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THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 Its Rise From Pagan Sources, its Early Persecutions, its Later Plots 
 
 and Conspiracies, and its Present Frauds, Crimes and Dangers 
 
 in the United States. 
 
 With a Broad, Fair and Full Treatment of Papal Intrigues and Cor- 
 ruptions in Public Affairs, and Bearing Upon Free Institutions 
 in Our Country. 
 
 / 
 
 BY SCOTT F. HERSHEY, Ph. D 
 
 
 ytjwfia, 
 
 BOSTON . 
 BACK BAY BOOK CO. 
 
 1895. 
 
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The Library 
 of Congress 
 
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 Entered according to Act of Congress, In the year 1895, 
 
 BY REV. SCOTT E. HERSHEY, FH. D., 
 in the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PART I. 
 
 The World Still has Papacy to Contend With — Civilization yet 
 Assailed by Jesuit Conspiracies — The Rise of Liberty — Free In- 
 stitutions Impeded by the Papacy — The Eoman Catholic Hierarchy 
 in Opposition to Freedom — Pagan and Papal Romanism — Charac- 
 ter of the Roman Papacy — The Source and Course of Papal Perse- 
 cutions — Fair Little Piedmont and its Touching Story — Difference 
 Between Pagan and Papal Persecutions — Piedmont's Apostolic Re- 
 ligion, and its Independence of the Bishop of Rome — Paganism 
 the Chief Source of Papal Forms — Gregory I., and the Beginning 
 of the Papal Claims — A Religion Pure as Protestantism — The 
 Brightness of the Dawn, and the Awfulness of the Conflict — Perse- 
 cution of Peter Waldo — Dominic, the Founder of the Dominicans — 
 A Synod Orders the Confiscation of Property — Inquisitorial Tor- 
 ture the Object of the Dominicans — Ten Persecutions and Twenty 
 to Follow — A Dreadful Picture, but True — The Church Levies Tax 
 on France — Smoking Them Out — General Confiscation — Catholics 
 Exempt from Keeping Contracts — Cruel Exile in Mid- winter — Pied- 
 mont's Warning to America — Murderous Assault a Century Ago — 
 Proscriptive Laws of the Papacy — An Heroic Type of People — 
 Most Intellectual People in Europe — One of Napoleon's Last Dis- 
 patches — Why the Popes Persecuted — Piedmont's Devotion to the 
 Bible — A Sixteenth Century Picture— Their Table of Morals — Sub- 
 lime Passage from a Piedmont Hymn — Value of Piedmont's Testi- 
 mony Against Papacy — Piedmont's Contribution to Liberty. 
 
 (iii) 
 
IV CONTENTS. 
 
 PART II. 
 
 England's Shame and Fame — The Pope Corrupting the Ballot Box 
 — A Scene of the Eighth Century — Great Influence of the First En- 
 glish Bible — The Night About to Break — The Ferments of the Four- 
 teenth Century — The Plague of Low Monkery — One-Half the Land 
 Held by the Church — Public Money Feeds the Church — The Popes 
 Engaged in Systematized Robbery — A Shameful Surrender of Rights 
 — Why the Papacy Claims Ireland — Rome Overreaching Herself — 
 Good Result of the Piedmont Dispersion — A Common Game of Pa- 
 pal Hypocrisy — Two Popes at One Time — New Papal Demand on 
 England — A Morning Star of the Reformation — Mental and Moral 
 Influence of Country Scenes — Deformed and Dwarfed Specimens of 
 Protestantism — The Great Conflict in Parliament — The Great Peti- 
 tion Before Parliament — First Attempt at the Separation of Church 
 and State — Attempt with us to Reunite Church and State — Wyclif's 
 Way for Circulating the Bible — His Greatest Work — " A Glory 
 Gilds the Sacred Page" — Before the Age of Printing — Power of the 
 Bible in English Civilization — Influence of Bacon's Philosophy — The 
 Highway of Progress — The Bible in Benevolence and Art — Rome's 
 Treatment of the Bible — Condemned by Councils and Popes — An 
 Order Against Liberty — Opposition to the Bible in Spain and France 
 — The Bible and the Popes out of Agreement — Roman Minority in 
 English-Speaking World. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PART III. 
 
 Side Lights on America — A Chivalric Story — Cradle of the Refor- 
 mation on the Continent — The Ties Which Bound England and 
 Bohemia — Mighty Prague on the Elbe — Influence of Wyclif 's Books 
 — Low Moral Standard of Romish Clergy — A Worse Condition in 
 the Fifteenth Century— Two Popes at War With Each Other— Pe- 
 trarch's Crushing Testimony — A Council Forced to Attempt Reform 
 — Bohemian Church not of Roman Origin — The Papal Policy of 
 Colonizing Foreigners — The Papal Spirit vs. the National Spirit — 
 Archbishop Ireland's High Act of Hypocrisy — The Hidden Hand> 
 but Mighty — Men for the Times — The Coming of the Storm — Burn- 
 ing Two Hundred Books — The Bold Charge of Huss — Huss is Ex- 
 communicated — Charge of the Archbishop of Genoa — Shameful Per- 
 fidy of Pope and Emperor — The Martyrdom of Huss — The Burning 
 of Jerome of Prague — Incarnated Malice — The Popes Resort to 
 Arms — The Second Bohemian Uprising — Why the Popes Fought 
 Bohemia — A Warning to the United States — Danger of Priestly 
 Power — Fame and Faithfulness — The Effort to Find Supreme Au- 
 thority — The Bible and Patriotism — Roman Catholic Opinions. 
 
VI CONTENTS. 
 
 PART IV. 
 
 Rome's Pursuit of Luther — Why the Middle Ages Were the Dark 
 Ages — Notorious Debauchery of the Clergy — The Popes Condemned 
 — Bishops and Cardinals Equally Corrupt — The Reason and Evil of 
 Pilgrimages — Buying His Way to the Pontifical Chair — A Game at 
 Poison — Papal Influence a Fact in the United States — The Advent 
 of a Leader — How Great Men are Linked Together — Greatness 
 Cradled by Poverty — Twenty Years Old Before He Saw a Bible — 
 Buffoonery in the Pope's Palace — Luther's Great Vow — His Great 
 Indictment — The Coming of the Avalanche — The Pope can Deprive 
 Roman Catholics of Property — The Plot to try Him in Rome — 
 The Dangers Which Beset Luther — The Curse of Foreign Rule — 
 An Additional Blow to the Papacy — Rome's Battery of Lies — 
 Rome's Opposition to Free Speech — Rome's Influence in Elections 
 — A Truthful but Terrible Charge — Luther in the Hour of the Crisis 
 — Value of Papal Promises — Roman Councils Above the Scriptures 
 — A Knight of Wartburg — The Escaped Nuns. 
 
CONTENTS. Vil 
 
 PART V. 
 
 The First Great Protestant Nation — The Most Gigantic Scheme 
 for Making Money — What Awakened the Lion in Luther — Origin 
 of Indulgences — Song of the Popes — Pagan Origin of Purgatory — 
 An Old Book on Indulgences — Form of Indulgence Certificate — 
 Scale of Prices From an Old Book — Capturing a Ship Load of 
 Indulgences — Purpose of the Roman Church in Our Land — Stupen- 
 dous Demagoguery — Disreputable Lives of Papal Agents — TetzePs 
 Grave-Yard Tale— The Trap Tetzel Fell Into— If for Money, Why 
 Not for Charity — Indulgence Certificates Used as Money — Arch- 
 bishop Does a Banking Business — Still Running As a Money Scheme 
 — Mountebank Financiering — How the Priests Dupe the Irish — 
 The Pope a Gambler — Low Condition of the Irish, Chargeable to 
 the Papacy — Procuring Money Under False Pretences — Indulgences 
 Sold in the United States — A Horrible Doctrine — Blasphemous 
 Utterance of the Present Pope — Political Side of This Doctrine — 
 Romish Riot Against Free Speech — Effect of Indulgences on. 
 Crime. 
 
Vlll CONTENTS. 
 
 PART VI. 
 
 The Greatness of Little Countries — The Largest Contributions to 
 Liberty, Education and Morality — Switzerland the Picturesque — 
 Switzerland's Language to America — The Birthplace of a Patriot — 
 How a Patriot is Made — How a Great Man is Made — Power of the 
 Bible in Civilization — A Great Patriot Orator — A Specimen of 
 Papal Knavery — Virgin Shrines are Papal Frauds — This Humbug 
 Found in the United States — A Sermon Talked About Over 
 Europe — A Fatal Blow to the Papacy — Another Mighty Sermon — 
 Power of Patriotic Hymns — The Need of Patriotic Songs — Polit- 
 ical Reform a Patriotic Work — How Liberty and Education Were 
 Lost — The Irish Once a Great People — Switzerland a Vassal of 
 Rome — An Abominable Evil — An Old Trick of Popes — Lazy Nuns 
 and Monks — Religious and Political Reforms Move Together — The 
 Battle Capped — Papal Treaties Are a Papal Ruse — Death of the 
 Great Zwingli — Difference Between a Roman Catholic and a Prot- 
 estant Community. 
 
CONTENTS. IX 
 
 PART VII. 
 
 The "Wonderful Sixteenth Century — The Popes After the Purses 
 of the People More than Their Hearts — Scheme of Pope and King — 
 Extent of the Worship of Relics and Images — Papal Forces Which 
 Ruin — Some Great Reformers — Three Powerful Families — A New 
 Phase of Debauchery — Rise of the Jesuits in France — The Gibbons- 
 Satolli-Leo XIII. Combination — The Pope Bribing the Army — 
 What the French Leaders Lacked — Call for Stalwart Leaders in the 
 United States — Papal Plots and Assassinations Through Four 
 Reigns — The Wool-Carders of Meaux — Desolation Among Free 
 Villages — A Shameful Chapter of Horrors — Can the Pope Permit 
 Our Free Institutions — Every Bone Broken for Selling Books — At- 
 tempt to Introduce the Inquisition — Did the Popes Plan the Mur- 
 der of all European Protestants — The Papal War Upon Conscience 
 and Liberty — Public Assembling Forbidden on Pain of Death — 
 Papal Diplomats Are Oily — No Religious Liberty When Rome Has 
 Power — Shall Roman Catholics go to Congress — The Papacy 
 Beginning the Civil War — Rome Never Keeps Political Agreement 
 — Serious Charge Against Rome in the United States — When Rome 
 Talks of her Love for Freedom, Beware — Design of the Papal 
 Party in France and in America. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PART VIII. 
 
 A Noble and Patriotic Race — Three Races of Heroic Grandeur 
 — Why the Bloody Chapter Should Not be Lost — The Leading 
 Kingdom in Europe — The Court a Pest-House of Evil Plotting — 
 The Blackest Crime of the Papacy — The Most Ignoble Woman of 
 All — A Queen Sacrificed to a Papal Scheme — How France Might 
 Have Been Saved the Massacre of St. Bartholomew — Disloyal 
 American Politicians — The Pope a Party to Crime — Murdered by 
 a Papal Soldier — Papal Conspiracies With Us — Many Romish Plots 
 in France — Most Evil Combination of All — Where the Bartholomew 
 Massacre was Hatched — A Royal Wedding the Trap — The Hugue- 
 not Leaders Enticed to the City — Playing a Desperate Hand — The 
 King Decides on the Murder — Pre-Arrangements for the Massacre — 
 The Tocsin of Death — Fate of Admiral Coligny — Most Inexcusable 
 Butchery of Modern Times — The Bride's Report of the Massacre — 
 The King Confesses His Responsibility — Twenty Thousand 
 Butchered by the Papacy — The King and His Conscience — Why 
 Rome Killed the Huguenots — High Joy of the Catholics at the 
 Crime — Silent Rebuke of England's Queen — Professions of Papal 
 Leaders Insincere — A Religious Farce and Political Blunder — 
 Conspiracy of the Jesuits — Papal King, Ambitious Women and 
 Crafty Jesuits — Religious Liberty All Lost — Huguenot Leaven in 
 the United States. 
 
CONTENTS. XI 
 
 PART IX. 
 
 Origin of the Knights Templars — High Character of the Order 
 
 — Diabolical Charge Brought Against Them — Instance of Papal 
 
 Treachery — Tortures of the Knights — Suppression and Confiscation. 
 
 PART X. 
 
 Children as High Church Officials — How a Healthy Reformation 
 is Produced — Novel Plan of Francis I. — Rise of the Genevan Re- 
 public — Origin of Our Public School System — Civil Liberties Guar- 
 anteed — Religious Influence of Genevan Liberty — Testimony of 
 Great Men — Influence on American Institutions — Religion Should 
 Conserve, Not Subvert, Civil Liberty — Roman Priests and Nuns 
 Not Subject to Our Laws — Religion Should Promote, Not Retard 
 Intelligence — Papal Hindrance to Education — Roman Catholic 
 Illiteracy in the United States. 
 
Xll CONTENTS. 
 
 PART XI. 
 
 A Race of Freemen and Heroes — The Papacy Disputed in the 
 Eleventh Century — The Birth Century of Great Ideas — Most Burn- 
 ing Question in Europe — Remarkable Progress of the Dutch — The 
 Greatness of Antwerp — Fell Under a Romish War — Why Indulg- 
 ences Failed — Advent of the Barbarous Inquisition — Its Original 
 Intention — Four Millions Suffered in Spain — The Church Still Main- 
 tains It — Charles V., Heir to Half the Thrones in the World — 
 Setting Up the Inquisition — Papal Conquests on the American 
 Continent — A Female Beast Made Regeut — Too Brave for Caesars 
 and Popes — Martyr Fires Never Die Out — " The Court of Blood" 
 — A Page From the "Black Book" — Now Comes William of 
 Orange — Learning Papal Secrets — The Night Yow in the Silent 
 Forests of Vincennes — Attempt to Bribe Him — An Infamous Horde 
 in the United States — Infamous Deception — God Alone With Him 
 — Plots to Assassinate — The Pope Accessory to Murder — Scheme 
 to Murder the English Queen — Successful Appeal to Patriots — ■ 
 The Wild Corsairs of the Sea — A Patriot's Last Resolve — Now 
 Comes the Turn — Sublime Act of Tolerance — How News of Barthol- 
 omew Was Received — Awful Scene of Papal Cruelty — Alva's 
 Savage Boast — The Dutch Sea Rovers — A Sight of Moral Grandeur 
 — Attempt at Bribery — The Brave Prince Assassinated — Divine 
 Right of Kings and Popes Surrendered. 
 
CONTENTS. Xlll 
 
 PART XII. 
 
 Most Beautiful Woman of the Sixteenth Century — Helps of 
 Powerful Preachers — The Aid of Education — A Small Country, 
 but Great — Greatest Things in the Scotch Conflict — Wheeling a 
 Nation Into Line — The Greatest Power in War With Rome — 
 The Greatest Need in the United States — Papal Clergy Filling 
 the Public Offices — Imprisonment and Confiscation — Will Such 
 Things Occur in the United States — The Church Selects the King's 
 Wife — A Notorious Papal Family — The Priesthood an Obstruction 
 in the Way of Education — Ignorance of the Priesthood — The 
 Bishops not Able to Preach — One-Half the Wealth Held by Priests 
 — Monks a Trifling and Worthless Set— Monasteries Temples of 
 Debauchery — The Day When Scotch Independence Was Born — 
 The Qualities of Five Men in One — Six Men of Unparalleled Great- 
 ness — Public Reward Offered for Murder — Startling Scene in the 
 Queen's Chamber — Deepest Plot of the Sixteenth Century — Who 
 Invented the Conspiracy — Who Knew of It — What It Involved — 
 Deception of Mary of Guise-Lorraine — The Mask Thrown Off — 
 Popery Turned Out of Doors — The Queen Regent a Minion of the 
 Papal Court — Mary the Beautiful on the Throne — Treachery of the 
 Queen — The Papal League Extended to Scotland — Murder of Lord 
 Darnley — The Queen Resigns — Earl of Murray Regent — Why the 
 Archbishop Wanted Him Assassinated — Priests Instigate Rebellion 
 — What Led to the Queen's Death — Damaging Jesuit Authority — 
 According to Papal Morals Murder is Right — The Spanish Armada 
 — The Crisis of the Whole Conflict Had Come — Declared Intention 
 of the Expedition — How the King Regarded the Defeat — New 
 Jesuit Plot — Civil War Comes From Papal Intrigue — Jesuits 
 Declared Traitors — Papacy Permanently Overthrown — Our Civil 
 and Religious Liberties Advanced. 
 
X]V CONTENTS. 
 
 PART XIII. 
 
 Plots to Murder — Conspiracies Against England — Papal Woman- 
 hood — Roman Diplomacy and Royal Marriages — The Archbishop 
 Presents a Forged Will — First Duty of Patriotism With Us — A 
 Visit to the Apartments of Mary Stuart — An Age of French 
 Debauchery — Married to an Imbecile — Infamous Crime Exacted — 
 Sad Result of Papal Intermeddling — The Queen Confesses Papal 
 Power over Her — Danger From Roman Catholic Rule — Famous 
 Jesuit Interview — Cause of the Queen's Bigotry — Civil War 
 Provoked — A Confederation to Overthrow Liberties — Victim of the 
 Archbishop — Jesuit Proofs — The Ridolfi Conspiracy — Confessions 
 of a Roman Catholic Conspirator — Sad Execution of the Queen — 
 Jesuit Papers Found By Froude — Papal Influences On the Queen — 
 Victim and Tool of the Papacy — Papacy the Enemy of Woman — 
 Evils of Confessional and Celibate Priesthood — Fame and Infamy 
 of Papal Women — How the Papacy Secured Temporal Dominions 
 — The Bigoted Isabella — A Far-Famed Papal Woman — " Bloody 
 Mary" of England — Convent and Cloister Women of France — 
 Eugenie Brings War to France — Attempt of Papal Government 
 in Mexico — Papal Law Declares Women Inconstant — Pagan Idea 
 of Women is Held — Names Impossible in the Papal Church. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 No question now before the American people, or which 
 has been before them since the issues connected with the 
 Revolutionary War, and the formation of the Republic 
 under the Constitution, not even the perplexing issues of 
 the late war, and those grave matters which disturbed our 
 internal peace during the reconstruction period, are,, or were, 
 either in nature or degree, so serious in character, so im- 
 portant to clearly understand, or so difficult to adjust, as 
 that of the Roman Papacy. The secret and unprincipled 
 way in which the Roman hierarchy have worked their way 
 into the control of most all the large city governments in 
 the north, the public schools in towns and cities, the state 
 legislatures, and of recent years the congress of the United 
 States, the departmental branches of the government at 
 Washington, and even the judicial branch ; the torrent of 
 abuse they pour upon every one who raises a voice against 
 this ecclesiastical favoritism ; their demand for public 
 money for Roman Catholic institutions ; the alarmingly 
 large contribution of this Church to our pauper and crim- 
 inal classes, entailing a grievous burden upon the general 
 public to support the errors and failures of life directly pro- 
 duced by and traceable to their ecclesiastical system ; the 
 preservation in our country of such Spanish and mediaeval in- 
 stitutions as that of the conventicle prison, in daily viola- 
 tion of constitutional and statutory law ; the continuance 
 
 in our southwest of the barbarous and heathenish practices 
 
 (xv) 
 
XVI INTRODUCTION. 
 
 of the Eoman Catholic penitentes^ a relic of Mexican Ro- 
 manism, spread over a half dozen states and territories, and 
 which often result in crimes which should be punished as 
 murder ; the vast and rapidly growing and exceedingly 
 dangerous money power, by which it is easy for an arch- 
 bishop to turn a half million dollars into the election of a 
 single state to help Roman interests in the American Repub- 
 lic ; the enormous accumulation of property held independ- 
 ent of the rights of taxation, amounting in JVashington 
 city to more than twelve million, or three times as much as 
 all the Protestant holdings together, in which is a political 
 inequality of stupendous extent ; the criminal effort to de- 
 range all the facts of the past in our history and literature, 
 until we have a generation of Americans mostly without 
 any historical knowledge of the past evils of Romanism, and 
 hence incompetent to judge or deal with its present evils; 
 the priestly domination of the daily press to an extent that 
 reliable news are withheld, so the people have been dealing 
 with professions, rather than facts and conditions ; the 
 presence at our national seat of government of an accredited 
 representative of the Pope, taking a hand in our public 
 affairs, and in all probability a Jesuit diplomat e ; the start- 
 ling fact that every country in the world has banished the 
 Jesuits, who have been flocking to our land, until there are, 
 in the opinion of the Author, more Jesuits in Washington 
 city than any other capital city in the world. 
 
 These are the plainly shown and stupendous facts which 
 have made the condition which is before us. The settle- 
 ment of this condition, and it is a religio-political one, con- 
 fronts the true and patriotic citizenship of the land. This 
 settlement involves such considerations as, the American 
 Constitutional idea of Sovereignty in conflict with the Papal 
 idea of Sovereignty ; the danger of relieving Roman Cath- 
 
INTRODUCTION. XV11 
 
 olic ecclesiastics from the authority of civil forms ; the evi- 
 dent conflict between Canon Law and Civil ; the continu- 
 ance of Jesuit conspiracies, or the expulsion of the order 
 from the country ; some limitation of the dangerous money 
 power of the Roman Catholic Church, which in every coun- 
 try has proven an intolerable woe ; the civil inspection of all 
 convents ; the taxation of all property held by ecclesiastical 
 bodies, or officials, except the building devoted to Sabbath 
 worship ; the more complete and assured separation of 
 Church and State ; the prevention of ecclesiastical use of 
 public monies ; the preservation of our Public School sys- 
 tem from its Roman and foreign foes; the elevation, by 
 legislative enactment, of our general standard of intelli- 
 gence ; an effectual embargo placed upon excessive Roman 
 Catholic pauper, ignorant and degraded immigration ; the 
 recovery of municipal government from ecclesiastical domi- 
 nation, and last, the retirement of Satolli from our shores. 
 
 Without the solution of these problems there can be no 
 such a thing as a preservation of our liberties, a continuance 
 of our free institutions, and a steady advance of intelligent 
 citizenship. The influence of uncontrolled Roman Cath- 
 olic power, is that of a retrograde movement in civilization. 
 It impedes science and philosophy, corrupts statecraft and 
 diplomacy, makes education narrow and intolerant, and is 
 all the while delivering to General Progress the order to 
 countermarch. Ultimate America cannot be a triumph in 
 civilization with the Roman Papacy an active factor. 
 
 We have no desire to be intolerant with the religious 
 rights of the Roman Catholic Church. We should be just 
 as ready to champion our Roman Catholic fellow citizens in 
 the enjoyment of all these religious rights, privileges and 
 opportunities, which belong to them under the Constitution, 
 
XV1U INTRODUCTION. 
 
 as we are ready to defend the rights of Protestants. It is 
 our privilege, and we hold it to be our duty, to expose the 
 religious frauds and errors of the Eoman Church ; but we 
 would not by civil restraint debar them from the free exer- 
 cise of their religion. It is the political intrusion of that 
 Church in our public affairs that we do, and must continue, 
 to oppose. Here there can be no surrender, truce or com- 
 promise. 
 
 These grave matters cannot be turned over to political 
 leaders for adjustment. Our leading public men have 
 known the political dangers from this source all the while, 
 and have remained silent. They have seen, as we could 
 not, the growing threat to our Free Institutions and our 
 laws, and they have not spoken a word for their country. 
 The most of our public men, in state and national affairs, 
 have been taking silent observations of growing treason. 
 There have been a few exceptions, so noble they almost 
 deserve mention in this work, and so exceptional as to 
 make it a humiliation to our country. No more, can this 
 adjustment of Papal evils be left to that smaller class, to 
 whom the more select title of statesmen is given by com- 
 mon consent. The history of every uprising against the 
 Papacy shows that these reforms never are begotten, and 
 are rarely led, by those prominent in statecraft. These up- 
 risings against the inexcusable outrages of the Papacy al- 
 ways originate with, and are pushed into law by, the peo- 
 ple themselves. 
 
 The first move, in which all should be concerned and give 
 aid, is that of a wide and general instruction of the people 
 in the Origin, Spirit and Ways of the Papal government. 
 There is little hope for a permanent reform, unless there be 
 an intelligent understanding of many things about the 
 
INTRODUCTION. XIX 
 
 Papacy, which are not generally understood, and therefore 
 are not much believed ; there can be no wise attempts 
 at reform or correction without this. Much of the patri- 
 otic fervor of the day will soon wane. This is seen by the 
 Roman authorities and is greatly depended upon. Sponta- 
 neity is no ground upon which to build up a lasting re- 
 form. 
 
 The motive of this book is found in the Author's convic- 
 tion of Roman perils in our land. The purpose of it is sev- 
 eral fold: first, to show that the spirit and origin of the Ro- 
 man Papacy were impressively and emphatically Pagan, 
 and that the very kernel of Pagan despotism is the heart 
 of the Roman Catholic hierarchical system; secondly, that 
 to understand the Papacy in a way to intelligently deal 
 with it in our day, it must be known in its spirit and 
 method of Plots and Conspiracies in other days. The 
 period mostly dwelt upon is that of the eventful Sixteenth 
 Century, when she played her most daring deeds of des- 
 peration. The high object, never lost sight of in the pages 
 which follow, is to portray the conditions in our country 
 for which Rome should be held answerable ; and withal, to 
 present her appearance in all avenues of public life and 
 civil affairs, as confirmatory of her unchanged and unre- 
 lented heart. The course she is conducting in our political 
 life is constantly kept in the front, while her influence for 
 evil upon national life is shown with firmness. That the 
 Papal teaching in our land is directly to be charged as an 
 acting cause of crime, and as well political fraud, is abund- 
 antly shown. 
 
 The Author asks for a calm reading of the book, with the 
 thought always borne in mind that if any error has inad- 
 vertently crept into it, it is believed it will be found to be 
 
XX INTRODUCTION. 
 
 an oversight, and of minor import, as a misplaced name or 
 date. 
 
 This book is placed in the hands of the great body of the 
 true-hearted and whole-hearted American people, whom 
 the Author loves, with the exhortation that they must con- 
 tinue awake, and tell their children to slumber not. 
 
 Scott F. Heeshey. 
 Boston, May, 1895. 
 
TO PIEDMONT. 
 
 11 Avenge, Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones 
 Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold : 
 E'en them, who kept thy truth so pure of old, 
 When all our fathers worshiped stocks and stones, 
 Forget not : in thy book record the groans, 
 Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold 
 Slain by the bloody Piedmontese rivers, that rolled 
 Their wild waters down the rocks. Their moans 
 The vales redoubled, they the hills, and they 
 To heaven. Their martyred blood and ashes sow 
 O'er all the Italian fields, where still doth sway 
 The Triple tyrant : but from these make grow 
 An hundred-fold, who, having learnt thy way, 
 Early may fly the Babylonian woe." 
 
ARE ROMANISM AND PAGANISM AKIN? 
 
 The Pope of Catholicism represents the high priest of 
 Paganism. Nay, their very costumes are almost the same 
 as to form and color. The Pagan Emperor Caligula in- 
 vented the ceremony of having his feet kissed. The Pope 
 offers his toe to be kissed. The statue of Diana wept, and 
 .so that of Apollo, at times of great calamity. The images 
 of the Virgin shed tears at like times. It was the custom 
 of the Pagan priests to light hundreds of wax candles be- 
 fore their idols. Candles are lighted before the Virgin and 
 the saints. In Pagan temples the sprinkling of holy water 
 was customary. The first thing upon entering a Roman 
 •Catholic Church is to dip the hand in holy water. Holy 
 w r ater was used among the Pagans for exorcism. Holy 
 water is used among the Romanists against the devil. 
 Among the Greeks and Indians, you find a talisman hang- 
 ing to the neck. Good Papists have omulets, rosaries, 
 -scapulars, and medals of the Virgin. The ancient Ro- 
 mans had many, thousands of gods. There are a hundred 
 thousand gods in the Church of Rome ; that is to say, 
 they have not less than a hundred thousand saints in the 
 Church of Rome, and these saints are really in the place 
 
 of the ancient gods of Paganism. 
 
 Gavazzi. 
 
PART I 
 
 PIEDMONT'S UNEQUAL STRUGGLE WITH THE 
 PAPACY. 
 
 The world must still deal with the Papacy. Civilization 
 is still confronted by perils, and assailed by conspiracies, 
 which should have been dropped two centuries ago ; and on 
 inquiry the discovery is made that the Roman Papacy is the 
 instigator of the one and the designer of the other. The 
 Pope is a despot in America in the nineteenth century, as 
 he was in Europe in the sixteenth. Protestant civilization 
 and Papal institutions are incompatible, and they confront 
 each other as deadly foes. One or the other must go to the 
 wall. 
 
 The schools of the land, the business of the country and 
 the government of the nation, cannot be administered with- 
 out the interference of this foreign government, established 
 on the Tiber. Private thought, public opinion and the 
 daily press, are brought under coercion, until they make 
 payment in submission. Liberty, in that broad, generous 
 sense, in which it was devised by our fathers, and has been 
 favored by Providence, is bending to the pressure of this 
 
4 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 ecclesiastical nightmare, and the signs are certain for abject 
 slavery. 
 
 No fear of the stigma of intolerance, no dread, lest the 
 cry of religious unfairness be raised, should prevent Ameri- 
 cans from doing their duty. It is not intolerance to demand 
 from all a like submission to America's laws ; nor is there 
 any religious injustice in dealing with all religious organi- 
 zations, in a just spirit of tolerance for religious rights, and 
 a firm restriction upon all ecclesiastical infringement in 
 affairs of state. To stand against the treason of a foe within, 
 is a sign of patriotism as great as to resist the encroachments, 
 of a foe without. 
 
 PAGAN AND PAPAL EOMANISM. 
 
 Pagan Romanism was the most centralized political des- 
 potism with which the ancient world was familiar ; Papal 
 Romanism is the greatest and only universal despotism the 
 modern world has known. Papal Romanism is only a 
 changed, and not very greatly improved, Pagan Romanism. 
 The ancient world had to destroy Pagan Romanism ; the 
 modern world must overthrow the despotism of Papal Ro- 
 manism. Pagan Romanism stood an impediment in the 
 road of general progress ; Papal Romanism is known of all 
 intelligent men and women to be the most unbending ob- 
 struction in the path of social, intellectual and moral ad- 
 vancement. 
 
 This conflict between Protestant civilization and political 
 Romanism not only involves our political rights, but deeply 
 concerns our religious liberty and institutions. It is not a 
 problem of society only, but a question for religious discus- 
 sion as well. Legislation must take a hand, to preserve the 
 integrity of our system of laws ; but as well, the Protestant 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 5 
 
 pulpit must lift a voice, in order that the principles involved 
 be clearly defined, and public sentiment be justly led. In 
 a spirit of charity unimpeachable, but with a voice of thun- 
 der that rolls over the continent, let it be declared that 
 Protestantism is in accord with the highest possible civiliza- 
 tion, and is the best possible promoter thereof; whilst Roman 
 Papacy is wholly out of allignment with the general pro- 
 gress of our civilization, and is its most bitter enemy. 
 
 The Roman Catholic Church has given no trustworthy 
 sign of any disposition to befriend human liberty or free 
 institutions. Under the same sense of power, what it was 
 yesterday, it would be to-day, and it must be to-morrow. 
 There is not one satisfactory symptom of any favorable 
 change in the Papacy. Roman Catholic authorities are the 
 hardest witnesses against that Church. From themselves 
 we have the well authenticated avowal that the fundamental 
 spirit of the Church is not going to be changed. From his- 
 tory we learn what that Church has been. Bring these 
 facts to confront each other, and we have the certain pur- 
 pose of this political Church in this land. 
 
 CHARACTER OF THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 We are to judge the present and anticipate the future by 
 anderstanding the past. As we see how the Roman Papacy 
 dealt with civil and religious liberty in the past, we shall 
 be able to judge how this precious boon of Protestantism 
 will fare at the hands of that same Papacy now. We are 
 about to walk down the most troubled paths, look upon 
 some of the greatest wrongs, and witness not a few of the 
 most dreadful outrages uncovered by the page of reliable 
 history. Only one intent is in view. The generations 
 must not close their eyes in fancied security while Papacy is 
 
6 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 in the world. From the plentiful testimony of many cen- 
 turies, and many countries, we shall construct an argument 
 unassailable and unanswerable. By this argument it shall 
 be seen that liberty never found a champion, or humanity a 
 friend in the Papacy ; while the great moral and intellectu- 
 al interests of the race have found in it a depressing and 
 discouraging force, impeding their way. 
 
 The struggle for civil and religious rights, under the 
 charter of the New Testament teachings, began early in the 
 Christian era. There was a little light even before the dawn . 
 Those early rays, faint as they may appear at this distance, 
 should not be lost to view. By their light are seen Rome's 
 first oppression, tyranny and persecution. " Remember 
 the days of old," is a Scriptural injunction, charging each 
 rising generation of Christians to cherish in the memory a 
 place for those who have suffered for a pure faith ; and to 
 forget not how the walls of a sheltering Providence have 
 been built about those who have fed their souls, and guided 
 their lives, and shielded their hopes by the Word of God. 
 
 THE SOURCE A!NT> COURSE OF PAPAL PERSECUTION. 
 
 Yes, the martyrs are still the seed of the Church and of 
 liberty, too. And these martyrs were mostly made by 
 Rome's awful cruelties and vehement tyrannies. The per- . 
 secutions which God's people have endured at the hand of 
 Rome, chant in sad but triumphant strains of their adven- 
 tures and courageous faithfulness in the ways of religion^ 
 and in striving for a few civil rights. The blood of the 
 martyrs has placed the signet of its own royal purple on the 
 chaste brow of Christianity, and rises from the ground to 
 witness that the Papacy, in its earliest childhood, possessed 
 those elements of Pagan corruption and those same savage 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 7 
 
 cruelties, which later became worthy of the dungeons of 
 the Inquisition. This cruel Pagan persecution, beginning 
 within the Jerusalem walls, from whence better things might 
 have been expected, is heard coming over the plains of 
 Asia Minor, where the streams of western, eastern and south- 
 ern civilizations, for thirty centuries, have met and surged 
 into each other ; it is heard from the amphitheater of 
 Pagan Rome, where the bodies of Christian saints were the 
 daily food of wild beasts. 
 
 And this far in history it was the persecution of Pagan 
 Rome only. It was Paganism' s only answer to a pure faith! 
 But soon this persecution came from an unexpected scource. 
 As Papal Rome began to rise, through the ambition of the 
 local bishop of Rome, she sought to force submission to her 
 evil will, in an ever- widening circle. Then, (and here is an 
 established fact in history,) the bishopric of Rome — there 
 was no Pope as yet — incorporated as a part of its ecclesias- 
 tical machinery the same persecution, so relentlessly prac- 
 ticed, up to that time alone, by Paganism. And this perse- 
 cution goes on, not by the Pagan world, but by the author- 
 ity of the Church at Rome. It visits the little garden val- 
 leys of the Italian Alps, whose soil for fifteen centuries was 
 to be saturated with the blood of those who loved the Lord, 
 and sought relief from the spiritual oppressions of ecclesias- 
 tical Romanism. It is seen with awful fecundity of cruel- 
 ty on the fertile fields of France, as devout Huguenots are 
 cut down with the sword ; and anon from the fires of Smith- 
 field is heard the wail of agony, as praying Protestants are 
 led to the stake. It is hard to understand how such in- 
 famous devices to produce pain in the human body could 
 come into the mind, except upon the suggestion of still more 
 infamous devils. The sunny hills of Italy; the historic 
 glens of Caledonia ; the torture-prisons of Portugal ; the 
 
8 THE BOMAN PAPACY. 
 
 knife of the Spanish Inquisition ; the racks of Bohemia ; 
 the butcheries of the Netherlands, all bear witness to the 
 heartless spirit of the old historic evil — the Roman Papacy. 
 None the less, the history of Papal persecution brings to 
 the light a masterly courage, triumphant faith, patient en- 
 durance and conquering hope in those who, though small 
 in numbers and humble in possessions, withstood the com- 
 bined evil powers of acute bigotry, brutal cruelty and hell- 
 ish malice. 
 
 Right by her original threshold do we see Papal Rome's 
 first exercise in that oppression, for which she has since be- 
 come world-famed. Wild and picturesque the country, 
 romantic and tragic the history, and pious and heroic the 
 people of a little community of Christians in the southern 
 Alps, who have won for themselves a permanent fame in 
 Christian history. In their course with Rome we shall see 
 that in its very dawn Romanism adopted a policy which, 
 by natural sequence, made it the unchangeable foe of civil 
 and religious liberty. 
 
 FAIR LITTLE PIEDMONT AND ITS TOUCHING STORY. 
 
 Among the mountains of northern Italy there lies a little 
 country, which has made a big place in the history of Chris- 
 tianity. France lies on its west, Switzerland on its north, 
 and the provinces of Lombardy and Liguria on the east and 
 south. It forms the upper source of the river Po. On all 
 sides, except those of the Lombardy plains, it is enclosed 
 in a great semi-circle of the lower Alps. The mountains 
 rise in uneven form, like the walls and minarets of some 
 great cathedral of nature's making. The mountain ranges 
 are so interwoven and their fastnesses so intricate, that the 
 country has never been familiar, except to those who have 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 9 
 
 found there a Providential refuge through the centuries of 
 persecution. The little valleys of the tributaries of the 
 river Po have been fertile as virgin soil, and here in these 
 garden spots the lemon, the orange, the olive, the date, the 
 pomegranate and the most perfect fruit of the vine grow in 
 the utmost profusion. 
 
 The name of this small bit of country is Piedmont. 
 Lombardy may have broader plains, and Campania deeper 
 soil, but Piedmont has almost every variety of product of 
 soil and beauty of landscape. With its gate opening 
 eastward, from whence came its first light of the Gfospel, its 
 upper elevations overlook Italy and France, while itself 
 is overlooked in the distance by the great towering form 
 of the snow-mantled Mount Blanc, like some pure white 
 land raised against the northern sky in heavenly benedic- 
 tion. 
 
 The people of this fair section illustrate a rich promise. 
 It is beyond dispute, that from the earliest existence of 
 Ckristianity in Europe, it here maintained independence of 
 Rome, preserved a similarity to the Apostolic Church, and 
 kept up a continuity of evangelical faith. Once, amid the 
 solitudes of Philippi, a most solemn promise was made 
 touching the preservation of the Church : " The gates of 
 hell shall not prevail against it." The promise was 
 not, that the gates of hell should not fly open, and all the 
 devils and furies of a maddened persecution set loose upon 
 the children of the Lord. The promise was simply that the 
 gates of hell should not prevail. That promise has been 
 wondrously verified with the people of the Piedmont val- 
 leys of Italy. No Christian people, who have preserved 
 the purity of doctrine and simplicity of form which charac- 
 terized the Apostolic Church, have had a history so glori- 
 ous or so long and continuous. 
 
10 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 These people received the seeds of the G-ospel early in the 
 history of the Church. Already the churches of Thyatira 
 and Pergamos were corrupt in doctrine, and were entering 
 upon the period of decay, when this little country of north- 
 ern Italy was being reached with the Gospel. Either 
 Barnabas or some disciple of the apostles first carried the 
 light of the cross to those people, whose hearts had a ready 
 soil for spiritual seed. 
 
 They have been known in history for centuries by the 
 name of the Waldenses. But long before this distinct 
 name attached to them, even in the first century, these val- 
 leys echoed to the voice of Christian song. Almost im- 
 mediately, the Gospel made the impression upon the people 
 that it was a Scriptural knowledge that made a Christian 
 life. 
 
 Polycarp was martyred in the year sixty-five. Martianus 
 became a martyr in these valleys in the year seventy-five. 
 Then came the first persecution of Christians at Rome 
 under Nero, and as it progressed with terrific fury, the peo- 
 ple fled, for their faith as well as for their life, to the moun- 
 tains of northern Italy ; while those who remained at Rome 
 were bound to the stake, coated with tar and set on fire to 
 illuminate the city ; or they were thrown to the half -starved 
 beasts in the amphitheater. The few who escaped, and fled 
 to the inaccessible valleys of the Alps, lived for a time in 
 the peace and hope of the pure Gospel of Jesus Christ. 
 
 DIFFERENCE BETWEEN" PAGAN AND PAPAL PERSECUTIONS.. 
 
 Pagan persecution drove them to these mountain strong- 
 holds and there left them. Let it be said to the greater 
 shame of Papal persecution, that it pursued them into their 
 exile, and visited upon them more hateful oppressions. Pa- 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. H 
 
 pal Rome was worse than Pagan Rome. Pagan persecutions, 
 at their worst, were never so diabolical as the Papal perse- 
 cutions were to be in later centuries. The Papacy took the 
 name without the heart of Christianity. That means that 
 Papal Rome is Pagan Rome, plus the most stupendous 
 hypocrisy and shameful greed. 
 
 The storm became more furious still. Blandiana, a 
 pious mother whose children were already slain, submitted 
 to the grossest cruelties. After scourging, suffering expos- 
 ure to the wild beast, and scorching in an iron chair, she was 
 wrapped in a net and thrown to a wild bull, which tossed 
 her on its horns. In the end she was beheaded, and it was 
 said that never among them was a woman heard of who 
 suffered so much and so great torments. And so the entry 
 is made in history, that these people had their faith cradled 
 in persecutions and their Christian experience made strong 
 in suffering. They were being prepared for great things. 
 
 It appears that these little mountain valleys held a people 
 who were never actually conquered by Rome. The Chris- 
 tian heroes who fled from Rome to escape the Pagan perse- 
 cutions, were welcomed and sheltered in these northern 
 Italian defiles, by a people equally heroic with themselves. 
 To which race they belonged is difficult to relate, nor is it 
 of consequence here. In their brave hearts the Gospel took 
 speedy growth. Their former independence of Pagan Rome 
 well fitted them to stand firm against the encroachments of 
 Papal Rome. 
 
 While the Roman eagle swept over entire Europe, these 
 people lived so quietly in this remote region that they 
 were not brought to face the full brunt of the Roman army. 
 The frequent, but comparatively small parties sent to sub- 
 due them were more than matched. It is quite clear in 
 history that after Gaul, Spain, Britain and all the Mediterra- 
 
12 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 nean coast had taken on the yoke of Rome this Piedmont 
 race was free, and had not been subdued into a Roman 
 province. When Rome fell in the fifth century, they 
 were not much disturbed by the crash of the Empire. And 
 at that date they were pure in religious life and faith ; while 
 they appear to have been greatly devoted to the few simple 
 laws and institutions of their country. They bore every 
 symptom of being a patriotic and freedom-loving people. 
 Their morals were elevated far above the prevailing type. 
 For several centuries they belonged to the diocese of Milan, 
 which extended over the whole of western Italy, and was 
 independent of the bishop of Rome. 
 
 OF THE BISHOP OF EOME. 
 
 This portion of the Church was much purer, and more in- 
 dependent in the fourth century, than that portion of the 
 Church presided over by the bishop of Rome. The bishop 
 of Milan, who was at first in charge of these ancient churches 
 of the Piedmont, denied any inherent authority of succession 
 from Peter ; held to justification by faith instead of works ; 
 maintained two sacraments instead of seven ; denied the 
 bodily presence of Christ in the sacrament ; knew nothing 
 of the mass or extreme unction ; had nothing to say about 
 purgatory ; while he declared that to adore images was 
 pure Paganism. 
 
 Later on, these churches seem to have been transferred 
 to the jurisdiction of another bishopric. From the fall of 
 the Roman Empire, in 476, to the year 1000, moral darkness 
 clouded Europe. It was the midnight of the Middle Ages. 
 During part of this time Claudius, bishop of Turin, was in 
 charge of the Piedmont Christians. He was a noted Chris- 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 13 
 
 tian reformer, and used the most stringent means to keep 
 his people pure in faith and upright in morals. From the 
 writings of Augustine we learn that Claudius had attained 
 the sweetest and highest views of truth. In accord with 
 the devout and learned Augustine, Claudius believed that 
 man is not justified by works, but only through the mercy 
 and grace of God in Christ. He said : " G-od commanded 
 us to bear the Cross, and not to worship it." He denied 
 the efficacy of prayers for the dead, the worship of saints 
 and images, the authority of traditions and the doctrine of 
 merits. Christ was for him the acknowledged head of the 
 Church. Here in the darkest period of Europe's night, we 
 find this people steadfastly furnishing the light. The Pa- 
 pacy had neither won them by its doctrines, nor conquered 
 them to its jurisdiction. 
 
 It is most important to note that the Church at Borne was 
 not in doctrine, faith or rule a universal Church then, any 
 more than at any period since. In the second century, and 
 again in the seventh, and again in the ninth, and yet 
 again in the eleventh, there is the very clearest evidence 
 that the Piedmont Christians had the pure Word of Grod. 
 They were instructed therein by pious and learned pastors. 
 The pastors were not celibate priests ; but were married and 
 had families, and in all the relations of life not unlike the 
 Protestant pastors of to-day. 
 
 Why was that not a Protestant Christianity \ In faith, 
 morals and government, it was a living protest against the 
 Papal Church, when the Papal Church was yet in its cradle. 
 
 The ancient Waldensian Church, as it is called, of the Pied- 
 mont country, is symbolized by a standard with a dark field, 
 having a lighted candle standing in its center, throwing out 
 its beams on every side. Over it hangs the sky of night, 
 dotted with seven stars ; while round about it are the words, 
 
14 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 lux lucet in tenebris, (a light shining in the darkness). If 
 any Christian community could show that when corruption 
 first appeared in the church they protested against it, and 
 when Papal evils were engrafted on the church, that they 
 " came out from her and were separate/' then their claim 
 to an Apostolic Church cannot be questioned. These valley 
 Christians never nursed from the corrupt life of the Roman 
 Church, or took to the idea of priestly rule, and they never 
 subscribed to the Roman constitution. 
 
 PAGANISM THE CHIEF SOUKCE OF PAPAL FOEMS. 
 
 There, in the Piedmont valleys, was a live and flourishing 
 Christianity, when the forces of the Papacy were coming 
 in from Pagan sources. The distinctive separation between 
 Piedmont Christianity and that of Pome lies in this — Pa- 
 ganism never found admission into the Piedmont church, 
 whilst in the third and fourth centuries the Roman Church 
 was more indebted to Pagan than to Christian sources for 
 its faith, power and life. We can see how the Papal relig- 
 ion is simply a transferred, but not transformed, Pagan re- 
 ligion. In the fourth century gross practices of Paganism 
 were already taken up by the Church at Rome. The heath- 
 en had believed in many gods and silly helps to devotion. 
 The Roman Church thought to win the heathen by coming 
 as near this practice as could be. And so there rapidly 
 came in images, pictures, relics, processions, pilgrimages, 
 bodily injuries and penances, self-inflicted, in order to con- 
 form to heathen fashion. Abandonment of the world for 
 the life of a hermit led to monkery, which came in later. 
 
 Ambition became intrenched in the Papal-pagan church, 
 as true Christianity departed. The bishop of Rome wanted 
 power. So began the trend towards established Papacy. 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 15 
 
 By Roman Catholic authority it is quite evident there was 
 no thought of supremacy by the local heads of the Church 
 at Rome, prior to the third century, and no attempt to 
 general rule over the whole world for several centuries 
 later. Du Pin, Bellarmine, Alexander, are three great 
 authorities on Papacy, among Roman Catholic writers. 
 All of these agree that there is no evidence that the Church 
 of Rome assumed any supremacy, prior to the close of the 
 fourth century. By leading and fearless Roman Catholics 
 the Papacy has always been regarded as an assumption of 
 the ambitious bishops of Rome. 
 
 At a meeting of the Vatican, after Rome had been de- 
 livered from Charles V. Staphylo, bishop of Libari, told the 
 Pope and Cardinals that they had been suffering the judg- 
 ments of heaven for their own wickedness. And he ap- 
 plied to the Roman Papacy Isaiah's prophecy against it, 
 and declared the Papacy the Babylon of the Apocalypse. 
 No Protestant ever spoke stronger. 
 
 Constantine had much to do with the preparation of the 
 Church at Rome for Papal assumption. In the course of 
 his military career he gained a signal victory at the Milvian 
 Bridge, near Rome, in the early part of the fourth century. 
 He here assumed the emperorship of the West and espoused 
 the cause of the Church, and imposed its dogmas on the 
 Western Pagan world. At once there came into the Church 
 a flood of heathen customs, rites and immoralities. Roman 
 Christianity became more Paganized, than heathenism be- 
 came Christianized. The worship of Christ was united to 
 the worship of Apollo, the name of the one and the figure of 
 the other being placed on the Roman coins. The union 
 thus formed between Paganism and the Romish Church 
 has never been put apart. At first the Church was divided 
 into three capitals of equal authority, Rome, Alexandria 
 
16 THE BOMAN PAPACY. 
 
 and Antioch. Later Constantinople and Jerusalem were 
 added, and the five were co-equal. The bishops of Rome 
 gradually subdued the Italian clergy, and by the end of 
 the sixth century had brought them into complete subjec- 
 tion. The only exception that has been found is that of the 
 Piedmont country. 
 
 GEEGOEY I., AND THE BEGINNING OF THE PAPAL CLAIM* 
 
 In the beginning of the seventh century, Gregory I., 
 whose distinguishing traits were enthusiasm, ambition and 
 ignorance, began the claim of divine authority and defined a 
 succession from Peter, and opened negotiations with the 
 neighboring sovereigns, looking to his temporal sovereignty. 
 
 In the early part of the seventh century, the Emperor 
 Phocos conferred on Boniface III., Bishop of Rome, title 
 of Universal Bishop, and from this grant dates the real be- 
 ginning of the Papacy. 
 
 For more than a century there was no sign of renewed 
 power. Then came the separation from the Greek Church, 
 in the eighth century, and the Papal government became an 
 independent temporal authority over the city of Rome. By 
 the tenth century the Popes held large sections of Europe, 
 and subfeuded to military vassals. Then was a period of 
 general infamy in the Papacy. Leo IV. alone should be 
 excepted from the scandalous vices and crimes which 
 marked the times, not the least of which was that of two 
 female Popes, of wanton and vicious character. 
 
 Before Otho the Great entered Italy, the most prosperous 
 cities and most fertile sections had passed to the ownership 
 of the bishops and monasteries. The temporal power was 
 growing amazingly, abetted by the donations of the north- 
 ern conquerors, who gave their wealth to appease the wrath 
 of God against their crimes. 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 17 
 
 During this period gross teachings of false and impure 
 doctrines, vain and gaudy showings of power and growing 
 oppressions, prevailed in Italy, and especially in Rome, and 
 the region round about. The Waldensian Christians of the 
 Piedmont were clear of their contamination. The most 
 penetrating search-light of history shows that none of these 
 abuses were countenanced. Most noble people ! 
 
 A RELIGION PURE AS PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 Among them are to be found the foot-steps of our holy 
 religion, during the dark ages of the eighth, ninth, and 
 tenth centuries. Long before the Protestant Reformation, 
 the Piedmont Christians were a burning light in the dark- 
 est night of Christendom. In the ninth century we find 
 these Christians longing for more spirituality in the church 
 and vital piety in the world. In the eleventh century we 
 find them maintaining the authority of the Bible over mere 
 tradition, and the rights of their own consciences against 
 the pretentious claims of the Popes. Through these dark 
 centuries they at times became tainted with some of the 
 evils of the corrupt Papacy ; nor is this strange with the 
 unclean waters washing all about them. But they were 
 generally found upholding the purity of Christian morals, 
 the supremacy of the Bible, and the right of their pastors 
 to marry. 
 
 What additional is needed to constitute a protesting 
 church % Many of our Protestant pulpits of the day do 
 not come up to this measure of faithfulness in maintaining 
 purity of doctrine and independence of the private conscience. 
 With more light, superior knowledge and a greater reason, 
 because of the results of a Bible Protestantism, many pulpits 
 in our land are more feeble in raising a voice against the 
 
18 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 shallow pretences of Papal arrogance, than that remnant of a 
 pure church in the secluded valleys of Italy's northland. 
 
 The fact must not be lost sight of, at a time when Rome 
 is so active in destroying the data of history, that in the 
 little valleys of the Italian Alps always lived those who 
 maintained their independence against Papal supremacy, 
 and kept their faith pure when assailed by Pagan rites 
 through Papal channels. Behold here a remnant of God's 
 modern Israel ! 
 
 THE BRIGHTNESS OF THE DAWN, AND THE AWFULNESS OF 
 
 THE CONFLICT. 
 
 The twelfth and the thirteenth centuries, the great divide 
 between the dark ages and the modern Christian centuries, 
 came on apace. It was a time of great religious zeal. The 
 dawn was at hand. And such a dawning as it was to be ! 
 It was to last long, and the powers in conflict were to be 
 pitted against each other as never before. Thought began 
 to rove un trammeled over religious institutions and forms. 
 Modern language became the vehicle of thought. The 
 Crusades were pouring their light upon Europe. That 
 brilliant devotionalist, Thomas A' Becket, in England, was 
 reproving the Pope for not conserving the liberties of the 
 Church. King John in front of Windsor Castle had been 
 forced to sign the Magna Charter. Dante gave a new im- 
 pulse to language in Italy. Emperor Henry, of Grermany, 
 invades Italy, and imprisons the Pope. Milan declares for 
 a republican form of government. The Lombard League is 
 formed to conserve the movement for free cities, and Italy 
 holds a Parliament of Free Cities. To check the coming 
 light the Bible is prohibited in Italy, and a crusade for 
 extermination is started against the Waldenses. And the 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 19 
 
 Knights Templars rise in Europe, and become an anti- 
 Papal movement. 
 
 PERSECUTION OF PETER WALDO. 
 
 In the south of France Peter Waldo began to study the 
 Bible. A light was struck in a new place, and because of 
 Papal tyranny was to be carried afar. He employed two 
 learned men to render the Scriptures in the common tongue 
 of the people. His great piety persuaded him, and his 
 equally great wealth enabled him to do this. The only ex* 
 tant copies of the Bible at this time were in the old Latin, 
 and not readable by the masses. The study of the Bible 
 and the death of a friend powerfully affected him. As he 
 saw the light himself, he sought to arouse the Church, 
 But alas, it was the Papal Church. When the Pope im- 
 posed the mass, he opposed the Pope. He had to flee for 
 his life. He took refuge in the Piedmont valleys, whose 
 fame had reached him. Here he became a leader among a 
 people who continue to be among the most evangelical of 
 the pre-Peformation Christians. So the branch of Chris- 
 tianity, which alone in all the world, represents separation 
 from and independence of the Church at Pome, goes on 
 maintaining the cause of religious liberty and rights of 
 conscience ; and in the face, too, of an ever increasing bitter- 
 ness of persecution. 
 
 DOMINIC THE FOUNDER OF THE DOMINICANS. 
 
 About this time lived Dominic, the founder of the Domin- 
 ican order of monks. He was full of zeal and equally full 
 of bigotry. Ability and culpability were in him in equal 
 degree, the one a master talent, the other a master passion. 
 He had a genius for organization, and large powers of exe- 
 
20 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 cution ; but he was a tyrant in rule, and heartless in his 
 cruelties. He organized the tribunal of the Inquisition to 
 oppose heresy, and was the first Inquisitor- general. This 
 most infamous and longest-continued enginery of persecu- 
 tion, was invented to induce the people who had been in the 
 habit of reading the Bible, to give up such a pious custom. 
 The Pope had decided that it was not good for the people 
 to know anything about the Scriptures, and this opinion of 
 one man must be respected by all the world, even if the 
 people had to be killed in the way most cruel. The people^ 
 are nothing when the Pope speaks. 
 
 A SYNOD OEDEES THE CONFISCATION OF PEOPERTY. 
 
 The Synod of Toulouse in 1229 ordered the overthrow of 
 the literary, religious and art revival of southern France. 
 It commanded the bishops to employ agents to hunt out 
 the followers of Waldo ; destroy every house which shel- 
 tered one of them, or in which was found the Scriptures ; 
 confiscate the property of any official who extended sym- 
 pathy to them ; and were ordered to deprive those holy 
 disciples of the cross of the Savior, of all Christian help, 
 even in mortal illness. 
 
 As the Papal throne regarded the evil of reading the 
 Bible, it were better that the dying go without the comforts 
 of religion than Scripture reading be tolerated. Accord- 
 ing to the view then pertaining in the Romish Church, the 
 dying would go to hell if they did not receive the ministry 
 of the priests. Hence it was that the Popes were pleased 
 to send people to hell, as a punishment for reading the 
 Bible. That great common law of individual liberty of 
 conscience was withheld from the people, by a Church 
 which is still in the world, and has made no change of opin- 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 21 
 
 ion, and by some of the signs which are seen, it mnst be 
 said, no change of methods, where it has sufficient power 
 to enforce the old methods of Dominican ingenuity and 
 savagery. 
 
 INQUISIT0KIAL TOKTUEES THE OBJECT OF THE DOMINICANS. 
 
 Some of the bishops were slow to enforce the infamous 
 orders of the Pope, nor did they favor the hellish proceed- 
 ings of Dominic. And on this account Grogory IX. , in 1232, 
 instituted the special Tribunal of the Inquisition. The 
 plan for this was originally made by Dominic. When it 
 was established by the Pope's favor, he was made the head 
 of the Order of Dominicans, with unlimited powers. The 
 Order was at once lifted above the bishops, and all local 
 authority, and reported directly to the Popes at Rome. 
 The bishops were too humane for the head of the Church at 
 Rome. What a commentary on the men who pretended to 
 Ibe sole representatives of Christ on earth ! The spirit of 
 Christ had departed, and the spirit of humanity was gone ! 
 What was left but the spirit of the prince of all evil ? If 
 more cruel monsters lived than these Popes of the Middle 
 Ages, we may wish history to charitably conceal their 
 features. 
 
 All parties suspected were accused and tried, without be- 
 ing permitted to face accusers or witnesses. A deeper wrong 
 was never practiced upon innocent people during the dark 
 centuries. It was simply infamous, after all excuse is made 
 for the bigotry of the times. No feelings of humanity 
 could remain with men engaged in such persecutions, and 
 most certainly not the sweet spirit of the gentle Nazarene. 
 Torture was freely used to enforce confession. Those who 
 could endure the torture without confessing, were handed 
 
22 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 over to the secular authorities, to be burned at the stake or 
 impaled on spikes and left to perish. And the court, under 
 the direction of the Church, was the mere tool of the Order 
 of the Dominicans. The Roman Pontiffs who ordered these 
 things — Innocent III., Gregory IX., and Innocent IV. — 
 considered the supremacy of Rome the very keystone in the 
 arch of the Church, the state and society, and held that the 
 Popes ought to have supreme authority, and final, over a 
 man's body, family, property, and his soul. By the pro- 
 vision of Innocent III., special agents were sent to Spain 
 and to the south of France "to catch and kill the little 
 foxes," by which he meant the intelligent and holy Wal- 
 denses and Bible readers. 
 
 Persecution became more furious than before. It raged 
 wherever there was the least disposition to consult the Bible 
 rather than the priest, and where any suspicion was awak- 
 ened, that men were thinking upon the questions of moral 
 and social rights. The cloud-bursts mostly came to Spain 
 and southern France, where the evangelical movement of 
 Waldo had refreshed the people, and in the Piedmont, 
 against which country the Popes had special grievance. 
 
 The Waldenses distinguished themselves for all time, for 
 their endurance in faith and patience under trial. Many a 
 dark path had this peculiar little race traveled in the past. 
 Persecutions had not destroyed their faith, nor had Papal 
 tyranny subdued their courage. They had grown strong 
 in spirit, as they became fewer in numbers. 
 
 TEN" PERSECUTIONS, AND TWENTY TO FOLLOW. 
 
 They had already passed through ten persecutions, and 
 were now entering upon the most stupendous that ever any 
 people experienced, up to that time. The trained blood- 
 hounds of the Inquisition were turned loose upon them 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 23 
 
 without any restraint, but with the encouragement of a 
 conscienceless Pope ; and without any limit, until cruelty 
 became exhausted and physical endurance was at an 
 end. Through it all, their heroism arose to almost Christ- 
 like grandeur. Calumny humbled them, but could not 
 suppress them. The hoarse cry of the hateful fanaticism of 
 corrupt error fell upon their ears, but never dazed their 
 hearts. Loss of property reduced them to poverty, but did 
 not cool their devotion to the truth. They shed their blood, 
 but they did not surrender their Lord at the bidding of the 
 Pope. Without food for the stomach, or clothing for the 
 body, they fed on the Word of Gfod, and clothed themselves 
 with the garment of pious humility. 
 
 While this was going on in the Piedmont, it was even 
 more violent in the south of France, which had become a 
 recruiting station for Piedmont Christianity. Every device 
 of Dominican hate was brought into play, and the days 
 were made hideous with the terrible sufferings inflicted 
 under the Pope's power. It seems as if human infamy 
 reaches its climax, as it empties itself upon this faithful 
 Israel of the south of France, emigrating for conscience 
 sake to the Piedmont country, and uniting with the primi- 
 tive Christians already there. 
 
 A DREADFUL PICTURE, BUT TRUE. 
 
 And now the sufferings of the Piedmontese are increased 
 in volume and spirit. Such extreme persecutions have per- 
 haps never fallen upon any one people before or since. The 
 story is one of harrowing feelings, and truly sad to relate. 
 It were better never repeated, were it not that so long as 
 Rome keeps on in the same spirit, the testimony must be 
 kept in court. As long as Rome goes 'on in her old way, 
 
24 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 her past must not be forgotten. Here is a picture of Rome 
 in the Piedmont : Children were torn away from their pa- 
 rents — pastors slain and kidnapped — people covered with 
 pitch and set on fire — the flesh beaten off with heavy chains 
 — the shoulders beaten with burning brands — flayed alive — 
 thrown from top of precipices — sawn asunder — impaneled 
 on iron spikes — buried alive — fastened down in the furrows 
 of their own fields and plowed into jelly — blown up with 
 gun-powder, put into the mouth after the tongue had been 
 cut out — limbs chopped off slowly with a hatchet — tied up 
 to trees, and the hearts and lungs hacked out — fathers walk- 
 ing to their death with the heads of their sons hanging 
 about their necks — infants dashed against the rocks — breasts 
 of women torn out — quick-lime put into bleeding wounds — 
 nails torn out by the roots — tight cords drawn around the 
 limbs, and drawn a little tighter each day for weeks- 
 crushed under massive slabs lowered by machinery. This 
 is the record. How diabolical it all seems. When men in- 
 stigate and execute such deeds as these, is it done in the 
 spirit of Christ or anti-Christ % We exclaim with the Scrip- 
 tures, "0 Lord, how long!" 
 
 Eventually, wasted away in numbers, they became too 
 weak to defend themselves. They had to appeal for the 
 privilege of living. They implored to be left alone, noth- 
 ing more. It was a simple request for a weak party to 
 make of a strong one. They petitioned to Francis I., of 
 France, for the simple rights of citizens. He replied that 
 as he was at that very moment burning heretics in Paris, he 
 was not likely to spare them in the Alps. Unsafe in their 
 own homes, friendless in their own land and pilgrims on 
 their own roads, they were depressed, but not despondent. 
 Deserted by their king, they deserted not their Savior. Find- 
 ing they could not put their trust in the princes of earth, 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 25 
 
 they calmly placed their confidence in the Prince of Peace. 
 The great Lateran Council had the policy of Innocent 
 III. before it, and confirmed it. This was a policy of the 
 most vigorous persecution. Thus the whole Roman Catho- 
 lic Church upheld and sustained, and rejoiced in this 
 wicked crusade against civil and religious liberty. The 
 Count of Toulouse was charged by Innocent III. with the 
 duty of persecuting the Piedmont Christians. He neglected 
 this duty, and in his neglect was his crime. He was de- 
 clared to be an enemy to the Church, and was excommuni- 
 cated. An interdict was placed on his people, and neigh- 
 boring princes were directed to invade and take pos- 
 session of his lands. By this means he was forced into line 
 with the Papal policy. 
 
 THE CHURCH LEVIES A TAX ON FRANCE. 
 
 By order of the Pope all persons friendly to the Pied- 
 mont Christians, were declared incapable of holding public 
 office, giving evidence, or bequeathing property. The same 
 Pope calls on the King of France to send assistance to aid 
 in their suppression. All who enlisted in the war against 
 them wore the cross upon the breast, and were promised 
 temporal and spiritual benefits. To meet the expense, of 
 this extensive move against civil and religious rights, a tax 
 was imposed on France. 
 
 The times grew harder for them. The darkest hour of 
 the night had not yet come. How could they stand more 
 of Papal wrongs % In 1485 the Pope attempted to extermi- 
 nate them. This Pope was Innocent VIII. , a man without 
 character or integrity. He had no reputation except for 
 hardheartedness and injustice. To claim this monster 
 was the Vicegerent of God on earth, is to raise the question 
 
26 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 if God is just. At one time this Pope was organizing a 
 crusade against the Turks in the Holy Land ; and in a short 
 while was willing, in consideration of a yearly payment of 
 forty thousand dollars, to favor the Sultan of Turkey in 
 such a crime as retaining his fugitive brother a prisoner in 
 the Vatican. In his zeal to destroy the Piedmont Chris- 
 tians, he promised forgiveness of sin to all who would en- 
 gage in the work of extermination. Is here not found the 
 fruit of villainy ? Here is a case of a Pope bribing men to 
 enter upon a campaign of murder. What is such a Pope 
 but a murderer ? When he hired others to murder vast 
 numbers because they did not think as he did, the blood of 
 the victims is on their hands, but it is equally on his heart. 
 
 SMOKING THEM OUT. 
 
 In 1488 the Pope's legate, dispatched to serve the Papacy, 
 strangled eighteen to death. The people fled before him 
 in terror to high caverns among the rocks, six thousand feet 
 above the valley. Here with their cattle, and provisioned 
 for two years, they sought asylums. Property and lands 
 were left behind, and they were only seeking security of 
 life. But the Legate ordered immense fires built at the 
 cavern entrances, and as the people were driven out by the 
 smoke, they perished in the flames or by sword. So fell 
 three thousand. 
 
 GENERAL CONFISCATION. 
 
 The Legate acted as agent of their property. He pro- 
 ceeded to distribute it among the Papal vagabonds. A cen- 
 tury before, this same wrong had fallen upon their fathers. 
 Rome sent her edicts of banishment, in the middle of the 
 winter, as had been her custom always. They were ordered 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 27 
 
 to embrace the Catholic religion, or immediately quit the 
 valleys. They were to leave their property behind them. 
 And Rome took possession as usual. 
 
 From the year 1056 to 1290, five Papal bulls were issued 
 for their extermination. Heartless cruelty went to the 
 furthest stretch of brutality. In order to determine if one 
 was guilty of heresy, a red-hot iron was applied to the cheek, 
 and if it burned the flesh it was proof of heresy, and execu- 
 tion followed. 
 
 As an instance of Papal treatment, an elder was forced to 
 witness the beheading of his two sons, the outrage of his 
 daughter-in-law and the massacre of her four children ; then 
 he was driven, with the heads of his family strung about 
 his head, to Luzerne, where he was hung. And all this 
 was in the name of the Roman Catholic Church. The world 
 is not willing that this should be forgotten, so long as that 
 Church is with us, boasting that it is unchanged. 
 
 CATHOLICS EXEMPT FROM KEEPING CONTRACTS. 
 
 Laws were enacted making the contracts, entered into 
 with the Piedmontese, null and void. Simply because they 
 did not think as the Pope on matters of religion, Catholics 
 were not bound to keep contracts with them, and this by 
 Papal legislation too. All persons were empowered to take 
 possession of their property. Along with the Popes, the 
 Papal kings were bent upon the extinction of this honest 
 and useful people. The Edict of Nantes was a measure 
 passed in favor of the early French Protestants. But dur- 
 ing the rule of Louis XIV. that impious king, to please the 
 Pope, revoked the Edict of Nantes. Many of the Piedmont 
 people lived in eastern France. So it was distinctly a 
 measure against the Waldenses, as well as against the Hu- 
 guenots. 
 
28 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 CRUEL EXILE IN MID-WINTER. 
 
 And now either exile or extermination, was a mere mat- 
 ter of choice with them. The French Waldenses lived 
 mostly in the province of Savoy. King Louis, a Papal tool, 
 told the Duke of Savoy he must make these valley people 
 conform strictly to the Church of Rome, or drive them 
 out. The very worst was now at hand. They had to ac- 
 cept the situation. By 1685 they had been reduced to less 
 than three thousand souls, and this remnant had to submit 
 to exile. Terrific and sudden came the blow. 
 
 It was a dreary and exceptionally cold mid- winter. They 
 crossed the Alps, experiencing the severest suffering, and 
 leaving many of their dead behind them on the Alpine 
 snows. They arrived at last at the blue waters of the Lake 
 of Geneva, weak and exhausted. 
 
 Who did this \ Why, the Pope of Rome ! What had this 
 people done that they should have such a fate dealt out to 
 them 1 In all matters of state they had faithfully obeyed 
 the laws of their country ; but in matters of conscience they 
 asked to stand alone before their God. This was their 
 crime, and such their punishment. And we judge this hate- 
 ful tyranny, which was without pity or justice. 
 
 This was in the seventeenth century, and by this time 
 the Reformation was a success in all western Europe. In 
 Switzerland the exiles found a generous welcome among 
 the warm-hearted Swiss reformers. They had found a 
 harbor of rest, and their sojourn among the Swiss peasants 
 was a grateful period of peace. But the love for their na- 
 tive valleys was strong within them. After four years they 
 longed to return. Their pastor and leader, Henri Arnaud, 
 started with a remnant of eight hundred for the re-conquest 
 of their country. 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 29 
 
 It took them weeks to cross the Alps. But at last they 
 entered the old valleys again. On the first day of Septem- 
 ber, 1689, after four years of absence, they stood within the 
 dear Piedmont valleys. Their pastor mounted a platform, 
 with sword in one hand and Bible in the other, to preach to 
 them. They chanted the seventy-fifth Psalm to the clash 
 of arms. Here they framed and agreed to this famous cov- 
 enant: " God by his divine grace, having happily led us 
 back to the heritage of our forefathers, there to re-establish 
 the pure service of our holy religion, by the completion of 
 the great enterprise which the great God of armies hath 
 hitherto conducted in our favor ; we, the pastors, captains, 
 and other officers, swear before God, at the peril of our 
 souls, to observe union and order among us ; never willing- 
 ly to separate or to disunite, while God shall grant life to 
 us ; not even though we should be so miserable as to be re- 
 duced to three or four ; never to parley, or to treat with 
 our enemies, as well of France as of Piedmont, without the 
 participation of our whole council of war ; and to put to- 
 gether the booty which we have, or shall have, to be ap- 
 plied to the wants of our people, or to extraordinary causes. 
 And we soldiers swear this day before God to obey the 
 orders of all our officers ; and we swear fidelity to them 
 with all our hearts, even to the last drop of our blood ; also 
 to give up to their care the prisoners and booty to be dis- 
 posed of as they shall see fit. And in order to more perfect 
 organization, it is forbidden, under heavy penalties, for 
 any officer or soldier to search any enemy dead, wounded 
 or prisoner, during or after battle ; but persons shall be ap- 
 pointed for this purpose. The officers are enjoined to take 
 care that the soldiers keep their arms and ammunition in 
 order, above all, to chastise severely any one who shall 
 swear or blaspheme. And to render union, which is the 
 
30 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 soul of our affairs, inseparable among us, we, the officers, 
 swear fidelity to the soldiers, and we the soldiers to the 
 officers ; promising, moreover, to our Lord and Savior Jesus 
 Christ, to rescue as far as may in us lie, our brethren from 
 the power of the cruel Babylon, and with them to re-estab- 
 lish and maintain his kingdom unto death ; and by this 
 oath we will abide all our lives." 
 
 In this truly sublime Covenant are seen such principles 
 of brotherly attachment, Christian equality, justice and 
 forbearance to enemies in war, and personal responsibility 
 to the right, as have left no mark anywhere in history dur- 
 ing these dark centuries, up to this instance. In showing 
 devotion and endurance to a noble cause it is unexcelled, 
 and in dependence upon Grod for help it is quite touching. 
 It is a paper which it is well should not be lost to posterity. 
 Nor should it be forgotten that the Eomish Church, which 
 had grown prominent in those evils and corruptions which 
 for seven centuries have marked it, was the tyrannical power 
 which made it necessary for them to raise this pathetic cry 
 to the world. The world has heard it. And the audacious 
 designs of Romanism upon the civilizations of to-day,, will 
 make the world disposed to remember this cry and be 
 warned by it. For unless all history is misread, there is 
 danger that the scenes of the Piedmont valleys may be re- 
 peated among the greater valleys of America. 
 
 In this nineteenth century the Papacy stands confronted 
 loj its own wrongs, which in other centuries it perpetrated 
 against the Piedmontese. Now, the methods of the Papal 
 Church are somewhat more mild, because of the greater 
 fear of the un- Catholic world. The Papal power has exiled 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 31 
 
 deposed rulers, confiscated property, subverted govern- 
 ments, persecuted in a double score of ways, and carried on 
 a general regime of tyranny and ecclesiastical rule, most 
 hurtful to the interests of the world. If the world would 
 be willing to stand by and look on, and make no objection, 
 the Papacy would repeat in our great country, inside of 
 fifty years, her course in little Piedmont. Let American 
 patriots heed the lessons gathered from the history of the 
 Piedmont patriots. 
 
 MURDEROUS ASSAULT A CENTURY AGO. 
 
 That was a diabolical plot designed against them a century 
 ago. The humanity of the world had progressed beyond 
 such a spirit, but no matter, this was Rome upon whom hu- 
 manity has no claim, and from whom humanity can ex- 
 pect no quarter. It was only one short century ago that it 
 was determined by the Papacy to extinguish the Protest- 
 ants of LaTorre. All the able-bodied men were on the 
 frontier, defending their country against France. The old 
 and the young were alone with the women. Suddenly, one 
 day there came to them a message that they were to be fal- 
 len upon that night, as the evening bells of the convent 
 rang out. Windows and doors were hurriedly barricaded, 
 and stones were collected for defense. A courier was dis- 
 patched to the frontier. The commanding general hastened 
 forward with a company of troops. They were the fathers 
 and husbands of the threatened helpless. As the evening 
 shades began to gather early in the mountain fastnesses, a 
 storm came up, and howled and swept with the fury 
 of the hurricane, while the rain poured in great torrents. 
 Through the storm they bent their way in sheer desperation. 
 The village of LaTorre was in sight. The vesper bells were 
 ringing. The clang of their arms and the tramp of their 
 
32 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 hurrying feet reached the ears of the belated assassins — 
 belated by the storm of a friendly Providence. Did those 
 Piedmontese soldiery avenge themselves on the designers 
 of foul murder ? Who would blame ? Not a drop of blood 
 was spilt. They only turned over the leaders to the gov- 
 ernment, which was so wholly Romish that all it did was 
 to allow the guilty to escape and to disgrace the innocent. 
 General Godin, who sent his men to save their families, was 
 dismissed from the service, and the command given to a 
 Romanist. This plan of the Papacy, to general armies with 
 Romanists that Papal interests might be served, is not a 
 new thing in the world, nor has recent years in our own 
 country been a stranger to this crime. Let Americans look 
 to this. 
 
 PEOSCRIPTIVE LAWS OF THE PAPACY. 
 
 One hundred years ago the Papal throne had some 
 strangely unjust laws in vogue in this Piedmont country. 
 Protestants were not allowed to enter the callings of law, 
 medicine or pharmacy, and these lasted until quite late in 
 this century. Protestants were not permitted to hold mu- 
 nicipal offices, but had to be ruled over exclusively by Ro- 
 manists. Protestant children might be taken from their 
 parents, and educated in Roman Catholic schools. No 
 Protestants could purchase land out of certain perscribed 
 limits. No Protestant books could be printed in the coun- 
 try, while the duty on imported ones was enormous. Prot- 
 estants had to keep the Romish holidays, and there was 
 from one to three each week. There is an instance of a 
 Protestant watering his garden on a festival day, and he 
 was condemned to pay a heavy fine. The Protestants had 
 to pay a tax one-third higher than their Roman Catholic 
 fellow citizens. Taxes are always outrageously high in 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 33 
 
 countries where Papal laws prevail. The Catholics in Pied- 
 mont paid a tax of thirteen per cent., the Protestants paid 
 twenty and one-half per cent. 
 
 AN HEROIC TYPE OF PEOPLE. 
 
 Each and all of these laws are in accord with the Canon 
 Law of the Roman Church. By that law they are to be 
 sustained. The startling thing to reflect upon is, that where 
 Papal power pertains to any considerable extent these laws 
 are put in practice as much as possible, if it is not within 
 the Papal power to put them in the statute books. In our 
 country some of these laws are in force without being on 
 the statute books. This evil must be corrected, or it will 
 grow until it becomes a persecution. What Rome has in 
 practice in our midst to-day, she will have in the law to* 
 morrow. 
 
 Verily these Piedmont Christians were distinguished for 
 an heroic faith and unsurpassed endurance. They have 
 been overrun by the Moors, the Saracens and the Hunga- 
 rians. They have had war made upon them by the French, 
 under the Duke of Savoy and again by the King, Louis XIV., 
 by the Irish, who fled from Cromwell, and by all the allied 
 armies of the Pope time and again. But they have been 
 unwilling to be exterminated. They have withstood thirty- 
 three wars on account of their faith. They had already 
 passed through ten persecutions before Rome adopted the 
 policy of extermination. Then for more than six centuries 
 the blood-hounds of persecution have sucked the vitality 
 from them. But they would not become extinct. A per- 
 sistent race they have been. They have indeed been a 
 " nation scattered and peeled, a nation meted out and trod- 
 den down." Though exiled they have returned ; persecut- 
 ed unto death, they still survive, and live in their own 
 homes, witnessing to the truths of the Bible. 
 
34 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 Their faith was of the heroic type. It was a saying that 
 one of them was equal to twenty other soldiers. Heroism 
 with them was the result of their strong patriotic feelings, 
 and equally strong moral principles. Moral purpose is 
 a stronger thing than physical might. The Piedmont 
 soldiers were Christian patriots of the most splendid type. 
 
 Their most noted hero, Givanello, with a band of twenty 
 followers, defeated at one time a whole army of invaders. 
 And again at Pra Del Tor, with a small company he gained a 
 victory over an army of seven thousand, which moved up- 
 on them in three columns. They rose up from their prayers 
 to smite their approaching foes as by a bolt from heaven. 
 Heroes for conscience sake, is the verdict of Piedmontese 
 .history. 
 
 MOST INTELLECTUAL PEOPLE IN EUEOPE. 
 
 They were intelligent, as they were moral. They were 
 taxed for schools, and with the money convents were es- 
 tablished, which were filled with monks, fostered by the 
 courts. In spite of this we find in this belt of country the 
 greatest intelligence prevailing during the Middle Ages 
 anywhere in Europe. It was by this intellectual vigor, as 
 well as by their moral convictions, that they so successful- 
 ly opposed the ecclesiastical forms and power of the hier- 
 archy. 
 
 ONE OF NAPOLEON'S LAST DESPATCHES. 
 
 Their generous traits of character seem most charming 
 at whatever point of time we look at them. Napoleon 
 greatly admired them. One of the last dispatches he dic- 
 tated from Moscow, with the city in flames about him, re- 
 lated to a Piedmont pastor. A noted Roman Catholic his- 
 torian, De Thou, testifies of them that " charity is held in 
 
TEE ROMAN PAPACY. 35 
 
 such high honor among them that their neighbors, though 
 differing in religion, when they would defend their daugh- 
 ters against the licentious military, commit them to their 
 care and fidelity." 
 
 The Waldenses are the children of Providence, the pe- 
 culiar people of God. The cloud has been round about 
 them for a wall of protection, and went before them for a 
 pillar of light. They had heard the covenant speech of 
 God, "now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and 
 keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure un- 
 to me above all people." They have been blessed in this 
 promise. They have been nurtured in a most peculiar way 
 by the fostering care of the Lord. Piedmont is a state of 
 God' s making and keeping. And the Christians there shel* 
 tered, were raised up for the defense of the faith in Italy. 
 
 WHY THE POPES PERSECUTED. 
 
 When persecutions drove them from the cities and open 
 country, God led them into the lonely defiles of the inac- 
 cessible mountains, and there he always sheltered a rem- 
 nant. When the kings of Europe and the Popes of Rome 
 made cruel war upon them, for no other cause than to crush 
 out their rights of conscience, God sent them over the 
 Alps, to where open arms and sheltering homes awaited 
 them by the blue waters of Geneva, where he recruited 
 them in strength and courage, for further endurance and 
 conflict. And when they returned to their native val- 
 leys beyond the Alps, only to find their fields barren, 
 their vineyards despoiled, and their homes ruined, and 
 withal an army hanging near, God moved English Chris- 
 tians to send money with which to feed and shelter them . 
 Cromwell sent word that unless the Christians of northern 
 
36 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 Italy were left undisturbed in their religious rights, the 
 boom of English cannon would be heard on the banks of 
 the Italian lakes. All things seemed to work together for 
 their preservation. 
 
 It is something to contemplate this small, weak, often 
 homeless people surviving, while all the Popes, kings and 
 armies of southern Europe were bent on their destruction. 
 
 And so the everlasting arms of Providence were round 
 about them, preserving them through suffering, war, per- 
 secution, and all species of Papal tyrannies. 
 
 THEIR DEVOTION TO THE BIBLE. 
 
 But the most important lesson, which is impressed by the 
 history of this ancient Christian community, is that of their 
 dependence upon the Word of God. In this they were 
 strict, faithful, devoted. And it is not to be doubted that 
 there is the key by which to understand their long con- 
 tinuance in sacred history. They have been a covenant- 
 keeping, God-fearing people. Wherever a flash of light 
 breaks over the dark pages of Europe's past, these people 
 are seen reading the holy Scriptures as the only supreme 
 authority, and condemning the mass, the worship of saints 
 and images, as contrary to the purity and teaching of the 
 Scriptures. They thus stood opposed to priest, bishop and 
 Pope. 
 
 They were, so far as known, the first people to resist the 
 encroachment of the worship of saints and images. They 
 found no warrant for it in the Scriptures or in the history 
 of the early Church. This contributed to increase Papal 
 tyranny towards them. 
 
 They believed in a religion that did not consist of the 
 mass ceremonials and penances, but in a regenerating faith 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 37 
 
 which must fill the heart, and flow out in every vein with 
 life-giving power. 
 
 This very gratifying passage is found in one of their 
 books: u Whatsoever degree of holiness any man hath, 
 so much efficacy and power hath he in the Church, and no 
 more ; he cannot go a step beyond his faith." 
 
 We may easily understand that a people with such relig- 
 ious views were good citizens. They were obedient to all 
 just laws. They took an intelligent interest in all matters 
 of State. They were most set against Rome's way of inter- 
 fering with the matters of conscience. Here they rightly 
 claimed their relations were directly with God. Their prin- 
 ciples of morality, and for just dealings with their fellow- 
 men, were among the most commendable we meet in the 
 whole course of history. 
 
 A SIXTEENTH CENTURY PICTURE. 
 
 One historian draws this picture of them in the sixteenth 
 century : "They excluded from the congregations all who 
 were guilty of perjury, theft and like evil practices. And 
 that such is the regard and honor with which female purity 
 is held among them, that the inhabitants of the circumja- 
 cent country in time of war protect their daughters from a 
 lawless soldiery by committing them to the good faith of 
 the Waldenses." And this, for the sixteenth century, is a 
 high compliment to their integrity. So they have the in- 
 dorsement of history, along with the approval of God. 
 
 THEIR TABLE OF MORALS. 
 
 Far back in the centuries they had this table of Chris- 
 tian morals, which is almost ideal in its high standard : 
 1. Love not the world. 
 
38 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 2. Avoid bad company. 
 
 8. If possible live in peace with all men. 
 
 4. Strive not in law. 
 
 5. Revenge not yourselves. 
 
 6. Love your enemy. 
 
 7. Possess your souls in patience. 
 
 8. Enter not the yoke with the unfaithful. 
 
 9. Do works of charity. 
 
 10. Live by faith and moral practice. 
 
 11. Devote yourselves to religion in due season. 
 
 12. Confer one with another on the will of God. 
 
 13. Examine diligently your consciences. 
 
 14. Cleanse, amend and purify your souls. 
 
 15. Be willing to suffer toils, calumny, threats, rejection 
 of men, wrongs and all torments, for truth's sake. 
 
 16. Hold no communication with bad works, nor by 
 any means with what savors of idolatry. 
 
 This short, general statement of principles is quite enough 
 to show that Papal teaching and practices never pertained 
 to any extent among them. Rome never had such teachings, 
 
 SUBLIME PASSAGE FEOM A PIEDMONT HYMN. 
 
 Their sacred poetry shows devout Scriptural knowledge 
 and deep spiritual sentiment, and has a lofty tone about it 
 that is inspiring upon the soul. Here is a sublime passage 
 taken from a great religious hymn of the year eleven 
 hundred : 
 
 It was a noble law that was given us of God, 
 
 And written in the heart of every man, 
 
 That he might there read it, and keep it, and teach righteous- 
 ness, 
 
 And love God in his heart above every creature, 
 
 And he might have fear and serve him without reserve, 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 39 
 
 There being none other to be found in the holy Scriptures ; 
 That he might likewise keep firm the marriage tie, that noble 
 
 contract ; 
 And have peace with his brethren, and love all other persons ; 
 That he might hate pride and love humility, 
 And do to others as he would be done by. 
 
 This sort of Apostolicity was both their watchword and 
 their prayer. Practical religion was a supreme thought. 
 Truthfulness characterized their conversation; and they 
 were quite unanimous in the exercise of brotherly love. 
 They were as unselfish as they were devout, and as gener- 
 ous to man as pious towards God. By these traits in their 
 character, Milton was moved to the writing of one of his 
 great poems. 
 
 Through centuries of sufferings, and after centuries of 
 persecution, these heroic Christians patiently waited their 
 time. They had lasting qualities of moral endurance, 
 which served them when their time came. They have en- 
 tered into the highest and best fame of the world. They are 
 having an honored recognition, and are being accredited 
 with their just and distinguished place in religious history 
 and moral heroism. The world begins to see to what extent 
 we are indebted to them, for their stand against the wrongs 
 of the Papacy. Our religious and civil liberty is immeas- 
 urably enlarged, by their standing protest against the at- 
 tempts of Rome to force the first longing of free hearts into 
 a retreat. In the most trying times of the past they stood 
 steadfast as faithful witnesses. 
 
 They entered history to make a record in patriotic devo- 
 tion to country, but still more to build up a testimony for 
 the truth as it is in Scripture. They stand before the dawn 
 of the Reformation, posing a solid front to the intrusion of 
 the Roman hierarchy. 
 
40 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 VALUE OF PIEDMONT'S TESTIMONY AGAINST POPERY. 
 
 And great was the influence of their testimony. The 
 light they kindled went afar, and opened the paths in which 
 other martyrs and reformers were to walk. It was no 
 mild type of Protestantism they helped to establish. They 
 sent the leaven near and far. Their distribution among the 
 nations was a seeding time for Europe. In every strange 
 land to which they were driven, they planted the standard 
 of the true cross, and taught the people the blessings of 
 personal rights. The Christianity they stood for had none 
 of the drapery of Popery hanging about it. Under persecu- 
 tion they went into Bohemia, and acted the part of a John 
 the Baptist in opening up a highway for the Bohemian 
 Reformation. Driven by exile into Switzerland, they pil- 
 lared the faith of the Genevan Reformers, and greatly con- 
 tributed to make the Swiss firm in their stand against the 
 demands of the Pope. Swiss independence took its impulse, 
 to a considerable extent, from the Waldensian refugees. 
 In England they became the teachers of Wyclif and his 
 school of Bible readers, and so were powerful agents in the 
 coming in of the English Reformation. And again, in east- 
 ern Prance they were the antecedents of the Huguenots, 
 who immortalized themselves by the purpose to make 
 the kingdom Protestant. The Waldensian faith was so 
 magnetic that it rang like a clarion in the soul, as they 
 called to each other to cherish the memories of the blood- 
 stained mountain sides, where their fathers died for the 
 cause they held dear. Their piety has in it to this day, a 
 moral uplift. A lady who has recently lived among them 
 and educated her children in their schools, writes : "I do 
 not think I ever saw so many good people congregated on 
 one small spot of earth, so noble-minded and so unselfish, 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 41 
 
 so brave and cheerful, and so willing to serve God for noth- 
 ing.' ' 
 
 PIEDMONT'S CONTRIBUTION" TO LIBERTY. 
 
 They are entering upon their reward. Providence is 
 opening wide doors for their evangelism in the cities of 
 Turin, Genoa, Milan, Florence, Naples, and even Rome. 
 This little Church of the dark past is rising to new strength 
 and exerting more power in the world. She is lifting her 
 voice of pure testimony in the shadow of the Vatican, which 
 a very few centuries ago thundered its fury against her. 
 She is preparing for new conflicts and more battles for the 
 truth. Every step of religious liberty she takes in Italy, is 
 a triumph for the cause of freedom and conscience in that 
 country, no less than of religion the world over. And 
 every victory she wins, in that old home country of the 
 Papacy, is a rebuke to that monstrous evil, parading before 
 the world in the garb of righteousness. The people with 
 such a strange history behind them, must have a promising 
 history before them ; they have made their mark upon the 
 world, and they have helped to form the faith and mould 
 the life of generations of patriots. 
 
 The God of the Abrahamic faith will be the God of the 
 Piedmont covenant, and the Jehovah of the Israel of Pal- 
 estine will be the Jehovah of the Israel of the Alps ; while 
 we may confidently believe that the Providence which at- 
 tended the Apostolic Church will abide with these people 
 of Apostolic faith and zeal. For this we pray. 
 
TO WYCLIF. 
 
 " Wyclif is disinhumed. 
 Yea, his dry bones to ashes are consumed, 
 And flung into the brook that travels near ; 
 Forthwith that ancient voice which streams can hear, 
 Thus speaks that voice which walks upon the wind, 
 Though seldom heard by busy human kind : 
 As thou these ashes, little brook, wilt bear 
 Into the Avon — Avon to the tide 
 Of Severn — Severn to the narrow seas — 
 Into main ocean they, — this deed accurst, 
 An emblem yields to friends and enemies, 
 How the bold teacher's doctrine, sanctified 
 By truth, shall spread throughout the world dispersed." 
 
HAVE POPES AND COUNCILS DECLARED 
 AGAINST THE BIBLE? 
 
 Forasmuch as the reading of the Scriptures in the vul- 
 gar tongue has been productive of more evil than good, it 
 is expedient that they be not translated into the Vulgate, 
 or read or possessed by any one, without a written license 
 from the Inquisition, or the Bishop of the Diocese. 
 
 , Coungil of Trent. 
 
 Neither at my father's house, in the convent, nor dur- 
 ing my military course, had I ever heard the Bible spoken 
 of, much less seen a copy of it. It is true that I read 
 short extracts from the Gospels in the Breviary and the 
 Missal, but the word Bible I had never heard before. 
 
 Monsalvatge (Spanish monk)* 
 
PART II. 
 
 ENGLAND'S TRAGIC EXPERIENCE WITH THE 
 
 PAPACY. 
 
 The great English nation has had a tragic experience with 
 the Roman Papacy. Its black art of evil diplomacy began 
 early, has lasted long, and does not promise soon to end. 
 English schools have been polluted, her parliaments have 
 been intrigued, her laws Romanized, and her lands usurped. 
 The Papacy has conspired, on English soil, to check Eng- 
 lish learning, and rule her population by blighting ignor- 
 ance. English civilization had to serve Papal ends. Every 
 crime, known to the genius of evil, was committed, and every 
 wrong known to the most experienced tyranny, was per- 
 petrated. Dark conspiracies, internal revolutions, and 
 bloody wars were instigated to advance the power of the 
 Pope. 
 
 There yet stands many a relic of Papal torture in old ab- 
 bey and cathedral walls, and towers. (44) 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 45 
 
 England's shame and fame. 
 
 It is to the shame of England, that the Pope so ruled, and 
 ofttimes so nearly ruined, that mighty Isle of the Seas. But 
 it is to English glory, that she has had so many mighty ones 
 to stem the tide- of the Papal flood. And many has she had 
 who went to death, while contending for rights of conscience, 
 as against the Romish foes of liberty. 
 
 Famed in song and famed in war, in colonization the first, 
 and in statesmanship the same, is old England ; in learning 
 she is eminent, and in commerce there is none superior. 
 But no more in these is she famed, than in her heroic strug- 
 gle for the rights of the people, to have the Bible, and to 
 be free from hateful Papal rule. Her reformers, her relig- 
 ious leaders, and her political giants, make a glorious list 
 of men. Her martyrs, equally with those of Scotland and 
 France, tell of masterly faith and moral endurance on their 
 part, and barbarous cruelty and Pagan immoralties on the 
 part of the Popes. 
 
 THE POPE COKKUPTING THE BALLOT BOX. 
 
 Rome has done much to destroy the facts of English 
 history. Still the truth is accessible to the diligent stu- 
 dent. And it must be told to our rising generation, and 
 preserved for coming generations. There is much akin to 
 English civilization in our system in America. What 
 Rome has done in England, she will do in America. The 
 Pope has done no more injury to England, than he will do, 
 if permitted, in America. The Pope would as soon rule 
 through political corruption, as through political laws. 
 He would as soon buy the ballot box, as to turn his guns 
 on the Constitution. In England he ruled by might, and 
 
46 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 in our country he rules by priestly corruptions. The spirit 
 is the same. In England it was the Italian knife, the chal- 
 ice of poison and the train of gunpowder. In America it is 
 political fraud, and direct bribery. The Popes that did 
 rule England, were no worse than the Popes that are now 
 ruling America. 
 
 The story of the dawn in England is of surpassing inter- 
 est. It tells the tale of mental stagnation, hardly equaled 
 elsewhere in Europe, and of moral depravity most loathing. 
 It uncovers the animosity of Rome for all men of independ- 
 ent thought, and reveals her enmity to all schools not 
 under her priestly control. It shows the peril of Romish 
 orders and societies, working as secret Papal agents, and 
 the extent of the Papal grasp on temporal power and pos- 
 sessions. It warns of Rome's cunning and far-reaching dip- 
 lomacy, by which the parliaments were selected, laws were 
 made, and institutions were changed by most unsuspecting 
 methods, but all to reach the ends of the diabolical policy 
 directed from the banks of the Tiber. 
 
 The dawn of English liberation from Papal rule, runs 
 parallel with the life of Wyclif . The light came to him, 
 and he brought on the dawn. To look at his times, read 
 his life and study his work, is to understand how hard it 
 was for England to force the Popes of Rome to a position of 
 toleration for ideas and men, not running in her grooves. 
 
 A SCENE OF THE EIGHTH CENTURY. 
 
 In the early years of the eighth century a touching 
 scene occurs in the humble monastery at Wear mouth, in 
 England. The venerable Bede, a man of pious character, 
 scholarly attainments, and diligent in the study of the 
 Latin Scriptures, had been, for a long while, at work on a 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 47 
 
 translation of the four Gospels into the Saxon tongue. 
 This was a prodigous task, and one of love. It was an event 
 of moment in early English history. His death was coin- 
 cident with the completion of the holy work. For a long 
 while he lingered on the border, as the work drew near 
 the end. He had reached the last chapter of John, when 
 his writer said to him: " There remains now but one 
 chapter, but it seems difficult for you to speak." The dy- 
 ing scholar replied: "No, it is very easy. Dip your pen 
 in ink, .and write as fast as ever you can." After some time 
 the scribe said : 6 ' Now only one sentence remains . ' ' Bede 
 translated it. "It is finished," said the scribe. "It is 
 finished," responded Bede. "Lift up my head. Place 
 me on the spot where it is my habit to pray. And now 
 glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost." 
 And it was all over. So was ended a great life, and so was 
 completed a greater work. Both were to exert a far-reach- 
 ing influence upon thought, political, as well as religious, in 
 England. 
 
 GREAT INFLUENCE OF THE FIEST ENGLISH BIBLE. 
 
 This was the first attempt made to furnish the Word of 
 God to the early Britains in their own tongue. Christian- 
 ity was introduced into Britain soon after the Roman con- 
 quest. But nothing shows that the natives were yet given 
 the Scriptures in their own language. Bede's translation 
 of the four Gospels was the first opportunity, of the early 
 Britains, to read the Bible. It was a leaven that leavened 
 the whole lump. It improved the language, the intelli- 
 gence, the morals, as well as the faith, of the people. The 
 ray of light produced by it reached forward into the Mid- 
 dle Ages. It was like a dimly lighted path that stretched 
 
48 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 through several centuries. The open Bible was preserving 
 the faith, for the day of hope which was to come. 
 
 THE NIGHT ABOUT TO BREAK. 
 
 The long night lasted in England for five centuries, 
 when suddenly the dawn began, with a flood of light that 
 startled the nation. The people were not expecting it, but 
 God had things in preparation. Conditions had been ripen- 
 ing for an epoch. Several streams of Providence seemed 
 to be drawing to a focus. The hand of God was in the af- 
 fairs of the nation, and it was time for Popes and priests 
 to tremble. The light was about to be turned on, and all 
 the monstrocities of Papal wrong and crime would be ex- 
 posed to the awakened senses. England, even this early in 
 her career, was a giant, but the giant had been sleeping. 
 The whole of Europe would know of it when the giant was 
 aroused. Rome was about to meet with one who, up to 
 this time, was to prove her greatest foe. At the hands of 
 one man, Popes and bishops were to have merciless chastise- 
 ment. Rome' s conflict with free men, who had come to 
 believe in their own right to think and act, without asking 
 the permission of Rome to do so, was about to begin, on a 
 scale never approached before. On the one side right, 
 liberty and justice, on the other crime and wrong. On the 
 one side the world, and on the other Rome. We will watch 
 the conflict as it opens. 
 
 Behold, a man comes forth, with deep-seated purpose, 
 called of God, directed by Providence, and invested with 
 the spirit of the Most High. He took the Scriptures, which 
 were hidden away in the foreign solecism of the Latin lan- 
 guage, and he gave them to the people in their own tongue. 
 The people read, then thought, and then they were aroused. 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 49 
 
 One short pause ! It was ominous. Then the people en- 
 tered upon the great work of tearing off the insignia of 
 superstition, throwing aside the habiliments of the Dark 
 Ages, and, feeling the freshness of a new hope, they started 
 towards the coming Reformation. 
 
 This dawn came in England with a rush. Truth came in 
 like the brightness of the morning light. Its friends were 
 astonished at its quickening power ; its enemies were 
 amazed at its courage. In Italy it was a remnant Home 
 had to contend with, but in England it was a nation. Rome 
 was to take her first lesson in human liberty, and witness 
 the first general demand of a large number of people for 
 certain personal privileges and national rights, such as the 
 Popes hitherto had not conceded anywhere. But the Mid- 
 dle Ages were slowly passing, and things could not again 
 be what they had been. Hitherto men had neither the 
 right nor the inspiration to think. Now they had dis- 
 covered their right, and they greatly enjoyed it. Conditions 
 were very much changed. 
 
 THE FERMENTS OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 We must draw a picture of these times. We are now in 
 the fourteenth century. It is a century marked by a gen- 
 eral desire for knowledge. Several great universities were 
 founded in this century ; among them were Paris, Heidel- 
 berg, Prague, and Vienna. Thirty thousand students were 
 at Oxford. Stupendous events were occurring on the con- 
 tinent of Europe. The great Flemish revolt, against arbi- 
 trary kingcraft, disturbed France on the north, while the 
 hundred years' war with England wasted her energies on 
 the west. There is disturbance at Rome. The Papal throne 
 is divided, one faction locating at Avignon. Part of the 
 time there were two Popes, then anti-Popes, then no Popes 
 
50 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 at all, with the Papal chair waiting for some one to come and 
 sit in it. Then the Pope excommunicated the Emperor of 
 Germany, and then the Emperor of Germany retaliated by 
 deposing the Pope. In Italy the Lombard League was formed 
 against the Emperor, the Parliament of Free Cities con- 
 vened, and Italy took the first step of that long journey, 
 w^hich was to terminate after the middle of the nineteenth 
 century in making her a free nation. Bruce establishes the 
 independence of Scotland at Bonnockburn. The Knights 
 Templars, whose hearts of heroic chivalry and swords of 
 skill beat back the hateful power of the Mediseval Turk, 
 were suppressed by order of the Pope. The sale of indul- 
 gences was instituted to raise money for the Papal treasury. 
 The Papal power was rapidly reaching its culmination. 
 The "Black Death," the most dreadful plague ever known, 
 overran Europe, coming from the east and devastating the 
 countries from the iEgean Sea to England, where it reached 
 its height by carrying off one-half of the population. Men 
 became serious, as well as inquiring, and were generally dis- 
 contented with the prevailing state of religion. 
 
