Priestly 
 
 Celibacy 
 Exposed, 
 
 Price, Fifteen Cents. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 THE TRUTH SEEKEE COMPANY 
 
 38 LAFAYETTE PI.AOR
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 PRIESTLY CELIBACY 
 
 A LECTURE 
 
 BY 
 
 THE EEV. GEO. TOWNSHEND FOX, M.A., 
 
 OF DURHAM. ENG. 
 
 Revised American Edition. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 THE TRUTH SEEKEK COMPANY 
 
 28 LAFAYETTE PLACE
 
 PEEFACR 
 
 A CASE of affiliation was lately brought before the 
 magistrates of Stockton, in which the complainant was 
 the daughter of a clergyman of the Church of 
 England, a pervert to Popery, and the defendant was 
 the Romish priest of that town. This case having 
 excited a great deal of attention, not only in the place 
 where it was tried, but in the North of England gen- 
 erally, I thought it a suitable occasion to direct the 
 attention of the inhabitants of Stockton to the doc- 
 trine of the Church of Home in reference to pries-tly 
 celibacy, and to let them see what results have 
 always proceeded from it 
 
 During the last few years this country has been 
 subjected to a foreign invasion; Italian Jesuits and 
 Maynooth priests have flocked to our shores, for the 
 purpose of carrying on missionary operations amongst 
 the population of England, as though all the inhabi- 
 tants of this country, except the handful of Romanists 
 amongst us, were the natives of a heathen land. Still 
 further, the Church of Rome has arrogated spiritual 
 authority over all baptised persons of this realm, 
 whom she would subject to the penalties of her eccle- 
 siastical law, had she the power to enforce it 
 
 Since, then. Rome has seen fit to visit our shores in 
 this double capacity, as a missionary to win and as a
 
 IV PREFACE. 
 
 ruler to command our subjection, we are entitled to 
 sift her claims, and to examine her doctrines ; and 
 since the surest protection against the inroads of 
 Popery consists in knowing what it really is, I con- 
 ceive it to be the duty of every one Who is attached to 
 the principles of truth, to endeavor to inform the 
 minds of the people, and to direct their attention to 
 the teaching and practice of the Church, of Eome, that 
 they may know what she is, and whereof she is made, 
 so as to be able to understand what they must look 
 for, if ever they should succumb to her power. 
 
 It is a great mistake, under which many persons 
 labor, whose knowledge of the genius and character of 
 Popery is superficial, to regard it as simply a religious 
 system. Popery has contrived so to mix up political 
 principles with religion, so to dovetail the spiritual and 
 secular elements, that it is difficult to say which pre- 
 dominates; and it throws the aegis of its protection 
 over every aggression on the rights of mankind, by 
 putting forth arrogant claims of divine right and spir- 
 itual authority. 
 
 That system cannot be regarded as other than polit- 
 ical which has dethroned kings, governed provinces, 
 disturbed the peace of the world, involved mankind in 
 bloodshed, and enslaved not merely the minds, but the 
 bodies of men. 
 
 It is this peculiarity of Popery which brings it into 
 such frequent conflict with the secular powers, and 
 renders it so dangerous to the political well-being of 
 our country. As a system of religious error, it is suf- 
 ficiently deleterious in its influence over the human 
 miad, and requires the resistance of all who feel the
 
 PREFACE. V 
 
 value of religious truth ; but as a political system, it is 
 fraught with such dangers to the welfare of the State, 
 as to demand the most serious attention and strenuous 
 opposition of politicians. 
 
 Nothing can be more dangerous to the political 
 safety of a country than to introduce a spiritual power 
 which wields its sceptre over the conscience and feel- 
 ings of mankind, for the purpose of drawing off their 
 affection from the political institutions under which 
 they dwell. 
 
 Yet such is the kind of influence which the Pope of 
 Rome would exercise over the subjects of Great 
 Britain. To give an individual instance of this, he 
 has thrown the halo of religion around the secular 
 question of titles to Romish priests in this country, 
 and though it has been declared by the law of the 
 land to be an infringement on the rights of our 
 Queen, to give such titles to Romish bishops, yet such 
 is the influence which the emissaries of the Pope have 
 exercised, that everywhere you find his dictum pre- 
 ferred amongst Roman Catholics to the law of the 
 land. It holds good in every department of life, civil 
 as well as religious, that no man can serve two masters : 
 and since the Pope of Rome so involves political 
 questions with religion as frequently to come into 
 collision with the law of England, they who have sur- 
 rendered their allegiance to him cannot be true to 
 their attachment to the Queen, or the laws of Great 
 Britain. 
 
 Of this the late trial, to which I have adverted, 
 afforded a striking instance ; for on that occasion, 
 before a bench of magistrates, the lawyei for the
 
 vi PREFACE. 
 
 defendant addressed a Romish priest by the title of 
 the Bishop of Hexham, though he acknowledged that 
 it was not lawful to do so. It would seem, therefore, 
 that the Pope's law was held superior to the Queen's 
 law in the presence of a magisterial body in Stockton. 
 
 Politicians, who have the welfare of their country 
 at heart, would do well to ponder this peculiarity of 
 Popery, and realize how great is the danger of divid- 
 ing the allegiance of a people, and drawing away their 
 affections to a foreign power whose interests are 
 diametrically opposed to our own. 
 
 No man can serve two masters ; and when the Pope 
 commands his followei's to do that which Queen Vic- 
 toria and the law of the land forbid, we know by 
 experience which master the devoted servant of Rome 
 will obey. 
 
 There is something extremely humiliating to our 
 national feeling, that any Englishman should more 
 regard the dictation of a foreigner, pay more respect 
 to the command of a wretched Italian priest, than to 
 the will of our own Queen, or the majesty of English 
 law. But so it is ; and where Popery gains the 
 ascendency over an Englishman's heart, it must, as it 
 appears to me, loosen his attachment to the institu- 
 tions of his native land, and make him a bad subject, 
 for no man can serve two masters. 
 
 Another important consideration, which may well 
 induce those to look about them who have to do with 
 courts of justice, is the doctrine which the Church of 
 Rome holds on the subject of oaths. A Romish priest 
 was called upon at the late trial to give evidence upon 
 a matter in which the credit of his order and the inter-
 
 PREFACE. yii 
 
 est of his Church were at stake. Now after having 
 carefully perused the various sanctions which the 
 Church of Eome has given to equivocate and to swear 
 falsely, and after considering the plenary absolution 
 she offers to her votaries committing such offenses 
 I must say that I cannot attach the slightest weight to 
 the testimony of a Romish priest given upon oath in a 
 court of justice ; and I leave it to any one to say what 
 is its value, when the following doctrines are unblush- 
 ingly sanctioned by the Church of Rome : 
 
 " To swear with equivocation when there is a just 
 cause and equivocation itself is lawful, is not evil ; 
 because where there is a just cause for. concealing the 
 truth, and it is concealed without a lie, no detriment 
 is done to an oath." 
 
 The following is the definition of u a just cause " : 
 " A just cause is any honest end in order to preserve 
 good things far the spirit or useful things for the 
 body." 
 
 " It is lawful to use equivocation and to confirm it 
 with an oath." 
 
 " A confessor can affirm, even with an oath, that he 
 does not know a sin heard in confession, by under- 
 standing as a man, not as a minister of Christ" 
 
 " The accused, or a witness not properly interro- 
 gated, can swear that he does not know a crime, which 
 in reality he does know, by understanding that he does 
 not know the crime concerning which legitimately he 
 can be inquired of ; or that he does not know it so as 
 to give evidence concerning it" 
 
 " A person who deceives by swearing with equivo- 
 cation may be absolved, because in such an oath,
 
 viU PREFACE. 
 
 which cannot be called a perjury, he has not sinned 
 against commutative justice, but against legal justice 
 and due obedience to a judge whose command of 
 unfolding the truth is transient, and only lasts while 
 the judge interrogates," 
 
 " The accused, if in danger of death, exile, loss of 
 property, and such like, can deny the crime even with 
 an oath, by understanding that he did not commit it 
 so that he is bound to confess it" 
 
 The Church of Rome having seen fit thus to break 
 down the barriers of morality and truth, has no reason 
 to complain if we should refuse to believe one word 
 uttered by her bishops and priests under oath in a 
 witness box. 
 
 The above quotations are from the writings of the 
 approved, canonized, and invocated St Liguori, which 
 were discussed some twenty times by the Sacred 
 College ; after which matured digestion they received 
 the formal sanction of the Pope, and were put forth 
 to the world with this high encomium, that not one 
 word worthy of censure had been found in them. 
 
 Such are the morals for which we pay 30,000 per 
 annum 1
 
 PRIESTLY 
 
 MR CHAIRMAN AND FRIENDS: The attention of 
 the public has lately been aroused by a case brought 
 before the local magistrates, which involved the moral 
 character of a Homish priest in this place ; so great is 
 the notoriety it has gained, as to make it quite unnec- 
 essary for me to refer to it more particularly. 
 
 I have invited you to meet me this evening, not to 
 discuss the merits of that cr\so, with which I desire t<5 
 have nothing to do but to give you some informa- 
 tion on the general subject to which it refers. Such is 
 the apathy that it is oaly on special occasions, like the 
 Papal aggression, or of local interest, like that to 
 which I have referred, that the attention of the public 
 can be aroused to the subject of Popery ; and such is 
 the ignorance wherein people for the most part are 
 content to remain, respecting the dangerous and cor- 
 rupt principles of Popery, that I conceive it a duty 
 which I owe to society, to seize any opportunity that 
 presents itself of conveying information to the people. 
 Such I regard the present, and it is therefore that I 
 have invited you to meet me this evening, that I may 
 lay before you the facts connected with one of the 
 most revolting pages in the history of Popery. 
 
