THE 
 
 WkYi OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH 
 
 AND 
 
 CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION. 
 
 ^ Urbiflu 0f 
 
 THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF ATHEISM ; ITS EXTENSION THROUGH VOLTAIRE ; ITS USE OF 
 
 FREEMASONRY AND KINDRED SECRET SOCIETIES FOR ANTICHRISTIAN WAR ; 
 
 THE UNION AND " ILLUMINISM " OF MASONRY BY WEISHAUPT ; ITS PROGRESS UNDER THE LEADERS 
 
 OF THE FIRST FRENCH REVOLUTION, AND UNDER NUBIUS, PALMERSTON, AND MAZZINI ; 
 
 THE CONTROL OF ITS HIDDEN " INNER CIRCLE " OVER ALL REVOLUTIONARY ORGANIZATIONS ; 
 
 ITS INFLUENCE OVER BRITISH FREEMASONRY ; ITS ATTEMPTS UPON IRELAND ; 
 
 OATHS, SIGNS, AND PASSWORDS OF THE THREE DEGREES, ETC., ETC. 
 
 THE SPOLIATION OF THE PROPAGANDA. 
 
 LECTUEES 
 
 DELIVERED IN EDINBURGH IN OCTOBER, 1884, 
 
 BY 
 
 MONSIGNOR GEORGE F. DILLON, D.D., 
 
 IJtissionarr Slpostoltt, SrDnrg. 
 
 *' Instruct the people as to the artifices used bij societies of this kind in seducing men and enticing 
 them into their ranks, and as to the depravity of their opinions and the wickedness of their acts."— 
 Encyclical Humanum Genus of Leo XIII. 
 
 DUBLIN : 
 
 M. H. GILL & SON, UPPER SACKVILLE-STREET. 
 
 LONDON AND NEW YORK : BURNS AND GATES. 
 
 1885. 
 
5^3'/^^^' 
 
 LOAN STACK 
 
 W. FOETUNE, D.D., 
 
 Censor Theologus Veipufafus. 
 Die 3 Mensis Mail, 1885 • 
 
 ^Imprimatur, 
 
 GULIELMUS J. CANON. WALSH, 
 
 Vic. Cap. Dublin, 
 
 Die 4 Mensia Mail, 1885. 
 
J3 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Preface ... ... ... ... ... ... vii 
 
 I. — Introduction, 1 
 
 Reasons for selecting the Subject — "Catholic Institute," a Society such as those 
 commended by Leo XIII., in the Bull, Humanum Genus. — Necessity of keeping 
 Youth from bad Associations — Necessity of unmasting Secret Societies — Words 
 of Leo XIII! — Freemasonry and Secret Societies with us — On the Continent — 
 All _ Secret Associations Atheistic, and intensely hostile to the Chui-ch, 
 Christianity, and Social order — Union of all Secret Societies — AU knowingly, 
 or otherwise, under a central direction and control — Fraud and Force — Review 
 of Atheistic Organization since the first French Revolution — Features of its 
 Progress. 
 
 II. — The Rise of Atheism in Europe. 5 
 
 The Spirit of Private Judgment advocated by Protestants ends in doubt — Disbelief in 
 the Divinity of Christ — Bayle, Spinosa — Deism, Pantheism, Atheism — Atheism 
 Absolute — Infidelity in England and Germany — Supreme in Prance through 
 
 III. — Voltaire. 6 
 
 His efforts to advance Atheism — His Parentage, Education and Early Life — Corruption 
 of the Age — European Courts, Nobles, and People — Gallicanism, Jansenism, and 
 finally Infidelity welcomed in France — Voltaire in Society — His banishment to 
 England and its Consequences — His return as a confirmed Disbeliever and Free- 
 mason — His power as a Writer — His attacks upon Religion, Morality and 
 Honour — His watchword, " Crush the Wretch" — His detei-mination to destroy 
 Chi-istianity — His Conceit — His part in the Suppression of the Jesuits — In- 
 dustry — Disciples — Frederick II. — Policy planned for the Destruction of 
 Catholicity^His advocacy of Lying — Hypocrisy — Impure, adidterous Life — 
 Every form of Christianity doomed by him — Proofs — Faith shown in sickness — 
 Pinal impenitence and terrible Death — Voltaire perpetuated in Freemasonry 
 and Secret Societies. 
 
 Notes. — Correspondence between Frederick II. and Voltaire - - . l" 
 
 Letter of Voltaire to Damilaville - - - - - . i2 
 
 IV. — Freemasonry. 16 
 
 Coincidence of the spread of Freemasonry with that of Atheism in Europe — Its 
 Origin from Lffilius and Faustus Socinus^The Conspiracy of Vicenza — Doctrines 
 and migi-ations of the Socinians — Oliver Cromwell a Sociuian and Free- 
 mason — Judaism in Masonry— Ancient Catholic Giiilds of real Masons— Papal 
 Charters — Degeneracy consequent on the Reformation— Charter of Cologne — 
 Freemasonry in Scotland — Obscurity of its history, until the time of Elias 
 Ashmole, its real Modern Founder^Use of English and Scotch Freemasonry, 
 by the Stuart partisans — Reason of its adoption by Atheism. 
 
 Note. — Connection of the Jews with Masonry ... 20 
 
 V. — The Union and "Illuminism" of Masonry. 26 
 
 Different "Obediences" in Masonry— Philip Egalite, Grand Master of the Scotch 
 Obedience in France, unites it with the English and French to form the Grand 
 Orient of France — Formation of Lodges, "Androgyne" or "Adoption" for 
 women — Consequences — "Illuminism" of Saint Martin — Horrible corruption 
 and assassination — Various afiiliations of "Illuminated" Lodges — Designs — 
 Suppression of the Jesuits before "Illuminism." 
 
 VI. — The Illuminism of Adam Weishaupt. 29 
 
 History and Character of Weishaupt — Weishaupt and the School of Voltaire — His 
 use of Masonry for the eradication of Christianity — Manipulation of Masons by his 
 lUumiuati — The Novices, the Minervals and other degrees of Illu.minati — Method 
 of forming and pei'fecting Minervals — The Art of bringing Religion into ridicule — 
 Instructions given to the perfected Minerval on attaining the degree of Scotch 
 Knight, or Epopte or Priest. 
 
 471 
 
IV CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Vn. — The Convent of Wilhelmsbad. 35 
 
 Masonry a dark parody on the Church — Its general Councils or "Convents" — 
 Convent of the Gauls in the " Holy City"— More general convent projected by 
 Weishaupt— It is held in Wilhelmsbad— Weishaupt causes his own " lUuminism" 
 to be adopted, through Barons Knigg and Dittfort— The French Revolution 
 there determined on. 
 
 VIII. — Cabalistic Masonry or Masonic Spiritism. 37 
 
 Cabalistic character of Freemasonry from its earliest stages — Development of that 
 character prior to the French Revolution — Cagliostro, his real name and 
 character — Weishaupt knowing him to be an impostor employs him to spread 
 Illuminated Masonry — His Success — His Women-Lodges — His rite of Masraim — 
 Impostures all over Europe— The "Diamond Necklace "—His Prophecy, knowing 
 the determination at Wilhelmsbad regarding the French Revolution — His end — 
 Antichrist essentially a Cagliostro. 
 
 IX — The French Revolution. 39 
 
 Knowledge of the designs of the Freemasons by various Courts of Europe — Reason of 
 inaction — Warnings from Rome unheeded — Resources of Masonry— Its Propa- 
 ganda amongst the masses— Union with Weishaupt — Perseverance — Testimony of 
 Robison on the connection of Masonry with the Revolution — Rise of a Dictator. 
 
 Note. — Testimony of Louis Blanc and Monsgi-. Segur regarding the effects of 
 
 Freemasonry on the Revolution. - - - - - .4:1 
 
 X. — ^Napoleon and Freehiasonrt. 44 
 
 Napoleon's desire to seem separated fi-om the Revolution — In reality, and in his 
 conduct to the Church, a Freemason from beginning to end — His use of the 
 Church political and hypocritical — Testimony of Father Deschamps — Reasons of 
 his being sent to Egypt, Masonic — His Proclamations to the Egyptians and 
 French professing his Mahommedanism — His indifference to every Religion mani- 
 fested to the last — Testimonies from St. Helena — From Napoleon III. — His 
 selection as Ruler of France made to exclude the Bourbons — His encouragement 
 of Masonry — Fidelity of liis Ministers to Illuminism — The cause— The persecu- 
 tions of the Church — End of Pius VII. — Freemasons betray Napoleon. 
 
 Note. — Progress of Freemasonry during the reign of Napoleon - - . ■* 
 
 The Templars "resuscitated." Napoleon's Fall - - - .51 
 
 XI. — Freemasonry after the Fall of Napoleon. 52 
 
 Weishaupt still living, Continental Masonry changes front to meet the Christian 
 reaction in Europe — lUuminati, Ministers in every Court of Europe, and faithful 
 to him — The Tugenbund — Masonry hypocritically worlring in France — Talleyrand 
 and other Illuminati seek a Protestant King for France — Failing, they succeed 
 in governing Louis XVIII. — They gain Freedom for Atheistic literature — They 
 overthrow the elder Bourbons for the Son of their Grand Master, Egalite. 
 
 Note. — Valuable Speech of Baron Haugwitz on the connection of Freemasonry 
 
 with the Revolution - . - - - . - .54 
 
 XII. — Kindred Secret Societies in Europe. 56 
 
 Use made of Freemasonry by Atheists — Its Construction — Objects of Atheism — 
 Various forms of Illuminated Masonry encouraged, and Masonry made more 
 elastic and hypocritical at Wilhelmsbad — Permitted to insinuate itself as a 
 Religious Society, provided its secrecy and hierarchical secret government be 
 preserved — The hidden Chiefs thus always able to bend any Secret Society to 
 Atheistic ends — Willingness of the French Illuminati to help Catholics in 
 Ireland — Reasons — Attempts of the Illuminati upon Catholic Italy — Temporal 
 Power of the Pope, the first thing to be destroyed— State of the Italian popula- 
 tion — Active Faction of Revolutionists left by the French in Italy — Formation 
 of the Carbonari. 
 
 XIII. — The Carbonari. 63 
 
 Original Carbonari, similar to United Irishmen — Intense Catholicity and loyalty of 
 the first Carbonari — They fall under the government of the Illuminati — Are made 
 wholly Infidel — The Supreme Directory, or Alta Vendita, governs all the Secret 
 Societies of the World — Its special action against the Pope. 
 
CONTENTF. V 
 
 PAGE 
 
 XrV. PERMANENT INSTRUCTION OF THE AlTA VeNDITA. 65 
 
 Value of Italy for piu-poses of the Revolution — Necessity of overcoming the Papacy — 
 "Our end, that of Voltaire and the French Revolution" — Hypocrisy of Garboii- 
 arisiu— Hope of a Revolutionist Pope — Ganganelli and Borgia — ITow to make a 
 faithful Cardinal or Prelate unpopular — ' ' Crush the enemy by lies and calumny ' ' — 
 How to corrupt Schools, Youths and Families — Intervention of Austria — How 
 to deceive the Clergy by patriotism — Nubius and other leaders of the Alta 
 Vendita— Piccolo Tigre-^His instructions to the Piedmontese Carbonari. 
 
 XV. — Letter of Piccolo Tigre. 73 
 
 Carbonari ordered to found " Societies" of any kind — Corrupt the Members — Manner 
 of procedure — Corruption first, and Freemasonry after — Folly of Freemasonry — 
 Its use for Carbonarism nevertheless — Seduction of Princes — Their use as 
 decoys — Carbonari recruited from Masonry — Treason punished by death — " The 
 Revolution in the Church, the Revolution e« permanence" — Resources from 
 England, &c.— Necessity for cold hatred — Principles of Piccolo Tigi-e actuating 
 Secret Societies all over the World — Proofs — Letter of Vindex to Nubius advising 
 Demoralization instead of Assassination^Mazzini, the advocate of Assassination- 
 Plan of tlie Alta Vendita for Demoralization — Legalization and popularization of 
 Prostitution — Corruption of Literature — Of University Education — Licence for 
 Blasphemy and Immoral Language — Corruption of Middle Class and Female 
 Education — Mazzini masters the Alta Vendita — Suspicious death of its Leader, 
 Nubius. 
 
 Note. — Mazzini on Organization - - - - - - . / 4 
 
 Rules of Mazzini for the Carbonari - - - - - . o-* 
 
 XVI. — The Intellectual and War Party in Masonry. 87 
 
 Existence of these departments — Preparation of all Masons to assist War Party in 
 Distress — Charge of the Venerable to all Apprentices — Examples— Victor Hugo 
 — Fate of the Alta Vendita. 
 
 XVII. — Lord Palmerston. 91 
 
 Incredulity natural regarding the role attributed to Palmerston by Father 
 Deschamps — Proofs from Henry Misley and Louis Blaiic — History of 
 Palmerston — Change from Conservative to Ultra-Liberal — His policy against 
 the Pope and Europe, Masonic — Not in the interests of England — Unites Italy 
 and Germany — Palmerston, Mazzini, and Louis Napoleon — Palmerston defies the 
 Queen, Cabinet, and Coiintry for Masonic ends — Inutility of his Dismissal for 
 acting without authority, and interpolatiag Dispatches — Isolation of England 
 made inevitable by his policy. 
 
 NOTES. — Testimony of Eckert - - - - - - ■ - " I 
 
 Jewish Illuminated Lodges in London - - - - • . J4 
 
 Testimony of Mr. F. Hugh O'Donnell, M.P. 96 
 
 XVIII. — War op the Intellectual Party. 97 
 
 Diffusion of Atheism and Immorality during the reign of Palmerston — Attacks on 
 the Christian Marriage Laws — On the Sabbath — On the Christian Customs of 
 Social and Public Life — On Primary Education — On Religious Instruction- 
 Queen's Colleges in Ireland — Attacks commenced on Religious Education in 
 England, successful by the aid of Masonry — Education of Females in purely Secular 
 and Master Schools — University Education — Contempt for Religion made 
 fashionable. 
 
 Note. — Monsigr. Dupauloup on the Freemason War against Christian Education - ' ''' ' 
 
 XIX. — The War Party under Palmerston. 105 
 
 Mazzini prepares Europe for the Revolutions of 1848 — Napoleon III. obtains influence 
 with the Chief — War for the weakening of Russia, for the severance of Austria 
 fi-om Russia, aud for the unification of Italy — War on the Temporalities of the 
 Pope — Consequences following the Revolutionary action of Masonry under 
 Palmerston all over the World — Death of Palmerston— Rise of Bismarck— Fall of 
 Napoleon — France and Napoleon abandoned by the Sectaries— Consequences. 
 
VI CONTP^NTS. 
 
 FAGB 
 
 XX. — The International, the Nihilists, the Black Hand, «&;c. Ill 
 
 Differences in Masonry between the "Conservative Eepublicans" and the "Logical" 
 Pai^y — Consequences to the masses from the victories of the Freemasons — State 
 of the people in Italy after a quarter of a century of Masonic rule— Misery of the 
 Peasants reduced to semi-starvation and to slavery by taxes and the anti-religious 
 laws— Denial to the mass of Italians of the Franchise — Exorbitant taxes on 
 the poor — Happy condition of the peasantry under the Popes — Masons in 
 power bound to advance the Atheistic Programme against their wiU — The Secret 
 Directory and their Anarchist War Party — The International and its division into 
 National and International Brothers— The Black Hand— The Nihilists— The 
 Anarchists with ourselves — Duty of oiu- Government in the face of Dynamitards, &c. 
 
 XXI. — Freemasonry with Ourselves. 121 
 
 Union between Continental and British Masonry — Vanguard cries of Atheism 
 supported by the latter — The Sabbath observance attacked — Granting the 
 alleged freedom of British Masonry from the dark aims of the Continental, can a 
 conscientious Christian join it ? — Oaths taken essentially immoral — Oaths, Grips, 
 and Passwords of the three Degrees of British Masonry— The Apprentice- The 
 Fellow Craft— The Master. — British Masonry meant to wean Christians to 
 Atheism in its " higher " developments — Proof from the inauguration of Knights 
 of the Sun— God, "the Grand Architect," reduced to a Circle— Immorality 
 fostered by British Masonry— American Masonry murders Morgan for telUng its 
 Ritualistic secrets — Its practical inconveniences. 
 
 Notes. — Names of Delegates from Irish to Continental Lodges preserved in Dublin 
 
 Castle 1^1 
 
 Masonry in favour of Cremation, &c. ..... i-'4o 
 
 XXII.— Fenianism. 136 
 
 The Atheistic Directory and Ireland— Attempts in the last Century— Consequences- 
 Attempts in this — First Fenian leaders go to Paris to study the Secret Society 
 system on which to found Fenianism— This step taken during Pahnerston's rule 
 of the Sect— Consequences— Fenianism, perfected in Paris as Black Masonry— 
 Accordingly, hypocritical like Carbonarism — Its advances among the good. 
 Catholic Irish—Movements against England supposed to be Catholic — Efforts of 
 A. M. Svillivan, Smith O'Brien, the Nation and the Clergy to save the Irish 
 people from the seduction of Fenianism— The Fenian Newspaper permitted 
 by Palmerstou to talk Treason— Its attacks on the Clergy and the consequences- 
 Even the Irish Fenian Leaders, at heart Catholic, ten-ibly demoralized by the 
 Sect— Heartless seduction of Irish youth to certain ruin— History of James 
 Stephens as given by Mr. A. M. Sullivan- Of the movement, and its insensate 
 and criminal absui-dity — Traitors, Informers— Seducers amongst working men 
 in England, Scotland, and America— E\dl consequences to those deceived by them. 
 
 XXIII. — Sad Ending of the Conspirators. 147 
 
 This compared with the deaths of the faithful Irish people, who perished in the 
 worst recorded miseries — The martyr's crown in persecution and famine — Proofs — 
 The Career of the Secret- Society Seducer — Its sad ending. 
 
 XXrV. — The Triumph of Irish Faith. 150 
 
 Inutility of every attack upon Irish Faith — Testimony of Archbishop Moran— 
 God Save Ireland from Secret Societies — Counsel needed from God's Virgin 
 Mother — Advance of Atheism everywhere withstood solely by Ireland — Noble 
 conduct of the Irish people in every English-speaking country — They win others 
 to Christ while defeating the machinations of His enemy — Position of Ireland 
 in the triumph of Christ and His never-ending reign. 
 
 XXV. — Catholic Organization. 155 
 
 Review of the past — Wlien all human hope is gone God appears — Pius VI., Pius VII., 
 Pius IX., and Leo XIII. — Providence in sending us the latter Pontiff — His Acts 
 and Condition — Bull Hwmanmn Genus — " Tear the mask off Freemasonry" — 
 "Establish Pious Societies" — Obedience to his commands. 
 
 XXVI. — Catholic Total Abstinencr Societies. 160 
 
 Condition of the Irish abroad — Drink — Position in Scotland and England — Respect- 
 ability .of many — The unsuccessful ruined by drink alone — Consequences of 
 drink in Edinburgh — Can a working man drink and be honest to his family ? — 
 Conclusion. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The following pages contain the substance of two Lectures 
 given a few months ago in Edinburgh. The selection of 
 the subjects upon which they treat, and, indeed, the fact 
 of their being delivered at all, were, it may be said, acci- 
 dental. The author, a missionary priest, was, after over 
 twenty years' labour in Austraha, compelled for health 
 reasons to visit Europe ; and during the past season took 
 advantage of an opportunity to make a tour through 
 Scotland. His object in visiting that historic land was first 
 to gratify his Scotch friends and converts in Australia by 
 a sojourn, however brief, in a country, and in several special 
 localities of it, which he knew to be very dear to them ; and 
 next to satisfy his own desire of seeing the progress of 
 religion in that as well as in the other portions of the 
 British Islands which he had already visited. The condi- 
 tion of the Church in Ireland, and her advance amidst the 
 adverse influences with which she has to contend in England 
 and Scotland,are of intense interest to Australian Catholics ; 
 and an Australian missionary who visits these countries is 
 supposed to bring back much information regarding the 
 state of religion in each one of them. Scotland besides 
 i3 so full of historic reminiscences, and so favoured by 
 nature with splendid scenery, that a visit to Europe is 
 incomplete without a look upon its rugged hills, its 
 romantic lakes and lovely valleys, now made so interesting 
 
Vlll PREFACE. 
 
 by the works of Sir Walter Scott and other writers. The 
 land once evangelized by Columba and his bands of 
 missionary saints, has besides an indescribable charm for 
 a Catholic missionary. He went, therefore, with great 
 pleasure to Scotland, and he cannot speak too highly or 
 too thankfully of the kindness which the Venerable 
 Archbishop of Glasgow, the Bishops and the Clergy he 
 happened to meet with showed him. But, with the 
 exception of a Sunday sermon to oblige the good pastor 
 of whatever locality he happened to pass through, it 
 was his fixed intention not to speak publicly during his 
 rather rapid progress through the country. It happened, 
 however, that on coming to Edinburgh he found an old 
 and very dear friend and College companion in charge of 
 the most populous Catholic district of the metropolis, and 
 in deference to the earnest solicitations of that friend, he 
 departed from his resolution and gave during the few days 
 his stay lasted, first, a lecture on Secret Societies for the 
 benefit of a large and flourishing Catholic Association 
 for men ; and secondly, as a sequel to that, a lecture on the 
 Spohation of the Propaganda. / 
 
 Both lectures were delivered extemporaneously ; that 
 is to say, so far as the language which conveyed their 
 substance was concerned. The matter, however, had 
 been made famihar to the speaker by many years of 
 observation and reading. Very flattering, and, in some 
 cases, very full reports of them appeared in Catholic 
 new^spapers. The report of the principal Protestant organ 
 of public opinion in Edinburgh (the Scotsman) was 
 
PREFACE. IX 
 
 very fair, but another paper bitterly resented what it 
 chose to consider an attack on "Freemasonry and 
 Freedom." It was not, however, so much in the hope of 
 diverting Protestants from Freemasonry as in the desire 
 to show to Cathohcs that all kinds of secret societies were 
 as bad as, if not worse than, Freemasonry — were, in fact, 
 united with, and under the rule of the worst form of 
 Freemasonry — that the lecturer essayed to speak at all 
 upon the subject. If what he said could influence anyone 
 outside the Church from joining the worse than folly of 
 British Masonry, he would rejoice at the result ; but 
 his principal aim was to save his own co-religionists from 
 an evil far more pernicious to them than British Masonry 
 has ever been to Protestants. In this latter design, he 
 was glad to learn ^hat he had considerable success ; and 
 amongst those who heard or read hi3 utterances, very 
 many expressed a desire to see what he happened to 
 have said in a permanent form. Notwithstanding the 
 difflculties of doing this with any effect during a vacation 
 tour, he determined, at whatever cost to himself, to gratify 
 their wishes, and therefore took advantage of a few weeks' 
 rest, while spending Christmas in his Alma Mater — All 
 Hallows' College, Dubhn — to put both lectures into the 
 shape in which he now presents them to such as may 
 desire to read them, i 
 
 It must, however, be remembeied that these lectures 
 are nothing more than what they were originally ; that is, 
 casual discourses, and not formal and exhaustive treatises on 
 the subjects upon which they touch. For convenience he 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 has divided each one into separate headings ; and wliere 
 necessary to illustrate the text, he has added notes. These 
 are necessary in order to form a clear idea of the whole 
 matter treated. Notes, however, are not always proofs ; 
 and proofs however difficult to be obtained against oppo- 
 nents intent on concealment, must, nevertheless, be 
 forthcoming in order to convince. He has, therefore, 
 embodied in the text several documents which were only 
 referred to, or but partially quoted in the spoken lectures. 
 Those now occupy many pages of the lecture upon Secret 
 Societies, and will, he behoves, be read with considerable 
 interest by such as have not previously been acquainted 
 with them. " The Permanent Instruction " and the letters 
 of Vindex and Piccolo Tig re, originally published by 
 M. Cretineau- Joly from the archives of the Alta Vendita, 
 after they were fortunately discovered by the Eoman 
 police, are of this class. Certain extracts are also given 
 of equal value. Most of those documents have been 
 translated into English from French translations of the 
 original Italian and German ; and one passage, that of 
 Mr. Eiobison on Ereemasonry as the cause of the first 
 Erench Eevolution, is taken from a translation from the 
 Englisli into Erench, re-done into English, as it was 
 impossible to find the original English worK of Mr. 
 Kobison, which, though extremely valuable, is, he believes, 
 long out of print. The documents regarding the Spolia- 
 tion of tlie Propaganda have been translated from the 
 Latin and Italian originals. He has endeavoured to 
 translate all such documents as literally as possible, so as 
 to preserve their value as evidences.\ 
 
PREFACE. xi 
 
 The first lecture, which he has entitled the war of 
 Antichrist wdth the Church and Christian Civilization, is 
 intended to treat, in as brief space as possible, the whole 
 question of Secret, Atheistic Organization, its origin, its 
 nature, its history in the last century and in this, and its 
 unity of satanic purpose in a wonderful diversity of 
 forms. To do this with effect, it was necessary to go over 
 a large area of ground, and to touch upon a great variety 
 of topics. The writer was conscious that much of this 
 ground and many of these topics would be very much 
 better known to a large number of Ins readers than to 
 himself. Nearly every matter he had to speak about had 
 been already very frequently handled ably and exhaustively 
 in our Catholic reviews, magazines and newspapers. But 
 notwithstanding this fact, very few, if any, attempts have 
 been made in our language to treat the subject as a whole. 
 Many articles which he has seen, proposed to treat some 
 one feature only of the Atheistic conspiracy — for example, 
 Preemasonry ; or the Infidel war upon Christian education 
 and Christian institutions ; or the Kevolution in Italy ; or 
 the efforts of sectaries against the Temporal Power of 
 the Pope, and against the welfare of Christian States 
 generally. Several writers appeared to assume as known 
 that wdiich w^as really unknown to very many ; and few 
 touched at all .upon the fact — a fact, no doubt, difficult 
 to prove from the strict and ably guarded secrecy wdiich 
 protects it — of th^e supreme direction given to the univer- 
 sality of secret societies from a guiding, governing, and — • 
 even to the rank and file of the members of the secret 
 
Xii PREFACE. 
 
 societies themselves — unknown and invisible junta cease- 
 lessly sitting in dark conclave and guiding the whole mass 
 of the secret societies of the world. 
 
 If it be difficult at this moment to point out the 
 place of meeting and the members of that powerful body 
 its existence can be proved from past discoveries of the 
 secret workings of the Order, and from present unity of 
 action in numberless occurring circumstances amongst a 
 vast multitude of men, whose essential organization con- 
 sists in bUnd obedience to orders coming down through 
 many degrees from an unknown source which thinks and 
 orders for the purposes of the whole conspiracy. The 
 great object, in order to understand the nature of such a 
 conspiracy, is to find out the ends for which those who 
 framed or adopted it, took it up. Por instance, Infidelity, 
 as it is now known in the world, never, it may be said, 
 existed to any appreciable extent before the time of 
 Yoltaire. Voltaire devoted his whole life to spread 
 Infidelity and destroy Christianity. When we see Yoltaire 
 and his disciples eagerly seize upon Treemasonry, and 
 zealously propagate it, as a means to their ends, we may 
 reasonably infer, it was because they judged Masonry 
 fitting for their Infidel and anti-Christian purposes. This 
 is further confirmed when we see Masonry adopted by all 
 men of their principles without exception. And it 
 becomes proved to demonstration when we see its organ- 
 ization seized upon as the basis of further and more 
 complex planning for the avowed purposes of ruining 
 Christianity and placing Atheism in its stead. Erench 
 
PREFACE. XIU 
 
 Atheism using Masonry thus perfected, produced what it 
 aimed at during the Eeign of Terror in France, which, as 
 we shall see, is only a prelude to what it means one 
 day to accomplish throughout the entire world. 
 
 In order to make these facts clear, the writer, so far 
 as the form of a single lecture would allow, has given as 
 much of the history and character of both Voltaire and 
 Freemasonry, as might serve to show the adaptability of 
 the latter to the designs of the former. He has spoken of 
 the union and illuminism of Masonry through the instru- 
 mentality of Weishaupt, and has shown the immediate 
 consequences of the organization and influence of that 
 arch-conspirator in the first French Eevolution and its 
 outcome, the Consulate and the Empire. He deemed it 
 a duty to dispel the glamour of false glory which many 
 Christian writers have aided in throwing over Napoleon I., 
 a real child of Freemasonry and Eevolution, and to re- 
 present him in his true colours. For though it cannot be 
 denied that Napoleon restored the Church, it is equally true 
 that his half-hearted measures in favour of religion tended 
 to deaden that strong reaction against Atheism which 
 even Eobespierre's attempts could not control ; while the 
 encouragement he gave to Freemasonry caused that 
 organization to so powerfully permeate Europe that it 
 has since controlled the civilized world with a subtle, 
 powerful force which nothing has been able to stay 
 save the Catholic Church alone. 
 
 Under the headings mentioned, the author has given 
 the salient phases of the action of the whole dread 
 
XIV PREFACE. 
 
 conspiracy. He has dwelt at considerable length on its 
 efforts in Italy and in Europe generally. He has given 
 in extenso documents of the dark directory which rules 
 all the secret societies of the world. These documents 
 give the key to that satanic policy which guides the 
 Eevolution to this day. He adopts the opinion of 
 Eckert, Deschamps, Segur, and other grave Continental 
 authorities, as to the fact that Lord Palmerston succeeded 
 Nubius as Chief of the " Inner Circle," and consequently 
 Grand Patriarch of all the secret societies of the world ; 
 and he judges this not only from the testimony of Henry 
 Misley, one of the Alta Vendita under Nubius and 
 Palmerston, but much more from the suicidal, revolutionary 
 policy which Palmerston adopted when Eoreign 
 Minister of England, and which leaves that country now 
 without an ally in the world. This policy suited the con- 
 spirators of Europe ; but no man should have known 
 better than Palmerston that it could not suit Great 
 Britain. It was the reversal of all that the best British 
 statesmen had adopted as safeguards against the recur- 
 rence of Bonapartism and revolution, after the peace 
 obtained at Waterloo. But Palmerston was made a 
 monarch to become a slave to the secret sects, and for 
 their views he unceasingly laboured, regardless of country 
 or of any other consideration. 
 
