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CHAPTER IX. ROMANISM THE ASSASSIN OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN

THE charge that Romanism was the assassin of Abraham Lincoln was first brought to the attention of the American people by Rev. Charles Chiniquy in his “Fifty Years in the Church of Rome.”The proofs are there. Rome has answered the charges in the old way, by fire. Again and again have her minions tried to destroy man, book, and plates by burning the place where the book was printed and stored. Over and over again they have tried to kill the great apostle, but he still survives, and the light he kindled is shedding its glad radiance upon the world.

In 1851 he removed with a colony to St. Anne, Illinois, to begin the cultivating of the prairies of the West with Roman Catholics. His experience there was terribly sad. Born in Kamoraska, Canada, July 30, 1809, converted to Christ by reading the Scriptures when but a child, as a priest his life shows that a pure man in the Church of Rome has a hard time. No sooner had he begun his life in Illinois than he found a dissolute priesthood in antagonism to him and his work. They plotted against his reputation, and charged him with crimes which, if not disproved, would have incarcerated him in the State penitentiary for life.

It was then he turned to Abraham Lincoln, who, first as a lawyer and afterwards as a friend, served him with matchless ability. Because of this, when Mr. Lincoln became President of the United States, and was threatened by Romish priests with assassination, Father Chiniquy came to Washington to warn him of his peril, and give him proof of a friendship that through years remained unchanged. As an evidence of their close intimacy turn back a little. We are in Urbana, Illinois. Behold Abraham Lincoln as the champion of the betrayed priest.

A priest had accused Father Chiniquy of assaulting a woman, and had offered to give one of his dupes a large sum for swearing to the charge. Twelve men had proven the accuser to be a drunkard and a disreputable man; and yet it seemed impossible to secure any testimony that would disprove the charge.

Said Abraham Lincoln: “There is not the least doubt in my mind that every word this priest has said is a sworn lie; but the jury think differently. The only way to be sure of a verdict in your favor is, that God Almighty would take our part and show your innocence. Go to him and pray, for he alone can save you.”

All that night he spent in prayer; at three o clock in the morning he heard knocks at the door. On opening it, he saw Abraham Lincoln with a face beaming with joy. The story of the trial had been published in the Chicago papers. His condemnation was prophesied.

Among those who bought the papers was a man named Terrien. He read the story to his wife. She was much affected, and declared that it was a plot against a true man, saying: “I was there when the priest, Le Belle, promised his sister 160 acres of land if she would swear to a false oath and accuse Chiniquy of a crime which he had not even thought of, with her.”

“If it be so,”said Terrien, “we must not allow Father Chiniquy to be condemned. Come with me to Urbana.”Being unwell, Mrs. Terrien said: “I cannot go; but Miss Philomene Moffat was with me then, she knows every particular of the wicked plot as well as I do. She is well, take her to Urbana.”

This was done, and Father Chiniquy was saved. The joy of his deliverance was mixed with sorrow, because of what he feared his deliverance would cost his friend. Tears ran down his face. “Why weep? “asked Abraham Lincoln. “Because,”said Father Chiniquy, “of what it may cost you.”There were ten or twelve Jesuits in the crowd who had come from Chicago and St. Louis to see me condemned to the penitentiary, but it is on their heads you have brought the thunders of heaven and earth; nothing can be compared to the expression of their rage against you, when you not only wrenched me from their cruel hands, – but made the walls of the court – house tremble under the awful and superhumanly eloquent denunciation of their infamy, diabolical malice, and total want of Christian and humane principle in the plot they had formed for my destruction. What troubles my soul just now and draws my tears is, that it seems to me I have read your sentence of death in their bloody eyes. How many other noble victims have fallen at their feet. He tried to divert my mind; then became more solemn, and said: “I know the Jesuits never forget nor forsake. But man must not care how or when he dies at the post of honor or duty.”

A few years pass. Abraham Lincoln is President of the United States. On his way to Washington a Roman-Catholic plot to assassinate him was frustrated by his passing incognito, a few hours before they expected him. In August, another plot was concocted; which, coming to the ears of Father Chiniquy, caused him to go to Washington. The story of his experience and the relation of what the President said to him is of thrilling interest.