 The subject which circumstances, not choice, have 
 forced upon me, is one of great delicacy, and to handle
 
 10 PRIESTLY CELIBACY EXPOSED. 
 
 it becomingly before a mixed audience, is a task of no 
 small difficulty, for the details are so revolting, and 
 many of them so unfit for the public ear, that it is dif- 
 ficult to produce the facts we possess, which form the 
 strength of every cause. We have to do with a sink 
 of iniquity, the very stirring of which excites pestilent 
 iniasma and poisonous fumes ; but to fathom its 
 depths, or lay bare its most secret recesses, is a task I 
 dare not undertake: to attempt it would be safe 
 neither for you nor me. But on the other hand, it 
 will not do in times like these, from a feeling of false 
 or overstrained delicacy, to abstain from making known 
 the doctrines and practice of the Church of Rome. If 
 that corrupt church were content to let us alone in 
 England, we might let her alone also ; but since she 
 has proclaimed aggression as the order of the day, and 
 claims to exercise spiritual dominion over th^se realms, 
 we must not, from a feeling of shame, shrink from lay- 
 ing bare the secret corruptions of her teaching and 
 practice. It is necessary that the people of this realm 
 should be informed what she is, that the fair garb and 
 gorgeous apparel, wherein she appears clad before the 
 eyes of the world, should be stripped off, and her 
 secret corruptions be exposed. We are constrained to 
 deal by her as Una, Spenser's graceful emblem of 
 female virtue, dealt by Duenna, the counterpart of 
 Rome: 
 
 " So as she bade that witch they disarrayed, 
 And robbed of royal robes and purple pall, 
 And ornaments that richly were displayed, 
 Ne spared they to strip her naked all. 
 Then when they had despoiled her tire and call,
 
 PRIESTLY CELIBACY EXPOSED. 11 
 
 Such as she was, their eyes might her behold, 
 
 That her mis-shaped parts did them appal, 
 
 A loathly, wrinkled hag, ill-favored, old, 
 
 Whose secret filth good manners biddeth not be told." 
 
 1 1. The subject, then, to which I invite your 
 attention this evening, is the Romish doctrine of the 
 Celibacy of the Clergy, and the immoral results which 
 have proceeded from it 
 
 The Church of Rome has broached a doctrine not to 
 be found in scripture. The Bible tells us, it k not 
 good for man to be alone it further teaches us that 
 marriage is honorable in all, and lastly, assures us that 
 it is better to marry than to burn. 
 
 But Rome, in diametrical opposition to the Bible. 
 declares that it is far the best for man to be alone, that 
 marriage is not honorable in all, and that it is better a 
 man should burn than marry. 
 
 Not content to put this out as a private opinion of 
 her own, she must endeavor to force it down the 
 throats of all the world, with the aid of her anathema- 
 tizing piston or forcing pump, to which the Doctors of 
 Trent had so frequent recourse, cursing all who diff- 
 ered from her, for want of better argument 
 
 Thus the Council of Trent has decreed : 
 
 " "Whoever shall affirm that persons in holy orders 
 may contract marriage, and that the contract is valid, 
 notwithstanding any ecclesiastical law or vow ; and 
 that all persons may marry, who feel that, though 
 they should make a vow of chastity, they have not the 
 gift thereof : let him be accursed." 
 
 So much for the doctrine of Rome ; the arguments
 
 12 PRIESTLY CELIBACY EXPOSED. 
 
 by which it is defended will claim our attention by 
 and by. 
 
 2. But, first, I must give you a brief history of the 
 rise and progress of the doctrine of celibacy in the 
 Church of Eome, and trace its true parentage and 
 origin. 
 
 One of the very first corruptions which insinuated 
 itself into the Church was an extravagant admira- 
 tion of celibacy, which was extolled in unmeasured 
 terms as the angelic or celestial virtue, But the doc- 
 trine itself is of heathen origin, and it was from the 
 superstitions of the " Gentiles " that the Christian 
 Church first embraced the false and foolrsh conceit 
 that there was a peculiar and angelic virtue in celi- 
 bacy. From the Gentiles it spread amongst the 
 Essenes, a Jewish sect, whom Josephus tells us were 
 advocates of celibacy from them it was embraced by 
 the early " heretics," the Montanists, Marcionites, Man- 
 ichees, and others and just in proportion as the purity 
 of the Church decaj^ed, it imbibed the unscriptural 
 fashion of the day, an ardent, senseless admiration for 
 celibacy. Such is the parentage of the doctrine first, 
 the "heathen," then the Essenes, then the "heretics," 
 and lastly, the decaying Church at large. 
 
 Clerical celibacy, however, was not the original form 
 which this madness assumed it first ran its course 
 amongst the people. Anthony, in the fourth century, 
 was the first who collected together ascetics of either 
 sex, who, renouncing intercourse with the world, be- 
 took themselves to the deserts of Egypt ; and so rap- 
 idly did this new species of madness spread, that ere 
 long the East swarmed with persons, who, abandoning
 
 PBIESTLY CELIBACY EXPOSED. 18 
 
 the occupations and comforts of life, and all intercourse 
 with society, spent their lives in solitude and celibacy, 
 vainly dreaming that thereby they were doing God 
 service. 
 
 But at this period, be it remembered, and for many 
 centuiies after, the law of clerical celibacy did not 
 exist At various times efforts were made to bring 
 abou this obnoxious rule of life, but without success : 
 the subject was mooted at the celebrated Council of 
 Nice, in the year 325 ; we read in the history of that 
 council that an effort was made to impose celibacy on 
 the clergy by an express law, but that it failed, for the 
 aged Paphnutius, bishop in the Upper Thebaid, him- 
 self the inmate of a monastery from boyhood, opposed 
 the motion, and it was lost. 
 
 Another epoch in the history of clerical celibacy, is 
 the reign of the celebrated pontiff, Gregory the Great, 
 in the sixth century ; for though he was bent on the 
 same object, and did, for a time, deprive his clergy of 
 their wives, and decree in favor of celibacy, yet I 
 shall show you by and by that the consequences of 
 that decree were so horrible as to compel this Pope, 
 dismayed by the direful results, to repeal the law. 
 
 Various attempts were made at sundry times, by 
 Popes and councils, to dishonor matrimony, and to 
 deprive priests of their wives, with which tedious and 
 insipid details I shall not weary you ; but it was not 
 till the reign of that arch tyrant, Gregory VII., in the 
 eleventh century, that these iron shackles were riveted 
 upon the clergy and he, notwithstanding his power, 
 found it an almost impracticable task to deprive the 
 priests of their wives.
 
 14 PBIESTLY CELIBACY EXPOSED. 
 
 The German clergy were the most sturdy oppo 
 nents of ecclesiastical tyranny, for when Gregory, in 
 the year 1074, enacted that no priests should hence- 
 forth marry, and that such as now had wives should 
 relinquish either them or their sacred office ; immedi- 
 ately, as we read in history, horrible tumults were 
 excited by the priests, many of whom were willing 
 rather to relinquish the priesthood than to part with 
 their wives ; and many of them seceded from the 
 Church of Rome, branding the Pontiff and his adher- 
 ents with the odious name of Paterini; i. e., Mani- 
 chaeana 
 
 The German clergy exclaimed they would rather 
 lose their priesthood than part with their wives ; 
 " Let him who despises men," said they, " see whence 
 he can procure angels for the churches." The clergy 
 of Passau, when the Papal prohibition was published, 
 said to their Bishop, " They neither could nor would 
 abandon the custom which it was clear they had fol- 
 lowed from ancient times." Such is the record of 
 history. 
 
 "We find that in the Jewish Church all the patri- 
 archs, and prophets, and priests, had the liberty to 
 marry. Adam, Enoch, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, 
 Joseph, Aaron, Samuel, Isaiah, and others, were all 
 married. So distasteful to Eomish ears was this fact, 
 put forth in the works of Chrysostom, that in his 
 twenty-first homily on Genesis, they have taken the 
 liberty to expunge the words, " all the prophets had 
 wives ;" and as the Belgian and Spanish Index have 
 so decreed it, of course the expurgation of this hereti- 
 cal comment must be correct I
 
 PRIESTLY CELIBACY EXPOSED. 15 
 
 Notwithstanding this caveat, however, you. will 
 allow me to remind you that Zacharias, the father of 
 John the Baptist, was a married priest And now, 
 coming to the times of Christianity, we find the Apos- 
 tles themselves were married men ; those leaders, 
 those founders of the Christian Church, did not despise 
 the marriage bond, did not think themselves too 
 holy to lead about a wife. But, strangest of all, 
 mirabile dictuf Peter, that prince of the Apostles, 
 had a wife Peter ! what wast thou about so to dis- 
 grace thy ministry? Didst thou know no better than 
 this? Surely thou must have been ignorant of the 
 princely perfection of the baccalaureate priesthood ! 
 Surely thou hadst never dreamt of ITildebrand's decree, 
 or else thou hadst put away thy wife when promoted 
 to the office of apostle ! 
 
 No wonder, then, if Apostles had wives, that the 
 inferior clergy should have them, too, and that one of 
 the requirements which Timothy was to see to 
 amongst the bishops or presbyters under his charge, 
 was that they be "the husband of one wife." 
 
 The records of succeeding times I have already 
 given, whereby you have seen that, notwithstanding 
 the mad fury and wild fanaticism of the East in favor 
 of celibacy during the fourth century, no law was put 
 in permanent force to prevent the clergy from having 
 wives till that ambitious, far-sighted prelate, Gregory 
 the Seventh, did, at all hazards, put a yoke upon the 
 neck of the priesthood, which neither their fathers nor 
 they were able to bear. 
 
 Koine, notwithstanding her boasts of antiquity, 
 cannot prove an earlier date than 1074, when the
 
 16 PRIESTLY CELIBACY EXPOSED. 
 
 Romish Church was sunk in deepest corruption, and 
 the world in blackest darkness, for the institution of 
 her ecclesiastical edict, which sets at defiance the law 
 of nature. 
 
 3. We will now consider her defense of this mons- 
 trous act of tyranny towards the priests that acknowl- 
 edge her rule. 
 
