LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. fvJn^^Ty THE FIGHT WITH ROME BY JUSTIN Df FULTON, D.D. Author of " Why Priests Should Wed f ^^ Roman Catholic Element in American History;'" " Washington iii the JLap of Roffie ;'' '''•The Way Ozit ; or the Escape oj a Nun;'''' ''''Rome in Ainerica;'" ^'Shoxv Tour Colors f " Woman in the Toils of Rome^" etc. MARLBORO, MASS. Published by PRATT BROTHERS. Thb Library op cw76rbss WASmNGTOH ^y^ ^^6 ^ ^^ 6 Copyright, li By JUSTIN D. FULTON. THIS BOOK WAS ELECTEOTYPED, PRINTED AND BOUND BY PBATT BROTHERS, MARLBORO. TO MEN AND WOMEN READY TO DARE GOD'S TRUTH, AND TO DO RIGHTEOUSNESS, THAT CHRIST MAY BE GLORIFIED, AND THAT COWARDS, WHETHER PROTEST ANIS OR ROMANISTS, MAY BE DELIVERED FROM THE THRALLDOM OF A CRUSHING DESPOTISM, THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR. CONTENTS. PAGE Introduction i Imperiled Romanists ; or are Romanists worth Saving . . 5 How Romanists Deceive Romanists i<^ Purgatory the Masterpiece of Presumption 33 High and Low Mass, a Roaring Farce 49 How Romanists Deceive Romanists by the Aid of a Cardinal 65 Shall New England Break the Fetter ? ....••• 83, Italy as It Was and America as It May Be 97 Girolamo Savonarola, or How Romanism Hates Reform . 113. Edward McGlynn, D. D., the Unfrocked and What? . . 129 The Cathedral Door Shut 143, Leo XIII in American Politics 153, John Wycliffe honored as a Truth Teller 161 The Outcome of Our American Life 181 The Fight in Biddeford 199 Rev. Charles Chiniquy 205 The Nun of Kenmare vs. the Despotism of the Church of Rome 207 Martin Luther in Harness 233 A Romish Fetter worn by New York 247 The One Mediator 263 The Dawn of a New Era for Romanists 273 Is Romanism Christianity ; Let Canada, Cuba and Brazil answer 287 Imperiled Homes 305 Bismarck; His Doings and Undoings 319 Pauline Propaganda ; Its Purpose and Plan 351 Romanism and the Negro 367 Romanists not Fit Educators of American Youth .... 385 The American Reformation, Weekly "American", Reform Books, Etc. 400 V ILLUSTRATIONS. Justin D. Fulton, D. D. Frontispiece Fac-Simile of Printed Appeal for Mass . . Page 6i Fac-Simile of Printed Envelope for Mass . . 62 Cardinal James Gibbons 64 Stillman B. Pratt 96 GiROLAMO Savonarola 112 Edward McGlynn, D. D 142 Pope Leo XIII 152 John Wycliffe 160 William Hogan ,. . . 180 Hon. J. R. Libby 198 Rev. Charles Chiniquy 204 Nun of Kenmare 206 Bismarck . .' . 318 Martin Luther 232 PUBLISHERS' NOTICE. Justin D. Fulton, D. D., is the son of Rev. John J. Fulton, and was born atEarlville, N. Y., March i, 1828. The father was of North-of-Ireland stock and the mother of Pilgrim descent. Justin removed with his parents to Michigan in 1836, and at the age of eleven united with the Baptist church. In 1847, ^^ entered the University of Michigan. He was gradu- ated from the University of Rochester in 1851, and entered the Theological seminaiy. In December, 1853, he became editor of the Bible Union paper, in St. Louis, which immediately sprang into a large circulation. In 1854, ^^ organized a church in Biddle Market hall, St. Louis, with twenty-four members. In 1855, this church had grown so large that it required two pastors. He stood for freedom in a slave city and was driven out. Was settled in Toledo and Sandusky, O. Thence to Albany, N. Y., and in 1863 to Tremont Temple, Boston. In 1873 he built a large People's church, at Brooklyn, N. Y. In 1887, he gave up all to devote himself wholly to the new Reformation. He has the faith and courage of Elijah. He is the leader of the Pauline Propa- ganda. Dr. Fulton has exerted a mighty power through the press, both in newspapers and books. He realizes, as few do, the grand sweep of this modern influence. He is a constant contributor to the newspapers. Of his books, "Why Priests Should Wed" and "Rome in Amer- ica" have had immense circulation. This new book, "The Fight with Rome," was born while Dr. Fulton was under the fiercest fire of criticism from angry Romanists and cowardly Protestants. An examination of the table of contents will show that every chapter was written to meet the overwhelming emergencies today. Vlll PUBLISHERS NOTICE. These thoughts, fearlessly expressed, are the ripe fruitage of a ma- ture mind, that has made this greatest of all national and religious problems a life study. Not a chapter here that has not been re- written many times, and bathed in tears and consecrated by many prayers, before it was given to the public. Dr. Fulton delights to tell the truth. He is the most fearless man we have ever known. At the same time, he is the most tender and loving of Christian leaders. Love begets love. No person of our acquaintance has ever shown such love for God and man as the author of this book. May the Lord bless it abundantly, now and evermore, is the sincere prayer of The Publishers. INTRODUCTION. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom ;" the fear of Rome is the beginning of folly. The most inexplicable fadt con- ne(5led with our American life is the indescribable fear which per- meates the community concerning Romanism. It infedls the air. It pervades society. It creeps into churches and shuts the doors against the uncovering of the errors of Romanism and delivering the bond- men from the chains of its galling despotism. It holds the ruler or millions in its thrall, and awes the humblest citizen. It lays its embargo on free thought. It dominates the press. It makes many of our noble ministers dumb in the pulpit. It excludes from the platforms of political parties all utterances that would warn the people of their peril or outline the path of safety, and fills the minds of the million with apprehension and alarm. East of the Missis- sippi, there are here and there newspapers not afraid of Rome, but west of it there is hardly one that dares publish a report prejudicial to Rome. The causes of this fear are apparent, and deserve to be enu- merated and explained. 1. Men fear Romanism because, it being the incarnation or error, its votaries are without a conscience and without honor. Kindness w^ins no recognition. Relationship proves no defense against the devilish hate. 2. Romanists are ruled by a power utterly indifferent to public opinion. Rome tramples on decency and virtue. Her priests can drink to drunkenness, in conversation they can be foul-mouthed, in pri- vate they can be abusers of themselves, they can outrage virtue and bring scandal on homes, separate husbands from wives, and use language with young and inexperienced girls which would not be tolerated in the professedly good and which could only character- ize the infamously abandoned and the utterly vile ; and yet society 2 INTRODUCTION. tolerates all this, and when the priests are berated and denounced for it they simply laugh at the indignation of the community, and push on as if they were masters of the situation. They pass from the brothel to the altar and celebrate the mass, and from a state of utter inebriety to perform the most solemn sacraments ; and all this is borne with because they are Romanists. Have the people for- gotten that the standard of morality in every community finds its rule of measurement in what it tolerates ? In this fight with Rome, the gi-eatest possible victory will be achieved when the American people shall demand that the priest who ministers to a Romish parish shall in conduct be as clean as the minister who occupies a pulpit in the evangelical world. It is not an ans^ver to say that there are bad ministers as there are bad priests. True, but where is there a bad minister upheld by a church or a denomination ? He cannot be pointed out ; and yet unnumbered priests bring disgrace upon the community, and are sustained by the church and kept in their places by the powers abL,ve them. To all this priests assent, and jeer at those who demand that in life and practice they conform to the teachings of the New Testament. It is yet to be ascertained Avhether auricular confession, the sea of infamy and pollution in Avhich priests swim and revel, shall not be broken up by legislation, and whether the children now taken out of the public school and shut up in the parochial school shall not be compelled by law to attend the public school, that the state may live even if RomanisiTi shall die. 3. Romanists area unit in a6lion, no matter about conviction or individual choice. Seven millions of people are compelled to vote as the cardinal, archbishops, bishops and priests may command. Parents are com- pelled to take their children out of the public school or have the sac- raments withheld. Shall this be tolerated, or shall a law be passed and be enforced making it a criminal ofiense for any one to tamper with the right of the people to have their children educated in the schools provided for them by the state ? These questions enter into the fight with Rome. Roman Catholics must see that they cannot afford to have their children fall behind in the race, as they surely will if educated in a way that shall make them inferior in ability to ■others. In time there must be a revolt, and then the people must INTRODUCTION. 3 stand by them. Let Protestant children befriend Roman Catholic children, shut out from the enjoyments and advantages afforded to them. Let Protestant men and women talk freely with Roman Catholics in regard to the peril that threatens their youth. Let the pulpit speak, and the press illustrate the tendency and trend, and all will be well. Rome cannot successfully resist the concentrated force of public opinion, but must yield or depart. The time is coming when the people will demand that the clerical orders of the Roman Catholic church march with Protestants, beneath the stars and stripes, in support of American institutions, or be treated as traitors and as enemies. As Abraham Lincoln said : "Sooner or later, the light of com- mon sense will make it clear to every one that no liberty of con- science can be granted to men who are sworn to obey a pope who pretends to have the right to put to death those who differ from him in religion." "Sooner or later, the people will be forced to put a restridlion to that clause of unlimited toleration toward a papist * * I am for liberty of conscience in its truest, noblest, broadest and highest sense. But I cannot give liberty of conscience to the pope and his followers, the papists, so long as they tell me, through their councils, theologians and canon laws, that their conscience orders them to burn my wife and strangle my children and cut my throat when they find an opportunity." (Washington in the Lap of Rome, p. 127.) Nor can the American people afford to have the youth of the Roman Cathclic church educated to believe that either the priest or the church can give them a warrant to trample on the ordinances of the land, or set at defiance the commandments written by God's finger on the tables of stone amid the thunderings and lightnings of quaking Sinai. The American people must care for God's cause, uphold his honor and obey the teachings of his word, and then may be assured that they will share his protection and care. A free and fearless pulpit is the hope of the nation. John Knox made Scotland the terror of Rome. Germany was emancipated by the preaching of Luther. Switzerland, through Zwingli's influ- ence, became the fortress of liberty, against which the waves ot despotism beat in vain. England is indebted to John Wycliffe, who opened the way for Tyndale, for Cromwell, and for William, prince of Orange, who helped emancipate a people that has thrown off the 4 INTRODUCTION. fetters of Rome ; that, under the banner of Judah's Lion, stands as the defender of an open Bible ; and, with the people of Germany and of the United States, makes freedom to worship God a possibility in all the world. The outcome is viftory. Rome is broken when everybody dares tell the truth and ^vill do it. Romanism is like a thistle. Grasp it boldly and its sting is slain ; toy with it and it becomes the nettle of danger. Is Rome master? Today, judged by the cowardice of men in church and state, the looker-on would be compelled to say It is. Tomorrow the answer will be No, because fifty millions are waking up. Eyes are opened. Ears are unstopped. The call to adtion is heard. The shackles of fear are being broken. Thought is free, expression is in order and liberty for all is at the door ; for the fight with Rome is the fight for truth, for education and for home, and the people enjoying liberty and creeping up out of the bondage of a blinding superstition into the noonday radiance of an accom- plished liberty will bear a hand in the conflict and share in the triumph of right over w^rong, of Christianity over Romanism. IMPERILLED ROMANISTS; or ARE ROMAN- ISTS WORTH SAVING? "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord." Isaiah i:i8. The question "Are Romanists worth saving?" is asked in the imperial city of New York, the gateway of the v^estern conti- nent and the largest city in the world ruled by Roman Catholics. Here Protestants, for reasons which I need not give, have betrayed the man who, of all others and above all others, stood by the stars and stripes, declaring that it should not be lowered to give way to the flag of the Green Isle or any other, and that so long as he re- tained the head of the government the flag of the union should hold the place of honor. We honor Gen. Dix for what made him immortal. When the stars of hope were fading out of our sky, when treason was in the air and our beautiful banner was being trampled in the mire of se- cession, he telegraphed, perhaps inspired by the brave and fearless Stanton: "If any one hauls down the American flag, shoot him on the spot." It is not better to lower it, and give some other flag its rightful place, than it was to haul it down ; so, no matter how betrayed and defeated, I begin my work by thanking God for Abram S. Hewitt, assuring him of our heart-love and of our prayers. "Come, let us reason together." Protestants and Roman Cath- olics have much in common. We have one God, the Father of lights, before whom in unison we bow. The Lord Jesus Christ, lifted on the cross, is the Saviour of all men. Let him have his place. Remember that he was careful at the marriage supper at Cana of Galilee to refuse to recognize the mediatorship of his mother, and said when she told him " They have no wine," "Woman, what have I to do with thee?" Thus he placed, at the beginning of his ministry, his heel of condemna- tion on the doctrine of Mariolatry. Let it stay there. Let us worship 5 O IMPERILLED ROMANISTS. Jesus Christ, the expression of the Father's will, for whom all things were made, and by whom. We have in common the third person of the holy trinity, the Holy Spirit. Let us trust him and serve him and rest upon his office work ; let us reject baptismal regeneration and the value of sacraments, and believe in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. We have the holy Bible, the word of God. Let us lift it to its rightful place, in the home, in the sanctuary, in the school house. Make it our unfurled banner ; let it be to us what the pillar of cloud and fire was to ancient Israel. Follow its lead, obey its commands<, and we shall reach Canaan together. Iinperilled Roinanists^ are they worth savmg? is my theme. Is it Romanists or Christians who are imperilled? Romanists, I answer. Doubtless very many would say Romanists need have no fear. In New York they have got the earth ; they hold all the offices, dictate the policy of political parties, make the pulpit dumb, fetter the press and ride the nation as a nightmare. This is only the beginning, and is the result of cowardice and not of neces- sity. Rome is a dominant power in politics, as in religion. Thou- sands, aye, even millions, are glad to serve Rome. The man who has a yard of green ribbon to sell or a day's labor to hire, in the house, the shop, or the field, seems to be afraid of saying anything or doing anything that shall not serve the *^'Lady of the Tiber." The prince of the power of the air, of whom Romanism is the in- carnation, is a fact, which fills so many with apprehension when- ever it is proposed to tell the truth about Romanism to Romanists. Let us thank God for the quickening pulse of liberty. Think ol the brave words spoken in pulpits concerning Romanism. God stands with those who stand with him. Germany's sun is coming out of the cloud because her emperor stood side by side and shoulder to shoulder with the king of Italy ; who, despite the mists of su- perstition, has climbed to the broad plateau seen by Mazzini and contended for by Cavour, and walks in the brightness of advanced progress. In America the cry is for a man who can take up the work of Abraham Lincoln, and go where he did not dare go, and say about Romanism what he did not think it wise to say, until the grave of Romanism shall be dug and a path to liberty be opened to the millions coming out of bondage. The wealth hanging on dead IMPERILLED ROMANISTS. 7 images of the Virgin Mary in the churches of Spain would pay the national debt, and distributed among the people would give com- fort and abundance to thousands where now is squalor and want. It is much the same in New York. It is enough to break one's heart to hear the story of the poor Romanist — wife in want, children without bread, the priest deaf to all appeal. No wonder those men are loved who, at the altars of Rome, illustrate the teachings of the gospel. Carry this truth into the poorest tenement districts of New York. Let Christ be formed in men the hope of glory ; rum shops would be converted into groceries or bakeries, and squalid tenements into comfortable homes. Ring out the truth as never before. Christ died to save, to save from poverty to thrift, from a life which de- grades and destroys to a life that ennobles and blesses. It is in order to say that Romanists are imperilled in New York as they are not in Italy or in Mexico. To either country it is fash- ionable to send preachers, as if Romanists needed the gospel. New York could even tolerate Wm. C. Van Meter, so long as he worked for Italy. Men of wealth give thousands of dollars to send the gospel to foreign parts, whose doors are closed to those \vho propose to make an aggressive march in the city where Roman- ism has more brains in its service, more wealth at its disposal and more power under its control than anywhere else in the world. Let it be so no longer. Let us bless God for men who are feeling that the time has come to take hold of this question, and who are ready to be counted in as supporters of the work of preaching the gospel to New York's imperilled Romanists, to whom the word is seldom proclaimed, and perhaps, up to now, has never been made known. Is it not true, in the United States, that Romanists going to the judgment bar of God can say " No man cares for my soul" ? Who preaches to them? They dare not enter our churches. They will not suffer Christian ministers to enter their places of assembling. There is no opportunity to say to them, " Come, let us reason to- gether." Why should Archbishop Corrigan be unwilling to come by my side on this platform and speak to this people ? Why should he not be ready to permit a minister in good standing to stand in his pulpit and proclaim the truth to the men and women that throng the cathedral and gaze upon the dumb show of the mass. ^ It is pitiable that even in this world, as it shall be in the next, a great 8 IMPERILLED ROMANISTS. gulf divides true Christians from bigoted Romanists. Fenelon, In the days of Louis XIV, was not more persecuted as a Romanist, than will be Father Malone, Brooklyn's favorite priest, unless he surrenders his manhood and gives up his love for McGlynn at the didlation of an archbishop who is ruling the Roman Catholics of New York with a merciless despotism that would not be tolerated in Rome. I. Romanists are ifnperilled because the gospel of Jesus Christ is withheld from theTn. Xhey dp not have it in their churches. They dare not enter ours. The Evangelical Alliance of Rochester, N. Y., and perhaps of other cities — owing to the in- fluence of Bishop McQuade, the open foe of our public school sys- tem — orders that when Christian tract distributers find a Roman Catholic home, they pass it by. Imagine our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ saying to the apostles: "Go into all the world and preach the gospel ; but when you come to the house of a Jew or of a pagan, pass them ; they will not relish nor welcome your mes- sage." No one preaches to Romanists. Pulpits are barred against this message, because Roman Catholic churches are in close prox- imity, and the city Tract society forbids the prosecution of this work in one of the churches under its control, lest Romanists be disturbed, and orders its workers to give a wide berth to one called of God to proclaim the truth to those "that are in Rome also.'* Unless this sentiment can be eradicated from the heart, nothing will be done for Romanists. A superintendent of a Sabbath school in New York city said that if this work for Romanists is to be prose- cuted, a new feeling of love must be born in the hearts of the workers. Now they not only do not seek to get Roman Catholic cl-ildren into the school, but they would not welcome them to their classes. Church after church refuses to engage in the work for Romanists, and Reformed Catholics, so-called, ai-e treated as though the charge of Dean Swift was true, that only the weeds come out from Rome. People on every hand are looking to the children of the light for truth, and yet they withhold it, and so imperil Roman- ists. Romanists are without peace in Rome. A girl was dying. No neighbor called on her who dared speak of Christ. At length a converted Romanist came. The fear of purgatorial fire had tor- mented her. The friend had been delivered by the truth. She IMPERILLED ROMANISTS. 9 tried to tell the truth to the sick girl. She was afraid to hear it, and cried to Mary and to St. Benedict. At length she told her of the joy she had found when she had taken the word, believed it and rested on it. At last the poor Romanist consented to receive the Bible, hid it beneath her pillow and read it as she could. The word saved her. She saw that Jesus Christ saves, and that when he said "It is finished," it satisfied God and made him the ransom of the soul. That brought peace. Such souls are all about us. Who goes to them ? To this work priests and people are alike opposed. No one knows to what persecutions and negledls the child of God is subje(5led. Think of a brother uninvited to attend his brother's funeral, as was the case of a man in Brooklyn, when his brother died in Boston. Think of another brother driving a brother from the embrace of a mother whom he visited in Ireland, because of the bigotry of Romanists. "Come, let us reason together." There is a more excellent way. Such fear as this keeps millions still. We were in Marshalltown, Iowa. A fine-looking man listened to the sermon telling of the needs of a Romanist. At the close of the sermon, that merchant came up and said: "I think you Christians in this town are very cowardly. I have walked with you, invited you into my office and into my home, and not one of you has ever spoken about my soul." Rome is well served by Christians who hide their light under a bushel and refuse to open the way to Christ. In the introduction to "Rome in America," the question is argued, " Can we hope for the conversion of Romanists?" That paper w^as read to twenty- four evangelical ministers, only two of whom had ever made the attempt to win a Romanist to Christ ; and yet whoever seeks their conversion finds them accessible. This brings us again to the question, "Are Romanists worth sav- ing?" If actions speak louder than words, what say you. Chris- tian ? Have you ever a6ted as if they were lost unless the gospel be proclaimed to them? 2. Ro77ianists are imperilled because of the vjidely prevail- ing impression that Romanism, is better tha7i no religion^ and that in the church of Rome some of the noblest^ purest and niost saintly characters have lived and died. Was not Madame Guyon a Christian ? ask very many. She was, and was persecuted by Romanists from the day of her conversion until her death. lO IMPERILLED ROMANISTS. Rome had no welcome or love for Madame Guyon. She was excluded from towns, robbed of her estates and immured in prisons because she loved and confessed Christ. Salvation, as taught by the word of God, is the beginning. In Rome, it is the end. Love is the fountainof the Christian's life; fear rules the Romanist, and yet some say Romanism is good enough for the poor of Europe and the poor of America. If good enough for the poor, it is good enough for anybody. I stand here to declare that Christ died for the poorest as well as for the richest, and that the gospel of Jesus Christ opens the wav from the hovel of the humblest to the highest place. It takes the flute plaver in the streets of Eisleben, brings him into the fellowship of Christ and makes Hans Luther's son the pioneer of a reformation that changed the face of Europe. It makes John Bunyan, the tinker, the teacher of the world, because he re- counts the glory of a Pilgrim's Progress. J. Ro7nanists are ijnperilled by RoTnanism^ which is the tap- root of despotism. Think of nuns shut up in hopeless captivity in New York. Think of priests sent to monasteries and compelled to live on bread and water, for manifesting sympathy for a friend and brother \vho has been for more than a score of years the heart and soul of great philanthropic movements. Roman Catholics are wearing fetters, which ought to be broken and which must be gall- ing. Let the sceptre of an archbishop be cast into the sea, and let Romanists in New York become free. They are ruled by a pope they never saw or chose. This is not American or right. Truly has it been said : "If God intended that the pope should do all the thinking of the world, he would have given him more brains. If God intended that the pope should do all the seeing of the world, he would have given him other than human eyes." We accord to Roman Catholics the same privileges we enjoy, and in- sist that they shall be content with these or emigrate. It is because Romanists fight freedom of speech, of the press and of worship that we call a halt. Rome, in a bull of 1370, repeated in 1430 and re- affirmed in 1566,1627 and 1869, excommunicates all classes outside of the Romish church, known as heretic, and forbids freedom of action on the part of individuals, except insomuch as the church permits through its direct authority. This brings the Roman Catholic church into direct antagonism, not only to free thought, but to brotherhood, to neighborly kindness and to the rights and IMPERILLED ROMANISTS. II privileges of citizenship, and makes it certain that a people who indulge in such proclivities will receive injury. 4. Ro7nanists are imperilled by the feeling of hostility being engendered toward them. Seven millions cannot contend against fifty millions, whenever the latter once resolve to assert and main- tain their rights. The war from Rome has begun. The Watchman, the Roman Catholic organ of St. Louis, declares that within fifty years Prot- estantism and Romanism are to try titles. When that time comes, Romanism will go to the wall. Romanism may place itself like the maddened bull in front of the engine. The bull must die or fly. The train will move on. The great republic is God's incar- nated purpose of libert}^ It must live, because in its life are the lives and hopes of millions. Victories for truth are in the air. History is being uncovered. Books may be excluded from the public schools, but that only bulletins them for the world, and turns the eyes of millions to historic facfts, which are coming into a new life. The United States has a place in prophecy. Moses planted the seed ; Daniel saw it and foretold its growth and its destiny. It was to fill the whole earth. Romanism is in utter antagonism to the purposes of Almighty God, and its doom is fixed. In Rome, Romanism is dying and the pope talks of emigration. In Ameri- ca, Romanism is thriving, because the problem of immigration re- mains unsolved. Its turn will soon come. Then the ballot will be taken from the hands of all who owe allegiance to a foreign po- tentate and are disloyal to the flag that is our glory and praise. American manhood is to be the ideal of our American life. It is the great ideal that determines the character of a nation. Romanists have had their opportunity. They have mis-improved and wasted it. Toleration of error is treason to truth. Justice, honesty and fidelity are next in order. Romanism is to be weighed as a party, not as a religion. It demands public supremacy and a part of the public tax, : having stepped into the public arena, it will be put under crucial tests ; then, having come to be thor- oughly known and understood, will be hated as a power that coines forward in organic form, and, w4th defiant and deadly purpose, has placed itself like a foul monster on the top of the intelligence and conscience of the people, to become the arbiter of parties and rule as the balance of power. This will not be borne. The cry sounds 12 IMPERILLED ROMANISTS. / out: "Up, for this is the day in which the Lord hath delivered Romanism into thy hand." In the Hght of poHtical economy, Christians are urged to seek the salvation of Romanists. Romanism fills New York and all our large cities with squalor, ignorance, poverty and wretchedness. The gospel is the soul of every anti-poverty movement. Romanists loosened from Rome make anarchists, infidels, atheists. Italy is full of them. The gospel of Jesus Christ is their only hope. Re- ligion fills the heart with love, makes neighborly kindness a princi- ple of life, kills boycotting, persecution and selfishness, which Ro- manism fosters. Naturally, it is not in the heart to love a people led by Jesuitical leaders and bent upon undermining liberty. They are deceptive rather than outspoken. They are served by false- hood instead of truth. To redeem them saves them and hurts Rome. The work for Romanists has been full of encouraging sur- prises. No sooner are Christians ready for the work than they find that the work is ready for them. Romanists are accessible. Millions of them have grown weary of the deception of Rome. Purgatory, the masterpiece of presumption, is a scare and a sham. Tell it to them, and they turn to the hope in Christ with delight. High and low mass is a roaring farce ; make it plain, and they keep their money and bankrupt Rome. They see that the standard of morality in the Roman Catholic church is low. The truth contained in "Why Priests Should Wed," a book written to save women and girls, fitted into the life-needs of Romanists, and they welcome it w^ith delight. It is a great privilege and a high honor to permit the voice of a dead nun and of priests into whose souls the iron of Romish hate entered to find a resurrection. Strange and mysterious are the providences which gave to this truth an advertisement that thousands of dollars could not have purchased, which made the author acquainted with the terrible condition of "Washington lying in the lap of Rome," and gave birth to a volume which must work a revolution so soon as its truths are scattered and find a lodgment in the heart and con- science of the nation. The day is big with hope and promise. The uprising in New England is but a prelude to the waking up of the nation. When Rome laid its hand upon and sought the destrudtion of America's public school system, she touched the apple of the people's eye and sent a shock through the organic frame of a na- IMPERILLED ROMANISTS. I3 tion's life. It is determined that the state shall, in self-defense, ed- ucate the youth of the land, so as to grow patriots instead of traitors. To do this the word of God must not be banished, and they who hate it and would gladly burn it shall be thrust out of the place of teachers and be made to earn their living elsewhere. The time will come again when godly school teachers will be as great a necessity, in the estimation of the thinking republic, as the godly minister. Consider these fa6ts and a6l: on them. To do this work, devotion to Christ is a necessity. Get and hold the conception of a lost soul, deluded with the thought of be- ing delivered from purgatory. Christ is reje6led. In eternity, the mists are cleared away ; there the words have their meaning : "Who- soever believeth and is baptized shall be saved ; whosoever believeth not shall be damned." The soul is damned. No cry from the lost can help. No prayers or masses here will avail. Multiply the one soul by millions. Think of the deceived in hell, then think of the deceived out of hell and go after them in the name of Christ and hold up to them the truth. The truth gives freedom. The truth saves. Tell the truth. Scatter the truth. Begin with those next to you, and work on and work out. 5. To work for Romanists requires courage^ the courage which welcomes a convi6lion and then a6ls in accordance with the inspir- ation born of it. How essential is this courage, let the house-wife answer, who has not dared talk with her servant in regard to the needs of her soul. Let the employer answer, who has not had the fidelity to Christ and truth which would make him place the truth before his employees. Let the business man answer who has a cashier in a bank or a clerk in a store that is a Roman Catholic, and so is afraid to have the truth proclaimed by his pastor or in his church, as is often seen. The cowardice of the Christian world passes belief. It makes men silent in the presence of Roman Catholics to an extent that is surprising. It fills them with an indefinable dread that is inex- plainable. Roman Catholics feel it and sufter as a consequence. Said a merchant : "Your Protestant ministers a6l very strange. I have tried to talk with them about my soul's welfare, and they seem unwilling to explain to me the vs^ay of life." Fear seals their lips. Does ic strangle their life? Five ministers sat in a pulpit in Iowa. At the close of a sermon in which the possibility of reaching and 14 IMPERILLED ROMANISTS. helping Roman Catholics was dwelt upon, up strode an elegantly- dressed man who proved to be the first merchant of the town. He said: ^^I see before me jive cowards'' ''Why, how is that?" "Because I have tried in vain to have you talk with me about Christ." "But are you not a Roman Catholic?" "I was, but for years I have tired of Romanism and have desired to know of Christ." The ministers were broken down with sorrow. The man is now in the fold. Said a great ranch owner, in the east, "Give me some of those books." He took and paid for a half dozen copies of "Rome in America," containing the sermon, "Is Romanism good enough for Romanists ? " and carried them to his office. His partner, a Roman Catholic, came in and said, "What are these?" A. book was pre- sented to him, with the confession that he had neglected to speak to him reg-ardino^ the deathless interests of his immortal soul. The partner, calling him by name, said: "In this regard you have not been true. I have seen the folly of Romanism, but no one has spoken to me of Christ. I will gladly read the book." The good seed has brought forth fruit. K. princely merchant hired a coach- man. Riding with him, he talked freely about this work for Ro- manists. That night the coachman came and asked for his money, saying: " I do not want to work for any one that talks as you do against my church." " Sit down, James. Did I hire you, or did you hire me?" "You hired me, sir, but I don't like your views." " That may be," replied the merchant. Then, pulling out a Bible in which the coachman read his name, he said, " I was about going to your room to have a talk w^ith you. In my opinion, your soul is in peril. You need the word of God. Let us pray together before 3'ou go, and then take the Bible as a token of my regard." They bowed in prayer. The merchant laid bare the needs of his brother's soul and commended him to God. Rising up, he began to count out the money, when the coachman said : "You need not do it. What you have done looks like Christianity. I want some. I will keep my place." The man is there nov^, a member of the same church with the employer. How much better this way of dealing than leaving an irreligious coachman to instruct boys in profanity, and, helped by priests and nuns, to seduce the daughter and make her his w^ife, as has been done again and again. IMPERILLED ROMANISTS. 1 5 To accomplish this work, we need the baptism of the Holy Ghost, that shall fill our souls with unsptakable love for those who are lost and undone. They do not understand a movement like this. They cannot associate it with anything but bac. When speaking on "Nunneries Prisons or Worse," in Chicago, an cboit was made to break up the meeting. Finally, I turned and said : "Roman Catholics, why am I here?" "For money," said they. "No, not for that. No pay is poorer than this you ofier me. I have no sister in a nunnery, no daughter in danger of enduring what I have described in 'Why Priests Should Wed;' but you have, and quite likely there may be some of your friends lifting up hands to God in prayer and crying for release and asking God that some outside of that place of torment may come to their help ; and if you have a particle of the milk of human kindness in your hearts, you will feel like applauding my unselfish efibrt, rather than de- nouncing it." As a result, they broke into kindly cheers, and ap- plauded me to the end of the ledlure. For these Christ died. Pi6ture that love. Drink from the foun- tain. Go forth surcharged with the Spirit. Then you will befriend those who come out from Rome, and take them to your hearts and homes. Until Christians come to love the souls of Romanists, be- cause Christ died for them and because of what they can become when redeemed, little will be attempted. Jerry McAuley was a Romanist. Christ in him and for him and with him made him the benefactor of the city where he became a proficient in the school of crime. The story of Bishop Latimer's conversion well illustrates one good way to work with and for Romanists. In Cambridge, Eng- land, lived a Christian by the name of Bilney. The Scripture was his canon law, the Holy Spirit of Christ his new master. Into the town came Hugh Latimer. Born in Leicester in 1491, educated for the church, he became the wild and rabid opponent of Protest- antism. At the occasion of receiving the degree of bachelor of di- vinity, he had to deliver a Latin discourse in the presence of the university. He chose for his subject, "Philip Melancthon and his do6lrines." He had insulted Staftbrd. He had poured contempt on Scripture readers and the students of the word of God. He now made merry over the teachings of Melancthon, and declared that England, nay Cambridge, would furnish a champion for the t6 imperilled ROMANISTS. church who would confront the Wittenberg do6lors a; id save the vessel of our Lord. But very different was to be the result. There was among the hearers one man almost hidden through his small stature ; it was Bilney. For some time he had been watching Latimer's movements, and his zeal interested him, though it was a zeal without knowledge. Bilney possessed a delicate tadl, a skilllul discernment of character, which enabled him to distinguish error and sele(?l: the fittest method of combatting it. Accordingly, a chronicler styles him a trier of Satan's subtleties, appointed by God to detect the bad money that the enemy was circulating throughout the church. Bilney easily detected Latimer's sophisms, but at the same time loved his person and conceived the design of w^inning him to the gospel. But how to manage it ? The prejudiced Latimer would not even listen to the evangelical Bilney. The latter re- fledled, prayed and at last planned a very candid and very strange plot, which led to one of the most astonishing conversions recorded in history. He went to the college where Latimer resided. *'For the love of God," he said to him, "be pleased to hear my confession." Latimer, believing that his sermon against Melancthon had con- verted him, yielded to his request, and the pious Bilney, kneeling before the so-called cross-bearer, related to him wath touching sim- plicity the anguish he had once felt in his soul ; the efforts he had made to remove it, their unprofitableness so long as he determined to follow the precepts of the church, and, lastly, the peace he had felt w^hen he believed that Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world. He described to Latimer the spirit of adoption he had received, and the happiness he experienced in being able now to call God his Father. Latimer, who expedied to hear a confession, listened without mistrust. His heart was opened ; and the voice of the pious Bilney penetrated it without hindrance. From time to time the confessor would have chased away the new thoughts which came crowding into his bosom, but the penitent continued. His language, at once so simple and so lively, entered like a two-edged sword. Bilney had a helper in the Holy Ghost. God spoke in Latimer's soul. He learned from God to know God ; he received a new heart. At length grace prevailed ; the penitent rose up, but Latimer remained seated, absorbed in thought. The strong cross-bearer contended in vain against the words of the IMPERILLED ROMANISTS. 