President Lincoln then told him: We have the proof that the company which had been selected and organized to murder me was led by a rabid Roman Catholic named Byrne; it was almost entirely composed of Roman Catholics. More than that, there were two disguised priests among them to lead and encourage them. Professor Morse, the learned inventor of electric telegraphy, tells me that recently, when he was in Rome, he found the proofs of a most formidable conspiracy against this country and all its institutions. It is evident that it is to the intrigues and emissaries of the Pope we owe, in great part, the horrible civil war which is threatening to cover the country with blood and ruin.”

Mr. Lincoln had been astonished by the statement published in the Roman Catholic papers that tie had been born into the Roman Catholic church and had been baptized by a priest. They called him a renegade and an apostate on account of that, and heaped upon his head mountains of abuse.

“At first,”said Mr. Lincoln, “I laughed at that, for it is a lie. Thanks be to God, I have never been a Roman Catholic. No priest of Rome has ever had his hand upon my head. But the persistency of the Romish press to present this falsehood to their readers as a gospel truth must have a meaning. What is it?”

“It was this story,”said Father Chiniquy, “that brought me to Washington. It means your death. It is told to excite the fanaticism of the Roman Catholics to murder you. In the church of Rome an apostate is an outcast who has no place in society and no right to live. The Jesuits want the Roman Catholics to believe that you are a monster, an enemy of God and of his church; that you are an excommunicated man. Gregory VII. decreed that the killing of an apostate is not murder, but a good Christian act. That decree is incorporated in the canon law which every priest must study, and which every good Catholic must follow. My dear Mr. President, my fear is that you will fall under the blows of a Jesuit assassin, if you do not pay more attention than you have done up to the present time to protect yourself. Remember, because Coligny was a Protestant, he was brutally murdered on St. Bartholomew s night; that Henry IV. was stabbed by the Jesuit assassin, Rev-aillac, the 14th of May, 1610, for having given liberty of conscience to his people; and that William, Prince of Orange, the head of the Dutch Republic, was stricken down July 10th, 1584, by Girard, the fiendish embodiment of all that was crafty, bigoted, and revengeful in Spanish Popery. The church of Rome is absolutely the same today as she was then; she does believe and teach today as then, that it is her duty to punish by death any heretic who is in her way, or an obstacle to her designs.

“My blood chills in my veins when I contemplate the day which may come, sooner or later, when Rome will add to all her iniquities the murder of Abraham Lincoln.”

“Yes,”said Abraham Lincoln, “Professor Morse has already opened mine eyes to this subject. He has truly said: Popery is a political system; despotic in its organization, anti-democratic and anti- republican, and cannot therefore exist with American republicanism.

“The ratio of the increase of Popery is the exact ratio of the decrease of civil liberty. “The dominion of Popery in the United States is the certain destruction of our free institutions.””Popery, by its organization, is wholly under the control of a foreign, despotic Sovereign.””Popery is a union of Church and State; nor can Popery exist in this country in that plenitude of power which it claims as a divine right, and which in the very nature of the system it must continually strive to obtain, until such a union is consummated. Popery is, therefore, destructive to our religious and civil liberty.”

“Popery is more dangerous and more formidable than any power in the United States, on the ground that, through its despotic organization, it can concentrate its efforts for any purpose with complete effect; and that organization being wholly under foreign control, it can have no real sympathy with any thing American. Popery does not acknowledge the right of the people to govern, but claims for itself the supreme right to govern people and rulers by divine right. Popery does not tolerate the liberty of the press. It takes advantage, indeed, of our liberty of the press to use its own press against our liberty; but it proclaims in the thunders of the Vatican, and with a voice which it pronounces unchangeable, that it is a liberty never sufficiently to be execrated and detested. It does not tolerate liberty of conscience or liberty of opinion. They are denounced by the Sovereign Pontiff as a most pestilential error, a pest of all others to be dreaded in the State. It is not responsible to the people in its financial matters. It taxes at will, and is accountable to none but itself.” {Foreign Conspiracy of the United States, by S. F. B. Morse, p. 129. }