 The existence of two parties in secret-society organi- 
 zation is a fact not generally known ; but it explains 
 many things in events daily occurring both on the 
 Continent and at home, which would be otherwise 
 
PREFACE. XV 
 
 inexplicable. It explains how ministers like Gavour can 
 sometimes — in play, of course — imprison generals like 
 Garibaldi, how Thiers could crush the Commune, and 
 how Eerry can make show of being adverse to anarchists 
 in Paris. Nevertheless, the anarchists are the children 
 of the Sovereign Directory. Their highest leaders are men 
 of the '-Inner Circle." If policy requires a revolution or 
 an outraofC, anarchists of the rank and file are led on to 
 make it ; and are generally left also to their fate — a fate, 
 in its turn, made use of for the purposes of the general 
 Kevolution. The Inner Circle of high conspirators, in the 
 solitude of their dark plottings, manage all and find uses 
 for all. Politics, with them, are mere playthings. Upon 
 great social movements, upon discontented populations, 
 upon corruption, distraction, and contention, they rely to 
 bring their one redoubted enemy, the Catholic Church, 
 to what they call the tomb. 
 
 There are few people on earth more concerned with 
 this fact than the Irish people. 
 
 The Irish people are now found not only in Ireland, 
 but outside Ireland in large centres of industry, where the 
 action of the International Association of Workmen, 
 and other kindred working men's associations, have 
 most influence. It must be borne in mind that the 
 amelioration in the condition of the working-man is never 
 attempted by the International without coupling with it 
 the strongest hatred for Christianity. Nothing proves more 
 clearly its origin and its connection with the Supreme 
 Directory of the Cosmopolitan Atheistic Conspiracy against 
 
XVI PREFACE. 
 
 religion and order than this one fact. In 1870, the 
 society liad on its rolls ten milhons of members. Its 
 numbers have yearly increased since. At the famous 
 International Congress, held in Geneva in 1868, it 
 formulated the following declaration, which has since been 
 more than once acted on by its members on the Continent : 
 
 "Manifesto. 
 
 *' The object of the International Association of 
 " Workmen, as of every other Socialist Association, is to 
 " do away with the parasite and the pariah. Now, what 
 *' parasite can be compared to the priest who takes away 
 " the pence of the poor and of the widow by means of 
 *' lying. What outcast more miserable than the Christian 
 " Pariah. 
 
 " God and Christ, these citizen-Providences have 
 " been at all tioies the armour of Capital and the most 
 " sanguinary enemies of the working classes. It is owing 
 " to God and to Christ that we remain to this day in 
 " slavery. It is by deluding us with lying hopes that 
 *'the priests have caused us to accept all the sufferiogs 
 " of this earth. 
 
 " It is only after sweeping away all religion, and 
 " after tearing up even to the last roots every religious 
 " idea. Christian and every other whatsoever, that we can 
 " arrive at our political and social ideal. 
 
 " Let Jesus look after his heaven. We believe 
 " only in humanity. It would be but to fail in all our 
 " duties w^ere we to cease, even for a second, to pursue 
 " the monsters who have tortured us. 
 
PREFACE. X\ll 
 
 " Down, tlien, with God and with Christ ! Down 
 " with the despots of heaven and earth ! Death to the 
 " priests ! Such is the motto of our grand Crusade." 
 
 This address gives the true spirit and aim of the 
 International League, which has emissaries everywhere 
 striving to decoy working men into secret- society 
 intrigues. In America it has already led Irish Catholic 
 labourers into lamentable excesses. It has under its 
 control some seemingly laudable benefit societies which 
 it uses as a means to draw Catholics gradually from the 
 influence of the Church. The necessity therefore of 
 being prepared for its efforts must be evident to everyone. 
 
 Erom the general consideration of secret societies, the 
 author turns to their action amongst ourselves. He gives 
 the most salient features of British Freemasonry, its 
 oaths, passwords, and signs. He shows to what extent 
 it differs from Continental Masonry, and how it is 
 essentially unlawful and dangerous. He then passes to 
 the principal point of his lecture, so far as his auditory 
 were concerned — Eenianism. 
 
 All that he had stated before, here becomes of use as 
 explanatory of the nature of that mischievous conspiracy, 
 which had its rise, development, and ending — if, indeed, it 
 has ended — while the author was engaged upon the 
 Australian mission. But he has given ample proof of 
 its designs from admitted authorities. The history of its 
 founders he has taken from a source that cannot be 
 impugned, the works of the late Mr. A. M. Sullivan, of 
 the Nation. The other articles, on the sad ending of 
 
XVlll PREFACE. 
 
 conspirators, and the wonderful indestructibility of Irisli 
 Taith rest upon tlieir own merits. 
 
 A discourse which aimed at illustrating the words 
 of our Holy Father Leo XIII. could not be complete 
 without a reference to such societies as the wisdom of the 
 great Pontiff has pointed out as fitted for Christian men. 
 The author, therefore, speaks in favour of the excellent 
 Temperance Society he found already in action, con- 
 nected with the Catliolic Institute, as a sovereign antidote 
 against secret societies of every description, and as the 
 best remedy for those ills he could not help witnessing 
 when passing through Edinburgh, and other great centres 
 of population in England and Scotland. He plainly refers 
 to the evil which certain idle agitators brinsf in those 
 cities amongst poor, good-natured, but credulous, Irish 
 Catholic working men. He believes that nine-tenths of the 
 pabulum which keeps such pernicious seducers in employ- 
 ment would be destroyed if Irish working men could 
 be removed from the influence of persons who make 
 profit out of their unfortunate drinking habits ; and that 
 misfortune of nearly every temporal kind would cease for 
 them, if they became temperate aiid continued to practise 
 ttiose virtues which Cathohc confraternities with strict 
 sobriety as a first rule, foster. He has therefore given 
 his aid in advocacy of such societies as are calculated to 
 keep the Irish in England and in Scotland, and indeed 
 everywhere, sober, — a quality which, with habits of 
 industry, economy, and thrift, enables them to live happily, 
 and to bring up famihes educated, fairly provided for, and 
 
PREFACE. XIX 
 
 a credit, instead of a shame, to the country and the 
 religion of their parents. 
 
 The necessity of compressing a large amount of 
 matter into the small space at his disposal, has caused 
 many of the topics touched upon to be treated very in- 
 adequately considering their claims to attention. He has, 
 however, given as much fact and matter as he could, even 
 at the risk of occasionallv sacrificins: smoothness and ease 
 in writing. His desire was to give within the shortest 
 limits, as full, complete, and consecutive a view as 
 possible of the whole subject he undertook to treat. 
 Under any one of the headings given, a volume, and 
 in some cases, a very large and interesting volume, 
 could be written. Pacts, however, tell for themselves, and 
 in most instances he has left to the intelligent reader the 
 task of drawing the inferences. 
 
 Indeed, his principal object in printing these lectures 
 at all, and his chief hope, has been to direct the attention 
 of those whom it most concerns to the question of secret 
 organization as a wJwle ; to point out the fact that there 
 exists an able, vigilant body of men, trained for years 
 in the work of conspiracy, who never cease to plot for 
 the destruction of Christianity, and of Christian social 
 order amongst mankind ; and that the success of these men 
 has hitherto arisen mainly from tliek astute and ceaseless 
 efforts to remain concealed. The world in all its past 
 history has never been accustomed to deal with such 
 a body. The sworn secret society anywhere, is, what 
 Mr. A. M. Sullivan tells us it is, in his admirable descrip- 
 
XX PREFACE. 
 
 tion of its action in Dublin in liis time. Its policy, then, was 
 to stifle every form of Irish public opinion except 
 that which supported its own views. Every other expression 
 was to be prevented by emissaries, who found their way 
 into every popular gathering, and by secret concert, 
 known to themselves alone, and not even so much as 
 suspected by others, were able to make "pubhc opinion " 
 seem to be in favour of the policy of their chiefs. If 
 these emissaries failed, others of the secret brotherhood 
 menaced the adverse popular leaders with loss of busiuess 
 and character, with violence, and even death. With 
 every one of these evils the secret-society men of the 
 time threatened Mr. Sullivan. He, however, foiled their 
 astuteness, and braved their menaces. He succeeded 
 in escaping ; but it was much more owing to the con- 
 science remaining amongst some of the Irish Fenians 
 than to the mercy of the organization itself. 
 
 This incident, which is related at length in 
 Mr. Sullivan's " New Ireland," gives a true idea 
 of the action of every secret-society organization, 
 working, under many apparent public pretences, for the 
 ends of its chiefs. The rases of a bird to draw 
 away attention from the nest of its young, is but 
 a faint resemblance of what every secret society does to 
 avoid detection, either of itself or of its intentions or 
 doings. It scruples to commit no crime, not even 
 murder, to divert suspicion, and to remain concealed. 
 Concealment is, and has been from the beginning, the 
 very essence of its inward organism and of its outward 
 
PREFACE. XXI 
 
 policy. It is vain therefore to suppose that because no 
 visible manifestation of its presence appears, or because 
 some evidences — always suspicious when they are shown — 
 of its (lying out, or becoming ridiculous, impotent, or 
 dead, appear, that there is no further danger to be 
 dreaded from its attempts. It has the cunning of the 
 serpent, and the patience too. It can feign itself dead 
 to save its head from being crushed. The author of 
 these pages was assured in Eome, that it was all nonsense 
 to suppose that secret societies any longer existed in 
 Ireland; that they were things of the past which Irish 
 Faith had banished. In a few days after, however, the 
 world was startled by the deeds of tho Invincibles, led on, 
 as was subsequently discovered, by a miscreant who had 
 used the cloak of the most sacred practices of religion 
 to conceal his real character, and to win confederates, 
 and then victims, to his infernal designs. 
 
 Now, if the following pages prove anything, it is that 
 over the whole world there exists a formidable conspiracy — 
 the War of Antichrist — carried on by a secret directory 
 rulino- every form of secret society on earth, and losing no 
 chance of seducing men from God by first bringing them, 
 under some pretence or other, within its ranks. It is 
 certain that this directory will not lose sight of the Irish 
 race in the future, any more than in the past ; that most 
 likely in the future its plans for seducing them from, 
 or turning them, for political or other reasons, against the 
 Church, will be laid more astutely and less visibly than 
 ever. The methods by which these high conspirators 
 
XXU PREFACE. 
 
 deceive, change continually; and in the constantly 
 recurring political agitations of Ireland, a wide field 
 is open which they are certain to cultivate to the best 
 advantage for the ruin of souls. Unceasing vigilance is 
 required, therefore, to guard against their machinations 
 and unceasing diligence in exposing their aims. 
 
 The Holy Pather, in his late celebrated Eull, 
 Humanmn Genus^ has, therefore, manifested his desire 
 that the bishops, the clergy, and even the laity of 
 tlie Church should join in exposing Freemasonry and 
 other such societies. Eut without a proper knowledge of 
 the conspiracy as a whole that cannot be done. The 
 author attempts to give such knowledge ; but he hopes 
 that his efforts may be improved upon by others more able 
 than himself, and that he may have the happiness before 
 long of seeing some compendium of the whole subject in 
 English which might form a text book for seminarists 
 and others to whom the future fate of the people of 
 God in dangerous days is co be committed. All he 
 could do in the time at his disposal was to give a popular 
 idea of the subject. The works which he has chiefly 
 used for this purpose are those of Cretineau Joly, 
 Eckert, Segur, Dupanloup, and Deschamps (as edited 
 by M. Claude Janet), together with the current 
 information given in the Civilta CattoUca and other 
 Catholic reviews and periodicals. He believes moreover, 
 that, as philosophical studies of the soundest kind 
 on the basis of St. Thomas have, through the care of the 
 Holy Father, assumed their proper influence in ecclesi- 
 
PREFACE. XXIU 
 
 astical education, seminarists, and others also, should study 
 the practical growth of those Pantheistic and immoral 
 principles to which that philosophy is opposed. The 
 fundamental basis of rreemasonry, as perverted or 
 " illuminated," by Weishaupt, is Pantheism ; and 
 Positivism and all the "isms" which the philosophers 
 of the sect have since introduced, are meant ultimately to 
 cause Pantheism and its attendant practical immorality to 
 dominate over the earth. It is a new form of the oldest 
 seduction : " eat the forbidden fruit and ye shall be as 
 gods knowing good from evil," and is always accompanied 
 with that other lie, of " the liar and the murderer from the 
 beginning," " No, ye shall not die the death." 
 
 Purthermore, it must be remembered that secret 
 societies have little dread of mere denunciation. Exposi- 
 tion, calm and just, is that of which they are most afraid. 
 The masses in them are nearly always in that sad 
 condition through deception. The light thrown vividly 
 upon the real nature of the secret sect; the gentle, 
 kind indulgence of the Church mournino^ over the ruin 
 and yearning for the return of her children, put before 
 tliem, will do wonders to win back Irish victims from 
 secret societies. Mere abuse does no good. Por the 
 rest, prevention is better than cure ; and the time 
 seems to have arrived when in schools, in preparation for 
 first communion, in constant, well-judged recurrence in 
 the instructions given to the people, in lectures and 
 articles in our Catholic newspapers, the evil of secret 
 societies — too sure to manifest itself in many countries — 
 
XXIV 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 should be made known to all classes of the faithful, 
 who can thus be easily trained in such a way as to treat 
 the secret society or any emanation from it as their 
 ancestors treated heresy, and reject, even at the peril of 
 their lives, the " unclean thing." Sound Catholic asso- 
 ciations, temperance, and pious confraternities, are the 
 remedies pointed out by the Holy Father, and these will 
 preserve the portions of the flock already untainted, and 
 retain those whom grace and zeal may bring back to the 
 Eold of Christ. 
 
THE 
 
 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH 
 
 AND 
 
 CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION. 
 
 MoNSiGNOR Smith, Eev. Fathers, Ladies and Gentlemen, 
 
 It gives me, indeed, great pleasure to find the Catholic body- 
 in this great city possessed of such a valuable, 9nd, I may add, 
 magnificent block of buildings as that which forms this " Catholic 
 Institute," and to know that over nine hundred of the Catholic 
 young men of Edinburgh are gathered together by its means for 
 mutual improvement and for moral and religious aims. I feel 
 proud of it as the Avork of my friend and fellow-student. Father 
 Hannan, your respected pastor. I am sure his energies, which 
 have been in other directions — in the erection and sustenance 
 of your extensive Parochial Schools, for instance — so well 
 employed, could not be afterwards put to better purpose than in 
 forming and watching over such an institution. A Catholic 
 Society founded on the spiritual lines of this Society, and enjoy- 
 ing its advantages in a temporal sense, is in fact, now-a-days, a 
 necessity. It takes up and protects the Catholic boy at the 
 most perilous and decisive period of his life — that is, when he 
 leaves the employments and restraints of his school days to learn 
 some trade or profession. It keeps him until manhood, well 
 removed from those dangerous and seductive associations, so 
 common in all large cities. It gives him rational amusement and 
 the means of self-improvement. It causes him to frequent the 
 sacraments, to practise prayer, to be provident^ temperate, 
 industrious, and, above all, religious. It places him in constant 
 communication with, and therefore under, the special care of his 
 
 B 
 
2 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 Pastor. It is, in fact, the special antidote -which our present Holy- 
 Father — -whom may God long preserve to us — advises the Bishops 
 of the Catholic Church to employ throughout the -world against the 
 poisonous influence of those secret societies, -which the demon has 
 rendered so general and so disastrous in our days. Speaking of 
 the operative classes, Leo XIII. says, in his celebrated 
 Encyclical Humanum Genus of this year, '^ Those who sustain 
 themselves by the labour of their own hands, besides being by 
 their very condition most worthy above all others of charity 
 end consolation, are also especially exposed to the allurements of 
 men whose -ways lie in fraud and deceit. Therefore, they ought 
 to be helped with the greatest possible kindness, and be invited 
 to join societies that are good, lest they be drawn away to others 
 that are evil." 
 
 Now, these words of the Holy Father came very forcibly to 
 my mind when I was shown, on last Saturday, the fine hall in which 
 we are now assembled — the library and study-rooms, and the 
 various means for recreation and improvement attached to this 
 building. I was specially pleased to see so many young men 
 innocently enjoying themselves, or usefully employed, on a day, 
 which, of all other days of the week, is the one which most invites 
 the youth of our cities to dissipation and sin. And so it 
 happened that when Father Hannan asked me to say " a few 
 words " — by which, I suppose he meant the lecture advertised 
 in this morning's papers — on this Monday evening, I could not 
 well refuse ; and as the time for preparation was very short, I 
 determined to say ^' the few words" on the conflict which 
 during this, and the last century, has taken place between the 
 Church of Christ and Atheism. My reason was, because I 
 knew, that Atheism, closely masked, and astutely organized, not 
 only has sought, but still seeks, the destruction of the Church, 
 and the destruction of the souls which it is her mission to save ; 
 and as the Catholic Young Men's Society of Edinburgh is one of 
 those beneficent associations pointed out by the Vicar of Christ 
 as the special means for defeating the designs of Atheism, I 
 
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 3 
 
 believe I cannot do a more appropriate, or indeed a greater 
 service, than by unfolding what these designs really are. In 
 this, as in all matters of importance, 'Ho be forewarned is to be 
 forearmed," and it is specially necessary to be forewarned when 
 we have to contend with an adversary who uses secrecy, fraud 
 and deceit. We shall see then, that all the organizations of 
 Atheism appear at first as does their author, Satan, clothed 
 in the raiment of angels of light, with their malignity, their 
 Infidelity, and their ultimate designs always most carefully 
 hidden. They come amongst all the faithful, but more 
 especially amongst young men, to seduce and to ruin them, 
 never showing, but when forced to do so, the cloven foot, and 
 employing a million means to seem to be what they are not. It 
 is, therefore, first of all, necessary to unmask them ; and this is 
 precisely what the Supreme Pontiff asks the pastors of the 
 Universal Fold to do as the best means of destroying their in- 
 fluence. ''But," he says in the Encyclical already quoted, ''as it 
 befits our pastoral ofiice that we ourselves should point out some 
 suitable way of proceeding, we wish it to be your rule, first of 
 all, to tear away the mask from Freemasonry, and to let it be 
 seen as it really is, and by instructions and pastoral letters to 
 instruct the people as to the artifices used by societies of this 
 kind in seducing men and enticing them into their ranks, and as 
 to the depravity of their opinions and the wickedness of their 
 acts." 
 
 In this- extract the Holy Father makes special mention of 
 Freemasonry ; but, remember, not of Freemasomy only. He 
 speaks of " other secret societies." These other secret societies 
 are identical with Freemasonry, no matter by what name they 
 may be called ; and they are frequently the most depraved forms 
 of Freemasonry. And though what is known in these Islands as 
 Freemasonry may not be so malignant as its kind is on the 
 Continent — though it may have little or no hold at all 
 upon the mass of Catholics in English-speaking countries, still 
 we shall see that like every secret society in existence it is 
 
4 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 a danger for the nation and for individuals, and has hidden 
 within it the same Atheism and hostility to Christianity which 
 the worst Continental Freemasonry possesses. These it develops 
 to the initiated in the higher degrees, and makes manifest 
 to all the world in time. The truth is that every secret society 
 is framed and adapted to make men the enemies of God and 
 of his Church, and to subvert faith; and there is not one, no matter 
 on what pretext it may be founded, which does not fall under 
 the management of a supreme Directory governing all the secret 
 societies on earth. The one aim of this directory is to uproot 
 Christianity, and the Christian social order as well as the Church 
 from the world — -in fact, to eradicate the name of Christ and the 
 very Christian idea from the minds and the hearts of men. This 
 it is determined to do by every means, but especially by fraud 
 and force ; that is by first using wiles and deceit until the 
 Atheistic conspiracy grows strong enough for measures as 
 violent and remorseless in all countries as it exercised in one 
 country during the first French Revolution. I ])elieve this 
 secret Atheistic organization to be nothing less than the evil which 
 we have been long warned against by Our Blessed Lord Himself, 
 as the supreme conflict between the Church and Satan's 
 followers. It is the commencement of the contest which must 
 take place between Christ and Antichrist ; and nothing there- 
 fore can be more necessary than that the elect of God should 
 be warned of its nature and its aims. With your permission 
 then, I shall glance to-night, first, at the rise and the nature of 
 Atheism itselfi* and its rapid advance amongst those sections of 
 Christians most liable from position and surroundings to 
 be led astray by it ; and then at the use it has made of Free- 
 masonry for its propagandism, and for its contemplated destruc- 
 tion of Christianity. We shall see its depravity perfected by 
 what is called lUuminism. And we shall see that however 
 checked it may have been by the reaction consequent upon the 
 excesses of its first Revolution, it has not only outlived that 
 reaction, but has grown wiser for doing an evil more extended 
 
THE RISE OF ATHEISM IN EUROrE. 5 
 
 and more complete. We shall see how its chiefs have succeeded 
 in mastering and directing every kind of secret association 
 whether springing from itself or coming into existence by the 
 force of its example only ; and have used, and are using them all 
 to its advantage. We shall see the sleepless vigilance which 
 this organized Atheism exercises ; and thus come to know that our 
 best, our only resource, is to fly its emissaries, and draw nearer in 
 aifection and in effect to the teachings of the Church and her 
 Supreme Visible Head on earth who can never deceive us, and 
 whom the hosts of Satan never can deceive. We shall see that 
 the voice of the Vicar of Christ has been raised against secret 
 associations from the beginning to this hour, and that the 
 directions which we receive from that infallible voice can alone 
 save us from the wiles and deceits of a conspiracy so formidable, 
 so active, so malignant, and so dangerous, 
 
 II. 
 
 The Rise of Atheism in Europe. 
 In order, then, to comprehend thoroughly the nature of the 
 conspiracy I speak of, it will be necessary to go back to the 
 opening of the last century and contemplate the rise and advance 
 of the Atheism and Anti-Christianity which it now spreads 
 rapidly through the earth. As that century opened it disclosed 
 a world suffering from a multitude of evils. The so-called Refor- 
 mation, which arose and continued to progress during the two 
 preceding centuries had well nigh run its course. It had 
 ceased to be a persecuting force on the Continent, and only for 
 reasons of plunder continued to use the Aveapons of oppression 
 in Ireland. Scarcely a shred of the original doctrines of Luther 
 remained as he had left them ; yet no signs of return to the Church 
 were to be observed amongst his followers. Malignant hatred 
 of the Spouse of Christ continued, when the reasons alleged for 
 the malignity had departed. Amidst the multitude at that time 
 calling themselves Protestants little remained certain in 
 Christian belief. 
 
6 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 The principle of private judgment introduced in apparent zeal 
 for the pure worship and doctrine of Christ, had ended in leaving 
 no part of the teaching of Christ unchallenged. It had rendered 
 His Divinity disbelieved in, and His very existence doubted, by 
 ID any who yet called themselves His followers. Socinus and 
 his nephew had succeeded in binding the various groups of 
 Polish and German Protestants in a league where nothing was 
 required but undying hatred and opposition to the Catholic 
 Church. Bayle threw doubt upon everything, and Spinosa 
 destroyed the little respect left for the Deity in the system of 
 Socinus, by introducing Pantheism to the world. In effect, both 
 the Deists and the Pantheists of that period were Atheists. 
 Whether they held that everything was God, or that God was 
 not such a God as Christians hold Him to be, they did away 
 with belief in the true God, and raised up an impossible being 
 of their own imagination in His stead. In life, in conduct, and in 
 adoration of God, they were practical Atheists, and soon manifested 
 that hatred for the truth which the Atheist is sure to possess. 
 Their theories made headway early in the century throughout 
 Central Europe and England. Bolingbroke, Shaftesbury, and, the 
 elite amongst the statesmen and literary aristocracy of the reign 
 of Queen Anne were Infidels. Tindal, Collins, Wolston, Toland, 
 and Chubbs were as advanced as Tom Payne was, later on, in 
 the way of Atheism. But however much England and Germany 
 had advanced their Protestantism to what was called Free- 
 thinking, both were soon destined to be eclipsed in that sad 
 progress by Catholic and monarchical France. France owes 
 this evil pre-eminence to one individual, who, though largely 
 assisted in his road to ruin by Bayle, and subsequently by 
 association with English Infidels, had yet enough of innate Avicked- 
 ness in himself to outstrip them all. That individual was — 
 
 III. 
 
 Voltaire. 
 I shall have to occupy your attention, for some little time, 
 with the career of this abandoned, unhappy, but most 
 
VOLTAIRE. 7 
 
 extraordinary man. It was in his day and by his means that 
 the Atheism which occupies us this evening became perfected, 
 generalized, and organized for the destruction of Christianity, 
 Christian civilization, and all religion. He was the first, and 
 remains still, the greatest of its Apostles. There is not one of 
 its dark principles which he did not teach and advocate ; and 
 from his writings, and by their means, the intellectual and every 
 other form of war against the Catholic Church and the cause 
 of Christ are carried on to this day and will be to the end. His 
 real name was Francis Mary Arouet, but, for some reason 
 which has never been clearly explained, he chose to call himself 
 Voltaire. - He was the son of good parents, and by position 
 and education should have been an excellent Catholic. He 
 was trained by the very Jesuits whom he afterwards so hated 
 and persecuted. He was destined for the profession of the law, 
 and made, good progress in literary studies. But the cor- 
 ruption of the age in which he lived soon seized upon him, 
 overmastered him, and bore him along in a current which in 
 his case did not end in vice only, but in vice which sought 
 its own justification in Infidelity. From the beginning, 
 the fool said in his heart "there is no God," and in the 
 days of Voltaire the number of these fools was indeed 
 infinite. Never before was vice so rampant in countries calling 
 themselves Christian. If the Gospel was preached at all in 
 that age it was certainly to the poor ; for the rich, as a rule — to 
 which there were, thank God, many exceptions — seemed so sunk 
 in vice as not to believe in a particle of it. The Courts of 
 Europe were, in general, corrupt to the core ; and the Court of the 
 Most Christian King was perhaps the most abandoned, in a wide 
 sense, of them all. The Court of Catherine of Russia was a 
 scene of unblushing lewdness. The Court of Frederick of Prussia 
 was so corrupt, that it cannot be described without doing violence 
 to decency, and even to humanity. The Regent Orleans and 
 Louis XV. had carried licence to such an extent, as to render 
 the Court of Versailles a veritable pandemonium. The vices of 
 
8 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 royalty infected the nobles and all others who were so unfor- 
 tunate as to be permitted to frequent Courts. Vice, in fact, was 
 the fashion, and numbers of all classes, not excepting the 
 poorest, wallowed in it. As a consequence, the libertines of the 
 period hated the Church, which alone, amidst the universal 
 depravity, raised her voice for purity. They took up warmly, 
 therefore, the movements which, witliin or without her pale, were 
 likely to do her damage. With a sure instinct they sided in 
 France with Gallicanism and Jansenism ; and they welcomed the 
 new Infidelity which came over from England and Germany, with 
 unconcealed gladness. Voltaire appeared in French society at 
 this most opportune moment for the advancement of their 
 views. Witty, sarcastic, gay, vivacious, he soon made his way 
 amongst the voluptuaries who then filled Paris. His conduct 
 and habit of ridiculing religion and royalty brought him, 
 however, into disfavour with the Government, and at the age 
 of twenty-seven we find him in the Bastile. Liberated from this 
 prison in 1727, but only on condition of exile, he crossed over 
 to England, where he finally adopted those Infidel and anti- 
 Christian principles which made him, for the half century 
 through which he afterwards lived, what Cretineau Jolyi very 
 justly calls "the most perfect incarnation of Satan that the 
 world ever saw." The Society of Freemasons was just then per- 
 fected in London, and Voltaire at the instance of his Infidel 
 associates joined one of its lodges ; and he left England, where he 
 had been during the years 1726-27 and '28, an adept in both 
 Infidelity and Freemasonry. He returned to the Continent with 
 bitterness rankling in his breast against Monarchical Govern- 
 ment which had imprisoned and exiled him, against the Bastile 
 where he was immured, and, above all, against the Catholic 
 Church and her Divine Founder. Christ and His Church con- 
 demned his excesses, and to the overthrow of both he devoted 
 
 1 L'Eglise Romaine en face de la Revolution Par J. Cretineau-Joly, ouvrage 
 compose sur des documents inedits et orne des portraits de Leurs Saintetes Les 
 Rapes Rie VII. Et Rie IX dessines par Stall. Paris : Henri Plon, Libraire-editeur, 
 Rue Garanciere, 8. — 1861. 
 
VOLTAIRE. 9 
 
 himself "^vitli an ardour and a malignity more characteristic, 
 certainly, of a demon than of a man. 
 
 A master of French prose hardly ever equalled and never 
 perhaps excelled, and a graceful and correct versifier, his writings 
 against morality and religion grew into immense favour with the 
 corrupt reading-pul)lic of his day. He was a perfect adept in 
 the use of ridicule, and he employed it with remorseless and 
 blasphemous force against everything pure and sacred. He had 
 as little respect for the honour or welfare of his country as he 
 had for the sanctity of religion. His ruffian pen attacked the 
 fair fame of the Maid of Orleans with as little scruple as it cast 
 shame upon the consecrated servants of Christ. For Christ he 
 had but one feeling — eternal, contemptuous hatred. His watch- 
 word, the concluding lines of all his letters to his Infidel con- 
 federates was for fifty years ecrasons nous I'infame, ''let us 
 crush the wretch," meaning Christ and his cause. This he 
 boasted was his delenda est Carthago. And he believed he 
 could succeed. " I am tired, said he, of hearing it said that 
 twelve men sufficed to establish Christianity, and I desire to 
 show that it requires but one man to pull it down." A 
 lieutenant of police once said to him, that, notwithstanding all he 
 wrote, he should never be able to destroy Christianity. " That 
 is exactly what we shall see," he replied. Voltaire was never 
 weary of using his horrible watch-word. 
 