 THE PLAGUE OF LOW MONKERY. 
 
 But England was under a worse plague than that of the 
 Black pestilence. Begging friars, in the garments of pov- 
 erty, and in the practice of every conceivable immorality, 
 nung about the people like carrion flies about a carcass. 
 They were organized professional beggars, of such a low 
 type as Gypsies never equaled. There was one of these 
 monkish beggars for every less than a dozen of the popula- 
 tion. They bled the people to fill the treasury boxes of the 
 orders. They kept the people in poverty, and themselves 
 in idleness and debauchery. There was no class in the 
 country so low as these monks. 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. Q\ 
 
 The Dominicans and Franciscans had risen to great and 
 evil power. By the purchasing power of large holdings, 
 they sought to get possession of all the large universities of 
 Europe. In Paris they succeeded, by the help of the Pope. 
 Early in the fourteenth century the conflict was transferred 
 to Oxford, in which university they secured the places of 
 teachers and lecturers, and labored to make all the students 
 members of their orders. At this time they held, with the 
 Church, more than one-half of all the land of the kingdom. 
 
 ONE-HALF THE LAND HELD BY THE CHURCH., 
 
 The work of the Roman Church in England in the four- 
 teenth century to force herself in the schools, in order to 
 subvert them to her low standard, and at the same time se- 
 cure all the public funds, is duplicated to an amazing extent 
 five hundred years later in the United States, where Roman 
 Catholics control the school boards, and in many cities have 
 one-half and two-thirds of the teachers. The public money 
 goes to feed the Church, to the peril of the country ; and the 
 Church in turn lowers the standard of education, that it 
 might be on a level with the Church schools. 
 
 PUBLIC MONEY EEEDS THE CHURCH. 
 
 These Monkish orders in England grew richer than the 
 kingdom itself. At one time their income amounted to 
 twelve times as much as the whole civil revenue of the king- 
 dom. In addition to this tax levied on the people by these 
 orders, the Pope exacted large sums from the oppressed 
 English. Within a few years Pope Gregory IX., required 
 from England seventy-five million dollars. 
 
52 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 THE POPES ENGAGED IN SYSTEMATIZED ROBBERY. 
 
 We shall see what Rome was to be at other times, and 
 in other countries, but Rome's course in England, in the 
 fourteenth century, was one of systematized robbery. This 
 ugly charge is sustained by testimony overwhelming. The 
 whole machinery of the Papacy so operated as to force from 
 the people the last pence. The Italian Papacy, as much as 
 the notorious Italian banditti, was devoted to the crime of 
 high robbery. 
 
 The monks of this century, especially in England, were 
 pretentious and hypocritical in life, and corrupt in habits. 
 !No one had any respect for them, or any confidence in them. 
 They preached sermons made up of fables, chronicles of 
 the world, Romish traditions, and stories of the siege of 
 Troy. They were despised, and yet they were feared. No 
 more despicable body of men ever lived. And yet they 
 held the nation in their hands. Tradition was a higher au- 
 thority with them than revelation, while legends, descrip- 
 tive of the saints of Rome, and her Popes, were taught in 
 a way to glorify the Popes. The services of the Romish 
 Church in England in this century, was almost entirely 
 Pagan. Idolatry took the place of piety, and the power, 
 majesty, and glory of the Popes, were the objects of this 
 idolatry. 
 
 A SHAMEFUL SURRENDER OF RIGHTS. 
 
 The political state of the realm was as low as that of the 
 moral. One hundred years before, a shameful surrender of 
 rights had been made. A conflict was on at that time 
 between the king and the Pope. The king resented the 
 interference of the Popes in the affairs of the state, and 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 53 
 
 attempted a limitation of Papal power in England. The 
 Pope got in his reply by shutting out the entire kingdom 
 from the favors of heaven, and promptly issuing an edict 
 dethroning the king, and freeing his subjects from alle- 
 giance to him. It was a bold stroke, but the Pope was driven 
 to desperation. He had first and final power over England, 
 and the king was only his vassal. To rebel against his au- 
 thority, was to be regarded as high crime against the uni- 
 versal ruler of the earth. He was gaining power elsewhere ; 
 he must not lose it in England. The nation was put under 
 the disfavor of heaven, and the king was placed under an 
 edict. To show the people the disfavor of heaven and en- 
 force the edict against the king, an army was necessary. 
 No matter, if Christ had given directions that his kingdom 
 should not be advanced by swords in the hands of his dis- 
 ciples, the Pope had usurped the authority of Christ, and 
 he had to move to the conquest by armies. The king of 
 Prance was not in love with the king of England. Philip 
 Augustus was king of France. The Pope offered him the 
 English crown, if he would drive the English king from 
 Windsor Castle. Imbecile that he was, King John, of 
 England, at once resigned his kingdom to the Pope, and to 
 his successors in office, and so England became a province 
 of the Papal government. 
 
 The same cowardly act of perfidy was to occur presently 
 in Ireland. 
 
 TVHY THE PAPACY CLAIMS IPvELAND. 
 
 This secession of England to the Pope was in the thir- 
 teenth century. In the following century, and while Eng- 
 land is making an effort to recover her independence, Ire- 
 land, by act of her king, is ceded to the Pope, and takes 
 upon her the yoke which has been her curse for four hun- 
 
54 THE ROMAN PAPACY, 
 
 dred years. These kings did not own the countries, and 
 had no right to give them away. 
 
 EOME OVEEEEACHIXG HEESELF. 
 
 After King John, without consulting the nobles, who 
 were by the English system a sort of representatives of the 
 people, gave the country to the Pope, the humility was 
 complete, when the Papal agent kicked the English crown 
 from him in contempt. But it was a kick that did more 
 than was intended. It hurt hard enough to awaken the 
 people. Rome overreached the show of power, as she had 
 gone too far in her display of authority. She is now pur- 
 suing that course in America. Forcing every man and 
 measure to submit to her, she does not see that the reaction 
 will be sure to come, when she will have to surrender all 
 power she now enjoys by trust. 
 
 Never was a nation more completely humiliated before 
 an arrogant power. The nobles, or as then known, the bar- 
 ons, were justly indignant that their king should have 
 been a party to such disgrace. It led, however, to a great 
 step in English liberty. Those freeholders of the large 
 English estates, anticipating by a hundred years the rights 
 which were to blaze from the pages of the Wyclif Bible, in 
 greater light, determined upon limitations to the power of 
 the throne. It was the arrogance of priestcraft that led to 
 the first blow against kingcraft. The one supported the 
 other. The despotic power of the Roman Church must go 
 down, so sure as it has gone down in the state. We will have 
 none of it in moral, any more than in civil affairs. Absolute 
 authority belongs to no man in this world, and no more in 
 religion, than in temporal things. When kingcraft went 
 down, it was a prophecy that priestcraft must go down. 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 55 
 
 Why should it not be considered to be the duty of Ameri- 
 ca in this century, to overthrow priestcraft utterly ? 
 
 GOOD KESTTLT OF THE PIEDMONT DISPEKSION. 
 
 We must see the touch of the Piedmont freemen in the Eng- 
 land of the thirteenth century. Their influence is at work, 
 and even opens the way for the Wyclif movement a cen- 
 tury later. By driving them from the valleys of the Pied- 
 mont, Rome facilitated the spread of the ideas of liberty 
 which they held. The Popes have always been as blind in 
 their bigotry, as they have been cruel in their rule. They 
 have shown as little judgment, as heart, in dealing with the 
 world. 
 
 Many of those Waldensian pastors, when they were driv- 
 en by Papal persecution from the Piedmont valleys, fled to 
 England. They bore witness to their great sentiments of 
 moral independence. Their ideas of private rights, and 
 civil and religious freedom, were imbibed by many. The 
 nobility learned from them, the dangers of unlimited power 
 in the hand of king and Pope. Rome is now about to have 
 her punishment for crimes against the quiet Piedmont peo- 
 ple. Had they been left alone, in their native valleys, 
 they would never have thrusted their notions of liberty on 
 the nations about them ; but Rome persecuted until they 
 reached the shores of England, and now liberty has become 
 strong enough, thanks to the tuition of the brave Walden- 
 sians, to lift her head, and Rome gets her first blow. 
 
 After the disgraceful secession of King John, the English 
 nobles met in conference, and constructed the greatest politi- 
 cal document, found between the code of Moses and the Dec- 
 laration of the American Independence, that of the Magna 
 Charta. The Pope did it. It was to conserve the people 
 against the Popes. A new consignment of liberties came in 
 
56 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 with it, to secure the people against the Romish hierarchy. 
 On the meadows of Runnymede they forced the king to give 
 his signature. It was a great day in the history of English 
 liberties. The dawn was soon to come. This was all in the 
 thirteenth century. 
 
 A COMMON GAME OF PAPAL HYPOCRISY. 
 
 The enactment of this excellent and majestic constitution 
 of popular rights subdued the Papal policy very much. It 
 was a part of her diplomacy to remain quiet for a time, 
 while the indignation of the people should be given time to 
 pass over. The Pope thought it not best to press the pay- 
 ment of the hateful tribute money in England, for a season. 
 The Papal treasury could do without it for a time, rather 
 than all the time. The English had to be soothed for a 
 while. Indeed, under the rise of the nobles, and the in- 
 struction of the Waldensian pastors, there were imminent 
 signs that the English people might withdraw entirely from 
 under the Pope. They had tasted the waters of relief from 
 Papal taxation, and they were refreshed by spending money 
 on home improvements. They had scented the air of free- 
 dom from Papal dictation, and they were becoming danger- 
 ously united, and dangerously strong, in opposition to all 
 Papal rule. Rome was now to play a game of deception 
 and hypocrisy. And so through the latter part of the thir- 
 teenth century the English were left largely to their own 
 ways. 
 
 Rome is the arch- deceiver of history. She oppresses un- 
 til the people, driven to desperation, rise in their power and 
 threaten to throw her out of all power ; then she will turn 
 and profess the most intense loyalty, patriotism and good 
 intentions, and the people are satisfied, and go on nursing 
 the viper into new favor and power. Rome has never lifted 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 57 
 
 one of these vouchers of good faith. She has never kept 
 a promise of her good intentions. Jnst now we find her 
 given to this professed good- will to everything American. 
 She loves the flag she cursed ; she fondles the Bible she 
 burned ; she vows her obedience to the laws she has been 
 breaking ; she grows furious in her grandiloquence over the 
 liberty she has been suppressing ; she declares toleration to 
 the schools she has been blaspheming ; she lauds the con- 
 stitution she has been subverting ; she is even ready to fra- 
 ternize with Protestants she has been damning. Let Amer- 
 ica not be deceived. It is all a lie, and her history for fourteen 
 centuries furnishes the proof that it is a lie. But she will go 
 on, deceiving the very elect. 
 
 TWO POPES AT ONE TIME. 
 
 We return to the England of the fourteenth century. 
 There is a division of the authority of the Papal Church. 
 One headquarters was removed to Avignon, France. The 
 other remained at Rome. Two Popes were trying to rule 
 the world at once, and spent most of their time thundering 
 at each other. They were both infallible, or claimed to be, 
 which is the same, as Rome is all claim. Money was needed 
 in the Papal treasury. So soon as the money power is ex- 
 hausted, the Roman Church goes down. She buys her way ; 
 with money she can bribe, and with money she can purchas 
 force. If proper legislation, against the enormous money 
 power of the bishops, were enacted by Congress, the Roman 
 Church would soon lose her evil power in American poli- 
 tics. 
 
 NEW PAPAL DEMAND ON ENGLAND. 
 
 Money was badly needed when the treasury became bank- 
 rupt, through the Paj)al divisions. And Pope Urban V. 
 issued, from Avignon, his demand upon the English king for 
 
58 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 renewal of the payment of the tribute money. All arrear- 
 ages, covering more than a century, were to be paid also. 
 But Edward III. was king now. Parliament declared the 
 original transaction entirely unconstitutional, and directed 
 the king to refuse the payment. It was a valuable declara- 
 tion of rights, and it indicated an uncompromising defiance 
 to the temporal power of the Pope. The issue was clearly 
 drawn between the Pope, and the king and Parliament of 
 England, and the contest was to be for the supremacy in 
 England, and it had to do with the state, quite as much as 
 with the Church. For one-half century England was given 
 repose from Papal interference, in her money matters. The 
 people thought the claim of temporal rule was over for all 
 time. It was not ; nor is it in this country. The Roman 
 Church is in great anxiety to pose in strict conformity to 
 American institutions. It is only to quiet the people. She 
 must be herself, and the Roman Church, in heart and spirit, 
 must take a hand in temporal affairs. 
 
 A MORNING STAR OF THE REFORMATION. 
 
 Conditions are now opportune for a revival of religion 
 among the English people. The extremity of man is the 
 opportunity of God. God had prepared his man. He is 
 ready to step forth. 
 
 Let us look at him. He is called the " Morning Star of 
 the Reformation." He deserves the title, because he played 
 that part in the religious awakening of the modern centuries. 
 He stands in the door- way of the Reformation period. In 
 the history of religious thought we may divide the centuries 
 something like this : the Bark Period, reaching from the 
 eighth century to the twelfth ; the twelfth and thirteenth 
 centuries were a Transition Period ; the fourteenth, fifteenth 
 and sixteenth centuries constituted the Reformation ; the 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 59 
 
 seventeenth and eighteenth centuries formed the Recon- 
 struction Period ; and the overpowering nineteenth century, 
 stamps itself as the Aggressive and Missionary Period, 
 which is so greatly to determine the spirit of the next two 
 centuries. 
 
 The period we are now considering is in the very dawn of 
 the Reformation period, the fourteenth century. 
 
 God has his hand on the right man, and he steps forth 
 with a great light in his soul. His name is John Wyclif . 
 He was born at Spresswell, near old Richmond. It is a 
 country of rocky highlands, and meadow-like lowlands. 
 Streams and waterfalls beautify the landscape. Sir Walter 
 Scott, in one of his poems, has glorified the place with his 
 incomparable poetic description — 
 
 The cliffs that rear their haughty heads 
 
 High o'er the river's darksome bed, 
 
 Were now all naked, wild and gray, 
 
 Now waving all with greenwood spray ; 
 
 Here trees to every crevice clung, 
 
 And o'er the dell their branches hung ; 
 
 And there, all splinter'd and uneven, 
 
 The shivered rocks ascend to heaven ; 
 
 Oft, too, the ivy swath'd their breast, 
 
 And wreathed its garland round their crest; 
 
 Or from the spires bade loosely flare 
 
 Its tendrils in the middle air. 
 
 Such, and more wild, is Greta's roar, 
 
 And such the echoes from her shore. 
 
 And so the ivied banner's gleam, 
 
 Waved wildly o'er the brawling stream. 
 
 MENTAL AKD MORAL INFLUENCE OF COUNTRY SCENES. 
 
 Such country scenes never fail to impress, in the right 
 direction, the mind of the thoughtful boy. Nature's page 
 
60 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 is a poem of God' s rythmic making. The winds among the 
 trees chant many a hymn of praise ; the fleeting shadows 
 solemnly tell of an equally fleeting life ; the gracefully flow- 
 ing brook murmurs of the stream of life, and the ocean of 
 eternity into which it passses ; beautiful country moonlight 
 nights prompt to great thoughts, and persuade to noble ef- 
 forts. The boy who is not born in the country is to be 
 pitied. Our very best and greatest leaders in progress, have 
 mostly come from the village and country life. Nature, as 
 well as Nature's God, helped to make Wyclif. He was no 
 less fitted by nature than he was called of God. All things 
 work together for good, for those who are called to the 
 leadership of great movements. The country life and coun- 
 try scenes round about Spresswell must be taken into ac- 
 count, in understanding the preparation of this great man 
 for his great work. Perhaps we would reverence God more, 
 if we would admire nature more. 
 
 DEFORMED AND DWARFED SPECIMENS OF PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 Amidst such environments Wyclif was devoted to study, 
 and his boyhood was made serious with spells of deep re- 
 flection. In life he was almost ideal in blamelessness ; 
 while faith in God, and resoluteness of purpose, distin- 
 guished him. He was learned, cool and steadfast. In char- 
 acter, he was austere in manner, and in piety quite above 
 reproach. He felt that the Papal power was corrupt, and 
 was used to the injury of the country. Having this convic- 
 tion, he was burdened with the responsibility of an honest 
 man. No maudlin sentiments, lest he create some discus- 
 sion and strife, disturbed him. His conscience was awak- 
 ened to highest duty, and he was not perturbed by the fear 
 that some would not want to disturb the quiet ways of the 
 country. Faint-hearted Protestant clergy, in our country, 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 61 
 
 may yet have to define their position. If Rome be an evil, 
 always and everywhere, how can silence on the issue be jus- 
 tified \ A man had better quit the front than lead astray. 
 In these days, those who are raised up to council and lead, 
 and yet keep quiet, are foes to country, and no vital help 
 to evangelical religion. These are times which require men, 
 and we see little use for deformed and dwarfed specimens 
 of either Protestantism or patriotism. The fool may be 
 laughed out of his duty, and the coward frightened out of 
 it. But the true, brave leader will do his duty, and will 
 not reason why. 
 
 Wyclif was discipled by the spirit of truth, yet he 
 was animated by the warmest feelings of benevolence. He 
 spent twenty-five years in the stormy atmosphere of ex- 
 citing controversy, lashing with uncompromising severity 
 the agents of Rome. He was the most influential man of 
 his century, in English religious life. While he stands 
 with Chaucer, Shakespere and Milton in English literature, 
 he was the first to see that the spirit of the day wanted a 
 new dress to be clothed in. 
 
 As we study the elements of his remarkable work, and 
 then reflect upon the conditions of our day and country, 
 we wish that we had a few among us of Wyclifian charac- 
 ter. What a stirring of the dry bones it would make, to 
 be sure ! What a quaking of the fondling henchmen of 
 Rome, 'tis true ! But what a purification of the befouled 
 waters of state, and what an elevation of the tone of nation- 
 al honor there would follow. 
 
 THE GEE AT CONFLICT IN PARLIAMENT. 
 
 At four different periods in his career he stands out with 
 a distinctness deserving notice. One was when Parliament 
 was swept with the storm of the conflict, raging between 
 
62 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 King Edward and the Pope. The question was a single 
 one, and simple enough to make the issue sharply denned. 
 Should one-twelfth of the revenue of the kingdom be 
 deemed sufficient for the purposes of the government, while 
 the other eleven-twelfths must be sent to Rome to build 
 up a corrupt foreign power, pretending to rule in matters 
 of conscience, and whose agents had thievishly gotten pos- 
 session of one -half of the land of the kingdom % Should 
 England be considered able to conduct her own internal af- 
 fairs ? or must the temporal power of the Pope be continued ? 
 It was a great issue. The Papal party was desperate, while 
 the patriots of England were determined. 
 
 That same right to temporal possession is hidden away 
 in Rome's secret policy with this country. Shall we have 
 English history repeated in America % 
 
 THE GREAT PETITION BEFORE PARLIAMENT. 
 
 Wyclif came up from Oxford to London, to attend the fa* 
 mous Parliament, in which the battle was to be fought, which 
 was to decide if the Pope was to rule England. Wyclif be- 
 gins the conflict. There is something grandly sublime, as 
 he confronts the Papal power in Parliament, and gives the 
 first blow of a struggle which is to last a hundred years. 
 He presents a petition to Parliament and the king, plead- 
 ing for their assent to the Word of God, as a precedent of 
 rule over the Pope, in all affairs of the kingdom ; that all 
 persons proceeded against, for reason of their religion, may 
 have liberty to accept and follow the more perfect law of 
 Christ ; that the tithes be bestowed according to their prop- 
 er use, for the maintenance of the poor ; that no one should 
 be imprisoned on account of excommunication. Great princi- 
 ples were embodied in this document. It was a state paper 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 63 
 
 which was full of promise to the cause of civil and religious 
 liberty. It deprived the Pope of any right of lordship over 
 the conscience. It took from him the right to levy a tax 
 on the country, at his will. It declared the freedom of re- 
 ligious thought. It established a right of citizenship, that 
 was not to be lost by any Papal act of excommunication, 
 which hitherto had been such a threat over the heads of the 
 ignorant. It made legal the right to an open Bible, and 
 this was one of the most important acts ever brought into a 
 legislative body. Here is to be found the very day-spring of 
 religious liberty in English thought. By this bill of Wy clif ' s 
 the monks were to be cut short in their collecting tours for 
 the poor, by a provision for the equitable maintenance of 
 the poor. The order of Mendicants in England never re- 
 covered from his terrific blow. Yes, it was a great piece of 
 proposed legislation. 
 
 Wyclif was all-powerful in this Parliament, which in point 
 of fact conducted the impeachment trial of the temporal 
 pretentions of Roman Papacy. When it opened, Papal 
 power and arrogance were at their height, and the political 
 ambition of the Pope was at its meridian ; but when it ad- 
 journed, the Papacy had met its first defeat in any parlia- 
 mentary body. It was a great victory in this seemingly 
 irrepressible conflict between Rome and right. That Par- 
 liament was a big chapter in the history of religious liberty. 
 It so met the approval of the people that it has always 
 been called the "Good Parliament." Both political and 
 moral reform had taken a long step. 
 
 FIRST ATTEMPT AT THE SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 A second controversy in the life of Wyclif, which marked 
 an epoch in religious history, was this : The first attempt 
 made, looking to the separation of church and state, was in- 
 
64 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 augurated by him. He saw the corruption of religion, and 
 the peril of the state, both resulting from the union of these 
 two supreme authorities in one man. From every point 
 conceivable, he argues against the Church possessing any 
 property, except what is necessary to carry on the work for 
 which it exists. The abuses which had grown up, on ac- 
 count of the property possessions of the monks, greatly 
 aided him. He soon had the most terrific storm beating 
 upon him. It culminated at a meeting at St. Paul' s, in Lon- 
 don, and which had broken into a mob, but for the presid- 
 ing bishop dissolving it. 
 
 And Wyclif won the day. Disestablishment began, and 
 has gone on from that time, until the opinion has generally 
 prevailed, in the Protestant churches, that the affairs of the 
 Church should be wholly distinct from the affairs of the 
 state. For the purity and unworldliness of religion, this 
 was one of the most significant moves ever made. The 
 Papal head was bitterly opposed to it, and is so still. The 
 most determined efforts have been made during the last few 
 years to reunite these two powers, and of course make the 
 Papal authority the dominant one, in both Church and state. 
 
 ATTEMPT WITH US TO KEUNITE CHTJKCH AND STATE. 
 
 The effort to re-form the union of Church and state, has 
 not been so active for a century as at present. It broods no 
 good. It is a strange fact, that as the first half of this cen- 
 tury came to a close, it witnessed the decline of the political 
 power of the Papacy throughout the world. But as the 
 second half of this century draws to a close, the political 
 dominance of the Papacy is the most troublesome question 
 confronting the statecraft of the world. The whole power 
 of the diplomacy of the Papal court is bent to bring to- 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 65 
 
 getter Church and state, and with the latter subjected to 
 the former. Our state legislatures, and general Congress, 
 have a task to perform pertaining to this, which the patriot- 
 ism of the country will not permit to be postponed much 
 longer. 
 
 wyclif's way for circulating the bible. 
 
 A third great accomplishment in the life of this master 
 workman, was his circulation of the Scriptures. He laid 
 the foundations for great things, when he trained devout 
 young men to go about the country, teaching the people the 
 Holy Scriptures. He sent forth these preachers of the 
 Word, without gold or silver in the purse, holding that the 
 laborers were worthy of their hire. They went from house 
 to house, and traveled from village to village, and in the 
 open doors, on the street corners, by the wayside, they read 
 the Bible, and instructed in morals and religion. The whole 
 country was leavened. It was a strange message, and a new 
 thing the people heard, and they listened with all the in- 
 terest begotten of novelty, but as well with a genuine long- 
 ing to know the things good for their souls, and as well for 
 their country. 
 
 The spirit of God accompanied this lay preaching, and 
 many were converted. Many more had their understand- 
 ing prepared for a slower process of grace, but none the less 
 effectual was it on that account. Whole communities be- 
 came concerned, while the entire land was most profoundly 
 moved to higher inclinations, and at once set in, stronger 
 still, the trend away from the teaching of Rome. The 
 learned preferred to go to the Wyclif Bible readers for com- 
 fort, rather than to the regular priests. When they be- 
 came sick they did not go to the monks, but to the travel- 
 ing preachers of the Word, for prayer. God honored his 
 
66 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 Word, and brought the people to the light. These young' 
 men went about awakening, reclaiming, and converting sin- 
 ners. It was a primitive sort of itinerancy, which over four 
 hundred years later was taken up by the Methodists, and 
 developed into their wonderfully popular and successful 
 system of pastoral itinerancy, which has been such a power 
 in modern evangelism. 
 
 This popular and simple teaching of the Bible purified 
 life in all its streams, and lifted the nation up to higher 
 standards of thought. Free laws, a larger sense of justice 
 in the courts, greater regard for the claims of the conscience, 
 marked improvements in customs and conditions, better 
 roads, homes and clothing, a new impulse to learning, and a 
 higher type of literature, all these, and more, resulted from 
 this Bible instruction of the people. Wyclif s influence 
 was to be the hope of the nation. 
 
 HIS GREATEST WORK. 
 
 But the greatest work of his life, and one of the most 
 eminent deeds ever performed by a Christian scholar, was 
 the task of translating the Bible, from the Latin, into the 
 common language of the English people, wherein all classes 
 could read the Word of God in their own tongue. Under 
 the direction of John Wyclif, the English people began to 
 see and to feel that — 
 
 f A glory gilds the sacred page." 
 
 This translation of the Bible was the first important step 
 in the course of English liberties, since the charter of B,un- 
 nymede, a century and a quarter before. It at once became 
 the corner-stone of English law. It determined, as by the 
 authority of a text-book, rules for the administration of jus- 
 tice in the courts. The teachings of the Bible became the 
 
THE BOM AN PAPACY. 67 
 
 foundation of the common law. The Bible soon came to be 
 inwrought into the standards of English thought ; and to 
 such an extent was it regarded as giving expression to the 
 highest form of virtue and justice, that it became, in all mat- 
 ters of law, the book of appeal, touching disputes in private 
 and public morals. It so infused its vital spirit into the 
 very heart of English law, that Sir Mathew Hale, in an 
 important decision of the Supreme Court of England, de- 
 cided that, "Christianity was a part of the common law of 
 the land." This was one of the most important decisions 
 ever rendered from a high court. The effect on the legal 
 thought of the world has been prodigious. The Wyclif 
 Bible became the greatest agent for civilization ever known 
 in the land. It cleared the atmosphere in morals, gave 
 more prominence to the integrities of life, and added im- 
 measurably to justice, as between man and man. As the 
 light came in, the people saw, and seeing, they acted. 
 Monkery was seen to be something at enmity with the best 
 hopes and interests of men, and it was made to slowly re- 
 treat before the increasing knowledge of the people. 
 
 BEFORE THE AGE OF PRINTING. 
 
 Wyclif says : " The Bible is a charter written by God ; 
 it is God' s gift to us ; to be ignorant of the Scriptures is to 
 be ignorant of Christ ; the whole of Scripture is one word 
 of God." He says that his labor was to the end, that the 
 Holy Bible might be known to the people ; that men might 
 ascertain for themselves the truth, by having the Word of 
 God in a language which they fully understood. 
 
 Yet this was before the age of printing, and all copies had 
 to be made with the pen. Still, multitudes read the Wyclif 
 Bible. It was a saying, that if two persons were met 
 on the road, one was a follower of Wyclif. The cost of a 
 
68 THE ROMAN PAPACY 
 
 copy of the Bible was two hundred and forty-five dollars. 
 Yet it was secured and read with eagerness by the great 
 mass of the people. 
 
 The man was taken, but his work was done. It was well 
 done. It was to bring forth a hundred-fold. Milton may 
 not be charged with extravagance when he says : " Had it 
 not been for Wyclif, neither the Bohemian Huss and 
 Jerome, nor the name of Luther, nor of Calvin, had ever 
 been known." This same high-bred bard, in a sort of 
 spiritual rapture, addresses the English reformer in these 
 lines of rythmic beauty and power : 
 
 Servant of God, well done ; well hast thou fought 
 
 The better fight ; who single hast maintained 
 
 Against revolted multitudes the cause 
 
 Of truth ; in word mightier than they in arms : 
 
 And for the testimony of truth hast borne 
 
 Universal reproach, far worse to bear 
 
 Than violence, for it was all thy care 
 
 To stand approved in sight of God, though worlds 
 
 Judged thee perverse. 
 
 POWER OF THE BIBLE IN ENGLISH CIVILIZATION. 
 
 In this rapid review of the first great English reformation, 
 we have not failed to note one thing of lasting force on 
 modern thought : The Word of God, the power of salvation 
 unto man, is no less the power of reform unto a nation. In 
 this famous struggle in England against the Papacy, the 
 absolute authority of the Bible was maintained. It was 
 upheld as the supreme and perfect rule of faith and morals. 
 It was held to be the standard of faith and duty. English 
 citizenship was trained out of the Bible. Englishmen dis- 
 covered the mighty horizon, which outlines the border of 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 69 
 
 popular rights, while sailing about in the deep waters of the 
 Bible. 
 
 In the enactment of the Magna Charter, the mud-sills of 
 England's national greatness were placed ; but nothing was 
 done to build thereon, until the people discovered in the 
 Wyclif Bible the integrities of a better citizenship, and saw 
 the light of individual rights. The reform came in with 
 waters running high ; and if they dashed high and with 
 anger rolled against the rocks, which too long had held 
 them back, 'tis no surprise. The sentiments of the people 
 favored the retention of large sums of money, which hither- 
 to had been claimed by the Pope of Rome, and used it for 
 internal improvements of the country, and the relief of the 
 poor. The large landed domain held by the monks, amount- 
 ing to more than one-half of the entire property of the 
 kingdom, was restored to the people. The higher culture of 
 the land conduced to a higher culture of the people. And 
 the returns, from the cultivation of the land, increased the 
 revenue of the nation several hundred per cent. 
 
 The wisdom of the Bible dispelled the ignorance of the 
 mind, and the righteousness of the Christ of the Bible, ex- 
 posed the popular vices to every awakened conscience. The 
 people began to breathe from the heart, and it was a breath 
 of life they took. It was a life, than ever before, deeper 
 in the stronghold of its moral fastnesses, broader in its out- 
 look of generous impulses, and higher in the elevation and 
 clearness of its purposes. 
 
 The ethics of Moses, the judgments of Jeremiah, the high 
 idealities of Isaiah, the heroic faith of Joshua, the impas- 
 sioned eloquence of Peter, the profound spiritual philoso- 
 phy of Paul, the ecstatic visions of John, and, above every 
 other thing, the wonderful power, love and truth set forth 
 in the teaching, and revealed in the life of the Christ, 
 
70 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 wrought a transformation in the English people, and they 
 became a people of one Book, and that Book was the Bible. 
 The Tyndale and Coverdale and Cranmer Bibles of the six- 
 teenth century, were the fruit of the Wyclif Bible of the 
 fourteenth century. The great British Bible society is the 
 grandchild of the Wyclif Bible. 
 
 The Bible became the headlight of English civilization. 
 The laws of the realm contain the larger part of the Deca- 
 logue. Blackstone, in his commentary on English law, lays 
 claim to the principles of the Bible, as the basic stone of 
 English jurisprudence. The decisions rendered by the 
 Supreme Bench of England, the most scholarly and exhaust- 
 ive legal opinions, issuing from any seat of justice in the 
 world, are interlocked with the code of Moses and Jesus, 
 and make frequent quotations from the ethics of the Scrip- 
 tures. 
 
 It has not been so many years since a deputation of Afri- 
 can royalty, bearing costly gifts to England' s Queen, was 
 received in the Windsor halls. They said to the Queen, 
 that they had been directed by their prince to inquire for 
 the secret of England' s greatness. Victoria sent back with 
 them a handsome copy of the Bible, with this message : 
 ' 'Tell your prince that this Book is the secret of England's 
 greatness." 
 
 The influence of the Bible upon the literature of England 
 has been stupendous. Literary merit has never been so 
 stamped with the genius of any other book. Milton's im- 
 mortal u Paradise Lost," with thought as classic and style 
 as lofty as found in Dante, and without the sombre gloom 
 of the Latin poet, is a flower plucked from the Bible. John 
 Bunyan caught a shaft of the same light, and his pictur- 
 esque imagination gave birth to that fascinating piece of 
 religious allegory, "The Pilgrim's Progress." The Bible 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 71 
 
 was used for turning on the light. Hugh Latimer saw it, 
 and in the pulpits of England he forged it into such 
 thunderbolts of power, and he wove it into such habili- 
 ments of truth, that the second English Reformation came 
 in with such irresistible and overlapping waves of influence, 
 that they were not spent until their spray baptized another 
 order of men on the coast of Massachusetts, on the shores 
 of the James, and on the banks of the Schuylkill. Yes, 
 the light was coming on, and in its radiance Geoffrey 
 Chaucer saw the possibilities of a robust and pure litera- 
 ture ; and he set to himself the task to father the English 
 language, as Moses was the father of the Hebrew language 
 and literature, and as Homer was of the Greek, and Luther 
 of the German. 
 
 INFLUENCE OF BACON'S PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 And yet another light is seen coming up from the beacon 
 fires of the English Bible. What is it? Francis Bacon. 
 steps out. He catches the quivering light in his brawny 
 brain. He sits down to think, and then rises to address the 
 ages with the grand salutation: " Theology is the crown 
 and queenliest of all our sciences." And then he appointed 
 to himself the task of inaugurating a new system of phil- 
 osophy, which alike uncovered the mysteries of nature, 
 swept the whole key-board of the sciences, and opened the 
 long-looked-f or path to be traveled by that greatest giant 
 of modern civilization, inventive genius. For a thousand 
 years philosophy had been nothing more than mere scholas- 
 ticism, furnishing a play-ground for vain rhetorics and 
 foolish sophistries. Bacon reconstructs its methods, and 
 wheels it into line to serve the most practical needs of the 
 world. 
 
72 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 THE HIGHWAY OF PROGRESS. 
 
 A new highway is opened up for progress ; moral improve- 
 ment is as sure as material advance ; and another epoch 
 opens in the history of thought, and a new period begins in 
 the course of civilization. With the English Bible in his 
 hand, and the principles of it in the heart, Keplar became 
 one of the founders of modern astronomy, and Newton was 
 made the most distinguished of the natural philosophers. 
 Shakspere, with a brow as if moulded by the perfect hand 
 of genius, and eyes like stars in a mist, found his way into 
 the deep and wonderful heart of the Bible, and gave the 
 rare jewels of the sacred Book a setting in the fine gold of 
 his high dramatic power. So the verdict may come in, that 
 the long roll of brilliant leaders in English literature, phil- 
 osophy and statesmanship must be saluted, in the light that 
 breaks from the sacred page. Eminent has been the in- 
 fluence of the Bible upon the English conscience. Wyclif, 
 and his school of Bible teachers, took special pains to pre- 
 sent the Bible as the standard and measure of duty and obli- 
 gation, no less than of faith and virtue. As a result of 
 which, if we call up the most illustrious names which have 
 become framed in the greatest benevolences of the centur- 
 ies, we must honor England above all countries. Hearing 
 the call of duty to spend and be spent for others, John 
 Eliot left the halls of Cambridge, and became the apostle 
 to the North American Indians, for whom he translated the 
 Bible ; first having to invent an Indian alphabet and con- 
 struct an Indian language. John Howard, whose life was 
 not made heroic by catching the spirit of the classic heroes 
 and sages, but that of the apostles, patriarchs and prophets 
 of old, built up for himself a system of duty and life on the 
 rules, doctrines and moralities of sacred lore. He appears 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 73 
 
 to be the first of the great English gentry who regarded 
 wealth as a stewardship, and to be accounted for unto God 
 and man. His plan was to use the surplus income of each 
 year to the purposes of charity. He took the diameter of 
 the prison cruelties of Europe, and circumnavigated the in- 
 humanities practiced on the unfortunate classes, upon which 
 had fallen the hand of justice ; and he did it, that he might 
 raise English opinion up to the point where it would de- 
 mand a reform. 
 
 THE BIBLE IN BENEVOLENCE AND AET. 
 
 The slave trade would still have its shackles about the 
 nation to-day, had it not been for the Bible, which turned 
 the rich and ambitious young man of six and twenty, into 
 an apostle of philanthrophy, who was to organize the senti- 
 ment of the country for the overthrow of the slave trade. It 
 was William Wilberf orce. Stephen Grellet introduced Eliz- 
 abeth Fry to prison visitation, and she carried a joy so glad, 
 and a hope so high, into those dark chambers of misfortune 
 and crime, that the English prisons often became schools of 
 integrity and nurseries to a better life. Queen Charlotte 
 was a disciple, and Princess Victoria, now Queen, was a pu- 
 pil in the practical philanthropies at the feet of Elizabeth 
 Fry. Sir Humphry Davy, taking all things in view, the 
 greatest benefactor nursed on the bosom of science, knew 
 the light by which he walked, while he was hunting for 
 the lights of nature. Summing up the reflections of a life- 
 time he said : " If I might choose what I might think the 
 most useful, I should prefer a firm, spiritual faith." 
 
 The grandest creations of English art are the out-put of 
 ideas and inspirations which have entered the mind, and 
 electrified the soul by way of the Bible. Sir Christopher 
 
74 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 Wren read his Bible, and then went to the building of St. 
 Paul's cathedral. Its very dome, as you stand in the grand 
 nave, seems hanging over you like a sheltering benediction 
 of the eternities. 
 
 And going beyond the shores of England, we call up the 
 name of the world's greatest painter, Raphael Angelo. He 
 had been reading his New Testament. And with the glori- 
 fication of its truth in his mind, and the gorgeous imagery 
 of its prefiguration in his soul, he paints the picture of the 
 Transfiguration. And though almost four hundred years 
 are gone down the path by his grave, the Transfiguration, 
 a Bible painting, is recognized as the masterpiece of art 
 in the world. Ludwig Yon Beethoven, from whom nigh 
 everything that is great in modern music has taken its 
 form, or its inspiration, holding the place in the field of 
 music that Shakspere does in that of the drama, read the 
 Bible for the deeps of his soul to be stirred, and then created 
 such melodies swelling into power, and harmonies en- 
 riching the soul, as seemed almost beyond the possibility of 
 artistic expansion. The most pathetic piece ever composed 
 is Beethoven' s Solemn Mass. 
 
 Truly the Bible contains the living truth, living in the 
 mind, constantly awakens fresh ideas and uncovers new 
 discoveries ; living in the deeper joy of the heart and the 
 higher hope of the soul. Truth dies not ; it may be burned, 
 but like the bush of Horeb, it is not consumed ; it may fall 
 in the street and be trodden under foot of men, even be put 
 in the grave, yet it is not dead. It lives, and is free. It is 
 the seed of the kingdom of heaven. 
 
 It is proper that we be reminded of the opinion of our 
 own Webster: "If we abide by the principles taught in 
 the Bible, our country will go on prospering and to pros- 
 per ; but if we and our posterity neglect its instruction and 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 75 
 
 authority, no man can tell how sudden a catastrophe may 
 overwhelm us, and bury all our glory in profound ob- 
 scurity." 
 
 rome's treatment of the bible. 
 
 This is the book which the Roman Papacy has pursued 
 with implacable hatred, and destroyed with constant fury. 
 She will not, and she dare not, tolerate the Scriptures. 
 They teach the world the falsity, and the evil, and the peril 
 of Rome in every civilization. Temporal power is directly 
 condemned by the teaching of the New Testament. The 
 wealth, palace grandeur and gaudy show of the Yatican 
 throne appear sickening to the heart, after reading a few 
 paragraphs of the simple, humble and unpretentious life of 
 Christ. The interposition of an order of priests, between a 
 man and his Maker, is shown to be wholly fabulous by 
 Bible teaching. The severe handling which tyranny and 
 despotism of rule meet with, in the Gospels of Christ, soon 
 liberates the mind from the authority of tradition, and stim- 
 ulates it to a healthy revolt. Hence appears abundant 
 reason why Rome must prevent, where she has the power, 
 the general use of the Bible. It is her policy of self-preser- 
 vation. 
 
 The great proposition, underlying the Wyclifian Refor- 
 mation, was that the authority of the Scriptures was inde- 
 pendent of any other authority. What, independent of 
 the Pope % There was the reason for Rome' s fight. This 
 was a direct blow. Rome dare not be quiet when it falls. 
 The Popes thundered, the bishops contended, the priests 
 abused, and the dupes of Rome persecuted. The policy of 
 the Popes pertaining to a free Bible was settled upon, and 
 she has not departed from it. Rome's treatment of the 
 Bible has been that of suppression. The open Bible must 
 
76 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 not be permitted. A Pope may, in a letter of sophistry to 
 his bishops, recommend the reading of the Bible to his 
 priests ; but no Pope has ever issued an order, or given an 
 invitation to the laity of the Roman Catholic Church to 
 procure, keep in the house, or read the Bible. No Pope 
 dare do this. The day the Roman Catholic people are given, 
 throughout the world, this charter of their rights and liber- 
 ties, the Papacy falls, to rise no more. A Pope did once in a 
 moment of forgetfulness bless a translation of a Bible 
 about to be published for general circulation among the 
 Catholics of France. But he did not accompany that bless- 
 ing with an invitation to read. He did not expect the 
 French people would care to read the Bible. He was mis- 
 taken. To his dismay the effect, as the people read, was so 
 disastrous to his power, that he hurriedly sent after it a 
 curse, and accompanied it with the usual threat of pun- 
 ishment. 
 
 CONDEMNED BY COUNCILS AND POPES. 
 
 In 1229, the Council of Toulouse issued a decree prohib- 
 iting the people from possessing the Scriptures. And Hal- 
 lam tells us it " was frequently repeated on subsequent oc- 
 casions." In 1411, the Archbishop or Canterbury, and his 
 suffragan bishops, addressed a memorial to the Pope, John 
 XXIII., charging Wyclif with giving the Scriptures to the 
 people. In an Encyclical of Pope Pius VII. is the sen 
 tence : "It is evident, from experience, that the holy 
 Scriptures, where circulated in the vulgar tongue, have 
 produced more harm than benefit." 
 
 In 1824, Leo XII. declared that publications of transla- 
 tions of the Bible are in "contempt of the tradition of the 
 fathers, and in opposition to the celebrated decree of the 
 
TEE ROMAN PAPACY. 77 
 
 Council of Trent, which prohibits the holy Scriptures from 
 being made common." 
 
 In 1844, Pope Gregory XVI. says: "We confirm and 
 renew the decrees, delivered in former times, against the 
 publication, distribution, reading and possession of books 
 of the holy Scriptures, translated into the vulgar tongue." 
 
 In 1864, Pope Pius IX. re-affirmed, in a special encyclical, 
 these decrees and bulls. In the face of all this authority it 
 is the lowest demagogism for Roman Catholics to say that 
 Church does not prohibit the circulation and reading of the 
 Scriptures. 
 
 The power and authority of the Romish Church has for 
 centuries prohibited the Bible in Mexico. It has only been 
 since Protestant missionaries entered that country, that 
 the people knew what the Bible was. They thought it was 
 a sin to read it. Many Bibles have been burned, and those 
 who sought to circulate them punished, in that country. 
 The coarsest barbarities have befallen pious men and women 
 for giving tlie Bible to the ignorant natives. In Mexico the 
 Bible was a proscripted book for two hundred and fifty 
 years. 
 
 AN OEDEE AGAINST LIBEETY. 
 
 While the author is engaged with these pages, the fol- 
 lowing notice has been taken from the walls of Leon, Ni- 
 caragua, where it was publicly posted, by direction of the 
 Romish Church : "The wolf of Protestantism has found 
 its way in our midst. A minister of the sect of Luther and 
 Yoltaire, accompanied by various mercenaries, are busy 
 selling in the streets Protestant Bibles, and a false book of 
 the Gospels. Do not buy these books, scorn these propa- 
 gandists of a sect. Do not allow your religion to be harmed 
 
7S THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 by these knight err ants of evil. Let us hurl them away. 
 Liberty of worship does not exist here, nor that of these 
 peddlers of adulterated Bibles. Nicaragua belongs to God ; 
 Protestantism to the Devil. Away with them." 
 
 This is the position of Rome, wherever she uncovers her 
 heart and bares it to the world. What she does in Nicar- 
 agua, she will yet do in Boston, Washington and Chicago, 
 if her right of arbitrary rule, in matters of religious liberty, 
 is not taken from her. It is an arrogant and assumed right. 
 It has not been conferred by any recognized authority, nor 
 is it derived from any sense of justice. This right must be 
 overthrown, or Rome will overthrow us. 
 
 OPPOSITION TO THE BIBLE IN SPAIN AND FEANCE. 
 
 It has been during the present generation that the priests 
 in Spain threatened the life of persons selling the Bible. 
 They taught the people to believe that such persons were 
 sorcerers and witches. Finally they prohibited the sale 
 altogether, and sent to prison those who were engaged in 
 it. 
 
 The most conspicuous instance of the enmity of the Pope 
 for the Bible has occurred in France. The learned Lasserre 
 had written a book, highly conducive to Papal legends, 
 and the Pope loved him. One day Lasserre came, by acci- 
 dent, onto a copy of the four Gospels — or was it by provi- 
 dence he made the discovery % He became entranced with 
 the simple narratives of Jesus of Nazareth. He thought 
 these Gospels could be made a popular book for the French 
 people. The Pope could trust Lasserre, so the Lasserre 
 Bible had the Pope' s blessing and approval. In a short 
 while twenty-five editions were sold. The French were 
 reading. As they read they drifted more and more from 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 79 
 
 the old time adherence to the Pope. This was enough. 
 The decree of condemnation was issued, just one year and 
 fifteen days from the date of the Pope's letter of approval 
 and blessing. The decree declares that " our Most Holy 
 Lord, Pope Leo XIII.," prohibits any one to publish, read 
 or possess a copy, and to turn all copies in existence over 
 to be burned. This is very strange. An infallible Pope 
 gives his infallible blessing and approval to a certain book, 
 and in fifteen days and a year, the same infallible Pope gives 
 his infallible curse and disapproval to that same book. In 
 the decree of malediction the Bible is described to be a 
 "book of degraded doctrine." All of this within the last 
 six years. Roman Catholics are correct, the Church of 
 Rome has not changed, and it has not just because it is the 
 Church of Rome. A Pagan Church, though it have a 
 Christian name, is Pagan still. 
 
 Leo XIII., in his late encyclical on the Bible, declares that 
 the people cannot understand it without a guide. And 
 that the Popes have the only high authority on earth to 
 explain it. This is correct, according to the Papal view. 
 The Church of Rome must continue to oppose the Bible in 
 the school, in the home and in the pocket of the devout 
 man. We will have no peace with Rome until we surren- 
 der the Bible utterly, or overthrow the dominion of the 
 Popes in this country. Americans must decide which they 
 will serve, whether the Lord God, whose throne is by the 
 everlasting waters of the invisible rivers of eternity, or the 
 Pope, whose throne is on the mud banks of the Tiber. 
 
 But quite recently, some young men undertook to hold 
 an out-door religious meeting on the streets of Cork. They 
 had a Bible. This was an offense to Romanists. They 
 were beaten, covered with the mud of the streets, and as- 
 sailed with stones, and their Bible was snatched from their 
 
80 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 hands and publicly burned. Everywhere it is the same. 
 Where Rome has the power she has pursued the Bible with 
 consistent, unremitting hostility. 
 
 The Catholic bishops in Brazil have been destroying the 
 Bible. And in Mexico they have persecuted with a spirit 
 of vengeance, which seems strangely out of line with the 
 tolerant drift of nineteenth century thought. 
 
 THE BIBLE AND THE POPES OUT OF AGREEMENT. 
 
 The colossal organization of the Papacy, which has grown 
 up out of the vile debris of paganism, can no more stand the 
 Bible than the old paganism could. Rome is opposed to 
 the morality of the Bible, as well as its general spirit of 
 liberty. Rome holds to the priestly rule, rather than that 
 of the Savior. The ethics of the New Testament cannot be 
 made to uphold the claims of the Popes. The Bible makes 
 every man a freeman ; the Papacy makes every man a serf. 
 The Bible says that Christ hath power to forgive sin ; but 
 the Papacy hath made the Popes the sole depository of that 
 power, and some of them the vilest men on earth. The Bi- 
 ble rests the destiny of the dead in the hands of a merciful 
 God ; the Papacy has rested that destiny in the keeping of 
 greedy priests, who for money will improve that destiny at 
 will, and the more money the more improvement. The Bi- 
 ble is the High Court wherein we secure the rights of con- 
 science ; the Papacy deprives us of any right of private 
 judgment, and despoils us of the liberty of free action. No ! 
 no ! the Bible and the Papacy never can be brought into 
 agreement. 
 
 ROMAN MINORITY IN ENGLISH- SPEAKING WORLD. 
 
 The English speaking race has grown strong, in a civili- 
 zation which has recognized the superlative value of the 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 81 
 
 Bible in the hands of the people. In this great English 
 speaking race, one ont of seven only is a Roman Catholic. 
 We should insist on the rule of the six, and not of the one. 
 In all the world there are two hundred and fifty million 
 professing Protestants, opposed to Rome ; whilst there are 
 only one hundred and eighty million subject to her. Shall 
 this ignorant and incompetent minority dictate submission 
 and debasement to the intelligent and free majority % Will 
 America hold aloft the flaming torch of liberty, fed out of 
 the inexhaustible fullness of the Bible, or will she bow to 
 the yoke of Rome % 
 
TO HUSS 
 
 "The earth has not 
 A nobler name than thine shall be. 
 The deeds by martial manhood wrought, 
 The lofty energies -of thought 
 The fire of poesy — 
 
 These have but frail and fading honors, — thine 
 Shall time into eternity consign. 
 
 " Yea, and when thrones shall crumble, 
 And human pride and grandeur fall, 
 The herald's line of long renown — 
 The mitre and the kingly crown — 
 Perishing glories all ! 
 The pure devotion of thy generous heart 
 Shall live in heaven, of which it was a part/' 
 
 
Do Roman teaghers doubt 
 
 THEIR OWN SYSTEM? 
 
 According to the best preachers among the Romanists 
 — according to their very saints — only one in each thous- 
 and is saved. Such a thing was said by St. John Chrys- 
 ostom, preaching in the Church which was then becoming 
 a Pagan Church. This was the conviction of St. Chrys- 
 ostom. And now it is repeated by the majority of Romish 
 teachers that only one in a thousand is saved among Ro- 
 manists. Gavazzi. 
 
PART III 
 
 PAPAL DESOLATION IN BOHEMIA. 
 
 SIDE LIGHTS ON AMEE1CA. 
 
 Eastward now moves the Reformation light. The light 
 that diffused into the dawn came from the east, and focused 
 first in the west. Again it moves back to the east, to gather 
 accelerated power and brightness. First in one country, 
 and then in another, breaks a flood of light. Then ever 
 and anon a great cloud of ignorance, superstition and per- 
 secution settles over it, and for the time that light seems 
 well nigh spent. 
 
 At one time it looks as if an innumerable host was ad- 
 vancing, bearing banners of light, before which every 
 opposition to civil and religious liberty would retreat in 
 dismay and confusion. We look again, and it seems as if 
 that mighty host had fallen, crushed to earth by the pro- 
 digious power of Rome. 
 
 But presently a cheering sight shall meet our eyes. We 
 shall see all Europe lit up, as if by a mighty flame, blaz- 
 ing from the JEgean to the Irish sea, and from the Tiber to 
 the Rhine. By that light scholars will read and think, 
 (84) 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 85 
 
 brave hearts will be inspired to noble deeds, and men will 
 look into each other's eyes and pledge themselves to a holy 
 cause. And in that light Rome will read her defeat. But 
 like ancient Pagan Rome, it will take her a half thousand 
 years to die. 
 
 A CHIVALEIC STOEY. 
 
 The story we now have to tell, is one of romance and 
 chivalry, no less than of religious reform. It is a tale of 
 heroic endeavor, moved by a spirit of patriotism, as well as 
 of religious effort in the interest of pure Christianity. Men 
 are wanting to liberate themselves, as well as elevate them- 
 selves. It is not only a sigh of the heart, but an impulse 
 of the brain, that is in ferment. In that fermentation is 
 the evolution of great ideas. The location of our present 
 story is in central Europe. The time is just subsequent to 
 the age of Wyclif . 
 
 CEADLE OF THE EEFOEMATION" ON THE CONTINENT. 
 
 Right in the heart of central Europe lies little Bohemia, 
 a rare jewel of the earth, bulwarked on the north by the 
 Erzgebirge and Riesengebirge, and on the south by the 
 Bohmerwald and Saaver ranges. It contains only twenty 
 thousand square miles. Just to the southeast is smaller 
 Moravia, containing only nine thousand square miles. In 
 religious matters, and the cause of liberty, the history of 
 the one is that of the other. The men were different, but 
 the spirit and questions were the same. Unmolesting them- 
 selves, they protested against being molested. Upright in 
 conduct, and happy in their liberty, they resented any move 
 from without, which threatened their religion and their lib- 
 erties. They were just such a people as God makes use of 
 
86 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 for great accomplishments, and they must play an import- 
 ant part in history. Together they form the cradle of the 
 [Reformation on the continent of Europe. 
 
 If the " Morning Star of the Reformation " arose in Eng- 
 land, the full dawn found its promise in Bohemia, And 
 the star that shed its rays in England, furnished the light 
 for the dawn in Bohemia. And it is a romance of provi- 
 dence none the less, because it involves a story of love. 
 The threads of inconsequential human affairs are sometimes 
 woven into the mighty strand of Divine purposes. In 
 many a course of love runs a purpose of God. The affairs of 
 love sometimes tabernacle the designs of heaven. 
 
 THE TIES WHICH BOUND ENGLAND AND BOHEMIA. 
 
 While the Lord was upholding Wyclif, at the university 
 of Oxford, his king, the young and chivalric Richard II., 
 went over to Bohemia, and won to his heart and throne 
 the fair and good Bohemian princess, Queen Anne. She 
 took to England with her a Bible, in her own Bohemian 
 tongue. And this devout Queen, from the East, became 
 known very soon, at Windsor Castle, for her devotion to 
 the Bible. It was an unheard-of trait to be possessed by 
 an English Queen, audit was felt by the nation's conscience. 
 The Queen's example was a light to walk by. The faint- 
 hearted took courage, and the strong were cheered. Wyclif 
 was stimulated. And later he quoted her example, in pos- 
 sessing and reading the Bible in her own language, as a 
 sufficient vindication of his translation of the Scriptures 
 into the common English tongue, that her subjects might 
 enjoy the religious privilege which the Queen possessed. 
 
 And so it came, that while the Bohemian Princess incited 
 Wyclif, he awakened Bohemia. By Jerome of Prague, 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. g7 
 
 and the Oxford students, Wyclif s writings were carried to 
 Bohemia. And by the time of his death they were permeat- 
 ing the heart, and awakening the conscience of the Bohe- 
 mians. They justly held that what a Princess of their 
 own blood adhered to on the English throne, they could 
 cherish in their humble homes. The royal example in Eng- 
 land became the peasant's encouragement in Bohemia. 
 
 MIGHTY PEAGUE ON THE ELBE. 
 
 Prague was the capital city of Bohemia, situated on the 
 Elbe, which was a great artery of European commerce. It 
 was the foremost city in central Europe, and exercised a 
 wide and stimulating influence on the social, intellectual 
 and religious conditions of the surrounding nations, as well 
 as on their political thought and institutions. Here was 
 located the eastern residence of the German emperor, and 
 this gave high standing to the name of Prague among the 
 cities of Europe. The university of Prague was, at this 
 time, the leading university in Europe, next to that of 
 Paris. It was the seat of immense intellectual activities. 
 Not only the customary questions of abstract philosophy 
 were studied and discussed, but the more pressing ones 
 which bore directly on the spirit of the age. Eight thou- 
 sand students attended its classes. Fertile brains were 
 craving knowledge, and God was putting his touch on the 
 mental unrest of the age. 
 
 INFLUENCE OF WYCLIF'S BOOKS. 
 
 John Huss was dean and lecturer of the university. He 
 was providentially located, to powerfully affect the deep 
 currents of thought, of which the university was the centre. 
 The writings of Wyclif found a welcome at this school. 
 
88 THE BOMAN PAPACY. 
 
 These writings were strong productions of argument and 
 logic in the field of human rights, in their relation to earthly- 
 rulers and the divine King. They gave instruction to the 
 people to turn to the Bible, as the supreme rule in doc- 
 trine, faith and morals, and seek, in that great statement of 
 right, their own rights. Without a word of apology they 
 denounced, in terms most calculated to receive attention, 
 the glaring and monstrous evils which had crept into the 
 Church. The personal ambition and political craftiness of 
 the Popes were depicted in a way to excite correction. We 
 may never know how these books of Wyclif came to be in 
 the Prague university. The most natural supposition is, 
 that the Oxford students bore copies from England to 
 Prague. It was before the day of printing, and all copies 
 had to be made by the slow and expensive process of pen. 
 In some quiet way, and without the knowledge of Rome, 
 they found their way upon the university shelves. The 
 students and faculty read them. Bohemia was getting 
 ready to have the light turned on. God prepares the hearts 
 of nations, as individuals, to be ready to receive great truths. 
 We are now in the opening years of the fifteenth century. 
 Wyclif has been dead for about a quarter of a century. We 
 are in Bohemia, which lays in a deep basin, which once held 
 the waters of a primeval sea ; about it rise the mountain 
 walls like a natural fortress. Foreign Papal intrusion 
 found here, in the time of our story, a natural barrier ; and 
 within, freedom of religious thought and national piety 
 found congenial abode. Huss is the leading man in the 
 university of Prague. 
 
 LOW MORAL STANDARD OF ROMISH CLERGY. 
 
 The conditions of Europe were those of political unrest, 
 and ecclesiastical corruptions, with a great many people 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 89 
 
 calling for reform in life and doctrine. There was apparent 
 a general sentiment of disapproval for the clerical low water 
 mark of life and teaching. The priests were not leaders in 
 anything, except indolence and immorality. 
 
 It is a qneer reflection, that comes to us ever and anon in 
 our reading in Roman Catholic history, that the morals of 
 the clergy of that Church, at frequent intervals, run so low. 
 The most notorious profligacy perhaps to be met with, in 
 the annals of modern civilization, is that of the clerical 
 class of the Roman Church, and which the highest authority 
 only seems to regret and restrain when it causes public 
 scandal. With the court at Rome hidden vices seem half 
 virtues. 
 
 This condition confronts us in the United States. The 
 proof is conclusive. The facts leak out daily in the great 
 city. They tell of shameful immoralities upon the part of 
 the priests. In some of the leading cities this is of such 
 frequent occurrence that surprise is no more remarked. Vice 
 is seen parading the streets in priestly garb ; while a drunken 
 priest lying in the gutter is not unf requently reported. The 
 tales which come from the priests' homes, of debauchery 
 and drunken revels, are too many, and too well authenti- 
 cated, to be mere meaningless rumors. This is to be de- 
 plored upon high grounds of public morality. When the 
 reputed teachers of Christian morals become, by common 
 agreement, scandalous in their lives, then vices of all kinds 
 and grades will prevail, and the fabric of society will be 
 endangered. The collapse must come to us, as it did to 
 France. The same causes will lead to the same results. 
 The history of one period is the prophecy of another. Moral 
 considerations should lead us to do something. An Ameri- 
 can saloon has its best champion in the foreign priest in our 
 midst. 
 
90 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 The licentiousness of Pagan Rome has been perpetuated 
 in Papal Pome. The Pagan priests led in vice ; it almost 
 seems that the same is true of many of the Papal priests in 
 our country. A wail of lamentation will one day be heard 
 piercing the very heavens, and bringing down the judgment 
 that always falls upon the nation that forgets the value of 
 public integrity and private virtue. In that day the priests 
 will have an awful account to settle with posterity. 
 
 A WORSE CONDITION IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 This priestly immorality was far more revolting in the 
 fifteenth century in Europe. The Papacy was reaching to 
 the meridian of its tyranny, ambition and corruption. It 
 was in the noon-tide of its vain show, and in the full glow 
 of its glaring crimes. The extravaganza of Papal display 
 and hypocrisy was on the swell of the tide. Nowhere else 
 was crime carried on upon such a gigantic scale, or wrong 
 was espoused by a great power, as by right belonging to it ; 
 and that authority the reputed head of Christianity on 
 earth. It was a most humilating fall from early Christian- 
 ity. It was simply Paganism, with a baptized name. The 
 charge is well sustained, that the morals of Papal Europe in 
 the fifteenth century were no improvement over the morals 
 of the Pagan Europe of the first century. Pagan corrup- 
 tions found shelter in the arms of Papalism. 
 
 TWO POPES AT WAR WITH EACH OTHER. 
 
 One Pope had his seat at Home, and another at Avignon, 
 and this condition had existed through the latter part of 
 the fourteenth century. A schism had torn the Papacy in 
 twain, and each faction was resisting and cursing the other. 
 Each Pope was surrounded by his college of cardinals, and 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 91 
 
 mostly engaged in hurling anathemas at the other. And 
 all this while the teaching of that Church was, that any 
 person who was anathematized by Papal act was consigned 
 irrevocably to hell. It was a most lugubrious business, to 
 be sure, for these rival Popes to be engaged in. Great pity 
 it is, that the whole structure of the Papacy did not go to 
 wreck in the storm of those Papal revolutions. The peace 
 of the world would not be so everlastingly endangered, if 
 the Papacy should be overthrown utterly. 
 
 Petrarch, the scholarly writer, who was courtier and sec- 
 retary to several cardinals, was an eye witness of the Papal 
 court life, both at Rome and at Avignon. He describes the 
 Papacy with an invective which glows like the fires of Dan- 
 te' s Inferno. He describes the Papal throne at Avignon to be, 
 "that western Babylon that is to be hated like Tartarus." 
 He declared it to be a terrestial hell, a residence of fiends 
 and devils, a receptacle of all that is wicked and abomina- 
 ble. He goes on in his testimony: " Whatever perfidy and 
 treachery ; whatever barbarity and pride ; whatever immor- 
 ality and unbridled lust, you have known or read of ; in a 
 word, whatever impiety and immodesty, either now is or 
 ever was, scattered over the world, you may find here 
 amassed in one heap." Rome's most intimate confident 
 thus describes her state of morals. The indictment must 
 stand. The evidence is quite sufficient. It is impossible to 
 either overthrow it, or throw it out of court. Why should 
 this unanswerable evidence be rejected ? 
 
 If the cardinals of Gregory XII. , Pope at Rome, are to be 
 believed, and certainly they ought to be accredited wit- 
 nesses, then Belshazzar and Nero were almost saints com- 
 pared with that Pope. By this testimony of his official 
 
92 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 cabinet, no more despicable character has ever disgraced 
 human history. Yet he was the head and heart, the law 
 and authority, of the Roman Catholic Church. What 
 should be expected of the lower officials ? Where blood 
 poison is in the heart, it is fatal to all the body. 
 
 Is it to be remarked with any surprise that, in view of the 
 vice which flourished at the Papal court, the profligate and 
 the vicious had usurped the positions in Church and state, 
 and bent both to Papal ways ? If the heart center was rot- 
 ten to the core, was it not natural that the dregs should be 
 found in the members ? 
 
 A COUNCIL FORCED TO ATTEMPT REFORM. 
 
 A general council was finally called to meet at Pisa, the 
 great Italian town on the Arno. Moral desolation had driv- 
 en the Papacy almost to destruction, and in desperation 
 something had to be undertaken. The Pisa council met, 
 and after labored discussion, arrived at the conclusion, the 
 only one that was tenable even to sophistry, that the infal- 
 libility and supreme authority, which were supposed to be 
 lurking somewhere in the Roman Catholic Church, rested 
 not in the Pope or doctrine, but was vested in the council. 
 It may have been a very grotesque and silly action ; never- 
 theless, such was the law as declared by the Pisa council. 
 It was the last resort for the Papacy in that century, and the 
 council had to do just what it did do. The council's action 
 was the logical sequence of the drift of the ecclesiastical 
 errors and corruptions. By changing the storm center of 
 confusion, it saved itself from immediate dissolution. It 
 was a postponement, but not a solution. 
 
 When the Pisa council had once declared the location 
 of infallibility to rest in itself, it proceeded to summon to 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 93 
 
 its bar the two Popes, that it might be determined as to which 
 rightly belonged the Papal throne. The order was issued 
 for both to appear. It was ignored, and neither appeared. 
 Whereupon the council proceeded to elect another Pope, 
 and then quickly adjourned, before it still more complicated 
 matters. There were now three Popes, and as many parties, 
 each of which devoted itself to heartily abusing the others. 
 Each of these Popes claimed to be the holy Pontif in direct 
 succession from Peter. The evils had increased at least one- 
 third. The sky grew darker, instead of lighter. And now 
 to even more increase the perplexity, another contingency 
 was suggested. The great chancellor of the Paris universi- 
 ty, seeing no chance for harmonious adjustment, and not 
 shrinking before the Papal threat, or Parisian mob, now 
 declared in favor of doing without any Pope. The climax 
 of unbelief, in the integrity and necessity of the Papacy, 
 was reached in this. Men of learning within the Church 
 began to reason, that the greatest organization of evil, vice 
 and wrong in the world could not be a divinely constituted 
 head over all the earth. All of this was preparing the 
 nations. 
 
 BOHEMIAN CHURCH NOT OF ROMAN ORIGIN. 
 
 Against all this, the Bohemian people bowed their heads 
 in sorrow, but not in silence. They never took kindly to 
 the ultra-Papal power of the Roman Church. They were 
 not indebted to the Papal Church for the establishment of 
 the Church in their country. They had Christianity brought 
 to them, in the middle of the ninth century, from devout 
 missionaries of the Greek Church. Their work was calcu- 
 lated to open the hearts of the people for a pure Gospel. 
 They preached repentance and remission of sins. They 
 
94 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 made a Bohemian version of the Bible, and for which pur- 
 pose an alphabet was invented. These missionaries caused 
 the reading of the Bible, public worship, and preaching to 
 be in the common tongue. In character and results their 
 work was in line with that of the Aj)ostolic Church. The 
 evils of the Papacy had not, in the eighteenth century, 
 greatly encroached upon the Bohemian Church. 
 
 The Bohemians had developed a type of Christianity 
 much above that which prevailed under the rule of the Pa- 
 pacy, in the countries round about. 
 
 Just preceding the period of Huss, some faithful preach- 
 ers, mindful of their vocation, boldly denounced the evils 
 of the Church, rebuked the pride of the priests, taught the 
 direct relation of the soul to God, upheld the necessity of 
 faith, and the insufficiency of works without faith. 
 
 THE PAPAL POLICY OF COLONIZING FOREIGNERS. 
 
 In addition to this, the Bohemians disliked the foreign 
 influences, which worked in the interest of the corrupt Pa- 
 pacy. The Papal rule in Bohemia began to be foreign, 
 anti-national and odious. Germany was the obedient tool 
 of the Pope. German influence threatened to destroy the 
 Bohemian nationality. Colonies of Germans were settled 
 on the fertile Bohemian plains. The nobility gave their 
 castles German names ; city records and judicial proceed- 
 ings were in the German language. There was an influx 
 of German preachers, judges and civic officers. German 
 customs and fashions prevailed in the social circles. The 
 large majority of the university students were young 
 Germans. And in this foreign rule began Papal corruption. 
 
 The Church of Rome has always worked the scheme of 
 colonizing her foreign subjects in the countries she intends 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 95 
 
 to rule. In the United States she colonizes the Irish, the 
 Italians and the French Canadians. Eome is cunning. 
 
 THE PAPAL SPIEIT VS. THE NATIONAL SPIRIT. 
 
 Roman diplomacy had already set in strongly against 
 nationality. Rome rule cannot be tolerated where a nation- 
 al spirit prevails and national unity is fostered. Patriot- 
 ism has never found a friend in the Papacy, and need not 
 expect it. All through the history of Pagan Rome, the 
 destruction of nationality was the first task undertaken, 
 where a country was defeated in war. The same policy has 
 always pertained with Papal Rome. By suppressing the 
 national spirit, the Popes can best prevent the growth of 
 independence in national feelings, laws and institutions. 
 The patriotic pledges and professions of Roman Catholic 
 bishops in our country are a mockery and deception, in- 
 tended to soothe away the alarm, and help the cause of hy- 
 pocritical politicians, working in the interest of the Roman 
 Church. 
 
 Much has been hoped for from the supposed loyal spirit 
 of Archbishop Ireland. He has said and written many 
 things, which, had they issued from any other than a high 
 Roman ecclesiastic, would be taken as sufficient proof of 
 personal attachment to the American principles of liberty 
 and law. As to the class of motives which underlie Arch- 
 bishop Ireland's declarations of admiration for our Ameri- 
 can system of institutions, it may be judged from the letter 
 he wrote to the Pope, shortly after his address before the 
 great convention of teachers in Boston, a few years ago. In 
 that letter he reported to the Pope that he. had made such 
 an address, before an immense gathering of teachers, num- 
 
96 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 bering some five thousand. He truthfully advises the Pope, 
 that he said all he could, in compliment of the Public 
 School System of the United States. Then he tells the 
 Pope what his motive was in thus agreeing with the senti- 
 ments of those teachers. It was that he might lead them 
 to favor the position of the Roman Catholic Church, and 
 unite with him in asking that the public money be divided, 
 and part given to the Catholics, and part to the Protestants, 
 and that then u we should have in this country what is known 
 in Europe as denominational schools, under the control of 
 the Church, but paid for by the State." So the motives 
 which inspire the patriotic declarations of this supposed 
 friend of our laws, are those born out of the spirit of actual 
 conspiracy. Precisely the same thing was done years ago 
 by Bishop Purcell, of Cincinnati. He manifested great zeal 
 for the public schools to the people of Cincinnati, and at the 
 same time he was writing to Europe denunciations of them, 
 as pernicious and dangerous. 
 
 The faithful Bohemian people listened to faithful preach- 
 ers and teachers. They were primitive in their religious 
 views, and they were what we would now call evangelical. 
 They believed in the marriage of the priests, and laughed 
 at the legends of the saints, and at the same time they con- 
 sidered altar lights in churches as useless, and holy water 
 as no better than any other ; they looked upon the timber 
 of the cross as a piece of wood, with no sacred associations 
 attached to it, except that of mere sentiment. They had 
 great reverence for the Word of God, and patterned their 
 lives after its holy precepts. They had welcomed among 
 them the Waldensian Christians, driven from the Piedmont 
 by persecution. And the martyr spirit of that people, so 
 long tried by both fire and sword, leavened the whole Bo- 
 hemian people, and patriotism and devotion grew towards 
 their maturity. 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 97 
 
 THE HIDDEN HAND, BUT MIGHTY. 
 
 In this portion of Bohemian history the footsteps of God 
 are heard, and by no means lightly. The providences of 
 heaven were working through the events of the scattered 
 Waldensian Christians. They were God' s troubled vessels, 
 destined among the nations to hand out the gracious fruit 
 of the Gospel, and the strength of moral truths. A greatly 
 favored people, and favorably constituted, were the Bohe- 
 mians, if Rome had left them alone. 
 
 Yes, it was very plain, that, in the beginning of the fif- 
 teenth century, on the vast chess-board of European thought, 
 a mightier hand was beginning to move than that of the 
 sword of general, edict of king, or the mandate of Pope. 
 It was that of an awakened conscience, which when fully 
 aroused no king can crush, no parliament can subjugate, 
 and no Pope can withstand. Elsewhere the voice of this 
 disturbed conscience had been lifting its cry against the im- 
 becility and crime of the power that ruled the nations. 
 Among the Waldensians of northern Italy, in the universi- 
 ties of Oxford and Paris, it spoke. But kings and Popes 
 would not listen. And now it was about to speak in a way 
 to be heard. It was to fall upon Europe like u the voice 
 of many waters." It was to fall with a terrific sound of 
 warning, not unlike the peal of a thousand battle guns. 
 
 And now this voice was to be heard in Bohemia. It ap- 
 peared, clothed in the modest and excellent doctrine of the 
 sole and supreme authority of the Word of God. And it 
 gained a speedy hearing, and then it went about sounding 
 the key-note of the great Reformation of the succeeding 
 century. The Bohemian hills were to witness the muster- 
 ing of a host, whose tread should ere long startle Europe. 
 
98 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 Huss was a zealous champion of the country's rights. 
 His influence as a reformer was strengthened by his devo- 
 tion to the principles of patriotism. He was a reformer of 
 country, as well as a reformer of the Church. He could 
 best prepare for the advance of the Church by advancing 
 the country. Religious and political reform are two sides 
 of the same thing. 
 
 The battle was now on. And the continent of Europe^ 
 was watching, uncertain what to do, or even what to think. 
 By the writings of Wyclif, and especially by the study of 
 the Scriptures, and the life of Christ, Huss learned the joy 
 of drinking deep at the fountain of truth. His teaching in 
 the university was calculated to direct the students to the 
 Bible, and turn them against the Papacy. In this way he 
 was to leaven all Europe. 
 
 MEN FOE THE TIMES. 
 
 But the influence of Huss was not confined to his academ- 
 ical labors. He was made preacher in 1402, at the Beth- 
 lehem chapel in Prague. The people of Prague had built 
 and endowed this chapel, for the purpose of providing the 
 students of the university, and the town's people, with 
 sound preaching in the Bohemian tongue. Under Huss it 
 poured forth a perfect stream of spiritual and intellectual 
 influence. His congregations grew to vast proportions. 
 Enthusiasm rose to a high pitch, and often as he proclaimed 
 the truth with great power and eloquence, his voice was 
 drowned by the applause of the multitude. The chapel 
 seated three thousand people. His sermons were full of 
 faith, fire and freedom. He seemed to have the zeal of Paul, 
 and the prophetic power of the old Hebrew prophets, as he 
 urged his hearers to a higher plane of faith, and forecasted 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 99 
 
 the ruin of their religion if they did not strive against the 
 encroachments of the Papacy. Huss and Jerome were fitted 
 for their day. 
 
 These are the men for the times. They are the men 
 for all times. For all times are in need of men who are 
 above all considerations of what their work may do for 
 them, and only consider what it will do for God and the 
 world. Huss would be a good man for our times, and our 
 country. Clear-sighted, far-sighted, deep-sighted, high- 
 sighted men are needed, who by their faithfulness and fear- 
 lessness will make the people listen, ere the country fall. 
 We must have some giants, because a giant's work awaits 
 men of soul power and moral courage. Speed their 
 coming ! 
 
 Huss was appointed synodical preacher. It was an ap- 
 pointment that gave him an opportunity. In his first syn- 
 odical sermon he dealt with tremendous power upon the 
 moral iniquities, which had grown up under the eye of the 
 Papacy. It was a bold, strong, convincing arraignment of 
 the Pope's rule. He gave every sin its right name and de- 
 scription. He blew an alarm that all Bohemia felt, and re- 
 sponded to most gallantly. The Bohemian faith grew into 
 heroic proportions. 
 
 THE COMING OF THE STORM. 
 
 The people began to see that their responsibility to God, 
 and their obligation to their country, outweighed their 
 duties to the Pope, thrust upon them by Papal tyranny. 
 The Papal hierachy was a foreign, unjust and oppressive 
 government, most galling to them. They had never ac- 
 cepted the claim of the Pope' s divine right to rule over 
 them. That right rested at best upon a flimsy thread of 
 traditional logic. They disliked the power that ruled from. 
 
100 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 Rome, and they saw no reason why they should be longer 
 submissive. The light was turned on with great power 
 by Huss, and Papal Europe began to wince from one end 
 to the other. Rome's experience with England, one-half 
 century before, was still lingering as an unpleasant mem- 
 ory in her mind. Now Bohemia is striking for independ- 
 ence and liberty. Should this thing spread what will be- 
 come of Popes, potentates and kings? For one short day 
 Rome stood aghast. She saw the crisis that was coming. 
 
 The flood of God's waters was up, and rising still. The 
 Papacy had to stem that flood, or else it would wash away 
 completely her throne. There was prospective danger in 
 stepping out before that rushing sound of freedom's tramp, 
 and she trembled. Rut there was immediate peril for her 
 if she did nothing. The day of hesitancy was cut short ; 
 and the Papacy entered upon her regime of jjersecution j^ 
 Bohemia. It was to be a long, sad period of wrong and op- 
 pression. But it was Rome, and we need expect from her 
 no other than a course of action the most cruel and inhu- 
 man. 
 
 It was in the year 1403 that the Papal agents forbade the 
 university of Prague to teach the writings of Wyclif. It 
 was thought that this would prove effective. This, how- 
 ever, was only a partial blow, and it was followed in 1407 by 
 an order removing Huss from the office of synodical preach- 
 er, and all because he had been so very successfully de- 
 nouncing the sinful lives of the clergy. Rome could not 
 endure this sort of an impeachment of her priests. And in- 
 stead of insisting that Huss should prove his charges, he 
 was removed from the office which gave him an opportu- 
 nity to assail these evils. It is Rome's way. It is her self- 
 preservation that she must keep back the truth, and keep 
 out the light. Rome's ways are so dark that she must sup- 
 press the light of history. 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 101 
 
 BURNING TWO HUNDRED BOOKS. 
 
 Three more years pass, and in 1410 the bishop goes still 
 further, and forbids him to preach, and lays an interdict on 
 the city of Prague for harboring him. At the same time, 
 as a still greater blow, the bishop committed to the flames 
 more than two hundred volumes of the writings of the great 
 English reformer. Rome has always indulged in the child- 
 ish freak that she can destroy the truth, by burning the 
 books of reformers. Many a bonfire she has made of ser- 
 mons, pamphlets and books, and men, too, believing she was 
 reducing truth to ashes, and sending liberty up in smoke. 
 Rome is as great a dupe to herself as she has been a fraud 
 to others. She has burned millions of copies of the Bible. 
 
 Papal bulls were sent forth from Rome against Huss. He 
 was driven from Prague, and from the chapel and the uni- 
 versity. So much does Rome fear free speech, that exile is 
 the penalty of its championship. Let those who hug the 
 belief, that Rome in America is favorable to freedom of 
 thought and of speech, take a few lessons in history and 
 Roman Canon Law, and that belief will quickly speed away. 
 She boasts of liberty, where boasting can be used to turn 
 favor to her ; but she cannot turn to a single act of council, 
 or bull of Pope, ever made in the advocacy of liberty of 
 conscience, of thought and of tongue. Political liberty is 
 as distasteful to her as is religious liberty. 
 
 When Huss was banished from the city of Prague he re- 
 tired to the villages round about, and fired his shots of elo- 
 quent truth as he moved on. In knightly castles, and along 
 the roadside, in fields and in mountain homes, he went 3 
 stirring the hearts of the multitudes by his thrilling words 
 of pure Gospel. He felt that to oppose the Pope was to 
 arouse a dragon, breathing forth fire and smoke. But his 
 heart was in the Gospel, because the Gospel was in his souL 
 
102 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 He grew at once to the stature of a hero, and filled the Bo- 
 hemian horizon with his moral greatness. 
 
 THE BOLD CHAKGE OF HUSS. 
 
 He now begins to preach bold, evangelical sermons, against 
 Papal claims of all kind and degree. Through the perse- 
 cution of the Popes he saw the sophistry and hypocrisy of 
 the Popes. And he proceeded to tear aside the veil. In one 
 of these great sermons, after explaining the Scripture teach- 
 ing of how God forgives sin, he says : ' ' From all this it ap- 
 pears that a man can receive the pardon of his sins only 
 through the power of God, and by the merits of Christ. 
 Let who will proclaim the contrary. Let the Pope, or a 
 bishop, or a priest say : ' I forgive thee thy sins. I absolve 
 thee from their penalty. I free thee from the pains of hell.' 
 It is all vain, and helps thee nothing. God alone, I re- 
 peat, can forgive sins through Christ, and he pardons the 
 penitent only." This was a bold denial of the Papal doc- 
 trine. It was full of danger to the stability of the Papal 
 claims. . No man dare so say, and not feel the hand of the 
 Papacy laid heavily upon him. Pome could not allow such 
 a grant of liberty. It would be inviting her own overthrow. 
 Huss must take his punishment. It was the penalty of that 
 day against righteousness of thought, and freedom of utter- 
 ance. Pome acted then according to her power, and in per- 
 fect accord with her spirit. Her highest authorities declare 
 that their Church has not changed in spirit. All she lacks 
 is the power to do as she did in the twelfth and sixteenth 
 centuries. 
 
 HUSS IS EX-COMMUNIC'ATED. 
 
 Events move along with the years rapidly. In 1412 Pope 
 John XXIII. excommunicated Huss in the severest form 
 
X 
 
 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 103 
 
 known. No man was to associate witli him ; no man was 
 to give him food or drink ; no man was to give him a place 
 where he might rest his head ; wherever he staid, religious 
 services were to cease ; in case of his death he was not to 
 have Christian burial. Does this sound like the work of 
 the vicar of Christ on earth ? Would one who represented 
 the spirit and the practice of Christ, order all men to re- 
 fuse food and water to a fellowman when hungry and 
 thirsty % This is, indeed, a fine showing for the reputed 
 charity of the Roman Catholic Church. A like order has 
 been issued by the Church quite recently, in some of the 
 South American countries. 
 
 In 1414 the great Council of Constance was called. The 
 purpose for which this Council was called was to heal the 
 scandal of having three Popes, and that growing out of 
 Papal vices, and to attempt a reform of the many abuses 
 which had grown up in the Church. The Popes had fallen 
 so low that ordinary vice seemed virtue. Pope John XXIII. 
 was abominable in profligacy and sacrilegious inhis impiety. 
 The world was mortified by the audacious vices of the Popes. 
 Men could hardly believe the magnitude of the corruption 
 at the very head of the Church. All of the time many bear 
 witness to gross iniquity. Clemenges, who was in the 
 faculty of Paris, chastised in fearful terms and keen lashes, 
 the whole order of the clergy, from the Pope down to the 
 lowest priest. He bids "the Church look to the vision of 
 the Apoclypse, and then read the abomination of the great 
 harlot, that sitteth on the many waters, and then contem- 
 plate her own wicked doings, and the dire calamity that 
 will come upon her." 
 
 Monasticism had sunk into utter degeneracy. Monks had 
 set themselves up as teachers over the pastors, refused the 
 Bible to the people, induced superstition and corruption^ 
 
104 THE ROMAN' PAPACY. 
 
 made godliness a traffic, and were notorious for leading 
 women astray. 
 
 CHARGE OF THE AECHBISHOP OF GEN"OA. 
 
 In all the orders iniquity was so hideous, bold and defi- 
 ant, that the Roman Catholic archbishop of Genoa writes : 
 "The Church has become a step-mother. The vices which 
 show themselves openly are these : tyranny, confusion, sup- 
 pression of liberty, despising virtue and morals, neglect of 
 learning, ridiculing justice, opposing the people, sacrilege, 
 murder, adultery, theft, in a word, everything that can be 
 called infamous." This a picture of the Papacy drawn by 
 an adherent. We do not need to go to the enemies of Rome 
 for the gravest charge against her, but to her own writers. 
 The witness from within is more terrible in its severity than 
 the proof from without. 
 
 Here is another Roman Catholic opinion. The eminent 
 chancellor of the university of Paris, GJ-erson, poured a per- 
 fect torrent of pamphlets upon Europe, in which he demon- 
 strated that the unity of the Church had been destroyed 
 by the Popes ; and that it could only be restored by a gen- 
 eral council uncalled by any Pope. And yet the Pope was 
 the essentia] head of the Church at all times, and without 
 the Pope the Church was headless. The Roman Catholic 
 Church will perish if she keeps her Popes, and to give 
 them up she will cease to be a universal Church. 
 
 The efforts of Gerson were seconded by the Emperor Sig- 
 ismund, of Germany, and the Council of Constance was 
 finally called. This was the grandest pageant of an eccle- 
 siastical character the world has ever seen. Rome always 
 tries to win by show. This Council was in session almost 
 four years. It was under the patronage of the Emperor. 
 It contained nearly two hundred princes and counts, twenty 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 105 
 
 cardinals, twenty archbishops, one hundred bishops, sever- 
 al hundred doctors of theology, and fully four thousand 
 priests. It drew fifty thousand strangers to the city. It 
 had to deal with three Popes, each claiming to be the right- 
 ful claimant of the pontifical chair. Two of these Popes 
 were deposed by the Council, and the third abdicated. 
 
 SHAMEFUL PERFIDY OF POPE AND EMPEROR. 
 
 After the Popes had been disposed of, the case of Huss 
 came up. The Emperor Sigismund had invited him to plead 
 his cause before the Council. He promised him a safe con- 
 duct, a fair hearing, and a free return to Bohemia. When 
 Pope John XXIII., who had sanctioned the Council, was 
 told that Huss was expected to attend the Council at Con- 
 stance, he remarked, that if Huss had killed his own broth- 
 er, he would not in any wise wish to molest him, or per- 
 mit him to be molested. He declared that he must be safe 
 while he was at Constance. What have such promises on 
 the part of Rome ever been worth % They have never been 
 kept. This is a fearful charge ! It is a true one. 
 
 In this instance the pledge of the Emperor, and the prom- 
 ise of the Pope, were alike empty words. And before this 
 infamous Council had adjourned it burned to death both 
 John Huss and his friend, Jerome of Prague, that other 
 powerful Bohemian reformer. This is Home. 
 
 Shameful perfidy ! Within a very short time after his 
 arrival, and before any charges had been heard against him, 
 and in spite of the safe conduct, the king's guarantee, and 
 the Pope's promise, Huss was a prisoner. At first he was 
 confined in a private house, then in a Dominican monastery 
 on the shore of the lake, then in a dungeon in the castle of 
 Gotleben, where he was chained to a block, and at night 
 
106 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 his arm was pinioned to the damp stone wall. This shows 
 well the amount of confidence which is to be given to any 
 of the pledges of the Papacy. 
 
 Huss was brought into the Council, to listen to the 
 charges, when they were to be read. He reminded them 
 that he had come there under the pledge of the Emperor, 
 who was present, that he should be safe from all violence. 
 As he spoke these words he fixed his eye on the Emperor, 
 who deeply flushed. Sigismund felt his shame. This scene 
 was not forgotten in Germany, a century later. When 
 the Emperor Charles was pressed to consent to the seizure 
 of Luther, he said: "No, I should not like to blush like 
 Sigismund." Is it not well, in these days, when Rome in 
 in our land is making such pretentions of loyalty, to meas- 
 ures and institutions we know she does not like, to bear in 
 mind, how in other days she promised good- will and pro- 
 tection, and then proceeded to violate both ? Eome is the 
 same in all countries, and yi all centuries. Rome is a 
 chameleon only on the surface. No student of history be- 
 lieves the word of Roman leaders. They talk for a design, 
 rather than from a motive. 
 
 The Council deprived Huss of his priestly office and 
 turned him over to the Emperor for execution. The sen- 
 tence was in the formula: "We devote thy soul to the 
 devils of hell." And Huss said: "But I commend it to 
 my most merciful Master, Jesus Christ. ' ' Some time before 
 this, when he was assailed by several learned doctors in the 
 law, Huss asked them to point out wherein his teachings 
 were in opposition to Scriptural truth. They had no an- 
 swer, but to say that the fire was the most effective logic ; 
 and his books were burned. Now the Church of Rome pro- 
 ceeds to treat his body as she had his books. The priestly 
 doctors were right altogether, the fire is Rome's most effec- 
 tive logic. 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 107 
 
 Huss was tied to a stake, in a meadow, beyond the city gate 
 of Constance. Fagots and straw were piled about him. 
 The pile was set on fire. His clothing, his body, even his 
 bones, were wholly consumed by the fire. The ashes, with 
 all memorials of the execution, were carted away and emp- 
 tied into the Rhine. Rome has often done this. 
 
 THE MARTYRDOM OF HUSS. 
 
 Let us survey the closing scene of that martyrdom, as de- 
 picted by de Bonnechose : — 
 
 " They placed on his head a sort of crown, or pyramidal 
 mitre, on which were painted frightful figures of demons, 
 with this inscription : ' The Arch-Heretic ;' and, when he 
 was thus arrayed, the prelates devoted his soul to the 
 devils. John Huss, however, recommended his spirit to 
 God, and said aloud, ' I wear with joy this crown of oppro- 
 brium, for the love of Him who bore a crown of thorns.' 
 
 1 l The church then gave up all claim to him ; declared 
 him a layman ; and, as such, delivered him over to the 
 secular power, to conduct him to the place of punishment. 
 John Huss, by the order of Sigismund, was given up by 
 the Elector Palatine, mcar of the empire, to the chief mag- 
 istrate of Constance, who, in Ills turn, abandoned him to 
 the officers of justice. He walked between four town ser- 
 geants to the place of execution. The princes followed, 
 with an escort of eight hundred men, strongly armed ; and 
 the concourse of the people was so prodigious that a bridge 
 was very near breaking down under the multitude. In 
 passing by the episcopal palace, Huss beheld a great fire 
 consuming his books ; and he smiled at the sight. 
 
 " The place of punishment was a meadow adjoining the 
 gardens of the city, outside the gate of Gotleben. On ar- 
 
108 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 riving there, Huss kneeled down and recited some of the 
 Penitential Psalms. Several of the people, hearing him 
 pray with fervor, said aloud : c We are ignorant of this 
 man' s crime ; but he offers up to God most excellent prayers.' 
 
 " When he was in front of the pile of wood which was to 
 consume his body he was recommended to confess his sins. 
 Huss consented, and a priest was brought to him, a man of 
 great learning and high reputation. The priest refused to 
 hear him unless he avowed his errors and retracted. ' A 
 heretic,' he observed, c can neither give nor receive the sac- 
 raments.' Huss replied : ' I do not feel myself to be guilty 
 of any mortal sin ; and, now that I am on the point of ap- 
 pearing before God, I will not purchase absolution by a 
 perjury.' 
 
 1 ' When he wished to address the crowd in German, the 
 Elector Palatine opposed it, and ordered him to be forth- 
 with burned. 'Lord Jesus,' cried John Huss, ' I shall en- 
 deavor to endure with humility this frightful death, which 
 I am awarded for thy holy Gospel. Pardon all my ene- 
 mies.' Whilst he was praying thus, with his eyes raised 
 up to heaven, the paper crown fell of : he smiled ; but the 
 soldiers replaced it on his head, in order, as they declared, 
 that he might be burned with the devils whom he had 
 obeyed. 
 
 " Having obtained permission to speak to his keepers, he 
 thanked them for the good treatment he had received at 
 their hands. ' My brethren,' said he, i learn that I firmly 
 believe in my Savior : it is in his name that I suffer ; and 
 this very day shall I go and reign with him.' 
 
 " His body was then bound with thongs, with which he 
 was firmly tied to a stake driven deep into the ground. 
 When he was so affixed some persons objected to his face 
 being turned to the east, saying that this ought not to be, 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 109 
 
 since he was a heretic. He was then untied and bound 
 again to the stake with his face to the west. His head was 
 held close to the wood by a chain smeared with soot, and 
 the view of which inspired him with pious reflections on the 
 ignominy of our Savior' s sufferings. 
 
 " Fagots were then arranged about and under his feet, 
 and around him was piled up a quanity of wood and straw. 
 When all these preparations were completed, the Elector 
 Palatine, accompanied by Count d'Oppenheim, marshal of 
 the empire, came up to him, and for the last time recom- 
 mended him to retract. But he, looking up to heaven, said 
 with a loud voice: ' I call Gfod to witness, that I have never 
 either taught or written what those false witnesses have 
 laid to my charge. My sermons, my books, my writings 
 have all been done with the sole view of rescuing souls from 
 the tyranny of sin ; and therefore most joyfully will I con- 
 firm with my blood that truth which I have taught, written, 
 and preached, and which is confirmed by the divine law and 
 the holy fathers.' 
 
 "The elector and the marshal then withdrew, and fire 
 was set to the pile. 'Jesus, Son of the living God,' cried 
 John Huss, 'have pity on me!' He prayed and sung a 
 hymn in the midst of his torments ; but soon after, the 
 wind having risen, his voice was drowned by the roaring of 
 the flames. He was perceived for some time longer moving 
 his head and lips, and as if still praying ; and then he gave 
 up the spirit. His habits were burned with him, and the 
 executioners tore in pieces the remains of his body and 
 threw them back into the funeral pile, until the fire had 
 absolutely consumed everything. The ashes were then col- 
 lected together and thrown into the Rhine." 
 
 It was Bishop Brognier who presided over the Council 
 that ordered Huss and Jerome to be burned at the stake. 
 
HO THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 When this cruel bishop came to die, his body was buried in 
 the cathedral at Geneva, and there lie his remains to this day. 
 But that cathedral church was to have, a century later, for 
 its pastor no other than John Calvin, and became the very 
 stronghold of the reformed faith. Aye! Jean Brognier, 
 had you foreseen this, would you have ruled this Council of 
 Constance as you did ? 
 
 THE BURNING OF JEROME OF PRAGUE. 
 
 After the execution of Huss, the members of the Council re- 
 turned to its sessions and took up the business, without 
 any feelings of regret that they had just participated in a 
 terrible murder. Rome has no conscience herself, is why 
 she cannot recognize the rights of one in any one else. 
 
 It was but a short while until Jerome of Prague was 
 brought before the Council. He, like Huss, was condemned 
 by the Council, because he denounced the sins of the times, 
 without measure, and upheld the supreme authority of the 
 Scriptures. The defense of Jerome before the Council re- 
 minds us of Paul's defense before Agrippa. He says : "I 
 am aware, most learned men, that many most excellent men 
 have suffered things unworthy of their virtues, borne down 
 by false witnesses, condemned by unjust judges. . If I my- 
 self should, in like manner, be condemned, I shall not be the 
 first, nor do I believe that I shall be the last to suffer. Still 
 I have a firm hope in God, my maker, that yet, when this 
 life is past, they who condemn Jerome unjustly, shall see 
 him take precedence of them and summon them to judg- 
 ment. And then shall they be bound to answer God, and 
 give an account for the injustice with which he was treated 
 at their hands." Every word of this charge has a clear 
 tone of truth and justice. 
 
THE BOMAN PAPACY. HI 
 
 Jerome was an orator of great force. His eloquence 
 thrilled the assembly, and well nigh made them pause. 
 His gaze of conscious integrity and moral uprightness made 
 them quail. But they had had the taste of blood, and were 
 like beasts of prey scenting the trail anew. 
 
 Jerome, by order of the Council, was burned, and on the 
 same spot as Huss, and his ashes, like those of Huss, were 
 thrown into the Rhine. A double murder ! No civil court 
 had tried or sentenced them. It was a Church court, which 
 Eome claims she has the right to hold because of her juris- 
 diction over human actions, and her right to pronounce judg- 
 ment, and execute her own sentence. This is one of the fun- 
 damental principles of Canon Law in the Church of Rome, 
 and shows the essential antagonism between the laws of the 
 Church and those of the state. According to all principles 
 of modern constitutionalism, the Church law has no jurisdic- 
 tion, in matters of personal liberty, property, or life. And 
 yet the Roman Church claims jurisdiction here, and has ex- 
 ercised it wherever she has had the power. 
 
 INCARNATED MALICE. 
 
 So it was that the Council of Constance tried, sentenced 
 and executed two men. And it had a mania for indulging 
 in persecution ; not only the living, but the dead as well 
 being the subjects of it. Tbis Council ordered an English 
 bishop to ungrave the body of Wyclif, burn it and throw 
 the ashes into the Severn. The Council seemed to be pos- 
 sessed with the idea, that if the ashes of the martyrs were 
 only swept away by the waters, the germs of liberty would 
 be exterminated. Poor dupes! When bigotry and ignorance 
 are compounded how brutal the moral chemical produced ! 
 
 While the Council of Constance was carrying on its work 
 
112 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 of persecution and death, the teachings of Huss were spread- 
 ing more rapidly than before. An ever-increasing number 
 of people began to see that they presented the truth. Men 
 at once saw the light in reading the sermons of Huss. In the 
 next century Luther came across the writings of this good 
 Bohemian reformer, and gives a most interesting account 
 of the impressions on his mind. We give his words : • * When 
 I was studying at Erfurt, I found in a library of the convent 
 a book entitled, ' Sermons of John Huss.' I was seized with 
 a curiosity to know what doctrines this heresiarch had 
 taught. This reading filled me with incredible surprise. 
 I could not comprehend why they should have burned so 
 great a man, and one who had explained Scripture with so 
 much discernment and wisdom. But inasmuch as the very 
 name of Huss was such an abomination, that I imagined 
 that at the mention of it the heavens would fall and the sun 
 be darkened, I shut the book with a sad heart. I consoled 
 myself, however, by the thought that perhaps he wrote 
 it before he fell into heresy ; for as yet I knew nothing of 
 the Council of Constance." 
 
 This was the way the Huss writings impressed his own 
 countrymen, in his own day. The voice of the German 
 Luther in the sixteenth century was the same as that of 
 the Bohemian masses in the fifteenth. While the Council 
 of Constance was persecuting Huss and Jerome, and burn- 
 ing them, the people were reading the writings of the two 
 men, and were thinking for themselves. And by the time 
 the Council had finished its course of tyranny and crime, 
 they were ready to act. After the death of Huss and Je- 
 rome the Bohemians were not to be trifled with. Their 
 greatest and most loved preachers had been murdered by 
 the Papal Church ! 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 113 
 
 THE POPES RESORT TO ARMS. 
 
 A new Pope had the impudence to send a special legate 
 to Bohemia. He quickly returned, and reported that force 
 was necessary. This is Rome' s final method. Punishment 
 may make a man think, but it will hardly make him think 
 your way. This is Rome's great blunder ! 
 
 The Pope and the Emperor agreed to resort to arms, in 
 order to bring the Bohemians over to the way of thinking 
 and believing that Rome taught. Two years after the Coun- 
 cil, which brings us to the year 1420, an army of twenty 
 thousand men faced the Bohemian borders. Three times 
 it was driven, defeated, from Prague. 
 
 In this war, which followed the burning of Huss and 
 Jerome, the Bohemian banner was a great black standard, 
 bearing a blood-red chalice. Great and patriotic hymns 
 were composed, which were sung by the troops as they 
 rushed into battle, and they were greatly feared by the 
 German Papal troops. These Bohemian troops seldom 
 iled when conquered, but died for their religion and their 
 country. 
 
 But finally the cunning of the Papacy, by its black art of 
 diplomacy, did accomplish what the arms of Germany 
 could not do, and the freedom of the Bohemian Church was 
 overthrown. For a century and a half, from the early 
 part of the fifteenth to the latter part of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury, there were no Protestants publicly known in Bohe- 
 mia. Many died on the scaffold, and many more were driv- 
 en out by persecution. The penalty of death was the price 
 paid for reading the Bible. This was the reign of the Jes- 
 uits. Liberty was crushed, because liberty was not wanted. 
 