These utterances were based on undisputed facts. Abraham Lincoln believed them, hence he said: “If the Protestants of the North and the South could learn what the priests, nuns, and monks, who daily land on our shores, under the pretext of preaching their religion, were doing in our schools and hospitals, as emissaries of the Pope and the other despots of Europe, to undermine our institutions and alienate the hearts of our people from our Constitution and our laws, and prepare a reign of anarchy here, as they have done in Ireland, in Mexico, in Spain, and wherever there are people that wish to be free, they would unite in taking power out of their hands.”

If Abraham Lincoln had said this to the American people rather than to an individual, they would have taken this power out of the hands of Rome, and buried slavery and Romanism in a common grave.

It is now known that the conspirators against liberty relied upon the support of Romanists in the North and in the South. But when the echoes of the guns of Sumter flew over the land, it called into active life the slumbering patriotism of a great people; the tide swept everything before it; the people would brook no opposition. Romish priests and people bowed to the supremacy of the patriotic sentiment. Flags were unfurled from church-spire and from house- top. No Romish conspirator in the great cities of the North dared show his hand; the people ran away from their priests; their conduct was a revelation. It showed to papal emissaries that a people who had fled Europe because of despotism, were not ready to betray liberty in America, the land of the free. Hence Romanists who had enjoyed the blessings of liberty enrolled themselves under the star-spangled banner, and went trooping off to the war* for the Union. Romish priests were taken by surprise; they bent before the swelling current. Flags floated from cathedral spires and parish steeples until Rome was heard from, and then flags were pulled down, lest their church should ignore its sacred calling. They forgot that the Pope lived in Rome because of the help, not of spiritual power, but of the support of French bayonets; that in St. Louis, Mo., when the great cathedral was dedicated, the host was elevated to the music of belching cannon, flags were unfurled and lowered before the wafer- God of Rome, and that soldiers with drawn swords stood on each side of the high altar during service, claiming that in Roman Catholic St. Louis, or in Spain, the military is recognized as the right arm of the church.

Romanism opposed the North because Romanism is the foe of liberty. Romanism encouraged the South because the corner-stone of the Southern Confederacy rested upon human slavery. How the colored people of the South or the North can forget this and unite with the Roman Catholic church is a mystery. It is the theory of Rome that the toilers should be kept in ignorance. Gentlemen for the palace and serfs for the field, is the spirit of Romanism, incarnated in every despotic government where its power is supreme.

Louis Napoleon, the ally of Pius IX., expected to build up in Mexico a Roman Catholic kingdom, and unite it with the Southern States, and so establish a Latin Empire in the new world.

The Emancipation Proclamation spoilt the programme. How strange, how inexplicable are events, when studied in the light of an over-ruling Providence! For months, Abraham Lincoln had a vow registered before Almighty God to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, and give freedom to the negro, providing a victory was won at An tie tarn. The victory came. But Wm. H. Seward and S. P. Chase objected to the issuance of the Proclamation at a time of general depression in military affairs. The President waited until he could wait no longer. He called a Cabinet meeting, read his paper, and declared his purpose to send it forth. Suggestions were made. Some were received, some were rejected. The Proclamation went forth, and winged its way over the world. It reached France at the time when Louis Napoleon had proposed, and was about sending forth a letter recognizing the Southern Confederacy.

That morning the Proclamation of Liberty appeared. Paris was ablaze with excitement. Vivas of liberty filled the air, and Napoleon, knowing that a recognition of the Southern Confederacy was impossible, Maximillian was surrendered to his fate, and the dream of a monarchy in Mexico was exploded,

Claiming that Abraham Lincoln was an apostate, the plot was laid to destroy him. On Dec. 3rd, 1863, Pius IX. uncovered his hand and heart in his letter to Jefferson Davis. That letter, after all that Abraham Lincoln had borne and was bearing for the brotherhood of man, was a severe sword-thrust at his heart and hope.

