Continued from Chapter II. The Pope and Civil Affairs.

Roman Catholic Literature and Intolerance.—The Bible to be Closed.—The Spanish Inquisition Justified.—Freedom of Thought Denounced as Sin.—Tracts in Favor of the Pope’s Infallibility, and Universal Supremacy in Faith and Morals.—Morals Involve Politics.—”The Index Expurgatorius.”—Condemnation and Punishment of Galileo.—Spanish Inquisition.—The Middle Ages Preferred to the Present Times.

THERE is nothing better understood than that the Roman Catholic Church requires all its members to believe that the Church was established at Rome by the apostle Peter, in obedience to the express command of Christ, who gave him primacy over the other apostles for that purpose; that it has possessed, from the beginning, an external organization composed of the pope and his army of official dependents, who derive, directly from God, the authority of its exclusive government, and that all who desire eternal salvation must become subject to this authority, because there is not, and can not be, any other true Church. From the very nature of things, a church asserting such exclusiveness must be aggressive. This all-absorbing organization can not be maintained in any other way. And that it is aggressive and uncompromising is shown by its whole history, and by repeated and emphatic avowals of its supporters; especially of those who share its authority and are tireless in their exertions to maintain it.

Having found Protestantism the most formidable opponent it ever encountered to its system of exclusiveness, it has contrived to keep alive in the minds of multitudes of its members a stubborn hostility to every advance among the nations, and every improvement in their condition, calculated to drive it from the field, of which, before Protestantism became its rival, it had the undisputed possession. Having regarded the world for many centuries as entirely subject to its dominion, and deriving therefrom a conviction of its supremacy over mankind, it has been unwilling to recognize Protestantism as an equal, entitled to be conciliated, but has habitually considered it as an enemy, to be exterminated and destroyed. No matter what concessions it has obtained, or to what extent it has enjoyed the advantages of Protestant protection and toleration, there has never been any abatement of its imperious demands, or any softening of its aggressive character. In the United States, where it has enjoyed every possible degree of security which the laws and public sentiment can confer, its hostility to Protestantism has never been so open, active, and violent as it is to- day. The tolerance of our institutions has had the effect of awakening energies which seem to have been only slumbering. It has been, manifestly, awaiting a more effective concentration of its strength, so that whensoever it shall strike its blows they may be more powerful and dangerous.

A scrutinizing observer can not avoid the conviction that the moderation it has hitherto exhibited has been suggested by expediency and policy—not principle—and practiced, in order to gain, by degrees and unobserved, such a position that it may resume its accustomed attitude of defiance and intolerance, and assert for itself the “divine right” of sitting in judgment over our Constitution and laws.

It is worthy of frequent repetition, that there is no country in the world where the Roman Catholic Church and its hierarchy are better or more securely shielded, in all the just rights of religion, property, and person, than they are in the United States. They are nowhere deprived of any single religious or civil privilege which other churches and people enjoy. The Protestant communities in all the States have universally recognized them as entitled to the same protection they have secured to themselves. In this they have been consistent with the Protestantism they profess, which is not aggressive, but tolerant and charitable; not malignant, but conciliatory. And this liberality has been shown them, notwithstanding Roman Catholicism has, at the same time, in countries where it has had the power, not only denied to Protestantism any equality of privileges or protection with itself, but has subjected it to continual persecution and indignities. Yet, in the face of all this, these same hierarchs who have enjoyed these advantages are now actively organizing themselves, and their followers, as far as they can influence them, into an ecclesiastical army, for the vigorous prosecution of a war which they avow their purpose to carry on unceasingly until Protestantism shall be driven from the field, entirely subdued and overthrown, and all that it has done shall be obliterated from history, so that the world shall be made to bow before the papal scepter.

We should not deceive ourselves or be deceived by others. It is frequently and properly said that we must, by all means, avoid a religious war; and all our best impulses admonish us to guard against so terrible a calamity. It should be the fervent prayer of every good man, that Providence may so direct the events before us that such a misfortune may never again befall the world, especially that it may never befall a country like ours, where so much pains has been taken to construct a government with the idea that Christians ought to dwell together in harmony and brotherly love, as one of its cardinal principles. Protestantism can make no such war, and can take no part in it, except when driven to that extremity by the absolute necessity of self-defense. It has, thus far, proved the only power sufficiently imbued with the spirit of toleration and the brotherhood of man, to discard entirely the engines of torture and persecution, and to substitute for them the mild and conciliatory precepts and doctrines of the Gospel. All such wars have hitherto been the work of those who claim to be the exclusive custodians of the true faith, and who, under the influence of this sentiment, are made exacting, aggressive, and uncompromising; and not the work of those whose liberalizing Christianity gives play to all the charities of life and all the best affections of the heart, and whose religion is founded on love.