 Before this reduction of the people to Papal rule, the 
 country had risen to a degree of freedom unknown to any 
 
114 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 other part of Europe, prior to the great upheaval brought 
 in by the work of Luther. And Rome had to drive her 
 cruel methods to their last desperate resort, before she 
 could succeed in subjugating the land of Huss. Whole 
 armies were dashed to pieces on the plains of the Maldan, 
 treasuries were exhausted, and cabinets were sorely put to, 
 in the attempt to subdue Bohemia to Papal rule. In order 
 to aid the Papal party in Bohemia, Paul V. levied a tax on 
 his clergy in Italy, amounting to a tenth of their income. It 
 reached several hundred thousand florins, and was handed 
 over to the Catholic party in Bohemia in 1620. Innocent 
 issued a bull ordering that all concessions of civil and relig- 
 ious liberty, which those might be enjoying in Bohemia, 
 who were not obedient to the Pope, should be considered 
 null and void. Pope Urbane VIII., took the bishopric of 
 Halderstadt, which for ninety years had been by agreement 
 independent of the Papal chair, and gave it to his own 
 party. This was an immoral, unconstitutional seizure, and 
 amounted to a Papal theft. The work of reducing these 
 independent Christians to the Papal government thus ap- 
 pears difficult in the extreme. The Bohemian clergy had 
 married. The sacrament was administered to all the peo- 
 ple, in both parts. This they had to some extent from the 
 Waldensian Christians, who had come among them for 
 conscience sake. 
 
 THE SECOND BOHEMIAN UPKISING. 
 
 A genuine Protestant Church had developed in Bohemia 
 and enjoyed a period of something like a century, if not a 
 longer period, of purity and freedom, though not without 
 persecution, before Rome began the final work of utter ex- 
 tinction . By the time the full blaze of the German Reforma- 
 tion was on, under Luther, these Bohemian Christians had 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 115 
 
 seceded from Rome, on account of its doctrinal errors, 
 evil practices and tyrannical spirit, and again became inde- 
 pendent. 
 
 The Bohemian Church of the Unity was formed. It took 
 high Biblical grounds, and upheld an evangelical faith. 
 The only reminder of Romanism was the seven sacraments, 
 but the Confession of the Bohemian Church did not ex- 
 plain them in the Roman sense. The Confession held that 
 the only efficacy of the sacraments to the receiver, was in 
 his faith in the Lord. As to remission of sins, the Confes- 
 sion declared, "that whosoever repents and believes, re- 
 ceives the remission of sin, and by partaking in living 
 faith of the Lord's Supper, is assured of such forgiveness." 
 They were above all Romish superstitions. In regard to 
 the Yirgin Mary, their Confession says : "To worship her 
 is to pray to her, and to bend the knee before her, or to 
 expect help from her, is not right." They rejected the 
 worship of the saints. And this is one of the worst evils 
 which has ever afflicted the Roman Church. Upon purga- 
 tory they say in their Confession: "The Bible knows noth- 
 ing of a place where, after death, men are purged from sin 
 and prepared for heaven. After death comes the judg- 
 ment." 
 
 WHY THE POPES FOUGHT BOHEMIA. 
 
 The case in Bohemia seems to appear something like 
 this: The people were too Biblical in their faith and 
 Christian doctrine, for Rome ; they were too moral in their 
 lives, and upright in their character, for Rome ; they were 
 too far removed from the easily guarded field of ignorance 
 and superstition to suit Rome ; they were too self-conscious 
 of their rights, natural and by possession, to suit Rome ; 
 
116 TEE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 they were ' too bold in declaring their disapproval of the 
 immoral lives of the clergy to please Rome. Hence Rome 
 had to empty the vial of her wrath upon Bohemia, and ex- 
 tinguish that free nation. Rome committed a crime for 
 which there was no cure, except that of Papal tyranny. 
 
 A WAENING TO THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 Some day it will be thought timely to study the likeli- 
 hood of the Papacy undertaking in this land, the same 
 course of suppression of individual and national rights. It 
 was but a couple years since that a Roman bishop in Phil- 
 adelphia, in a public address, declared that his Church, 
 had the right to be intolerant ; because it was the only 
 Church that was in the possession of the truth. So long 
 as Rome holds to the right to be intolerant, she only lacks 
 a conscious power to be oppressive, as of old. She is be- 
 coming conscious of power in the United States. 
 
 Some wholesome reflections spring up, from a study of 
 the Bohemian Reformation. And it may be quite easy for 
 us to read in these reflections some useful lessons for our 
 day and land. Human events move often in a circle, and 
 the swell of the circle, and the regular or irregular lines of 
 the circle, and determined by like or unlike conditions and 
 causes. If we have the same causes, working on the same 
 conditions, it is a foregone conclusion that the results must 
 be similiar. 
 
 DANGEE OF PEIESTLY POWEE. 
 
 Had the Bohemian Christians taken the question of the 
 foreign priesthood in hand a century earlier, the whole 
 curse of Rome could have been thrown off. The priesta 
 were tolerated until their power became so great it could 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 117 
 
 not be crushed. The Koman priests constitute a standing 
 army against liberties in every land under heaven. Priest- 
 ly power is one of the storm centers in every free land, and 
 out of this center comes the greatest peril to a freedom- 
 loving people. During the present century several coun- 
 tries have had to make an issue of the evil, and establish a 
 government that would check its growth and subdue its 
 power. Among such, perhaps, Mexico is the most noted. 
 In that country the Roman Catholics themselves rose in a 
 great popular movement, and threw off the yoke of priest- 
 craft. And none too soon was it done. The same dark 
 peril confronts England at present. Fifty years ago there 
 were but five hundred priests in that land ; now there are 
 twenty-six hundred. Fifty years ago there were but two 
 priests' schools ; now there are twenty-nine. Then there 
 were no convents ; now there are two hundred and twenty- 
 five. Then there were but twenty-nine monasteries; at 
 present there are four hundred. If anything, the danger 
 arising from priestly power is even more acute in our own 
 country. Here the priest is the avowed foe of the Ameri- 
 can school, exercises the terror of the boycot over business 
 and manufacturing enterprises, and is an element of cor- 
 ruption in town, state and national politics. This is per- 
 fectly clear to all well informed men. 
 
 FAME AND FAITHFULNESS. 
 
 If a people will not bow to Rome, God will richly reward 
 her with an honorable place in history. He selected the 
 Bohemian Christians to inaugurate the first great mission- 
 ary enterprise of modern times. The war- like followers, 
 who sought to avenge Huss under Zisca, became the peace- 
 ful and peace-loving Moravian Church, and the Moravian 
 
118 THE ROMAN PAPACY* 
 
 missionaries, whose fame is in every land, are the lineal de- 
 scendants of these brave soldiers. The Moravian Church is 
 the Missionary Church par excellence. 
 
 The ways of providence are often full of touching ro- 
 mance, and contain, for the diligent pilgrim therein, a 
 richer charm of interest in things strange and novel than 
 may be found in any work of fiction. A ripe seed of pure 
 evangelism was gathered from the writings of Wyclif . The 
 Bohemian people were a congenial soil for this seed. But 
 how was a sympathetic relation between the two to be es- 
 tablished ? The English king fell in love with the Bohe- 
 mian princess. This young Queen was a devout lover of the 
 Bible. Her example in reading the Scriptures in her own 
 language was an inspiration to the English people ; and 
 her residence at the English court made the Bohemians 
 the more ready to welcome the English Bible writings. And 
 so this instance of love became a case of providence. 
 
 THE EFFORT TO FIND SUPREME AUTHORITY. 
 
 Only when Scripture is held to be a supreme authority 
 is there to be found a safe standard for judgment and action. 
 This is the sad lessons which the blunders and failures of 
 the Council of Constance should teach. In the Roman 
 Catholic Church, chief and final authority was held at first 
 to be in the Popes alone. But when the irregularity and 
 crimes of the Popes made them the target for ridicule 
 throughout Europe, it had to be denied that they held the 
 final authority, in even matters of faith and life. Another 
 ground had to be sought. Under the great chancellor of 
 the university of Paris, this was declared to be that of a 
 general council. A council made of carninals, archbishops, 
 doctors of theology, and all orders of the priesthood, was 
 final in power and authority, and to such a council each 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. HQ 
 
 had to submit. This was accepted as a fundamental state- 
 ment of law throughout the Church, so far as general as- 
 sent seemed to go. And it has never been abrogated ; and 
 yet the Popes have always played above it. On this ground 
 the Council of Constance was called. But the Council only 
 increased the Popes from two to three. It remained in ses- 
 sion about four years, and did not accomplish a single act 
 justified by history ; while its authority was recognized, 
 after it was over with, by neither Pope nor Church, though 
 both had subscribed to the principle before the Council met. 
 The chaos was worse than before. Where the Scriptures 
 are not held as a supreme rule, for justice and action, every 
 state of society must at times fall into anarchy. 
 
 THE BIBLE AND PATRIOTISM. 
 
 In the Bible alone is to be found infallibility. It is the 
 chief glory of the Reformation in Bohemia, that it hadit s 
 origin in the heroic effort to make the Bible the supreme 
 authority, and final appeal in matters of faith, judgment 
 and life. If the Protestant pulpits in our land would ring 
 out with the more certain sound of this pure Gospel, we 
 would soon be in a much healthier condition of Christian 
 patriotism. The people have been led away from the Bible 
 by the preaching of mental vagaries and theological theories- 
 This has resulted in a low standard of moral character in 
 both the individual and the nation. Patriotism has gone 
 into decline because the power has been taken away from 
 the Bible. A better patriotism is to be kindled at the altars 
 of a purer Gospel preaching. The people want it, too. The 
 pulpit that returns to devotion to the Gospel, and love of 
 country, will become popular. The course the Popes pur- 
 sued with Bohemia indicates Rome' s enmity against the 
 
120 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 rights of conscience. Wherever the rights of conscience 
 are suppressed there can be no piety, pure religion, or civil 
 freedom. Unless man' s conscience is left free, human pro- 
 gress must stop, and the great field of science remain with- 
 out further exploration. If man cannot use his conscience 
 he has no use for education, and there is no opportunity 
 for enterprise. Conscience and progress must go together. 
 Rome makes true freedom in religion, and in politics, im- 
 possible, by denying to man the right to the light of his own 
 conscience. Rome blindfolds the mind and heart, and then 
 says : "Now walk as directed from Rome." Men without 
 conscience are in bondage. 
 
 "Their's not to make reply, 
 
 Their's not to reason why, 
 
 Their's to do and die." 
 
 Pope Pius IX., in an address on the affairs of New Gra- 
 nada, says there should be "no free education, no freedom 
 of worship, no freedom of the press." Such things he stig- 
 matizes as the liberty of perdition. Archbishop Huges' 
 paper, in 1852, declared that "no man had any right to 
 choose his religion." Pius IX. declares that the supposed 
 right to do so "was a monstrous error." Leo XIII. pro- 
 nounces it a " degradation of liberty. ' ' Three hundred years 
 ago the Pope burned Bruno in Rome, because he would not 
 submit to the rule denying him the high right to think and 
 talk. Her treatment of Galileo was because he held to the 
 right to be left alone, in his researches in the great secrets 
 of nature. 
 
 It was no un-Roman declaration made by Pius IX., when 
 he said : "I acknowledge no civil power, I claim to be the 
 supreme judge and director of the consciences of men." 
 Rome has always claimed this high right of conclave over 
 the dictates of conscience. It means the worst type of bond- 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 121 
 
 age the world can possibly know. So far as this teaching 
 pertains among Roman Catholics they are, and must remain, 
 unfit citizens of a free republic. They can never rise to a con- 
 ception of the moral quality of a vote, or understand the 
 responsibility attaching to the administration of public 
 office. Whatever per cent, are of this class are a dangerous 
 element in our citizenship. They will do whatever they are 
 directed to do, and place the responsibility of their acts on 
 the priests, who are as a rule without any sense of political 
 right, feeling of honor, or care for patriotism. 
 
 ROMAN CATHOLIC OPINIONS. 
 
 From Catholic writers, and rulers, we select such state- 
 ments as the following : " The civil laws are binding on the 
 conscience, only so long as they are conformable to the 
 rights of the Catholic Church." 
 
 " Human laws are capable of dispensation. The power 
 to dispense belongs to the sovereign Pontiff." 
 
 1 ' The Pope, as the head and mouthpiece of the Catholic 
 Church, administers its discipline, and issues its orders, to 
 which every Catholic, under pain of sin, must yield obe- 
 dience." 
 
 ' ' No pledge of Catholics is of any value to which Rome 
 is not a party." 
 
 " You must not think as you choose ; you must think as 
 Catholics." 
 
 M Censure not the actions of your superiors, even when 
 they appear to merit censure." 
 
 These are typical sentences of Roman Catholic teaching, 
 which may be taken from high prelates, responsible papers 
 and authoritative books, upon every side. Let intelligent 
 people decide if such teachers can safely be entertained by 
 several million American citizens.- 
 
TO THE HERO PATRIOT OF GERMANY. 
 
 " Safe in this Wartburg tower I stand 
 Where God hath led me by the hand, 
 Safe from the overwhelming blast 
 Of the mouths of hell, that followed me fast, 
 And the howling demons of despair 
 That hunted me to their lair. 
 
 I found 
 A mystery of grief and pain. 
 It was an image of the power 
 Of Satan, hunting the world about, 
 With his nets and traps and well-trained dogs, 
 His bishops and priests and theologues, 
 And all the rest of the rabble rout, 
 Seeking whom he may devour ! 
 
 " Enough have I of hunting hares, 
 The only hunting of any worth 
 Is when I can pierce with javelins 
 The cunning foxes and wolves and bears, 
 The whole iniquitous troop of beasts, 
 The Roman Pope and the Roman priests, 
 That sorely infest and inflict the earth." 
 
Have the highest authori- 
 ties of the Roman Church 
 charged their own popes 
 with gross immoralities ? 
 
 The Council, seeing no other alternative, resolved to 
 depose John for immorality. In the twelfth session his 
 holiness was convicted of schism, heresy, incorrigible- 
 ness, impiety, simony, fornication, incest, adultery, rape, 
 piracy, lying, robbery, murder, perjury and infidelity. 
 
 Action of Council of Constance on John XXIII. 
 
 The Council convicted him of schism, heresy, error, 
 pertinacity, incorrigibility and perjury. 
 
 Action of Coungil of Constance on Benedict VIII 
 
PART IV, 
 
 THE GREAT UPRISING IN GERMANY. 
 
 EOME'S PURSUIT OF LUTHER. 
 
 Max Muller says : " The real history of man is the his- 
 tory of religion." This calm and judicious opinion, is 
 properly witnessed to by the testimony of history itself. 
 The history of the civilizations of the pre-Christian ages is 
 inextricably woven into the history of the Jewish religion. 
 The history of the great Grecian civilization, the most ad- 
 vanced state of civilization produced prior to the Christian 
 era, drew its principal element from theGrecian religion. 
 
 The history of law cannot be read, without reading the 
 history of the Hebrew nation. The annals of science can- 
 not be perused, without taking into account the heart-beats 
 of religion. The great productions of art, and the equal- 
 ly great compositions of music, tell in veins of marble, 
 tones of color, and bars of melody, of the lofty emotions of 
 religion. And the history of political progress in nations, 
 runs parallel with their religious history. 
 (124) 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 125 
 
 WHY THE MIDDLE AGES WERE THE DARK AGES. 
 
 Because of this fact, more than any other, the Middle 
 Ages are called the Dark Ages. During this period there 
 was no advance in any department of progress — except a 
 mere local spurt here and there. There were no great un- 
 derlying religious truths, and impulses, powerfully affect- 
 ing thought and motive and inspiring action and effort. 
 The Middle Ages bore no fruit, because there was no soil 
 of religion. Religious decline always and everywhere 
 means general stagnation. 
 
 This very significant truth, that the history of religious 
 advancement is mostly a corollary of religious history, is 
 intensely showo in the light of the vast German Reforma- 
 tion. This most wonderful movement was at first a general 
 unrest, and then a moral awakening, that speedily swung 
 about into a mighty religious upheaval and political revo- 
 lution, in which the consciences of men, the doctrines of the 
 Bible, and the ferments of religious liberty, on the one hand, 
 and on the other, the dogmatic tyranny and gigantic hypoc- 
 risies of the Papacy, which had gone to seed in wide- spread 
 iniquity, were the elements in congestion. 
 
 A vast amount of history was to be made in a single cen- 
 tury ; but the working forces were almost wholly either re- 
 ligious, or such as bore upon political liberties, which were 
 assuming large proportions. 
 
 NOTORIOUS DEBAUCHERY OF THE CLERGY. 
 
 The condition of the Papal Church was the same as it 
 had been in the preceding century, excepting it was now 
 in a state of desperation. Pride, rapacity and ostentation 
 characterized the lives of the cardinals, bishops and priests. 
 In the lower ranks hardly one in a thousand could be found 
 living a pious and honest life. By the testimony of trust- 
 
126 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 worthy Homan Catholic authority, the nunneries were 
 brothels, rather than retreats from the world and sanctu- 
 aries of religion. One of the most prominent cardinals, in 
 a letter to the Pope, asserts that the feeling of the upright 
 people had grown so strong against the priests, for neglect 
 of their duties, and their notoriously immoral lives, that 
 there was reason to fear that if a reform be not instituted, 
 the whole structure of the Church might be overthrown. 
 
 The whole previous career of the Popes was that of well 
 authenticated debauchery. Papal vices, atrocities and 
 tyrannies had well nigh suspended the last operations of 
 civilization. At one time the Popes were engaged in wars 
 for the sake of power, and pilfering the nations for the sake 
 of gain. At another time they were given to all the show 
 of gorgeous vanity, excelling the worldly display of oriental 
 kings. Still again, they were expending energies and 
 treasures in putting people to death by the most ingenious 
 methods of torture. And still again, they were turning the 
 pontifical palace into a house of revelry and licentiousness, 
 rivaling the Turkish harems. Abandoned women reigned 
 over the throne of the Popes. Such women as Theodora 
 and Marozia, set up and put down Popes at their vile pleas- 
 ure, and elevated to the Papacy their paramours' sons and 
 grandsons. The very slime of vice was attained when, in 
 the twelfth century, Benedict IX., a child brought up in 
 debauchery, was made Pope. He was Pope at twelve years 
 of age, and scandalized even that period of low morals by 
 his immoralities. 
 
 THE POPES CONDEMNED. 
 
 The thirteenth and fourteenth centuries were given to 
 building up the temporal rule of the Popes, so the Papal 
 energies were spent in this effort. In the fifteenth and six- 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 127 
 
 teenth centuries the Papacy again ran into vice and money 
 making. Profligate men sat as Popes. And for a man to 
 be elevated to that position, at once gave him the reputa- 
 tion for being greatly qualified in gross immoralities. Men 
 of thoughtful and moral lives cried mightily against the 
 Papacy itself, and though they were Roman Catholics, they 
 favored the overthrow of the Papal office and all its func- 
 tions. A very respectable emperor of Austria spoke words 
 which fell like a bursting doom upon Europe. In grieving 
 over the treachery of Leo X. he exclaimed: "This Pope, 
 like the rest, is, in my judgment, a scoundrel. Henceforth 
 I can say, that in all my life no Pope has kept his faith or 
 word with me. I hope, if God be willing, that this one will 
 be the last of them." 
 
 The eloquent Savonarola, at Florence, hurled thunder- 
 bolts against the unsupportable vices of Papal Rome. Rome 
 replied to Savonarola with the Inquisition. Dante, the 
 Shakespere of Italy, boldly placed the most powerful of 
 the Popes in hell, and writes of St. Peter delivering severe 
 and crushing judgments upon the Popes. Erasmus, the 
 great scholar of his age, denounced in powerful writings 
 and lectures the lives and follies of Popes and monks, and 
 called for reform. 
 
 BISHOPS AND CAEDINALS EQUALLY C0EEUPT. 
 
 Cardinals and bishops were no better than the Popes. 
 Bold, bad men were in charge of the bishoprics. Boys ten 
 and twelve years of age were made chaplains, and given 
 places of distinction. The cardinals of the Council of Con- 
 stance took a most binding oath, that he among them who 
 should be elected Pope would not dissolve the Council, nor 
 leave Constance, before the Church was thoroughly reformed. 
 Cardinal Colonna, under the title of Martin V., was chosen 
 
128 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 Pope. As soon as the tiara was on his brow, he exclaimed r 
 "The Council is at an end," and the oath of twenty cardi- 
 nals meant nothing. 
 
 Many of the monasteries were no better than low taverns, 
 and the nunneries came to be something far more repulsive. 
 
 The Church could not reform itself. The ambitions of 
 the Papacy were altogether worldly, and those of the priest- 
 hood mostly for pleasure and ease. The powers of the 
 Church were in the keeping of the most infamous of men, 
 who had no desire to improve religion, nor know how. As 
 fast as true leaders arose to effect reform, they were led to 
 the fire, or were cast into prison. The policy of the Papacy 
 towards those who raised a hand, or uttered a word, against 
 its power, was persecution. 
 
 What a departure there was in the Roman Church, from 
 that of the early Church of Christ ! In those early centuries 
 the Church was a society of believers upon equality, and 
 enjoying each other's support and sympathy. In the six- 
 teenth century the Roman Church was an absolute mon- 
 archy, of the most tyrannical type, with the people cowed 
 into submission. In the early days of the Church salvation 
 by faith was lovingly held. By the sixteenth century 
 Rome had turned salvation over to the keeping of the 
 priests, who told the people to ''renounce all comforts, and 
 fall down before their priests, and implore for intercession 
 and forgiveness." It was taught that life was not long 
 enough to enable man to expiate by works, pilgrimages and 
 penances, his sins ; but he could do so in purgatory, where 
 he could be helped by paying money in certain sums. 
 
 THE EEASON AND EVIL OF PILGEIMAGES. 
 
 At the beginning of the fourteenth century the pilgrim- 
 ages to Rome began. The Pope decreed that once in a 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 129 
 
 hundred years such a pilgrimage should be made to Kome ; 
 and all who presented themselves in the pontifical city 
 would receive full pardon for all past sins. The pilgrims 
 reached the enormous number of two hundred thousand in 
 a single month. Vast fortunes were left with the Pope. 
 It was the greatest money-getting scheme the Papacy had 
 yet devised. The temptation was too great for the Popes 
 to be satisfied with one pilgrimage in a hundred years. 
 Their avarice finally fixed the pilgrimage for every fifty 
 years, then for every thirty-three, and then for every twenty- 
 five ; and then at last appointed a large number of certain 
 centers throughout Europe, where the pilgrimages could be 
 made. 
 
 BUYING HIS WAY TO THE PONTIFICAL CHAIE. 
 
 With the increase of wealth, Papal vice and crime grew 
 amazingly, until the view was rapidly spreading among 
 thinking people that the Vatican was a great metropolitan 
 brothel. The notorious Rodrigo Borgia, cardinal and arch- 
 bishop, was living at Rome in illicit relations with a Roman 
 woman, and then with her daughter, by whom he had five 
 children. He was living with the abandoned Rosa Vanoz- 
 za, when the pontifical throne became vacant by the death 
 of Innocent VIII. He began to purchase the votes of the 
 cardinals, and succeeded in bribing enough to make him 
 Pope. Four mules loaded with silver were unloaded at the 
 palace of Sforza, where lived the most powerful of the cardi- 
 nals. This Pope was the outrageous Alexander I., who the 
 day of his coronation made his dissolute son an archbishop, 
 and held festivities in the Vatican, which reminds us of the 
 Babylonian revelries of the day of Belshazzar. The cele- 
 brated Infessura says, that during the reign of this Pope, 
 
130 THE BOMAN PAPACY. 
 
 "most of the ecclesiastics had their mistresses, and all the 
 convents of the capital were houses of ill-fame." This was 
 a Catholic writer. A Protestant writer, D' Aubigne, draws 
 this picture of this reign : " Nightly assassinations took 
 place in the streets of Rome. Poison often destroyed those 
 whom the dagger could not reach. Every one feared to 
 move or breathe, lest he should be the next victim. The 
 spot on earth where all iniquity met and overflowed was 
 the Pontiff's seat. The dissolute entertainments given by 
 the Pope, and his daughter Lucrezia, are such as can neith- 
 er be described nor thought of. The most impure groves 
 of ancient worship saw not the like." 
 
 A GAME AT POISON. 
 
 This Pope became tired of a wealthy cardinal. He had pre- 
 pared a delicate poison, which was put in some sweetmeats 
 and placed on the table after a feast. The cardinal having 
 a hint of what awaited him, bribed over the attendant, had 
 the plate of poison delicacy exchanged, and placed in front 
 of the Pope. He ate and perished. 
 
 And so the vice, crime, evil and corruption spread wider 
 and grew deeper. The corruption of morals ran parallel 
 with the corruption of the faith. 
 
 Political reformers had tried to weaken the power of 
 Home, and clear her political atmosphere at least. The 
 Austrian ruler had tried it and failed. The House of Ho- 
 henstaufen, imperial family of Germany, and heroes every 
 one of them, sought to deliver the empire from the Papal 
 bondage. Henry IV. had thrown all his courage, power and 
 patriotism into the struggle, to humiliate Eome and save 
 Germany the humiliation of a vassalage to the profligate 
 Popes. He bent every energy, taxed every resource, ex- 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 13 1 
 
 liausted every means, and at last was compelled to bear the 
 most shameful humiliation to which ruler was ever driven 
 by the Papacy. In the trenches of the Italian castle of 
 Canossa, in mid-winter, bare foot, with loose garment 
 about him, upon his knees, he spent three days and nights, 
 imploring the forgiveness of the Pope. 
 
 PAPAL INFLUENCE A FACT IN THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 If we want to know the power of this Papal influence, 
 which is only too supreme in the United States, we see it 
 in such revelations as we have here. If we want to know 
 what the character of the Papacy has been, we have it here. 
 That tyranny which knows not how to relent ; that cruelty 
 Avhich knows only the savor of malice ; that bigotry which 
 has given no voluntary instance of tolerance; that vice 
 which has produced the most profligate excesses ; that crime 
 which has shown no disposition to be checked — these are 
 to be found in the old historic Papacy. It is unchanged 
 in heart. Give the Papal population in our country that 
 majority it once had in Germany, and we would have the 
 same moral and political disorders. Papal influence will 
 continue to corrupt law and imperil institutions in our day, 
 as it has in the past. The greatest corrupting influences 
 in America to-day are traceable to the Papal forces at work 
 in our midst. 
 
 Up to the sixteenth century Rome had kept a fairly strong 
 control of the nations, through their fear of her. In the 
 prosecution of this policy the Reformed Bohemians had 
 been well nigh exterminated. In the river, in the fire, by 
 the sword, thousands fell. While thousands more were 
 thrown into the old mines of Kuttenberg. In one pit 
 were thrown seventeen hundred ; in another thirteen 
 
132 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 hundred and eight, and in a third thirteen hundred and 
 twenty-one. So it need not appear strange to us, that there 
 were so few to cry out against the evils which had ripened 
 in the nursing arms of the Papacy, when we remember that 
 the weak were frightened and the brave were killed. 
 
 THE ADVENT OF A LEADEE. 
 
 But Germany was getting tired of this great fraud, with 
 headquarters on the Tiber. The nation had been humbled 
 so often, and so shameful had been the treatment extended 
 to her, that the day for resistance had come, and there was 
 to be a reckoning which Rome would not like. The six- 
 teenth century was fairly started on its eventful career, 
 when from the ranks of the common people a leader came 
 to the front, who was to usher in the mightiest moral and 
 political reformation the world had known, and become 
 himself one of the most monumental men of all the centur- 
 ies. That man was Martin Luther, the miner's son. 
 
 Carlyle 1 s estimate of Luther is no less true to history, 
 than it is matchless in elegance : " I will call Luther a true, 
 great man — great in intellect, in courage, in affection, and 
 integrity ; one of our most lovable and precious men. Hero 
 and prophet, a true son of nature and fact, for whom 
 these centuries, and many that are yet to come, will be 
 thankful to heaven." 
 
 HOW GEEAT MEN AEE LINKED TOGETHEE. 
 
 Martin Luther came in natural descent from John Wyclif 
 and John Huss. The " Morning Star of the Reformation," 
 which rose in England, and grew into the full dawn of the 
 Bohemian Reformation, helped to bring forth the day, 
 with all the golden light of its growing promise. The view 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 133 
 
 is a most glorious one. The hand of John Huss took the 
 torch of the Reformation from the hand of Wyclif, and 
 reaching forward one hundred years, placed it in the hand, 
 of Luther. We read in the Bible about mountain speaking 
 unto mountain, and hill calling to hill. Elevated on the 
 moral heights of big ideas, lofty notions, and courageous 
 purposes, sanctified of God, great men, renowned in the 
 affairs of moral truths, and conversant with noble princi- 
 ples, though they may be separated by continents, and re- 
 moved from each other by generations, call to one another. 
 They salute each other with the salutations of their com- 
 mon work and suffering. They stand linked to each other 
 like a chain of unbroken parts. The distance in time, be- 
 tween Augustine and Wyclif, was nine centuries, but in 
 similarity of views, and in the communion of the same great 
 truths, they were near neighbors. The teachings of Wyclif 
 traveled fifty years in time, and a thousand miles in dis- 
 tance, to reach Huss. But the heart of Wyclif is hardly 
 hushed in death, ere that of Huss has caught the same in- 
 spiration and zeal for the truth of God, and the deep pur- 
 pose to make the Bible the guide in life and thought. 
 
 The dark, impure and stormy ocean of European politics 
 sweeps angrily between Huss and Luther, but over this wild 
 water they grasp each other by the hand. Luther calls to 
 Calvin, and Calvin's arm is interlocked in that of John 
 Knox; so those who are schooled in the knowledge of God, 
 eminent in piety of heart, and heroic in the pursuit of 
 settled purposes, keep the lights lit on the upper heights, 
 as they call to each other to bring on the world. 
 
 GREATNESS CRADLED BY POVERTY. 
 
 As we step into the seething, troubled sixteenth century, 
 we see a man who is the child of Providence, and is, in a 
 
134 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 peculiar sense, under the protectorate of heaven. The 
 Bible somewhere propounds this question, " Hath not God 
 chosen the poor of this world ?" The eminent of earth, if 
 they are the chosen of God, are most frequently fostered in 
 want, and schooled under daily hunger. Zwingli came 
 from a shepherd's hut; Malancthon, from an armorer's 
 work shop ; Luther from a miner's cottage ; Calvin from an 
 humble French village home. Whitefield learned to preach 
 while he was scrubbing the kitchen floors of an English Inn. 
 Livingstone was trained for a missionary life in a cotton 
 mill, at sixty cents a week. Near the little village of Eisie- 
 ben, was the great Thuringian forest, in which the boy, 
 Martin Luther, gathered his bundles of wood, and carried 
 them through the village to sell ; and from such a life went 
 forth the one who was destined to recast vital Christianity. 
 While a school boy, often pressed with hunger, he sang in 
 the streets to earn a morsel of black bread. And often he 
 was denied even a morsel, and sought his humble lodgings 
 weakened by hunger and overwhelmed by sorrow. And 
 yet that hungry German school boy is appointed of God to 
 strike a light, the brightness of which shall never dim, and 
 the glory of which shall never fade. Yerily, u God hath 
 chosen the weak things to confound the mighty." 
 
 It was during these school days that Luther had a lesson 
 in confidence in God, which stood him well in hand during 
 the later severe trials and persecutions of his life. One day, 
 while seeking hard to supply his hunger, he was repulsed 
 from three houses. Weak and discouraged, he was about 
 to retire to his room to fast, when, in a moment of absent- 
 mindedness, he paused in front of a house, and bent his 
 head in sad reflections. Must he, for want of food, throw 
 up his studies, and change the whole desires of his life, and 
 go with his father into the mines of Mansfield % Suddenly 
 a door opens in front of him, and the wife of the house 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 135 
 
 stands on the step. She had seen the young man in the 
 religious assemblies, and his manner of earnest devotion 
 had made an impression on her which had been remembered. 
 She had known something of the sorrow and want of the 
 poor youth, who was so anxious to procure an advanced 
 education. She beckoned him to enter, and graciously sup- 
 plied his immediate wants. In a very few days the family 
 took him into their own home, with all its comforts and 
 plenty, and shared them with him. In the moment when 
 he greatly feared his next step would be homeward bent, 
 God opened for him a Christian home. And thus his con- 
 fidence in God was established in a way that the thunder of 
 the Pope's anger, the threat of the emperor, or the cunning 
 and crafty plans of men to destroy him, could never shake. 
 It was a little incident with a big result, affecting not only 
 his own life, but as well the entire course of the Reforma- 
 tion movement throughout Europe, and remotely, the des- 
 tiny of whole nations. It may well be thought that this 
 instance of apparent Providence had a great deal to do with 
 the composition of that most remarkable of the Reforma- 
 tion hymns, Luther's great "Einfeste burg ist unser Gott" 
 — u A safe stronghold our God is still." Most noticeable 
 in this hymn is the majestic breathing of calm, abiding 
 trust in God. And this was the very spirit of the German 
 Reformation. 
 
 Many years after this incident in the life of Luther, in 
 memory of that Christian woman's kindness, in giving him 
 bread when he sorely hungered, and others denied him a 
 morsel, he spoke that memorable saying : ' ' There is noth- 
 ing sweeter than the heart of a pious woman." 
 
 TWENTY YEARS OLD BEFORE HE SAW A BIBLE. 
 
 It appears that Luther was twenty years old before he 
 saw a copy of the Bible. And so rare was this book every- 
 
136 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 where, until the Protestant awakening forced Rome to allow 
 it to be read by the people. The Bible conduces to civil 
 and religious freedom, and hence Rome has never been the 
 friend of the Bible. Luther had been at the university of 
 Urfurth two years, when one day he was examining some 
 books in the library and he came upon a Bible. He was 
 strangely moved. He read the title. He was filled with a 
 strange emotion as his eye lingered on the history of Sam- 
 uel. He read it hurriedly, with pleasure and joy. All he 
 knew of the Bible was a knowledge of the fragments read 
 by the priests on Sundays in the places of worship. He 
 had often wished in his heart that the good Lord would 
 some day give him such a book. 
 
 During the time he spent at the university he had never 
 heard a gospel sermon or lecture. This discovery of a Bible 
 was like a cool, refreshing draught of water. He felt a 
 transport of pleasure in his communion with this Latin 
 Bible. And the " Reformation lay hid in that Bible. " 
 Luther is to take his stand on it. He will refer every ques- 
 tion, which comes to him for solution, to it, for settlement. 
 
 Within four years of this time he was giving daily lec- 
 tures on the Bible. Out of it he built up a system of faith, 
 principles of life, and theory of free salvation. In his hands 
 the Bible was a text book of patriotism and good govern- 
 ment. Luther was beginning to do for Germany, what 
 Huss had lost his life for doing for Bohemia. 
 
 Then came a journey to Rome. Some difficulty had arisen 
 in one of the monastic orders, and he had been deputized 
 to Rome to settle it. On his way to the Papal capital, he 
 lodges in a convent in Lombardy. He is amazed at the 
 magnificence of the apartments, the richness of the dresses, 
 and the delicacy of the viands. Marble, silk and luxury 
 all about him, and his heart sinks. 
 
THE ROM AX PAPACY. 137 
 
 BUFFOONERY IN THE POPE'S PALACE. 
 
 In Rome he is startled at the profane and heartless way 
 in which the sacraments are celebrated, and at the jokes 
 and buffoonery of the prelates ; while he was profoundly 
 shocked at the evident hypocrisy displayed at the mass. 
 He listened to abominations, profanities and blasphemies 
 he had never dreamed possible with any class. He says : 
 " It is incredible what sins and atrocities are committed in 
 Rome." The excessive corruption of the Papal society 
 must have been so general and obtrusive, as to convince 
 him of the fundamental evil of the Papacy. "If there be 
 a hell," he writes, u Rome is built above it ; it is an abyss, 
 from whence all sins proceed." 
 
 One day, while in Rome, he ascends Pilate's stairway, 
 on his knees, as was the custom. But his thoughts were 
 on the light he had received out of the Bible. Suddenly a 
 voice seemed to say to him : " The just shall live by faith." 
 He sprang to his feet, and fled from the place of such folly. 
 So his visit at Rome is over. But it was providential, for 
 Luther's eyes are open, and henceforth he thinks of Rome, 
 not as the holy seat of the universal religion of the Lord on 
 earth ; but he will remember it as the very pest house of all 
 that was vile and bigoted. 
 
 He went to Rome to seek a solution of some monastic 
 question ; he returned with that feeling of loathing for 
 Rome in his heart, which should henceforth prompt him to 
 work to emancipate Christianity from the rule of the 
 Papacy. The light was in him when he went to Rome ; it 
 was ready to blaze forth when he returned. His heart was 
 right before ; now his conscience was aroused. 
 
 Shortly after this the Pope opened in Germany the great 
 market for the sale of indulgences. This merchandise was 
 
138 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 simply a traffic in sins. The people believed that as soon 
 as their money was given they were certain of forgiveness, 
 and by the same means they could deliver the souls of their 
 dead friends from the fires of purgatory. A separate sec- 
 tion of this book will be devoted to this most stupendous 
 fraud of the Papacy. We are concerned now with Luther's 
 relation to the evil, and Rome's persecution of him. 
 
 luthee' s great vow. 
 
 When he first heard of the work of the auctioneer of 
 these indulgences in Germany, he exclaimed: "God will- 
 ing, I will make a hole in his drum." He did. One day 
 a number of persons came to him to confess their sins. 
 They confessed to the grossest vices, and the most enormous 
 crimes. He rebuked and instructed them. His astonish- 
 ment increased when they declared that they did not intend 
 to abandon any of their sins, and boldly produced their 
 certificates of pardon, which they had received for money 
 paid. Luther at once went into the pulpit, and delivered 
 a powerful sermon. It was circulated throughout the em- 
 pire. It brought on a storm. It was while that storm was 
 brewing that Luther determined upon a bold thing. 
 
 HIS GREAT INDICTMENT. 
 
 He determined to cast himself into the conflict, and stand 
 between the people and the shameful impositions practiced 
 upon them under the sanction of the Pope. He threw the 
 guage of battle down, when on the memorable evening of 
 October 31st, 1517, he went to the cathedral door at Wittem- 
 berg and nailed to the panel, ninety-five arguments against 
 the sale of indulgences, which was practically an impeach- 
 ment of the Papal authority. He denied the power of the 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 139 
 
 Pope to pardon any sin, or to deputize any one else to do 
 so. He assailed the popular idea that the Pope had any 
 power over purgatory. He accused the venders of the in- 
 dulgences of being engaged in an impudent and blasphe- 
 mous work. In these great arguments he makes public 
 statement of justification by faith, which truth was the 
 very spring of the Reformation in Germany. 
 
 THE COMING OF THE AVALANCHE. 
 
 Now the war had to come, and come with all the malice 
 and power of Rome. From the Pope down to the monks, 
 the whole hierarchy was struck damb by this bold, unex- 
 pected act committed by one who the leaders of the Papacy 
 had scarcely yet heard of. Germany was thrilled. Europe 
 stood still, and wondered. Men asked what it meant. The 
 more thoughtful classes were in sympathy with the theses 
 of Luther. Those were copied, and circulated with great 
 rapidity throughout Europe, and the most stupendous mor- 
 al struggle the world ever saw was begun. Central Europe 
 was about to be swept down upon with a terrible avalanche. 
 
 It was one of the instructive lessons of history, most im- 
 pressively taught, but one which we are slow to be admon- 
 ished by, that a suffering people will long permit an organ- 
 ized evil to oppress them ; but when endurance has reached 
 its end, tyrants will be shown no mercy. The Papal pow- 
 er, which so greatly oppressed the German people, is push- 
 ing to desperation fifty millions of Americans. If the Pope 
 will thrust his unwelcome rule upon this country, he must 
 expect to take the settlement some day. It may be de- 
 layed ; it cannot be prevented. And when that settlement 
 comes, the Papacy will find she has received the greatest 
 blow she has had this century. 
 
140 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 Luther followed up the attack he nailed to the cathedral 
 door with eloquent addresses issued to the German people. 
 Within a year he became the hero of the nation. The stu- 
 dents to whom he lectured at Wittemberg increased from a 
 little over two hundred to almost six hundred. He appealed 
 to the country. He plead for national self-respect. He 
 urged the people to be independent and demand their 
 rights, and no longer be subjugated to the Pope. u Why 
 should three hundred thousand florins be sent every year 
 from Germany to Rome % " Luther was exercising the right 
 of freedom of action, and teaching the nation freedom in 
 political and religious thought. This was a course Rome has 
 never quietly withstood. 
 
 The Pope promptly responded by excommunicating Lu- 
 ther. The people replied to the Pope by burning the ex- 
 communication. The Pope was incensed as well as grieved, 
 and with great assumption of authority called upon the 
 German Emperor to settle the matter and punish Luther. 
 Events of most stupendous meaning were moving fast, The 
 emperor would soon be asked to call a Diet, or ecclesiastical 
 court, at the city of Worms. Luther would be summoned 
 to Rome, but the Pope would not be able to persuade any 
 of the German princes to admit of this. In the Pope's 
 order to the emperor he directed that if Luther " should 
 persist in his subbornness, and you fail to get possession of 
 his person, we give you power to proscribe him in all places 
 in Germany ; to put away and excommunicate all those 
 who are attached to him, and to enjoin all Christians to 
 shun their society." 
 
 THE POPE CAN DEPRIVE ROMAN CATHOLICS OF PROPERTY. 
 
 The order of persecution went on in still greater vicious- 
 ness. If the laity do not obey " your orders, without de- 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 141 
 
 lay, or demur, we declare them reprobate, unable to per- 
 form any lawful act, disentitled to Christian burial, and 
 deprived of all fiefs which they may hold, from any law 
 whatever." 
 
 So spoke the Roman despot, in his written directions to 
 Germany to proceed against Luther. It would be very hard 
 to find an instance of greater presumption, or more excessive 
 malice, than here displayed by the Pope. And yet the 
 arrogance, bigotry and maliciousness displayed are no 
 greater than belong to the Papal regime of all time. 
 
 Already Luther had written a letter to Pope Leo X., 
 whom he thought directed by a spirit of love and justice. 
 In this letter he expressed his surprise that he should be 
 overwhelmed with such reproachful names as heretic, apos- 
 tate and traitor, because he had stood for a pure Church 
 and withstood the avarice of the priests. He further de- 
 clared that he could not retract what he had said and done 
 out of a pure and quiet conscience. He petitions the Pope 
 to instruct him, and command him ; and closed the letter 
 with the reflection that if he deserved death, he would not 
 refuse to die. 
 
 THE PLOT TO TEY HIM IN EOME. 
 
 • 
 
 The only effect was that Luther was summoned to Rome, 
 within sixty days to appear, and submit to trial before a 
 Papal court, at the head of which the Pope had placed the 
 reformer's bitter enemy, Piarias. All Wittemberg was in 
 consternation over the summons to Rome. If Luther went 
 he would be in the power of his enemies ; if he declined to 
 go he would be condemned for contumacy. The Pope had 
 given order for the emperor and princess to be excited 
 against Luther. So whichever way he turned he was to be 
 
142 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 crushed. Influential friends, and the elector, and members 
 of the university, wrote letters using their influence against 
 the plan of the Pope to take Luther to Rome. Finally the 
 Pope's legate received orders to try him in Germany, and 
 * c to prosecute and reduce him to submission without delay. ' ' 
 
 During these events the young Melancthon came to Wit- 
 temberg. He was the most learned man in the nation, and 
 was to become a mighty power among the intellectual classes. 
 All his attainments were savored with the sweet spirit of 
 the Gospel. He gave Luther great help in his work of 
 translating the Bible. Their friendship became fast and 
 memorable. The work of rendering the Scriptures in the 
 German language was going rapidly on, when one day, the 
 order came for Luther to appear before the legate of the 
 Pope at Augsberg. 
 
 ]STow the storm was beating over his head, and was to 
 grow in bitterness and wrath. He had at last to deal with 
 a prince of the Church, who had received final powers to 
 go to the utmost to exterminate this man, who had pro- 
 ceeded to search the Scriptures without the assent of Rome. 
 This natural disposition of a bright mind to think without 
 asking permission of any man, and the equally natural dis- 
 position to express the honest thoughts about the Bible, 
 Rome never has permitted, where she had the power to 
 prevent it. To think independently of Rome has always 
 T)een considered a grievous crime. 
 
 THE DANGEKS WHICH BESET LUTHER. 
 
 Luther's friends besought him not to set forth for Augs- 
 berg. The danger was too great. Many wanted to conceal 
 him, lest his life be lost. A pious monk — there were a few 
 such — offered to give him a safe hiding place, so long as he 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 143 
 
 should live. Upon every side came warning. The Count 
 of Mansfeld sent to advise him not to undertake the jour- 
 ney to Augsberg, as a number of powerful nobles had bound 
 themselves by oath to seize and strangle, or drown him. 
 Eut with a spirit intrepid, and a heart full of faith, Luther 
 proposed to obey the summons. He set out on foot, all 
 alone, and having no safe-conduct, except letters from the 
 elector to several counselors at Augsberg. On the way he 
 was warned, and by not a few importuned to return, and 
 save himself the danger of imprisonment, which all felt 
 was awaiting him, as the mildest of the several probable 
 perils which lay in his path. 
 
 THE CUESE OF FOEEIGN EULE. 
 
 At Weimer a friend said to him: "My brother, you 
 have to meet Italians at Augsberg. They will cast you into 
 the fire, and the flames will consume you." From Nurem- 
 berg some friends accompanied him, as an escort to Augs- 
 berg. He entered the town in safety, informed the legate 
 of his presence, and awaited his orders. The cunning le- 
 gate sent a crafty Italian diplomat to make it easy for him 
 to retract. He found that Luther was not made of the 
 ordinary material, of most of those who were brought up for 
 holding opinions which Rome had not formally approved. 
 Finding that the reformer was settled in his position, he in- 
 structed him how he should appear before the legate. His 
 instructions show the infamous despotism and pride of the 
 Roman courts. He said to Luther: "When you enter the 
 room where he is sitting, you must prostrate yourself with 
 your face to the ground; when he tells you to rise, you 
 must kneel before him, and you must not stand erect until 
 he orders you to do so. Remember that it is before a prince 
 of the Church that you are about to appear." 
 
144 THE ROMAN PAPACY, 
 
 The messenger from the legate tried to induce Luther to 
 attend upon the cardinal forthwith. But the elector's 
 friends would not consent for him to go until he had been 
 furnished with a safe-conduct from the emperor. The fol- 
 lowing day was Sunday. The messenger from the cardinal 
 came again and said : " The cardinal sends you assurances 
 of grace and favor. Why are you afraid ?" In every pos- 
 sible way he sought to persuade him. But he was resolute. 
 On Monday morning the legate's agent again appeared, 
 and finding it useless to proceed further became irritated, 
 and hinted at what Luther might expect. " When all for- 
 sake you, where will you take refuge?" Luther smiled, 
 and looking upwards replied : ' ' Under heaven. ' ' Presently 
 the safe-conduct was placed in his hands ; and yet Luther 
 could not help but remember that a safe-conduct from the 
 emperor did not save Huss from the fire. 
 
 The cardinal legate called a conference before Luther ap- 
 peared before him, to consult on the best way to deal with 
 the German monk. One was for compelling him to retract^ 
 another wanted to throw him into prison, another wanted 
 to take his life, and one thought it best to try to win him 
 over to think as they had orders from the Pope to make 
 him think. 
 
 When the reformer appeared in the room of the legate's 
 court, it was crowded with Italians, who were expecting an 
 easy time of it, and were on hand to see the discomfiture of 
 Luther. They thought he would at once fall before the 
 Pope's deputy and recant all. The legate demanded a re- 
 traction on two propositions, which covered Luther's at- 
 tack on the Papacy. Luther had said that the ''indul- 
 gences did not consist of the merits and sufferings of Christ," 
 and that the "man who received the holy sacrament must 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 145 
 
 have in him the grace offered to him." These were heavy 
 blows, and it was decided that Luther must recall them. 
 He promptly declined, declaring that he could not go con- 
 trary to his faith and conscience. The first meeting was a 
 failure. The next day the legate said : " Retract ; such is 
 the Pope's will. Whether it be your will or not, matters 
 little." The next day Luther presented a final answer in 
 writing. The legate threw it on the floor, and exclaimed : 
 " Retract, or I will send you to Rome. Do you imagine 
 that the Pope can fear Germany ? The Pope's little finger 
 is stronger than all the princes of Germany." 
 
 The legate finally agreed not to press Luther on the ques- 
 tion of faith, if he would only withdraw his opposition to 
 the indulgences. Upon which, one of the high dignitaries 
 standing by said, that it was "evident that Rome attaches 
 more importance to money than to our holy faith and to the 
 salvation of souls." 
 
 Luther had spent about a week in Augsburg, and all to 
 no purpose. He was neither acquitted, nor yet condemned. 
 The legate would not see him again, nor reply to his letters. 
 The reformer was now to leave. He once more wrote a let- 
 ter to the legate, apprising him of his departure, and con- 
 taining the characteristic sentence : " I have committed no 
 crime ; I ought therefore to have no fear." He also wrote 
 an appeal to the Pope, and left it in the charge of friends 
 to be posted on the door of the cathedral. This was done. 
 
 Luther went direct to Wittemberg. The legate wrote a, 
 letter to the elector, and poured out his complaint against 
 him because he befriended the reformer. Luther wrote the 
 elector that he would go into exile to save him from un- 
 pleasant complications with the Papacy, and for his own 
 personal safety. 
 
146 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 AM" ADDITIONAL BLOW TO THE PAPACY. 
 
 Things made another turn, and Luther took an appeal to 
 a general council. This was an additional blow to the 
 Papacy. Pope Pius II. had pronounced excommunication 
 against any one, though he be the emperor, who should so 
 impugn the supreme authority of the Pope. The general 
 feeling of the German people so endorsed the position of 
 Luther that the Pope became alarmed, and suddenly made 
 overtures for reconciliation. Rome always so acts when 
 she wants to allay popular indignation and mistrust. She 
 is playing that card in the United States at present. And 
 as Rome plays this act of high deception it is difficult to 
 tell, whether her spirit of hypocrisy, or ways of sophistry, 
 excel. 
 
 h In carrying out his attempt at reconciliation, the Pope 
 dispatched a special nuncio to Germany. Along the tedious, 
 and to Luther disgusting, road of praise, flattery and per- 
 suasion of a mild retraction, he argued. The net was set 
 with a skillful hand. 
 
 Luther graciously replied that he was willing to admit 
 he may have been a little too violent. " Yes, I am willing 
 to do everything, and bear everything ; but as to a retrac- 
 tion, don't expect it from me." 
 
 Whilst these fruitless efforts at conciliation were going 
 on, Luther was boldly advancing to a step, which he did 
 not foresee himself. The cause of truth was moving up, 
 with a growing power that was sweeping him on farther 
 than he knew. His sermons at Wittemberg, and as well 
 his lectures, were heard by immense multitudes. The most 
 distinguished young men of the empire nocked the univer- 
 sity. Luther wrote to a friend : " Our city can scarce hold 
 the numbers that are coming. The students increase upon 
 us like the overwhelming tide." 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 147 
 
 His writings were no less rapidly spreading. In the low 
 countries they were read with eagerness, as they awakened 
 emotions and created agitation. Six hundred copies went 
 to France and Spain. They were sold openly in Paris, the 
 faculty of the great university reading them with interest 
 and considerable sympathy. They were read in England 
 with far greater eagerness. A large quantity was conveyed 
 into Italy, and was put into quiet circulation about the 
 Vatican. Many of the literary men of Italy were soon cir- 
 culating tributary epistles. The [Reformation had an in- 
 dependent start in Switzerland ; but in all other countries 
 of the continent of Europe, Luther's writings make the first 
 page of the sixteenth century Eeformation. 
 
 Presently a new advocate of the Papacy arose. He ex- 
 pected to enlarge his own glory by derailing Luther. This 
 was the low and bigoted Eck, a doctor in the university of 
 Ingolsladt. He began by circulating a lengthy argument, 
 full of the most untruthful statements of history and fact. 
 Luther could not be quiet. Rome had opened the battle 
 herself. He had but to reply. The subject now turned 
 upon the question of the Pope's primacy. Luther had 
 routed Rome in his charge of priestly corruption, and the 
 iniquities at the Vatican, and on the indulgences and her un- 
 Biblical doctrines of faith. Now Rome opens the way to 
 be defeated on the discussion of her primacy. Luther took 
 the stand that the temporal primacy was not established 
 until the eleventh century. 
 
 Persecution opened its fire along the whole line of Rome's 
 fortifications. The Pope scolded, the bishops fumed, the 
 
148 THE ROMAX PAPACY. 
 
 priests calumniated, as they always do. In the Campas 
 Floralis, at Rome, Martin Luther was burned in effigy. A 
 public discussion was to be held at Leipsic, and Luther 
 greatly desired to take a hand. But the reigning prince 
 would only allow him to be present as a spectator. The 
 local bishop was afraid that the cause of the Papacy would 
 be much injured by this free inquiry, and as the reformers, 
 Luther, Melancthon and Carlstadt (who were to debate with 
 Eck), entered the city, accompanied by a couple hundred of 
 the Wittemberg students, he caused an order to be posted 
 on the churches prohibiting the discussion, on pain of ex- 
 communication. This is a customary spirit for Roine to 
 show towards free speech. Had the Pope the power he 
 would prohibit every attempted patriotic lecture in America. 
 Home knows that a policy of toleration of free speech would 
 be destructive to her. 
 
 The reigning prince, Duke George of Saxony, had just 
 entered the city, with all his court. Indignant at the au- 
 dacity of the bishop, he ordered the city council to tear 
 down the notice, and imprison the bishop' s agent. 
 
 At the last moment the duke consented for Luther to be 
 Eck' s principal antagonist. A large apartment in the roy- 
 al palace had been prepared for the debate. It lasted twen- 
 ty days, and was one of the most noted contests of the age. 
 The general subject was the liberty attaching to free moral 
 agency. This involved the primal authority of the Pope 
 overman's free agency in investigating truth and determin- 
 ing his own moral actions. Eck declared that the Roman 
 Church was a monarchy, wherein everything ascends 
 through the hierarchy to its head, the Pope, who held his 
 authority direct from Christ through Peter. The debate 
 had a great effect on many in high places, and especially 
 did it work like a leaven among the students of the uni- 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 149 
 
 versity, whose head men were engaged in the debate. Luth- 
 er came out with great triumph for his Reformation views. 
 
 rome's influence in elections. 
 
 Now comes another turn. The German Emperor dies, 
 and there are three claimants for the crown. The king of 
 England withdraws, the king of France is rejected, and the 
 hereditary Prince Charles, grandson of the late emperor, is 
 chosen by the Diet at Frankfort. The Pope had a hand in 
 this to be sure, and his emissaries were present, seeking to 
 shape things as most satisfactory to the Papacy. In elec- 
 tions of kings and presidents in all the last ten centuries, 
 Rome has played a hand wherever she saw an opening. 
 The influence of Rome, in the elections in the United States, 
 is all potent, and not for any good. Charles was already 
 King of Spain, Naples and Sicily, and laid claim to the 
 American continent, through the discovery of a Spanish 
 subject. 
 
 The stormy clouds again lower about Luther. The lower 
 classes were urged to persecute. The universities of Lor- 
 raine and Cologne condemned his works. The priests of 
 Meissen openly announced, that whosoever should kill 
 Luther would be without sin. Men carried weapons to slay 
 him. A high ecclesiastic wrote the elector of Saxony that 
 he should be stoned everywhere in open day. German 
 agents of the Papacy kept up a continuous regime of in- 
 trigue. 
 
 A TRUTHFUL BUT TERRIBLE CHARGE. 
 
 Luther said, in the summer of 1520, that the time to be 
 silent was past, and published an appeal, destined to be 
 celebrated. It was addressed to the emperor and nobles. 
 In this he charged that the Papacy was on the side of hell, 
 
150 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 as it made the Pope's power superior to all else, and be- 
 cause it had fallen into such evil as to make it a stench in 
 the nostrils of the nations. This appeal spread through 
 Germany with marvelous rapidity. His friends trembled, 
 his foes fumed, the Pope stood aghast. The idea became 
 wide spread that the Pope was anti-Christ. Rome must 
 now hurl her most terrible judgments. The condemnation 
 of Luther was determined upon. 
 
 The Pope issued his bull condemning to the flames all 
 his writings, and directing him to recant in sixty days, or 
 appear in Rome in person ; and if he did not obey within 
 the stipulated time, himself and all his partisans were to 
 be seized, and sent to Rome. What a grist that would 
 have been for the mill of the Roman dungeons to be sure. 
 When Luther was made acquainted with the bull of the 
 Pope, he exclaimed : "Now I know that the Pope is anti- 
 Christ, and his chair is that of Satan." 
 
 He writes a letter to the Pope, in which he charges that 
 the corruption of the Papal court is greater than that of 
 Sodom and Gomorrah, that it exceeded that of the Turks in 
 vice and profligacy, and that there was no hope of curing its 
 impiety. 
 
 The Pope's nuncio demanded an audience of the elector 
 of Saxony, and required two things of him in the name of 
 Rome; first, that he cause Luther's works to be burned, 
 and second, that he deliver the reformer himself up a pris- 
 oner to the Pope. 
 
 Luther alone remained unmoved. He imposed his trust 
 in a high power. 
 
 He saw that the crisis was at hand. A great Diet of the 
 German states was called to convene at Worms. The prin- 
 cipal topic was to be the Reformation, or the case of Luther. 
 The Pope's nuncio delivered an address before the Diet,, 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 151 
 
 which lasted three hours, and had the effect of inflaming 
 the members, so that a majority of the princes were ready to 
 sacrifice Luther. The general feeling was that he should be 
 delivered up to the Pope, or be put to death. The Emper- 
 or agreed to cite him to appear before the Diet, but deny 
 him a safe-conduct. Had this purpose been carried out, 
 Luther would have had the fate of Huss and Jerome. But 
 the princes, fearing a general uprising of the people, which 
 would sweep everything before it, prevailed upon the em- 
 peror to provide a safe-conduct. 
 
 While things were thus proceeding, Rome suddenly re- 
 sounded with the solemn excommunication, and Luther 
 was cursed by the Pope. At once the pulpits of the Fran- 
 ciscan and Dominican monks rang with imprecations and 
 maledictions, furious and vicious. 
 
 LUTHER IN THE HOUR OF THE CRISIS. 
 
 Luther was ready to obey the citation to the city of 
 Worms, from whence he expected never to return. He pre- 
 pared, and started forth. His journey resembled a triumph- 
 ant procession. The people everywhere did him honor. 
 And constantly was he warned. ' ' You will be burned alive, 
 and your body will be reduced to ashes," said one, "as 
 they did with John Huss. ' ' Luther replied : ' ' Though they 
 should kindle a fire, whose flames should reach from Worms 
 to Wittemberg, and rise up to heaven, I would go through 
 it in the name of the Lord, and stand before them. I 
 would enter the jaws of the behemoth, break his teeth, 
 and confess the Lord Jesus Christ." A servant came 
 with a message from a friend. Luther read the advice 
 to turn back. Still unmoved, he said to the servant : " Go 
 tell your master, though there should be as many devils at 
 
152 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 Worms as there are tiles in its roofs, I would enter it." 
 
 As he entered the city, he was accompanied by a greater 
 crowd than gathered at the entry of the emperor. When 
 he was conducted to the Diet, the streets, doors and win- 
 dows, the very houses themselves, were packed with peo- 
 ple. The passage way had to be cleared by the imperial 
 soldiers. As he was about to pass the door a hand was ex- 
 tended towards him. It was that of an old general, who 
 said earnestly: u Poor monk, poor monk, thou hast a 
 struggle to go through such as neither I nor many other 
 captains have seen the like in our most bloody battles. 
 But if thy cause be just, and thou art sure of it, go forward 
 in God's name, and fear nothing!" 
 
 The speeches of accusation were made, and Luther made 
 his reply. Two hundred judges, the emperor, electors, 
 dukes, archbishops, bishops, priests, embassadors, princes, 
 counts, barons, the Pope's nuncio — such the judicatory be- 
 fore whom he gave testimony of the faith that was in him. 
 At the end he exclaimed : " I cannot submit my faith either 
 to the Pope, or to the council. I neither can, nor will, re- 
 tract any thing. I stand here and can say no more, — God 
 help me." 
 
 The assembly was speechless. The emperor expressed 
 his wonder at such moral grandeur. Luther withdrew. 
 The chancellor said : " The Diet will meet to-morrow morn- 
 ing to hear the emperor's decision." And the kings and 
 princes of earth went out into the night, and it seemed very 
 dark indeed. 
 
 It was dark all over Europe. In Switzerland the fires 
 were kindling. War was impending with France. The 
 Pope was secretly negotiating two treaties, one with the 
 German emperor against the French king, and the other 
 with the French king against the German emperor. This 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 153 
 
 is Pope-like. These complications will revolve rapidly and 
 ominously for the Papacy. 
 
 The next day the emperor, without consulting the Diet, 
 as was customary, declared against Luther. He would dis- 
 miss the reformer, (only because he had a safe -conduct) and 
 then proceed to take means against him. 
 
 VALUE OF PAPAL PROMISES. 
 
 The Papal party urged that Luther's safe-conduct should 
 not be respected. His ashes ought " to be thrown into the 
 Rhine," they said, "as was the fate of John Huss." This 
 is Rome, always and everywhere, making a pledge, offering 
 protection, promising safety, and then with perfect com- 
 posure proceeding to violate all compacts, on the ground 
 that no contract need be kept with Protestants. This 
 solemn lesson is a warning to the people in our country 
 who seem determined not to learn the ways of Rome. 
 
 The emperor, Charles, later wished that he had killed 
 Luther, instead of permitting him to depart on his pledge 
 of safety. Papal promises of this sort are not binding, ac- 
 cording to Canon Law, and but for the fear of the people, it 
 is safe to conjecture, that Luther would have been no more 
 safe under the safe-conduct of Charles, than Huss was under 
 that of Sigismund a century before. 
 
 A plan was laid to entrap Luther into a surrender of his 
 safe-conduct. It was a bold design on his life, beyond all 
 doubt. A priest had appeared directly from the nuncio's 
 house to Luther, when the trap was laid. The friends of 
 Luther saved him from it. 
 
 ROMAN COUNCILS ABOVE THE SCRIPTURES. 
 
 Daily conferences were held in which Luther was argued 
 with, and threatened in turn. He was immovable. His 
 
154 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 conviction was like a rock. All the power of Rome, and 
 the constant fear of death, could not move him. It was 
 finally proposed to him that he submit his writings to a 
 council, as he had himself proposed a year before. He 
 promptly consented, on the condition that the council should 
 decide according to Holy Scripture. This spoiled it. Coun- 
 cils in the Eoman Church are not subject to the Scriptures. 
 Such a precedent would terminate the supreme authority of 
 the Roman Church speedily. 
 
 The emperor dismissed Luther, with orders not to disturb 
 the peace of the country by preaching on the way. Luther 
 hurried home. It was clear that the storm was coming 
 nearer. Within a few days the emperor called the remnant 
 of the Diet, and announced the decree he had determined 
 upon. It set forth that Luther was ' ' Satan himself, under 
 the garb of a man in a monk's hood ;" that it was the im- 
 perial intention, so soon as the safe-conduct was expired, 
 to use effectual means to put a stop to his fury ; all persons 
 were commanded, under penalty, not to house, shelter, feed, 
 or give drink to him, or in any way to aid or abet him ; all 
 were authorized to seize him wherever he be, and return 
 him to the emperor ; the faithful were enjoined to seize his 
 followers, and confiscate their property. The Romanists 
 ran wild with joy. 
 
 A KNIGHT OF WARTBURG. 
 
 Luther was traveling away from his old grandmother's 
 village, where he had spent a day, when he was fallen upon 
 by a party of friends, in the disguise of the knights of that 
 period, and hurried rapidly into the depths of the Thurin- 
 gian forest, to the lonely castle of Wartburg. It was none 
 too soon. His safe-conduct was out. The Papists of the 
 country were on his trail. At the Wartburg he was dressed 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 155 
 
 as a knight, and went by the name of Knight George. All 
 his followers thought he had fallen into the hands of Rome. 
 His friends were keeping him until the storm blew past 
 The priestly party hunted for him in vain. 
 
 Blessed retreat of Wartburg ! It was providential. Luther 
 begins to consider that the Reformation will now best be 
 advanced by giving the Bible to his countrymen. There 
 was no Bible in the German language. Taking the Greek 
 originals, he entered upon this glorious work. Now shall 
 the Reformation live in Germany. It rests on the Bible 
 in the vernacular. 
 
 After a confinement of nearly a year at the Wartburg, 
 Luther could stand it no longer. He secretly left the old cas- 
 tle, and returned to Wittemberg. A storm had broken forth 
 in a new quarter. The great Sorbonne university in Paris 
 had at last condemned him. Next to the Pope the Sorbonne 
 was the greatest power in the Roman Church in the six- 
 teenth century. The Sorbonne had fallen under the control 
 of the Dominicans, and hence its condemnation. This 
 brought the Reformation into fresh peril, and Luther into 
 greater danger than ever. We are perplexed at this point, 
 at the wonder that Luther was not killed. After a brief 
 and secret conclave with the leaders at Wittemberg, Luther 
 returned quietly to the Wartburg, where he remained for 
 many months more. 
 
 In the midsummer of 1524, a popular insurrection broke 
 out in many of the provinces against the priests. Their 
 lives were unbearable, and their rule had grown intolerable. 
 In the Thurgovian district the bishop had refused to ap- 
 point a selection of a priest made by the people. Several 
 thousand men liberated a prisoner held in a monastery. 
 With inconceivable rapidity the indignation spread through 
 a large number of the provinces. The peasantry were in 
 
156 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 opposition to a continuance of priestly rule and corruption. 
 They drew up a great petition, in which they claimed the 
 liberty of choosing their own pastors, the abolition of Church 
 tithes, and ecclesiastical servitude. They concluded with 
 the words : "If we are wrong, let Luther set us right by 
 the Scriptures." Luther plainly told the bishops it was 
 their oppression of the poor which had driven the people to 
 despair. 
 
 THE ESCAPED NUNS. 
 
 Nine nuns, in one of the convents, had somehow found a 
 Bible. They devoted themselves to its study. They be- 
 sought their parents for permission to leave. They were 
 refused, on the opinion of the ecclesiastics that it would 
 not do. They all escaped, and found a protector in Luther. 
 Another reason for Rome hating him. 
 
 Another was found when he married. This opened, too 
 wide for repair, the last breach. Luther was no longer a 
 R-oman Catholic. At no point was he any more in harmony 
 with the Papal Church. He had sailed straight across the 
 impure waters of the Papacy, and had anchored in the deep 
 calm of a pure faith, and Rome need make no further prop- 
 osition to him. 
 
 In the later years of his life, two other Popes came to the 
 Papal throne. These were Urban and Clement. Leo had 
 long since put Luther to the flames, if he had not been so 
 much engaged in pleasure, or if the popular feeling in Ger- 
 many had not been so strongly in favor of him. These two 
 things deterred him, and he contented himself with threats 
 and excommunications, and left to the future the final con- 
 flict. 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 157 
 
 A DISTURBER OF PEACE AMONG THE NATIONS. 
 
 The new Popes, in turn, tried to get the sentence against 
 Luther enforced. They exhausted all the diplomacy of the 
 Vatican court, in intrigue and scheme. They tried to em- 
 broil kings and princes in the question, hoping that in some 
 way Luther would be crushed. To some extent France and 
 Spain became the Papal agents to carry out the policy of 
 destruction determined upon. But both of these nations 
 were too wary to be very open. Pome was a disturber of 
 the peace of the nations, through her barbarous desire to 
 overthrow a man in Germany, who claimed the right to 
 hold and teach opinions contrary to what prevailed on the 
 Tiber. To a very grave extent the Papacy is responsible 
 for the old feeling of war and hatred which has been, for 
 centuries, existing between France and Germany, and at in- 
 tervals has broken out into wars of devastation and destruc- 
 tion. Pome will be held, by all history, to be the cause of 
 more wars than all causes combined, which lie outside of 
 her influence. 
 
 DEMANDS THE DEATH OF LUTHER. 
 
 Pope Clement became angered at the delay of the Ger- 
 man authorities in dealing with Luther. He sent his spe- 
 cial nuncio to order an immediate execution of the finding 
 of the Diet of Worms. This meant that the reformer was 
 to be killed in some way. The Pope had spoken in final 
 judgment. This demand, that the ruling of the emperor at 
 the Diet of Worms be now carried out, was as though the 
 Pope had said : " Bind that Luther to the stake, and 
 burn him to ashes." It was now no longer a question of 
 what Pome would do, but what she could do. It was not, 
 
158 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 what will the Pope do, but what can the Pope do % There 
 was no query any longer as to the Papal spirit, but only as 
 to Papal power. 
 
 Would Luther be destroyed \ No. But do not give 
 Ilome the credit. Pope and council, and bishop and priest, 
 and legate and monk, had all done their best. Rome had 
 the intent of murder in her heart, as in the century before ; 
 but her hand was not quite so strong in the German gov- 
 ernment as in the preceding century. The Popes and the 
 councils might turn a man over to the secular power to be 
 killed, but if the secular power does not proceed to execute 
 the order, and Popes and councils have no power to enforce 
 their mandates, then the man lives. 
 
 WHY HE IS NOT KILLED. 
 
 This was the situation in the case of Luther. The Pope 
 had given his final instructions ; and they were that the 
 plan of the emperor, as he gave it to the Diet of Worms, 
 was to be carried out forthwith. But the Pope had mis- 
 calculated his power in Germany. The people had been 
 thinking and growing. The fact is that the nation never 
 felt satisfied over the shameful stigma resting on the em- 
 pire, on account of the burning of Huss and Jerome of 
 Prague. These worthies of the fourteenth century, had been 
 ordered killed by a council in session in a German city ; and 
 they were burned just without the walls of that same Ger- 
 man city ; and their ashes were thrown, with malice in the 
 hearts of those who so ordered, in the classic river of Ger- 
 many. The world had shuddered at that awful crime, and 
 Germany felt keenly the disgrace. Such a thing was not 
 likely to be repeated so soon. Besides, the princes of the 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 159 
 
 German states were friendly to Luther to a great extent, and 
 many of them his adherents. The powerful Elector Saxony 
 had stood between Luther and the emperor, the council and 
 the many plots to entrap him. So when the Pope's legate 
 appeared, with the final instructions of the Vatican lord, 
 approval was not warm or general. The most the princes 
 would agree to was to call a free council, unencumbered by 
 Papal directions, and leave the question as to the disposi- 
 tion of Luther to it. The Pope could not agree to this. 
 He had no power in Germany to force his will, and he had 
 to surrender, though he never recalled his instructions for 
 the execution of Luther. 
 
 The great reformer spent the remaining few years of his 
 life in comparative quiet. He kept up his lectures and 
 preaching, and his writings, to near the end. His depart- 
 ure was peaceful and hopeful ; the declarations of Papal 
 writers to the contrary notwithstanding. 
 
 The charge is well sustained ; Rome tried to force Luther 
 into her way of thinking. When he refused, she enticed, 
 coaxed and pleaded. He still refused, and she tried to 
 suppress, then to entrap, then to force, and at last to kill. 
 
 WHY THE POPES HATED HIM. 
 
 In reflecting over this treatment, and the spirit which 
 induced it, and the course of Luther, it is seen that Rome 
 had at least five reasons for her pursuit of him, and for 
 killing him, if she had dared to do so. 
 
 A first reason was, that Luther stood up for a pure faith, 
 and a pure religion. Rome justified the soul by works and 
 penances, and by gifts of money. Luther made justifica- 
 tion to rest in a living and pure faith in Christ. This teach- 
 
160 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 ing was calculated to lead the mind away from the merits 
 of the priestly ofnce, and to locate the real issue of salva- 
 tion in a direct personal relation of the soul with Christ. 
 This would lead the world away from Rome. She had to 
 fight Luther on this dangerous truth. Eome was con- 
 sistent. 
 
 IF ROME IS CORRECT WHAT SHE HOLDS IS RIGHT TO-DAY. 
 
 Luther controverted the supreme right of Rome to rule 
 above the conscience in the Church, and above the state in 
 public affairs. In the early part of his career he held to 
 the doctrine that the Pope was the representative of Christ 
 on earth ; but he was on a road that led away from such un- 
 historic and un-Biblical position, and he came to a point 
 where he held that the mission of the Church was to preach 
 the Gospel, and not to force the conscience and all thought 
 into grooves set by Popes, sometimes ignorant and corrupt. 
 This same conclusion made him deny the rights of the Pa- 
 pacy in purely state affairs. Rome was enjoying her tem- 
 poral rule much more than her spiritual. There was more 
 money and means for show and display in it. What could 
 Rome do, but to seek the overthrow of Luther? If her 
 doctrine be true, her ways are justified. Those who claim 
 that the ways of Rome in America cannot be as they have 
 been in other countries, in the past, are under obligation to 
 show reasonable proof that her doctrines will be wholly 
 changed. Her doctrines being what they are, she must 
 return to persecuting and killing, and she is justified in 
 doing so, if her doctrines are true altogether. 
 
 A third reason for Papal persecution of Luther was, that 
 he stood for a high, almost ideal, patriotism and national 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 161 
 
 progress. He loved his country, and taught, in sermons, 
 lectures and writings, a high type of devotion to native 
 land. He united, as not yet had been done, religion and 
 patriotism. He set Christian songs to the popular melo- 
 dies, and very soon had all the nation singing into their 
 hearts the Gospel of Christ, and at the same time felt the 
 glow of love for their country and their own race growing 
 brighter. This was in bitter opposition to the spirit of 
 Home. She does not inculcate love of country. Her pro- 
 fessions of patriotism are always and everywhere a fraud. 
 The countries where she has most control, are those in which 
 there is the least to love, and no independent devotion can 
 exist. Who cares to live in Ireland, Spain or Italy % They 
 are the lands whose people find so little to hold them, that 
 they leave as fast as is possible. 
 
 BIBLE TRANSLATORS ALL CONDEMNED. 
 
 A fourth reason for Rome's fight against Luther, was be- 
 cause he gave his people the Bible in their own tongue. It 
 was a pure German, in which he translated the Scriptures, 
 and the nation took to it fondly and generally. The man 
 who leads a whole nation to reading the Bible is cursed of 
 Rome. Wyclif, Huss, Cranmer, Knox, LaSarre — they have 
 all been condemned. Rome had to oppose the German re- 
 former, because he did what she taught was a dangerous 
 thing. If Rome is right in her view, that the Bible leads 
 men and nations into peril, then is she right in using all 
 her immense power to restrain that evil. Is the fault of 
 Rome one of acts, or of fundamental error of belief, which 
 will keep her in turmoil with the nations as long as the Pa- 
 pal power is tolerated. Let the Roman Catholic Church 
 go on its way in peace and liberty ; but let the nations com- 
 
162 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 bine to overthrow the Papal throne. This alone will give 
 peace to the world. 
 
 A fifth reason why Rome sought the suppression of 
 Luther was because he was a man of sublime courage. He 
 had courage of thought, courage of his convictions, and 
 courage of deed. He knew no fear. He lived for twenty-five 
 years in almost daily expectation of death, but allowed it 
 to have no restraint on his duty. Such a man the Popes 
 could not endure. He was dangerous. Rome produces 
 no such men in her fold, that are content to keep in it. 
 A brave soul, working for country, and humanity, and God, 
 can find no permission to labor in the Church of Rome. 
 
 One of the noblest utterances of all time, was that which 
 Luther gave as his last words at Worms. When he closed 
 his defense by saying that he could not and would not re- 
 tract, for to act against conscience was unsafe and unholy, 
 the emperor signified that that ended the matter. Luther 
 added with impressive solemnity: " Hier stehe ich, ich 
 Jcann nicht auders ; Gotthilpmir. Amen" "I cannot 
 do aught else. Here I stand. Gfod help. Amen." 
 
THE PROTESTANT PATRIOT. 
 
 "As long as I'm a Protestant 
 I'm bbunden to protest! 
 Come, every German musicant, 
 And fiddle me his best ! 
 You're singing of ' the free old Rhine,' 
 But I say, ' No,' good comrades mine, — 
 
 The Rhine could be, 
 
 Greatly more free, 
 
 And that I do protest. 
 
 "And every man in reason grants 
 
 What always was confessed, 
 
 As long as we are Protestants 
 
 We sternly must protest. 
 
 And when they sing ' the free old Rhine/ 
 
 Answer them 'No,' good comrade mine. 
 The Rhine could be, 
 Greatly more free, 
 And that you shall protest." 
 
Does the Roman Churgh teach 
 that it holds the power to 
 grant Indulgences? 
 
 An Indulgence is the remission of the temporal punish- 
 ment due to sins, remitted as to their guilt, by the power 
 of the keys, without the sacrament, by the application of 
 satisfactions which are contained in the treasury of the 
 Church. Dens. 
 
 What is Purgatory? 
 
 I constantly hold that there is a purgatory, and that the 
 souls therein detained are helped by the suffrages of the. 
 faithful. Pope Pius -IV. - 
 
PART V. 
 
 ROME'S TRADE IN INDULGENCES— ITS POLITICAL 
 EVILS— CORRUPT MONEY POWER. 
 
 In every nation, Rome' s follies have most contributed to 
 Rome's overthrow. Duping everybody else, she has often 
 betrayed her infamous spirit to such an extent, that in dis- 
 gust as well as indignation, men have arisen, in the might 
 of awakened manhood, and thrown off her rule. The Popes 
 hastened the Reformation, by their bigoted rule and miser- 
 ly greed. The ambition of the Popes for money had quite 
 as much to do with the cloud-burst in Europe, as did the 
 cruelty of the councils, and the corruption of the priests. 
 All things seemed to work together to show the nations the 
 curse they were under, and to provoke them to come out 
 from under it. 
 
 THE FIRST GREAT PROTESTANT NATION. 
 
 Germany was the first of the great nations to break en- 
 tirely with Rome. England in the fourteenth century re- 
 sented the Papal rule, and labored mightily for a reform 
 
 (165) 
 
166 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 in the Church ; but the England of the fourteenth century 
 had no idea of a Church other than the one, at the head of 
 which was the Pope of Rome. The England of the four- 
 teenth century remained in the Romish communion ; but 
 the Germany of the sixteenth century found herself, by 
 the force of her reform movement, driven entirely out of 
 that Church, and going about establishing a great national 
 faith, independent of Pope and council in faith and gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 The people of all ranks became thoroughly aroused. The 
 country was powerfully disturbed, as never before or since. 
 Political despotism was a part of Rome's rule, and her po- 
 litical tyrannies became too oppressive to be longer en- 
 dured. Then, as we have seen, came the upheaval, which, 
 in a single generation, turned Germany into a Protestant 
 nation. 
 
 THE MOST GIGANTIC SCHEME FOR MAKING MONEY. 
 
 We have now to consider the most aggravating evil of 
 the Pope's rule in Germany, and that which so terribly 
 aroused Luther. Perhaps the Papacy reached the depth 
 of its worldly infamy in the sale of indulgences. In all 
 the ages there has not been such a gigantic scheme for mak- 
 ing money. It was mostly, and at last only, a device to get 
 money out of the people, throughout the world, for the 
 Pope's exchequer. Such vast sums of money were gath- 
 ered in by this means, and by that of the pilgrimages to 
 Rome, that great piles of coin lay about the Vatican, and 
 was handled with rakes. 
 
 WHAT AWAKENED THE LION IN LUTHER. 
 
 This was the evil that brought Luther to the front. And 
 he was to give a blow, from which the Papacy would never 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 167 
 
 recover. Light was about to break forth ! A thunderbolt 
 was to fall ! Europe was to shake ! Nations were to be 
 submerged ! The people were to be awakened, and advance 
 to a vantage ground of religious liberty, from which they 
 were nevermore to be driven by Papal power. 
 
 THE 0KIGIN OF INDULGENCES. 
 
 The origin of indulgences dates some four hundred years 
 before Luther. The first recorded instance of an act di- 
 recting it, was by Alexander II., in the eleventh century. 
 At first these indulgences could only be procured at Rome, 
 by appearing in person. The custom appears to have had 
 its origin in the punishment which the Church inflicted for 
 particular sins, and which, when the Popes wanted money, 
 was remitted, by payment of a fine. It was certainly a 
 rich vein, which Rome thus discovered in the exhaustless 
 mine of human duplicity and superstition. 
 
 Let it be known and borne in mind, through this treat- 
 ment of this stupendous fraud of Rome, that the only rea- 
 son for its existence, and the only one to be discovered in 
 history, was that of making money. All other devices had 
 been worked for centuries, and a new one was thought nec- 
 essary. The Pope wanted money, while the avarice of the 
 priests was something surprising. It was a passion — a 
 mania, indeed. To keep up their power and splendor, the 
 Popes were everlastingly originating new plans to drain the 
 countries of Europe of money. Every ecclesiastic had to 
 give the Pope the first year's income. Besides this, they 
 had frequent special taxes laid upon them. The most de- 
 sirable vacancies were put up at auction, and sold to the 
 highest bidder. Free gifts were constantly solicited, and 
 extraordinary levies were continuously being made. 
 
168 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 SONG OF THE POPES. 
 
 The Popes were more concerned for the increase of their 
 exchequer, than they were for the moral welfare of the 
 world. They begged the people to give money, instead of 
 exhorting them to be pious. They resorted to all sorts of 
 crime, and all kinds of fraud, for money. The song of the 
 Popes in the sixteenth century might have been, as in fact 
 was their spirit, that of money. Money, money, money ; 
 money from the princes, and money from their purses, give 
 us money, oh, you people, or ye have our curses. Money 
 was needed to carry on the Papal intrigues in the courts of 
 Europe, and to keep up the extravagant pleasures of the 
 court at Home. Money was wanted to rebuild the cathedral 
 of St. Peter' s at Rome. The reconstruction of this cathedral 
 had been determined upon by Leo X., the Pontiff of inordi- 
 nate ambition and unmatched vileness of character. A mag- 
 nificent piece of architecture is that cathedral, but every 
 stone was placed with blood money. The understanding 
 was that the money from the sale of indulgences was to go 
 for that purpose, but little of it so went. The Popes of 
 the sixteenth century were supporting the most extrava- 
 gant, luxurious and profligate court in Europe, and the 
 money had to come. 
 
 A general sale of indulgences was determined upon for 
 all classes, and to be operated in all countries. It was skill- 
 fully studied out and so presented as to trap the people. 
 They were to be taught to believe that they could secure 
 certain benefits, blessings and pardons, by the payment of 
 certain sums of money. The more money, the greater ben- 
 efits and blessings. So religion was made a matter of little 
 good except for the rich. It was a great resource the Popes 
 were to work. And we shall see what financiers they prove 
 to be. 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 169 
 
 An edict of Clement VII. declared the new doctrine an 
 article of faith. The most holy teachings of the Scriptures 
 were made to fit into this. Christ had shed more blood 
 than was really necessary. This additional, or surplus 
 blood, the priests had at their disposal, and would dispose 
 of, for money, to give pardon to those who would buy. 
 
 PAGAN ORIGIN OF PURGATORY. 
 
 But this was only available for sins committed, after con- 
 necting with the Church. There was no opportunity on 
 earth to expiate sins committed prior thereto; and for 
 those committed even after joining the Church, and not ab- 
 solved by the priests. Hence some provision had to be de- 
 vised for this to be done after this life. The ancient Pa- 
 gans had a notion that there was a purifying fire, in which 
 souls were to be purified. Some of the early priests of the 
 Church held to the same thing. It could be made a great 
 source for gain in the Roman Church. So the Pope issued 
 his bull, making purgatory a doctrine of the Church. He 
 declared that men expiated in this place those sins not ex- 
 piated in this life, and that indulgences could be purchased, 
 freeing them from the sins that held them in bondage in 
 purgatory. It is remarked how well the doctrine of purga- 
 tory, and that of the indulgences, suited each other. It was 
 a double-header. It did great credit to a court that was af- 
 ter money, and cared nothing for the present or future wel- 
 fare of the souls of its subjects. Terror was introduced, as 
 an element to help coerce money from the people, for the 
 release of their dead friends. In many churches, and along 
 the country roads, rude pictures were put up, depicting 
 the dead engulfed in flames of fire, and in an attitude of 
 pleading, invoking help for their deliverance. These gross 
 
170 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 Pagan pictures are yet seen in some Roman Catholic 
 countries. 
 
 The living son could liberate his dead mother, the living 
 husband his dead wife, the father his small babe, from these 
 purgatorial flames, if he would pay a certain sum. In those 
 dark centuries, when the unknown world made such a su- 
 perstitious impression, upon the ignorant mind, what must 
 have been the terror worked upon the poor, deluded peo- 
 ple, by such teaching, such pictures, such a law of the 
 Church? 
 
 AN OLD BOOK ON INDULGENCES. 
 
 The enormities of this Papal fraud are well vouchsafed 
 by wholly Roman Catholic authority. In an old book of 
 directions, issued for the use of the collectors of indul- 
 gences, it is stated, that on the payment of two reals apiece 
 the souls, for which payment was made, would be freed 
 from the pains of purgatory, and would go into Heaven, 
 and would forever pray for him who had done so great a 
 good. 
 
 What an inducement this held out for an ignorant man. 
 He could liberate both of his parents from purgatory for 
 about twenty cents ; then his parents would continually 
 pray for his good. The same money would enable him to 
 help the dead, and the same dead to help him. 
 
 The original intent of the indulgences was to remove the 
 punishment due for a sin, but came in the sixteenth cen- 
 tury to remove the sin itself. And as a fact, the ignorant 
 purchaser of an indulgence looked upon it as a soul-in- 
 surance, releasing him from further responsibility to God, 
 for the space of one year. Belief in the efficacy of indul- 
 gences was wide-spread in the times we are considering. The 
 people held what they were instructed in. They were 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 171 
 
 taught that the treasures of Christ's merits were committed 
 to the Popes, bishops, and the Dominican friars. And 
 these merits were given them to sell. That whoever would 
 buy, should, by what they bought, be absolved from sins 
 and crimes, committed, or about to be committed, and they 
 could as well deliver their friends from the fires of purgatory. 
 
 Eegular receipts were given, showing what the money 
 was paid to the vender of indulgences for. The usual form 
 
 ran : "Because you have given the said two reals for 
 
 the soul of . . . . .and have received this bull, the said graces 
 and plenary indulgence are granted to the soul, for which 
 you have given this sum." 
 
 If an indulgence was bought once, it gave the holder a 
 special benefit on his death bed, not enjoyed by others 
 when they come to die. 
 
 FOKM OF INDULGENCE CEETIFICATE. 
 
 If a man bought a plenary indulgence, it entitled him, at 
 death, to receive, from his priest, an absolution, lifting the 
 punishment due him in purgatory, and entitled him to im- 
 mediate entrance into Heaven, without preliminary proba- 
 tion in purgatory. The formula of absolution to be given 
 at death, and based on an indulgence already had, ran : 
 
 " And I absolve thee from all thy sins, crimes and ex- 
 cesses, which thou hast now confessed to me, and those 
 which thou wouldst have confessed hadst thou remembered 
 them, even though they are such as are reserved to the Holy 
 Roman See. I grant thee plenary indulgence and complete 
 remission of them all, and of the punishment which for 
 them thou wast obliged to suffer in the life to come." 
 
 As the trade in indulgences was conducted in Germany, 
 in the time of Luther, there was no benefit of the Gospel, 
 which was not purchasable. The ecclesiastic who carried 
 
172 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 them about with him, declared that he had the authority 
 of Christ, of the apostles Peter and Paul, and the Pope. 
 Then he proceeded to sell whatever was wanted, and needed. 
 This grant of absolution specified that the holder was set 
 free of one, or more, or all, of the following punishments 
 and sins and crimes : First, he was absolved from all eccle- 
 siastical censures, then from all sins, transgressions and ex- 
 cesses, how enormous soever they may be ; all punishment 
 awaiting him in purgatory on account of his sins ; he was 
 restored to the sacraments of the Church, unity of the faith- 
 ful, and to that innocence and purity he possessed at bap- 
 tism ; when he died the gates of punishment were to be 
 closed, and the gates of the paradise of delight were to be 
 opened ; and if he did not die at that time, it was stipulated 
 that the agreement should remain in full force when he did 
 die. 
 
 SCALE OF PEICES FROM AN OLD BOOK. 
 
 An authorized scale of prices was borne about, which 
 stipulated the price to be paid for indulgences, covering 
 special sins. This seems to have been capable of change, 
 according to the country, or the greed of the agents. An 
 old tax book of the sacred Roman Chauncery, designed for 
 use in Spain, gives exact sums to be charged for the remis- 
 sion of the following sins : 
 
 For simony 10s. 6d. . 
 
 For sacrilege - - - -' 10s. 6d, 
 
 For taking false oath in a criminal case - - 9s 
 
 For robbing 12s. 
 
 For burning a house - - - - 12s. 3d. 
 
 For murdering a layman - - - - - - 7s. 6d, 
 
 For murdering a priest 10s. 6d. 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 173 
 
 In Germany Tetzel charged a special price for particular 
 sins. He sold indulgences lifting the sin from 
 
 Polygamy, for $6. 
 
 Perjury, for - - - $9. 
 
 Murder, for $8. 
 
 Witchcraft, for $2. 
 
 He gave an ordinary indulgence to kings, queens and bish- 
 ops for $25. In Switzerland, Samson sold a pardon for 
 murdering one' s father or mother for $1.00. In Holland 
 this sin and crime were forgiven for $1.20. 
 
 DESCRIPTION OF AN INDULGENCE SALE. 
 
 The distinguished historian, Merle D'Aubigne, in his 
 celebrated treatise on the Reformation, gives us this strik- 
 ing description of the dealers of indulgences, as they ap- 
 proached a town : 
 
 The dealers passed through the country in a gay carriage, 
 escorted by three horsemen, in great state, and spending 
 freely. One might have thought it some dignitary on a 
 royal progress, with his attendants and officers, and not a 
 common dealer, or a begging monk. When the procession 
 approached a town, a messenger waited on the magistrate : 
 "The grace of God, and the holy father, is at your gates!" 
 said the envoy. Instantly every thing was in motion in the 
 place. The clergy, the priests, the nuns, the council, the 
 school masters, the trades, with their flags, — men and wom- 
 en, young and old, went forth to meet the merchants, with 
 lighted tapers in their hands, advancing to the sound of 
 music, and of all the bells of the place ; "so that," says an 
 historian, " they could not have given a grander welcome 
 to God himself." " Salutations being exchanged, the whole 
 procession moved toward the church. The Pontiff's bull of 
 grace was borne in front, on a velvet cushion, or on cloth of 
 
174 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 gold. The chief vender of indulgences followed, support- 
 ing a large red wooden cross ; and the whole procession 
 moved in this manner, amidst singing, prayers, and the 
 smoke of incense. The sound of organs, and a concert of 
 instruments, received the monkish dealer and his attendants 
 into the church. The cross he bore with him was erected 
 in front of the altar ; on it was hung the Pope's arms, and, 
 as long as it remained there, the clergy of the place, the 
 penitentiaries, and the sub-commissioners, with white wands 
 in their hands, came every day after vespers, or before the 
 salutation, to do homage to it." This great bustle excited 
 a lively sensation in the quiet towns of Germany. 
 
 CAPTURING A SHIP LOAD OF INDULGENCES. 
 
 ~No government in the world, in the sixteenth century, 
 had such an immense revenue, as that brought into the Pa- 
 pal banks by the sale of indulgences. At one time the 
 Pope received $100,000 a year from Spain. Leo X. agreed 
 for awhile to help out the crown of Spain, and be content 
 with $25,000 a year from that country. From the little 
 kingdom of Venice he had $500,000 every three years. In 
 1575 the Spanish crown received $240,000 as their part of 
 the revenue from the sale of indulgences. Gregory XIII. 
 extended the sale to the people of Mexico and of India, 
 from which countries he received immense sums to swell 
 the Papal treasury. In 1709 the English privateers, in their 
 lawless excursions on the seas, ran down and captured a 
 ship, which proved to be loaded with bulls for indulgences. 
 The cargo consisted of 500 bales, containing sixteen reams 
 to the bale. As prices were then prevailing, this cargo of 
 blanks, when disposed of, would have brought the Roman 
 Church at least two million dollars. 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 175 
 
 MISSION OF THE ROMAN CHURCH IN THIS LAND. 
 
 As we read these astounding disclosures, bearing upon 
 the greed of the Roman See, we are constrained to ask, if 
 the Popes were engaged in saving souls, or in making 
 money, and aggrandizing power ? This suggests another 
 question. Is the Roman Catholic Church in this land, 
 using its energies in the spiritual mission of the Church, or 
 in building up a great political and money power? His- 
 tory teaches most plainly, that the Roman Church has la- 
 bored more earnestly to bring the world to the feet of the 
 Pope, than to bring it to the foot of the cross. A study of 
 the drift of the Church in our land, for the last twenty 
 years, shows abundant proof of this. Zeal and greed are 
 its two greatest energies, rather than zeal and piety. 
 
 Pope Leo X. took hold of the barter in indulgences with 
 great spirit. It opened a rare chance for revenue, and it 
 was not in the mind of any Pope to overlook such an op- 
 portunity. Leo had a mighty scheme in his plan for the 
 extension of personal and Papal power. He would push 
 the trade in indulgences in all the world, and accumulate 
 vast fortunes to carry on the designs of the Papacy, and 
 pay the enormous expenses required for the pleasures of 
 the Papal court. Leo dispatched the indulgences to Ger- 
 many, and designated Archbishop Albert commissioner to 
 direct the sale. Albert was himself to have a goodly share 
 of the money gathered in by the sale. He was fired with a 
 desire to make the sale larger than any other country. He 
 appointed the corrupt Dominican friar, Tetzel, his chief 
 agent, and put him in the field. His work was that of the 
 mountebank, and his morals were those of one. He had 
 been convicted of crimes and vices of the gravest character. 
 The Emperor Maximilian had ordered that he be put in a 
 sack and thrown into the river. The Elector of Saxony 
 
176 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 alone saved him. He was coarse, immoral, and without 
 any conscience. There was not in all the German monas- 
 teries a lower character. He was just the man to speedily 
 bring the traffic into poor favor, and hasten the Refor- 
 mation. 
 
 STUPENDOUS DEMAGOGUERY. 
 
 Tetzel drove about the country in a carriage and three 
 horses, with out-riders and heralds. He invented all pos- 
 sible devices, schemes and stories to defraud the people out 
 of their money. He boldly and loudly declaimed, that so 
 soon as they gave their money they were certain of salva- 
 tion and the liberation of souls from purgatory. Here are 
 some of the paragraphs taken from some of these vile ha- 
 rangues. 
 
 " Indulgences are the most precious and sublime of God's 
 gifts. 
 
 " I would not exchange my privileges for those of St. 
 Peter in heaven, for I saved more souls by my indulgences 
 than he by his sermons. 
 
 " Indulgences save not only the living, they save also 
 the dead. 
 
 "Ye priests, ye nobles, ye tradesmen, ye wives, ye maid- 
 ens, and ye young men, hearken to your departed parents 
 and friends, who cry to you from the bottomless abyss : 
 c We are enduring horrible torment ! a small alms would 
 deliver us; you can give it, and you will not!'" The 
 dreadful effect of such a declamation on an ignorant and 
 deluded congregation was what the mountebank monk was 
 after. It can be imagined. " Dull and heedless men, with 
 ten groschen you can deliver your father from purgatory, 
 and you are so ungrateful you will not rescue him. In the 
 day of judgment my conscience will be clear ; but you will 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 177 
 
 be punished the more severely for neglecting so great a sal- 
 vation. Our Lord God no longer deals with us as God. He 
 has given all power to the Pope. 
 
 "The very moment that the money clinks against the 
 bottom of the chest, the soul escapes from purgatory, and 
 flies to heaven." 
 
 Kef erring to the doctrine that the souls of Peter and Paul 
 were interred in the churches called by their names in Rome, 
 he exclaimed : " Those sacred bodies, owing to the present 
 condition of the buildings, are now, alas ! continually trod- 
 den, flooded, polluted, dishonored, and rotting in rain and 
 hail. Ah ! shall those holy ashes be suffered to remain de- 
 graded in the mire \ 
 
 "Draw near, and I will give you letters, duly sealed, by 
 which even the sins you shall hereafter desire to commit 
 shall be all forgiven you. 
 
 "Even repentance is not indispensable." 
 
 He closed the harangue with the loud cry : ; ' Bring your 
 money! Bring money! Bring money!" Then he would 
 spring from the pulpit, run to the chest and throw in a 
 piece of money, in sight of all the people, and so as to make 
 a loud sound. In all the ages is there to be found a gigantic 
 scheme so full of hypocrisy, and so loaded with bravado ? 
 Is this the religion of the Roman Catholic Church % Yet 
 high authority has the boldness to say there has been no 
 change, in spirit, in the Church from what it was in the 
 sixteenth century. ~No such a stupendous piece of dema- 
 goguery has ever played its frauds upon the nations, as that 
 organized and operated by the Papacy ! 
 
 Then came the counting of the money, secured by this 
 vast speculation in human sins, and through the capitaliza- 
 tion of human credulity. The chest had three keys ; one 
 kept by Tetzel, one by the banking house at Augsburg, 
 
178 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 and one was placed in the keeping of the civil authority. It 
 was opened in the presence of a public notary, and the pile 
 of money carefully counted, and entry made in books kept 
 for that purpose. In spite of these precautions it appears 
 that those in charge squandered large sums of the indul- 
 gence money. 
 
 DISREPUTABLE LIVES OF PAPAL AGENTS. 
 
 When a town was fully worked, and the money was 
 counted, and entered in the books, the dealers gave them- 
 selves to amusement and revelry. They were found in low 
 taverns and disreputable places. Sarpi, a Roman Catholic 
 authority in history, says: "They led an irregular life; 
 they spent in taverns, gaming houses, and houses of ill- 
 fame, what the people had scraped together from their 
 poverty." And Schrock declares they would sometimes, 
 when they were in the taverns, stake the salvation of souls 
 on dice. 
 
 The abominations of Tetzel were of the meanest and lowest 
 type. At Magdeburg he refused to sell an indulgence to a 
 rich woman, except she pay him one hundred florins. She 
 consulted her confessor, a righteous man. He answered that 
 God forgives freely, and does not sell his pardon for money. 
 When Tetzel heard of this he declared that " such an ad- 
 viser deserved to be burnt alive." 
 
 TETZEL' S GRAVEYARD TALE. 
 
 The utterly bad soul of Tetzel is shown by his course at 
 Zwickau. The people had turned out en masse to procure 
 indulgences for themselves and their dead friends. He was 
 about to quit the town, with a large sum, which was counted 
 
THE BOMAN PAPACY. 179 
 
 and recorded on the books. In the evening, the chaplains, 
 a low and beastly set, called upon him to give them a fare- 
 well feast. He would do it, but too late ; the money had 
 been counted and sealed up. The amount was in the books. 
 A plan was agreed upon. In the morning the great bell 
 tolled. They knew that something unusual was to be up, 
 and flocked to the Church. Tetzel mounted the pulpit and 
 exclaimed : "I had intended to leave this morning, but last 
 night I was awakened by groans. I listened ; they pro- 
 ceeded from the cemetery. Alas ! it was a poor soul that 
 called me, and entreated to be delivered from the torment 
 that consumed it. I therefore have tarried one day longer, 
 that I might move Christian hearts to compassion for this 
 unhappy soul. Myself will be the first to contribute ; but 
 he who will not follow my example will be worthy of all 
 condemnation." The money came quickly. And that 
 night Tetzel and the chaplains sat down to a merry feast, 
 paid for by this very money given to release the poor soul 
 that cried from the graveyard. 
 
 In the town of Hagenau a woman had purchased an in- 
 dulgence, which certified that upon her death her soul should 
 go directly to heaven. She died shortly afterwards. Her 
 husband did not have a mass said for the good of her soul 
 in purgatory. The priest of the place charged that he was 
 guilty of contempt of religion, and had him dragged before 
 the judge of the town for punishment. The husband handed 
 to the judge the indulgence paper, which declared that her 
 soul would go, in the moment of death, not into purgatory, 
 but direct into heaven. "If after that," he said, "any 
 mass is necessary, my wife has been cheated by our Holy 
 Father the Pope ; but if she has not been cheated, then the 
 priest has been deceiving me." By such ridiculous predic- 
 aments the people saw through the fraud the Popes were 
 
180 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 practicing upon them. From such proofs as these the ugly 
 charge is sustained that the infidelity, which swept over 
 Europe two hundred years later, was largely a necessary 
 result of Papal rule and teaching. 
 