 Upon the news of the suppression of the Jesuits reaching 
 him, he exclaimed : " See, one head of the hydra has fallen. I 
 lift my eyes to heaven and cry 'crush the wretch.' " We have 
 from himself his reason for using these blasphemous 'words. He 
 says, "I finish all my letters by saying, Ecrasons Vinfame, 
 ecrasez IHnfame.'' ' Let us crush the wretch, crush the wretch,' as 
 Cato used one time to say, Delenda est Carthago^ Carthage 
 must be destroyed." Even at a time when the miscreant pro- 
 tested the greatest respect for religion to the Court of Rome, 
 he wrote to Damilaville: "We embrace the philosophers, 
 and we beseech them to inspire for the wretch all the horror 
 
10 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURGH. 
 
 which they can. Let all fall upon the wretch ably. That 
 which most concerns me is the propagation of the faith of truth, 
 and the making of the wretch vile, Deleiida est Carthago.'' 
 
 Certainly his determination was strong to do so ; and he left 
 no stone unturned for that end. He was a man of amazing 
 industry ; and though his vanity caused him to quarrel with 
 many of his confreres, he had in his life time a large school of 
 disciples, which became still more numerous after his death. 
 He sketched out for them the whole mode of procedure against 
 the Church. His policy as revealed by the correspondence 
 of Frederick II. and others^ with him, was not to com- 
 mence an immediate persecution, but first to suppress the 
 Jesuits and all Religious orders, and to secularize their goods ; then 
 to deprive the Pope of temporal authority, and the Church of 
 property and state recognition. Primary and higher-class 
 
 1 To show how early the confederates of Voltaire had determined upon the 
 gradual impoverishment of the Church and the sujipression of the Religious orders, 
 the following letters from Frederick II., will be of use. In the first dated 
 13th August, 1775, the Monarch writes to the then very aged "Patriarch of 
 Ferney," who had demanded the secularization of the Khine ecclesiastical 
 electorates and other episcoj^al benefices in Germany, as follows : — 
 
 " All you say concerning our German bishops is but too true ; they grow 
 fat upon the tithes of Sion. Bwt you know, also, that in the Holy Roman 
 EmjDJre the ancient usage, the Bull of Gold, and other antique follies, cause abuses 
 established to be respected. If we wish to dimhiish fanaticism we must not 
 touch the bishops. But, if we manage to diminish the monks, especially the 
 mendicant orders, the people will grow cold and less superstitious, they will 
 permit the powers that be, to dispose of the bishnjjs in the manner best suited 
 to the good of each State. This is the only course to follow. To imdermine 
 silently and without noise the edifice of infatuation is to oblige it to fall of 
 itself. The Pope, seeing the situation in which he finds himself, is obliged to 
 give briefs and bulls as his dear sons demand of him. The power foimded upon 
 the ideal credit of the faith loses in proportion as the latter diminishes. If there 
 were now found at the head of nations some ministers above vulgar prejudices, 
 the Holy Father would become bankrupt. Without doubt posterity will enjoy 
 the advantage of being able to think freely." 
 
 Again, this curious compound of warrior, despot, Protestant free-thinker, 
 poet, and mocker, writes to Voltaire, on the 8th September, 1775 : — 
 
 "It is to Bayle, your predecessor, and to you, without doubt, that the glory 
 is due of that revolution which has taken place in minds, but, to say the truth, it 
 is not complete. The devotees have their party, and never will that be crushed 
 except by a greater force. It is from the Governments that the sentence must go 
 forth . . . Without doubt this will be done in time, but neither you nor I 
 will be spectators of an event so much desired." 
 
 " I have remarked," he says, also, " and others with me, that the places where 
 there are most convents and monks are those wherein the people are most given 
 to superstition. It is not doubtful that if we could succeed in destroying these 
 
VOLTAIRE. 11 
 
 education of a lay and Infidel character was to be established, 
 the principle of divorce affirmed, and respect for ecclesiastics 
 lessened and destroyed. Lastly, when the whole body of the 
 Church should be sufficiently weakened and Infidelity strong 
 enough, the final blow was to be dealt by the sword of open, 
 relentless persecution. A reign of terror was to spread over the 
 whole earth, and to continue while a Christian should be found 
 obstinate enough to adhere to Christianity. This, of course, 
 was to be followed by a Universal Brotherhood without marriage, 
 family, property, God, or law, in which all men would reach 
 that level of social degradation aimed at by the disciples of Saint 
 Simon, and carried into practice whenever possible, as attempted 
 by the French Commune. 
 
 In the carrying out of his infernal designs against religion 
 and society, Voltaire had as little scruple in using lying and 
 hypocrisy as Satan himself is accredited with. In his attacks 
 upon religion he falsified history and fact. He made a principle 
 of lying, a.nd taught the same vice to his followers. Writing 
 to his disciple Theriot, he says (Oeuvres, t. 52, p. 326) : 
 *' Lying is a vice when it does evil. It is a great virtue when 
 
 asykuns of fanaticism, the people would shortly grow indifferent and lukewarm 
 regarding the thiu'gs which form at present the objects of their veneration. It 
 would be necessary then to destroy the cloisters, or at least to commence to 
 diminish their number. The moment is arrived because the French Government 
 and that of Austria are so indebted that they have exhausted the resources of 
 industry without being able to pay their debts. The list of rich abbeys and of 
 convents, with a good rent-roll, is seducing. In representing to them the evil 
 which the cenobites do tlie population of their States, as well as the abuse of 
 the great nmnber of religious who fill their provinces, and, in the meantime, 
 the facility of paying a part of their debts, by applying to that purpose tlie 
 treasures of communities which have no natm-al succession, I think they could be 
 brought to determine upon commencing that reform. It is to be presumed that 
 after having enjoyed the secularization of some benefices their avidity would soon 
 swallow up tlie rest. Every Government, which determines upon that operation, 
 will desii'e the spread of philosophers and be a partisan of all the books which 
 attack popular superstitions and the false zeal of hypocrites, who wish to oppose 
 them. Behold a little project which I wish to submit for the examination of the 
 Patriarch of Ferney. It is for him, as the Father of the Faithful, to rectify and 
 to execute it. The Patriarch may demand of me, perhaps, what is to be done 
 with the bishops. I answer that it is not yet the time to touch them, that it is 
 necessary to commence by destroying those who inflame with fanaticism the 
 hearts of the people. When the people shall have grown cold the bishops will 
 become little boys, whom the Sovereigns will dispose of iu the course of time at 
 their good pleasm-e." 
 
12 WAR or ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 it does good. Be therefore more virtuous than ever. It is 
 necessary to lie like a devil, not timidly and for a time, but 
 boldly and always." 
 
 He was also, as the school he left behind has been ever 
 since, a hypocrite. Infidel to the heart's core, he could, whenever 
 it suited his purpose, both practise, and even feign a zeal for 
 religion. On the expectation of a pension from the King, he 
 wrote to M. Argental. a disciple of his, who reproached him with 
 his hypocrisy and contradictions in conduct. " If I had a hundred 
 thousand men I know well what I would do; but as I have not got 
 them, I will go to communion at Easter, and you may call me a 
 hypocrite as long as you like." And Voltaire, on getting his 
 pension, went to communion the year following.^ It is needless to 
 say that he was in life, as well -as in his writings, immoral as it was 
 possible for a man to be. He lived without shame and even 
 ostentatiously in open adultery. He laughed at every moral 
 restraint. He preached libertinage and practised it. He was 
 
 1 In 1768 Voltaire wrote as follows to the Marquis de Villevielle : — " No, my 
 dear Marqixis, no, the modern Socrates will not drink the hemlock. The Socrates 
 of Athens was, between you and me, a pitiless caviller, who made himself a 
 thousand enemies and who braved his judges very foolishly. 
 
 " Our modern i^hilosophers are more adroit. They have not the foolish and 
 dangerous vanity to put their names to their works. Theirs are the invisible 
 hands which pierce fanaticism from one end of Eiu-ope to the other with the 
 arrows of truth. Damilaville recently died. He was the author of ' Christianism 
 unveiled,' and many other writings. No one ever knew him. His friends 
 preserved the secret of his name as long as he lived with a fidelity worthy of 
 philosophy. No one yet knows who is the author of the work given under the 
 name of Fieret. In Holland, during the last two years, they have printed more 
 than sixty volumes against superstition. The authors of them are absolutely 
 unknown, although they could boldly proclaim themselves. The Italian who has 
 written the ' Reform of Italy,' has not cared to present his work to the Pope, 
 but his book has a prodigious effect. A thousand pens write and a hundred thou- 
 sand voices arise against abuses and in favour of tolerance. Be assirred that the 
 revolution which has taken place in minds during the past twelve years has 
 served, and not a little, to drive the Jesuits from so many States, and to strongly 
 encourage princes to strike at the idol of Rome which caused them all to tremble 
 at another epoch. The people are very stupid and, nevertheless, the light has 
 penetrated even to them. Be very sure, for example, that there are nottwenty 
 persons in Geneva who do not abjure Calvin as well as the Pope, and that there 
 axe philosophers even in the shops of Paris. 
 
 " I shall die consoled in seeing the true religion, that of the heart, established 
 on the ruins of affectations. I have never preached but the adoration of one 
 God, beneficence and indulgence. With these sentiments I brave the devil who 
 does not exist and the true devils who exist only too much." 
 
VOLTAIRE. 13 
 
 the guest and the inmate of the Court of Frederick of Prussia, 
 wliere crime reached proportions impossible to speak of. And 
 lastly, coward, liar, hypocrite, and pander to the basest passions 
 of humanity, he Avas finally, like Satan, a murderer if he had 
 the power to be so. Writing to Damilaville, he says, " The 
 Christian religion is an infamous religion, an abominable hydra 
 which must be destroyed by a hundred invisible hands. It is 
 necessary that the philosophers should course through the streets 
 to destroy it as missionaries course over earth and sea to 
 propagate it. They ought dare all things, risk all things, even 
 to be burned, in order to destroy it. Let us crush the wretch ! 
 Crush the wretch !" His doctrine thus expressed found fatal 
 effect in the French Revolution, and it will obtain effect when- 
 ever his disciples are strong enough in men and means to act. 
 I have no doubt his teachings have led to all the revolutions of 
 this century, and will lead to the final attack of Atheism on the 
 Church. Nor was his hatred confined to Catholicity only. 
 Christians of every denomination were marked out for des- 
 truction by him ; and our separated Christian brethren, who feel 
 glad at seeing his followers triumph over the Church, might well 
 ponder on these words of his: " Christians," he says, "of every 
 form of profession, are beings exceedingly injurious, fanatics, 
 thieves, dupes, impostors, who lie together with their gospels, 
 enemies of the human race." And of the system itself he writes : 
 " The Christian religion is evidently false, the Christian religion 
 is a sect which every good man ought to hold in horror. It 
 cannot be approved of even by those to whom it gives power 
 and honour." In fact, since his day, it has been a cardinal point 
 of policy with his follow^ers to take advantage of the unfortunate 
 differences between the various sects of Christians in the world 
 and the Church, in order to ruin both ; for the destruction of 
 every form of Christianity, as well as Catholicity, was the aim of 
 Voltaire, and remains as certainly the aim of his disciples. 
 Thay place, of course, the Church and the Vicar of Christ in the 
 first line of attack, well knowing that if the great Catholic unity 
 
14 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH, 
 
 could be destroyed, the work of eradicating every kind of 
 separated Christianity would be easy. In dealing, therefore, 
 with such a foe as modern Atheism, so powerfully organized, as 
 we shall see it to be, Protestants as well as Catholics should 
 guard against its wiles and deceits. They should, at least, 
 regarding questions such as the religious education of rising 
 generations, the attempted secularisation of the Sabbath and 
 state-established. Christian Institutions, and the recognition of 
 religion by the State, all of which the Atheism of the world now 
 attempts to destroy, present an unbroken front of determined 
 union. Nothing less, certainly, can save even the Protestantism, the 
 national, Christian character of Great Britain and her colonies 
 from impending ruin. 
 
 Although Voltaire was as confirmed and malignant a hater 
 of Christ and of Christianity as ever lived, still he showed from 
 time to time that his own professed principles of Infidelity were 
 never really believed in by himself. In health and strength he 
 cried out his blasphemous " crush the wretch !" but when the 
 moment came for his soul to appear before the judgment-seat of 
 ''the wretch," his faith was shown and his vaunted courage 
 failed him. 
 
 The miscreant always acted against his better knowledge. 
 His life gives us many examples of this fact. I will relate one 
 for you. When he broke a blood vessel on one occasion, he 
 begged his assistants to hurry for the priest. He confessed, 
 signed with his hand a profession of faith, asked pardon 
 of God and the Church for his offences, and ordered that his 
 retractation should be printed in the public newspapers ; but, 
 recovering, he commenced his war upon God anew, and died 
 refusing all spiritual aid, and crying out in the fury of despair 
 and agony, "I am abandoned by God and man." Dr. 
 Fruchen, who witnessed the awful spectacle of his death, 
 said to his friends, " Would that all who have been seduced 
 by the writings of Voltaire had been witnesses of his death, it 
 would be impossible to hold out, in the face of such an awful 
 
VOLTAIRE. lA 
 
 spectacle." ^ But that spectacle was forgotten, and consequently, 
 before ten years passed, the world saw the effects of his works. 
 
 Speaking of the French Revolution, Condorcet, in his "Life 
 of Voltaire," says of him, " He did not see all that which he accom- 
 plished, but he did all that which we see. Enlightened observations 
 prove to those who know how to reflect that the. first author of 
 that Great Revolution was without doubt Voltaire." 
 
 I have thus far spoken of Voltaire and his teachings in 
 order to introduce with greater clearness the important subject to 
 which I ask the favour of your attention this evening. It never 
 was the intention of this man to let his teachings die, or beat 
 the air, so to speak, with mere words. He determined that his 
 fatal gospel should be perpetuated, and should bring forth as 
 speedy as possible its fruits of death. Even in his life-time, we 
 have evidence that he constantly conspired with his associates 
 for this end, and that with them he concocted in secret both the 
 means by which his doctrines should reach all classes in 
 Europe, and the methods by which civil order and Christianity 
 might be best destroyed. St. Beauve writes of him and of his, 
 in the Journal des Dehats^ 8 November, 1852 : — "All the 
 correspondence of Voltaire and D'Alembert is ugly. It smells 
 of the sect, of the conspiracy of the Brotherhood, of the secret 
 society. From whatever point it is viewed it does no honour to 
 men who make a principle of lying, and who consider contempt 
 of their kind the fu'st condition necessary to enlighten them. 
 * Enlighten and despise the human race.' A sure watchword this, 
 and it is theirs. ' March on always sneering, my brethren, in 
 the way of truth.' That is their perpetual refrain.' " But not only 
 did he and his, thus conspire in a manner which might seem to 
 arise naturally from identical sentiments and aims, but what was 
 of infinitely greater consequence, the demon, just as their sad 
 gospel was ripe for propagation, called into existence the most 
 efficacious means possible for its extension amongst men, and 
 
 ^ See Le Secret de la Franc-Ma^oiuierie^ par Monsigneur Amand Joseph Fava, 
 Eveque de Grenoble. Lille, 1883, p. 08. 
 
16 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 for the wished-for destruction of the Church, of Christian 
 civilization, and of every form of existing Christianity. This 
 was the spread amongst those already demoralized by 
 Voltaireanism, of Freemasonry and its cognate systems of secret 
 Atheistic organization. 
 
 This is the point upon which 1 am most anxious to fix your 
 attention this evening. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Freemasonry. 
 Freemasonry, we must remember always, appeared generally 
 and spread generally, too, in the interests of all that Voltaire 
 aimed at, when it best suited his purpose. The first lodge 
 established in France under the English obedience was in 1727. 
 Its founder and first master was the celebrated Jacobite, Lord 
 Derwentwater. It had almost immediate acceptance from the 
 degenerate nobility of France, who, partly because of the 
 influence of English and Scotch Jacobite nobles, and partly 
 because of its novelty, hard swearing, and mystery, joined the 
 strange institution. Its lodges were soon in every considerable city 
 of the realm. The philosophers and various schools of Atheists, 
 however, were the first to enter into and to extend it. For them 
 it had special attractions and special uses, which they Avere not 
 slow to appreciate and to employ. Now, though it very little 
 concerns us to know much of the origin of this society, which 
 became then and since so notorious throughout the world, still, 
 as that origin throws some light on its subsequent history, it will 
 not be lost time to glance at what is known, or supposed to be 
 known, about it. Monsignor Segur,^ Bishop of Grenoble, who 
 devoted much time to a study of Freemasonry, is persuaded that it 
 was first elaborated by Faustus Socinus, the nephew of the too cele- 
 brated Laslius Socinus, the heresiarch and founder of the sect of 
 Unitarians or, as they are generally called after him, Socinians. 
 
 1 Opus Cit. p. 8. 
 
FREEMASONRY. 1 7 
 
 Both were of tlie ancient family of the Sozini of Sienna. 
 Faustus, like many of his relatives, imbibed the errors of his 
 uncle, and in order to escape the vigilance of the Inquisition, 
 to which both Italy and Spain owed much of the tran- 
 quillity they enjoyed in these troublesome times, he fled 
 to France. While in that country at Lyons, and when only tAventy 
 years of age, he heard of tlie death of his uncle at Zurich, and 
 went at once to that city to olitain the papers and effects of the 
 deceased. From the papers he found that L^lius had assisted 
 at a conference of Heretics at Vicenza, in 1547, in which the 
 destruction of Christianity was resolved upon, and where 
 resolutions were adopted for the renewal of Arianism — a system 
 of false doctrine calculated to sap the very foundations of existing 
 Faith by attacking the Trinity and the Incarnation. Feller, an 
 authority of considerable weight, in his reference to this 
 conference, says: ^'In the assembly of Vicenza, they agreed 
 upon the means of destroying the religion of Jesus Christ, by 
 , forming a society which by its progressive successes brought on, 
 towards the end of the eighteenth century, an almost general 
 apostasy. When the Republic of Venice became informed of 
 this conspiracy, it seized upon Julian Trevisano and Francis de 
 Rugo, and strangled them. Ochinus and the others saved 
 themselves. The society thus dispersed became only the more 
 dangerous, and it is that which is known to-day under the name 
 of Freemasons." For this information Feller refers us to a work 
 entitled '^The Veil Removed," Le Voile Leve, by the Abbe 
 Le Franc, a victim of the reign of terror, in 1792. The latter 
 tells us that the conspirators whom the severity of the Venetian 
 Republic had scattered, and who were Ochinus, La3lius Socinus, 
 Peruta, Gentilis, Jacques Chiari, Francis Lenoir, Darius Socinus, 
 Alicas, and the Abbe Leonard, carried their poison with them, 
 and caused it to bear fruits of death in all parts of 
 Europe. The success of Faustus Socinus in spreading 
 his uncle's theories was enormous. His aim was not only 
 to destroy the Church, but to raise up another temple into 
 
 c 
 
18 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 which any enemy of orthodoxy might freely enter. In this 
 temple eyerj heterodox belief might be held. It was called 
 Christian but was without Christian faith, or hope, or love. It 
 was simply an astutely planned system for propagating the 
 ideas of its founders ; for a fundamental part of the policy 
 of Socinus, and one in which he well instructed his 
 disciples, was to associate either to Unitarianism or to the 
 confederation formed at Vicenza, the rich, the learned, the 
 powerful, and the influential of the world. He feigned an equal 
 esteem for Trinitarians and anti-Trinitarians, for Lutherans and 
 Calvinists. He praised the undertakings of all against the 
 Church of Rome, and working upon their intense hatred for 
 Catholicity, caused them to forget their many " isms " in order 
 to unite them for the destruction of the common enemy. When 
 that should be effected, it would be time to consider a system 
 agreeable to all. Until then, unity of action inspired by hatred 
 of the Church should reign amongst them. 
 
 He therefore wished that all his adherents should, whether 
 Lutheran or Calvinist, treat one another as brothers ; and 
 hence his disciples have been called at various times " United 
 Brethren," " Polish Brothers," " Moravian Brothers," " Brother 
 Masons," and finally "Freemasons." Mgr. Segur informs us, 
 on the authorities before quoted, as well as upon that of Bergier, 
 and the learned author of a work entitled, " Les Franc Magons 
 Ecrases," — the Abbe Lerudan — printed at Amsterdam, as early as 
 the year 1747, that the real secret of Freemasonry consisted, even 
 then, in disbelief in the Divinity of Christ, and a determination to 
 replace that doctrine, which is the very foundation of Christianity, 
 by Naturalism or Eationalism. Socinus having established his 
 sect in Poland, sent emissaries to preach his doctrines stealthily 
 in Germany, Holland, and England. In Germany, Protestants 
 and Catholics united to unmask them. In Holland, they blended 
 with the Anabaptists, and in England, they found partisans 
 amongst the Independents and various other sects into which 
 the people were divided. 
 
FREEMASONRY. 1 9 
 
 The Abbe Lefranc believes {Le Voile Zt^i'e, Lyons, 1821). 
 that Oliver Cromwell was a Socinian, and that he introduced 
 Freemasonry into England. Certainly, Cromwell's sympathies 
 were not for the Church favoured by the monarch he supplanted, 
 and were much with the Independents. If he was a Socinian, 
 we can easily understand how the secret society of Vicenza could 
 have attractions for one of his anti-Catholic and ambitious 
 sentiments. He gave its members in England, as Mgr. Segur 
 tells us, the title of Freemasons, and invented the allegory 
 of the Temple of Solomon, now so much used by Masonry 
 of every kind, and which meant the original state of man 
 supposed to be a commonwealth of equality with a vague 
 Deism as its religion. This temple, destroyed by Christ for the 
 Christian order, was to be restored by Freemasonry after Christ 
 and the Christian order should be obliterated by conspiracy and 
 revolution. The state of Nature was the " Hiram " whose murder 
 Masonry was to avenge ; and which, having previously removed 
 Christ, was to resuscitate Hiram, by re-building the temple of 
 Nature as it had been before. 
 
 Mgr. Segur, moreover, connects modern Freemasonry with the 
 Jews and Templars, as Avell as with Socinus. There are 
 reasons which lead me to think that he is right in doing so. 
 The Jews for many centuries previous to the Reformation, 
 had formed secret societies for their own protection and for 
 the destruction of the Christianity which persecuted them, 
 and which they so much hated. The rebuilding of the 
 Temple of Solomon was the dream of their lives. It is un- 
 questionable that they wished to make common cause with other 
 bodies of persecuted religionists. They had special reason to 
 welcome with joy such heretics as were cast off by Catholicity. 
 It is, therefore, not at all improbable, that they admitted into 
 their secret conclaves some at least of the discontented Templars, 
 burning for revenge upon those who dispossessed and suppressed 
 the Order. That fact would account for the curious combination 
 of Jewish and conventual allusions to be found in modern 
 
20 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH, 
 
 Masonry/ Then, as to its British History, we have seen that 
 numbers of the secret brotherhood of Socinus made their way 
 to England and Scothmd, where they found friends, and, 
 perhaps, confederates. I have, therefore, no doubt but that 
 the Abbe Lefranc is correct, when he says that Cromwell was 
 connected with them. At least, before he succeeded in his 
 designs, he had need of some such secret society, and would, no 
 doubt, be glad to use it for his purposes. But it is not so clear 
 that Cromwell was the first, as Lefranc thinks, to blend that 
 brotherhood with the real Freemasons. The ancient guild of 
 working masons had existed in Great Britain and in Europe 
 for many centuries previous to his time. They were like 
 every other guild of craftsmen — a body formed for mutual 
 protection and trade offices. But they differed from other 
 tradespeople in this, that from their duties they were more 
 
 ^ M. Goixgenot-Demousseaiix, iu his work on the Jew, Judaism, and the Judaiza- 
 tion of Christian people (Paris 18G9), has brought together a great number of 
 indications on the relations of the high chiefs of Masonry with .Judaism. He 
 thus concludes : — " Masonry, that immense association, the rare initiates of which, 
 that is to say, the real chiefs of which, whom we must be careful not to confound 
 with the nominal chiefs, live in a strict and intimate alliance with the militant 
 members of Judaism, princes and imitators of the high cabal. For that elite of 
 the order — these real chiefs whom so few of the initiated know, or whom they only 
 know for the most part mider a nom de guerre, are employed in the profitable and 
 secret dependence of the cabalistic Israelites. And this phenomenon is 
 accomplished, thanks to the habits of rigorous discretion to which they subject 
 themselves by oaths and terrible menaces ; thanks also to the majority of Jewish 
 members which the mysterious constitutiou of Masonry seats iu its sovereign 
 coimsel." 
 
 M. Cretineau Joly gives a very interesting accomit of the correspondence 
 between Nubius and an ojiulent GeiTaan Jew who supplied him with money for 
 the purposes of his dark intrigues against the Papacy. The Jewish connection 
 with modern Freemasonry is an established fact everywhere manifested in its 
 history. The Jewish f ornudas employed by Masonry, the Jewish traditions which 
 rmi through its ceremonial, point to a Jewish origin, or to the work of Jewish 
 contrivers. It is easy to conceive how such a society could be thought necessary 
 to protect tliem from Christianity in power. It is easy also to understand how 
 the one darling object of their lives is the rebuilding of the Temple. Who knows 
 but behind the Atheism and desire of gain which impels them to urge on Christians 
 to persecute the Chui'ch and to destroy it, there lies a hidden hope to reconstruct 
 their Temple, and as the darkest depths of secret society plotting there lurks a 
 deeper society still wliich looks to a return to the land of Juda and to the re-building 
 of the Temple of Jerusalem. One of the works which Antichrist will do, it is 
 said, is to re-unite the Jews, and to proclaim himself as their long looked-for 
 Messias. As it is now generally believed, lie is to come from Masonry and to be 
 of it, this is not improbable, for in it he will find the Jews the most inveterate 
 haters of Christianity, the deepest plotters, and the fittest to establish his reign. 
 
FREEMASONKY. 21 
 
 cosmopoiitan, and knew more of the ceremonies of religion 
 at a period when the arts of reading and writing were 
 not very generally understood. They travelled over every 
 portion of England and Scotland, and frequently crossed the 
 Channel, to work at the innumerable religious houses, castles, 
 fortifications, great abbeys, churches and cathedrals which 
 arose over the face of Christendom in such number and 
 splendour in the middle and succeeding ages. To keep away 
 interlopers, to sustain a uniform rate of wages, to be known 
 amongst strangers, and, above all, amongst foreigners of their 
 craft, signs were necessary 5 and these signs could be of value 
 only in proportion to the secrecy with which they were kept 
 within the craft itself They had signs for those whom they 
 accepted as novices, for the companion mason or journeyman, 
 and for the masters of the craft. In ages when a trade was 
 transmitted from father to son, and formed a kind of family 
 inheritance, we can very well imagine that its secrets were 
 guarded with much jealousy, and that its adepts were enjoined 
 not to communicate them to anyone, not even to their wives, lest 
 they may become known to outsiders. The masons were, if we except 
 the clockmakers and jewellers, the most skilled artisans of Europe. 
 By the cunning of their hands they knew how to make the rough 
 stone speak out the grand conceptions of the architects of the 
 middle ages ; and often, the delicate foliage and flowers and 
 statuary of the fanes they built, remind us of the most perfect 
 eras of Greek and Eoman sculpture. So closely connected with 
 religion and religious architecture as were these " Brothers 
 Masons,'' " Friar " " Era," or " Free Masons," they shared to a 
 large extent in the favour of the Popes. They obtained many and 
 valuable charters. Bat they degenerated. The era of the so- 
 called Reformation was a sad epoch for them. It was an era of 
 Church demolition rather than of Church building. Wherever the 
 blight of Protestantism fell, the beauty and stateliness of Church 
 architecture became dwarfed, stunted, and degraded, whenever 
 it was not utterly destroyed. The need of Brothers Masons had 
 
22 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 passed, and succeeding Masons began to admit men to their 
 guilds who won a living otherwise than by the craft. In Germany 
 their confraternity had become a cover for the reformers, and 
 Socinus seeing in it a means for advancing his sect — a 
 method for winning adepts and progressing stealthily without 
 attracting the notice of Catholic governments, would desire 
 no doubt to use it for his purposes. We have to this 
 day the statutes the genuine Freemasons of Strasbourg framed 
 in 1462, and the same revised as late as 1563, but in them 
 there is absolutely nothing of heresy or hostility to the Church. 
 But there is a curious document called the Charter of Cologne 
 dated 1535, which, if it be genuine, proves to us that there 
 existed at that early period a body of Freemasons, having 
 principles identical with those professed by the Masons of our own 
 day. It is to be found in the archives of the Mother Lodge of 
 Amsterdam, which also preserves the act of its own constitution 
 under the date of 1519. It reveals the existence of lodges of 
 kindred intent in London, Edinburgh, Vienna, Amsterdam, 
 Paris, Lyons, Frankfort, Hamburg, Antwerp, Rotterdam, 
 Madrid, Venice, Goriz, Koenigsberg, Brussels, Dantzic, Magde- 
 burg, Bremen and Cologne; and it bears the signatures of well- 
 known enemies of the Church at that period, namely — Hermanns 
 or Herman de Weir, the immoral and heretical Archbishop- 
 Elector of Cologne, placed for his misdeeds under the ban 
 of the Empire ; De Cohgny, leader of the Huguenots of 
 France ; Jacob d'Anville, Prior of the Augustinians of Cologne, 
 who incurred the same reproaches as Archbishop Herman 
 Melancthon, the Reformer ; Nicholas Van Noot ; Carlton 
 Bruce ; Upson ; Banning ; Vireaux ; Schroeder ; Hofman 
 Nobel ; De la Torre ; Doria ; Uttenbow ; Falck ; Huissen 
 Wormer. These names reveal both the country and the celebrity 
 of all the men who signed the document. It was, possibly, a 
 society like theirs, which the Venetian Government broke up and 
 scattered in 1547, for we find distinct mention of a lodge existing 
 at Venice in 1535. However this may be, Freemason lodges 
 
FREEMASONRY. 23 
 
 existed in Scotland from the time of the Reformation. One of 
 them is referred to in the Charter of Cologne, and doubtless had 
 many affiliations. In Scotland, as in other Catholic countries, 
 the Templars were suppressed ; and there, if nowhere else, that 
 Order had the guilds of working masons under its special 
 protection. It is therefore possible, as some say, that the knights 
 coalesced with these Masons, and protected their own machinations 
 with the aid of the secrets of the craft. But while this and all 
 else stated regarding the connection of the Templars with 
 Masonry may be true, there is no real evidence that it is so. 
 Much is said about the building of the Temple of Solomon ; and 
 that the Hiram killed, and whose death the craft is to avenge, 
 means James Molay, the Grand Master, executed in the barbarous 
 manner of his age for supposed complicity in the crimes with 
 which the Templars were everywhere charged. There is tall 
 talk about such things in modern Masonry, and a great deal of 
 the absurd and puerile ritual in which the sect indulges when 
 conferring the higher grades, is supposed to have reference to 
 them. But the Freemasonry with which we have to deal, however 
 connected in its origin with the Templars, with Socinus, with the 
 conspirators of Cologne, or those of Vicenza, or with Cromwell, 
 received its modern characteristics from Ellas Ashmole, the 
 Antiquary, and the provider, if not the founder, of the Oxford 
 Museum. Ashmole was an alchemist and an astrologer, and imbued 
 consequently with a love for the jargon and mysticism of that 
 strange body so busied about the philosopher's stone and other 
 Utopias. The existing lodges of the Freemasons had an inexpres- 
 sible charm for Ashmole, and in 1646 he, together with Colonel 
 Mainwaring, became members of the craft. He perfected it, added 
 various mystic symbols to those already in use, and gave partly a 
 scriptural, partly an Egyptian form to its jargon and ceremonies. 
 The Piosecroix, Rosicrucian degree, a society formed after the 
 ideal of Bacon's New Atlantis, appeared ; and the various grades of 
 companion, master, secret master, perfect master, elect, and Irish 
 master, were either remodelled or newly formed, as we know them 
 
24 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 now. Charles I. was decapitated in 16-49, and Ashmole being a 
 Kojalist to the core, soon turned English Masonry from the 
 purposes of Cromwell and his party, and made the craft, which 
 was always strong in Scotland, a means to upset the Government of 
 the Protector and to bring back the Stuarts. Now " Hiram" became 
 the murdered Charles, who Avas to be avenged instead of James 
 Molay, and the reconstruction of the Temple meant the restoration 
 of the exiled House of Stuart. On the accession of Charles II., 
 the craft was, of course, not treated with disfavour ; and when 
 the misfortunes of James II., drove him from the throne, the 
 partisans of the House of Stuart had renewed recourse to it as a 
 means of secret organization against the enemy. 
 