 It is a debated point amongst Romish casuists, 
 whether the celibacy of the clergy is enjoined by 
 Scripture ; for, notwithstanding the access they have 
 at all times to an infallible interpreter, there is a vast 
 deal of debatable ground in the Romish Church ; and 
 since they have not settled the question for them- 
 selves, it is surely no great liberty if we undertake to 
 do so for them, or at least accept the decision of such 
 doctors as please us best. 
 
 Bellarmine, that celebrated doctor, confesses that 
 " single life is not imposed upon ministers by the law 
 of God, for there is no precept, either in the Old 01 
 New Testament, that forbiddeth ministers to marry, 
 but that it is a positive law of the Church, kept and 
 observed ever since the Apostles' times, and therefore 
 it is not now lawful for ministers to marry " (cap. 
 xviii. lib. 1, de Clericis) ; and Bailly writes thus: 
 " You inquire whether clergymen in sacred orders are 
 bound to observe perpetual continency by the divine 
 or apostolical law? It is answered with many theo- 
 logians against certain others, that the celibacy 
 annexed to sacred orders was neither instituted noi 
 commanded by Christ, nor by the Apostles at hi* 
 command." Here, certainly, is a most candid confes 
 sion from the pen of a Romish doctor a plais
 
 PRIESTLY CELIBACY EXPOSED. 17 
 
 acknowledgement that the celibacy of the clergy is an 
 unscriptural doctrine. He proceeds: "Nothing is 
 found in scripture or tradition by which it can be 
 proved that perpetual continency was imposed on 
 ministers by Christ, or by the Apostles at his command. 
 On the other hand the Church permitted for many 
 ages to the Greek priests the society of wives whom 
 they had taken before ordination, and still permits ; 
 but the Church is unable to dispense with a law 
 imposed by Christ, or by the Apostles at the command 
 of Christ ; it may therefore be said that the law of 
 perpetual continency imposed upon sacred ministers 
 was introduced by the hierarchy, or by the Apostles, as 
 governors and leaders of the churches who proposed 
 it, not as a divine and immutable, but as an ecclesi- 
 astical law, as the best mode of governing the Church. 
 For these reasons it is manifest that the law of celibacy 
 is at the same time ecclesiastical and apostolical." 
 
 Was there ever such a specimen of Jesnitical logic 
 as this? How does this skillful disputant make out 
 his case? Why, much as a fox-hunter rides over the 
 country, by jumping all the ditches. He has made a 
 clear somerset over all the historical hiatus, and has 
 got to the end of his argument by clearing at one leap 
 that awkward dilemma presented by an entire absence 
 of proof that ever the Apostles, "as governors and 
 leaders of the church, proposed this law " in any sense 
 whatever, either divine or ecclesiastical. So far from 
 it, they themselves married, sanctioned the marriage 
 of others, and Paul, though a celibate himself, vindi- 
 cated his right and title to a wife with as strenuous a 
 zeal as if he had been a Protestant " Have we not
 
 18 PRIESTLY CELIBACY EXPOSED. 
 
 power," he exclaims, "to lead about a sieter, a wife, 
 as well as other Apostles, and as the brethren of the 
 Lord and Cephas ?" There are some of the doctors of 
 Rome who are very angry with us for translating this 
 word a wife, and charge us with willful perversion of 
 Scripture. The case stands thus : theoriginal<7imoua 
 signifies a woman, but is constantly, in classical use, 
 employed to designate a wife, and yqu must be guided 
 by the context as to the natural meaning. Now I 
 would ask you which is the most likely, that Paul 
 should claim his right and privilege to lead about a 
 woman who was his wife or a woman who was not ? 
 I am not much surprised, however, that a Romish 
 priest should be offended at our translation, and that 
 he should prefer the interpretation "an unmarried 
 woman;" it would, indeed, be a great thing to get 
 Scripture and the practice of Paul to justify taking a 
 young unmarried female into a bachelor establishment 
 and to prove that the great Apostle of the Gentiles 
 himself would have traveled with her by rail from 
 Stockton to Leeds ! To make out this would, indeed, 
 be worth a trifle. 
 
 Such is the total absence of proof, either Scriptural, 
 traditional, or historical, that ever the celibacy of the 
 clergy was a law of the Church till the year 107-i. 
 
 Notwithstanding all objections, however, such is the 
 position which the Church of Rome has seen fit to 
 take. She has, by a law like that of the Medes and 
 Persians, which changeth not, cut off the whole of her 
 priesthood from the amenities of married life, the 
 solace of domestic ties, and condemned them to a 
 hopeless, unending celibacy.
 
 PRIESTLY CELIBACY EXPOSED. 19 
 
 n. We must now proceed another step forward in 
 the pursuit of her iniquitous progress. 
 
 It might naturally be supposed, since Eome has 
 conceived such high notions of the angelic purity and 
 perfection of celibacy, and considers matrimony a 
 defilement for those who profess a religious life, and 
 incompatible with the higher mysteries of her faith, 
 that she would have done everything in her power to 
 keep those pure and ignorant of unholy things whom 
 she had thus set apart, and to whom she denied that 
 lawful outlet for the desires of nature. 
 
 This, surely, would have been the most suitable 
 course, and considering the great power her super- 
 stition exercises over the minds of men, and the right 
 she both claims and enforces in Popish countries over 
 the literature and publications of the world surely 
 she could not have more benignly and becomingly 
 exercised those powers, than by forbidding the perusal 
 of all unsuitable books to her bachelor priests, treating 
 them as wise parents do their children, by putting out 
 of their reach whatever might pollute their pure 
 minds. 
 
 But no ! she has added refinement to her cruelty ; 
 and after having condemned them to hopeless celi- 
 bacy, she has dared to stimulate their sensual passiops 
 by compelling them to study the most obscene and 
 abominable publications, calculated to inflame their 
 desires and pollute their minds. 
 
 With her usual sophistry, the Church of Rome has 
 laid down the following proposition; that just as a 
 doctor ought to be intimately acquainted with all the 
 diseases incident to the human frame, to qualify him
 
 20 PRIESTLY CELIBACY EXPOSED. 
 
 as a physician of the body, so ought the priest to be 
 deeply versed in all the diseases of the soul, that is, 
 in all kinds of sin and cases of conscience, to qualify 
 him as a physician of souls. And, proceeding to 
 carry out this principle, she has caused a number of 
 text-books to be provided for her students m theology, 
 treating of, amongst other things, all the imaginable 
 sins which can possibly be committed between the 
 sexes, together with innumerable cases of conscience 
 connected with these subjects. These bachelor doc- 
 tors in their treatises have dared to invade the sacred 
 precincts of the marriage-bed, and to lay bare to the 
 prurient curiosity of the young students in theology, 
 secrets, which, in prospect of their vow of celibacy, 
 should have been concealed from them for ever. 
 
 Whilst prosecuting this disgusting branch of our 
 subject, I was led to borrow from a friend a ponderous 
 folio, entitled "Sanchez De Matrimonio," a monstrous 
 volume of twelve hundred pages in Latin, which is a 
 great authority amongst the doctors of Rome ; and, to 
 my horror, I found it crammed with such indecent 
 and abominable trash, so filthy, impure, and disgusting, 
 that I flung it from me with indignation into a corner, 
 as unfit to read, and whose very touch was pollution. 
 
 Then there is Dens' Theology it is equally bad, 
 and forms a text-book in the College of Maynooth 
 so that, just as our young men have got up Paley and 
 Butler at Cambridge, so those students of Maynooth 
 must be drilled in the abominable pages of Dens. 
 
 Such are the fruits we reap from the infatuated 
 course our Government has oursued in the endowment 
 of Maynooth.
 
 PRIASTLT CELIBACY EXPOSED. 21 
 
 By our liberal assistance, Eome is enabled to breed 
 a supply of priests, far more numerous than her dimin- 
 ishing Irish flock requires ; and after having debauched 
 their minds with her impure casuistry, she sends them 
 over by troops to England to inveigle our foolish and 
 ignorant people, who know nothing of their tricks, and 
 are easily corrupted by their guile. 
 
 With what a sneer of intense contempt must the 
 College of Cardinals contemplate our mad career, 
 whilst they themselves deny the subjects of Britain so 
 much as burial rites, or liberty of worship ! 
 
 An edition of three thousand copies of this abomin- 
 able work was published as recently as 1832, with the 
 approbation of Dr. Murray, who had laid claim to the 
 title of His Grace the Archbishop of Dublin ; but 
 when certain portions of its obscene contents were 
 translated into English, and the attention of the public 
 drawn to them, he found it convenient to deny having 
 ever given any such approbation. The publisher, 
 however, very independently contradicted the state- 
 ment of Dr. Murray, which caused great excitement in 
 Dublin, during which he took his departure for Rome, 
 whether to seek absolution for the falsehood he had 
 told, or not, I cannot say but, having been reassured 
 by His Holiness the Pope, on his return he strongly 
 recommended this obscene book to his clergy, and 
 said " he had no hesitation in commending it as a use 
 ful summary to their attentive perusal." 
 
 Then there is another author of great celebrity, who 
 has defiled reams of paper with the most impure, cor- 
 rupt, and disgusting details that ever entered into the 
 wild conceit of a filthy old bachelor to imagina
 
 22 PRIESTLY CELIBACY EXPOSED. 
 
 I refer to Liguori, and here I must say a word or 
 two about the authority of his writings, for one of the 
 Jesuitical means of defense employed by Rome against 
 her adversaries, is her being always ready to cast 
 overboard her friends when it is convenient so to do, 
 thus resembling the prudent mariner in a storm, who 
 casts overboard his goods to save the ship ; but the 
 skill of the Romish pilot far exceeds that of the 
 sailor, for she always contrives to take her goods on 
 board again, as soon as the storm is over for whilst 
 she deals thus unceremoniously with her best friends, 
 in controversy she pays them the highest honors, and 
 makes the best possible use of them, when dealing 
 with her own people. 
 