1 7 feeble Bilney. Like Saul on the way to Damascus, he was con- quered, and his conversion was instantaneous. He stammered out a few words ; Bilney drew near him with love, and God scattered the darkness which still obscured his mind. He saw Jesus Christ as the only Saviour given to man, he contemplated and adored him. *'I learned more by this confession," he said afterwards, 'than by much reading ; I now tasted the word of God." Latimer viewed with horror the obstinate war he had waged against God ; he wept bitterly ; but Bilney consoled him. "Brother," said he, "though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow." These two young men saw eye to eye. What did Bilney do that may not be attempted in any confessional by any redeemed Roman Catholic ? Latimer in his life and death illustrates the power of the religion of Christ. Latimer was changed. He was devout, earnest, true. Elevated to the position of a bishop in the days of Henry VIII, he remained true to God. It is related that vs^hen the bishop present- ed the tyrant king with a gift he sent a copy of the New Tes- tament with the leaf turned down and this sentence marked : "Whore- mongers and adulterers God will judge." When apprehended by order of Bloody Mary, he said to the officer : "My friend, you are a welcome messenger to me." One day, when suffering from the severe frost and denied the comfort of a fire in his prison, he pleas- antly remarked to the keeper of the tower that "if he was not tak- en better care of he should certainly escape out of his enemies' hands," meaning that he should perish with cold and hardship. Brought to the stake and appearing in a shroud prepared for the occasion, a remarkable change was observed in his appearance ;for, tvhereas he had hitherto seemed a withered, decrepit and even deformed old man, he now stood perfectly upright, a straight and comely person. When the fagots were lighted he turned and said to Bishop Ridley, burning with him ; '-'-Be of good comfort^ Mr. Ridley^ and play the fna7i. We shall this daylight such a candle., by God's grace., in England., as I trust shall 7tever be put ozct.'^ The flames rose ; and Ridley, in a wonderfully loud voice, exclaimed, "Into thy hand, O Lord, I commend my spirit." Latimer, on the other side, as vehemently cried out, "O Father of heaven, receive my soul ! " and welcoming, as it were, the flame, he embraced it, bathed his hands in it, stroked his venera- 1 8 IMPERILLED ROMANISTS. ble face with them, and soon died, seemingly with little pain, or none. Beneath the shadow of such sacrifices, let us thank God for the opportunities furnished us to proclaim the truth and count our mercies. Bilney loved. He died a martyr and counted his joy to suffer for Christ. Let us remember, finally : 6. To win Romanists de7nands an overmastering- love for souls. Follow a lost soul to hell. Romanists understand this, and give all they have to get that loved personality out of purgatory. The Romanists are deceived. If saved, they must be saved here and now. To do this, we must track them to their haunts and preach Christ to them where they live. In convents, redeemed nuns have proclaimed the truth to the dying and saved them. This is a work in which all can engage. Workingmen in Biddeford, Me., and Charlestown, Mass., filled their pockets with New Testaments and loaned or gave them to their companions. Many v^ere saved. On New England's rock-bound coast thousands of sailors were imperilled by the storm which ploughed up the deep and piled along the shore many stout and sturdy ships. The Life Saving crew w^ere up and at it. They v/ould not be stopped by peril. They pushed out and brought in their men. Princely people stood in the storm by the shore and took the half famished sailors and wrapped them in blankets and carried them to their homes and warmed and fed them, to save their bodies. A mightier storm is raging. It has emptied the refuse of Europe upon our shores. For them Christ died. They are ignorant ; they inay be vicious ; they may be uncanny ; nevertheless, for them Christ stretched himself upon the cross, went through the agony of suffering and in the might of God and with the tones of victory exclaimed, "// is finished. '' No purgatory beyond. No masses for the dead re- quired here. Christ is all and in all. Who, when God inquires "Whom shall I send?" will reply, '''•Here am /, send me'"' to work for the saving of Romanists from death and hell to Christ and hope? HOW ROMANISTS DECEIVE ROMAN- ISTS. *For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he." Prov. 23 : 7. Romanists in their hearts beUeve in Romanism. They show it. They are to be honored for their courage and pitied because of their delusion. The question of indulgences has been thrust upon the attention of the American people. Romanists, as is their wont, are attempting to deceive. This deception reveals a state of affairs that calls for sober and calm reflection. No lie is of the truth. No liar hath a part in eternal life. "All liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death." Romanists are no exception, and yet is it not true that in regard to religion or business, the v^^ord of a Romanist and the oath of a Romanist is at a discount, especially if the interests of the church demand, in his opinion, a misstatement.^ I. Romanists deceive Romanists because their religion is built on a lie. As he thinketh in his heart, so is he. Thinking a lie in the heart makes a man a liar. Thinking in the heart determines character, and charaiSler determines condudl. Let us apply these self-evident truths to the circumstances that environ us. We are dealing with millions of people who we know think a lie and act a lie. Romanism is in itself a fraud. Its taproot is falsehood. The tree through all its branches is deception. Do we say this forget- ting how much it involves? It is said the bottom of old-fashioned honesty is falling out of business. It is an alarming statement. May not the result be traced to this cause ? If we tolerate decep- tion and lying, are we not guilty of the sin ? Think of its influence upon the youth. We are taking them out of the association of peo- ple who are taught to tell the truth and to scorn a lie, and shutting them up with men whose so-called theology teaches them that an untruth may be told without sin. If it may be told in one case, it 19 20 HOW ROMANISTS DECEIVE ROMANISTS. may in all. We are dealing with a just and holy God, who cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance. They that offend in one point offend in all. The one jot or tittle of the law is dear to God, and He will not tolerate its violation. Some one has said a lie adhered to is as good as a truth. Nothing could be more false as to results, nothing more true as to appearance. A lie can never be a truth. Take a wrong road, and the farther you go the more you are astray. Believing a lie brings damnation quite as much as does the rejection of the truth. This is not the current opinion. Thousands declare, No matter what you believe, so that you are honest about it. That does not prove true in me- chanics. The underwriters declare a ship unseaworthy and refuse to insure her. The captain believes in her, pulls out, gets out upon the ocean, a storm strikes her, and because of her weakness she goes down. Faith did no good. The leak in the ship, the worm-eaten bottom or the rotted rib did the business. Romanism is false from heart to cuticle, from centre to circumference. It is built on the declaration that Christ said to Peter, I will build on you my church, when he never said anything of the kind, but that I will build my church on the confession of my being the Son of God, which Peter made. The lie is adhered to. Men build on it, and reje6l Christ and are lost. That is not all. They do harm. They give time and strength to supporting a lie. Rome claims that Peter lived in Rome, when history sho^vs he never saw it or never dwelt a night there, and yet Romanists cling to it. Receiving this untruth paves the way to the acceptance of others. The story is told of a certain dog that believed a squirrel v^as in a certain hole. Every one knew the dog was deceived, and yet there he stayed, despite all persuasions and abuse. He believed that the squirrel vsras in the hole, or claimed to, and often when caught look- ing there, with a sheepish face, he would seem to say. Let me alone ; the delusion does me good. So they let him stay and watch the hole. Romanists are indulged in the same way. Few try to expose their errors. The many claim, It is an innocent amusement ; let them cling to error and do not attempt to displace it with the truth. Do you know what such logic is doing? It is fostering error. It is begetting peril. Romanists worship a man instead of God, take tradition instead of the scriptures, and turn away from the path HOW ROMANISTS DECEIVE ROMANISTS. 21 Christ marked out, which is the path of safety. They do not stop there, but they teach their children so. The result of this teaching is seen in the hoodlums crowding our cities, filling our reforma- tories, prisons and jails, and utterly subverting the foundations of morality in the realm inhabited by them. They believe error, teach error, and practice crime. The cloud, born of this fa6l, darkens the skv. History declares that wherever popery has been estab- lished, in the full workings of its priestly domination, it has had a blighting influence upon the happiness, the knowledge and the ad- vancement of mankind. Enter any Roman Catholic street, mingle with the children, listen to the indecent expressions and beastly language of these Romish sufferers, and you perceive the influence of the religion they profess extending from the corrupt heart into the speech, and carrying with it the debasing influence of the confessional in which a debauched priesthood details the disgusting characteris- tics of Dens' extraordinary indecencies, in words and ideas so obscene and obje(5tionable as to be wholly unfit for publication. "Princes and lords may flourish and may fade, A breath can make them as a breath has made ; But a bold peasantry, their country's pride. If once destroyed can never be supplied." 2. Romanists deceive Romanists in denying the truth. Recently the fruit of this lying has been witnessed in statements made concerning indulgences. In Swinton's "Outlines of the World's History" is this passage : "When Leo X came to the papal chair, he found the treasury of the church exhausted by the ambitious proje6ls of his predecessors. He therefore had recourse to every means which ingenuity could devise for recruiting his exhausted finances, and among these he adopted an extensive sale of indul- gences, which in former ages had been a source of large profits to the church. The Dominican friars, having obtained a monopoly of the sale in Germany, employed as their agent Tetzel, one of their order, who carried on the traflic in a manner that was very offensive, and especially so to the Augustinian friars." Every true history of . Romanists are ruined by thinking death life^ and Prot- estants will suffer by leaving them in the night of supersti- tion. There is hope for the average sinner, because he will admit that he is lost, that he needs a Saviour and hopes sometime to be saved. A Romanist will claim that he is saved, though he drinks, swears or sins as he chooses, and goes on with a high hand against God. He refuses to believe that he needs a Saviour. Jesus declares himself to be "the way, the truth and the life," and that no man cometh to the Father but by him. The Romanist cherishes a dif- ferent theory, rejects Christ and is lost. You tell him that life must be begotten in the soul by Jesus Christ. He admits that he is without it, but hopes to get it through the intercession of a priest and through the power vested in the church. He reckons death as if it v^ere life. To stay this delusion is the business of the church of Christ. Over it millions are going blindfold to hell. God's children inust speak or suffer the consequences. Some of them are now betraying souls by their condu6l. Thomas Bilney, one of the martyrs of the olden time, illustrates the peril of denying Christ. It was he who conceived the idea of entering the confessional and telling Latimer, the arrogant priest of Rome, the truth. His story touched Latimer's heart and at last brought him to Christ. THE DAWN OF A NEW ERA FOR ROMANISTS. 279 At length Bilney was arrested. D'Aubigne describes him. Friends tried to dissuade him from teUing the truth. ^'Abjure your errors," said Tonstall. "Let judgment be done in the name of the Lord," said Bihiey. "Will you return to the unity of the church ? " asked Tonstall. "I hope I have never separated from the church," answered Bilney. "Go and consult with some of your friends," said the bishop, who was resolved to save his life. "I give you till one o'clock in the afternoon." He replied as before. Two nights were given. Then came his friends, who wished to save him, not comprehending that the fallen Bilney would be Bilney na longer. They conjured him,'with tears, to have pity on himself, and by these means his hrmness was overcome. The bishop pressed him, and Bilney asked himself : "Can a young soldierlike me know the rules of war better than an old soldier like Tonstall ? or can a poor silly sheep know his way better than the chief pastor of Lon- don.''" His friends quitted him neither night nor day, and, en- tangled by their fatal affedlion, he believed at last that he had found a compromise which would set his conscience at rest. "I will pre- serve my life," he said, "to dedicate it to the Lord." This delusion. had scarcely laid hold of his mind before his views were confused. The light went out of his soul. He had chosen the way of death. Death it was, spiritual and eternal, that threatened him, though it secured a few days of earthly life. Now see him. The Holy Ghost departed from him. God gave him over to his carnal thoughts, and under the pretext of being use- ful to Jesus Christ for many years Bilney disobeyed him at the present moment. Being led before the bishops on the morning of Saturday, Dec. 7, he fell ; and, whilst the false friends who had mis- led him hardly dared raise their eyes, the living church of Christ in England uttered a cry of anguish. "If ever you come in danger," said Latimer, "for God's quarrel, I would advise you, abo\ e all things, to abjure all your friendships ; leave not one unabjured. It is they that shall undo you, not your enemies." On the following Sunday, Dec. 8, Bilney was placed at the head of the procession, and the fallen disciple, bareheaded, with a fagot on his shoulders, stood in front of St. Paul's cross, while a priest from the pulpit ex- horted him to repentance, after which he was led back to prison. What a solitude ! what a hell ! At one time the cold darkness of his 28o THE DAWN OF A NEW ERA FOR ROMANISTS. cell appeared to him as a burning fire : at another he fancied he heard accusing voices crying to him in the silence of the night. Death, the very enemy he wished to avoid, fixed his icy glance upon him and filled him with fear. He strove to escape from the horrible spectre in vain. Friends came and quoted Christ's gentle promises. Bil- ney started back with afiright. Anything but that. ''Ye moun- tains, hide me from the wrath of the Lamb !" was the only scripture in harmony with his soul. His mind wandered, the blood froze in his veins, he sank under his terrors ; he lost all sense and almost his life, and lay motionless in the arms of his friend, w^ho saw and said: "God, by a just judgment, delivers up to the tempests of their conscience all who deny his truth." ( D'Aubigne, Vol. V, pp. 321, 322.) This was in 1528. He repented of his sin and found life. Glory be to God ! He had freedom and death. He has come back to a prison cell and life. The more God comforted, the greater seemed his crime, and the more resolute was he in proclaiming the truth. Once free, he preached in the face of death, and found joy in Jesus even while burning at the stake. What was his sin and his shame.? Simply this: he tried to preacli Christ so as to give no offense to Romanists. It was a fail- ure then ; it is a failure now. Are there not men in peril, as was Bilney? The time has come to ask the question. Churches are closing their doors against the discussion of Romanism. Ministers are saying: "I approve neitherthe spirit nor the methods of those contending against Rome." What is this spirit.? It is, if I know anything about it, to warn Romanists who are in danger to flee from the wrath to come. It is to tell them that the church, judged by its fruits, caricatures Chris- tianity ; it does not glorify it. It incarnates a soulless despotism in the republic, at war with thrift, with prc^sperity, with spiritual emancipation, with soul liberty, with brain culture, with heart food. It carries men from sunlight into gloom, from education into ignorance, from virtue into vice, from the rule of Christ to the do- minion of Satan, which means everything antagonistic to hope in time or in eternity. The spirit of the workers in this new realm is to open the eyes of Christians to a mission field at their very doors, to an India of su- perstition lying all about them. Said one: "In telling us of the THE DAWN OF A NEW ERA FOR ROMANISTS. 28 1 duty we owed to our Roman Catholic friends, you brought us into a new and unexplored country, and we thank you for the new reve- lation we have received that the gospel is for every creature. We thank God that the burden of enlightening the eyes of the blind and the superstitious, and of awakening the church to its responsibility, has been laid on such a fearless and bold preacher of the truth, and we rejoice that your work has not been in vain in the Lord. You have our prayers that the blessing of the Lord may continue with you, and that )-ou may be filled w ith all the fullness of God." That is the spirit. Is it not in harmony with Christ's commission ? Can Christian ministers afford to antagonize it? Can they do so without betraying Christ ? ^. To get out of Ronie^ to Jiate Kofiie^ to abuse Home^ and stay away from Chi'ist is to be lost. Millions in Italy are atheists. Nothing is more hopeless than an ex- Romanist who has lost all faith in every form of religion. They are all about us. Rome has played them a foul game. It has robbed them of money, cheated them out of peace and rest, stultified their intellecls and dwarfed their souls. This is the time to say it. God gives us the opportunity, and millions are opening their ears to hear and their eyes^to see the truth. Let them not look or listen in vain. Set before them life and blessing, believing that the Holy Spirit will attend the efibrt and crown it with success. 5. God^ who sets before you Ife in Christ.^ sets before you death in sin. Pray for the illuminating influences of the Holy Spirit to make this appear. Men are dying in a mine. The shaft is on fire. The wail comes up : "I am lost!" "I am lost!" How it stirs men! From hamlet to hamlet the tidings run: "Men are dying in the mine ! " INIy friends, millions in the Roman Catholic church are in such peril, and we can get at them. The truth as it is in Jesus saves. We must carry the gospel to them. 6. Is not this a time of hope? Romanists in Italy are at war with the pope. The government of Italy claims the right to live, though popery dies. The fight is coming. The undeceived Italians are escaping from the clutch of the hierarchy. The pope sees it and calls for missionaries to work among the Italians in America. Let us be encouraged to greater 282 THE DAWN OF A NEW ERA FOR ROMANISTS. activity. Tell them of Christ. They are sick of the despotism of Romanism, and long for the liberty of republicanism. Carry with this freedom the tidings that Christ died to save. Roman Catholics by the million are questioning in regard to the condu6l of Romanists. Two girls were eating in a restaurant. Both were Romanists. ' 'My brother is being taken out of the public school. My father says it is an outrage, but my mother clings to the priest at the sacrifice of the boy. What will I do?" "Do!" said the other, "leave them." O mothers, fill your breasts with heroic milk. Ignorance is not as good as education for your boy. Dwarf your boy and he will fall behind in the race tomorrow. Keep him in line with free thought and you give him power. Millions are thinking this. Invite Romanists to come and go with you, promising them that you will do them good, for God hath spoken good concerning our American Israel. 7. How can this work be wi'ought? (a) By scattering truth. Tell them of Jesus by the printed trad: and the book. (b) By opening churches to this service. Ask the churches if their houses are too good for this purpose. Then let the errors of Romanism be uncovered. There are many waiting to hear the truth. Let the redeemed glorify Christ, their Saviom*. Let them tell of deliverance from Rome and joy in Christ. As a result they will see that the signal lamps have been lit in the tower of Christian loyalty, and that Romanists are being aroused from their sleep and are taking refuge beneath the banner of Jesus Christ, shouting as tliey come : "//^ whom the Son fnakes free is free indeed.''^ The pope clamors for temporal power. Let Romanists tell the truth and hear the truth concerning the terrible condition of affairs in Italy when the pope had supreme control in Rome. No gospel could be preached there. Not a trad could be given, not a Testa- ment be read. Prostitution was the rule and bastardy was the re- sult. The Jews were persecuted and locked up each night. Con- vents were prisons and houses of shame. Gladstone knows this. What folly to attempt the restoration of the pope to temporal do- minion ! The pope wants supremacy in the United States. That he may obtain it, his fiat has gone forth against the public school. It is THE DAWN OF A NEW ERA FOR ROMANISTS. 283 terrible. The fight is on. To surrender to the pope or not to surrender is an American question. If it is done we compromise with sin and betray the hopes of the children of America. To edu- cate Roman Catholic children in parochial schools is to lower the standard. It is to fill the land with uneducated rather than edu- cated youth, with vicious rather than virtuous citizens. God is speaking to us : "I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing.'* This is our opportunity. It may not be ours long. It is ours to- day. Make the most of it. Some things men can do. Some things men cannot do. Men can make laws and resist them, establish governments and over- turn them, but the issues of life and death they cannot control. In God's hand sleeps help or danger. Life is the result of obedi- ence, death of disobedience. Hence, no city, no people, can af- ford to ride rough-shod over the commands of God's word. Our God is jealous of his rights and rule. Ancient Israel understood it, and when blessed they sang, when cursed they prayed to be for- given. They listened for God to say : "Now "will I rise, now will I be exalted, now will I lift up myself." Then the people knew that rescue was at hand. Think of Israel at Mizpeh. They had been beaten at Ebenezer because they forsook God : at Mizpeh they came back to him in faith, and "said unto Samuel, Cease not to cry unto the Lord our God for us, that he will save us out of the hand of the Philistines ; and Samuel cried unto the Lord for Israel ; and the Lord heard him" and delivered them. They said so. The people were right in glorifying God for the deliverance wrought Dec. 17, 1888. The people chose the Lord and life. They manifested their love to him and their desire to obey him, and obtained the promised blessing, for "He that walketh righteouslv, and speaketh uprightly ; he that despiseth the gain of oppres- sions, that shaketh his hands from holding of bribes, that stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood and shutteth his eyes from seeing evil ; he shall dwell on high ; his place of defense shall be the mu- nitions of rocks ; bread shall be given him, his waters shall be sure.'» (Is. 33:10, 15, 16.) If there be anything that stands out clearly, it is the dreadful con- 2S4 THE DAWN OF A NEW ERA FOR ROMANISTS. sequences that follow from the flagrant violation of God's laws. Up to now we have excused Roman Catholics, saying: ''They are educated differently." "Their eyes will be opened." "The common school and the newspaper will do much for them." Let us change all this They are in peril, because they reject the truth. A man may say that he does not believe in the law of gravitation, and leap from a roof; no matter, gravitation works, belief or no belief, and brings him to the ground. Willful sin and a willful sacrifice of duty v^ork disaster. In the case of a nation it is not different. What ruined Judah.'^ In its first stage, idolatry. In its second, Pharisaism. W^hat sapped the strength of Greece.^ Sensuality. What broke the iron arm of Rome.'* Slavery. What ruined Spain .f* Avarice. What threatens England and America .'* Dere- liclion to duty in contending for the truth. France might have been the light-house of Europe, might have had a Sabbath and a Christian civilization ; but lost all by refusing to contend against Romanism and neglecting to seek the salvation of the lost. She cried peace when she ought to have fought the good fight of faith. The effort to cause truth to lower its flag to error by purchase began with the race and will continue to the end of time, though all history shows it is foolish, as it is unnecessary, to placate error or compromise with its friends. God is the author of prosperity. If it be true that Daniel and Paul are paits of the v^orld's capital be- cause they were steadfast and always abounding in the work of the Lord, it is equally sure that others who shall be faithful to their trust shall enter into fellowship with Jesus Christ, and become heirs of God to an inheritance which is incorruptible and undefiled. The w^ay to prosperity and to success opens to us as it opened to our fath- ers — obeying God's word, telling the truth in regard to Romanism and all other errors and showing that the more excellent way is the path outlined by the Scriptures. The hopeful side is found in the fa 61 that there are more than * 'seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal." Let us thank God for it, and believe that in the future, as it has been in the past, "Men will appear like stars on the horizon at the command of God." Moral cowardice is always a mistake. Courageous en- deavor deserves and obtains great rewards. Daniel would have lost the respect of the world had he pulled down the shutters or THE DAWN OF A NEW ERA FOR ROMANISTS. 285 closed the windows when forbidden to worship God. Our Christ would not have been the Saviour of the world if a railing and ac- cusing mob had turned him aside when he hung upon the cross. It did not. Hear him: "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.'* In Switzerland and in Germany, when the Ref- ormation made progress, converts confessed Christ before the high altar and in the presence of idol- worshiping throngs. A woman having read "Why Priests Should Wed" entered a confessional and told the priest that she had found Christ, as Bilney confessed him to Latimer. The priest, in anger, denied her absolution. The woman replied : "I do not need it. The book has introduced me to Christ. I get it of him." Let others follow her example, and the path of life will open to millions now sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death. IS ROMANISM CHRISTIANITY ? LET CAN- ADA, CUBA AND BRAZIL ANSWER. "Ye shall know them by their fruits." Matt. 7 : 16. Rome is in high feather. She has had a compliment. She has been declared to be the eldest church in Christendom, and entitled to be treated by the evangelical world as a branch of the church of Christ. All this shows what is the trend of error. The prince of the power of the air is manipulating public opinion so as to make op- position to Romanism an evidence of the lack of charity, and causing the individual that charges home the truth upon the "mystery of iniquity," the "beast of prophecy," the "Harlot of the Tiber," to be rated as a bigot and slanderer. In the estimation of these so- called liberal but in fa6t traitorous souls, the red robe of the cardinal becomes an objed: of regard, and in their opinion it is no impro- priety for the representative of the workingmen of the United States to declare his readiness, at all times, to manipulate his or- ganization in accordance with the wishes of the prince of the church of Rome. Not so think thousands and millions of the good and true. Not so teaches the word of God. The Roman Catholic church wants the earth and claims it. She declares herself to be not only the eldest church in Christendom but the only church in Christendom. Indeed, the Roman Catholic church claims that she is Christendom, and that all outside are hell- bent and hell-bound. Let us tell the truth, believing that if the American people come to know the truth the truth will give them freedom. The Roman Catholic church is not the eldest church in Christendom. The eldest church in Christendom was organized at Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost. John the Baptist was the pioneer of the Christian church and Christ Jesus the corner-stone. Jerusalem, not Rome, was the place of its organization and habita- 287 288 IS ROMANISM CHRISTIANITY. tion. This Scripture declares ; this every student of history knows ; and yet thousands have fallen into the way of perverting the truth and giving countenance to the error that Christ entrusted the organiza- tion of the church to Peter and not to the apostles. The statement that the Roman Catholic is the eldest church in Christendom de- serves to be taken out of the thoughts of men. The Roman Cath- olic church is the eldest of its kind. It is a bad kind. It has been a very bad kind all the way. It does not improve with age. It has filled the world with darkness, with wailing and with sorrow. It was the first to set aside the word of God and invent ordinances and sacraments to suit the whims, caprices and needs of those who found it in their heart to serve men rather than the truth, and to run the church in accordance with the behests of expediency, while they rejected the positive commands of God's word and tampered with the ordinances. From the mount of Olives Jesus Christ had ascenaed. "And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven, as he went up, behold two men stood by them in white apparel and said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven ? This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven. Then returned they unto Jerusalem," went up into an upper room where abode Peter, James, John and others and "continued with one accord in prayer and supplica- tion, with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus and with his brethren. And when the day of Pentecost was fully come,, they were all vv^ith one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues, like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them ; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together." And Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice and spoke to the gathered thousands. At last, "They were pricked in their heart and said to Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, w^hat shall we do ? Then Peter said unto them. Repent, and be bap- tized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remis- sion of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. Then IS ROMANISM CHRISTIANITY. 289 they that gladly received his word were baptized ; and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls. And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship and in breaking of bread and in prayers. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved." This was the origin of the Christian church, which preceded the organization of the Roman Catholic church by six centuries. Peter had a hand in this work in Jerusalem, but there is not a shadow of proof that Peter ever saw Rome, while history assures us that the fidlion that he lived and died there is without the slightest founda- tion, and deserves to be treated with contempt. The claim of Romanism to recognition as a part of the Christian world, with rights which must not be interfered with by evangelical denominations, confronts us, and must be resisted and rejected at whatever cost. The Evangelical Alliance has acceded to it. In New York city and Brooklyn, and elsewhere, they who are ap- pointed to canvass the cities and ascertain who are accessible to the gospel are ordered to pass the homes of Roman Catholics and leave them unwarned, to go down to the retribution of despair. It be- comes Christians to teach that the church in Jerusalem, not in Rome, furnished a model, and is, as Paul said in Gal. 4: 26, "the mother of us all." The statement, frequently made by apologetic Protestants, that Roman Catholics are doing a work which others cannot do casts a slur upon the wisdom of the founder of Christianity, the Lord Jesus Christ. It declares that Protestants are either recreant to their trust or indolent to an extent which should create alarm. The hierarchy is learning lessons of great value. The Roman Catholic vote begins to be despised. It used to be feared and courted. The fact begins to be appreciated that Rome only triumphs when Protestants sleep on their arms and consent to the humiliating ag- gression. The cities are in the hands of Romanists because the pulpit has failed to proclaim the truth and the press has neglected to keep the people informed regarding their privileges and duties. To warn and save Romanists ought to take a large place in the plans and purposes of evangelical Christendom. It does not do so. The representatives of the Evangelical Alliance in the large cities pass the homes of Roman Catholics and forget to enter them 290 IS ROMANISM CHRISTIANITY. and speak to them, as if not knowing or remembering that "The entrance of thy word giveth life." Unless Bible readers and Bible lovers warn them, they are lost. Millions of money are given to foreign missions and home missions, and yet these at our door are neglected. Romanists at the present time may almost truthfully say. No man cares for my soul ! Romanists are imperiled because of the false views entertained by millions of Protestants. Episco- palians, high and low church, are claiming that they are a part of the Roman Catholic church, and that the regular succession blesses both churches alike. All this is a delusion. Roman Catholics spurn the partnership. It is fashionable to say, without thought and with small regard for the truth, that there are many in the Roman Catholic communion who love Christ. If this be true, then the Roman Catholic com- munion is no place for them. They should come out and be sep- arate and touch not the unclean thing. They are joined to idol worshipers. All this ritualistic observance, seen in nearly every de- nomination, is a bowing down to Rome. Have done with it, and turn to Christ with a new heart and a new purpose. The claim that the Roman Catholic church is a branch of the church of Christ is disproved : I. By the faith of the church. Rome substitutes for an infinite and holy God a fallible man, called the pope ; for Jesus Christ, the one mediator between God and men, the Virgin Mary ; for the Holy Spirit, the priesthood and the sacraments ; for the word of God, tradition. Rome is in utter rebellion against the Lord Jesus Christ, who goes forth from con- quering to conquer, holding the bow and riding the Avhite horse of a despised gospel with great swiftness through the world. Let us follow our King. Jesus Christ is the captain of our salvation. Let us imitate his example, tell the truth, and refuse disguises, subter- fuges and lies. Christ had a bow in his hand. He leaves it in ours. We may use it. Take the arrows of truth ; shoot with pre- cision and good aim, and the arrows, guided by the spirit of God, shall pierce the harness of the King's enemies, making them ci*y out, "I am wounded, I am wounded." A crown was given to Christ. He wears it now. He is King of kings and Lord of lords. Let all be loyal to him. He is to come again. Victory is in the air. IS ROMANISM CHRISTIANITY. 29 1 Rome is to be broken up. Jesus Christ and the redeemed are to go forth in triumph. The sacraments in all Roman Catholic countries have degenerated into superstitious rites. Baptism, instead of being a simple burial in water as Jesus Christ commands, has become an elaborate cere- mony, in which the priest not only applies the baptismal water, but also makes upon the infant's forehead and the pit of the stomach the sign of the cross, puts salt in the mouth, anoints the eyes and ears with his own saliva, and breathes upon it, mumbling all the time unintelligible Latin. Baptismal regeneration finds its authority and authorization in the church of Rome, not in the word of God. Rome teaches that all who die without baptism are lost. The death of Jesus Christ for those who die before they reach the years of ac- countability is ignored. Rome coins money through the instru- mentality of such errors. The comfort provided by Christ is illus- trated by this incident. A Romish mother came to have her baby sprinkled before death. The minister did not rebuke her, but went with her and taught her the truth as it is in Jesus. He said to the mother, "What good will baptism do?" "Save my child." "How?" "Don't know ; the church says so." "Can the church save?" The thought flashed into the darkened mind, and she re- plied: "Christ saves through the church." "Did he say, 'Come unto me and the church' ? or 'Come unto me, ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest' ? In John 3:16 does it read, *God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him and the church should have everlasting life'?" Another gleam of light lit up the darkened mind, and she asked, "Does Christ save without the church ? " The answer came quick, "Christ saves, and he alone." "Is my child safe?" "Paul answered your inquiry by the words, 'As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.'" (I Cor. 15 : 23. ) How hope flashed its radiance of joy ! Because of this, we see heaven peopled with the redeemed, so that it has been estimated that the multitude of the redeemed will be to the lost what those out of prison are to those locked 'within iron bars. The Lord's supper, instead of being a simple memorial of the death of Christ, becomes in the mass a mysterious something which the church has taught them they must worship, and which, in some 292 IS ROMANISM CHRISTIANITY. unexplained and unexplainable way, appeases the divine wrath and secures the pardon of sin. The testimony of Hfe-long worshipers of the church of Rome proves that the ceremony of the mass is in no way calculated to lead the thoughts of the worshipers up to the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world. 