 THE TRAP TETZEL FELL INTO. 
 
 That many saw through the deep deception that was 
 being practiced upon the people by the direction of the 
 Pope, is shown by a vast collection of incidents, which are 
 collated in the chronicles of the times. Such an incident is 
 narrated in the Chronicles of Albinus Meissn, and is re- 
 ported in the works of D' Aubigne. A man who had become 
 indignant and disgusted with the impostures of Tetzel, 
 went to him and asked if he were empowered to sell indul- 
 gences pardoning sins of intention, that is, those which a 
 person intended to commit. "Assuredly," replied Tetzel, 
 " I have full power from the Pope to do so." The man 
 told him that he was anxious to take a slight revenge on 
 one of his enemies, without doing him any bodily injury. 
 " I will give you ten crowns if you will give me an indul- 
 gence that shall bear me harmless." Tetzel thought he 
 should have more money for such a valuable permit, and it 
 was agreed that it should be issued for twenty crowns. The 
 man paid his money; and took his written permission, au- 
 thorized by the Pope of Rome, to do injury to his fellow 
 man. In a short while Tetzel set out to leave the place. 
 In the deep woods, between Juterboch and Treblin, this 
 man, with the permit to commit a crime in his pocket, with 
 his attendants fell upon Tetzel and his servants. They 
 gave the iniquitous monk a sound beating, and carried off 
 the full chest of indulgence money the party had with them. 
 Tetzel made a fuss that was heard over Germany about the 
 indignity that was dealt out to him, a commissioner of the 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 181 
 
 holy father, the Pope. And the man who had performed 
 this interesting deed, came forward, and showed the letter 
 he had, and signed by Tetzel, and authorized by the Pope, 
 exempting him beforehand from all guilt and responsibility. 
 And Duke George, in whose province the act had been per- 
 formed, ordered that the man should be acquitted. 
 
 IF FOR MONEY, WHY NOT FOR CHARITY % 
 
 The people were greatly concerned to know why, if the 
 Pope could take souls out of misery and perdition, after 
 they had left this world, for a certain sum of money, he 
 could not do the same thing for sweet charity' s sake % This 
 line of reasoning led them to impugn the power of the keys, 
 as it was called, which was held by the Popes. Since the 
 Pope could free so many souls from 'purgatory for the 
 money that was handed to him, why does he not deliver 
 all those souls at once by a holy charity, and on account of 
 the great misery of those souls \ A dealer at Schneebesg 
 was accosted by a miner, who asked if they were to really 
 believe that the Pope has authority, on a penny being paid 
 him, to redeem a soul from, purgatory. The dealer declared 
 that it was so. k 'Ah!" replied the miner, "what a cruel 
 man the Pope must be, thus to leave a poor soul to suffer 
 so long in the flames for a wretched penny !" 
 
 INDULGENCE CERTIFICATES USE1> AS MONEY. 
 
 It was the custom of the dealers in these letters of pardon 
 to pay the inn-keepers, their drivers and those at whose 
 houses they would take a meal, with these same indul- 
 gences. While in their dissipation, and at the houses of 
 immorality, they would use the money taken in payment 
 for sins pardoned. Well might all Germany have cried out 
 
182 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 that the sale of indulgences was the abomination of abomi- 
 nations ! It was a shameful imposture, a degradation of all 
 religious sentiments, a crusade against common morality 
 carried on in the name of the most high merits of Christ ! 
 
 And what is to be said of the Popes who carried on this 
 money traffic in salvation % They were ^as void of religion 
 as their henchmen. They were mostly given to every device 
 to make money, and gave very little attention to the moral 
 advancement of the world. Without any concern for their 
 own souls, they could have none for their subjects. They 
 were devoid of religious principle, and had no reputation 
 for any religious character. They issued no bulls against 
 the immoralities of their lower clergy, because they had no 
 example to set themselves. Their own court at Rome 
 rivaled that of any in Europe for general dissoluteness, and 
 immoral excesses. 
 
 These great outrages on the people in Germany would 
 have been prevented to a greater extent by the rulers, but 
 for the power of the Church over the state. Rome first 
 gains the power and then corrupts the people. In Germany 
 a large number of the prelates, bishops and archbishops had 
 been made sovereign princes by Charles the Great, in the 
 hope that this favor to the high persons in the Church 
 would win them over to the interests of the country. Not 
 so. These ecclesiastical princes were always ready to obey 
 the call of the Pope, in opposition to the emperor. The 
 archbishops of Cologne, Mayense, Treves, Salzhug, the 
 bishops of Wurzhug, Eichstadt, Munster, Paderborn and 
 Bamburg, the abbots of Fulda, Berchtesgaden, were, in this 
 way, holders of independent sovereignties, and looked to 
 the Pope for their authority and superior head, rather than 
 to the emperor. And such is Canon Law. It will be well 
 if our country take warning from Germany' s blunder. There 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 183 
 
 is no compromise with the Roman Church. With her it is 
 not only rule, or ruin ; but it is rule, and ruin ! 
 
 The extremities of greed, shown by Tetzel, did more than 
 all else to unveil this fraud of the Popes. The people saw 
 that the principal thing was to get money, and get as much 
 as possible, and get it all the time. The sorrows, sufferings, 
 doubts and oppressions of the people were met with utter 
 indifference. As they began to see the shameful fraud 
 that was being practiced upon them, they lost their respect, 
 and then their confidence. Then all sorts of plans were laid 
 to make the Papal agents expose their heartless spirit of 
 gain. Tetzel spent two months in the town of Annaberg 
 and took in a vast sum of money. In voice of loud ap- 
 peal, he declared to the crowd, that the only means of sal- 
 vation that they had within their power, was to purchase it 
 from the Roman Pontiff. 
 
 When he was ready to quit the place he made one more 
 supreme effort to secure yet more money. With threaten- 
 ing voice he cried out : "I shall soon take down that cross, 
 and close the gate of heaven, and put out that sun of grace 
 which shines before your eyes. ' ' In closing appeal he broke 
 forth : ' ' Inhabitants of Annaberg ! bring forth your money ; 
 contribute liberally in aid of indulgences, and all your mines 
 and mountains shall be filled with pure silver." 
 
 Still he lingered. At Easter he announced that he would 
 distribute the indulgences to the poor, gratuitously, for the 
 love of God. A poor young man, Myconius by name, hap- 
 pened to be present. He applied to the Tetzel commission- 
 ers, saying that he was in need of a free pardon. They 
 replied to him that only those who stretched " forth a help- 
 ing hand to the Church, that is, gave money, could share in 
 the merits of Christ." "Give at least a gros" they said. 
 "I cannot," he replied to them. "Only six denier s" 
 
184 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 they proposed. " I have not even so much," he answered. 
 As he left he remarked, that what he wanted was what they 
 had promised, "a free pardon, — and for the love of God. 
 You will have to account to Gfod for having, for the sake of 
 six denier s, missed the salvation of a soul." The populace 
 saw through this, and the trade was at an end in Annaberg. 
 
 The way in which the sale was introduced in Germany 
 was in its whole arrangement a speculation, which in shame- 
 ful manner involved the Pope. The manner of its introduc- 
 tion confirms all the other testimony about the corruption 
 of the Papal court. Any court of justice would now put 
 him, and his German archbishop, in prison, for such high 
 attempts to get money under false pretenses. In this is 
 shown the purely worldly spirit which had taken hold of 
 the Papacy, and dominated the Roman Church. 
 
 It came about in this way. In all the countries around, 
 prodigious sums of money had been collected by the barter 
 in sins. A German archbishop saw a rare chance to make 
 a great sum, and at the same time put himself on a good 
 basis with the Pope. This was Albert, who at twenty- four 
 had been made archbishop of Mentz and of Magdeburg. At 
 the same time he was made the elector of these same king- 
 doms, so that he was both ecclesiastical and civil ruler. He 
 was frivolous, profane and licentious. His court was one 
 of the most gorgeous and extravagant in the empire. He 
 took copy of the court of his Church at Rome, and, on a 
 smaller scale, rivaled it. To carry on such a court he 
 wanted money, and a great deal of it. In addition to his 
 expensive rule, he had to pay for his pallium, which was a 
 costly affair. This was an ornament made of white wool, 
 decorated with black crosses, and blessed by the Pope, and 
 bestowed by him on the archbishops, on their appointment 
 to office, and as a sign of their jurisdiction and authority. 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 185 
 
 It cost from twenty-six to thirty thousand florins. The 
 Pope wanted his money for this. 
 
 Albert formed the plan of making some money in the 
 same way the Pope did. He proposed to the Pope to take 
 a "contract for the sins of Germany," as it was termed. 
 The Popes had been in the habit in this way to farm out 
 the sale of the indulgences in the several countries of 
 Europe. Leo accepted the proposal of Albert and stipu- 
 lated, as a condition of what he thought favorable terms, 
 that the pallium was to be paid for at once. But he was 
 to make money out of the indulgences to make payment. 
 Now, to meet the Pope's condition, he had to borrow anew. 
 His debts were heavy. He had but one way to secure the 
 parties from whom he should procure the money. He would 
 mortgage the sins of the people, which now had a certain 
 money value attaching to them. The banking house of the 
 Fuggers made the loan, accepted as security this bond made 
 to represent the money, which the people would pay to have 
 their sins taken away. It was in this way that the Fuggers 
 were made cashiers for the sale of the indulgences in Ger- 
 many. As soon as possible the market was opened up in 
 one town after another, until the whole country was visited, 
 except Saxony, where the elector put every obstacle in the 
 way. 
 
 If this whole procedure indicates anything, so much as 
 it does a great money making scheme, it is hard to tell 
 where that other thing appears. The Popes sold every 
 thing. Rome was a great distributing point for Papal 
 goods. To forgive a sin cost from a few pence up to twelve 
 pounds ; to get permission to commit a crime would cost 
 considerable more, but still was a mere matter of money. 
 An archbishop' s pallium, or insignia of office, cost from 
 twenty-six to thirty thousand florins ; while a cardinal's hat 
 
186 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 cost thirty thousand florins also. And thus everything 
 was disposed of, and is yet, for money. 
 
 Roman Catholic authorities have no answer to this, which 
 they can support with evidence. Their papers, documents 
 and books have been found, and these produce a terrible 
 showing against them. Their councils have acted upon 
 these schemes of the Popes to make money, and the cardi- 
 nals have considered them. A powerful party defended 
 the indulgences in the council of Trent, though the infamous 
 evils of the Tetzel campaign were before them for their en- 
 lightenment of the low traffic. 
 
 Truly in this sixteenth century the love of money was the 
 root of all evil in the Papal Church. The Popes loved 
 money, because by it they could purchase all the pleasures, 
 dissipations and luxuries which their wicked hearts craved ; 
 and with money, if they could only get enough of it, they 
 could procure all the power and glory, which the world had 
 to give. By money they could make that show which the 
 world would be held by, because dazzled with. The cardi- 
 nals wanted money, because with it they could live in show 
 and ease, and pave their way to the Papal throne. When 
 the throne of Rome became vacant, there were those on the 
 bench of cardinals, who bribed other members to vote for 
 them. The cardinal with the most money got the Pope's 
 crown. The bishops and archbishops wanted money, be- 
 cause they, too, kept up the same grade of show and luxury 
 as the Popes and cardinals, only on a smaller scale. The ab- 
 bots and priests wanted money, because they lived in indo- 
 lence and debauchery, and on the rich viands of the market. 
 The greed of the priest was no less than that of the Pope ; 
 in his sphere he spent quite as much as did the Pope. 
 
 Thus was the campaign for money the waste of the na- 
 tions in this century in Europe. 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 187 
 
 The traffic in indulgences fostered a regular gaming spirit 
 in the Papacy. Many of the Popes hesitated before no chance 
 to make money. No set of gamblers ever showed an utter 
 lack of principle and honor, in practicing their schemes, 
 than have many of the Popes. This greed on the part 
 of the Popes led to a like spirit in the lower orders. The 
 most exorbitant prices on the indulgences were fixed by 
 the local agents, and the Popes gave no objection. Preachers 
 in the pulpits labored hard to frighten the people into buy- 
 ing the indulgences. They got a commission on what they 
 sold. They went to the extreme of measures, and resorted 
 to any argument to drive a sale. 
 
 Tn some of the countries, the office of treasurer of the fund 
 was out on bids. These bids were for the whole country, 
 or a particular district. The highest bids were taken, and 
 these again were let out at a sort of auction. They would 
 bid against one another, and so run up a big price. The 
 priest had to announce this in the Church, whenever the 
 indulgences were for sale. If he neglected it he took the 
 risk of excommunication. Every power in the church had 
 to be brought into use, by order or assent of the Popes, to 
 force money from the people. If this spirit be taken as a 
 guide for some reflections on this same Papal society in the 
 world at the present time, it may lay before our reason a 
 scheme equally universal and full of greed, if less vicious, 
 to extort money from every class. A great many things in 
 our country are not allowable for Roman Catholics, ac- 
 cording to their Church law, which are in perfect accord 
 with the laws of the land ; but all of these are attainable by 
 paying certain stipulated sums to the priest or bishop. How 
 a sin can be made a virtue, by paying fifty dollars to effect 
 the change, is beyond the reason of any but a high official 
 in the Roman Church. 
 
188 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 Any order of society, religious as well as commercial, 
 which will resort to any and all ways to make money, will 
 make any and all sorts of use of that money to attain its 
 ends. If corrupt in gaining a money power, it will be 
 equally corrupt in exercising that money power. If the 
 Roman Church is in the habit of making use of fraud and 
 crime to gain money, then will it devote itself to fraud and 
 crime to overcome laws, constitutions and institutions not 
 to the liking of the Popes. 
 
 The hardships to which the sale of indulgences exposed 
 the poor are indescribable. They were often induced to 
 purchase on credit. When the term of credit had expired, 
 and they found they were unable to pay, they were shame^ 
 fully treated for an evil entirely beyond their making. An 
 interdict was placed on the entire parish. Any article, 
 worth double the amount of the debt, could be taken and 
 sold at public auction. Many lost the little they had pos- 
 sessed by restrictions on their poverty. Personal effects 
 and household goods were taken away by the Church 
 agents. 
 
 No class of people have been duped by the Roman 
 Church like the poor. They have been studiously kept in 
 ignorance and superstition, in order that they the more 
 readily submit to this plunder on their little earnings. 
 There are two enemies of the poor Roman Catholics in this 
 country of unremitting injury, and yet they do not seem to 
 think them so. One is the saloon, and the other is the 
 priest, which is to be taken here as the representative of 
 the whole Catholic hierarchy. This ecclesiastical draining 
 of the poor often reduces them to beggars and subjects of 
 charity. Then their own priests and bishops turn from 
 them, and thrust them out to starve, or be cared for by 
 their more charitable Protestant neighbors. Perhaps fifty 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 189 
 
 per cent, of the beggars at our doors are those who have 
 given almost daily to the Roman Church. Roman Catho- 
 lics constitute not over one out of ten of the population 
 with us, and they furnish one-half of the unfortunate who 
 apply to our doors or institutions for help, food and 
 shelter. 
 
 Protestant churches and pastors testify that a large num- 
 ber of those who ask food and bed of them are Romanists. 
 And when they are inquired of as to their solicitations 
 from their priests, they plainly tell that their priests do 
 not help them. In a large city on our coast a great con- 
 flagration deprived, in a few hours, a couple hundred fam- 
 ilies of shelter and household effects. It was less than two 
 hours that a Protestant church was opened, and, with beds 
 on the floor and meals being cooked, the poor wanderers 
 were invited in. Many of them remained several days ; 
 dozens were aided to pay rent and purchase stove and bed- 
 ding for a new home, by this same church. Most of these 
 were Catholics. In the same section was a Roman Catholic 
 Church, to which these people belonged. The priest of that 
 church said he would not open his church if the whole 
 town was burning. A Catholic church was too sacred for 
 such use. 
 
 In a large city in our southwest is a great Roman Cath- 
 olic institution of the Sacred Heart Catholic Sisters. This 
 structure was built by begging, as are all their institutions. 
 These sisters had told many a beautiful story about how 
 they were relieving the poor and those in distress. Some 
 of the Irish Catholic poor, who were in the last hours of a 
 distressingly hard winter, and who had no money for 
 either meals or shelter, thought they would try the charity 
 of the very institution to which they had often given 
 money. Fourteen of them appeared at the door and asked 
 
190 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 for a cup of coffee. They were all taken to the police 
 court the next morning, upon the complaint of the sisters. 
 
 In one of our large inland cities one of the best known 
 charity workers is connected with three of the principal 
 charity institutions. Two of them are entirely non-sec- 
 tarian. They receive their aid wholly, however, from 
 Protestants. Nearly one-half of those who apply for 
 aid, and those in most distress, as a rule, are Ro- 
 man Catholics. So it appears that the Roman Church, 
 by its unjust extortion on its poor, becomes a direct 
 means of poverty to its own members, then refuses 
 to render them aid when they become wholly depend- 
 ent upon charity ; and still worse, will not contribute 
 any aid to wholly non-sectarian institutions, to which 
 Roman Catholics send ten times as many inmates as 
 they should, on the basis of their per cent, of the popula- 
 tion. In this same city a man left one million dollars, the 
 income of which was to be devoted to the Roman Catholic 
 poor of the city. ~No one has been able to tell where that 
 sum is used for the purpose directed in the will of the 
 donor. Here is an instance, and it has counterpart in all 
 our cities, which indicates a wrong which must be righted. 
 The evils it will hatch for us in the near future, if left 
 alone, will be past correction. 
 
 This is a natural digression, leading off from the consid- 
 eration of the traffic in indulgences; for by the heavy 
 drafts the Church made on her poor in the trade of the in- 
 dulgences, and a score of other schemes^ and by her failure 
 to instruct the members in the ways of domestic economy, 
 has largely come the distress, in which is found most of the 
 Catholic populations of the world. Then it is to be borne 
 in mind that all this is a direct injury to the nation. Men 
 of public spirit, and those who have the public weal on their 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 191 
 
 hearts, would do a service to their country to seek some 
 remedy, and encourage the country to apply it. 
 
 The sale of indulgences did not terminate in Germany, or 
 in the sixteenth century. It spread over the world, and 
 came down the centuries. Benedict XIV. in 1743 granted 
 the Knights of Malta a license to sell indulgences at a price 
 to be fixed by themselves. The Pope was to fall into pos- 
 session of a large proportion of the sale money ; and the 
 Knights were to retain the balance, and they were to run 
 the scale of rates up as they saw fit. Their purpose was to 
 accumulate money, not release the people from their sins. 
 It is but natural to suppose that the practice was altogether 
 bad and hurtful to morals. 
 
 In 1778, Pius VI. granted a license to Ferdinand IV., of 
 Naples, who depended upon this means to increase his rev- 
 enue. Here and there an instance is found of Papal grants, 
 authorizing the trade of the indulgences to be prosecuted 
 in some country. It is quite evident that the sale has 
 gone on from the sixteenth century to the present, under 
 the direction and license of the successive Popes. 
 
 STILL RUNNING AS A MONEY SCHEME. 
 
 Pope Pius IX. issued his grant authorizing the trade in 
 indulgences to be carried on in Spain. This was in 1851. 
 The Pope was to receive a certain share of the money ; and 
 the balance was to go to the bishops. The fund of the 
 bishops was to be used for pious uses. In 1859 it was 
 ordered that the part falling to the bishops was to be ex- 
 pended on the service. In 1859 the amount of the indul- 
 gence money in Spain reached three million pesetas. And, 
 while there is no reliable statement at hand of direct 
 amounts, it is estimated that the annual sum now received 
 
192 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 in Spain from the indulgences is fully three million and a 
 half of pesetas, or over a million dollars and a half. 
 
 A MOUNTEBANK FINANCIEKING. 
 
 This mountebank financiering in the Roman Church has 
 had great force in binding upon that • Church those evils 
 which are to be deplored on the common grounds of moral- 
 ity. That the indulgences were the source of many of the 
 gravest crimes, the Roman authorities give ample evidence. 
 Pius V. declared the indulgences rendered men more prone 
 to sin, in the confidence that they could purchase remission 
 for a trifling price. He declared that simony was one of 
 the scandals caused by the indulgences. The ruling princes 
 of Saxony, in the time of Luther, would not permit the sale 
 to be carried on in their provinces. They were indignant 
 at the vice and crime which accompanied the traffic. 
 Neither the Franciscan nor the Augustine monks would 
 have any part in the shameful commerce in sins. The 
 Dominicans took naturally to the trade, as they were not 
 at all concerned with matters of conscience, while the other 
 orders in Germany, especially the Augustines, seemed to 
 have felt some little moral restraint. 
 
 The sale of indulgences is still a traffic in the Roman 
 Church. In Spain it is a means of considerable profit to 
 the priest and bishop, and likely to the Pope. In the 
 provinces where the greatest ignorance prevails, it is con- 
 tinued in with largest success. 
 
 The people are led to pay their money, believing that 
 they in some way are purchasing relief from sin. Those 
 who can afford to give large sums, feel encouraged to com- 
 mit sins, as their money has a purchasing power with the 
 church, which can relieve them from the guilt and conse- 
 quences of sin. The condition prevails, though to a less 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 193 
 
 extent, in the south of Italy. The Papacy has reduced 
 Italy to beggary, and can and does dupe the people, though 
 not as much as formerly. 
 
 In Ireland the Papal schemes for making money enjoy a 
 rich field. No portion of the world, considering the pov- 
 erty of the country, gives so liberally to the Peter's pence 
 gift to the Pope. The way in which the ignorant and 
 superstitious Irish are duped by the priesthood is a moral 
 mystery. It has taken centuries, almost ages, to reduce 
 that once great people. But when a race is so deteriorated 
 by knavery and fraud, it seems almost beyond recovery. 
 
 HOW THE PRIESTS DUPE THE IRISH. 
 
 The Irish have been led to believe that St. Patrick was 
 the greatest of all Irishmen, and the greatest of all Roman 
 Catholics ; while the fact is, he was not a Roman Catholic 
 at all, and was a Scotchman by birth. In all soberness the 
 Irish peasantry, around the beautiful lakes of Killarney, 
 will describe the way in which Patrick drove the snakes 
 from that country, while the science of natural history shows 
 that reptiles never existed in that country, and could not. 
 It is not ludicrous slander invented against the supersti- 
 tious Irish, of the lower counties of Ireland, but a fact con- 
 firmed by frequent affirmations of those defrauded victims 
 of the priesthood, both in Ireland and those who have lived 
 for years in this land, that the priest can, as a punishment 
 for disobedience to the Church, turn a man into a rat. 
 They affirm authenticated instances where it has been done. 
 
 THE POPE A GAMBLER. 
 
 On the table of the author is an indulgence card issued by 
 authority of the Church, and for use in Ireland. It directs 
 the money to be sent to " Sister Catherine Norris Superi- 
 oress, of the Sisters of Charity, Ballaghaderin, County 
 
194 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 Mayo, Ireland." On the card is a cross, with an orna- 
 mental border, and the arms of which are divided into sixty 
 small squares. The people are encouraged to go out and 
 " collect five cents for every small square, (piercing the 
 same with a pin) till the sixty are full." This money is 
 sent to the "superioress " and, in return, an indulgence 
 for three hundred days is given. It is declared this indul- 
 gence is a balance against past offences, — that this money 
 purchases relief from sin ; in addition, it guarantees divine 
 grace to resist temptation. And it is promised that, in ad- 
 dition to all this, souls in purgatory shall be benefited to the 
 extent of three hundred masses. And all this fraud, for 
 which some one ought to be responsible before the law, is 
 carried on under the cognizance and with the approval of 
 the Irish bishops. And the Pope knows of it, and prevents 
 it not. To gamble on the credulity of an ignorance, manu- 
 factured by the Church, is the worst form of gambling. 
 That the Pope would sanction this is not strange, when it is 
 remembered he realizes on the gambling operations at 
 Monte Carlo. 
 
 LOW CONDITION OF THE IEISH CHARGEABLE TO THE PAPACY. 
 
 That the low condition of the Irish has been brought 
 about by Papal rule, is held by those most competent to 
 judge. The Duke of Wellington in his deliverance on the 
 Roman Church in Ireland says : "I must observe, that no- 
 body can have looked into the transactions in Ireland, for 
 the last hundred and fifty years, without at the same time 
 seeing, that the Roman Catholic Church has acted on the 
 principle of a combination ; that this combination has been 
 the instrument, by which all the evil that has been done has 
 been effected, and that to this cause the existing state of 
 things in Ireland is to be attributed." 
 
TEE ROMAN PAPACY. 195 
 
 PROCURING MONEY UNDER FALSE PRETENCES. 
 
 Indulgences and the mass are near akin. The priests can 
 pray a soul out of purgatory, but they must have money 
 for doing so. The consequences of sin put, and keep, for a 
 time the souls of all Roman Catholics in purgatory. The 
 money paid for masses for the dead is to purchase relief 
 from the punishment of sin ; while the money paid for an 
 indulgence for the living is to purchase relief from sin it- 
 self. The two are a terrible fraud. Their custom in our 
 country is a severe reflection on the intelligence of Roman 
 Catholics. The mass is continued in every Roman Catholic 
 Church in the land. But it is not generally supposed that 
 any attempt has beeu made in the United States to sell in- 
 dulgences, yet such is the fact and a present fact too. 
 They can be bought in the city of Boston. They are pur- 
 chased by ignorant people, who believe there is a virtue of 
 some sort connected with the bit of fancy work, made by 
 the nuns, and blessed by the bishops. It is claimed that 
 all the money procured, by the sale of these indulgences, is 
 devoted to charity. Should this be true, though it is to be 
 gravely doubted, it is none the less a fraud, which should 
 be prosecuted under the law against procuring money by 
 false pretences. 
 
 INDULGENCES SOLD IN UNITED STATES. 
 
 A very little while ago a priest in Pittsburgh issued and 
 circulated a printed circular, authorizing indulgences, for 
 the benefit of a shrine of the Virgin Mary, in his Church. 
 This circular describes at length the shrine and its history ; 
 enlarging upon the spiritual benefits to be derived from 
 prayers made to Mary at her shrine ; specifies particular 
 days when the prayers are particularly beneficial ; declares 
 
196 THE ROMAN PAPACY, 
 
 that indulgences have been duly authorized for the benefit 
 of the patrons of the shrine ; explains how these indulgences 
 secure relief from sin, and its penalties, both for the living 
 and the dead ; and in closing, directs how this indulgence 
 money may be sent to the priest, through the mails. 
 
 In this circular are found abominable falsehoods, gross de- 
 ception, criminal intent, and shameful idolatry. And yet 
 the whole affair is under the care and patronage of, and in 
 perfect accord with, the Roman Catholic Church. Where 
 there are such unseemly immoralities in religious things, 
 what is more to be expected than stupendous political 
 hypocrisies on the part of the Romish priests and bishops 
 in our country ? 
 
 The principle underlying moral and religious life will 
 appear in political action. If fraud and deception are 
 means in use, in Church management, they will be found 
 sixty-fold more potent, in political conduct. The religious 
 methods of the Papal Church, in the United States, should 
 not be overlooked, in their bearing upon the political pro- 
 pensities of the Papal power. The despotic spirit of the 
 Papacy is in incontrovertible variance with our free institu- 
 tions ; while its well known ecclesiastical fraudulent methods 
 cannot but defraud us of our liberties. Ecclesiastical de- 
 formities mean political enormities ! 
 
 The position of the Roman Church on indulgences is very 
 cunningly shaped, and such resort is made to sophistry that 
 the unthinking section of that Church, which is by far the 
 largest of her communion, can be easily deceived. The 
 Council of Trent, the findings of which we are specially 
 told are in authority now, held that: "Whoever shall 
 affirm that when the grace of justification is received, the 
 offense of the penitent sinner is so forgiven, and the sentence 
 of eternal punishment so reversed that there remains no 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 197 
 
 temporal punishment to be endured before the entrance in- 
 to the kingdom of heaven, either in this world or in the 
 future state in purgatory, let him be accursed." 
 
 From this deliverance of the Council of Trent, it would 
 seem that not sin itself, but the consequences and penalties 
 of sin, were lifted by the power of the indulgences. And 
 this teaching is carried out by the opinion of Bishop Chal- 
 loner, in a work entitled, "The Catholic Christian In- 
 structed," in which he says: " An indulgence is simply a 
 remission or mitigation of those temporal punishments 
 which the sinner still owes to the eternal justice, even after 
 the forgiveness of the guilt of his offense." It is in such 
 an understanding of the doctrine that Bishop Frederick 
 issued the following indulgence petition to the Pope, as re- 
 ported in Sadlier's Directory for 1871: "Saint Patrick's 
 Day. Most Holy Father, James Frederick, Bishop of Phil- 
 adelphia, most humbly begs that your Holiness would deign 
 to grant to all the faithful of his diocese who, having duly 
 confessed and worthily approached the holy Sacrament of 
 the Eucharist on the feast of St. Patrick, shall visit their 
 representative churches, a plenary indulgence, which may 
 be accounted every year, and which may also be applied in 
 favor, aid or assistance of the souls in purgatory." This 
 indulgence was granted over the seal of the Pope's secretary. 
 
 - A HOEEIBLE DOCTEINE. 
 
 This understanding of indulgences is silly and fraudulent 
 enough. But a much more extreme view is taken, and 
 taught, by the less scrupulous authorities of the Papal 
 Church. Perrone, a distinguished Roman Catholic theo- 
 logical lecturer, says : ' ' Indulgences free a man from obliga- 
 tion to punishment, not only in the sight of the Church, but 
 also in the sight of God." Charles Butler, another Roman 
 
198 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 Catholic theologian, says that his Church ' ' has received 
 power from Gfod to remit temporal punishment, partially^ 
 or wholly, including suffering in purgatory. ' ' John Milner, 
 a Roman Catholic theologian, declares : " It is the received 
 doctrine of the Church, that an indulgence is an actual re- 
 mission by God himself." 
 
 On such extreme teachings, Tetzel was justified in his 
 appeal to the people to buy remission of their sins. He 
 did not use extreme words when he said : " Draw near, and 
 I will give you letters duly sealed, by which even the sins 
 you shall hereafter desire to commit, shall be forgiven you." 
 Nothing here said about the temporal punishment attach- 
 ing to sin in this life, but sin itself. 
 
 BLASPHEMOUS TTTTEEANCE OF THE PEESENT POPE. 
 
 Worse, and still, the present Pope, Leo XIII. , holds to 
 the efficacy of indulgences over sin itself, and has authorized 
 them, and himself granted them. Upon the occasion of 
 his golden jubilee, but the other year, he issued indulgences 
 in a sort of a general way, as an inducement for his subjects 
 to come to Rome, and spend their money. After inviting 
 both sexes to make a pilgrimage to Rome, on the occasion 
 of his jubilee, to offer him that honor and obedience, due 
 the supreme authority conceded to him from God, and on 
 the condition that they are penitent and have confessed, 
 and have partaken of the communion for the extirpation of 
 heresy, the conversion of sinners, and the exaltation of the 
 Church, he " concedes to them"— this is his language — 
 "full indulgence, and remission of all their sins ; which 
 indulgences, all and each, remission of sins and condon- 
 ing s of penances, can be applied also to the souls detained 
 in purgatory, and it is our will that they be conceded for 
 this year only." 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 199 
 
 In the year 1888 this same Leo XIII. , issued a permit to 
 Prince Amadeo to marry his niece. Certainly this is a 
 crime, by the laws of Italy. Certainly it is a sin of incest, 
 by the laws of the Church. The Pope granted an indul- 
 gence for this Prince to live in a continued state of incest. 
 And he did it, according to his highest authority in the 
 Church, in that country, because the " Prince and Princess 
 have deserved well of the Church." Here is the whole 
 spirit of the Romish Church. Serve the Papal Church 
 zealously and faithfully, and no matter what crimes or sins 
 are committed, or desire is entertained to commit, they can 
 be condoned, aye, they will be authorized — on the payment 
 of a little money — and the quality of evil, which attaches 
 to such sins, will be abated, and the punishment, whether 
 of this life or the next, which is consequent to them, will be 
 remitted. 
 
 POLITICAL SIDE OF THIS DOCTEINE. 
 
 The political side of this doctrine is readily seen. If the 
 Pope holds the right to issue a permit to commit one crime, 
 and Leo did this very thing against the laws of Italy, then 
 he can grant the right to commit any crime. And upon his 
 ignorant subjects — purposely kept in ignorance for such 
 reasons — the power of indulgence from the consequences of 
 sin and crimes, goes far towards increasing the disposition 
 to both sin and crime. 
 
 It is difficult to conceive of a greater evil for a nation, 
 than for a considerable number of its citizens to believe and 
 hold, and, when occasion comes, act out the belief, that 
 crime against law, human or divine, may be committed, and 
 a man, whom they serve, has a power to efface all the moral 
 consequences. Persons who hold such a view of Papal 
 ability to deal with sin, are dangerous elements in the social 
 order, possess very low and indistinct ideas of the general 
 
200 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 rights of the community, and are sure to display a heart of 
 treason in the hour of a serious crisis, involving a conflict 
 between duties to country and to Pope; while they are 
 more subject to the peculiar conditions which provoke both 
 sin and crime. 
 
 ROMISH RIOT AGAINST EREE SPEECH. 
 
 It is well to put on record two instances, of recent occur- 
 rence, to illustrate these two last statements. Our public 
 dispatches are burdened with the reports of a riot, of im- 
 mense proportions, in a southern city. A lecture was an- 
 nounced on the political evils of the Papacy. A secret 
 Roman Catholic society declared it should not occur, and 
 took measures to prevent it, lawful measures at first. The 
 ignorant Roman Catholic population was inflamed. When 
 the municipal authorities declined to interfere to prevent 
 free speech, a howling mob, thousands strong, surged about 
 the hall, broke in every window, threatened the life of the 
 lecturer, and endangered the lives of several hundred citi- 
 zens. The vicar general of the Roman Catholic Church 
 failed to control the excited mob, the police were powerless 
 to quell it, and the military had to be summoned to drive it 
 back with the bayonet. When the commanding officer of 
 the State troops approached his men, to detail a company 
 to guard the lecturer to his hotel, a company of Irish Cath- 
 olics, belonging to the command, asked to be excused, and 
 the officer in command saw fit to grant their request. That 
 is the situation always, with the element strictly holding to 
 the power of the Church to relieve them of the moral re- 
 sponsibility attaching to broken vows, and violated obliga- 
 tions. In the emergency of a conflict between the sover- 
 eignty of the country, and the sovereignty of the Pope, 
 Roman Catholics of the ignorant and bigoted type are dis - 
 loyal to country. 
 
THE ROMAN PAPA CT. 201 
 
 EFFECT OF INDULGENCES ON CEIME. 
 
 The relation between an indulgence-selling Church and 
 the criminal classes, is shown in our daily observation of 
 current facts, and particularly by examinations made in 
 criminal statistics. This latter class of evidences is most 
 overwhelming, that the Roman Catholic Church, consti- 
 tuting not over twelve per cent, of the population, furnish 
 over fifty per cent, of the graver crimes. The sheriff's office 
 in San Francisco has lately furnished a list of the murder- 
 ers executed in that city, since its incorporation. The re- 
 port stipulates their nativity and religion. The whole num- 
 ber of executions reported being twenty-seven, it is some- 
 what startling to be told by this report, that only seven were 
 natives of the United States, while Germany and Austria 
 furnished but two each, and England, Spain, Italy and 
 China furnished one each. The remaining twelve were na- 
 tives of Ireland. As to their religion, three had none, one 
 was a Pagan, one held to the Presbyterian, two to the 
 Methodist Church, and the remaining twenty were Roman 
 Catholics. This report does not state how many, guilty of 
 the crime of murder, were never executed. The power of 
 the Papal Church in saving her people from the penalties 
 of just laws is widely known. 
 
 The Papal Church has not in any way, at any time, dis- 
 credited, disapproved of, or repudiated the doctrine of in- 
 dulgence, the inquisition, or the Papal claim of the sover- 
 eign power of the Popes over the moral thought and con- 
 duct of its subjects, in the domain of the political as well 
 as spiritual. Because of this solemn fact, modern Christian 
 civilization must more and more stand aloof from the eccle- 
 siasticism of the Papal Church. 
 
TO SWITZERLAND. 
 
 " When bribery can show its face, 
 There Freedom has no dwelling-place; 
 Freedom must stand by Bravery, 
 Sheltered and guarded evermore, 
 Amid the bloody ranks of war, 
 Amid the fearful dance of death; 
 Let gleaming swords drawn from the sheath, 
 And sharp-edged' spears and axes, be 
 My guardians, golden Liberty. 
 But where a Freeman's heart is met, 
 And by a tempting bribe beset, 
 There noble Freedom, glorious boon ! 
 And name and blood of friends too soon 
 Are cheaply prized ; and rudely torn 
 The oaths in holy covenant sworn." 
 
Dqes the Roman Church 
 knowingly perpetrate 
 frauds upon their own 
 
 PEOPLE ? 
 
 There was there an image of the Virgin Mary, which 
 had the miraculous property of weeping. Many a time 
 have I seen it, with the big tears trickling down its cheeks, 
 and I, as did all others, believed it to be unquestionably a 
 miracle. When the insurgents penetrated into the chapel, 
 as I have above stated, they tore the image down from 
 its niche, and discovered behind its head small tubes con- 
 ducting from a basin in which water was poured ; and 
 thus the image wept. 
 
 In the town of Baguet was a figure of the Savior, which 
 had the property of sweating. This was called a miracle ; 
 but the insurgents who tore it down, with its fellow idols, 
 found that a vessel of boiling water was placed beneath 
 the statue, and the steam was carried through the tubes 
 over the body, and issued through small holes, or pores, 
 
 Life of a Spanish Monk. 
 
PART VI 
 
 THE PATRIOT CAUSE IN SWITZERLAND, AND 
 
 ROME'S PAST AND PRESENT HATRED 
 
 FOR LIBERTY. 
 
 The little countries on the map of geography, have held 
 the big nations in the book of history. Quality counts, 
 rather than quantity. Character is heavier than numbers. 
 A few people, in a poor country, with poverty and G-od on 
 their side, contribute more to liberty and morality, and 
 consequently to the elevation of the race, than a large pop- 
 ulation, in a vast territory, with great wealth, but without 
 God. 
 
 Careful readings in the history of civilizations do not 
 make us overly hopeful as to the accomplishments of the 
 highest moral results in duty performed, heroic efforts for 
 improvement made, and happiness enjoyed, where the gov- 
 ernmental domain stretches over a vast continent ; on the 
 contrary, that legislation of a moral cast, and those noble 
 sentiments of liberty, which best inspire life in a people, 
 and all of which best conserve the highest welfare of a na- 
 (204) 
 
THE ROMAN PAPA GY. 205 
 
 tion, have mostly had their most distinguished illustrations 
 in the small countries, whose geography would prove com- 
 paratively insignificant, were it not for the largeness of 
 their history. Compactness and intensity, rather than ex- 
 tension, have figured in the history of the development of 
 religion and freedom. Patriotism works a more uniform 
 cohesion, and heroism is more evenly diffused in the small 
 countries. And here, too, laws are more in accord with the 
 interests of all sections, and institutions are more in touch 
 with all the people. There is more of sameness in custom, 
 and unity in thought, which may retard variety in civil- 
 ization ; but they will, on the other hand, contribute to 
 solidity of national character. 
 
 THE GKEATNESS OF THE LITTLE COUNTEIES. 
 
 Compared with the immense plains of mighty Assyria 
 and great Chaldea, Palestine is no larger than the palm of 
 the hand. Yet from this small land the world had brought 
 to it a divine system of religion, with all its heavenly in- 
 stitutions and uplifting impulses. Little Greece is only a 
 rocky peninsular, sliding down the side of the iEgean, and 
 extending out into the wild waters of the Mediterranean. 
 Yet in little Greece philosophy was born, dramatic poetry 
 took its highest flight in ancient times, and art, bearing 
 marks of richest genius, reached its maturity. 
 
 Place a golden thimble at the right spot on the map of 
 Europe, and you have placed a dome over entire Moravia. 
 Yet in the noblest motives that can actuate the human 
 breast, in religious hymnology, and in Christian missions, 
 diminuative Moravia walks off with the palm, and there are 
 none to dispute. Standing on the lower tier of the Swiss 
 Alps you can look out across entire Piedmont. Yet here 
 
206 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 the flames of religious freedom were brightly burning when 
 they were not to be seen elsewhere in Europe ; and Papal 
 Rome required ten hundred years to extinguish it, and 
 then it soon came forth again. 
 
 Scotland has an area of but thirty thousand square miles ; 
 but the magnitude of Scotland's contribution to liberty, 
 religion and the sterling forces of civilization, mark it as a 
 great country, and in some respects beyond comparison ; 
 and in the mighty achievements of exploration and mis- 
 sionary enterprise none of the large nations need compete 
 for the admiration due. 
 
 THE LARGEST CONTRIBUTIONS TO LIBEETY, EDUCATION AND 
 
 MORALITY. 
 
 Switzerland is about half the size of Scotland. But her 
 work, for both patriotism and religion, has made for her a 
 fame which will never pass from the memory of scholars. 
 All of these small countries combined, Palestine, Greece, 
 Moravia, Switzerland and Scotland, would make an area less 
 than one-third of the size of the state of Texas. Nor should 
 it be forgotten, that at least two-thirds of the surface of 
 these little countries are taken up with sterility — morasses, 
 lakes, rivers and inaccessible mountains. But one- third is 
 fit, therefore, for habitation and cultivation. The combined 
 population of all these countries at no one time exceeded 
 twelve and half million persons. And yet, in the valors of 
 war, the arts of peace, the blessings of religion and the con- 
 servations of liberty and education, these little nations have 
 attained to greater heights in mental and moral acquisitions, 
 and made vaster consignments to human thought, than 
 the large nations. We argue nothing from this, but only 
 state an interesting and wholly overlooked fact, which the 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 207 
 
 history of civilization teaches in many an impressive lesson. 
 While the great kingdoms, in size, have wronght at the 
 mill of ambition, to grind ont pride and vanity, which have 
 ripened into weakness and licentiousness, and consequent- 
 ly have hurried these nations forward into decay, the 
 small nations of the world, equipped in moral, rather 
 than physical strength, and actuated by motives, rather 
 than moved by impulses, have originated great systems 
 of thought, prosecuted vast and healthy reforms, have 
 been the first to champion the rising cause of liberty, and 
 have glorified themselves by giving honor to the truths 
 born in the heart by the spirit of God. The least in size 
 shall be first and greatest in high esteem of the ever ex- 
 tending future. Herein is shown the truth of Scripture, 
 "God hath chosen the weak things to confound the 
 mighty." 
 
 switzekla:n"d the pictukesqite. 
 
 Picturesque Switzerland ! Majestically enthroned amidst 
 its enormous waterfalls, the Reichenbach, with its seven 
 falls, and the Liesbach with thirteen, while the Stanbbach 
 has a lofty plunge of one thousand and one feet ; its nearly 
 five hundred wonderful glaciers, one in the Bernese Ober- 
 land thirteen miles long and nineteen hundred and sixty- 
 eight yards wide ; its nearly one hundred lakes and Alpine 
 tarns, in whose blue- shaded waters are mirrored the gor- 
 geous beauty and grandeur of the Alpine scenery. 
 
 Among these small countries, holding a distinguished 
 place, and doing a distinguished work in the cause of hu- 
 man liberty, is that of Switzerland, sitting humbly beside 
 her little lakes, but lifting her Alpine arms, whose hands 
 are gloved with the pure white of the perpetual snow, into 
 the sky-heights, from whence she draws her inspiration of 
 
208 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 freedom. The very impressions of Swiss scenery upon the 
 mind are those of religion and patriotism. A race is braver, 
 more free, and ought to be better because of such an habi- 
 tation. As the day draws to a close in Switzerland, the 
 last light of the setting sun falls upon the long range of 
 snowy peaks, and the Alpine after-glow is on, and the effect 
 on the mind is most solemn. Those great battlements, 
 lofty towers, and graceful pinnacles are all ablaze with the 
 streaming fire of the dying day, while down in the valleys 
 are reflected dark shadows, mountain ridges, forest ranges, 
 and snowy cliffs. The writer of this book, years ago, on 
 the upper deck of a beautiful little craft, gliding over 
 the clear waters of Lake Lucerne, and about to leave the 
 country, wrote this last impression of Switzerland : " Swit- 
 zerland is one great cathedral of nature, unmade by human 
 hands, and ought to be unprofaned by Romish priest. The 
 lakes are the naves ; the dark caves and ravines are the 
 crypts ; the little valleys are the chapels ; the glacial caverns 
 are the confessionals, where God alone hears the confession ; 
 the mountains are the galleries ; Mont Blanc is the mighty 
 dome ; the Alpine heights are the pinnacles and turrets ; 
 the basaltic rocks are the altars ; the northwest winds are 
 the choir, which, sweeping through the passes and over the 
 peaks, play the anthems of eternal praise through the pa- 
 triarchal pines. And that anthem is ' In Excelsis DeoS " 
 
 Oh ! ye land of the Alpine snows ! Thou art a country 
 of glory, in the grandeur of thy scenery ! Thou art equally 
 a country of glory, in the display of the moral grandeur of 
 thy lovers of liberty and thy champions of truth ! 
 
 SWITZERLAND' S LANGUAGE TO AMERICA. 
 
 This small country was the home of one of the greatest 
 reformers, and the field of a majestic struggle for political 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 209 
 
 and religious rights. The ancient and noble Swiss race had 
 been betrayed into a willing recruiting ground for Papal 
 hirelings, through the deceptions of the Popes, and this re- 
 former led his fellow Swissmen to throw off the yoke, and 
 become valiant for right and truth. They only became 
 great as they became independent of Papal Rome. And 
 Switzerland says to America : " Ye freemen of the western 
 world, study my history and take warning from my mis- 
 fortune, and free yourselves, while you may, from the 
 menace and peril of Papal oppression and deception. Be- 
 hold my people reduced to slaves, and made to serve as 
 vassals in the Papal army, wronged, and led to wrong 
 others. Look upon my people forced into ignorance in. 
 order that they might be submissive to the Papal burdens. 
 Watch the course of liberty and intelligence in my country, 
 which followed the divergence from Rome. Reflect upon 
 the growth of the national spirit and a loving devotion to 
 country, which began the day of our uprising against Rome's 
 tyrannies. View the free institutions in my bosom, and 
 remember that they are the fruit of that generous work 
 performed, amidst all sorts of perils and persecutions, by 
 the heroic patriots who led the notable fight with corrupt 
 Rome. Consider all these things, and be fully persuaded 
 that no free people can long continue so, if it be allowed 
 that Rome has any right to interfere with the internal 
 management of national affairs. Do this, and take warn- 
 ing, that your own high civilization be not betrayed into 
 ruin by the arch-betrayer of all the nations." 
 
 THE BIRTHPLACE OF A PATRIOT. 
 
 Up in the Alps, near the head of the Rhine, hard by the 
 humble village of Wildhaus, stands even to this day, an 
 old shepherd' s cottage, over which the roaring Alpine winds 
 
210 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 have swept for four hundred years. This was the birth 
 place of Ulric Zwingli. He was born on New Year's day, 
 1484, which was just seven weeks after Luther came into this 
 world. His boyhood was spent in the village school, and 
 in the mountains watching the herds as they fed along the 
 upper ranges of pasture. During the early days of May, 
 when the higher Alps are green with the pasture grass, it 
 was the custom to drive the cattle, musical with their clang- 
 ing bells, to the mountains. This was the task of the older 
 ooys. They would remain, caring for the cattle, for days 
 and weeks, without coming down into habitable portions of 
 the mountains. Amid sun and storm, lightning glare and 
 thunder roar, they would live among the heights. This 
 proved a mighty training for the thoughtful mind. It 
 could not but develop the heroic elements of both heart and 
 mind. Such was the task of young Zwingli for a number 
 of summers. It proved a great training ground for him. 
 It was to him what Horeb was to Moses, and the wilderness 
 was to John the Baptist. There was unmistakable provi- 
 dence in it. His lungs were being filled with the stimulating 
 air of the Alps, as his mind was being expanded by com- 
 munion with the very sublimities of nature, and reflection, 
 on the attributes of God. The one made him brave in after 
 years, and the others made him true and just. In this way 
 are the real leaders of men made. 
 
 HOW THE PATRIOT IS MADE. 
 
 His heart was made patriotic, and his spirit daring and 
 enduring, as he sat by the great fire place of winter nights, 
 while the angry Alpine blasts blew without, and he listened 
 to stories of the olden time ; how the pious missionaries, 
 from across the sea, came with the Gospel to the early Swiss, 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 211 
 
 and how they suffered ; stories of how his forefathers had 
 withstood the enemies of Swiss liberties, who came from 
 despotic Austria, and rolled back their armies like ava- 
 lanches from the mountain steeps. Ulric' s grandmother re- 
 galed him with many a great story of early Swiss adventure, 
 and Bible patriarch and prophet. Those long winter even- 
 ings were great school hoars for the mountain boy, in pre- 
 paring him for the grave struggle he was to soon enter upon 
 for liberty and God. He grew up not unlike the mountain 
 fountain from which he drank. 
 
 It would prove a genuine blessing to our American homes 
 if the hours, when the children were about the family cir- 
 cle, were spent in telling of stories and anecdotes of heroic 
 acts, patriotic deeds and pious lives. The children would 
 unconsciously be educated in those most excellent qualities. 
 When childhood from six to sixteen listen mostly to small 
 gossip and neighborhood twaddle, the manhood and wom- 
 anhood fed upon such mental light diet, will most necessari- 
 ly be inferior. 
 
 Ulric Zwingli was God' s leader in the Swiss Reformation, 
 and while we look at his life and work, we also are tracing 
 the character and meaning of that wonderful uprising of the 
 Swiss mountaineers for a pure Gospel and just rights. 
 
 HOW A GEEAT MAN IS MADE. 
 
 Zwingli is first to be regarded as a devout student of 
 God' s Word. In his Alpine home on the slope of Mount 
 Sentis, he sat by the fireside, and imbibed the stirring Bible 
 stories, as they fell from the lips of his old grandmother. 
 Here the seed was sown. After mastering the classical 
 studies, he began with ardor to drink the living waters from 
 the perennial stream of Scripture. While a chaplain in 
 
212 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 the army, during a campaign in Ita]y, lie found in the 
 library in Milan an old mass-book by Ambrose, which 
 greatly differed from the one then in use in the Church by 
 the authority of the Pope. A study of this ancient book 
 of the Church led him to conclude that the mass-book was 
 the work of man, and subject to change. At once he wa& 
 led to the high opinion, and made the declaration, that the 
 "Word of God alone is eternal and unchangeable." He 
 was brought to see that the Holy Spirit alone could give the 
 true meaning of the Word. He besought God, in exhaust- 
 ing prayer, to bestow upon him the favor of understanding 
 the sense of the Word. His zeal in Scriptural knowledge 
 greatly contributed to make him the leader among the Swiss 
 reformers. His profound study of the Word led him ta 
 exalt in his soul the Lord Jesus Christ, and to look upon 
 his Gospel as the charter of liberty. With him Christ was 
 "all and in all." This exalted conception of the Saviour- 
 hood of Christ and the liberty of his Gospel, became with 
 Zwingli a very passion, both of faith and love. 
 
 This same high conception of the Wonderful Christ has 
 been attested by the leading thinkers, whose thoughts are 
 worth pondering. 
 
 Jean Paul Kichter says: "The Christ is holiest among^ 
 the mighty, and mightiest among the holy, who has lifted 
 with his pierced hand empires off their hinges, and turned 
 the stream of centuries out of its channel, and still governs 
 the ages." The great German poet, Goethe, bears this dig- 
 nified testimony : " I esteem the Gospels to be thoroughly 
 genuine, for there shines forth from them the reflected 
 splendor of a sublimity, proceeding from the person of 
 Jesus Christ, of so divine a kind as only the divine could 
 ever have manifested on earth." That robust thinker, 
 Thos. Carlyle, exclaims: " Jesus of Nazareth our divinest 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 213 
 
 symbol ! Higher has the human thought not yet reached." 
 Herder testifies : " Jesus Christ is, in the noblest and most 
 perfect sense, the realized ideal of humanity." Napoleon 
 broke forth in his impassioned style : " I know men, and 
 I tell you that Jesus Christ is not a man." John Stuart 
 Mill, out of his calm and philosophical method, bears wit- 
 ness: "Who among the disciples of Jesus could invent 
 his sayings, or imagine the life and character revealed in 
 the Gospels ? Christ is charged with a special, express and 
 unique commission from God, to lead mankind to truth 
 and virtue." 
 
 POWER OF THE BIBLE IN CIVILIZATION. 
 
 Such is the conception of the Bible held by all the think- 
 ers, leaders and reformers who stand for the broadest and 
 most wholesome principles of liberty. The men who see in 
 the Bible the text-book of all human duties, are the same 
 who conserve the best interests of civilization. It is im- 
 portant that we bear in mind, as we look over the great 
 Reformation conflict, that the religious and political re- 
 forms of those morning centuries of the modern period, 
 were inaugurated, and led into accomplished facts, by the 
 men who first saw them in the Bible. There is to be enter- 
 tained little hope for any very general and lasting reform 
 in our own land, freeing our laws and institutions from the 
 Roman dominance, until men learn their duty out of the 
 Bible. 
 
 Zwingli not only received the sublime truths of the Bible 
 in his mind, but he drank from the heart. His was a heart 
 understanding. Hence he was heroic and devoted for every 
 deed the times were to exact of him. Christ was the theme 
 par excellence of his preaching. With Martin Luther it 
 was justification by faith ! With John Calvin it was the 
 
214 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 electing purpose of God, through, grace ! But with Ulric 
 Zwingli it was the personal Christ living in the hearts of 
 his people. Thus did the reformers supplement each other 
 in their work ! 
 
 A GREAT PATRIOT ORATOR. 
 
 This lofty conception of the Savior, with his fine bearing 
 and impassioned eloquence, made Zwingli the greatest 
 preacher of his generation. Learned men walked fifty 
 miles amidst the glacial perils of Switzerland to hear this 
 man preach. As an orator, Zwingli has not had his deserts. 
 He needs to be spoken of in the same catalogue with De- 
 mosthenes the Grecian, Cicero the Roman, Pitt the English- 
 man, and Bossuet the Frenchman. Some of his sermons 
 must forever attract the attention of the diligent xolodder 
 in the field of Church history, and the teachings of patriot- 
 ism. 
 
 A SPECIMEN OF PAPAL KNAVERY. 
 
 Such a sermon was preached by Zwingli while he was 
 preacher at Einsieden. It was preached against a great 
 wrong. In the time of Charlemange, a German monk, seek- 
 ing solitude and prayer, had built a cell on a high hill, 
 among the pines south of Lake Zurich. He was murdered 
 by two robbers who had no thought of detection. The 
 monk had two pet ravens, which followed them to Zurich, 
 croaking and flopping their wings. Their consciences were 
 troubled and they betrayed themselves. They were tried 
 and executed on the spot where now stands the " Raven 
 Inn" in Zurich. On the spot of the monk's cell a church 
 was built, with an altar for pilgrims. It was built in honor 
 of the Virgin Mary. When consecrated , it was given out 
 by crafty priests that a voice from above was heard in ap- 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 215 
 
 proval of the enterprise, and that angels attended the Vir- 
 gin as the chnrch was dedicated. Though the monks knew 
 it to be a trick, the Pope declared it a miracle, and Leo 
 VIII. ordered the faithful not to doubt. Forgiveness was 
 offered to all pilgrims who should visit the shrine, which 
 was inscribed with the words, " Here is a full remission of 
 sins." For nine centuries the line of pilgrims has been 
 unbroken. A town sprang up. It has for centuries been 
 the most renowned resort for Catholic pilgrims in all mid- 
 dle Europe. The throng reaching from one hundred thou- 
 sand to two hundred thousand a year, and formerly, three 
 hundred thousand a year visited the spot and left their 
 money behind them. 
 
 THE VIEGIN SHEINES AEE PAPAL FEAUDS. 
 
 The shrines of the Virgin Mary, operated under the aus- 
 pices of the Roman Catholic Church, are a queer kind of 
 fraud. The Pope, by simple act of his will, can attach to 
 particular spots peculiar spiritual virtues, which, however, 
 are only available on the payment, in advance, of a certain 
 sum of money. The extravagant claims put up for the 
 remedial qualities, which attach to these shrines, delude 
 multitudes of ignorant people into long and expensive pil- 
 grimages, or outlays of money at home, deceived into the 
 belief that they thus secure certain benefits of intercession 
 or protection from the Virgin Mary. 
 
 Every country in Europe, at one time or another, has had 
 these shiines. Some legend connected with a particular 
 spot is usually the only ground for the origin of miraculous 
 manifestations of the Virgin. These manifestations are the 
 fruitful cause of pretended benefits for all who will pay 
 their money. 
 
216 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 There are many of these Virgin shrines in this western 
 world. There are two in Mexico, which in this century be- 
 came rivals, and were the means of incitement to hate and 
 war. The principal shrine was that of the ' ' Lady of Remem- 
 edies," which was brought over with Cortez, the Spanish 
 conqueror. It is a large wooden doll, rudely carved with a 
 penknife, two holes for the eyes and one for the mouth. 
 No Pagan idol could be uglier. Yet the image is hand- 
 somely dressed, and for three centuries has been worshiped 
 by the Spanish aristocracy in that country. Some of the 
 robing of this image was valued at $3,000,000. It is de- 
 clared by the priest in charge of this silly fraud, that every 
 attempt made to patch up the broken and hideous image, 
 brought sickness and death to the presumptuous artist. 
 The Papal wife of Maximilian made this image her protect- 
 ress while in Mexico, and earnestly carried wax tapers 
 about in honor of it. The rival Virgin shrine in Mexico is 
 that of the " Lady of Guadalupe," which was patronized 
 more by the native Mexicans. The extravagant show of 
 worship to this idol by the ignorant classes is beyond belief, 
 were it not confirmed by all the reliable witnesses, who 
 have seen the adorations of the December anniversary of 
 the image. Clusters of emeralds and diamonds adorn the 
 drapery and throne of the image. As recently as eight 
 years ago — no doubt is true still — an ecclesiastic stood at 
 the door of the cathedral, and sold medals to the pilgrims 
 to this shrine. In connection with the medal was a printed 
 slip on which might be read : 
 
 " Our most holy father, the sovereign Pope Pius VI. , by 
 his brief of the 13th of April, 1785, has conceded plenary 
 indulgence in the hour of death to all those who shall then 
 have upon them one of the medals of Our Lady of Guada- 
 lupe, which, ready blest, are sold in her sanctuary." 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 217 
 
 THIS HUMBUG FOUND IN THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 This humbug is found in the United States. There are 
 several such shrines of the Virgin, about which, it is claimed, 
 cluster supernatural influences, ready to be dispensed for 
 money. It is rather strange how these idols give forth 
 their virtues only when money is paid. There is one of 
 these shrines at Pittsburgh, another in New Jersey. There 
 is one at Buffalo. The, paper published in the interest of 
 the latter is on the table of the author. It claims the most 
 impossible benefits will accrue to those who will send money 
 in the name of "Our Lady of Victory." From this paper 
 it is learned that Pope Leo XIII. , in 1888, at the request of 
 Bishop Ryan, did establish this shrine, and endowed it 
 with the privilege of having indulgences issued from it, for 
 souls in purgatory. This paper reveals the idolatry, blas- 
 phemy, superstition and deception connected with this 
 shrine. It is promised that " upon this altar will be daily 
 immolated the Lamb without spot, continuing the sacrifice 
 of Calvary, and bestowing innumerable blessings upon the 
 dead as well as the living. ' ' The Pagan priest, who officiates 
 at this idol shrine, says in his paper : "If you wish to enter 
 the Harbor of Salvation, strive to celebrate the festivals of 
 our Blessed Lady in a worthy manner, for Mary is our only 
 refuge." 
 
 The enormity of fraud connected with these shrines was 
 much greater in the sixteenth century. Intelligent scholars 
 in Scripture understood the stupendous deception. But 
 not all such decried it. It took one who had a knowledge 
 of Scripture to understand the heathenism of the custom ; 
 but it took one with a Scriptural knowledge, that is a knowl- 
 edge according to Scripture, to cry out against the evil. 
 Such a man was the great Swiss reformer and patriot, 
 Ulric Zwingli. 
 
218 THE ROMAN PAPACT. 
 
 A SERMON TALKED ABOUT OVER EUROPE. 
 
 Zwingli felt that the people should be taught that the 
 visits to this shrine had no religious virtue attaching to 
 them whatever, and that the whole enterprise was only a 
 device to bring money into the coffers of the Church. In 
 1516 the baron, who had charge of the particular district, 
 in which was located the shrine, a man of sincere piety and 
 out of heart with the fraud of the place, invited Zwingli to 
 become the preacher at the convent, which was connected 
 with the shrine. It was the day of the angel consecration, 
 which filled the church, the town and the valley with peo- 
 ple. Zwingli went into the pulpit, and boldly held forth 
 against the superstition of the multitudes, which had come 
 from all parts of Europe. Shots were fired which were 
 heard down at Rome. ' 4 Long pilgrimages, offerings, images, 
 invocations of saints cannot secure to you the grace of God. 
 Who is a hypocritical Christian but the Pope, who exalts 
 himself in the place of Christ?" Think of thousands of 
 people, who thought that their mission was pleasing to God, 
 and for the good of their souls, being told this ! Surprise 
 and amazement took possession of the multitudes. They 
 thought that the Popes were mercenary ; but they had 
 never been told that they were hypocrites. Zwingli was 
 not to stay at that charge even. He went on : " The Pope 
 says he has power on earth to forgive sins, and so binds 
 God to Home and Romish sanctuaries. Men must come to 
 the holy places and bring money in enormous quantities, to 
 enrich them. And in just such places are more unworthi- 
 ness and vice than elsewhere. He who ascribes to man the 
 power to forgive sins blasphemes God. Great evils have 
 sprung up from this source. So that some whose eyes have 
 been blinded by the Pope, have fancied that their sins were 
 
THE ROM AX PAPACY. 219 
 
 forgiven by sinful men. Thus God has been hidden from, 
 them. We do not dishonor the Virgin Mary when we teach 
 that she ought not to be worshiped ; but we dishonor her, 
 indeed, when we ascribe to her the majesty of God. She 
 would not suffer such idolatry if she could speak to us." 
 
 A FATAL BLOW TO THE PAPACY. 
 
 The people were both surprised and indignant ; yet 
 the argument had appealed to their common reason, 
 and kept as they had been in ignorance, they felt that the 
 dreadful charges were altogether true. The seed was 
 planted, and nothing could pluck it out. The die was 
 cast, and there was no power could recover the loss to the 
 Papacy. 
 
 Yet from the money brought by these pilgrims Zwingli 
 had his income, and he knew the sacrifice his position would 
 cost him. His conscience led him, and he was ready to 
 take the consequences falling to any course of duty. 
 
 Thousands returned home, and declared what they had 
 heard at Einsieden. " Christ saves alone, and he saves 
 everywhere," was one Zwinglian sentence that lingered in 
 their hearts, and had settled in their convictions. All of 
 this from one sermon, preached by a man whose heart was 
 on fire for God and native land. The preachers of Ameri- 
 ca might take many an inspiration from the patriotic ser- 
 mons of the Swiss reformer. He neither considered his liv- 
 ing, his comfort, nor his safety. 
 
 ANOTHER MIGHTY SERMON. 
 
 Another great sermon preached by Zwingli was upon 
 the sale of indulgences. So extensively had this business of 
 selling diplomas for the forgiveness of sin been carried on 
 
220 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 in Switzerland, that when the Papal agent faced southward 
 for Rome, he hauled away a cart load of coin, which re- 
 quired three horses to draw. The extent of the evil was 
 beyond our comprehension. Public and private institutions 
 were made bankrupt by the base scheme. Zwingli waited 
 until he saw that the better instincts of his countrymen 
 could be aroused, and then he preached. And such a ser- 
 mon! It was heard from London to Prague, and from 
 Constance to Rome. All Europe was talking about it with- 
 in three months. There was a seething torrent of feeling 
 within him as he preached, and his voice fell persuasive 
 and powerful from the pulpit. There was no doubt as to 
 his meaning. Here is a section of this famous sermon : 
 " Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has said, 'Come unto me 
 all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you 
 rest.' Is it not audacious folly and shameless impudence 
 for a man to say, i buy a ticket of absolution — give money 
 to the monks — make sacrifices to the priests, and I pro- 
 nounce you free from sin V Can your gifts save you % No. 
 Jesus Christ is the only sacrifice, the only gift, the only 
 way.- Those who sell the remission of sin for money, are 
 the companions of Simon the magician, the friends of Ba- 
 laam, the ambassadors of Satan." He trusted to the truth 
 to awaken and make free. When he was cautioned to be 
 moderate he exclaimed: " The whole Papacy rests on a 
 bad foundation." He returned four times to the charge : 
 "By God's help I mean to preach the Gospel, and that will 
 shake Rome." This shepherd's son knew how to blow up- 
 on the Alpine horn such a blast as would be heard by the 
 faithful flocks under his leadership. 
 
 Zwingli was a born leader of men and measures. He was 
 a man of warm heartedness and popular sympathies. He 
 had to contend with none of those sad experiences of child- 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 221 
 
 hood and youth, which fell to the lot of Luther. He was 
 light hearted and joyous, without any doleful vein of char- 
 acter to drive him to the convent, and make him wretched 
 there. 
 
 THE POWER OF PATRIOTIC HYMNS. 
 
 The mighty Protestant preacher of Switzerland was great 
 in popular and patriotic music. He could make the Alpine 
 gorges ring wild and full with the old Swiss songs of free- 
 dom and patriotism. He consecrated this power of song to 
 the Gospel, and wrought into the melody of sacred poetry 
 some of the loftiest though ts of Scripture. While stretched 
 upon a bed of sickness, which it was feared would lead to 
 death, he poured forth his soul in the following hymn- 
 prayer : 
 
 "Lord, hear my anxious pleading, 
 
 O, help me in this strait ; 
 
 Upon my door is knocking, 
 
 The doleful hand of death. 
 
 Thou, Lord, for him in conflict 
 
 The might of mercy hast ; 
 
 Stay, Christ, O ! stay beside me, 
 
 And help me to the last. 
 
 " Thou art, O Lord, my Maker, 
 And I thy creature am, 
 As clay in hand of potter 
 I'm fashioned by thy hand. 
 At length in holy stillness 
 My soul with thee shall rest, 
 Thy will shall be my pleasure, 
 Be it in life or death." 
 
 This hymn was a great favorite in Switzerland, as was 
 Luther's " Bin Feste Burg" in Germany. Great leaders 
 
222 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 of God have often been eminent in sacred music. There 
 are David, and his Hebrew Psalms ; Ambrose, and his Lat- 
 in hozanas ; Luther, and his German songs ; Zinzendorf, 
 and his missionary hymns ; Wesley, and his English hal- 
 leluiahs. And all these popular hymns are conducive of 
 patriotism. We should cherish gratefully the gospel in lofty 
 melody and song. 
 
 THE NEED OF PATRIOTIC SONGS. 
 
 Patriotic songs and Christian hymns are very near akin. 
 In the old Hebrew chants the worship of God, and love 
 for the Palestine hills and rivers, flow as one melody. 
 Our patriotism should be sobered, toned and beautified by 
 lofty sentiments of religious melodies. The great battle- 
 hymns of patriotic armies have been half religious. The 
 Piedmontese, the English Puritans and the Scotch Cove- 
 nanters went to meet their foe with David' s martial Psalms 
 breaking from their ranks. Religious fervor has a legiti- 
 mate place in patriotism. There can be no true patriotism 
 without religion. There is no conserving love for country 
 where there is no religion. France shows much of the pre- 
 tentious in patroitism, without a corresponding seriousness 
 in devotion to country ; but this lack would be met if the 
 religious elements were strengthened in national life. The 
 great classic hymns of English patriotism breathe lofty re- 
 ligious sentiments, which dignify them, and unite love of 
 country to love of God. The best beloved, most beautiful 
 and highly finished of our national hymns are aglow with 
 underlying religious interests. The God of nations must 
 have our country in his divine care. Our devotion to coun- 
 try must be accompanied with dependence upon God. This 
 should be so kept in mind, that the line of demarkation be- 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 223 
 
 tween patriotic songs and religious hymns may become less 
 marked. 
 
 POLITICAL REFORM A PATRIOTIC WORK. 
 
 The awakening in Switzerland, under Zwingli, was a 
 work of patriotism, as well as of religious reformation. 
 Zwingli was a model patriot. The Pope flattered him with 
 an annual gift to purchase books. But when he began to 
 suspect that it might be an attempt to win him to the Papal 
 intention, to crush out the independence of the Swiss Can- 
 tons, he told the Papal agents, in clear and express terms, 
 that they must not fancy, that for their money he would 
 withhold one iota of the truth ; so they might take back, or 
 give, as they pleased. 
 
 When chaplain in the army, he often addressed his coun- 
 trymen in arms on devotion to country and allegiance to 
 the cause of liberty, justice and independence. Patriotism 
 was a natural instinct to the people of the thirteen small re- 
 publics of Switzerland. Living in the very citadels of the 
 Alps, along the slopes of the inaccessible mountains, and 
 upon the shores of lakes which had no name in history, 
 they were being prepared for centuries, by God and their 
 natural environs, to be ready, in the fulness of the right 
 time, to follow a prepared leader. Zwingli arose, a pre- 
 pared patriot, to lead prepared patriots to liberty and in- 
 dependence. Germany did not dispatch her own Ref orma- 
 tion over into Switzerland. The brave Swiss began their own 
 Reformation, on their own volition, out of their own native 
 spirit of freedom, and under their inherited sense of Swiss 
 rights and liberties, the traditions of which had been pre- 
 served through the centuries, during which Rome had been 
 growing in oppressive measures. 
 
224 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 HOW LIBEBTY AXD EDUCATION WEEE LOST. 
 
 Both liberty and education had once had a home in those 
 Swiss Cantons north of the Rhone. And along with broad 
 ideas of civil and religious liberty, and a high general stand- 
 ard of education there prevailed a deep and reverent piety. 
 This high grade of public intelligence, with personal and 
 political morals, was not a child of the Papacy. Nor was 
 Home in any sense a patron of this favorable social order. 
 It was a ripened fruit, before the Papal rule entered the 
 Alps to destroy the tree that bore -it. But by the time of 
 Zwingli, this fruit had lost its flavor and soundness, through 
 the poison of the Papal policy. 
 
 IEELA^D O^CE A OEEAT PEOPLE. 
 
 How came northern Switzerland in possession of her early 
 liberties and intelligence ? In the very morning of European 
 civilization, Ireland had a pure religion and a broad edu- 
 cation. Christianity was not of Papal introduction in Ire- 
 land. It came by way of Britain, from Asia Minor, and 
 was not originally of the Homish brand. It early developed 
 a vital energy in the intelligence of the early Irish tribes. 
 With the conversion of the people from the strange Druid 
 religion, came a remarkable mental awakening. Schools 
 were general, and high in quality. Science, letters and elo- 
 quence chiefly characterized the education of the Irish 
 Christian education, up to the centre of the Middle Ages. 
 The Christian preachers issuing from these schools, spread 
 over Europe, and became a great power in Germany, France 
 and Switzerland. These missionaries, learned in letters, in 
 the sciences, and wonderfully florid in their eloquence, were 
 free to move about as they pleased, being subject to no 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 225 
 
 Papal system. They became famed for the most persuasive 
 eloquence. In Switzerland they excited a great influence, 
 established schools, encouraged education, preached a pure 
 Gospel, and mightily conserved the cause of religion and 
 freedom among the people. 
 
 As the Middle Ages fell upon Europe, the Papacy en- 
 croached more and more upon these little isolated races, 
 among the mountains of central Europe. Like a web, 
 Romish errors, deceptions and frauds were thrown about 
 the religious services, and slowly the nightmare grew dense, 
 and Switzerland, like all the other nations, was enslaved. 
 
 ZwiDgli had caught the spirit of the Reformation hope. 
 What he now contended for, was a return to the freedom,, 
 piety, independence and intelligence, the land had once en- 
 joyed. He inquired profoundly into the causes which led 
 his country to forsake those better times. He discovered 
 that the superstitions and tyrannies of the Papal rule were 
 mostly to be charged with forcing his country into that de- 
 parture from a former state of intelligence, and the enjoy- 
 ment of civil rights. 
 
 SWITZERLAND A VASSAL OF ROME. 
 
 This discovery of the political corruption of the Papacy, 
 acted upon Zwingli much as Luther was affected in Rome 
 by his discovery of unblushing moral corruption of the 
 Papal system. Because of the nature of his discovery, 
 Luther became mostly a religious reformer ; and because of 
 the nature of his discovery, Zwingli became the great politi- 
 cal reformer of his country. His beloved land had become 
 the vassal of Rome, and he demanded a deliverance. The 
 way in which he led in the proposed political and moral re- 
 
226 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 forms, witnessed to his valor and power as a leader. All 
 appeals for justice and right, made to bishop or Pope, were 
 as useless then, as now, and Zwingli lost no time in such 
 fruitless proceedings. He looked to the people to deliver 
 themselves, under his leadership, and the favor of God. 
 
 AN ABOMINABLE EVIL. 
 
 He began with those reforms which would conduce to 
 higher patriotism, morals and intelligence. He persuaded 
 the Canton of Zurich to oppose the Pope in hiring Swiss 
 soldiers. For a long while the Popes had been fighting 
 their wars by aid of the Swiss mercenaries, who were in- 
 duced, for pay, offers of bounty and favors in purgatory, 
 to fight simply at the call of the Popes, and without regard 
 to issues involved. This was exceedingly degrading and 
 brutalizing, while it had the effect of greatly awakening the 
 ability of the Swiss to meet any foe. In opposition, Zurich 
 took the lead, other Cantons followed, and the northern 
 section of Switzerland asserted its rights over its own citi- 
 zens, against the bribery of the Pope' s agents. 
 
 This abominable evil was broken up none too soon. The 
 Roman Catholic Cardinal Schinner had offered the hardy 
 mountaineers to the king of France, who was engaged in a 
 broil with the Pope. When the king declined, because of 
 the high price the cardinal required, Schinner opened over- 
 tures with Pope Julius II. , who paid him his price. In a 
 little while he had the whole country round about in the 
 mercenary service of the Pope. The opposition of Zwingli 
 made the cardinal furious. The conflict had come, and the 
 people stood with Zwingli. 
 
 Zwingli then began a crusade against the celibate priest- 
 hood, and soon led Zurich to favor the marriage of the 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 227 
 
 priests. He became assured that the Bible nowhere forbade 
 the marriage of ministers. He called a conference of min- 
 isters, who approved of his views. A petition was sent to 
 the higher Church authorities. The opposition against the 
 reformer increased to such an extent, that he soon found 
 that he was conducting a large part of the country away 
 from the Papal Church. The civil authorities took sides 
 with him because of the way he championed the cause of 
 liberty ; at the same time the people found they were with 
 Mm, as against the cardinal and Pope, because of his elo- 
 quent gospel sermons, which led them to see how the whole 
 Papal system was unscriptural and hateful. Zwingli won 
 the hearts of his countrymen to such a degree that every- 
 thing Papal became exceedingly obnoxious. 
 
 AN OLD TRICK OF THE POPES. 
 
 The Pope tried his old trick — still frequently resorted to 
 — to place Zwingli under such obligations to the Court of 
 Rome, that he could not violently assail the Papal institu- 
 tions. He was appointed to the honorable place of Acolyte, 
 chaplain of the Papal chair. The missive of in vesture read : 
 " Distinguished by his virtues and great merits, he deserves, 
 in the eyes of the Pope, and the holy Apostolic chair, a 
 recognition of his great learning, and some distinguished 
 mark of paternal approbation." He was encouraged to ex- 
 pect still greater and higher honors. Zwingli was not to be 
 bribed. He declined to longer use the small stipend alloted 
 to him for the purchase of books. 
 
 He asked for reform in the Church, not honors for him- 
 self ; he pleaded for liberties for his country, not fulsome 
 praise for himself. He appealed to the bishop of Constance 
 to stay the trend of terrible corruption in the Church. The 
 
228 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 bishop of Constance cared no more than the cardinal for 
 reforms, and tore up his letter with the remark : ' ' Convent 
 preachers are not my advisers. When the holy father 
 orders a reform, it will be time enough to begin it." But 
 the Pope was not thinking about reforms. Very few of 
 the Popes can be called reformers in any broad sense. 
 
 LAZY NUNS AND MONKS. 
 
 As his hope for reform from within the Church grew 
 faint, he turned more and more to the people, and sought 
 to lead them to correct some of the Papal abuses and cor- 
 ruptions, by civil action. The convents and monasteries, 
 as in most countries, harbored many and gross abuses. 
 Both nuns and monks were ignorant and lazy, and in many 
 cases immoral. These institutions were, in many instances, 
 confiscated school properties, once under the patronage of 
 the civil functions, and which had afforded most excellent 
 facilities for the education of the youth of the country. 
 But this was before the Papal aggrandizement had been so 
 complete. Zwingli urged that these places be converted in- 
 to homes for the poor and school houses. The Papacy was 
 practically turned adrift in this work of restoring the con- 
 vents to honorable service for the country. The Church, 
 under the reformer, in the northern Cantons, was becoming 
 independent. 
 
 RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL REFORMS GO TOGETHER. 
 
 The great Swiss patriot was the first to see that the re- 
 ligious and political reformation must advance together. 
 France and Holland followed in the same line, and Scotland 
 to some extent. In the Swiss Canton there was no feudal 
 lord, but the people governed themselves, except so far as 
 they had allowed themselves to be duped to surrender their 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 229 
 
 rights to the ecclesiastical authorities. Zwingli declared 
 his great desire to promote the liberties of the people. The 
 people were with him. 
 
 A diet, or conference, was called at Lucerne in 1522, con- 
 stituted of the Papal adherents. It organized an active 
 persecution against the Zurich pastors, who were preaching 
 the truth. Two years later one of the most patriotic of the 
 reformers, Nicholas Hottinger, was condemned to death, 
 and beheaded, for tearing down an image which stood by 
 the highway. Three others soon met the same fate, and 
 the fires of persecution fiercely burned. The Cantons of 
 Zurich and Berne stood together, while the Papal Cantons 
 sought help of Austria, and began to recruit an army. 
 
 The two armies confronted each other at Cappel. The 
 Papal forces had great fear they would prove too weak for 
 the brave patriots, and a treaty was patched up. Accord- 
 ing to this agreement, it was established that religious 
 liberty should be granted throughout the confederacy; that 
 the images should be left to local choice, and that the five 
 Papal Cantons, which had opened the overt act of war, 
 should pay the expense. 
 
 PAPAL TREATIES ARE A PAPAL RUSE. 
 
 This peace of Cappel was a Papal ruse to gain time. The 
 preparations for war went on quietly, but rapidly. All 
 compromises proposed by the Romish authorities have al- 
 ways turned out just so. In a short while the news was 
 hurriedly brought to the Protestants of Zurich, that the 
 standard of war had been raised in Lucerne, and that the 
 forces of the Papal Cantons were rapidly assembling. The 
 brave, but unprepared, men of Zurich hurried forward. The 
 two contending armies met for the second time at Cappel. 
 Zwingli was soon struck down with a stone, while he 
 
230 THE BOMAN PAPACY. 
 
 was stooping to comfort a fallen Zuricher. As he arose he 
 received a stroke from a spear. His body was quartered, 
 burned in the flames, his ashes mixed with ashes of swine, 
 and flung to the winds of the mountains. Twenty Protest- 
 ant pastors fell in the battle. 
 
 A final peace was arranged, by the terms of which it was 
 agreed : " The Reformation shall be guaranteed in Zurich, 
 and all the immediate dependencies, as well as in other 
 places where it has been received ; yet all those who may 
 wish to return to the mass, or to prove by a new vote which 
 is the prevailing party, shall be at liberty to do so. Church 
 property was to be divided according to the census." 
 
 DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A ROMAN CATHOLIC AND PROTEST- 
 ANT COMMUNITY. 
 
 Lower, or French Switzerland, was too tightly held in the 
 Papal arms, and did not cut loose from the slavish forms of 
 Popish feudalism until the seventeenth century. In the 
 meantime, northern, or German Switzerland enjoyed all 
 the sweets of their deliverance from bondage. Even to this 
 day there is a vast difference between the lower, or Roman 
 Catholic Cantons, and the upper, or Protestant Cantons. 
 Papacy has held back the liberty and intelligence of the 
 former, and as well has darkened the home and impeded gen- 
 eral progress. The Roman Catholic part of Switzerland is a 
 full half century behind the Protestant part of the country. 
 
 The solemn evidence is in from every land, and it is 
 strong, that intellectual and political freedom has found an 
 unrelenting foe in the Papal Church. 
 
 Liberty has had many a sitting with the Roman Papacy, 
 and at every such interchange of relations liberty has 
 found that the Papacy has wanted to screen her eyes, belt 
 her heart and shackle her hands. 
 
PAPAL FRANCE OR FREE AMERICA! 
 
 "But France got drunk with blood to vomit crime, 
 And fatal have her saturnalia been 
 To freedom's cause, in every age and clime ; 
 Because the deadly days which we have seen, 
 And vile ambition, that built up between 
 Man and his hopes an abomination wall, 
 And the base pageant last upon the scene, 
 Are grown the pretext for the eternal thrall 
 Which nips life's tree, and dooms man's worst — his 
 second fall. 
 
 "Yet, Freedom ! yet thy banner torn, but flying, 
 Streams like the thunder-storm against the wind ; 
 Thy trumpet voice, though broken now and dying, 
 The loudest still the tempest leaves behind ; 
 Thy tree hath lost its blossoms, and the rind, 
 Chopped by the axe, looks rough and little worth ; 
 But the sap lasts, and still the seed we find, 
 Sown deep in the bosom of Patriotism's soil; 
 So shall a better spring less bitter fruit bring forth." 
 
Does the Roman Catholic 
 Church favor liberty ? 
 
 I can speak from my own experience in Italy. When we 
 preached for liberty and freedom, we were oppressed and 
 enslaved by the priesthood. My penitents were forbidden 
 to come to hear me, or to hear my poor friend Bassi, who 
 was shot by the Austrians at Bologna. 
 
 Gavazzi. 
 
PART VII 
 
 THE UNEQUAL CONFLICT IN FRANCE— PLOTS AND 
 
 CONSPIRACIES OF THE PAPACY TO CRUSH 
 
 CONSCIENCE AND RIGHT. 
 
 France lost the opportunity of the centuries, when she 
 declined to take her place in the ranks of the great Protest- 
 ant nations, which in the sixteenth century took up the 
 forward march of human progress with impressive earnest- 
 ness and captivating enthusiasm. It is a sorry spectacle to 
 contemplate. A choice is made which swings her civiliza- 
 tion about into a counter-march, and France lies crushed 
 and bleeding beneath the heel of a despicable foreign 
 system. 
 
 France once occupied a proud and a great station among 
 the nations of the world. Science and philosophy, litera- 
 ture and quaint music, had distinguished the people. It 
 was one of the first of the western countries to show a tend- 
 ency for centralization and representation in government. 
 It was a consolidated empire, with mighty feudal lords, 
 confederated together and acknowledging the centralized 
 power and authority of the throne, when Germany had not 
 yet given any sign of nationality. England was not so 
 powerful, nor Spain so advanced. France was mistress, 
 
 (233) 
 
234 TEE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 and though already crippled by her One Hundred Years' 
 war with England, she entered the sixteenth century, with 
 ah opportunity standing by, ready to make her great among 
 the greatest, if not greatest of all the great nations of 
 Europe. But in the evolutions of life and thought then at 
 work in Europe, liberty of conscience, and the untrammeled 
 rights of investigation, were to perform a most important 
 function. But the throne of France, when it was already 
 bathed in the glow of the new light, chose to sit in the 
 darkness of the Middle Ages, at the bidding of the Papal 
 powers, which loved darkness rather than light. By the 
 time France got through persecuting, deceiving, calumniat- 
 ing, banishing and killing the Huguenots, civilization had 
 gone far in advance of France, and she had to submit to one 
 humiliation after another, conscious that she was being 
 left far in the rear, among the great nations of the world. 
 The cause for all this is apparent, if conditions are con- 
 sidered in their relation to liberty, independence and justice. 
 France came near being a great Protestant nation, and just 
 missed a rare chance of reaching the highest point of glory, 
 and taking a position of lasting prominence amongst the 
 powers of the world. In the sixteenth century, France had 
 one high, precious, unusual opportunity, the like of which 
 has not come to her since, and may not again for five hun- 
 dred years. 
 
 THE WONDERFUL SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 The sixteenth century ! It was a period, in many partic- 
 ulars, valuable to progress beyond our own century. Ours 
 is a period of discovery, experiment, and success most won- 
 derful in the material sciences, while in political evolutions 
 it is great and far-reaching. The sixteenth century was 
 great in its spirit of earnestness, soul motives, and a certain 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 235 
 
 chivalric display of moral grandeur. It was not an age of 
 inventions, mechanical appliances and sordid money- 
 schemes ; but it was an age of ideas, seething, blazing, fer- 
 menting, burning, if you will, right into the living thought 
 of the day, and forcing their right of way through the con- 
 victions of earnest men, into the logical principles of justice 
 and liberty, and stood at the door of government and law, 
 and thundered their claim upon the attention of thrones 
 and parliaments, and waited, not always patiently, either, 
 to be invited in, and asked to take up their permanent 
 abode. And these ideas possessed the assurance that they 
 would greatly advance the nation, and develop a lofty type 
 of human character. 
 
 In France the feudal system was very rapidly disintegrat- 
 ing. Temporal authority was passing more into the con- 
 trol of the crown. As the feudal lords lost in the civil 
 regime, the feudal idea seemed to be taken up by the 
 ecclesiastical authorities. The bishops were the ecclesiasti- 
 cal feudal lords of the sixteenth century in France, and 
 their episcopal residences were like feudal castles, each of 
 which had its retainers. The ranks of the higher clergy 
 were not unfrequently replenished from the feudal lords, 
 who had lost, or were losing, their hold upon temporal juris- 
 diction. They found ecclesiastical sovereignty just as 
 satisfactory to their ambition, as rule under the form of a 
 temporal princedom, and far easier to maintain, owing to 
 the central power of the Pope. So instead of having a 
 feudal system, with the lord more or less supreme in tem- 
 poral affairs, we have a feudal ecclesiastical system, with 
 the ecclesiastical feudal lords exercising a sovereignty in 
 the temporal affairs jointly with the throne, and both sub- 
 ject to the Pope. 
 
236 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 However, many of the old feudal families, by virtue 
 of more worth of character and sterling sense of honor, 
 held aloof from the move toward an ecclesiastical feudalism. 
 They constituted the very flower of the French nobility. 
 These independent barons, as a rule, became chiefs in the 
 Protestant or Huguenot party. 
 
 THE POPES AFTER THE PURSES OF THE PEOPLE MORE THAN 
 
 THEIR HEARTS. 
 
 As in all the other countries, so in France, the rule of the 
 Popes become more hateful, as the money demands increase. 
 The Popes from the thirteenth century on, were after the 
 purses quite as much as the hearts of the people. An in- 
 vestigation by Parliament, in the fifteenth century, dis- 
 closed the fact that in the three years of the Pontificate of 
 Pius II. (1461 — 1464), Rome drew from France, for posi- 
 tions in vacant archbishoprics, bishoprics and abbeys — 
 which were sold often to the highest bidder, — not less than 
 540,000 crowns, and 100,000 crowns for priories and dean- 
 eries, and the stupendous sum of 1,500,000 crowns from ap- 
 plicants for merely being placed in the list of expectants, 
 awaiting their turn and chance, and who beggared on their 
 friends and the community, while waiting for some ecclesi- 
 astical station to become vacant. Instances were familiar 
 where ten and twelve contestants came forward for a vacant 
 position, each and every one presenting a written statement 
 from the Pope, that he was to have that particular bishop- 
 Tic, deanery or priory, as the case might be. Others would 
 appear who had paid a larger sum to the Pope, presenting 
 Pontifical documents annulling those previously given by 
 the same Pope. 
 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 237 
 
 SCHEME OF POPE AND KING. 
 
 The narrow liberties enjoyed by the people were still 
 further abridged by the celebrated conference of King 
 Francis I. and Pope Leo. X., at Bologna, in 1515. The 
 agreement arrived at resulted in a complete sacrifice of the 
 rights of both Church and State to the Pope and king, who 
 had agreed to divide between them the trophies of their 
 nnseemly spoliation. Later, in the cathedral at Bologna, 
 the king ratified this Papal treaty. Telling its iniquity, he 
 said to Dupret, the chancellor : " There is enough in this to 
 damn us both." But what of that to him? He was after 
 money and the Pope's alliance. He was a Roman Catholic 
 king. By this agreement, concordat it was called, the 
 selection of persons to fill vacant archbishoprics, bishoprics, 
 abbeys and monastic institutions of all kinds, was vested in 
 the king, whose appointments were to be confirmed or re- 
 jected, by the Pope. All revenues were to be divided be- 
 tween king and Pope. Parliament declined to ratify the 
 most abusive measure. Francis declared he would not, 
 "for half of his kingdom, fail of his word to the Pope, and 
 if parliament refused he would find means to make it re- 
 pent of its obstinacy." After keeping up the fight nearly 
 three years, parliament surrendered to the Papal king, who 
 was backed by the Pope. The entire control of the French 
 Church was now in the hands of the king and the Pope. 
 And the king was only a go-between, acting for the Pope. 
 In the reign of Louis XV. s that king had at his disposal 18 
 archbishoprics, 112 bishoprics, 1,666 abbeys, and 317 nun- 
 neries. The original method of the French Church, was for 
 the clergy in each department to agree upon their superior 
 ecclesiastics, and those designated were confirmed by the 
 Pope. This was intruded upon by the custom of Popes in 
 
238 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 giving written promises to appoint, without reference to 
 the will of the Church. The concordat at Bologna was a 
 ratification of this iniquity. And so the liberties of the 
 French were despoiled by the tyranny and rapacity of the 
 French throne and the court of Rome. The king sent the 
 first year's incomes of all ecclesiastics to the Pope. In ad- 
 dition, the Pope had frequent other revenues. In 1518 the 
 king paid the Pope 100, 000 francs as a part of a dower gift, 
 upon the marriage of Madeleine, of Auvergue, and Lorenzo 
 deMedicis, the Pope's nephew. From this union sprang 
 Catherine de Medicis. Leo authorized this money to be 
 levied upon the revenues of the French clergy. The clergy 
 in turn had to get this money from the people. So every 
 new demand of Papal wrong and corruption fell at last up- 
 on the people. 
 
 EXTENT OF THE WORSHIP OF RELICS AND IMAGES. 
 
 The relic, image and saint worship tell the degree of ig- 
 norance by which the common people were held in subjec- 
 tion to the Papal Church. These treasures were found in 
 thousands of churches, cathedrals and convents. In one it 
 was the hair of the Virgin ; in another the sword of the 
 archangel Michsel ; in another the body of St. Dionysius, 
 though a century before the Pope had issued a solemn bull 
 that the body of this saint was at Ratisbon, Bavaria. At 
 Lyons they had the twelve combs of the Apostles, while at 
 Geneva, the pilgrims, it was discovered, were adoring a 
 bone of a deer for the arm of St. Anthony. In one place 
 a lump of pumice was palmed off for the brain of St. Peter. 
 There were 20,000 or 30,000 abbeys and more than 40,000 
 convents in France, and in many of them could be found the 
 nails which were taken from the hands and feet of Christ, 
 and the spear which had pierced his side had multiplied 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 239 
 
 into several, while the solitary napkin abont his head had 
 grown into a multitude. 
 
 These things furnished a lucrative means of wealth to the 
 higher clergy, which, according to a Venetian ambassador, 
 had a revenue which amounted to two-thirds of the whole 
 income of the kingdom. Luxury and vice grew up in the 
 lap of wealth. Haton, the Roman Catholic curate of Meriot, 
 declared that the archbishops and bishops administered the 
 ecclesiastical affairs, "with a view to the promotion of 
 their pleasure." Soranzo, a Venetian Eoman Catholic au- 
 thority, testified that men were placed in charge of the 
 churches, who had devoted themselves to avarice and dis- 
 soluteness of life. According to Brantome, the monks lived 
 in undisguised debauchery. A single passage shows his 
 testimony: " Generally the monks elected the most jovial 
 companion, him who was the most fond of women, dogs 
 and birds, the deepest drinker ; in a word, the most dissi- 
 pated ; and this in order that, when they had made him 
 abbot or prior, they might be permitted to indulge in simi- 
 lar debauch and pleasure. " " As idle as a priest or monk, ' ' 
 and "as avaricious and lewd as a priest or monk," were 
 French proverbs in the first half of the sixteenth century. 
 
 The teachers of theology were as ignorant of the Scrip- 
 tures, as the monks were dissolute. One of the faculty of 
 the University of Paris was in the habit of saying, that he 
 was amazed at the way in which the students brought up 
 the New Testament, for he was more than fifty years old 
 before he knew anything about the New Testament. 
 
 PAPAL FOECES WHICH EUIN. 
 
 Here was a condition of society in which all the elements, 
 which work for ruin of country, were present — ignorance, 
 superstition, hypocrisy, deception, fraud, vice, tyranny, 
 
240 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 and a persistent plan to keep back, and down, that first right 
 of liberty, the privilege to investigate its own statns. In 
 that necessity for reform was the first canse of the Reforma- 
 tion in France. The French Reformation grew up on French 
 soil. It was a native growth, having its birth in French 
 territory. Bohemia' s Reformation was largely indebted to 
 English influences, as was that of Scotland, while Holland's 
 altar fires were kindled from both German and French 
 sources. Not so the Reformation in France. The ex- 
 tremity of the Papal enormities was confronted by the light 
 of the Bible, shining in the hearts of the early French re- 
 formers. 
 
 SOME GEEAT EEEOEMEES. 
 
 The fight which France had with Rome is not to be un- 
 derstood, without a look at the early champions of liberty 
 and rights of conscience. There was Le Fevre. His train- 
 ing had been stupid and narrow, yet he had a remarkably 
 fertile mind and honest heart, and he hailed with delight 
 the news of better things in other lands. He became a great 
 scholar in the sciences and in the Bible. He takes up the 
 Psalms, then the Romans, and writes about these portions 
 of the Scripture in a way to attract the most learned men. 
 In 1523 he translated the New Testament into the French. 
 Five years later he did the same with the Old Testament. 
 These French Bibles no sooner left the press than they were 
 eagerly taken, and soon found their way into every hamlet. 
 Some of the priests, who had not been corrupted, aided in 
 their circulation. The spread of the Scriptures made certain 
 a break from Rome. 
 
 There was Farel, pupil of Le Fevre. He long kept the 
 Papacy entrenched in his heart. When he saw the whole 
 Papal system was an abomination, he turned in a fiery zeal 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 241 
 
 to preaching the Gospel, and condemning the Romish 
 Church. He was of larger service in Switzerland than in 
 his native land. 
 
 There was Briconnet, bishop of Meaux. While on a 
 diplomatic mission, for his king, to the court of the Pope, 
 he became convinced there should be a reform. He became 
 the protector of Le Fevre and other reformers in his diocese. 
 He ordered images and relics out of his churches, and com- 
 mended to his people the Gospel preachers. 
 
 And last, and greatest of all, there was John Calvin, who, 
 when driven from France, wrote his treatise on doctrines, 
 and by the aid of his followers in France extensively cir- 
 culated the most powerful documents yet produced in the 
 French Reformation. 
 
 THREE POWERFUL PAPAL FAMILIES. 
 
 As the movement grew, it was evident that Papal rule, 
 and in truth, despotic government, whether ecclesiastical or 
 secular, would be limited. Persecution grew with the 
 growth of the Reformation. Strong combinations worked 
 as one force, for the suppression of the growing spirit of 
 civil and religious liberties. Against the reform leaders 
 were organized the most powerful families in France. The 
 princes of the House of Valois, the Guise-Lorraine, and 
 the Medicis families, constituted the most powerful Papal 
 combination to be found in any country. And while they 
 entertained distinct family ambitions and pursued such 
 schemes as they could to advance their respective families, 
 yet they usually held together on the Papal question, and 
 especially when it came to persecution. The Cardinal of 
 Lorraine, with his brother, the Duke of Guise, were the 
 leaders of the Roman Catholic party against the Huguenots, 
 
242 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 and the Protestants of Scotland and England. Men of am- 
 bition become a menance to the best interests of any coun- 
 try when they can be seduced into the service of the Pope. 
 The Papacy is always ready to bribe, and prepared to aid 
 those who will do the Papal bidding. We find repeated 
 illustrations of this in the careers of unprincipled American 
 politicians. 
 
 A NEW PHASE OF DEBATJCHEEY. 
 
 In France, the Reformation found a powerful opposition, 
 not before encountered, as a high social antagonism. This 
 was immorality. Debauchery was in France under the pro 
 tection of the court, as in no other country. Francis I. 
 and Catherine de Medicis promoted it until it became a 
 national trait. By the agreement of Pope and king at Bo- 
 logna, the appointment of the higher ecclesiastics was large- 
 ly left to the throne. Francis conferred bishoprics upon 
 the solicitation of the corrupt court women. Dupret was 
 elevated to the chancellorship of the kingdom, through the 
 influence of Catherine, and because he was a favorite with 
 the licentious women of the court. When debauchery and 
 tyranny met to thwart the political and religious reforms 
 of the country, the most bitter persecution was natural. 
 
 RISE OF THE JESUITS IN FRANCE. 
 
 But still another element contributed to the character 
 and degree of Papal persecution in France. This period 
 was in the hey-day strength of the Jesuit order, and France 
 was their favorite country. Through the king, the Cardi- 
 nal of Lorraine and the Pope, they became settled in the 
 country, notwithstanding the most united opposition of 
 the archbishop of Paris, the University, and the clergy, for 
 the local bishops have always and everywhere feared the 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 243 
 
 Jesuits. The influence of Catherine was called in, and the 
 matter of adjusting with the Jesuits was referred to the 
 Council of Trent. Before this great Council they accepted the 
 conditions of admission. Viz. , they took solemn oath not to 
 disturb the liberties of the French Church, to conform to all 
 the laws of the nation, which stipulated that the Pope had 
 no right to any jurisdiction in temporal matters, and that no 
 Papal nuncios should be sent without the approval of the 
 throne, and that the court of last resort lay, not in the Pope, 
 but in a general council. When they took this oath they 
 Jhad not the least intention of respecting it. 
 
 The proof is most conclusive of the collusion between 
 Catherine and the Jesuits. They were no sooner admitted, 
 than they plunged at once into the execution of the con- 
 spiracy, to not only destroy the Huguenots, but as well 
 dictate to the French nation their own terms. There can 
 be no understanding of the immediate causes which led to 
 the massacre of St. Bartholmew, which does not take into 
 consideration the Jesuit-Catherine-Lorraine combination 
 with the Pope. 
 
 GIBBONS-SATOLLI-LEO XIII. COMBINATION". 
 
 Equally true is it, that there can be no clear understand- 
 ing of the disgraceful disregard for law in the United 
 States during the last five years, in city, state and national 
 affairs of government, without an intelligent consideration 
 of the Corrigan-Gibbons-Satolli-Leo XIII. combination. 
 
 THE POPE BEIBES THE SOLDIERY. 
 
 Another great provocation in France was the mercenary 
 soldiery of the Pope. He had 8,000 of them in his employ. 
 They were promised absolution of sin, and other induce- 
 
244 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 ments where held out which were never met. By this shame- 
 ful bribery the Pope opened the door for some of the most 
 blistering evils of war in Italy and Switzerland, and most 
 of all, in France. 
 