 Thus, if you produce that learned Doctor Sanchez, 
 a writer of great weight in the Church of Eome, 
 whose foul pages are quoted as authority by Bailly, 
 Delahogue, Dens, and a host of others, they at once 
 cast him overboard, and say the Church of Rome is 
 not responsible for the writings of a private individ- 
 ual. Again, if you produce Peter Dens, and prove 
 that the students of Maynooth, and other Romish col- 
 leges are drilled in the contents of his impure pages, 
 still they cast him overboard, notwithstanding Dr. 
 Murray's imprimatur, and refuse to have anything to 
 do with him he was only a private individual. But, 
 happily, they are not able to treat Liguori in so cava- 
 lier a manner ; by good fortune they have nailed his 
 colors to the mast with their own hands for so lately 
 as the year 1839, Liguori was canonized as a saint ; 
 and after all his writings had been more than twenty 
 times discussed by the Sacred Congregation, they
 
 PRIESTLY CELIBACY EXPOSED. 23 
 
 received the highest imprimatur which Rome herself 
 could append, it being decreed by the said Congrega- 
 tion, that not one word in them had been found 
 worthy of censure, which declaration received the 
 endorsement of Pope Pius VII. 
 And now, indeed: 
 
 " I could a tale unfold, 
 
 Whose lightest word would harrow up your souls ; 
 But this eternal blazon must not be 
 To ears of flesh and blood." 
 
 I warned you at the outset, that we had to do with a 
 sink of iniquity the very stirring of which would 
 excite pestilent miasma, but that the fathoming of its 
 foul depths I could not venture. Already have I 
 Btirred it as much as I dare ; but to give you quota- 
 tions from Sanchez, Bailly, Delahogue, or filthy Dens, 
 I cannot do it : 
 
 " Their secret filth good manners biddeth not be told." 
 
 TTT. Advance we then a step further, in what Hogarth 
 would have termed the Rake's Progress, or the His- 
 tory of Priestly Celibacy. 
 
 After Rome has deprived the young priest of his 
 natural rights, and condemned him to a life of perpet- 
 ual celibacy, no master what his temperament may be, 
 and after she has debauched his mind with filthy Dens 
 and his compeers, what is the next step she takes for 
 the preservation of his virtue ? She next decrees that 
 every woman in the parish, young or old, beautiful or 
 ugly, modest or immodest, her ladyship in lace, and 
 the scullion girl that lights the kitchen fire, shall come 
 to hi, for confession, and shall be closeted with him
 
 24 PRIESTLY CELIBACY EXPOSED. 
 
 in private as long as he likes. And during that 
 secret conference, what are to be the topics of conver- 
 sation ? Is it the deep mysteries of religion which 
 engage their minds ? 
 
 " Reason they high 
 Of providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate ?" 
 
 Assuredly not ! for now it is that Sanchez, Delahogue, 
 Bailly, and filthy Dens, come into play with all their 
 impure casuistry. Now it is that this bachelor priest 
 is to catechize the newly-married wife, and to bring 
 the burning tints of shame into her pure cheek now 
 it is that he must ferret into all the secrets of the 
 marriage-chamber, assisted by " Sanchez De Matri- 
 monio," and ask questions which no modest matron 
 can endure to hear. 
 
 Next comes the tender maid, pure as the morning 
 dew that sparkles in the grassy glade, her simple mind 
 like the drifted snow, untainted with defiling stains, in 
 blissful ignorance of sin. If there be on earth a 
 loathsome object of contemplation that can sicken the 
 leart of man, it is that of a sensual, bloated priest, 
 \vhose mind has long been debauched by the pages of 
 Home's obscenest casuistry, sitting in sly and watchful 
 contact beside a delicate maiden, into whose simple 
 mind he distils the first thoughts of sin, whose cheek 
 he causes to mantle with the first blush of virgin 
 shame. 
 
 Under no other form does sin appear so loathsome 
 as when thus concealed beneath religion's garb ; nor 
 does man ever so closely resemble the " subtle adver- 
 sary of souls," as when, clad in priestly robe, he pours
 
 PRIESTLY CELIBACY EXPOSED. 25 
 
 his defiling strains into the confiding ear of a simple 
 maid: 
 
 " Squat, like a toad, close at the ear of iSve, 
 Assaying by his devilish art to reach 
 The organs of her fancy, and with them forge 
 
 Elusions as he list phantasms and dreams 
 Or if, inspiring venom, ho might taint 
 Th' animal spirits that from pure blood arise, 
 Like gentle breaths from rivers pure ; thence raise 
 At least distemper'd, discontented thoughts, 
 Vain hopes, vain aims, inordinate desires." 
 
 Bailly gives the following instructions to a priest- 
 confessor : " If the penitent be a girl, let her be asked, 
 has she ornamented herself in dress so as to please the 
 male sex ? or for the same end has she painted herself, 
 or bared her arms, her shoulders, or her bosom ? 
 Whether she has frequented church in order that she 
 might show herself to be looked at? Whether, in 
 company with others, she has spoken, read, or sung, 
 anything immodest ? Whether sbs is not attached to 
 some one? Whether she has not allowed him to 
 take liberties with her? Whether she has not 
 allowed him to kiss her? But if opportunity shall 
 offer for carrying the inquiry farther, the confessor 
 will do his duty, but, however, prudently and 
 cautiously." ' 
 
 Only think of the unparalleled impudence of these 
 bachelor priests in thus catechising young ladies ! I 
 must confess that if I were one of the fair penitents. 
 and a saucy priest put any such impertinent questions 
 to me, I should box his ears for him and never cross 
 the threshold of his inquisitorial vestry again !
 
 26 PKIESTLY CELIBACY EXPOSED. 
 
 Bat all that wait on the disciple of Sanchez, Liguori, 
 and filthy Dens, are not so delicate, refined, and pure, 
 as those who have already engaged our thoughts. 
 There come in troops, men and women of all sorts, to 
 confess and obtain absolution ; many of them stained 
 with vices of the deepest dye; every kind of tale, 
 every description of sin, every particularity of immod- 
 est thoughts, words, and acts, are poured into the 
 prurient ear of the listening priest, so that his mind, at 
 length, becomes a great immoral cesspool, into which 
 all the impurities of the district drain, and which must 
 receive all the filth of an entire community. Knowing 
 what I do of a Eomish priest, I never wonder that he 
 cannot look an honest man in the face, for what with 
 his study of Eomish unclean casuistry, what with his 
 debauching pure minds with his filthy questions 
 drawn from those authorized sources, what with his 
 receiving into his own mind all the adulteries, fornica- 
 tions, unnatural crimes, unholy actions, desires, and 
 thoughts, of all the country side, his mind becomes 
 a quagmire of foul, pestilent impurities, the conscious- 
 ness of which is stamped on his very forehead. 
 
 IV. We have now made the following progress with 
 our subject. We have seen the Church of Kome pro- 
 pounding a rule of life, opposed to the law of nature, 
 binding the iron shackles of compulsory celibacy on 
 her priesthood. We have seen her corrupting their 
 minds with lessons of impurity, and defiling their imag- 
 inations with unclean sophistry ; and, lastly, we have 
 seen her sending them forth into the world, where a 
 
 1 Bailly, vol. vii. p. 366.
 
 PRIESTLY CELIBACY EXPOSED. 27 
 
 principal part of their duty consists in confessing 
 females in private ; or, in other words, conversing with 
 them on topics most calculated to inflame their passions. 
 And now, I would ask this audience, whether it is 
 possible her priesthood can be preserved pure under 
 these circumstances ? Remember that this process is 
 commenced in youth, when temptation to sin is at the 
 strongest, and the passions most ungoverned. Eemem- 
 ber, also, it is not only the quiet, the demure, the 
 frigid, who are subjected to this discipline, but the 
 hot-tempered, the passionate, the sensual. Look at 
 those burly Maynooth priests, men of the coarsest 
 clay, who are lashing their infatuated and degraded 
 followers into fury, uproar, and bloodshed, from time 
 to time, in the sister isle ; think you that these fel- 
 lows are to be trusted alone with females, after having 
 feasted upon Sanchez and filthy Dens? Assuredly 
 not ; the system is one of monstrous corruption, the 
 fruitful parent of immorality and vice ; and it remains 
 for me now to show you what results have proceeded 
 from it, the practical fruits it has ever borne. The 
 testimony of history, and the voice of experience, 
 have ever witnessed to this fact, that compulsory celi- 
 bacy has always been attended with frightful corrup- 
 tion. We must now proceed to facts: once more I 
 am reminded of the danger of stirring that cesspool, 
 on the borders of which we stand. Without facts, 
 however, it is impossible to establish the statement I 
 have made ; and the difficulty is not to find the facts, 
 which superabound, but to select those which can, with 
 any decency, be produced. A solemn sense of the 
 responsible duty, in times like these, to open the eyes of
 
 28 PRIESTLY CELIBACY EXPOSED. 
 
 men to the corruptions of the Church of Rome, has 
 alone induced me to enter on this revolting subjec^ 
 and I shall spare your feelings as much as I can, yet 
 the truth must be told. 
 
 The result of a compulsory celibaey has always been 
 to deprave the morals of the community, and espec- 
 ially of those themselves placed in that false position. 
 I shall proceed to bring forth from the cesspool of his- 
 tory a few of the facts by which this statement is 
 borne out, and they shall refer to the different ages, 
 since the experiment was tried early, mediaeval, and 
 present times. 
 
 With respect to the evil consequences of celibacy in 
 early times, I would observe, that what I shall adduce 
 refers not exclusively to clerical celibacy, for that was 
 not established, as we have seen, till the dark age of 
 Hildebrand ; but I conceive the case becomes all the 
 stronger, for if monks and nuns, under a foolish vow 
 of celibacy, did nevertheless fall into sin, so that the 
 whole Church became scandalized thereby, though the 
 system of confession did not exist, and the writings of 
 filthy Dens had not yet appeared, how much stronger 
 the case against the present system of ecclesiastical 
 celibacy, with all these evil adjuncts to boot ! 
 