 To bring back the Pretender, the Jacobites formed a 
 Scotch and an English and an Irish constitution. The English 
 constitution embraced the Mother Lodge of York and that of 
 London, which latter separated from York, and with a new spring 
 of action started into life as the Grand Lodge of London in 1717. 
 The Jacobite nobles brought it to France chiefly to aid their 
 attempts in favour of the Stuarts. They opened a lodge 
 called the " Amity and Fraternity," in Dunkirk, in 1721, and in 
 1725, the Lord Derwentwater opened the fmious Mother Lodge 
 of Paris. Masonry soon spread to Holland (1730), to Germany 
 in 1736, to Ireland in 1729, and afterwards to Italy, Spain, 
 and Europe generally. All its lodges were placed under the 
 Grand Lodge of England, and remained so for many years. 
 
 I mention these facts and dates in order to let you see that 
 precisely at the period when Freemasonry -was thus extending 
 abroad, the Infidelity, which had been introduced by Bayle and 
 openly advocated by Voltaire, was being disseminated largely 
 amongst the corrupt nobility of France and of Europe generally. 
 It was, as we have already seen, a period of universal licence in 
 morals with the great in every country, and the members of 
 the Grand Lodge in England were generally men of easy virtue 
 whose example was agreeable to Continental libertines. 
 
 Voltaire found, that the Masonry to which he had been 
 
FREEMASONRY. 25 
 
 affiliated in London, was a capital means of dilFusing his doctrines 
 among the courtiers, the men of letters, and the public of 
 France. It was like himself, the incarnation of hypocrisy and 
 lying. It came recommended by an appearance of philanthropy 
 and of religion. Ashmole gave it the open Bible, together with 
 the square and compass. It called the world to witness that it 
 believed in God, " the great Architect of the Universe." It 
 had " an open eye," which may be taken for God's all-seeing 
 providence, or for the impossibility of a sworn Mason escaping 
 his fate if he revealed the secrets of the craft or failed to 
 obey the orders he was selected to carry out. It made members 
 known to each other, just as did the ancient craft, in every 
 country, and professed to take charge of the orphans and widows 
 of deceased brethren who could not provide for them. But, in 
 its secret conclaves and in its ascending degrees, it had means to 
 tell the victim whom it could count upon, that the " Architect " 
 meant a circle, a nothing ; ^ that the open Bible was the universe ; 
 and that the square and compass was simply the fitness of 
 things — the means to make all men " fraternal, equal and free " in 
 some impossible utopia it promised but never gave. In the 
 recesses of its lodges, the political conspirator found the men and 
 the means to arrive at his ends in security. Those who ambitioned 
 office found there the means of advancement. The old spirit 
 breathed into the fraternity by Socinus, and nourished so well 
 by the heretical libertines of the England and Germany of the 
 seventeenth century, and perfected by the Infidels of the 
 eighteenth, was master in all its lodges. Banquets, ribald songs 
 and jests, revelling in sin, constituted from the beginning, a leading 
 feature in its life. Lodges became the secure home for the roue, 
 the spendthrift, the man of broken fortunes, the Infidel, and the 
 depraved of the upper classes. Such attractive centres of sin, 
 therefore, spread over Europe with great rapidity. They were 
 encouraged not only by Voltaire, but by his whole host of 
 Atheistic writers, philosophers, encyclopaedists, revolutionists, 
 
 ^ See section xxi. " Freemasonry with Oui'selves," page 121. 
 
26 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 and rakes. The scoundrels of Europe found congenial employment 
 in them; and before twenty years elapsed from their first intro- 
 duction, the lodges were a power in Europe, formidable by the 
 union which subsisted between them all, and by the wealth, 
 social position, and unscrupulousness of those who formed their 
 brotherhood. The principles fashionable — and indeed alone 
 tolerated — in them all, before long, were the principles of Voltaire 
 and of his school. This led in time to — 
 
 V. 
 
 The Union and Illuminism of Masonry. 
 With the aid of Voltaire, and of his party. Freemasonry 
 rapidly spread amongst the higher classes of France and wherever 
 else in Europe the influence of the French Infidels extended. It 
 soon after obtained immense power of union and propagandism. 
 In France and everywhere else it had an English, a Scotch, and a 
 local obedience. These had separate constitutions and ofiicers, 
 even separate grades^ but all were identical in essence and in aim. 
 A brother in one was a brother in all. However, it seemed to the 
 leaders that more unity was needed, and aided by the adhesion 
 of the Duke de Chartres, subsequently better known as the 
 Duke of Orleans, the infamous Philippe-Egalite, who was Grand 
 Master of the Scotch Masonic Body in France, the French 
 Masons in the English obedience desiring independence of the 
 Mother Lodge of England, separated, and elected him the first 
 Grand Master of the since celebrated Grand Orient of France. 
 Two years after this, the execrable "Androgyne" lodges for 
 women, called "Lodges of Adoption," Avere established, and had 
 as Grand Mistress over them all, the Duchess of Bourbon, 
 sister of Egalite. The Infidels, by extending these lodges for 
 women, obtained an immense amount of influence, which they 
 otherwise never could attain. They thus invaded the domestic 
 circle of the Court of France and of every Court in Europe. 
 Thus, too, the royal edicts, the decrees of Clement XII. 
 and Benedi(it XIV, against Freemasonry, and the eflbrts of 
 
THE UNION AND ILLUMIXISM OF MASONRY. 27 
 
 conscientious officers, were rendered completely inoperative. 
 After the death of Voltaire, the extension of Freemasonry became 
 alarming ; but no State eifort could then stop its progress. It 
 daily grew more powerful and more corrupt. It began already 
 to extend its influence into every department of state. Promotion 
 in the army, in the navy, in the public service, in the law, and 
 even to the flit benefices "in commendam " of the Church, 
 became impossible without its aid ;^ and at this precise juncture, 
 when the political fortunes of France were, for many reasons, 
 growing desperate, two events occurred to make the already 
 general and corrupt Freemasonry still more formidable. These 
 Avere the advent of the Illuminism of Saint Martin in France, 
 and that of Adam Weishaupt in Germany, and the increased 
 corruption introduced principally by means of women-Freemasons. 
 A Portuguese Jew^ named Martinez Pasqualis, was the first 
 to introduce Illuminism into the Lodge of Lyons, and his system 
 was afterwards perfected in wickedness by Saint Martin, 
 from whom French Illuminism took its name. Illuminism meant 
 the extreme extent of immorality. Atheism, anarchy, levelling, 
 and bloodshed, to which the principles of ]\Iasonry could be 
 carried. It meant a universal conspiracy against the Church 
 
 1 Before the celebrated "Convent" of Wilhehusbad there was a thorough 
 understanding between the Freemasons of the various Catholic countries of 
 Continental Europe. This was manifested m the horrible intrigues wliich led to 
 the suppression of the Society of Jesus in France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, and 
 Naples ; and which finally compelled Clement XIV. to dissolve the great body by 
 ecclesiastical authority. No doubt the Jesuits had very potent enemies in the 
 Jansenists, the Galileans, and in others whose party spirit and jealousy were 
 stronger than their sense of the real good of religion. But without the unscru- 
 pidous intrigues of the Infidels of Voltaire's school banded into a compact 
 active league by the newly -developed Freemasonry, the influence of the sects of 
 Christians hostile to the Order could never effect an effacement so complete and so 
 general. Anglican lodges, we must remember, appeared in Spain and Portugal 
 as soon as in France. One was opened in Gibraltar in 1726, and one in Madrid in 
 1727. This latter broke with the mother lodge of London in 1779, and founded 
 lodges in Barcelona, Cadiz, Vallidolid, and other cities. There were several lodges 
 at work in Lisbon as early as 17;)5. The Duke de Choiseul, a Freemason, with 
 the aid of the abominable de Pompadour, the harlot of the still more abominable 
 Louis XV., succeeded in driving the Jesuits from France. He then set about 
 influencing his brother ]\Lisons, the Count De Aranda, Prime Minister of 
 Charles III. of Spain, and the infamous Carvalho-Pombal, the alte7- e<jo of the 
 weak King of Portugal, to do the same rvork in the Catholic States of their 
 respective sovereigns. The Marquis de L'Angle, a French Freemasonic Atheist, 
 
2S WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 and established order. It constituted a degree of advancement 
 for all the lodges, and powerfully aided to make them the centres 
 of revolutionary intrigue and of political manipulation which 
 they soon became in the hands of men at once sunk in Atheism 
 and moral corruption. 
 
 An idea of these lodges may be obtained from a description 
 given of that of Ermanonville, by M. Le Marquis de Lefroi, in 
 Dictlonnaire des Errors Sociales^ quoted by Deschamps, vol. ii., 
 page 93. 
 
 " It is known," he says, " that the Chateau de Ermanon- 
 ville belonging to the Sieur Girardin, about ten leagues from 
 PariSj was a famous haunt of llluminism. It is known that there, 
 near the tomb of Jean-Jacques, under the pretext of bringing 
 men back to the age of nature, reigned the most horrible 
 dissoluteness of morals. Nothing can equal the turpitude of 
 morals which reigns amongst that horde of Ermanonville. 
 Every woman admitted to the mysteries became common to the 
 brothers, and was delivered up to the chance or to the choice 
 of these true ' Adamites.' " Barruch in his Memoir es sur le 
 Jacohinisiii, t. iv., p. 334, says, "that M. Leseure, the father of 
 
 and friend of Choiseul, thus writes of De Aranda — " lie is the only man of 
 which Spain can be proud of at this moment. He is tlie sole Spaniard of our 
 days whom posterity will place on its tablets. It is he whom it will love to place 
 on the front of all its temples, and whose name it will engrave on its escutcheon 
 together with the names of Luther, of Calvin, of Mahomet, of William Penn, 
 and of Jesus Christ ! It is he who desired to sell the wardrobe of the saints, the 
 property of virgins, and to convert the cross, the chandeliers, the patens, &c., 
 into bridges and inns and main roads." We cannot be surprised at what 
 De Aranda attempted after this testimony. He conspired with Choiseul to forge 
 a letter as if from the General of the Jesuits, Ricci, which purported to prove 
 that the King's mother was an adulteress, and that the King had no claim to the 
 Spanish throne. Secretly, therefore, an order was obtained from the weak 
 Monarch, and on a given day and hour the Jesuits in all parts of the Spanish 
 dominions were dragged from their homes, placed on board ships, and cast on the 
 shores of the Pontifical States in a condition of utter destitution. A calumny as 
 atrocious and unfounded enabled Pombal to inflict a worse fate on the Jesuits of 
 Portugal and its dependencies. Charles III. ordered Panucci, another Masonic 
 enemy of the Jesuits, to banish the members of the society from Nai^les, where 
 his son reigned. Geiser writes to Voltaire that the half-fool Joseph II. was 
 initiated in the mysteries of Masonry andaccordingly the Jesuits, notwithstanding 
 the sympathies of the Empress Mary Theresa, fell in Austria. The world was 
 left thus free for the Masonic philosophers to compass the destruction which they 
 planned at Wilhelmsbad and effected in the llevolution eight years afterwards. 
 
THE ILLUMINISM OF ADAM WEISHAUPT. 29 
 
 the lio,ro of La Vendee, having been affiliated to a lodge of this 
 kind, and having, in obedience to the promptings of conscience, 
 abandoned it, was soon after poisoned." He himself declared to 
 the Marquis de Montron that he fell a victim to 'Hhat infamous 
 horde of the Illuminati." 
 
 The lUuminism of Saint Martin was simply an advance in 
 the intensity of immorality, Atheism, secrecy, and terror, Avhich 
 already reigned in the lodges of France. It planned a deeper 
 means of revolution and destruction. It became in its hidden 
 depths a lair in which the Atheists of the period could mature 
 their plans for the overthrow of the existing order of things to 
 their own best advantage. It gave itself very captivating names. 
 Its members were " Knights of Beneficence," " Good Templars," 
 ''Knights of St. John," &c. They numbered, however, amongst 
 them, the most active, daring, and unscrupulous members of 
 Masonry. Tliey set themselves at work to dominate over and 
 to control the entire body. They had no system, any more than 
 any other sort of Masons, to give the world instead of that 
 which they determnied to pull down. The state of nature, 
 goods and the sexes in common, no God, and instead of God a 
 hatred for everything sustaining the idea of God, formed about 
 the sum total of the happiness which they desired to see reign in 
 a world, where people should be reduced to a level resembling 
 that of Avild cattle in the American prairies. This was the 
 Illumination they destined for humanity ; yet such was the 
 infatuation inspired by their immoral and strange doctrines that 
 nobles, princes, and monarchs of the period, including Frederick II. 
 of Prussia and the silly Joseph II. of Austria, admitted to 
 a part of their secrets, were the tools and the dupes, and even 
 the accomplices, of these inflimous conspirators. 
 
 VI. 
 
 The Illuminism of Adam Weishauft. 
 But the Illuminism of Lyons was destined soon to have a 
 world-wide and ineradicable hold on the Masonry of the world 
 
30 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 by means of an adept far more able than Saint Martin or any 
 of his associates. This was Adam Wieshaupt, a Professor of 
 Canon Law in the University of Munich. I shall detain you a 
 while to consider this remarkable individual who, more than any 
 of the Atheists that have arisen in Masonry, has been the cause 
 of the success of its agencies in controlling the fate of the 
 world since his day. Had Weishaupt not lived, Masonry may 
 have ceased to be a power after the reaction consequent on the 
 first French Revolution. He gave it a form and character 
 which caused it to outlive that reaction, to energize to the 
 present day, and which will cause it to advance until its final 
 conflict with Christianity must determine whether Christ or 
 Satan shall reign on this earth to the end. 
 
 Voltaire's will to do God and man injury was as strong as 
 that of Weishaupt. His disciples, D'Alembert, Diderot, Dami- 
 laville, Condorcet, and the rest, were as fully determined as he 
 was, to eradicate Christianity. But they desired in its stead a 
 system with only a mitigated antipathy for monarchy, and which 
 might have tolerated for a long time such kings as Frederick of 
 Prussia, and such Empresses as Catherine of Russia. But 
 the hatred for God and all form of worship, and the determina- 
 tion to found a universal republic on the lines of Communism, 
 was on the part of Weishaupt a settled sentiment. Possessed of 
 a rare power of organization, an education in law which made 
 him a pre-eminent teacher in its highest faculty, an extended 
 knowledge of men and things, a command over himself, a repute 
 for external morality, and finally, a position calculated to win 
 al)le disciples, Weishaupt employed, for fifty years after the death 
 of Voltaire, his whole life and energies in the one work of per- 
 fecting secret associations to accomplish by deep deceit, and by 
 force when that should be practical, the ruin of the existing 
 order of religion, civilization, and government, in order to 
 plant in its stead his own system of Atheism and Socialism. 
 
 He found contemporary Masomy well adapted for his ends. 
 His object was to extend it as far as possible as a means of 
 
THE ILLUMINISM OF ADAM WEISIIAUPT. 31 
 
 seducingmenaway from Christianity. He well knew that Masonry 
 and the Church were in mortal conflict, and that the moment a 
 man became a Mason, he, that instant, became excommunicated ; 
 he lost the grace of God ; he passed into a state of hostility to 
 the Church ; he ceased to approach the Sacraments ; he was 
 constituted in a state of rebellion ; he forfeited his liberty to 
 unknown superiors; he took a dreadful oath — perhaps many — not 
 to reveal the secrets then, or at any after time, to be committed 
 to his keeping ; and finally, he placed himself amongst men, all of 
 whom were in his own position, and in whose society it was 
 possible and easy for the astute disciples of Weishaupt to lead 
 him farther on the road to ruin. 
 
 Weishaupt's view, then, was first to entice men into Masonry 
 — into the lowest degree. A great gain for evil was thus at once 
 obtained. But a man, though in Masonry, may not be willing 
 to become an Atheist and a Socialist, for some time at least. He 
 may have in his heart a profound conviction that a God existed, 
 and some hope left of returning to that God at or before his 
 death. He may have entered Masonry for purposes of ambitioUj 
 for motives of vanity, from mere lightness of character. He may 
 continue his prayers, and refuse, if a Catholic, to give up the 
 Mother of God and some practice of piety loved by him from his 
 youth. But Masonry was a capital system to wean a man gradu- 
 ally away from all these things. It did not at once deny the 
 existence of God, nor at once attack the Christian Dispensation. 
 It commenced by giving the Christian idea of God, an easy, and, 
 under semblance of respect, an almost imperceptible shake. It 
 SAvore by the name of God in all its oaths. It called him, 
 however, not a Creator, only an architect — the great Architect of 
 the universe. It carefully avoided all mention of Christ, of the 
 Adorable Trinity, of the Unity of the Faith, or of any faith. It 
 protested a respect for the convictions of every man, for the 
 idolatrous Parsee, for the Mahommedan, for the Heretic, the 
 Schismatic, the Catholic. By-and-by, it gave, in higher 
 degrees, a ruder shock to the belief in the Deity and a gradual 
 
32 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 inducement to favour Naturalism. This it did gradually, imper- 
 ceptibly, but effectually. Now, to a man who meditated the vast 
 designs of social and religious destruction contemplated by 
 Weishaupt, Masonry, especially the Masonry of his period, was 
 the most effective means that could be conceived. In its midst, 
 therefore, he planted his disciples, well versed in his system. 
 These consisted of three classes, each class having subdivisions, 
 and all of which were high degrees of Masonry. The first 
 class of Illuminati, was that of preparation. It consisted of two 
 degrees, namely, the degree of Novice and that of Minerval. The 
 Miuervals formed the great body of the order, and were under the 
 direction of certain chiefs, who themselves were subjected to other 
 agencies invisible to those instructed by themselves. Weishaupt 
 instructed the teachersof the Minervals to propose each year to their 
 scholars some interesting questions, to cause them to write themes 
 calculated to spread impiety amongst the people, such as 
 burlesques on the Psalms, pasquinades on the Prophets, and 
 caricatures of personages of the Old Testament after the manner 
 of Voltaire and his school. It is surprising with what exactitude 
 these Minervals follow out the instructions of Weishaupt to this 
 day. At this moment, in London, under the eyes of the 
 Lord Chancellor, pamphlets, with hideous woodcuts, ridiculing 
 David, ''the man after God's own heart," are weekly published. 
 One of these, which was handed to me in a public place, had a 
 woodcut representing the "meek Monarch of Judea," with a head 
 just severed from a human body in one hand, and the sword that 
 did the deed in the other. Another represented him amidst a 
 set of ridiculous figures dancing. From this we can easily judge 
 that illuminated Masonry is at work somewhere even in London, 
 and that the Masonry in high quarters is blind to its excesses, 
 exactly as happened in France a few years before the French 
 Kevolution. Now these Minervals, if they manifested what the 
 German Masons call "religionary " inclinations, might indeed 
 receive the first three Masonic degrees, but they were not to be 
 further promoted in Illuminism. They were relegated to 
 
THE ILLUMINISM OF ADAM WEISHAUPT, 33 
 
 the rank and file of Masonry, who were of use in many ways for 
 the movement, but they were never to be trusted witli the real 
 secret. The teacher, without seeming to do so, was ordered 
 to encourage, but not to applaud publicly, such blasphemies as 
 the Minervals might make use of in their essays. They were to 
 be led on, seemingly by themselves, in the ways of irreligion, 
 immorality, and Atheism, until ripe for further promotion in evil 
 progress. Finally, in the advanced grades of Illuminated Major 
 and Minor, and in those of Scotch Knight and Epopte or Priest 
 they were told the whole secret of the Order as follows, in a 
 discourse by the initiator. 
 
 " Remember," he said, " that from the first invitations 
 which we have given you, in order to attract you to us, 
 we have commenced by telling you that in the projects of our 
 Order there did not enter any designs against religion. You re- 
 member that such an assurance was again given to you when 
 you were admitted into the ranks of our Novices, and that it 
 was repeated when you entered into our Minerval Academy. 
 Remember also how much from the first grades we have spoken 
 to you of morality and virtue, but at the same time how much 
 the studies which we prescribed for you and the instructions 
 which we gave you rendered both morality and virtue independent 
 of all religion ; how much we have been at pains to make you 
 understand, while making to you the eulogy of religion, that 
 it was not anything else than those mysteries, and that worship 
 degenerated in the hands of the priest. You remember with 
 what art, with what simulated respect we have spoken to you 
 of Christ and of his Gospel ; but in the grades of greater Illumin- 
 ism, of Scotch Knight, and of Epopte or Priest, how we have kno wn 
 to form from Christ's Gospel that of our reason, and from its 
 morality that of nature, and from its religion that of nature, and 
 from religion, reason, morality, and nature, to make the religion 
 and the morality of the rights of man, of equality, and of liberty. 
 Remember, that while insinuating to you the different parts of 
 this system, we have caused them to bud forth from yourselves 
 
 D 
 
34 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 as if your own opinions. We have placed you on the way; you 
 have replied to our questions very much more than we did to 
 yours. When we demanded of you, for example, whether the 
 religions of peoples responded to the end for which men adopted 
 them ; if the religion of Christ, pure and simple, was that which 
 the different sects professed to-day, we knew well enough what to 
 hold. But it was necessary to know to what point we had 
 succeeded to cause our sentiments to germinate in you. We 
 have had very many prejudices to overcome in you, before being 
 able to persuade you, that the pretended religion of Christ was 
 nothing else than the work of priests, of imposture, and of tyranny. 
 If it be so with that religion so much proclaimed and admired, 
 what are we to think of other religions ? CJnderstand, then, that 
 they have all the same fictions for their origin, that they are all 
 equally founded on lying, error, chimera, and imposture. Behold 
 our secret ! 
 
 " The turns and counter-turns which it was necessary to 
 make ; the eulogies which it was necessary to give to the 
 pretended secret schools ; the fable of the Freemasons being in 
 possession of the veritable doctrine ; and our Illuminism to-day, 
 the sole inheritor of these mysteries, will no longer astonish you at 
 this moment. If, in order to destroy all Christianity, all religion, 
 we have pretended to have the sole true religion, remember that 
 the end justifies the means, and that the wise ought to take all 
 the means to do good, which the wicked take to do evil. Those 
 which we have taken to deliver you, those which we take to 
 deliver one day the human race from all religion, are nothing 
 else than a pious fraud which we reserve to unveil some day in 
 the grade of Magus or Philosopher Illuminated. " — Scgur 
 Le Secret de la Fra7ic-Afaconnerie, p. 49. 
 
 The above extract will serve to show you what manner of 
 man Weishaupt was, and the quality of the teaching he invented. 
 His organization — for the perfection of which he deeply studied 
 the constitution of the then suppressed Society of Jesus — con- 
 templated placing the thread of the whole conspiracy, destined to 
 
THE CONVENT OF WILHELMSBAD. 35 
 
 be controlled by the lUuminati, in the hands of one man, advised 
 by a small council. The Illuminati were to be in Masonry and 
 of Masonry, so as to move amongst its members secretly. They 
 were so trained that they could obtain the mastery in every 
 form of secret society, and thus render it subservient to their own 
 Chief. Their fidelity to him was made perfect by the most 
 severe and complex system of espionage. The Chief himself 
 was kept safe by his position, his long training, and by his 
 council. It thus happened that no matter to what office or 
 position the Illuminati attained, they had to become subservient 
 to the general aims of the Order. Weishaupt, after being 
 deprived of his professorship in Bavaria, found an asylum with 
 the Prince of Coburg Gotha, where lie remained hi honour, 
 affluence, and security, until his death in 1830. He continued 
 all his life the Chief of the Illuminati, and this fact may 
 account, in large measure, for the fidelity with which the 
 Illuminati of the Revolution, the Directory, the Consulate, the 
 Empire, the Restoration, and the Revolution of 1830, invariably 
 carried out his programme of perpetual conspiracy for the ends 
 he had in view. It may also account for the strange vitality of 
 the spu-it of the Illuminati in Italy, Switzerland, Germany, and 
 Spain, and of its continuance through the " Illuminated " reigns 
 of Nubius and Palmerston, the successors of Weishaupt to our 
 own day. This we shall see further on; but, meanwhile, we 
 shall glance at the first step of Weishaupt to rule over Masonry 
 through his disciples. This was by calling together the famous 
 " General Council " of Freemasoniy, known as — 
 
 VII. 
 
 The Convent of Wilhelmsbad. 
 From its rise Freemasonry appears as a kind of dark 
 parody of the Church of Christ. The names taken by its digni- 
 taries, the form of its hierarchy, the designations affected by its 
 lodges and "obediences," the language of its rituals, all seem 
 to be a kind of aping after the usages of Christianity. When 
 
36 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 Saint Martin -wished to spread his llluminism in France, he 
 managed to have a meeting of deputy Masons from all the lodges 
 in that country. This was designated the " Convent of the 
 Gauls ; " and Lyons the place of its meeting was called " The 
 Holy City." Weishaupt had more extended views. He meant 
 to reach all humanity by means of Masonry, and looked 
 for a " Convent " far more general than that of Lyons. 
 When, therefore, he had matured his plans for impregnating 
 the Masonry of the world with his infernal system , he began to 
 cast about for means to call that Convent. The llluminism of 
 Saint Martin was in full sympathy with him, but it could not 
 effect his purpose. What he wanted was, that a kind of 
 General Council of the Masonry extended at the time 
 throughout the earth, should be called together ; and he hoped 
 that, by adroitly manipulating the representatives whom he 
 knew would be sent to it by the lodges of every nationality 
 of Masons, his own llluminism might be adopted as a kind of 
 high, arch, or hidden, Masonry, throughout its entire extent. 
 He succeeded in his design, and in 1781, under the official 
 convocation of the Duke of Brunswick, acting as Supreme 
 Grand Master, deputies from every country where Freemasonry 
 existed were summoned to meet at Wilhelmsbad in council. 
 They came from every portion of the British Empire ; from 
 the newly formed United States of America ; from all the 
 nations of Continental Europe, every one of which, at that 
 period, had lodges ; from the territories of the Grand Turk ; 
 and from the Indian and Colonial possessions of France, Spain, 
 Portugal, and Holland. The principal and most numerous 
 representatives were, however, from Germany and France. 
 Through the skilful agency of the notorious Baron Knigg, and 
 another still more astute adept of his, named Dittfort, Wieshaupt 
 completely controlled tliis Council. He further caused measures 
 to be there concerted which in a few years led to the French 
 Kevolution, and afterwards handed Germany over to the 
 French revolutionary Generals acting under the Girondins, 
 
CABALISTIC MASONRY OR MASONIC SPIRITISM, 37 
 
 tlie Jacobins, and the Directory. I would wish, if time per- 
 mitted, to enter ai length into the proofs of this fact. It will 
 suffice, however, for my present purpose, to state, that more than 
 sufficient evidence of it was found by the Bavarian Government, 
 which had, some five years later, to suppress the Ilium inati, and 
 that one of the mem])ers of the convent, the Count de Yirene, 
 was struck with such horror at tlie depravity of the body, 
 that he abandoned Illuminism and became a fervent Catholic. 
 He said to a friend : — " I will not tell you the secrets 
 which I bring, but I can say that a conspiracy is laid so secret 
 and so deep that it will be very difficult for monarchy and 
 religion not to succumb to it." It may be also of use to 
 remark that many of the leaders of the French Revolution, and 
 notably most of those who lived through it, and profited by it, 
 were deputy Masons sent from various lodges in France to the 
 Convent of Wilhelmsbad. 
 
 VITI. 
 