But can we confidently promise ourselves that we shall escape a religious war? The danger lying before us, and possibly not far off, is, that such a war may be precipitated upon us in spite of ourselves—not necessarily a war of bloody battle—fields, but of aroused, excited, and angry passions, which, intensified by sectarian hatred and partisan violence, may, by possibility, lead to the same deplorable results which have followed similar conflicts elsewhere. The papacy, if history speaks truly, has, in its wonderful progress, made many such wars; and as it claims never to have had any change or “shadow of turning” in the pursuit of its objects, its power to inaugurate still another may not be altogether lost. Are there no evidences of a deeply seated and secretly cherished purpose to invite, in the United States, a fierce and fiery contest between the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church, acting for the papacy, and those who profess the principles of Protestant Christianity? The answer to such a question as this can not be expected in any open and public avowals: the purposes of cunning and experienced adversaries are not usually revealed. But some light is thrown upon it by the literature which those who compose this hierarchy are now scattering broadcast over the land, contained in books, magazines, pamphlets, newspapers, and tracts; silent messengers,which convey words of authority and command to the faithful, which they are required not to disobey, under the penalty of committing an offense against God!

There appeared in France, only a few years ago, a small work, which has been translated into English, republished in this country, and is now sold by leading Roman Catholic book- sellers in our principal cities. Extraordinary pains has been taken to secure for it a large circulation, so that it may reach all the members of that Church, and be read by them. It has a suggestive title—”Plain Talk about the Protestantism of To-day”—and professes to be a talk “with Catholics rather than with Protestants,” in order that they may be instructed as to their duty. It is written in a spirit peculiarly offensive and aggressive, and treats Protestantism as having “melted away in rationalism and infidelity,” and as exhibiting nothing of a religious nature “but the ruins,” which are only “a source of annoyance,” because, “however dismal they appear, they still afford a refuge to the wicked who dare not show themselves on the highways,” that is, that these Protestant ruins are only a shelter for such as dare not confront the indignation of those who serve the papacy! (“Plain Talk about the Protestantism of To-day,” by Mgr. Segur, part i., prop. xv., p. 45. “God detests and curses” it.-Ibid., p. 12.)

It is an artful and cunningly contrived attack upon Protestantism throughout the world, and although designed especially to stimulate the Roman Catholics of France into antagonism against the Protestants of that country, yet its republication and circulation in the United States, under the immediate patronage of the hierarchy, furnishes undoubted evidence of their approval of its contents, and of their design to transfer the attack from Europe to this country. It is a bold and direct challenge to the contest it invites, and conclusively proves that the war will go on, whether Protestants take part in it or not.

Assuming, with the dogmatic air of superiority so common with all this class of writers, that the Protestant forms of religion are no religion at all, because they reject the authority and teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, the author makes this announcement:

“After having rejected the Church, Protestantism rejects Jesus Christ; after having rejected Jesus Christ, it must reject God himself, and thus it will have accomplished its work.” (“Plain Talk about the Protestantism of To-day,” by Mgr. Se’gur, part i., prop. xvi., p. 53.)

At another place, in further continuation of the same idea, he says,

“The Protestant, whether he believes it or not, is an infidel in germ, and the infidel is a Protestant in full bloom.

“Infidelity exists in Protestantism as the oak exists in the acorn, as the consequence is in the premise.” (Ibid., part iii., prop. xviii., p. 243.)

The unmistakable design in this formal arraignment of all Protestants as infidels—to say nothing of its want of truth and Christian charity—is to keep the papal followers in remembrance of what their Church dogmatically and imperiously teaches; that all other religion besides their own is false and heretical, and that it is their duty, both to God and the Church, to oppose and resist Protestantism to the extremity of total extermination. With this thought continually present in their minds, it is doubtless supposed that they can be kept in readiness at all times for any future emergency. And the difficulties in the way of bringing about this unity are much less than many suppose; although in this country they are gradually diminishing under the liberalizing influence of our institutions. They are sufficiently great, however, even here, to demand thoughtful attention.