 But in spite of all, by the middle of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury the Protestants were a powerful party in France. In 
 some of the provinces they outnumbered the Roman Cath- 
 olics. Perhaps one-third of the population of the whole 
 country were in sympathy with the advanced views as to 
 religion, liberty and tolerance. They should have taken to, 
 and kept the high road of triumph. They had a large 
 number of the popular leaders among the nobility with 
 them. There were some five hundred Huguenot leaders 
 among the nobles of the day of St. Bartholomew. The he- 
 roic element of the nation was found in the ranks of the 
 Huguenots. They had the moral support of England and 
 Germany, and the sympathy of a large party in Holland 
 and Scotland. Withal they had right, and the power of 
 heaven, on their side. 
 
 WHAT THE FEENCH LEADEES LACKED. 
 
 The one thing which seemed to lack, was a want of the 
 completeness of courage. Great reformers and sterling 
 military leaders the cause had. There were brave men, but 
 the leaders seemed to fail in those elements which we rind 
 in Luther, Orange and Knox. Some of the leading men did 
 not see the full depths of Papal depravity, and were con- 
 sequently trapped. Such a man was Coligny, the great 
 and heroic admiral of the kingdom ; others were over- 
 whelmed with a sense of Rome's power to crush and kill. 
 Such was Bishop Briconnet, of Meaux. . He at first gave 
 promise to be a very Luther in assailing Papal corruptions 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 245 
 
 and in circulating the Scriptures. But the University at 
 Paris induced the Parliament, now Papal, to try him. At 
 the same time the power of the Franciscan monks was 
 thrown upon him. Through fear he soon turned back to 
 his ecclesiastical vomit. And he condemned Luther and 
 Le Fevre. He was fined two hundred livers, and returned 
 to his diocese to banish Farel, La Fevre and the reformed 
 teachers. But the good the bishop had done lived on. 
 The people having tasted the Word of God, refused to take 
 to the Romish sop and stuff again. By such as these, the 
 Reformation of the first part of the sixteenth century in 
 France, made certain the terrible persecution of the mid- 
 dle of the century. 
 
 CALL FOR STALWART LEADERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 Courage or cowardice, O countrymen, which? An evil 
 in Church and State in our day, is a painful lack of stal- 
 wart courage in leaders. Convenience, ease, selfishness, 
 are taken in as counselors ; while it is known, conditions 
 are centralizing for a conflict which will be many fold worse 
 than if it were met at once. 
 
 PAPAL PLOTS AND ASSASSINATIONS THROUGH FOUR REIGNS. 
 
 Plots, treachery, assassinations and bloody executions 
 characterized the period extending through the reigns of 
 Francis L, Henry II., Francis II. and Charles IX. Francis 
 I. began the persecutions in the latter part of his reign ; and 
 when he once surrendered wholly to the Papal spirit, he 
 went the full sweep of Romish despotism and bigotry. 
 The University of Paris had presented to the king a com- 
 plaint against the freedom of the press. The king took up 
 the cry, and sent to the Parliament, in 1535, an order abso- 
 
246 TEE ROMAN- PAPACY. 
 
 lutely prohibiting, under pain of the halter, the pestilent 
 art of printing, as it was termed. Francis, the Parliament 
 and the Pope united in establishing a commission to super* 
 vise the extermination of French liberties and Huguenot 
 patriots. The bull of Pope Clement, apprising France of 
 this commission, stipulated that these "Commissioners 
 were further authorized to grant permission to any one of 
 the faithful, who chose so to do, to invade, occupy and ac- 
 quire for himself the lands, castles and goods of the here- 
 tics, seizing their persons, and leading them away into life- 
 long slavery. ' ' Such was the tyrannical spirit of Pope Clem- 
 ent, the ecclesiastical despot, who instituted the most out- 
 rageous enormities against the Huguenots. 
 
 THE WOOL-CARDEK OF MEAUX. 
 
 Jean Laclere, the wool-carder of Meaux, was among the 
 first to feel the malice of persecution. Pope Clement's 
 bull, pertaining to indulgences, was posted on the cathe- 
 dral door, and Laclere secretly took it down. He was ac- 
 cused of this, and of reading LeFevre's French Testament. 
 The barbarous sentence was, that he be whipped in Paris 
 on three successive days, to receive the same punishment 
 in Meaux, then to be branded on the forehead with a red- 
 hot iron, and finally banished forever from the kingdom. 
 All this was carried out, but it did not cool his devotion 
 for the truth. Some time afterward at Metz he was still 
 further persecuted by having his right hand cut off at the 
 wrist, his arms, nose and breast were cruelly torn with pinch- 
 ers. His head was encircled with a red-hot band of iron, 
 and as it burned its way into his very brain, his body was 
 thrown into the fire. So perished one of the first disciples 
 of religious liberty in France. 
 
THE ROM AX PAPACY. 247 
 
 The extreme violence of the Papal spirit is seen in the 
 character of the torture performed upon the Huguenots. 
 The Dominican De Roma plunged the feet of those deliv- 
 ered to him into boots filled with melted fat, boiling over a 
 slow fire. 
 
 Just north of the Durana river lay a territory which held 
 over a dozen villages, occupied with a thrifty, liberty-lov- 
 ing, peaceful people. The principles of the Reformation 
 had early had a welcome. The people were largely Wal- 
 denses in faith, and many of them by blood. Here the 
 fires of persecution broke out and swept with furious 
 hate and bitterness. J$o words can describe the extent of 
 degree of the dreadful ruin wrought upon these quiet 
 French villages, because the inhabitants chose not to fol- 
 low the Pope' s will in matters of faith and practice. The 
 immediate cause of the exterminating blow which fell up- 
 on them, was their renewed interest and activity in circu- 
 lating the Scriptures, which had always called forth the 
 enmity of Rome. Many of these people were branded on 
 the forehead, others were buried alive. All civil officials 
 were prohibited from furnishing the accused copies of le- 
 gal instruments, by which course they had withheld from 
 them their most ordinary rights. 
 
 DESOLATION AMONG FREE VILLAGES. 
 
 The local parliament summoned a large number of the in- 
 habitants of Merindal before it. Because some did not 
 come, it was ordered that ' ' all the houses of Merindal be 
 burned, and the trees cut down for a distance of two hun- 
 dred paces on every side, in order that the spot which had 
 been the receptacle of heresy might be forever uninhabited." 
 For a while this infamous order was frustrated by friendly 
 interference. The Roman Catholics living amongst the ac- 
 
248 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 cused, declared they were an industrious, noble and humane 
 people, deserving well of all. But two archbishops and 
 Cardinal Tournow intrigued and bore false testimony, until 
 the execution of the order was carried out. The town of 
 Merindal was obliterated. Twenty- two towns and villages 
 were utterly destroyed. Most of the men were slain, the 
 women and children wandered about for weeks, homeless 
 and starving. A frequent roadside sight was that of the 
 bodies of mothers and their infants, life having been driven 
 out by hunger and exposure. Cruelty incarnate is found 
 in this war for extermination, carried on by the Roman 
 Catholic cardinal and archbishops. A large number of 
 women were thrust into a barn, and held imprisoned while 
 the structure burned ; twenty-five persons, having fled to a 
 cavern for refuge, were suffocated by a fire, purposely kin- 
 dled at the mouth ; a great number of men were bound in 
 couples, and escorted to the castle hall, where two captains 
 of execution stood and slew them as they were driven past ; 
 in one church eight hundred men, women and children were 
 slain. 
 
 A SHAMEFUL CHAPTEE OF HORRORS. 
 
 Such a shameful chapter of horrors cannot be found in 
 the annals of the most savage people. An investigation 
 found that these murdered people were guilty of no crime, 
 plot or offense against the government, and that they had 
 made no attempt against any of the legitimate institutions 
 of the country. They were not found, in any instance, to 
 have incited any civil insurrection. In this particular they 
 were above reproach. The whole misdemeanor chargeable 
 to them, was that they held religious opinions not satis- 
 factory to the archbishops and the cardinal. This they 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 249 
 
 thought was their right. But Rome does not recognize the 
 inviolability of human rights, while she claims the authority 
 to punish any exercise therein. 
 
 CAN THE POPE PEKMIT OUR FREE INSTITUTIONS ? 
 
 A reflection here brings about a feeling of strange wonder. 
 The Roman Catholic Church has recently, through high 
 authority in this country, served notice that there has been 
 no change in the spirit or doctrine of the Church. We not 
 only observe it to be so, but we are told directly that the 
 R,oman Church in this country is not to show any more 
 disposition to take kindly to liberty, tolerance, or any of 
 the now generally accepted principles of personal and re- 
 ligious rights, than she did three hundred years ago. This 
 consideration is of prodigious weight in trying to under- 
 stand and meet the Roman issues of the day in our coun- 
 try. If a large and general power to administer affairs 
 should fall under her control in this land, without any 
 counter power to stay it, would this Church, could it con- 
 sistently, permit the continuance of our free institutions ? 
 In the very nature of such a situation, the Papal Church 
 must conspire against a certain class of civil laws and in- 
 stitutions, and strive to subvert the spirit of our civilization, 
 which is unrelentingly hostile to such Roman despotism. 
 
 EVERY BONE BROKEN FOR SELLING BOOKS. 
 
 The mere crime of peddling books in France was pun- 
 ished in the most cruel manner. A purveyor of books, 
 being placed on trial for that offense, was found guilty, and 
 had every bone of his body dislocated, one after another, 
 
250 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 in the attempt of his tormentors to force from him the 
 names of the persons to whom he had sold his books ; and 
 then he was bnrned publicly in the city of Paris. 
 
 Even religious songs were prohibited, in the endeavor to 
 keep the life and thought of France in the narrow Papal 
 channels. Morat and Theodore Beza had produced many 
 of the Psalms of David in the French language. But it 
 was considered that the use of the French language in re- 
 ligious singing would bring contempt on the old Latin 
 tongue, which alone was thought proper and fit for religious 
 services. Upon this argument the use of the common lan- 
 guage of the people in their worship was proceeded against. 
 
 Francis I. at last felt the wrong and cruelty of the Papal 
 bidding, to which he had been obedient. But it was too 
 late for him to do anything more than to enjoin upon his 
 son, who was to succeed him, an investigation of the whole 
 matter. Then Francis went into eternity. 
 
 There was a lull in the fires of Papal wrath, but no 
 improvement for the poor Huguenots. On through the 
 reigns of Henry II., Francis II., and Charles IX., up to 
 St. Bartholomew, the storm of woe, after a short remission, 
 went howling on, now receding and now advancing ; and 
 every advancing wave cut a little higher up to the shore 
 of a crisis, than had the last. 
 
 ATTEMPT TO INTBODUCE THE INQUISITION. 
 
 During the reign of Henry II. , that king, and that brute 
 of inhumanity, the Cardinal of Lorraine, united with the 
 Pope in a move to introduce into France the Spanish In- 
 quisition, which had already covered Holland with cries of 
 suffering and had baptized the streets of Dutch villages 
 with human blood. However, the parliament was not quite 
 willing. 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 251 
 
 But Paul was Pope now, and lie had little respect for the 
 rights of any government. Having the king of France with 
 him, he promptly ordered the Inquisition over the veto of 
 parliament. The king quickly ratified the Papal bull, and 
 the three French cardinals were constituted the commission 
 to work it. Protestantism had grown too strong for such 
 tan open court of persecution as the Inquisition. More secret 
 methods had to be resorted to by the fools and tools of the 
 Pope. 
 
 DID THE POPES PLAN THE MURDER OF ALL EUROPEAN- 
 PROTESTANTS \ 
 
 The Popes, through the two middle quarters of the six- 
 teenth century ^ seemed bent on carrying out some plan for 
 the universal murder of the Protestants of Europe. The 
 Pope had an interview with Francis I., in which he sub- 
 mitted to him for consideration the question: ' 'Ought not 
 Francis, and the princes of Germany, with the Emperor at 
 the head, to gather up the forces, enlist troops and make 
 all needful preparations to overwhelm the followers of 
 Zwingli and Luther, in order that, affrighted by the terri- 
 ble retribution visited upon their followers, the remaining 
 heretics should hasten to make their submission to the Ro- 
 man Church V ' These Popes seemed the very incarnation 
 of treachery and cruelty. There can be little doubt but 
 the generally accepted view is correct, that during the time 
 of Henry II., there was a secret conclave held by the Pope, 
 with the kings of France and Spain, to consider a general 
 massacre of the Protesants all over Europe, and so save the 
 world to the allegiance of Rome. The state papers of the 
 English government seem to settle this. It was this secret 
 treaty that Mary of Lorraine, regent-queen of Scotland, was 
 working for, and at one time with great prospect of attain- 
 ment. 
 
252 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 Henry II. was no more inclined to apply himself to a 
 correction of the ecclesiastical evils than the former king. 
 This is succinctly shown by the way in which he allowed 
 his mistress, Diana of Poitiers, to distribute the ecclesias- 
 tical offices. 
 
 THE PAPAL WAR UPON CONSCIENCE AND LIBERTY. 
 
 The war upon conscience and liberty went on with in- 
 creasing fury. There was a constant flow of blood, an un- 
 interrupted cry of horror. The executions were carried on 
 through all the hours of the day; some were hung, some 
 strangled, many burned, multitudes were slain with the sword 
 and still others beheaded, and many drowned in the Loire. 
 A dozen bodies tied to a pole floating down the stream 
 was no unusual sight. The Papal adherents enjoyed it, too. 
 A favorite hour for public executions was that following 
 the dinner, that the court ladies could regale themselves 
 with an after-dinner entertainment of blood and torture. 
 
 An ingenious contrivance was invented, for the sole pur- 
 pose of prolonging the excruciating sufferings of the con- 
 demned. The victim was suspended by chains over a blaz- 
 ing fire, and was lowered into the flames, and then drawn 
 out, and this process was kept up until the executioner chose 
 to allow the sufferer to remain in the flames. 
 
 The air was thick with plots, exposed before carried out. 
 A charge of treason was trumped up against the Prince of 
 Conde, one of the most powerful of the Huguenot lords. 
 It was the work of the Gruise-Lorraine tribe. He was con- 
 demned to be beheaded, but the time was not considered 
 opportune for such a stroke. An atrocious plot was formed 
 to stab the king of Navarre. In fact, these plots were part 
 of a general destruction, by assassination, of all the leading 
 Protestants of France. The details have never come to 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 253 
 
 light. It is known that a list was prepared of those, in all 
 parts of the country, who were to be slain. Arrangements 
 were partially made to divide the Papal forces into four 
 divisions, and throw them quickly into all portions of the 
 kingdom, upon the giving of the signal. The Spanish 
 army was to co-operate ; things had gone so far that the 
 governor of the city of Bayonne was instructed to surren- 
 der that city to King Philip of Spain. The Romish clergy 
 had agreed to bear the expense. It is claimed that it was 
 postponed by the sudden death of the king. 
 
 PUBLIC ASSEMBLING FORBIDDEN ON PAIN OF DEATH. 
 
 The cause of right and liberty, as well as religion, had 
 fared bad enough during the period the throne was occu- 
 pied by Francis II. He was weak, and the tool of the Ro- 
 man agents. He assented to the promulgation of laws, in 
 truth, they came from the throne, but were instigated by 
 the Popish Guise-Lorraine faction, forbidding the assem- 
 blage of the people for worship, in any way except as ar- 
 ranged for by the regular clergy, and this on pain of death. 
 
 Every conceivable calumny was hurled at the Huguenots, 
 while all sorts of crimes were charged against them, even 
 that of sacrificing children. The hatred of the Roman 
 Catholic ignorant masses was aroused against them. Big- 
 otry invented many ways to beat down and back the grow- 
 ing spirit of progress. 
 
 Admiral Coligny, in a presentation of this cause of the 
 Huguenots before Catherine de Medicis, boldly declared to 
 that foreign usurper, that the rule of foreigners lay at the 
 bottom of the whole trouble, and that his people could not 
 be expected to suffer as quietly as they had for the pre- 
 vious forty years. 
 
254 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 The imbecility of Papal persecution was seen to have 
 had an effect just the opposite of what was intended. The 
 testimony of the dying martyrs so rapidly multiplied the 
 Protestants, that it became necessary to prevent the wit- 
 nessing for Christ on the rack and in the flame. The prac- 
 tice became very general of cutting out the tongues of the 
 oondemed before sending them to execution, in order to 
 prevent their wonderful testimony for liberty and truth. 
 In some instances a large iron ball was forced into the 
 mouth as equally effective. The report was once made 
 4 ' that all would be lost if such men were permitted to speak 
 to the people." 
 
 PAPAL DIPLOMATS AKE OILY. 
 
 The Papal agents were as diplomatic and oily in language 
 as they were sinister and evil in heart, the while they were 
 planning murder. They were devising assassination while 
 professing general amnesty. Trickery and treachery, de- 
 ception and hyprocrisy were coin in daily circulation 
 among the Romish hirelings. A few like Bishop Briconnet 
 and Antoine de Bourbon, the father of Henry of Navarre, 
 were seduced by fear, or bribery, to forsake the holy cause 
 of liberty,, and right. And there were very few such in- 
 deed. 
 
 It was found quite impossible to crush a people of such 
 devotion to freedom, who held to such a high sense of right 
 and possessed such heroic elements of character. They re- 
 ceived the treaties made with them, and securing them in 
 their just rights without undue elation, and when those 
 treatise were broken, as they always were without an ex- 
 ception, they bore the effect of the violated truce with calm 
 equanimity, and held on to their resolution to abide the 
 judgment of time and the verdict of the world. 
 
THE BOMAN PAPACY. 255 
 
 The ideas of the first reformers in France did not pertain 
 to civil rights, beyond such as bore directly upon religious 
 tolerance. It was a religious move entirely in its begin- 
 ning, and only became political after a whole generation 
 of effort for religious reforms, and only then, by being 
 thrown into conflict with the civil powers, upon the presen- 
 tation of their petitions, and later their demands for re- 
 ligious tolerance. They had no notion whatever of popular 
 forms of government. They did not aspire to civil rights, 
 but only aimed to acquire religious privileges. They were 
 willing to leave all state matters, as they had been, to the 
 throne, the ministry and the parliament. They only asked 
 to be unmolested in the enjoyment of their religion, faith, 
 and the free exercise of their religious services. And when 
 we contemplate the success of the Reformation in Scotland, 
 England and Holland, and the final defeat of the same truths 
 in France, we are constrained to a statement that the French 
 leaders made in this, a serious, and as it proved, a fatal mis- 
 take. Zwingli was right, proven to be so by the subsequent 
 history of three centuries, — religious and political reform 
 stand or fall together. 
 
 NO RELIGIOUS LIBERTY WHERE ROME HAS POWER. 
 
 Originally the Huguenots were so mild in their claims, 
 that they did not profess any desire, nor did they show 
 any disposition, to overturn the political power of Rome in 
 the land. They wanted to be free from Rome's religious 
 tyranny and corruption. We see the magnitude of this 
 mistake. There can be no religious liberty where Rome's 
 foot is planted, unless civil liberty is striven for at the same 
 time. The Reformation in upper Switzerland under Zwingli, 
 and in Holland under Orange, and in Scotland under Knox, 
 
256 TEE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 contained from the first, a conception of the importance of a 
 political, as well as a religious protest against Rome. Hence 
 one reason for the sad failure in France, and the marked 
 success of the Reformation in northern Switzerland, in Hol- 
 land, and in Scotland. 
 
 SHALL ROMAN CATHOLICS GO TO CONGRESS? 
 
 Wherever Rome has her religion, she will have her poli- 
 tics. To oppose her politics, is certain to affect her religious 
 interests, as she regards them. The religious corruptions 
 and religious tyrannies of Rome may rightly be opposed, 
 along with her political craft and purpose. It is right to 
 teach Roman Catholic people the religious errors, and es- 
 pecially corruptions, of the Papal system. But it is not 
 right to oppose any of their just political rights to which 
 they are entitled under our Constitution. A Roman Catho- 
 lic has the right, if he can get votes enough to elect him, 
 to be a member of Congress. And we would not wish to 
 deprive him, on account of his religion, of that right. But 
 it is perfectly proper that we should hold up to the voters 
 of his district the possible, and in truth probable, danger 
 of conferring a responsible office upon such. The well known 
 political evils and moral corruptions of the ecclesiastical 
 system with which he is connected, may well, and by right 
 should be, considered a just reason and sufficient, to with- 
 hold from him the political confidence of his felllow- citizens, 
 until he has given years of service to our institutions, and 
 so proven his fidelity. In this sense the religious and polit- 
 ical phases of a patriotic opposition to the Roman Papacy 
 are interlaced. 
 
 The Huguenots were above reproach in their demand upon 
 the throne. They did not rise up to demolish the throne, 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 257 
 
 or change the dynasty, or even destroy the Papal relations 
 to the government; nor did they aim to become a hostile 
 party antagonistic to the throne, and watching for an oppor- 
 tunity to change the mere political views of the king and 
 ministry; or, failing in this, trusting to such a following as 
 would put them into possession of the government, as was 
 the case with the Puritans under Cromwell. 
 
 Religious tolerance was their cry and their plea. Their 
 religion was of more consequence than their life, and hence 
 their readiness for martyrdom. They could fight for their 
 rights, on such fields as Montcontour, Jarnac and St. Denis, 
 where they gave proof of bravery and skill of the most 
 commanding type, and left no doubt of their devotion to a 
 cause. 
 
 THE PAPACY BEGINING THE CIVIL WAK. 
 
 The immense gathering of the Protestants at their religious 
 services was often most remarkable. Nine thousand as- 
 sembled upon one occasion at Troyes to celebrate the Lord's 
 Supper. Twenty -five thousand assembled, among them 
 many of the nobility, to listen to Theodore Beza preach. 
 So advanced was the movement that the Protestants of 
 Orleans were considering a theological school, when the 
 Duke of Guise turned a horde of Papal soldiers loose on the 
 worshipers of a Protestant Church in Yassy. A civil war 
 at once followed. It was a civil war, too, arising from re- 
 ligious causes, and for which the Papacy was responsible, 
 and which the Papal party began without cause or excuse. 
 Yet the usual falsehoods were industriously circulated by 
 the Papists to the effect that the Huguenots had commenced 
 a religious war, and a detailed account of the most horrible 
 crimes were peddled over the country, and charged to them. 
 
258 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 This deliberate calumny did the cause of the Reformation 
 much harm. 
 
 The only result advantageous to the Protestants was a 
 half measure of tolerance vaguely expressed in the terms of 
 peace. Even this was niggardly accepted by the Roman 
 Catholic authorities. In the town of Troyes, the Roman 
 Catholic party, having heard that peace had been declared, 
 determined to make use of the short interval ensuing be- 
 fore they would be officially notified. The mayor of the 
 city directed all the population to the prisons, where the 
 Huguenots were savagely murdered. 
 
 EOME NEVER KEEPS POLITICAL AGREEMENT. 
 
 In spite of murder, war, confiscation of property, exile, 
 hanging, burning, % and the most hateful and inexcusable 
 calumnies known to the modern centuries, the cause of re- 
 ligious and political liberties in France grew on, and every 
 year spread farther. The Romish party was driven to mad 
 desperation. And when all hope of actually suppressing 
 the Huguenots had departed, they took up the part of 
 assumed tolerance, and played it well. Intercourse was 
 sought and good will shown. Many regrets for the past 
 were even given by the Papal hypocrites, but the fruits of 
 their repentance never appeared ; and warm professions 
 assuring better treatment for the future were made, but 
 those professions were never kept. One of the gravest 
 charges to be made by history, against Papal politicians 
 and Roman ecclesiastics, is that no trust whatever is to be 
 imposed in promises, pledges or covenants, made by the 
 leaders of the Roman Catholic Church, or her willing tools 
 and zealous devotees. History teaches by examples, and 
 from these examples makes up her judgments, and the 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 259 
 
 judgments of history are just. Wheu history solemnly tes- 
 tifies that Rome never kept political agreement or ecclesias- 
 tic faith, there is hard to discover any ground upon which 
 to rest any confidence. 
 
 SERIOUS CHARGE AGAINST ROME IN THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 The game played by Rome in France towards the Hugue- 
 nots, is being duplicated by the Roman hierarchy in the 
 United States now. Rome in America wears a mask. She 
 is not what she seems. From what she now professes we 
 cannot argue what she will be; but rather from what she 
 has been are we to judge what she will be in our land. It 
 is lamentable to find our people reposing confidence in 
 empty words* Where has the Roman priesthood, with us, 
 led that Church into a faithful co-operation with the intelli- 
 gent drift of American patriotism ? 
 
 WHEN ROME TALKS LOYE FOR FREEDOM, BEWARE ! 
 
 On every side, at present, are heard warm and excellent 
 professions of Roman Catholic love for liberty, free institu- 
 tions and American laws. The declamations of admira- 
 tion for the American flag, which up to a year ago was 
 never permitted in a Catholic Church on the occasion of a 
 funeral over an old soldier, are wonderful effusions of de- 
 votion to the national standard. According to what we 
 have recently been told in paper, magazine and on platform, 
 America never had such patriots as Irish Roman Catholics, 
 and the laws were never so supported as they are by Rom- 
 an Catholics, while they evince great surprise that there 
 should be any doubt about their love for the broadest princi- 
 ples of American liberty. 
 
260 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 This idea, that they want to talk love, is a sudden one. 
 So sudden that it is quite comical in every aspect of the 
 case. A tree that bears fruit does not need to have a notice 
 tacked on it, "I am a fruit tree." If any one had known 
 of the wonderful patriotism and American devotion of Irish 
 Romanists, the general profession of love from them at 
 present would be strange ; but truly it must be said that up 
 to a time so recent as two years ago nothing was heard 
 about the love of the Roman Catholic priesthood for Ameri- 
 can principles and institutions. There was not a word of 
 approval for our laws and liberties. There was instead, 
 however, an unremitting stream of abuse, vilification and 
 opposition, most unjustifiable and unpatriotic. In the 
 light of Papal history let the meaning of all this be read. 
 Rome had done the same thing before in France. When 
 she tells us she most loves us, we have most reason to stand 
 guard. 
 
 DESIGN OF THE PAPAL PAETY IN FRANCE AND IN AMERICA. 
 
 Much, like what we see in own country, was experienced 
 in France, when the Papal party entered into a hypocritical 
 peace with the Huguenots. Rome had a design in quieting 
 the e fears of the growing Protestant party. If Rome can 
 lure a nation into a sleep of confidence, she can best perfect 
 her plans and mature her power. This cannot for one 
 moment be forgotten in dealing with the Papacy. Her 
 truce with the Huguenots, in which she covenanted to deal 
 in tolerance, justice and good faith, was made with a direct 
 intent ; and that intent was the anticipation of, and the 
 preparation for the plan, by which the Huguenot leaders 
 were to be decoyed to the capital city. 
 
 The formation of that plot seems so unnatural and in- 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 261 
 
 human, that it awakens both disgust for the religious pre- 
 tence of the Romish party, which invented and executed it, 
 and distrust of the Papacy at every step in our own land, 
 which it makes towards political domination. The Church 
 which so misruled France in the days before St. Bartholo- 
 mew, is no more fit to rule America now. There has been 
 no improvement in her ways in any country, where she has 
 had the larger part of the population in her communion. 
 Eoman Catholics can present no argument which will appeal 
 to the confidence of men who are familiar with her course 
 among the nations. She is as full of sophistry and dark 
 diplomacy in our century, as she was in the sixteenth. Her 
 hypocrisy in America is as great as it was in France. She 
 may not intend to bleed our bodies, but she does intend to 
 bleed our hearts. She may not intend to kill, but she does 
 intend to despoil us of liberty and intelligence. She may 
 not have designs on our property, but she has designs 
 against our schools, our Constitution and our press. She 
 has not stolen our lands, but she has stolen into the very 
 citadel of our liberties, and proceeded to turn out the facts 
 of our history, and overturn the laws of our country. 
 Americans are slaves if they longer submit to her political 
 rule. 
 
THE HUGUENOT S REVENGE. 
 
 " Oh ! how our hearts were beating, when at the dawn of 
 
 day 
 We saw the army of the League drawn out in long 
 
 array ; 
 With all its priests-led citizens, and all its rebel peers, 
 And Appenzel's stout infantry, and Egmont's Flemish 
 
 spears. 
 There rode the blood of false Lorraine, the curses of ouf 
 
 land! 
 The dark Mayenne was in the midst, a truncheon in his 
 
 hand! 
 And, as we looked on them, we thought of Seine's en- 
 purpled flood, 
 And good Coligny's hoary hair all dabbled with his blood; 
 And we cried unto the living God, who rules the fate of 
 
 war, 
 To fight for his own holy name, and Henry of Navarre. 
 Now, God be praised, the day is ours! Mayenne has 
 
 turned his rein, 
 D'Aumale hath cried for quarter — the Flemish count is 
 
 slain. 
 Their ranks are breaking, like thin clouds before a Bis- 
 cay gale ; 
 The field is heaped with bleeding steeds, and flags, and 
 
 cloven mail. 
 And then we thought on vengeance, and all along our 
 
 van, 
 ' Remember St. Bartholomew,' was passed from man to 
 
 man. 
 But out spake gentle Henry, ' No Frenchman is my 
 
 foe; 
 Down, down with every foreigner, but let your brethren 
 
 go-' 
 Oh ! was there ever such a knight, in friendship or in 
 
 war, 
 As our sovereign lord, King Henry of Navarre I" 
 
Have those opposed by Rome 
 built up the new civiliza- 
 TION ? 
 
 The other nations who have been born into the new 
 life in passing from the one shore to the other, have trav- 
 ersed what is called a philosophical epoch, by which is 
 meant the sacred movement of the mind and the soul in 
 the modern world. Bacon, Descartes, Leibnitz, and we 
 must also pronounce the great name of Luther, — these 
 men, execrated in their times by the men of routine, were 
 the missionaries of their nations; they converted the world 
 to the new life. 
 
 Quinet. 
 
PART VIII. 
 
 ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S DREADFUL DAY AND 
 ROME'S OVERTHROW OF FREE RACES. 
 
 We are to further consider the principles, virtues and 
 sufferings of this noble and heroic race, in conflict with the 
 Papacy ; a race, it truly was, which was one of the products 
 of the trying times of the sixteenth century, when men 
 and women were imprisoned, tortured and slain, for not 
 making their consciences pliable enough to agree to the 
 tyrannies and corruptions of Rome. It was a race most 
 superb in its moral, industrial and patriotic attributes. 
 
 Each succeeding generation will do compliment to its in- 
 telligence and justice, by cherishing high regard for the 
 sublime characteristics of this race, which suddenly, and 
 with surprise to Europe, rose in moral and national strength 
 and heroic grandeur. A race of such magnanimous quali- 
 ties is entitled to long live in the broad esteem and high 
 admiration of the world. The industrial, intelligent and 
 moral elements of the French nation were unified in it. 
 It presents a race within a nation, and as distinct from the 
 nation as though it were of different blood and language. 
 It was a truly separate people, this race of sterling quali- 
 ties and enduring principles. It grew along distinct lines, 
 (264) 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 265 
 
 until it became a race the like of which there is not to be 
 found in all history. In the earlier stages of its develop- 
 ment there were many segments of its character, which 
 merged into and could not be distinguished from the 
 Roman elements in the nation, as was natural and to be 
 expected. But as it fully matured, it presented a wholly 
 distinct type of French Protestant character. In it, loyal- 
 ty and patriotism were united ; art and religion were bound 
 together ; while reform and chivalry were bound indissol- 
 ubly, as not to be found in the Reformation of any other 
 country. These peculiar combinations of elements gave 
 a very pleasing and romantic tone to the struggle of the 
 French to throw off the Romish yoke. 
 
 THREE RACES OF HEROIC GRANDEUR. 
 
 In their monumental fame there are three names which 
 tower to gorgeous height in modern Christianity, and in 
 civilization as well. Those names are Puritan, Covenanter, 
 Huguenot. The just fame of any one of them is so big that 
 it is quite impossible to go round about it, and measure 
 the magnificence of its walls, and tell the vastness of its 
 works. In material progress, most certainly, and in moral 
 achievements especially, have the races, bearing these titles, 
 been in the forefront of the upper ranges of modern thought. 
 In the most sterling qualities of mental, moral and phys- 
 ical advancement, have they been noted, wherever they 
 have settled. The most conservative of modern moral 
 classes, they have been at the same time the most progres- 
 sive. Their contributions, during two centuries, to domes- 
 tic life, science, mechanics, religion and government, have 
 been unmatched ; while in the difficult task of unifying 
 and establishing, in constitutional form, the principles and 
 forces of both civil and religious liberty, they have been 
 
266 TEE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 unexcelled. Let it have a lasting impress on the mind of the 
 reader, that all three of these great races belong to the Pro- 
 testant world ; and the majestic movements which they 
 inaugurated, as the superb principles to which they held, 
 belong to Protestant history exclusively ; while the great 
 moral uplift, as well as the quickening impulse given to 
 general progress, are landmarks of growth in civilization not 
 found outside of the Protestant races. 
 
 The last named of these races is one which tells with 
 equal power of the perfidy of kings, the licentiousness of 
 courts, the intrigue of Papacy, and the strangeness of Prov- 
 idence. It furnishes the principal witness of history against 
 vain women, of royal blood, bartering womanhood to po- 
 litical passion, and religious bigotry. It bears the most 
 crushing testimony, of all times and lands, against Popes, 
 whose true character must be stamped as that of infamous 
 cruelty and cruel infamy. The evidence it furnishes 
 against bishops and cardinals, who used their station and 
 office to prostitute religion and morals, in the interest of 
 personal ambition and passions, has been unimpeached, 
 and is of the most damaging nature. 
 
 WHY THE BLOODY CHAPTER SHOULD NOT BE LOST. 
 
 It may be said, that the only excuse for uncovering this 
 awful page of history is, that the world should never for- 
 get the warning of the sixteenth century in France, nor be 
 permitted to lose the example and inspiration of the Hu- 
 guenot character. But for this, it were better if the whole 
 period should sink into irrecoverable oblivion. For that 
 was not only one of the most bloody chapters in the history 
 of the Papal Church, but as well the most humiliating 
 abuse of common humanity. And yet, as often seen, when 
 the night is the darkest the light is the brightest. In that 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 267 
 
 gloomy night, when royalty espoused the regency of vice, 
 and the policy of the court of the greatest kingdom of Eu- 
 rope was that of demagogism and hypocrisy, then there 
 comes forth such an exhibit of faith, Christian endurance 
 and holy heroism, as to illuminate all the future with its 
 light, and furnish such examples for Christian patriotism 
 to emulate as are hard to find elsewhere. 
 
 In the beginning of the sixteenth century France had 
 obtained about that extent of territory marked out by nat- 
 ural boundaries. She had been four hundred years en- 
 grossed in this pursuit. She was the leading kingdom of 
 Europe, in power and accomplishment. It was the time of 
 the accession of Francis I. He broke up the feudalism of 
 the past, and centralized the authority of the kingdom in 
 the court of the king. 
 
 At the time of his death, and the accession of Henry II. , 
 the ideas of the Reformation, principally under the teach- 
 ing of John Calvin, Le Fevre and Farel, had grown to great 
 power in France. More than one-third of the people had 
 accepted the Reformed doctrines. Princes of the realm, 
 such men as the Prince of Conde and Admiral Coligny, were 
 the leaders. Olivatanus, Morat, Calvin, were able scholars, 
 who were perfected in the art of pure language. Into the 
 elevated French language Olivatanus translated the Bible, 
 while Farel printed the New Testament in elegant French. 
 Morat translated the Psalms and set them to popular French 
 airs ; and soon these great Psalms of David were sung in 
 the powerful and melodious French language in camp and 
 court, in field and cottage. Calvin wrote his Institutes of 
 Christian doctrine. The effect was all powerful. 
 
 The French language, as used by these elegant writers, 
 became the polite tongue of Europe. Under fair and pow- 
 erful conditions, it looked as if the Reformed faith was roll- 
 
268 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 ing to a great triumph, and France was expected to become 
 a Protestant nation, as England and Scotland. But the 
 leaders were not strong enough, as men of action, to over- 
 come the Papal conspiracies. They were rather more he- 
 roic in suffering, than practical in leading. 
 
 THE COURT A PEST-HOUSE OF EVIL PLOTTING. 
 
 The throne was strictly Papal, and in close relation to 
 the court of Rome. A mighty plot was formed to destroy 
 the Protestants, who were now generally called Huguenots. 
 Each king seemed to surpass his predecessor in being more 
 severe in tyranny and more implacable in treachery. In- 
 justice and outrage, intrigue and assassination grew into 
 awful proportions. The court was a pest-house of evil plot- 
 ting, in the interest of the Papacy. Only one king out of 
 five, in a period of fifty years, died a natural death. Henry 
 II. of France and Philip of Spain had a plot agreed upon 
 to overthrow the Protestantism of Holland. The diabolical 
 Alva was to be the despicable agent of the Papacy. This 
 was intercepted by the noble Prince of Orange, and the 
 timely death of Henry II. Catherine de Medicis, the Car- 
 dinal of Lorraine, and the Pope, had another great plot, to 
 overthrow the Protestantism of England, and unite Eng- 
 land, Scotland and France into one great Roman Catholic 
 Empire. 
 
 THE BLACKEST CRIME OF THE PAPACY. 
 
 But we must consider the most important agencies which 
 co-operated in the effort to utterly destroy as grand a class 
 of moral heroes as the world has known. And the effort is 
 to be regarded as the most stupendous criminal outrage of 
 the centuries, as well as the blackest deliberate crime of the 
 Papacy. 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 269 
 
 The first consideration to make, is that of the domination 
 of woman's influence in the affairs of the world. Woman 
 came to the front in the sixteenth century government and 
 diplomacy. On the throne of England was Elizabeth, the 
 first of the great female sovereigns of the world, whose reign 
 conduced to mark progress in national wealth, power and 
 prosperity. Mary of Lorraine held the regency of Scotland, 
 until Mary Stuart became Queen, whom Knox describes, 
 after his first interview with her, as having a " proud mind, 
 crafty wit, and indurate heart." Fulvia Morata was the 
 pride of Italy, giving lectures to nobles and professors when 
 a girl of but fifteen. Victoria Colonna, the friend of Michael 
 Angelo, held by the charm of her elegant conversation the 
 leading scholars of Naples and Rome. Helena was regent 
 of Russia. But nowhere, as in France, was there such a 
 coterie of women, whose beauty was rivaled by their vanity, 
 whose cunning was that of the Jesuit, and whose excesses 
 in vice were unmatched in the world. 
 
 THE MOST IGNOBLE WOMAN OF ALL. 
 
 At their head was the most ignoble woman of her age, if 
 not of all ages, Catherine de Medicis. For nearly fifty 
 years she was a power at court, where she worked as the 
 secret agent of Rome. Her's was a calamitous name in 
 Europe. Her's was a family devoted to the Papacy. But 
 it was as fatal to the Papacy, as to the peace of nations. 
 Under Leo X. , Germany became a Protestant nation. Under 
 Clement VIII. , England apostatized. And now France was 
 slipping away under Pius IV., a third Pope of the same 
 ill-starred family. 
 
 The first piece of diplomacy engaged in by Catherine de 
 Medicis, was to seduce the Huguenots into the Papal trap, 
 
270 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 by planning a wedding between the beautiful Mary of Scots 
 to the Huguenot leader, Conde. But Conde was not to be 
 trapped by the sweet and quaint Scottish ballads of Mary 
 Stuart. Nor did she succeed in a second scheme to wed 
 Admiral Coligny to this same beautiful heir to the Scottish 
 throne, who was even then pleasantly dreaming of the 
 tripple crown of England, Scotland and France. It was a 
 game to recover Scotland and France to the Papacy, then 
 being played on the covered board of Papal diplomacy, by 
 Mary of Lorraine, the Pope of Rome, and dissolute women. 
 The Pope's crafty agent in this conspiracy was the Cardi- 
 nal of Lorraine, himself a member of the infamous Medicis 
 family. 
 
 The cardinal succeeded in marrying Mary Stuart to 
 Francis II., who had neither the instincts of a man, nor the 
 qualities of a king, and was little short of an imbecile. In 
 Catherine' s policy, vice played a hand as an agency to reach 
 her end. Her shamelessness and recklessness were fully 
 up to her accomplished manners and polished wit. This in- 
 carnation of vanity and cruelty was surrounded by such 
 women as Madame Dianna of Portiers. Court life was one 
 daily round of debauchery, intrigue and murder. Immoral 
 women and the Papacy are a fit but exceedingly bad com- 
 bination. 
 
 HOW FRANCE MIGHT HAVE BEEN SAVED THE MASSACRE OE 
 ST. BARTHOLOMEW. 
 
 Had the earlier French reformers had more of the courage 
 of Luther and Zwingli, and the thoroughness of Knox, and 
 the unquenchable fire and determination of William of 
 Orange, the world might have been spared the spectacle of 
 the assassination of the Admiral of the kingdom, and the 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 271 
 
 massacre of Bartholomew. Because of the lack of com- 
 pleteness which characterized the earlier leaders, the Papacy 
 had time and opportunity to devise and hatch its plots for 
 extermination. Thousands of lives might have been saved, 
 and dreadful scenes of carnage and suffering might have 
 been spared, had there been more courage of conviction 
 and heroism of action at first, on the part of the leaders of 
 the Reformation in France. Any measure of compromise 
 with the Papal hierarchy is an unmitigated evil, and 
 charged with certain failure. 
 
 DISLOYAL AMERICAN POLITICIANS. 
 
 Many people in the United States are disposed to confer 
 with the Papal priesthood, and show a willingness to enter 
 into a compromise on the school question, legislation and 
 the management of our institutions, in a way to gratify the 
 Roman Catholic Church. The very thought of such a 
 course is infamous. The men who are engaged in this un- 
 American work are little better than traitors, and should be 
 looked upon as playing into the hands of freedom's most 
 unrelenting foe — such men engaged in political life are be- 
 traying the nation into conditions, which will bring to us 
 trying, if not bloody, times. Disloyal men should be kept 
 out of all political life. Let the people reply to their hypoc- 
 risies at the ballot box. This is the day when America 
 should bury in oblivion Papal political bossism. 
 
 THE POPE A PARTY TO CRIME. 
 
 A new combination was formed against Protestant France. 
 Catherine entered into league with Philip of Spain, the 
 Pope, the Cardinal of Lorraine and the house of Guise. This 
 league was worked with cunning and secrecy. Plan fol- 
 
272 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 lowed plan, and plot succeeded plot. Under this policy 
 Charles IX. was urged by Philip and the Pope to destroy 
 the Huguenots. The Pope warned him he might lose his 
 kingdom if he did not obey. Catherine and the infamous 
 Alva were in confidential conference at Bayonne. It ap- 
 pears that a plan was laid to carry off Henry of Navarre, a 
 youthful Protestant prince, and his mother, and deliver 
 them to Philip of Spain. It failed, but it is clear that sev- 
 eral Catholic generals knew of it. 
 
 MURDERED BY A PAPAL SOLDIER. 
 
 When the great Protestant leader, Conde, was murdered 
 by a Papal soldier, the Prince of Navarre was but a youth. 
 Conde had been wounded in the battle of Jarnac by an ac- 
 cident, and with the bone protruding from his leg, he led 
 his troops forward in gallant style. Upon being borne from 
 his horse by the press of the ranks about him, he promptly 
 surrendered to a gentleman that he knew. At this point a 
 captain of the Roman Catholic forces approached him from 
 behind, and shot him in the back. When the news of this 
 sad and shameful crime reached the Queen of Navarre, she, 
 with her son Henry, hurried off to the Huguenot camp. 
 Before the assembled army the young prince swore " on his 
 honor, soul and life" never to forsake the Protestant cause. 
 The queen mother put on his armour, declaring as she did so, 
 that the necessities of the cause, in such an hour of calam- 
 ity, raised him above his age, and her above her sex. This 
 mark of devotion to the cause of religious liberty and the 
 interests of the Huguenots, made the mother and son the 
 target of Papal intrigue. Hence the above plot for their 
 removal from the country. 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 273 
 
 PAPAL CONSPIRACIES WITH US. 
 
 These conspiracies against liberty and life upon the part 
 of the Papal Church in the past, are ripe with warnings 
 for us in these times. An organization that in its very na- 
 ture is despotic is to be watched with a vigilance that knows 
 no slumber ; and particularly, at a time when there is an 
 attempt to revive the political power of the Papacy, ought 
 we to keep the eagle eye of watchfulness upon the course 
 of the priest and Pope in our country. LaFayette was a 
 political prophet ; if ever the liberties of our country are 
 endangered, that danger will be thrust upon us by the hand 
 of the Roman priest. This was his warning, and it has 
 been realized, and we are dealing with this condition. 
 
 MANY ROMISH PLOTS IN FRANCE. 
 
 The half hatched plot to get Henry of Navarre and his 
 mother into Spain, where they might be dealt with by the 
 Papal adherent, Philip the king, was given up because of 
 the suspicion that the crime was discovered ; or because of 
 the anticipated difficulties in the way. These conspiracies 
 against all civil rights and liberties, were turned in one di- 
 rection, and then in another. At one time they connived 
 at the Protestants in France ; at another, against the king- 
 dom of England ; and at another the Holland reformers were 
 the object of the Papal wrath, which inspired all of these in- 
 trigues. These plots were against individuals, their rights 
 and life ; or against governments, their laws and thrones, and 
 all the while they were against religious liberty. The plot- 
 ting parties appear in different combinations. Now we see 
 Catherine, the Cardinal of Lorraine, and the Pope; and 
 now Catherine, the family of the Guises and the profligate 
 
274 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 court women ; and now the party is constituted of Cather- 
 ine, the Catholic league and the Pope ; again it is Cather- 
 ine, the Pope and the Roman Catholics in Scotland ; and 
 still again, Catherine, Alva and Philip of Spain. In all 
 of these plots, the most famous woman of infamy, Cather- 
 ine de Medicis, had a hand. She was the evil spirit of her 
 country and her day. The most evil combination, perhaps, 
 was that of Catherine and Alva, who conceived more suf- 
 ferings for the world, than any two persons of their cen- 
 tury. Together they stand, the representatives of a mature 
 and desperate Papacy, corrupt in heart, and unprincipled 
 in means, and all the while brutal and cruel. By its fruits 
 let every tree be judged. 
 
 Now we approach the most unfortunate and sickening 
 event that discolors the brow of history — the day of St. 
 Bartholomew. Was that awful crime intended and pre- 
 meditated? From an extensive reading of antecedent 
 events, and a careful examination of the causes leading to 
 it, there can be no intelligent doubt of it ; though we 
 may believe the extent of the massacre far exceeded the in- 
 tent of the originators. Several things appear clear. 
 
 WHERE THE BARTHOLOMEW MASSACRE WAS HATCHED. 
 
 At Bayonne, this same partnership of crime, Catherine 
 and Alva, hatched the massacre of Bartholomew, and were 
 overheard by Henry of Navarre. 
 
 How many this debauched mistress of the French court 
 included in her deliberate plot of murder can never be 
 known. But it did involve the betrayal by treachery, and 
 then the assassination, of Admiral Coligny, and others of 
 the Huguenot leaders. Months before the occasion came to 
 execute the plot, it was determined by this worst woman 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 275 
 
 of the age, that the best and most honest man of the nation 
 had to die, because he was not an adherent of the Roman 
 Catholic faith, and a tool of the Papacy. Admiral Coligny, 
 who had an almost Quaker-like dread of war, and did his 
 utmost to stay it off, had no blot on his character, no stain 
 on his moral purity, in an age of general license in France. 
 Girt about with his sensitive conscience, and armed with 
 the noble principles of the Huguenot teachings, he was a 
 rare man ; but alas, too mild for his day and duty. William 
 of Orange would have taken a different, and perhaps better, 
 course, but it would have involved the parties in fatal con- 
 flict before the dreadful day of Bartholomew, and likely 
 fewer lives would have been sacrificed in the long run ; 
 while the Protestant cause would have stood a greater chance 
 for success. When it is certain that an enemy is preparing 
 for war it is unwise, from a military point of view, to wait 
 until the plots are matured and the blow is ready to fall. 
 The Swiss cantons, and against Zwinglfs advice, remained 
 quiet whilst the Papal cantons secretly prepared for war ; 
 when the storm burst they were not ready for it, and the 
 cause of the Reformation met a defeat, and Zwingli lost his 
 life. The Protestants at one time numbered fully one-half 
 million, and millions in sympathy with them, and a more 
 courageous course might have saved life and the Reforma- 
 tion. 
 
 Though Coligny feared the responsibility of war, he was 
 beyond the wiles of Papal sophistry. He could be neither 
 bribed with the province of Sandinia, nor tempted with the 
 hand of the beautiful Mary Stuart, who through all her life 
 was a tool of the Papal courts of Europe, and permitted her 
 rare beauty to go in the market in the interest of the cause 
 of the Popes. 
 
276 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 A EOTAL WEDDING THE TEAP. 
 
 The plan of the Romish leaders to murder was a deliberate 
 one. The plot was working for months to draw the lead- 
 ing Huguenots to Paris. It was a most diabolical work. 
 Charles IX. was king, and Catherine de Medicis was the 
 mistress of the kingdom. In order to make the plot suc- 
 cessful it was considered important that there should be a 
 royal wedding at Paris. According to her faith, marriage 
 was a sacrament; but no matter, to Catherine any virtue of 
 character, or sacrament of the Church, might be made a 
 convenience of expediency. 
 
 It was arranged that the king's sister should marry the 
 young Huguenot leader, Henry of Navarre. He was the 
 first prince of the realm, and heir to the throne. He was 
 the hope of the Protestant cause. Catherine expected that 
 the debauchery of her court women would soon prove too 
 much for the severe morals of the austere Huguenots. It 
 is evident from this that she did not include him in her list 
 of those to be murdered. The Pope's legate at first made 
 a show of objection to the marriage of the king's sister, a 
 devout Romanist, to a Protestant. But that was perhaps 
 a mere show, to mislead the Huguenots. But for Papal in- 
 trigue Henry of Navarre might have been saved that love- 
 less, childless, and altogether unhappy marriage. It was 
 to prove as luckless to his cause as was the Egyptian wife 
 to Solomon. 
 
 THE HUGUENOT LEADEKS ENTICED TO THE CITY. 
 
 The marriage festivities were held at Paris, and all the 
 Huguenot leaders were enticed to the city. The day of 
 Catherine de Medicis and of the Pope had come. The great 
 
THE ROHAN PAPACY. 277 
 
 Protestant nobles were at the ceremonies. When the wed- 
 ding was over with, Catherine and her brother had a con- 
 ference with the Duke of Guise, prominent as a leader in 
 the Catholic league, and the final measures were concerted 
 for the death of Coligny. A hired assassin was stationed 
 behind the blinds of a house, which it was the custom of 
 the Admiral to pass on his way to the Louvre palace. He 
 lay in wait for three days. Then came the chance. He 
 fired three balls at Coligny, but they did not prove fatal. 
 This failure drove Catherine into a fit of desperation. The 
 Admiral was in Paris, under the pledged word of the king, 
 with guarantees of safety. But what if Admiral Coligny 
 was one of the first characters of his time, a benefactor of 
 the race, beyond all comparison the greatest prince of his 
 country, in an age when there were princes not a few, brave, 
 sincere, heroic and religious 1 Was not the king cruel and 
 perfidious, and was not the king' s mother a woman hard- 
 ened by crime, whose icy soul could be moved by no com- 
 passion, and whose conscience could be touched by no sense 
 of justice ? 
 
 Charles IX. went to the room of the wounded Admiral, 
 and overwhelmed him with demonstrations of sorrow, and 
 assurances of protection. In the morning the Protestant 
 nobles were at first inclined to take their wounded leader, 
 and all retire from Paris. But Coligny argued the king's 
 good faith, and it was decided to remain. 
 
 Fatal decision ! The crisis which years had been prepar- 
 ing for was at hand. The trust which Coligny and his 
 friends imposed in the hypocritical promises of the king 
 was wholly misplaced. It never proves safe to confide in 
 the pledges of Papal rulers. Their religion teaches them 
 that it is right to break promises with heretics. The people 
 who are trifling with this great fact of history may yet rue 
 their short sightedness. 
 
278 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 PLAYING A DESPERATE HAND. 
 
 At this juncture Catherine saw that she must play her 
 last, and most desperate, hand at once. A hasty conference 
 with several of the Roman Catholic leaders was held. To- 
 gether they asked for an audience with the king. It was 
 granted. By every argument of sophistry, ingenuity, and 
 by Jesuit deception, the king was persuaded that the safety 
 of the throne, and the unity of the kingdom, rested upon 
 the destruction of the Protestants ; that if he did not act at 
 once, and order that Coligny be slain, a Holy Catholic 
 League would be formed, under their lead, and the realm 
 would be cleared of the Huguenots ; that he was already in 
 disfavor with the Church because he had shown favors to 
 the heretics. For an hour and a half the king withstood 
 their pleadings, and the threats of his mother. The cruel 
 woman, knowing how to work her son, kept up her volume 
 of passionate appeal and angry censure, working now on 
 his fear, and now on his ambition, until she gauged aright 
 the rise of his passion and desperation, and then she stung 
 him keenly with the imputation that he was too timid to 
 act the part of a king of France. 
 
 THE KING DECIDES ON THE MURDER. 
 
 Enough ! His passion had now reached a frenzy, and 
 leaping to his feet, he strided across the room, and ex- 
 claimed : " Since you insist, I consent that the Admiral be 
 killed ; but along with him every Huguenot in France must 
 perish, that not one remain to reproach me with his death ; 
 and what you do, see that it be done quickly." And 
 Charles IX. rushed like a madman from the room. Awful 
 perfidy, and conscienceless act ! Terrible will be the suffer- 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 279 
 
 ing of the king in that day when his conscience shall turn 
 upon him, and charge him with his crime ! 
 
 The arrangements for the massacre were secretly and 
 quickly made. They were under the management of Madame 
 Catherine de Medicis and the Roman Catholic leaders in 
 the court. Well was it planned with a view to general 
 murder. No such a scheme for wholesale assassination had 
 been known since the day of Herod. The depravity of 
 bigotry and intolerance had reached its lowest depths, and 
 the spirit of the Papal institutions was making an exhibit 
 which was to be a warning to all future times and nations. 
 
 PRE-ARRANGEMENTS FOR THE MASSACRE. 
 
 All of the gates of the city were locked ; all the boats 
 moored along the banks of the Seine were removed ; all the 
 military were assembled ; chains were drawn across the 
 streets. Some strange things were discovered later in the 
 night. On thousands of houses a white cross was tacked. 
 These were the homes of the Protestants. Men moved about 
 with white handkerchiefs tied about their right arm. These 
 were the Roman Catholics. Torches blazed forth in the 
 streets, to light up the houses with the white cross on them. 
 Such things could only be done by long and careful prepara- 
 tion and concerted action, and they indicate the intention 
 of the Roman Catholic authorities who planned for the 
 massacre. 
 
 THE TOCSIN OF DEATH. 
 
 At a late hour the bell of St. Germain rang upon the air. 
 What for? Alas, it was the tocsin of death. The slaughter 
 seemed to begin at every quarter of the city at the same 
 
280 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 moment. Admiral Coligny was among the first, if not the 
 very first, to be run through with the sword. The Roman 
 Catholic nobles superintended the assassination of the Ad- 
 miral themselves. As he overheard the tumult, he knew 
 that his death was at hand. As the mad dupes of the 
 Papacy rushed into his room they fell upon the wounded 
 Admiral, and hacked him with their swords. The Dake of 
 Guise called from the courtyard, where he was waiting the 
 result of the attack on the Admiral, "Have you finished? 
 Throw him out of the window for us to see with our eyes." 
 Even then life was not quite gone. The Admiral clung to 
 the window bars, though the body was crushed and fearfully 
 mangled. As it fell to the pavement beneath, the Duke of 
 Angouleme, a bastard of Henry II. , who had special charge 
 of the Admiral' s murder, wiped the blood from the face, to 
 make sure he had the Admiral's form before him, and kick- 
 ing it, he turned away. 
 
 So perished the great and good Admiral of the French na- 
 tion. He was a noble character, a brave soldier, and a true 
 patriot, though a man less mild, and less apt to place con- 
 fidence in the pledges of Romanists, might have been saved 
 his lamentable fate. Brantome, a leader on the Papal side, 
 bears witness that ' ' no selfish motive led Coligny to draw 
 his sword, and that had he been less patriotic and less loyal, 
 he would not have perished a victim to his hatred of civil 
 strife." 
 
 FATE OF ADMIRAL COLIGNY. 
 
 The head of the Admiral was cut off and sent to Catherine, 
 while his body was dragged about Paris for the space of 
 three days. The Papal soldiers, on the field of Cappel, cut 
 the body of Zwingli into four parts. Such is the malice of 
 Rome shown towards even the dead. 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 281 
 
 At dawn the next day the bell on the Hotel de Ville 
 signaled the Roman Catholics and the mob to the general 
 slaughter. During the first day the nobles and Protestants 
 mostly suffered. In the Louvre the work was most cruel 
 and shameful ; for there the Protestant nobles were resting 
 as the guests of the king, and he was under every obligation 
 of manhood to protect them. They were dragged out by 
 the Papal guard, and cut down before the king, who, wild 
 with excitement, urged on the massacre, As they fell about 
 him they reproached him for his broken faith. 
 
 As the destruction of life went on every evil passion was 
 set loose, and men seemed like demons, as they raged in 
 their malice, rage and hate. As the day wore on thousands 
 fell every hour. Even children cut down each other, and 
 exhibited the utmost depravities of nature. Charles sat at 
 the window part of the time, and watched the Huguenots 
 hacked to pieces at the palace gate, and was unmoved, as 
 their pitying eyes were lifted pleadingly to him. Madame 
 de Medicis, and the court women stood about the windows, 
 and engaged in laughing at the passing incidents of horror 
 and scenes of butchery ; and in the evening they tripped 
 out upon the street, in gay attire, to view the dead. It 
 was an evening of joy, gaiety and hilarity for them. 
 
 MOST INEXCUSABLE BUTCHERY OF MODEBN TIMES. 
 
 At least two thousand Huguenots perished in Paris alone. 
 They were the nobles, the most intelligent families, and the 
 leading mechanics. The surprise was so complete, that 
 none were able to make any show of resistance. It was a 
 veritable slaughter of the innocents. For a week the dia- 
 bolical work went on. No sex, or age or station or dignity, 
 or virtue or infirmitv afforded a retreat. No such a wanton 
 
2S2 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 massacre and inexcusable butchery has disgraced modern 
 times. The dead fell in showers from the windows ; the 
 streets ran red in streams of blood ; the navigation of the 
 Seine was impeded by dead bodies. Orders were sent by 
 government throughout the provinces to exterminate the 
 Protestants utterly. 
 
 THE BRIDE'S REPORT OF THE MASSACRE. 
 
 Accounts of personal incidents, given by Roman Catho- 
 lic writers, aid in forming opinions of the unexpectedness 
 and severity of the massacre. Margaret of Yalois was the 
 bride of a few days. She it was who had married the 
 Prince of Navarre, and whose wedding was the opportunity 
 for getting the Huguenots to Paris. She gives a most inter- 
 esting experience connected with the slaying of her fellow- 
 countrymen. "The Huguenots," she says, "suspected 
 me because I was a Catholic ; the Catholics because I had 
 married the King of Navarre. So that I heard nothing of 
 what was going on till the evening, when, as I was sitting 
 on a chest in my mother' s room by the side of my sister, 
 the Dutchess of Lorraine, whom I saw to be very sad, the 
 Queen-Mother noticed me and told me to go to bed. As I 
 was courtesying to her my sister laid hold of my arm and 
 burst into tears saying, 'For God's sake, sister, don't go.' 
 I was greatly frightened, and seeing this the Queen, my 
 mother, spoke very sharply to my sister, and forbade her 
 to say anything to me, adding that, please God, no harm 
 would happen to me, but that come what might, go I must, 
 lest something should be suspected. I did not hear what 
 was said, but again and very roughly my mother told me 
 to go. 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 283 
 
 u As soon as I was in my room I threw myself on my 
 knees and prayed God to protect me, though I knew not 
 from what or against whom. 
 
 "Meanwhile the King, my husband, had gone to bed and 
 sent word to me to come to him. I found his bed sur- 
 rounded by thirty or forty Huguenots whom I did not yet 
 know, for I had only been married a few days. All night 
 long they remained talking of what had happened to the 
 Admiral, and determining as soon as day broke to ask for 
 redress against M. de Gaiise ; and if it were not granted, 
 then to seek it for themselves. As for me, the tears of my 
 sister weighed on my mind and I could not sleep for fear of 
 some unknown evil. At dawn, the King, my husband, 
 said he would go and play tennis till King Charles was 
 awake, having made up his mind to ask him at once to do 
 justice. He then left my room, and his gentlemen with 
 him. Seeing that it was light, and thinking that the dan- 
 ger of which my sister had spoken was passed, and being 
 heavy with drowsiness, I told my nurse to lock the door, 
 so that I might sleep undisturbed. An hour later, when I 
 was fast asleep, some one came beating with hands and feet 
 against the door and shouting 'Navarre, Navarre!' My 
 nurse, thinking it was my husband, ran to open the door. 
 It was a gentleman wounded by a sword in the elbow, and 
 his arm cut by a halberd, 'who rushed into my room pur- 
 sued by four archers. Seeking safety, he threw himself on 
 my bed. Feeling this man clutching me, I threw myself 
 into the space between the bed and the wall, where, he still 
 grasping me, we rolled over, both screaming and both 
 equally frightened. Fortunately, the captain of my 
 guards, M. de Nancay, came by, who saw me in such a 
 plight, that sorry as he was, he could not help laughing, 
 but drove the archers out of the room and gave me the life 
 
284 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 of the poor gentleman, who was still clinging to me, and 
 whom I caused to be tended and nursed in my dressing- 
 room till he was quite cured. While I changed my night 
 dress, for he had covered me with his blood, M. de Nancay 
 told me what had happened, but assured me that my hus- 
 band was in the King's room and in no danger. Making 
 me throw on a dressing-gown, he then led me to the room 
 of my sister, Madame de Lorraine, which I reached more 
 dead than alive ; just as I was going into the ante-room a 
 gentleman trying to escape from the archers who were pur- 
 suing him fell stabbed three paces from me. I, too, fell, half 
 fainting, into the arms of M. de Nancay, and felt as if the 
 same blow had pierced us both." 
 
 THE KING CONFESSES HIS KESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 The King avowed the massacre was by his mandate ; and 
 to some of the Huguenots who escaped he said : ' ' I give 
 you three days to consider, and then the mass, death, or 
 theBastile; take your choice." Then he gave way to a 
 sardonic smile. 
 
 Thus St. Bartholomew closed with a laugh and a sar- 
 casm, as it had begun with broken faith and wild beast's 
 frenzy 1 
 
 TWENTY THOUSAND BUTCHERED BY THE PAPACY. 
 
 It was extremely difficult to arrive at a reliable estimate 
 of the number of Huguenots that lost their lives by St. 
 Bartholomew's massacre. The usual estimate given is that 
 of twenty thousand, though some say twice as many, some- 
 what high for a three days' massacre. Though this enor- 
 mous number may have fallen, the victims of Papal intrigue 
 and woman' s perfidy. 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 285 
 
 In that shameful hour, just before he set the hounds 
 of persecution on the Huguenots, in his consulation with 
 his mother, Charles had forgotten that he had a conscience, 
 but conscience did not forget to come back to the king. 
 The return of conscience to the base violator of his word 
 was a visitation of retribution. 
 
 Nor ear can hear, nor tongue can tell 
 The tortures of that inward hell. 
 
 Cecil, the classic writer, is a moral philosopher of the 
 Scriptural caste when he says : ' ' When conscience smite thee 
 once it is admonition ; if twice it is condemnation." After 
 the smiting of conscience once, and before that of condem- 
 nation, the conscience is wont to retire for a season into 
 the curtained halls of silence. But a conscience which has 
 been driven to silence, and at last returns, and turns on its 
 offender with bitter lash, is a monster vomiting into the 
 heart the fires of torment. Never yet was the voice of con- 
 science silenced without retribution. The heaviest sorrow 
 that intrudes upon the heart, is when the past is unfolded, 
 and through the partings returning conscience springs. 
 
 There is felt 
 
 A loneliness that seems to belt 
 
 The universe in its embrace ; 
 
 There is no other dreariness, 
 
 That can so sadden and oppress, 
 as when conscience rides in on the steed of once buried 
 memories and tells the soul of its lost inheritance. The 
 most awful thing to inflict the mind, is that remorse which 
 is born of a rejected conscience returning in its judicial ca- 
 pacity. 
 
 THE KING AND HIS CONSCIENCE. 
 
 So conscience came like a flood-tide to the French king. 
 Retributive justice is but the fire-tongue of conscience. 
 
286 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 Charles IX. in the sick room of Admiral Coligny, who is 
 suffering from the shot of the assassin, pledges protection. 
 His conscience is on fire. But he repairs to the palace, to 
 take counsel of the vilest woman of the centuries. And 
 finally he says : "I will have it so. And with Admiral 
 Coligny all the Huguenots of France must be killed in order 
 that not one remain to reproach me. ' ' Stupid king ! Didst 
 thou not stay to think that if thou hadst killed every 
 Frenchman in thy realm, thine own conscience remained 
 to reproach thee \ In a short while conscience returned, 
 and behold, remorse walked by her side, and there was no 
 pity in her eyes ; but there was a lash in her hand. Ah, 
 conscience is an artist. Presently pictures began to ap- 
 pear on the canvas of the king' s mind. In the gaities of 
 the court the scenes would not quit his memory ; and at 
 night their terrors would parade through his dreams. A 
 flock of ravens came to the Louvre palace and filled the air 
 with dismal croakings. And the king saw in the ravens 
 other creatures than they were, and heard in their screams 
 other sounds than earthly ones. At last King Charles is 
 passing out into the eternities, and these queries fall from 
 his lips : " How many murders \ What \ rivers of blood!" 
 The fatal scorpion has reached him at last. 
 
 WHY ROME KILLED THE HUGUENOTS. 
 
 Who were these Huguenots, for whom the King of France 
 had no sentiment of tolerance, and the Papal hirelings had 
 no tear of pity ? 
 
 They were the real reformers of France, and the cham- 
 pions of religious liberty and rights of conscience. They 
 were simple in dress, peaceful in temper, frugal in life, pa- 
 tient in suffering and intelligent in mind, and withal, the 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 287 
 
 very flower of the industrial wealth of the nation. They 
 were greatly oppressed, and when they petitioned for tol- 
 erance in religion, and especially when they sought inde- 
 pendence of worship, they were persecuted to the point of 
 extinction. Up to Bartholomew's day they had been satis- 
 fied with mere toleration. 
 
 These Protestants of France were not, as in Switzerland, 
 aiming to overthrow the Papal power in the government ; 
 but they did read the Bible, and sang the Psalms of David, 
 in the French translation of Morat, and they dispensed 
 with the mass. And even when they resorted to arms, 
 they did not rise up to overthrow the throne, change the 
 dynasty, or aim to become a political power, as did the 
 Puritans ; but they went to arms simply in defense of their 
 right to liberty in matters religious. Because they were 
 the most brave, the most intelligent, the most moral class 
 in the country, they had to die. That was it ; and that was 
 all. 
 
 Oh, Charles IX., how will this look in eternity? Oh, 
 France ! it was not the first, nor the last, colossal outrage 
 of the Roman Papacy in thy fair country, but it was the 
 greatest. 
 
 HIGH JOY OF THE CATHOLICS AT THE CRIME. 
 
 And what did the powers of Europe do, in view of this 
 right royal assassination of at least twenty thousand good 
 subjects, and choice freemen? Did the Papal rulers of 
 Europe lament, and make complaint and punish ? Did the 
 highest authorities of the Roman Catholic Church, know- 
 ing that but for their Church there could not have been 
 such an awful event occurring, take measures to atone, as 
 far as possible, for the deep crime ? 
 
288 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 Look at the showing : Charles IX., and his court and 
 his clergy, in courtly procession, repaired to the cathedral 
 of Notre Dame, to give hymns of praise, rejoicing before 
 heaven that France had been delivered from the Huguenots 6 
 And Charles IX. was a Papal ruler. So the king of France, 
 who ordered the massacre, and gave no lament until remorse 
 took possession of his mind, was in high glee at the deed. 
 
 The princes and women of the court, in a spirit of hate 
 and by acts of lust, gave vent to their delight, and paraded 
 the streets in insolence and wine, and rivaled each other, 
 not only in debauchery, but in hideous orgies of wild en- 
 thusiasm over the death of the Protestants. And this was 
 a Roman Catholic court, under the power of the Papal 
 tyranny. 
 
 Most satisfied of all was Catherine, whose plan had carried 
 far beyond her expectations. She hated the Admiral, feared 
 the Protestant nobles, and saw in the Huguenots the com- 
 ing power, which, if left alone, would eventually bring 
 France to that degree of liberty and freedom from Papal 
 oppression which had already come to Germany and Swit- 
 zerland. Not perhaps because she cared much for even the 
 Papal religion, but the Church of Rome was a despotic 
 form of government, and that best suited her notions and 
 best served her plans. She instigated and successfully 
 carried out the slaughter of the Huguenots. Now she was 
 happy. She fairly ran wild in her expression and signs of 
 joy. While she had not one word of pity for the few home- 
 less children, whose parents had been cruelly slain by her 
 orders. And Catherine was a Papal devotee. 
 
 Philip, king of Spain, went into an ecstacy of glee upon 
 learning of the massacre, and gave a festal day to Madrid, 
 and at same time he gave a handsome present to the mes- 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 289 
 
 senger who brought' him the official report from Charles IX., 
 and he sent to that ruler a letter of congratulation over the 
 affair. And Philip was one of the most ultra Roman Catho- 
 lic rulers in Europe. 
 
 And now for the court of Rome. When the carrier reached 
 Rome, with the news of the assassination of the great Ad- 
 miral of the French nation, the death of six hundred of the 
 Protestant nobles, and thousands upon thousands of the 
 Huguenots, the Pope gave the most extravagant expressions 
 of joy. He conducted a service of praise in St. Peter's for 
 the treacherous slaughter of the French Protestants. He 
 considered that the work of Charles of France was a master 
 stroke. He caused a medal to be struck off in commemora- 
 tion of the event. And the Pope was a Roman Catholie, 
 and at the head of the Romish Church. A cry rang through 
 Germany. And Germany made it a cry of alarm and in- 
 dignation. But Germany was Protestant. 
 
 SILENT KEBUKE OF ENGLAND'S QUEEN. 
 
 And England : The eloquent Fenelon was the French 
 ambassador at the court of St. James. When he essayed to 
 present the report to the throne, Queen Elizabeth rebuked 
 the French government by ignoring her ambassador. After 
 keeping him waiting several days, she assembled the court 
 to receive him. As he walked down the hall he beheld the 
 queen, dressed in deep mourning, her ministers of state 
 standing about her in solemn manner ; her eyes were bent 
 upon the floor; she neither extended her hand, nor rose 
 from her throne. And Fenelon blushed because he was a. 
 Frenchman, and a Roman Catholic. But Elizabeth was a 
 Protestant. And by her treatment of the French minister 
 at her court she risked a war with the combined fleets and 
 
290 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 armies of France and Spain. Her conduct was superb in 
 its heroism, and magnanimous in its gallantry to an out- 
 raged liberty. 
 
 Measured by our standard of womanhood, Elizabeth was 
 faulty. But as a queen, and the only Protestant monarch 
 over a first class nation to be found in the world, and not 
 knowing but she and her subjects were to meet the fate of 
 the Huguenots for what she was doing, she faced towards 
 Papal France with an imperial stamp of settled purpose on 
 her brow, and the curl of a just contempt upon her lips, as 
 she listens to the official statement of perfidious treachery. 
 
 Elizabeth was the patron of art, the supporter of the 
 Protestant liberties, and a friend of the open Bible and the 
 greatest ruler then on a throne. 
 
 So we see how there was rejoicing throughout the Roman 
 Catholic world at the Papal occurrences in France. St. 
 Bartholomew was justified in every Romish court, while at 
 least two of the Papal thrones, and the court of the Pope, 
 were accessory to that high act of insurrection against right 
 and life. Here is clearly instanced the way in which de- 
 bauchery, treachery and assassination were made defensible 
 means in the policy of the Papacy. 
 
 PROFESSIONS OF PAPAL LEADERS INSINCERE. 
 
 Here appears, in the clearest light, the ground upon which 
 we hold that the professions of Papal leaders are to be dis- 
 credited, and their assurances are to be doubted. The 
 whole history of the Papacy shows that it is considered 
 right to deceive, and lead individuals and nations into false 
 hopes, in order to take them unawares. The Roman Catho- 
 lic Church in the United States, if cut loose from the Pope, 
 would soon be leavened with the spirit of American liberty, 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 291 
 
 and would grow into a truly great American Catholic 
 Church. But with the yoke of the Papacy about its neck, 
 the spur of the Papacy in its side, and the doctrines of the 
 Papacy in its heart, we must continue to mistrust it in the 
 future, simply because, when the Church has been obedient 
 to the Pope, she has always been found fickle in every 
 treaty, and false to every truce. 
 
 The Huguenots had received a terrible blow, and it would 
 seem enough to crush them. But God had a work for 
 them, and they rapidly recovered strength. Henry of 
 Navarre became their leader. Charles IX. died within two 
 years, tortured by remorse. The scenes of St. Bartholomew 
 were before him day and night. He heard strange voices, 
 consigning his name to infamy, and his soul to agony. 
 
 A RELIGIOUS FARCE AND POLITICAL BLUNDER. 
 
 In fifteen years the throne was again made vacant by the 
 death of Henry III. The Protestant prince, Henry of 
 Navarre, was the rightful heir, and he took the throne, un- 
 der the title of Henry IV. He wearied of war, and to make 
 peace with the Catholic League, which had been furnished 
 to crush the Huguenots, he made a formal acknowledgment 
 of Catholicism, and celebrated the mass. This proved a 
 national misfortune, as it was a religious farce. 
 
 As a Protestant king, Henry would have reached great 
 success. His title to the throne was not disputed ; he was 
 popular as a leader, loved as a prince, and might have led 
 the nation forward. When Elizabeth came to the throne of 
 England, there was difficulty to find a bishop to crown her. 
 All France, except the ultra Eomanists, would have wel- 
 comed Henry to the throne, without the services of a 
 bishop. The Huguenots were made of the stuff to build up 
 
292 THE BOMAJST PAPACY. 
 
 a great nation. And if Henry had made France a Protest- 
 ant nation, as lie might have done, and without any violence 
 to Catholic rights, he would now be enshrined in history as 
 the savior of his country. If France and England had been 
 leagued together, with Germany and Holland already 
 Protestant, European civilization would have sprung for- 
 ward much faster than it did ; while France would have 
 been immeasurably elevated in morals and integrity, and 
 the awful revolutions of the eighteenth century would have 
 been prevented. 
 
 The only measure of the throne, advantageous to the 
 Huguenots, under Henry's reign, was that of toleration. 
 He enacted the edict of Nantes, and this was a great move 
 forward. It was a royal act of indemnity for all past re- 
 ligious views not pleasing to the Papal government. It 
 marked the time when France cut loose from the Middle 
 Ages and began her modern period. By it the Huguenots 
 were granted liberty of conscience, freedom of worship, and 
 their poor admitted to the hospitals. It was sealed with 
 the great seal of green wax, to show that it was to be per- 
 petual and irrevocable. Henry IV. said to the parliament : 
 " I have enacted the edict. I wish it to be obeyed. I will 
 give you good deeds." 
 
 This was in the close of the sixteenth century. The 
 Huguenots at once became the industrial arm of the nation. 
 By agriculture and manufacturing they pushed France to 
 the head of the nations. The Huguenots are the moral mys- 
 tery of modern history. They were the religious and polit- 
 ical reformers of France. St. Bartholomew's dreadful day 
 could not drive their great faith from their warm hearts. 
 When it was all over some one said to Anthony of Navarre, 
 "The anvil has worn out the hammer." And so it had. 
 The anvil was the pure, strong faith of these great-hearted r 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 293 
 
 strong-breasted, simple-minded Huguenots, against which 
 fell, fast and hard, the blows of persecution ; but the ham- 
 mer wore itself out and the anvil endured. 'God preserved 
 them, and then distributed them amongst the nations of the 
 world, to act as a leaven of Christian faith, fortitude and en- 
 durance. The providence of God was round about them, 
 and his name has been glorified by them. 
 
 CONSPIRACY OF THE JESUITS. 
 
 Right in the midst of the prosperity to which they had 
 raised the country, Papal France again appeared before the 
 world with a suicidal policy. Although the throne and 
 parliament had bound the nation to respect the edict of 
 Nantes permanently, the Jesuits had come to power, and 
 the edict of Nantes was revoked, after it had given glory to 
 France for just one hundred years. 
 
 Louis XIV. was king, and was a mere mouth-piece. He 
 reigned for almost three-quarters of a century. He was 
 dull and stupid, except when aroused by pleasure or pas- 
 sion. His court was noted for extravagance, profligacy and 
 absolutism, and especially for the reign of women, brilliant 
 in wit and detestable in morals. He was early married to 
 Maria Theresa, daughter to Philip IV., of Spain, at which 
 time he agreed to relinquish to her all claims to the throne 
 of Spain ; but this he thrust aside within six years, when 
 he attempted to seize on the Spanish Netherlands, and 
 again forty years later when he seated his grandson on the 
 throne of Spain. He was taught by the crafty Mazarin to 
 despise treaties, cultivate dissimulation, and break his 
 promises, as policy should dictate. And Mazarin was a 
 Papal statesman. 
 
294 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 PAPAL KING, AMBITIOUS WOMEN AND CRAFTY JESUITS. 
 
 The king was abandoned to the rule of female ambitions 
 and intrigues, and his treatment of women was without a 
 show of devotion, or an instance of sincerity. He had one 
 wife by law, and consorted with a dozen by intrigue ; prin- 
 cipal among these in her relation to the Huguenots was 
 Madame de Maintenon. She was the friend to the Jesuits 
 and drove the king to religious intolerance. And through 
 her influence and the power of the Jesuits upon him, the 
 king revoked the edict of Nantes. 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIBERTY ALL LOST. 
 
 By this act the Huguenots were deprived of religious lib- 
 erty and rights of worship. Churches were closed. The 
 pastors were given ten weeks to leave the country. In case 
 of sickness the Huguenots were not allowed a physician. 
 They died as grandly as they lived honestly. No inge- 
 nuity of torture could bring the most faithful to disown 
 their faith. Gaining strength from Paul, they held the 
 right to repeat his lofty words : ' ' Who shall separate us from 
 the love of Christ f shall tribulation or distress or persecution 
 or famine or nakedness or peril or sword ? Nay, in all these 
 things we are more than conquerors through him that loved 
 us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor 
 angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, 
 nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other 
 creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, 
 which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." 
 
 With such a view of the situation they went to their 
 death, and into exile. The provinces were rapidly depop- 
 ulated, industry was arrested, manufactories were closed,, 
 and the nation's commerce was paralyzed. 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 295 
 
 But the Papacy did not know the leaven it was sending 
 abroad by the exile of the Huguenots. They were the in- 
 dustrial and manufacturing brain of the kingdom, and they 
 took their industrial and inventive genius with them. Sev- 
 enty thousand strong they went to England. They thronged 
 into the North of Ireland, and helped to save that section 
 from the spoiling hands of the Papacy. The business 
 created by them in England alone deprived France of ten 
 million dollars a year. To them belonged the secret of 
 weaving tapestries and making silk hats, and after the rev- 
 ocation of the edict of Nantes the Cardinals of France had 
 to send to the Huguenot factories of England for their silk 
 hats. 
 
 HUGUENOT LEAVEN IN THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 They swarmed into Holland, and gave immense indus- 
 trial wealth and power to Amsterdam, the queen of the 
 Dutch seas, while they lined the Rhine with their great 
 manufactories. In America they became sturdy yomen, 
 great manufacturers, and unfailing patriots, and added 
 powerfully to the cause of liberty and prosperity in the new 
 world. When Boston placed an embargo on the British 
 ships in her port, on the account of the tax on tea, it was 
 a Huguenot who offered for a public meeting that Feneuil 
 Hall which has been so celebrated in the agitation of Ameri- 
 can liberties. After the battle of Lexington, South Caro- 
 lina was the first to frame an independent constitution. 
 The president of that constitutional convention was a Hu- 
 guenot Frenchman. 
 
 This is the type of a people which cruel malice and hard 
 persecution of the Papacy slaughtered or scattered over the 
 world. And the spirit of the Papacy towards free Ameri- 
 cans, is the same as it was towards the free Huguenots. As 
 
296 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 the Papacy is in no respect changed, as a system of doc- 
 trine and rule, if it again gains the power it once had, it is 
 hard to see how it can be anything else than what it then 
 was. The common sense logic drawn from Papal history 
 forces us to the view, that the Papal policy in the United 
 States, is to be more and still more subversive and destruc- 
 tive of everything which distinguishes a free people. 
 
TO FRANCE. 
 
 41 Forgive me, Freedom ! 0, forgive these dreams ! 
 J hear thy voice, hear thy loud lament, 
 From bleak Halvitia's icy cavern sent ; 
 I hear thy groans upon her blood-stained streams ! 
 Heroes, that for your peaceful country perished, 
 And ye, that fleeing, spot your mountain-snows 
 With bleeding wounds, forgive me that I cherished 
 One thought that ever blessed your cruel foes ! 
 To scatter rage, and traitorous guilt, 
 Where peace her jealous home had built ; 
 A patriot-race to disinherit 
 Of all that made their stormy toils so dear ; 
 And with inexpiable spirit 
 
 To taint the bloodless freedom of the mountaineer, 
 France, that mockest heaven, adulterous, blind, 
 Are these thy boasts, champion of human kind ? 
 To mix with kings in the low lust of sway, 
 To insult the shrine of Liberty with spoils 
 From freedom torn ; to tempt and to betray ? 
 
Is the Roman Church against 
 
 LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE AND 
 OF THE PRESS? 
 
 From this polluted fountain of indifference, flows that 
 absurd and erroneous doctrine, or rather raving, in favor 
 and defense of liberty of conscience. Hither tends that 
 most and never sufficiently to be execrated and detested 
 liberty of the press, which some so loudly contend for and 
 so actively promote. 
 
 Gregory XVI., Encyclical of 1832 
 
PART IX 
 
 PAPAL OVERTHROW OF THE KNIGHTS TEMP- 
 LARS. WHY THE PAPACY OPPOSES 
 FREE MASONRY. 
 
 Attention was called in a preceding section of this work, 
 to the Roman Church suppressing the Knights Templars. 
 The action of the bishops, with the assent of the Pope, was 
 so remarkable, it had an influence so opposite from what 
 was expected, it in part so accounts for the Pope's con- 
 tinued opposition to Free Masonry, and the act was one 
 so strikingly diabolical, that a treatment of it in this place 
 will be interesting, while it bears directly upon the purpose 
 of this work. 
 
 A study of the chronicles of the dawn of the thirteenth 
 century, brings out the fact that there were three great 
 military orders, all connected with the mission of the ex- 
 tension, or defense, of Christianity. There were the Temp- 
 lars, the Knights- Hospitallers, and the Teutonic Knights. 
 
 The first of these orders occupies our attention. The 
 members were bound by the usual monastic vows of Pover- 
 ty, Christianity and Obedience. It was a religious order, at 
 first under rule of the Patriarch of Jerusalem, then under 
 the Popes. ' (299) 
 
300 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 ORIGIN OF THE KNIGHTS TEMPLARS. 
 
 This order was a consequence of the Crusades. If was or- 
 ganized to defend Jerusalem from the despoiling hand of 
 the infidel Turk: It was started by a small band of French 
 nobles. There were just nine of them, we "are told. These 
 formed themselves into an escort for the pilgrims to the 
 holy city of Jerusalem. They took the road eastward, as 
 a mounted guard. They became known as the Knights of 
 the Temple, because they were quartered in the palace of 
 the Catholic kings, which stood on the site of Solomon's 
 Temple. 
 
 They became the most valiant soldiers of the Church. 
 The business of the Knights was to war against the infidel 
 in Palestine. As they grew in numbers they were looked 
 upon as the flower of the aristocracy. They were about the 
 last great effusion of feudalism. They were thought to 
 hold honorable rank above all other orders, and soon had 
 the attention of Europe. 
 
 Their head was called the Grand Master. While their 
 duties were wholly religious, they were such as pertained 
 to arms, taken in the name of the Cross. In every battle 
 they came off victorious, or left their bodies on the field. 
 
 During their first thirty years they were subject to the 
 Patriarch of Jerusalem. The Popes, in order to reward 
 them for their services, relieved them from the eastern juris- 
 diction, and took them under Papal protection. They soon 
 came into possession of houses, churches and domains. 
 They spread over France, Spain and England. Their lands 
 were released from tithe and tax, and they rapidly grew in 
 wealth. It is likely their great possessions had something to 
 do with the terrible destruction which fell upon them. 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 301 
 
 They were now under no allegiance except that of the Popes. 
 They were not subject to bishop or cardinal, and this may 
 have had something to do with their overthrow also. 
 
 HIGH CHARACTER OF THE ORDER. 
 
 It appears quite certain, from wholly satisfactory evi- 
 dence, that they were less corrupt than the other orders. 
 During the two centuries that they thrived, and down to 
 the hour of their fall, there is no well authenticated in- 
 stance of a great scandal against them. 
 
 After Jerusalem fell again into the hand of the Saracens, 
 the Knights built a great castle at Acre, in Palestine ; here 
 they defended the pilgrims, made the castle their head- 
 quarters, where they held their Chapters, and from whence 
 the Grand Master ruled the order. 
 
 Towards the end of the thirteenth century, their power 
 became so great that the kings and bishops both became 
 enemies of them ; the kings wanted their money and the 
 bishops their subjection. 
 
 With the close of this century they were driven from 
 Acre by a great Saracen army, one hundred and fifty thou- 
 sand strong. All but ten were destroyed. Those repaired 
 to the island of Cyprus, and elected as Grand Master 
 Jacques de Molay. 
 
 About this time, Boniface VIII. formed the ambition of 
 uniting all the military orders of the Church. This intro- 
 duces another cause which co-operated with the growing 
 feeling of the kings and bishops against them. The kings 
 wanting their revenues, and the bishops stung with jeal- 
 ousy, probably took advantage of this to turn the Popes 
 against them. 
 
302 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 DIABOLICAL CHARGE BROUGHT AGAINST THEM. 
 
 They were to fall under the strongest and most diaboli- 
 cal accusation ever made against any set of men. Philip 
 the Beautiful was king of France at the dawn of the four- 
 teenth century. He was in war with England and Bur- 
 gundy, and wanted money. He called on the clergy. The 
 Pope forbid the clergy to pay. Philip called the Pope a 
 fool. The Pope excommunicated Philip. Philip burned 
 the bull. He made war upon the Pope, and took him pris- 
 oner. In three days he died from grief and mortification. 
 The Templars had supplied the Popes with money. This 
 was their offense. The new Pope made the clergy do as 
 Philip wanted. In another year there was another Pope, 
 and he was a Frenchman. He was with the king, and the 
 king was against the Templars. Up to this hour they 
 seem to stand high. Two members had been condemned 
 for some conspiracy. They sent word to the king they 
 could reveal to him some terrible secret, and would do so if 
 he would spare their lives. The king sent for them. He 
 listened to a story, which seems quite incredible. The story 
 they told was this: The chiefs of the order were not 
 Christians even — the candidates upon being admitted to the 
 order were required to spit on the cross, trample on it and 
 deny Christ — any one under suspicion of having a notion to 
 betray the secrets was murdered and secretly buried — the 
 members worshiped idols, committed fearful crimes— the 
 chapter houses were dens of vice. The specifications were 
 yet more horrible in detail. This was a story exceedingly 
 unlikely, when it is borne in mind that hitherto there had 
 been no whisper of such enormities. Did the infamous 
 bishops suggest this horrible tale ? 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 303 
 
 INSTANCE OF PAPAL TREACHERY. 
 
 The king wrote the Pope. The Pope wrote his intention 
 of making an examination. There is a silence of a year. 
 Then we find the Pope writing a letter to Grand Master de 
 Molay, at Cyprus, asking him to come with his leading 
 Knights, and have a conference with him about the state of 
 religion in the east. There was no hint of the accusation. 
 The Grand Master, without suspicion, packed his chests of 
 money, requiring twelve mules to carry, and bore them to 
 their vaults in Paris. He consulted the Pope. The council 
 was of little importance. Another year and de Molay was 
 suspicious that something was broiling. He had a talk 
 with the Pope, who assured him the Holy See was satis- 
 fied. It looks like treachery. The Templars felt secure, 
 and were spread in their houses throughout France. In a 
 few months, it was in October, 1307, the secret instructions 
 of the king were sent in all directions, to arrest the Temp- 
 lars on a given date. October 13th, at day break, they were 
 dragged from their beds, and flung into the dungeons of the 
 bishops. This was followed by a meeting of the prelates 
 about Paris, two days later, which shows it was prearranged. 
 An act of accusation, in accord with the story of the crim- 
 inals, was drawn up. Philip sent letters to the courts of 
 all the countries, where the Knights were located, told his 
 tale, and urged them to follow the course of France. 
 
 TORTURES OF THE KNIGHTS. 
 
 Wasted with cold, starvation and sickness, the Knights 
 were dragged before the tribunals, and were told the Grand 
 Master had confessed to the hideous and diabolical things 
 they were accused of. They were told if they agreed with 
 this, they would be rewarded and dismissed. A few, and a 
 
304 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 very few, so confessed. Almost all declared the tale utter- 
 ly false. Such were stripped of all clothing, with hands 
 tied behind them, and a rope to their wrists, they were 
 drawn up to a beam, and let down again, until senseless, or 
 they said what the bishops wanted. If they stood this or- 
 deal, their feet were fastened in stocks, rubbed with oil and 
 fire built in front. Their toes dropped off, sometimes their 
 feet. With some, the thumb screw was used ; with some 
 the iron boot. Such as held out, and did not die in the 
 torture, were returned to prison, to be again tortured when 
 the Pope should please. 
 
 In this way the Templars were condemned. The alleged 
 declaration of the Grand Master and his leading Knights, 
 is difficult to explain. It is not sure they made any such 
 declaration, or if they did it was under a strain of terror. 
 It is quite sure the Pope was not inclined to believe it. 
 
 Then followed trials, persecutions and tortures for months. 
 At last de Molay was brought into court. He was now old 
 and infirm — the more infirm because of his prison treat- 
 ment. His alleged confession was read to him. His con- 
 duct is hard to explain, if he knew anything about it. He 
 appeared completely bewildered. 
 
 The order wrote no books, left no letters, and it is hard 
 to arrive at any satisfactory conclusion. The principal 
 reason for introducing here this queer chapter, connected 
 with Papal history, is to show the method used by Roman- 
 ism to rule all institutions and societies, or find some way 
 to win them. To roast these human beings, even if the ac- 
 cusation were wholly true, was such awful barbarism as we 
 have not had among the most cruel cannibals of the Isle of 
 the sea. And this was done. The Archbishop of Sens 
 took one day fifty-four of these starving, tortured Temp- 
 
TEE ROMAN PAPACY. 305 
 
 lars and roasted them to death. Every one bore testimony 
 to the utter groundlessness of the charges against them. 
 
 SUPPRESSION AND CONFISCATION. 
 
 The end came when a council of bishops suppressed 
 them. They immediately scattered over the world. The 
 Pope turned their estates over to the Church. 
 
 It was March 18th, 1314, that the bull of suppression from 
 the Pope was read to an immense multitude in Paris, be- 
 fore which de Molay and his chiefs were brought. When 
 he heard the charge, he cried with a great voice that it was 
 false. De Molay and one of his chiefs were, the same ev- 
 ening, taken to an island in the Seine and were burned. 
 This would appear to give all the evidence necessary, that 
 the Templars had been dealt with in an unjust, cowardly 
 and inhuman manner. 
 
 This is the story of the way in which the Papacy came 
 to turn against Free Masonary. That intense hatred con- 
 tinues in the Church. In some countries within the last 
 two years, Roman Catholics have been ordered by the bish- 
 ops to give no aid to a Mason, even when in hunger, thirst 
 or sickness. 
 
 The Papacy may yet have to settle with the world for: 
 this high crime against humanity. 
 
PAPAL INTOLERANCE SOLILOQUZES. 
 
 "Why, I can smile, and murder while I smile, 
 And cry, content, to that which grieves my heart 
 And wet my cheeks with artificial tears, 
 And frame my face to all occasions ; 
 I'll drown more sailors than the mermaid shall ; 
 I'll slay more gazers than the basilisk; 
 I'll play the orator as well as Nestor ; 
 Deceive more slyly than Ulysses could, 
 And, like a Sinon, take another Troy ; 
 I can add colors to the Cameleon ; 
 Change shapes with Proteus for advantages, 
 And set the murd'rous Mechiavel to school." 
 
Do Roman Catholic teachers 
 
 JUSTIFY VIOLATIONS OF CIVIL 
 LAWS? 
 
 Sapricius is accustomed to carry in his wagon, on his 
 horse, or in some other way, wheat, wine, and other goods 
 under toll-duty. He evades it whenever he can do so 
 without fear of a fine, either in passing during the night 
 by an out-of-the-way road, avoiding the custom officers, 
 or deceiving them by ruse. He does not think he is doing 
 any harm, because the duty charged is considerable, and 
 because the law which establishes it is purely penal. 
 
 Has he sinned, and is he obliged to make restitution ? 
 
 No. Gury. 
 
PART X. 
 
 DOWNFALL OF THE PAPACY EST GENEVA- 
 DANGERS FROM PAPAL ILLITERACY 
 IN THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 Among the small states of the small republic of Switzer- 
 land — in fact, the smallest but one — is the State of little 
 Geneva, with the city of Geneva as the seat of local gov- 
 ernment. This little State has an area of only one hundred 
 and seven square miles, of which eleven and one-half are 
 covered with water ; and yet this State has distinguished 
 itself in originating and conserving liberties, and as being 
 the home of a man who towers as high in Swiss history, as 
 the Alps are high in the Swiss landscape. 
 
 In the year 1509, while Zwingli was buckling on his 
 armor in the more northern Swiss town of Glarus, and 
 Luther had first opened his great movement at Wittemberg, 
 John Calvin was born in the village of No yon, France. He 
 passed through his childhood amidst the glaring Papal 
 frauds of the day. His early education was mostly di- 
 rected by a private tutor, who had charge of the sons of a 
 
 noble. 
 
 (308) 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 309 
 
 CHILDREN AS HIGH CHURCH OFFICIALS. 
 
 In order to help bear the expense of his education, his 
 father secured for him, when he was twelve years old, the 
 position of chaplain in a small institution. It is indicative 
 of the low and corrupt order of religion, which then pre- 
 vailed, that the highest positions were not unfrequently 
 conferred upon mere children. Here is a boy of twelve in 
 charge of a religious house. France had a cardinal six- 
 teen years old, and Portugal one twelve years of age. Aix 
 had an archbishop five years old, and Geneva a bishop ten 
 ;years old. 
 
 His father intended his boy for the profession of law, 
 "which was then regarded as a high road to eminence. The 
 boy repaired to Orleans, and afterwards to Bourges, to 
 seek instruction of the renowned jurist, Alciot, whose em- 
 inence and learning made brilliant his age. Calvin was 
 charmed, and was soon a profound reasoner in law and pol- 
 itics. The study of the law, designed by his father as a 
 preparation for legal practice, was intended by Providence 
 to be a great training for the work which lay before the re- 
 former. That work was to be none other than a complete 
 change of the constitutional laws of Western Europe. 
 When that training had been sufficient, Providence won 
 iim over to the sacred science of theology. 
 
 HOW A HEALTHY REFORMATION IS PRODUCED. 
 
 A man had been brought down from Germany to the town 
 •of Bourges to teach the Greek of Homer and Demosthenes ; 
 but along with this he began to teach the Greek of another 
 .book. He had seen that book in the hands of Luther, 
 changing the faith of Germany. He declared that in that 
 book was the answer to every question of moral and social 
 
310 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 duty, and the solution of all political problems. That book 
 was the Bible, and Calvin soon took up with the views of 
 the German professor. He was soon deep in the waters of 
 inspiration, wading about in search for the great truths of 
 Scripture. 
 
 Again is it to be observed, that it is from the Bible that a 
 great Reformation was to spring. From that book Calvin 
 received the mighty avalanche of truth which he was to 
 pour into Geneva. 
 
 He repaired to Paris, and for a time addressed the meet- 
 ings of a few pious people, who gathered in private homes* 
 through fear of Papal interruptions. He prepared an ad- 
 dress, in which he boldly demanded a reformation of the 
 church, on the Gospel plan. He had to flee for safety. 
 For a time he quietly lived in the country, devoting 
 himself to study for two years, all the while watching the 
 storm which was gathering, and the thunder-bolts which 
 were being forged, to purify the religious and political at- 
 mosphere. 
 
 NOVEL PLAN OF FRANCIS I. 
 
 Francis I. was king of France. It was determined to ex- 
 terminate, so far as possible, all who broke connection with 
 the Romish Church. Like the Roman Emperor Nero, 
 Francis seemed to desire that all condemned by him should 
 feel the keenest agonies of death. In Paris, on the same 
 day, at six different places, six fires burned as many men. 
 The method of death was both novel and cruel. The victims 
 were fastened to a long swinging beam. This was swung 
 round into the fire, and then withdrawn ; again swung in- 
 to the fire, and withdrawn ; plunged again into the flames 
 and withdrawn. The king passed by these six fires in suc- 
 cession, and witnessed the scene without a sentiment of re- 
 
TEE ROMAN PAPACY. 311 
 
 gret. In the days which followed, young maidens, weak 
 and delicate women, brave men and young children, half- 
 roasted, sang their psalms and proved their faith. This 
 was a moral astonishment, and it very deeply impressed 
 young Calvin. 
 
 Wandering from his native land, he betook himself to 
 Basle, in Switzerland. He felt that the time had come when 
 the Protestants of France should send forth a declaration 
 of their faith, and a declaration of their views on the in- 
 dependence of the conscience. 
 
 He threw the doctrines of the Reformation into a theo- 
 logical form, in a way to lay the foundation for the organized 
 religion of the Huguenots ; and later of the Dutch, Scotch, 
 and the Puritans in England and America. This treatise 
 was a wonderful and profound condensation of the Scrip- 
 tural system as he understood it. "Free and substantial 
 wisdom principally consists of two parts, the knowledge of 
 God, and the knowledge of ourselves.' ' This appealed to 
 the Huguenots, and became their strong food. 
 
 EISE OF THE GENEVAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 Passing through Geneva one day he tarried over night, 
 intending to continue his journey the next day. But it was 
 not to be so. On that day, August 5th, 1536, two streams 
 of providence meet, and a great epoch begins. The little 
 Canton of Geneva lay within touch of almost every im- 
 portant nation of Europe. It was a great opportunity 
 which had unexpectedly ripened into notice. The day had 
 come to organize, as never before, the high principles of 
 human liberty. God had prepared the people, and they 
 were ready. God had prepared Calvin, and he was ready. 
 
 The journey he was on was relinquished, and for twenty- 
 eight years Geneva was the theatre of his work. He was 
 
312 THE BOMAX PAPACY. 
 
 Ibanished once, but he kept himself faithfully at work at 
 the treadmill of his task. Geneva, having neither army 
 nor territory, was to be elevated into a free republic 
 Iby pure moral strength. It conquered as a city of the 
 mind, a republic of thought ! It was a city of gray an- 
 tiquity. We frequently meet with it in the writings of 
 Caesar. It had long felt the throes of liberty ; but not un- 
 til the sixteenth century did it see its way clear to throw 
 off the Papal yoke. 
 
 The Papacy was both tyrannical and corrupt in dealing 
 with the people. At the time Calvin went to Geneva bishops 
 and dukes were equally odious. The Genevese could no 
 longer endure ' ' Popes who were Caesars, nor Caesars who 
 were Popes." Under Calvin the strivings for liberty were 
 to be realized in established freedom. He was to make 
 Geneva the metropolis of the sixteenth century liberties. 
 In his plan for a free Church and a free state, bishops were 
 to give place to pastors, and dukes to give way to repre- 
 sentatives of the people. It was a long stride in represen- 
 tative government. 
 