2. By their fruits ye shall k7iow them. Turn to Canada and see what are the fruits of Romanism. Can- ada is the seat of the beast in North America. The Roman Cath- olic church peopled Canada. Quebec and Montreal are the strong- holds of Romanism. Unless the Christians bestir themselves Roman- ism will have upper as she now has lower Canada, or she will hold Ontario as she now possesses Quebec. The English government, when the French Dominion was broken up, found Roman Catholics in possession, and compromised with error by recognizing Roman- ism as a part of the Christian v^orld, instead of the enemy of all righteousness, as it has proved to be in Canada. The result is that Romanism is an imperium in imperio. She is a government within a government. She tithes the people ; she makes them pay their taxes to support her pretentious claims, and is amassing millions on millions of money with which she is buying up the homesteads and fcms of Protestants ; so, slowly but surely, by the marvellous increase of her population as well as by her management, she is gaining control of the important centres and is ruling the realm. In the cabinet Roman- ists hold high positions, and in politics as in religion the church is an objedl to be feared and to be placated. In the recent adl of par- liament, which caused the government to recognize Cardinal Tas- chereau as a prince of the church, placing him on an equality w4th the representative of the queen, we see Rome's supremacy and the people's servility. In Canada the Romish church is in possession of more property than the government. It has more than ten millions of dollars in bank, to be used for propagating the principles and helping forward the interests of the church. Nunneries are places where innocent and unsuspecting girls are beguiled and imprisoned. A friend dined with a gentleman in Toronto. The attack made on Romanism was canvassed. The head of the table deprecated it, saying: "We have lived in har- mony with Romanists, and ought not to antagonize them. Don't you think so ?" His daughter, at the table, was a pupil in a con- IS ROMANISM CHRISTIANITY. 293 vent school, and seemed wild with delight at the position of the father. The man replied : "Unless we are ready to sell out liberty and give our country over to superstition, such words as have been spoken are essential.'' There was a storm. At last the friend said : "Sir, are you not mad? This daughter of yours is a pervert. She is in Rome." The child hissed out a denial. The confli6l ragred. Revelations were made which fris^htened the father. That night he learned that his beautiful daughter had been tampered with by a priest in the nunnery, and the next day he took her to the states, hoping to save her. His sleep was the sleep of death. The nunneries of Canada and of the United States are the charnel-houses of virtue, and many of them the graves of hope. Are such places in existence.^ Read the story of Historic Monk- lands, where Lord Elgin once found a home and a shelter when, on the ever memorable 26th of April, 1849, he gave his assent to the Rebellion Losses bill, and returned through the crowds of mad- dened Loyalists, who followed him with missiles and cries of disap- proval almost to the threshold of his mountain home, where he watched with sadness the fiery flames which drove the seat of gov- ernment to Quebec and Toronto. Monklands is now a monastery or convent, the mother house of the religious order of the congre- gation of Notre Dame. There were, in 1883, eighty-six establish- ments of this order, which gave instru6lion to 19,000 pupils in Can- ada and the United States. Now there are 102, with a yearly attendance of between 22,000 and 23,000 pupils. Flourishing in- stitutions under the control of the mother house have been estab- lished outside of Quebec, in Ottawa, Kingston, Peterboro, West- port, Williamstown, Brockville, Trenton, St. Andrew's in Ontario, with others in New York, Chicago, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward's Isle. In the city of Montreal alone these ladies have charge of seventeen educational establishments. These institutions are presided over by 900 inembers of the order, the most of whom have made their novitiate in that city, while there are 160 novices at the present time. The Reverend Mother Marguerite Bourgeoys was born in Troyes, France, April 17, 1620, and accompanied de Maisonneuve to Canada in 1653. She began her work among the Indians, and in the parlor of the convent there hangs a perfedl representation of the good lady 294 IS ROMANISM CHRISTIANITY. drawing to her breast a little Indian girl who seeks her protedlion. The chapel, with its white marble altar, contains seats for 250 young ladies, among whom are forty belonging to the different Protestant denominations. One surprising yet very practical feature was a class in stenography, where a dozen young ladies were plodding along through Ben Pitman, being fitted for the offices of distin- guished Protestants, wiiose correspondence and secrets may, through them, be made known to the priests. The teachers in these schools are without salary. All that is received for tuition is used to build up the order, in addition to which are the vast sums which come to them through nuns of wealth, who take the black veil and sur- render their all to the order. Now in this magnificent establishment are places from which escape is next to impossible. In such a school taught Abelard. Abelard and Heloise are names which are classic. Abelard ruined Heloise. She bore him a child. He married her in secret, then gave her to a convent. Her friends took Abelard, emasculated him and left him homeless to live and love. Who thinks of it.? Nunneries are places where the most terrible conjlids may rage and the most horrid cruelties fjzay be ena6led. Fa6ls prov- ing this are ignored, or treated as if they were exceptions to the rule. In Toronto' a nun escaped, ran along the street to a house and cried for shelter. Before the family could get to the door, two sisters grasped her and carried her back to the prison-house of sorrow and shame, and there she is at this hour, in helpless bondage, because convents are not inspefted. Mrs. Julia McNair Wright tells of an abbess who had been stolen from parents and from lover, and was given position because of her supposed wealth. At last it was found that her fortune had been dissipated; she was poor. When this truth came out, she became an objedl of aversion and hate. She who had lorded it over all as queen was banished. To her the bishop said: "You shall have no more luxury and adoration; you shall work and be restricted and restrained ; you will labor in a humbler sphere, and in obedience." "Humility, obedience, submission" — w^ords in her vow — now at last came with their full meaning to her. Out of that splendid position, where pride dwelt royally as Lucifer in pandemonium, where were gold and glitter, music and jewels, luxury and pride — if not peace of soul — went the nun who had be- IS ROMANISM CHRISTIANITY. 295 trayed parents and lover for a church without love, w^ithout rewards, a church ruled by selfishness and sordid avarice. The immense sacrifice of her early life, the equally immense sins of which she had been guilty, all the losses, the hopes, the proud anticipations, came to wreck. The ruin of the present, the blackness of the future, all came upon her. She tried to flee, but could not. Her stormy nature lashed itself to fury like a sea in a hurricane. vShe tore her hair, she cursed her name and day, she beat her turbulent bosom. Hogan tells of a nun debauched by her confessor, and says : "Every nun has a confessor and every confessor has a concubine, and there are very few of them who have not several." It is possible to place a young lady in a nunnery, confine her, shut her out from home and friends, claim that she is dead and leave her imprisoned for life. If this is possible, is it not your duty to make it impossible? "Fools, dolts," says Hogan, "are you wiio contrib- ute to the support of popish nunneries. Are females who have been prostitutes in foreign countries, and who, in nine cases out of ten, continue so here, the only teachers competent to instruct your daughters? Are there no good Protestant schools?" The story from Toronto, printed in the press, of a nun leaping from a win- dow and fired at by a priest indicates to what torments they are subje6led. That is not all. Can we not look behind that and read a tragedy which is terrible and pitiable ? In BuflTalo a gentleman connected with one of the influential papers gave me this story : A beautiful woman was loved by a priest and captured by him. She was carried to a .nunnery and kept in con- finement ; she had everything heart could desire but liberty ; she gave birth to a child. On a high day, seeing an opportunity to escape, she availed herself of it, came to his father's house, told her story and was hidden, and is in concealment now. This all occurred in Canada. The perils of convent life are overlooked. The influence of sol- itude on the passions has been fully set forth by Zimmerman. An individual entering a convent and taking the veil does so for what may be gained, not because of any change of heart. As a result, such persons carry into the convent the same spirit, passions and desires that reach them in the world. A nun loves her priest. The fight for lovers is as fierce behind convent walls as in the outer 296 IS ROMANISM CHRISTIANITY. world. All this means more than we can describe. Think of a young woman with time hanging on her hands, with the possibility of giving loose rein to passion and to love, v^ithout let or hindrance. It is possible. May it not be probable? The wom.en who have written of convent life tell this. In my pocket is a letter written by a gentleman well known in this city and the state, v^ho speaks of the bishop of a certain diocese, known to be the father of three children borne him by the lady superior, and the fa6l recognized. If this can be true of one convent, why not of all ? The vow of chastity forbids a nun to love any but Christ. But they cannot and do not keep this vow. Nuns have their lovers among the priests. These mingle together. "I have seen," said Edith O'Gorman, "six sisters in love with one priest. He only loved one. Consequently they wxre un- happy and jealous." All tell of the horrible cruelty of nuns. "I shall never forget a motherless orphan's cries foi^ mercy, as it was whipped and thrown into a tub of cold water." Iron cages are found, and cells where they are buried alive. Two names are familiar to the reading world — those of William Hogan, for years priest of vSt. Mary, Philadelphia, and Maria Monk, whose disclosures of convent life in Montreal have been vehemently denied and as stoutly proven. These words are pertinent, from William Hogan ( Popery as It Was and as It Is, p. 131 ) : He says : "It is not long since I met with a Protestant friend of mine, and in the course of conversation some allusion was made to the subjedl of nunneries. He observed that their schools were excellent ; that his daughter had just finished her education there and had returned home in perfect ecstasy with her school, with the lady abbess who presided over it and with all the nuns by w^hom she had been edu- cated. Truly and from my heart I pity the female who risks her- self in the school of Jesuit nuns. She hazards all that is dear to her. She may leave it single-minded and innocent as she entered, but w^oe be to those who become nuns. I have been chaplain to one of those nunneries, and I assure all, on the honor of a man, that whoever takes the black veil must become subservient to the wish and desire of popish priests and Jesuits." The way girls are captured deserves to be considered. A gen- tleman in California left his daughter to board in a Roman Catholic home. She was carried to a nunnery, supposing she was going to IS ROMANISM CHRISTIANITY. 297 an academy. The carriage stops. She is hurried up the steps, pushed and led along the hall into a splendid apartment- A tall, splendidly formed woman enters, and clasps her hands, saying: "Is this our friend. Miss — ?" "Yes," said the girl, "but where am I.'* Madam, you are an abbess !" "Certainly, my dear.'' "What am I here for? I started to go to school." "Very true, and I was re- quested to receive you as a pupil. Did you not know you were coming here?" asked the wily abbess. "No," said the girl. "My father is a Protestant, so am I. I want to get out. I want to go home." That girl was left there and reported dead, and a coffin containing a corpse said to be hers, she being represented to have died with small pox, was buried, and the name was lost. At last, through the help of a v/oman dressed like a inan, the companion of the bishop, she escaped, reached her father and uncovered the bar- barity, the pollution, the wickedness of the convent — and no one cared for it. Romanism as the spouse of Christ has a right to per- form these infamies, and Protestants are told to keep still about it. Shall an organization that contains one- sixth of the population of Ontario and furnishes five-sixths of the crime be reckoned as a branch of the church of Christ? In Canada the school moneys are divided. The state supports Romanism as it does not support Protestantism, and yet, where Ro- manism is in the ascendant, the people as a rule can neither read nor write. Read the story of the barbarities practiced on them. Be- hold their superstitious practices, linked to a poverty that is de- grading. Ride through the Province of Qj.iebec and see those mag- nificent churches and convents, surrounded by people living in poor homes and eking out a bare subsistence, and }et contributing, from their poverty, millions to support priests reveling in dissipation and given up to all forms of indulgence. There is hope in an open Bible for Canada. Bible readers are being born into the work who are opening blind eyes and unstop- ping deaf ears, and if those people there will work, salvation is at the door. Thousands and hundreds of thousands are pouring into the United States. Meet them with the gospel, and they shall come from darkness into light. The fruits of Romanism are deadening. Look at Cuba. For more than three hundred years Romanism has been absolute ruler 29S IS ROMANISM CHRISTIANITY. of the Gem of the Antilles. As a result, the Sabbath is unknown. Theatres and brothels yield a revenue to the church. Bull-fights and circuses change the Sabbath of the Bible into the gala day of Rome. Prostitution is the rule. The priests trample on the commands of the word of God, and lead the people in wicked pracStices. Schools are of the poorest sort. The education of the people is opposed, and children grow up in ignorance and superstition. There lies the island at our very doors. We send missionaries to India, to Africa, to Europe, but leave Cuba unthought of because Romanism is in charge. What is the result? In the scale of civilization she is lower than either China, where the religion of Confucius is in vogue, or India, where Brahmanism is in the ascendant. Can this be right.? People of America, it is all v/rong. For the souls of Cubans and of the people dwelling in Hayti and San Domingo Christ died. God is thinking of them and opening the way for the gospel of Jesus Christ through providences that are as glorious as they are mysterious. Jesus is speaking in Cuba through awakened thousands, saying : "I am the light of the world ; he that foUoweth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. " (John 8:12.) In Brazil it is as bad. The church of Rome, which has had un- disputed sway there for 300 years, is responsible for the heathenish ideas of God and religion, the heathenish customs, the heathenish morality, the heathenish superstitions, which in that land are so no- ticeable ; and, sadder still, on her must be laid the blame of a fear- ful uncertainty and hopelessness as to the life beyond the grave. For, though they can burn the Bible, reject Christ and fight the religion of the New Testament, death comes all the same, and after death there is the judgment. We must follow^ deceived Roman- ists to hell as Payson in Portland followed lost souls, and then the agony will beget travail of soul and a determination to seek and save the lost. There is nothing in this so-called religion that makes it tolerable, except the influence it exerts over men politically, caus- ing bishops and priests to hold them as sheep to be sold to the high- est bidders. Break this power and the power disintegrates. Eman- cipate Romanists and the press will no longer cotton to cardinals and bishops. In China, where, a little while ago, Romanism numbered IS ROMANISM CHRISTIANITY. 299 4,000,000, in little over a year the number of devotees fell off to 400,000. (Examiner, New York, April 21, 1887.) Let the truth be proclaimed, and it will be the same in America. Already i8,- 000,000 have fled from beneath the sceptre of Romanism and have come into the enjoyment of liberty. Others are on the way. Ro- manists, while they remain in Rome , rejedl Christ's leadership. The commands of the word of God are ignored. This we are to say, in fidelity to the truth and in love for the lost. Romanism as a re- ligion is a deception and fraud. The pretension that the Roman Catholic church is the mother church is a deception. In "Wash- ington in the Lap of Rome" and "Rome in America," proofs in abundance have been furnished that there is no scriptural ground for the supremacy of Peter or for the supposition that he held any chief rank with the apostles. He was a brother beloved. Af ter his conversion, on the day of Pentecost and in later years, he preached with matchless and convincing p ower, and led vast num- bers to Christ. Rome is anti-Christ. She is the harlot of the Tiber. America is not her home. Here she is a foreigner. We will not give her naturalization papers. She must remain in an- tagonism to our life and spirit, in appearance as in fa(5l. J. The condud of Romanists disproves their claim that she is a branch of the church of Christ. Romanism is the incarnation of Satan, as Christianity is the in- carnation of Christ. It is an insult to Christianity to have Cardinal Gibbons with his red robes invited to pray at the centennial of the constitution, or to have Archbishop Corrigan brought into con- ference in regard to the celebration of any event with which George Washington was associated. Romanists have no respe6l for the commands of God. They trample on the teachings of the word. The deceptions practiced by Rome surpass belief.. For years she has traded on a letter purporting to come from Jesus Christ and to have been found beneath a stone. In Mexico recently, at the ded- ication of a church, she claimed to have been entrusted with a letter from God, which reads as follows: "My beloved little ones, re- deemed by the holy cross : If it were not for the supplication of the Holy Mother, ere this I w^ould have destroyed you ; and now, only for the sake of my Holy Mother, I notify you all that if you fail to 300 IS ROMANISM CHRISTIANITY. venerate our Mother, the holy cross and the holy church, I will send upon you such a punishment that your hearts may be broken into pieces by hunger, and you will not be able to obtain any relief whatever, in this world nor in the world to come. Life will be made miserable to you all if you do not turn to God and give alms. If any will give Friday alms and have not happiness, he shall have it at my hand. " It is declared that this letter was delivered by a woman dressed in blue to a full-bearded man on the mountains. Does it not make you weary to think of such a letter being scattered among the people, praising the holy cross and the Holy Mother in the name of God ? Well has Spurgeon said, in his Treasury of David: "We think too much of God's foes, and talk of them with too great a respect. Who is the pope of Rome? 'His holiness.' Call him not so, but call him his blasphemer ! his profanity ! his impudence ! What are he and his cardinals and his legates but the image and incarnation of anti-Christ ? " In Boston, a poor woman was unable to pay the colle6lor for her gas liglit. Her money had all been taken by the priest for masses. The poverty resulting from these demands made upon the laboring classes is beyond belief. Said Rev. J. B. Howell, Sao Paulo, Brazil: "The system of morality enforced by the priests is not the code found in the Bi- ble. The Sabbath is profaned. Business goes on as usual ; streets and stoi-es are as full as on other days ; indeed, in many of the interior towns, the only market day is Sunday, and the market place is usually the square in front of the church, so the country people readily combine religion and business, by first going to mass and then sell- ing what they have brought and making their purchases for the v;^eek. Cases are known in which the market day has been changed from a week day to Sunday through the priest's influence. Work is often going on in one part of the church on Sabbath while the mass is being celebrated in another. The Biblical distribution of time is rejected. The Sabbath is disregarded and dishonored. Holy days abound and are kept by the people. Christmas is observed only by foreigners. The month of May is given up to the worship of Mary, daily services in her honor being held during all that time. "The social fabric rests upon an unscriptural basis, because the IS ROMANISM CHRISTIANITY. 3OI father confessor comes between husband and wife, parent and child. There, as here, a priest entirely ontsic'e th.e family has a right to inquire into the inmost secrets, i;nd e\cn countermand parental orders, thereby transferring to a stranger the honor and obedience which, according to the Scrij^tures, belong to the united head of the home. There is thus created a relation between one man and many women, more intimate, more authoritative and more sacred than the marriage relation, in virtue of which it becomes the man- ifest duty of the woman to confide to one not a member of the fam- ily 'matters which should not be mentioned between husband and wife, to seek his counsel rather than that of the husband and to give it more importance, thus making the real head of the fami- ly the priest. " The results in Brazil are terrible to contemplate. There the moral restraints wdrich here compel priests to cloak their shame are unknow^n. As a result, maidens are betrayed, wives are estranged from their husbands, and, living as the concubines of priests, at' test the inherent evil of this unscriptural institution ; while for the husbands there is no escape by divorce. Is such an institution a branch of the church of Christ.^ "The stigma in other countries attached to illegitimate birth is here almost entirely wanting. Illegitimacy is not the slightest bar to social success or political advancement. The children of priests, through their fathers' influence, are placed in honorable and lucra- tive positions all over the land, are received into the most aristo- cratic society and many into the best families, until 'fortunate as the son of a priest' has grown into a proverb." Love for the truth is dead. The worship of the true God is unknown. ^. The ti'uth saves. In Brazil whole towns are renouncing popery and turning unto Christ, through the instrumentality of the preached gospel. In Cuba this is very manifest. Rev. A. J. Diaz, a graduate of the university of Havana, wdien 22 years old joined the rebels in seeking to throw off' the Spanish yoke. Confronted by Spanish soldiers and in danger of capture, he built out of loose boards a raft and found refuge on the ocean. Afloat on the Gulf stream, he w^as picked up by a vessel and brought to New^ York, wdiere he landed a stranger, unable to speak the English language. His 302 IS ROMANISM CHRISTIANITY. exposure brought on pneumonia, and he was carried to a Brooklyn hospital. A Christian lady came daily to visit him. She could not talk Spanish ; he could not read English. She prayed ; God understood both languages, and the Holy Spirit illumined his soul. A Spanish Bible was procured. He read the story of Bartimeus, and said : " That is like me. " Jesus was there ; he could not see him. He is here, but I cannot see him. He prayed for spiritual sight and received it. Some obedient disciples immersed by Dr. MacArthur caused him to follow Christ. Bible women sent him to Cuba. He told his household of Christ. His wife and father came, but the mother stood out. They continued in prayer for her. At last she found peace in believing and came for baptism. He saw her coming into the house, and knew not that she had found de- liverance. He was retiring from her, afraid of a scene, when she cried out, " My son, I want baptism. " His joy cannot be described. He went down into the watery grave, leading the mother who bore him and loved him and \vhom he loved. He forgot the formu- la of baptism. All he could say was "Jesus, this is my mother." Since then, well on to 10,000 have asked baptism. Persecution is the priests' remedy. For distributing Bibles, Diaz was acccused of interfering with political matters and thrown into prison. From his cell he preached to his fellow prisoners, as did Paul before him. In Havana the people are casting their idols and saints into the street. Excommunication followed persecution. Opposition but fanned the flame. The dead were refused burial because they died in Christ. He purchased a large tra6t of land for a cemetery, and it has become the thing to bury in it. The bishop remonstrates, but in vain. The fields in Cuba are white for the harvest. So they are in Brazil and in Mexico. In a late letter, Mr. Diaz says : "We had last year 1,448 pupils in our Sunday schools, and in the present year we have 2,914. Think of that — 1,466 more children in the Sunday school than last year. " Our tent is far too small to hold this people, and so I am glad of the prospect and earnestly desire the board to take possession at once of this theatre, where we can congregate our Baptist people of Havana. "I have just returned today from Las Puentes, where our church IS ROMANISM CIIRISTIAXITY. 303 there celebrated the Christmas tree. The auditory was immense. The Sunday school numbers about seventy-five pupils. I had a pleasant time in seeing those ahildren and teachers. This is the first year they have had a Sunday school celebratio)i. '' Brother O'Halloran asked me for some cloth for his table, and I gave him an American flag that I had. They placed it there ^ and, after the Sunday school was dismissed, the people passed by and kissed the American flag w^ith profound respect. An old man, eightv years old, came, all trembling, and raising up the flag, pointed out and counted the stars and said, with a feeble voice : 'It is not complete. It needs another star, and that is Cuba.*" By this incident you may form some idea of how the Cuban people love Americans. ''You cannot imagine how anxious our people here are to get the theatre where our church can meet. We all have a stroncr o conviction that as soon as we have that place the city of Havana will become Baptist. "We are awaiting the first of February, like old Simeon was aw^aiting the Saviour. We have been praying the Lord to induce our liberal Baptist people of the States to send their money to buy at once this place, that Cuba may be for Christ. Amen. " There is nothing too hard for God. You have seen the flower blooming on the slopes of the Alps. The ray of sunshine pene- trated the crevice, warmed the earth, burst the seed and caused it to bud and blossom. The word of God is the power of God unto salvation, here and everyw^here. A New Testament led Diaz to Christ. What may it not do here for the lost ? A Frenchman re- ceived a Bible. His wife, a Roman Catholic, fought him. He prayed on, and read the word of God aloud in his home. The seed took root. One night the woman awakened her husband, saying, "Pray for me ; I am sinking to hell." Up they got and prayed ; she welcomed Christ and was saved, and he went out through the town at 4 a. m., arousing his friends to say "My wife is redeemed." A supposed corpse was shipped from St. Louis to Chicago. On the train the expressman thought he heard a cry from the coflin, but did not open it, and the man died. Today there are seven millions of souls in bodies shipped by the church of Rome to perdition. Some of them are cryino^ out. Go to them in love. Go to them 304 IS ROMANISM CHRISTIANITY. in hope. Preach the gospel to them. Undeceive them. Help them with Bibles, with kindly welcomes, with generous love, and by these means win victories for Jesus which shall stud your crowns with stars of rejoicing, casting which at Jesus' feet we shall crown him Lord of all. The work performed will greet you in heaven and bless the world, for by their fruits the redeemed shall be know^n. IMPERILED HOMES. "Behold, I set before vou the wav of Hfe and the way of death." Jer. 21 : 8. Romanism is a colossal fact, threatening the American home. Imperiled homes are all about us. The trouble is, imperiled homes are close beside many of us. Some are in them. With many the dream of happiness is vanished. The hope of happiness at home is gone. Never can I forget the man whose wife is intimate with the priest and is dead to her husband. He is without a home and in Rome without a remedy. Homes are imperiled by w4iat is done in them, and by what is left undone. Homes are destroyed by neglect. Homes are built up only by sacrifice, by care, by consecration. In homes, as elsewhere, there are sins of commission and of omission. Two ways open before every household — a way of life and a way of death. No family is so poor as to be compelled to confess that they had but one way. They all had two. Thev mav have neg- lected one and accepted the other, but they had them both. No one can walk in both ways. A good many try to do it and fail. A choice must be made. This is true, because what God said to Israel he says to all : "See, I have set before thee this dav life and good and death and evil." Strange, life should be placed before good and death before evil. The moralist would place good first and life sec- ond, or evil first and death second. That would be wrong. Life in Christ is the seedling; good is the fruit. "For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts" or good thoughts. It depends upon the con- dition of the heart. This is true of homes. It is the character that determines the conduct, the life that declares what the fruit shall be. The possi- bility of a happy home is within reach of all. "Stop right there," says someone. "You don't know what I have at home." True, and there is one more thing I don't know — I don't know what you are at home. A man made himself immortal because, when a homeless wanderer, he wrote : 305 306 IMPERILED HOMES. "Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam, Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home ! " That is good poetry, but to millions it is a mockery and a sham. To them there is no place out of hell where they would be more miserable ; no place where they are less respedled and beloved ; no place where the "might have beens" are so thickly written, and where attainment of happiness seems so beyond the reach. Wealth does not make a happy home. There are men worth millions who are more miserable, in their splendid homes, than the poorest sewing woman in her garret, singing "The Song of the Shirt." Think of a man, worth millions, mad at his French cook, mad at his servants, going to one of the best hotels and ordering a splendid dinner, and again, maddened at the service, flying into a passion and dying in a rage. Happiness is within, not without. It is "life and good." All remember the poor fellow who enlisted in the army. They came to him and asked, "You enlisted?" "Yes." "As a com- mon soldier?" "Yes." "What will become of your family?" "M}^ family will be better off without than with me," and he told the truth. Think of the wives and children trembling because in a few days the door of the prison will swing open to husband and father, and when he crosses the threshold there comes a brute, a demon, of whom all stand in fear. God planned the home for hap- piness, for thrift, for the promotion of every good. He gave the husband the headship and proclaimed the principles of home rule. Against this, millions war. The wife rebels at the thought of obedience ; the husband becomes careless of his position and the duties incident thereto ; the machinery gets out of order ; cogs are broken in the wheel ; there is a jar — perhaps a conflict, followed by a wreck. There are moments in every history when this truth ap- pears. The tendrils of affecftion are wounded. They bleed. Prov- ocation has been given which alienates and severs. There is the way of death. Enter it and continue in it, and your doom is fixed. It is possible to find an excuse that seems rational for the conducl. There is not a home inta6t at this hour that might not have been broken. Its urn of hope might have been shattered. Its happiness might forever have been destroyed. Why is it a strong tower into which its occupants may run and find shelter from the storm and IMPERILED HOMES. 307 tempest? Why is there love in the heart, kindness in the life, and joys with which a stranger may not intermeddle ? VVe answer : Be- cause you chose to ignore self, with its rights unquestioned, and to hold all in abeyance for the general goo !. Self-abnegation is the tap-root from which the tree of kindness, of generosity, of nobility, of true greatness, springs. Why is another home a ruin ? There are abundance of excuses ; listen to them : one is frail, temper quick, judgment poor, ability not the best ; and the other, holding the scales, as if any one was equal to that task, condemns in the companion the veiy thing al- lowed, tolerated and defended in self. There is no fairness, no patience ; and so two immortal beings, with an opportunity to be a blessing, become to themselves a curse and to the world a nuisance. I, Ho7nes are iinperiled by a separation from God's plan. Here uoe reach bed rock, "The head of the w^oman is, the man." (I Cor. 1 1 : 3.) Roman- ism declares the head of the woman is the confessor. Christ said : "Have ye not read that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, and said. For this cause shall a man leave father and mother and shall cleave to his wife ; and they twain shall be one flesh ? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What, therefore, God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." (Matt. 19 : 4-6.) That is God's plan. Mormonism sets it aside and battles for polygamous marriages. The one wife is forsaken for some other woman. The home is broken up ; God's law is violated, and misery ensues.. It is said the self-poised condor can behold two streams v^hich divide a continent, taking their rise at a single fountain, pushing down different sides of the mountain and passing to distant seas. It is doubtful if there be such a fountain. A fountain is the parent of one stream, not of two. In every home is a fountain. The stream takes its chara6leristics from it. The choice determines destiny. Life and happiness are the counterparts of each other, and so are death and misery. Mormonism imperils our homes — not because of what it is doing in Utah, but because the error is tolerated here. In New York it is possible for a man to live with a half dozen wives, pioviding he marries them in different states. A man is living in the city of New 308 IMPERILED HOMES. York with two sisters. One was married to him in New^ York and the other in New Jersey. Both are with him in New York, for Mormon ism m fact finds a welcome, though not in name. The same want of fidelity to God's plan is seen in the w^ay wives fail to cling to husbands and husbands turn from the wives they took and promised to cherish to wives of others whom they covet. "Dress that woman, while I go for a doctor," cries the adulterous paramour, as the w^oman grows black in the face and is struck with death in the midst of sin, because God's law is trampled on. To the wail of sorrow now heard w^e are not accLirtomed, Go where ]Mormonism rules, and it is everywhere filling the air. The sorrow of broken-hearted wives, the degradation and debase- ment of adulterous men, are terrible to contemplate. What will the American people do for the imperiled home at the heart of the continent? Look nearer home. This brings us back to the truth, and compels us to say in this presence : 2. Homes are iiJiperiled "jcheii the i?z?nates choose the bad in prefei'ejice to the good. It is what a man or woman is within that determines what he or she is without. Belief infiuences condu6l. When we called at- tention to the fact that a million of women and more than a million of little girls are asked questions by over one hundred thousand priests which if taken upon the lips of any evangelical minister in the presence of w^ife or daughter would excite the indignation of the community and cause the perpetrator of the outrage to be branded with an ineffaceable mark of condemnation, we created widespread alarm. In the book we have proven this, as far as it is possible to do so and not incur peril for publishing literature that is obscene. Now we go farther, and say that it is the duty of law-makers, the guardians of a great public trust, to call before them books and per- sons and find out if the truth has been stated. If so, then some- thing must be done about it, or we surrender the homes of millions to polluting and degrading influences. There are difficulties in the way of grappling with this question. It is the theory that toleration, freedom of conscience and religious liberty compel us to consent to people's going the wrong way as readily as we would to their going the right way. That may be true, if we have set before them the right way. But if we permit IMPERILED HOMES. 