The “profession of faith,” promulgated by Pope Pius IV. after the Council of Trent, and re-proclaimed by Pope Pius IX., declares that “no one can be saved” who believes otherwise than according to the faith of the Roman Catholic Church; and requires all thus believing to “promise true obedience to the Bishop of Rome,”(*) as an absolutely necessary and indispensable part of the true faith.

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(*) The following pledge is required as a condition of membership: “I acknowledge the Holy Catholic Apostolic Roman Church for the mother and mistress of all churches, and I promise true obedience to the Bishop of Rome, successor to St. Peter, Prince of the Apostles, and Vicar of Jesus Christ.”—The Grounds of the Catholic Doctrine, Contained in the Profession of Faith published by Pope Pius IX., 1855, p. 6.
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What are the nature and extent of this “true obedience” will sufficiently appear elsewhere. For the present, it is only necessary to observe with what unerring certainty each step in the papal system leads to this obedience, it being recognized everywhere as a necessary part of the true faith.

Inasmuch as the duty of obedience requires that there should exist somewhere a governing authority having the right to demand and exact it in case of refusal, this author proceeds to show what it is, and in whose hands it is lodged. He says, “The teaching of the Church is the true rule of faith;” a declaration with which liberal-minded Protestants would not be disposed to find any fault, if there had not been in its government so radical a departure from the practices of the apostolic times.

But, in order to exclude the idea that the Church, as a whole, has any right to participate in the declaration of the faith, or can have any authority through its representative bodies, he says that Christ appointed “twelve among his disciples, and sent them forth to the world to teach in his name, and with his authority, the Christian religion,” and that “the pastors of the Catholic Church, ascending through a legitimate and uninterrupted procession to St. Peter and the other apostles, have exercised, and do exercise, this ministry;” there being, of course, no teaching authority in the world besides what they possess. And for fear that some inquisitive mind might conclude that this teaching authority was not infallible, on account of the heretical tendencies of some and the personal unworthiness of others of these pastors, he proceeds still further to exclude all idea of church representation by concentrating the whole of it in the hands of the pope. With him, this official functionary of the Church is the Church itself. Whatsoever authority Christ gave to the Church, he gave to him alone. As the authority conferred by Christ was divine, therefore his authority is divine also. As whatsoever was spoken by Christ were the utterances of God himself, therefore when the pope commands in all the domain of faith and morals, it is God who commands. Thus he defines it:

“And in what does this ministry consist? That power which is derived from Jesus Christ himself, and by which fallible men teach us infallibly, and infallibly lead us in the path of salvation? It is the authority of the Church, to wit, the authority of the sovereign pontiff, successor of St. Peter, head of the Church, and the authority of the bishops, coadjutors to the pope in the grand work of the salvation of men.

This divine authority, entrusted as it is to the hands of men, is the true, the only rule of faith. It has been thus believed in all Christian ages; it has been thus taught by all doctors and fathers of the Church. We have to believe ONLY what the pope and the bishops teach. We have to reject only that which the pope and the bishops condemn and reject. Should a point of doctrine appear doubtful, we have only to address ourselves to the pope and to the bishops in order to know what to believe. Only from that tribunal, forever living and forever assisted by God, emanates the judgment on religious belief, and particularly on the true sense of the Scriptures.”(Mgr. Segur, part iii., prop. ix., p. 105.)

Thus the personality of the believer is merged in the superior personality of the pope. All right of personal inquiry is taken away from him. Whatsoever the pope, through the bishop, shall command the believer to accept, that he shall accept; whatsoever to reject, that he shall reject; and whatsoever to do, that he shall do. If he obey, he shall be saved; if he refuse, he shall be damned. There is no middle ground, no room for hesitation or doubt. The authority is omnipotent, and the obedience must be thorough and complete.

Succeeding thus, as he supposes, in eradicating from the mind all sentiments of individuality, and any advantages to be derived from an intelligent private judgment, he directs his readers that they shall not look to the Bible as furnishing a proper and sufficient rule of Christian faith. He says:

“The Bible contains naught but what is the teaching of God. And yet the Bible is not, the Bible can not be, the rule of our faith, in the Protestant sense.

“Why?

“First. The Bible can not be the rule of our faith, because Jesus Christ has not said to his disciples, ‘Go and carry the Bible,’ but he said, ‘Go and teach all nations. He that heareth you heareth me.'” (Mgr. Seguir, part ii., prop. x., p. 107.)