 Cabalistic Masonry or Masonic Spiritism. 
 Before proceeding further with the history of Freemasonry, 
 I shall stay a moment to consider a very remarkable feature 
 in its strange composition, without which it scarcely ever 
 appears. The world was never without wizards, witches, 
 necromancers, jugglers, and those who really had, or through 
 imposture, pretended to have, intercourse with demons. Masonry 
 in its various ramifications is the great continuator of 
 this feature of a past which we had thought departed for 
 ever. Spirit-rapping, table-turning, medium-imposture, etc., dis-. 
 tinguish its adepts in Protestant countries and in Catholic ones. 
 We have almost incredible stories of the intercourse with the devil 
 and his angels, which men like the Carbonari of Italy maintain. 
 However, from the very beginning, Freemasonry has had a kind of 
 peculiar dark mysticism connected with it. It loves to revel in such 
 mysteries as the secret conclaves of the Jews used to practise 
 in the countries in which they were persecuted, and which were 
 
38 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 common amongst those unclean heretics, the Bulgarians, the 
 Gnostics, the Albigenses, and the Waldenses, The excesses 
 alleged against the Templars, were also accompanied by secret 
 signs and symbols which Masonry adopted. But whatever 
 may have been the extent of this mysticism in Masonry 
 before, a spurious kind of spiritism became part of its very 
 essence since the advent of the celebrated Cagliostro, who 
 travelled all over Europe under the instructions of Weishaupt, 
 and founded more lodges than did any individual Freemason 
 then or since. 
 
 The real name of this arch-impostor was Balsamo. He was 
 an inveterate sorcerer, and in his peregrinations in the East, 
 picked up from every source, the secrets of alchemy, astrology, 
 jugglery, legerdemain, and occult science of every kind, about 
 which he could get any information. Like the Masonry to 
 which he became affiliated at an early period, he was an adept 
 at acting and speaking a lie. He suited Weishaupt, who, though 
 knowing him to be an impostor, nevertheless employed him for the 
 diffusion of Illuminism . Accompanied by his no less celebrated 
 wife, Lorenza, he appeared in Venice as the Marquis Pelligrini, 
 and subsequently traversed Italy, Germany, Spain, England, 
 the Netherlands, and Eussia. In the latter country he amassed, 
 at the Court of Catherine II., an immense fortune. In France, 
 assisted by the efforts of the Illuminati, he was received as a 
 kind of demigod, and called the divine Cagliostro. He established 
 new lodges in all parts of the country. At Bordeaux he 
 remained eleven months for this purpose. In Paris he established 
 lodges for women of a peculiarly cabalistic and impure kind, with 
 inner departments horribly mysterious. At the reception of mem- 
 bers he used rites and ceremonies exactly resembling the absurd 
 practices of spirit mediums, who see and speak to spirits, etc., 
 and introduced all that nonsense with which we are made now 
 familiar by his modern followers. He claimed the power of 
 conferring immortal youth, health, and beauty, and what he 
 called moral and physical regeneration, by the aid of drugs and 
 
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 39 
 
 Illuminated Masonry. He was the father and the founder of 
 the existing rite of Misraira — the Egyptian rite in Masonry. 
 The scoundrel became involved in the celebrated case of the 
 "Diamond Necklace," and was sent to the Bastile, from which 
 he managed to pass to England, Avhere, in 1787, he undertook 
 to foretell the destruction of the Bastile, and of the Monarchy of 
 France, the Revolution, and — but here he miscalculated — the 
 advent of a Prince who would abolish Lettres cle Cachet, convoke 
 the States General, and establish the worship of Reason. All 
 these measures were resolved on at Wilhelmsbad, and Cagliostro 
 of course knew that well. His only miscalculation was regarding 
 the Prince Grand Master. The Revolution Avent on a little too 
 fiir for the wretched Egalite, who ended his treason to his house 
 by losing his head at the guillotine. As to Cagliostro, he made his 
 way to Rome, where the Inquisition put an end to his exploits 
 on detecting his attempts at lUuminism. His secret powers could 
 not deliver him from prison. He died there miserably, in 1795, 
 after attempting to strangle a poor Capuchin whom he asked for 
 as confessor, and in whose habit he had hoped to escape. This 
 impostor is of course made a martyr to the Inquisition accordingly. 
 Masonry does much to disown Cagliostro ; but with a strange incon- 
 sistency it keeps the Egyptian rite founded by him, and clings to 
 mysticism of the debased kind he introduced. It is wonderful 
 how extremes thus meet, — how men who make it a sign of 
 intellectual strength to deny the existence of the God that made 
 them bow down stupidly and superstitiously before devils, real 
 or imaginary. Necromancy is a characteristic of Antichrist, 
 of whom we read, " that he will show great signs and wonders so 
 as to deceive, if that were possible, even the elect." He will be 
 when he comes both a Cromwell and a Cagliostro. 
 
 IX. 
 The French Revolution. 
 I may here remark that the conspiracy of the Illuminati, 
 and of Freemasonry generally, was far from being a secret to 
 many of the Courts of Europe. But, then, just as at the present 
 
40 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 moment, it had friends, female as well as male, in every Court. 
 These baulked the wholesome attempts of some rulers to stay its 
 deadly intrigues against princes, governments, and all order, 
 as well as against its one grand enemy, the Church of Jesus 
 Christ. The Court of Bavaria found out, as I have said, but only 
 by an accident, a part of the plans of the llluminati, and gave the 
 alarm ; but, strange to say, that alarm was unheeded by 
 the other Courts of Europe, Catholic as well as Protestant. A 
 Eevolution was expected, but, as now, each Court hoped to stave 
 off the worst consequences from itself, and to profit by the ruin 
 of its neighbours. The voice of the Holy Father was raised 
 against Freemasonry again and again. Clement YIII., Benedict 
 XIV., and other Pontiffs, condemned it. The Agents and 
 Ministers of the Holy See, gave private advices and made urgent 
 appeals to have the evil stopped wliile yet the powers of 
 Europe could do so. These were all baffled, and the Court of the 
 Grand Monarch and every Court of Continental Europe slept in 
 the torpor of a living death^ until wakened to a true sense ot 
 danger at a period far too late to remedy the disasters which 
 irreligion, vice, stupidity, and recklessness hastened. The 
 lodges of the llluminati in France meanwhile carried on the 
 conspiracy. They had amassed and expended immense sums in 
 deluging the country with immoral and Atheistic literature. 
 
 Mirabeau, in his Monarchie Prussienne (vol. 6, page 67), 
 published before the Eevolution, thus speaks of these sums : — 
 
 " Masonry in general, and especially tlie branch of the Templars, 
 produced annually immense sums by means of the cost of receptions and 
 contributions of every kind, A part of the total was employed in the expens'js 
 of the order, but another part, much more considerable, went into a general 
 fund, of which no one, except the first amongst the brethren, knew the 
 destination." Cagliostro, when questioned before the Holy Roman 
 Inquisition, " confessed that he led his sumptuous existence thanks to the 
 funds furnished him by the llluminati. He also stated that he had a 
 commission from Weishaupt to prepare the French Lodges to receive his 
 direction." — Se3 Deschamps, v., p 129. 
 
 Discontent was thus sown broadcast, amongst every class 
 
THE FREXCII REVOLUTION. 41 
 
 of the population. Masonic Lodges multiplied, inspired by 
 the instructed emissaries of the remorseless Weishaupt ; 
 and the direct work of Freemasonry in subsequent events is 
 manifest not only in the detailed prophecy of Cagliostro, founded 
 on what he knew was decided upon ; but is still more clearly 
 evidenced by a second convent, held by the French Illuminati, 
 where everything was arranged for the devolution. The men 
 prominent in this conclave were the men subsequently most 
 active in every scene that followed. ]\rirabeau, Lafayette, Fouche, 
 Talleyrand, Danton, Murat, Robespierre, Cambaceres, and in fact 
 every foremost name in the subsequent convulsions of the country 
 were not only Illuminati, but foremost amongst the Illuminati.^ 
 Some disappeared under their own guillotine ; others outlived the 
 doom of their fellows. Constantly, the men of the whole con- 
 spiracy had understandings and relations with each other. 
 Weishaupt, at the safe distance of Coburg-Gotha, gave them 
 his willing aid and that of the German Freemasons. This 
 concert enabled them to Hoat on every billow which the troubled 
 sea of the Revolution caused to swell; and if they did not succeed 
 in making France and all Europe a social ruin, such as that 
 contemplated at Wilhelmsbad, it was from want of power, not 
 from want of will. Position and wealth made many of them 
 
 ^ It is commonly believed tliat the encyclopaedists and piiilosophers were the 
 only men who overturned by their writings altar and throne at the time of the 
 Revolution. But, apart from the facts that these writers were to a man Free- 
 masons, and the most daruig and plotting of Freemasons, we have abundant 
 authority to prove that other Freemasons were everywhere even more practically 
 engaged in the same work. Louis Blanc, who will be acoi'pted as an authority on 
 this point thus writes : — " It is of consequence to introduce the reader into the 
 mine which at that time was being dug beneath thrones and altars by revolution- 
 ists, very much more profound and active than the encyclopaedists : an association 
 composed of men of all countries, of all religions, of all ranks, bound together 
 by symbolic bonds, engaged mider an inviolable oath to preserve the secret of 
 their interior existence. They were forced to undergo terrific proofs while occu- 
 pying themselves with fantastic ceremonies, but otherwise practised beneficence 
 and looked upon themselves as equals though div-ided in three classes, apprentices, 
 companions, and masters. Freemasonry consists in that. Now, on the eve of the 
 French Revolution, Freemasonry was found to have received an inmiense develop- 
 ment. Spread throughout the entire of Europe, it seconded the meditative genius 
 of Germany, agitated France silently, and presented everywhere the image of a 
 society founded on principles contrary to those of civil society." IMonsignor 
 Segur writes on this — "See to what a point the reign of Jesus Christ was 
 
42 WAR Of ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 desire to conserve what the Revolution threw into their hands. 
 But they remained under all changes of fortune Free- 
 masons, as they and their successors are to this day. 
 Perhaps, under the influence of oaths, of secret terror, and of 
 the sect, they dare not remain long otherwise. One or two 
 individuals may drop aside ; but some fatality or necessity keeps 
 the leaders Illuminati always. They as a whole body remain 
 ever the same, and recoil before political adversity, only to 
 gather more strength for a future attack upon religion and order 
 still wider and more fatal than the one which preceded it. They 
 are not at any time one whit less determined to plunge the 
 world into the anarchy and bloodshed they created at the French 
 Revolution, than they were in 1789. On this point let one of 
 themselves speak : — " I have had," says a Scotch Freemason, 
 horrified at the I'esults achieved by the Fraternity in their 
 work up to 1797, "I have had the means to follow all the 
 attempts made during fifty years under- the specious pretext of 
 enlightening the world with the torch of philosophy, and to 
 dissipate all the clouds by which superstition, religious and civil, 
 used to retain the people of Europe in the darkness of slavery. 
 I have observed the progress of these doctrines mixing theni- 
 
 menaced at the hour the Revolution broke out. It was not France alone that it 
 agitated, but the entire of Europe. What do I say ? The world was in the 
 power of Masonry. All the lodges of the world came in 1781 to Wilhelmsbad by 
 delegates from Europe, Asia, Africa, and America ; from the most distant coasts 
 discovered by navigators, they came, zealous apostles of Masonry . . . They 
 all returned penetrated with the Illimiinism of Weishaupt, that is Atheism, and 
 animated with the poison of incredulity with which the orators of the Convent 
 had inspired them. Europe and the Masonic world were then in arms against 
 Catholicity. Therefore, when the signal was given, the shock was terrible, terrible 
 especially in France, in Italy, in Spain, in the Catholic nations which they wished 
 to separate from the Pope and cast into schism, until the time came when they 
 could completely de-Christianize them. This accounts well for the captivities of 
 Pius VI. and Pius VII. The Cardinals were dispersed, the Bishops torn from 
 their Sees, the pastors separated from their flocks, the religious orders destroyed, 
 the goods of the Church confiscated, the churches overtiirned, the convents 
 turned into barracks, the sacred vessels stolen and melted down by sacrileo-ious 
 avidity, tlie bells turued into moneyand cannons, scaffolds erected everywhere^ and 
 victims in thousands, in hecatombs, especially from amongst the clergy ; in one 
 word, all the horrors summed up in the ' Revolution,' and the end,"wh'ich was 
 the great unerring power of all its actions, namely, to see Christ cast 'down from 
 His altars to make way for the goddess called Reason." 
 
TUE FRENCH REVOLUTION- 43 
 
 selves and allying themselves more and more closely with the 
 different systems of Masonry ; finally, I have seen them forming 
 an association having for its sole object the destruction, even to 
 the very foundations, of all the religious establishments, and the 
 overthrow of all the existing governments of Europe. I have 
 seen that association extend its systems with a zeal so sustained 
 that it became almost irresistible, and I have remarked that the 
 personages who have had the greatest part in the French 
 Revolution were members of that association, that their plans 
 had been conceived upon its principles, and executed with its 
 assistance. I am convinced that it exists always, that it works 
 always silently, and all appearances prove that not only its 
 emissaries strongly endeavour to propagate amongst us its 
 abominable doctrines, but that there are, even in England, 
 lodges which, since 1784, correspond with the mother lodge. 
 It is, in order to unmask these, to prove that the ringleaders 
 are knaves Avho preached a morality and a doctrine of which they 
 knew the falsehood and the danger, and that their real intention 
 was to abolish all forms of religion, to overthrow all govern- 
 ments, and to make of the entire world one scene of pillage and 
 murder, that I offer an extract of the informations I have taken 
 on this matter." 
 
 I have quoted these words of Robison to show, that as early 
 as 1797, the connection between Freemasonry and the French 
 Revolution was well understood. Since then Louis Blanc, and 
 other Masonic writers, have gloried in the fiict. " Our end," 
 said the celebrated Alta Vendita, to which I shall have to refer 
 presently, '' is that of Voltaire and the French Revolution." 
 In fact, what Freemasonry did in France, it now labours, with 
 greater caution, to effect on some future day throughout the 
 entire world. It then submitted, with perfect docility, to a 
 great military leader, who arose out of its own work and 
 principles. Such another leader will finally dii'ect its l:-ist efforts 
 against God and man. 
 
 That leader will be Antichrist. 
 
44 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 X. 
 
 Napoleon and Freemasonry. 
 I shall have to ask your careful attention for a few moments 
 to the leader who arose out of the first French Revolution, and 
 whose military and diplomatic fame is still fresh in the recollec- 
 tion of many of the present generation. That leader was 
 Napoleon Bonaparte. In the days of his greatest prosperity, 
 nothing was so distasteful to him as to be reminded of his 
 Jacobin past. He then wished to pose as another Charlemagne, 
 or Rudolph of Hapsburg. He wished to be considered the friend 
 of religion, and of the Catholic religion in particular. He did a 
 something for the restoration of the Church in France, but it 
 v^as as little as he could help. It, perhaps, prevented a more 
 wholesome and complete reaction in favour of the true rehgious 
 aspirations of the population. It was done grudgingly, parsi- 
 moniously, and meanly. And when it had been done, Napoleon 
 did all he could do to undo its benefits. He soon became the 
 persecutor — the heartless, cruel, ungrateful persecutor of the 
 Pontiff, and an opponent to the best interests of religion in 
 France, and in every country which had the misfortune to fall 
 under his sway. The reason of all this was, that Napoleon had com- 
 menced his career as a Freemason, and a Freemason he remained 
 in spirit and in effect to the end f»f his life. It is known that he 
 owed his first elevation to the Jacobins, and that his earliest patron 
 was Robespierre. His first campaign in Italy was characterized by 
 tlie utmost brutality which cou.ld gratify Masonic hatred for the 
 Church. He suppressed the abodes of the consecrated servants 
 of God, sacked churches, cathedrals, and sanctuaries, and reduced 
 the Pope to the direst extremities. His language was the reflex 
 of his acts and of his heart. His letters l)reathe everywhere the 
 spirit of advanced Freemasonry, gloating over the wounds it had 
 been able to inflict upon the Spouse of Christ. Yet this adven- 
 turer has, with great adroitness, been able to pass with many, and 
 especially in Ireland, as a good Catholic. Because he was the 
 enemy of England, or rather that England led by the counsels 
 
NArOLEON AND FREEMASONRY. 45 
 
 of Pitt and Burke constituted herself the imphicable enemy of the 
 Revolution of which he was the incarnation and continuation, man j 
 opposed to England for political reasons, regard Bonaparte as a 
 kind of hero. No one can doubt the military genius of the man, nor 
 indeed his great general ability ; but he was in all his acts what 
 Freemasonry made him. He was mean, selfish, tyrannical, 
 cruel. He was reckless of blood. He could tolerate or use the 
 Church while that suited his policy. But he had from the beginning 
 to the very end of his career that thorough indifference to her 
 welfare, and want of belief in her doctrines, which an early and 
 life-long connection with the Illuminati inspired. 
 
 Father Deschamps writes of him : " JS'apoleon Bonaparte was 
 in effect an advanced Freemason, and his reign has been the most 
 flourishing epoch of Freemasonry. During the reign of terror, 
 the Grand Orient ceased its activity. The moment Napoleon 
 seized upon power the lodges were opened in every place." 
 
 I have said that the revolutionary rulers in France were all 
 Hluminati — that is Freemasons of the most pronounced type — 
 whose ultimate aim was the destruction of every existing religion 
 and form of secular government, in order to found an atheistic, 
 social republic, which should extend throughout the world and 
 embrace all mankind. Freemasonry welcomes, as we have seen, 
 the Mahommedan, the Indian, the Chinese, and the Budhist, as 
 well as the Christian and the Jew. It designs to conquer all, as 
 a means of bringing all into the one level of Atheism and 
 Communism. When, therefore, its Directory, in their desire to 
 get rid of Napoleon, planned the expedition to Egypt and Asia, 
 they meant the realization of a part of this programme, as well as 
 the removal of a troublesome rival. A universal monarchy is, in 
 their idea, the most efficacious means for arriving at a universal 
 republic. Once obtained, the dagger with which they removed 
 Gustavus III. of Sweden, or the guillotine by Avhich they rid 
 France of Louis XVI., can at any moment remove Ceesar and 
 call in Brutus. They are not the men to recoil before deeds of 
 blood for the accomplishment of their purposes. 
 
46 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 Now Napoleon, who was, as Father Deschamps informs us, 
 a member of the lodge of the Templars, the extreme Illuminated 
 lodge of Lyons, and had given proof of his fidelity to Masonry in 
 Italy, was the very man to extend the rule of Republicanism 
 throughout Asia. He appeared in Egypt with the same profes- 
 sions of hypocritical respect for the Koran, the Prophet, and 
 Mahommedanism, as he afterwards made when it suited his 
 policy for Catholicism. His address to the people of Egypt will 
 prove this. It ran as follows, with true Masonic hypocrisy : — 
 
 " Cadis, Chieks, Imans, tell the people that we are the friends 
 " of true Mussulman ; that we respect more than the Mamelukes 
 " do, God, His Prophet, and the Alkoran. Is it not we who have 
 " destroyed the Pope, who wished that war should be made against 
 " the Mussulman ? Is it not we who have destroyed the Knights 
 ''of Malta, because these madmen thought that God willed 
 " them to make war upon the Mussulman ? Is it not we who 
 " have been in all ages the friends of the Grand Seigneur — may 
 " God fulfil his desires — and the enemv of his enemies. God is 
 " God, and Mahomet is his Prophet ! Fear notliing above all for 
 '' the religion of the Prophet, which I love." 
 
 The cool hypocrisy of this Address is manifested by a 
 proclamation he made on that occasion to his own soldiers. 
 The same proclamation also shows the value we may place on his 
 protestations of attachment to, and respect for, the usages of 
 Christianity. The following is a translation of it : — 
 
 " Soldiers ! the peoples with whom we are about to live are 
 " Mahommedan. The first article of their faith is this : ' There is 
 " no God but God, and Mahomet is his Prophet.' Do not contradict 
 " them. Act with them as you have acted with the Jews and 
 " with the Italians. Have the same respect for their Muftis and 
 " their Imans, as you have had for Rabbis and Bishops. Have 
 " for the ceremonies prescribed by the Alkoran, for the Mosques, 
 " the same tolerance you had for Convents, for Synagogues, and 
 " for the religion of Moses, and of Jesus Christ." 
 
 We read in the correspondence of Napoleon I., published 
 
NAPOLEON AND FREEMASONRY. 47 
 
 by order of Napoleon III. (t. v., pp. 185, 191, 241), what he 
 thought of this proclamation to the very end of his career : — 
 
 " After all, it was not impossible that circumstances miglit 
 '' have brought me to embrace Islam," he said at St. Helena. 
 " Could it be thought that the Empire of the East, and perhaps 
 ^' the subjection of the whole of Asia, was not worth a turban and 
 '' pantaloons, for it was reduced to so much solely. We would 
 '' lose only our breeches and our hats. I say that the army, 
 " disposed as it was, would have lent itself to that project 
 '^ undoubtedly, and it saw in it nothing but a subject for 
 " laughter and pleasantry. Meanwhile you see the consequences. 
 " I took Europe by a back stroke. The old civilization was 
 " beaten down, and who then thought to disturb the destinies of 
 " our France and the regeneration of the ivorld ? Who had 
 '' dared to undertake it ? Who could have accomplished 
 " it ? " 
 
 Neither prosperity nor adversity changed Napoleon. He 
 was a sceptic to the end. He said at St. Helena to Las 
 Cases : 
 
 "Everything proclaims the existence of a God — that is not 
 '■'■ to be doubted — but all our religions are evidently the children 
 *' of men. 
 
 " Why do these religions cry down one another, combat 
 ^' one another ? Why has that been in all ages, and all places ? 
 " It is because men are always men. It is because the Priests 
 " have always insinuated, slipped in lies and fraud every- 
 " where. 
 
 "Nevertheless," he continued, ''from the moment that I 
 " had the power, I had been eager to re-establish religion. 
 " I used it as the base and the root. It was in my eyes the 
 " support of good morality, of tiue principles, of good manners." 
 
 " I am assuredly fiir from being an Atheist ; but I cannot 
 " believe all that they teach me in spite of my reason, under 
 " penalty of being deceitful and hypocritical. 
 
 " To say whence I come, what I am, where I go, is above 
 
48 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 " my ideas. And nevertheless all that is^ I am the watch which 
 " exists and does not know itself. 
 
 " No doubt," he conthiued, " but my spirit of mere doubt 
 " was, in my quality of Emperor, a benefit for the people. 
 " Otherwise how could I equally favour sects so contrary, if 
 " I had been dominated over by one alone ? How could I pre- 
 " serve the independence of my thoughts and of my movements 
 " under the suggestions of a confessor who could govern me by 
 " Qieans of the fear of hell. 
 
 '' What an empire could not a wicked man, the most stupid 
 " of men, under that title of confessor, exercise over those 
 " who govern nations ? 
 
 " I was so penetrated with these truths that I preserved 
 '' myself well to act in such a manner, that, in as far as it lay in 
 " me, I would educate my son in the same religious lines in which 
 '' I found myself." 
 
 Two months later the ex-Emperor said that from the age 
 of thirteen he had lost all religious faith. 
 
 Thiers (Histoire du Consulatet de l'Em2nre, iv. p. 14), says : 
 t\iat when Napoleon intended to proclaim himself Emperor, he 
 wished to give the Masons a pledge of his principles, and that he 
 did this by killing the Duke d'Enghien. He said, " They wish to 
 destroy the Revolution in attacking it in my person. I will 
 defend it, for I am the Revolution. I, myself — I, myself. They 
 will so consider it from this day forward, for they will know of 
 what we are capable." 
 
 A less brave but still more accomplished relative of his. 
 Napoleon III., in his Fdees Nai)oleoniennes, says : — 
 
 " The Revolution dying, but not vanquished, left to 
 " Napoleon the accomplishments of its last designs. Enlighten 
 *' tbp natioT»« it would have said to him. Place upon solid 
 " bases the principal result of our efforts. Execute in extent 
 " that which I have done in depth. Be for Europe what I have 
 '' been for France. That grand mission Napoleon accomplished 
 '• even to the end." 
 
NAPOLEON AND FREEMASONRY. 49 
 
 When Napoleon obtained power, it was we know principally 
 by means of the Illuminated Freemason, Talleyrand/ By 
 him and his confederates of the Illuminati, he was recalled from 
 Egypt and placed in the way of its attainment. His brothers were 
 — every one of them — deep in the secrets of the sect. Its 
 supreme hidden directory saAV that a re-action had set in, which, 
 if not averted, would speedily lead to the return of the exiled 
 Bourbons, and to the disgorgement of ill-gotten goods on the 
 part of the revolutionists. As a lesser evil, therefore, and 
 as a means of forwarding the unification of Europe which they 
 had planned, by his conquests, they placed supreme power in the 
 
 ^ Alexander Dumas in his Memoires de Garibaldi, first series, p. 34, tells 
 us : — 
 
 " Illuminisra and Freemasonry, these two great enemies of royalty, and the 
 adopted device of both of which was L. P. D., lilia pedibus destrue, had a grand 
 part in the French Revolution. 
 
 "Napoleon took Masonry under his protection. Joseph Napoleon was 
 Grand Master of the Order. Joachim Murat second Master adjoint. The 
 Empress Josephine being at Strasburg, in 1805, presided over the fete for the 
 adoption of the lodge of True Chevaliers of Paris. At the same time Eugene de 
 Beauharnais was Venerable of the lodge of St. Eugene in Paris. Having come 
 to Italy with the title of Viceroy, the Grand Orient of Milan, named him ]\Iaster 
 and Sovereign Commander of the Supreme Council of the thirty-second grade, 
 that is to say, accorded him the greatest honour which could be given him accord- 
 ing to the Statutes of the Order. Bernadotte was a Mason. His son Oscar was 
 Grand Master of the Swedish lodge. In the different lodges of Paris were 
 successively initiated, Alexander, Duke of Wurtemburg; the Prince Bernard of 
 Saxe-Weimer; even the Persian Ambassador, Askeri Khan. The President of the 
 Senate, Comit de Lacipede, presided over the Grand Orient of France, which 
 had for officers of honour the Generals Kellerman, Messina, and Soult. Princes, 
 Ministers, Marshals, Officers, Magistrates, all the men, in fine, remarkable for 
 their glory or considerable by their position, ambitioned to be made Masons. 
 The women even wished to have their lodges, into which entered Mes<lames 
 de Vaudemont, de Carignan, de Gerarchn, de Narbonne, and many other ladies." 
 
 Frere Clavel, in his picturesque history of Freemasonry, says that, " Of all 
 these high personages the Prince Cambaceres was the one who most occupied 
 himself with Masonry. He made it his duty to rally to Masonry all the men in 
 France who were influential by their official position, by their talent, or by their 
 fortune. The personal services which he rendered to many of the brethren ; the 
 eclat which he caused to be given to the lodges in bringing to their sittings by 
 his example and invitations all those illustrious amongst the military and judicial 
 professions and others, contributed powerfully to the fusion of parties and to 
 the consolidation of the imperial throne. In effect under his brilliant and active 
 administration the lodges multiplied ad injinitinn. They were composed of the 
 elect of French society. They became a point of re-union for the partisans 
 of the existmg and of passed regimes. They celebrated in them the feasts of the 
 Emperor. They read in them the biilletins of his victories before they were 
 made public by the press, and able men organized the enthusiasm which gradually 
 took hold of all minds " 
 
 £ 
 
50 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 hands of Bonaparte, and urged him on in his career, watching, 
 at the same time, closely, their own opportunities for the develop- 
 ment of the deadly designs of the sect. Then, they obtained the 
 first places in his Empire for themselves. They put as much 
 mischief into the measures of relief given to conscience as they 
 could. They established a fatal supremacy for secularism in 
 the matter of education. They brought dissension between the 
 Pope and the Emperor. They caused the second confiscation of 
 the States of the Church. They caused and continued to the 
 end, the imprisonment of Pius VII. They were at the bottom 
 of every attack made by Napoleon while Emperor upon the 
 rights of the Church, the freedom and independence of the 
 Supreme Pontiff", and the well-being of religion. 
 
 But the chief mistake of Napoleon was the encouragement 
 he gave to Freemasonry. It served his purpose admirably for 
 awhile, that is so long as he served the present and ultimate 
 views of the conspiracy ; for a conspiracy Masonry ever was 
 and ever will be. Even if Cambaceres, Talleyrand, Fouche, 
 and the old leaders of the Illuminati, whom he had taken into 
 his confidence and richly rewarded, should be satisfied, there 
 was a mass of others whom no reward could conciliate, and who, 
 filled with the spirit of the sect, were sure to be ever on the 
 look out for the means to advance the designs of Weishaupt 
 and his inner circle. That inner circle never ceased its action. 
 It held the members of the sect, whom it not only permitted 
 but assisted to attain high worldly honours, completely in its 
 power, and hence in absolute subjection. For them as well 
 as for the humblest member of the secret conclave, the 
 poisoned aqua to])liana and the dagger were ready to do 
 the work of certain death should they lack obedience to 
 those depraved fanatics of one diabolical idea, who were found 
 worthy to be selected by their fellow-conspirators to occupy the 
 highest place of infamy and secret power. These latter scattered 
 secretly amidst the rank and file of the lodges, hundreds of 
 Argus-eyed, skilled plotters, who kept the real power of inner 
 
NAPOLEON AND FREEMASONRY. 5 1 
 
 or high Masonry in the hands ot its hidden masters. Masonry 
 from this secret vantage gronnd ceaselessly conspired during 
 the Empire. It assisted the conquests of the victor of 
 Austerlitz and Jena ; and if Deschamps, who quotes from the 
 most reliable sources, is to be trusted, it actually did more for 
 these victories than the great military leader himself. Through 
 its instrumentality, the resources of the enemies of Napoleon 
 were never at hand, tlie designs of the Austrian and other 
 generals opposed to him were thwarted, treason was rife in 
 their camps, and information fatal to their designs was conveyed 
 to the French commander. Masonry was then on his side, and 
 as now the secret resources of the Order, its power of hidden 
 influence and espionage were placed at the disposal of the cause 
 it served. But when Masonry had reason to fear that Napoleon's 
 power might be perpetuated ; when his alliance with the Imperial 
 Family of Austria, and above all, when the consequence of that 
 alliance, an heir to his throne, caused danger to the universal 
 republic it could otherwise assure itself of at his death ; when, 
 too, he began to show a coldness for the sect, and sought means 
 to prevent it from the propagandism of its diabolical aims, 
 then it became his enemy, and his end was not far off.^ Dis- 
 
 1 Deschamps says that it was at this period that the order of the 
 Templars (for Masonry is divided into any amount of rites which exercise 
 one over the other a kind of influence in proportion to the members of 
 the inner grades which they contain) was resuscitated in France. It publicly 
 interred one of its members from the Church of St, Antoine. The funeral 
 oration of Jacques Molay was publicly pronounced. Xapoleon permitted this. 
 The danger his permission created was foreseen, and M. de Maistre writes : — 
 " A very remarkable phenomenon is that of the resuscitation of Freemasonry in 
 France, so far, that a brother has been interred solemnly in Paris with all the 
 attributes and ceremonies of the order. The Master who reigns in France does 
 not leave it to be even suspected that such a thing can exist in France without his 
 leave. Judging from his known character and from his ideas upon secret societies, 
 how then can the thing be explained? Is he the Chief, or dupe, or perhaps the 
 one and the other of a society which he thinks he knows, and which mocks him," 
 Illustrating these remarks we have the comments of M. Bagot in his Codes des 
 Franc-Macons, p. 183 : — " The Imperial Government took advantage of its omni- 
 potence, to which so many men, so many institutions, yielded so comjjlacently, 
 in order to dominate over Masonry. The latter became neither afraid nor 
 revolted. What did it desire in effect ? To extend its empire — "It permitted 
 itself to become subject to despotism in order to become sovereign." This gives 
 us the whole reason why Masonry flrst permitted Napoleon to ride, then to 
 reign, then to conquer, and finally to fall. 
 