309 them to go wrong and know of it and do not warn them, we become guilty of destroying those whom we might have saved, and bring their blood upon us. Romanism in auricular confession imperils the home. "Auricular confession is the chief and most potent appli- an(.e by which the church of Rome gains ascendency and retains suj.ireme control over individual minds and bodies. Without it Rome were a powerless mechanism, a huge, inert mass deprived of its motive power and ruling energy. Take away the key-stone of the arch that supports the gorgeous structure, and the whole edi- fice, with all its architectural strength and magnificence, will crum- ble into ruins. It is the grand secret of her success ; the mystery of that tenacious fortitude with which she has endured the countless attacks that have threatened her stability ; the sovereign remedy that heals the wounds inflidled by her assailants, counteracts the efiedls of inward disease and repairs the ravages of success in reforms and vast numerical losses." (The Escaped Novice, by Miss J. M. Bunk- ley, p. 25.) "Superficial observers ascribe the power and the in- fluence she exerts to the charm of her ostentatious ceremonies and her imposing ritual, to the theatrical display and sensual ap- peal of her worship. These are, indeed, agencies that at first at- tract, but it is the revealments of the confessional that retain. The robes, the crucifix, the pictures, the incense, the mass, the invoca- tion of saints, the thousand and one engaging rites, make up, in- deed, an attractive image, apparently possessed of vitality and vigor; but confession, as it were, completes the galvanic circle that keeps the form erec5t and active. Detach diis, and the figure falls, a pale, corrupting corpse, to the ground." "Through its agency the hidden thoughts and tendencies of the mind, the disposition, the temper, the temptations, the weaknesses, of ever}' penitent are laid bare to the inspection of the priest, who may then direct and mould them at his will. Is there a Catholic in the cabinet, what state secret remains unknown to the confessor? Happy, it may be, are those who in their ignorance are unconscious of this far-reach- ing influence, for communities and nations would tremble, could they but realize the dangers to wdiich they are exposed through the power of the Romish confessional." (Ibid., p. 27.) Auricular confession imperils the home, not alone because of the polluting questions it is possible to ask and the terrible life that re- 3IO IMPERILED HOMES. «ults from such seed-sowing, but because a priest ascertains through the confessional what he has no right to know or ask about or think of. The momsut a confessor is permitted to take the husband's place the home is invaded. Christians know not how great their obligations are, because, though there may be ministers who are faulty and so-called Christian women who are frail, Society is a unit in condemning both, and in casting the one out of the pulpit while it banishes the other from social regard. In the evangelical world there is but little ground of complaint. In the Roman Cath- olic world, the extent of this sin is beyond belief and beyond de- scription. Roman Catholics know it. Roman Catholics ought to fight it. They must do so or sink into the mire. The priest claims that he stands in the stead of God, and that he is there because Christ gave him, through Peter and the apostles, all power from God. That is a lie. Peter and the apostles never re- ceived such power from Christ. They never assumed to do what priests are doing now. They were respectable men and lived holy lives, or they would not be what now they are. The priest claims the right to ask polluting questions, and also claims that he may violate his vows of chastity with impunity, while the penitent, by obedience, commits no sin in yielding to his desire. '''-He may err^ but she will do right in yielding'^ ( The Escaped Novice, p. 6i). It does not require argument to prove that women thus manipulated and questioned are demoralized, that demoralization w^orks injury in the home, and that husbands thus set aside will have revenge. If a priest may enjoy a man's wife, he may enjoy some- body's else wife ; and so w^here Romanism has rule prostitution abounds, and prostitutes are shielded from prosecution and licensed to practice wrong-doing for gain, providing they divide with the •church, as rum shops are tolerated by Rome because of the weekly stipend paid to the nuns. In the name of millions of helpless men and women, we protest against this intrusion. It is not religion ; it is the perversion of re- ligion. It is not the result of the teachings of the gospel. A carnal nature, devil-inhabited, causes it, and men and women succumb to it because they either know^ not or will not walk in the good way. J. The character of the education furnished in Roman Catholic institutions imperils the homes. IMPERILED HOMES. 3 II The training in convents must harmonize with the genius and spirit of the institution which is dire6lly in opposition to the idea of an American home. It is not enough to say that the education of convents is poor. It is pernicious. It makes Httle of the house- wife and much of the nun ; little of the home, much of the cloister. Culture of intellect can be obtained from ascetic books and lives of the saints, which speak of the felicity of the monastic life and the horrors of the world. The claim is put forth that salvation outside of the cloister is almost impossible ; and, as a result, many a mother is horrified by the return of the graduate to the cloister, where, hav- ing taken the black veil, she is given up to a life now of sorrow, now of shame, and w^hich ends in death to hope. It is a maxim in Rome, "Do you want a faithless woman, marry a girl brought up in a convent." The confessor is the head of the home. Domestic life is extinguished, and the child heart is slain. Proselytmg is the business in convents. From the enthroned vice-God in Rome to the humblest lay member cringing at the feet of the priest, all seek to capture the unwary. Suffering is believed to secure salvation and lighten the pains of purgatory, hence novices and nuns alike endure indescribable hardships in the expedlation of securing spiritual gain ; while the word of God teaches us to cast. our cares on Jesus, who invites the weary and heavy laden to ap- proach him and find rest and peace. All this is shut out, because the Bible is excluded from the convent. They have no use for it. "During my residence in the nunnery at Emmitsburg, Md.," says Miss Bunkley, "I never saw a Bible, though I had frequent access to the library." Homes are impei'iled becaitse women turji from them to every other kind of occupation. So long as household work is thought to be degrading, there never can be anything like universal educa- tion ; there must always be some wiio work all their lives, because others will not work at all. Americans are to teach the world how to build up homes and develop the best characteristics of home life. To do this, all classes must engage in the work. Could this be done^ thousands of young men now wifeless and homeless would find it in their power to realize the dream of a happy life and become the head of a pleasant home. The conjugal union, judiciously formed, is invaluable to man and 312 IMPERILED HOMES. almost indispensable to woman. Her organization pre-eminently qualifies her for its conditions and relations. Whatever the mental and |Dersonal charms of a female may be, the true excellence of her character can never be seen nor appreciated except in the practice of the amiable virtues which constitute the wife and mother. For man and for woman the natural regulator of the animal passions is marriage. This, God teaches ; this, woman knows and feels ; yet, notwithstanding, the Catholic church has the unpardonable pre- sumption to pronounce a curse upon her, if she prefer a union so essential to her happiness and usefulness to a state of perpetual virginity. The vow of perpetual chastity with priests and nuns is iDroken, as a rule, and if it be ever kept it is as an exception. Every true woman longs for a home, and desires to be the good wife of a loving husband. Rome says, Let her be accursed. Nothing is sad- der than to see beautiful girls captured by priests and carried oft' to nunneries and convents, where, induced by passion, the black veil is taken, when they are delivered over to priests, who do not yield them a pure love, but compel them to minister to base desires. Contrast with this the heart love of a wife, which is indestructible, because of which she is to be envied, because she reigns supreme in one manly heart and can sing : "Sail east, sail west, dear wanderer; ^ God cares for you and cares for me ; He knows for which of us 'twas best To stay w^ith children round the knee." For she is the happiest woman who sees the sun rise and set in the faces of her loved ones. 4.. Dissatisfa6tion with the God-assigned positioit of ivoinan iinperils the home. The boarding-house is taking the place of the old-fashioned house- hold. Young women compelled to labor prefer the fadiory and the store to the discharge of duties which, properly mastered, would make them helpmeets to worthy men and partners in promoting the interests of the family. The result is that men are not only losing good wives, but women are parting with that virtue which is their crown and glory. In one of our cities, it became a grave question what was to be done to save the shop girls from utter ruin. The remedy is difficult to find, outside the home. IMPERILED HOMES. 313 In France, men and women who toil together Hve indiscriminately as fancy may direct. As a result, womanhood loses its glory. There is not even a shocking or humiliating idea attached to their sexual improprieties. The woman who has only one lover declares she is not a coquette. The woman who has more than one lover sa3-s she is only a coquette. There, where fortunes are small, mar- riages are more frequent than "svith us ; yet they have their limits, and only take place between persons who can together make up sufficient income to live on and support a flimiiy. A vast variety of single ladies without fortune still remains ; these are usually guilty of the indiscretion of a lover, even though they have no husband to deceive. This is under the wing of Romanism. There they take unto themselves an affection to which they remain tolerably faithful, as long as it is understood the liaison continues. The quiet young banker, stock broker and lawyer live, until they are rich enough to marry, in some connection of this description. They do what the priests do. The immoralities of the confessional pervade the life at home. The priest cannot condemn the left-handed m.arriage of the banker while he is guilty of a w^orse sin. Is America exempt from this terrible curse? Sanctioned by the approval of the priesthood, these adulteries obtain a certain respectability which makes them a peril to society and an offense to morality. The working classes have their marriages of form, though not of fact. They live to- gether as man and v^ife during a period mutually satisfaclory. The result is general demoralization. In the Roman Catholic districts this standard of a pseudo-morality prevails. That which is of the flesh is flesh. Romanism condones wrong-doing because its leaders practice it. Is it not time attention was called to this state of society? The book '"Why Priests Should Wed" opens up so much of this subject as is prudent. Let our law- makers take it in hand and see if the peril exists, and if they find it let them fight, for the sake not only of Roman Catholics but of public morality. Co7tformity to foreign caprices imperils our home life. The behests of fashion are little short of tyranny. Could there be a movement among the ladies of fashion and influence to discard a foreign sceptre and to avow a purpose to be and to live in harmony with the highest and best interests of society, we might grow an 314 IMPERILED HOMES. American womanhood that would be the praise of the w^hole world. But the majority consent to be imitators, so that w4ien the dancing girl in the Garden Mabile alters the shape of her bonnet or the length of the heel of her shoe, thousands obey the pompous behest of fashion, and refuse to be pattern-makers. No man of sense is indifferent to neatness and beauty of attire. A well-dressed woman is a power. She knows it, and the world recognizes the truth. But there is something nobler and grander for the women of America than this devotion of eneigy and conse- cration of time to an object so utterly beneath the regard of an im- mortal and cultured intellecl. Somewhere in this country a senti- ment should be organized which shall grow a woman as God de- signed her to be. Our girls are beautiful in appearance, delicate in form and, as a rule, cultured and refined. Why should they be compelled to exchange beauty for ugliness at the behest of foreign masters under the rule of principles so demoralizing and debasing as distinguish priest-ruled Paris? 5. Wonzajz true to Christ is glorified. Honors await woman when she consecrates herself to the service of humanity in accordance with the teachings of Christ. Roman- ists teach women to immure themselves in convents and nunneries, to resist marriage and to fight home life, that they may be saved. Spell it dafnnedl Christ saves w^oman and bids her go forth a blessing to cheer the world with love light, with kindness, with an- gelic ministries. Rome destroys womanhood and wrecks the homes. No one can read of the marvels wrought by woman, of the schools established, hospitals founded and of the work wrought for them and in them, without being impressed with the fact that there are wide realms yet untrodden waiting for the diligent and the true. The medical profession invites woman to study its truths and ponder its mysteries, that she may better understand the mechan- ism of her own wonderful nature and be able to minister to the wants of those placed beneath her care. The women of Israel in the days of Moses were in advance of the women of our time in medical knowledge. American v^omen have inaugurated movements which are benef- icent and praiseworthy. No one can recall woman's work for temper- ance without being astonished at her capacity to help. Let her not IMPERILED HOMES. 315 stop. There is need of woman's work for women. It is said that our retail liquor stores obtain their trade very largely from those who enter at the family door. In educational enterprises there is a vast field opened to woman. In the east she goes where man can- not go, and does what man cannot do. Could w^e raise in our communities a womanhood that would exult in manly work and help it on, we should see called into exercise the divine charities of the gospel and those graces which shed a lustre upon society. It is because of this need that the best friends of women shrink from the thought of having them attempt work which belongs to men. The only way devised by some to help woman is to destroy all in which she differs from man. The mistake is terri- ble in design and terrific in results. Woman in her true sphere is the support, the confidant, the counsellor, the helper of man in the battle of life. She is his solace and joy when he feels his need of help. "When man's words of eloquence Inspire and rouse a nation. There breathes through them the undertone Of woman's inspiration. ''And whether hers are holy words That nei^i^e to fiery trial, Or only meek and lowly deeds Of love and self-denial, "In tones so clear, so true, so sweet, They ring the wide world over ; She speaks from out her heart to ours. And men and angels love her." — Phoebe Gary. The old-fashioned idea of woman was derived from the teachings- of the w^ord of God. Until French customs brought coarseness and grossness into her life, she was courted as a friend and loved as a helpmeet. It was the wonderful insight of the Greeks that laid the founda- tions of political and philosophical literature. From the Romans we derived the idea of the supremacy of law ; from Palestine the thought of a great brotherhood. Let it be ours to create a home life that shall redound to the world's advantage. 3l6 IMPERILED HOMES. 6. The 7ieed of Ckristly ho77tes zvas 7iever greater. The religion of Jesus Christ must be permitted to permeate with its influence the masses of the community. It cannot be carried over the women. They must help. Whatever is accomplished must be achieved through their aid. From the home must come the power which shall frown down the tampering with the educa- tion of the young, and this move is next in order. Woman in the home, if she be a true woman, can shut the priest out and give a welcome to the Christ w^ithin. No matter though Romish servants occupy the kitchen, they cannot rule the household unless the mis- tress of the house consents. Royal, old-fashioned home life is a possibility — a home in wdiich the man finds his happiness in toiling for those he loves, and in which the woman keeps the house so that it can be his castle because it is to his heart a home. Millions at this hour are literally strangers to any just conception of what God has for the people to do in this direction. This may become the land of homes in which "a charm from the skies shall hallow us there, w^hich, if sought through the world, is ne'er met with elsewdiere." The help of each and all is 7teedful. It is when each man, woman and child feels that the honor, the power and the prosjDerity of the home are committed to himself or herself, individually, that the home is sure to be built up and its influence for good to become a felt power in the v^orld. A wrecked home, an impoverished home, comes not because of the loss of property but because of the loss of love. Ii*ving's old story of the wife is as beautiful and as true as when first written. Women are all around us who have bound the tendrils of their love about some strong support and held homes together when otherwise they would have fallen apart. Such minister to the neces- sities of life, and identify themselves with God's great work in the world. Standing here and remembering how Christians have been divided from Roman Catholics in jDurpose and in work, I am reminded of the scene enabled on the banks of the Rappahannock, on a Sabbath evening near the close of the war. One band struck up and played The Stars and Stripes, the other played Dixie ; one Hail Columbia, the other The Bonny Blue Flag. Finally, one played a church tune, and on the opposite side of the stream they joined in the notes of IMPERILED HOMES. 317 praise. At last our bands played Home, Sweet Home ; the Con- federate bands did the same, when bluebacks and graybacks climbed cannons and fortifications, and, with hats off', gave unitedly three cheers for home. Roman Catholics, join with us in building Ameri- ■can homes in America which shall glorify God and bless the world. BISIVIARCK. BORN APRIL I, 1 8 13. BISMARCK; HIS DOINGS AND UNDOINGS. ' 'Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the un- godly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful ; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and night." Ps. 1:1,2. A weird, wonderful and almost inexplicable human character is passing from human view. The work remains. It is so high, so deep, so far-reaching in results, so terrific in plan, that the more you study it the more are you surprised at what God can do with and by a man, as well as what the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ can do for a man. Jesus Christ, in his life and teachings, furnishes the only true standard for measuring human character. What he likes, lives. What he rejects, dies. He that humbles himself is exalted, if the humiliation be for Christ, and be in the service of humanity. He that exalts himself, thinks of himself, at the expense of a cause, is a failure, now and forever. The story of Bismarck's life is crowded with lessons so tragic, so comic, so grand and so mysterious that fi(5lion is eclipsed by fa6l. Volumes have been written in which attempts have been made to set forth the truth concerning the man. Let them be read. Let the truth be pondered. There is much in them to instruct, much to sadden as well as to inspire. Perhaps, more than any man of our time, he will stand as the riddle of his- tory. Greater than a king, greater than a country, he has not only been the foremost man in Europe, but the foremost man in the world. Dynasties come and dynasties go ; great men appear and combat him, retire and disappear ; and this man, who stepped forth from ob- scurity panoplied and equipped for the battle, and laid his hand upon the throat of principalities and powers and compelled them to help maintain the interests entrusted to his care at peril of their lives, is now, after the death of the great emperor and his greater son, on whom the whole world built in hope, holding the co- 319 320 BISMARCK, HIS DOINGS AXD UNDOINGS. lossal power steady, that Germany, in the hands of a man who may be smitten with an incurable disease in an hour, may fulfil its mis- sion. At the time of his birth. Napoleon I had just returned h'om Elba to Paris, and Louis Napoleon was a lad of seven years. The echoes of the guns of Waterloo sounded about his cradle, thrilled the heart of his mother and caused her to consecrate her child to the sendee of the fatherland. A monarchist by education and convic- tion from his youth up, he has believed in the future of Prussia, whose history carries us back to 320 B. C, when the PhcBnicians procured of that Lithuanian tribe amber on the shore of the Baltic sea. The name is derived from Po-Russi, behind the Russ, a part of the Memel. The Teutonic knights conquered them in i283(?), founded cities, introduced German colonists and laws, and, by their firm but liberal rule, made her one of the most flourishing countries of the time. After a troublous period extending from 1450 to 1511, Albert the margrave of Brandenburg was elected grand master of the order. Luther was beginning to rise in his might for the Bible and the liberty born therefrom. Albert of Brandenburg became his coadjutor, introducing to his people new ideas, new hopes and a grand destiny. The second half of the sixteenth centur\' has been called the golden and classic age of German culture. The imperial crown was re- garded as the collective property of the princes and estates, in whom the power of disj30sing of that dignity was vested. Each dukedom or kingdom was hedged in by laws and institutions peculiar to itself, and over them all ruled an emperor, elected not by the people but bv the rulers of the people. Should he upon whom the dignity was conferred make use of the power with which it endowed him to increase the might of his own house, each individual prince felt himself fully justified in resistance. It was because Austria tried to retain this power, which had given her supreme control over Prussia and the other German states, that the thirty years' war had its origin, during which Prussia maintained a neutrality, and was ravaged by contending armies and by the warring kingdoms of Sweden and Poland. From the lowest dejDths of degradation, the country was raised by the energy and wisdom of Frederick William, the great elector, who reigned from. BISMARCK, HIS DOINGS AND UNDOINGS. 32 1 1640 to 1688. Frederick William, the third ele6lor, reigned from 1688 to 1 713. By consent of the emperor he assumed the title of king in Prussia. Frederick William I reigned from 1 713 to 1 740. He was noted for his professed piety and terrible brutality to his son Frederick, known as Frederick the Great, who reigned from 1740 to 1786 and won the title of king of Prussia. He annexed Silesia and a part of Poland, and left to his successor $50,000,000, an army of 220,000 men and an area of territory of 77,000 square miles. Frederick William II reigned from 1786 to 1797? ^^^ added 400,000 square miles. Fred- erick William III, father of the late Emperor William, reigned from 1 797 to 1840, encountered the wrath of Napoleon, lost half of his ter- ritory, saw the overthrow of Europe's master, and regained possession of the territory which had been taken from him. Frederick William IV reigned from 1840 to 1 861. He was a man of great natural talents and scholarship, but weak, pusillanimous and vindiftive. He threw away the opportunity offered him in 1849 of becoming the head of a united German nation. For years, under his reign, the readlionary party of the country wielded a despotic power almost oriental. In 1857 ^^^ mental faculties gave way, and the opportu- nity for his brother arrived. Up to the time of his brother's death, Jan. 2, 186 1 , William was entrusted with the regency. He was born March 22, 1797; married, June 11, 1829, Mary Louisa Augusta Catherine of Saxe- Weimar ; and October 18, 1861, refusing to rec- ognize dukedoms or people, claiming that God made him king, he crowned himself in presence of his nobles. His eldest son was Frederick William Nicholas Chailes, born 06lober 18, 1831, and married January 25, 1858, to Victoria, princess royal of Great Britain. In private life the emperor was exemplary. He wor- shiped his mother Louisa, noted for her love of husband and chil- dren. She was the one woman Napoleon could not subdue. Her son was taught in his youth to love God and fatherland. It was his glory that he lived for the people and lived in them. He had been from his childhood a champion for Orthodox Christianity. Luther was not more devoted to the Bible nor more brave in its de- fense. It is a fact that should encourage parents to see to it that their chil- dren are rooted and grounded in their love for the word of God. 322 BISMARCK, HIS DOINGS AND UNDOINGS. The lessons learned by William in Pomerania when banished frdm Berlin remained. Bismarck delights to call attention to the striking contrasts in the lives of Emperor William and his father. He was humbled into the very dust, his capital captured, his palace plun- dered and his family sent into exile by Napoleon I. The other broke the power of Napoleon III, drove him from his capital and sent him and his into a life-long exile. One cannot think of Em- peror William riding through Paris at the head of a victorious army, w^ithout going back in imagination to 1806, when, with his brave mother, he I'ode through the Pomeranian forests in search of a shelter and a home. It is said that the father of Hannibal led his youthful son into the temple at Carthage, up to the high altar on which lay an ox just slain, whose hot blood still coursed in his veins and throbbed in his beating heart. The father took the hands of the boy, placed them in the hot blood, and then caused him to lift them to heaven and swear eternal hostility to Rome. That early oath fashioned the life of the man. In fancy we pi6lure Louisa and her boys, as tidings came to them of Napoleon's reveling in their palace at Berlin, sendmg off to Paris the sword and clock of the great Frederick, and disman- tling the capital of Prussia of its trophies of art that he might adorn with them the capital of France. Nine years later, in Schon- hausen, a boy w^as born who was to do for the younger son what Hardenberg and Von Stein did for his father. Otto Edward Leopold Bismarck was born at Schonhausen April i , 181 5. He comes from a noble Prussian family whose origin carries us back to that early period in the life of Germany when the twilight of superstition blends v^ith the serener light of history. Two of his family were members of the cabinet of the Great Fred- erick. Handsome in feature, well formed in person, of great courage and of an iron constitution, he revealed immense power as a student and graduated with high honor. He acquires languages without difficulty, converses readily in every language of Europe and is a perfedl master of the English tongue. In 1836, Bismarck left the department of justice for that of admin- istration, and studied diplomacy in Belgium, Paris and London. He tired of travel and went back to his estates. There was not much BISMARCK, HIS DOINGS AND UNDOINGS. 323 in his youth that gave promise of the marvelous life he was to live in the world. He was wild, desperate and wayward, a compound of audacity and craft, of candor and cunning. So long as poverty held him in its grip he did well, but with competence came dissi- pation, and mad Bismarck became the terror of the region. It was- then he fell in love. It is a familiar phrase, but the language de- scribes the occurrence. He fell in love with Miss Von Putt Kom- mer, and Miss Von Putt Kommer fell in love with him. Like two dew-drops shaken by a single breath, they slipped gently down and became one. Then books in parcels and in boxes began to come to his home. He read and worked and wrought. Like Saul of Tar- sus, he was converted. The desperate leader became the Paul of the apostolate. He read history, philosophy, theology. Married July 38, 1847, ^^^ "^^^ henceforth distinguished for his studious habits and for the religious trend of his life. He was elected a mem- ber of the diet the same year. Liberalism was in the air. Those who expe6l to see him side with the revolutionists, like Mazzini and others, will be disap- pointed. The key that unlocks his character is the facl that he be- lieves in and has worked for German unity and German ascendency^ What would help, he has used ; what would hinder, he has opposed. That stinging tongue, arrogant intelledl and ruthless will make this typical German, the war man ; and this man of Titanic force is yet a gentle, genial, human-hearted man, witty, winning, loving, the idol of his home and the pride of his household. His His king was his king. The nobility welcomed him. Wonderfully diplomacy had fitted him for his position. Bismarck knew every monarch in Europe. They knew that he was ready to w^oo or to fight as the necessity might require. The work achieved can only be glanced at. When he became the champion of the pol- icy which made Prussia great, he found himself opposed by the peo- ple and by the diet. He began at once to make the army what it should be. He was helped by Prince Carl, Von Moltke and others. They were there before, and the army was weak. Bismarck came, and the army was powerful, and soon stood forth the mightiest force in Europe. How the people opposed him has become history. In his first speech he said : ' 'As long as we choose to wear heavy armor we must not fail to make use of it. The problems of the time will 324 BISMARCK, HIS DOINGS AND UNDOINGS. be solved not by speeches and resolutions hut by Mood and steels This was a new do6lrine. Today the world understands it. He increased and drilled the army. Austria sought a German con- federation at the expense of Prussia. The one man in the way was Bismarck. Once when some one was severely criticizing the Prus- sian minister to Francis Joseph, emperor of Austria, the great, clear- sighted ruler replied : "Ah, if I but had him ! " He felt this after Sadowa as never before. Nothing succeeds like success. When Napoleon escaped from Elba, in 1815, the Paris Moniteur thus reported his progress day by day: "The anthropophagi st has escaped. The Corsican ogre has landed. The tiger is coming. The monster has slept at Grenoble. The tyrant has arrived at Lyons. The usurper has been seen in the environs of Paris. Bonaparte advances towards, but w^ill never enter, the capital. Napoleon will be under our ramparts tomorrow ; and lastly, his imperial majesty entered the Tuileries, on the 21st of March, in the midst of his faithful subjects. " Success won for Bismarck almost as great a change in the public regard. When we recall the war of 1S06, we find striking contrasts to the war of 1S70. Then Prussia felt as confident of success in opposing Napoleon as did Napoleon in 1870 in opjDOsing Prussia. Napoleon I deceived Williaa. ill in regard to Holland, and made his brother king. Prussia was incensed. On 06lober i Prussia demanded tliat the French armies re-cross the Rhine, that a German confeder- :!• ;')n )i established in the north, and that certain places be separated from the confederation of the Rhine. Napoleon did not deign a reply, but marched at once at the head of his troops upon Prussia. The battle of Jena was fought Oct. 14. The Duke of Brunswick, commander of the Prussian forces, was killed, 40,000 were slain, and the army of Prussia was with one blow annihilated. Further resistance seemed not to be thought of. Erfurt, Magdeburg, Stet- tin, Leipsic and Spandau surrendered, and on 061. 25 the French army entered Berlin in triumph. Fifty-five years passed, and Jena was avenged. Two fafts ex- plain the overthrow: The fi. rst is that Prussia was ready. She seemed like an arrow ready to be drawn from God's quiver, when the tocsin of war sounded. What Prussia lacked in 1806 she had in 1870. What France had in 1806 she had not in 1870. The BISMARCK, HIS DOINGS AND UNDOINGS. 325 second reason, and by fiir the more important, is found in the facl that God's hand is discovered in the war. Napoleon, described in Revelation 17:11 as "the beast that was and is not, even he is the eighth and is of the seven and goeth to perdition," was cast down, that the power of Rome might be broken, and that the world might take another stride in its march to universal brotherhood. An unseen hand casts the shuttle which carries the thread of a sublime destiny through the web and woof tied into the loom of time. The ao-e of the man has come — of a man that stretches one hand up to God and lays hold of almighty power, and extends the other to his sovereign- — be that sovereign a monarch or a government, or does he find the objedl of his regard in the people ; but in his place and in his way he lets God speak through him, and he wills and does in accordance with God's purpose and man's highest needs. The gi'eat D'Aubigne once declared that but little information can be reaped from the contemplation of the lives of men of elevated positions. Alas ! this is true, because so many live for self rather than for God, and end their lives in misfortune and shame. In June, 1882, Garibaldi died, living with a woman not his wife ; in Julv, 1SS3, Skobeleff, Russia's great general, succumbed to a riotous carnival of German courtesans ; Gortschakoff breathed his last at Baden in the arms of his German mistress ; and Gambetta came to his end through the casual bullet of his paramours revol- ver. Bismarck in his private chara6ler stands unsullied. Slander and suspicion have never touched that. His domestic life has been thoroughly pure, and it is well known by all who surround him that he shows unflinching severity towards all breakers of the seventh commandment. Though always kind and courteous to ladies, he has never distinguished any of the beauties he has met in his life so as to justify a suspicion even that he paid special attention to any woman, still less that he courted any. The only women who have found and retained a place in his heart are his mother and sister, his wife and daughter. His love for his vs^ife and children is very great, and these attend on him and take care of him in away which shows that the deepest affe6lion unites them to the head of the fam- ily. They look on those who bring hard work to the prince as per- sonal enemies ; they protect his sleep, his rest, his leisure even, as the most precious thing in the world. When he is ill, they nurse 326 BISMARCK, HIS DOINGS AND UNDOINGS. him with the tenderest care ; and if any one makes him smile, they regard him as a personal friend. He has conquered opposition. He began alone and unaided. He did it in the diet. As with Disraeli, so with Bismarck. It will be remembered that when Disraeli rose to speak first in the house of commons he found the members not only indifferent to, but scornful of, the famous, witty, haughty, self-possessed author, who, for deny- ing friendship for O'Connell, had the great agitator say of him : "For aught I know, the present Disraeli is the true heir-at-law of the impenitent thief on the cross." Such was his introduction. Some of the members of the house pretended to sleep ; others stepped out to dine, while the majority roared at him and laughed him to scorn. It was a test of the young man's quality. Instead of sinking into his seat, abashed, mortified, confounded, silenced, with his polit- ical career ruined, he thundered out : "I am not surprised. I have tried many things, and in each I have at last succeeded. I sit down now, but some day you will hear me." They did hear him, and afterwards saw Benjamin Disraeli, the Jew novelist, with black eyes, overhung with clustering curls, ride into Buckingham palace, chan- cellor of the exchequer. It was not different with Bismarck. At the outset, the opposition drowned his voice. He took out a newspaper and read it until the president marshal had restored order. He then concluded, still in- terrupted by hisses. "In my opinion, it is doing sorry service to the national honor to conclude that ill treatment and humiliation suf- fered by Prussia at the hands of a foreign ruler would not be enough to rouse Prussian blood and cause all other feelings to be absorbed by the hatred of foreigners." The anger of the Liberals was so violent that the marshal had to use his authority to protect him dur- ing his speech. Imagine his scorn as, referring to the past, he said : "I always thought the servitude against which the sword was thon used was a foreign servitude. I nov/ learn that it lay at home. For this correction I am not by any means grateful." The Prussian heart was touched. From that moment, Bismarck stood uncovered before the eyes of his countrymen as the champion of a united Ger- many. In 1846, Pio Nono had been elected pope of Rome. The triple crown of the pope was then regarded as the point of equipoise for BISMARCK, HIS DOINGS AND UNDOINGS. 327 the nations of Europe. To Bismarck, the pope was the bishop of the Roman Cathohc church, with no rights in Prussia that conflicted with the growth of the empire. In his estimation, the king ob- tained his right to rule from God — not from pope, not from people. John Stuart Mill says every progressive idea has to pass through three stages: i , expression ; 2, ridicule ; 3, adoption. Many never reach the second stage. They never reach the third without the second. It is with men as with ideas. We cannot follow Bismarck through the various steps which brought him to the year 1862, when King William was beaten by 273 votes. Then came the fight : Shall Prussia become a democ- racy in facl or a monarchy ? King William resolved upon keeping Prussia a monarchy, and sent for Bismarck, who was then in Paris. In forty-eight hours he v^as in Berlin, face to face with his king, when he became minister of foreign affairs. It is said that when Napoleon was a baby he weighed no more than other babies ; but when he grew up to manhoood he weighed down Europe, Asia and Africa. Bismarck is the weightiest man in the world. Bayard Taylor, after being with him, in company with Gortschakoff, Beaconsfield and others, said: "I tell you, he is a great man. The others are wonderful people, but Bismarck is an amazino[- man — a man^ to be dreaded and admired more than loved. One vs^ho knows him well says that among the great personages who approach him — privy councillors, ministers, embassadors, princes even — there are many who fear him to an almost incredible degree, and who literally tremble before him." Men are his ser- vants, not his companions, and woe to any of them who dares to cross or disobey his will. He acknowledges only one master — the emperor ; he has only one object in life — the greatness of his country. The conflict time, as Charles Lowe so graphically describes it, is the surprise of the world. Bismarck believes in the army. He created it. He supported it in spite of the nation. He used it, and humbled Austria and wrecked France with it, and was then glori- fied because of his foresight and pluck. When he reached the post of honor and the place of power as the brain and skilled hand of King William, men cried: "Who in Heaven's name is Herr Von Bismarck.^" "He is a swaggering Junker," "a hollow braggart," 328 BISMARCK, HIS DOINGS AND UNDOINGS. they said. They knew him not. He was the soul of German im- periaHsm. As a minister, he represents the soveixign, speaks when he likes and as he likes, will not be called to order by president or squelched by a noisy mob. The constitution provides that "the ministers must be listened to at request ;" or that, whenever they have a remark to offer, the house is bound to regard them not as members but as guests, and that they are exempted from presidential authority, by which the house itself is bound, and enabled to rebuke or attack members at will. When once reminded by the president of the ir- relevancy of his remarks, Bismarck haughtily replied that he was wholly above the disciplinarv power of the chair, and that in all he did or said he acknowledged no master but the king. The house protested. The president put on his hat and dismissed the assembly. The ministry refused to enter the house until exempted from inter- ruption. The king stood by them. So Bismarck triumphed. It is not ours to follow^ the fascinating game of war and watch Von Moltke, the finest strategist in Europe, as he opens the way for Bismarck and his superb diplomacy. Recall a few facts. Bismarck determined to drive Austria out of Germany. It was a difficult thing to do. The king loved Francis Joseph. The people were for peace. Bismarck was for war. The kings of Saxony and Hanover and the elector of Hesse Cassel were told to declare in favor of union with Prussia. They refused. In less than two days their capitals were in the grip of the Prussian troops. The Holstein and Schleswig treaty was differently under- stood by Austria and Prussia. June i, 1866, Austria issued orders for convokmg the estates of Holstein so that the will of the province as to its own fate might be consulted. Bismarck remonstrated, claimed that Prussia's rights were being sacrificed, and ordered Gen- eral Manteuffel to march his troops into Holstein ; and on June 1 2 King William's soldiers held Holstein and Schleswig, sea-sur- rounded. Austria remonstrated. On June 14, diplomatic inter- course between Austria and Prussia was broken off', war was de- clared and Bismarck grasped the helm of the ship and sailed into a new political world. The army, drilled and equipped, took the field. King William was commander-in-chief; Charles, the nephew, led the army of BISMARCK, HIS DOINGS AND UNDOINGS. 