 1. Cyprian, in the third century, inveighed against 
 the nuns on account of their shameless licentiousness ; 
 and this was not a local or incidental abuse, for it has 
 spread itself on all sides, and had become, notwith- 
 standing all remonstrances, the common usage of the 
 Coenobite ascetics, and even of some of the anchorites. 
 
 2. Chrysostom, a century and a half later, though 
 he was a warm admirer of celibacy, yet uttered the
 
 PRIESTLY CELIBACY EXPOSED. 29 
 
 following mournful, but somewhat ridiculous, com- 
 plaint of its evil effects : 
 
 " What a sight is it," says he, " to enter the cell of 
 a solitary monk, and to see the apartment hung about 
 with female gear, shoes, girdles, reticules, caps, bon- 
 nets, spindles, combs, and the like, too many to men- 
 tion ! But what a jest it is to visit the abode of a rich 
 monk, and to look about you, for you find the solitary 
 monos surrounded with a bevy of lasses, one might 
 say, just like the leader of a company of singing and 
 dancing girls. What can be more disgraceful? And 
 in fact the monk is all day long vexed and busied with 
 petty affairs proper to a woman. Not merely is lie 
 occupied with worldly matters, contrary to the apo.s- 
 tolic precept, but even with feminine cares ; and these 
 ladies being very luxurious in their habits, as well as 
 imperious in their tempers, the good man was liable to 
 be sent on fifty errands ; to the silversmith's, to inquire 
 if my lady's mirror were finished, if her vase were 
 ready, if her scent-cruet had been returned ; and from 
 the silversmith's to the perfumer's, and thence to the 
 linendraper's, and thence to the upholsterer's, and at 
 each place he has twenty particulars to remember. 
 Then add to all these cares the jars and scoldings that 
 are apt to resound in a house full of pampered women ! 
 St Paul says, ' Be ye not the servants of men ;' shall 
 we not then cease to be the slaves of women, and this 
 to the common injury of all ?" 
 
 This is certainly a very curious peep which old 
 Chrysostom gives us into the habits of the fourth cen- 
 tury, and the- raillery of the ancient divine would 
 almost make one fancy that it was Will Honeycomb
 
 30 PRIESTLY CELIBACY EXPOSED. 
 
 pouring forth his sparkling wit in the pages of the 
 "Spectator." But where, we are apt to exclaim, have 
 the expurgatorial doctors of the " Index " been? If 
 their nimble scissors could clip the pages of Father 
 Chrysostom, when he made so simple a statement as 
 that "all the prophets had wives," what were they 
 about to leave unimpaired so profane an exposure of 
 the habits of the monks ? 
 
 I would here observe, that it would be a very use- 
 ful thing to publish an edition of Chrysostom's works 
 in Stockton ; for amongst them are to be found two 
 treatises, one against clerics and virgins dwelling 
 together, another against virgins dwelling with clerics, 
 which treatises, had they been some time ago duly 
 studied and regarded, might have been the means of 
 preventing much scandal in this place. And as it is 
 said there is nothing new under the sun, let me tell 
 you the reasons given in defense of this ancient cus- 
 tom. For Chrysostom informs us that, notwithstand- 
 ing the obloquy it brought upon the church amongst 
 the heathen, and the scandal it created amongst 
 believers, the clerks persisted in having young women 
 to dwell with them, under the pretense of patronage to 
 the worthy, and defense to the helpless. 
 
 I pretend not sufficient skill in the laws and disci- 
 pline of the Romish Church to be able to tell whether 
 the decisions of the Second Council of Aries, which 
 was held in the fifth century, be now in force ; all I 
 would say is, that had they been observed in the town 
 of Stockton, the tongue of scandal had been restrained 
 her license ; for by that council it was enjoined, " that 
 no person in holy orders, above that of deacon, should
 
 PBIESTLY CELIBACY EXPOSED. 31 
 
 have dwelling under his roof any woman, save his 
 grandmother, his daughter, his niece, or his wife.' ; 
 Much more needful, methinks, now-a-days, this whole- 
 some statute, when Eomish priests are forbidden 
 either wives or daughters, though in some parts of the 
 world they still have nieces enough, who, the tongue 
 of rumor reports, do ofttimes " dwell under their 
 roof." 
 
 Hearken now, to Chrysostom's mournful dirge over 
 the obsequies of fallen celibacy ; 
 
 " Alas ! my soul, may I well exclaim, and repeat 
 the lamentable cry with the prophet, alas ! my soul 
 oar virginity has fallen into contempt ; the veil is rent 
 by impudent hands that parted it from matrimony : 
 the holy of holies is trodden under foot, and its grave 
 and tremendous sanctities have become profane : and 
 that which was once had in reverence as far more 
 excellent than matrimony is now sunk so low as that 
 one should rather call the married blest." 
 
 Such were the fruits of celibacy in the third and 
 fourth centuries. 
 
 3. We will now proceed down the course of time to 
 the medieval age of Gregory the First, who flourished 
 in the sixth century, and see how it fared with celi- 
 bacy in these later times. 
 
 Gregory was a great zealot in favor of clerical celib- 
 acy, as we have already seen; but what were the 
 fruits of his enforcing this unnatural law we learn 
 from the following narrative, given us by Udalric, 
 bishop of Augusta, in a letter to Nicholas the First, 
 where he says. " Gregory, by his decree, deprived 
 priests of their wives; when, shortly after, he com-
 
 82 PRIESTLY CELIBACY EXPOSED. 
 
 manded that some fish should be caught from the 
 fish-ponds, the fishers, instead of fish, found the heads 
 of six thousand infants that had been drowned in the 
 ponds. When G egory ascertained that the children 
 thus killed were bjrn from the concealed sin of the 
 priests, he forthwith recalled his decree and purged 
 the sin with worthy fruits of repentance, extolling the 
 apostolic command, 'It is better to marry than to 
 burn,' adding from himself, ' It is better to marry than 
 to be the occasion of death.' " 
 
 Such were the fruits of celibacy under Gregory in 
 the fifth century ! 
 
 4. We now come to the testimony of the celebrated 
 Bernard in the twelfth centuiy. He exclaims, "If, 
 according to the prophecy of Ezekiel, we could look 
 behind the partition, that we might see the horrible 
 thing in the house of the Lord, perhaps the foulest 
 abominations would appear on the inside. Alas ! the 
 enemy of man hath defiled the body of the church 
 with the execrable ashes of the Sodomites, and, indeed, 
 the most filthy and abominable crimes have defiled 
 some of its very ministers also. Many of these cannot 
 be concealed on account of their multitude, nor, by 
 reason of their impudence, do they court concealment ; 
 would that those who cannot contain, would fear to 
 enroll themselves as the adherents of celibacy ! It is 
 better to marry than to burn, and to be saved in the 
 humble grade of the common people, than to live 
 worse and to be judged more severely in the sublime 
 rank of the clergy." 
 
 5. Pass we now from those dark ages of acknowl- 
 edged corruption to nrDdern times, and let us see what
 
 PRIESTLY CELIBACY EXPOSED 33 
 
 are the effects of compulsory celibacy in this age of 
 superior refinement and morality wherein we live. 
 Would we judge of the system fairly, however, we 
 must see how it works in really Romish countries, 
 where it is unrestrained by the watchful supervision 
 of Protestant eyes and is able to indulge its prurient 
 tendencies without fear of detection. 
 
 First, then, let us turn our attention to South 
 America; there the celibacy of the priesthood has 
 settled down into a tacitly acknowledged system of 
 concubinage, which differs little from matrimony, 
 except in the absence of the hallowed sanction of the 
 marriage-bond. A sea captain, who traded to South 
 America, told me some years ago that when his ship 
 was lying in one of the ports of that country, a Rom- 
 ish priest came on board one day desirous of engaging 
 a passage for himself and his niece. The captain 
 forthwith led him to the gentlemen's cabin, where he 
 selected one of the best state-rooms ; after which the 
 captain proposed to show him the ladies' cabin, that 
 he might choose one for his niece, but the reverend 
 gentleman declined, saying that the one he had chosen 
 would do very well for them both ! Our worthy cap- 
 tain, however, whose unsophisticated notions of celib- 
 acy could not understand such strange relationships, in 
 a' burst of honest indignation turned the reverend 
 paramour out of his ship, and vowed that neither he 
 nor his niece should ever set foot on board again. 
 
 6. That system of concubinage is not confined to 
 South America, and is not an invention of the present 
 refined age, for we read in Nicholas de Clemangis 
 (about A.D. 1400), " In many dioceses the rectors of
 
 84 PRIESTLY CEIJBACY EXPOSED. 
 
 parishes, for a certain stipulated sum to the prelates, 
 generally and publicly had concubines." 
 
 7. And among the Helvetians, it was an ancient use 
 and custom, that when they received any new priest 
 into their churches they would premonish him to take 
 his concubine, lest he should attempt any misuse with 
 their wives and daughters. 
 
 8. A certain German bishop is reported to have 
 said in a certain banquet, that in one year there were 
 brought unto him eleven thousand priests which 
 openly kept concubines. 1 
 
 9. We will now turn our attention nearer home, and 
 inquire into the effects of celibacy at the present day 
 in Spain and France. 
 