The nature of our present inquiries does not require such a discussion here as is invited from the theologian by this extract; yet the passing remark may be indulged, that when Christ said, “Search the Scriptures, for in them ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me,”(John 5:39) He fixed no limitation upon the number who should do so, and was addressing the Jews who were persecuting Him for healing the impotent man on the Sabbath-day, and was not reproaching the Pharisees merely because they read the Scriptures, as is incorrectly asserted by the Roman Catholic Church, in furtherance of the doctrine that every thing must be taken from the pope and his coadjutors without any personal investigation of the Bible.(*)

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(*) The following note is inserted in the Douay, or Roman Catholic, Bible, as explanatory of John v., 39; and is required to be taken as a part of the context, and as if uttered by Christ himself:

“It is not a command for all to read the Scriptures, but a reproach to the Pharisees, that, reading the Scriptures as they did, and thinking to find everlasting life in them, they would not receive Him to whom all those Scriptures gave testimony, and through whom alone they could have that true life.”

The Pharisees were a sect of the Jews, distinguished from the Sadducees because of their strictness in interpreting the law. When referred to in the Gospels, they are specially named. But when mention is made of the Jews, as such, all the Jews are included-both Pharisees and Sadducees. In the chapter from which the above text is taken John did not mention the Pharisees at all, but spoke of the “feast of the Jews” at Jerusalem. Therefore, he addressed himself to all the Jews, and not alone to the Pharisees.
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By shutting up the Bible, or allowing it only to be read with accompanying explanations of certain passages—which explanations are to be taken as infallibly true—it is designed to stifle all personal investigation of its contents. Such has always been the invariable policy of the Church; the right to read it at all, on the part of the laity, having been conceded only in obedience to the popular demand occasioned by the Reformation. And this policy is now persisted in without variation, except in so far as it is modified by circumstances. In Roman Catholic countries the laity know but little, and multitudes of them nothing, of the contents of the Bible. But when Roman Catholicism comes in direct contact with Protestantism, it allows the Bible to be read only upon the condition that he who reads it shall not employ his own reason in deciding what it teaches, but shall take the explanatory notes attached as of equal validity with the body of the book itself; that is, that “what the pope and the bishops teach” is as much the work of divine inspiration as what the apostles and the prophets taught.(*)

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(*) Pope Pius VII. published a bull, June 29th, 1816, against Bible societies, declaring that they were a “most crafty device, by which the very foundations of religion are undermined,” and prescribing a “remedy” by which to “abolish this pestilence as far as possible.” He thus made known his remedy: “It is, therefore, necessary to adhere to the salutary decree of the Congregation of the Index (June 13th, 1757), that no versions of the Bible in the vulgar tongue be permitted, except such as are approved by the Apostolic See or published with annotations extracted from the writings of holy fathers of the Church.”-NILES’S Weekly Register, 1817, vol. xii., p. 206, where this bull is published as a part of the current history of those times.

Pope Gregory XVI. published another bull, May 8th, 1844, confirming and renewing the foregoing bull of Pius VII., also similar bulls issued by Leo XII. and Pius VIII., and especially one by Benedict XIV. Referring to the latter, he says: “It became necessary for Benedict XIV. to superadd the injunction that no versions whatever should be suffered to be read but those which should be approved of by the Holy See, accompanied by notes derived from the writings of the holy fathers, or other learned and Catholic authors. “-DOWLING’S History of Romanism, p. 622.
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There is attached to the American edition of the Douay Bible, published in 1837, under the auspices of the Provincial Council of Baltimore, the following “admonition:”

“To prevent and remedy this abuse, and to guard against error, it was judged necessary to forbid the reading of the Scriptures in the vulgar language without the advice and permission of the pastors and spiritual guides whom God has appointed to govern his Church.” Both by the letter and spirit of this “admonition” the Roman Catholic in the United States is not permitted to read the Bible “without the advice and permission” of his priest!

Manifestly, the fear exists, that, in the present condition of the world, when the human mind is stimulated to extraordinary efforts to search out the truth in every department of thought, if the laity are permitted to accept such impressions as the Bible itself will leave upon their minds, the papacy will, in the end, be driven from the field, routed and discomfited. For fear, therefore, that this mode of thoughtful investigation should prevail, to weaken the authority of the pope and his bishops, Mgr. Segur lays down this rule for the government of the faithful:

“The first rule is, that we should receive both the text and the interpretation of the Scriptures from the legitimate pastors of the Church, and from them alone.”(Mgr. Segur, part ii., prop. xiv., p. 120.)