“Illustrious and Honorable President: We have just received, with all suitable welcome, the persons sent by you to place in our hands your letter, dated the 23rd of September last.” He then takes ground, not for liberty, not for the deliverance of 4,000,000 bondsmen from the hell of human slavery, but for peace; which meant, building up the Confederacy on slavery as a corner-stone.

“We, at the same time, beseech the God of mercy and pity to shed abroad upon you the light of his grace, and attach you to us by a perfect friendship,”

“Given at Rome at St. Peter s, the 3rd day of December, 1863, of our Pontificate, 18. Pius IX.”

This letter came like a clap of thunderin a clear sky. Let us keep a few dates in mind. The Emancipation Proclamation was issued Sept. 22, 1862. This was followed by another, issued Jan. 1st, 1863, giving freedom to all slaves, and also that such persons of suitable condition would be received into the armed service of the United States, to garrison forts, and man vessels of all sorts in said service. And upon this, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity, “I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God.”

Deliberately and ostentatiously, the Pope on the December following recognizes the Southern Confederacy, sides with despotism against liberty, and takes under his protection the chief conspirator against the Republic of the United States! “Have you read the Pope s letter?”said Abraham Lincoln to Father Chiniquy, “and what do you think of it?”(p. 701).

“That letter is a poisoned arrow thrown by the Pope at you personally, and it will be more than a miracle if it be not your irrevocable death-warrant.

“That letter tells logically the Roman Catholics, that you, Abraham Lincoln, are a bloody tyrant, a most execrable being, when fighting against a government which the infallible and holy Pope recognizes as legitimate.”

In reply, Mr. Lincoln spoke with great feeling, saying: “You confirm me in the views I had taken of this letter of the Pope. Prof. Morse is of the same mind with you. It is indeed the most perfidious act which could occur under the present circumstances. You are perfectly correct when you say that it was designed to detach the Roman Catholics who had enrolled in our armies. Since the publication of that letter, a great number have deserted their banners and turned traitor; very few comparatively have remained true to their oath of fidelity.”

There are some terrible facts hidden from the people. “It is known that when Meade, a Roman Catholic, was to order the pursuit of Lee, after the battle of Gettysburg, a stranger came in haste to head-quarters, and that stranger, said Mr. Lincoln, was a distinguished Jesuit. After ten minutes conversation with him, Meade made such arrangements for the pursuit of the enemy that he escaped almost untouched, with the loss of only two guns.”(p. 702.)

“This letter of the Pope has changed the nature of the war. Before they read it, Roman Catholics could see that I was fighting against the Southern Confederacy, with Jefferson Davis at its head. But now they must believe that it is against Christ and his holy Vicar the Pope that I am raising my sacreligious hands. We have daily proof that their indignation, their hatred, their malice against me, are a hundred fold intensified. New projects of assassination are detected almost every day, accompanied with such savage circumstances that they bring to my memory the massacre of St. Bartholomew, and the gun-powder plot. We find on investigation, that they come from the same masters in the art of murder, the Jesuits.

Then Mr. Lincoln declared that the New York riots were a Popish plot, and that

was their instigator. When told by the President that he would be held responsible if they were not stopped, Archbishop Hughes faced the rioters, addressed them as friends, and invited them to go back home peacefully, and all was ended, after the most fiendish manifestations of hate, seen in the burning of the Colored Orphan Asylum and the trampling out of the lives of helpless children in their mad fury. We will not recount the bloody deed, though in the terrible treatment of John A. Kennedy and the murder of Col. O Brien and his mutilation, we are reminded of the horrid barbarities inflicted upon Coligny in Paris, which shows that the spirit of Popery is unchanged.

furnishes a terrible count in this indictment against Rome.

“I have,”said Abraham Lincoln, “the proof that Archbishop Hughes, whom I had sent to Rome that he might induce the Pope to urge the Roman Catholics of the North at least to be true to their oaths of allegiance, and whom I thanked publicly when under the impression that he had acted honestly, according to the promise he had given me, is the very man who advised the Pope to recognize the legitimacy of the Southern Confederacy, and put the weight of his Tiara in the balance against us and in favor of our enemies. Such is the perfidy of Jesuits”(p. 70-4) .