 The Eev. Joseph Blanco White, a Spanish priest of 
 great celebrity and unquestionable veracity, writing on 
 the celibacy of the priesthood, expresses himself as 
 follows : 
 
 "My feelings are so painfully vehement, when I 
 dwell upon thi subject, that neither the freedom I 
 have enjoyed for years, nor the last repose of the vic- 
 tims, the remembrance of whom still wrings tears 
 from my eyes, can allay the bitter pangs of my youth. 
 A more blameless, ingenious, religious set of youths, 
 than that in the enjoyment of whose friendship I 
 passed the best years of my life, the world cannot 
 boast of. Eight .of us, all nearly of the same age, 
 lived in the closest bond of affection from sixteen till 
 one and twenty. Of this knot of friends, not one was 
 tainted by the breath of gross vice, till the church had 
 
 1 Lasicius in Theolog. Moscov. cap. 15, ex Joann. peregrin, in con- 
 riv. p. 168. Spirje, 1682.
 
 PRIESTLY CELIBACY EXPOSED. 85 
 
 doomed them to a life of celibacy, and turned the best 
 affections of their hearts into crime. It is the very 
 refinement of church cruelty to say they were free, 
 when they deprived themselves of their natural rights. 
 A virtuous youth of one-and. twenty, who is made to 
 believe Christian perfection inseparable from a life of 
 celibacy, will easily overlook the dangers which beset 
 that state of life. Those who made and those who 
 still support the unnatural law, which turns the mista- 
 ken piety of youth into a source of future vice, ought 
 to have learnt mercy from their own experience : but 
 a priest who has waded, as most do, through the miry 
 slough of a life of incessant temptation, falling and 
 rising, stumbling, struggling, and falling again, con- 
 tracts, generally, habits of mind not unlike those of 
 the guards of oriental beauty. Their hearts have been 
 seared with envy. 
 
 " I cannot think on the wanderings of the friends of 
 my youth without heartrending pain. One, now no 
 more, whose talents raised him to one of the highest 
 dignities of the Church of Spain, was for many years 
 a model of Christian purity ; when, by the powerful 
 influence of his mind, and the warmth of his devotion, 
 this man had drawn many into the clerical and relig- 
 ious life, he sank at once into the grossest and most 
 daring profligacy. I heard him boast that the night 
 before the solemn procession of Corpus Christi, where 
 he appeared nearly at the head of his chapter, one of 
 two children had been born, which his two concubines 
 had brought to light within a few days of each other. 
 
 " Such, more or less, has been the fate of my early 
 friends, whose minds and hearts were mucji above the
 
 36 PRIESTLY CELIBACY EXPOSED. 
 
 common standard of the Spanish clergy. What, then, 
 need I say of the vulgar crowd of priests, who, coming, 
 as the Spanish phrase has it, from coarse swaddling- 
 clothes, and raised by ordination to a rank of life for* 
 which they have not been prepared, mingle vice and 
 superstition, grossness of feeling and pride of office, in 
 their character ?" 
 
 What a complete likeness does this graphic picture 
 bear to the Maynooth priest, supported by English 
 money, and then sent forth like the plagues of Egypt, 
 over our country, to corrupt the morals and pervert 
 the faith of our people ! 
 
 We must now turn to France. The following 
 description of the priests of that country is from one 
 of themselves, and is extracted from a work entitled, 
 "Confessions of a French Catholic Priest," edited by 
 Samuel Morse, in the year 1836, in the city of New 
 York: 
 
 " I shall surprise you by saying, that in France, the 
 immense majority of young men in our seminaries are 
 not corrupted ; many of them are virtuous. They are 
 ignorant, superstitious, fanatical, but I declare they 
 are not vicious ; that may be conceded, although 
 apparently in contradiction to their indecent studies 
 for they are taught it is necessary to learn these in 
 order to be able to fulfil their duty, and that, to hear 
 confession in all its extent, it is necessary to know all 
 human perversity. Be that as it may, I can affirm 
 that it is painful to the sense of decency in man to be 
 obliged to be familiar, as we are with such books. 
 
 " But the corruption of the clergy begins when they 
 are out of the seminary. Young men are sent into a
 
 PRIESTLY CELIBACY EXPOSED. 37 
 
 parish in the quality of curates or vicars. At the 
 commencement they fulfill their duty with care, and 
 for a time remain faithful to their vows. Many have 
 told me this after their fall. By and by they open 
 astonished eyes. Restored to freedom, after ten or 
 twelve years' thraldom in a college, they become dif- 
 ferent men, and gradually forget their vows. ' Oh ! ' 
 said a young priest, with tears in his eyes, after having 
 four or five years discharged the duties of his station, 
 'God only knows what I have suffered during this 
 time: i f [ have fallen, it is not without fighting: had I 
 been allowed to choose a wife, a^ such is the law of 
 God, who destines man to marriage, whatever our 
 rules teach to the contrary, I should have remained 
 virtuous ; I should have been the happiest man in the 
 world ; I should have been a good and holy priest, 
 while now I am ! I am ashamed of myself.' " 
 
 What a sad picture is this ! and does it not call 
 forth our feelings of sympathy and compassion toward 
 those unhappy men who are placed under such cruel 
 bondage, and exposed to such superhuman tempta- 
 tions, by the ambition and the wickedness of the 
 Church of Rome ? 
 
 Our author proceeds : " The resolution being taken 
 of enjoying life, as they say, after having been so long 
 deprived of it, the only question is to enjoy it safely 
 and secretly, viz., without dishonor. In this manner, 
 through their dark ministry, they have immense power 
 upon the minds of women, for they attack only those 
 whose dispositions they have long studied in confession. 
 A priest, in a parish not far from mine, laid his snare 
 for a young married woman, who had the reputation
 
 88 PRIESTLY CELIBACY EXPOSED. 
 
 for piety because she attended mass every morning. 
 He, through his diabolical arguments, triumphed over 
 her scruples. She went to him in the vestry almost 
 every morning, before the bell rang for mass. He 
 confessed and absolved her, and she received the com- 
 munion at the altar. The good people said, admiring 
 her daily practice, ' How pious is this young wife ; she 
 partakes of the sacrament every day ; she is doubt- 
 less a saint ! ' 
 
 " There are no means which their cunning does not 
 invent to meet with victims. But if a priest, in spite 
 of his proverbial cunning, be discovered and be 
 denounced to the Bishop by public opinion, he may be 
 removed, in order to silence the scandal, and sent to a 
 distance where he is unknown." 
 
 There is a variety of details of a similar kind, which 
 time will not permit me to produce, showing how dis- 
 astrous are the results of this wicked compulsion to 
 celibacy over the morals of the priests in France at the 
 present day. 
 
 10. Seeing then, that such is the immoral tendency 
 of celibacy in Romish countries, are we to suppose that 
 the system fares any better in other lands ? If it could 
 be shown that this were really the case, what a 
 triumph would it be over Rome ! If, after the unques- 
 tionable evidence that wherever Rome is dominant her 
 celibate priesthood is dissolute, it could be shown that 
 in other lands they are pure, surely this would be a 
 strong admission in favor of non-Catholicism ; and the 
 Church of Rome should feel deeply indebted to those 
 she stigmatizes as heretics, since they have done for 
 her priesthood what with all her power she is unable
 
 PRIESTLY CELIBACY EXPOSED. 39 
 
 to do herself, viz., to keep them pare. Bat I claim 
 no such merit on our behalf, for I don't believe that a 
 celibate priesthood is pure in England, any more than 
 in South America, Spain, France, or any other Popish 
 country. They are men of like passions with their 
 brethren abroad, and the same causes will produce the 
 same effects ; the only difference being that greater cau- 
 tion and circumspection must be used where non-Cath- 
 olic eyes are looking on, and a free press is ever ready 
 to hold up the offender to public ignominy and 
 shame. 
 
 Now the statements which I have produced are 
 entirely borne out by the testimony of Eome herself. 
 "We never think of making laws against crime till the 
 crime itself exists. I don't believe that ever there 
 was a law against sheep-stealing till after that sheep 
 had frequently been stolen, and men began to find the 
 loss of their sheep an intolerable nuisance. Now, so 
 corrupt a thing is clerical celibacy, that it has given 
 rise to a new crime, and Rome enjoys the unenviable 
 notoriety of having to enact ecclesiastical statutes to 
 check a vice unknown to the rest of the Christian 
 world. 
 
 This crime is known by the name of " Solicitatio," 
 and its perpetrators are called " Solicitants." In plain 
 English, it is the seduction, or attempt at seduction, of 
 a female penitent by a priest in the confessional. 
 
 11. So scandalous was the immorality of the priest- 
 hood in Spain in the sixteenth century, that Paul IV. 
 was obliged to issue a bull, of which the following is 
 an extract: "Whereas certain ecclesiastics in the 
 kingdom of Spain, and in the cities and dioceses there-
 
 40 PRIESTLY CELIBACY EXPOSED. 
 
 of, having the cure of souls, have broken out into such 
 heinous acts of iniquity as to abuse the sacrament of 
 penance, in ,he very act of hearing the confessions, by 
 enticing and provoking females to lewd actions, at the 
 very time when they were making their confes- 
 sions." 
 
 12. Such was the prefatory introduction to this 
 famous bull of Paul IV. And the blow aimed at her 
 immoral priesthood was followed up by a solemn edict 
 of the inquisitors, published in all the churches of the 
 Archbishopric of Seville, that " any person knowing, 
 or having heard of any friar or clergyman having 
 committed the said crime, should make discovery of 
 what he knew, within thirty days, to the Holy Tri- 
 bunal." 
 
 When this edict was published, such " a number of 
 females went to the palace of the Inquisitor in Seville 
 alone, to reveal the conduct of their infamous confess- 
 ors, that twenty notaries, and as many inquisitors, 
 were -appointed to take down their several informa- 
 tions ; but these being found insufficient, and the 
 inquisitors being overwhelmed with such a pressure of 
 business, thirty days more were allowed for taking the 
 accusations ; and this time proving likewise insufficient, 
 had to be extended again and again. Ladies of rank, 
 character, and noble family, flocked to the Tribunal ; 
 but the authorities in Eome were so alarmed at the 
 storm they had raised, that, fearful of the consequences 
 of such an exposure, they hushed matters up the best 
 way they could ; and this Holy Tribunal, contrary to 
 the expectation of every one, put an end to the busi- 
 ness, by ordering that all crimes of this nature should
 
 PBIESTLY CELIBACY KKPOSEP, 41 
 
 thenceforth be consigned to perpetual silence and 
 oblivion." * 
 
 13. Many bulls have been since published, proving 
 that this monstrous vice still abounded. Thus, Greg- 
 ory XV., in 1622, Benedict XIV., in 1741, and again 
 in 1745, fulminated their ineffectual thunders against 
 those priestly celibates who were guilty of so mon- 
 strous a crime. 
 