But he does not leave the object which prompts the suppression of the free circulation and perusal of the Scriptures to go unexplained; for, at another place, he says:

“The Protestant Bible is only a false skin, in which infidelity and revolution wrap themselves.” (Ibid., part ii., prop. xv., p. 125.)

By these gradual approaches he, like a skillful commander, reaches his ultimate object, never absent from his mind, which is to show to those Roman Catholics to whom his book is specially addressed what the papacy expects of them in their conduct toward Protestantism. They are required to resist and oppose it, because it teaches “infidelity and revolution,” which are wrapped up in the Protestant Bible. Thus fixing his premise, and preparing his readers for the avowal, he ventures upon these bold and reckless assertions, which are made the more important by their repetition in the United States:

“Wherever Protestantism has a sway, it is intolerant and persecuting. Of course, not everywhere in the same degree; but why not? Because it does not possess everywhere the same degree of power. To persecute, one must have both will and power. Fortunately, Protestantism can not always act as it has a mind to. But let it be said boldly, in fact, of intolerance, Protestantism will always go as far as it will dare.” (Mgr. Segur, part iii., prop. v., p. 160.).

Artfully and Jesuitically injecting this poison of malignant falsehood into the minds of the passive subjects of the papacy, he would, of course, leave his work but half accomplished if he failed to suggest to them in what spirit and with what temper this hideous and deformed monster of Protestantism, as he paints it, is to be dealt with wheresoever it dares to set up its illegitimate authority against that of the “Holy See of Rome.” He is entitled to the credit of doing it without disguise, as follows:

“The Church is certainly intolerant in matters of doctrine. True; and we glory in it! Truth is of itself intolerant. In religion, as in mathematics, what is true is true, and what is false is false. No compromise between truth and error; truth can not compromise. Such concessions, however small, would prove an immediate destruction of truth. Two and two make four: it is a truth. Hence, whoever asserts the contrary, utters a falsehood. Let it be an error of a thousandth or of a millionth part, it will ever be false to assert that two and two do not make four.

“The Church proclaims and maintains truths as certain as the mathematical ones. She teaches and defends truths with as much intolerance as the science of mathematics defends hers. And what more logical? The Catholic Church alone, in the midst of so many different sects, avers the possession of absolute truth, out of which there can not be true Christianity. She alone has the right to be, she alone MUST be, intolerant. She alone will and must say, as she has said through all ages in her councils, ‘If any one saith or believeth contrary to what I teach, which is truth, let him be ANATHEMA.'” (Ibid., part iii., prop. vi., p. 183.)

What more distinct and emphatic avowal could be made of the intolerance and aggressiveness of the papacy, of its settled purpose to remove from its path every thing that blocks its progress toward universal dominion? It fixes its curse upon every adversary, and hounds on the slaves who do the bidding of its hierarchy, resolved upon no compromise, but only upon such a triumph as shall make its victory, if won, both final and complete. Therefore, this reverend libeler of Protestantism, as one of the generals of its great army, seemingly in anticipation of such a triumph, passes on one step further, that he may develop more minutely the contemplated plan of operations, and show some of the effective instrumentalities which are to be employed in the more practical exhibition of intolerance, so that the avowal may excite in the minds of the timid and cowardly a wholesome dread of papal authority. After stating that the Spanish Inquisition was established by Roman Catholic governments, as an “ecclesiastical institution,” and thus agreeing that it had the sanction and approbation of the Church, he proceeds:

“That institution you may value as you choose; you are at liberty to condemn the abuses and the cruelties of which it has been guilty through the violence of political passions and the character of the Spaniard; yet one can not but acknowledge, in the terrible part taken by the clergy in its trials, THE MOST LEGITIMATE AND MOST NATURAL EXERCISE OF ECCLESIASTICAL AUTHORITY.” (Mgr. Segur, part iii., prop. vii., p. 186.)