52 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 tracting councils prevailed in his cabinet. His opponents began 
 to get that information regarding his movements, which he had 
 obtained previously of theirs. Members of the sect urged on 
 his mad expedition to Moscow. His resources were paralyzed ; 
 and he was, in one word, sold by secret, invisible foes into 
 the hands of his enemies, [n Germany, Weishaupt and his party, 
 still living on in dark intrigue, prepared secretly for his downfall. 
 His generals were beaten in detail. He was betrayed, hood- 
 winked, and finally led to his deposition and ruin. He then 
 received with a measure, pressed down and overflowing, and 
 shaken together, the gratitude of the father of lies, incarnate in 
 Freemasonry, in the Illuminati, and kindred Atheistic secret 
 societies. Banished to Elba he was permitted to return 
 to France only in order to meet the fate of an outcast and 
 a prisoner upon the rock of St. Helena, where he died 
 abandoned and persecuted by the dark sect which had used, 
 abused, and betrayed him. So it has continued, as we shall see, 
 to use, to abuse, and to betray every usurper or despot whom 
 it lures into its toils. We shall now glance at its action, the 
 action of — 
 
 XI. 
 
 Freemasonry after the Fall of Napoleon. 
 It would be very interesting, if we had time, to enter into 
 the many intrigues of that very same body of Illuminati who 
 had planned and executed the Kevolution, and had then created 
 successively the Directory, the Consulate, and the Empire in 
 France, as they now j)Osed in a new capacity as friends to the 
 return of Monarchy in Europe generally. This they did for the 
 purposes of the Freemasons, and in order to keep the power they 
 wielded so long in their own hands, and in the hands of their 
 party. Now, I wish you to note, that Weishaupt, the father 
 of the Illuminati, and the fanatical and deep director of all its 
 operations, was even then living in power and security at Coburg- 
 Gotha; and that his wily confederates were muiisters in evei-y 
 
FREEMASONRY AFTER THE FALL OF NAPOLEON. 53 
 
 Court of Europe. Then, as now, the in vmcible determination with 
 which they secreted their quality from the eyes of monarchs as well 
 as of the general public, enabled them to iwse in any character 
 or capacity without fear of being detected as Freemasons, or at 
 least as Illuminati, Since the reign of Frederick the Great, they 
 filled the Court of Berlin. Many minor German Princes 
 continued to be Freemasons. The Duke of Brunswick was the 
 central figure in the first Masonic conspiracy, and though, with the 
 hypocrisy common to the sect, he issued a declaration highly 
 condemnatory of his fellows, it is generally believed that he 
 remained to the end attached to the " regeneration of humanity " 
 in the interests of Atheism. The Court of Vienna was more 
 or less Masonic since the reign of the wretched Joseph II. 
 Alexander of Kussia was educated by La Harpe, a Freemason, 
 and at the very period when called upon to play u principal 
 part in the celebrated ^'Holy Alliance," he was under the 
 hidden guidance of others of the Illuminati. Fessler, an 
 apostate Austrian religious, the Councillor of Joseph II., after 
 having abjured Christianity, remained, while professing 
 a respect for religion, its most determined enemy. He founded 
 what is known as the Tugenbund, a society by which German 
 Freemasonry put on a certain Christian covering, in order 
 more securely to outlive the reaction against Atheism, and 
 to de-Christianize the world again at a better opportunity. 
 The Tugenbund refused to receive Jews, and devised 
 many other means to deceive Christians to become sub- 
 stantially Freemasons without incurring Church censures or 
 going against ideas then adverse to the old Freemasonry, which, 
 nevertheless, continued to exist as satanic as ever under 
 Christian devices. 
 
 In France, the Illuminati of the schools of Wilhelmsbad and 
 Lyons continued their machinations without much change of 
 front, though they covered themselves with that impenetrable 
 secresy which the sect has found so convenient for disarming 
 public suspicion while pursuing its aims. Possessing means of 
 
54 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 deceiving the outside world, and capable of using every kind of 
 hypocrisy and ruse, the Freemasons of both France and Germany 
 plotted at this period with more secure secresy and success than 
 ever. There is nothing which Freemasonry dreads more than 
 light. It is the one thing it cannot stand. Therefore, it 
 has always taken care to provide itself with adepts and allies 
 able to disarm public suspicion in its regard. Should outsiders 
 endeavour to find out its real character and aims, it takes 
 refuge at once under the semblance of puerility, of harmless 
 amusement, of beneficence, or even of half-witted simplicity. 
 It is content to be laughed at, in order not to be found out. 
 But it is for all its puerility, the same dangerous foe to Chris- 
 tianity, law, legitimacy, and order, Avhich it proved itself to be 
 before and during the first French Revolution, and which it will 
 continue to be until the world has universal reason to know the 
 depth, the malignity, and the extent of its remorseless designs.^ 
 At the period of the reaction against Bonaparte it seems to 
 have taken long and wise counsel. When Tallevrand found 
 
 1 At the Council of Verona, held by the European sovereigns in 1822, to 
 guard their thrones and peoples from the revolutionary excesses which threatened 
 Sf)ain, Naples, and Piedmont, the Count Haugwitz, IVIinister of the King of 
 Prussia, who then accompanied his master, made the following speech : — 
 
 " Arrived at the end of my career, I believe it to be ray duty to cast a glance 
 upon the secret societies whose power menaces humanity to-day more than ever. 
 Their history is so bound up with that of my life that I cannot refrain from 
 publishing it once more and from giraig some details regarding it. 
 
 "My natural disposition, and my education, ha\'ing excited in me so great a 
 desire for information, that I could not content myself with ordinary knowledge, 
 I wished to penetrate into the very essence of things. But shadow follows light, 
 thus an insatiable curiosity develops itself in proportion to the efforts which one 
 makes to penetrate further into the sanctuary of science. These two sentiments 
 impelled me to enter into the society of Freemasons. 
 
 It is well known that the first step which one makes in the order is little 
 calculated to satisfy the mind. That is precisely the danger to be dreaded for the 
 inflammable imagination of youth. Scarcely had I attained my majority, when, 
 not only did I find myself at the head of Masonry, but what is more, I occupied 
 a distinguished place in the chapter of high grades. Before I had the power of 
 knowing myself, before 1 could comprehend the situation in which I had rashly 
 engaged myself, I foimd myself charged with the superior direction of the 
 Masonic re-unions of a part of Prussia, of Poland, and of Russia. Masonry 
 was, at that time, di\aded into two parts, in its secret labours. The first place in 
 its emblems, the explanation of tlie philosopher's stone: Deism and non-Atheism 
 was the religion of these sectaries. Tlie central seat of their labours was at 
 Berlin, under the direction of the Doctor Zumdorf. It was not the same with 
 the other part of which the Duke of Brunswick was the aj)parcnt Chief. In open 
 
FREEMASONKY AFTER THE FALL OF NAPOLEON. 55 
 
 that Wieshaupt and the inner Masonry no longer approved of 
 Napoleon's autocracy, he managed very adroitly that the Emperor 
 should grow cold with him. He was thus free to take adverse 
 measures against his master, and to prepare himself for the 
 coming change. The whole following of Bonaparte recruited 
 from the Illuminati were ready to betray him. They could 
 compass the fall of the tyrant, hut the difficulty for them was to 
 find one suitable to put in his place. It was decreed in 
 their highest council that whosoever should come upon the 
 throne of France, should be as far removed as possible from being 
 a friend to Catholicity or to any principle sustaining true religion. 
 They therefore determined that, if at all possible, no member 
 of the ancient House should reign ; and as soon as the allied 
 sovereigns who were for the most part non-Catholic, had 
 crushed Napoleon, these French Masons demanded the Pro- 
 testant and Masonic King of Holland for King in France. This 
 failing, they contrived by Masonic arts to obtain the first places in 
 the Provisional Government which succeeded Napoleon. They 
 endeavoured to make the most of the inevitable, and to rule the 
 
 conflict between themselves, the two parties gave each other tlie hand in order to 
 obtain the dominion of the world, to conquer thrones, to serve themselves with 
 Kings as an order, such was tlieir aim. It woidd be superfluous to explain to you 
 in what manner, in my ardent curiosity, I came to know the secrets of the one 
 party and of the other. The truth is the secret of the two sects is no longer a 
 mystery for me, That secret is revolting. 
 
 " It was in the year 1777, tliat I became charged with the direction of one 
 part of the Prussian lodges, three or four years before the Convent of Wilhelmsbad 
 and the invasion of the lodges by Ilhuninism. My action extended even over 
 the brothers dispersed throughout Poland and Russia. If I did not myself see 
 it, I could not give myself even a plausible ex^^lauation of the carelessness with 
 which Governments have been able to shut their eyes to such a disorder, a 
 veritable state within a State. Not only were the chiefs in constant correspond- 
 ence, and em^jloyed particular cyphers, but even they reciprocally sent emissaries 
 one to another. To exercise a dominating influence over thrones, such was our 
 aim, as it had been of the Knight Templars. 
 
 " I thus acquired the firm conviction that the drama commenced in 1788 and 
 1789, the French Revolution, the regicide with all its horrors, not only was 
 then resolved upon, but was even the result of these associations and oaths, &c. 
 
 " Of all my contemporaries of that epoch there is not one left . . . My 
 first care was to commimicate to William III. all my discoveries. We came to 
 the conclusion that all the Masonic associations, from the most humble even to 
 the very highest degrees, could not do otherwise than employ religious sentiments 
 in order to execute plans the most criminal, and make use of the first in order to 
 cover the second. This conviction, which His Highness Prince William held in 
 common with me, caused me to take the firm resolution of renomicing Masonry." 
 
56 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 incomms? Louis XVIIf., in the interests of their sect, and to the 
 detriment of the Church and of Christianity. 
 
 Notwithstanding the fact that they had shown open hostility 
 
 to himself and to his house, Louis XVIIL , strange to say, favoured 
 
 the Illuminati. Talleyrand was made minister, and the other 
 
 advanced Freemasons of the Empire — Seyies, Cambaceres, 
 
 Fouche, and the rest — obtained place and power. These men at 
 
 once applied themselves to subvert the sentiment of reaction in 
 
 flivour of the monarchy and of religion. Soon, Louis XVIIL gave 
 
 the world the sad spectacle of a man prepared at their bidding 
 
 to cut his own throat. He dissolved a Parliament of ultra 
 
 loyalists because they were too loyal to him. The Freemasons 
 
 took care that his next Parliament should be full of its own 
 
 creatures. They also wrung from the King, under the plea of 
 
 freedom of the press, permission to deluge the country anew 
 
 with the infidel and immoral publications of Voltaire and his 
 
 confederates, and with newspapers and periodicals, which proved 
 
 disastrous to his house, to royalty, and to Christianity, in 
 
 France. These led before long to the attempt upon the life of 
 
 the Duke of Berry, to the revolution against Charles X., to the 
 
 elevation of the son of the Grand Master, Egalite, as Constitutional 
 
 King, and to all the revolutionary results that have since 
 
 distracted and disgraced unfortunate France. But much as 
 
 Freemasonry effected in that country, it was not there but in 
 
 peaceful Italy that its illuminated machinations produced the 
 
 worst and most wide-spread fruits of death. We shall see 
 
 this by a brief review of the Freemasonry which formed the 
 
 • 
 
 XI L 
 
 Kindred Secret Societies in Europe. 
 
 We have seen that the use made of Freemasonry by the 
 Atheists of the last century was a very elastic one. As it came 
 from England it had all the qualities required by the remorseless 
 revolutionists, who so eagerly and so ably employed it for their 
 
KINDRED SECRET SOCIETIES IN EUROPE. 57 
 
 purposes. Its hypocritical professions of Theism, of acceptation 
 of the Bible, and of beneficence ; its terrible oaths of secrecy; its 
 grotesque and absurd ceremonial, to which any meaning from the 
 most silly to the deepest and darkest could be given ; its 
 ascending degrees, each one demanding additional secrets, to be 
 kept not only from outsiders, but from the lower degrees ; the 
 death penalty for indiscretion or disobedience ; the system of 
 mystery capable of any extension ; the hidden hierarchy ; in a 
 word, all its qualities could be improved and elaborated at will 
 by the Infidels of the Continent who had made British Masonry 
 their own. Soon the strict subjection of all subordinate lodges to 
 whatever Grand Orient or Mother Lodge they spring from, and 
 on which they depend ; and, above all, the complete under- 
 standing between the directors of the Masonic " powers," that is 
 of the different rites into which the Masonry is divided, placed 
 its entire government in a select ruling body, directed in turn 
 by a small committee of the ablest conspirators, elected by and 
 known to that body alone. The whole rank and file of Masonry 
 receive their orders at present from this inner body, who are 
 unknown to the mere masons of the lodges. The members of 
 the committee deputed by the lodges are able to testify to the 
 fact of the authenticity of the orders. Those who rule from 
 the hidden recesses take care that these deputies shall be men 
 worthy of confidence. A lodge, therefore, has its master, its 
 officers, and management ; but its orders come through a channel 
 that appears to be nothing, whereas it is everything in 
 the movement of the whole mass. Thus it happens that 
 the master of a lodge or the grand master of a province, 
 or of a nation, whose high-sounding titles may make 
 him seem to outsiders to be everything, is in reality often 
 nothing at all in the actual government of Masonry. The real 
 power rests with the hidden committee of direction, and confi- 
 dential agents, who move almost invisibly amongst the officers 
 and members of the lodges. These hidden agents of iniquity are 
 vigilant spies, secret " wire pullers," who are seldom promoted 
 
5S WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 to any ofl&ce, but content themselves with the real power which 
 they are selected to use with dexterity and care. 
 
 It was through this system that Weishaupt obtained the 
 adoption of illuminated Masonry at the convent of Wilhelmsbad. 
 Through the machinations of Knigg, he obtained from the delegates 
 there assembled, the approval of his plan that tlie ultimate end 
 of Freemasonry and all secret plotting should be — 1°, Pantheism 
 — a form of Atheism which flatters Masonic pride. 2°, Com- 
 munism of goods, women, and general concerns. 3°, That the 
 means to arrive at these ends should be the destruction of the 
 Church, and of all forms of Christianity; the obliteration of every 
 kind of supernatural belief; and, finally, the removal of all 
 existing human governments to make way for a universal 
 republic in which the Utopian ideas of complete liberty from 
 existing social, moral, and religious restraint, absolute equality, 
 and social fraternity, should reign. When these ends should be 
 attained, but not till then, the secret work of the Atheistic Free- 
 masons should cease. 
 
 At the convent of Wilhelmsbad, Weishaupt had the means 
 taken to carry out this determination. There Masonry 
 became one organized Atheistic mass, while being still permitted 
 to assume many flmtastic shapes. The Knights Rossicrucian, 
 the Templars, the Knights of Beneficence, the Brothers of Amity 
 were strictly united to Illuminated Masonry. All could be 
 reached through Masonry itself. All were placed under the 
 same government. Masonry was made more elastic than ever. 
 When, as in the cases of Ireland and Poland, an enslaved national- 
 ity should be found, which the supreme Invisible Directory wished 
 to revolutionize, and when, at the same time, the existing respect 
 for the words of the Vicar of Christ made Masonry hateful, a secret 
 political society was ordered to be formed on the plan of Free- 
 masonry, but with some other name. It was to put on, after 
 the example of Masonry itself, the semblance of zeal and respect 
 for religion, but it was bound to have horrible oaths, ascending 
 degrees, centres, the terrible death penalty for indiscretion or 
 
KINDRED SECRET SOCIETIES IN EUEOrE. 59 
 
 treason, to be, in essence, and in every sense, if not in name, a 
 society identical Avitli Freemasonry. The supreme direction of the 
 Revolution was to contrive by sure means to have adepts high 
 and powerful in its management ; and the society was, even if 
 founded to defend the Catholic religion, thus sure, sooner or 
 later, to diverge from the Church and to become hostile to 
 religion and to its ministers. The Atheistic revolutionists of the 
 Continent in the last century, learned to perfection the art to 
 effect this ; and hence the ready assistance which men who were 
 murdering priests in Paris and throughout France and Italy, gave 
 to the Catholics of Ireland in '98. Was it to relieve the 
 Catholics of Ireland from persecution, while they themselves were 
 to a far more frightful extent oppressing the Catholic Church, 
 the Catholic priesthood. Catholic religious, and Catholic people, 
 for no other reason than the profession of the Catholic faith in 
 France and Italy ? By no means. They, at the very time, had 
 already corrupted Irishmen. Some of these were open Infidels 
 and others were Jacobite Freemasons of no particular attach- 
 ment to any form of Christianity. They shared in Napoleon's 
 indifference to religion, and were as ready to profess zeal for their 
 Catholic fellow countrymen, as he and his soldiers were ready 
 to profess " love " for the Alkoran and the Prophet in Egypt, 
 or for St. Januarius, in Naples. But they and their leaders 
 in Black Masonry knew that once they could unite even 
 the very best and truest Catholic men in Ireland into a 
 secret society on such lines as I have described, they would 
 soon find an entrance for Atheism into the country. They 
 would not be wanting in means to win recruits by degrees from 
 the best intentioned Catholics so bound by oaths, and so sub- 
 jected to hidden influences. They were adepts at proselytism, 
 especially amongst those who gave up liberty and will to unknown 
 masters. If Irishmen, few indeed, thank God, but still Irishmen 
 and Catholics, had lost their fliith in France at the period of the 
 Revolution, what could save the Irish Catholics in Ireland from 
 theefibrts and example of French and Irish Atheistic liberators? 
 
60 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 Catholics suffered terribly under the Protestant domination, 
 but they nobly kept their faith through the whole of that 
 dreadful period. Their condition was bad during the 
 penal days, but if the French obtained the mastery, even 
 for a decade, at the Kevolution, it would be worse, I believe, 
 for the Faith and liberty of Irish Catholics, than the previous 
 two centuries of heretical persecution. Providence, moved by 
 the prayers of God's Mother, of St. Patrick, and of the innumer- 
 able host of Irish Saints and Martyrs, no doubt, saved the 
 country ; and the agency of the Atheists of France was carried 
 to work the mischief it intended for Ireland upon other Catholic 
 lands. It forced its tyranny very soon upon Italy, Spain, 
 Portugal, Switzerland, and the Rhenish provinces of Germany. 
 That was bad enough, but it was not all. When the French 
 revolutionary armies had departed from these countries, after 
 the fall of Bonaparte, they left, a deadly scourge that could 
 not be removed, behind them. That was the system of 
 Atheistic organization of which we have been speaking, and 
 which was not slow in producing its malignant fruits. 
 
 In Catholic Italy, where the scourge of the Revolution 
 fell most heavily, the misfortune happened thus : The discontent 
 consequent upon the multitude of political parties in that 
 country gave the secret machinators of the Weishaupt school a 
 splendid opportunity of again renewing their intrigues ; while 
 the miserable Government of the Bourbons in France, in 
 permitting Freemasonry to flourish, afforded its supreme direction 
 an opportunity to assist them in many ways. Public opinion in 
 Germany was unripe for any Atheism unless veiled under the 
 hypocritical pretences of the Tugenbund. In Italy, however, 
 though religion was strong amongst all classes, the division 
 of the country into small principalities caused the hopes of the 
 revolutionists to be more sanguine than anywhere else, and the 
 opportunity of dealing a blow at the temporal power of the Pope 
 under the national pretext of a united Italy, was too great a 
 temptation for the Supreme Masonic Directory to resist. 
 
KINDRED SECRET SOCIETIES IN EUROPE. 61 
 
 Besides, it could not be forgotten by them, that in making past 
 efforts the power of the Pope was the principal cause of tlieir 
 many failures. They rightly judged that the complete destruc- 
 tion of his temporal authority was essential to Atheism, and the 
 first and most necessary step to their ultimate views upon all 
 Christianity, and for the subjugation of the world to their sway. 
 The temporal power was the stronghold, the rallying point of every 
 legitimate authority in Europe. With a sure instinct of self- 
 preservation, the Schismatical Lord of Russia, the Evangelical 
 King of Prussia, the Protestant Governments of England, 
 Denmark, and Sweden, as well as the ancient legitimate 
 Catholic dynasties of Portugal, Austria, Bavaria, and Spain 
 had determined at the Congress of Vienna on the restoration of 
 the temporal dominions of the Pope. The Conservatives 
 of Europe, whether Catholic, Protestant, or Schismatic, felt that 
 while the States of the Church were preserved intact to the 
 Head of the Catholic religion, their own rights would remain 
 unquestioned — that to reach themselves his rights should be first 
 assailed. The Atheistic conspiracy, guided now by old, experienced 
 revolutionists, saw also that the conservatism of the world which 
 they had to destroy in order to dominate in its stead, could not 
 be undermined without first taking away the foundation of 
 Christian civilization upon which it rested, and which unquestion- 
 ably, even for Christian schismatics and heretics, was the 
 temporal and the spiritual authority of the Pope. Having no 
 idea of a divine preservation of the Christian religion, they judged 
 that the destruction of the temporal power would lead inevitably 
 to the destruction of the spiritual ; and as experience proved that 
 it would be useless to attempt to destroy both altogether, they 
 then set all their agencies at work to destroy the temporal power 
 first. They, therefore, determined to create and ferment to the 
 utmost extent a political discontent amongst the populations of 
 the different states into which the Italian Peninsula was divided. 
 Now this was a difiicult task in the face of the experience which the 
 Italian people had gained of the revolutions and constant political 
 
62 WAR OF ANTICHRIST "WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 changes brought by the French from the first attempt of the Ee- 
 public to the last of tlie Empu^e. The Congress of Vienna restored 
 most of the ancient Italian States as well as the States of the 
 Chiu'ch to the legitimate rulers. Peace and prosperity beyond 
 what had been known for years began to reign in the Peninsula. 
 The people in mass were profoundly contented. They were 
 more Catholic than ever, notwithstanding all that the revolu- 
 tionary agents of France did to pervert them. But there 
 remained a dangerous fraction amidst the population not at all 
 satisfied with the change which had so much improved the nation 
 generally. This fraction consisted of those individuals and their 
 children who benefitted by the revolutionary regime. They 
 were the men who made themselves deputies in Rome, Naples, 
 and elsewhere, and by the aid of French revolutionary bayonets 
 seized upon Church property and became enriched by public 
 spoliation. These still remained revolutionary to the core. 
 Then, there was the interest effected by their party. And finally, 
 there was that uneasy class, educated by the many cheap 
 universities of the country in too great number, the sons of 
 advocates and other professional men, who, tinged with liberalism, 
 easily became the prey of the designing men who still remained 
 addicted to the principles and were leagued in the secret 
 organizations of Wieshaupt and his fellow Atheists. Even one 
 of these youths corrupted and excited to ambition by the adroit 
 manipulation of these emissaries of Satan, still active, though 
 more imperceptible than ever, would be sufiicient to kindle 
 a flame amongst his fellows capable of creating a wide 
 discontent. Aided then by such elements, already at hand for 
 their purposes, Wieshaupt and his hidden Directory determined 
 to kindle such a flame of Eevolution in Italy, as in its effects 
 should, before long, do more harm to religion and order, than even 
 the French Revolution had caused in its sanguinary but brief 
 career. They effected this by the formation, on the darkest 
 lines of " illuminated " Masonry, of the terrible sect of — 
 
THE CARBONARI. 63 
 
 XIII. 
 
 The Carbonari. 
 
 In this sect, the whole of the hitherto recognized principles 
 of organized Atheism were perfected and intensified. In it, from 
 the commencement, a cunning hypocrisy was the means most 
 used as the best calculated to lead away a people Catholic to 
 the very core. The first of the Carbonari that we have any 
 distinct notice of, appeared at a season when Atheism, directed 
 by Wieshaupt, was busy in forming everywhere secret associations 
 for apparently no purpose other than political amelioration. He 
 determined to try upon the peasantry of Italy the same arts 
 which the French had intended for the Catholic peasantry of 
 Ireland. The United Irishmen were banded together to demand, 
 amongst other things, Catholic Emancipation. Never had a 
 people greater reason to rise against oppression than the 
 Catholics of Ireland of that period. They were urged on to do 
 so, however, by leaders who, in many instances, were not 
 Catholic, and who had no political grievance, and whose aim was 
 the formation in Ireland of an independent republic ruled, of course, 
 by themselves, on the model of the one which was established 
 then in France. That seemed to the Catholic the only way to get 
 out of the heretical domination which had for such a lengthened 
 period oppressed his country. Now, the Carbonari of Italy 
 were at first formed for a purpose identical with that of the 
 United Irishmen. 'J'hey conspired to bring back their national 
 independence ruined by the French, the freedom of their reli- 
 gion, and their rightful Bourbon sovereign. With them it was 
 made an indispensable obligation that each member should be 
 not only a Catholic, but a Catholic going regularly to the Sacra- 
 ments. They took for their Grand Master, Jesus Christ Our 
 Lord. But, as I have said before, it is impossible for a secret 
 society having a death penalty for breach of secret, having 
 ascending degrees, and bound to blind obedience to hidden masters, 
 
64 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 to remain any appreciable length of time without falling under the 
 dominion of the Supreme Directory of organized Atheism. It 
 was so with Carbonarism, wliich, having started on the purest 
 Catholic and loyal lines, soon ended in being the very worst kind 
 of secret society which Infidelity had then formed on the lines of 
 Masonry. Very soon, Italian adepts in black Masonry invaded 
 its ranks, the loudest in the protestation of religion and loyalty. 
 Equally soon, these skilled, experienced, and unscrupulous 
 veterans in dark intrigue obtained the mastery in its supreme 
 direction, won over proselytes from fit conspirators, and had the 
 whole association in their power. It was then easy to find 
 abundant pretexts to excite the passions of the rank and file, to 
 kindle hopes from revolution, to create political dissatisfaction, 
 and to make the whole body of the sect what it has actually 
 become. Italian genius soon outstripped the Germans in 
 astuteness; and as soon, perhaps sooner, than Weishaupt passed 
 away, the supreme government of all the secret societies of the 
 world was exercised by the Alta Yendita or highest lodge of 
 the Italian Carbonari. The Alta Vendita ruled the blackest 
 Freemasonry of France, Germany, and England ; and until 
 Mazzini wrenched the sceptre of the dark Empire from that body, 
 it continued with consummate ability to direct the revolutions 
 of Europe. It considered, with that wisdom peculiar to the 
 children of darkness, that the conspiracy against the Holy See 
 was the conspiracy in permanence. It employed its principal 
 intrigues against the State, the surroundings, and the very person 
 of the Pontifi". It had hopes, by its manipulations, to gain 
 eventually, even the Pope himself, to betray the Christian 
 cause, and then it well knew the universe would be placed at its 
 feet. It left unmeasured freedom to the lodges of Masonry to 
 carry on those revolutions of a political kind, which worked out 
 the problems of the sect upon France, Spain, Italy, and otlier 
 countries. It kept still greater movements to itself. The 
 permanent instruction of this body to its adepts, will give you 
 an idea of its power, its policy, and its principles. It says — 
 
(■i 
 
 PERMANENT INSTRUCTION OF THE ALTA VENDITA. 65 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Permanent Instruction of the Alta Vendita. 
 Ever since we have established ourselves as a body of 
 *' action, and that order has commenced to reign in the bosom of 
 " the most distant lodge, as in that one nearest the centre of 
 ^ action, there is one thought which has profoundly occupied 
 "the men who aspire to universal regeneration. That is tlie 
 " thought of the enfranchisement of Italy , from which must one day 
 " come the enfranchisement of the entire world, the fraternal re- 
 " public, and the harmony of humanity. That thought has not yet 
 '' been seized upon by our brethren beyond the Alps. They believe 
 '^ that revolutionary Italy can only conspire in the shade, deal 
 " some strokes of the poinard to sbirri and traitors, and tran- 
 " quilly undergo the yoke of events which take place beyond 
 " the Alps for Italy, but without Italy. This error has been 
 " fatal to us on many occasions. It is not necessary to combat 
 " it with phrases which would be only to propagate it. It is 
 *•' necessary to kill it by facts. Thus, amidst the cares which have 
 " the privilege of agitating the minds of the most vigorous of 
 ''' our lodges, there is one which we ought never forget. 
 