 I cannot close this branch of our subject without a 
 word or two about nunneries. 
 
 Such is the authority which Eome now arrogates for 
 herself within the territories of Queen Victoria, that 
 notwithstanding the majesty and power of the law 
 extend over the length and breadth of the land, yet 
 has Rome dared to set the officer of justice at defiance, 
 and to say to him, " Thus far shalt thou come, but no 
 further." There is no nook or corner in this well- 
 ordered country, whither the ends of justice may not 
 be pursued, save and except those consecrated prisons 
 which Rome has established on the free soil of Brit- 
 ain, whose grated portals bid defiance to the authority 
 of the Queen on her throne. 
 
 It is too bad that Romish priests should be per- 
 mitted to inveigle young women into nunneries in 
 this land of liberty, and having got them there, 
 should be suffered to lock them up in durance vile ; 
 when once their tender feet have been involved in the 
 snares and bird-lime set for them by Rome's bird- 
 catchers, farewell forever all hopes of liberty ! How- 
 ever much they afterwards repent the foolish step 
 
 1 Nai rative of the Inquisition, etc. 1 ., by Hyppolite Joseph Da Costa 
 Pereiro Hurtado de Mendoza, vol. 1, pp. 117-119.
 
 42 PRIESTLY CELIBACY EXPOSED. 
 
 however widely their eyes may afterwards be opened 
 though their heart-strings should crack with passionate 
 desires of freedom, and their souls sicken in the hope- 
 less despair of perpetual bondage for them no door 
 of hope is open, no avenue of mercy within their 
 reach ; though dwelling on the soil of Britain, the 
 land of freedom, yet are they the veriest slaves, the 
 serfs of Eome, compared with whose most pitiable 
 condition the negro's servitude is an enviable lot. 
 
 To such an extent has Rome carried her defiance 
 of law, that an honored stranger has been robbed in 
 England of his lawful wife, and to this moment is 
 unable to obtain justice in this land. 
 
 I blush for our country, for the weakness of law, 
 for our debased subserviency to Rome, that a stran- 
 ger should have appealed in vain for justice at the 
 highest tribunal, and that the House of Commons 
 should have turned a deaf ear to a petition " to right 
 a poor man in his brave struggle, after long endurance 
 in England of such wrong as no tribe of red Indians 
 in his native laud would not have risen up in mass to 
 vindicate upon its perpetrator." My heart bleeds for 
 the sufferings which Pierce Connelly has endured in 
 our land at the hands of Rome. It makes one hang 
 one's head, and almost ashamed of the name of 
 Englishman, to think that our country could suffer 
 such indignities and such injustice to be heaped on 
 the head of a stranger, who has in vain demanded, 
 petitioned, and implored that his lawful wife be set 
 free from the clutches of Rome, and restored to her 
 husband and children. 
 
 Whenever nunneries have been thrown open tc
 
 PRIESTLY CELIBACY EXPOSED. 43 
 
 public gaze, they have proved dens of infamy and 
 sharne, little better than ecclesiastical seraglios, so that 
 one ceases to wonder at the watchful jealousy of the 
 priestly porters. 
 
 If it be, as their advocates contend, that these 
 secluded sisters are so serenely happ}^ so tranquil and 
 contented, so virtuous and so seraphic, so blessed with 
 celestial peace and joy in their voluntary retirement, 
 then I ask, why those gloomy walls, those massive 
 locks, those grated windows, those blockaded portals ? 
 As soon would I believe that the wiry cage that con- 
 fines the mournful lark was not expressly meant to bar 
 her egress to the joyous fields, where rising on glad- 
 some wing, and towering to heaven's gate, she might 
 pour her celestial notes in joyful strain, wild in the 
 freedom of her glad escape as that these bars and 
 bolts of monastic gloom are not placed to check the 
 longed-for escape of imprisoned slaves. 
 
 Such strict watch and guard however are needed, 
 not merely -to retain the bodies of unwilling victims, 
 but likewise to- place restraint on rumor, with her 
 many tongues, that deeds of darkness may not come 
 to light 
 
 I will now, however, give you a few revelations of 
 what goes on inside these nunneries, notwithstanding 
 the lynx-eyed jealousy of their priestly conservators 
 to conceal it from the light of day. 
 
 14. In the year 673, the Council of Cloveshoe 
 found it necessary to order that " the monasteries 
 should not be turned into places of amusement for 
 harpers and buffoons, and that laymen should not be 
 admitted within their walls too freely, lest they might
 
 44 
 
 PRIESTLY CELIBACY EXPOSED. 
 
 be scandalized at the offences they might discover 
 there ; because on this account, not only causes of 
 divers and nefarious suspicion arises, but they are prop- 
 agated and repeated, to the disgrace of our profession. 
 Wherefore let not the cells of the nuns be the abodes 
 of shameful talking, drunkenness, and luxurj 7 ." ' 
 
 Boniface wrote as follows, in A. D. 730: "And we 
 are informed that which is worse ; this crime of great- 
 est magnitude (fornication) is committed with nuns 
 throughout the convents, and with virgins dedicated 
 to God. It is to be noted that in that crime another 
 great wickedness lies, because, whilst those harlots 
 produce offspring wickedly conceived in sin, they 
 often, for the most part, kill them, not filling the 
 Church of Christ with adopted sons, but satiating the 
 grave with bodies, and hell with miserable souls." " 
 
 16. In the year 1177, " thirty nuns of the monas- 
 tery of Amesbury were accused and convicted for their 
 unclean lives, whereupon the king, having expelled the 
 nuns for their incontinence, distributed them in other 
 houses, to be more strictly guarded. "* 
 
 17. But I might detain you till midnight with 
 details of this kind, and we will therefore advance on 
 to the day of Eeformation, when a thorough exposure 
 of these infamous houses was made, and we are able 
 to ascertain what was the state of the nunneries of 
 England in the sixteenth century. The commission 
 era appointed by Henry VIII. to inquire into the 
 
 1 Wilkins' Concilia, i. 97. 
 
 * Epist. of Boniface to Ethelbald. 
 
 * Prynne, ii. 228.
 
 PRIESTLY CELIBACY EXPOSED. 45 
 
 state of the monasteries, reported that " monstrous dis- 
 orders were found in many religious houses whole 
 convents of women abandoned to lewdness, signs of 
 abortion procured, of infants murdered, and of unnat- 
 ural lusts." This testimony was confirmed by another 
 body of commissioners, appointed, not by Henry, but 
 by Paul III. 
 
 18. Similar details I could give you, did time per- 
 mit, of the immoral state of nunneries in succeeding 
 years, nearer our own times ; thus, it is related, " that 
 on taking down two convents of monks and nuns that 
 were contiguous, about fifty years ago, there tumbled 
 out as many dry bones of infants as would fill a large 
 basket, and a private trap-door was found which com- 
 municated from one convent to the other." 1 A pre- 
 cisely similar discovery took place a few years ago at 
 Quebec, when, on clearing away the foundation of a 
 nunnery, a quantity of bones and remains of infants 
 were found beneath the pavement. 
 
 19. And now coming down to our own times, in the 
 year 1823 the bodies of two newly-born infants were 
 found by the gardener, buried within the walls of the 
 nunnery of Dungarvon. This discovery, though sup- 
 pressed by the priests, at length blazed out and came 
 to trial, when it was clearly proved that Fathei 
 Mahcr, P. P. of Dungarvon, was the father of these 
 children, by two nuns of the house; and three ser- 
 vants of the nunnery testified on oath that the said 
 Father Maher had had improper intercourse with no 
 less than nine of these nuns at certain intervals. 
 
 1 Hist of Switzerland, p. 767.
 
 46 PRIESTLY CELIBACY EXPOSED. 
 
 And, lastly, I shall give you a peep into our 
 English nunneries at the present time. A lady, con- 
 fined in an English nunnery, as we have reason to sup- 
 pose, against her will, or at all events against her hus- 
 band's will, has communicated to her hasband an 
 attempt made upon her chastity by a Romish priest 
 Under these circumstances, I am not at all surprised 
 that the injured husband should feel himself aggrieved 
 or complain that " the copper Cardinal has a suite of 
 apartments in the same house with my wife; and 
 though he or any filthy priest may be closeted with 
 her alone, and by authority, for hours, yet at this 
 moment, in England, that mother is not allowed to see 
 her daughter for one moment alone." 
 
 20. The following statement may farther satisfy 
 your mind, if further proof you need, that at the pres- 
 ent day, in England, those closely ware lied and care- 
 fully barred nunneries are not at all times the seats of 
 secluded innocency, angelic purity, and celestial devo- 
 tion : 
 
 " I had a long audience of leave from the Pope, in 
 1848, and was charged by His Holiness with a message 
 to a near relative, living in a convent in England. On 
 arriving, in June, I went to the convent and rang at 
 the priest's door ; I was told that the priest was not 
 up, as he was not well, and I was shown into a parlor. 
 After waiting for some time, I went up stairs, and 
 opened his bedroom door. The priest was quite well, 
 he was not more than half dressed, and a young nun 
 was standing by him, who on seeing me, immediately 
 fled. I made a representation to the Bishop, but the 
 priest was not removed."
 
 PRIESTLY CELIBACY EXPOSED 47 
 
 I am indebted for the above to Mr. Drummond, 
 
 who has thoroughly exposed the filthy purlieus of a 
 nunnery, in his able pamphlet, and he is prepared to 
 produce the name of the person from whom he 
 received this communication. I believe the priestly 
 paramour thus detected was none other than Dr. 
 Asperti, whom Mr. Connelly denounced to Dr. Ulla- 
 thorne, as having detected him with a nun in his bed- 
 chamber. 
 
 I think I have now given you facts enough to 
 satisfy any reasonable man of the immoral tendency 
 of priestly celibacy; and if there be any individual 
 present who does not now understand the subject, I 
 must decline the attempt to enlighten that man's 
 mind. 
 