Two cankers are biting the very entrails of the United States, the Romish and the Mormon priests. Both are aiming at the destruction of our schools, to raise themselves upon their ruins. Both shelter themselves under our grand and holy principles of liberty of conscience, to destroy that very liberty of conscience. The more dangerous of the two is the Jesuit priest, for he knows better how to conceal his hatred, under the mask of friendship and public good. He is better trained to commit the most cruel and diabolical deeds for the glory of God.

Abraham Lincoln had learned much, and unlearned much more. He declared himself to be of Roman Catholics. “Once I was; now, it seems to me, that, sooner or later, the people will be forced to put a restriction to that clause of unlimited toleration toward Papists.””I am for liberty of conscience in its truest, noblest, broadest, highest sense. But I cannot give liberty of conscience to the Pope and his followers the Papists, so long as they tell me, through their councils, theologians, and canon laws, that their conscience orders them to burn my wife, strangle my children, and cut my throat when they find an opportunity”(p. 705).

“This does not seem to be understood by the people,”continued Mr. Lincoln. “Sooner or later, the light of common sense will make it clear to everyone, that no liberty of conscience can be granted to men, who are sworn to obey a Pope who pretends to have the right to put to death those who differ from him in religion “(p. 706).

69is beginning to be discussed. Father Hecker says: “The Roman Catholic is to wield his vote for the purpose of securing Catholic ascendency in this country.”They vote as servants of the Pope, not as patriots.

It was stated by Pius IX: “The Catholic religion, with all its votes, ought to be exclusively dominant in such sort that every other worship be banished and interdicted.”

We are putting into hands those potential ballots which will be, and are being, used against liberty. A theocracy controls them against which there is no protection. Emile DeLaveleye, the celebrated Belgian Liberal, has shown that an extended suffrage gives unlimited power to Rome in all those countries where her religion is the religion of the large mass of the people, and Gambetta s last letter contained this: “Do not adopt universal suffrage in your country; it will put you under the yoke of the clergy.”

“From the beginning of the war, there has been, not a secret, but a public alliance between the Pope of Rome and Jeff. Davis, and that alliance has followed the common laws of the world s affairs. The greater has led the smaller; the stronger has guided the weaker. The Pope and his Jesuits have advised and directed Jeff. Davis on the land, from the first shot at Fort Sumter, by the rabid Roman Catholic Beauregard. They were helping him on the sea, by guiding and supporting the other rabid Roman Catholic, Pirate Semmes.”

was ever present. Warnings came to him from friends in America, and beyond the Sea. Secretary Stanton placed guards about him, at the Soldier’s Home and at the White House. The President did not believe that these could secure him from harm. He lived with Christ and for men, and went on. Opening his Bible to Deut. 3:22-28, the words made a profound impression upon his mind: “Ye shall not fear them; for the Lord your God shall fight for you.” Then came the assurance that he was not to pass into the Canaan of peace. “Get thee up unto the top of Pisgah; look abroad; see the land and rest: for thou shalt not go over this Jordan.”

His drawing near to God did him good. It is what we are, not what we profess, that tells the story. As Abraham Lincoln drew near to God, the people drew near to him. No longer was he called the horrid names which once characterized the opposition press. The God in him was conquering the devil about him. Each morning he gave a certain hour to reading the Scriptures and prayer, and came forth from his room ready for duty, with that light shining in his face which glorified Moses as he came down from the mount. This, while it made him friends with the soldiers and the people, maddened the Romanists.

In the light of what was to come so soon, we delight to go back and read statements like the following:

“When little Willie Lincoln died, the mind of the bereaved father was deeply affected by the thoughts of death. It was during the battle of Gettysburg that he shut himself up with God, and then such a sense of the presence of God and of his own unworthiness came to him and took possession of his soul, as to overwhelm him. From that day he dated his entrance into a new life. A Christian friend delighted to relate how, in the carriage, Mr. Lincoln begged the visitor to describe as clearly as possible what was the peculiar evidence which one might rely upon as assurance that he had become a Christian.”