329 Bohemia, the crown prince the army of Silesia, and the army of Elbe was commanded by Herwarth Von Bittenfeld, equal in valor to Hereward the last of the English. "March separately; strike combined," was the command of Von Moltke. In seven days the war was virtually ended. Ten thou- sand Prussian troops and 40,000 Austrian troops were slain, and 18,- 000 prisoners taken. This made Koniggratz a household word in Prussia, and Bismarck became the idol of the hour. "The world is collapsing," exclaimed Antonelli on receiving news of Koniggratz. "Ye shall obey God rather than man," said the devot- ed followers of Loyola, "and the will of God may be learned from an infallible pope." "How is he to be made infallible?" "By our declaring him to be so," said the Jesuits. Prussia conquered. France next. The Franco-German war reads like a romance. June 30, 1870, M. Ollivier, chief of the French cabinet, declared that at no time was the preservation of the peace of Europe so assured as at present. July 9, 1870, the council gathered in Rome pronounced the pope infallible, and on July 18 the dogma was ceremoniously pro- claimed. Leopold of Hohenzollern, a Prussian prince whose father in 1-^^49 abdicated n"i favor of the king of Prussia, was nominated to fill the vacant throne of Spain. Napoleon obje6led, so persistently and orfensively tliat i-ving William refused to communicate with the French minister, M. Benedetti. Though Prince Leopold declined the honor, } e-t Napoleon, pushed on by Rome, had thrown down his gloT'C to Bismarck, who accepted the challenge. July 19, w^ar was declared. July 31, the king went to Mayence with Bismarck, who had some days previously partaken of the sacrament in his room. Aug. 20, King William, at Mayence, assumed command of the united Ger- man armies, praying that the God of battles might smile on his righteous cause, and in exadlly a month from this date all France lay prostrate at his feet — bleeding, disorganized, demoralized, with- out an army, without a government, without an emperor. "Verily, in all history," as Carlyle wrote, "there is no instance of an insolent, unjust neighbor, that ever got so complete, instan- taneous a smashing down as France now got from Germany. The breath of Europe, of the whole world, was taken away by the be- 330 BISMARCK, HIS DOINGS AND UNDOINGS. wildering events of those stupendous, never-to-be-forgotten days. It was the appalling union of the infallibility of heaven with the in- fernality of hell." Prophecy became history. Napoleon was over- thrown, and the power that seemed colossal disappeared as a mist before a morning sun. The pope, who had been the dictator of Europe, became a de- throned potentate in Rome, and Victor Emmanuel made the Quiri- nal his home and Rome his capital, declaring: "The Italian gov- ernment believes in freedom, and w^ill grant it to the fullest extent, and as far as reason and the public good demand it. The country will provide that no bishop shall be interfered with in the direction of his ministry, but on his side he must not ask any privileges if he does not desire conditions. The principle of ^ free government is that the law m.ay be equal for all and without any distindlion. Thus, because he dared in Rome enunciate the teachings of the New Testament, he became the idol of the Italian heart, and was wel- comed with vivas to the city of Rome, the capital of Free Italy. Pius IX refused to accept the situation. The infallible pope had fallen from his high place. The trident of power was wrested from his grasp, and he was reduced to the spiritual leadership of the Roman Catholic church. He claimed that he was the prisoner of the Vatican, and tried to play the role of a martyr, though he lived in the largest palace of Europe, had the largest income of any mon- arch in the world, and was ministered to by the largest retinue of ser- vants of an^' potentate on earth. King '^'illiam became Kaiser William. Jan. i8, 1871, the an- niversary of the day on which the first king of Prussia had crowned himself at Konigsberg, 1701 , was fixed for the ceremonious assump- tion of the title in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, on which was inscribed : "Le roi gouverne par lui meme." But the king of Prussia, said the preacher, adopts this motto: '•''The kings of tJie earth reign under me^ saith the Lord.''^ "We, William, by God's grace king of Prussia, hereby announce that, the German princes and free towns having addressed to us a unanimous request that we revive the German imperial dignity, which has been sixty years in abeyance, and the requisite provisions having been invested in the constitution of the German confederation, we regard it as a duty we owe to fatherland to comply with this invitation, and to BISMARCK, HIS DOINGS AND UNDOINGS. 33 1 accept the dignity of emperor." These words were spoken by Bismarck in the hall of Louis XIV — rNapoleon in exile, Paris be- sieged, Romanism in peril and Romanists in terror. Austria had been overcome. France was in subjugation. The mightiest foe of all is now to be encountered, viz., the papacy. Let us lift a few windows and look at the man confronting the "mystery of iniquity" and outlining a path for Protestantism, not only for Ger- many but for all nations where Rome has found a welcome and a habitation. The peace of Westphalia, in 1648, provided for the legal exis- tence of the Catholic and Reformed churches. Starting w^ith this principle, gradual progress was made toward religious liberty. As well from policy as on Protestant principles, the Prussian govern- ment was eminently tolerant. Being traditionally a "paternal government," which concerns itself much more particularly with the personal life of the citizen than does that of any community speaking the English tongue, it assumes a supervision over religious worship and religious education, and extends the same privileges to Catholics as to its evangelical subjedls. The pastors and priests of both churches received education at national universities of their own faith ; the children at the schools were instructed in the reli- gion of their parents, and no interference with the freedom of wor- ship and of opinion was possible. This was the state of things when Pius IX, who began as a liberal in 1846 and banished the Jesuits from the papal states March 28. 184S, was overtaken by a popular revolution, in which Rome adopted a republican form of government, placing Mazzini at its head ; the pope fled to Gaeta, surrendered to the Jesuits and after his return, under the protection of Louis Napoleon, April 4, 1850, devoted all his energies to imposing on the church the doc- trines of the middle ages. He demanded that the European na- tions should uphold his temporal dominion, on the ground that he was the vicegerent of Christ, the King of kings and Lord of lords. In vain. The dog baying at the moon was as powerful. From bad to worse he ran. Dec. 4, 1864, in an encyclical letter, he made war on modern civilization, and condemned the principal beliefs in science, politics and religion which are charadleristic of the nineteenth century. It 332 BISMARCK, HIS DOINGS AND UNDOINGS. was accompanied by a syllabus or list of eighty errors in belief and practice which the pope denounced and condemned ; all of which, by his apostolic authority, he commanded every son of the Catholic church to denounce and condemn. As far as this manifesto con- cerned religious do6lrine only, it w^as of no political significance. But it declared, without disguise, that the church has the right to coerce dissenters, and to employ and control the civil powers in ex- ecuting its decrees ; it denounced as damnable the assertion that the popes have been guilty of usurpation in assuming authority over princes and governments ; it proscribed freedom of opinion and worship as intolerable errors, and proclaimed it a heresy to advocate a reconciliation of the church with modern civilization. In short, the pope defiantly arrogated to himself in the nineteenth century every power which his predecessors had attempted to exercise in the middle ages ; and gave notice to the governments of the fa6l. Time will not permit that we enter into detail in describing the conflidl between the Vatican and the German empire. We can only note a few fa els. July 185 1870, three days after the declaration of war between France and Prussia, the dogma of the pope's infallibility was proclaimed. Bishop vStrassmayer of Servia and others opposed it, and presented to tlie pope a written protest, and left Rome a few days before the final vote, which was nearly unanimous. The coun- cil was then prorogued until Nov. 11 ; but it never met again, since the disasters of France compelled the withdrawal of the French garrison from Rome in August, and in September the Italian troops occupied the city and put an end to the pope's temporal authority. By a bull of Oct. 30 the pope postponed the re-assembling of the council indefinitely, on the ground that during the occupation of Rome by the Italians the bishops could not enjoy the freedom and securit}' required for deliberation. Then came the fight. The pope and his allies tried to enforce the do6lrine of papal infallibility. The bishops of Germany largely opposed it. The pope and his satellites tried to control the ele6lions. The clerical or ultramontane party became a facl in the diet. A petition was presented asking for the removal of the Catholic teach- ers at the gymnasium at Breslau, who denied the dodtrine of papal infallibility, on the ground that the foundation belonged to the Cath- olic church. The petition was refused, with the declaration that the BISMARCK, HIS DOINGS AND UNDOINGS. 333 foundation dated from a time when Catholicism impHed no such do6trines, and that tlie teachers in question had not forsaken any part of the faith known as Cathohc previous to the Vatican council. Everywliere bishops and priests plotted against the empire, ruled by an influence from Rome. They tried to place the church above the state, where Gregory VII succeeded in placing it during the reign of Henry IV. They attempted to break down the system of edu- cation and to impede the movements of the people. The bishops did not scruple to use their powder of refusing absolution, not only to oppose education and to interfere with the eleclive franchise but also to direc^t judicial decisions. They sought to obtain entire con- trol of the education of the children. Then Bismarck arose and took the field, as the champion of the liberties of the people, and the enemy of that power which sought their overthrow. As a workman distinguished no more for courage than for far-sightedness and the skill to plant a blow between the eyes of his opponent, it is well to consider the measures he proposed and the w^ork he has achieved. I. Survey the situation. The people are rising ; the cry has been heard : "Rouse ye from your dreaming, Sinew your souls for freedom's glorious leap. Look to the future, where our dayspring's gleaming; Lo ! a pulse stirs that nevermore shall sleepp In the world's heart. Men's eyes flash wide with wonder ! The robbers tremble in their mightiest tower. Strange v^ ords roll o'er their souls with wdieels of thunder, The leaves from royalty's tree fall hour by hour, — Earthquakes leap in our temples, crumbling throne and power."^ "Oh ! but 'twill be a merry day, the world shall set apart. When strife's last band is broken in the last crowned tyrant's heart ! And it shall come — despite of rifle, rope and rack and scaffold. Once more we lift the earnest brow, and battle on unbaffled." — [Gerald Massey. This sentiment lives in Italy. It is heard in the communistic cry in Austria, when priest and altar are assailed, in the Nihilistic growl in Russia and in the terrific fight in Germany. No matter who comes or who goes, in the end thrones are to dis- appear, and a millenial republic, composed of separate states and 334 BISMARCK, HIS DOINGS AND UNDOINGS. nationalities, ruled in accordance with the teachings of the word of God, is to girdle the globe. Perhaps the downfall of the pope-king was the dropping out of the keystone from the arch, which endangers the entire fabric of des- potism. It is possible that Bismarck sees that he has builded better than he knew, and that the friends of despotism may find it for their advantage to help each other as against the republic of France ?md the republic of America. But the work will go on, as, when the guns of Sumter sent their echoes over the land, Romanists as well as Baptists rallied about the flag ; but after Archbishop Hughes went to Rome, enlistments stopped, the riots were inaugurated, Rome recognized the Southern Confederacy, and the great prelate of New York carried to his grave the humiliation that came to him when he was forced by the powers above him to stand rebuked for loving and helping liberty. But it did not stop the march of freedom. Despite the tearing down of orphan asylums and the trampling out the life of the innocents, despite the draft riots, the army w^as re-enforced, success came to our standards, and the nation dug for slavery a ^rave. It will be ready to dig a deeper one for Romanism. 2. The battle is being imaged. Note the combatants. On one side are the preachers of God's truth, here and elsewhere. They speak for God, and the men who aid them make it possible for them to be heard. On the other side are kings, jDotentates and powers. The battle is not much changed since Luther stood soli- tary on God's truth, and Leo X, with tiara, triple hat, treasuries and armories, and thunders spiritual and temporal, stood on the devil's lie. The struggle in Germany is full of sublime endeavors, and not only reveals marvelous pluck on the part of man, but shows that God had made things ready for victory. Pius IX sought to do what Gregory VII accomplished in the eleventh century. He tried to place the church above the state, to break down the system of education and to impede the movements of the people. Few have a conception of the gigantic task placed b)efore Bismarck. The vital element in the great oriental mon- archies was authority, in France patriotism, in Prussia it was disci- pline. To the people with whom Bismarck v^orked, the state was superior to all forms of government, and has survived all vicissitudes of history. BISMARCK, HIS DOINGS AND UNDOINGS. 335 Some one has said there are three systems according to which the relations of church and state may be settled ; i, The church must be the state and society, consequently a theocracy ; 2, There must be a partition of functions, more or less explicit and formal, between the two ; or, 3, The church must be treated like any other organization within the state, and be subje6ted to a supervision as severe as justice requires and as impartial as the interests of the state permit. These are the systems, respe6tively, of the days of Gregory VII, of modern Europe and of the United States. In America the separation of church and state means the inde- pendence of the church. In Prussia it means the disenthrallment of the state. The American constitution lends to the church certain social privileges which the state has no desire to control. In Prussia, the Falk laws recovered for the state certain civil and political functions that the church had usurped. The Prussian re- forms aimed at the restoration of that harmony between the two powers which the arrogance and selfishness of the priesthood had hitherto thwarted, and which is most complete when the church is most rigorously kept in her own field of a6lion. Prussia, like America, is willing to allow the church just as much freedom as is consistent with the welfare of the state. The Falk laws are only the philosophy of the Prussian government pushed to its logical conse- quences. A German writer truly says : "The struggle which has been in- itiated between the empire and the church was an irrepressible con- flidl, as truly as was that concerning freeing the negro in America." The infallible pope cursed all that freemen prize. He claimed the right to trample on freedom of conscience, and to reduce to bondage the men, women and children who worshiped in accordance with his ritual. Toleration, true and false, must be considered in the near future. Protestants, from their desire to give no handle to Romanists, are far more timid in interfering by the civil power than are Catholic princes, and the pretensions of Catholic priests rise accordingly. We dare not touch nunneries in the United States, lest we be called illiberal. We do not place reformatories under the control of the state, lest we interfere with religious liberty. Romanists tell us that they only demand the free exercise of their religion, and that in con- 33^ BISMARCK, HIS DOINGS AND UNDOINGS. formity with our own principles we are bound to grant them that. They make nothing of the fact that the pope refuses to all dissenters the free exercise of their religion. If a Thug made strangling of travelers a part of his religion, was that to be tolerated? It is to be regretted that so many Protestants are blind to the fallacy here lurking. Some objedl to the use of the word "toleration"' and claim they do not believe in it, but in religious liberty instead. In this they harmonize with the Puritans, who came to this land to enjoy religious liberty, and who were the implacable foes of toleration. Feb. 5, 1 63 1, Roger Williams came to Boston. He claimed that Jesus Christ was the only king and legislator of his church. For uttering this truth, those who sought freedom to worship God per- secuted and drove him out into the wilderness in the midst of win- ter. Toleration was then unknown in all the world. It is a singular fact that when intolerance had covered the world with the shadow of despotism, Roger Williams planted on the shores of Narragansett bay the seedling of soul liberty, and illustrated the principle of tolerance from vv^hich has grown a tree v^hose leaves are for the healing of the nations. In 1647, ^^^^ code of laws drawn up by Roger Williams for Rhode Island contained the do6lrine that the civil power has no control over the religious opinions of men. But this did not preclude from supporting the faith of the gospel. Re- ligious freedom was not freedom from religion, but freedom within lawful and necessary limitations. This is shown by this dauntless man in a letter in which we find this language : "There goes many a ship to sea, with many hundred souls in one ship, and is a true pidlure of the commonwealth or a human combination of society. It hath fallen out sometimes that both papists and Protestants, Jews and Turks, may be embarked in one ship ; upon wdiich supposal I affirm that all the liberty of conscience that ever I plead for turnj upon these two hinges : that none of the papists, Protestants, Jewt or Turks be forced to come to the ship's prayers or worship, nor compelled from their own particular prayers or v^orship, if they pra6lice any. I further add that I never denied that, notwithstand- ing this liberty, the commander of the ship ought to command the chip's course ; and if there be mutiny or if any should preach or in- sist that there ought to be no commanders or officers because all are BISMARCK, HIS DOINGS AND UNDOINGS. 337 equal in Christ, therefore no masters, nor officers, no laws, no con- vi(5lions, no punishments, I say I never denied, but in such cases, whatever is pretended, the commander may judge, resist, compel and punish such transgressors, according to their deserts and merits." In this he was right. Bismarck dared say so. Hence, if a Romanist made it a part of his religion to shut up women against their will in nunneries, he made it the duty of the state to unbar the doors and let the captives go free. We ought not to be incapacitated from visiting and inspedling nunneries by the fa6l that we are not Romanists. We would not allow Protestants to keep women in prisons without a compliance with the forms of law, nor ought it to be allowed to Romanists to do that which is tyrannical and unjust. I do not forget that the constitution of the United States expressly declares that the govern- ment does not tolerate. Still, the spirit of toleration exists. For if the government has nothing to do with toleration, individuals have. The question. How far shall the spirit lead us? is most im- portant. In Germany they are not free. The ballot cannot touch the selec- tion of rulers. If it be true that the political life of Germany is withered and benumbed by the illness of the great chancellor, who will not let the helm pass out of his hands, and so the ship of state moves heavily and with effort, sometimes remaining quite still and again swiftly drifting to the rear, let us thank God that such a state of things from such a cause cannot come upon us. If we fail, it will be from cowardice, because we are untrue to God and do not (per- haps because we dare not) proclaim the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. If Germany shall fail, because the eye of the great chancellor grows dim and his strength abates, let America take up the work and end the fight. There is, then, a distindlion to be made between true and false toleration. There is a maudlin and toothless tolerance, a vague sentiment of somnolent acquiescence in all propositions, vs^hich is the despicable burlesque of one of the noblest of qualities. Tolerance of the right kind is manly. In agreement it is cordial, in disagree- ment it is frank. It can understand and sympathize with individual feeling ; it can respedt the inalienable privilege of each man to be judged by his Maker ; but it will not admit that the difference be- 33^ BISMARCK, HIS DOINGS AND UNDOINGS. tween truth and error is slight, or that it is a matter of no moment, supposing us to be honest whether we hold the one or the other. Its principle is to be always charitable, and to add to its charity in- telledlual clearness. Its charity enables it to do justice to the in- dividual ; its intelledlual clearness enables it, while passing by all in which its views have been erroneous or defective, to appropriate whatever in them is good and true and beautiful. Freedom should be sought, not to help unbelief, but because of a yearning after the truth. There is a toleration which is true ; it permiits, it refuses to persecute, opinion ; but it does not put a padlock on the lips of truth while it places a trumpet to the lips of error. It leaves error to be overcome by truth, while it plies the truth. Peter did this when he shouted, "We must obey God rather than man." False tolerance commands: "Sit still, and let the ship be scuttled." "Give up to pirates, to banditti, that which God has placed in our care." The question arises, What is duty? How far can we safely go under the lead of a false tolerance ? Can the gospel be fearlessly preached in a land where error is courted.^ Can righteous laws be enforced, the safe-guards of society be prote(5led, the rights of human nature be defended ? It is a solemn and momentous question for us and the whole world. It is upon us. Rome boasts her intolerance and shields herself behind the assertion that God is intolerant. Monstrous charge ! The history of God's dealings with mankind proves this assertion to be false. God is not intolerant. He com- mands his sun to shine on the evil and the good. He permits error to exist, but at the same time presses upon the attention of all their need of the gospel and commands his disciples to go forth into all the vv^orld and preach the gospel to every creature, saying that truth shall save mankind, for "Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make 3'^ou free." In Germany we see the battle fought out to its certain issue. Let us note carefully the steps taken. On Jan. 31, 1850, Prussia em- bodied in her constitutional law the great principle of religious free- dom which had been laid down by the German national parliament in 1S4S as a fundamental law of Germany. That law reads thus: "Every religious society manages its own affairs, but remains sub- je6l to the general laws of the state." "The right of general over- BISMARCK, HIS DOINGS AND UNDOINGS. 339 ■sight consists in the competence to take cognizance of all which transpires in the church, and to take all needful precautions in order to prevent or repel the encroachments of the church on the domain •of the state." So said Dr. Grieist, chairman of the commission. In January and February, 1871, the bishops of Ems and Cologne, now become obedient servants of the infallible pope, tried to remove all teachers who refused to teach the new Roman dogma. The Bavarian government refused to permit the promulgation of the Vatican council. Dr. Dollinger, the most eminent theologian and historian of the Catholic church, published his reply to the archbishop of Munich, showing that the dogma was without the support of Scripture or the fathers, and in dire6t contradiction to the decisions of former councils and popes. This letter stirred the religious world of Germany and Europe to its depths. The conflict appeared in the diet. Meantime, the schism in the German Cath- olic church grew wider and wider. The majority of the intelledl and scholarship of the church rejedled the Vatican council, while nearly the whole clergy sustained it. Sept. 23, 1 87 1, the Old Catholics assembled in Munich, re-affirmed their devotion to the system of doctrines and worship which had always been to them the Catholic church, proclaimed the political •charadler of the innovations of the Vatican council, and unanimously called on the government to expel the Jesuits from Germany. They provided for the organization of Old Catholic churches, and de- manded from the governments the recognition of these churches as entitled to the same privileges and support which had been given to the Catholic church since the peace of Westphalia. It was granted. The fight grew more fierce. Not one of the German bishops joined the movement. In June, 1873, Dr. Joseph Reinkens was ele6led bishop of the Old Catholic church. The Roman hierarchy refused to consecrate him. In July, Hey Komp, the Jansenist bishop of Deventer, in the Netherlands, ordained him. The representative of the Romish church in the Prussian ministry, becoming the agent of the infallible pope, was set aside. Then the effc:)rt was made to force upon ail Catholic schools the do6trine of papal infallibility. In March, 1872, the law was passed depriving the church of all control over religious instru6lion in the schools. It was May 14, 1872, that Bismarck announced that he was for 340 BISMARCK, HIS DOINGS AND UNDOINGS. war. "Of this be sure, that neither in church or state are we on the way to Canossa" (where Henry IV, in 1077, waited three days and nights, praying for absokition) . The Jesuits then uncovered their hand and tried to throttle Germany. In 1S55 there were 69 convents with 976 inmates. In 1869 there were 826 convents, with 8,319 inmates. Of these orders the Jesuits were masters. In June, 1872, the diet passed an order expelhng foreign Jesuits from the empire, suppressing their institutions, and giving the governinent power to superintend and checlv all the religious orders in affiliation with the Jesuits ; thus imit:iting Clement XIV,- who abolished the order in 1773,, and Pius IX, who banished them early in his rule. Schools and seminaries were closed. Chairs of theology were left vacant. Hundreds of flimilies were deprived of their spiritual overseers, while the latter were robbed of their material support. The Catholic press was rigorously dealt with. Church processions were controlled by the police. ~ Deserted cloisters and other religious establishments began to dot the land, as if a despoiling enemy had passed over it. The servants of the cjiurch were fined, imprisoned and banished without mere}'. Archbishops' palaces were broken into and their inmates pursued. Tumults broke out in churches ; God's acres were profaned by strife. The cross no longer protected from arrest. Priests were torn away from the altar and flung into prison, so relendess was the fight under the regime of the Falk laws. These were passed in May, 1S73, and reveal the determin^i- tion of the German government to attend to her own concerns, un- avvX-d and unhindered by foreign povv^ers. The first law permits the voluntary change of his church relations by any member of the established church. The second law pro- vides for the education and appointment of the clergv who shall be recognized by the sta:e as pistors. It requires that every man to be eligible to this offiee shall first have received a training in a public school and a universitv, side by side with the young men preparing for other professions, and shall pass such examination in general science and literature, and in German historv, as is required of them ; and, after all this, he shall not be installed in his work without the approval of the civil authorities. These restrictions do away with the seminaries or private monastic schools of which Rome is so fond, and for which for a generation she has been con- BISMARCK, HIS DOINGS AND UNDOINGS. 34 1 tending. The third hiw regulates all ecclesiastical discipline and censure, forbidding the inflidlion of fines, imprisonment and corpo- ral punishment for offenses against the church, bringing the "re- formatories"' used for discipline of wards of the church under state supervision, and instituting an ecclesiastical court of appeals, com- posed of learned judges, before which all questions of ecclesiastical punishment are tried on appeal from the clerical authorities. No more inquisitorial punishment in Germany. The struggle was watched with intense interest b}- the whole civ- ilized world, for the issues were vast and momentous. Would the policy of "blood and iron" which had made Germany strong also succeed in breaking the power of Rome ? The question whether there shall be civil government to which its subje(?ts yield direct and sole allegiance, or a universal paparchy, was to be settled. Bis- marck claimed that it was the deeper question whether the nation shall exist — the nation in its entirety and its integrit}' — with its pat- riotic consciousness, with its self-ordered institutions, its laws, its schools, its arts and sciences, its communitj^ of ideas and interests ; or whether within every nation there shall be another nation, an ecclesiastical nation, struggling against it and striving for the mas- tery, even to the destruction of the bod}^ politic, In one word, he believed it to be a question between society and the s\ llabus. For this the Jesuits called him the incarnation of the devil. Dr. Ludwig Windthorst, who poses as the implacable foe of the Falk laws, was a minister of the deposed king of Hanover, and re- mains utterly hostile to his country's absorption bv Prussia. He is a Guelph first, a clerical afterwards and last of all a German. He is a good party leader but a poor patriot. He is taminutive in body, homely in looks and gifted with the spirit that denies. En- thusiastic, yet self-possessed, cynical, relentless, resourceful and full of mother-wit, a simple and agreeable old gentleman in pri- vate, a blindly trusted party leader, admirably skilled in busi- ness forms and fence of speech, combining the starched rigor of the bureaucrat with the mirth-provoking sallies of the buffoon ; a statesman of one idea, with a multitude of admirers, the German champion of the pope, the pea in the boot of the imperial giant. (Lowe's Bismarck, Vol. II, p. 268. ) When ^ve remember that the bishops of the Catholic world are 342 BISMARCK, HIS DOINGS AND UNDOINGS. bound by feudal oaths to the pope, who is claimed to be infallible, the priests to the bishops and the laymen to the priests, we gain a conception of the work upon which the people of Germany entered, when pope and bishop were defied and the people were helped. The pope and the church were treated as relics of a past age, and were set aside as obstru(5lions to the car of progress, which was thought to be the car of salvation. It is impossible to overestimate the uncompromising stand against the aggressive spirit of Romish pretension. The words of Bismarck and the resolves of the diet sent waves of influence throughout the world, and not only disturbed the foundations of the papacy but recalled attention to the position of Luther, viz., that the Bible, interpreted according to the l)est knowledge of believing Christians, is the only rule of faith and practice. Upon this platform it was possible for all to stand who desired to work for God and the right. But all did not accept the platform. It is said that Germany feels the necessity of conciliating the pope, and still Germany cannot go back on itself. The events of yester- day shape the actions of today, despite ourselves. Let us be just to Bismarck. When the harpoon strikes into the vitals of the whale, the wise hunter gives the monster rope, and death is the result. Bismarck is not yet through w4th the pope. He believes in the bet- ter thought of the Catholic people of the empire. He believes in education, in enlightenment, in good feeling, for Germany. Bismarck is a monarchist. He w^orks for the good of the empire and accepts what help is within his reach. Pius IX he fought to the end. Leo XIII he tried to conciliate. To do this he fraternized with Windthorst, his life- long foe, and set one side Dr. Falk — the pro- found jurist, the implacable foe of the papacy, the author of the laws that let Prussia throw ofl' the manacles of superstition and drive the Jesuits from her borders ; a man like Luther in appearance, and re- sembling him in energy and the serious eloquence of deep convic- tions — placing in his stead Herr Von Putt Kammer, a man who would be less offensive to freedom's opponents. Remember two fa6ls. The young emperor refused to betray Humbert, king of Italy, by attempting to conciliate the pope ; and he has just conferred the order of the "Black Eagle" on Herr Von Putt Kammer. Is not this in line with German policy, which BISMARCK, HIS DOINGS AND UNDOINGS. 345 says, "Hands off, Leo XIII," while a welcome Is extended to every Roman Catholic who will help build up the German empire ? Is not that the policy for America ? Make of the men like Edward McGlynn and others who sever the tie binding them to the Vatican, while they give their hearts to the fostering of the American spirit,- bent on building up all the jDeople by educating the youth in accord- ance with the needs of the hour and the hopes of the future. With- out forsaking the broad general principles by which Dr. Falk had been guided, Herr Von Putt Kammer took every opportunity of temper- ing with mercy, and even indulgence, their particular application. A minister, Herr Von Schlozer, April 24, 1882, delivered to the pope his credentials; and diplomatic relations, broken off in 1874, were restored. Rome demanded the repeal of the May laws. Prussia insisted upon the recognition of her right to be heard in the appointment of ministers ; the pope acquiesced, and in behalf of his colleagues Bishop Kulm begged dispensation of the government for the sus- pended servants of the church who had not undergone the statutory training for their office. Prussia consented, and towards the close of 1883 most sees had been re-provided with pardoned bishops and re-endowed with the means of salarying them. The visit of the crown prince upon Leo set the tongue of the world wagging, and made thousands ask : "Is the blood of Bismarck cooling? Has he tired of the strife with the pope, or does he want to use him to fight socialists and anarchists ?" It is known that the crown prince went to Spain and to Italy to carry the greetings of his father and manifest the good feeling of the emperor towards those governments ; and while In Rome, the guest of King Humbert, he paid his respe6ls to the pope, to show that the relations between Prussia and the Curia were such as made this act of courtesy proper. Catholics, led by Dr. WIndthorst, claimed that the pope still ruled the world ; and yet the Falk laws remain in all their essential particulars, nor will Prussia yield. As plain as general words could do it, the crown prince told the pope that "No Italian priest would ever tithe or toll in his dominions." No Prussian sovereign would ever consent to alter the law^s and constitution of the land In con- formity with the church, since the Independence of the monarchy would suffer grievous attaint were the free course of its legislation 344 BISMARCK, HIS DOINGS AND UNDOINGS. to be controlled by a foreign power. Though th3 world h^s since been saddened by the death of Emperor Frederick, so cultured, so loyal to Germany, to wife, to Protestantism, and seemingly so nec- essary, yet his death has hurt Romanism rather than helped it, and the pope writhes as never before in the clutch of the hand of steel. The cloister law, still in force, dissolving and expelling from Prussia all religious orders whatever save purely Samaritan ones ; another, entrusting tlie administration of church property in Catholic parishes partly to the congregations themselves, partly to the state ; and a third, securing to Old Catholics the continued use and enjoy- ment of churches and church funds — of which the bishops, treating them as damnable heretics, had endeavored to deprive them — all prove that Leo XIII is not monarch of Germany, but simply bishop of Rome. The clergy have to choose between submission and go- ing without a salary. The cloister law adopts the advice of John Knox, and drives away the rooks by destroying their nests — expels the Jesuits by breaking up their jDlaces of refuge. Of a piece with it was the ministerial law, forbidding the alienation of real property belonging to the church without the consent of the state. Romanism has protection in Prussia. But she is under rule, she is not master ; let Americans rule in America as fearlessly, and no harm w^ill come. No longer are priests permitted to harangue against the government from pulpit and platform. All public and private schools are to be inspected by the officers of the state, instead of by the church, as heretofore. The state claimed absolute control of the school. As a result, the children are taught of God, of the work of creation, of Providence as seen in history and in life. The Protestant governments of Europe already feel the spirit of the reform. It is seen that Rome is running against a sentiment that must enter as a wedge and disrupt it. The light of truth is streaming forth amid the fogs and mists of superstition. Like sun- shine, surmounting ail earthly obstru6lions, it will break from heaven upon their mountains and spread over their valleys. It will flash upon every bayonet and blaze upon every crucifix. It will pene- trate the windows of ever}^ palace and of every cathedral, and gleam like an angel of deliverance in every dungeon and every cell and €very home. It will dazzle into blindness the eyes that dare oppose it, and burn like fire into the hearts that harden themselves against BISMARCK, HIS DOINGS AND UNDOINGS. 