This language is so plain and explicit that there is no room for doubt about its import. Its meaning is sufficiently seen without any straining of the most ordinary rules of interpretation. It was not designed for Protestant readers, but was avowedly and expressly addressed to those who were supposed to be ready and willing listeners to the words of authority, to such as tamely and submissively put their manhood into the keeping of ecclesiastical superiors. The Spanish Inquisition! Is there any reader so ignorant that he needs to be told what it was? Of all the institutions ever known to the world, or ever invented by human ingenuity, it was the most cruel, oppressive, and blood-thirsty. Its thousands of victims, whose bones were crushed with its accursed instruments of torture, and whose groans made its priestly officials laugh with a joy akin to that of the fiends of hell, still cry out from their tombs against it. (*)

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(*) Jean Antoine Llorente was secretary of the Inquisition of Spain, and when the institution was suppressed in 1809,’10,’11, all the archives were placed at his disposal. These consisted of “unpublished manuscripts and papers, mentioned in the inventories of deceased inquisitors.” They were carefully examined, and furnished him much of the valuable information communicated in his published “History of the Inquisition.” He says that the “horrid conduct of this holy office weakened the power and diminished the population of Spain by arresting the progress of arts, sciences, industry, and commerce, and by compelling multitudes of families to abandon the kingdom; by instigating the expulsion of the Jews and the Moors, and by immolating on its flaming shambles more than three hundred thousand victims!!” He traces its history with great minuteness of detail, showing its introduction into Aragon, during the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella; the punishment of the Albigenses and the Jews by its cruelties, its approval by Popes Sextus IV., Innocent VIII., and others, as the means of augmenting their power; and gives the harsh and unprecedented rules of procedure by which it was governed. One of those rules shows how necessary it was considered to the papacy, and that it was employed by the reverend (!) Inquisitors both as a religious and political institution. It required all witnesses to be asked, in general terms, “if they had ever seen or heard any thing which was, or appeared, contrary to the Catholic faith, or the rights of the Inquisition. “LLORENTE’s History of the Inquisition, preface, pp. xiii., xvi.; chap. v., p. 30; chap. vi., p. 39; chap. ix., p. 60. —————————–

Yet, in the nineteenth century, while humanity has not ceased to shudder at the thought of its possible revival, the press of an American publishing house (Patrick Donahoe, Boston) sends forth among the adherents of Roman Catholicism in the United States, with the sanction and approval of the Roman Catholic bishop of Boston,(*) the startling avowal that this horrible instrument of persecution is “the most legitimate and most natural exercise of ecclesiastical authority!” And more than one of the Roman Catholic journals in the United States have taken extraordinary pains to commend the book, in which this avowal is made, to their readers. The Boston Pilot, a paper of large circulation, thus advertises it, in its issue of February 20th, 1870: “Plain Talk about the Protestantism of To-day. Every body is buying it. Prices: neatly bound, 60 cents; in paper covers, 25 cents; by the hundred, for distribution, $15. Send for copies to distribute among your neighbors.”

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(*) This book is endorsed with the sign of the cross, thus, “Imprimatur, Joannes Josephus, Episcopus, Boston.”

The reader, however, should not be misled into the belief that this was the first attempt to recommend the Spanish Inquisition to the Roman Catholics of the United States. In 1815 the French Comte Le Maistre wrote half a dozen letters in defense of this institution. He said of it: “The Inquisition is, in its very nature, good, mild, and preservative. It is the universal, indelible character of every ecclesiastical institution; you see it in Rome, and you can see it WHEREVER THE TRUE CHURCH HAS POWER.”-LA MAISTRE’S Letters on the Spanish Inquisition, p. 22. Though he professed to treat it as “purely royal,” he admitted that it existed in Spain “by virtue of the bull of the sovereign pontiff.” He says that the grand inquisitor “is always either an archbishop or bishop.”—Ibid., p. 39. He justifies the infliction of “capital punishment” upon those who attempt to subvert the ” established religion” of a nation; which means that the pope, as “the vicegerent of Christ,” would require a resort to this remedy, as the only means of obeying the divine law, wherever the Roman Catholic religion is the religion of the state, as he is now striving to make it in the United States.—lbid., pp. 52, 53. He says: “A sense of duty obliges me to say that an heresiarch, an obstinate heretic, and a propagator of heresy, should indisputably be ranked among the greatest criminals.”-Ibid., p. 59. Again: “I by no means doubt that a tribunal of this description, adapted to the times, places, and characters of nations, would be highly useful in every country.”-Ibid., p. 84. He speaks of the “demoniac spirit of Puritanism” (p. 127) and of Protestantism, as “nicknamed piety, zeal, faith, reformation, and orthodoxy ” (p. 130), and reaches a result which he thus expresses:

“Theory and experience satisfactorily prove that there is not, that there can not be, a steady faith, or positive religion, properly so called, in a nation whose envoys take so much pains to abolish what they and others, through malice, call the detestable Inquisition” (p. 156), because it is “one of the mildest and wisest civil tribunals within the range of civilization” (p. 172).

