper development upon themselves alone. In whatsoever direction they looked, they found evidences to assure them that these same successes could not be obtained without the constitutional guarantee of the right of self-government. And having been brought to the conviction—no matter whether from choice or necessity—that they could more safely confide their temporal welfare to governments of their own construction than to either ecclesiastical or secular monarchs who traced the prerogatives of absolute imperialism to the divine law, they accepted revolution as a just and rightful remedy for their wrongs.

When France and Belgium had each broken the scepter of absolutism, their influence was soon imparted to the Roman Catholic populations in the south of Europe; and they, too, brooding also over their wrongs, began to gather up the weapons of revolution and prepare to use them. They moved slowly at first, because the chains which bound them were tightly riveted. But they kept their eyes steadily fixed upon the constitutional governments, and advanced cautiously towards a like fortune for themselves. They could not expect to go at once to the whole extent of establishing popular institutions, in the American sense. Their education and the forms of government to which they had been accustomed, had left them in a condition which made extreme caution indispensable, for fear that by rash and precipitate action the principles of the “Holy Alliance” might become so permanently established that Church and State could not be separated, and they would be compelled to acquiesce in the doctrine of the divine right of kings as an essential part of Christian faith, or make war upon the Church, which they had been taught to revere, and did, in fact, revere. The pope was the recognized spiritual head of the Church, and with that they were content. But he was also a temporal king in the States of the Church, and claimed that the authority pertaining to that position was divinely conferred, and included such spiritual sovereignty over the world as God himself possesses; and that he was thereby made the infallible “master of truth,” and was entitled to uninquiring and absolute obedience, not merely in spirituals, but in such temporal matters as he alone should declare to be essential to the preservation and exercise of his imperial prerogatives. They had endured the evils of that form of government long enough, and having contrasted their condition with that of peoples who had entered upon the experiment of governing themselves—such as those of the United States—they became convinced that they owed to themselves and their posterity the duty of undertaking the same experiment, even at the cost of revolution. All they could hope to do, under the conditions surrounding them, was to separate Church and State, disavow and discard the doctrine of the divine right of kings as temporal rulers, whether ecclesiastical or secular, and substitute constitutional governments for absolute monarchism; in other words, to try political institutions of their own creation in place of the “paternal government” by which the papacy had kept them from advancing along with the progressive peoples who had asserted and maintained the right of self-government.

Had not these populations the right to do this? The American Declaration of Independence asserts that this right is derived from the law of nature, and is inalienable. The Holy Alliance” of European sovereigns was organized to suppress it. The papacy and the Jesuits combined their energies to resist it as heresy. There was, therefore, no middle ground between constitutional government and submission— between the continuance of the old order ot things and the infusion of new life into decrepit and decaying institutions. Consequently, the people of Southern Europe had to make choice between these alternatives, at the risk of being denounced and punished as unfaithful and heretical revolutionists. They patriotically chose the latter.