The simple story, as furnished by John, was repeated. It was explained, that when a poor sinner, conscious that he could not save himself, looked to Jesus Christ, saw in his death a full atonement for the sinner’s sin, and believed that Christ’s death was accepted as a substitute for the sinner’s death, he felt himself to have been delivered from the Divine wrath, and to be at peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”The President, in a tone of satisfaction, said: “That is just the way I feel.”All this paved the way for what was to come. The war was over,”The soldiers of the Confederacy were going to rebuild their homes and to re- cultivate their fields, with blessings instead of cursings following them. Soup-houses had been placed for the starving at the base of flag-staffs, where the stars and bars had usurped the place belonging to the flag which is the ensign of hope for all lands and climes.

Friday, the 14th of April, 1865, had come. It was a day memorable in many ways. On this day, Beauregard had fired on Sumter. On this day, General Anderson, amid the thunder of cannon and the cheers of loyal hearts, had again raised the flag over the ruins of Sumter.

is noteworthy. He had written to a friend that he was going to use precaution. He had said: “The Jesuits are so expert in their deeds of blood, that Henry IV. said it was impossible to escape them, and he became their victim, though he did all he could to protect himself. My escape from their hands, since the letter of the Pope to Jeff. Davis has sharpened a million of daggers, is more than a miracle.”

He breakfasts with his son, Captain Robert. Lincoln, who was on General Grant’s staff, having just returned from the capitulation of Lee, and the President passed a happy hour listening to all the details. At eleven o clock he attended his last cabinet-meeting. When it was adjourned, Secretary Stanton said he felt that the Government was stronger than at any previous period since the Rebellion commenced; and the President is said, in his characteristic way, to have told them that some important news would soon come, as he had a dream of a ship sailing very rapidly, and had invariably had that same dream before great events in the war, Bull Run, Antietam, Gettysburg.

THE invitation for President and Mrs. Lincoln, General and Mrs. Grant, Speaker Colfax and wife, to attend the theatre, is now known to have been a part of the plot. Lincoln, not because he loved the theatre or cared for the play, but to please the people and obtain needed rest, yielded to the persuasion of his wife, and to the sentiment which rules very largely the crowned heads of Europe, when the king goes to his box in the theatre that the people might see him and that he might see the people. General Grant did not go, nor did Mr. Colfax, and other invited guests. Lincoln was disappointed; rode around with his wife and invited Colonel Rathbun and his wife to seats with them: they accepted the invitation and saw the horrid deed performed.

The box of the theatre was made ready for his assassination. John Wilkes Booth, an illegitimate son of his father, had been boasting for days in drunken moods of what he was to do. He had united with the Roman Catholic Church, though he was drinking to excess and plotting the murder of America’s noblest citizen, with Roman Catholic priests, who instructed him and inducted him into the Church, and promised him protection and support in his nefarious crime.

In the book of testimonies given in the prosecution of the assassins of Lincoln, published by Ben Pitman, and in the two volumes of the trial of John Surratt, 1867, we have the legal and irrefutable proof that Rome directed the movements of Booth; that the plot was matured in the house of Mary Surratt, 561 H Street, Washington, D. C.; that Father Lehiman, a priest, made her house his home; that Father Wiget and other priests were constantly going in and out: and that all the details of the conspiracy were planned there and provided for. Booth was made to feel that he was the instrument of God in ridding the world of Lincoln. The day before his death, he wrote: “I can never repent, though I hated to kill. Our country owed all her troubles to him, Lincoln, and God simply made me the instrument of his punishment.”So thought Ravillac, the assassin of Henry IV. Both were trained to believe that there was no sin in killing the enemy of the holy church and of the infallible Pope.