 OEIGIN OF OTTK PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM. 
 
 He laid deep and lasting one of the mud sills of intelli- 
 gence in religious matters, when he organized for the 
 Genevese a general system of education. This was the 
 origin of our common school system. The Papal Church 
 had not only done nothing for common education, but had 
 opposed and finally destroyed a public school established 
 in the fifteenth century, by a layman. Calvin believed that 
 the Reformation had to live, and grow, and endure, by 
 knowledge. And by h is work, to give form to this belief, 
 he stood in the very head light of the great intellectual 
 movement of that century. The lasting effect of his system 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 313 
 
 of education in Switzerland is shown by the general intelli- 
 gence of the people of the Protestant states. There are 
 now twice as many journals published in Switzerland, as in 
 Italy, the land of the Popes. The public schools in the 
 City of Geneva have 20,000 books in their libraries. The 
 university of Geneva has 75,000 volumes, one-eighth as 
 many as can be found in the extensive Congressional Li- 
 brary of our own country. 
 
 CIVIL LIBERTIES GUARANTEED. 
 
 Under Calvin, civil liberties in Geneva became guaranteed. 
 Prior to his day, those who wrought for liberty opened 
 their own path to prison. To express a view not in favor 
 with the dukes of Savoy, was to be hounded to the end. 
 IBonnivard, the prisoner of Chillon, had declared that 
 "there is only one tribunal that has power over the con- 
 science, and that is heaven." He had to spend six years in 
 the underground dungeon of the castle of Chillon for say- 
 ing it. Under Calvin, the daylight of fuller rights flooded 
 Geneva ; the people were men of conscience and purpose, 
 and the House of Savoy was driven beyond the Alps. 
 • 
 
 PRODIGIOUS INFLUENCE OF GENEVAN LIBERTY. 
 
 In liberty, religion, morals and intelligence, Geneva 
 speedily had a reputation known of all men. " Never, 
 since the last days of Israel, had any community been so 
 completely regenerated and conformed to the ideals of 
 morality, as was Geneva under the rule of Calvin." The 
 Protestant refugees flocked here, as they were driven from 
 their own lands by persecution, and Geneva became a train- 
 ing school, which was to scatter its seed all over western 
 Europe. Churches were crowded; students poured into 
 
314 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 the lecture rooms ; printing presses poured forth a hundred 
 streams of liberty and religion ; while about every citizen, 
 except the extreme Papal wing of the populace, became an 
 active propagation of an new spirit and method of govern- 
 ment. The effect was prodigious ! 
 
 The theory of Christian doctrine, which Calvin took from 
 Paul and Augustine, and elaborated into a system of Chris- 
 tian life, moral duty, and civil functions, contributed im- 
 mensely to the growing liberties of the period, and proved 
 a death blow to the Papacy in many a corner of Europe. 
 His view of the Christian system, in its relation to civil 
 affairs, may be stated in a single sentence : The universal 
 and eternal, general and specific sovereignty of God, upon 
 the conscience, in the will, and in life, holds man true to 
 the eternal truths, in relation to all things, and hence makes 
 him free in those relations. As God alone is lord of the 
 conscience, no earthly potentate can domineer over it ; hence 
 men are free and equal. From this liberty, equality and 
 representation had to flow. 
 
 If a man' s greatness is to be measure by the ever widening 
 circles of his influence, then there can be no hesitancy, by 
 fair judicial finding, in pronouncing Calvin one of the great- 
 est men of the sixteenth century ; and it was a century of 
 many very great men — Luther, Zwingli, Ursinus, Malanc- 
 thon, Knox, Cramner. Calvin's systematized thought, 
 and mighty impulse upon religion, education and constitu- 
 tional, representative government, throw all the others into 
 an eclipse. 
 
 TESTIMONY OF GEEAT MEN. 
 
 The most learned and competent to judge have not been 
 slow to render justice to the name of Calvin. Dorner de- 
 clares that " Calvin was equally great in intellect and char- 
 acter, lovely in social life, full of tender sympathy and. 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 315 
 
 faithfulness to friends, yielding and forgiving toward 
 personal offenses, but inexorably severe when he saw 
 the honor of God obstinately and malignantly attacked." 
 Theodore Beza, who knew him best, wrote : "Having been 
 an observer of Calvin's life for sixteen years, I may with 
 perfect right testify that we have in this man a most beau- 
 tiful example of a Christian life and death, which it is easy 
 to defame, but difficult to imitate." The famous Montes- 
 quieu says : " The Genevese should ever bless the day of 
 his birth." Hooker expresses the opinion that Calvin is 
 " incomparably the wisest man in the French Church." 
 Jewel declares he is a "worthy ornament of the Church of 
 God." Renan, the skeptic, pronounces him the "most 
 Christian man of his age." Bancroft, the most reliable 
 historian, as well as a most scholarly American, says : " He 
 who will not honor the memory and respect the influence 
 of Calvin, knows but little of the origin of American 
 liberty." 
 
 INFLUENCE ON AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS. 
 
 Calvin's influence upon the religious thought and insti- 
 tutions of the American Republic, during our formation 
 period, was greater than that of any other man. His teach- 
 ings very largely entered into the establishment of civil lib- 
 erty, on this side of the Atlantic. The representative rights 
 of liberty as growing by nature out of man's equality be- 
 fore man, and his dependence upon God, first experimented 
 upon in Geneva, under Calvin, impressed their claim upon 
 the founders of our civil institutions. 
 
 RELIGION SHOULD CONSERVE, NOT SUBVERT, CIVIL LIBERTY. 
 
 The bearing of Calvin's great work at Geneva, both in 
 its direct and its remote influence, upon the world-wide 
 movement against the Papacy, brings into consideration 
 
316 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 two of the most valuable truths. The Gfenevese Reforma- 
 tion brings them to the front as no other country does. The 
 first of these great principles, now universally held, is that 
 religion should be made to conserve and advance, and not 
 subvert and oppress civil liberties. Home had never been 
 taught this until Geneva established, from religious mo- 
 tives as well as municipal expediency, a free republic, and 
 made the conservation of her liberties a part of the relig- 
 ious duties of citizens. The Roman religion has always 
 subjected civil laws and liberties wholly to the ecclesiasti- 
 cal machine. 
 
 ROMAN PRIESTS AND NUNS NOT SUBJECT TO OUR LAWS. 
 
 The Roman Catholic ecclesiastical law holds that because 
 a person belongs to the ecclesiastical order, as a monk, or 
 nun, such person should not be subject to the civil powers, 
 except by the permission of the superior Church authority. 
 This is the ruling of Satolli for the United States ; it is like- 
 wise held in Smith' s great work on Canon Law. This idea 
 of the inherent superiority of ecclesiastical over civil law, 
 must inevitably erase the first principles of liberty from the 
 breast, and place the mental operations wholly at the 
 disposal of the priesthood. In our large cities in the 
 United States, in the State Legislatures, and in the manage- 
 ment of national legislation at Washington, the hand 
 of the priest is too often laid upon the civil operations ; 
 and this is the hand of the ecclesiastical boss, which 
 is invariably accompanied with a threat. The man of high 
 and honorable character does not take kindly to such priest- 
 ly interference. He is told he is not wanted. So the mu- 
 nicipal and state offices are at the mercy of unscrupulous 
 and corrupt managers of the ecclesiastical power, who farm 
 them out for what they are worth to the Church. All lib- 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 317 
 
 erties must eventually perish in our land if these Papal op- 
 pressions are not overcome. When the Roman priest is 
 active there can be no civil independence or purity. The 
 Genevese solved the question by making religion serve the 
 cause of liberty. If the Papacy is against freedom, then 
 religion, which has no part with the Papacy, must be called 
 upon to instruct and lead in the things which advance the 
 civil rights and liberties of the people. Hence it becomes 
 a religious duty, as well as a political one, to oppose the 
 Papacy. 
 
 RELIGION SHOULD PROMOTE, NOT RETARD INTELLIGENCE. 
 
 The second great object lesson which was taught by the 
 Genevese Reformation was, that religion should be made 
 to promote, not retard intelligence. The Romish Church 
 had destroyed the schools of Geneva. The Reformation, 
 under John Calvin, not only established schools and placed 
 them under the care of the state, but provided for all classes 
 to receive instruction. Geneva had an educated citizenship 
 second to none in Europe. The influence of the Protestant 
 Reformation on the intelligence of the world has been most 
 delightful, and greatly aided the general progress. 
 
 PAPAL HINDRANCE TO EDUCATION. 
 
 The baneful influence of the Roman Papacy upon educa- 
 tion is universally deplored, as it is generally known. The 
 Papacy is fatal to the intelligence of any nation. It is 
 greatly to be lamented that it controls the consciences and 
 hearts of such a large per cent, of our population, as it 
 means a deplorable lowering of our general standard of in- 
 telligence. As a system of education, that conducted by 
 the Roman Church is calculated to retard and embarrass any 
 broad and liberal enterprise of the mind. The generous 
 
318 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 thinkers in her own communion charge this fatal error upon 
 the educational efforts of the Church. Mr. W. H. Manley, 
 of New York, one of the laymen of standing in the Roman 
 Church, in an article in the Independent, shows the logical 
 failure of his Church to give anything like a liberal educa- 
 tion to young men. In the course of this article he points 
 out the wrong as a fundamental one in these words : " Not 
 to men like Cromwell, or Jefferson, or Lincoln, are Catholic 
 boys taught to look for patterns of life and conduct ; the 
 writings of a Locke, a Goethe, a Whittier, or an Emerson 
 are never recommended; but a professional beggar, like 
 St. Benedict Labre, who cultivated vermin on his body 
 out of sheer humility, is placed before them as a glorious 
 model ; and they are earnestly advised to feed upon such 
 literary productions as the life of St. Aloysius ['the patron 
 of youth !'] of whom it is on record that he never looked his 
 own mother in the face, because of his surpassing purity. 
 Hence the profound distrust of the young people, for any- 
 thing in the line of literature or education having the offi- 
 cial stamp of their Church." 
 
 EOMAN CATHOLIC ILLITEEACY IN THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 The inevitable result of this Church, upon a nation's in- 
 telligence, is that of illiteracy proportionate to her influence 
 and control. According to the Dublin Beview, the great 
 Roman Catholic quarterly, the Church has made a miserable 
 failure of University education in Ireland. As to what the 
 Church does in common education in Ireland we can judge 
 by the thousands of Irishmen in every large city in this 
 land. Seventy thousand Italians came to the United States 
 in 1806, and fifty thousand of them could not read or write. 
 And yet education has progressed greatly in that country 
 
1HE ROMAN PAPACY. 319 
 
 during the last twenty years, because of the growing power 
 of the State in affairs of education. When the Church 
 absolutely controlled education in Italy, eighty out of a 
 hundred were utterly illiterate. 
 
 Roman Catholic illiteracy in America is an ugly fact. It 
 must be overcome. It can only be overcome by stopping 
 Roman Catholic illiterate immigration, and forcing Roman 
 Catholic youth, now in this country, into the public schools. 
 And this should be done no matter what priest, bishop, or 
 Pope may say. The whole hierarchical machine of the 
 Papacy had better be destroyed, than to carry this process 
 of lowering our educational standing, before the nations of 
 the earth, any further. 
 
TO THE DUTCH MARTYR PATRIOTS, 
 
 " Stand ! the ground's your ov/n, my braves ! 
 Will ye give it up to slaves ? 
 Will ye look for greener graves ? ' 
 Hope ye mercy still ? 
 What's the mercy despots feel ? 
 Hear it in that battle-peal ! 
 Read it on yon bristling steel ! . 
 Ask it — ye who will. 
 
 Fear ye foes who kill for hire ? 
 Will ye to your homes retire ? 
 Look behind you ! — they're afire ! 
 And before you see 
 Who have done it! — From the vale 
 On they come ! — And will ye quail? 
 Leaden rain and iron hail 
 Let their welcome be ! 
 
 " In the God of battles trust ! 
 Die we may, — and die we must ; 
 But 0, where can dust to dust 
 Be consigned so well, 
 As where Heaven its dews shall shed 
 On the martyred patriot's bed, 
 And the racks shall raise their heads, 
 Of his deeds to tell!" 
 
Does the Romish Church claim 
 jurisdiction over a country 
 whose government is not ro- 
 MAN Catholic? 
 
 The secular power is directed, and the spiritual is com- 
 manded, to teach and aid the secular in its duty, — to ex- 
 terminate heretics. But if the secular power refuses, it 
 is to be excommunicated and exterminated itself, and the 
 country given to any Catholics who are able to conquer 
 it. And to induce them to undertake it, all are promised 
 the same favors and indulgences in killing heretics as in 
 killing Turks or Saracens. 
 
 Action of IV. Lateran (General) Council, Annals of 
 
 Cardinal Barronius. 
 
PART XI 
 
 THE STRUGGLE IN THE NETHERLANDS; AND 
 ROME'S GREATEST ACT OF DESPERATION. 
 
 A strangely constructed country is that of the Nether- 
 lands ; and a grandly brave and liberty- loving people in- 
 habited the land of the sea. The low countries of the 
 Netherlands were formed long after the world was created. 
 Three great rivers come down from the mountains and in- 
 terior of Europe, and for ages they unloaded their deposits of 
 sand and slime among the sands of the ocean. These were 
 the Rhine, the Mense and the Scheld. In the course of 
 time immense formations of rich land were made. Great 
 plains stretched ont into the ocean, and which in many 
 places were beneath the sea, at high tide. Along the 
 border of this formed land grew a belt of heavy woodland, 
 which caught the sand drifts from the ocean, and the slime 
 deposits from the rivers, and so formed a breastwork 
 against the wild waves of the sea. These became known as 
 dikes, and the country thus formed was spoken of as the 
 low-land, nether-land, hollow-land, "Holland." 
 (322) 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 323 
 
 A RACE OF FREEMEN AND HEROES. 
 
 A race of freemen and heroes grew up in this country. 
 As the Rhine approached the ocean it divided into two arms, 
 clasping the celebrated island of Batavia. There were none 
 braver in all Europe than these Batavians. The ancient 
 Roman empire found that among the very few races which 
 would not be conquered, this Batavian race was most per- 
 sistent in maintaining their independence. With this race 
 she had to treat. When the Batavian soldiery entered the 
 Roman service they became known, wherever moved the 
 Roman troops. The Batavian cavalry became the most 
 famous arm of the Roman service. They were the favorite 
 legions of Julius Caesar, and gained him victory in the 
 battle of Pharsalia. This independent, heroic race became 
 mixed, by marriage, with the surrounding tribes of the 
 Netherlands, and, so, with their blood, leavened the entire 
 Netherland people with heroic and free qualities — a prepara- 
 tion for the day when providence was to call them forth 
 to do battle, for right and liberty, against the brutal cruelty 
 and hateful tyranny of the Papacy. So God prepares, 
 ages in advance, the co-operating conditions which are to 
 unite in some great struggle for civil and religious liberty. 
 
 The constitutional idea in government had common and 
 high respect in the Netherlands. The rights of the people 
 were never wholly surrendered. There was what was called 
 the Great Assembly of the people, a sort of a popular con- 
 vention. It was a favorite view that in this rested the in- 
 dependent sovereignty of the nation. On this idea was 
 placed the right of revolt, by the Prince of Orange, in his 
 conflict to overthrow the despotism of Church and state. 
 
 One reason why these Batavians were more inclined to 
 throw off the supremacy of Popedom than many other na- 
 
324 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 tions, was, that from time immemorial, and before Chris- 
 tianity was introduced, they held to the view of the "all- 
 vater ;" that is, that there was one Supreme, Almighty 
 Deity. This made them wary about accepting the supreme 
 authority of the Popes, even in religious affairs. It was a 
 long period before they accepted the Papacy, even in a 
 modified form. It was in the middle of the seventh cen- 
 tury before a bishop was located in the country, and in the 
 twelfth century some of the Holland clergy disputed the 
 authority of the Pope, and all other Papal innovations. 
 
 THE PAPACY DISPUTED IN" THE ELEVENTH CENTURY. 
 
 By the fourteenth century, the bishops had built up such 
 immense institutions and property possessions, which were 
 free from tax, while their retainers would not go to war in 
 defense of their country, that the civil princes began to op- 
 pose further growth of the ecclesiastical power. In many 
 of those ecclesiastical houses, shops were opened and con- 
 ducted by the priests, who, because exempt from taxation, 
 could undersell the legitimate merchants. This hurried 
 the revolt. 
 
 The temporal princes finally decreed, by right of being 
 the sovereign representatives of the people, that ecclesias- 
 tical institutions could acquire no more property, "by de- 
 vise, gift, purchase or any other mode." 
 
 By the fifteenth century, the opposition to the Papal 
 classes and institutions were greatly on the increase. The 
 Duke of Burgundy declared the churches in his duke- 
 dom should not be castles of refuge for fugitives from jus- 
 tice. Charles the Bold laid heavy imports on all ecclesias- 
 tical property. Rudolph Agricola, a mighty preacher, 
 moved through the provinces, assailing the Papacy, with 
 all its hateful bigotries and false doctrines. 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 325 
 
 BIKTH CENTUKY OF GREAT IDEAS. 
 
 As the time drew near for the great awakening, the ideas 
 springing np in the countries about, found a welcome in 
 the Netherlands. These ideas were such as pertained to 
 the field of civil and religious liberty. Take a glance at 
 them. 
 
 When movable type was invented in the fourteenth cen- 
 tury, it became easy to place the Bible in general circula- 
 tion. But Rome objected to the Bible being in the hands 
 of the people ; "it must be placed in all hands and diligent- 
 ly searched," said Luther. 
 
 Rome promised heaven as a reward for penance, good 
 works and the payment of money to the priest; "it must 
 be won by faith and prayer, and a renewed spirit through 
 Christ," said Zwingli. 
 
 Rome urged the advantage of a liberal purchase of the in- 
 dulgences ; "all a delusion and a snare," said Bucer. 
 
 Rome made the order of the clergy a peculiar class, con- 
 stituting them the only way of approach to Christ; "we 
 are all sons of God, and heirs of heaven, if we accept the 
 Savior," said Melancthon. 
 
 Rome held the teachings of the Popes to give the full 
 need of the soul ; ' ' true and substantial wisdom principal- 
 ly consists of two parts, the knowledge of God and knowl- 
 edge of ourselves," said Calvin. 
 
 Rome taught the Pope was instead of Christ on earth ; 
 "he, instead, is an odious beast, a Roman anti-Christ," 
 said Knox. 
 
 These were the ideas which were coming to the front, in 
 the nations of Europe. They met with hearty approval 
 amongst the honest Dutch. Holland was already half Pro- 
 testant before the Reformation. Hence the pure doctrines 
 
326 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 of the Gospel, which poured in from the movements of 
 Luther, Zwingli and Calvin, were but duplicates of her 
 own ; but they wondrously strengthened her hands. 
 
 It was intended that the great protest should be begun 
 in other countries ; but it was reserved for Holland to es- 
 tablish the right of that protest in constitutional govern- 
 ment. 
 
 MOST BURNING QUESTION IN EUEOPE. 
 
 By the middle of the sixteenth century the Protestant 
 Reformation was the most burning question in all Europe. 
 In English Parliament and Castillian Halls, in German 
 towns and French villages, men spoke of it with faces flushed 
 with hope, or blanched with fear. In Germany, France, 
 Switzerland, Holland, England and Scotland, it had passed 
 from a shrinking, indefinite form of a mere hope and ven- 
 turesome experiment, into the munificence of a gospel light 
 and the magnificence of evangelical power. By the time 
 the sixteenth century had half run its sands the Bible was 
 generally read from the Rhine to the Thames. Before that 
 open Bible earthly thrones sank into obscurity, and des- 
 pots lost their crowns. It had been a hundred years since 
 the invention of movable type, and a copy of the Bible 
 costing in the fourteenth century a full five hundred dollars, 
 could be had in the sixteenth for a few francs. In this Bi- 
 ble the people of the sixteenth century found their long 
 suppressed rights. Out of it they kindled the fires of their 
 rightful liberties. And in it they read the doom of both 
 kingcraft and priestcraft. In other centuries, princes sallied 
 forth from motives of malice and ambition, or were mere 
 adventurers of romance, or cavaliers of love. But in the 
 sixteenth century all this was changed, and princes girded 
 oil their swords in defense of natural liberties, and became 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 327 
 
 the true defenders of the pure Gospel. Among such were 
 the elector of Saxony, the friend and protector of Luther, 
 Admiral Coligny the Huguenot leader, and William the 
 First Prince of Orange. Schiller was right, speaking in 
 the time in which he lived, — the u sixteeth century was 
 the brightest of the world's epochs." 
 
 REMARKABLE PROGRESS OF THE DUTCH. 
 
 And in this epoch, the Dutch Princes of the Netherlands 
 played a glorious part in faith, persecution, endurance, 
 heroism and final triumph. In the beginning of the six- 
 teenth century, the Netherlands had attained to marvelous 
 prosperity. Seventeen provinces covered a territory less 
 than one-third as large as Italy. In this narrow neck of 
 land three hundred and sixty cities of wealth and trade were 
 crowded, and there were six thousand three hundred market 
 towns of thrift and plenty. Antwerp was the commercial 
 metropolis of western Europe. Her checks circulated from 
 Pekin to London. The trade of Asia no longer poured 
 through Italy and the passes of the Alps, to reach northern 
 Europe, but by sea came around the Cape of Good Hope, 
 and was distributed from the ports of the Netherlands. The 
 wealth of the London merchants was made by the Dutch 
 trade. The commerce of the Dutch scurried before the 
 winds of every sea, and crept up every river from the Nile 
 to the Hudson. The wonderful prosperity built up by this 
 immense industry and trade was so justly distributed that 
 the poor were so few, that to find a poor person was to create 
 a sensation. The schools were so excellent that it was diffi- 
 cult to find a child that could not read and write, and speak 
 at least two languages. The influence of woman was broad 
 and healthful. She was neither a toy nor a drudge. She 
 
328 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 mixed with all classes and sexes, traveled alone, was self-re- 
 liant, and was destinguished for beauty of face, form and 
 dress. Her morals were as pure as her life was simple and 
 generous. In education, morals and refinement, along with 
 modesty, the Dutch women of the early part of the sixteenth 
 century were the foremost women of Europe. A queen of 
 France, on a visit to a Dutch city, exclaimed, "Really! 
 I thought myself the only queen here, but I see six hun- 
 dred others who appear more so than I." 
 
 The immaculate linens, the beautiful silks, the renowned 
 tapestries, sent from the looms, were equaled by the pro- 
 ductions of the fine arts. The Dutch artists were the teach- 
 ers of Angelo, and invented the art of painting in oil. 
 Weaving tapestry, painting on glass, polishing diamonds, 
 making sun-dials and watches, were all Dutch inventions. 
 
 THE GREATNESS OF ANTWERP. 
 
 Antwerp became one of the trade centers of the world, 
 and this was to greatly serve to give Holland sympathy 
 abroad, when she fell under the Papal ruin. In the Ant- 
 werp port anchored ships heavily cargoed with both East 
 and West India products ; in her warehouses were piled up 
 the manufactures of the German towns to the north and 
 east ; under her thrifty spirit the English had been led to 
 establish a factory, working thirty thousand hands ; her 
 merchants' exchange was visited by five thousand merchants 
 daily, and was the first of these, now common, commercial 
 establishments ; in her harbor above two hundred ships 
 might have been seen unloading at once ; more than five 
 hundred vessels were casting, or weighing, anchor daily, 
 and sometimes the number approached a thousand ; above 
 two thousand great wagons, heavily laden, came weekly 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 329 
 
 from Germany and Lorraine. Ghent was of little less im- 
 portance. Erasmus declares that there was " no town in 
 Christendom to be compared with it for size, power, politi- 
 cal constitution, or the culture of its citizens." In the lap 
 of such thrift, intelligence and stout courage, the Nether- 
 landers advanced in liberty and constitutional ideas. It 
 was a small land, but it was one of the most prominent com- 
 mercial countries in the world. 
 
 FELL UNDER A ROMISH WAR. 
 
 And yet this little country, which, in the forenoon of the 
 sixteenth century, was so mighty in industry, universal in 
 trade, so high in prosperity, and so fortunate in the con- 
 tentment and integrity of its people, was to be, by the mid- 
 dle of the afternoon of the same century, drained by a 
 Romish war, strangled by tyranny, and depopulated by 
 persecution. And again, ere the night of that same century 
 came in, it was to rise out of the general ruin, and without 
 an army or treasury ; and while bereft of industry and de- 
 spoiled of resources, it was at once to grow into one of the 
 finest republics of the world, with the people secure in re- 
 ligious liberties, and the yoke of Romish interference 
 broken, never to be patched again. Once having parted 
 with Rome, the Dutch would have no more of her. 
 
 WHY INDULGENCES FAILED. 
 
 The Dutch were too wise to ever be deceived by the 
 sophistrv which made the sale of indulgences such a success 
 in France and Germany. And we have little account of 
 this cunning scheme, to make money for Rome, being 
 worked in the Netherlands. The Romish agents did not 
 Tery urgently propose to forgive the sins of the Netherland 
 
330 THE ROMAN PAP ACT. 
 
 people, for money, paid in advance. Yet to the extent to 
 which it was worked, it was of the most abominable type. 
 In the Netherlands, absolution for incest was offered for 
 thirty-six libres and three ducats ; that is about $6.66. A 
 pardon was issued for perjury for seven libres and three 
 carlines, being about $1.50 ; while pardon for murder, if not 
 by poison, cost still less. There was an instance in 1448 of 
 Henry de Monfort, purchasing " absolution at God's tri- 
 bunal," as the record read, for parricide, at u one ducat, 
 four libres, eight carlines," or $2.30. But ecclesiastical 
 authorities saw this shameless traffic threatened their very 
 power in the Netherlands ; and because of this fact the 
 trade of the indulgences was not pushed as in other lands. 
 
 ADVENT OF THE BARBAK0US INQUISITION. 
 
 And so it came, that the evil of infamous Rome broke out 
 in another form. Brute force was used to whip the Dutch- 
 into compliance with Romish wishes. Persecution was to 
 be the means, and the Spanish Inquisition the method. 
 
 This peculiar mode of Papal justice, or rather Papal 
 cruelty, deserves particular attention at this juncture, as 
 it was in Holland that the use of the Inquisition was pushed 
 to the greatest extremity. No device of man, or invention 
 of devils, could be better fitted to a policy of inhumanity. 
 The very idea of the Inquisition makes justice utterly im- 
 possible, and reduces truth to a mockery ; while under its 
 practice religion is stripped of its sincerity, and conscience 
 is despoiled of its highest right. The Roman Catholic 
 Church must yet bear the whole infamy of this barbarous 
 system, as she still maintains the right of the Inquisition. 
 
THE ROMAX PAPACY. 331 
 
 ITS OKIGINAL INTENTION. 
 
 What was the original intent of the Inquisition ? The 
 principle of the Inquisition is found in the Roman Church, 
 long before we meet with its organized form. As an organ- 
 ized institution, or qualified tribunal to try heresy, it appears 
 in the thirteenth century. It was the contrivance of the 
 monk, Dominic, who was made the first Inquisitor General, 
 by the Pope. Dominic was the founder of the Dominican 
 order of monks, and had specially committed to them the 
 Inquisition. The Council of Toulouse, in 1234, formally en- 
 trusted the charge of the Inquisition to this order. In this 
 early form it was instituted for the immediate purpose of 
 suppressing the Bible readers in Spain, southern France, 
 and the Piedmont country. 
 
 The so called Spanish Inquisition began in 1480, and was 
 designed to destroy the Moors and Jews in Spain ; then it 
 was directed against the Protestants. In the sixteenth cen- 
 tury it was operated in conjunction with, if indeed it was 
 not controlled by, the Jesuits. 
 
 The Spanish Inquisition was peculiarly affected by the 
 temptation for rich booty, secured by the confiscation of the 
 property of those who were adjudged before the Inquisi- 
 torial Court. The motive of Papal fanaticism was supple- 
 mented in most of the monarchs by that of greed ; and when 
 throne of Pope and crown of king found great riches pour- 
 ing in, from confiscated properties, the reason for its use 
 appeared very satisfactory to Pome. 
 
 In 1488 the Dominican monster, Torquemada, was made 
 Inquisitor General ; and under him it rapidly rose in power, 
 and proceeded to terrify the nations. In the same year that 
 Columbus discovered America, the Inquisition was let loose 
 on the Jews, and as they were ejected from their homes, 
 their property was confiscated. 
 
332 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 FOUR MILLIONS SUFFERED IN SPAIN. 
 
 A few years later the Inquisition fell upon the Moors, and 
 then upon the Morescoes, as the Christianized Moors were 
 called. Over three million of their wealthiest, most intelli- 
 gent and most skilled were banished, perished in prisons, 
 or murdered. In seventy years the population of Spain 
 was reduced by means of the Inquisition from ten to six 
 million. 
 
 Charles V., at the instigation of Pope Gregory XL, 
 became the first leading patron of the Inquisition in the six- 
 teenth century. Through him a number of great prisons 
 were erected in different countries, to meet the want of 
 heresy hunting, among them being the Bastile of Paris. 
 
 During recent years many defenders of the Inquisition 
 have arisen. Such are Fr. Wieser and the Innsbruck Jesuits, 
 who in their journal of 1877 expressed a longing for its re- 
 turn to power. 
 
 THE CHURCH STILL MAINTAINS IT. 
 
 Graver still, it should be pondered by thoughtful men in 
 this country, that the Canon Law of the Eoman Church 
 claims the " Inquisition of the holy office" as not by any 
 means abolished in the Church. The latest and most ex- 
 haustive work on Canon Law, issued by the authorities of 
 the Church, says : " The Holy See no longer sends special in- 
 quisitors through the various parts of Christendom, for the 
 purpose of trying and sentencing heretics, as was done 
 formerly, yet it were incorrect to imagine that the discus- 
 sion of the mode of procedure against heretics, peculiar to 
 the tribunals of the Inquisition, is altogether useless at the 
 present day, for bishops are still, in their respective dio- 
 ceses, the inquisitors in matters of heresy, and are bound in 
 
THE ROM AX PAPACY. 333 
 
 their procedure against heretics to observe the peculiar 
 formalities, or special form of procedure presented by the 
 law of the Church for the punishment of crimes against the 
 Catholic faith." 
 
 Powerful monarchs sat on the throne — Leo X. was Pope 
 — Henry VIII. , king of England— Francis L, the rival of 
 Charles V., was king of France— and while Charles V. was 
 being seated on the German throne, Solyman ascended the 
 Ottoman throne. 
 
 CHARLES V., HEIR TO HALF THE THRONES IN THE WORLD. 
 
 None of these potentates were so absolute as Charles V. 
 By birth, he was brought in the line of inheritance to the 
 most remarkable number of thrones which has ever befallen 
 a prince of the blood in modern times. He was heir to more 
 than half the thrones of the world. By the streams of in- 
 heritance, which met in him, he was Count of Holland, 
 king of Spain, Sicily and Jerusalem, ruler of Asia and 
 Africa, and through Spain, of America, Duke of Milan, and 
 Emperor of Germany. Because of this vast possibility of 
 empire he was appropriately called the German Caesar. 
 
 This over-much royal personage was himself of the Dutch 
 blood, and his course might have been lenient to his native 
 country. But through his early life he was surrounded by 
 unprincipled foes of liberty, as his advisers, who, in order 
 to keep him in the paths of despotism, wrote out for him 
 the "Calf-skin" and at fifteen had him sign it. In this 
 document he was led to " threaten with condign punishment 
 all persons who should maintain that he had sworn at his 
 inauguration to observe any privileges or charters claimed 
 by the citizens of Ghent," his native city. By this means 
 he was taught unfaithfulness to his sworn obligations and a 
 hatred for freedom. 
 
334 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 His will was absolute, and equally depraved. When de- 
 pravity and absolutism meet in a ruler, the world must 
 suffer. Charles V. told the Dutch nobles that he hated 
 their talk about privileges. He gave evidence of his hate 
 for rights and charters. He established, at Brussels, a 
 royal council, the members of which were his own minions, 
 to review the acts of the national courts. He dismissed all 
 native officials and filled the places with foreigners ; and 
 this last policy is a favorite Papal notion. He imposed 
 heavy and unheard of taxes. Contrary to the Dutch consti- 
 tution, he dispatched a large assignment of foreign troops 
 to march and countermarch through Holland. He involved 
 the country in wars, without asking the country's assent. 
 
 SETTING UP THE INQUISITION. 
 
 And finally, and after the way had been well paved, he 
 proceeded to overthrow the religious liberties of the coun- 
 try. The sober conclusion is, that this depraved Papal 
 ruler, Charles V., Emperor of Germany, may be tracked 
 through Dutch history, by his hateful laws and cruel edicts 
 against the Protestants. A country never had a ruler, to 
 the manor born, more set on a vindictive regime. His first 
 edict was in 1521, which ordered that " all the disciples and 
 converts of Luther," of which there were many in the East- 
 ern Netherland provinces, "are to be punished unto death 
 and forfeiture of all their goods." He introduced the In- 
 quisition into the country to enforce this decree. At once 
 the bloody work began. Within two years he forwarded 
 another edict, ' ' forbidding all private assemblies for devo- 
 tion, all reading of the Scriptures, and all discussion, with- 
 in one's own doors, about faith, or the Papal authority, 
 under penalty of death ." This was followed by an edict 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 335 
 
 to " hang, burn, bury and drown " all who refused to obey 
 the Pope. And then in 1535 he issued at Brussels, to please 
 his sister, the infamous decree ordering, "repentant males 
 to be executed with the sword; repentant females to be 
 buried alive ; and the obstinate of both sexes to be burned." 
 And so for twenty years went on the imperial orders for 
 Papal persecution. 
 
 Under the regime of his Inquisition, terror took posses- 
 sion of all classes. In the cities the shops were shut up, 
 the noise of the market-place died away, treasures were 
 hidden away, prices and rents dropped to almost nothing, 
 and ships were deserted and left to rot. A sentence from 
 the eminent historian, Schiller, will tell the whole story of 
 the Inquisition Court, in the Netherlands, under Charles : 
 "This abhorrent court proceeded to rage with the inhuman 
 despotism which has ever been peculiar to it. And we may 
 get an idea of its success in slaughter by the fact that dur- 
 ing the reign of Charles V. fifty thousand persons perished 
 by the hand of the executioners, for the sole crime of imput- 
 ed heresy. ' ' Leading authorities mostly go beyond Schiller, 
 and agree that there were fully one hundred thousand Neth- 
 erlanders burned, strangled, heheaded and buried alive by 
 his orders. The Yenetian ambassador estimated that dur- 
 ing the last years of his reign, he had put to death no less 
 than thirty thousand in Holland and Friesland. 
 
 PAPAL CONQUESTS ON THE AMERICAN CONTINENT. 
 
 In October, 1555, Charles Y. gave the reign of the Nether- 
 lands over to his son Philip II., King of Spain, whose moth- 
 er was a daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella. Philip was 
 a Spaniard, cunning, cold, cruel, deceitful, after the man- 
 ner of his Spanish ancestry ; at the same time he had the 
 
336 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 Austrian deformity of the lower jaw, as his father. Philip 
 was one degree worse than his father. Charles V. was 
 ready to go to war for the Papacy, but he cared nothing 
 for the Popes. Philip sustained the Papacy from liking, 
 and the Popes from both religious devotion and political 
 policy. It was under Philip II. that the southern countries 
 of the American continent were conquered by Cortez 
 Pizarro, and the greatest wrongs, connected with the coloni- 
 zation period of our country, were perpetrated in the name 
 of the Roman Church. 
 
 Philip II. repaired to the Netherlands, boldly swore to 
 preserve the rights, privileges and liberties of the coun- 
 try, and entered upon his reign with two settled intentions ; 
 one was the destruction of civil liberties, and the other, the 
 overthrow of Protestantism. When he received a protest 
 against the Inquisition in the Netherlands, he decided that 
 the protest should be treated as rebellion. Then it 
 was that Holland revolted. He at once re-enacted his fath- 
 er' s awful edict of 1549, to hang, drown and bury alive up- 
 on the first suspicion of heresy. No matter about the oath, 
 he took to respect the liberties of the people. He skulked 
 behind that diabolical principle of Papal law, that the 
 means is justified in the end. 
 
 A FEMALE BEAST MADE REGENT. 
 
 Four years were quite enough to satisfy him that he 
 could not rule Holland, by residing among the Dutch. The 
 people had no room in their hearts, or in their country, for 
 such a ruler. He returned to Spain, and left the rule in 
 the hand of his sister, Margaret. This female beast, who 
 was to be regent for twelve years, was distinguished for 
 having married two nephews of the Popes, the first when 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 837 
 
 she was but twelve years old, for wearing a mustache, and 
 having the gout. She was a willing Papist, and a pupil of 
 Loyola, the founder of the order of the Jesuits. 
 
 Philip was bent on being the great ally of the Pope in 
 the extermination of Protestantism. He had married, in 
 1554, Mary Tudor, Queen of England. In three years he 
 deserted her, when it was plain she could not bring forth 
 a Spanish heir to the English throne. It was a Papal pro- 
 vision for the restoration of the Pope's power in England. 
 The barrenness of the queen made this scheme a failure. 
 Upon returning to Spain from the Netherlands, he again 
 sought to trap England into the Papacy by attempting to 
 marry Queen Elizabeth. England was in danger of becom- 
 ing a support to the Protestants of the Netherlands. Hence 
 this move in diplomacy. But it failed. 
 
 TOO BRAVE FOR CJESARS AND POPES. 
 
 Philip so heartily disliked the spirit of the growing lib- 
 erties of the Dutch, that he determined to enlarge the work 
 of the Inquisition, and make it do in the Netherlands what 
 it had done in Spain. ' ' What is law in Madrid, must be law 
 in Brussels," he exclaimed. But the Inquisition was ill 
 adapted to a race, accustomed through long centuries to 
 freedom of thought and action, and had a fame for bravery 
 and daring which was sixteen centuries old. And this was 
 a race that furnished the favorite troops of Csesar, and the 
 most famous arm of the Roman legions — a race the Ro- 
 mans could not conquer, but had to treat with. Papal 
 Rome should have learned a lesson from imperial Rome. 
 The Rome of the Popes should have heeded the warning 
 of the Rome of the CaBsars. Philip, the cruel king and 
 blind bigot, and his sister Margaret, pupil of Loyola and 
 
338 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 regent of the Netherlands, could crush the Dutch, impov- 
 erish and depopulate the country, but to destroy the liber- 
 ties of such a race, was a consideration reckoned without 
 any knowledge of the spirit of those liberties. 
 
 And now the scheme to destroy Dutch Christianity in 
 the interest of a corrupt Papacy was well laid and vigor- 
 ously executed. Margaret obtained from the French king 
 a proclamation to his subjects, forbidding them rendering 
 aid to the Protestants of the southern provinces of the 
 Netherlands. This was a measure against the Huguenots. 
 She worked the Germans with her gold, and the German 
 emperor with her intrigue. She was furnished with bishops 
 by the Pope, and with the army by Philip. 
 
 MART YE FIRES NEVER DIE OUT. 
 
 Burning and hanging began in all parts of the country, 
 and with a persistency never known before. The martyr 
 :fires never died out, and the martyr songs never ceased for 
 twelve years. Margaret was tired out, and began to see 
 that so long as there was a Dutch Protestant in all the land, 
 there would be undying opposition to the Papacy. She re- 
 linquished the regency, returned to Spain, and was super- 
 seded by a Governor- General. 
 
 Philip now determined to supplement the Inquisition 
 with two additional helps. One was the sword. He placed 
 a large Italian and Spanish army under Alva, the newly 
 appointed Governor-General, one of the most cruel Papal 
 generals of the age, and sent it over the border. At the 
 same time he induced the Pope to provide more bishops for 
 that country. The Pope was agreeable, and issued a bull, 
 authorizing Philip to increase the number of the Nether- 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 339 
 
 land bishops from four to eighteen. These were foreigners, 
 appointed by Philip and confirmed by the Pope ; each 
 bishop was to co-operate with the Inquisition in his diocese. 
 
 "the court of blood. 4 
 
 Alva entered Holland with a record of blood and a 
 heart of brass. He had unlimited powers to extirpate the 
 reformers. He established a tribunal, which was soon 
 known as the " Court of Blood." Without sympathy of 
 heart, feelings of pity, or considerations of expediency, he 
 put to death with the most unrelenting cruelty. Every 
 right of the people was abused, and every privilege was 
 totally annihilated. He ran the Inquisition in a way to 
 startle Europe. Hundreds were killed in a day. Fifteen 
 hundred were hung in one town, at one time. Men were 
 stripped to the waist, flayed until the skin hung in ribbons, 
 and then droves of infuriated bees turned loose upon them 
 to torture them to death. If the people confessed that they 
 read the Bible, and prayed without a priest, they were 
 burned in a slow fire. If they merely had suspicion cast 
 upon them, they were to be dealt with mercifully, and 
 buried alive. That was Alva's conception of mercy. It 
 was the most iniquitous, wholesale and indiscriminate 
 slaughter, in a time of peace, revealed by history. The 
 judges of Alva's " Court of Blood" often sat seven hours 
 a day, passing sentence with cool and astonishing rapidity. 
 The very atmosphere had the odor of the grave. Trade it- 
 self emigrated to England. Thirty thousand refugees fled 
 to Elizabeth for protection. It was afterwards found that 
 two-thirds of the population of Canterbury were Dutch 
 refugees. 
 
340 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 The terror and infamy which such an institution could 
 work in a country, are easily understood by a glance at a. 
 page of the Black Book, which was discovered in 1848, 
 when the Inquisition office was rifled by a mob. Bearing 
 upon the manner of a process in the Inquisition Court, we 
 read these words : u Bodily torture has ever been found the 
 most salutary and efficient means of leading to spiritual re- 
 pentance. Therefore the choice of the most befitting mode 
 of torture is left to the judge of the Inquisition, who deter- 
 mines according to the age, sex, and constitution of the- 
 prisoner. He will be prudent in its use, always being mind- 
 ful at the same time to procure what is required — the con- 
 fession of the delinquent. If, notwithstanding all the- 
 means employed, the unfortunate wretch denies his guilt, 
 he is to be considered as a victim of the devil, and as suck 
 deserves no conpassion from the servants of God, nor the 
 pity or indulgence of the holy mother Church : he is a son 
 of perdition. Let him perish, then, among the damned, 
 and let his place be no longer found among the living." 
 
 In connection with this astounding page from the Black 
 Book, we place a description of the manner of torture under 
 direction of the Inquisition Court, as given by the learned 
 and careful historian, Motley : " The torture took place at 
 midnight, in a gloomy dungeon, dimly lighted by torches. 
 The victim — whether man, matron, or tender virgin — was 
 stripped naked, and stretched on the wooden bench. Water, 
 weights, fires, pulleys, screws, all the infernal apparatus by 
 which the sinews could be strained without cracking, the 
 bones crushed without breaking, and the body racked ex- 
 quisitely without giving up its ghost, was there put in 
 operation. The executioners, enveloped in black robes 
 
THE ROM AX PAPACY. 341 
 
 from head to foot, with eyes glaring through holes cut in 
 the hoods which muffled their faces, practiced successively 
 all the forms of torture which the devilish ingenuity of the 
 monks had invented." 
 
 NOW COMES WILLIAM OF OEANGE. 
 
 Now is the crisis ! Now is to dawn a glorious epoch in 
 the growth of civil and religious liberties ! It is a sublime 
 day. Only God could save the land. He had his man. 
 Behold him in the Prince of Orange. He was truly a noble 
 prince, a worthy man, a just character. Some one has said, 
 he is the only ruler in the world' s history who " may fairly 
 be compared with Washington." His mother was a devout 
 Lutheran. Among the mothers of great men should be re- 
 membered Juliana, the mother of William of Orange. She 
 .gave her children that devotional character which was her 
 own strong characteristic. Letters from her pen to her five 
 illustrious sons still exist. They are among the very gems 
 of the devotional literature of the ages. In their hours of 
 anguish and suffering, amidst dangers and wars, the most 
 frightful of their century, as they were little children at the 
 knee, this woman of royal heart as well as royal blood, 
 wrote them, "to rely always, in the midst of trials and 
 dangers which were to beset their paths through life, upon 
 the great hand of God." How much they were indebted, 
 and the world still is, to the faith and prayers of this holy 
 mother, God could alone disclose. 
 
 William of Orange could boast of an ancestry of many 
 noble qualities, as well as of ancient lineage. He was the 
 heir of sterling qualities, which, for centuries, had distin- 
 guished the House of Nassau. William of Orange was born 
 at Dillembergh Castle, in Nassau, on the 25th of April, 1533. 
 
342 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 He was to stand midway between Wyclif of England, the 
 old, and Washington of America, the yonng ; and he was 
 to connect the work for religious liberty of the former, to 
 the equally glorious work of the latter for civil liberty. 
 He was in his eleventh year when William, Prince of Rene, 
 fell in the battle of St. Dizier, and having no heirs himself, 
 left the title to all his principalities, to his cousin, William 
 of Orange, with the title of William the Ninth of Orange. 
 Immediately this young prince, who had so suddenly 
 fallen into the possessions of much wealth and many prin- 
 cipalities, became the object of solicitude on the part of 
 Roman Catholic leaders. Charles V. the Emperor, con- 
 ceived great interest in his future. It was determined he 
 should be taken to Brussels and educated as a Roman 
 Catholic prince. He must be thrown into the whirlpool of 
 luxury, pleasure and intrigue. 
 
 LEARNING PAPAL SECRETS. 
 
 The House of Orange had done a great deal for Emperor 
 Charles V. , so it is not strange that we should see young 
 William IX., Prince of Orange, when he was fifteen, page at 
 the German court. Here he spent some nine years, in con- 
 fidential intimacy with the court, witness of the daily in- 
 trigues of diplomats, listening to grave discussions, study- 
 ing the leading men of the day, familiar with all the secrets 
 of the court ; and so the young prince rapidly developed a 
 remarkable tact and knowledge of men and affairs. 
 
 The school of experience was giving him valuable powers 
 for future use. The Emperor sent him on royal missions, 
 and entrusted him with confidential commissions. He was- 
 a party to a French treaty, and was left as a hostage in the 
 keeping of the French king, to insure the terms of the 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 343 
 
 treaty. At Paris lie soon became as familiar with what was 
 passing on the chess board of the French court, as with 
 that of the German. He became a companion of King 
 Henry II. It was taken by the king, that as William was 
 an attache of the German Court of Charles, he was in sym- 
 pathy with the intentions against the Protestants. One day 
 while hunting with the prince in the forest of Vincennes, 
 the king unbosomed, in a confidential way, the murderous 
 plot designed against the Protestants. William listened to 
 the king as he told the whole story of the plan to which 
 himself and Philip were committed. It was none other 
 than the massacre of the Protestants of France and the 
 Netherlands. In order to accomplish it, the Spanish troops 
 must be kept in the Netherlands. The French king was to 
 abet the Spanish king in exterminating the Netherland 
 Protestants, while Philip was to aid Henry in destroying 
 them in France. Prince William was only twenty-six, but 
 he had the tact of a statesman and the quick wit of a dip- 
 lomat, and he listened attentively, respectfully, to this dia- 
 bolical revolution of projected crime and conspiracy — lis- 
 tened, and spoke not a word, or permitted a symptom of 
 surprise to mark his manner. And from this episode he 
 became known as William the Silent. 
 
 THE NIGHT TOW IN THE SILENT FOEEST OF VINCENNES. 
 
 And at this time the prince was still a Roman Catholic- 
 That night, in the silent forests of Yincennes, he forms the 
 high resolve to thwart that dreadful plot of the two kings, 
 and to save his country from the murderous intent of his 
 country' s king. He shortly withdraws from the Court of 
 the German Emperor, and goes to his native country to 
 make that land the Thermopylae of the Reformation. 
 
344 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 This Prince of the Orange race had the blood of his sires 
 in his veins. Intrepid as he was just, his course once de- 
 termined upon, he knew no surrender of rights which could 
 be justified ; nor did he see any event which should change 
 his course excepting death. His country was in a most dis- 
 astrous condition, and in fact almost depopulated. He 
 became teacher, leader, general and man- of- all-work for the 
 recovery of the liberties and charter privileges of his coun- 
 trymen. When the appalling news spread over the land, 
 that the order of Philip was out, that the edicts of the In- 
 quisition should be published in every town and village, 
 the Prince of Orange, who was sitting at the council board, 
 said : " We are about to witness the most extraordinary 
 tragedy that has ever occurred !" 
 
 ATTEMPT TO BRIBE HIM. 
 
 Philip II. sought to procure the services of Orange by 
 favors and offers of wealth and honor. But Prince Wil- 
 liam was already one of the wealthiest men of his day ; and 
 as for honor, be it said to his lasting fame, that he made 
 his country's glory his greatest honor. Failing in his at- 
 tempt to bribe, Philip became busy in devising a way to as- 
 sassinate the prince, "who had bewitched the whole peo- 
 ple." It was in 1580 that Philip's ban was made public. 
 It had been done by the Papal hireling, Cardinal Granville, 
 and pronounced Orange to be a traitor, outlaw and mis- 
 creant, offered twenty-five thousand crowns for his assas- 
 sination, and promised the murderer pardon for any crime, 
 and the choice of any title and possession of nobility. This 
 was a time when the Jesuits were learnedly advocating as- 
 sassination, as a measure of political and ecclesiastical ex- 
 pediency and moral right. 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 345 
 
 AN INFAMOUS HORDE IN THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 It is by no means certain that the nineteenth century 
 has not witnessed many instances of public men, and some 
 of them as good as great, who have been assassinated by 
 Jesuit instigation. Men who have observed closely the 
 drift of events, feel morally sure that the power behind the 
 known circumstances of many a dark political crime, is 
 Jesuitism. The people of the United States will never be 
 delivered from the Jesuit menace until the last member of 
 the infamous horde is banished from the land. 
 
 The Prince of Orange, with rare skill of statesmanship, 
 planned a policy in the interest of justice and humanity, 
 which contemplated the overthrow of the foreign rule, po- 
 litical and ecclesiastical, the establishment of his country's 
 government, on a basis of constitutional liberty. There 
 was a three-fold purpose which was in the immediate front 
 of his plan — the assembling of the states-general, the ab- 
 olition of the Inquisition edicts, and the formation of a gen- 
 eral council of state. ' ' This achieved, ' ' said William, ' ; and 
 I defeat the absolute policy of the Spaniard, and lift the 
 council of state into supreme control — make it dispenser of 
 justice, holder of the public purse, and agent for foreign 
 affairs." 
 
 INFAMOUS DECEPTION. 
 
 Margaret, who at this time was regent, became alarmed 
 at this role, and at once wrote to the king that he must be 
 prepared to make concessions, or move a greater army into 
 the country. The king replied, that he would consent to 
 the abolition of the Papal Inquisition in the Netherlands, 
 and would substitute the Episcopal power of the bishops. 
 Four days later he wrote another letter forbidding her to 
 consent to a meeting of the states-general ; yet directing 
 
846 THE ROMAX PAPACY. 
 
 her to lead all to imagine that it would soon be convened. 
 He bade her in the meantime to prepare for war, and he 
 transmitted to her three hundred thousand gold florins, 
 with which to secretly recruit an army. Then he wrote to 
 the Pope: "That as for the abolition of the Inquisition, 
 it cannot be abolished without the consent of the Pope, by 
 whose authority it was established." It was a fine Papal 
 maxim, that " no faith is to be kept with heretics." What 
 dissembling, treachery, perfidy! 
 
 The secret preparations for war were known to William. 
 He saw they must be met. He collected an army of patriots. 
 Infused the ranks with his own views and enthusiasm. 
 But the army of Alva was in the country. It was absolute- 
 ly perfect in equipment and discipline, though it had a con- 
 tingent of two thousand Italian prostitutes, enrolled and 
 drilled as the other troops, and who in march and battle 
 were obedient to orders. William's impromptu army 
 would have more than matched Alva's veteran ten thous- 
 and, but for a successful move of the Papal intriguers. 
 Horn, Egmont and Straalen, the two former leading states- 
 men, and the latter a wealthy burgher, were led by fine intrigue 
 into lonely rooms and quiet streets, and made prisoners 
 and thrown into dungeons. Upon them William depended 
 greatly. Now they were held to await their torture and 
 death. To be sure, both Margaret and Philip had given to 
 these notables full pardon for whatever offences they 
 might have committed. They had trusted these assurances 
 of their regent and their king. But they did not know 
 that Philip had reported to the Pope that his pledge of 
 good- will and pardon was not meant, and that the Pope 
 had absolved him from all obligations to his subjects. 
 This was the device of Alva, who secretly afterwards per- 
 formed an act of unparalleled tyranny, by issuing the order 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 347 
 
 forbidding all Netherlander, of whatever rank or position, 
 to marry without his consent, under penalty of death and 
 confiscation of property. A more hateful show of Papal 
 despotism is not to be found in modern annals. 
 
 Defeat after defeat fell to the lot of the valiant prince. 
 The world was against him. The intrigues of the French 
 Court, the tyrannies and money of Philip, the instigations 
 of the Pope, the mercenaries of Germany, purchased with 
 the gold of Alva — these were the external foes ; while not 
 a friendly ally could he muster, until after the execution 
 of Egmont and Horn. 
 
 GOD ALONE WITH HIM. 
 
 The God of Heaven alone stood by the Prince of Orange. 
 He had announced his adherence to the Reformation, be- 
 lieved there was a final purpose of providence to be reached 
 by the struggles he was engaged in, kept a serene trust, 
 and exercised a steadfast faith. In a dark hour he wrote 
 to his brother that he u had prayed for strength to do all 
 things, still proceeding with his work with his Almighty 
 aid." 
 
 The despicable killing of Egmont and Horn awakened 
 many of the German princes, and taught them that the Pa- 
 pal tyranny was coming dangerously near. 
 
 The elector of Bavaria, Agustus of Saxony, and many 
 others, gave their influence to the patriotic cause as against 
 the Romish tyrants. 
 
 But the period was still gloomy enough for William. 
 Those whom he associated with him were either executed 
 or had fled ; his own estates were mostly confiscated ; his 
 son was in prison, a large fortune was awaiting any miscreant 
 who would kill him ; still he does not lose confidence in his 
 cause. As the two first expeditions of Orange had failed 
 
348 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 and his German army was disbanded, and about twenty of 
 the Netherland nobility had been killed by Alva' s Bloody 
 Court of the Inquisition, the whole country shook before 
 the relentless wave of Papal cruelty. Not a hand was 
 raised to defend the hearth, the religion, or the liberties of 
 the country. Not a florin of money did any one dare to 
 send William; yet he was not discouraged. Such a spirit 
 was positively sublime. 
 
 PLOTS TO ASSASSINATE. 
 
 The plots thickened against his life. Some of them were 
 as diabolical as any we meet with in Papal history. They 
 indicate the last departure of all moral restraint from the 
 heart of a Papal ruler, when an end is in view and dark 
 crimes afford easy means. One day as the prince was leav- 
 ing his dining-room, where he was entertaining some friends, 
 a young man approached him with a paper to examine. As 
 he took it, the wretch drew a revolver and discharged it 
 quite close to the head of the prince. It was thought the 
 shot was fatal. But it was found that there was a faint 
 chance, and his adherents mingled hope with their despair. 
 It was remembered that ten years before, France had a 
 Bartholomew, which had begun with a like shot fired at 
 Prince Colignv. Parma was now the Governor of the Neth- 
 erlands. He was assured that Orange was dead, and at 
 once he issued an invitation to the country, calling upon 
 all, now that the tyrant was dead, to return to their allegi- 
 ance to the forgiving Philip, and to the holy Inquisition. 
 
 THE POPE ACCESSOEY TO MUEDEE. 
 
 But the prince was not dead, but slowly recovered. In 
 the meanwhile the assassin' s person was carefully searched, 
 and the proofs of a Spanish conspiracy were conclusive. 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 349 
 
 On his person were found Spanish bills of exchange to the 
 amount of two thousand, eight hundred and seventy seven 
 crowns, and written prayers, invoking the Virgin Mary 
 and the angel Gabriel to aid him in the acconxplishment of 
 the deed, and in which he bribed them with promises of 
 large presents at their shrines if he got off safely. It was 
 found that this man, Jaureguy, was in the employ of 
 Anastro, a Spanish merchant, who had engaged with Philip 
 to have Orange murdered, for which he was to receive 
 eighty thousand ducats, and the cross of Santiago, for his 
 crime. This bargain was signed with the king's hand, and 
 bore his seal. And Philip II., be it borne in mind, was a 
 faithful Papal king, in intimate intercourse and obedient 
 accord with the Pope. Is it reasonable to suppose that the 
 Pope knew nothing about this arrangement of Philip, to 
 assassinate the most-feared man in Papal Europe at that 
 hour, with the exception of John Knox ? If the Pope 
 knew it, and did nothing, he was accessory to it, and then 
 he was guilty of murder. 
 
 The Prince of Orange raised money on his credit, re- 
 cruited an army in Germany, which was rendezvoused un- 
 der the eaves of the old monastery of Romersdorf, in Treves. 
 
 SCHEME TO MURDER THE ENGLISH QUEEN. 
 
 Twenty-eight thousand troops marched westward. Alva 
 slowly decamped, maneuvered, and would not give battle. 
 He adopted the policy of wearing out and freezing out the 
 patriot army. He succeeded. The winter came on, and the 
 army was without clothes, provisions, or money ; while 
 Alva' s army was so intrenched in the walled cities that no 
 help could be had from that source. In two months William 
 hadtorecross the border and disband his army at Strasburg. 
 It was about this time that the scheme to murder the 
 
350 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 English queen was reported to Alva, and had his support. 
 The Pope had prepared the way, by his bull of excommuni- 
 cation against Queen Elizabeth, and absolving the Roman 
 Catholic lords from their allegiance to the queen. The 
 archconspirator was a Florentine by the name of Bidolfi, 
 who flew incessantly from London to Madrid, to Rome, to 
 Brussels, back to London. Philip wrote a confidential 
 message to Alva, commanding him to give the conspirators 
 all the aid in his power, acting with secrecy and decision. 
 Philip said: "The end proposed is to kill, or to capture 
 Elizabeth, to free the queen of Scotland, and set on her 
 liead the crown of England. Be ready to throw six thou- 
 sand arquebusiers into England, two thousand into Scot- 
 land and two thousand into Ireland, the instant the blow 
 is struck. ' ' To this letter Alva replied : " I highly applaud 
 you for this plot." The plot failed, because it was dis- 
 covered by an agent of the English government. 
 
 That the Pope was in full accord with the way in which 
 the Papal agents in the Netherlands concerted and labored 
 to assassinate rulers and overthrow liberties, is seen by his 
 course. He sent Alva a present of a jeweled hat and sword, 
 and Granville a red hat and tabard. 
 
 SUCCESSFUL APPEAL TO PATEIOTS. 
 
 William by this time had spent his last florin, and ex- 
 hausted his energies in the cause of liberty, and was watch- 
 ing, planning and praying. He addressed an appeal to the 
 patriots of his country, which was enthusiastically received, 
 responded to, and bore fruit in a secretly collected fund of 
 ten hundred and sixty guilders. Additional aid was 
 offered, and William determined this time to make the 
 northern provinces the scene of a great patriotic demon- 
 stration and military advance. This effort proved abortive. 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 351 
 
 Orange was still determined. In his unfailing courage and 
 endurance, he invented new means. He was now bent on 
 transferring the struggle to a more suitable field for the 
 Dutch — that is, to the sea. 
 
 THE WILD CORSAIRS OF THE SEA. 
 
 A fleet of Dutch corsairs, consisting of twenty-four vessels, 
 had been preying on Spanish ships, on the high seas. They 
 put into port on the English coast. The English govern- 
 ment was about to have trouble with Spain on their ac- 
 count, and Elizabeth ordered them off the English coast. 
 De la Marck was at the head of this queer group of vessels. 
 He immediately hoisted sail, without any destination in 
 view, except to scud in whatever direction the wind should 
 waft him. When fairly at sea this wild corsair, who had 
 sworn, after a custom of the Batavians, that he would not 
 cut his hair or beard until the death of his cousin Egmont 
 had been avenged, discovered a convoy of Spanish ships 
 under sail for Antwerp. This suited the avenger of the 
 seas right well, and he hung upon the enemy's ships all the 
 way through the channel, and into the Dutch waters, dis- 
 abling some of the ships, and even capturing two of them. 
 Falling low in supplies, la Marck put into the Mense, 
 opposite the city of Brille. The ferryman, who plied his 
 boat between Brille and a neighboring village, sighted the 
 fleet, landed his passengers, and rowed up to the wild col- 
 lection of privateer ships. He was soon returning, bearing 
 a message to the city authorities. " How many are there 
 of them?" asked the magistrates. The ferryman was a 
 friend of liberty, and seeing a chance for the cause of the 
 country, he drew on his imagination to at least a reasonable 
 extent, and to make a strong impression, he guessed ' ' there 
 
352 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 might be ftv& thousand in all." In two hours the city had 
 surrendered to la Marck, as Admiral to the Prince of 
 Orange. 
 
 The only outrage committed was, that thirteen monks 
 were compelled to drink the cup of poison mixed for the 
 Protestants. This brought some sense of caution to Alva. 
 He had just made out a list of eighteen principal merchants 
 in Brussels, who were slow in giving him the money he 
 wanted. Handing this list to the hangman he said, " See 
 to it that each and all of these stretch hemp at dawn to- 
 morrow from their own sign-posts." At dawn the soldiers 
 were under arms, the hangman stood with rope in hand, 
 when suddenly a courier from Alva stopped proceedings. 
 He had just learned of the affair at Brille. 
 
 a patriot's last resolve. 
 
 The tide had turned, and it was a time for a different 
 line of action on the part of Alva. He hurried forward ten 
 companies of veterans, under an experienced general. This 
 veteran Spanish troop appeared before the walls of Brille. 
 To their summons to surrender a defiant answer was made. 
 The town was situated on an island in the lower mouth of 
 the Mense. The Spaniards were permitted to cross from 
 the mainland in boats, and without opposition. Their can- 
 non were unlimbered, and the galling shot about ready to 
 pour forth, when a patriot, with ax in hand, swam to the 
 sluce-gate of the dyke, which kept the ocean at bay, split 
 it in pieces, and in an incredible short time the island was 
 inundated. At the same time, other heroic men were en- 
 gaged in cutting adrift and setting fire to the boats, by 
 which the foe had crossed from the mainland. The terrible 
 fire of the fort vomited upon them at the same time. The 
 army was completely appalled. The defeat was one of the 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 353 
 
 most complete of the whole war. A few, led by the com- 
 manding general, swam and waded streams and marshes, 
 and appeared in miserable condition before the gates of 
 Rotterdam. This general was Bossu, a typical Papal offi- 
 cer whose sense of honor and weight of word alike were 
 small. His men were in such distress, and he pleaded so 
 hard for permission to pass peacefully through the city, 
 that the magistrates acted on their feelings of humanity, 
 and consented to the terms Bossu so warmly promised. 
 They were to march a corporal guard at a time, with un- 
 loaded guns, directly through the city. These terms Bossu 
 signed and sealed. His words were words, and nothing 
 more. No Papal official, civil, military or ecclesiastical, is 
 to have any credit attached to his word, oath, pledge, or 
 agreement whatever, if it is known that he is a strictly loyal 
 and obedient Roman Catholic. Bossu had no sooner led 
 his first squad within the gate, than, overcoming the burgher 
 guard, they admitted the whole force, and, led by Bossu, 
 the cruel Spaniards at once fell upon the magistrates and 
 town officials, soon murdered four hundred, robbed the 
 merchants and violated the women. It was treachery most 
 infamous, most brutal, but wholly in line with Popish mo- 
 tives and principles. Papal conduct has always moved 
 along this low grade of perfidy and injustice. 
 
 Those three events, the capture of Brille, the notable and 
 successful defence it made against the Papal party, and 
 the infamous treachery of the Papal troop at Rotterdam, 
 were sufficient to rouse the whole country. In rapid suc- 
 cession post after post and fort following fort fell into the 
 hands of the defenders of the country, and the Romish for- 
 eigners just as rapidly lost ground. By suppression of 
 rights, oppression most odious on account of their religion,, 
 and by taxation to the verge of ruin, the people were crushed 
 
354 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 to earth. But they were, by this very regime of, intended 
 extinction, made desperate ; and when the start was made 
 at Brille to throw off the yoke of the Pope and the invader 
 at the same time, a score of places were ready to do the 
 .same. 
 
 NOW COMES THE TTTKN. 
 
 It was an uprising, which now spread through the Neth- 
 erlands, that made Alva quickly ask to be re- called, made 
 Philip wonder and fret, and the Pope uneasy. The effect 
 on the Protestant classes was to create a positive state of 
 joy ; especially was this the casein England. The English 
 Protestant churches started a mighty stream of powder and 
 guns, for the Dutch cause. Dutch exiles in England re- 
 turned, and entered the service of the country. In Parlia- 
 ment a demand was made for retirement of the Spaniards, 
 or war was threatened. It was a just occasion for joy, for 
 a country wholly in the dust had raised its head, given one 
 terrific travail, and announced that it was bound for eman- 
 cipation ; and all parties in Europe, who believed in the 
 rights of conscience and constitutional liberties, chorused 
 the acclaim of approval. 
 
 SUBLIME ACT OF TOLEKANCE. 
 
 The reconstruction of the local burgher governments went 
 rapidly on. Each place took oath to the Prince of Orange. 
 He was now in Germany recruiting an army to chase the 
 Spaniard from Netherland soil. He directed the manage- 
 ment of affairs by agents and proclamations. His wisdom 
 was of the highest type, while his generous sense of tolera- 
 tion was unmatched in all the period of the great uprising 
 against Rome. He dispatched Sonoy to act as his lieuten- 
 ant, to serve during his absence. He said in his instructions, 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 355 
 
 that the ancient charters were to be restored. "Take care 
 farther, that the Word of God be freely preached within 
 our lines, and that the religion conformable to that Word 
 be tolerated and published, if so beany, the meanest, would 
 have it so. Yet by no means suffer the Romanists to be 
 prejudiced for the faith's sake ; secure them freely in the 
 worship, nor withdraw your protection from them, unless 
 the public safety warrants, and when so directed by me, 
 and with the consent of the local authorities." And when 
 la Marck was confirmed as Admiral under Orange, he was 
 instructed to ' ' protect the Papists and their clergy in the 
 future, and to guarantee them in the free exercise of their 
 worship, under pain of death to their disturbers ;" and for 
 violating these instructions, he was one day to be dismissed 
 from the Dutch service. 
 
 That was a beneficent and just policy, nowhere to be 
 found in acts of Roman powers, nor anything which begins 
 to approach it. 
 
 Directing the deliverance of his country from a distance 
 was not to the liking of the Prince of Orange. And now 
 after four years of waiting and working beyond the border, 
 he set his foot on his country's soil in the name of God, and 
 for liberty, the overthrow of foreign rule, and Papal despot- 
 ism. In the midsummer of 1572 he crossed the Rhine with 
 twenty-four thousand troops. He pushed rapidly south- 
 ward to meet the force under Alva, which lay near. 
 
 HOW NEWS OF BARTHOLOMEW WAS RECEIVED. 
 
 One night, as William was reconnoitering, in view of 
 making an assault on the intrenchments of Alva, he was 
 surprised to see the Spanish camp suddenly made all aglow 
 with fires, while volleys of musketry rang out, wild shouts 
 of glee were heard, drums and trumpets rolled and blared 
 
356 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 forth, all together making an impression of a signal victory- 
 Wondering what the demonstration signaled, the prince 
 dispatched his spies to discover the cause. They soon re- 
 turned with the information that there was a cause for the 
 wild jubilee. The news had just reached Alva of the massa- 
 cre of the Protestants in Paris on Bartholomew's day. And 
 this was a Popish army. No other comment need be made. 
 
 In vain did William try to induce Alva to leave his in- 
 trenchments. Within, he was safe ; without, he knew he 
 was no match for William' s army. Disheartened, the prince 
 at last had to retire. He recrossed the Rhine, and reaching 
 Germany, disbanded his army. As not before, William was 
 almost disheartened. Alone he set out for Holland, writing 
 he would there "make his sepulchre." 
 
 The southern provinces soon gave way before Alva's 
 troop of pillagers and murderers, and he was ready to move 
 northward. Orange, though his sun had dipped its disk in 
 the clouds for a moment, upon his defeat in the south, was 
 as persistent and brave as ever. " I trust that the great 
 God of battles is with me, and that he will fight in the 
 midst of whatever forces I may gather withal," he wrote as 
 he crossed the Znyder Zee with eighty dragoons. 
 
 AWFUL SCENE OF PAPAL CRUELTY. 
 
 Moving northward, Alva overreached himself at Naarden. 
 His son was in direct charge. Before the surrender he 
 agreed that the lives and property of the populace should 
 be undisturbed. The Spaniards entered the city. The bell 
 rang out a summons for the leading citizens to gather in 
 the great hall to take oath. The hall was crowded. A 
 priest, who had been pacing to and fro before the door, 
 suddenly opened the door and shouted, "Prepare for in- 
 stant death." The scene which followed was one of the 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 357 
 
 most awful ever performed by Popish, cruelty. In five min- 
 utes, five hundred bodies lay about, and the building was 
 on fire. 
 
 The great historian of the Dutch revolution, Motley, 
 gives this terrible description of what immediately followed : 
 " Inflamed, but not satiated, the Spaniards then rushed in- 
 to the streets, thirsty for fresh horrors. The houses were 
 rifled of their contents, and the citizens were forced to carry 
 the booty to the camp, being then struck dead as their re- 
 ward. The town, too, was fired in every direction, that the 
 skulkers might be singed from their hiding-places. As fast 
 as they came forth they were put to death by their im- 
 patient foes. Some were pierced with rapiers ; some were 
 chopped to pieces with axes ; some were surrounded in the 
 burning streets by groups of laughing soldiers, intoxicated, 
 not with wine, but with blood, who tossed them to and fro 
 with their lances, and derived a wild amusement from their 
 dying agonies. Those who attempted resistance were 
 crimped alive like fishes, and left to gasp themselves to 
 death in lingering torture. The soldiers, becoming more 
 and more insane as the foul work went on, opened the veins 
 of their victims and drank their blood as if it had been wine. 
 Some of the burghers were temporarily spared, that they 
 might witness the violation of their wives and daughters, 
 being then butchered in company with these still more un- 
 happy sufferers. Miracles of brutality were accomplished. 
 Neither Church nor hearth were sacred. Men were slain, 
 women were outraged at the altars, in the streets, in their 
 blazing homes." 
 
 This wanton massacre, which left less than sixty persons 
 out of the entire population, was not only approved by 
 Alva, but he praised it. In his report to king Philip, he 
 writes: " The army cut the throats of all, not a mother's 
 son was left alive." 
 
358 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 The effect of this was to seal the growing resolution of all 
 the sea-board cities, to perish with sword in hand, rather 
 than burn for Spanish fun. 
 
 alva's savage boast. 
 
 In October, 1577, Orange, having become convinced that 
 the hope of the country lay with the Protestants, publicly 
 joined that Church at Dort. Two months later, Alva left 
 the Netherlands forever, boasting that he "had caused 
 eighteen thousand, six hundred persons to be executed by 
 the Inquisition." 
 
 Orange is triumphant. Philip, Margaret, Alva, the In- 
 quisition, are all gone. Battle after battle follows on the 
 sea, and the patriots are usually victorious. The Spanish 
 army had collected in the low country above Leyden, and 
 lay siege to that city. William, the great Prince of Orange, 
 now proposed a great thing, and heroic. And it succeeded. 
 The dykes along the Mense and Yessel kept the ocean out 
 of the low country, in which the Spanish lay, engaged m 
 the siege of Leyden. He gained the consent of the estates 
 to the opening of these dykes and flooding the country. 
 Bonds were issued to cover the loss to the populace, while 
 ladies freely gave plate and costly jewelry to sustain the 
 work. 
 
 THE DUTCH SEA-ROVEES. 
 
 On the 3rd of January, the dykes were broken at sixteen 
 places, while the gates were opened at Schiedam and Rotter- 
 dam, and the ocean began to pour over the land. 
 
 In nine days the water was ten inches deep in all direc- 
 tions. And now came creeping in from the sea two hun- 
 dred vessels, bearing ten cannon each. They were manned 
 by the wildest of the wild Dutch sea-rovers, who had swore 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 359 
 
 to spare " neither noble nor simple, neither king, kaiser nor 
 Pope, should they fall into their power. ' ' A chain of sixty- 
 two forts on the high ground were occupied by the Spaniards, 
 
 A SIGHT OF MORAL GRANDEUR. 
 
 The fleet sailed to within five miles of the city. The 
 Spaniards would gladly have fled — but where ? The town 
 would not admit them ; the ocean was creeping up around 
 them, and not a high road was dry, by which they could 
 march away ; the Dutch fleet was ready to open terrific fire 
 upon them. The Spanish attempted to command the dyke, 
 but were repulsed with heavy loss. The dykes, by order of 
 Prince of Orange, were broken open. For three days the 
 wind was from the ocean, and the Dutch fleet advanced as 
 the sea poured in. But the tide went out, and left the fleet 
 high and dry. Then the Spaniards were jubilant and de- 
 fiant, and shouted to the garrison of Leyden, that the Prince 
 of Orange could "pluck stars from the sky as easily as 
 bring the ocean to Leyden." The garrison shouted back, 
 that they would set fire to the city, and perish in the flames 
 men, women and children, " rather then suffer our homes 
 to be polluted and our liberties crushed." 
 
 Eh ! but it was a sight of moral grandeur, worthy to be 
 remembered and recounted in all the ages, wherever liberty 
 is honorably spoken of, and heroism is praised. 
 
 Now comes the night of October 1st, 1574, and the vio- 
 lent equinoctial storm came tearing in from the northeast, 
 bearing in its arms the mighty waves of old ocean. In 
 twenty- four hours the stranded fleet was under sail; and 
 at midnight of the 2d, the ships were passing up the 
 street and among the chimneys of a village near Leyden, 
 and when the morning broke, the roar of cannon told the 
 waiting, starving heroes of Leyden, that deliverance was 
 
360 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 coming in on the ocean wave. Morning came, and lo, the 
 Spaniards had fled in fright, and the darkness of the night. 
 The following day the wind shifted to the northeast, and 
 blew a tempest, which sent the ocean back again to its own 
 bed, and the dykes were speedily repaired. 
 
 ATTEMPT AT BRIBERY. 
 
 Papal envoys, seeing the Netherlands were free, if Orange 
 remained their leader, sought to win him by powerful bribes. 
 They proposed to restore his conficated property, liberate 
 his son from prison, permit liberty of worship for himself, 
 pay all his debts, refund his public expenses, and do any 
 thing else he should desire. To this scheme of base treach- 
 ery, the prince nobly replied, that, neither for property nor 
 for liberties, neither for life, nor for children, would he 
 mix in his cup a single drop of treason. Truly this Prince 
 of Orange was one of the noblest and greatest of all men ! 
 
 THE BRAVE PRINCE ASSASSINATED. 
 
 Ten years passed away. The Netherlands were free from 
 the rule of the foreigner, in both State and Church. Rome 
 was completely overthrown. Religious tolerance and con- 
 stitutional liberties were established, and intelligence, pros- 
 perity and happiness were rapidly returning, when Rome 
 played her last hand. It was July 10th, 1584, that the 
 prince was passing a passage way, leading from the dining 
 room, when the hired assassin, Belthasar Gerard, stepping 
 near, discharged a pistol at his heart ; three balls entered 
 his body, and he soon expired. 
 
 Seven years Gerard had been seeking an opportunity to 
 slay the prince. He had consulted with Jesuits and Papal 
 leaders. His intentions were known to the Pope, and he 
 was in the employ of Philip of Spain, who offered him large 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 361 
 
 reward, and which the king paid to his parents upon his 
 execution. And so, while the Papacy could not restore its 
 power and rule in the Netherlands, it could assassinate the 
 father of restored liberty in that country, thus giving an- 
 other proof of its undying hatred for freedom. 
 
 DIVINE EIGHT OF KINGS AND POPES SUEEENDEEED. 
 
 The crowning good, of the popular uprising in the Neth- 
 erlands against the Papacy, is found in the moral right of 
 any country, to embody in its highest forms of law the 
 liberties which the people may appoint for themselves. 
 The established certainty of modern constitutional liberties 
 was a result, and a most valuable one, of the Dutch Refor- 
 mation. And this grew out of two things, one of which 
 is newly discovered in the ideas which were liberated by 
 the revolution in the Netherlands. The divine right of 
 kings was overthrown among the marshes of the low coun- 
 tries of Holland. Philip's violent reign forfeited the claim 
 of any divine right, in the opinion of Dutch reason. If 
 Philip II. had no divine right to rule, without the assent 
 of the people, then no ruler, by the accident of accession to 
 a throne, held any divine right over a people, independent 
 of their choice or will. From the surrender of the idea of 
 the divine right of kings, it was an easy step to a like sur- 
 render of the idea of the divine right of Popes. Priestcraft 
 was a greater evil in the Netherlands than kingcraft. Hol- 
 land disclaimed any right of the Popes to lord it over her 
 people. 
 
 Hence it is, that the blow Rome had in the Netherlands, 
 was the heaviest she had yet received. Scotland gave just 
 as hard a stroke in one direction, but was not ready to sur- 
 render the monarchy for the republic ; and behind the 
 throne of kingcraft, always lurks a stronghold of priest- 
 craft. It is hard for the king to do without the Pope. 
 
TO KNOX. 
 
 "I have somewhat pondered God and man. 
 I could not join with Roman Church. Start not I 
 If the Papal court bid me expiate, 
 With pangs of martyrdom, my quest of Truth, 
 Lo, I am ready — bear me to the stake ! 
 I have no fear — I would not live in fear — 
 I would not hold existence on the bond, 
 But, like a coward, I must lie for life." 
 
Is IT THE OPINION OF LEADING 
 STATESMEN THAT ROME YET 
 WORKS FOR RESTORATION 
 TO TEMPORAL POWER? 
 
 There is a fixed purpose among the secret inspirers of 
 Roman policy to pursue, by the road of force, upon the 
 arrival of any favorable opportunity, the favorite project 
 of re-erecting the terrestrial throne of Popedom, even if 
 it can only be re-erected on the ashes of the city, and 
 amid the whitening bones of the people. 
 
 Gladstone. 
 
 The Church of Rome is not a body of theological be- 
 lief, but an immense secret society, animated in all parts 
 of the world with one ambition, moving everywhere, and 
 in all times toward one end — the establishment of abso- 
 lute power for itself over all men, in all lands. 
 
 Lord Robert Montague. 
 
PART XII. 
 
 THE CONFLICT IN SCOTLAND. PAPAL SCHEMES 
 AND JESUIT PLOTS. 
 
 In the great historic protest against Papal rule and cor- 
 ruption, which we have been considering, each country- 
 had a phase of the movement characteristic of itself. In 
 France toleration alone was at first asked, while the princes 
 of the realm, so generally falling into line with the reform 
 movement, gave a certain romantic tinge of chivalry to 
 the Reformation in that land, and eventually made the 
 throne a central figure ; in Switzerland the attempt was 
 first made to include the government within the circle of 
 reform ; in Germany the spirit of the Reformation was the 
 rehabiliment of a vigorous and Scriptural faith, by which 
 all Papal claims and pretentions were to be tested, and in 
 the light of which mere traditions and legends were to be 
 examined; in Holland, under "William the Silent," who 
 was the great forerunner and forefather of William III., the 
 Reformation was more of a political movement than in 
 France, and more of a patriotic movement than even in 
 Switzerland, and was a determined and prolonged contest, 
 lasting for a quarter of a century, for the overthrow of the 
 (364) 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 365 
 
 Spanish Inquisition, and a constitutional declaration against 
 the divine right of the Popes ; while in Scotland, we see 
 the same doctrinal basis which was the original trade-mark 
 of the Genevan Reformation, and the same Papal plots 
 which protrude in that of France; yet, in addition, we see a 
 vehemence of doctrinal conviction, an impassioned denun- 
 ciation of Papal immorality and ignorance, and a complete- 
 ness of the Reformation, belonging peculiarly to the land 
 of the heather and the glen. 
 
 MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMAN OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 An extra charm is given to the Scotch Reformation be- 
 cause that most interesting woman, Queen Mary Stuart, 
 figures in it. The most beautiful and fascinating woman 
 connected with the royalty of the sixteenth century, she 
 was a prominent factor in the Scotch upheaval. Mary 
 Stuart was the willing and ready instrument of Romish 
 conspiracies against nations and liberties. No woman could 
 have done more for human rights and liberties, and have 
 made a name of lasting fame in a good cause ; no woman, 
 excepting one, did make herself so instrumental for evil 
 and perfidy, and construct a fame of infamy equal to beau- 
 tiful, bewitching Queen Mary. That one exception, we 
 would make, was Catherine de Medicis. 
 
 HELPS OF POWERFUL PREACHERS. 
 
 An additional feature of the Scotch Reformation was the 
 large number of powerful preachers. In this Scotland ex- 
 celled. No land on earth can boast such a list of great 
 preachers as have been produced in Scotland, as the output 
 of the Reformation movement. Even those of the sixteenth 
 century were men of power and eloquence, coming from a 
 soil less promising than that of any country where the re- 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 form spirit took deep root in the thought and heart of the 
 people. In this list of the first Reformation period in 
 Scotland were : William Arth, whose powerful sermon on 
 " cursing" made a lasting sensation; Alexander Seton, 
 from whose mouth poured torrents of indignation against 
 the ignorance and stupidity of the bishops ; Patrick 
 Hamilton, of noble blood, and still more noble tongue ; 
 George Wishart, who was a pupil of Calvin, and teacher of 
 Knox, who gave his executioner a kiss of pardon as the 
 flames tormented his flesh ; while still later, when the cause 
 had reached success, many a great light blazed from the 
 pulpit, among which were Andrew Melville, one of the 
 most learned men of his day ; Robert Rollock, one of the 
 most popular men in the land ; George Buchanan, George 
 Craig, and James Lawson, successor to Knox in the pulpit 
 at Edinboro. In this list it is worthy to note that the two 
 first, Arth and Seton, were the lights that helped the dawn 
 on, and did not themselves come out of the Romish com- 
 munion ; and that Wishart and Hamilton were not ordained 
 to the ministry, but preached by right of conscience as they 
 learned it in the English Bible. 
 
 THE AID OF EDUCATION. 
 
 Equally striking with the great preachers in Scotland, is 
 to be remarked the prompt and able organization of the di- 
 vinity school. Let it be remembered to the glory of the 
 Scotch pulpit, that it started the Reformation epoch on a 
 high intellectual grade. The university of Glasgow, and 
 that of Edinboro, came to the control of the reformers, the 
 latter being founded by the town council under the influ- 
 ence of Lawson, who also revived the high school. The 
 university of Aberdeen swung into line, and in short cut 
 the Reformation pulpit in Scotland took on a high academic 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 367 
 
 culture, which made it an intellectual lever to lift up the 
 people, and yet it was not, and never came on this account 
 to have a tinge of rationalism. 
 
 While we are looking for the distinctive feature of the 
 Scotch Reformation, we must put in the lead, as most char- 
 acteristic of all her distinctive features, that towering, 
 superlative man of his day, and his country, preacher, 
 teacher, leader and most courageous hero, John Knox. As 
 we read about him we will have in mind what the earl of 
 Morton said, standing by his grave : "There lies he who 
 never feared the face of man." We will bear in mind what 
 Thomas Carlyle has more recently said: "He is the one 
 Scotchman to whom the world and his country owe a debt. 
 Honor him ! His works have not died." 
 
 A SMALL C0UNTEY BUT GEE AT. 
 
 What a small land it is, in which we have to locate such 
 a big and far-reaching work ! It is amazing that a few 
 people, without previous training, could so quickly take on 
 a complete transformation in life, morals and religion. The 
 whole of Scotland is much smaller in area than our Ameri- 
 can State of Kansas. It would take one hundred and 
 thirty countries, the size of Scotland, to make one the size 
 of America. Down in Texas there are counties almost as 
 large as entire Scotland. In geography it is so contempti- 
 bly small that it is almost pitiable. An English soldier of 
 Cromwell's army could boast that he could blow his bugle 
 on Castle-hill, at Sterling, and it would be heard by the 
 natives in the upper Highlands, and at the same time its 
 echoes would sound among the cloisters of Melrose Abbey 
 on the south. 
 
 An Englishman of our day boasts that he belongs to an 
 empire so large, that the sun never sets upon it ; while 
 
368 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 some one has made the funny saying, that Scotland is so 
 small that the sun sets on the west coast before it gets 
 through rising on the east coast. If an American fast ex- 
 press should start to cross Scotland, at the widest part, and 
 we should sit down in the dining car to eat our dinner, at 
 the time of departure, we should have to hurry through, to 
 finish by the time the train had reached the other side of 
 the country. 
 
 One of the smallest among the small countries of the 
 world, yet the greatest is it in the solid merits of civiliza- 
 tion, since Palestine has passed out of current history and 
 Greece has gone into decay. If we once learn to recognize 
 the private mark of Scotch character and ideas, as im- 
 printed on the products of civilization, then will we believe 
 that the greatness of Scotland is unmatched. Her largest 
 lake maybe crossed in an hour's sail, and her broadest 
 river may have a stone tossed across its waters ; but who- 
 ever would understand fully the history of Scotch ideas, 
 and know how to take the dimensions of Scotch character, 
 and trace the streams of Scotch influence, has the task of a 
 philosopher at hand. 
 
 This land of the castle and the crag, the home of the 
 thistle, and carpeted with the velvet heather, and bejeweled 
 with the daisy and the milk-white thorn, sustained one of 
 the greatest conflicts ever waged by the human intellect for 
 freedom and progress, truth and righteousness. In that 
 fearful conflict men stand out, grand, imposing, immutable. 
 
 GREATEST THING IN THE SCOTCH CONFLICT. 
 
 It is our purpose to trace the lines of that conflict, and 
 picture the more prominent events, movements and persons. 
 The first noticeable thing in that conflict is that G-od's 
 Word is in the forefront, and is pre-eminent as a factor. 
 
TEE ROMAN PAPACY. 369' 
 
 The deathless Book of the centuries, believed by the Scotch 
 to be inspired in every sentence, stood before them like a 
 pillar of fire. The very beginning of the Scotch Reforma- 
 tion was when a disciple of Wyclif, whose soul was on fire 
 with the glowing heat of the Wyclif Bible, went into Scot- 
 land repeating the teachings of his master, and soon found 
 his way into the flames. Twenty-five years later a disciple 
 of Huss, with his Bohemian Bible, entered the country and. 
 opened the Book. He was sent to his grave, but the Bible 
 had entered the nation. Merchants trading in England 
 brought back with them thousands of copies of TyndalFs 
 English Bible. They were consigned to persons of prudeuce 
 and caution, who circulated them in private with great zeal. 
 One copy met the wants of several families. In the dead- 
 of night, when sleep brooded over the land, they assembled 
 in lonely houses and dark glens ; the holy volume was; 
 opened, and while one read and explained, the rest listened 
 with thoughtful attention. So it is true in a literal sense, 
 that while Scotland was sleeping the Reformation was be- 
 coming a power; for in this way the knowledge of the 
 Scriptures was diffused at a time when it does not appear 
 that there was a single public teacher of the truth known 
 to the Papacy in Scotland. In spite of the bishops, the 
 parliament, before the middle of the sixteenth century, 
 proclaimed it lawful for all subjects to read the Bible in the 
 common language of the people. This was rescinded very 
 soon when Mary of Guise came to be regent. But the in- 
 terval brought a blessed shower, and the people were in a 
 sure way to be Protestantized. 
 
 John Knox, while tutor in a private family, and before 
 he was known to be the Elijah of the day, experimented in 
 the method of catechising young people in the Bible and 
 Christian life. The spring was forming, from which that 
 
370 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 powerful stream was to flow — the instruction in Christian 
 learning and Christian experience by the catechism. While 
 Knox was exiled in Europe, he wrote frequent letters 
 to the Christians in Scotland, urging upon them family 
 instruction in Scripture and family worship. This is the 
 first time we notice, in our readings in the Reformation his- 
 tory, of family instruction in religion. It was the begin- 
 ning of that notable institution in Scotch Christianity, now 
 so historic, the home service of regular family worship. 
 
 WHEELING A NATION INTO LINE. 
 
 In her most critical hour Scotland rested her case with 
 one man, whose far-reaching eye saw the outer circle of 
 coming religious movements, and who wheeled his nation 
 into line with the Protestaut nations of Europe, by the light 
 of the deathless Book ; by the power of which he became 
 the light of Scotland, the comfort of the Church, the mirror 
 of godliness. 
 
 Queen Mary held the scepter, but John Knox held the 
 Book. And the Book of the Lord was mightier than the 
 scepter of the kingdom, for the scepter was broken. This 
 Bible was the morning light to the Scotch intellect ; it girt 
 the conscience of the Scotch nobility ; it was a tower of 
 strength to the Scotch Covenanters, as they fled among the 
 crags of .the north, and over the moors of the south, and 
 the Hebrew Psalms of David, in the quaint Scotch, tongue, 
 poured from the lips of the Caledonian martyrs with a 
 power that is not yet spent. The Bible has interjected 
 itself into Scotch Christianity as such a trumpet blast, that 
 under the impressive call of that trumpet-peal the people 
 have gone out to repeat it to others ; and it has given those 
 sent such high intellectual training, such overpowering 
 convictions of duty, and such persistency of purpose, as 
 
THE ROM AX PAPACY. 371 
 
 "have furnished such commanding integrities of character 
 and heroic deeds in the endurance of faith, superior to 
 which are not disclosed by Christianity's history for well 
 on to two thousand years, and was not greatly excelled by 
 the old Hebrew sages and peers of four thousand years 
 ago. 
 
 THE GREATEST POWER IN WAR WITH ROME. 
 
 See it again. The Bible uppermost in the Reformation ! 
 In England Wyclif began his crusade against the Papal 
 error and oppression, by opening the Bible to the English 
 eyes. Jerome was for a time at Oxford, and became a de- 
 vout student of the Word, whereupon he carried the idea 
 of the Bible, in the language of the people, to Bohemia 
 with him, and soon Huss was engaged in educating the 
 people in the Bohemian Bible. In Gfermany, the Bible of 
 Luther's translation was a mightier defense of the Refor- 
 mation than was Luther's friend, the elector of Saxony. 
 In Switzerland the doctrines of the Gospel were butted 
 against the teachings of Rome by Zwingliand Calvin, un- 
 til the day dawn of civil liberties drove out the darkness of 
 Papal superstitions. In France, Farel and Lefever found 
 the light in the Bible, which they gave the nation. The New 
 Testament, in the French tongue, and Morat' s French edi- 
 tion of David's Psalms, did most to make the vigorous 
 character of the Huguenots. In Holland the Bible is less 
 prominent than in the crusade against the Papacy in any 
 other country. In this land the Reformation at first was 
 mostly a move for civil rights, and a resistance against a 
 particular form of Papal persecution ; yet, even in Holland, 
 it may be considered that the German Bible, in the hand of 
 the mother of young William of Orange, who was a devout 
 Lutheran, worked within the heart of that noble young 
 prince the glorious truths which kept him safely, while 
 
372 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 amongst the associations of Papal agents and courts, and 
 finally broke from his heart, to shed their rays of light and 
 power over the land ; for it is a fact that the Reformation 
 of Holland was first a well developed reformation in th& 
 heart of the noble prince of the House of Orange. 
 
 THE GREATEST NEED IN THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 If we bring these reflections to bear upon present condi- 
 tions in the United States, and remember that these condi- 
 tions are, in their spirit and design, the same as in coun- 
 tries of Europe, at the time of the great revolt from Papal 
 rule, and they only differ in degree because of lack of 
 power on the part of the Roman hierarchy — if we run our 
 reflections along these lines — we shall be assured that 
 nothing will so well and safely conserve our present nation- 
 al movement, against the growing insolence and corruption 
 of the Papacy, as the Bible in heart and home, in school 
 and legislation. 
 
 PAPAL CLERGY FILLING THE PUBLIC OFFICES. 
 
 A leading cause in Scotland, as elsewhere, which hurried 
 the conflict between the Papacy on the one side, and civil 
 rights and religious progress on the other, was the extreme 
 arrogance of the Papal party in the country. It was clearly 
 shown that the intention was to bring the government into 
 complete abject servitude to Rome. Before the middle of 
 the sixteenth century, James V. fell completely into the 
 hands of the Roman Catholic bishops, who ruled him and 
 the kingdom for the Church. The persecution of the Pro- 
 testants, during his reign, was owing to the excessive power 
 he allowed the ecclesiastics to have over him, especially to 
 that of Beaton, archbishop of St. Andrews. This king 
 made the hierarchy chief officers of state. He made the 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 373 
 
 archbishop of Glasgow chancellor, the abbot of Holyrood 
 treasurer, and bishop of Dunkeld keeper of the Privy Seal. 
 This practically excluded the nobles from the participation 
 of government. The nobles were a powerful and constitu- 
 tional party. Because of their dismissal from the govern- 
 ment, in order to give place to members of the clerical order, 
 they largely, for political and patriotic reasons, turned 
 against the rule of the Romish priestcraft, and leaned to- 
 wards the Protestant party. Here was the cause of the 
 political, side of the Scotch Reformation. And it is a very 
 important side, too. 
 
 IMPRISONMENT AND CONFISCATION. 
 
 At this period the parliament was grossly Papal also. 
 In 1525 it passed a law prohibiting the importation of Luth- 
 er' s writings, and the spread of his damnable doctrines, as 
 they were termed. Ten years later, and after Tyndale's 
 translation of the New Testament had been introduced, 
 parliament ordered all such works to be delivered up with- 
 in forty days, under penalty of imprisonment and confisca- 
 tion of property. So it is seen that in Scotland, too, the 
 Roman Church was ready to resort to crime to secure pos- 
 session of the property of the Protestants. 
 
 WILL SUCH THINGS OCCUR IN THE UNITED STATES % 
 
 This custom of the Papal party has been so general in all 
 countries, that it is not safe to assume that the same course 
 would not be carried out in our own country, if it had suffi- 
 cient power to assert its policy ; it is not even safe to argue 
 that there cannot be found some evidence of this in the 
 past in this country. It is to be borne in mind that the law 
 <of that Church is, that it is not a crime to take possession 
 
374 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 of the property of heretics, by dispossessing them simply 
 upon the ground that they are heretics. The evils of the 
 past in the Roman Church may become again the evils of 
 the present. 
 
 THE CHUECH SELECTS THE KING'S WIFE. 
 
 King James might have saved his country from the in- 
 famous intrigues of the Papacy. Henry VIII. of England 
 would have given him help to throw off the yoke of the 
 Popes, and he was ready for a closer union between Scot- 
 land and England, which might have been realized by his 
 daughter, with his assent, becoming the wife of the Scotch 
 king. The Papal plots were too strong for a weakling like 
 James V. He was led into an alliance with Magdalen, 
 daughter of the king of France. In a few months she died. 
 
 Then it was that James was drawn into a marriage with 
 Mary of Guise, daughter of the Duke of Guise, which was 
 one of the most bigoted and notable Papal families con- 
 nected with royalty. In this connection between the blood 
 of the two countries the Papal conspiracy was greatly 
 strengthened. 
 
 It is best we should know more about this Papal familjr 
 tribe of France, which now becomes linked with the history 
 of the Reformation in Scotland, inasmuch as this Mary of 
 Guise is to become the mother of the beautiful Mary Stuart.. 
 
 A NOTORIOUS PAPAL FAMILY. 
 
 The House of Guise was most notorious in the Roman 
 Catholic League of France. The families of Lorraine and 
 Guise were united before the middle of the fourteenth cen- 
 tury, by marriage. By the sixteenth century this royal 
 line of Guise-Lorraine was most powerful in its work of in- 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 375 
 
 trigue and conspiracy in the interest of the Roman Chnrch. 
 There was no more persistent element in the royalty on the 
 Catholic side ; though it must be said that it was hardly so 
 infamous as the Medicis family. In France and Scotland 
 the members of this Papal combination gave evidence of 
 rapacity, greed and avarice of the highest degree ; while in 
 France, the members seconded Catherine de Medicis, and 
 abeted the plots against the Huguenots. John, the first 
 cardinal of Lorraine, was greedy to a shameful extent, in 
 an age which was distinguised by a spirit of greed. Charles, 
 the second cardinal of Lorraine, was depraved and ambi- 
 tious, as the first had been avaricious. This cardinal, with 
 his brother Francis, duke on the Guise side of the combina- 
 tion, wielded unlimited power over Francis II., king of 
 France. And this influence was in the interest of the Pa- 
 pacy, without any regard to any other interest. He took an 
 active part in the Council of Trent, where it is claimed he 
 drafted the plan for the Roman Catholic League. The 
 third cardinal of Guise finally abandoned the ecclesiastical 
 office, and married the mistress of the French king. No 
 family in Europe was deeper in the plots of murder and 
 assassination, in the service of the Roman Catholic Church, 
 than the Guise-Lorraine family. 
 
 THE PRIESTHOOD AN OBSTRUCTION IN THE WAY OF 
 EDUCATION. 
 
 The state of intelligence in Scotland, in the early years of 
 the sixteenth century, was so low that it was a scandal, even 
 considering what that age was in Europe. As the Romish 
 clergy had everything in their own hands, and pursued a 
 policy which was intended to keep the people in the most 
 dense ignorance, they were responsible for tbe low state of 
 intelligence. In every country the priesthood has been an 
 
376 TEE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 obstruction in the way of education. In those countries 
 where a somewhat general intelligence prevailed, it was in 
 spite of the priests. This was the case in Holland and 
 Switzerland, which countries were so close to Germany they 
 -early felt the spirit of Luther's work. Scotland was more 
 isolated, and her people, up to the sixteenth century, were 
 kept more under the Popish superstitions. 
 
 If the province of Quebec, in Canada, be considered along 
 with any section in the United States, it will be seen how 
 utterly incompetent is the schooling furnished by the 
 Roman Church. Schooling, in the meaning of that Church, 
 signifies a system of training in Roman Catholic methods, 
 and an education means proficiency in the faith, feasts, and 
 fasts of the Roman Catholic Church. Parochial supervision 
 of education means a return to the illiteracy of the Mid- 
 dle Ages. 
 
 There were learned Scotsmen in the early years of the 
 sixteenth century, but they secured their training outside 
 of Scotland. The principal thing taught in the universities 
 was the theology of the monks, and Canon Law. The Latin 
 language was tanght in the monasteries, where the Barons 
 boarded their sons ; but at best this Latin was a miserable 
 jargon. By the time of the Reformation, the clergy, 
 attached to the monasteries, had so far degenerated that 
 they were unable to impart any instruction ; and, in. this 
 dilemma, persons who had been educated abroad opened 
 schools at Aberdeen, Perth, Dumbarton, Haddington and 
 Killearn, which grew into considerable prestige ; and yet 
 these schools were inferior enough, to be sure. 
 
 IGNORANCE OF THE PRIESTHOOD. 
 
 The first attempt to introduce Greek into the kingdom 
 was treated by the bishops as genuine heresy. In 1538 the 
 bishop of Brechin summoned Gfeorge Wishart before him, 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 377 
 
 upon the charge of heresy, based on the report that he had 
 been teaching the New Testament in Greek. The clergy 
 did not even know the Bible, in any language, especially 
 the New Testament. A priest affirmed that "Martin 
 Luther had lately composed a wicked work called the New 
 Testament, but as for his part he would adhere to the Old 
 Testament." This was like unto a foreign monk, declaring 
 in the pulpit against the followers of Luther and Zwingli, 
 said : " A new language was invented some time ago called 
 Greek, which has been the mother of all these heresies. A 
 book is printed in this language, called the New Testament, 
 which contains many dangerous things. Another language 
 is now forming, the Hebrew ; whoever learns it becomes im- 
 mediately a Jew." 
 