345 it. If need be, it will condense itself into lightning and convert its rays into thunderbolts, to smite the pope upon his throne, and the cardinals and bishops, the emperors and kings, that bow at his feet and offer him worship, overwhelming them with wrath, for the honor of God and in mercy to the people. In a word, the principles of liberty derived from God in the study of his word will have free course and be glorified. In schools where Protestant and Catholic children mingle together, the methods of religious instruction are various, according to the creed of the neighborhood and the style of instruction of the teacher. Sometimes the teacher calls the class around him and relates in his own language the simple narratives of the Bible. Sometimes he employs the translation of the Scriptures in use among the people. The higher classes receive instruction in the v^hole Bible history, finishing with a summary of Christian doctrine in the form of a catechism, which is the one employed by the church to which the parents of the scholars belong. Religious instrudlion of some kind is compulsory. The teachers, however, abstain from sectarian peculiarities or from casting odium upon any denomination of Christians. Said Horace Mann : "Nothing receives more attention in the Prussian schools than the Bible. It is taken up early and studied systematically. In all the Protestant schools the Luther catechism is used and in all the Roman Catholic schools the Cath- olic catechism is used, and when the schools are mixed they have combined literary with separate religious instru6lion ; and here all the doctrines of the gospel are taught early and most assiduously.'* Against this, unreasonable sectarian bigotry and infidel, lawless latitudinarianism, at variance with all good government, fights in vain, while William is emperor and Bismarck is his right hand. It has been said that Rome eschews politics. Nothing can be farther from the truth. The reichstag had been packed by German priests. They had terrorized the electors. They had denounced the return of a Protestant candidate as a sin against the church ; they had commanded their congregations to vote for men of their choice ; in fact, they had converted their pulpits into platforms and their confessionals into witness-boxes, and fearlessly they sought to influence elections by these means. As a result came the law of Dec. 10, 1871, making it a penal offense for clergymen to incite to 34^ BISMARCK, HIS DOINGS AND UNDOINGS. riot or otherwise endanger the peace by harangues against the government. Just such a law has been passed in Italy, and so Romanism in Rome and in Berlin is under the ban. Then followed the law placing the inspe(5lion of public and pri- vate schools entirely in the hands of the state. Let Americans study this system with care. In it are the seedlings of hope for the rising generation. Bismarck deserves the thanks of Christendom for declaring, and for making the declaration a fact, that the state is to protect the people and not enslave them. He believes that the people have a right to protection from the despotism of Rome. Men and women have a right to trial in accordance with the forms of law, and if convicted they should be punished, but Rome has no right to immure w^hom she will in the cells of convents and monasteries without redress. In Germany the canon law is not permitted to override the law^ of the land, and corporal punishment cannot be administered as an ecclesiastical penalty. The rule of Germany in civil matters cannot be interfered with by pope or bishop. The church may persuade, it cannot drive, its subjects. Church officers who violate the law of the land are punished by the state, and the church cannot stay its hand. Church ministers de- posed by the state cannot perform official functions without being arrested, tried, and if found guilty, fined for the first offense .£15 and for a repetition .£150. Cases of appeal are to be tried by the royal tribunal of ecclesiastical affairs, composed of eleven judges, the pres- ident and five judges to be from the state, and the decisions of this tribunal to be final. These are Prussian laws. The tendency of them is to make the clergy more national and less ultramontane. They protect the laity and the clergy from being made the vi6lims of the extravagantand ar- bitrary power of the hierarchy in carrying out the designs of the pope and his Jesuitical advisers against the liberties of mankind. Some lessons to be pondered. (a) This man is an illustration of the words of the psalmist : * 'Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the w^ay of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful ; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and night." BISMARCK, HIS DOINGS AND UNDOINGS. 347 Bismarck is powerful just as he has represented in his life, pur- pose and words the Lord God of hosts. For the Lord God is a sun to light and a shield to protedl ; the Lord will give grace and glory ; no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly. O Lord God of hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in thee. (Ps. 84: II, 12.) In Bismarck there is a double nature. The religion of Christ has done for him mighty things. By nature he is wild and wayward. From the moment he heard and heeded God's call he has been a wonder to himself. God has used him not only to promote Ger- man unity but to beat back popish aggression, to witness for the truth and to make Germany the bulwark of religious freedom. Na man can live to himself, if he lives w^isely and well. Napoleon Bonaparte sprung from the people to power, in a manner so marvelous that the world was astonished by the brilliancy of his genius no more than by the divine purpose he seemed to represent. He broke up the old order. His armies swept over Europe like a resistless force. Kings, emperors and even the supreme pontiff were compelled to pay him homage and obey his mandates. He broke up and broke through the old order. He went on from strength to strength. In due time, for the sake of dominion and selfish adulation, he sought to w^in the pope's blessing, and turned his back on the purposes for which he had been raised ; then down he went, like a planet of the first magnitude loosened from its orbit and hurled with crashing, crushing force into remediless ruin. On St. Helena he died, realizing that if he had served Jesus Christ, the King of kings and Lord of lords, he might have been a success. Kossuth drew after him the heart-love of the world and became the standard bearer of liberty in Hungary and in Europe. Ta America he came. He confronted slavery. He forgot that liberty is universal, as is God. It is not Hungarian or English or Ameri- can. It is liberty. Down he went. Bismarck has everything to gain by being true to God. As a token of love and confidence, his great friend, the late emperor, made him rich in estates, in honor and in money. What God said to Solomon, who asked for "an understanding heart to judge the people, that I may discern between good and bad," he seems to have said to Bismarck for the same reason, and to have given him that 34^ BISMARCK, HIS DOINGS AND UNDOINGS. and also riches, honor and long life. On April i, 1885, his seven- tieth birthday, his friends presented him with the munificent sum of £137,503 — over $500,000 ; w^ith this, in part, his friends restored to him the old ancestral property of Schonhausen, with which the chancellor's father had been forced to part. His annual income is $100,000. His Varzin estate he purchased out of the sum of £60,000 granted him in 1866, after the Bohemian campaign ; while the emperor presented him w^ith Friedrichsruh, worth a million thalers, or about £150,000, in lieu of a donation out of the French milliards. Though rich, no one has ever accused him of obtaining 'wealth by unfair means. (b) The inspirations of history have been listened to and are invaluable. Prussia is today what the past has made her. We are interested in her because of what she has wrought for God and man, and for what she is capable of achieving under God's guidance. The his- tory of Protestantism is linked to the history of her life. Without its aid Prussia would never have become powerful and independent. They only truly live who live for God, and who permit God to live .in them, both to v^ill and to do according to his good pleasure. The Reformation grew up under the sheltering care of Prussia. Thus the German nation broke through the meshes of Romanism, and attained to an intelle6lual life that has made her the cradle of philosophy and the home of a literature that has enriched the world. ( c ) The discharge of ixianifest duty secures safety. Bismarck's life illustrates this truth, and ought to teach cowards a lesson. Mazzini, who scorned a disguise, traveled alt over Europe when the continent was rocking under the mighty throes of revolu- tion, and could not be arrested. Luther, who shook down popery and was hated as no other man was ever hated, died in his bed. Bis- marck laughs at peril, and goes unharmed along the path of destiny. Emperor William was known far and near as a man who believed in God and who served Jehovah with delight. Beside him stood Bismarck. His loyalty was a part of his religion, but not by any means the whole of it. Bismarck believes in God and worships him with delight. When the attempt was made upon his life by the assassin's bullet, though wounded, he went home, and before any one knew of it BISMARCK, ins DOINGS AND UNDOINGS. 349 in the house they detected in his earnest thanksgiving to -God at the table that he had been miraculously preserved, and when grace was said he told them that he had been shot, but was not seriously wounded. The calmest man that day in Berlin was Bismarck. Dr. Busch, who knows him most intimately, has this to say of the gi'eat man's religious views: "Bismarck acknowledges that in re- ligion, as well as in politics, he has successively arrived at different stages of development. First of all he passed through a rationalistic phase ; then came a time during which he v/as an unbeliever, or, at least, experienced no religious requirements at all ; later on, he gave expression to such decided opinions that no doubt could be enter- tained as to his views, obviously those of a man whose standpoint was Christian and even confessional ; and of late years he appears to have retained only the old faith, believing firmly in God, trust- ing in the merits of Jesus Christ for salvation and in the promise through him of infinite care in this world and the enjoyments of heaven beyond this vale of tears. Hence in 1878 he said: 'If I had come to entertain the belief which nothingness brings beyond death, though I live a life of great a6livity and occupy a lucrative part, all this could offer me no inducement to live a day longer did I not, as the poet Schiller declares, "believe in God and a better future.'" 'I firmly believe,' said he, on another occasion, 'in a life after death. To my steadfast faith alone do I owe the power of resisting all manner of absurdities.'" Though for twenty years physically unable to attend church, he is a zealous Bible reader. On the morning after the capitulation of Sedan, his secretary found his bed-chamber littered with hymn books, religious tracts and the texts of Moravian brethren for "Believing Christians." This was the literature from which the iron chancellor had sought refreshment during the sleepless night of a terrible day. On the other hand,. Louis Napoleon read, that same night, Bulwer Lytton's "Last of the Barons." The outcome : who can tell it? The speech of Bismarck in the reichstag, in January, 1887, has, single-handed, accomplished a peace as profound as did a half million of soldiers in 1815. In the path of God's purpose, working in accordance with the Almighty Will, he is the weightiest force living among men. In the cable holding the ship away from the lee shore, it matters 350 BISMARCK, HIS DOINGS AND UNDOINGS. not what link breaks, the chain goes with the link. In Germany the link which held the papacy to the past was broken. Like a water-logged ship the papacy is drifting towards us in America. The rock of truth shall welcome her ; the sea of truth shall furnish waves of thought to break her up, and the songs of emancipated millions, shouting "The Lord is my strength and song, and he i& become my salvation ; he is my God and I will prepare him an habitation, my father's God and I will exalt him," shall tell the world that America furnishes the plain where the battle of Armaged- don is to be fought in sight of all, when God shall win the vidlory^ and the fetter of Rome shall be broken and humanity shall be free^ May God hasten the day ! THE PAULINE PROPAGANDA, ITS PURPOSE AND PLAN. *'This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affedlion, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high- minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God ; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away." II Timothy 3 : 1-5. Paul, in these words, outlined the chara6ter of the Roman Cath- olic church, gave a description by which the enemy of all right- eousness might be known, and proclaimed the unmistakable duty of Christians in the w^ords : "From such turn away." It is time this warning was sounded out from the battlements of Zion and from the watch-towers of the press. The Christian forces of America are asleep. Paul saw this, and exhorted to preach the word, to be instant in season and out of season, to reprove, rebuke, with all long- suffering. The gates to hope are now wide open. Say not ye. There are yet four months and then cometh the harvest ; but lift up your eyes and look, for the fields are white already for the harvest. "But the time shall come when they will not endure strong doctrine but shall turn away to fables." Either all history is a fable, or there are signs of a coming con- fli6t, which will be desperate if not long. There is danger to liberty, danger to our public school system, danger to the very character of Christianity. Romanism is a felt power in our American life. It has violated our Sabbath; the feeling that the day may be given up to pleasure comes from Romanism. It has invaded our litera- ture and weakened it. Its opposition to the word of God causes silence concerning its w^eighty truths and imperative commands, and makes the probation theory a kind of purgatorial annex. The trouble is that we cannot argue with a Romanist on scriptural 352 PAULINE PROPAGANDA. grounds ; for, while he shelters his religious belief under the shield of the church's infallibility, and declines an investigation of the grounds of a different persuasion upon the plea that such persuasion must be wrong because his church condemns it, we are forced into a fight with the pretended infallibility of a church that is described in the word of God as the "Man of Sin,",the "mystery of iniquity," the "Mother of Harlots." To wage this fight, the Pauline Propaganda was organized. The Evangelical Alliance treats the Roman Catholic church as one of the religious denominations and as a part of the Christian world. In the appeal for a great meeting to be held in Washington, the words Rome and Romanism do not appear. The ministry of all de- nominations is silent in regard to this terrific foe, that reddened Europe with blood, that impoverished its noblest nations, and is to- day shrouding the sky of millions with the gloom of an eternal night. The feeling has come upon a few that the truth concerning Rome must be told, and that this is the time to tell it. There is no fear if God's children will be true. The called, the chosen and the faithful can overthrow Romanism whenever they will arise and speak. Then shall the embodiment of error be taken away, "And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth" — which is the word of God faithfully proclaimed — "and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming ; even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish, because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved." There can be no neutral ground. If Romanism is right, what we call Christianity is a delusion and a sham. If Christianity be a fact, then Romanism is its terrible and implacable foe. Believing in Christ, it is not difficult to discover reasons why Satan should desire that so-called Christians should reckon Romanists as a part of the Christian world, and give over our youth to their instrudiion and our country to their direction. Then does he know, whether the people know it or not, that the children would be brought up in ignorance, and the republic of the United States, built to be the light of the world, would quench her altar fires and leave humanity to grope on in the night that enshrouds Mexico, that impoverishes Spain and PAULINE PROPAGANDA. 353 that has made Italy, blessed by climate and by soil, the charnel- house of Europe. Romanists believe in the mission of Romanism. You see it in the way they grasp the conception of absolute and universal dominion^ Rome legislates for the whole world as if she expected to rule it. She worships the Lord God the pope. His word is authority with 250,000,000 people. At his di6tum the Bible is banished from the home, burned in the public street and driven out of the public school. Some one has said : "The Roman Catholic idea of religion in the public school would be a good one if the religion taught were a good religion." But the Roman Catholic theory is wrong and bad. It believes in an absolute and unquestioned dominion, and worships a man instead of God. If the ideas they hold were those of God, then the heart of the worshiper would be expanded ; but when religion implies the adherence to some earthly man and the bloody overthrow of all who cannot follow this temporal captain, it cannot produce the form of soul demanded by the new era. The Paulme Propaganda came into being because there are those who believe that Romanism is the life-long foe of pure and undefiled religion, and that Romanists, because they believe a lie instead of the truth, will be damned. As Paul said in his letter to the Romans^ they are now under condemnation : "For the wrath of God is re- vealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness ; because that which may be known of God is manifest m them, for God hath showed it unto them. * * Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, * * changed the truth of God into a lie and worshiped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever." Rom. i : i8, 19, 22, 23, 25. Romanists, deluded by the errors of Rome and embracing them instead of welcoming Jesus Christ in faith, are lost, and are on their way to an endless and eternal hell. Who believes it.-^ Who dares deny it, with God's word in hand.? Thomas Jefferson wrote : "Error may safely be tolerated, when truth is left fi-ee to combat it." The words of our Lord are better when he said: "If ye continue in my word, ye shall know the ,354 PAULINE PROPAGANDA. truth and the truth shall make you free." Hence, we say error need not be feared when truth combats it. But truth asleep, truth inactive, truth coffined for the tomb, is worthless. Christians- blind to the aggressions of Romanism, and therefore silent, are the allies of despotism, of ignorance and of crime. Their indifference tc error is a betrayal of truth. But when they stride forth as cham- pions of the truth, and point a Romanist, worshiping a man-made wafer as the incarnate God, to the Lord Jesus Christ, who ascended on high, after thirty-three years of sinless living and blessed helping, to the mediatorial throne where he now reigns in power, in glory and in majesty, and who is soon to come and put every enemy under his feet, they fulfil their mission by discharging their manifest duty. I. A.n organization whose special work shall be to expose the errors of RoTnanism and call atte7ttio7i to their destrudive in- fluence is essential to the welfare of the Christian church. This work will be opposed by those whose theory is that Roman- ists are to be saved by overlooking the errors of Rome, talking of the achievements of the church, and showing that the true church of Christ has something better to offer to the individual soul than has the Roman Catholic church. The trouble is that Rome lays claim to all we have, and to tradition and the products of a church de- clared to be infallible, which by council and conclave has made va- rious additions to the word of God. If there is to be no dispute concerning error and its poisonous effects, the work ends, and Ro- manism becomes victor. It is admitted that organizations exist for almost every con- ceivable object. Missions, at home and abroad, are the outcome. Tra6l, publication and Bible societies, consecrated to the furtherance of the interests committed to their care, engage public thought and secure the patronage of the community. The vv^orld understands the value of combination of talent and of wealth for the promotion of the various objects to which it gives its heart. Parties that take the people of the entire country into their confidence, and marshal them for service, illustrate the value of a perfe6ted organization. The pope is at the head of 250,000,000 people who believe in his di(5la and obey his commands. His system is here to stay. It is anti- Christian, opposed to liberty and finds in ignorance its sheet-anchor. To call attention to this fa6l is a duty. PAULINE PROPAGANDA. 355 The church has its place. Our Lord recognized the importance of the thought. Hence, as soon as individuals were converted, they were organized into churches. Baptism was the door. Then they were ready for work — this as much as any. "Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye crucified, both Lord and Christ." He is the king in Zion. He commands that the believers go and preach the gospel, and whosoever believeth and is baptized shall be saved. When Peter proclaimed this truth, the people were pricked in their hearts and asked, What shall we do ? His reply was : Repent and be baptized every one of you for the remission of sins, and ye shall re- ceive the gift of the Holy Ghost. (AAs 2 : 38.) Our fathers believed that an organization was essential to preach- ing the gospel to Romanists. The individual becomes stronger and braver by being able to touch elbows in the march. Hence Christians unite in organizations as a matter of expediency and duty. In 1845 there were but two millions of Romanists in the land. The American Protestant society and the Foreign Evangelical society were in the midst of a great work. Gardner Spring, John Dow- ling, William Hague, the eloquent Bethune and the astute Baird,. with many more, were valiant in the fight. In 1850 these two or- ganizations were merged into the American and Foreign Christian union. It went on until 1884, and died because Christians have fraternized with the foe. As, in ancient times, Israel married into families opposed to the faith and surrendered to evil, so now, be- cause Romanists have votes which all parties desire. Christians who are men as well as Christians permit interest to gain the ascendency over principle, and for the sake of gain furl the banner of righteous- ness. The enemy is wiser in its day and generation than the children of light. Romanists live as Romanists, go to church as Romanists, and vote as Romanists. You can go to them, they will not come to you. As was said in 1845, so say we now : "Rome has started m for the conquest of this western continent." The boast has been made that victory already perches upon her banners. The line of division is running through the land. On one side is popery with her allies. On the other are the friends of pure Christianity. As popery is but paganism revived, and under her 35^ PAULINE PROPAGANDA. banner all idolatrous nations may be gathered, with infidel and crim- inal classes who gladly seek alliances with Rome, what ought we to do? What would be the condu6l of a wise general and a wise people when the country is invaded by a foreign foe ? Consolidate and concentrate for united ad;ion, and not attempt to meet the enemy in small parties. It has been said that if the Christian church was all it might be or w^hatthe gospel requires, there would be no need of definite organi- zations. What is everybody's is nobody's business. It is apparent that there must be co-operation. The proof of the pudding is in the mating. When the American and Foreign Christian union was in operation, attention was called to this subject. The agents of the society went among the churches, great meetings were held, appeals were made, Bible readers and colporteurs were supported, and thousands of Romanists in this and other lands were led to Christ. The great denominations withdrew and proposed to take up the work in their home mission societies. As a result they have drop- ped it and the work has dropped out of sight ; and the leading men of every denomination, with rare exceptions, are willing it 3hould stay out of sight. Let us not be surprised. The efibrt to cause truth to lower its flag to error began with the race and will continue to the end of time. It found in Eden a victory, when Eve surren- dered, and in the wilderness a defeat, when Clmst said : "Get thee hence, Satan, for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve." If the church shall do its duty towards Romanists, attention must be called to the needs of this people, and great enthusiasm will be necessary to carry on the work. Roman Catholics in this land are ill at ease. No one wants to be burned, and yet Romanism teaches that even the good must land in purgatory, while for the bad masses are said, if money is provided, and so between the two ex- tremes there is only safety in turning from Mary and the church to Christ, who is the way and the truth and the life. 2. The c/iarader of the work to be undertaken demands combination of effort iit this diredioiz. It is not popular. The majority in the church cry : Give us a rest. Roman Catholics, they say, have a church ; they worship Christ; they are sincere; let them alone. "The only objedlion PAULINE PROPAGANDA. 357 which an American can have to the Roman CathoHc church is that it is a foreign church. No broad-minded Christian will quarrel with the forms of Romanism, even though he does not believe in them. To say that it is not as much a Christian church as any of the Protestant denominations are is downright nonsense." ( Denver Republican, June 28, 1887.) This remark, or something kindred to it, is made in the east and in the west. To head against this influence and to do the necessary work requires union of hearts and of hands. There are some in every church and in every community whose eyes have been opened. They see the strides Romanism is making, and they are ready to co-operate in working out reforms that every intelligent man knows are demanded by the incursion to our shores of alien classes and by the meddlesomeness of the church of Rome in the political affairs of our country. The providences of God show that the United States was not planted and peopled to subserve the purposes of the crosier, but of the cross. Here God's word has rule and sway. It is the basis of our jurisprudence. It is the pledge of our progress and the un- furled banner of our hopes. Somebody must tell the truth concern- ing the anti-scriptural character of Romanism, the Man of Sin. As no one is willing to do it, the Pauline Propaganda enters upon the work. It is instructive to gaze upon the fountain source of a great river, whose waters give life and fertility to a continent. We delight to look upon a bruised and battered flag-ship that has passed through the tempest of battle with a man like Farragut lashed to its spar and triumph inscribed upon its colors. It is a grander sight to study the face of a soldier who in battle was the incarnation of high resolve and fearless daring, and whose genius, foresight and skill have wrested vi(5tory from the enemy and brought forth his battalions with lines unbroken and with purpose undaunted, their flag riddled with shot, yet flushed with the radiance of hope. But grander than sight of fountain, of warship or of soldier is the face of a man like Paul, who, with a passion for souls in his heart, plans to permeate the world with his influence, and lives and dies that Christ may be preached and souls may be saved. The secret of such power lies in the fa6t that through him and by him the life of Christ was lived 35^ PAULINE PROPAGANDA. among men. It is possible to stand with God and for the truth. Kings have come and kings have gone, yet the record Paul made in Rome is essential to the needs of the vv^orld at this hour. Into Rome he went, not to be carried on the arms of an all-embracing love, but to plant the standard of Christ Jesus on the. battlements in sight of the pagan world, and preach Christ and him crucified to the lost and the undone. Rome was then at the zenith of its greatness. It was the founda- tion and centre of commercial and political power. So great is its antiquity that one of its common titles is the Eternal City. St. Augustine, Fla., the oldest town in the United States, is more than 2300 years younger than Rome. Its population was reckoned by millions. In 48 A. D., the census gives 5,984,000. It was abbut twice the present size of London when Paul entered it, when it was the capital of a population of ,120,000,000, inhabiting nearly all the known world. Behold the great apostle and his manner of life. He tells the truth. He does not plan nor try to cover up or evade the conse- quences. He simply preaches the gospel, and they send him from capital to capital, from court to court, from prison to prison, until at last, through perils by land and sea, he stands in the city of Rome wearing a chain. It was a great fa(5l in history, that Paul won a place for Jesus Christ in the heart of the world's capital. Do you realize the extent, the dominion and the influence of Rome? Paul feared not to enter it, though it was full of enemies and he was without a friend, and unfurl the standard of the cross. Rome had then a standing army of 400,000 and a navy of 50,000. By its conquests the way of the Lord had been prepared. Its roads, the universality of its language, made it possible to preach the gospel in all lands. Today, as we look back, there is no event identified with Roman history which rises superior in importance to the coming and the preaching of this man of God — this unfurling of the banner. There is none in the present. The fire was kindled at the base of the social edifice, and it went up and on until it passed the steps of the throne, penetrated the abodes of wealth, and leavened the masses with the principles of the gospel. This work is being done again. Millions were led to Christ and passed on to heaven. What has been may be again. Let us pray PAULINE PROPAGANDA. 359 as never before for the workers at Rome. When Paul entered Rome there were but two religions in the Roman world — the worship of the emperor and the worship of the Saviour. Substitute the pope for the emperor, and you describe the two religions at this hour. Let us hold up Christ as they hold up the pope, and we shall witness the mighty power of God. The fa6t that Christendom unites in sending missionaries and Bible readers to Rome proves conclusively that Christendom ought to unite in working for the salvation of Romanists about them. Would we be as indefatigable and as wise in seeking to reach Romanists here as there, we might win many trophies for the Master. Thousands about us feel that they need something better than the superstitions and delusions that characterize the teachings of her priests and schools. The Roman Catholic church dares not trust her membership with control. The civil lav*^ and the canon law are in antagonism. The people that give the money have no control of the management of the same. It is ours to tell them of their rights. Evangelical denominations may bow down to Rome, but Rome iights them, one and all, and ignores their rights or tramples on them with impunity, while she seeks the subversion of our liberties, the overthrow of the republic and the substitution of a despotism of which the pope is to be the head. Say this. Moral cowardice is always a mistake. In this free land a man cannot be a true Ameri- can when his opinions, faithfully expressed, shall cause him to tremble. It may be his duty to die for the truth's sake. It never can be his duty to live at the cost of its betrayal. This nation is God's heritage for freedom. It is our duty to make it free and keep it free. The people should be taught to believe in free speech, and should resist all attempts to make them walk with bated breath, as travelers climb the paths of St. Bernard with hushed voices and silent tread, lest the echoes born of indiscretion creep up the mountain, topple off the snow-flake and bring down the avalanche. The rule of repression or of suppression is not American. Shutting down on truth and bolstering up a lie is poor business, now and al- ways. Strong, sturdy, manly speech is always in order. Let us have it more and more. The broad banner of Christianity should at once be unfurled, and all who are not of Rome should immediately rally about it. This banner is not the signal for sanguinary battles, 360 PAULINE PROPAGANDA. for ruined cities and countries, and for the sacrifice of human life. Its victories are bloodless, because it conquers through the might of truth. Without combination, little or nothing will be attempted or ac- complished. The leaven leavens the meal when it is put into it. Romanists are converted when they are approached in kindness and the truth is spoken to them in love. The Pauline Propaganda recognizes the facl that all cannot en- gage in this work of seeking the conversion of Romanists or resist- ing the aggressions of Romanism. The business relations sustained prevent some or render it very unpleasant for them to speak. Min- isters in fashionable churches are restrained by a public sentim.ent which it is difficult to ignore, and which it is necessary to counteract and if possible remove. Some there are who can undertake it. They can preach and they do preach, and their word is attended with power. Others, who cannot speak or distribute tracts, can place their funds at the disposal of the organization and can permit their voice to be heard . In this as in everything else, there must be men, fanatical if you please, who will put their souls into the work because the woe is on them if they preach not the gospel to Romanists. These will have a passion for souls. They will see the lost and undone, and will follow them to the realm of night and pain. They will seek not theirs but them, will seek not only to save the population to liberty but to work for the redemption of their souls. Assure Romanists of love, not of hate. Abuse them not, and spare them not, but tell them the truth in the fidelity which characterized our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Romanists are in peril because they are being left without the truth. The Bible is denied them. The gospel is not jDreached in their hearing, and they are going on without God and without hope. Think not our skirts will be clean from the blood of souls, if we do not preach to those next to us the gospeL Do you say the gospel is preached from their pulpits ? In this you are right and you are wrong. A portion of the gospel is preached, and yet it contains dogmas which mutilate if they do not destroy it. In the preaching of Romanists are : (a) Baptismal regeneration. All sins are believed to be remitted or washed away in baptism, (b) PAULINE PROPAGANDA. 36 1 Mass and the office work of the priest — a man-made Christ and a sin- ful administrator to take the place of the God-man, lifted up that the world might be drawn unto him. "If any shall deny that in the sacra- ment of the most holy eucharist there is contained, truly, really and substantially, the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of Jesus Christ, let him be accursed." So says the council of Trent. Thus do they give to a created being the respecl, adoration and love which are due to God alone. This is idolatr) , and a positive viola- tion of the second commandment, which reads : "Thou shaltnot make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor sei*\'e them ; for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation." J. The chara6ier of Romaiiism makes it the duty of all to as- sist in its disrziptio7z and destrzidiion. Romanists, unconverted and unenlightened, are a peril to the state and to liberty. Romanism is a foreign despotism, set up with all its machinery and potential power in the heart of the republic. Either liberty must die that Rome may live, or Rome must surren- der to Christ that liberty may thrive. This the average citizen can be made to understand. Error received brings forth fruit. It is not enough to preach the truth without uprooting error. As well might a man sow wheat upon unprepared soil. The fallow ground must be broken up, and Romanism must be unroofed and uncovered, and this the Pauline Propaganda is organized to do. An uplifted Christ is a conquering Saviour. Romanists are brought to the light when the light is carried to Romanists. Abuse has been tried and it has not availed. The shafts of ridi- cule have fallen harmless as quivers of arrows emptied upon Gibraltar. Let us try love. The fable of the sun and wind striv- ing to cause the traveler to loosen his cloak illustrates the thought. The wind blew, and he but hugged it the tighter. The sun made him lay it aside. The constraining love of Jesus is now in order. Rev. J. N. Murdock, D. D., tells of his Irish girl who was refused money by the priest to bring her kindred across the sea. She found it at the parsonage, and it opened her eyes to the selfishness of a church 362 PAULINE PROPAGANDA. ranking high as a universal beggar, which makes way with all its gifts in the underground channels of its selfishness. The poor are not helped in the church of Rome. 4. The "doork is timely. The hand of the priest is interfering with the dearest rights of freemen as never before. Pio Nono said : "The only country where I am really pope is the United States of America." This is true, because there is so much of freedom we do not think of the peril resulting from this foreign despotism. As never before, it begins to be understood that there has got to be an adjustment of Romanism to the free life of our institutions or there has got to be a breaking up of the system. The celibacy of the clergy, the convent system, the opposition to the best and highest education of the youth of the country, are producing alarming results. Society is being honeycombed with doubt, and gross darkness envelops the people. Behind Sabbath profanation and loose views in regard to morality and honest)^, is the influence of Romanism. Prisons and poor-houses do not help Romanists. We need the old-fashioned colporteur and Bible reader. Women in their homes must preach to women. Men must hold up Christ to men. Thousands feel that they are negle6led and ignored. Let the enthusiasm which once held the old crusader come on us, and Ave will work for souls. Remember, in the war of the crusades, Douglas the leader, the knight-errant, casting into the midst of the foe the heart of his king, and then following it, with the shout, "The heart of Bruce !" Think of Christ dying for these, and par- take of his spirit and share his work. J". A.re we ready for the work? It is a great thing to be ready. Paul wrote this epistle from Corinth. He was safe in Corinth ; he was girded with the love of the church. In Rome there was peril. Paul was ready to con- front it, that he might reach men and women in the broad road to ruin. See Paul in Rome. He had no pulpit and no following. Day after day he was chained to a soldier. He embraced the opportunity to preach the truth to the man next to him. The words were winged with power. One after another was led to Christ. The influence of the gospel proclaimed crept up the steps of Nero's palace, en- PAULINE PROPAGANDA. 