Now, these letters of Le Maistre, with all their impious and un-American teachings, were translated into English by a Roman Catholic priest of Salem, Massachusetts, and published also by Patrick Donahoe, “Catholic bookseller,” of Boston, in 1843. In the preface of this translator, he says a great many silly and mendacious things about the ” piratical, pharisaical reformation,” about the “base apostate Luther,” and the “libertinism” of Protestantism (pp. 9, 10); but, like all other writers of his class, he, too, reaches the only logical result which can follow such opinions as he expresses. For example, he says, in a “Catholic country, a man may entertain whatever religious or irreligious opinions he likes,” “but he must keep them to himself,” for if he speaks out what he thinks, “he is brought before the tribunal” of the Inquisition!-lbid., preface, p. xvi.
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Here the design in republishing this book in the United States is made evident; that it shall, incendiary-like, make its way over the land, by being brought within the reach and means of all the papal followers who can read it, so that they may be inoculated, insensibly, with the views and opinions of their ecclesiastical superiors, and be thereby fitted for whatsoever work they shall be called upon to do. There are very few Protestants who observe these cautious and stealthy approaches of their vigilant and sleepless adversary. Many of them, engaged in pursuits which invite them into other fields of inquiry, and always tolerant and unsuspecting, are unwilling to rest long enough from their active occupations to pay any attention whatever to these things; and very few, if they think of them at all, ever think of looking into Roman Catholic books or newspapers to see what they contain. And the papal hierarchy, fully informed of all this, and well knowing the advantage they derive from it, employ all their intellectual energies, and the most active and untiring industry, in prosecuting their attack upon the religion professed by Protestants, and upon all the liberalizing tendencies of the civil institutions which have grown out of Protestantism. In their numerous publications they display great learning and ingenuity; but there are very few of these publications characterized by that charity which the apostle Paul has placed among the highest virtues, and which Christ, by his life and teachings, inculcated as one of the chief and most necessary duties of man.

Hence Mgr. Segur goes on to say, in the imagined supremacy and superiority of the hierarchy to which he belongs, and by whose inordinate ambition he is stimulated:

“It would be an insult to the Catholic clergy to compare with them the pastors of Protestant sects. As Protestantism is no religion, whatever they may say to the contrary, so its ministers have not the authority of the priesthood, no matter how hard they may try to have its appearance.”(Mgr. Segur, part ii., prop. xvii., p. 134.)

This denial of the priestly character to the Protestant clergy amounts, of itself, to but little, constituting, as it does, one of the most ordinary features of polemic controversy. But included within it is the denial of any religion to Protestants; and this accusation of heresy is designed, by its frequent repetition in the United States, as the foundation upon which to build the papal superstructure, to bring about the downfall of the Protestant system, and the erection of the “Catholic system” in its place, in all its exclusiveness and power. Yet those engaged in this undertaking do not fail to see that Protestantism, in this country, has a signal advantage over them in its advocacy of the freedom of thought, for which the most of mankind, in despite of tyranny, have a natural yearning. And seeing this, they are employing this little book of Mgr. Segur as the agent by which they hope to remove this difficulty out of the way, so as to secure a clear field for the future triumph and operations of the papacy. It is not proposed to do this by argument, or by any appeal to intelligent reason, for in such a field they would meet inevitable failure; but by employing that dogmatism which allows of no denial, and which has hitherto served them so well in other times and countries. Mgr. Segur cuts the thread with a single swoop of his ecclesiastical saber; thus:

“The freedom of thinking is simply nonsense. We are no more free to think without rule than we are to act without one. Unless we prefer to be disorderly and incur damnation, we are bound to have thoughts of truth and of truth alone, just as we are bound to do what is right, and only what is right.”(Mgr. Segur, part ii., prop. vii., p. 98.)

And at another place: “Freedom of thought is the soul of Protestantism; it is likewise the soul of modern rationalistic philosophy. It is one of those impossibilities which only the levity of a superficial reason can regard as admissible. But a sound mind, that does not feed on empty words, looks upon this freedom of thought only as simply absurd, and, what is worse, as SINFUL.”(Ibid., part ii., prop. vii., p. 100.)

Continued in Chapter III. War against Protestantism Part 2

All chapters of The Papacy and The Civil Power