Let us draw aside the curtain:

The evening came. The President is sitting in his box in the theatre. He is resting in a rocking chair. A man enters the door of the lobby leading to the box. He closes the door behind him. He draws a pistol, and shoots the President in the back of his head. The shriek of Mrs. Lincoln pierces the ears of all. Booth leaps upon the stage, brandishing a dagger, and flies, saying as he does, “Sic semper tyrannis.”His horse at the door is held by a Roman Catholic. He leaps upon, it and rides away.

Proof that Rome directed the arm of J. Wilkes Booth is seen:

First. In the fact that the house of Mrs. Surratt, a Roman Catholic, where the plot was laid, swarmed with priests.

Second. The Mr. Lloyd, who kept the carbine which Booth wanted for protection, was a Roman Catholic.

Third. Dr. Mudd, who set the leg of Booth, was a Roman Catholic.

Fourth. Garrett, in whose barn Booth took refuge and where he was shot, was a Roman Catholic.

Fifth. All the conspirators, says General Baker, the great detective, were attending Roman Catholic services, or were educated as Roman Catholics.

Sixth. Priests sheltered and spirited away John Surratt, and Pope Pius IX. gave him a place among his guards,

Seventh. The plot was known as far away as St. Joseph, Minn., 40 miles from a railroad, and more than 80 miles from a telegraph. Rev. F. A. Conwell, late chaplain of a Minnesota regiment, was told at that place at six P.M. on April 14th, the night of the assassination, by the purveyor of the monastery filled with priests, that President Lincoln and Secretary Seward had been killed, four hours before the deed was attempted. How was it known? There is but one answer. The conspiracy which cost Abraham Lincoln his life was resolved upon by the priests of Washington and communicated to priests in far-away St. Joseph. Charles Boucher, a priest in Canada, swears that John Surratt was sent to him by Father Lefierre, the canon of the bishop of Montreal. For months he concealed him, and then shipped him to Rome. Why? Because it was in the bond. They promised the murderers protection on earth, so far as they could give it to them, and a crown in heaven if they died in the attempt.

Eighth. The rejoicing of Romanists* at the outset, and until they saw their peril. Mrs. Surratt, the day after the murder, said, without being rebuked, in the presence of several witnesses: “The death of Abraham Lincoln is no more than the death of any nigger in the army.”

Why is not more made of it? Cowardice explains it all. Fear was on every side. The leaders declared, We are just through with one war; if we make an attack on the Roman Catholic church and hang a few of their priests, who could be proven guilty of participating in the plot, a religious war would be the result. Nothing would have been easier than to have proven the criminality of the priests; but this was carefully avoided, from the beginning to the end of the trial. When their eyes were opened to their peril, the fear of the priests was pitiable. They say that their damning deed had frozen the milk in the breasts of millions. Jesuitism, with the tread of a panther and the cunning of a sleuthhound, shrank away, and hid from sight for the time. Alas! politicians seemed smitten with the same dread. Father Chiniquy declared that, when, not long after the execution of the murderers, he went incognito to Washington, to begin his investigations about the true and real authors of the deed, he was not a little surprised to see that not a single one of the men connected with the Government to whom he addressed himself would consent to have any talk with him on that matter, except after he had given his word of honor that he would never mention their names in connection with the result of the investigation. He says: “I saw with profound distress that the influence of Rome was almost supreme in Washington. I could not find a single statesman who would dare face the nefarious influence, and fight it down.”This was the policy of Lincoln. On this rock his bark struck, and went down.

The Romanism that assassinated President Lincoln is in our midst, unchanged in spirit and in purpose. Upon the American people devolve fearful responsibilities,

First. “We can tell the truth about Romanism.”

Second. “We can tell the truth to Romanists.”

Third. “We can hold America for Americans.”

Had Abraham Lincoln voiced the utterance, it would have made him the evangel that would have carried hope to the millions of earth. The work he left undone we must undertake, and then shall Romanism find here a grave, into which the roots of liberty shall go and find nutriment, while above shall tower the hardy trunk, from whose wide branches shall hang fruits which, gathered by God’s best children, shall fill the garners of hope, and make this Immanuel;s Land.