363 tered the throne-room, and led some of those about the emperor to the embracing of the truth as it is in Jesus. The days were dark. True followers of Christ were few. Yet the gospel won its way, and will do it again. "For the word of God is quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." The Pauline Propaganda fights the absurdity that it is no matter what you believe so that you are honest about it. The time has come for Christian people to avow as a certainty that a false faith cannot save the soul. "For there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved ; neither is there salva- tion in any other." Jesus Christ, whom God raised from the dead, is the only and sure hope of a lost sinner. There is an infallible standard. A go-as-you-please religion is the curse of this time and of all times. Satan desires and can find nothing better with which to delude and destroy. Between Romanism and Romanists there is a marked discrimina- tion to be made. The one represents the errors of paganism and of Judaism, combined with the ripened results of an unregenerate heart given over to the control of that power that robbed Eden of its glory, and has in every age worked to oppose the truth and retard the spread of the gospel and the extension of the area of the kingdom of God. The latter are our fellow travelers to the judgment bar of God. They are near us. Many of them are in our homes. Error imperils them. Truth is their hope, and it must be told them, cost w^hat it may. Some tell us that nothing can be done for the conver- sion of Romanists. All history disproves this, and shows that there is nothing too hard for God. Think of Rome under the shadow of a Nero's sceptre, and yet Paul permeated it with the influence of an uplifted cross and tore from the bastions of error some of its towers of strength. His propaganda was of righteousness, of truth and of the judgment to come. Think of the Rome Paul saw. It was the largest and most magnificent capital of the earth. In this Eternal City was planted a church whose faith was spoken of throughout the world. In faith is the key by which the citadel of error may be unlocked, and every Christian can take it as God's gift and wield it for God's 3^4 PAULINE PROPAGANDA. glory and man's good. Romanists do not know this. Tell them of it. God's word says that if any man shall add unto the words of the prophecy of this book, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in the book. Rome adds to the Holy Scriptures certain ^'unwritten traditions" and receives and reverences them with equal piety and veneration, and so brings upon itself the plagues written in the book. Warn Romanists of their peril. The word of God says: "If any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life." Rome not only drops out of the Bible the second commandment, which condemns papal idolatry, but takes from the people the Bible as a book, and leaves them to grope their way down to ruin, without the light kindled to irradiate their path with hope. Somebody must say this, wdiile we can speak it and where it can be proclaimed, or the blood of lost souls w^ill be found in the skirts of the garments of the Christian church. Stout hearts and clear brains are needed. Romanists believe in seven sacraments. The word of God gives us two — baptism and the Lord's supper. Rome teaches the bodily and substantial presence of Christ in- stead of his "real but spiritual presence," making foolishness of the words of Christ, who said of the bread, "This is my body," while he stood before them, evidently meaning and teaching, "This bread typifies or symbolizes my body, and this wine my blood." On the contrary, the corporeal or substantial presence of Christ carries with it monstrous consequences — such as that the body of Christ can be here and on the mediatorial throne ; that it can be eaten by wicked persons or even by beasts — and is utterly irreconcilable with the scriptural doctrine, that the body of Christ is received by faith. For "If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth." Rome deprives her membership of the wine that typifies the blood of Christ. Jesus commanded to drink it in remembrance of him. Rome claims that the priest may do violence to virtue and to honesty, may commit any sin, and yet be a representative of God, and that no layman sins by obeying him. PAULINE PROPAGANDA. 365 Errors inniiraerable are to be refuted and exposed. They are lovers of themselves. They are covetous. Are they not? vSee how they beggar their people and enrich tiie machine. They are without natural atiection. No wife-love is enjoyed in Rome as outside of it. They are ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Our duty is plain. VVe must introduce them to Christ, or they are lost. This work all can undertake. Personal experience is of the utmost value. Tell them what God has done for your soul. Rouse the Christian element. There are those in all the churches in sympathy with this work. They are the main sources of hope. A mighty, powerful, searching revival is next in order. Let us pray for it and work for it, and it will come. ROMANISM AND THE NEGRO, "And the Lord said unto Moses, Go, get thee down; for th}r people, which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have cor- rupted themselves : they have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them ; tlicy have made them a molten calf, and have worshiped it, e.v.d have sacrificed thereunto, and said. These be thy gods, O Israel, which have brought thee up out of the land of Egypt." Exodus 33 : 7, 8. Israel was in revolt. That people who had been redeemed from a terrible slavery, who had seen the first-born of Egj'pt slain, who had passed through the waters of the Red sea dry-shod, who had walked beneath a sheltering cloud by day and under a pillar of flame by night, had turned aside, made an idol and v^orshiped it, and ut- terly ignored and insulted the Lord God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob. It was a terrible moment for God. It must be hard for God to bear with man's ingratitude, with his forgetfulness, with his stupidity. History repeats itself. The nature of man is unchanged. It is needful that God be God — that there should be in this universe one infinitely wise, good and uncompromising Being, who sees the end from the beginning, with whom is no variableness, neither sliadow of turning. God saw Israel bowing down to a calf. He sa^v himself insulted and dishonored. He called to Moses, who had been permitted to behold the majesty and glory revealed on Sinai, and told him all, and said : "Now let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot and that I may consume them." This was Moses' tempta- tion. He was true to God and to the purpose formed in his heart of delivering Israel, though they had betrayed God and had ignored their deliverances, and forgotten what, with a high hand and an out- stretched arm, he had wrought for them. The fool-hardiness and short-sightedness of the Israelites is only matched by those negroes who have turned their backs on the God w^ho redeemed them, broke the chains of their galling captivity and delivered them from a life-long bondage. It was God who delivered 2f6S ROMANISM AND THE NEGRO. the negro, as it was God who wrought redemption for Israel. It was idolatr}^ then that enticed the people ; it is idolatry now. This brings us to the effort made to take the negro away from God to idolatry — to the idolatry of Rome. The story of the endeavor we need not give. A few fa els deserve to be remembered. At tlie close of the war, in 1865, when every evangelical church addressed its energies to providing for the wants of the freedmen, the Roman Catholic church bestirred herself to take the field. . In London a company of missionaries was ordained for this work ; and prior to their going, Cardinal Manning washed their feet and kissed them and sent them forth. Black priests and nuns began to appear. In Washington a magnificent church was built for the colored people. In various parts of the country the attempt v^as made to seduce them from the path of righteousness to tread a way darkened and over- shadowed by superstition. It is now claimed that there are 500,000 colored Catholics in this country. There must have been as many as that at the close of the war, when the colored people in Louisiana, and vast numbers in Maryland and elsewhere, were claimed by the Roman Catholic church. They now have churches and schools in New York, Balti- more, Washington, Richmond, Petersburgh, Lexington, Louisville, St. Louis, Cincinnati, San Antonio, Charleston, Memphis and St. Paul. This is all they claim. I. The negro race has no ttse for Romanism. Emancipated from the bondage of chattel slavery, of all classes it -would seem natural for the negro to refuse to bow his neck to the yoke of the most crushing despotism. Romanism is the tap-root of tyranny. From the pojDC, who recognized the Southern Confederacy, whose corner-stone was human slavery, down through cardinals, archbishops, bishops and priests, there was not one who championed liberty. Could they have had their way, every black man had now been a bondman. The recent convention in Washington, presided over by the red- robed cardinal, to which colored delegates were invited from the ■entire country, was Rome's notification to the nation of a purpose to capture the negro ; not to help, bless or ennoble him, but to keep him in ignorance and to fetter him with the chains of a degrading servi- tude. Rome delights to pose as a philanthropist. Be not deceived. ROMANISM AND THE NEGRO. 369 Her history belles her profession, and makes her pretension appear like a sham and a subterfuge. Professedly, she proposes to blot out the lines of social equality, and opens the Roman Catholic church to all alike. The offer is taking, if the reality be a mockery. Think of what Rome offers — a bare floor to kneel on ; a hard seat to sit upon ; a cellar or a garret to live in, while cardinals and archbishops are housed in palaces ; worship in a foreign tongue, which no one understands ; an avariciousness which is unmatched, in which the hard earnings of the poor are captured for masses and for deliverance from jDurgatory, all of which is known to be a getting of money under false pretenses ; and, finally, a carte-blanchc to go to hell without let or hindrance. Rome helps no one, but hinders all she can. She sees men in ignorance, and seeks to render them contented. She looks upon their poverty as a benefaction instead of a bane, and makes them poorer rather than richer. She sees them in sin and gives them indulgences to continue therein, v/hile they de- scend into the depths of shame. She adopts the forms of heathenism, and makes the carnal heart content, while resisting the will of God. Rome is wary and full of wiles. Orphanages have been estab- lished at Cincinnati and Kansas City, and there are several convents for negro nuns, two of which are at St. Louis, two at Baltimore and one at New Orleans. There are two orders of nuns in this country composed entirely of colored women. The Oblate Sisters of Prov- idence have the mother house at Baltimore, with branches in dif- ferent parts of the country. There is but one negro priest. Rev. Augustine Tolton of Quincy, 111. There is one Catholic newspaper, published in Cincinnati, edited by Daniel A. Rudd, the originator of the convention. It was confidently believed that the appearance of the red-robed cardinal in the church of St. Augustine, in Washington, would exert a great influence upon the colored people. Not unless the colored people have lost their heads as well as their hearts. Though Father Tolton celebrated high mass, with a great orchestral accompaniment ; though Cardinal Gibbons occupied the throne, and other dignitaries assisted in the service, the negro will be quick to dete6l the decep- tion attempted to be pra6liced upon him. His fathers wore one fet- ter. The hateful memory will make the children dread the lash, even if the whip be held by the hand of a priest. 37^ ROMANISM AND THE NEGRO. Today the negro is on the \erge of a new order of events. The party that dehvered him from bondage has once more been entrusted with power. The promise is that the ballot of the negro sluili be counted, and that the black man shall be permitted to re-appear in the place from which the enemies of freedom have deposed him. The Lord God may be hidden, but his eye is on them. The true shall have help. They were brought out of Egypt because the Canaan of promise lies just bevond. 2. Rome purposes to capture the 7iegro. Three great principles underlie her rule here and everywhere — to keep her people ignorant, to keep them poor and to keep them obedient. These are the ingredients of human slavery. The right of one man to hold another man in servitude for his whole life, and to retain as slaves the children that are born of a slave father and a slave mother, is taught and justified b}' the Roman Catholic church. Because of this underlying principle, Pio Nono was against the emancipation of the slaves, and alone, of all the potentates of the earth, boldly and openly recognized the Southern Confederacy, whose boasted corner-stone was human slavery. Perhaps the col- ored people bowing down to the idolatries of Rome will refuse to believe this. But Father Gury, the instructor of the Jesuits, says : 539* Question — Can a man have the right of ownership of an- other man? Answer — A man can by natural rights sell himself for life to an- other man as useful property. Slavery, or perpetual subjection, by which one disposes of all of one's work to another, in exchange for food, is not in principle contrary to natural rights. 540. ig. — What are the titles to slavery? A. — They come from birth in slavery, because by right those born from slaves are slaves themselves. 541. ^. — Is the slave trade permitted? A. — It is absolutely forbidden, and contrary to all rights. But if it is a question of negroes or others being in legitimate slavery, In principle it is not absolutely forbidden, because, admitting slaveiy to be legitimate, the master has a legitimate right over his slaves and their work, and so it follows that he may transmit it to others. These do6lrines darken the negro's sky in the southland at this ROMANISM AND THE NEGRO. 37l hour. Millions there believe in slavery, and would gladly welcome the aid of Rome in re-establishing it. The first quarter of a century has closed since the Proclamation of Emancipation secured the freedom of every slave held in bondage in the United States of America. The nation made the black man her ward, and, by laws placed on the statute-books, through territorial sovereignty and in other ways, sought to place the negro on a foot- ing of equality with the citizens of the republic. It is not the fault of the northern states that the negro in the south is not in the enjoy- ment of every blessing and privilege possessed by the Irish, Germans and other foreigners in the north. The result has been a disappointment. At the outset, black men were ele6ted to congress, to the legislature and even to the senate of the United States. They appeared in the departments ; they were recognized in the law, in medicine and in the ministry, as sharers in the government and as fadlors in the state. The negro was not a failure in politics. His old enemy feared him. A negro uses this language concerning his race : "Let us fairly ex- amine the negro's situation, in the country at large, for the last twenty- five years. Nobody denies the great change in his position and con- dition, within about that time. His achievements and accomplish- ments, claimed by himself and many friends, have, we fear, been overstated. And now there are others who were friends, rather sympathizers with him, twenty-five years ago, as well as many think- ing negroes, who fancy they have room and evidence for grave ap- prehension for his fitness for citizenship, for a final home in his na- tive land." "Are these fears entertained from proper investiga- tion ? Undoubtedly their wealth, as a whole, has been foolishly and falsely stated and exaggerated, I think. I believe also from observation and some knowledge of fa6ls concerning the race's interests, that the standards of fitness, of manliness and probity, the disposition and ability for acquisitiveness, in true education, the faculty for acquir- ing scientific knowledge and practical accomplishments, that de- monstrate a brain in man, in the negro have been, from very obvious reasons, hidden, ill-appreciated and excluded, by numbers of his own race and probably by most white people." Thus writes a negro. The words do not do the race honor. It is not fair to say that provision was made in Boston or in the 372 ROMANISM AKD THE NEGRO. north to treat him as a thing rather than as a man and a citizen. If any mistake was made, it was in granting him the ballot before he was fitted for it by education and experience. The nation is too free with its ballots. No foreigner, no negro, no anybody, should be permitted to vote unless he can read the constitution of the United States and write in a legfible wav. Provision was made in the north to open every avenue for his ad- vancement. If he was educated apart, if his teachers did not rank as high as those who ministered to the white children, it was because he v/as ambitious to be all and in all to his own people. Col- ored schools in the north were fought by many true philanthropists, who believed that all the children of the state should be educated together and that all should worship together. Colored churches have been a hindrance rather than a help. They ought to be churches. If the majority wants a colored minister, let him be se- cured ; if a white minister, let him serve all alike. Tremont Temple in Boston and the Centennial church in Brooklyn wxre or- ganized with this end in view. In both, the colored people were as welcome as the whites. It is said: "An endeavor has been made to prepare the negro for a world to come, to the neglecl of fitting him to be a citizen of his native home." That is untrue, so far as the Christians of the north are concerned. Fit a man for the world to come and he is fitted for this world. God makes no mistakes. A Christian is not a scoundrel nor a liar nor a chicken thief. Keep it in jour mind. The tribute paid to the Roman Catholic church shows how blind are many of the leaders of the colored people, and how easily they are deceived. Let us rejoice that the common people hear Christ gladly. Very few have been captured by Rome. They have, as a rule, been grateful for the favors bestowed upon them. They rec- ognize the fad: that schools have been planted in the south by the various evangelical denominations, and paths have been opened for them into a world from wdiich Romanism would bar them as it bars all its vi6iims. Negroes see this, and refuse nuns and religious brothers as teachers in their schools. The trouble is that the negro, if not true to truth, is not true to himself. At the outset, I did all in my power to open every avenue to colored men. In the presence of thousands of them, among whom ROMANISM AND THE NEGRO. 373 were many of their leaders, I used this language: "Colored men must help themselves, if they ever expe6l to receive aid that will stay and bless. It is all well for Ethiopia to stretch out her hands for help. She would better use them to provide for her own ne- cessities. A pauper spirit curses any man or nation. Negroes, like everybody else, must hew out their path, to position and to ennobling success." As Abraham Lincoln said, we have given them their chance and ''''They 7i2ust root^ ^^^S^-) or die^^^ referring to a drove of swine turned into a field of potatoes which they must dig or starve. Every effort w^as made to induce them to compete as carpenters, as blacksmiths, as farmers, as merchants ; but how miserably they have failed. There is hardly one great business in the United States under the control and management of colored people, and they have only themselves to blame. Success comes from suc- ceeding, not from complaining nor from dreaming. People buy where they can get the best quality at the cheapest price ; they hire workmen that can do their work well and are reliable. The door is open to the negro as to everybody. Let him enter it. The Christian church has discharged her duty. This negro uses this language, to pander to Rome and to stab the Christian peoj^le who have stood by the black men. He says : "A church calling- itself Christian, that is not w^ide enough for all the representatives of the human family speaking the same tongue, I think cannot be of Christ's authority ; and one so darkened that it will create a light not bright enough to illumine all mankind — that will not shine upon the barbarian and the Gentile — is too cloudy and narrow for the indwelling of the Christian spirit." True, but supposing the negro will not adapt himself to circumstances? Tremont Temple was purchased and held that it might give wel- come to the blacks as to the whites. The colored people have been treated with as great kindness there as have white people, and yet colored people have done but very little for the suppoit of that great beneficent charity. In Brooklyn the Centennial Baptist church purchased a great building and opened it to the colored people as widely as to the whites. The colored ministry opposed the movement, contended for colored churches, and fought all efforts to induce white people to fraternize with the blacks. The caste spirit finds its fountain 374 ROMANISM AND THE NEGRO. source more in the hearts of the blacks than in those of the whites. The same in regard to schools. In Brooklyn, N. Y., I fought out the battle to have the colored children attend the public schools, and yet the colored people insisted upon keeping up colored schools, that colored teachers might get employment. For years I have agreed with the negro who says : "1 believe, further, that the fos- tering of such principles and practices — the patronizing of separate institutions, scholastic, religious and political, the hot-beds of caste — is a blot upon our republican institutions, and blasphemy against him who seeks to guide all believers into the true path." Can the colored people stand it? To do this, theirheart "must be lifted up in the ways of the Lord." We know that the negro proved his manhood at Fort Pillow, at Fort Wagner, where "Col. Shaw was buried with his niggers," and in Virginia wdien B. F. Butler rejoiced as he sav/ them breast the storm of shot and shell and snatch vidiory out of the grasp of defe at. That was well for war times. Peace demands victories. There is significance in the events of this and of all hours. The thing is to see it and know it and act in accordance with it. The necessity is laid on the men of color to fulfil the expectations of their friends. A round and full manhood is the requirement of the hour. The dream of progress for the bright young men and young women of color is to be per- mitted to mJngle with the best and the noblest without a thought as to the hue of the skin. "Abraham Lincoln," said Frederick Doug- lass, "permitted me to forget that I was black and feel simply this, that I was a man." That is one side. Probably Abraham Lincoln saw in Frederick Douglass a man who forgot his color and remem- bered only the cause he championed. For years he had been out- growing the color of his skin and had been coming into the develop- ment of such magnificent power as orator, as statesman and as cul- tured gentleman, that men do not associate Frederick Douglass with his race, but lift him to the citizenship of America. The key to prosperity is to be obtained by an adoption of the code of morals furnished by the word of God. It is because God does not die but live, in the darkness as in the light, and watches from on high to reward honesty and integrity and to frown upon trickery and fraud, that nothing is surely settled until it is settled right. It becomes the people to fear God and not to be afraid to obey him. ROMANISM AND THE NEGRO. 375 The Bible contains rules for trades and for the transa6lion of all kinds of business. Christianity teaches honesty as well as piety. It makes a man a good citizen when it makes him a good Christian. The colored people must assert their rights, and, having done this, they must have the courage to maintain them. Their destiny in the north, as in the south, is committed to their own hands. There is no reason why the 30,000 negroes in the city of New York should be written down as forming a plague-spot on the map of the city which has given them a home. A recent writer, after speaking highly of Rev. Dr. Garnett and some other ministers, says : ''The African race are not doing half so well as might be expedted, considering that they have been ceded every possible privilege one can reasonably hope to enjoy in a free country. Few can do more than read and write a little, though excellent schools are open to them. They seem to hate the labor and drudgery indispensable to study. They do not invest much in books. They read the news- papers a little ; but, as a rule, intelledlually, they waste their time." Their moral condition is something fearful to contemplate. "There are those who live a strictly moral life, but they are few and far between, and, as a rule, are found among the elderly negroes who were once slaves. The rising generation are ruining them- selves body and soul. Drunkenness is on the increase and midnight revelry is indulged in without restraint. In the 20th and 8th wards negro life is very much degraded. Groups of negroes of every shade of complexion hang around lager beer saloons day and night, engaged in drunken brawls and shocking the sensibilities with blasphemous oaths and imprecations. Human life and property are insecure. The hard working and temperate negroes are in the minority. Though colored churches abound, it is doubted if much good is done by them. Superstitious pra6tices influence manv of them, and, with rare exceptions, their idea of Christian piety is but a mockery of religion as taught in the New Testament." There is no good reason why the blacks of the north should occupy their present position. It is said that the lash of the slave-driver takes out the manhood from the black man. Their years of free- dom should have brought to the front leaders who could not be en- slaved and who would not be cowed. The colored people have made great mistakes. They are making them in New York. They 37^ ROMANISM AND. THE NEGRO. are clannish. They are not as true to those who are true to them as they should be. They are not as true to themselves as they ought to be. Never do I see a negro making a sign-board of himself without a feeling of pity mingled with contempt. When, in vSaratoga, I saw the hotels filled with colored waiters, and knew that the meeting for the colored people was not held until after nine o'clock at night, because then their services closed as waiters, and when I looked on their faces as they came to the meeting, I confess to a feeling of dis- couragement I never knew before. If I did not know that every curse was removed by the death of Christ, I should be inclined to believe in the dodtrine enunciated by those who trace the misfortunes of the race back to the curse which came upon Canaan, the son of Ham. The colored people are not, in general, as thrifty, as self-respe(5ting, as they ought to be in the free north. The colored churches do not train their people for high citizenship as they ought. The colored people are shut out of homes and of places of trust, because of their servile tendencies. There is no reason why, as mechanics, as farm- ers, as teachers, as writers, the way is not open before them. They must assert themselves and stand for their rights or else lose them. There are colored men and women of magnificent ability, in the north and in the south, who deserve to be made of by the free col- ored people of the north. There are difficulties in the path of the colored people. It is easier to shrink back than to go forward. The influence of prejudice is terrible. In the zoological gardens of Paris there is a network of wire over the trees which furnishes a cage for the eagles. As a re- sult, the eagles never fly. Colored men and women, you have an open way to God. He has heard you, has blessed you and is stand- ing by you. Stand by your own interests. They lack general culture. The many, without these helps, are going back to barbarism. Bishop Wilmer says : "Among the evil agencies, the most mischievous is that of the colored preachers, many of whom disown the Bible as a rule of morality for their race." One of the most alarming facls that confronts me is that the col- ored people are not alarmed. The negroes cannot be held up by the whites. No man, no communit3^ no church, can be sustained ROMANISM AND THE NEGRO. 377 by outside help. It must be inward life that gives hope of promise. Suppose they cannot be aroused ? Then at once they strike out of their sky the star of hope, and the encouragement to do well disap- pears. They sink into an inferior condition in society and are branded with the terrible insignia of caste. They close the path to progress, and bar themselves out from the realms of an ennobling citizenship. They admit that the southern theory is corred, and that they are not of our blood and have no rights which white people are bound to respe6l. Are colored people ready for this ? If not, then let them rouse themselves. See to it that culture comes to the front ; that educa- tion is treated as a necessity. The people of the north are willing- to give them a free field and a fair chance. The people of the south cannot afi:brd to have them occupy a position of inferiority. The colored people must refuse to occupy it. There is nothing- of aspiration for universal man which is not within the reach of well- directed efibrt. Wherever man exists advancement may be made. At West Point there are terrible discouragements. Caste has been monarch. The negro feels it, and draws back because of it. Let him rather press forward. His opportunity is here. A dis- tinguished general, one identified with the persecution and hardship of poor Whittaker, was pleased to say : "The education and eleva- tion of the newly enfranchised race is a work worthy of the united efforts of all good citizens. But that work cannot be advanced — it must rather be retarded— by forcing colored men into official posi- tions for which they have not yet become duly qualified, or into social relations where they cannot be freely welcomed." That is possibly true. But in society the colored man is his own enemy, and fails, not because of what others do to him, but because of what he does for himself. A talented colored man was welcomed and almost feted because of his talents, until it was found that he lacked qualities which distinguish real manhood. It is what a man is within that determines his standing in the world, whether he be black or white. The attempt has been made to drive the negro out of politics, out of the army and out of association with the whites in the Christian church. To God and to the friends of the negro he must look for help, for opening a path to a field where he can be and do all in his ^'jS ROMANISM AND THE NEGRO. • power. The attempt to disparage the African as inferior to other men, except in servile conditions, is being made. The negro must reveal staying qualities. Humboldt well said: "No people are in themselves nobler than others. All men are brothers of the same human family, with superficial and transitional differences only." Charles Sumner declared, "No differences can make one color superior to another." Looking carefully at the African in the seclusion and isolation of his native home, w^e see sufficient reason for that condition which is the chief argument against him. It is doubtful if any people has become civilized without extraneous help. Britain was savage when Roman civilization intervened. So with Gaul. Cadmus brought letters to Greece. And what is the story of Prometheus, who stole fire from heaven, but an illustration of this law.^ The African, brought from pagan gloom to Christian civilization and under the benign institutions of our land, even though cursed by slavery, has developed such patriotism, such devotion to liberty, to the arts, to science, to letters, as proves that the African, in an equal race, is the peer of the Caucasian. This represents the faith of the American people when the war ended, and when money v^as poured forth, as waters go forth from fountains, to build schools, support teachers, endow colleges and place the negro on his feet. That faith still exists, and yet the negro is to some extent a dis- appointment. He has not equaled expedlations religiously. Too many have been content to live in line with slave customs and have refused to keep step in the march to freedom, to equality, to useful- ness. In Nashville I was saddened by the condu6l of the pastor of the largest church and the best meeting-house in the town, who yet dared not come and take a seat with the white southern Baptist convention. His fear was foolishness- He would have been welcomed by the brethren of a whiter hue. In Knoxville, Tenn., I sat with Bishop Haven of the Methodist church in a pleasant home of a Methodist pastor. He had a fine library. Both himself and wife were graduates of Oberlin. We asked him to take a seat with us on the platform, wdiere I was to le6lure. He did not dare do it. In New Orleans the superintendent of public instruction in 1875 was a colored man. He helped build the Ames colored Methodist meeting-house, and yet, because of a ROMANISM AND THE NEGRO. 379 law sending the negro to the gallery, he dared not accompany me to the platform. The fear is pitiable. Up to the present time I have yet to hear a single negro get up in a white convention and take part in a discussion and command respect by his positive and plain putting of some important principle. In all the land there is not a colored minister in a white jDulpit. There might be, had they the courage to command that the position be given them. A man might have climbed to such a place had he been true. It was open to him. But his head grew dizzy, and he betook himself to dissipation and died from drink. Another was false, and lost all. The door is open ; the path is clear. Who dares enter it? The industrious portion of the colored people earn their living at various callings ; but there are few skilled mechanics or artisans among them. In Brooklyn I helped a blacksmith to a shop. He did well for a time, but quarreled with his wife, went back to the negro life and lost all. Another started a store. All helped him. He did well for a time, but went back rather than on, and became a cleaner of clothes and kept a second-hand shop. There are barbers, cobblers, whitewashers and kalsominers, boarding-house keepers, now and then a proprietor of a hotel, servants on palace and sleeping cars, waiters, office messengers, porters in stores, carters, longshoremen and gardeners ; a few of them are letter carriers, and some have a place on the police force ; but none are of exalted rank in the learned professions or holding a high place as bankers, merchants and financiers. It is true there are some excel- lent teachers, but none distinguished as professors or surgeons. The colored people lack the courage to attempt great enterprises in the north. In the south some have become rich as planters. These employ negro help, and are little different from the overseers of the olden time. All this ought to be remedied. Will it be.^ This is the situation. J. Will Rofiie capture the negro? Unless the Christians of the north and the south stand for and with him, and unless he stands with them. It is the negro's fealty to Jesus Christ and his heart-love toward him that will save him from Rome. There is no need of disguising the fa6l that the negro business has been worked by the religious denominations for all it is worth. 380 ROMANISM AND THE NEGRO. The whites of the north and the south mean to Hve in harmony. At the close of the war, this was not the plan. Then the whites of the north thought of the negro and wrought for the negro. He passed the white man. The battle of social equality came on. The white teachers and preachers who worked for the negro were ostracized if not persecuted. At length, culture mastered ignorance. Quality won the victory over quantity. The black man was compelled to go down to menial sei*vice and employments and to let go of the reins of power. He was banished from the halls of legislation. Schools were broken up. The negro's ballot was not counted, and the last state of the negro was worse than the first. At this stage the Roman Catholic church appears, seeking to fill the southern cities with a Roman Catholic population and capture the negro. This is providential. Christians in the south and in the north will recognize the danger. Right is always right. Wrong is never right. God designs that vaen should work as they pray and pray as they work. Brains are to plan and invent and scheme while hearts utter praise. Men are to live in line with God's redemptive purpose, while they surpass worldlings as citizens. That religion is w^orthless which sings and shouts for God Sundays and ignores him week-daj's. In the ten commandments there are only four which refer to the duties we owe directly to God ; there are six which refer to duties we owe to our fellow-men. The Bible in every part reminds us that God's eye is on us at all times, and that to please him men must do justly, as well as love mercy and walk humbly with their God. It will not do to plead that business is business, and that in secular affairs religious men cannot be expe6led to be better then other men. God's laws are equally binding on all, but Christians should surpass others in truth-telling and in honest dealing. Because of this they are trusted. Those are shunned who disregard them. Just in proportion as religion becomes the handmaid of business, of the home, of the enjoyments of life, there will be happiness and thrift. There is the Bible standard. Has the negro measured up to it? The evangelical churches demand this high and ennobling char- acter. Over against theiTi is the Roman Catholic church, whose piety is for show and not for the life. She tolerates the violation ROMANISM AND THE NEGRO. 