 The ignorance of the Scotch priesthood was so excessive 
 as to be strange. Bishops confessed that they were unac- 
 quainted with the canon of their faith, and never read any 
 portion of the Bible except what they met with in the mis- 
 sals. Forman, the bishop of Murray, and the legate of the 
 Pope for Scotland, being compelled to say grace before the 
 Pope, blundered so that in an attempt to commend the 
 Pope to the care of heaven, he instead found out later that 
 his language meant that he had recommended him to the 
 devil. 
 
 THE BISHOPS NOT ABLE TO PEEACH. 
 
 The bishops in Scotland, prior to the Reformation, never 
 under any circumstances undertook to preach. Only one 
 such instance is reported from the time the order of bishops 
 was established in the country down to the time of the Ref- 
 ormation ; and that was when the bishop of Glasgow en- 
 tered the pulpit of Ayr to exclude the reformer, George 
 Wishart. 
 
378 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 The state of religion was as low as that of intelligence. 
 Religious corruption was greater in Scotland, just at the 
 dawn of the Reformation, than in any other country in the 
 west of Europe. Superstition and religious imposture, were 
 practiced upon the ignorant people by the priests, who 
 thereby exercised exorbitant power and became immense- 
 ly rich ; and this power and wealth were accompanied 
 with the gravest corruptions. 
 
 ONE-HALF THE WEALTH HELD BY PRIESTS. 
 
 Fully one-half the wealth of the country was in the hands 
 of the clergy. Avarice, pomp and vanity prevailed among 
 the clergy of all ranks. Many of the more desirable eccle- 
 siastical positions were put up at auction, and sold to the 
 highest bidder ; and so they often fell to the most evil and 
 illiterate persons. Dice-players often came into these pre- 
 ferments through cunning games. They were frequently 
 given to the bastard sons of the bishops. 
 
 MONKS A TRIFLING AND WORTHLESS SET. 
 
 There is no need to appeal to the writings of the reform- 
 ers to secure evidence of the gross profligacy of the Romish 
 clergy in Scotland. The truth is recorded in acts of parlia- 
 ment, decrees of councils and the confessions of the bish- 
 ops. In fact, this higher order set the example of open and 
 shameless immorality. They kept harlots, married their 
 daughters to the nobility, many of whom were won by the 
 rich doweries in prospect. Nunneries and monasteries had 
 multiplied beyond all reason, and were the known haunts 
 of lewdness and debauchery. Monks and friars, idle, dirty, 
 and luxurious in living, and belonging to thirteen different 
 orders, swarmed through the country. In this respect it 
 was as bad in Scotland as it had been in England in the 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 379 
 
 time of Wyclif. It is not related how many there were in all 
 these orders of monks ; bat in 1542 there were two hun- 
 dred in the monastery at Melrose alone. These monkish, 
 clans are the most trifling class of people that ever burdened 
 a nation. We are getting too many of them in the United 
 States, and some measure should be speedily adopted to re- 
 strict their further growth. 
 
 The priests were constantly receiving from Rome wooden 
 images, rude pictures and old bones, which they sold to the 
 people as precious means of salvation. Of Christianity 
 nothing remained, but the name. So surely does the Roman 
 religion, when left to itself, degenerate that the authorities 
 of that Church never make any pretence of improvement 
 in morals until they are driven to reform by the common 
 uprising of the people. Left to themselves these priests of 
 a spurious Christianity accept mummery for worship, and 
 impiety instead of morality. 
 
 MONASTERIES TEMPLES OF DEBAUCHERY. 
 
 In many instances in Scotland the churches were no long- 
 er opened for worship ; but they were turned into places of 
 amusement, and devoted to trade. But the time had come 
 when the people would not endure such conditions any 
 longer. The Papal leaders saw that the Church would lose 
 its power, as it had in Germany, unless something was done 
 to mitigate the crying evils of which the people so bitterly 
 complained. In ten years, four provincial councils were 
 held in Scotland, which enacted one hundred and thirty- 
 one canons, mostly directed against the immoral lives of the 
 clergy and their ignorance and idleness. The proceedings 
 of these councils furnish a proof of the corruption of the 
 Church, which is beyond all impeachment. By these pro- 
 
380 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 ceedings it is shown that the religious houses of that day, 
 in Scotland, were no whit better than resorts of pleasure and 
 temples of debauchery. 
 
 The Reformation in Scotland did not produce a Bible in 
 the native tongue, as it had in several of the lands in which 
 the Papacy was meeting with defeat. It would have proven 
 greatly to the advantage of the movement if a Scotch Bible 
 had early been printed ; but two things prevented this : 
 the Papacy was peculiarly watchful, and then no one was 
 prepared for this task in the beginning. But the principal 
 reason why the Scotch leaders did not have a Bible to offer 
 to their people in their own tongue, was the idea that it 
 was thought partly unnecessary, in view of the fact that 
 the English Bible was being introduced in very great num- 
 bers. It was not in the Scotch language, but it did passa- 
 bly well ; and the persecution against teaching, and reading 
 «ven, was so great that it was thought unwise to under- 
 take a Scotch version. The most cruel treatment was meted 
 out to those who were known to have taught anything out 
 of the Bible, or. to be reading it themselves. The bishops 
 proscribed the Bible here, as elsewhere, and sought, by per- 
 secution, to drive God's Word from the country. In 1550, 
 one Adam Wallace, of Ayrshire, a layman, was accused of 
 teaching in public and reading the Bible. One of his accusers 
 .said : " What, then, shall be left to the bishops and kirk- 
 men to do, if every man shall be a babbler upon the Bible ?" 
 He was burned to death on castle hill at Edinboro. 
 
 THE DAY WHEN SCOTCH INDEPENDENCE WAS BORN. 
 
 In spite of all this hatred and persecution the Bible found 
 its way into the conscience of the people, even before John 
 Knox had fairly begun his work. The very tone and fibre 
 of character produced by this reverent treatment of the 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 381 
 
 Bible, equipped the leaders of the Reformation in Scotland 
 with such strength of purpose, and power of intellect, as to 
 make them, in faith, suffering and heroism, to be among the 
 most kingly leaders of the Reformation. The foundation 
 of this, of course, was to be found in the race itself. The 
 current of a heroic blood was in the veins of the people. 
 Before the days of Knox and Hamilton, were the days of 
 Wallace and Bruce; and before the siege of St. Andrew's, 
 the. field of Bannockburn was long famous. The name of 
 Bruce and the fame of Bannockburn had taught the Scotch, 
 how to hate and resist oppression. By that battle of Ban- 
 nockburn liberty came into Scotland, took off her bonnet, 
 unfurled her standard, and sat down to stay. From the 
 beginning of the fourteenth century independence had 
 been firmly intrenched in Scotland. Patriotism else- 
 where was a virtue; in Scotland it was a passion. God had 
 written the first chapter of the Scotch Reformation two 
 hundred years before the Papacy was overthrown ; and let 
 it not be forgotten that Robert Bruce was the forerunner of 
 John Knox. 
 
 THE QUALITIES OF FIVE MEN IN ONE. 
 
 And who, without creating the suspicion of indulging in 
 mere panegyric, can describe the character, and portray the 
 life of John Knox ? He was a second edition of John Cal- 
 vin, with improvements added ; he had the zeal for Bible 
 study which so characterized Martin Luther. In him were 
 the fires of patriotism, equally warm as those which burned 
 in the breast of Ulric Zwingli, that very fire-brand of Swiss 
 liberties. He was personally loved as a popular leader, 
 equally with Admiral Coligny, the chivalric hero of the 
 French Huguenots. He believed, with John Huss, that the 
 Bible in the hands of the people would give the nation an 
 
382 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 intellectual uplif t. While lie stood with the first Prince of 
 Orange, that shoulder of strength, during the terrific strug- 
 gle in the Dutch Netherlands, in holding that there should 
 be a Eeformation of government, as well as of religion. 
 And so there seemed to be united in him all the elements 
 needful for a complete and lasting Reformation. 
 
 And he was enabled to infuse into his countrymen a lion- 
 like spirit and power. Knox, like Moses, shrank from the 
 line of duty, when it was first opened to his consciousness 
 of moral responsibility. But soon a still, small voice 
 spoke as with the swell of an ocean wave ; and then in the 
 roomy chambers of his soul, vaulted with the dome of 
 truth, he marshaled the forces of his stupendous capabili- 
 ties, with which he had been blessed of Gk>d, endowed by 
 nature, and inherited from his mother. And then he began 
 the task assigned by the Lord and his nation, as if he held a 
 sledge-hammer in one hand, and a battering-ram in the other, 
 and he expected to crush false doctrines with the one, and 
 with the other make a breach in the walls of the Papacy. 
 This was neither conceit in his own ability, nor self-confi- 
 dence in his own sufficiency. It was an all powerful faith 
 in the sovereign purposes and will of an over-ruling Provi- 
 dence. 
 
 He entered the field in a way to bring on the issue at 
 once, and keep it up to the finish. He made his challenge 
 in the awful words: " The Roman Church, as now cor- 
 rupted, is the synagogue of Satan; and the head of it, the 
 Pope, is that man ot sin of whom the apostle speaks." The 
 sermon, which followed, was heard over Scotland, and 
 talked about over Europe. One of the nobles said to the 
 Catholic cardinal : ' ' You must now provide other defences 
 than fire and sword ; men now have other eyes than they 
 had." 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 383 
 
 SIX MEN OF UNPARALLELED GREATNESS. 
 
 Knox was born in 1505, four years before the leader of 
 Geneva, Calvin. It is quite an item of interest, showing how 
 compactly God had planned the overthrow of the Papacy; 
 that all the great reformers, after Wyclif and Huss, were 
 born so closely together, as if it were designed that these 
 men, who were to wield the sledge-hammer of right and 
 liberty against the Papacy, were to take each other by the 
 hand, and form an ever widening circle, to keep out the 
 abominations of the Popes. Within the precise period of 
 just fifty years, Luther, Zwingli, Knox, Coligny, Calvin, 
 and William of Orange were born. In no other period of 
 the world's history can there be found such a list of heroic 
 characters, battling for the highest rights which belong by 
 gift of God and nature to all men. 
 
 PUBLIC REWARD OFFERED FOR MURDER. 
 
 Bitterly did the Romish bishops persecute and malign 
 Knox. He moved about with the threat of Rome over his 
 head. After kindling the fire from the highlands to the 
 border, he settled as chaplain of the garrison of the castle 
 of St. Andrews, which soon sustained a siege from a French 
 fleet, and it was under the necessity of capitulating to the 
 French commander. Honorable terms were entered into, 
 and all the lives in the castle were to be spared; they were to 
 be transported to France, where they might enter the serv- 
 ice of the French king, or be conveyed to any country they 
 might select, excepting Scotland. Knox was on the fleet. 
 Sail was set for France, and in due time the fleet moved up 
 the Seine, and anchored before Rouen. The terms were 
 wholly violated by the Papal commander, and they were all 
 detained as prisoners, by direction of the Pope and the 
 
384 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 Scottish priests. Knox, with others, was put in chains, and 
 exposed to all the indignities which the Papal tormentors 
 knew so well how to inflict. Almost daily they were threat- 
 ened with torture for not responding in the service of the 
 mass ; but instead of complying they covered their heads so 
 soon as the service began. The French galleys returned to 
 the Scotch coast to prey upon English shipping. Knox fell 
 a victim to the galley fever, and for some time his life was 
 dispaired of by his friends. After nineteen months in the 
 galleys Knox secured his liberty, by what means it is im- 
 possible to say. He spent years of exile in England, France,. 
 Germany and Switzerland, where he was kept busy build- 
 ing the fires. The Roman cardinal employed agents to kill 
 him. But this did not deter him. A reward was publicly 
 advertised to any one who would slay him. Nor did this 
 frighten him. He went on preaching every day, and writ- 
 ing every night. He was tempted by the English king 
 with a bishopric ; but he thought lightly of this offer, as in 
 his way of looking at things, prelacy under the English king 
 was next to, or quite as bad, as Papacy under the Popes of 
 Rome. 
 
 Even while he was out of the country Scottish royalty 
 stood in wholesome fear of Knox and his cabinet of advisers. 
 In the lands in which he was working there were many Scots- 
 men, and they were being leavened by Knox in great shape, 
 and they all expected, at the right moment, to return to 
 their own land. He was constantly writing letters to the 
 leaders in Scotland ; and it was felt that he might as well 
 have been in the land himself. 
 
 STARTLING SCENE IN THE QUEEN'S CHAMBER. 
 
 During the childhood of the young Mary, and while she 
 was in training in licentiousness and Papal intrigue at the 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 385 
 
 French court, and all of which, was a part of the Romish 
 scheme pertaining to the overthrow of Protestantism, Mary 
 of Lorraine, the widow of James V., and belonging to the 
 famous Guise-Lorraine family of France which we have 
 already described, was queen-regent of Scotland. She was 
 all that might be expected of her family. She made prom- 
 ises, but to break them; and enacted the most solemn cov- 
 enants with her nobles, but to ignore them. While Knox 
 was preaching in Geneva, she ordered the Protestant 
 preachers to trial. It was a vicious, cowardly trick, for 
 which she was not alone guilty. As is seen, the bishops 
 were back of her orders for these trials of heresy. When 
 her order reached Chalmers of Gadgirth there was a re- 
 bound. He took it, and followed by his people, he entered 
 the council chamber of the queen-regent, as she sat sur- 
 rounded by her bishops. Shaking the paper in her face he 
 said : " Madame, we know this proclamation is a device of 
 the bishops and that bastard [the primate of St. Andrews] 
 that sits at your side. We vow to God that we will make 
 a day of it." And they did. And this French woman 
 trembled as these men buckled on their steel bonnets in her 
 presence, and thereby intimated what their answer would 
 be if her persecutions continued to apologize with false- 
 hoods. She had witnessed no such scenes in the stormiest 
 hours she had known in the French court. After the Prot- 
 estant leaders had been carried off in the French galleys 
 the Papal party had things their own way, and speedily 
 put down the reform movement, or rather, drove it into a 
 retreat. The archbishop of St. Andrews was in practical 
 control of the crown. The engagement of the young Mary 
 to the heir of the, English throne was broken off, through 
 the intrigues of the cardinal and the cunning Mary of Guise, 
 as it was seen that such a marriage would ultimate in the 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 union of the kingdoms, and make both. Protestant. To 
 maintain their seeming victory, the cardinal and bishops 
 set about a pretension of reform. Great noise was made of 
 the improvement of the morals and intelligence of the 
 clergy. Provision was made by which clergy living with 
 concubines were to be fined their whole income for three 
 months, and that the priests should not have their own 
 children living in their own homes ; it was also ordered 
 that the bishops should preach at least four times a year, 
 unless lawfully hindered. The execution of these decrees 
 was entrusted to the very persons who were concerned in 
 keeping up the vices, so instead of any corrections, these 
 acts of council only served to publish to the world the 
 abuses of the Church. The immorality of monks and bish- 
 ops grew apace. 
 
 John Knox had quietly returned to Scotland, and was 
 secretly meeting his friends of the Reformation, giving 
 them encouragement and preaching the Word to those in- 
 vited in. As might have been expected, it soon became 
 known that he was in the country. He was ordered to Ed- 
 inboro to give answer to the charges against him. He re- 
 plied he would attend. The cardinal was uncertain of the 
 result, and knowing the ignorance of his men to meet one 
 of the ability of Knox, he withdrew the arrangement for 
 the meeting, and Knox never had the chance he coveted. 
 He received a call to the Church at Geneva, and at once left 
 the country, feeling the hour was not yet ripe for the blow 
 to be given in Scotland. 
 
 DEEPEST PLOT OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 The deepest plot of the sixteenth century, if not of all 
 the centuries, for the general massacre of millions of peo- 
 ple is now to be uncovered. In the revelation of this con- 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 387 
 
 spiracy, let it be known that all those who had anything 
 to do with it, were heart and hand in with the Papacy ; 
 that the purpose was to destroy, not in one country, but 
 in all countries, all who held to the Protestant faith ; to 
 build up a great Papal empire, so powerful and compact 
 that it would be utterly impossible to again encroach upon 
 the rule and will of the Roman Church. It seems most 
 intelligent that the muf der of the Huguenots in France, 
 and the slaughter in Holland, under Alva, was indeed a 
 part of this scheme. This is the most reasonable conclu- 
 sion of those furious outbreaks of cruelty, under the au- 
 spices of those who were accessory to the Papal plot in 
 Scotland. 
 
 WHO INVENTED THE CONSPIRACY 1 
 
 Mary of Guise is still the queen-regent in Scotland. She 
 is the mother of the youthful Mary, who soon is to be Queen 
 of Scots, and who at this time is in France under Papal 
 training and direction. If Mary of Guise trembled before 
 the rebuke of Chalmers, she fairly sank with fright when 
 she learned that Knox knew of her deep, dark work of di- 
 plomacy, hatched in France, endorsed by the Pope, for the 
 overthrow of the Protestant civilizations of Europe. Her 
 own child, Mary Stuart, beautiful in form and face, and 
 voice and manner, was soon to be the Scotch queen, and is 
 now made the fatal link that is to bind Scotland to France 
 and the Papacy. Whose idea this first was, is never to be 
 known ; but it matured in the breast of this woman, in 
 whose veins ran the blood of a dozen generations of Popish 
 corruption and cunning. The conspiracy was the most in- 
 genious and far-reaching ever laid for the destruction of the 
 Protestant religion. It was a gigantic undertaking, de- 
 signed to make all Europe Papal, overturn the govern- 
 
388 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 ments favorable to Protestant reform, and involved the as- 
 sassination of two or three million people. The best way 
 to execute this plot, was the daily study of Mary of G-nise, 
 as she played the traitor-regent of Scotland. Her spies 
 were operating at the court of almost every throne in Europe, 
 and she was aided by the craft and intrigue of all the Pa- 
 pal diplomats. 
 
 WHO KNEW OF IT I 
 
 Charles IX. of France, and his fiendish mother, Catherine 
 de Medicis ; the cardinal of Lorraine, head of the Roman 
 Church in France ; the Duke of Alva, the most heartless 
 general of all the Papal armies for many a century ; Philip 
 II. , of Spain, most willing ally of the Court of Rome ; and 
 the Pope, always ready for any crime, or fraud to ad- 
 vance his interests — all these, and no doubt others not 
 known, were deep in the spirit and designs of this plot, be- 
 lieved in it, and worked for it. 
 
 WHAT IT INVOLVED. 
 
 This shameful design upon the peace and integrity of the 
 nations of Europe involved the following extensive and 
 awful program : A league was to be formed of Scotland, 
 France and Spain ; the crown of Scotland was to be settled 
 upon a French prince, a child of the Papacy, and a half 
 imbecile, between whom and the Princess Mary of Scotland 
 there was to be a marriage, so that in Mary Stuart, Queen 
 of Scotland, and her husband, Francis II. King of France, 
 the two kingdoms would be united ; a federation of the 
 armies of the three realms was to be made ; this was to be 
 followed by the invasion of England ; then was to be ac- 
 complished the dethronement of the Protestant Queen Eliza- 
 beth, and the transfer of her crown to some Papal ruler. 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 389 
 
 It was a plot most cruel, most criminal, awful in its in- 
 tention of wholesale murder, cunning in arrangement, skill- 
 ful in manipulation, and hellish in purpose. Every supposed 
 emergency was provided for, and the mighty conspiracy of 
 wrong was far on its way when it was discovered. This much 
 was already accomplished. The princess, Mary Stuart, was 
 married to Francis, heir to the French throne : the two 
 kingdoms were uniting under one policy and religion: 
 Mary of Guise, by the diplomacy of the Roman bishops in 
 Scotland, had been made regent, instead of the Earl of 
 Arran, who was forced to resign in her favor; Mary of 
 Guise, by her strategy, induced the nobles to bind the nation 
 to a union with France ; and under a pretext of making a 
 demonstration against the English, she gained their consent 
 to mobilize the French army in Scotland ; the French troops 
 were already encamped on the Scottish moors, when the 
 whole scheme was laid open to the astonished eyes of Eu- 
 rope, and the nations were dumfounded. 
 
 The remarkable cunning of Mary of Gfuise had admitted 
 a strange duplicity at one point. She had not anticipated, 
 and hence had not prepared to meet, three emergencies — 
 the direct hand of Gfod, an over-ruling Providence, and the 
 interference of John Knox. 
 
 DECEPTION OF MAKY OF GUISE-LOERAINE. 
 
 The abominable queen-regent had courted the Protestant 
 nobles, in order to gain their assent to the alliance of their 
 daughter and Francis of France, and later to secure their 
 consent to have a French army to land on Scottish soil. 
 She promised them protection from the clergy, and the fa- 
 vor of the crown. Papal rulers are always ready in promis- 
 ing, and slow in keeping promises. When they remon- 
 strated with her, she unblushingly told them "that it be- 
 
390 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 came not subjects to burden their princes with promises, 
 farther than they pleased to keep them." In this duplici- 
 ity she was urged by her brothers, beyond reasonable 
 doubt. These were the princes of Lorraine, in France. It 
 would be in perfect keeping with their course if they had 
 been the instigating party. 
 
 THE MASK THROWN OFF. 
 
 When Mary finally threw off the mask, the nobles saw 
 the gulf into which she had about precipitated them. When 
 she began to murder the Protestants, with her French troops* 
 the scales fell from their eyes, and they saw something of 
 her hidden plans. While she was fuming over their merci- 
 less rebuke, John Knox suddenly appeared from his exile in 
 Europe, landed at Leith, entered Edinboro, hurried to 
 Dundee, pulled up at Perth, unlumbered his guns of elo- 
 quence and power, and went to work to bombard the enemy 
 with the most furious f usilade of logic, learning and truth. 
 The Papal clergy were fairly stupefied with amazement. 
 Mary was irrecoverably discomfited, and before she had 
 time to change her plan to meet the new conditions, Knox 
 had organized the whole Reformation in Scotland, aroused 
 the nobles, recharged public opinion, and saw the French 
 troops marching away. 
 
 As Knox went on preaching, the people began to tear 
 down the monasteries, tumbling pictures, images and relics 
 out of the church windows at the same time. 
 
 POPERY TURNED OUT OF DOORS. 
 
 The destruction of the Scotch ecclesiastical structures is 
 to be deplored on the one side, and rather approved on the 
 other. It is to be regretted that any piece of human labor 
 should be destroyed, and many of the old Scotch monaster- 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 391 
 
 ies were fine old piles, and if standing now would add 
 greatly to the wealth of Scottish antiquity ; but it is very 
 conclusive that nothing so impressed the Papal party with 
 the determination of the reformers to make a clean work of 
 reform, as the way in which they knocked to pieces their 
 cloisters and tore out the pictures and images of the churches. 
 The beginning of this was when Knox preached a sermon 
 on the mass. At the close a priest, in pure aggravation, un- 
 covered an altar, and began to say mass. It was too much 
 for Scottish endurance. A young man called out : "This 
 is intolerable, that when God by his Word hath thrown 
 down idolatry, we shall stand and see it used in despite. " 
 The priest gave him a blow. Rome that day struck herself. 
 The blow of the priest rebounded, and ceased not until im- 
 ages, altars and monasteries all over the kingdom were 
 mostly demolished. Before the priest could save his altar 
 the congregation was at work, tearing down and destroy- 
 ing altars, images and ornaments to the last vestige. The 
 multitude then fell upon the monasteries of Gray Friars, 
 Black Friars, the charterhouse, in such a way that in ten 
 days the walls alone remained. In a time incredibly short, 
 most of the monasteries and churches in the country were 
 despoiled of altars, images and monuments. Among those 
 almost totally demolished were those of the capital. In 
 less than two weeks monkery was overthrown, and it never 
 got to its feet again in Scotland ; and Popery was practical- 
 ly turned out of doors, though it hung about to persecute 
 and kill in its dying days. 
 
 THE QUEEN-REGENT A MINION OF THE PAPAL COURT. 
 
 The Protestants were now remembering that if they wanted 
 liberty and religious rights, they must unseat the infamous 
 Mary of Guise from the regency. They remembered that 
 
392 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 during the reign of her husband, James Y. , the Romish 
 clergy had worked through the throne for their extermina- 
 tion. They remembered the day when the bishops presented 
 a list of several hundred to the king, who was told these 
 possessed great wealth, and by slaying them, and declar- 
 ing their estates forfeited, he could mightily enrich his 
 crown. And they, too, remembered that up to the end of the 
 king' s life the power of the Papacy grew. And now it was 
 quite evident that all the professions of attachment made 
 by his widow, Mary of Guise, since she was regent, were a 
 delusion and a snare for the cause of liberty and Protest- 
 antism. In the regency of Scotland, as Margaret in the re- 
 gency of Holland, she was but a minion of the Papal court. 
 Devotees of the Pope are never in a situation to serve their 
 subjects. The house of Lorraine must be rebuked. Mary 
 must surrender the regency in the interest of the country. 
 The nobles were convinced that the plans of Mary were for 
 the overthrow of their cause, and they passed a bill of sus- 
 pension, and she had to retire from the rule of Scotland. 
 
 The Reformation was now being sustained by a higher 
 conception of liberty and right, and by a deeper conviction 
 of personal, moral responsibility. The cause was full of 
 hope ; the end was sure. Many a dark day is yet to come, 
 but the promise of the end is felt to be secure, and from 
 this hour there is no retreat. Through danger, suffering 
 and death the work is pushed right forward, and at every 
 blow Rome sees that her defeat is coming nearer and nearer, 
 and she grows, accordingly, bitter and bigoted. Rome is 
 nowhere so near a child, as when she is about to fall. 
 When she foresees that she is to be overthrown she becomes 
 possessed with something of a spirit of revenge, and seeks 
 to be as revengeful, and to cause as much suffering as it 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 393 
 
 within her power. In this way does she present to the 
 world the heart of the Savior. By these fruits shall she be 
 known and judged. 
 
 MARY THE BEAUTIFUL ON THE THRONE. 
 
 Then came Mary, the beautiful, to the throne. Mary 
 Stuart, daughter of Mary of Guise and James V., king of 
 Scotland, who was destined to become the most famous of 
 the long list of Scottish sovereigns, was born in the palace 
 of Linlithgow, seven days before the death of her father. 
 
 Her early childhood was spent in seclusion in Scotland, 
 from whence she was removed to France. Here she was 
 educated in Roman convents, trained in Jesuit qualities in 
 the homes of her uncles, the Cardinal of Lorraine and the 
 Duke of Guise, and schooled in French nunneries at the 
 impious and immoral court of Paris. 
 
 Shortly after the nobles and barons had solemnly removed 
 her mother from the regency she had died ; this was followed 
 in a few months by the death of Francis II., and Mary 
 Stuart, in losing both her mother and husband, might have 
 Tead an ill omen to the cause of the Papacy in Scotland. 
 The death of her husband had removed whatever chance 
 there might have been for a union of the thrones of the two 
 countries in the interest of the Roman Church 
 
 After a number of consultations with her brother, the 
 prior of St. Andrews, Mary concluded to return to her native 
 country. It was a few months after the death of her hus- 
 band that she embarked for the home of her ancestors. 
 The people of all classes gave her a royal welcome. Her 
 reception was most flattering, and the country was ready 
 to give her a loving trial. At the time the nobles and barons 
 were considering the removal of the regent, John Knox, 
 ivho had been asked to advise them as to the Tightness of 
 
394 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 their course, counseled them that whatever act of dismissal 
 they might pass against the regent, it must not mitigate 
 against their rightful rulers, Francis and Mary Stuart. The 
 counsel of Knox was now being taken, and the people gave 
 the young Queen of Scots a most enthusiastic welcome. 
 
 Because of this willingness of the nation to receive her, 
 Mary might have had a happy and peaceful reign. But 
 two things stood in the way : the French court life not only 
 embellished the beauty and made more graceful the man- 
 ners of Mary, but had made her accustomed to a fulsome 
 praise to her personal charms, and given her a taste of royal 
 prerogative most gratifying to her pride and ambition. 
 Then, too, she had come back with that peculiar fickleness, 
 which was the result of her Papal training. 
 
 TREACHERY OF THE QUEEN. 
 
 Though Mary was received in love by the Scotch, when 
 she came to the throne she soon betrayed their love by her 
 treachery, and lost their respect by her false dealing and 
 French morals. Knox had many a tilt with her. He 
 charged her with low views of integrity and Jesuit cunning, 
 while he rebuked her for her loose conception of duty, and 
 heavily scored her for her frivolity and ungodliness. When 
 she showed the least injustice to the Protestants he brought 
 all Europe to attention, as he mercilessly rebuked her in 
 his preaching. In a private interview with her, he said : 
 " Your will is no reason to us ; we prefer the law of God to 
 the wish of the Queeu of Scotland." 
 
 The beautiful and accomplished queen turned upon him 
 in one day, her smiles, her tears, and her threats. He was 
 only moved to say, that he wondered what men should say, 
 that at that time of day he was away from his books, and 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 395 
 
 waiting on the court, and he left the palace with a merry 
 countenance ; and as he did so he heard a Papal attendant 
 say : " He is not afraid." 
 
 THE PAPAL LEAGUE EXTENDED TO SCOTLAND. 
 
 Again the clouds gather, and a danger the Protestant 
 leaders had feared was suddenly to befall them. The 
 queen was in secret negotiations with the Papal leaders in 
 France, and a move was to be made to reinstate the Roman 
 religion in the state, and overthrow the Protestant nobles. 
 Friars were employed to officiate at Holyrood palace. The 
 Catholic League of France, organized to wrest France from 
 the Huguenot power, broadens the scope of its work, and 
 made an attempt to combine the Roman Catholic rulers of 
 Europe in a concerted move against the Protestants. Early 
 in 1566 a special messenger appeared at the Court of Mary, 
 from the Cardinal of Lorraine, with a copy of the Catholic 
 League for extirpating the Protestants. The instructions 
 of the Cardinal of Lorraine were, that the queen should set 
 her hand and approval to this instrument. Mary did not scru- 
 ple. Up to this time she had shown a little disposition to be 
 tolerant to the banished Protestants. By the arrival of this 
 embassy from the Papal leader in France, the door was 
 shut. The Popish ecclesiastics were rapidly restored to 
 power, and the Protestant officials about the court were dis- 
 missed and persecuted. A war of extermination seemed 
 imminent, wiien the scheme w^as blasted by the cruel assas- 
 sination of Rizzio, the Italian confident of the queen, and 
 the chief instigator of the measures against the Protestants. 
 He was slain in a secret passage way leading into the queen's 
 apartments, from w^hich he was dragged, with the queen a 
 witness. The deed was the result of the jealousy and ha- 
 tred of the queen' s husband, Lord Darnley. It was a stroke 
 
396 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 of private revenge that he fell under ; but it was regarded 
 as a deliberation against the Roman Catholics. The Papal 
 agents, and the hangers on about the court were greatly 
 alarmed, and fled from the palace. 
 
 MURDER OF LORD DARNLEY. 
 
 The queen left Holyrood, retired to Dunbar Castle, col- 
 lected an army, marched upon Edinboro, and flew into a 
 passion, which passed away in mere pretension. Her af- 
 fection for her husband had long cooled, if it ever existed, 
 and by the murder of Rizzio, her feelings towards him were 
 turned into loathing and hatred. Soon she gave birth to a 
 child ; but the advent of an heir to the throne made no 
 amends in their personal relations, and when her child was 
 baptized she did not permit him to be present. Disrespect 
 drove Lord Darnley from the palace entirely, and he was 
 not to return. The queen was easily enticed into improp- 
 er relations by her Papal advisers. She began to play with 
 matrimonial intrigue with the Earl of Bothwell. Her favor 
 for him was open, and highly flavored with honors. She 
 gave the whole administration of public affairs into his 
 hands, and treated him with marked affection. The queen 
 and this earl were badly mixed up in the plot to murder 
 her former husband. Darnley, the poor wretch, was en- 
 ticed to a solitary house in the extremity of Edinboro, and 
 during the night of February 10th, 1567, his life was de- 
 stroyed by an explosion of gunpowder, which had been laid 
 beneath the house. 
 
 There is no reasonable doubt but Bothwell was the con- 
 triver and the active agent in this murder ; and it is equal- 
 ly settled, by the actions of the queen, that she was a party 
 to it, at least so far as her knowledge and approval made 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 397 
 
 her accessory. This deed marks one of the darkest days 
 of her life. Her conscience was of the pliable, Papal 
 kind, and did not at the time seem to disturb her much ; 
 but the dark complications which thickened about her from 
 this day on, moved steadily towards the last, sad act in her 
 dramatic life. 
 
 THE QUEEN RESIGNS — EARL OF MURRAY REGENT. 
 
 In rapid and painful succession the tragic events move 
 out from this infamous murder. The nobility combine 
 to revenge the death of Darnley, and preserve the infant 
 prince ; the queen soon marries Bothwell, the assassin ; 
 speedily he is forced into flight for very safety ; Mary then 
 surrenders, is imprisoned, resigns the government ; the in- 
 fant prince is declared the king, and the Earl of Murray is 
 appointed as regent, during the king' s minority ; the queen 
 is confined in the castle of Lochleven. The Duke of Chas- 
 telherault came from France, with large contributions of 
 money, made by the Popish princes of Europe in aid of 
 the Papacy in Scotland. He entered the country as a lieu- 
 tenant of the queen. An insurrection was prevented by 
 the watchfulness of the regent Murray. Then the resolution 
 was formed to remove Murray from all possibility of fur- 
 ther interfering in the Papal plans for Scotland. It was in 
 1568 that two persons were employed to assassinate him ; 
 but the design was frustrated by early discovery. This did 
 not prevent a second attempt. A nephew of the archbishop 
 of St. Andrews undertook the task next ; and he was in- 
 cited to it by the Papal party. He deliberately followed 
 Murray from place to place, to Glasgow, to Sterling, to Lin- 
 lithgow, and finding an opportunity, shot him down, and 
 he died the same evening, rejoicing that he had been len- 
 
398 THE BOM Ay PAPACY. 
 
 ient even with his enemies who had executed the deed. The 
 house, in which the murderer concealed himself, belonged to 
 the archbishop of St. Andrew, who acknowledged that he 
 was privy and accessory to the deed ; the horse on which 
 the murderer escaped belonged to an abbot of Arbroath, by 
 name of Hamilton, to whom the assassin quickly rode, 
 upon perpetrating the deed, and who received him "with 
 great applause." 
 
 WHY THE ARCHBISHOP WANTED HIM ASSASSINATED. 
 
 There is no just reason for the Popish intrigue to take 
 the life of Murray, except that he was not willing to be their 
 agent. He was in accord with the Protestant cause ; but 
 he was as just with the Roman Catholics as with the Prot- 
 estants, and was entirely devoid of that bitterness of feel- 
 ing which characterized both sides to too great a degree. 
 He performed the duties of the regency for the country's 
 good, and gave no disposition to feed his ambition with 
 any desire for supremacy. He maintained the laws and au- 
 thority of the realm with just regard for all classes, and 
 always tempered his acts of decision with mercy. He often 
 sat in the courts of justice, and exerted his good offices to 
 the welfare of all parties. His family circle was more like 
 a church than a court. Not a profane or lewd word was 
 heard ; while the Bible was read at table, after dinner and 
 supper, with instructions thereon. In all its dealings with 
 the world the Roman Church acts upon the principle that 
 the end justifies the means ; and it is as quick to act in as- 
 sassination of wholly good and just men, as to murder the 
 more extreme in opposition to the Popes. Rome at work in 
 the political field is foul of heart and base of principle. 
 The most corrupting and criminal factors at work in any 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 399 
 
 government, from the town council up to the national Con- 
 gress, are those which are under her fostering care. It may- 
 be the Pope ; it may be the crafty priest ; it may be the 
 corrupt bishop ; it may be the Papal legate ; it may be the 
 Jesuit ; but whichever, it is Rome. 
 
 PRIESTS INSTIGATE REBELLION. 
 
 The queen is liberated from prison by the help of the Ro- 
 man Catholics. The attempt to restore her by force of re- 
 bellion fails, and she is compelled to flee. She resolves to 
 entrust herself to her cousin Elizabeth, goes to England, 
 and is imprisoned. It is beyond all discovery to find a sat- 
 isfactory reason for this course, when she might have gone 
 to France, which country was mostly responsible for her 
 misfortunes. This is one of the most unaccountable of her 
 many strange freaks. 
 
 WHAT LED TO THE QUEEN'S DEATH. 
 
 For almost twenty years she lingers in the English prison, 
 where she was confined by direction of the English queen. 
 
 The Papacy was done for in Scotland. The parliament 
 of 1560 declared an act to abolish the Papal jurisdiction in 
 the realm. This gave legal standing to what had already 
 been accomplished in fact. But in spite of this law of 
 parliament, and the disestablishment of the Papacy as 
 carried out in the administration of affairs, the Pope and 
 his agents, all through the last troubled years of Mary, and 
 after her abdication of the throne, and through her impris- 
 onment in England, kept up their evil plans for the restora- 
 tion of the Papacy, and the consequent return of Papal 
 power and oppression. And finally these Popish hatchings 
 of crime led to Mary' s death. 
 
400 TEE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 It was a phantom of hope pursued by Catholic Europe 
 for years, that England was to be brought back to the 
 Papacy through Mary Stuart. All the plots for the assassi- 
 nation of Queen Elizabeth, and these were many, all of the 
 plots for the overthrow of the Protestantism of England, 
 and these were many, were considered with Mary Stuart as 
 a known quantity. The frequency of these conspiracies, 
 and the fear that the effort would yet succeed, forced her 
 advisers to urge Elizabeth to bring Mary to trial and exe- 
 cution. 
 
 DAMAGING JESUIT AUTHOKITY. 
 
 According to the Jesuit Stevenson, Mary and her secre- 
 taries were led to correspond with the conspirators, though 
 it should be said that when her letters were produced against 
 her, she denied their authenticity. The trial followed at 
 Fortheringay Castle, and, with one exception, they found 
 Mary guilty. 
 
 The Roman Catholic party controlled nearly all the north- 
 ern section of Scotland. They were both discomfited and 
 enraged. They knew that Philip II. was engaged in prodi- 
 gious preparations to invade England. The English people 
 had given shelter and aid to the persecuted Protestants in 
 Flanders — persecuted by Philip. This made England still 
 more odious to Spain. Then, too, according to Stevenson, 
 whose confessions we find so valuable, it was also " intended 
 to hurl Queen Elizabeth from the throne, and restore the 
 Catholic religion in England." 
 
 Several times a Papal invasion of England had been con- 
 ceived. The Duke of Alva, then Don John of Austria, 
 then the Duke of Guise, and more recently the Marquis de 
 Santa Cruz, was, each one, to have tried it. The plans were 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 401 
 
 much alike as to intentions. They all contemplated that 
 the house of Guise was to take a leading part ; Elizabeth 
 was to be murdered, the Roman Catholics were to be re- 
 stored, Mary Stuart was to be made queen of England, 
 Papal authority was to be again returned ; Scotland and 
 Holland, and probably Germany, were to be returned to the 
 Papal allegiance. 
 
 It was finally brought to the consideration of Philip II. 
 in a way to induce him to try it. Philip of Spain was the 
 secular head of the Catholic world, at a time when the na- 
 tions were drifting from the idea of the temporal power of 
 the Pope. He had to give countenance to all the Papal 
 intrigues looking to the overthrow of Protestant England, 
 including, as most of them did, the assassination of the 
 queen. 
 
 ACCOEDLN'G TO PAPAL MOEALS MUEDEE IS EIGHT. 
 
 To kill those who opposed the Papacy was thought right. 
 Admiral Coligny was shot by an assassin, with the approval 
 of the Romish Church. William of Orange was murdered, 
 and in the Roman Catholic interest, and with the approval 
 of Philip. Henri Quartre was murdered in the Papal interest. 
 And any one could do the same with the English queen, and 
 have the approval of the Pope, and the consent of Philip. 
 
 The preparations in Spain to give a blow to England, met 
 a response among the Roman Catholics in Scotland. They 
 welcomed the Spanish invasion, opened up communications, 
 abetted the enterprise, took up arms. They had represen- 
 tatives under Lord Maxwell in Spain. Upon their return 
 an armed force immediately proceeded to subdue the west 
 coast, and open a door for the landing of the Spanish 
 Armada, if it be found advantageous to do so. 
 
402 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 The invasion was aided in England by the Jesuits, many 
 of whom were educated at Oxford, and hated the Protest- 
 ants with a perfect frenzy. 
 
 THE SPANISH ARMADA. 
 
 The ports of Spain, Italy, Portugal, and all the maritime 
 provinces of Spain, had long resounded with the noise of 
 the preparations. When completed, the armament was the 
 most powerful which has set sail in modern times, perhaps 
 in all times. Roman Catholic soldiers had collected from 
 every corner of the world : Spanish and Italian, French and 
 Irish, German and Swiss, and even Portugese ; though the 
 latter country was most indifferent, as it had just been 
 added to the Spanish domain by force, and the wound was 
 yet raw. These were trained men, too, both those of the 
 troop and the marines. When the great Armada was final- 
 ly put under sail it consisted of one hundred and thirty- 
 one great war ships, thirty small ships, nearly twenty thous- 
 and marines, over eight thousand sailors, more than two 
 thousand slaves, and over twenty-six thousand cannon. The 
 sailors were those who had been trained under the ex- 
 perienced Santa Cruz, and there were none better in the 
 world. In addition to this equipment, the Duke of Parma 
 had gathered an army of thirty thousand men in Flanders, 
 arid awaited the Armada to protect the ships as they ef- 
 fected a passage of the channel. A regiment of priests ac- 
 companied the Armada to keep alive the Catholic enthu- 
 siasm ; there being one hundred and eighty priests and 
 monks, to but eighty-five surgeons, including assistants, in 
 the whole fleet. It was provisioned to feed forty thousand 
 men for six months. 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 403 
 
 The Protestants of Europe looked upon this enterprise as 
 the critical event, which was to decide the fate of the Ref- 
 ormation. 
 
 THE CRISIS OF THE WHOLE CONFLICT HAD COME. 
 
 The Armada was intended by Philip II. not only to re- 
 store the Papal authority in England, but extend the Span- 
 ish dominion up the Thames ; and the Pope, looking be- 
 yond this, expected to see his rule made once more co-ex- 
 tensive with all thrones and empires. 
 
 No move of Papal Europe ever created such consterna- 
 tion. There was fear, bustle and hurry in every English 
 home, and the nation began herculean efforts. It was felt 
 that the crisis of the whole conflict was at hand. 
 
 If the Armada had proven successful, France -was to 
 strike, Scotland was sure to do the same, Holland was 
 engaged in what seemed to be a death struggle herself ; her 
 great William had fallen under the shot of the hired assas- 
 sin of Philip. Had the Armada attained its end as pro- 
 posed by the Papal conspirators, Spain, the Papacy, and the 
 Latin race would have triumphed in both the old world and 
 the new. It was truly a momentous hour in human history. 
 Ages hung on the hinges of that move. Which way would 
 it swing ? 
 
 England' s Protestant Queen only had eighty ships with 
 which to oppose the Armada. But the English people who 
 stood for liberty and progress rose to the situation, and 
 made stupendous preparations to prevent a landing ; and 
 in this many Roman Catholics united, so unwelcome was 
 the prospect of a renewal of the Papal rule in that country. 
 
404 THE ROMAX PAPACY. 
 
 DECLAKED INTENTION OF THE EXPEDITION. 
 
 But the defeat of the Invincible Armada, as it was called y 
 was the most complete and humiliating on record. The 
 sailing orders of the commander read that the object of the 
 expendition was to recover countries to the Church "now 
 oppressed by the enemies of the faith." . The Pope had 
 contributed money ; the prayers of innumerable priests 
 had been ascending for more than a year for the attainment 
 of the plan ; mass had been said at more than twice fifty- 
 thousand altars for the triumph of the Lord to attend it. 
 But Providence was not once more to be found on the side 
 of the heaviest battalions. From the very day of sailing 
 the fleet met with disaster, and misfortune hovered about' 
 like a nightmare. When the first contest came the fleet 
 had swung around a neck of land, like a great crescent moon, 
 with a distance of seven miles between the horns. The 
 English admirals fell upon this crescent wall of ships with a 
 heavy fire, and soon gained a victory. Almost daily the 
 Armada battled, first with the English ships, and then 
 with the terrific storms of the English channel. When 
 the final contest came the Spanish fleet fought with desperate 
 bravery. Not a ship struck her colors. Men stood at the 
 guns until the powder was all gone. In half the ships not 
 a single round of powder remained, and with the rise of the 
 wind the fleet put off to sea, only to meet with a still worse 
 defeat from the winds. The greatest destruction came to 
 the Armada in Sligo Bay, where a succession of violent: 
 storms scattered, and almost entirely destroyed, the fleet. 
 
 HOW THE KING KEGARDED THE DEFEAT. 
 
 The army in Flanders, under Parma, had not attempted 
 the passage of the channel. So the whole measure was as 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 405 
 
 stupendous a failure as the undertaking was vast and impos- 
 ing. The whole history of civilization has been thrown in- 
 to new and grander channels because of the defeat and de- 
 struction of the Invincible Spanish Armada. It was the 
 clearest indication which the Papacy had yet had, that 
 Providence was on the side of the Protestant nations. Philip 
 II. so regarded the issue. 
 
 NEW JESUIT PLOT. 
 
 Heavy as this blow was, it did not quiet the Papal party 
 in Scotland. The Roman Catholics in that country did not 
 suffer so greatly by the Armada failure, as they had fur- 
 nished counsel rather than the sinews of war. A small force 
 had been raised on the west coast, but was not required. 
 But now the Catholic party projected a new plot for the 
 overthrow of the Protestants in Scotland and England. 
 They renewed their intercourse with Spain. The Roman 
 Catholic nobles sent an agent to the king, promising that 
 they would give all help in their power, if he would make 
 an attempt of some kind upon the Queen of England ; or if 
 he preferred, they would themselves open the war upon her 
 in the interest of the Church, if he would send them aid. 
 This agent was Ker, who was seized, and made such damag- 
 ing disclosures as to implicate nearly all the leading Roman 
 Catholic nobles of the realm. Thirteen of the nobles at this 
 time were Catholics, mostly those of the north. This plot 
 was discovered in time to prevent another war for extermina- 
 tion being attempted against the Protestants. 
 
 CIVIL WAE COMES FROM PAPAL INTRIGUE. 
 
 The next- step was a plot with the Pope himself. James 
 VI. sent the Roman Catholic diplomats, Gordon andCrich- 
 ton, secretly to Rome for the purpose of laying the whole 
 
406 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 matter before the Pope, and arranging a final plan for re- 
 storing the Church to power. These agents returned from 
 their mission with a special legate, the cunning and crafty 
 Sampiretti, who bore the sum of forty thousand ducats 
 from the Pope, who further promised a monthly allowance 
 of ten thousand ducats. As the party landed at Aberdeen, 
 July 6th, 1594, the legate was seized, with the important 
 documents in his possession. At this James became 
 frightened, and to turn suspicion from himself he turned 
 against the Catholic nobles, and the scheme again failed, 
 though civil war followed, and the great distress which was 
 experienced must be accredited to that unholy Papal 
 intrigue against the nation. 
 
 JESUITS DECLARED TRAITORS. 
 
 It was seen that the Jesuits were at the bottom of these 
 conspiracies, and a bill was passed parliament declaring all 
 Jesuits and Semanarists to be traitors and rebels, subject to 
 the penalties of high treason, and those who associated with 
 them were considered traitors. 
 
 Still the Jesuits hung about the court, and schemed for 
 the re-establishment of the Papacy. James had married a 
 Protestant lady — Anne of Denmark. But Papal diplomacy 
 was not baffled. A Jesuit priest, Abercromby, was worked 
 into the palace, and lived there for two years. During 
 this time the queen spent an hour every morning in his 
 apartment, receiving instruction and giving her confession, 
 which included even private talks between herself and her 
 husband ; and partaking of the sacrament. This priest 
 gradually induced her to have none but Roman Catholic 
 ladies in the court. This led to the daughter of the king 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 407 
 
 being brought up wholly in Papal associations. And the 
 king was led to dispatch secret Roman agents to all the 
 Catholic courts of Europe. And this is to make it clear to 
 us that the Roman Catholic courts were still banded, and 
 were negotiating for the overthrow of the Protestant nations. 
 If these reflections seem severe, let it be known that they 
 are all revealed in the confessions of the Jesuit, Stevenson, 
 and by the letters of the Jesuit spies in Scotland, written to 
 the Pope and to the general of the Jesuit order, Aquaviva. 
 
 PAPACY PERMANENTLY OVERTHROWN. 
 
 But the Papacy was done for in Scotland. It lingered to 
 form evil plots, and devise crimes against the well-being of 
 the country, and the established order of things ; but in 
 spite of the Jesuit intrigues and Popish interference, the 
 Protestantism of the land was perhaps better and more firm- 
 ly secured than in any other of the nations. The beneficent 
 influence upon the world, of the higher moral and intellect- 
 ual impulse of Scotch civilization, has not been paralleled 
 by that of any other country ; while the Scotch influence 
 upon educational institutions, and the contribution of 
 Scotland to the ranks of illustrious men, have been most re- 
 markable. In the sixteenth century already Scotland 
 brings forth the intellectual giants of Europe. The Scotch 
 Reformation invaded the university, as well as the pulpit 
 and the home. The Reformation in that land upheld 
 scholarship, even with piety. The early Scotch Book of 
 Discipline of the Reformed Church in Scotland contains a 
 most thorough system of education. Education was looked 
 upon as a religious duty, which they owed to God, as well 
 as to themselves. 
 
408 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 OUR CIVIL A^D RELIGIOUS LIBERTIES ADVANCED. 
 
 Our civil and religious liberties have received incalcula- 
 ble benefits from the Scotch war upon the Papacy ; 
 while the moral progress of the nation has been aided by 
 those stout-hearted reformers to a most prodigious extent. 
 As we think of them, meeting on the dark morasses, in the 
 forests and among the hills, drinking peat water, and sleep- 
 ing on heather, we are reminded of the times of Israel' s 
 prophets ; of Moses wandering about the foot of the moun- 
 tain, which he is to climb in a mission to the fire-girt foot 
 of God ; of Elijah in the cave listening to the mighty wind, 
 the earthquake and the fire-chariots which go before the 
 Lord ; of Ezekiel, astonished on the banks of the Chebar, 
 or gazing on the valley of dry bones ; of John the Baptist, 
 feeding on locusts and wild honey in the lone wilderness, 
 and clad in garments of camel' s hair. They were the pro- 
 genitors of mighty men and women in all lines of heroic 
 effort and courageous action. 
 
 Let it be pondered upon, that it was mostly the reverent 
 treatment of the Bible in the Reformation that made the 
 very tone and fibre of that great national uplift. Truly, 
 the "Holy Bible, Book Divine," has been just such an in- 
 spiration to Scotland, such a solace to her poor, and such a 
 foundation to her characteristic of dominant intellectual 
 power, as is portrayed in the picture drawn by Burns, in 
 " The Cotter's Saturday Night :" 
 
 " The cheerf u' supper done wi' serious face, 
 They, round the ingle, form a circle wide ; 
 The sire turns o'er, wi' patriarchal grace, 
 The big ha'-Bible, ance his father's pride : 
 His bonnet rev'rently is laid aside, 
 His lyart haffets wearing thin and bare ; 
 Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide, 
 He wales a portion with judicious care ; 
 And * Let us worship God, ' he says, with soiemn air." 
 
UNPAID DEBT TO SCOTCH PATRIOTS. 
 
 ' Patriots have toiled, and in their country's cause 
 Bled nobly ; and their deeds, as they deserve, 
 Receive proud recompense. 
 But fairer wreaths are due, though never paid, 
 To those who, posted at the shrine of Truth, 
 Have fallen in her defence, — 
 Yet few remember them. 
 
 With their names 
 No bard embalms and sanctifies his song ; 
 And history, so warm on meaner themes, 
 Is cold on this. She execrates, indeed, 
 The tyranny that doomed them to the fire, 
 But gives the glorious sufferers little praise." 
 
Is the Roman Church organ- 
 ized TO OVERTHROW FREE IN- 
 STITUTIONS? 
 
 In every Roman institution in America, atoms are- 
 amassing, insensible particles are combining and as- 
 sembling for that mighty power at Rome, who seeks to 
 scourge us and take away our nation. 
 
 Anna Ella Carroll. 
 (Daughter of the Roman Catholic Gov. Carroll, Md.) 
 
PART XIII. 
 
 PLOTS TO MURDER— CONSPIRACIES AGAINST 
 ENGLAND— PAPAL WOMANHOOD. 
 
 The attempt to unite the crowns of Scotland and France 
 was made under Papal advisement. Early in the sixteenth 
 century the Papacy girded its loins for a desperate conflict. 
 Parliaments, councils and thrones were drawn into the vor- 
 tex. One of the first acts of James V., in coming to the 
 throne of Scotland, was to write a letter to the Pope, assur- 
 ing him of his affection and allegiance. He was a boy of 
 twelve years or less, so this act was under Papal direction 
 of bishop or cardinal. When James was twenty-four, he 
 went to France to marry Madeleine, daughter of Francis L, 
 King of France. This was an arrangement of the Church. 
 The king had sent Cardinal Beaton several times to France 
 as ambassador, and at one time he was instructed to devise 
 the best way to unite the two countries in Papal bonds. 
 About this time some sort of a coalition was formed be- 
 tween Francis I. and Charles V., of Germany. It was a 
 Papal matter. And it was intended to accomplish an inva- 
 sion of England. It was through Beaton that the marriage 
 was arranged between James and Madeleine. 
 (411) 
 
412 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 The Pope's nuncio at Paris advised him to sanction the 
 marriage, as happy results would naturally follow. The 
 English ambassador complained to the Papal nuncio, as he 
 foresaw certain troubles for the nations. At the nuptials a 
 letter of approval and blessing was presented from Pope 
 Paul. 
 
 ROMAN DIPLOMACY AND EOYAL MARRIAGES. 
 
 This was in midwinter. Before midsummer the frail 
 woman from sunny France lay in Holyrood royal church- 
 yard. The next spring James made another Papal match ; 
 this time marrying Mary of Guise, who was also a French 
 woman. This match was also arranged by the Scotch Arch- 
 bishop Beaton, who had had his hand in the former mar- 
 riage of his king. Stephenson, the Jesuit author, testifies 
 that this alliance, more than the other, was in the interest 
 of the Papacy and France. 
 
 THE ARCHBISHOP PRESENTS A FORGED WILL. 
 
 Disheartened by the defeat of his army, off Solway Moss, 
 King James dies, December 14, 1542. His reign was made 
 miserable for himself, and unhappy for his country, because 
 of the excessive influence of Beaton, who was the willing 
 tool of France and the Papacy. He induced James to al- 
 low the Romish clergy to nominate the Lord Chief Justice, 
 before whom the nobles, who read the Bible and argued 
 against the Pope, should be tried, and have their property 
 confiscated. It was a complete domination of the ecclesias- 
 tical power over the government. Several days before the 
 death of James V., his daughter Mary was born in Linlith- 
 gow Palace. The Roman intermeddlers at once began the 
 policy of control, which was to bring blood and wars to the 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 413 
 
 nations, and finally bring Mary Stuart, most beautiful of 
 Scottish queens, to the block. Upon the death of her 
 father, the king, the Earl of Arran, by constitutional right, 
 was acknowledged generally as regent, and as having in 
 custody the young queen. But Archbishop Beaton im- 
 mediately called an ecclesiastical council at St. Andrews, 
 which decided to unseat the Earl, maintain at all hazards 
 allegiance to Rome, and control the person of the infant 
 Mary. He presented a forged will of the late king, by 
 which he was to have the guardianship of the child and 
 the government of the realm. 
 
 This was successful, and the archbishop, without 
 any constitutional right, and without the assent of 
 the barons, assumed the government, and sent at once 
 an agent to the King of France, asking for aid. And 
 while his agent in France is negotiating for two thousand 
 men, under de Lorgen, a Papal officer of great reputation, 
 he was laying a successful plan to kidnap the child queen. 
 
 FIEST DUTY OF PATEIOTISM WITH US. 
 
 Here is one of a score of instances, occurring in a single 
 century, where the Papal Church organized a successful 
 conspiracy against the established form of government, and 
 this most treasonable political crime the Papacy has been 
 guilty of in every country on the planet. If there be such 
 a thing as a common morality of patriotism, permeating 
 civilized peoples, standing for the right of constitutional 
 and established laws and liberties, and demanding this right, 
 and able to procure it, it would seem that one of the first 
 evils to which it must attend is this everlasting Papal 
 crime against governments. 
 
414 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 A VISIT TO THE APARTMENTS OF MARY STUART. 
 
 Well does the writer remember the morning, when first 
 lie crossed the threshold of the apartments of Mary Stuart, 
 Queen of Scots. It was a June morning when he turned his 
 back on Edinboro Castle, and walked slowly down Canon- 
 gate Street, to Holyrood Palace, a mile away. Old Canon- 
 gate is Scottish history fossilized. Here every tall building, 
 with its winding stairs, armorial bearings, tapestried walls, 
 and crazy roofs, has its tragic story of heroism, romance, 
 and crime. Down this street tramped the followers of 
 Douglas, and marched the courtiers of Queen Mary ; James 
 rode up this street to Flodden Field ; here Jenny Geddes 
 flung the stool at the priest ; up this street came John 
 Knox to his house, after his interview with Mary at Holy- 
 rood ; here David Hume thought out his opinions on king- 
 craft and priestcraft ; here Burns, the Ayrshire farmer, un- 
 covered his head before the grave of poor Furgesson ; down 
 this street, too, daily limped the boy, Walter Scott, peering 
 into every close and lounging at every tavern. At every 
 step is met some ghost of the long ago, and the shadows of 
 centuries fall in grotesque figures over your path. At the 
 very head of Canongate is Holyrood Palace, "a deserted 
 palace where no monarch dwells." Partly built in the six- 
 teenth century by James Y., it has locked in its now silent 
 tombs the history of Scottish royalty, from that date until 
 its overthrow. The most interesting portion of the palace 
 is that which contains the apartments of Queen Mary, the 
 loveliest woman of her age, the most unfortunate of her cen- 
 tury. Here are her private rooms of oak-finished panels, 
 tapestried walls, a fireplace of antique arabesque work, over 
 which is a painting of Venice, and the queen's bed, with its 
 hangings of crimson damask, with green silk fringes and 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 415 
 
 tassels. By the side of these historic chambers is the secret 
 staircase, by which the assassins of Rizzio approached the 
 royal rooms ; and at its top is the closet, where on the night 
 of the 9th of March, 1566, the unfortunate man was 
 stabbed, as he clung to the queen, and then, torn from her, 
 was hurried from the room, receiving nearly fifty wounds 
 by the daggers of the lords, before he fell at the head of the 
 staircase. Dark stains on the floor yet tell the story of 
 blood and crime. How strange the feelings which over- 
 come one, as he takes a glance at the stone step of the 
 altar, on which Mary knelt the ill-starred night she married 
 Darnley ; and then passing out into the court- yard, pauses, 
 in meditation of these awful times, before the grave of 
 Madeleine, the first wife of James V., by whom Scotland's 
 ill-fated destiny, for a period, was tied to Papal France. 
 
 One of the most interesting characters of history is this 
 Papal queen, Mary Stuart, whose royal father was as much 
 of a victim, as he was a willing tool, of the Scottish Papacy, 
 and whose mother belonged to a leading family of Papal 
 France, which long dominated in Romish intrigues, con- 
 spiracies and crimes in that country. When Mary was five 
 years old she was taken to the Priory on the island of 
 Inchmehome, in whose cloisters she could early begin her 
 Romish training. Her two teachers were, one a priest and 
 the other a prior. 
 
 AN AGE OF FRENCH DEBAUCHERY. 
 
 When Mary was six years old she was taken to France. 
 How ill a place for the education of the future monarch of 
 Scotland, was the French court and cloister, is understood, 
 if we remember the character of the court at Paris at this 
 time. The morals of the court are shown by the rebuke of 
 a Christian girl, as they were leading her to the stake : 
 
416 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 " Sir, had you found me in a brothel, as you find me now 
 in so holy and honorable a company, you would not have 
 used me thus." At this time the women of the French 
 court were profligate and vain, and had acquired complete 
 ascendency in the affairs of the realm, which enabled them, 
 for several reigns, to place and depose ministers, marshals 
 and judges, and to dictate the policy of the empire. It was 
 an age of debauchery. The wits and poets flocked to the 
 court to play in this loose society, and by their writings 
 helped to lower morals, and by unchaste songs and profane 
 epigram turned chastity into prudery. The court life was 
 made up of a mixture of four classes, lewd women, atheistic 
 bishops, servile wits, and scheming Papal courtiers. 
 
 The atheism, bigotry, and immorality breeded by this 
 court, began to prepare for the awful revolution which was 
 to come to France in the eighteenth century. 
 
 Such was the social and intellectual food, which mad- 
 dened the brain and inflamed the passionate heart of the 
 beautiful young girl. Her ecclesiastical and political asso- 
 ciations were equally bad. She was under her uncles, the 
 Duke of Guise and the Cardinal of Lorraine. These Papal 
 agents were deep in the plot for the extermination of the 
 French Protestants, and had as little sense of honor as they 
 had character, to their motives. They were men whose 
 chief characteristics may be looked for in the fox, the hyena, 
 and the wolf. It was a sorry day for Mary, and Scotland, 
 and almost the whole world, when she fell to their care and 
 training for a period of about eleven years. 
 
 Through these years, every kind of debauchery and every 
 form of murder furnished a daily cause for excitement, or 
 subject for jest about the court ; whilst Papal intrigues and 
 bigotries were the common topic for conversation at the 
 convent and in the homes of her uncles. 
 
1HE ROMAN PAPACY. 417 
 
 MARRIED TO AN IMBECILE. 
 
 Mary was sixteen, and to be married to an imbecile. She 
 was engaged to Francis, the most debauched of the sons of 
 the unprincipled Catherine de Medicis, and heir to the. 
 French throne. 
 
 INFAMOUS CRIME EXACTED. 
 
 Just before her marriage, Mary was induced to do a very 
 infamous thing. The king and her uncles took advantage 
 of her youth and inexperience. She was fairly forced to 
 sign three papers, the design of which was to further bind 
 Scotland to France, and the Papacy. The first of these 
 documents gave to the King of France, and his heirs, the 
 right of succession to the throne of Scotland, in case of her 
 death without giving birth to an heir. And, also included 
 in this paper, she signed away her claim, whatever it might 
 be, to the crown of England. In the second paper she 
 deeded to the French king, from the revenues of Scotland, 
 a million crowns of gold, which the king claimed, to meet 
 his bill for her expenses while she had been in France. By 
 the third paper she deprived herself of all future right to 
 change, or invalidate these documents. What a fraudulent 
 and diabolical measure this was, to be sure. Mary's uncles, 
 the Duke of Guise and the Cardinal of Lorraine, urged 
 these papers upon her favor. It is the testimony of Stephen- 
 son that she was completely under them. These docu- 
 ments were signed at Fontaineblau, and then Mary was 
 conducted to Paris for her marriage. 
 
 This was celebrated in an open pavilion in front of Notre 
 Dame, April 25, 1558, with pomp and show, quite to the 
 glory of the French people. It was a regal Papal affair, 
 there being present, besides cardinals, legates and arch- 
 bishops, eighteen bishops and mitred abbots. 
 
418 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 SAD RESULT OF PAPAL INTERMEDDLING. 
 
 Brilliant, beautiful, inconstant Mary was easily duped, 
 and the King of France, and her husband, soon led her in- 
 to a foolish act, which was to bring upon her the enmity of 
 Queen Elizabeth of England, but which was intended to be 
 a move in the interest of Prance, and against the Protest- 
 antism of England. Her right to the throne of England 
 rested upon the faintest possible ground and depended 
 upon possibilities so remote as to be hardly supposable ; 
 and any sensible person in her situation would have 
 given no thought to such a dream. But upon her mar- 
 riage with Francis, she was induced to place the arms 
 of England, in conjunction with the crest of Scotland, on 
 her private seal. This was serving notice to all the powers 
 that she had in mind a claim to the throne of England. 
 Poor Mary ! had she seen into the future, all the powers of 
 France could not have forced her to perform such an un- 
 wise act. By this performance she prepared the way for 
 the speedy beginning of her dark tragedy. When the 
 bishops of the Romish hierarchy in France, by the aid of 
 the king and her husband, led her to make use of the arms 
 of England on her own crest, and induced her to permit 
 herself to be called " Queen of England," they intended 
 that it should mean, that the Protestant Queen Elizabeth 
 was to be regarded as a bastard. And in this, these mis- 
 erable meddlers furnished the cause for this sad rivalry be- 
 tween the Scotch and English queens, which terminated in 
 the imprisonment of Mary and her death. 
 
 Fifteen months after her marriage, Mary's husband as- 
 cended the throne of France, under the title of Francis II. 
 The government was now practically given over to the Ro- 
 man Catholic Cardinal of Lorraine and the Duke of Gfuise. 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 419 
 
 The Jesuit Stephenson says : ' ' They ruled almost entirely 
 during Mary's reign, and it was no secret, that a ruling 
 principle with them was intolerance of Protestantism.-' 
 
 In little more than a year Francis II. was dead, and 
 Mary was a widow, and only eighteen, and her sorrows be- 
 gan, which, all through her life, were to be burdened by 
 great troubles, brought upon her wholly by her Popish ad- 
 visers. She would not even reply to the letters, which 
 came to her from Scotch nobles, without consulting her 
 uncles, whose influence here, as in all her affairs, was notice- 
 able, and in the interest of the Papacy. The Duke of 
 Guise wanted her to marry Don Carlos of Spain, which 
 would have greatly advanced the House of Guise, and 
 promoted the Papal ambitions. Admiral Coligny repre- 
 sented to the English ambassador that he feared the progress 
 had gone too far to be broken off. 
 
 THE QUEEN CONFESSES PAPAL POWER OVER HER. 
 
 Just before she left the country, in a conversation at St. 
 Germain, with the English ambassador, Mary admits she 
 had followed entirely her uncles and her husband, a,nd King 
 Henry ; and because of such counselors she had not treated 
 the Protestant Queen of England right, in the matter of the 
 treaty of Edinboro, and had declared herself Queen of Eng- 
 land, and used the arms of England along with her own 
 devise. 
 
 The time had arrived for Mary to return to her own 
 country, and become the acting Queen of Scotland. Both 
 the Protestant and Catholic nobles sent deputations to in- 
 vite her to the throne. Lesly was the commissioned leader 
 on the Roman Catholic side. On the occasion of his inter- 
 view with her, he took opportunity to excite her to anger 
 
420 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 against her Protestant subjects, and tried to persuade her 
 to entirely throw herself upon those who were of her own 
 religion. 
 
 After an absence of twelve years, and not yet twenty years 
 old, Mary lands at Leith, on her homeward journey, and 
 proceeds to Edinboro to take the sceptre. All parties and 
 every class gave her a welcome royal. She might have 
 been a ruler most popular, and equally loved, had she 
 taken a different course. But the black art of Jesuit di- 
 plomacy had charmed her, and she could not shake it off. 
 An ambassador from the French court appeared in Scot- 
 land, and laid before the Roman Catholic nobles a plan for 
 the renewal of the alliance of the two countries, under the 
 protectorate of the Papacy. 
 
 DANGER FROM ROMAN CATHOLIC RULERS. 
 
 The Roman Catholic nobles at once sought to compel the 
 queen to force the Catholic religion upon all her subjects. 
 They appealed to her uncles in France. And they wrote her 
 that if she should refuse to be guided by them, and render 
 herself subservient to their views, they would organize a 
 formidable party against her. This had the desired effect 
 and Mary was whipped into the policy. 
 
 During the Council of Trent, the Pope sent an envoy on 
 a secret mission to Mary. This Papal legate was sent 
 through the Provincial General of the Jesuits, and was him- 
 self a Jesuit. It was Nicholas de G-ouda. Mary secretly 
 received him, while the court was at church. The services 
 that day were of unusual brevity, and some of the court 
 ministers, returning unexpectedly, were about to usher the 
 English ambassador into the queen's cabinet room, when 
 a female sentinel suddenly pushed the envoy into a private 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 421 
 
 postern, under the tapestry, else he would have been de- 
 tected in his clandestine dealings with royalty, and arrested, 
 too, as a foreign intermeddler, from the Pope. 
 
 FAMOUS JESUIT INTERVIEW. 
 
 According to Stephenson, this de Gouda gives a full 
 report of his experiences in Scotland, in a letter preserved 
 in the Vatican chambers. By this letter we learn that it 
 was rumored in Scotland that a legate was to appear with 
 full powers of a Papal nuncio ; that the excitement was so 
 great that he had to be concealed upon his arrival ; that he 
 had to wait two months before he could see the queen ; that 
 the queen sent him word to appear at the palace at the hour 
 when her courtiers were at the sermon ; that he was secretly 
 received, and had a hurried interview with her; that in this 
 interview he assured her of the favor of the Pope, and ex- 
 horted her to remain faithful to the Church ; and further, 
 that he urged her to more severe measures in destroying 
 heresy, and that he carried important letters to the bishops, 
 which he could not deliver through personal fear. He re- 
 ports to the General of the Jesuit order how, in his opinion, 
 the country is to be brought back to the Catholic faith. 
 First, it was absolutely necessary that the queen should 
 marry a powerful Catholic prince ; next, she must have 
 Roman Catholics as chief officials and ministers of the gov- 
 ernment ; then the Pope should send a sufficient number of 
 legates, vested with full power, to enforce discipline ; lastly, 
 King Philip of Spain must be induced to promise aid to the 
 queen, against England. This Jesuit sneak took a number 
 of young men out of Scotland with him, and put them in 
 Jesuit training, in the Jesuit schools of Europe, and some 
 of these in after years became famous Jesuit conspirators. 
 
422 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 It may be reasonably presumed that Mary would have 
 extended both tolerance and protection to all the Protest- 
 ant interests but for the daily and excessive influence of 
 the Romish horde about her. There has nothing like it 
 appeared thus far in history. Her uncles, by special 
 agents and uninterrupted letters, the Pope, and his regular 
 installment of secret nuncios ; the Jesuits and their tools, 
 the Scotch bishop and cardinal ; and last, but not of least 
 power, the ugly and base Rizzio, who hung about the queen 
 like some spy on an errand from the devil. In spite of all 
 this, she gave some little evidence of showing regard for 
 the rights of the Protestant religion, which she found es- 
 tablished in the country upon taking the throne 
 
 CAUSE OF THE QUEEN'S BIGOTRY. 
 
 But Rome would not leave her alone, until Papal influence 
 inspired her with a favorite passion, and that was the re- 
 es tablishment of the Roman religion. This she promises the 
 Pope, who, upon her joining the league of Bayonne, dis- 
 patches a letter to her, by special nuncio, by whom he also 
 sends a present of twenty thousand crowns. This nuncio 
 was detained at Paris because of the intense feeling in the 
 country. The Pope also promised her a subsidy of eight 
 thousand crowns. In connection with all this, Mary was 
 encouraged in keeping up a dangerous correspondence with 
 leading foreign Catholics. As a result of all this she finally 
 declared, to the Protestant leaders, and in strong terms, 
 that it was her determination to restore in full the Catholic 
 religion. 
 
 One of the most aggravating influences over her, and 
 operating in the interest of bigotry and persecution, was 
 
THE ROM AX PAPACY. 423 
 
 that of the perpetual whipping in of the Romish leaders of 
 France, who urged upon her the policy of Mary Tudor of 
 England. She was queen of England preceding Elizabeth, 
 and her five short years on the throne were so intensely 
 Papal in fanaticism, tyranny and cruelty, that she won the 
 title of " Bloody Mary." Yet she is held up before the 
 Scotch queen as a model ; and to encourage her in the ways 
 of the English Mary, the Pope sent a large sum of money 
 to be used in making war upon the heretics. 
 
 CIVIL WAR PROVOKED. 
 
 While the French Papists are urging her to follow the 
 " Bloody Mary " of England, and destroy the Protestants, 
 one of her own nobles, the Roman Catholic Earl of Huntly, 
 is holding frequent meetings with her, devising some way 
 to restore the Papacy. He prevails upon her secretary, 
 Rizzio, who was in constant communication with the Cardi- 
 dinal of Lorraine and the Duke of Guise, to use all his 
 efforts upon the queen. Rizzio was Mary's confident. He 
 finally induced the queen to permit Huntly to undertake to 
 restore through the realm the Papal power. This led to 
 the War of the Nobles, and surely to the death of the de- 
 formed little Jesuit, Rizzio. 
 
 The troubled stream of her unhappy life seemed, natur- 
 ally, to sweep her into the marriage with Lord Darnley, her 
 cousin, and one of the Roman Catholic leaders. She had 
 the Pope's consent to this match, but did not seek the 
 assent of her parliament, or the approval of her country. 
 Upon her marriage with Darnley, she proclaimed that all 
 state documents and writs at law should be made in the 
 name of the king and queen. 
 
424 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 A CONFEDERATION" TO OVERTHROW LIBERTIES. 
 
 It was not her right to choose a husband without the con- 
 sent of parliament, and still more, had she no right to con- 
 ifer, by private authority, without act of parliament, the 
 title and dignity of king upon her husband. There could 
 *foe no stronger proof of the f oolhardiness of her advisers. 
 
 Darnley was low, unprincipled and profligate, and led his 
 royal wife into a life of deepening gloom, and it was to be 
 the night of gloom that knew no dawn. It was at this period 
 that the Pope' s envoy came from France, bearing a report 
 of the Papal conference at Bayonne, in France, between 
 Catherine de Medicis and Alva, arranging for the extermina- 
 tion of the Protestants throughout the earth. This was 
 with the approval of the Cardinal of Lorraine and Pope 
 Tins the IY. ; Mary was applied to for co-operation. She 
 promptly joined this confederation, formed for the destruc- 
 tion of the civil and religious liberties of Europe. She at 
 once grew more bitter towards the Protestant nobles. In 
 pursuing this Papal course, she made an immense contribu- 
 tion to her own future calamities, and a civil war in her own 
 country. 
 
 What murders and assassinations ! Eizzio was barbar- 
 ously cut down in the queen's chamber. Darnley soon 
 afterwards became the victim of the Earl of Murray, and 
 was blown up with gun powder. Mary soon marries one of 
 the conspirators, the Earl of Bothwell; in another three 
 years Murray, who was regent now, upon the forced abdi- 
 cation of the queen, was assassinated. He was succeeded 
 In the regency by the Earl of Lennox, who soon fell by the 
 shot of the assassin. The Earl of Morton became regent, 
 and was executed upon the elevation of James VI. to the 
 throne. 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 425 
 
 Mary's troubles, because of her Papal adherence, deepened 
 to the end. Certainly the leading cause of her own unhap- 
 piness and misfortunes, and the unutterable miseries she 
 entailed upon her country, was the vicious pressure of her 
 Popish masters. She knowingly permitted the Jesuit in- 
 stigators of war to travel about, stirring up the people to 
 rebel. The Jesuit, Hay, went spying about in Scotland at 
 one time, and made a report of his observations and con- 
 clusions to the Provincial General of the Jesuit order. In 
 this letter to his superior, he advises that members of the 
 order be sent into the northern district of Scotland ; and 
 that, upon the first occurrence of civil war, they should ac- 
 complish the expulsion of the Protestant ministers and 
 transfer all revenues, held by the heretics, to the Catholic 
 nobles. 
 
 VICTIM OF THE AECHBISHOP. 
 
 At last poor Mary finds herself in prison, in her own land. 
 She was held in the island castle of Lochleven. By her 
 rare charms she moved upon the keeper' s brother to effect 
 her escape. He procured the key, opened her door and the 
 castle gates, and then threw the key into the lake. She 
 fled to the west. In a few days a splendid train of nobles 
 and an army six thousand strong awaited her command. 
 It was a foolish thing, and the worst possible for poor Mary, 
 but her advisers were bent on a fight. The archbishop of 
 St. Andrews saw a chance to get the queen in his own 
 hands, and induce her to commit the affairs of the state to 
 himself. His ambition proved her greatest tragedy. 
 
 Near Dumbarton, on a hillside, stood Mary and watched 
 the engagement. When she saw the army, which was her 
 last hope, thrown into irretrievable confusion, her spirits 
 
426 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 sank within her. In the utmost consternation she began, 
 her flight, and ere she tarried she was sixty miles away in 
 the abbey of Drundrenan. 
 
 Her very fears drove her to take the most ill-advised and 
 unfortunate step of her life. She flew to England. 
 
 For almost twenty years this beautiful Queen of Scots 
 pined and fretted, but conspired and plotted, in English 
 castle prisons. These years were largely taken up with in- 
 trigues, more in the interest of the Papacy than in behalf 
 of herself. Most of them contemplate the dethronement of 
 Elizabeth and the re-establishment of Papal rulers for Eng- 
 land. The Pope and bishops, as well as kings and subjects, 
 were responsible for beguiling the fated queen with such vain 
 hopes, and implicating her in matters which were bound at 
 last to bring her to execution. Some of these plots we have 
 detailed in a former part of this work. 
 
 Mary' s responsibility in connection with them can easily 
 be seen, though it was a responsibility for which she was 
 not as blamable as were those she trusted for counsel. In 
 these plots of treason her own Church is seen to be her 
 greatest foe. 
 
 JESUIT PEOOFS. 
 
 It was asserted by the Jesuits, while Mary was confined 
 a prisoner in Sheffield Castle, that the English Roman 
 Catholics but awaited the help of a few thousand Spaniards 
 to hurl Elizabeth from the throne. To make this allowable 
 the Pope had excommunicated Elizabeth. It was planned 
 that Don John, brother of Philip King of Spain, should 
 lead the Spanish contingent. Don John had made a private 
 treaty with the court of Rome. The Pope had promised 
 him six thousand men and one hundred and fifty thousand 
 ducats for the English expedition. 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 427 
 
 THE KIDOLFI CONSPIRACY. 
 
 Five years before the Don John plot, King Philip had 
 been more hopeful. He had consented to the Ridolfi con- 
 spiracy, by which Elizabeth was to be assassinated, and by 
 the help of Spanish troops the Queen of Scots was to have 
 been elevated to the throne. Philip did not have a fond 
 attachment for Mary, but because of his attachment to the 
 Papacy he had agreed to it. Ridolfi was one of the most 
 cunning Jesuits of his day. With him the study of the 
 overthrow of constitutional government became a science. 
 He lived at London, under the character of a banker, and 
 was the agent for Philip and the Pope. Mary was in secret 
 correspondence with Philip, through the bishop of Loff. 
 Mary induced the Duke of Norfolk to have hopes of being 
 her future husband, if he would aid the Ridolfi scheme. 
 Ridolfi had frequent conferences with the duke. He told 
 him that the Pope had a large sum, ready to bestow on the 
 cause of destroying Elizabeth, liberating Mary, and seating- 
 her upon the throne. He further told him that Alva would 
 land ten thousand men not far from London. They were to 
 be brought from the Spanish contingency in the Nether- 
 lands. The Bishop of Ross urged the Duke of Norfolk to 
 secretly assemble a few of his followers, fall upon Elizabeth, 
 and await the uprising of the Catholic classes. The con- 
 spiracy was discovered. The Bishop of Ross, who it ap- 
 pears was a prime mover in every plot against Elizabeth, 
 was banished from the kingdom. The Spanish ambassador, 
 who likewise was implicated in this plot, was commanded 
 to leave. 
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A ROMAN CATHOLIC CONSPIRATOR. 
 
 In a short while, and suddenly, another plot was un- 
 covered. A Roman Catholic agent was taken into custody, 
 
428 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 and on his person two papers were found ; one of these con- 
 tained a sketch of all the English harbors, the other a list 
 of the most eminent Roman Catholics in the country. He 
 acknowledged that he had been in secret correspondence 
 with the Queen of Scots, and that there was a design to in- 
 vade England. He said that the Duke of Guise, uncle of 
 Mary, was to furnish the army and conduct the enterprise. 
 The Pope of Rome and the King of Spain were to supply 
 the money ; while the Spanish ambassador, Mendata, was 
 the instigating agent among the English Catholics. The 
 culprit in custody affirmed and denied the details of this 
 conspiracy in turn. That it was probably correct is shown 
 by an incident connected with the capture of the Jesuit, 
 Crichtum, who upon being taken into captivity, on a ship 
 under sail for Scotland, was seen to hastily tear into pieces 
 some papers in his possession, and throw them overboard ; 
 their recovery and patient patching together, revealed to 
 the government that they contained an account of a plot, 
 formed by the Duke of Guise and Philip of Spain, for in- 
 vading England. 
 
 In addition, a letter was found, written by the unfortu- 
 nate queen from her prison, to Sir Francis Inglefield, urging 
 him to hasten the execution of what she calls, "the great 
 plot or designment." 
 
 These repeated plots and conspiracies aroused the par- 
 liament, and drove it to the passage of an act, which was 
 sure to prove fatal to Mary. One more plot was hatched 
 out in the fertile Papal brain to liberate Mary and kill 
 Elizabeth. The parts were assigned to different parties. 
 To Babbington fell the task of rescuing Mary. Salisbury 
 had under his direction those who were to excite the Ro- 
 man Catholics to arms. While the murder of the English 
 queen, the most dangerous and important service, fell to 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 42& 
 
 the hands of Tichbourne and Savage, with their associates. 
 Without scruple or compulsion, they undertook a deed, or 
 rather a series of deeds, which the most depraved and profli- 
 gate might contemplate with a shudder. But they were 
 the trained and educated tools of the Romish Church, and 
 we are not surprised that they undertook such an enterprise.. 
 
 SAD EXECUTION OF THE QUEEN. 
 
 Upon the discovery of this last plot, in the interests of 
 the Papal Queen of Scots, some of the conspirators made 
 a full confession. The indignation of the nation was too 
 deep, and the throne had borne too long the many intrigues, 
 of the Roman Catholic party. A high commissioner' s court 
 tried Mary, sentenced her, and ordered her execution. 
 Neither the act, under which the trial was conducted, the 
 form of proceedings, nor the verdict, were to the honor of 
 the English queen, or to that of the nation. But the court 
 was driven to desperate ends, and the Roman Catholic 
 Church is greatly to be blamed for the fate of Mary. 
 
 JESUIT PAPEES FOUND BY FKOUDE. 
 
 Mr. Froude, in recent researches in the archives of Spain, 
 has unearthed some valuable letters, giving proof of the 
 terrible Papal intentions in England during this period. 
 Amongst these is a long communication from a Fr. Parsons, 
 who was a Jesuit leader of some prominence in England. 
 It is an epistle on the conditions in England, and is written 
 for the use of the Pope and the King of Spain. The ar- 
 chives of the Roman Catholic governments of Europe are 
 crowded with these evidences of Papal plots and treason, 
 and Romish pride, to an extent that almost prompts the 
 question, if these Popes and their vassals were human ? 
 
430 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 A portion of the letter of Parsons is intended to show 
 how the Jesuits were planning in England for the overthrow 
 of the government. It gives very conclusive proof of the 
 treasonable character of that order. Parsons proceeds to 
 say that England " contains fifty- two counties, of which 
 forty are well inclined to the Catholic. Heretics in these 
 are few, and are hated by all ranks. The remaining twelve 
 are infected more or less, but in even these the Catholics 
 are in the majority. Divide England into three parts ; two- 
 thirds at least are Catholic at l^eart, though many conceal 
 their convictions in fear of the queen. 
 
 "The enemies that we shall have to deal with are the 
 more determined heretics whom we call Puritans, and cer- 
 tain preachers of the queen, the Earls of Leicester and 
 Huntington, and a few others. They will have an advant- 
 age in the money in the treasury, the public arms and 
 stores, and the army and navy, but none of them have ever 
 seen a camp. They will fly at the first shot of war. They 
 have not a man who can command in the field. 
 
 u In the whole realm there are but two fortresses which 
 could stand a three days' siege. The people are enervated by 
 a long peace, and except a few who have served with the 
 heretics in Flanders cannot bear their arms. Of those few 
 some are dead and some have deserted to the Prince of Par- 
 ma, a clear proof of the real disposition to revolt. There is 
 abundance of food and cattle in the country, all of which will 
 be at our service and cannot be kept from us. Everywhere 
 there are safe and roomy harbors, almost all undefended. 
 An invading force can be landed with ease, and there will 
 be no lack of local pilots. Fifteen thousand trained soldiers 
 will be sufficient, aided by the Catholic English, though of 
 course the larger the force, particularly if it includes cav- 
 alry, the quicker the work will be done and the less the 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 431 
 
 expense. Practically there will be nothing to overcome 
 save an unwarlike and undiscip lined mob. 
 
 "The expenses shall be repaid to his Holiness and the 
 Catholic king, out of the property of the heretics and 
 Protestant clergy. There will be ample in these resources 
 to compensate all who give us their hand. But the work 
 must be done promptly." 
 
 PAPAL INFLUENCES ON THE QUEEN. 
 
 In analyzing the character and life of Mary Stuart, the 
 accomplished and beautiful, but unfortunate woman, whose 
 lot it was to be held in the cruel bondage of the despotic 
 Papal power, it may be said, that almost every one of her 
 wrong acts of great notoriety, her arrogant ways with the 
 country, and her avowed purpose to restore the political 
 supremacy of the Popes in Scotland, must be placed to the 
 credit of Papal influence over her, and that passionate, un- 
 stable character, which itself was of the product of Papal 
 training. 
 
 That she was taken to the court and convent of France, 
 when a child of six, and which thus early fostered upon 
 her life the Popish nightmare, was the work of Archbishop 
 Beaton, and her uncles in France. Her life for ten years 
 was leavened with the Romish spirit, and to such an extent 
 that she seemed to religiously hold that her career must be 
 devoted to the extermination of the Protestants in Scotland. 
 This fanaticism which bore such evil fruit in her life was 
 drilled into her in the Jesuit training schools about Paris. 
 
 The fated papers she was led to make over to the King 
 of France, in which she signed away the kingdom of Scot- 
 land, in the event of her death without issue, and w r hich she 
 did without the knowledge of the Scotch representatives at 
 
432 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 the French court, were the perfidious inventions of her Ro- 
 mish uncles, and the Papal king. And to these Papal di- 
 plomats, utterly lacking manliness of character and gener- 
 ous motives, may be traced the greater part of her sorrows 
 and sufferings. 
 
 Taking the title of Queen of England, and embossing the 
 English arms on her own crest, was a move designed to 
 serve the ambition of the Pope and the king, more than to 
 benefit Mary. In its practical effect it was a high insult 
 offered to England. 
 
 Her marriage with the weakest of the thirteen children 
 of Catherine, was the plan of the Roman bishops, rather 
 than the intuition of her own heart. 
 
 VICTIM AND TOOL OF THE PAPACY. 
 
 Her troubles and blunders, while she was on the Scotch 
 throne, almost wholly came because of bishops, legates, 
 nuncios and Jesuits, who hung about the court and spread 
 over the country in a way most derogatory, humiliating 
 and aggravating. These were urged and abetted by the 
 Pope, the Governor General of the Jesuits, and her uncles 
 in France. The presence of Rizzio at the Edinboro Court 
 was, from a consideration of mere public expediency, the 
 most unstatesmanlike, and shows Mary's complete submis- 
 sion to the positive will of the Papacy. This Rizzio was an 
 Italian musician, who had insinuated himself into the queen' s 
 favor, became her secretary, and in fact, if not in name, 
 her confidential minister and adviser of state. There can 
 be little doubt but Rizzio was a member of the Jesuit order, 
 and it appears evident that he was in the court of the queen 
 to do the will of that society. His character, manner, cun- 
 ning and work, all indicate this. If this be true, Queen 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 433 
 
 Mary was in the possession and under the subjection of the 
 Papacy in mind, body and soul, and is to be looked upon 
 as a victim, quite as much if not more than as a tool of the 
 Papal despotism. 
 
 Tolerance and justice might have been secured for both 
 religions in Scotland, under Queen Mary, if she had been 
 left alone with safe and fair advisers. The Dean of St. An- 
 drews — leader of the Protestant cause— secured in Parlia- 
 ment the right of the queen to the free exercise of the 
 Catholic religion for herself and her domestics. In return, 
 within six days, the queen issued a proclamation giving 
 royal assent to the rights of worship for the Protestants. 
 This may stand for what she might have been and done, 
 had she been less exposed to the influences of the Roman 
 Catholic hierarchy. 
 
 PAPACY THE ENEMY OF WOMAN. 
 
 Mary lacked that ballast of high motive, consistency and 
 honor, memorable in the character of great women, and 
 not found, as a rule, in Roman Catholic women of emi- 
 nence. 
 
 The Roman Papacy, which is head and heart, hand and 
 foot for the Roman Catholic Church, had failed in elevating 
 womanhood, until the Protestant centuries came in. It 
 was only then that the general standard of womanhood be- 
 gan to show signs of improvement. Up until that period 
 the Papal standard of womanhood was that of Pagan Rome. 
 The teaching of the Roman Papacy does not conduce to 
 high and lofty ideals of character in woman. Not only 
 does the arbitrary rule of the Papal system of religion bar 
 a full development of womanly motives and conduct, and 
 the confessional lure to the road of deception, with a ten- 
 
434 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 dency to break into that reserve of modesty most charming 
 in women, but the system of morals taught may well be 
 feared as hurtful to constancy and to unselfish honor. 
 
 :evils of confessional and celibate pkiesthood. 
 
 In " Den's Theology" — a leading work of authority in 
 Papal schools and councils — it is taught that a person who 
 wished to deceive another, may do so by mental reservation. 
 While according to Gfury — a Jesuit authority, equal to 
 Den — it is held, that if a person only has a good intention, 
 lie can make a bad action good. This is taught women in 
 the confessional. It is not at all difficult to see the likely 
 effect of such moral teaching upon character. Where the 
 higher felicities of womanly character are found in Roman 
 Catholic women, they are in spite of such teaching, and 
 not because of it. Womanhood is neither safe, nor does 
 It find expansion in the confessional and the celibate priest- 
 hood. The enforced celibacy of the Roman priesthood is 
 a standing menace to womanhood, as well as a needless 
 strain on the ecclesiastical order. It has produced concu- 
 binage. In other centuries this was more common. Dis- 
 pensations were granted authorizing ecclesiastics to keep 
 concubines. Men who regarded the protection of their 
 wives and daughters, judged the concubinary priest as less 
 likely to assault their own families ; and in this way it was 
 tolerated for prudential reasons. In Mexico, the South 
 American States and Roman Catholic lands generally, the 
 custom is still found. Canon Law, as recently published 
 under approval of the Pope, stipulates what price ecclesias- 
 tics who desire to keep concubines shall pay the Church. 
 This is logically prejudicial to a high moral tone in Papal 
 womanhood, as well as in manhood. 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 435 
 
 FAME AND INFAMY OF PAPAL WOMEN. 
 
 The system encourages illicit intercourse, and woman 
 suffers most. It is somewhat surprising how few are the 
 number of women, of eminence in good works, distinguished 
 for sterling character, known to fame, which are produced 
 under the Papal system. It must be said that, as a rule, 
 Papal women of high distinction and of whatever fame, 
 have usually matched that fame with their infamy. Most 
 of the famed women of Papal annals are strangely charac- 
 terized by ways of injustice, cruelty and crime. Among the 
 greatly famed families of the Roman Papacy, is that of 
 Boi-^a. This was a family of Spanish origin, which reached 
 its, ignominy of Papal eminence at Rome in the last half of 
 tiie fifteenth century. 
 
 q Pope Calixtus III., also Alexander VI., were members of 
 this family. When Alexander VI., began his reign as 
 Pontiff, he was the father of a number of children by a 
 Roman woman. Two of these, Cesare and Lucrezia, were 
 extraordinarily notorious for their immorality, in a court 
 which was extraordinary for its licentiousness in that ex- 
 traordinarily immoral fifteenth century. 
 
 Lucrezia was a woman of great beauty, but, if the legends 
 of the Papal court indicate the tone of her character, her 
 moral complexion was of the hue of her father and brother. 
 
 In the tenth century the powerful Theodora, concubine of 
 Pope John X., and her daughter Marozia, ruled the court of 
 the Popes for almost half a century. They were diplomatic 
 and talented, and governed both the Church and state to 
 their will. Rapacity, lust and cruelty chiefly characterized 
 their rule over the Popes. The wantonness in vice and 
 crime, which marked the reign of Theodora, placed her be- 
 
436 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 yond the circle of womanhood. She hardly appears to be 
 a woman, so much as some strange formation of prodigious 
 evil, incarnate in the female form. The very Pope who was 
 raised to the Pontifical chair by the mother, was deposed 
 and killed by the daughter ; and one was as dissolute, am- 
 bitious and despotic as the other, yet they were chosen, 
 honored women by the Papal Church of the day. No 
 council of bishops, or bench of cardinals, had aught to 
 complain of in their methods or character. 
 
 There was Matilda of Tuscany, one of the most noted of 
 the Papal women of the eleventh century, who was de- 
 scended from a race of Lombard nobles. She was early 
 trained to serve the Papacy with great devotion and subtle 
 tact. As she came into the possession of the dominion^bf 
 Tuscany, she threw all of her powerful influence against th>*> 
 schism, which was then greatly threatening the very exis'it 
 ence of the Papacy. With an utter lack of sympathy, 
 and giving no signs of possessing any of the common feel- 
 ings of humanity, she seems to us now, to have been ani- 
 mated by a spirit of cruelty, in dealing with those who were 
 opposed by the Popes. 
 
 She was the champion for several of the Pontiffs, and up- 
 held them in their unbridled course of crime and oppression. 
 She was regarded as the very special ally of Gregory VII., 
 who crushed the independence and manhood out of Henry 
 IV., of Germany, and kept him for days and nights in the 
 snow, begging for the pardon of the Pontiff. 
 
 HOW THE PAPACY SECURED TEMPORAL DOMINIONS. 
 
 The Castle of Canossa, before which the shameful scene 
 of humiliation and surrender of liberty was enacted, be- 
 longed to Matilda, and was a part of her hereditary posses- 
 
TEE ROMAN PAPACY. 437 
 
 sions. But for her, the Emperor of Germany, who had 
 sought some relief from the Papal tyranny for his people, 
 would not have been kept by the Pope on his knees in the 
 snow, doing penance, barefooted and bareheaded. It was 
 at this time Matilda gave her possessions to the See of 
 Rome. In this way the Papacy came into possession of 
 most of its temporal dominions, which have proven such a 
 cause of war and wrong. For this, and for this principally, 
 the Gfreat Countess of Tuscany may be remembered ! 
 
 THE BIGOTED ISABELLA. 
 
 Isabella of Spain is one of the best known zealots of 
 Home. In moral status her reign was notorious and in- 
 famous. During the war she conducted against the Moors 
 and Jews, the monkish zealots hung about her camps, and 
 fell into rapturous strains of glee, as they chronicled the 
 massacre of those who would not assent to the political and 
 religious faith of Rome. She was so wholly under the 
 thumb of the evil regime of the Papacy, that she was easily 
 induced by Cardinal Ximenes to persecute the Moors, be- 
 cause they would not comply with the Popish ways. He 
 led her to accept the horrid Papal doctrine, that to keep 
 faith with infidels, by which was meant the Moors, was to 
 break faith with God. He had her issue a decree, that the 
 Moors "must take baptism or exile." Her efforts to es- 
 tablish the Inquisition in her own Castile, and her decrees of 
 proscription against the Jews, as well as her persecution of 
 the Moors, tell the story of that bigotry which blunted so 
 grossly her moral sense of right. She had the making of 
 one of the best, as well as greatest, of queens. Rome blighted 
 that prospect, and under her one of the worst Papal perse- 
 cutions of her time was carried forward. The year that 
 
438 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 Columbus discovered America, Isabella issued her remark- 
 able decree of expulsion, sending three-quarters of a million 
 of her most thrifty people beyond the Spanish borders, at 
 the same time confiscating their property. And this was 
 simply done because they were Jews. By her orders two 
 hundred thousand Jews and Protestants suffered death. 
 And when the King of Portugal sought her daughter in 
 marriage, the artful and conscienceless Papal agent stipu- 
 lated, as a condition to her assent, that the Jews should be 
 expelled from Portugal. The ballad poetry and romantic 
 literature of that period have given a false glamour to the 
 queen of the chivalrous age in Spain. This same false esti- 
 mate is still made of Isabella, abetted by some modern light 
 writers, who, like Edward Everett Hale, seemed to write for 
 a purpose, rather than from a motive. Rather, let this 
 daughter of the Papacy be judged upon her own testimony. 
 This is the witness she bears of herself with evident satis- 
 faction. Near the end of her life she said : " In the love of 
 Christ, I have caused great misery, and have depopulated 
 towns and districts, provinces and kingdoms !" 
 
 A FAK-FAMED PAPAL WOMAN. 
 
 One of the far-famed women of the Papacy was Catherine 
 de Medicis, who caused more wanton bloodshed than any 
 woman of modern times, if not of all times. She was a mys- 
 tery of history. Certain and frequent of her acts indicate 
 that she was as devoid of the passions of hatred and malice, 
 as she was a stranger to those of love and sympathy. She 
 was as cold and crafty by nature, as she was cunning and 
 diplomatic by study. She was a very natural product of 
 the cold, cruel tyranny of the Papacy, which for genera- 
 tions of her family had gone on developing the brutal 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 439, 
 
 traits of character, and which ripened in Catherine in odor- 
 ous culmination. Lost to all principle, she was without 
 even constancy to her own religion. The selfish spirit of 
 the Papacy, working like the leaven through her ancestry, 
 settled in her bosom into a personal selfishness of the most 
 pronounced type. At times she seemed about to favor the 
 Huguenots, as she thought she saw a way to advance her 
 own ambitions. But such a move never gave any disposi- 
 tion of just motive on her part. She was a fully ripened 
 sample of the unscrupulous and selfish brutality of Papal 
 womanhood, made so by mental and moral forces whiek 
 were distinctly Romish. It is an open question, if she- 
 even felt any genuine emotions of love for right or for 
 country. She belonged to a foreign family, which had 
 never displayed any characteristics, or performed any acts 
 of patriotism. One of her most constant companions asserted 
 that she never displayed so much energy as in her efforts, 
 to deprave her own children. 
 
 Mary of England, another representative of Papal woman- 
 hood, was so highly esteemed by the Popish leaders, that 
 they held her up as a model to Mary Queen of Scots. This: 
 queen upon beginning her reign, promised the Protestants of 
 England she would do no violence to their religion. This 
 furnishes us with an additional instance of the perfidy of 
 Papal rulers, when under vows of clemency and protection. 
 Mary exhibited towards the Protestants an insatiable cruel- 
 ty. Most unrelenting in cruelty, and divesting herself of the 
 tenderness which characterized her sex, and crushing all 
 feeling of humanity, she urged fresh and more agonizing 
 methods of torture, and continued to send out her orders 
 
440 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 for the murder of her subjects, until her bigoted husband 
 turned in horror from the spectacle. 
 
 The persecution carried forward by her was the most 
 bitter in the annals of England. She declared her strict 
 allegiance to the Pope in temporal affairs, and then carried 
 out her profession by making the Roman bishop of Man- 
 chester Lord Chancellor of the realm, and then Prime Min- 
 ister. She ejected over one thousand Protestant ministers, 
 after promising to do their religion no violence. 
 
 Two thousand and eighty-eight persons were burned by 
 her orders. Among them were eminent men of piety and 
 learning, and the very saints of the land. Such were the 
 illustrious Ridley, Latimer and Cranmer. She was known 
 as the " Bloody Mary." It was during her reign that the 
 martyr' s fires of Smithfield were kept burning, to destroy 
 those who did not accord with the bigoted queen, whose 
 only conscience was the Pope's will. Upon Queen Eliza- 
 beth assuming the throne an address was delivered by a 
 nobleman, in which the " Bloody Mary" was spoken of in 
 the following plain language : 
 
 "0 cruelty! cruelty! far exceeding all cruelties com- 
 mitted by those ancient and famous tyrants and cruel mur- 
 derers, Pharaoh, Herod, Caligula, Nero, Domitian, Maxi- 
 mine, Dioclesian, Decius ; whose names for their cruel per- 
 secution of the people of G-od, and their own tyranny prac- 
 ticed on the people, have been, be now, and ever shall be 
 in perpetual hatred, and their souls in continual torments 
 of hell." 
 