 '' The Papacy has at all times exercised a decisive action 
 " upon the affairs of Italy. By the hands, by the voices, by the pens, 
 " by the hearts of its innumerable bishops, priests, monks, nuns, and 
 " people in all latitudes, the Papacy finds devotedness without end 
 '' readyformartyrdom,and thatto enthusiasm. Everywhere, when- 
 '' ever it pleases to call upon them, it has friends ready to die or lose 
 " all for its cause. This is an immense leverage which the Popes 
 " alone have been able to appreciate to its full power, and as yet 
 " they have used it only to a certain extent. To-day there is no 
 " question of reconstituting for ourselves that power, the prestige 
 '' of which is for the moment weakened. Our final end is that of 
 " Voltaire and of the French Revolution, the destruction for ever 
 '^ of Catholicism and even of the Christian idea which, if left 
 '• standing on the ruins of Kome, would be the resuscitation of 
 " Christianity later on. But to attain more certainly that result, 
 
 F 
 
Q6 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 " and not prepare ourselves with gaiety of heart for reverses 
 *' which adjourn indefinitely, or compromise for ages, the 
 *' success of a good cause, we must not pay attention to 
 " those braggarts of Frenchmen, those cloudy Germans, those 
 " melancholy Englishmen, all of whom imagine they can kill 
 " Catholicism, now with an impure song, then with an illogical 
 " d(iduction ; at another time, with a sarcasm smuggled in like the 
 " cottons of Great Britain. Catholicism has a life much more 
 " tenacious than that. It has seen the most implacable, the most 
 " terrible adversaries ; and it has often had the malignant pleasure 
 '' of throwing holy water on the tombs of the most enraged. Let 
 ^' us permit, then, our brethren of these countries to give themselves 
 " up to the sterile intemperance of their anti-Catholic zeal. Let 
 '' them even mock at our Madonnas and our apparent devotion. 
 " With this passport we can conspire at our ease, and arrive little 
 " by little at the end we have in view. 
 
 " Now the Papacy has been for seventeen centuries inherent 
 " to the history of Italy. Italy cannot breathe or move without 
 " the permission of the Supreme Pastor. With him she has the 
 ** hundred arms of Briareus, without him she is condemned to a 
 " pitiable impotence. She has nothing but divisions to foment, 
 " hatreds to breakout, and hostilities to manifest themselves from 
 '' the highest chain of the Alps to the lowest of the A ppenines. We 
 " cannot desire such a state of things. It is necessary, then, to 
 " seek a remedy for that situation. The remedy is found. The Pope, 
 " whoever he may be, will never come to the secret societies. It 
 ^' is for the secret societies to come first to the Church, in the 
 " resolve to conquer the two. 
 
 " The work which we have undertaken is not the work of a 
 " day, nor of a month, nor of a year. It may last many years, a 
 '' century perhaps, but in our ranks the soldier dies and the fight 
 " continues. 
 
 " We do not mean to win the Popes to our cause, to make 
 " them neophytes of our principles, and propagators of our ideas. 
 " That would be a ridiculous dream, no matter in what manner 
 
PERMANENT INSTRUCTION OF THE ALTA VENDITA. 67 
 
 '^ events may turn. Should cardinals or prelates, for example, 
 " enter, willingly or by surprise, in some manner, into a part of 
 " our secrets, it would be by no means a motive to desire their 
 '* elevation to the See of Peter. That elevation would destroy us. 
 " Ambition alone would bring them to apostasy from us. The needs 
 " of power would force them to immolate us. That which we ought 
 " to demand, that which we should seek and expect, as the Jews 
 " expected the Messiah, is a Pope according to our wants. 
 " Alexander VI., with all his private crimes, would not suit 
 ''us, for he never erred in religious matters. Clement 
 " XIV., on the contrary, would suit us from head to foot. 
 " Borgia was a libertine, a true sensualist of the eighteenth 
 " century strayed into the fifteenth. He has been anathe- 
 " matized, notwithstanding his vices, by all the voices of 
 " philosophy and incredulity, and he owes that anathema to the 
 *' vigour with which he defended the Church. Ganganelli gave 
 " himself over, bound hand and foot,to the ministers of the Bourbons, 
 " who made him afraid, and to the incredulous who celebrated his 
 " tolerance, and Ganganelli is become a very great Pope. He is 
 "■ almost in the same condition that it is necessary for us to find 
 " another, if that be yet possible. With that we should march more 
 " surely to the attack upon the Church than with the pamphlets 
 *• of our brethren in France, or even with the gold of England. 
 * ' Do you wish to know the reason ? It is because by that we 
 '' should have no more need of the vinegar of Hannibal, no more 
 " need the powder of cannon, no more need even of our arms. We 
 " have the little finger of the successor of St. Peter engaged in 
 " the plot, and that little finger is of more value for our crusade 
 " than all the Innocents, the Urbans, and the St. Bernards of 
 " Christianity. 
 
 " We do not doubt that we shall arrive at that supreme term 
 " of all our efforts ; but when ? but how ? The unknown does 
 '' not yet manifest itself. Nevertheless, as nothing should separate 
 " us from the plan traced out; as, on the contrary, all things should 
 " tend to it,— as if success were to crown the work scarcely sketched 
 
68 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 " out to-moiTow, — we wish in this instruction which must rest a 
 " secret for the simple initiated, to give to those of the Supreme- 
 " Lodge, councils with which they should enlighten the universality 
 " of the brethren, under the form of an instruction or memorandum. 
 " It is of special importance, and because of a discretion, the 
 •' motives of which are transparent, never to permit it to be felt 
 " that these counsels are orders emanating from the Alta Vendita. 
 '' The clergy is put too much in peril by it, that one can at the 
 " present hour permit oneself to play with it, as with one of these 
 '' small affairs or of these little princes upon which one need but 
 " blow to cause them to disappear. 
 
 " Little can be done with those old cardinals or with those 
 "prelates, whose character is very decided. It is necessary to 
 " leave them as we find them, incorrigible, in the school of 
 " Consalvi, and draw from our magazines of popularity or 
 *' unpopularity the arms which will render useful or ridiculous the 
 " power in their hands. A word which one can ably invent and 
 " which one has the art to spread amongst certain honourable 
 " chosen families by whose means it descends into the cafes, and 
 "from the cafes into the streets; a word can sometimes kill a man. 
 " If a prelate comes to Kome to exercise some public function from 
 "the depths of the provinces, know presently his character, his 
 " antecedents, his qualities, his defects above all things. If he is 
 '' in advance, a declared enemy, an Albani, a Fallotta. a Bernetti, 
 " a Delia Genga, a Riverola? Envelope him in all the snares 
 " which you can place beneath his feet ; create for him one of those 
 " reputations which will frighten little children and old women ; 
 "paint him cruel and sanguinary ; recount, regarding him, some 
 '' traits of cruelty which can be easily engraved in the minds of 
 " the people. When foreign journals shall gather for us these 
 " recitals, which they will embellish in their turn, (inevitably 
 " because of their respect for truth) show, or rather cause to be 
 " shown, by some respectable fool those papers where the names 
 " and the excesses of the personages implicated are related. As 
 " France and England, so Italy will never be wanting in facile 
 
PERMANENT INSTRUCTION OF THE ALTA VENDITA. 69 
 
 *' pens wliicli know how to employ themselves in these lies so useful 
 " to the good cause. With a newspaper, the language of which 
 " they do not understand, but in which they will see the name of 
 '' their delegate or judge, the people have no need of other proofs. 
 " They are in the infancy of liberalism ; they believe in liberals, 
 " as, later on, they will believe in us, not knowing very well why. 
 " Crush the enemy whoever he may be ; crush the powerful 
 " by means of lies and calumnies ; but especially crush him in the 
 " egg. It is to the youth we must go. It is that which we 
 " must seduce ; it is that which we must bring under the banner 
 " of the secret societies. In order to advance by steps, calculated 
 " but sure, in that perilous way, two things are of the first 
 " necessity. You ought have the air of being simple as doves, but 
 " you must be prudent as the serpent. Your fathers, your children, 
 " your wives themselves, ought always be ignorant of the secret 
 " which you carry in your bosoms. If it pleases you, in order the 
 '"' better to deceive the inquisitorial eye, to go often to confession, 
 " you are, as by right authorised, to preserve the most absolute 
 " silence regarding these things. You know that the least revela- 
 tion, that the slightest indication escaped from you in the 
 tribunal of penance, or elsewhere, can bring on great calamities, 
 '^ and that the sentence of death is already pronounced upon the 
 " revealer, whether voluntary or involuntary. 
 
 '^ Now then, in order to secure to us a Pope in the manner 
 " required, it is necessary to fashion for that Pope a generation 
 " worthy of the reign of which we dream. Leave on one side old age 
 and middle life, go to the youth, and, if possible, even to infancy. 
 ' Never speak in their presence a word of impiety or impurity. 
 Maxima dehetur jpuero reverentia. Never forget these words of 
 '' the poet for they will preserve you from licences which it is 
 " absolutely essential to guard against for the good of the cause. 
 "In order to reap profit at the home of each family, in order to 
 " give yourself the right of asylum at the domestic hearth, you 
 '' ought to present yourself with all the appearance of a man 
 " grave and moral. Once your reputation is established in the 
 
 u 
 ii 
 
 t( 
 
 (I 
 
70 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 " colleges, in the gymnasiuras, in the universities, and in the 
 "seminaries — once that you shall have captivated the confidence of 
 " professors and students, so act that those who are principally 
 " engaged in the ecclesiastical state should love to seek your 
 " conversation. Nourish their souls with the splendours of ancient 
 " Papal Rome. There is always at the bottom of the Italian 
 " heart a regret for Republican Rome. Excite, enkindle those 
 •' natures so full of warmth and of patriotic fire. Ofi'er them at 
 " first, but always in secret, inoffensive books, poetry resplendent 
 " with national emphasis ; then little by little you will bring your 
 •' disciples to the degree of cooking desired. When upon all the 
 " points of the ecclesiastical state at once, this daily work shall 
 " have spread our ideas as the light, then you will be able to 
 " appreciate the wisdom of the counsel in which we take the 
 " initiative. 
 
 " Events, which in our opinion, precipitate themselves too 
 " rapidly, go necessarily in a few months' time to bring on an 
 " intervention of Austria. There are fools who in the lightness of 
 " their hearts please themselves in casting others into the midst 
 *' of perils, and, meanwhile, there are fools who at a given hour 
 *•' drag on even wise men. The revolution which they meditate in 
 " Italy will only end in misfortunes and persecutions. Nothing is 
 " ripe, neither the men nor the things, and nothing shall be for a 
 " long time yet ; but from these evils you can easily draw one new 
 " chord, and cause it to vibrate in the hearts of the young 
 " clergy. That is the hatred of the stranger. Cause the German 
 'Ho become ridiculous and odious even before his foreseen entry. 
 " With the idea of the Pontifical supremacy, mix always the old 
 " memories of the wars of the priesthood and the Empire. 
 *' Awaken the smouldering passions of the Guelphs and the 
 " Ghibellines, and thus you will obtain for yourselves the 
 '^ reputation of good Catholics and pure patriots. 
 
 " That reputation will open the way for our doctrines to pass 
 " to the bosoms of the young clergy, and go even to the depths of 
 " convents. In a few years the young clergy will have, by the 
 
PERMANENT INSTRUCTION OF THE ALTA VENDITA. 7 1 
 
 " force of events, invaded all the functions. They "will govern, 
 '' administer, and judge. They will form the council of the 
 "Sovereign. They will be called upon to choose the Pontiff 
 " who will reign ; and that Pontiff, like the greater part of his 
 "contemporaries, will be necessarily imbued with the Italian and 
 "humanitarian principles which we are about to put in circula- 
 " tion. It is a little grain of mustard which we place in the 
 " earth, but the sun of justice will develop it even to be a great 
 " power ; and you will see one day what a rich harvest that 
 " little seed will produce. 
 
 "In the way which we trace for our brethren there are 
 "found great obstacles to conquer, difficulties of more than one 
 " kind to surmount. They will be overcome by experience and 
 " by perspicacity ; but the end is beautiful. What does it matter 
 " to put all the sails to the wind in order to attain it. You 
 "wish to revolutionize Italy? Seek out the Pope of whom we 
 " give the portrait. You wish to establish the reign of the elect 
 " upon the throne of the prostitute of Babylon ? Let the clergy 
 '' march under your banner in the belief always that they march 
 " under the banner of the Apostolic Keys. You wish to cause the 
 '' last vestige of tyranny and of oppression to disappear ? Lay 
 "your nets like Simon Barjona. Lay them in the depths of 
 " sacristies, seminaries, and convents, rather than in the depths of 
 "the sea, and if you will precipitate nothing you will give 
 " yourself a draught of fishes more miraculous than his. The 
 " fisher of fishes will become a fisher of men. You will bring your- 
 " selves as friends around the Apostolic Chair. You will have 
 "fished up a Revolution in Tiara and Cope, marching with Cross 
 "and banner — a Revolution which it will need but to be 
 "spurred on a little to put the four quarters of the world 
 " on fire. 
 
 " Let each act of your life tend then to discover the Philo- 
 " sopher's Stone. The alchemists of the middle ages lost their 
 " time and the gold of their dupes in the quest of this dream. 
 " That of the secret societies will be accomplished for the most 
 
72 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 ''simple of reasons, because it is based on the passions of man. 
 " Let us not be discouraged then by a check, a reverse, or a 
 " defeat. Let us prepare our arms in the silence of the lodges, 
 *' dress our batteries, flatter all passions the most evil and the 
 " most generous, and all lead us to think that our plans will 
 " succeed one day above even our most improbable calculations." 
 This document reveals the whole line of action followed since 
 by the Italian Revolutionists. It gives also a fair insight into 
 tactics with which other European countries have been made 
 familiar by Freemasonry generally. But we are in posses- 
 sion of what appears to me a still more striking document, 
 written for the benefit of the Piedmontese lodges of Carbonari, 
 by one of the Alta Vendita, whose pseudonym was Piccolo 
 Tigre — Little Tiger. I may here mention that the custom of 
 taking these fanciful appellations has been common to the secret 
 societies from the very beginning. Arouet became Voltaire, 
 the notorious Baron Kuigg was called Philo, Baron Dittfort 
 was called Minos, and so of the principal chiefs of the dark 
 Atheistic conspiracy then and since. The first leader or grand 
 chief of the Alta Vendita was a corrupt Italian nobleman who 
 took the name of NuUus. From such documents as he, before 
 his death, managed, in revenge for being sacrificed by the party 
 of Mazzini, as we shall see, to have communicated to the 
 authorities of Eome ; or which were found by the vigilance of 
 the Roman detective police ; we find that his funds, and the 
 funds for carrying on the deep and dark conspiracy in which he 
 and his confederates were engaged, came chiefly from rich German 
 Jews. Jews, in fact, from the commencement, played always a 
 prominent part in the conspiracies of Atheism. They do so still. 
 Piccolo Tigre, who seems to have been the most active agent of 
 JSfuhius, was a Jew. He travelled under the appearance of aif 
 itinerant banker and jeweller. This character of money-lender . 
 or usurer disarmed suspicion regarding himself and such ot 
 his confederates as he had occasion to call upon in his peregrina- 
 tions. Of course he had the protection of the Masonic body 
 
LETTER OF PICCOLO TIGRE, ETC. 73 
 
 everywhere. The most desperate revolutionists were generally 
 the most desperate scoundrels otherwise. They were gamblers, 
 spendthrifts, and the very class with which an usurious Jew 
 would be expected to have money dealings. Piccolo Tigre thus 
 travelled safely ; and brought safely to the superior lodges of the 
 Carbonari, such instruci:ions as the Alta Yendita thought 
 proper to give. In the document referred to, which I shall now 
 read for you, it will be seen how anxious the Secret Directory 
 were to make use of the most common form of Masonry not- 
 withstanding the contempt they had for the hons vivants who 
 only learned from the craft how to become drunkards and 
 liberals. Beyond the Masons, and unknown to them, thougli 
 formed generally from them, lay the deadly secret conclave 
 which, nevertheless, used and directed them for the ruin of 
 the world and of their own selves. The following is a translation 
 of the document 1 speak of, called" an instruction," and addressed 
 by Piccolo Tigre to the Piedmontese lodges of the Carbonari : — 
 
 XV. 
 
 Letter or Piccolo Tigre, &c. 
 
 '^ In the impossibility in which our brothers and friends 
 ''find themselves, to say, as yet, their last word, it has been 
 "judged good and useful to propagate the light everywhere, and 
 " to set in motion all that which aspires to move. For this 
 " reason we do not cease to recommend to you, to affiliate 
 "persons of every class to every manner of association, no 
 " matter of what kind, only provided that mystery and secrecy 
 " shoidd he the dominant characteristics. All Italy is covered 
 "with religious confraternities, and with penitents of divers 
 " colours. Do not fear to slip in some of your people into the 
 " very midst of these flocks, led as they are by a stupid devotion. 
 "Let our agents study with care the persoymel of these confra- 
 " ternity men, and they will see that little by little, they will 
 " not be wanting in a harvest. Under a pretext the most futile, 
 " but never political or religious, create by yourselves, or, 
 
74 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 " better yet, cause to be created by others, associations, having 
 "commerce, industry, music, the fine arts, etc., for object.^ 
 " Reunite in one place or another, — in the sacristies or chapels 
 " even, — these tribes of yours as yet ignorant : put them under 
 " the pastoral staff of some virtuous priest, well known, but 
 '' credulous and easy to be deceived. Then infiltrate the poison 
 " into those chosen hearts ; infiltrate it in little doses, and, as if 
 " by chance. Afterwards, upon reflection, you will yourselves be 
 " astonished at your success. 
 
 " The essential thing is to isolate a man from his family, to 
 "■ cause him to lose his morals. He is sufficiently disposed by 
 " the bent of his character to flee from household cares, and to 
 " run after easy pleasures and forbidden joys. He loves the 
 " long conversations of the cafe and the idleness of shows. 
 " Lead him along, sustain him, give him an importance 
 *' of some kind or other ; discreetly teach him to grow weary of 
 " his daily labours, and by this management, after having 
 " separated him from his wife and from his children, and after 
 " having shown him how painful are all his duties, you will then 
 " excite in him the desire of another existence. Man is a born 
 " rebel. Stir up the desire of rebellion until it becomes a con- 
 '^ flagration, but in such a manner that the conflagration may 
 " not break out. This is a preparation for the grand work that 
 *' you should commence. When you shall have insinuated into 
 "a few souls disgust for family and for religion (the one 
 
 ^ Mazzini, after exhorting his followers to attract as many of the higher classes 
 as possible to the secret plotting, which has resulted in united Italy, and is meant 
 to result in republican Italy as a prelude to republican Europe, says, " Associate, 
 associate. All is contained in that word. The secret societies can give an 
 irresistible force to the party who are able to invoke them. Do not fear to see 
 them divided. The more they are divided the better it will be. All of them 
 advance to the same end by different paths. The secret will be often imveiled. 
 So much the better. The secret is necessary to give security to members, but a 
 certain transparency is necessary to strike fear into those wishing to remain 
 stationary. When a great number of associates who receive the word of command 
 to scatter an idea abroad and make it public opinion, can concert even for a 
 moment they will find the old edifice pierced in all its parts, and falling, as if by 
 a miracle, at the least breath of progress. They will themselves be astonished to 
 see kings, lords, men of capital, priests, and all those who form the carcass of the 
 old social edifice, fly before the sole power of public opinion. Courage, then, and 
 perseverance.'' 
 
LETTER OF PICCOLO TIGRE, ETC. 75 
 
 '* nearly always follows in the wake of the otherj, let fall some 
 " words from you, which will provoke the desire of being affiliated 
 " to the nearest lodge. That vanity of the citizen or the burgess, 
 '•'to be enfeodated to Freemasonry, is something so common 
 '^ and so universal that it always makes me wonder at human 
 " stupidity. I begin to be astonished at not seeing the entire 
 " world knock at the gates of all the Venerables, and demand from 
 " these gentlemen the honour to be one of the workmen chosen 
 '' for the reconstruction of the temple of Solomon. The prestige 
 '' of the unknown exercises upon men a certain kind of power, 
 " that they prepare themselves with trembling for the phantas- 
 " magoric trials of the initiation and of the fraternal banquet. 
 
 " To find oneself a member of a lodge, to feel oneself called 
 '^upon to guard from wife and children, a secret which is never 
 " confided to you, is for certain natures a pleasure and an am- 
 '' bition. The lodges, to-day, can well create gourmands, they 
 " will never bring forth citizens. There is too much dining 
 " amongst the right worshipful and right reverend brethren of all 
 " the Ancients. But they form a place of depot, a kind of stud 
 " (breeding ground), a centre through which it is necessary to 
 * ' pass before coming to us. The lodges form but a relative evil, 
 " an evil tempered by a false philanthropy, and by songs yet 
 "more false as in France. All that is too pastoral and too 
 ''gastronomic ; but it is an object which it is necessary to en- 
 " courage without ceasing. In teaching a man to raise his glass 
 " to his lips you become possessed of his intelligence and of his 
 " liberty, you dispose of him, turn him round about, and study 
 ''him. You divine his inclinations, his affections, and his 
 *' tendencies ; then, when he is ripe for us, we direct him to the 
 " secret society of which Freemasonry can be no more than the 
 " antechamber. 
 
 " The Alta Vendita desires, that under one pretence or 
 " another, as many princes and wealthy persons as possible 
 " should be introduced into the Masonic lodges. Princes of a 
 " sovereign house, and those who have not the legitimate hope 
 
76 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 " of being kings by the grace of God, all wish to be kings by the 
 " grace of a Kevolution. The Duke of Orleans is a Freemason, 
 " the Prince of Carignan was one also. There are not wanting 
 '' in Italy and elsewhere, those amongst them, who aspire to the 
 " modest-enough honours of the symbolic apron and trowel. 
 " Others of them are disinherited and proscribed. Flatter all of 
 " their number who are ambitious of popularity ; monopolize 
 "them for Freemasonry. The Alta Yendita will afterwards see 
 " what it can do to utilize them in the cause of progress. 
 " A prince who has not a kingdom to expect, is a good for- 
 " tune for us. There are many of them in that plight. Make 
 "Freemasons of them. The lodge will conduct them to Car- 
 " bonarism. A day will come, perhaps, when the Alta Vendita 
 " will deign to affiliate them. While awaiting they will serve as 
 " birdlime for the imbeciles, the intriguing, the bourgeoisie, and 
 " the needy. These poor princes will serve our ends, while 
 " thinking to labour only for their own. They form a magnificent 
 " sign board, and there are always fools enough to be found, who 
 '-^are ready to compromise themselves in the service of a 
 " conspiracy, of which some prince or other seems to be the 
 " ringleader. 
 
 " Once that a man, that a prince, that a prince especially, 
 " shall have commenced to grow corrupt, be persuaded that he 
 " will hardly rest upon the declivity. There is little morality 
 " even amongst the most moral of the world, and one goes fast 
 " in the way of that progress. Do not then be dismayed to see 
 " the lodges flourish, while Carbonarism recruits itself with 
 ' difficulty. It is upon the lodges that we count to double our 
 " ranks. They form, without knowing it, our preparatory 
 " novitiate. They discourse without end upon the dangers of 
 " fanaticism, upon the happiness of social equality, and upon 
 *'the grand principles of religious liberty. They launch amidst 
 " their feastings thundering anathemas against intolerance 
 " and persecution. This is positively more than we require to 
 " make adepts. A man imbued with these fine things is not 
 
 u 
 
LETTER OF riCCOLO TIGRE, ETC. 77 
 
 " very far from us. There is nothing more requn-ed than to 
 " enlist liira. The Law of social progress is there, and all there. 
 " You need not take the trouble to seek it elsewhere. In the 
 " present circumstances never lift the mask. Content yourselves 
 " to prowl about the Catholic sheepfold, but as good wolves 
 "seize in the passage the first lamb who oifers himself in the 
 " desired conditions. The burgess has much of that which is 
 '^ good for us, the prince still more. For all that, these lambs 
 " must not be permitted to turn themselves into foxes like the 
 " infamous Carignan. The betrayal of the oath is a sentence 
 " of death ; and all those princes whether they are weak or 
 " cowardly, ambitious or repentant, betray us, or denounce us. 
 " As good fortune would have it, they know little, in fact not 
 " anything, and they cannot come upon the trace of our true 
 " mysteries. 
 
 " Upon the occasion of my last journey to France, I saw 
 " with profound satisfaction, that our young initiated exhibited 
 " an extreme ardour for the diffusion of Carbonarism ; but I also 
 " found that they rather precipitated the movement a little. As 
 " I think, they converted their religious hatred too much into a 
 " political hatred. The conspiracy against the Roman See, should 
 " not confound itself with other projects. We are exposed to 
 " see germinate in the bosom of secret societies, ardent ambitions ; 
 " and the ambitious, once masters of power, may abandon us. 
 " The route which we follow is not as yet sufiiciently well traced 
 " so as to deliver us up to intriguers and- tribunes. It is of 
 ^' absolute necessity to de-Catholicise the world. And an 
 "ambitious man, having arrived at his end, will guard himself 
 " well from seconding us. The Revolution in the Church is the 
 ^^ 'ReYoliition en jyermanence. It is the necessary overthrowing 
 " of thrones and dynasties. Now an ambitious man cannot 
 " really wish these things. We see higher and farther. Endeavour 
 '' therefore to act for us, and to strengthen us. Let us not con- 
 " spire except against Rome. For that, let us serve ourselves 
 " with all kinds of incidents ; let us put to profit every kind of 
 
78 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 " eventuality. Let us be principally on oiir guard against the 
 " exaggerations of zeal. A good hatred, thoroughly cold, 
 " thoroughly calculated, thoroughly profound, is of more worth 
 "than all these artificial fires and all these declamations of the 
 " platform. At Paris they cannot comprehend this, but in 
 " London I have seen men who seized better upon our plan, and 
 '' who associated themselves to us with more fruit. Considerable 
 " offers have been made to me. Presently we shall have a print- 
 " ing establishment at Malta placed at our disposal. We shall 
 " then be able with impunity, with a sure stroke, and under the 
 " British flag, to scatter from one end of Italy to the other, books, 
 "pamphlets, etc., which the Alta Vendita shall judge proper 
 '' to put in circulation." 
 
 This document was issued in 1822. Since then, the instruc- 
 tions it gives have been constantly acted upon in the lodges of 
 Carbonarisra, not only in Italy but everywhere else. " Prowl 
 about the Catholic sheepfold and seize the first lamb that 
 presents himself in the required conditions." This, and the 
 order to get into Catholic confraternities, were as well executed 
 by the infamous Carey under the influence of " No. One," as they 
 were by any Italian conspirator and assassin^ under the personal 
 inspiration of Piccolo Tigre. Carey, the loud-spoken Catholic 
 — the Catholic who had Freemason or Orange friends able to 
 assist him in the truly Masonic way of getting members of 
 the craft as Town-Councillors, or Aldermen, or Members of 
 Parliament — was, We now know, a true secret-society hypocrite 
 of the genuine Italian type. He prowled with effect round 
 the Catholic sheepfold. He joined " with fruit " the confraternities 
 of the Church. Well may we pray that God may guard from 
 such Satanic influences the noble, generous-hearted, faithful 
 young men of Ireland at home and in all the lands of their 
 vast colonization. The scoundrel that presents the "knife" 
 or the " prayer-book " ready to swear them in, is a murderer 
 in intention, and in effect whenever he dares to be, with a chance 
 of impunity. He is ready to drag them in the toils of the 
 
LETTER OF PICCOLO TIGRE, ETC. 79 
 
 Carbonari, for whetlier a secret society be Irish, English, or 
 American ; whether Fenian or Invincible, no matter by what 
 name it may be called, it is still black Masonry — Carbonarism 
 pure and simple. And the lost hypocrite and assassin who 
 tempts incautious youth, under the pretence of patriotism, to 
 join any such society, is ever, like Carey, as ready to betray as 
 he is to '' swear in " his victim. 
 
 Another curious instruction given by the Alta Vendita to 
 the Carbonari of the lower lodges, is the way to catch a 
 priest and make the good, simple man, unconsciously aid the 
 designs of the revolutionary sectaries. In the permanent 
 instruction of the Alta Vendita, given to all the lodges, ycu 
 will recollect the passage I read for you relative to the giving of 
 bad names to faithful Prelates who may be too knowing or too 
 good to do the work of the Car])onari against conscience, God, 
 and the souls of men. " Ably find out the words and the ways 
 to make them unpopular " is the sum of that advice. Has it 
 not been attempted amongst ourselves ? But the main advice 
 of the permanent instruction is to seduce the clergy. The 
 ecclesiastic to be deceived is to be led on by patriotic ardour. 
 He is to be blinded by a constant, though, of course, false, and 
 fatal popularity. He is to be made believe that his course, so 
 very pleasant to flesh and blood, is not only the most patriotic 
 but the best for religion. " A free Church in a free State," was 
 the cry with which the sectaries pulled down the altars, banished 
 the religious, seized upon Church property, robbed the Pope, 
 and despoiled the Propaganda. There were ecclesiastics so 
 far deceived, at one time, as to be led away by these cries in 
 Italy, and ecclesiastics have been deceived, if not by these, at 
 least by cries as false and fatal elsewhere to our knowledge. 
 The seduction of foremost ecclesiastics, prelates, and bishops, 
 was the general policy of the sect at all times, and it remains so 
 everywhere to this day. 
 
 The rank and file of the Carbonari had to do with local 
 priests and local men of influence. These were, if possible, to be 
 
80 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 corrupted, unnerved, and seduced. There was a method for that, 
 " the corruption of the clergy by ourselves " devised. Each 
 Carbonaro was moreover ordered to try and corrupt a fellow 
 Christian, a man of family, by means that the devil himself 
 incarnate could not devise better for the purpose. 
 