38 1 of every law of the decalogue, and the negro can cling to his sins and find a congenial home in the church, and yet believe he is on the way to a negro's paradise. There is peril in this fa6t. Negro priests, with the run of the nunneries, and their congregations, will come to be a terrible curse that may have to be abated. If the story in "Washington in the Lap of Rome" be true, there is a fearful outlook. Politically, the danger of the negro is greater. In the north he is protedled. In the south he is without prote6lion unless he does what the whites desire him to do. The Roman Catholic church has power, politicalh', to protect her membership. It is the Roman Catholic church that stands across the trackof Great Britain's stately march. That power whose "drum beat is heard round the world'' pauses before the Irish cabin, within which is the shadow of a priest and on which is the sign-manual of the pope. Rome believes that this will be the case in the great republic. She offers the negro prote6tion, providing he gives up his school and his dream of inde- pendence, falls into line and votes as the priest di6tates. Some of the wdiite people are in danger of uniting with the white cardinal in taking the negro out of politics and in remanding him to slavery. It is an hour of peril. Will the negro fall into the trap laid for him ? It is a terrible temptation. He can have protedion and vote the ticket given him, have a nominal equality in the church and at the hustings ; but to obtain this he must surrender his manhood and his religion. He can turn his back upon the Moses that brought him out of Egypt and turn his face to the molten calf, and can "sit down to eat and drink and rise up to play" and have a picnic all the year, dwarfing his moral powers, stunting his intellectual abilities, and becoming a slave to the pope, and so, in due time, a slave to the whites. It is Christ or anti-Christ. It is worshiping God and opening the whole nature to his service, or turning to Rome and surrendering all that ennobles and blesses. The cost of such a surrender cannot be computed in language. The imagination struggles in vain to see it, in its length and breadth, in its height and depth. Rome is in- habited by a spirit that cramps, dwarfs and kills. It has in it brain, skill, wit and wisdom. Engaged in its service at this hour are some of the mightiest intelleds of the race. The leaders of the south 382 ROMANISM AND THE NEGRO. see this. Rome offers to take the negro out of politics and remand him to sei*vitude, if they will fall down and worship the shadowy apparition, the intangible power, the indefinite quantity called Rome. Whites need not join. Let Rome have its way — build mon- asteries, convents and schools for the poor, in which negroes and whites can mingle, as with one consent they rejecfl God and bow before the altars of Rome. The negro finds in Rome a religion suited to the gratification of passion and inclination, and the southern barons see in it a slave- driver with a new^ name. What will the negro do about it ? Thous- ands will fall into the net spread for their feet, and be lost to God, to righteousness, to liberty and to hope, and become a fadlor in the hands of Rome, rum and despotism. This means the breaking up of the system of public schools in the south and the defeat of any measure that looks to the education and elevation of the children of the state. Rome is the life-long enemy of education. The whites of the south know it, but they prefer the private to the public school, and take no stock in the hue and cry for universal education. Gentlemen for the parlor, and serfs for the field, is their dream of prosperity. This means the giving up of the Bible. The colored churches have got on, thousands of them, without a Bible. The great bulk of the negroes in the Gulf states have little education, less religion^ and no conscience. They have what passes for religion, but no pretense of education or conscience. The Gulf states are filled with Christians, so-called, in whom drunkenness, theft, whoredom, are no bars to accepted membership and communion. We have in our own land — not on heathen shores, but in the United States — mill- ions of citizens whose chara6ter is as little affected by religious teaching as is that of the Sicilian bandits, who will murder a traveler with a prayer to the Virgin on the lips. Now, if we think that Rome does not see that her opportunity is in the south, we are mistaken in regard to Rome. In the north Rome must die. The parochial school must die. The intelligence of the people, the awakened conscience of the million, under God, have decreed it. In the south, for the sake of powxr, for the sake of the gratification of the passions that sleep in the carnal heart, the rulers are ready to fraternize with that power which beggars and en- ROMANISM AND THE NEGRO. 383 slaves the people wherever she rules supreme. The south has had a friend long before the w^ar, through the w^ar and since the war. Rome recognized the Confederacy, and plotted to build up a southern empire in which New Orleans should be the capital, and Mexico and some of the other South American states should form a part. Today Rome offers the south all she wants, if she will be silent con- cerning this curse of the nations. The bait is tempting. Will it be taken ? This is the time to tell the truth in the south, as in the north. The American people are summoned to stand up for the truth re- gardless of consequences. If they will do this, then God says: "I will set mine eyes upon them for good, and I will give them an heart to know me, that I am the Lord ; and they shall be my people, and I will be their God ; for they shall return unto me with their whole heart." Rome is full of seducing vs^iles. Today she seeks to make the im- pression that peace and prosperity run neck and neck together. They seldom do. Thrift is the result of fighting, more than of fawn- ing. Rome is nothing if not selfish. No one ever surrendered to Rome and made by it. Henry IV tried it, and was assassinated. Abraham Lincoln suppressed his real sentiments, and was slain. The surrender to Rome spiritually will cost the south dear, and will enslave the negro. Religious and political liberty is the hope of the western world. The destru6lion of both is the purpose of Rome. The oaths of bishops and priests declare they will be disloyal to the flag and will persecute and combat to the last extremity heretics, schismatics and all who will not pay to the sovereign pontift^ the obedience which the sovereign shall require. That oath rules Rome. Wherever it rules, there is disloyalty to the constitution and the flag. Any papist under the control of his bishop will not hesi- tate to sacrifice the good of the country, the interest, the life and the prosperity of his fellow-beings, for the good of the church. Pope John XII, in 956, declared "that whosoever shall venture to main- tain that our lord, the pope, cannot decree what he pleases, let him be accursed." Boniface VIII, in 1294, declared "that God has set popes over kings and kingdoms, and whoever thinks otherwise, let him be accursed." This is the theory that rules the Romish church at this hour. 384 ROMANISM AND THE NEGRO. 4. The negro's Jiofe is in God. It was God's right hand that brought him out of slavery. It was those mysterious providences which toned up the north until they were ready to say, "We are willing to die that freedom for all may become a fa6t." His future lies in the lap of a high resolve, which shall make him build up himself in virtue, in truth, in honesty, in integi'ity and in the word of God. To succeed, he must reject the tempting proffers of Rome, and stand for God and the right. Suc- cess comes from succeeding. Prosperity comes from prospering. The key to prosperity is within more than without. It has been ordained that honesty, industry, integrity, fair dealing and brotherly kindness shall enable any man to unlock the gates which to others are closed and barred, providing the conditions of honesty are met. The people of color w^ho believe in God and follow the lead of Jesus Christ can grasp and hold this key to prosperity as well as others. To do it, they must be true. Negro churches must be trained to drop out of them all that distinctively disparages the race, and bring into them all that enlarges and ennobles. In Christ there is for the black man an open door. Tw^o trusts have been committed to our keeping — that of liberty and that of humanity. Betrayal of these trusts imperils. Lightning rods tipped with steel and pointed skyward, with their conducting coil on our chamber floors, are as safe when the sheeted flame is at work as it is for anybody to ignore the claims of God upon them. The color-bearer is in the advance. Hear him. The cry goes out, "Bring back your colors ! " His shout is heard ; it runs along the line ; listen to it : '•^Bri7ig tif your inen /" Do this, and you thall shed light upon the pathway of millions ; you shall build up she nation in righteousness, and save yourselves. May God guide and keep and bless the men of color in this and in all lands, and permit them, with their white brothers, to save and exalt the nation. ROMANISTS NOT THE FIT EDUCATORS OF AMERICAN YOUTH. ''''Fight the good Jight of faiths These words sound down to- us from the ages past. They were addressed to the bcHevers in the word of God. They teach that there is a good fight of faith as well as a bad fight. Our enemies have faith, and they are willing to fight for it. They are unscrupulous, far-seeing and very brave, and marshal their forces with exceeding skill. Paul says : Match them, "Fight the good fight of faith" with as much bravery, skill and plan. God's children must fight if they would win. Truth must face error and, if possible, stop its mouth. Freemen must face the opponents of liberty and oppose them by every means in their power, and re- sist the aggressions of a sleepless foe that seeks to capture the cit- adel of our hopes and, if possible, turn the guns we have planted to- protect our homes upon the shelterless and defenseless. These are not empty words. The battle has begun, and Protestants and repub- licans have surrendered. To surrender is sin ; to fight, a mani- fest duty. Popery in the United States is little known. It is hidden. It works in darkness. Such is the courage and faith of the American people that they consent to the existence of Roman Catholics, and to their carrying out their purposes and plans, as they do to the existence of Methodists or Baptists or any other religious denomi- nation. They a6t as if it were ungenerous or unfair to uncover their wiles and disclose the perils which threaten this nation because of the aggressions of Romanism. In Canada, this is worse than it is in the United States. There Rome is dominant ; the harvest has ripened and the power of Rome is consolidated. Separate or parochial schools exist in Canada under the san6lion of the law. They are sustained by taxation, as are Protestant. There are many ways in which Roman Catholics are permitted to place Protestants at a disadvantage. 385 386 ROMANISTS NOT FIT EDUCATORS OF AMERICAN YOUTH. Said Hon. James S. Hughes, superintendent of public instruc- tion, Toronto, Ont. : 1 . *Five Roman Catholics can petition for a separate school. The petition being granted, all Roman Catholics within a radius of three miles every way can be compelled to support it. No matter if they prefer the public school, the law compels them to support the separatist school. All known to be Roman Catholics, and all believed to be Roman Catholics, are taxed, and deliverance from the same can only be obtained by a process of law which is irritating, if not dangerous. 2. All Protestant teachers are compelled to go through a public ■examination, and must measure up to a certain grade or fail in ob- taining a school. In Roman Catholic schools the Christian Broth- ers and nuns can be appointed without examination. 3. For the public schools books are sele6led by the board of public education. In Roman Catholic schools they select their own. 4. In the public schools the Bible is read — not in the Roman Catholic. 5. The public schools are inspected — not the Roman Catholic. 6. In the election of trustees for public schools a secret ballot is used. In Roman Catholic school districts the trustees are eledled by their signing their names and voting aye or nay. This is the fight now going on. As a result Roman Catholic children are growing up in igno- rance. It is proven in Canada, as in Ireland or Spain or Mexico, that Rome hates education. Dr. Maguire, a Roman Catholic professor of the university of Dublin, and one of the officers of the Royal university of Ireland, has Avritten a pamphlet on The Effedls of Home Rule on Education, in which he declares that "A large and logical section of the Roman Catholic church is conscientiously opposed to the spread of educa- tion." He quotes the Dublin Review (Vol. XX, p. 192, second series), in which it is contended "that the absence of higher educa- tion is a powerful preservative against apostasy ;" and tells a story of a leading archbishop, who closed a school, and, when one of the villagers asked how he w^as to send his children to school, replied : *'What do they want with a school.? Let them learn their cate- vchism." ♦Washington in the Lap of Home, p. 223-226. ROMANISTS NOT FIT EDUCATORS OF AMERICAN YOUTH. 387 Cardinal Cullen, in 1S70, before the educational commission, said : "Too much education would make the poor discontented with their lot, and unsuit them for following the plow, using the spade, ham- mering iron or building walls." As Macaulay said : "During the last three centuries, to stunt the growth of the human mind has been her chief objedl. Throughout Christendom, whatever advance has been made in know^ledge, in freedom, in wealth and in the arts of life has been in inverse propor- tion to her power. The loveliest and most fertile provinces of Europe have, under her rule, been sunk in poverty, in political ser- vitude and in intellectual torpor ; while Protestant countries once proverbial for sterility and barbarism have been turned by skill and industry into gardens, and can boast of a long list of heroes, states- men, philosophers and poets." Says M. Emile de Lavelieye, in his work entitled "Protestantism and Catholicism in their Bearing on the Liberty and Prosperit}' of Nations :" "It is admitted the Scotch and the Irish are of the same origin, and shows that since the Scotch embraced the reform religion they have outrun even the English, while wherever the Irish em- braced Romanism they have retrograded. What a contrast between exclusively Roman Catholic Connaught and Protestant Ulster !" Education is the basis of national liberty and prosperity. In ele- mentary instruction Protestant states are incomparably more ad- vanced than Roman Catholic, and representative government Is the natural outgrowth of Protestant populations, while despotic gov- ernments are the congenial governments of Romanist populations. De Lavelieye declares : "The control of education by the Roman priesthood leads inevitably to illiteracy, with its tendency to degrada- tion, pauperism, and crime." The Roman Catholic Review for April, 1871 , said : "We do not, indeed, prize as highly as some of our countrymen appear to do the ability to read, write, and cipher ; some men are born to be leaders and the rest are born to be led ; the best ordered and administered state is that in which the few are well educated and lead and the many trained to obedience." This is Romanism. It ought to be fought, not for the sake of Protestants alone, but because of the im- periled interests of the children of Roman Catholics. Illiteracy im- perils, here and everywhere. 3SS ROMANISTS NOT FIT EDUCATORS OF AMERICAN YOUTH. In Canada, one-sixth of the population furnishes more than five- sixths of the crime. All criminal disclosures reveal this point. When the bill was introduced into the legislature of New York, pretending to secure freedom of worship, it was proven to have been proposed by a Jesuit ; and it w^as introduced by Senator Gibbs, be- cause, as he said in a letter to the New York Evening Post, of certain pledges made by the leading Republicans to the Irish Catholic voters for their support of James G. Blaine. If in Amer- ica, with our centuries of training in the principles of republican government, w^ith our hereditary devotion to the elementary princi- ples of civil and religious freedom, such bargains can be made, and Irish votes can be sold in blocks for the betrayal of the principles of the constitution, is it not time to ask if popery be not in the way? It is time to call a halt. For more than fifty years, because of the false security which has held the church in the arms of a delusive slumber, and through the cowardice or ambition of party leaders, the state of New York, with all of its unparalleled opportunities and re- sponsibilities, has been drifting toward a surrender of the children of the state to the control of the priests of Rome. There are in New York and its neighborhood twenty-nine so- cieties for the care of destitute children of the city, from birth to eighteen years of age, which receive public money. During the year 1S85 they had under charge, for longer or shorter periods, 19,256 individual children, at an expense to the city of $1 ,435,759.34. Rome gets $221,862.64 more for her 8,496 children than Prot- estant and Hebrew institutions with 10,504 children ; and yet Rome, with her votaries driving out Protestants from every department of the public service, is ever crying for inore. In 1875, the children's law was passed (Chapter 173, Laws 1875), by which it was forbidden to send able-bodied, intelligent children, between the ages of 3 and 16 years, to a poorhouse or almshouse, and the various magistrates, superintendents of the poor or other authorities, were empowered to provide for such children in fami- lies, orphan asylums or other appropriate institutions, and the boards of supervisors were required to take such adlion as was nec- essary to carry out this law. The followmg clause was also added : *'In placing any such child in any such institution, it shall be the duty of the officer, justice or person placing it there to commit such ROMANISTS NOT FIT EDUCATORS OF AMERICAN YOUTH. 389 child to an orphan asylum, charitable or other reformatory institu- tion that is governed or controlled by officers or persons of the same religious faith as the parents of such child, so far as pradlicable." The latter clause was omitted in the law as amended by Chapter 266, laws of 1876, re-ena6ted by Chapter 404 of the Laws of 1878, and though this law was again amended in 1884, the "religious clause remains substantially the same." Once more the attempt is made to have the religious clause omitted — the fight for Rome is still on. Review this history. At the outset it was believed that it was possible to frame a system of public instruction that would please all who desired to participate in its benefits. Something like the Prussian method it was hoped might be adopted, where religious instruction of soine sort, like all other instruction of the schools, is not optional, but compulsory. In 1822 the Baptist Bethel church of the city of New York made ap- plication for a portion of the public funds to sustain certain schools ( See "Rome in America," p. 119. ) The request was granted. After the lapse of three years it was reconsidered, on the ground that tliey were not striCtly common schools. The decision of 1825 was regarded as settling the princi- ples on which the school fund was thereafter to be distributed. On this ground the application of the Roman Catholics in 183 1 and '32 was strenuously resisted by the trustees of the public schools. But, despite the opposition, and in the face of their own admission of the justice of the principle out of which it arose, the corporation of New York granted the Romish petition, "out of pure sympathy," as they said, "for so interesting a charity." Here the war began. It was justice against injustice. In 1840, Romanists, led by Archbishop Hughes, made an attempt to disrupt and destroy our public school system. They denounced the schools because the word of God was read in them. Because of their ob- jection to the word of God they withdrew their children and de- manded their portion of the school fund. The politicians thought to make peace by consenting to banish the word of God. It was a terrible mistake. It did no good. The Bible was only an excuse for Romish hate. Education was, in faCt, the objeCt at which they aimed their blows. As a result, the schools without the Bible were denounced as godless, and the command 390 ROMANISTS NOT FIT EDUCATORS OF AMERICAN YOUTH. went forth that parochial schools should be established in every dis- tri6t, and that the children of Roman Catholics should be taken from our public schools as they would "take them from a devouring fire." The Bible is the divine weapon from which Rome shrinks as frons. Ithuriel's spear, knowing that "no falsehood can endure touch of celestial temper." "Rome knows well that a people who read the Bible are not likely to accept her syllabus and her dogmas ; or to use this prayer to the Virgin in the new Brevarium, 'Thou art the only hope of sinners ;' or to believe in the infallibility of the pope, and adore him as 'our Lord God.'" Romanism is the foe of liberty. Washington knew it and so de- clared in his fare^vell address. He used these v^ords : "Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence, I conjure you to believe me, fellow citizens, the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the baneful foes of a republican government." Washington, on the night before the battle of Trenton, sent forth the order : "Put none but Americans on guard." Lafayette recognized the truth when he declared: "If ever the liberty of the American re- public is destroyed, it will be the work of Roman Catholic priests.'' These warnings, for political reasons, have been ignored. Lord Robert Montague, reared among Jesuits, but now the champion of Protestantism because of his conversion to Christianity, in his book entitled "Recent Events and a Clue to their Solution," truly asserts that "The great engine of the Romish hierarchy is education. They exert themselves to mould the future generation, and to implant in their youth all the ideas which they desire to govern them in their manhood. Rome subdues their intelleds ; she stops all independ- ence of thought ; she stunts every tendency to free inquiry, while she stufls their minds with legends of the saints, mai-vels, pidlures, formularies, symbolisms and rituals, until, crushed under the bur- den and subdued by frequent examination of conscience and confes- sion, they resign themselves to their spiritual direction." Here then, we reach the proposition I desire to maintain, viz. : "The state ought not to suffer children over whom it has control to come under papal influence." I. Because Romish educatiofi incapacitates them for the responsibilities of American manhood. ROMANISTS NOT FIT EDUCATORS OF AMERICAN YOUTH. 39I Edward McGlynn, D. D., perceives tliis, and would not build a parochial school in the parish of St. Stephen's, saying, openly and above board, that the public schools, in which he was educated, were suited to the wants of the rising generation. McGlynn the patriot is the prodii6i of our free school system. Roman Catholics are beginning to see this. Said one : "I was ed- ucated in a parochial school. I knew nothing of history, of geog- raphy, of higher mathematics, until I broke out and went with my companions to a free school." A father said : "Aiy wife wants my boy to be taken out of the public school. I tell her no. The priest- demands it. I tell him to keep out of my house, my boy shall have a chance with other boys." An Irish mother insisted on tak- ing her boy out of the parochial school. The priest objected. She persisted, saying other children were being fitted for better posi- tions in society by attending the public schools, and her son should go to the school best adapted for him, and go he did. Vicar-General Brady of St. Louis declares: "We are doing all that we can to prevent our children from going to the public schools. We must educate our own children. They are educated in the public schools merely as animals would be educated. Their souls are not attended to." First denounce the schools because the Bible is read, then banish the Bible and denounce them as godless, is the programme of Rome. In Monseigneur Legur's "Plain Talk About Protestantism," there is this language, p. 98 : "The freedom of thinking is simply non- sense. We are no more free to think without rule than we are to act without one." Page 105 : "We have to believe only what the pope and the bishops teach. We have to reject onh' that which the pope and the bishops condemn and reject. Should a point of doctrine appear doubtful, we have only to address ourselves to the pope and the bishops to know what to believe. Only from, that tribunal, forever living and forever assisted by God, emanates the judgment on religious belief, and particularly on the true sense of the Scriptures." "The Roman church, claiming to understand the se- crets of God and to have the keys of heaven and hell, and blasphe- mously assuming that it can control the destinies of men — to save eternally or damn forever in a life to come — undertakes to bestow for money the joys of the former, and to inflict the pains of the latter 392 ROMANISTS NOT FIT EDUCATORS OF AMERICAN YOUTH. on those who refuse credulity and cash." To make this trade pros- perous, ignorance is a necessity. "It uses money, mendacity and pretended miracles to capture and enslave the ignorant. It assails everything tending to enlighten the masses, on whose ignorance it feeds. Italy, Spain, Ireland, Mexico and Lower Canada sufficiently illustrate its perfect work. Human vitality and intelligence have probably been brought to a lower point in Spain than in any other civilized nation on the globe, and the Roman church is largely, if not solely, responsible for this national degradation and ruin. It ■seeks to do — is most successfully preparing to do — is doing slowly — for the United States what it has done for Spain." Our free school system destroyed, political integrity destroyed and parties •corrupted, the goal is not far away. 2. The chara6lei' of the education given deserves notice. The trouble in Ireland today is that England is dealing with a people who believe that all is right which is done to advance the power of the church. Hence, there, as here, jurymen utterly gnore the value of their oath when the interests of the church require it. For this reason alone the right of "trial by jury" is threatened. Ro- manism gives a license to violate, in some way or other, every pre- cept of the decalogue. If men who are Romanists are truthful, honest and upright, it is because they are better than the religion they profess compels them to be. Rome teaches that the Sabbath may be set aside after hearing mass. Merchandising and the selling of goods by auction is per- mitted on the Sabbath. "He who performs any servile work on the Lord's day or on a festival day, let him do penance three days on bread and water. If any one break fasts prescribed by the church, let him do penance on bread and water twenty days." Three days •on bread and water for disobeying their God ; twenty days for diso- b)eying their church ! Absolution is granted for stealing small amounts to pay for masses, though the law is that masses shall be given without pay. The command, "Thou shalt have no •other gods before me," is blotted out of the Bible by papal hands. Children trained in these schools can lie, steal, break the Sabbath and commit sins of any kind, and obtain absolution from a man no l>etter than the guilty party. Romanism injures citizenship. The oath of allegiance by which ROMANISTS NOT FIT EDUCATORS OF AMERICAN YOUTH. 393 the thousands of Romanists have obtained the rights of tlie ballot, citizenship and office, which, if regarded as obligatory, would bind every one of them to support the principles of republican govern- ment, is valueless, because whenever Rom^ui officials shall see fit to require this oath to be disregarded, every f,ood Romanist is bound by his allegiance to the pope, which he believes more binding than his allegiance to the government, to disregard it. As proof we quote from "Abridged Course of Religious Instruction" for the use of colleges and schools, by Rev. Father F. X. Schouppe, of the society of Jesus, with the imprimatur of H. E. Cardinal Manning, London — Burns and Gates, 1880, p. 293 : "The church can dispense from a promissory oath. This power belongs to the pope and the bishops, who exercise it either themselves or by their delegates." Page 278 : "The civil laws [of Christendom] are binding in con- science so long as they are conformable in spirit to the rights of the Catholic church." This gives a warrant to the false swearing, which floods our cities with voters who have passed from their landing in this free country to the courts where they take a false oath ; to the polls, where, with another false oath, they swear in their vote ; and to the confessional, where their oath is held to be a justifiable, "dispensable" lie for the benefit of the holy Catholic church, whenever it shall choose so to re- gard it, and order them so to regard it. We are taught, also, that the sacrifice of the mass remits sins and the punishment due them (p. 210). "The povv^er to remit sin is judicial. The priests are made judges of the sin and the disposition of the sinner. Their absolu- tion is just as efficacious as would be that of Jesus Christ" (p. 213). Educate the youth in this way, and "repeating" at the polls becomes an a6l of grace, and honest elections are made impossible. As has been said: "A ship load of foreign Romanists lands in New York. Indulgence in the lump is issued to them by the cardinal or archbishop, to swear that they have resided here long enough to become citizens ; they go before the court, become naturalized, get their final papers, and at once go to the polls and help ele6l the cardinal's candidate for mayor. Thus perjured citizens capture polling places and carry elections in the interest of Romanism." (Romanism, A. J. Grover, p. 18.) It does not stop here. 394 ROMANlfeTS NOT FIT EDUCATORS OF AMERICAN YOUTH. Dissimulation is lawful, according to Liguori, as is gambling. "Laymen, or even the clergy, do not sin if they play cards, princi- pally for the sake of recreation or for a moderate sum of money." Hence gambling among priests is extensively pradiced. "It is lawful to administer the sacraments to drunkards, if they are in danger of death and had previously expressed a desire of receiving them." Hence the murderer, executed in the Tombs October t8, 1SS3, cried for whiskey at the last, though he had partaken of the eucharist. Priests are known to drink to excess. One, in a country town, rode home drunk almost every Sabbath evening after performing vespers in the chapel. All knew it, and it was tolerated because the guilty debauchee was a priest. It was Liguori who said : ''Among the priests w^ho live in the world it is rare, very rare, to find one that is good." Alexander Campbell, in his discussion with Archbishop Purcell, read from Liguori the permission for priests to keep nieces or con- cubines. Archbishop Purcell denied that Liguori ever taught any- thing so abominable, and remarked that all who say so are guilty of a flagrant violation of the commandment : "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor." The book was brought in and another read therefrom these words : "A bishop, however poor he may be, cannot appropriate to himself pecuniary fines without the license of the apostolical see. But he ought to apply to pious uses fines which the Council of Trent has laid upon non-resident clergymen or upon those clerg}'men who keep concubines." Mar- riage is a mortal sin. Adultery is pardoned. Whatever hurts Rome is decried, whatever helps Rome is approved. "What answer ought a confessor to give when questioned con- cerning a truth which he knows from sacramental confession only.?" "He ought to answer that he does not know it, and, if it be neces- sary, to confirm the same with an oath." "Is it lawful, then, to tell a lie?" "He is questioned as a man and answers as a man. As a man he does not know the truth, though he knows it as God." ■*'What if a confessor were direftly asked whether he knows it through sacramental confession?" "He may reply, 'I know noth- ing.'" Is such a religion good enough for the youth of America.? It is my position that the state of New York has no right to give children into the hands of Roman Catholics ; and that prisoners in ROMANISTS NOT FIT EDUCATORS OF AMERICAN YOUTH. 395 our penal institutions ought to be taught and helped by men who believe and teach the word of God. Roman Catholics should not have charge of prisons. Jerry Mc- Auley, the river thief and a most desperate chara6ler, went to Sing Sing as a member of the Roman Catholic communion in full and in good standing, as are the majority of the prisoners in all our penal institutions. It was because Jerry McAuley heard the gos- pel and found a Bible in his room that he was converted, came out of the church of Rome and became a benefa6lor to hundreds and thousands. J. The state has no right to recognize any church. If the court of special sessions can commit to a Roman Catholic institution children between seven and fourteen years of age, as idle, truant, vicious or homeless, then the state can put its neck into the yoke Rome has been framing for many years with the consent of a silent Christianity and a crafty political sentiment. The law says : "The free exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and wor- ship, without discrimination or preference, shall forever be allowed in this state for all mankind." The constitution of these United States, in providing for relig- ious liberty, expressly declares that no restraint shall be exercis- ed ; that "Congress shall make no law respedling an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;" but recognizing" the principle introduced to the notice of mankind by Roger Wil- liams, who repudiated toleration because the right to tolerate im- plied the right to persecute ; who would not accept as a favor from man what had been given to him as a right by God ; who held that when God made the eye he conferred the right to look, and when he made the Bible he conferred the right to read it or have it read. Gambetta in France saw this peril, and warned the state against giving over children to the control of priests to be educated and guided by them. "I am," said the great French statesman, "for the separation of the schools from the churches. I consider this not only a question of political but of social order. Let not Cath- olics, with their claims to exclusiveness, have anything to do with the propagation of necessary knowledge, which it is the state's duty to see imparted to every citizen." 396 ROMANISTS NOT FIT EDUCATORS OF AMERICAN YOUTH. Gambetta knew Romanism as we, inth is free land, do not know it. Let us hear and heed his manly advice. The parochial school, notwithstanding the disposition of the American people to try to conciliate their. Rom an Catholic fellow citizens, is a fa(5l. The decree has gone forth from the provincial council, sanctioned by the pope, that such schools shall be built in every parish. Compromise is a failure. Not only does Rome seek to take her children out of our public schools, but, under one pre- tense or another, she seeks to fill these public schools with Roman Catholic teachers. Let us have done with this. Put the Bible back where it belongs. Let it become a text-book for the children of America. Teach them to be good readers of the Scriptures. Said Sir William Jones, w^ho was familiar with Greek, Roman and ori- ental literature: "The Bible, independently of its divine origin, contains more sublimity, purer morality, more impartial history and finer strains of eloquence than can be colledled from any other book, in whatever language it may have been written." John Jay, in an admirable address on "Rome, the Bible and this Republic," quotes the distinguished Robert Hall as saying, "Wherever the Scriptures are generally read the standard of morals is raised," and adds : "The indebtedness of this country to the Bible, and its rec- ognition by our government in other days, are things not to be for- gotten ; and it is well to keep permanently before our people this distinguishing feature of our history. The great body of the orig- inal settlers on our newly-discovered continent were men whose an- cestors had fought for civil and religious freedom on the various battle fields of the old world." They loved liberty and loved God's word. Is it not true that their love of liberty sprung from the in- fluence of the truth upon their hearts ? Follow the Bible around the world, and in its trail you find liberty, progress and enlighten- ment. The Bible ought to be made a text-book in every institu- tion helped by the state, because of what the Bible does for the state. "There never w^as found," said Lord Bacon, "in any age of this world, either religion or law that did so highly exalt the public good as the Bible." If Romanists do not like it, let them dislike it. What they love hurts liberty. What they hate helps it. It is our duty to make our schools so good that no ambitious child of the state can afford to be educated elsewhere. I make my appeal to you, not as ROMANISTS NOT FIT EDUCATORS OF AMERICAN YOUTH. 397 religionists but as citizens. Do more than refuse to divide the school fund. Do this : From this time on, provide for children between seven and fourteen years of age, who may be idle, truant, vicious or homeless, better places in which to educate them than the protectories or convents under R.omish control. They are children of the state. Give them religious instru(5lion by giving them access to the word of God. It is our bounden duty to teach them Christian morality, essential to their education as good citizens. In the words of Ulysses S. Grant : "Let us labor to add all needful guarantees for the most perfect security of free thought, free speech, a free press, pure morals, and unfettered religious sentiments, and of equal rights and privileges to all men, irrespective of nationality, color or religion. Encour- age free schools, and resolve that not one dollar in money, no mat- ter how raised, shall be appropriated to the support of any sedtariani school. Resolve that either the state or nation, or both combined, shall support institutions of learning sufficient to afford every child growing up in the land the opportunity of a good common school education." Then shall our schools become what our fathers designed them to be — the source of enlightenment, the support of good government and the bulwark and defense of liberty. God save the commonwealth. So let all good citizens pray. WHAT CAN I DO TO HELP THE AMERI- CAN REFORMATION ALONG ? Many earnest Christian people, who reaHze the dangers menac- ing our country, are writing us, heartily commending us for the moral courage shown in the utterances of "The American," and asking us what they can do to help along the cause of reformation ? We reply : — 1. If you have not yet subscribed for "The American," do so at once. 2. Ask your neighbor to take it. Speak a good word for it everywhere. 3. Put us in possession of any interesting fa els that will help the cause. 4. Protestant people need light. Subscribe for enough extra copies of "The American" that we may mail from this office a copy to every Protestant family in your town or ward. 5. Romanists themselves need light. Subscribe for enough extra copies that we may mail sample issues to every Romanist family in your place. 6. We have the addresses of 100,000 Protestant clergymen, leg- islators, officials and prominent Christian laymen, who ought to have one or more copies of "The American." We are sorry that we cannot afford to send these vast editions of sam^Dle copies at our own expense. We need your co-operation. Can you not help us by subscribing for 100 or more copies to be mailed one week or one year, to people needing the printed word ? We feel that this is God's work, and that he is calling upon every Caleb and Joshua to go up and possess the land in His name. Reader, if you have a courageous heart, and a desire to put the Lord's money where it will do the most good in arousing a national, patriotic and reform sentiment, send us your commands, and we will mail "The American" in any direction you may suggest. We hope some good friend will pay for 5000 copies to be mailed to the barber shops of our land. Let "The American" crowd out the Police News. Every issue of "The American" is filled with meaty articles in great variety, so that every nature will find in it something to interest and fix the thought. We should be glad to send 10,000 copies to students in semi- naries, colleges and academies, to enlist the consecrated, educated young men and women in the new^ reformation. Everywdiere that we can cover a town with "The American" it stimulates thought, breeds discussion and compels Americans and Romanists to declare and defend their opinions. PRATT BROTHERS, Marlboro, Mass. 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