 CONVENT AND CLOISTER WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 A typical class of women, developed under the favor and 
 teaching of Romanism, was that of the court women of 
 Prance, in the seventeenth century. They had their child- 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 441 
 
 hood training in the Roman Catholic home, their schooling 
 and drilling in convent and cloister. Their intellectual and 
 social accomplishments have never been surpassed, their 
 beauty of face and figure rarely, if ever, equaled ; while as 
 able and eloquent conversationalists, they could be matched 
 by the royal ladies of no court in Christendom. But with 
 all this to their advantage, they loved the forbidden things 
 which were under the ban of every law of right, justice and 
 chastity. They were women of rare combinations of men- 
 tal tact and talent, with social culture and grace. But we 
 mast not look too closely into their lives, if we do not 
 want to lose faith in their sex, when wholly under the in- 
 fluence of the confessional of the Eomish priesthood. In 
 their moral code there was no place, apparently, for the 
 manners, language or dress of modesty. They seldom showed 
 any conscience, and never any hesitancy, when vice ap- 
 peared in an attractive and theatrical form. Two notable 
 exceptions are to be made in this wonderful and wonderful- 
 ly large collection of eminent women of Papal education 
 and devotion, identified with the French court life of the 
 seventeenth century. One was Marie Therese, gentle, vir- 
 tuous and resigned. Not a very strong woman, but one 
 against whom not a well authenticated breath of scandal 
 blew. The other was Madame de Maintenon, who, how- 
 ever, came from an old Protestant family, and in early child- 
 hood was under the influence of a worthy Protestant home, 
 and who truly, in some measure, redeems the low cause of 
 religion and morality at court. 
 
 As for the couple dozen others, who shone magnificently 
 in wit and intellect, and equally shameful in those adven- 
 tures where honor never appears, and virtue and justice 
 have no place, they were an unprincipled set of wolves. 
 
 They were enchantresses, charmers, witches of beauty, 
 
442 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 and very Spartans at wit. And while they were vivacious, 
 infatuating, and intellectual, they were at the same time 
 utterly lacking in the solidity of character, and the 
 principles and constancy of virtue, and were mere devoted 
 to the wild and vicious ambitions of the Papacy, than to 
 graces of personal religion ; and withal they displayed more 
 energy in causing misery and suffering than they did in 
 allaying human woes. 
 
 Such women as Lady Montespan, and the Marquise de 
 Pompadour, the one a glutton and gourmand, the other a 
 voluptuous grisette, were representations of this horde of 
 flirting, ambitious, intriguing and licentious female papists, 
 who made laws, country and honor alike submit to their 
 supreme and carnal selfishness. 
 
 EUGENIE BEINGS WAR TO FRANCE. 
 
 Eugenie of France was a Papal lady of the Spanish type, 
 enjoying high approval at the court of Rome. She was the 
 wife of Louis Napoleon, and was ' c a frivolous Spanish 
 bigot," placed by the Emperor at the head of the French 
 court. Her fidelity to the Pope accounts for the heavy 
 hand she raised and let fall upon the Protestants. She was 
 the upholder of the Jesuits, and was the power behind the 
 throne in the policy of Napoleon towards Italy, Mexico 
 and Prussia. She must be looked upon as the leading 
 cause which led France into war with Prussia. And it was 
 because she was an obedient Papal empress, that she was 
 ready to become that moving cause. As the Franco-Prus- 
 sian war opened, Eugenie tragically exclaimed, "This is my 
 war!" Had she obeyed her conscience, rather than Pope 
 Pius IX. and the Jesuits, she might have spent a 
 
TEE ROMAN PAPACY. 443 
 
 happy life as the first lady of a great land, preserved her 
 husband's throne, saved Mexico a revolution, and France a 
 ruinous and humiliating war. 
 
 ATTEMPT OF PAPAL GOVERNMENT IN MEXICO. 
 
 And there was Carlotta, the victim of a Pope and a king, 
 and all because an ardent devotee of the Papacy. Carlotta 
 was the wife of Maximillian, who attempted, at the bidding 
 of Rome, to establish in Mexico, some thirty years ago, a 
 Papal government. She was a woman worthy of her sex 
 in feeling and a high sense of right. But she was married 
 to a child of the Papacy, while she herself was brought 
 under the personal influence of the Pope, and the French 
 Emperor, Louis Napoleon. She was led into the terrible 
 conspiracy to overthrow one government in the new world, 
 if not two. As the wife of Maximillian, and because of her 
 relation to the Papacy, she played a guilty part in the at- 
 tempt to establish a Papal government in Mexico. The 
 attempt proved abortive. When utter failure opened her 
 eyes to the enormity of the crime, into which she had been 
 led by her Papal advisers, she saw the act of betrayal, and 
 in that hour of her fall she upbraided Emperor and Pope, 
 and charged them with being the cause of her unhappiness 
 and humiliation. From that day dates the overthrow of 
 the reason of Carlotta. The sad life of this woman is a 
 powerful piece of argument against the ways of the Papacy. 
 
 Two hundred years ago a council of six hundred bishops 
 satin deliberate consideration over the question, " Shall 
 women learn the alphabet?" and out of the six hundred 
 bishops in attendance at the council, five hundred and ninty- 
 five voted against the proposition. It is not known that 
 any council has ever rescinded this action. 
 
444 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 PAPAL LAW DECLAKES WOMEN INCONSTANT. 
 
 In the Canon Law of the Roman Catholic Church, pub- 
 lished under the authority of the Pope, and declared to be 
 a complete work on Canon Law for the English Catholic 
 world, it is held that women are not competent witnesses 
 in certain cases in court, for the reason that, "Woman, by 
 her very nature, is inconstant and changeable ;" it is held 
 that when her testimony must be taken it shall be considered 
 suspicious. 
 
 The most eminent women, which are developed under 
 the Papal system and the teaching of the Papal Canon 
 Law, show a type of womanhood not many removes above 
 that of Roman Pagan womanhood. The womanhood up- 
 held, and most favored by the Roman Church in the six- 
 teenth century, was about one with that of early Pagan 
 Rome, where Salust says : " Men and women laid aside all 
 regard to chastity, and trampled on modesty and conti- 
 nence." Nothing was more ridiculed than matrimonial 
 fidelity. This grew so bad that women of rank enrolled 
 their names in public registers, as connected with the im- 
 moral classes ; and this was without any sacrifice to their 
 •social standing. Under Pagan Rome woman became de- 
 praved, because she had first been degraded, and such is 
 precisely true in Papal Rome. The above quoted law of 
 the Roman Catholic Church, in regard to the incompetency 
 of women in testimony, reads like a direct reflection of the 
 teaching and practice of Roman Paganism, on the same 
 subject. This idea of the insincerity and inferiority of 
 woman, as made in Roman Catholic Canon Law, comes 
 from Pagan Rome. The Pagan teacher, Grains, says it is 
 "on account of her levity of mind ;" and Cicero says it is 
 "on account of her infirmity of judgment." While Seneca 
 declares that "woman is an inconsiderate animal." v 
 
THE ROMAN PAPACY. 445 
 
 In the crime charged by the Papacy against Wyclif, was 
 the specification that he laid the Bible ' ' open to the laity 
 and to woman. And in this way the gospel pearl is cast 
 abroad, and trodden under foot of swine. " 
 
 PAGAN IDEA OF WOMAN IS HELD. 
 
 This was in accord with the Pagan conception of woman. 
 Here, as in many of her forms of religion, the Roman Catho- 
 lic Church seems but a paganized form of Christianity. 
 
 The Roman Catholic system is not conducive to morality, 
 when working upon certain temperaments, because it gives 
 too much prominence to the operation of human appliances 
 for sin. 
 
 The best type of woman yet developed, is that of Pro- 
 testant production. Those who have attained, under Pro- 
 testant culture, the eminence of fame, for loftiness of char- 
 acter, richness of motive, and greatness of work, are not 
 found submissive surfs in the service of the Papacy. 
 
 NAMES IMPOSSIBLE IN THE PAPAL CHUKCH. 
 
 It will be difficult — allowing two or three exceptions of 
 possible claim — to find in all the Papal Church any names 
 which shine as the brightness of the stars, for clearness of 
 light and goodness of service, and distill such fragrance of 
 life, pure, beautiful and sweet, as do multitudes of names, 
 which give glory to our Protestant system, as Mary Somer- 
 ville, Elizabeth Frye, Jenny Lind, Florence Nightingale, 
 Lucretia Mott, Harriet Beecher Stowe; — the list might be 
 run into weary length — are unmatched, in all Papal annals, 
 for lofty aims, great conceptions of duty unsavored with 
 selfishness ; motives without a flaw ; sacrifice and devotion, 
 reaching a point beyond which their principles have not 
 
446 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 yet risen on earth except in the Nazarene; while their accom- 
 plishments of great works on a scale most wonderful. 
 
 Such a name as Mary Bosauquet is quite an impossibil- 
 ity in the Papal Church. This extraordinary woman lived 
 in the middle of the eighteenth century in England, and 
 was one of the most remarkable women of history. Belong- 
 ing to one of the most wealthy and aristocratic families, 
 she early developed a piety and learning which, with her 
 queenly manners and ways, made her a figuresoon known 
 over the land. Her life of consecration, philanthropy, 
 greatness of accomplishments, and beautiful withal, has 
 few parallels. Such a saint is not found in the Roman cal- 
 endar. The Papal garden grows no such plants. The chief 
 saint of the monkish orders is St. Anthony. An English 
 wit renders in line that monk's evil deeds with, and wrong 
 conception of, woman. A single verse indicates his views : 
 
 " There are many devils which walk this world, 
 
 Devils great and devils small, 
 
 Devils short and devils tall, 
 Bold devils which go with their tails unfurled ; 
 Sly devils which carry them quite uncurled, 
 
 But a laughing woman with two bright eyes, 
 
 Is the worstest devil of them all." 
 
THE PURITAN PATRIOT. 
 
 " The breaking waves dashed high 
 On a stern and rock-bound coast ; 
 And the woods, against a stormy sky, 
 Their giant branches tossed. 
 
 41 And the heavy night hung dark, 
 The hills and waters o'er, 
 When a band of exiles moved their bark 
 On the wild New England shore. 
 
 " Amidst the storm they sang, 
 
 'Till the stars heard, and the sea ; 
 And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang 
 To the anthem of the free. 
 
 " Yes, call that holy ground 
 
 Which first their brave feet trod ! 
 They have left unstained what there they found — 
 Freedom to worship God." 
 
Are the Popes responsible 
 for bloodshed and war? 
 
 Whenever kings have been deposed by the Roman 
 Pontiffs, the result has been bloody and civil wars ; where- 
 fore the Pope has only produced causes of war, and giv- 
 en a pretext and color to ambition and rebellion, and in- 
 volved the whole world in the flames of war ; and, in a 
 word, these depositions of the kings by the authority of 
 the Pope have never been of the least use, but have 
 caused immense odium and injury. 
 
 Bossuet. 
 
APPENDIX A. 
 
 Eloquent passages from the declarations of great think- 
 ers and brave, showing the common view in which the 
 Papacy is held : 
 
 MRS. BROWNING. 
 
 (On demanding liberty for enlightened Italians.) 
 
 Rise up, teacher ! here's 
 A crowd to make a nation ! best begin 
 
 By making each a man, till all be peers 
 Of earth's true patriots and pure martyrs in 
 
 Knowing and daring. Best unbar the doore 
 Which Peter' s heirs kept locked so overdose 
 
 They only let the mice across the floors, 
 While every churchman dangles, as he goes, 
 
 The great key at his girdle, and abhors 
 In Christ' s name meekly. Open wide the house, 
 
 Concede the entrance with Christ's liberal mind, 
 And set the tables with his wine and bread. 
 
 What ! " Commune in both kinds V\ In every 
 kind — 
 Wine, wafer, love, hope, truth, unlimited, 
 
 Nothing kept back. For, when a man is blind 
 To starlight, will he see the rose is red ? 
 
 A bondsman shivering at a Jesuit's foot — 
 " Vce ! mea culpa /" — is not like to stand 
 
 (449) 
 
450 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 A freedman at a despot's, and dispute 
 
 His titles by the balance in his hand, 
 Weighing them ''suojure." Tend the root, 
 
 If careful of the branches, and expand 
 The inner souls of men before you strive 
 
 For civic heroes. 
 
 Whatever hand shall grasp this oriflamme, 
 Whatever man (last peasant or first pope seeking 
 to free his country) shall appear, . . . 
 
 I hold that he surpasses all the rest 
 Of Romans, heroes, patriots ; and that when 
 
 He sat down on the throne, he dispossest 
 The first graves of some glory. See again, 
 
 This country-saving is a glorious thing ! 
 And if a common man achieved it ? Well. 
 
 Say, a rich man did ? Excellent. A king \ 
 That grows sublime ! A priest % Improbable. 
 
 A pope \ Ah, there we stop. 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING. 
 
 (On the Confessional.) 
 
 It is a lie — their Priests, their Pope, 
 Their Saints, their ... all they fear or hope, 
 Are lies, and lies — there ! through my door 
 And ceiling, there ! and walls and floor, 
 There, lies, they lie, — shall still be hurled 
 Till spite of them I reach the world ! 
 
 You think priests juat and holy men ! 
 Before they put me in this den 
 
APPENDIX A. 451 
 
 I was a human creature too, 
 With flesh and blood like one of you, 
 A girl that laughed in beauty's pride * 
 Like lilies in your world outside. 
 
 SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 (On absolution.) 
 
 Though you and all the kings of Christendom, 
 Are led so grossly by this meddling priest, 
 Dreading the curse that money may buy out, 
 And by the merit of vile gold, dross, dust, 
 Purchase corrupted pardon of a man 
 Who, in that sale, sells pardon from himself — 
 Though you and all the rest so grossly led, 
 This juggling witchcraft with reverence cherish ; 
 Yet I alone, alone do me oppose 
 Against the Pope ; and count his friends my foes. 
 
 King John, iii. i. 
 
 (On priestly immorality.) 
 
 This Cardinal is more haughty than the devil. 
 
 i Henry VI. i. 3. 
 
 Under my feet I'll stamp the Cardinal's hat, 
 In spite of Pope, or dignitaries of Church. 
 
 i Henry VI. iii. 3. 
 
 Presumptuous priest ! this place commands my 
 
 patience, 
 Or thou should' st find thou hast dishonored me. 
 Think not, although in writing I preferred 
 The manner of thy vile, outrageous crimes, 
 That therefore I have forged, or am not able, 
 
452 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 Verbatim, to rehearse the method of my pen : 
 No, prelate ! such is thy audacious wickedness, 
 Thy lewd, pestiferous, and dissentious pranks. 
 As very infants prattle of thy pride. 
 
 Thou art a most pernicious usurer, 
 Froward by name, enemy to peace ; 
 Lascivious, wanton, more than well beseems 
 A man of thy profession and degree ; 
 And for thy treachery, what's more manifest? 
 
 i Henry VI. iii. I. 
 
 (On Indulgence.) 
 
 Stand back, thou manifest conspirator : 
 Thou, that contrived' st to murder our dead lord I 
 Thou, that giv'st whores indulgence to sin ! 
 I'll canvass thee in thy broad Cardinal's hat, 
 If thou proceed' st in this thine insolence. 
 
 i Henry VI. 3. 
 
 BISMARCK. 
 
 (On Papal Interference.) 
 
 The Papacy has been a political power, which with the 
 greatest audacity, and with the most momentous conse- 
 quences has interposed with the affairs of this world. This 
 Pope, this foreigner, this Italian, is more powerful in this 
 country (Germany, 1875,) than any other one person, not 
 excepting the king. 
 
 GLADSTONE. 
 
 (On ecclesiastical supremacy, 1874.) 
 
 Home requires a convert who joins her to forfeit his moral 
 and mental freedom, and to place his loyalty and civil duty 
 
APPENDIX A. 453 
 
 at the mercy of another. The Romish Church alone arro- 
 gates to herself the right to speak to the State, not as a 
 subject, but as its superior, setting up a rival law against 
 the State in the State's own domain, and then claiming for 
 it, with a higher sanction, the title to similar coercive 
 means of enforcement. 
 
 JOHN KNOX. 
 
 (To the French ambassador, Du Croc, upon hearing the news of 
 St. Bartholomew's day.) 
 
 Go, tell your king that sentence has gone against him ; 
 that God's vengeance shall never depart from him nor his 
 house ; that his name shall remain an execration to the 
 posterities to come, and of his loins none shall enjoy that 
 kingdom unless he repent. 
 
 MACAULAY. 
 
 (On the Roman Church a barrier to general progress.) 
 
 During the last three centuries, the chief object of the 
 Roman Catholic Church has been to stunt the growth of 
 the human mind. Throughout Christendom, whatever ad- 
 vance has been made in knowledge, in freedom, in wealth 
 and in the arts of life, has been made in spite of her, and 
 has everywhere been in inverse proportion to her power. 
 
 VICTOR HUGO. 
 
 (In reply to the attempt of the priestly party in France to con- 
 trol the education of the French youth.) 
 
 Ah, we know you ! We know the clerical party ; it is 
 an old party. This it is which has found for the truth 
 those two marvelous supporters, ignorance and error. This 
 it is which forbids to science and genius the going beyond 
 
454 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 the Missal, and which wishes to cloister thought in dogmas. 
 Every step which the intelligence of Europe has taken has 
 been in spite of it. Its history is written in the history of 
 human progress, but it is written on the back of the leaf. 
 It is opposed to it all. This it is which caused Prinelli to 
 be scourged for having said that the stars would not fall. 
 This it is which put Campanella seven times to torture for 
 saying that the number of worlds was infinite, and for hav- 
 ing caught a glimpse at the secret of creation. This it 
 is which persecuted Harvey for having proved the cir- 
 culation of the blood. In the name of Jesus it shut up 
 Galileo. In the name of St. Paul it imprisoned Christo- 
 pher Columbus. To discover a law of the heavens was an 
 impiety ; to find a world was a heresy. This it is which 
 anathematized Pascal in the name of religion, Montaigne 
 in the name of morality, Moliere in the name of both mor- 
 ality and religion. For a long time the human conscience 
 has revolted against you and now demands of you " What 
 is it that you wish of me ?" For a long time already you 
 have tried to put a gag upon the human intellect ; you 
 wish to be the masters of education, and there is not a poet, 
 not an author, not a thinker, not a philosopher that you 
 accept. All that has been written, found, dreamed, deduced, 
 inspired, imagined, invented by genius, the treasure of civ- 
 ilization, the venerable inheritance of generations, the com- 
 mon patrimony of knowledge, you reject. There is a book 
 — a book which is from one end to the other an emanation 
 from above ; a book which contains all human wisdom il- 
 luminated by all divine wisdom — a book which the venera- 
 tion of the people call the Book — the Bible ! . Well, your 
 censure has reached even that — unheard of thing ! Popes 
 have proscribed the Bible. How astonishing to wise spirits ; 
 how overpowering to simple hearts to see the finger of 
 
APPENDIX A. 455 
 
 Rome placed upon the Book of God ! Now you claim the 
 liberty of teaching. Stop ; let us see your pupils. Let us 
 see those you have produced. What have you done for 
 Italy % For Spain ? The one in ashes, the other in ruins. 
 
 PARLIAMENT OF PARIS. 
 
 (Its acts of accusation and judgment against the Jesuits.) 
 
 August 6th, 1761, the parliament condemned the general 
 of the Jesuits, and, in his person, the whole society which 
 he governed ; also a quantity of publications by the Jesuits, 
 dating from the year 1590 downward. The accusation 
 brought against these books was, that they taught " abom- 
 inable and murderous doctrine, of justifying sedition, rebel- 
 lion and regicide. They were forbidden to give instruction, 
 private or public, in theology, philosophy or humanity, 
 and ordered their schools and colleges to be closed. 
 
 The final act was taken a year later, August, 1761, when 
 the parliament sentenced that the " Society was inadmissi- 
 ble, by its nature, in any civilized state, inasmuch as it was 
 contrary to the law of nature. Subversive of authority, 
 spiritual and temporal, and introduced, under the veil of 
 religion ; a political body, of which the essence consists in 
 perpetual attempts to attain, first, absolute independence, 
 and in the end, supreme authority." 
 
 LORD PALMERSTON. 
 
 (Many years Prime Minister of England.) 
 
 All history tells us that wherever the Romish priesthood 
 has gained a predominance, there the utmost amount of 
 intolerance is invariably the practice. In countries where 
 they are in the minority they instantly demand, not only 
 
456 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 toleration, but equality ; but in countries where they pre- 
 dominate they allow neither toleration nor equality. 
 
 SIR WILLIAM BLACKSTONE. 
 
 The priests would have engulfed all the real estate of 
 England. It took centuries to protect and perfect the na- 
 tions against their rapacity and schemes to avoid the 
 statutes. 
 
 THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 (On Jesuitism.) 
 
 For some two centuries the genius of mankind has been 
 dominated by the gospel of Ignatius Loyola, the poison- 
 fountain from which these rivers of bitterness that now sub- 
 merge the world have flowed. Long now have the Eng- 
 lish people understood that Jesuits proper, are servants 
 to the Prince of Darkness. 
 
 JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE. 
 
 (On universal sovereignty.) 
 
 More than ever the assumptions of the Holy See are per- 
 ceived to rest on error or on fraud. The doctrines of the 
 Catholic Church have gained only increased improbability 
 from the advance of knowledge. Her history in the light 
 of critical science is a tissue of legend woven by the de- 
 vout imagination. Yet the Roman Church has once more 
 shot up into visible and practical consequence. Her hierar- 
 chy, in England and America, have already compelled the 
 State to consult their opinions and respect their pleasure ; 
 while each step that is gained is used as a vantage-ground 
 
APPENDIX A. 457 
 
 from which to present fresh demands. Hildebrand, in the 
 plenitude of his power, was not more arrogant^in his claim 
 of universal sovereignty than the present wearer of the tiara. 
 
 JOSEPH PARKER, OF LONDON. 
 
 What I do know is, that the Papist is under bond to obey 
 the Pope. This is the very essence of Popery. Either the 
 Pope means what he says, or he does not mean it. The late 
 Pope of Rome is represented by Cardinal Manning as say- 
 ing: " I acknowledge no civil superior, and I claim more 
 than this : I claim to be the supreme judge on earth, and 
 director of the consciences of men — of the peasant that tills 
 the field, and the prince that sits on the throne ; of the 
 household that lives in the shade of privacy, and the legis- 
 lature that makes laws for kingdoms. I am the last su- 
 preme judge on earth of what is right and wrong." 
 
 I am not beguiled by rhetoric when I characterize Papal 
 history as a record of superstition, tyranny and bloodshed. 
 And Popery never alters. If Popery has ever extended 
 the liberties of the people, I call for the evidence. If Popery 
 has ever led the nations in healthy thought and democratic 
 progress, I call for the evidence. The history of Papacy 
 has been as a roll written within and without with moan- 
 ing, lamentation and woe. 
 
 LA FAYETTE. 
 
 If the liberties of the American people are ever destroyed, 
 they will fall by the hands of the Roman clergy. 
 
 BANCROFT. 
 
 (On Roman Catholics in the Revolution.) 
 
 The great mass of the members of the Roman Church, 
 who were then about one in seventy-five of the whole pop- 
 
458 THE ROM AX PAPACY. 
 
 ulation, followed the influence of the Jesuits, in whose 
 hands the direction of them still remained, and who 
 cherished distrust of the influences of the American Revo- 
 lution . In Philadelphia, Howe had been able to form a regi- 
 ment of the Roman Catholics. With still better success 
 Clinton courted the Irish, and allured them to a combina- 
 tion directly adverse to their own interests, and raised for 
 Lord Rowdon a large regiment, in which officers and men 
 were exclusively Irish. Among them were nearly five hun- 
 dred deserters from the American army. 
 
 WASHINGTON. 
 
 Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence, the jeal- 
 ousy of a free people ought ever to be constantly awake, 
 since history and experience prove that foreign influence is- 
 one of the most baneful foes of republican government. 
 
 LYMAN BEECHER. 
 
 (On the great conflict between Americanism and foreignism.) 
 
 Must Catholics have all the liberties — their own and ours 
 too ? I protest against that unlimited abuse which it is 
 thought quite proper to round off declamatory periods 
 against the religion of those who fought the battles of the 
 Reformation and the battles of the Revolution ; and that 
 sensitiveness and liberality which would shield from ani- 
 madversion and spread the mantle of charity over a relig- 
 ion which never prospered, but in alliance with despotic 
 governments, has always been, and still is, the inflexible 
 enemy of liberty, of conscience and free inquiry, and at 
 this moment is the mainstay of the battle against republi- 
 can institutions. A despotic government and despotic 
 
APPENDIX A. 459 
 
 religion may not be able to endure free inquiry, but a 
 republic and religious liberty cannot exist without it.. 
 
 HON. W. J. STILLMAN. 
 
 (United States Consul at Rome, on Papal persecution in Rome 
 in 1864.) 
 
 I can conceive of no system of torture worse than this 
 terrible espionage under which every patriot lay, fearful 
 of his own breath, one scarcely daring to speak to an- 
 other, except in tropes and innuendoes. They suffered 
 the penalty of crime for wishing merely to be free. Had 
 it not been for the system of counter-espionage kept up by 
 the Roman committee on the government, no liberal could 
 have lived in Rome. 
 
 RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 Expel the Bible from our schools ! Never, so long as a 
 piece of Plymouth Rock remains big enough to make a 
 gun-flint out of. 
 
 JOSEPH COOK. 
 
 My impression is, that Massachusetts law ought to be 
 made in Massachusetts, and not on the Tiber. I want peace 
 with all members of society ; but I want first purity. It 
 cannot be, it never will be, that the American people will 
 submit to have Canon Law enforced over American law. 
 
 PROF. MORSE. 
 
 (Inventor of the telegraph and Minister to Rome, writing forty 
 
 years ago.) 
 
 And now what prevents the interference of Catholics as 
 a sect in the political elections of the country ? They are 
 organized under their priests. Do not Catholics of the 
 
460 THE ROMAN PAPA CY. 
 
 present day use the bonds of religious union to effect political 
 objects in other countries ? Did not the Pope interfere in 
 Poland in the late revolution, and through the priests com- 
 mand submission to the tyranny of the Czar? At the 
 moment I am writting, are not monks and priests leaders in 
 the fields of battle in Spain, in Portugal % Is not the Pope 
 encouraging the troops of Don Miguel, and exciting priests 
 and people to arms in a civil contest ? Has Popery aban- 
 doned its ever busy meddling in the politics of the countries 
 where it obtains foothold \ 
 
 HON. HENRY W. BLAIR. 
 
 (On the floor of the Senate, Feb. 15th, 1888.) 
 
 Upon this very floor soon after we had passed this bill, 
 full two years ago, and while it was in the hands of a 
 packed committee in the House of Representatives, where 
 it was finally strangled — on this very floor a Senator showed 
 me a letter which I read with my own eyes, the original 
 letter of a Jesuit priest, in which he begged a Member of 
 Congress to oppose this bill, and to kill it, saying, that they 
 had organized all over the country for its destruction ; that 
 they succeeded in the committee of the House, and they 
 would destroy the bill inevitably ; and if they had only 
 known it early enough, they could have prevented its pass- 
 ing through the Senate. They have begun in season this 
 time. 
 
 LEONARD BACON, D. D. 
 
 I will tell you where you will find the true exponent of 
 Romanism. Wherever you can get a mob of Irishmen to 
 break up a Sunday school, and assail the children in the 
 streets, there is the infallible, the immutable doctrine of 
 the Church of Rome, the application of physical force as 
 pertaining to religion. 
 
APPENDIX A. 4QI 
 
 ARTHUR CLEVELAND COXE. 
 
 (Episcopal Bishop of Western New York.) 
 
 The Jesuits still engage in commercial enterprises on a 
 large scale. They have recourse to a third party, whom 
 they empower to act for them, giving to it their money and 
 immense influence. At the present moment the Jesuits are 
 at the head of a number of banking houses in the Old 
 World and in the New. Singly, or as partners, they own a 
 whole fleet of clippers, which ply on the Brazilian line, of 
 which the port of connection is Bordeaux. At Havre they 
 have again a still more considerable interest in the super- 
 vision^ ship-yards and the transportation of emigrants. 
 Lastly, they own the best iron works in France, at Bessezes, 
 and Alais. In California they have gold mines, and one en- 
 tire street in San Francisco has become their property. 
 They can carry on their most extensive operations in loan 
 transactions at the rate of 30, 40, 50, 100, and 200 per cent. 
 The Pope of Rome is governed absolutely by the Jesuits, 
 or the court of Rome. This court is generally ignorant, 
 narrow, and circumscribed, and knows less of this country 
 than we know of the moon. When this court attempts to 
 interfere with an American institution we have a right to 
 feel insulted. We must remind the court of Rome that un- 
 til the rightful power of King Humbert was established over 
 Italy, the states, and the Church basking in the sunlight of 
 the Pontifical presence, were the most thoroughly illiterate 
 of all the states of Europe that were not largely barbarian. 
 That that court should declare itself the arbiter in all ques- 
 tions affecting the morals of the nation, and should dictate 
 to this American people, with all its light and intelligence, 
 certainly is an indignity which every American should repel. 
 
APPENDIX B. 
 
 The following list of the leading councils, of the Roman 
 Catholic Church, is incorporated in this work, with a feel- 
 ing that it will prove very valuable to thousands of schol- 
 ars who need such a reference. The authority is that 
 of Bellarmine and Pichler, leading Jesuit doctors of law. 
 The form given is precisely that of Pichler' s Polemica, edi- 
 tion of Vienna, 1749. The only other English appearance 
 we know of is by Breckenridge. The only deviation we 
 make from him and from the original in the Polemica is to 
 change the word u Pope" into that of bishop, when refer- 
 ence is made to the early councils held prior to the use of 
 the term " Pope " or the fact of the Papacy. In the use of 
 this table it should be remembered that, according to Canon 
 Law, any act of a general council, not reprobated by the 
 Pope at the time, is binding upon the world for all time. 
 According to our authorities we divide the councils into 
 three classes. 
 
 I. GENERAL COUNCILS WHICH WERE LAWFUL. 
 
 1. Nice, which was held at the city of Mce. The council 
 of Sardicense, held some years later, was a contin- 
 uance of the same council. 
 
 The time of this council was the year 327 ; Sylvester 
 was bishop at Rome ; Constantine the Great was em- 
 peror. There were three hundred and eighteen mem- 
 bers in the council. The representatives of the Ro- 
 
 (463) 
 
464 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 man bishop were Hosius, Vitus and Vineentius. 
 
 Only the first was a bishop. 
 
 This council composed the Nicene Creed. 
 
 2. Constantinople; held partly at Constantinople, and 
 
 partly at Rome. 
 
 The time was about 381 ; Damasus was bishop at 
 Rome, and the elder Theodosius was emperor. There 
 were present 150 Catholics and 36 Macedonians. The 
 Roman bishop was not present personally or by rep- 
 resentative. The council confirmed the Nicene Creed. 
 
 3. Ephesinum ; held at Ephesus, the metropolis of Asia 
 
 Minor. 
 
 The time was about 430; Celestine was bishop at 
 Rome, and Theodosius the younger and Valentinien 
 III. were emperors. 
 
 There were 200 members ; Cyril, archbishop of Alex- 
 andria, presided. This council condemned the jSTes- 
 torian heresy ; declared the Virgin to be mother of 
 Christ only, and not the mother of God. Against 
 this action of the council the words, ' ' Mother of God, 
 pray for us," were added to the angelic salutation. 
 
 4. Chalcedon ; convened at Chalcedon, in Bythinia. 
 
 The time was about 451 ; Leo the Great was bishop 
 at Rome, and Marcian emperor. 
 There were 630 members ; the representatives of the 
 Roman bishop presided. This council condemned 
 heresies pertaining to the doctrines of Christ. 
 
 5. Constantinople II. ; held about the year 553 ; Virgilius 
 
 was Pope, and Justinian emperor. 
 
 According to some there were 165 present, while 
 
 others give the number at 255. The Pope was neither 
 
 present nor represented by any one. 
 
 This council dealt with the heresy of Origin. 
 
APPENDIX B. 465 
 
 6. Constantinople III. ; to which the synod of Trullana, 
 
 called Quini-Sexta, was appended. 
 
 The time was 680 ; Agatho was Pope, and Constan- 
 
 tine IY. emperor. 
 
 Present 289 fathers; the legates of the Pope presided. 
 
 This council dealt with the heresy of the Monothelites. 
 
 7. Nice II. ; about 781 ; Adrian was Pope, and Constantine 
 
 reigning in the empire, with his mother. 
 
 Present 350 fathers ; the legates of the Pope presided. 
 
 Dealt with heresy, and condemned certain emperors 
 
 for having despoiled some images of Christ and the 
 
 saints. 
 
 8. Constantinople IV. ; about 869 ; Adrian II. Pope, and 
 
 Basil emperor. 
 
 Present, 102 fathers ; the Pontifical legates presided. 
 
 The destroyers of images were again dealt with. 
 
 9. Lateran I. ; so called from the Lateran palace at Rome. 
 
 Held about the year 1122 ; Calixtus II. was Pope, and 
 Henry Y. emperor. 
 
 More than 300 fathers were present ; the Pope pre- 
 sided in person. 
 
 It was called to make peace between the Church and 
 the empire, and to promote the war against the Sara- 
 cens for the recovery of the Holy Land. 
 
 10. Lateran II. ; held about 1139 ; Innocent II. Pope, and 
 
 Lothair II. or Conrad king of the Romans. 
 About 1000 fathers ; the Pope presiding in person. 
 This council condemned the anti-Popes Anocletus and 
 Yictor. Passed on the rights of the clergy and under- 
 took to reform their morals. 
 
 11. Lateran III. ; about 1179 ; Alexander III. Pope ; Fred- 
 
 eric I. emperor. 
 
 About 300 fathers ; the Pope presiding. 
 
466 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 This council condemned the Waldenses as heretics, 
 and passed measures for the reformation of morals. 
 
 12. Later an IV. ; 1245 ; Innocent IY. Pope, and Frederick 
 
 II. emperor. 
 
 Present, 400 bishops, and 800 inferior prelates ; the 
 Pope presiding. 
 
 This council condemned anew the Albigenses in the 
 Piedmont ; passed act for the recovery of the Holy 
 Land, and for the peace of the nations by determin- 
 ing that if secular governments refused to extermi- 
 nate heretics they should be excommunicated and 
 exterminated, and their countries given to any Cath- 
 lics who were able to conquer them. 
 
 13. Lugdunense I. (Lyons) ; so called because held at Lyons, 
 
 France. 
 
 Held in 1245 ; Innocent IY. Pope, and Frederick II. 
 
 emperor. 
 
 One hundred and forty fathers present, and the Pope 
 
 presiding. 
 
 This council excommunicated and deposed emperor 
 
 Frederick II. (called Barbarossa) as a rebel against 
 
 the Pope. Also directed an expedition into Palestine. 
 
 14. Lugdunense II (Lyons) ; 1274 ; Gregory Pope, and 
 
 Rudolph emperor. 
 
 Almost 1000 present, of which over 500 were bishops ; 
 
 the Pope presided. 
 
 Affected a union with the Greeks (whose emperor 
 
 was present) for the recovery of the Holy Land. 
 
 15. Vienense (Yienne) ; Held in Yienne, France. 
 
 In year 1311 ; Clement Y. Pope, and Henry YII. 
 emperor. This Pope framed the laws, which in 
 Canon Law are called Clementine. 
 Three hundred bishops present ; Pope presiding. 
 
APPENDIX B. 467 
 
 The order of the Templars, so called because protect- 
 ing the Temple at Jerusalem, was first suppressed. 
 A new expedition arranged for the Holy Land 
 
 16. Florence; Florence, Italy, 1438, continued from Ferrara; 
 
 Eugene IV. Pope, Albert emperor. 
 
 Subscribed to by 141 fathers, many having departed 
 
 beforehand. The Pope presided. 
 
 Attempted a union with Greeks and Armenians. No 
 
 purpose further than this known. 
 
 17. Lateran V. Began in 1542 ; Julius II. Pope ; completed 
 
 in 1517. Leo X. Pope, and Maximilian emperor. 
 Present, 114 fathers ; Pope presiding. 
 Called to heal the schism caused by the alleged Schis- 
 matic council of Pisa in 1409. Also ordered an ex- 
 pedition against the Turks, which never came to head 
 because of the German Reformation. 
 
 18. Trent (Tridentinum) ; Commenced at Trent, Germany, 
 
 continued at Bononia, and concluded at Trent. 
 Began in 1545 under Pope* Paul III., continued 
 through Pontificates of Julius III., Marcelles II., 
 Paul IV., and finished under Pius VI. in 1563 ; Charles 
 V. and Ferdinand I. were emperors. 
 The legates of the Pope presided ; 255 fathers sub- 
 scribed to it, many having left. 
 The Lutherans and other heretics were condemned ; 
 articles of faith and authority of the Popes re-affirmed, 
 and morals were reformed, especially amongst the 
 clergy, who were exceedingly corrupt. 
 According to Jesuit authority these are the eighteen 
 general councils which have decided irrevocably and 
 infallibly, and whose actions are, to the end of time, 
 obligatory on all the world. 
 Yet it is known that, of these eighteen councils twelve 
 
4GS THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 either spoke lies or decreed sins. The third es- 
 tablished idolatry ; the seventh and eighth wickedly 
 condemned those who would not worship images ; 
 the ninth, twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth 
 and seventeenth decreed unjust wars; the eleventh 
 and twelfth cursed all Christians not agreeing with 
 Rome ; the thirteenth raised the ecclesiastic power 
 of the Roman Church over all human governments 
 for all time. 
 
 II. SEVERAL COUNCILS WHICH WERE ILLEGAL. 
 
 The high Jesuit authorities, Pichler and Bellarmine, the 
 latter the best single authority in the Roman Church, agree 
 to fourteen additional councils, one-half of which were 
 schismatic or reprobate, while the other half were in part 
 legal and in part illegal. We give first a list of the illegal 
 general councils. 
 
 1. Antioch; held in 345; Julius bishop of Rome ; Constan- 
 
 tine Arianus emperor ; attended by 90 persons. 
 In opposition to first Nicene council. 
 
 2. Midiolanense (Milan) ; held in 354 ; Liberius bishop of 
 
 Rome ; Arianus emperor ; 300 present ; indirectly 
 condemned the Church at Rome. 
 
 3. Ariminense (Rimini) ; in 373 ; Damasus bishop of Rome \ 
 
 Arianus emperor ; 600 present ; dominated by the 
 Arians. 
 
 4. Ephesus II. ; 443; Leo bishop; Theodosius the younger 
 
 emperor ; violence reigned in the council, which drove 
 away the representative of the bishop of Rome, and 
 put to death the bishop of Constantinople, Flavianus ; 
 128 present. 
 6. Constantinople; 730; Gregory II. Pope, and Leo em- 
 peror ; the greater part of the council were laymen, 
 
APPENDIX B. 469 
 
 and it ordered the suppression of images of Christ and 
 the saints. 
 
 6. Constantinople; 754 ; Stephen II. or III. Pope ; Constan- 
 
 tine Copronymus emperor ; 338 fathers present ; total- 
 ly abolished all images of Christ and the saints. 
 
 7. Pisa ; about 1510 ; Julius II. Pope, and Maximillianl. 
 
 emperor ; called by the emperor and king of France, 
 
 with certain cardinals, to proceed against Pope 
 
 Julius II. 
 
 It will be readily seen why these councils are considered 
 
 illegal. They dealt with a just hand in handling the evils, 
 
 idolatries and frauds of the Roman bishopric, and later 
 
 with the established Papacy. 
 
 III. GENEEAL COUNCILS PAETLY LEGAL AND PAETLY IL- 
 LEGAL. 
 
 1. Sardicense ; appendix to the first council of Mce ; Julius 
 
 bishop at Rome, Arianus emperor ; 300 present from 
 the west and 73 from the east ; growing friction be- 
 tween the western and eastern churches. 
 
 2. Sirmiense (Sirmium) ; held in 356 ; Liberius bishop, and 
 
 Constantine Arianus emperor ; the two parties drew 
 up each a creed. Little action. 
 
 3. Quint (Sextum) ; held at Constantinople in Trullim 
 
 palace, where its acts are called Trullian ; held about 
 602 ; Sergius Pope, and Justinian II. emperor ; 211 
 present ; reprobated by the Pope. 
 
 4. FranTcford; 794; no bishops from the east ; 300 present; 
 
 Adrian I. Pope ; Charlemagne king of France ; repro- 
 bated in part by the Pope. 
 
 5. Constance; 1414-1418; John XXIII. and Martin V. Popes; 
 
 Sigismund emperor of Germany ; over 1000 present, 
 besides ordinary priests; suppressed a schism, de- 
 
470 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 posed three anti-Popes, condemned and burned Huss 
 and Jerome. 
 
 6. Basle (Basil) ; began at Basil in 1431, Eugenius IV. Pope, 
 
 and finished at Lausanne, on lake Geneva, in 1449, 
 nnder Pope Nicholas V , elected an anti-Pope. 
 
 7. Pisa; Pisa, Italy; 1409; Gregory XII. and Benedict 
 
 XIII. professing to be Popes at the same time ; pres- 
 ent 180 bishops and 900 minor prelates. Deposed 
 both the pretenders, and elected Alexander V., and 
 increased the schism. 
 
APPENDIX C. 
 
 A ROSTER OF THE POPES. 
 
 The most reliable Roman Catholic writers quite agree 
 that it is wholly impossible to establish a correct list of the 
 Popes, including the early bishops of Rome. The table 
 which we append is that found in the Gerarachia Cattolica 
 (the Roman Almanac). It also includes original names and 
 titles and notes on the anti-popes, and the great western 
 schism. The value of the table rests in this : That it pre- 
 sents the claims of the Roman Church. 
 
 (St. stands for Saint, B. for Blessed, M. for Martyr.) 
 
 NAME. PLACE OF BIRTH. TERM. 
 
 1 St. Peter, M Bethsaida in Galilee . . 42— 67 
 
 2 St. Linus, M Yolterra 67 — 78 
 
 3 St. Cletus, M Rome 78— 90 
 
 4 St. Clement L, M Rome 90— 100 
 
 5 St. Anacletus, M Athens 100 — 112 
 
 6 St. Evaristus, M Syria 112— 121 
 
 7 St. Alexander L, M Rome 121— 132 
 
 8 St. Sixtus L, M Rome 132— 142 
 
 9 St. Telosphorus, M Greece. 142— 154 
 
 10 St. Hyginus, M Greece 154— 158 
 
 11 St. Pius L, M Aquileja 158— 167 
 
 12 St. Anicetus, M Syria 167 — 175 
 
 13 St. Soterus, M. Campania 175 — 182 
 
 (471) 
 
472 THE ROM AX PAPA CT. 
 
 14 St. Eleutherius, M Epirus 182— 193 
 
 15 St. Victor I., M Africa 193— 203 
 
 16 St. Zephyrinus, M Rome 203— 220 
 
 17 St. Calixtus I., M Rome 221— 227 
 
 18 St. Urban I., M Rome 227—233 
 
 19 St. Pontianus, M Rome 233—238 
 
 20 St. Anterus, M Greece 238 — 239 
 
 21 St. Fabian, M Rome 240— 253 
 
 22 St. Cornelius, M . Rome 254— 255 
 
 (Novatian, first antipope.) 
 
 23 St. Lucius I., M Rome 255— 257 
 
 24 St. Stephen L, M Rome 257—260 
 
 25 St. Sixtus II., M Athens 260— 261 
 
 26 St. Dionysius, M Italy 261 — 272 
 
 27 St. Felix L, M Rome 272—275 
 
 28 St. Eutychianus Tuscany 275 — 283 
 
 29 St. Caius, M Dalmatia 283 — 296 
 
 30 St. Marcellinus, M Rome 296— 304 
 
 31 St. Marcellus L, M Rome 304 — 309 
 
 32 St. Eusebius Calabria. 309— 311 
 
 33 St. Melchiades Africa 311— 314 
 
 34 St. Sylvester Rome 314— 337 
 
 35 St. Marcus Rome 337— 340 
 
 36 St. Julius, I Rome 341— 352 
 
 37 St. Liberius Rome 352 — 363 
 
 38 St. Felix, II Rome 363— 365 
 
 39 St. Damassus Spain 366 — 384 
 
 (Ursicinus, antipope.) 
 
 40 St. Siricius Rome 384 — 398 
 
 41 St. Anastasius Rome 399 — 402 
 
 42 St. Innocent, I Albano 402—417 
 
 43 St. Zosimus Greece 417—418 
 
 44 St. Boniface, I Rome 418— 423 
 
 45 St. Celestine, I Campania 423 — 432 
 
 46 St. Sixtus, III.. Rome 432— 440 
 
APPENDIX C. 473 
 
 47 St. Leo I, the Great Tuscany 440— 461 
 
 48 St. Hilary Cagliari 461— 468 
 
 49 St. Simplieius Tivoli 468— 483 
 
 50 St. Felix III Rome 483— 492 
 
 51 St. Gelasius I Africa 492— 496 
 
 52 St. Anastasius II Rome 496 — 498 
 
 53 St. Symmachus Rome 498 — 514 
 
 54 St. Hormisdas. Frosinone 514 — 523 
 
 55 St, John I.,.M Tuscany 523— 526 
 
 56 St. Felix IY .Beneyent 526— 530 
 
 57 Boniface II Rome 530—532 
 
 58 John II Rome 532— 535 
 
 59 St. Agapetus I Rome 535 — 536 
 
 60 St. Sylyerius Frosinone 536 — 538 
 
 61 St. Yiorilius . . c Rome 538— 555 
 
 62 Pelagius I Rome 555 — 560 
 
 63 John III Rome 560— 573 
 
 64 Benedict I Rome 574 — 578 
 
 65 Pelagius II. Rome 578 — 590 
 
 66 St, Gregory I., the Great Rome 590— 604 
 
 67 Sabinianus Yolterra 604 — 606 
 
 68 Boniface III Rome 607— 607 
 
 69 Boniface IY The Marches .... 608— 615 
 
 70 St. Adeodatus I Rome 615—619 
 
 71 Boniface Y Naples 619— 625 
 
 72 Honorius I Campania 625 — 638 
 
 73 Seyerinus Rome 640 — 640 
 
 74 John IY Dalmatia 640— 642 
 
 75 Theodorus I Greece 642 — 649 
 
 76 St. Martin I., M Todi ' 649— 655 
 
 77 St. Eugenius I Rome 655 — 656 
 
 78 St. Yitalianus Segin 657 — 672 
 
 79 Adeodatus II Rome 672— 676 
 
 80 Donus I Rome 676—678 
 
 81 St. Agathon Greece 678 — 682 
 
474 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 82 St. Leo II Sicily 682— 683 
 
 83 St. Benedict II Rome 684— 685 
 
 84 John V Antiochia.. 685 — 68$ 
 
 85 Conon Thrace 686 — 687 
 
 86 St. Sergius I (?) 687— 701 
 
 87 John VI Greece 701 — 705 
 
 88 John VII Greece 705— 707 
 
 89 Sisinnius Syria 708 — 708 
 
 90 Constantine Syria 708 — 715 
 
 91 St. Gregory II Rome 715 — 731 
 
 92 St. Gregory III Syria 731— 741 
 
 93 St. Zachary Greece 741 — 752 
 
 94 St. Stephen II Rome 752—752 
 
 95 Stephen III Rome 752 — 757 
 
 96 St. Paul I Rome 757— 767 
 
 97 Stephen IV Syracuse 768—771 
 
 98 Adrian I Rome 771— 795 
 
 99 St. Leo III. Rome ... 795— 816 
 
 100 Stephen V Rome 816— 817 
 
 101 St. Paschal I Rome 817— 824 
 
 102 Eugenius II Rome 824 — 827 
 
 103 Valentinus Rome 827 — 827 
 
 104 Gregory IV Rome 827 — .844 
 
 105 Sergius II Rome 844— 847 
 
 106 St. Leo IV Rome 847— 855 
 
 (Fabulous antipope Joan.) 
 
 107 Benedict III Rome 855— 858 
 
 108 St. Nicholas I, the Great Rome 858 — 867 
 
 109 Adrian II Rome 867— 872 
 
 110 John VIII. Rome 872— 882 
 
 111 Marinus I Gallese 882— 884 
 
 112 Adrian III Rome 884— 885 
 
 113 Stephen VI Rome 885— 891 
 
 114 Formosus Ostia 891 — 896 
 
 (Sergius, antipope.) 
 
APPENDIX C. 
 
 475 
 
 115 Boniface VI Rome. . 
 
 116 Stephen VII Rome.. 
 
 117 Romanus Gallese. 
 
 118 Theodorus II Gallese. 
 
 119 John IX Tivoli. , 
 
 120 Benedict IV Rome.. 
 
 121 Leo V Ardea.. 
 
 122 Christopher Rome.. 
 
 123 Sergius III Rome . . 
 
 124 Anastasius III Rome . . 
 
 125 
 126 
 
 131 
 132 
 
 Lando Sabine 
 
 John X Ravenna 
 
 127 Leo VI Rome 
 
 128 Stephen VIII Rome 
 
 129 John XI Rome 
 
 130 Leo VII Rome 
 
 Stephen IX Rome 
 
 Marinus II Rome 
 
 133 Agapetns II Rome 
 
 134 John XII.* Rome 
 
 (Octavian Conti.) 
 (Leo VIIL, antipope.) 
 
 135 Benedict V Rome 
 
 136 John XIII.. Rome 
 
 [Bishop John of Ravenna.] 
 
 Benedict VI Rome 
 
 Donus II Rome 
 
 139 Benedict VII Rome 
 
 (Conti, bishop of Sutri.) 
 
 140 John XIV Pavia 
 
 (Peter, bishop of Pavia.) 
 
 141 Boniface VII (?) 
 
 (Cardinal Boniface Franco.) 
 
 137 
 
 138 
 
 896— 896 
 
 897— 898. 
 
 898— 898 
 898— 898 
 898— 900 
 900— 903 
 903— 90S 
 
 903— 904 
 
 904— 911 
 911— 913 
 913— 914 
 915— 928 
 
 928— 929 
 
 929— 931 
 931— 936 
 936— 93 £ 
 939— 942. 
 943— 94ft 
 946— 956 
 956— 964 
 
 964— 965- 
 
 965— 972 
 
 972— 973 
 
 973— 975 
 975— 984 
 
 984— 985 
 
 985— 985 
 
 *The first Pope who changed his name on ascending the Papal throne. 
 
476 TEE BOM AN PAPACY. 
 
 142 John XY Rome 985— 9&6 
 
 143 John XYL (?) 996— 996 
 
 144 Gregory Y Germany 996— 999 
 
 145 John XYII (?) 999— 999 
 
 146 Sylvester II France 999—1003 
 
 (Gerhert.) 
 
 147 John XYIII Rome 1003—1003 
 
 148 John XIX Rome 1003—1009 
 
 149 Sergius IY Rome 1009—1012 
 
 150 Benedict YIII Rome 1012—1024 
 
 (Conti.) 
 
 151 John XX Rome 1024—1033 
 
 (Conti, a brother of the preceding.) 
 
 152 Benedict IX Rome 1033—1044 
 
 (Theophylact, nephew of the two 
 preceding.) 
 (Sylvester, antipope) 
 
 153 Gregory YI Rome 1044—1046 
 
 (Archpriest John Gratianus.) 
 
 154 Clement II Germany 1046 — 1047 
 
 (Bishop Suidger of Bamberg.) 
 
 155 Damasus II ; . . . Germany 1048 — 1048 
 
 (Bishop Pappo of Brixen.) 
 
 156 St. Leo IX Germany 1049—1055 
 
 (Bishop Bruno of Toul.) 
 
 157 Yictor II Germany 1055—1057 
 
 (Bishop Gebhard of Eichstadt.) 
 
 158 Stephen X Germany 1057—1058 
 
 (Abbot Frederick of Montecassino.) 
 
 159 Benedict X (?) 1058—1059 
 
 (John Mincius Conti, bishop of Yelletri.) 
 
 160 Nicholas II France 1059—1061 
 
 (Bishop Gerard of Florence.) 
 
 161 Alexander II Milan 1061—1073 
 
 (Anselm Badago, bishop of Lucca.) 
 
APPENDIX C. 477 
 
 162 St. Gregory VII Soana 1073—1085 
 
 (Cardinal Hildebrand.) 
 (Clement III., antipope.) 
 
 163 Victor III Benevent 1087 — 1087 
 
 (Desiderius, duke of Capua, abbot of 
 Montecassino.) 
 
 164 Urban II France 1088 — 1099 
 
 (Otto de Lagers,cardinal-bishop of Ostia.) 
 
 165 Paschal II Bieda 1099—1118 
 
 (Cardinal Rainer.) 
 (Albert and Theodoric, antipope s.) 
 
 166 Gelasius II Gaeta 1118 — 111& 
 
 (Cardinal Johannes Cajetani.) 
 
 167 CalixtusII France 1119—1124 
 
 (Guido, count of Burgundy, archbishop 
 of Vienne.) 
 
 168 Honorius II Bologna 1124 — 1130 
 
 (Lambert, cardinal-bishop of Ostia.) 
 
 169 Innocent II. Rome 1130 — 1143 
 
 (Cardinal Gregory Papy.) 
 (Anacletus, antipope.) 
 
 170 Celestine II Citta di Castello 1143—1144 
 
 171 Lucius II Bologna 1144—1145 
 
 (Caccianemici.) 
 
 172 B. Eugenius III Montemagno 1145 — 1153 
 
 (Bernardus, abbot at Rome.) 
 
 173 Anastasius IV Rome 1153 — 1154 
 
 174 Adrian IV England 1154— 1159 
 
 175 Alexander III Siena 1159—1181 
 
 (Roland Bandinelli.) 
 (Victor, Paschal, and Callixtus, antipopes.) 
 
 176 Lucius III Lucca 1181 — 1185 
 
 177 Urban III Milan 1185—1187 
 
 (Bishop Humbert of Milan.) 
 1T8 Gregory VIII Beneventum 1187-1187 
 
478 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 179 Clement III Rome 1187—1191 
 
 180 Celestine III Rome 1191—1198 
 
 181 Innocent III Anagni 1198 — 1216 
 
 (Cardinal Conti.) 
 
 182 HonoriusIII Rome 1216—1227 
 
 (Savelli.) 
 
 183 Gregory IX Anagni 1227 — 1241 
 
 (Conti.) 
 
 184 Celestine IV Milan 1241—1241 
 
 (Castiglione.) 
 
 185 Innocent IV Genoa 1243—1*54 
 
 (Fieschi.) 
 
 186 Alexander IV Anagni 1254—1261 
 
 (Conti.) 
 
 187 Urban IV France 1261—1264 
 
 (Jacob Pantalean, patriarch of Jerusa- 
 lem.) 
 
 188 Clement IV France 1265—1269 
 
 (Guido Fulcodi.) 
 
 189 B. Gregory X Piacenza 1271—1276 
 
 (Theobald Visconti,archdeacon at Liege.) 
 
 190 Innocent V Savoy 1276—1276 
 
 (Peter de Tarantaise.) 
 
 191 Adrian V Genoa 1276—1276 
 
 (Fieschi.) 
 
 192 John XXI Portugal 1276—1277 
 
 (Peter Julian, bishop of Tusculum.) 
 
 193 Nicholas III Pome 1277—1280. 
 
 (Cardinal John Cajetan Orfini.) 
 
 194 Martin IV France 1281—1285 
 
 (Simon de Brie.) 
 
 195 Honorius IV Rome 1285—1287 
 
 (Savelli.) 
 
 196 Nicholas IV Ascoli 1288—1292 
 
 (Cardinal Jerome, bishop of Tusculum.) 
 
APPENDIX C. 479 
 
 197 St. Celestine V Isernia 1294 — 1294 
 
 (Peter, an eremite.) 
 
 198 Boniface VIII Anagni 1294—1303 
 
 (Benedict Cajetan.) 
 
 199 B. Benedict XI Trevisco 1303—1304 
 
 (Boccasini.) 
 
 200 Clement V France 1305—1314 
 
 (De Gout, archbishop of Bordeaux.) 
 
 201 John XXII France 1316 i334 
 
 (Cardinal Jacob de Esne.) 
 (Nicholas, antipope.) 
 
 202 Benedict II X France 1334—1342 
 
 (Cardinal Jacob Fournier.) 
 
 203 Clement VI France 1342 — 1352 
 
 (Cardinal Peter Roger.) 
 
 204 Innocent VI France 1352 — 1362 
 
 (Cardinal Stephen Aubert.) 
 
 205 B. Urban V France 1362—1370 
 
 (Abbot at Marseilles.) 
 
 206 Gregory XI France 1370 — 1378 
 
 (Cardinal Peter Roger.) 
 
 207 Urban VI Naples 1378—1389 
 
 (Prignano, archbishop of Bari.) 
 
 (From 1378 to 1410 occurs the great Western Schism, dur- 
 ing which, in conflict with the line of Popes inserted in the 
 catalogue, is found a rival line residing at Avignon — Clem- 
 ent VII., 1378-1394 ; Benedict XIII., 1394-1410. The Council 
 of Pisa, 1410, deposed both rival popes ; but Benedict XIII. 
 remained in schism till his death in 1424.) 
 
 208 Boniface IX Naples 1389—1404 
 
 209 Innocent VII Sulmona 1404 — 1406 
 
 (Migliorati.) 
 
 210 Gregory XII Venice 1406—1409 
 
 (Coriario.) 
 
480 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 211 Alexander V Bologna 1409—1410 
 
 (Cardinal Peter Philargi.) 
 
 212 John XXIII Naples 1410—1415 
 
 (Cardinal Cossa.) 
 
 213 Martin V... Rome 1417—1431 
 
 (Cardinal Otto Colonna.) 
 
 214 Eugenius IV Venice 1431 — 1447 
 
 (Condulmero.) 
 (Felix, antipope.) 
 
 215 Nicholas V Sarzana 1447—1455 
 
 (Thomas de Sarzano.) 
 
 216 Caiixtus III Spain. 1455—1458 
 
 (Cardinal Alphons Borgia.) 
 
 217 Pius II Siena 1458—1464 
 
 (yEneas Sylvius Piccolomini.) 
 
 218 Paul II Venice 1464—1471 
 
 (Barbo.) 
 
 219 Sixtus IV Savona 1471—1484 
 
 (Cardinal Francesco della Rovere.) 
 
 220 Innocent VIII Genoa 1484—1492 
 
 (Cardinal John Baptist Cibo.) 
 
 221 Alexander VI Spain 1492—1503 
 
 (Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia.) 
 
 222 Pius III Siena 1503— 1503 
 
 (Cardinal Francis Piccolomini.) 
 
 223 Julius II Savona 1503—1513 
 
 (Cardinal Rovere.) 
 
 224 Leo X Florence 1513—1521 
 
 (Cardinal de Medici.) 
 
 225 Adrian VI Netherlands 1522—1523 
 
 (Adrian Florent.) 
 
 226 Clement VII Florence 1523—1534 
 
 (Cardinal de Medici.) 
 
 227 Paul III Rome 1534—1549 
 
 (Cardinal Alexander Farnese.) 
 
APPENDIX C. 481 
 
 228 Julius III Tuscany 1550—1555 
 
 (Cardinal del Monte.) 
 
 229 Marcellus II Montepulciano 1555 — 1555 
 
 (Cardinal Cervino.) 
 
 230 Paul IV Naples 1555—1559 
 
 (Cardinal Caraffa.) 
 
 231 Pius IV Milan 1559—1565 
 
 (Cardinal de Medici.) 
 
 232 St. Pius V Bosco 1566—1572 
 
 (Michael Ghisleri, Cardinal of Alessan- 
 dria.) 
 
 233 Gregory XIII Bologna 1572—1585 
 
 (Cardinal Hugo Buoncompagno.) 
 
 234 Sixtus V Marchigiano 1585—1590 
 
 (Felix Peretti, Cardinal Montalto.) 
 
 235 Urban VII Rome 1590—1590 
 
 (Cardinal Castagna.) 
 
 236 Gregory XIV Cremona 1590—1591 
 
 (Cardinal Sfondrati.) 
 
 237 Innocent IX Bologna 1591—1592 
 
 (Cardinal Fachinetti.) 
 
 238 Clement VIII Florence 1592—1605 
 
 (Cardinal Aldobrandini.) 
 
 239 Leo XI Florence 1605—1605 
 
 (Cardinal Octavian de' Medici.) 
 
 240 Paul V Rome 1605—1621 
 
 (Cardinal Camillo Borghese.) 
 
 241 Gregory XV Bologna. 1621—1623 
 
 (Cardinal Alexander Ludovisio.) 
 
 242 Urban VIII Florence 1623—1644 
 
 (Cardinal Maffeo Barberini.) 
 
 243 Innocent X. .. . . Rome 1644—1655 
 
 (Cardinal John Pamfili.) 
 
 244 Alexander VII Siena 1655—1657 
 
 (Carninal Fabio Chigi.) 
 
 245 Clement IX Pistoia 1667—1669 
 
 (Cardinal Rospigliosi.) 
 
482 THE ROMAK PAPACY. 
 
 246 Clement X .Rome 1670—1676 
 
 (Cardinal Altieri.) 
 
 247 Innocent XI Como 1676—1689 
 
 (Cardinal Benedict Odescalchi.) 
 
 248 Alexander VIII Venice 1689—1691 
 
 (Cardinal Peter Ottoboni.) 
 
 249 Innocent XII Naples 1691—1700 
 
 (Cardinal Anthony Pignatelli.) 
 
 250 Clement XI Urbino 1700—1721 
 
 (Cardinal Albani.) 
 
 251 Innocent XIII Rome .1721—1724 
 
 (Cardinal Conti.) 
 
 252 Benedict XIII Rome 1724—1730 
 
 (Cardinal Orsini.) 
 
 253 Clement XII Florence 1730—1740 
 
 (Cardinal Corsini.) 
 
 254 Benedict XIV Bologna 1740—1758 
 
 (Cardinal Prosper Lambertini.) 
 
 255 Clement XIII Venice 1758—1769 
 
 (Cardinal Rezzonico.) 
 
 256 Clement XIV St. Angelo in Vado. ..1769—1774 
 
 (Cardinal Ganganelli.) 
 
 257 Pius VI Cesena 1775—1799 
 
 (Cardinal Braschi.) 
 
 258 Pius VII Cesena 1800—1823 
 
 (Cardinal Chiaranionte.) 
 
 259 Leo XII Spoleto 1823—1829 
 
 (Cardinal della Genga.) 
 
 260 Pius VIII Cingoli 1829—1830 
 
 (Cardinal Castiglione.) 
 
 261 Gregory XVI Belluno 1831—1846 
 
 (Cardinal Mauro Capellari.) 
 
 262 Pius IX Sinigaglia 1846—1878 
 
 (Cardinal Mastia Ferretti.) 
 
 263 Leo XIII Carpinetto 1878— 
 
 (Cardinal Gioacchino Pesci.) 
 
APPENDIX D. 
 
 THE CREED OF THE PAPACY. 
 
 Adopted by Pius IV., and published in 1564, (found in 
 the Professio Fidei) is in accord with the decision of the 
 Council of Trent. It is in the form of an oath, and every 
 Roman Catholic is bound by it, and Roman ecclesiastics 
 swear by it. 
 
 "I most firmly admit and embrace the apostolical and 
 ecclesiastical traditions, and all other constitutions and 
 observances of the holy Church. I also admit the sacred 
 Scriptures according to the sense which the holy mother 
 Church has held and does hold, to whom it belongs to 
 judge of the true sense and interpretation of the holy 
 Scriptures ; nor will I ever take and interpret them other- 
 wise than according to the unanimous consent of the fathers. 
 I profess, also, that there are truly and properly seven sac- 
 raments of the new law, instituted by Jesus Christ our Lord, 
 and for the salvation of mankind, though all are not neces- 
 sary for every one — viz., baptism, confirmation, eucharist, 
 penance, extreme unction, order and matrimony ; and that 
 they confer grace ; and of these, baptism, confirmation and 
 order cannot be reiterated without sacrilege. I also admit 
 and receive the ceremonies of the Catholic Church, received 
 and approved in the solemn administration of all the above 
 said sacraments. I receive and embrace all and every one 
 
 (483) 
 
484 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 of the things which have been defined and declared in the 
 holy Council of Trent concerning original sin and justifica- 
 tion. I profess likewise, that in the mass is offered to God 
 a true, proper and propitiatory sacrifice for the living and 
 the dead ; and that in the most holy sacrament of the 
 eucharist there is truly, really and substantially the body 
 and blood, together with the soul and divinity of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ ; and that there is made a conversion of the 
 whole substance of the bread into the body and of the wine 
 into the blood, which conversion the Catholic Church 
 calls transubstantiation. I confess, also, that under either 
 kind alone, whole and entire, Christ and a true sacrament 
 is received. I constantly hold that there is a purgatory, 
 and that the souls detained therein are helped by the suf- 
 frages of the faithful. Likewise that the saints reigning to- 
 gether with Christ are to be honored and invocated, that 
 they offer prayers to God for us, and that their relics are to 
 be venerated. I most firmly assert that the images of Christ 
 and the mother of God, ever virgin, and also of the other 
 saints, are to be held and retained, and that due honor and 
 veneration are to be given to them. I also affirm that the 
 power of indulgences was left by Christ in the Church ; and 
 that the use of them is most wholesome to Christian people. 
 I acknowledge the holy Catholic and Apostolic Roman 
 Church, the mother and mistress of all churches ; and I 
 promise to swear true obedience to the Roman bishop, the 
 successor of St. Peter, prince of the apostles and vicar of 
 Christ. I also profess and undoubtedly receive all other 
 things delivered, defined and declared by the sacred can- 
 ons and general councils, and particularly by the holy 
 Council of Trent ; and likewise I also condemn, reject and 
 anathematize all things contrary thereto, and all heresies- 
 whatsoever, condemned and anathematized by the Church. 
 
APPENDIX D. 485 
 
 This true Catholic faith out of which none can be saved, 
 which I now freely profess and truly hold, I, N" , prom- 
 ise, vow and swear most constantly to hold, and profess 
 the same whole and entire, with God's assistance, to the 
 end of mv life. Amen. ' ' 
 
APPENDIX R 
 
 PRINCIPAL ERRORS AND FRAUDS OF THE 
 PAPAL CHURCH, AND THE TIME 
 WHEN THEY WERE INTRO- 
 DUCED. 
 
 Invocation of the Saints ; first taught with authority by 
 the second Council of Constantinople, 754. 
 
 Introduction of Images and Relics; sanctioned and 
 ordered by the second Council of Nice, 787. 
 
 Compulsory Celibacy of the Clergy ; first enjoined by the 
 I. Lateran Council, 1123. 
 
 Transubstantiation ; formally decreed by the IV. Lateran 
 Council, 1215. 
 
 Papal Supremacy; formally declared first by the IY. Lat- 
 eran Council, 1215. 
 
 Auricular Confession ; ordered first by Innocent III., at 
 the IY. Lateran Council, 1215. 
 
 Bight of f he Church to Depose Rulers ; first decreed by 
 the IY. Lateran Council. 
 
 Papal Jubilees ; witnessed by Boniface VIII. in 1300, and 
 become a great source of profit and scandal to 
 the Church. 
 
 (487) 
 
488 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 Purgatory and Indulgences ; first promulgated by Coun, 
 cil of Florence, 1438. 
 
 Communion of Bread only ; first decreed by Council of 
 Constance, 1414. 
 
 Tradition ; declared by the Council of Trent (April 8th, 
 1546) of equal authority and veneration with 
 Scripture. 
 
 Judicial Absolution ; authorized by Trent in 1554. 
 
 TJie Seven Sacraments ; first promulgated with authority 
 by the Council of Trent in 1546. 
 
 Infallibility of the Pope ; established after a long quarrel 
 and the almost complete disruption of the con- 
 clave, by the Vatican Council held at Rome 
 1870. 
 
APPENDIX F. 
 
 SOMAN CATHOLIC POPULATION IN THE UNITED 
 
 STATES. COMPARISON WITH THE TOTAL 
 
 POPULATION. 
 
 ROMAN CATHOLIC 
 POPULATION. 
 
 1776 25,000 
 
 1790 30,000 
 
 1800 100,000 
 
 1810 150,000 
 
 1820 300,000 
 
 1830 600,000 
 
 1840 1,500,000 
 
 1850 .... 
 
 1876 6,500,000 
 
 1890 8,000,000 
 
 TOTAL POP. 
 
 3,000,000 
 
 3,800,000 
 
 5,300,000 
 
 7,200,000 
 
 9,600,000 
 
 13,000,000 
 
 17,000,000 
 
 23,000,000 
 
 31,500,000 
 
 40,000,000 
 
 62,600,000 
 
 ROMAN CATH. PER CENT. 
 OP GENERAL POP. 
 
 18 
 
 20 
 
 31 
 
 42 
 
 90 
 
 142 
 
 142 
 
 166 
 
 135 
 
 8 to the 1,000 
 
 Q U (( it 
 
 (( <( 
 
 This table exhibits a remarkable and almost uninterrupt- 
 ed growth of the Roman Catholic population. But it is 
 again almost exclusively resulting from immigration. The 
 Church has made a lamentable failure in holding the youth 
 of American-born Catholic parents. The actual loss of the 
 Church has often created consternation among their own 
 writers. As early as 1836, Bishop England of Charleston, 
 said : "We ought, if there were no loss, to have five mil- 
 lions of Catholics ; and as we have less than one million and 
 one-fourth, there must be a loss of three million and a quar- 
 ter, at least. We may unhesitatingly assert, that within the 
 last fifty years the Catholic Church has lost millions of mem- 
 bers in the United States." 
 
 (489) 
 
APPENDIX G. 
 
 VOTING POPULATION IN LARGE CITIES. 
 
 Population of males in the fifty principal cities in the 
 United States, constituting the present or future voting pop- 
 ulation, and given according to native parentage, foreign- 
 born parentage, and foreign-born : 
 
 MALES HAV- I MALES HAV- 
 ING NATIVE I INS FOREIGN 
 PARENTAGE, j PARENTAGE. 
 
 FOREIGN 
 
 BORN 
 MALES. 
 
 New York 
 
 Chicago 
 
 Philadelphia . 
 
 Brooklyn 
 
 St. Louis 
 
 Boston 
 
 Baltimore 
 
 San Francisco 
 
 Cincinnati 
 
 Cleveland . 
 
 Buffalo 
 
 New Orleans 
 
 Pittsburgh 
 
 Washington 
 
 Detroit 
 
 Milwaukee 
 
 Newark 
 
 Minneapolis 
 
 Jersey City . 
 
 Louisville 
 
 134,457 
 
 285,992 
 
 118,230 
 
 204,147 
 
 202,046 
 
 158,355 
 
 108,101 
 
 152,191 
 
 60,096 
 
 93,185 
 
 67,447 
 
 72,889 
 
 89,191 
 
 54,310 
 
 33,413 
 
 53,189 
 
 39,915 
 
 63,833 
 
 30,621 
 
 49,225 
 
 29,209 
 
 52,218 
 
 33,207 
 
 34,850 
 
 35,553 
 
 44,206 
 
 52,354 
 
 13,719 
 
 21,444 
 
 38,192 
 
 13,325 
 
 46,263 
 
 27,054 
 
 32,253 
 
 28,613 
 
 23,9S5 
 
 20,967 
 
 32,635 
 
 31,066 
 
 22,208 
 
 314,481 
 
 237,523 
 
 131,761 
 
 128,672 
 
 61,586 
 
 72,792 
 
 33,448 
 
 57,687 
 
 35,504 
 
 51,040 
 
 45,839 
 
 16,474 
 
 39,978 
 
 9,680 
 
 39,951 
 
 40,906 
 
 27,667 
 
 34,222 
 
 27,290 
 
 11,990 
 
 (491) 
 
492 
 
 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 VOTING POPULATION OF LARGE CITIES — CONTINUED. 
 
 CITIES. 
 
 MALES HAV- 
 ING NATIVE 
 PARENTAGE. 
 
 MALES HAV- 
 ING FOREIGN 
 PARENTAGE. 
 
 FOREIUN 
 BORN 
 MALES. 
 
 Omaha 
 
 Rochester . 
 
 St. Paul _ . 
 
 Kansas City 
 
 Providence . 
 
 Denver 
 
 Indianapolis . 
 
 Allegheny 
 
 Albany . 
 
 Columbus . 
 
 .Syracuse 
 
 Worcester 
 
 Toledo . . 
 
 Richmond . 
 
 New Haven . 
 
 Lowell 
 
 Nashville 
 
 Scranton 
 
 Fall River . 
 
 Cambridge . 
 
 Atlanta 
 
 Memphis 
 
 Wilmington . 
 
 Dayton 
 
 Troy 
 
 Grand Rapids 
 
 Reading 
 
 Camden 
 
 Trenton 
 
 
 
 
 
 40,360 
 19,454 
 16,412 
 39,298 
 23,328 
 31,394 
 28,146 
 18,872 
 16,291 
 24,057 
 16,528 
 15,121 
 14,047 
 19,294 
 15,452 
 
 9,713 
 18,440 
 
 9,199 
 
 5,895 
 11,097 
 16,367 
 12,004 
 16,437 
 16,052 
 
 8,718 
 10,698 
 22,924 
 17,141 
 13,159 
 
 16,922 
 
 25,419 
 
 23,172 
 
 12,816 
 
 19,226 
 
 12,391 
 
 12,002 
 
 18,972 
 
 10,372 
 
 11,335 
 
 14,931 
 
 13,480 
 
 14,826 
 
 2,868 
 
 13,028 
 
 10,469 
 
 3,030 
 
 15,397 
 
 11,875 
 
 10,986 
 
 1,469 
 
 3,808 
 
 5,904 
 
 8,376 
 
 11,651 
 
 9,038 
 
 3,256 
 
 5,303 
 
 7,609 
 
 20,042 
 
 19,312 
 
 29,085 
 
 11,934 
 
 19,097 
 
 14,299 
 
 7,555 
 
 13,463 
 
 18,268 
 
 6,623 
 
 11,027 
 
 13,180 
 
 11,458 
 
 1,883 
 
 15,311 
 
 15,098 
 
 2,028 
 
 13,663 
 
 17,855 
 
 11,161 
 
 1,115 
 
 3,313 
 
 4,738 
 
 4,960 
 
 7,990 
 
 10,025 
 
 2,737 
 
 3,795 
 
 7,390, 
 
 Total . 
 
 
 
 • 
 
 1,607,987 
 
 1,856,875 
 
 1,723,946 
 
 This is according to the census of 1890. Within fifteen 
 years these will wholly belong to the voting population, by 
 which time fully one-third of the entire voting population 
 of the country will be in these fifty cities, and more than 
 two-third of this will be foreign-born and of foreign parent- 
 age. 
 
APPENDIX H. 
 
 The following table shows the number of Churches in the 
 United States to day, as compared with forty years ago : 
 
 DENOMINATIONS. 
 
 1850. 
 
 1890. 
 
 Lutheran 
 
 Roman Catholic 
 
 Episcopal ...... 
 
 Congregational 
 
 Presbyterian 
 
 Baptist 
 
 Methodist 
 
 All others 
 
 1,221 
 
 1,227 
 1,461 
 1,706 
 4,836 
 9,360 
 13,338 
 5,007 
 
 6,559 
 
 8,756 
 
 5,605 
 
 4,736 
 
 12,463 
 
 39,412 
 
 44,244 
 
 20,471 
 
 According to the return of the eleventh census, the value 
 of Church property for three periods is as follows : 
 
 DENOMINATIONS. 
 
 Lutherans 
 Congregational 
 Roman Catholic 
 Baptist 
 Episcopal . 
 Presbyterian . 
 Methodist . 
 All others 
 
 1850. 
 
 $ 2,854,286 
 7,970,195 
 9,256,758 
 11,001,127 
 11,384,210 
 14,557,089 
 14,826,148 
 15,596,558 
 
 1890. 
 
 $ 34,218,234 
 43,335,437 
 
 118,381,546 
 68,028,526 
 73,586,201 
 94,876,233 
 
 130,018,070 
 
 68, 
 
 ,086 
 
 The Roman Church has advanced from an ownership of 
 ten and one-half per cent, of all the Church property, to an 
 ownership of eighteen and three-fourths per cent. But 
 it is to be remembered that this estimate does not include 
 
 (493) 
 
494 THE ROMAN PAPACY. 
 
 such classes of property as parochial schools and residences, 
 convents and monasteries, and business blocks owned by 
 bishops in trust for the Pope. For instance, the census 
 reports Roman Catholic Church values in District of Colum- 
 bia, as $1,017,000. An actual valuation makes the entire 
 holdings of this Church in the District as $12,500,000. In 
 New York it is over $50,000,000. 
 
APPENDIX I. 
 
 WHO DID THE DESERTING IN THE LATE WAR? 
 
 (Reported by the daily papers.) 
 
 Whole number of troops who fought in the war 2,128,200 
 
 Natives of the United States 1,625,267 
 
 Germans 186,817 
 
 Irishmen 144,221 
 
 British other than Irish 99,040 
 
 Other foreigners 48,410 
 
 The desertions were as follows : 
 
 Natives of the United States - 5 per cent. 
 
 Germans 16 " " 
 
 Irish Catholics, 72 " " 
 
 British (other than Irish) 7 " " 
 
 Other foreigners 7 " " 
 
 According to the census of 1860, there were in the United 
 States of foreign birth : 
 
 Germans 1,301,136 
 
 Irish 1,611,304 
 
 British (other than Irish) 834,943 
 
 Therefore, of the total in the country, fourteen per cent, 
 of the Germans enlisted, twelve per cent, of the British, and 
 only nine per cent, of the Irish. While of 144,000 Irishmen 
 that enlisted, 104,000 deserted, their desertions mostly oc- 
 curring after the letters of the Pope to the bishops of New 
 York and New Orleans. Only five per cent, of the native 
 soldiery deserted, but almost one-half, or forty-five per cent, 
 of these were Koman Catholics. This table appeared in 
 such papers as the New York World, an Irish and Roman 
 sheet. 
 
 (495) 
 
INDEX. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Agricola, Rudolph, a mighty preacher 324 
 
 Albert, Archbishop, extravagance of his court 184 
 
 "contracts for the sins of Germany" 185 
 
 Alexander L, becomes Pope through bribery 129 
 
 VI, a father 435 
 
 Alva, agrees to the murder of Elizabeth 350 
 
 brutality of 357 
 
 Catherine de Medicis hatching massacre St. Bar- 
 tholomew 274 
 
 and his " Court of Blood " 339 
 
 in plot against Scotland 388 
 
 Bancroft, his opinion of Calvin 315 
 
 Batavian race, character of 323 
 
 Bayonne, the secret conference at 274 
 
 conference of 424 
 
 Benedict XIV., grants indulgence license to the Knights of 
 
 [Malta 191 
 
 Beza, Theodore 250 ; 257 
 
 his opinion of Calvin 315 
 
 Bible, the cost of in 14th century 326 
 
 Decrees of councils and Popes against 76 ; 77 ; 79 
 
 ignorance of 239 
 
 influence of, in Bohemia 119 
 
 (497) 
 
498 INDEX. 
 
 influence of on English civilization 70 
 
 mightier than the scepter 373 
 
 people burned for reading it 339 
 
 prior to the age of printing 67 
 
 the Pope's decision against 18 
 
 the Popes opposed to its translation into the language 
 
 [of the people 161 
 
 Waldensian devotion to 34 
 
 "Waldo's translation of 17 
 
 Bishops, as feudal lords 235 
 
 serious charge against, by Roman Catholic authorities 239 
 
 " Black Book," the celebrated 340 
 
 Blandiana, martyrdom of 9 
 
 Bohemia, description of 85 
 
 Effects of the death of Huss and Jerome on 112 
 
 hatred of the Popes for 115 
 
 introduction of Christianity into. 93 
 
 Papal army in 113 
 
 Waldensian leaven in, 38 
 
 Boniface VIII. , ambition of 301 
 
 Borgia, a great Papal family 435 
 
 Bosauquet, Mary, an extraordinary woman 446 
 
 Briconet, frightened back into the Papal fold 245 
 
 Brognier, Bishop, Pres. Council of Constance 109 
 
 Calvin, John, birth and childhood 308 
 
 magnitude of his work 311 
 
 Calixtus III 435 
 
 Canon Law, against the interests of women 444 
 
 stipulating fines for keeping concubines 434 
 
 Carlotta, victim of the Pope 443 
 
 Carlyle, Thomas 212 
 
 his opinion of Knox 367 
 
 Charles, the Emperor 106 
 
INDEX. 499 
 
 Charles V., supporting the Inquisition 332 
 
 cruel edicts of 334 
 
 motive for his interest in William of Orange 342 
 
 Charles IX 245; 250; 276 
 
 confesses his responsibility for the massacre of St. 
 
 [Bartholomew 284 
 
 dismal death of 286 
 
 in the room of the wounded Admiral 277 
 
 in the plot against Scotland 288 
 
 Church and State in America 245 
 
 Claudius, noted Christian reformer 11 
 
 Clemanges, his opinion of his church 103 
 
 Clement VIII., during his reign England became Protestant. . 269 
 
 Coligny, Admiral, Catherine's interview with 253 
 
 character of 275 
 
 failure of the scheme to wed him to Mary Stuart 27o 
 
 murder of 277 
 
 Conde, scheme to wed to Mary Stuart 270 
 
 murder of 272 
 
 Concubines, authorized by the Church 434 
 
 Confiscation of property, by the Papal Church in the Pied- 
 
 [mont 24 
 
 Constance, Council of 103-105 
 
 " " deposed two Popes 105 
 
 " size of 104 
 
 Constantine, his relation to the rise of the Papacy 13 
 
 Council, the great Lateran, approves the Inquisition 23 
 
 Council of Pisa 92 
 
 Council of Toulouse, decree of against the Bible 76 
 
 dealing with the Jesuits 243 
 
 on Indulgences 196 
 
 Cromwell, his message to Italy 33 
 
 Darnley, Lord 423 
 
 blown up with gun-powder 396; 424 
 
500 INDEX. 
 
 D'Aubigne, his picture of the Papacy f 13C > 
 
 his portrayal of an Indulgence sale * ^ 3 
 
 Da Roma, his method of persecuting 247 
 
 Davy, Sir Humphrey * & 
 
 de Bounechose, his description of the burning of Huss *0^ 
 
 de Medicis, Catherine, engaged with the Pope for overthrow I 
 
 [of the Protestants in England 268 
 
 most infamous woman of history 269; 274 
 
 forms a league with the Pope for destruction of the 
 
 [Huguenots 271 
 
 with Alva, hatching the massacre of St. Bartholo- 
 mew 274r 
 
 enjoys the massacre 281 
 
 last desperate game of 278 
 
 a mystery of history ^ 3 & 
 
 Lorenzo 238 
 
 de Molay, 301 - 
 
 treachery against 3 ^ 3 
 
 burned to death «' 305 
 
 Den's theology -*34 
 
 Disestablishment of the Church, begun by Wyclif 63 
 
 Dominicans, the special supporters of the Indulgences *92 
 
 Dominican Inquisition, origin of , ^ 
 
 under patronage of the Popes 20 
 
 supported by the great Lateran Council 2 ^ 
 
 Don John, conspiracy with the Pope 426 
 
 Dorner, his opinion of Calvin 31 ^ 
 
 Dutch Corsairs, the exploits of 351 
 
 Eck M 
 
 Edward III., in conflict with the Pope 62 
 
 Edict of Nantes, enactment of the 292 
 
 England, growing power of the Papacy in H? 
 
 first translation of the Scriptures in *3 
 
INDEX. 501 
 
 Papal issues in the parliament of 61 
 
 surrenders to the Pope 48 
 
 Erasmus, his opinion of Ghent 329 
 
 Eugenie, wife of Napoleon III 442 
 
 Farel 240 
 
 Fenelon, reporting to Queen Elizabeth the massacre of St. 
 
 [Bartholomew 289 
 
 Feudalism in France 235 
 
 France, breaking up of the feudal system in 235 
 
 civilization has traveled beyond 234 
 
 her great opportunity lost 233 
 
 Francis I., 245; 250; 267 
 
 confesses his iniquity c . . . 237 
 
 his interview with the Pope 251 
 
 replies to Piedmont's plea for tolerance 22 
 
 witnessing the tortures of the Protestants 310 
 
 Francis II., 245; 250; 270 
 
 Froude, researches in the archives of Spain 429 
 
 Geneva, great schools and libraries of 313 
 
 Gerard, Belthaser, assassinates William of Orange 360 
 
 Gerson, Chancellor 104 
 
 Goethe 212 
 
 Gregory I., 14 
 
 Gregory IX., 19 
 
 exacting money from England 47 
 
 upholds the Inquisition 20 
 
 Gregory XVI., decree of, against the Bible 77 
 
 Guise-Lorraine family 374 
 
 Mary of, cunning scheme of 387 
 
 Gury, a Jesuit authority 434 
 
 Hay, a Jesuit spy 425 
 
502 INDEX. 
 
 Henry IL, 245; 250; 252 
 
 confiding his plot to William of Orange 343 
 
 his bastard son in charge of murder of Admiral 
 
 [Coligny 280 
 
 Henry IV., his famous conflict with the Pope 130 
 
 Henry VIII 3 74 
 
 Heresy, how it was proven 25 
 
 Hottinger, Nicholas 229 
 
 Huguenots, the justice of their cause 256 
 
 enticed to Paris 276 
 
 after the massacre 291 
 
 deprived of all liberty 294 
 
 why they were slain 286 
 
 under Henry IV 292 
 
 in the United States 295 
 
 Huss, as a preacher 98 
 
 driven from Prague 101 
 
 excommunicated 102 
 
 his patriotism 98 
 
 his martyrdom 107 
 
 sentence against 106 
 
 under safe conduct of the Emperor 105 
 
 Illiteracy in Italy 319 
 
 among Roman Catholics in America 319 
 
 Indulgences in Germany , 137 
 
 origin of 167 
 
 a money scheme 166; 168 
 
 made an article of faith under Clement VII 169 
 
 scale of prices of, from an old tax book 172 
 
 ship load of 174 
 
 Leo X. trades in 175 
 
 Tetzel on 176 
 
 for money rather than charity 181 
 
INDEX. 503 
 
 relation of the Popes to 182 
 
 carried on in this country 191 ; 195 
 
 supported by present Pope 194 
 
 supported by high theological authorities 197 
 
 Zwingli's great sermon against 219 
 
 prices for in Holland 330 
 
 Indulgence, agents of, their disreputable lives 178 
 
 Innocent III., orders the persecution of the Waldenses 23 
 
 upholds the Inquisition \ 20 
 
 Innocent IV., upholds the Inquisition 20 
 
 Innocent VIII., accepts bribes from the Sultan of Turkey. ... 24 
 
 adopts policy of extermination 23 
 
 Inquisition, attempt to introduce in France 250 
 
 introduction into Holland 330 
 
 against the Moors 332 
 
 supported by Canon Law 332 
 
 progre cfi 5 in Holland 334 ; 335 
 
 Invention of type 325 
 
 Ireland, ceded to the Pope by her king 49 
 
 early Christianity of 224 
 
 Indulgences in 193 
 
 failure of Catholic education in 318 
 
 Ireland, Archbishop, his letter to the Pope 95 
 
 his theory of public schools 96 
 
 Isabella, a Papal zealot 437 
 
 persecuting Jews and Protestants 438 
 
 Italians, in the IT. S 318 
 
 James V., allegiance of to the Pope 411 
 
 second Papal marriage of 412 
 
 under control of Catholic bishops 372 
 
 Jerome of Prague •. . 105 
 
 burned to death Ill 
 
504 INDEX. 
 
 John XXIII., character of 103 
 
 excommunicates Huss 102 
 
 his promise to Huss 105 
 
 Julius II., buying mercenary troops 226 
 
 Knights of Malta, selling indulgences 191 
 
 Knights Templars, character of 299 
 
 origin of 300 
 
 strange charge against 302 
 
 tortures of « 303 
 
 suppressed by the Pope 305 
 
 Knox, John, a sermon of 391 
 
 greatness of ., 381 
 
 his charge against the Roman Church 382 
 
 his charge against the Pope 325 
 
 his tilt with the qneen 394 
 
 Xaclere, Jean, the wool-carder of Meaux 246 
 
 Lasserre, suppression of his Bible 78 
 
 LeFevre 240 
 
 Leo VIIL, patron of shrines 215 
 
 Leo X., Austrian Emperor's opinion of 127 
 
 charactor of 168 
 
 excommunicates Luther 140 
 
 Germany becomes a Protestant nation under 269 
 
 Leo X., iniquitous compact with Francis I . 237 
 
 Leo XII., declares against the Bible 76 
 
 Leo XIII., 120 
 
 establishes shrines to the Virgin 217 
 
 issuing Indulgences 198 
 
 opposes the Bible 77 
 
 Lorraine, Cardinal of 250 
 
 forms a league against the Huguenots. 271 
 
 plots with the Pope against England 268 
 
 Lorraine, Mary of 251 
 
INDEX. 505 
 
 Louis XIV., his marriage and his court 293 
 
 Louis XV 237 
 
 Lucrezia, daughter of the Pope 435 
 
 Luther assails Indulgences 138 
 
 assails purgatory 139 
 
 boyhood of 134 
 
 before the Pope's legate 143 
 
 Carlyle's opinion of 132 
 
 burned in effigy 148 
 
 condemned by University of Paris 155 
 
 decision against, at Worms 153 
 
 declares the Pope is anti-Christ 150 
 
 effect of Huss on 112 
 
 excommunicated 140 
 
 first sees a Bible 135 
 
 his journey to Rome ; 136 
 
 his patriotism 160 
 
 his influence at Wittemberg 146 
 
 no longer a Roman Catholic 156 
 
 summoned to Rome 141 
 
 sublime courage of 162 
 
 taken to Wartburg 154 
 
 the Pope orders the execution of 146 
 
 Warneo not to go to Worms 151 
 
 Madame de Main tenon, befriends the Jesuits 294 
 
 Margaret of Valois, her description of the massacre 282 
 
 Margaret, Queen regent 336 
 
 Maria Theresa, marriage of to Louis XIV 293 
 
 Martianus, martyrdom of 8 
 
 Martin V 127 
 
 Mary Stuart, mistake of her marriage with Lord Darnley. . . . 423 
 
 joins the agreement of Bayonne 424 
 
 escapes from the castle of Lochleven 425 
 
 secret correspondence of 427 
 
506 INDEX. 
 
 evil results of Papal training on 431 
 
 most entertaining woman in Scotland 365 
 
 her schooling in France 393 ; 415 
 
 in English prison 399 
 
 a visit to apartments of 414 
 
 married to an imbecile prince 417 
 
 Mary Tudor, representative Papal woman 439 
 
 cruel persecutions of 440 
 
 deserted by Philip II , 337 
 
 Maximillian, insurrection of in Mexico 443 
 
 Matilda, champion of the Popes 436 
 
 Melancthon 142 
 
 Methodist itinerancy originates with Wyclif 66 
 
 Mexico throwing off Papal yoke 117 
 
 revolution in, a Papal plot 443 
 
 shrines to Virgin Mary in 216 
 
 Mill, John Stuart 213 
 
 Milton 37 
 
 Monasteries, character of 128 
 
 degeneracy of 103 
 
 destruction of in Scotland 391 
 
 Monks, Dominicans and Franciscans 47 
 
 holding property in England 69 
 
 immorality of 378 
 
 number of in Scotland 379 
 
 origin of 12 
 
 their chief saint 446 
 
 Moravia, great in hymnology and missions 205 
 
 Motley, the historian, describing a Papal massacre 357 
 
 Muller, Max 24 
 
 Napoleon 213 
 
 a dispatch of from Moscow 32 
 
 Navarre, Henry of, a plan to kidnap 272 ; 273 
 
 arrangement for his wedding 276 
 
INDEX. 507 
 
 becomes Huguenot leader 291 
 
 becomes king of France 291 
 
 his oath on the field of Jarnac 272 
 
 overhears a Papal conference 274 
 
 Nunneries, character of 126 ; 128 
 
 Paganism, contrasted with Papacy 2 
 
 persecution of . . . 5 ; 8 
 
 Papal nuncio, kicks the English crown 50 
 
 orders interdict on Prague 101 
 
 smoking Protestants out of caverns 24 
 
 Parsons, prominent Jesuit leader 429 
 
 letter of, to king of Spain 430 
 
 Patrarch 91 
 
 Paul V., levies a tax on the clergy in Italy 114 
 
 Persecution, against conscience and liberty 252 
 
 in France 247 
 
 in Piedmont 22 
 
 for selling books 249 
 
 Philip II., attempts to bribe William of Orange 344 
 
 character of 335 
 
 hypocrisy of, in the Netherland 336 
 
 in the plot against Scotland 388 
 
 offers reward for the death of William 344 
 
 receiving the news of St Bartholomew 288 
 
 secular head ol the Catholic world 401 
 
 urges the destruction of the Huguenots 272 
 
 Piedmont, a hymn of 36 
 
 description of 6 
 
 its church not attached to the diocese of Rome 10 
 
 its people never conquered by Rome 9 
 
 purity of the faith of 10 ; 1 1 ; 16 
 
 unjust Papal laws in 30 
 
 Pius n 146 
 
508 INDEX. 
 
 Pius IY 269 
 
 receiving the news of St. Bartholomew 289 
 
 threatens Charles with the loss of his kingdom 272 
 
 Pius V., opposed to indulgences 192 
 
 Pius VI., grants indulgence license to king of Naples 191 
 
 Pius IX., authorizing indulgences 191 
 
 encyclical against the Bible 77 
 
 on the affairs of New Genada 120 
 
 Plague of the " black death " 46 
 
 Polycarp, martyrdom of 8 
 
 Printing, order of the Papal king against 246 
 
 Purgatory, made a doctrine of the church 169 
 
 origin of 169 
 
 Queen Elizabeth, attempted assassination of 350 
 
 receiving the report of the massacre of St. Bartholo- 
 mew from the French Ambassador . 289 
 
 Relics, worship of 238 
 
 Richard II., marries a Bohemian princess 86 
 
 Richter, Jean Paul 212 
 
 Ridolfi, the conspiracy of 427 
 
 Florentine conspirator 350 
 
 Rizzio, a Jesuit spy 422 
 
 instigates war 423 
 
 Roman Catholic Church, excessive cruelty of . 248 
 
 how the leaders received news of St. Bartholomew. . 287 
 
 hypocrisy of her promises 258 
 
 members of, dependent on charity 190 
 
 is responsible for mobs 200 
 
 money power of 187; 237 
 
 opens the war in France 257 
 
 The many conspiracies of, in France 273 
 
 wears a mask in the IT. S 259 
 
 Roman Catholic league, purpose of . - 395 
 
1 
 
 INDEX. 509 
 
 oian Catholic priesthood 377 
 
 fined for keeping concubines 386 
 
 Roianism, in conflict with civilization 2 
 
 persecution of 5 ; 8 
 
 Rcnan priests, profligacy of 89 
 
 Rene, fall of 10 
 
 early bishops of 14 
 
 Rcss, Bishop of, wages plot against Elizabeth 42 7 
 
 Saust, testimony of, against Pagan Rome 444 
 
 Saolli, decides ecclesiastical laws to be superior to civil 316 
 
 Savonarola 127 
 
 Suismund, Emperor, his pledge to Huss 105 
 
 Sciiller, on the court of the Inquisition 335 
 
 Sc)tland, small size of 367 
 
 greatness of in civilization 368 
 
 St. Bartholomew, arrangement of the plot 276 
 
 how the news was received at the courts of 
 
 [Europe 288; 289; 290 
 
 responsible causes of 243 
 
 the massacre of 277 
 
 the number massacred 284 
 
 was the massacre premeditated ? 274 
 
 William of Orange hearing the news of 355 
 
 St. Dominic, character of 17 
 
 invents the Inquisition 19 
 
 Stephenson, a high Jesuit authority 400 
 
 important confessions of 407 ; 412 ; 419 
 
 Svpitzerland, origin of liberties and intelligence in 224 
 
 IV.tzel, deceit of 178 
 
 teaching of, in the indulgences 176 
 
 the trap he fell into 180 
 
 Ti leodora, concubine of the Pope 435 
 
 Tl ie Franco-Prussian war, caused by the Papal queen 442 
 
 ^^X 
 
510 INDEX. 
 
 The Jesuits, advocate assassination ;34< 
 
 testify to Catholic conspiracies 42( 
 
 their agreement to abide by the law '24? 
 
 their plan to overthrow the government of Eng- 
 land 4^30 
 
 they secure the revocation of the edict of Nantes. . . . 293 
 
 The Lombard league 16 ; 46 
 
 The Magna Charta, origin of 51 
 
 The Netherlands, freed from Papal rule 360 
 
 wealth and prosperity of 3 27 
 
 The Papacy, bitter persecutions of 21 
 
 charge of, against Wyclif 445 
 
 condemned by Roman Catholic authorities; 13 
 
 fighting the Bible translators 161 
 
 growing power of, in England 117 
 
 The Papacy, hypocrisy of 52 
 
 in the 19th century 28 
 
 influence of, on womanhood 433 ; 443 
 
 Isaiah's prophecy against IS 
 
 its five reasons for hating Luther 159 
 
 opposed to the Bible 75 
 
 opposed to patriotism 161 
 
 opposition to, in Mexico 117 
 
 Pagan sources of 12 
 
 policy of in America 280 
 
 proscriptive laws of 30 
 
 real beginning of 14 
 
 rise of 5 
 
 the cause of wars 157 
 
 the temporal power of , 14 
 
 threat of in the U. S 116 
 
 two headquarters of 45 ; 53 
 
 unrelenting foe of intellectual and political free- 
 dom 230 
 
INDEX. 
 
 511 
 
 Popes, bribing an army .... 243 
 
 greed of ■. 187; 236 
 
 levy a tax on France 23 
 
 levying a tax on French clergy 238 
 
 not reformers 228 
 
 opposed to civil and religious liberty 101 
 
 order the confiscation of property, and holding of 
 
 [slaves 246 
 
 their course relative to sale of indulgences 182 
 
 their hand in elections 149 
 
 two females 14 
 
 The Spanish Armada 401 
 
 defeat of 404 
 
 large equipment of 402 
 
 supported by the Pope 404 
 
 Torquemada, Dominican inquisitor 331 
 
 Toulouse, synod of, against learning and science 18 
 
 Virgin Mary, shrines of, a fraud 215 
 
 shrines of, in the U. S 217 
 
 Waldenses, character of 15 ; 20 
 
 children of Providence 33 
 
 famous covenant of 27 
 
 great endurance of 31 
 
 influence in England of 51 
 
 moral table of 36 
 
 most noted hero 32 
 
 picture of in 16th century 35 
 
 sent beyond the Alps 26 
 
 teachers of Wyclif 38 
 
 their devotion to the Bible 34 
 
 Waldensian refugees 38 
 
 Waldo, Peter 17 
 
512 INDEX. 
 
 William of Orange, character of ;. . . 
 
 ground of his revolt against the Papacy 323 
 
 hearing the news of St. Bartholomew 355 
 
 great triumph of 358 j 
 
 page at the German court 342 
 
 the attempts to kill him 348 
 
 the assassination of 360 
 
 Women, Pagan teachers on 444 
 
 Protestant type of 445 
 
 Worms, diet of 150 
 
 condemns Luther 153 
 
 Wyclif , birthplace of 59 
 
 charge of the Papacy against 445 
 
 his body ungraved Ill 
 
 his influence in Bohemia 87 
 
 his petition before parliament 62 
 
 his writings interdicted in Prague ■.. 100 
 
 Zwingli, a sermon talked about over Europe 218 
 
 against celibate priesthood 226 
 
 birth and childhood of 210 
 
 on Indulgences 219 
 
 patriot and orator 214 
 
 proven to be right 255 
 
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 A ' 
 
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