 It may be asked, what possible motive can Rome 
 have for clinging with such tenacity to this unnatural 
 law of celibacy? When hard driven by her adversa- 
 ries, she is obliged to give up Scriptural authority, and 
 to plead that it is merely a matter of discipline; but 
 she has had painful experience of that discipline, she 
 has found it a total failure, she has long since discov- 
 ered its immoral tendencies, and by her edicts and 
 bulls has again and again proclaimed its mischievous 
 consequences. Like unto whited sepulchres, it has 
 indeed appeared beautiful outwardly, but within it is 
 full of dead infants' bones and all uncleanliness. 
 Instead of promoting sanctity, it has produced vice ; 
 instead of exalting men to heights of seraphic holi- 
 ness, it has debased them in the mire of impurity. 
 
 Why, then, persist in it, since it is only a matter of 
 discipline and has failed so egregiously? I wiU tell
 
 48 PRIESTLY CELIBACY EXPOSED. 
 
 you why. True, it has utterly failed to restrain or 
 sanctify the priesthood, but it has not failed of the 
 great end which Hildebrand had in view from t)ie 
 first, and which, since then, has never been lost sight 
 of by the crafty rulers of Eome. It has not failed 
 as an instrument of her aggrandizement and her 
 power. 
 
 The celibacy of the clergy may be termed one of 
 the most powerful political engines ever devised by 
 cunning and wielded by ambition ; by this means the 
 Pope has brought iato existence an ecclesiastical body- 
 guard for the defense of Popedom throughout the 
 world ; a corps of spiritual Janizaries, detached from 
 all ties, domestic, social, patriotic men without 
 family, without country, without aim or object, except 
 the aggrandizemenj; of their body, in blind obedience 
 to their spiritual head. 
 
 No wonder, then, that the Pope of Rome clings 
 with instinctive grasp to the doctrine of priestly 
 celibacy. No wonder that he turned a deaf ear to the 
 outcries of Germany, when the representatives of the 
 people in the kingdom of Wurtemburg did, from time 
 to time, solicit him that their clergy might be allowed 
 to marry. 
 
 No wonder that he turned a deaf ear to the petition 
 of the unhappy slaves of this vicious custom, a petition 
 signed by two hundred and eighty Romish clergymen, 
 in the grand dukedom of Baden, imploring His Holi- 
 ness to repeal the obnoxious law, to knock off their 
 embittered shackles, and give them leave to marry. 
 
 But no ! the celibacy of the clergy is too useful an 
 instrument, too powerful a weapon ! Rome will never
 
 PRIASTLY CELIBACY EXPOSED. 49 
 
 cancel the decree of Hildebrand, for by it she is 
 furnished with such a body of spies as never secular 
 tyrant could boast of. 
 
 She hath sent forth her emissaries over the face of 
 the earth, everywhere devoted to her service, cut off 
 from all inferior attachments of family and country to 
 do her bidding. Napoleon had his spies in every 
 quarter, but that great general could only survey the 
 outside of things by means of his espionage. Rome 
 gets within, scans the secret motives of men's deeds, 
 has tidings of every contemplated" act, private and 
 public, before its execution; by means of this power 
 she reigns as a queen, arid laughs at the princes of the 
 earth. Give up the celibacy of the clergy ? No, 
 never! Never, whilst she can wield the sceptre of her 
 power, seated on the seven hills. 
 
 Rome has put dishonor upon the sacred bond oi 
 matrimony ; for though she pretends to exalt it as a 
 sacrament, in order that she may have a priestly po'/ver 
 to exercise, or in other words, what she loves above 
 all things, a finger in every man's pie ; yet she has 
 insulted the marriage bond, by extolling celibacy as a 
 far holier state ; her writers constantly express them- 
 selves in terms derogatory of marriage, and only the 
 other day Mr. Connelly was abused by the organ of 
 Rome as " a filthy old man," for desiring the restitu- 
 tion of his lawful wife. 
 
 Matrimony is adapted for the highest development 
 of all that is great and good in man ; the union of the 
 two sexes, in the endearments of domestic and social 
 life, is that state which is best calculated to lead on 
 both to perfection, to soften what is harsh, to strengthen
 
 60 PRIESTLY CELIBACY EXPOSED. 
 
 what is weak : it ennobles the human character, drawa 
 forth the sympathies of our nature, gives scope for the 
 best feelings of the heart, excites the noblest energies 
 of the soul. 
 
 " Love refines 
 
 The thoughts, the heart enlarges, hath his seat 
 In reason, and is judicious ; is the scale 
 By which to heavenly love thou mayst ascend, 
 Not sunk in carnal pleasure." 
 
 Eome has degraded woman from her rightful place in 
 the family of man ; has dragged her from the social 
 board and the happy ties of domestic life ; has cor- 
 rupted her mind ; has imprisoned her body in doleful 
 solitude, where she is kept against her will ; and I say, 
 had Rome no other guilt to answer for than the wrongs 
 she has inflicted on woman, she would still deserve 
 the eternal execrations of mankind. 
 
 Are we then to remain in tame quiescence, whilst 
 our deadly foe, witn rampant energy, invades our 
 domestic hearth, to rob us of our social peace and 
 home-endearing joys '( 
 
 Most assuredly not! Morals decay, female purity 
 fades, 1 the human mind degenerates beneath the blight 
 
 1 The Rev. Mr. Seymour has recently published some statistics, 
 which bring to light the awful and almost incredible immorality of 
 Popish countries an immorality intimately connected with the sub- 
 ject of this lecture^ nay, one of the natural aud necessary consequen- 
 ces of priestly celibacy, which seems to have assisted in depraving the 
 morals of a large portion of the community, and has succeeded in low- 
 ering the standard of female virtue, as compared with other countries, 
 by at least forty or fifty per cent. The following table will show the
 
 PRIESTLY CELIBACY EXPOSED. 
 
 51 
 
 of Home's unhallowed breath ; and hampered though 
 we be by truckling politicians and luke-warm friends, 
 there is, I trust, enough of stern, uncompromising 
 principle left amongst us to make Rome stand back, 
 and to drive her from our shores in dire disgrace. 
 The ashes of our martyrs are still revered, the blood 
 they shed still cries for justice, the candle they lighted, 
 though dimmed, is not extinguished ; and, I trust, the 
 coming struggle for come it must will rid this land 
 for ever from the curse of priestly celibacy, and all 
 the other monstrous figments of Rome's unhallowed 
 creed. 
 
 comparative per-centage of illegitimate births in England, and in the 
 principal Romish countries of the continent : 
 
 Place. 
 
 N 
 
 .a 
 
 tH 
 
 A a 
 I& 
 
 m 
 
 'sb "> 
 3% 
 
 *s "o 
 '&1? 
 
 3* 
 
 Proportion of Illegitimate. 
 
 London, 
 
 1851 
 
 78,300 
 
 75,097 
 
 3,203 
 
 Four per cent 
 
 Paris, 
 
 1850 
 
 29,628 
 
 19,921 
 
 9,707 
 
 Thirty-three per. cent., or on&- 
 third. 
 
 Brussels, 
 
 1850 
 
 5,281 
 
 3,448 
 
 1,833 
 
 Thirty-five per cent., or mor 
 than one-third. 
 
 Munich, 
 
 1851 
 
 3,464 
 
 1,762 
 
 1,702 
 
 Forty-eight per cent., or nearly 
 one-half. 
 
 Vien'a, j 
 
 1841 
 1849 
 
 16,682 
 19,241 
 
 8,941 
 8,881 
 
 7,741 
 10,360 
 
 Nearly one-half. 
 Upwards of one-half. 
 
 Rome, 
 
 
 4,373 
 
 Foundlings ex- 
 posed in one 
 year, 3,160. 
 
 Proportion of Foundlings to 
 births, seventy-three per cent. 
 or near three-fourths. 
 
 Thus does Rome maintain her pre-eminence over ah" the world I 
 Seventy-three per cent of the births in the city o the Seven Hills, the 
 city of the Pope and his Cardinals, illegitimate !
 
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 Bight Living, The Angel of Forg? yeness. 
 
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 Foolish Pride and Silly Prejudice, Progress; or Enlightenment: 
 
 Anger, the Distorter, Wisdom. 
 
 Miss Wixon has taken as her mottoes in writing this beautiful 
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 and mother these sentences from the works of a great synthetic phi- 
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 As with the physical, so with the ethical. A belief, as yet fltful 
 ana partial, is beginning to spread amongst men, that here, also, there is 
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 Living is an Art, a method of expressing great conceptions; in 
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 The Creed of Christendom. WILLIAM RATH- 
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 The Foundations contrasted with the Super- 
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 The present edition has been reprinted from the 
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 present edition has been made the most accurate 
 and complete ever issued. CONTENTS : Inspiration 
 of the Scriptures. Modern Modifications of the 
 Doctrine of Inspiration. Authorship and Author- 
 ity of the Pentateuch and the Old Testament 
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 the Jews Impure and Progressive. Origin of the 
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 of John. Eesults of the Foregoing Criticism. 
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 Miracles. Resurrection of Jesus. Is Chris- 
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 A 3VEW BIBLE FICTTJRl^-UOOK. 
 
 OLD TESTAMENT STORIES COMIC 
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 jnstaining a Theory Some Giants Adventures and Work of Noah 
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 the Man of Dreams Holy Moses Balaam the Diviner Bloody Joshua 
 The Campaign of Deborah and Barak Against Jabin and Sisera General 
 Gideon Jephthah and Hi Human Sacrifice Samson the Strong Ruth 
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 ABRAHAM LINCOLN: WAS HE A CHRISTIAN I 
 
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 350 pp. 12mo. Cloth, $1 ; paper, 50 cents. 
 
 CANDLE FROM UNDER THE BUSHEL (THE). 
 
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 NEW BOOKS BY INGERSOLIi. 
 
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 THE GREAT INGERSOLL CONTROVERSY 
 
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