 At the end of his letter, Piccolo Tigre glances at means 
 of corruption which he hoped then — and his hopes were soon 
 realized to the full — to have in operation for the scattering of 
 Masonic " light " throughout Italy. We have another document 
 which will enable us to judge of the nature of this " light." It 
 is contained in a letter from Vindex to JViibius, and was meant 
 to cause the ideas of the Alta Vendita to pass through the 
 lodges. It is found in that convenient form of questioning 
 which the Sultan propounds to the Chiek-ul- Islam when he 
 wants to make war. He puts his reasons in a set of questions, 
 and the Chiek replies in as many answers. Then the war 
 is right in the sight of Allah, and so all Islam go to fight in 
 a war so sanctified. The new Islam does the same. A 
 skilfully devised set of questions are posed for the con- 
 sideration of one member of the A Ita Vendita by another, and 
 the answer which has been well concocted in secret conclave, is 
 of course either given or implied to be given by the nature of 
 the case. The horrible quality of the diabolical measures 
 proposed by Vindex to Nubius in this form for the desired 
 destruction of the Church, cannot be surpassed. If he dis- 
 countenances assassination, it is not from fear or loathing of 
 that frightful crime, but simply because it is not the best policy. 
 He certainly did fall in upon t]ie only blow that could — if that 
 were possible, which, thank God, it is not — destroy the 
 Church of God, and place, as he well says, Catholicity ii^ the 
 tomb. This a translation of the document : — 
 
 " Castellamare, ^th August, 1838. 
 " The murders of which our people render themselves cul- 
 '• pable now in France, now in Switzerland, and always in Italy, 
 
LETTER OF riCCOLO TIGRE, ETC. 81 
 
 " are for us a shame and a remorse. It is the cradle of the 
 " world, illustrated by the epilogue of Cain and Abel, and we 
 *' are too far in progress to content ourselves with such means. 
 " To what purpose does it serve to kill a man ? To strike fear 
 " into the timid and to keep audacious hearts far from us ? Our 
 " predecessors in Cai'bonarism did not understand their power. 
 " It is not in the blood of an isolated man, or even of a traitor, 
 " that it is necessary to exercise it ; it is upon the masses. Let 
 " us not individualize crime. In order to grow great, even to 
 '• the proportions of patriotism and of hatred for the Church, it is 
 " necessary to generalize it. A stroke of the dagger signifies 
 " nothing, produces nothing. "What does the world care for a few 
 '* unknown corpses cast upon the highAvay by the vengeance of 
 " secret societies? What matters it to the world, if the blood 
 " of a workman, of an artist, of a gentleman, or even of a prince, 
 " has flown in virtue of a sentence of Mazzini, or certain of his 
 " cut-throats playing seriously at the Holi/ Vehme. The world 
 " has not time to lend an ear to the last cries of the victim. It 
 " passes on and forgets ; it is we, my Nubius, we alone, that can 
 " suspend its march. Catholicism has no more fear of a well- 
 " sharpened stiletto than monarchies have, but these two bases 
 " of social order can foil by corruption. Let us then never 
 *' cease to corrupt. Tertullian was right in sayhig, that the 
 " blood of martyrs was the seed of Christians. It is decided in 
 " our councils, and we do not desire any more Christians. Let 
 " us, then, not make martyrs, but let us popularise vice amongst 
 " the multitudes. Let us cause them to draw it m by their five 
 " senses ; to drink it in ; to be saturated with it ; and that land 
 ^' which Aretinus has sown is always disposed to receive lewd 
 " teachings. Make vicious hearts, and you will have no more 
 " Catholics. Keep the priest away from labour, from the altar, 
 *' from virtue. Seek adroitly to otherwise occupy his thoughts 
 " and his hours. Make him lazy, a gourmand, and a patriot. 
 "He will become ambitious, intriguing, and perverse. You 
 "will thus have a thousand times better accomplished your task, 
 
82 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 " than if you had blunted the point of your stiletto upon the 
 '' bones of some poor wretches. I do not wish, nor do you 
 " any more, my friend Nubius, is it not so ? to devote my life 
 " to conspiracies, in order to be dragged along in the old 
 " ruts. 
 
 " It is corruption en masse that we have undertaken; the 
 " corruption of the people by the clergy, and the corruption of 
 " the clergy by ourselves : the corruption which ought, one day, 
 " to enable us to put the Church in her tomb. I have recently 
 " heard one of our friends, laughing in a philosophic manner at 
 *^ our projects, say to us : "in order to destroy Catholicism it is 
 " necessary to commence by suppressing woman." The words 
 " are true in a sense ; but since we cannot suppress woman, let 
 " us corrupt her with the Church, corruptio ojJthiii jy^ssima. 
 " The object we have in view is sufficiently good to tempt men 
 " such as we are ; let us not separate ourselves from it for some 
 *' miserable personal satisfaction of vengeance. The best poniard 
 '* with which to strike the Church is corruption. To the work 
 *' then, even to the very end." 
 
 The horrible programme of impurity here proposed was at 
 once adopted. It was after all but an attempt more deter- 
 mined than ever, to spread the immorality of which Voltaire and 
 his school were the apostles. At the time the Aha Vendita 
 propounded this infernal plan they were resisting an inroad upon 
 their authority on the part of Joseph Mazzini, just then coming 
 into notoriety, who, however, overcame them. 
 
 Mazzini developed and taught, in his grandiloquent style, 
 as well as practised the doctrine of assassination^ which formed, 
 
 ' The following extracts from the rules of the Carbonari of Italy, 
 " Young Italy," will give an idea of the spirit and intent of the order as 
 improved by the warlike and organizing genius of INIazziui : — 
 
 Art. I. — The society is formed for the indispensable destruction of all the 
 Governments of the Peninsula and to form of Italy one sole State under a 
 Republican Government. 
 
 Art. II. — Having experienced the horrible e\als of absolute power and those 
 yet greater of constitutional monarchies, we ought to work to found a Republic 
 one and indivisible. 
 
 Art. XXX. — Those who do not obey the orders of the secret society, or 
 
LETTER OF PICCOLO TIGPvE, ETC. 83 
 
 we know, a part of the system of all secret societies, and which 
 the Alta Vendita deprecated because they feared that it was 
 about being employed, just then, against the members of their own 
 body. Mazzini speaks of having arisen from his bed one 
 morning fully satisfied as to the lawfulness of removing whom- 
 soever he might be pleased to consider an enemy, by the 
 dagger, and fully determined to put that horrible principle 
 into execution. He cherished it as the simplest means given 
 to an oppressed people to free themselves from tyrants. But 
 however much he laboured to make his terrible creed plausible, 
 as being only permissible against tyrants and traitors, it 
 was readily foreseen how easily it could be extended, until 
 it became a capital danger for the sectaries themselves. Human 
 nature could never become so base and so blinded as not 
 to revolt against a principle so pernicious. It may last for a 
 season amidst the first pioneers of the A Ita Vendita, amongst 
 the Black-Hand in Spain, amongst the Nihilists in Eussia, 
 amongst the Invincibles in Ireland, amongst the Trade- 
 Unionists of the Bradlaugh stamp in England, or amongst the 
 
 who shall reveal its mysteries, shall be poniarded without remission. The same 
 chastisement for traitors. 
 
 Art. XXXI. — The secret tribunal shall pronounce the sentence and shall 
 design one or two affiliated members for its immediate execution. 
 
 Art. XXXII. — Whoever shall refuse to execute the sentence shall be con- 
 sidered a perjurer, and as such shall be killed on the spot. 
 
 Art. XXXIII. — If the culpable individual escape he shall be pursued without 
 intermission in every place, and he ought be struck by an invisible hand, even 
 should he take refuge in the bosom of his mother or in the tabernacles of Christ. 
 
 Art. XXXIV. — Every secret tribunal shall be competent not only to judge 
 the culpable adepts, but also to cause to be put to death every person whom it 
 shall have stricken with anathema. 
 
 Art. XXXIX. — The officers shall carry a dagger of antique form, the sub- 
 officers and soldiers shall have guns and bayonets, togetlier with a poniard a foot 
 long attached to their cincture, and upon which they will take oath, &c. 
 
 A large nvmiber of inspectors of police, generals, and statesmen, were 
 assassinated by order of these tribimals. The lodges assisted in that work. Eckart 
 says. La Frcmc-Ma^onnerie, t. ii., p. 218, 219 — "Mazzini was the head of that 
 Yoimg Europe and of the warlike power of Freemasonry, and we find in the 
 Latomia that the minister Nothorub, who had retii-ed from it, say to 
 M. Yesbugem, even in the national palace in presence of six deputies, that the 
 actual Freemasonry in Belgium had become a powerful and dangerous arm in the 
 hands of certain men, that the Swiss insm'rection had its resting place in the 
 machinations of the Belgian lodges, and that Brother Defacqz, Grand Master of 
 these lodges, had undertaken, in 1844, a voyage to Switzerland, only in order to 
 prepare tliat agitation. 
 
84 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 Communists of Paris. It may serve as a means to hold in terror 
 the unfortunate prince or leader who may be seduced in youth 
 or manhood to join secret societies from motives of ambition ; and 
 when that ambition was gratified, might refuse to go the 
 lengths for Socialism which the Alta Vendita required. But 
 otherwise assassination did not by experience prove such a 
 sovereign power in the hands of the Carbonari as Mazzini 
 expected. His more astute associates soon found out this ; and, 
 not from any qualms of conscience, but from a strong sense of 
 its inexpediency for their ends, they determined to reject it. 
 They found out a more effective, though a far more infamous, 
 way for attaining the dark mastery of the world. It was by the 
 assassination not of bodies but of souls — by the deliberate 
 systemization and persevering diffusion of immorality.^ 
 
 The Alta Vendita, then, sat down calmly to consider the 
 best means to accomplish this design. Satan and his fallen 
 angels could devise no more efficacious methods than they found 
 out. They resolved to spread impurity by every method used 
 in the past by demons to tempt men to sin, to make the 
 practice of sin habitual, and to keep the unhappy victim in the 
 state of sin to the end. They had, being living men, means to 
 accomplish this purpose, which devils could not use without the 
 aid of men. Christian civilization established upon the ruins of 
 the licentiousness of Paganism had kept European society pure. 
 Vice, when it did appear, had to hide its head for shame. Public 
 decency, supported by public opinion, kept it down. So long 
 
 ^ Nubius, who, in conjimction with the Templars of France, and the secret 
 friends of the Revolution in England, had caused all the troubles endm-ed by the 
 Church and the Holy Father during the celebrated Congress of Rome and dmnng 
 the entire reign of Louis Philippe, and had so ably planned the revolutions afterwards 
 carried out by^Palmerston and Napoleon III., was written to before his death by 
 one of his fellow-conspiratoi's in the following strain : — " We have pushed most 
 things to extremes. We have taken away from the people all the gods of heaven 
 and earth that they had in homage. We have taken away their religious faith, 
 their monarcliical faith, their virtue, their probity, their family virtue ; and, 
 meantime, what do we hear in the distance but low bellowing ; we tremble, for 
 the monster may devour us. We have little by little deprived the people of all 
 honourable sentiment. They will be without pity. The more I think on it the 
 more I am convinced that we must seek delay of payment." 
 
LETTER OF PICCOLO TIGRE, ETC. 85 
 
 as morality existed as a recognized virtue, the Ee volution had 
 no chance of permanent success ; and so the men of the A Ita 
 Vendita resolved to bring back the world to a state of brutal 
 licentiousness not only as bad as that of Paganism, but to a state 
 at which even the moridity of the Pagans Avould shudder. To 
 do this they proceeded with caution. Their first attempt was to 
 cause vice to lose its conventional horror, and to make it free 
 from civil punishment. The unfortunate class of human beings 
 who make a sad trade in sin, were to be taken under the protec- 
 tion of the law, and to be kept free from disease at the expense of 
 the State. Houses were to be licensed, inspected, protected, and 
 given over to their purposes. The dishonour attached to their 
 infamous condition was, so far as the law could effect it, to be 
 taken away. That wholesome sense of danger and fear of disease 
 which averted the criminally disposed from sin was to dis- 
 appear. The agents of the Alta Vendita had instructions to 
 increase the number and the seductiveness of those unfortunate 
 beings, while the State, when revolutionized, was to close its eyes 
 to their excesses, and to connive at their attempts upon the youth 
 of the country. They were to be planted close to great schools 
 and universities, and wherever else they could ruin the rising 
 generation in every country in which the sect should obtain 
 power. 
 
 Then literature was systematically rendered as immoral as 
 possible,, and diffused with a perseverance and labour worthy 
 of a better cause. Kailway stations, newspaper stands, book 
 shops, and restaurants, were made to teem with infamous produc- 
 tions, while the same were scattered broadcast to the people over 
 every land. 
 
 The teaching of the Universities and of all the middle 
 schools of the State, was not only to be rendered Atheistic and 
 hostile to religion, but was actually framed to demoralize the 
 unfortunate alumni at a season of life always but too prone to 
 vice. 
 
 Finally, besides the freest licence for blasphemy and 
 
SG WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 immorality, and tlie exhibition and diiFusion of immoral pictures, 
 paintings, and statuary, a last attempt was to be made upon the 
 virtue of young females under the guise of educating them up to 
 the standard of human progress. 
 
 Therefore, middle and high-class schools were, regardless of 
 expense, to be provided for female children, who should be, 
 at any cost, taken far away from the protecting care of nuns. 
 They were to be taught in schools directed by lay masters, and 
 always exposed to such influences as would sap, if not destroy, 
 their purity, and, as a sure consequence, their faith. These 
 schools have since been the order of the day with Masonry all 
 over the world. "If we cannot suppress woman let us corrupt 
 her with the Church," said Vindex, and they have faithfully 
 acted upon this advice. 
 
 The terrible society which planned these infernal means for 
 destroying religion, social order, and the souls of men, continued 
 its operations for many years. Its " permanent instruction " 
 became the Gospel of all the secret societies of Europe. Its 
 agents, like Piccolo Tigre, travelled unceasingly in every country. 
 Its orders were received, according to the system of Masonry, 
 by the heads and the rank and file of the lodges as so many 
 inevitable decrees. But fortunately for the world, it permitted 
 too much political action to the second lines of the great 
 conspiracy. In the latter, ambitious spirits arose, who, while 
 embracing to the full the doctrines of Voltaire and the principles 
 of Weishaupt, began to think that the Alta Vendita stayed actual 
 revolution too much. This state of feeling became general when 
 that high lodge refused admittance to Mazzini, who wished to 
 become one of the invisible forty — the number beyond which the 
 supreme governing body never permitted itself to pass. 
 
 The jealousy of JSIuhius — for jealousy is a quality of 
 demons not wanting fi^om the highest intelligences in Atheistic 
 organization to the lowest — prevented his being admitted. But 
 he was already far too powerful with the rank and file of the 
 Carbonari to be refused a voice in the supreme management. 
 
THE INTELLECTUAL AND THE WAR PARTY IN MASONRY. 87 
 
 He raised a cry against the old chiefs as being impotent and need- 
 ing change. Nubius consequently passed mysteriously away. 
 M. Cretineau Joly^ is clearly of opinion that it was by poison; and 
 as it was a custom with the unfortunate chief to betray for his 
 own protection, or for punishment, some lodges of Carbonari to the 
 Pontifical Government, it is more than probable that it was by his 
 provision or information that the same Government came into 
 the possession of the whole archives of the Alta Vendita, and 
 that the Church and society have the documents which I have 
 quoted and others still more valuable to guide them in discovering 
 and defeating the attempts of organized Atheism, 
 
 The Alta Vendita subsequently passed to Paris, and since 
 it is believed to Berlin. It was the immediate successor of 
 the Inner Circle of Weishaupt. It may change in the number 
 of its adepts and in the places of its meetings, but it always 
 subsists. There is over it, a recognized Chief like Nubius or 
 Weishaupt. But in his lifetime this Chief is usually unknown, 
 at least to the world outside " Illuminated " Masonry,- He is 
 unknown to the rank and file of the common lodges. But he 
 wields a power which, however, is not, as in the case of Nubius 
 and Mazzini, always undisputed. Since that time, if not before*it, 
 there have been two parties under its Directory, each having 
 its own duties, well defined. These are 
 
 XVI. 
 
 The Intellectual and the War Party in Masonry. 
 
 Eckert^ shows that at present all secret societies are 
 divided into two parties — the party of direction and the party of 
 action or war party. The duty of the intellectual party, is to 
 plot and to contrive ; that of the party of action, is to combine, 
 recruit, excite to insurrection, and fight. The members of the 
 
 ' Opus, cit. ii. 23. 
 
 ^La Franc-Magonmrie dans sa veritable s'ujnlficatlon, par Eckert, avocat h 
 Dresde, trad, par Gyr (Liege 1854), 1. 1., p. 287, appendice. See also Les Societes 
 Revolutionnaires Introduction, de Vaction des Societes Secretes an xix. Sieck. Far 
 M. Claude Janet, Deschamps, Opus cit. xciii. 
 
88 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 war party are always members of the intellectual party, but not 
 vice versa. The war party thus know what is being plotted. 
 But the other party, concealed as common Freemasons amongst the 
 simpletons of the lodges, cover both sections from danger. If the 
 war party succeed, the peace party go forward and seize upon 
 the offices of state and the reins of power. Their men go to the 
 hustings, make speeches that suit, are written up in the press, 
 which, all the world over, is under Masonic influence. They are 
 cried up by the adroit managers of mobs. They become the 
 deputies, the ministers, the Talleyrands, the Fouches, the 
 Gambettas, the Ferrys ; and of coui'se they make the war party 
 generals, admirals, and officers of the army, the navy, and 
 the police. If the war party fails, the intellectual party, who 
 close their lodges during the combat, appear afterwards as 
 partisans, if possible, of the conquering party, or if they cannot 
 be that, they silently conspire. They manage to get some 
 friends into power. They agitate. They, in either case, come to 
 the assistance of the defeated war party. They extenuate the 
 faults, while condemning the heedless rashness of ill-advised, 
 good-natured, though too ardent, young men. They cry for 
 mercy. They move the popular compassion. In time, they free 
 the culprits, and thus prepare for new commotions. 
 
 All Freemasonry has been long thus adapted, to enable the 
 intellectual party to assist the war party in distress. It must 
 be remembered that every Carbonaro is in reality a Freemason. 
 He is taught the passes and can manipulate the members of the 
 craft. Now, at the very threshold of the admission of a member 
 to Freemasonry, the Master of the Lodge, the "Venerable," thus 
 solemnly addresses him : 
 
 "Masons," says he, "are obliged to assist each other by every 
 means, when occasion offers. Freemasons ought not mix them- 
 selves up in conspiracies ; but if you come to know that a 
 Freemason is engaged in any enterprise of the kind, and 
 has fallen a victim to his imprudence, you ought to have com- 
 passion upon his misfortune, and the Masonic bond makes it a 
 
THE INTELLECTUAL AND THE AVAR PARTY IN MASONRY. 89 
 
 duty for you, to use all your influence and the influence of your 
 friends, in order to diminish the rigour of punishment in his 
 favour." 
 
 From this it will be seen, with what astute care Masonry 
 prepares its dupes from the very beginning, to subserve the 
 purposes of the universal Revolution. Under plea of compassion 
 for a brother in distress, albeit through his supposed imprudence, 
 the Mason's duty is to make use not only of all his own 
 influence, but also " of the influence of his friends," to either 
 deliver him altogether from the consequences of what is called 
 '^ his misfortune," or " to diminish the rigour of his punishment." 
 
 Masonry, even in its most innocent form, is a criminal 
 association. It is criminal in its oaths, which are at best rash ; 
 and it is criminal in promising obedience to unknown commands 
 coming from hidden superiors. It always, therefore, sympathises 
 with crime. It hates punishment of any repressive kind, and 
 does what it can to destroy the death penalty even for murder. 
 In revolution, its common practice is to open gaols, and let 
 felons free upon society. When it cannot do this, it raises in 
 their behalf a mock sympathy. Hence we have Victor Hugo 
 pleading with every Government in Europe in favour of 
 revolutionists ; we have the French Republic liberating the 
 Communists ; and there is a motion before the French Parliament 
 to repeal the laws against the party of dynamite — the Interna- 
 tionalists, whose aim is the destruction of every species of 
 religion, law, order and property, and the establishment of 
 absolute Socialism. With ourselves, there is not a revolu- 
 tionary movement created, that we do not find at the same time 
 an intellectual party apparently disconnected with it, often found 
 condemning it, but in reality supporting it indirectly, but 
 zealously. The Odgers and others of the Trades Union, for 
 instance, will murder and burn ; but it is the Bradlaughs, and 
 men theorising in Parliament if they can, or on the platform 
 if they cannot, who sustain that very party of action. They 
 secretly sustain what in public they strongly reprobate, and if 
 
90 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 necessary disown and denounce. This is a point worthy of 
 deep consideration, and shows more than anything else, the 
 ability and astuteness with which the whole organization has 
 been planned. 
 
 Again, we must remember, that while the heads of the 
 party of action are well aware of the course being taken by the 
 intellectual party, it does not follow that the intellectual party 
 know the movements of the party of action, or even the 
 individuals, at least so far as the rank and file are concerned. 
 It therefore can happen in this country, that Freemasons or 
 others who are in communication only with the Supreme Council 
 on the Continent, get instructions to pursue one line of conduct, 
 and that the war party for deep reasons get instructions to 
 oppose them. This serves, while preventing the possibility of 
 exposure, to enable the work of the Infidel Propaganda to be 
 better done. It is the deeply hidden Chief and his Council that 
 concoct and direct all. They wield a power with which, as is 
 well known, the dii^lomacy of every nation in the world must 
 count. There are men either of this Council, or in the first line 
 of its service, whom it will never permit to be molested. 
 Weishaupt, Nuhius^ Mazzini, Piccolo Tigre, De Witt, Misley, 
 Garibaldi, Number One, Hartmann, may have been arrested, 
 banished, etc., but they never found the prison that could contain 
 them long, nor the country that would dare deliver them up for 
 crime against law or even life. It is determined by the 
 Supreme Directory that at any cost, the men of their first lines 
 shall not suffer ; and from the beginning they have found 
 means to enforce that determination against all the crowned 
 heads of Europe. Now, you must be curious to know who 
 succeeded to the Chieftaincy of this formidable conspiracy when 
 Nubius passed away. It was one well known to you, at least by 
 fame. It was no other than the late Lord Palmerston. 
 
[ 91 ] 
 
 XVI r. 
 
 Lord PalmerstOxY. 
 
 The bjire announcement of this fact will, no doubt, cause 
 as much surprise to many here to-night as it certainly did to 
 myself when it became first known to me. I could with difficulty 
 believe that the late Lord Palmerston, knew the veritable secret 
 of Freemasonry, and that for the greater part of his career he 
 was the real master, the successor of Nubius, the Grand Patriai'ch 
 of the Illuminati, and as such, the Ruler of all the secret societies 
 in the world. I knew, of course, that as a Statesman, the 
 distinguished nobleman had dealings of a very close character 
 with Mazzini, Cavour, Napoleon II L, Garibaldi, Kossuth, and 
 the other leading revolutionary spirits of Europe in his day; but I 
 never for a moment suspected that he went so far as to accept 
 the supreme direction of the whole dark and complex machinery 
 of organized Atheism, or sacrificed the welfare of the great 
 country he was supposed to serve so ably and so well, to the 
 designs of the terrible secret conclave whose acts and tendencies 
 were so well known to him. But the mass of evidence collected by 
 Father Deschamps and others,^ to prove Lord Palmerston's com- 
 plicity with the worst designs of Atheism against Christianity and 
 monarchy — not even excepting the monarchy of England — is so 
 weighty, clear, and conclusive, that it is impossible to refuse it 
 credence. Father Deschamps brings forward in proof, the 
 testimony of Henry Misley, one of the foremost Revolutionists 
 
 ^ M. Eckert (opus ce7.),\vas a Saxon lawyer of immense erudition, who devoted 
 his life to imravel the mysteries of secret societies, and who published several 
 documents of great value upon their action. He has been of opinion that " the 
 interior order " not only now but always existed and governed the exterior mass of 
 Masonry, and its cognate and subject secret societies. He says : — " Masonry 
 being a universal association is governed by one only chief called a Patriarch. 
 The title of Grand Master of the Order is not the exclusive privilege of a family 
 or of a nation. Scotland, England, France, and Germany have in their time had 
 the honour to give the order its supreme chief. It appears that Lord Palmerstou 
 is clothed to-day (Eckert wrote in Lord Palmerston's time) with the dignity of 
 Patriarch. 
 
 " At the side of the Patriarch are found two committees, the one legislative 
 and the other executive. These committees, composed of delegates of the Grand 
 
92 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 of the period, when Palmerston reigned over the secret Islam of 
 the sects, and other no less important testimonies. These I 
 would wish, if time permitted, to give at length. But the whole 
 history, unhappily, of Lord Palmerston proves them. In 1809, 
 when but 23 years of age, we find him War Minister in the 
 Cabinet of the Duke of Portland. He remained in this office 
 until 1828, during the successive administrations of Mr. Percival, 
 the Earl of Liverpool, Mr. Canning, Lord Goderick, and the 
 Duke of Wellington. He left his party — the Conservative — 
 when the last-named Premier insisted upon accepting the 
 resignation of Mr. Huskisson. In 1830, he accepted the position 
 of Foreign Secretary in the Whig Ministry of Earl Grey. Up 
 to this period he must have been well hiformed in the policy of 
 England. He saw Napoleon in the fulness of youth, and he saw 
 
 Orients (mother national lodges), alone know the Patriarch, and are alone in relation 
 with him. 
 
 " All the revolutions of modern times prove that the order is divided into two 
 distinct parties — the one pacific the other warlike. 
 
 " The first employs only intellectual means — that is to say, speech and writing. 
 
 " It brings the authorities or the persons whose destruction it has resolved 
 upon to succmnb or to mutual destruction. 
 
 " It seeks for the profit of the order all the places in the State, in the Church 
 (Protestant), and in the Universities ; in one word, all the positions of influence. 
 
 " It seduces the masses and dominates over public opinion by means of the 
 press and of associations. 
 
 " Its Directory bears the name of the Grand Orient and it closes its lodges (I 
 will say why presently) the moment the warlike division causes the masses which 
 they have won over to secret societies to descend into the street. 
 
 "At the moment when the pacific di\'ision has pushed its works sufficiently 
 far that a violent attack has chances of success, then, at a time not far distant, 
 when men's passions are infiamed ; when authority is sufficiently weakened ; or 
 when the important posts are occupied by traitors, the warlike division will 
 receive orders to employ all its activity. 
 
 " The Directory of the belligerent division is called the Firmament. 
 
 "From the moment they come to ai-med attacks, and that the belligerent 
 division has taken the reins, the lodges of the pacific division are closed. These 
 tactics again denote all the I'lises of the order. 
 
 " In effect, they thus prevent the order being accused of co-operating in the 
 revolt. 
 
 " Moreover, the members of the belligerent division, as high dignitaries, form 
 part of the pacific division, but not reciprocally, as the existence of that division is 
 unknown to the great part of the members of the other fhvision — the first can fall 
 back on the second in case of want of success. The brethren of the pacific division 
 are eager to protect by all tiie means in their power the brethren of the belligerent 
 division, representing them as patriots too ardent, who have permitted tliemselves 
 to be carried away by the cm-rent in defiance of the prescriptions of order and 
 prudence.'' 
 
LORD PALMERSTON. 93 
 
 his fall. He knew and approved of the measures taken after 
 that event by the advisers of George IV., for the conservation 
 of legitimate interests in Europe, and for the preservation to the 
 Pope of the Papal States. The balance of power, as formed by the 
 Congress of Vienna, was considered by the wisest and most 
 patriotic English statesmen, the best safeguard for British 
 interests and influence on the Continent. While it existed the 
 multitude of small States in Italy and Germany could be always 
 so manipulated by British diplomacy, as eifectually to prevent 
 that complete isolation which England feels to-day so keenly, 
 and which may prove so disastrous within a short period to her 
 best interests. If this sound policy has been since changed, it 
 is entirely owing to Palmerston, who appears, after leaving the 
 ranks of the Tories, to have thrown himself absolutely into the 
 hands of that Liberalistic Freemasonry, which, at the period, 
 began to show its power in France and in Europe generally. On 
 his accession to the Foreign Office in 1830, he found the Cabinet 
 freed from the influence of George IV., and from Conservative 
 traditions ; and he at once threw the whole weight of his energy, 
 position, and influence to cause his government to side with the 
 Masonic programme for revolutionizing Europe. With his aid, 
 the sectaries were able to disturb Spain, Portugal, Naples, the 
 States of the Church, and the minor States of Italy. The cry 
 for a constitutional Government received his support in every 
 State of Europe, great and small. The Pope's temporal 
 authority, and every Catholic interest, were assailed. England, 
 indeed, remained quiet. Her people were fascinated by that fact. 
 Trade interests being served by the distractions of other States, 
 and religious bigotry gratified at seeing the Pope, and every 
 Catholic country harassed, they all gave a willing, even a hearty 
 support to the policy of Palmerston. They little knew that it 
 was dictated, not by devotion to their interests, but in obedience 
 to a hidden power of which Palmerston had become the dupe and 
 the tool, and which permitted them to glory in their own quiet, 
 only to gain their assistance, and, on a future day, to compass 
 
94 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 with greater certainty their ruin. Freemasonry, as we have 
 already seen, creates many "figure-head" Grand Masters, from the 
 princes of reigning houses, and the foremost statesmen of nations, 
 to whom, however, it only shows a small part of its real 
 secrets. Palmerston was an exception to this rule. He was 
 admitted into the very recesses of the sect. He was made its 
 Monarch, and as such ruled with a real, sway over its 
 realms of darkness. By this confidence he was flattered, cajoled, 
 and finally entangled beyond the hope of extrication in the 
 meshes of the sectaries. He was a noble, without a hope of 
 issue, or of a near heir to his title and estates. He therefore 
 preferred the designs of the Atheistic conspiracy he governed, to 
 the interests of the country which employed him, and he 
 sacrificed England to the projects of Masonry. As he advanced 
 in years he appears to have grown more infatuated with his work. 
 In 1837, in or about the time when Nubius was carried off 
 by poison, Mazzini, who most probably caused that Chief to 
 disappear, and who became the leader of the party of action, fixed 
 his permanent abode in London. With him came also several 
 counsellors of the " Grand Patriarch," and from that day forward 
 the liberty of Palmerston to move England in any direction, 
 except in the interest of the secret conspiracy, passed away for 
 ever. Immediately, plans were elaborated destined to move the 
 programme of Weishaupt another step towards its ultimate 
 completion.^ These were, by the aid of well-planned Revolutions, 
 to create one immense Empire from the small German States, in 
 
 1 In page 340, of his work on Jews, &c., already quoted, M. G. Demousseaiix 
 reproduces an article from the Political Blueter, of Munich, in 1862, in which is 
 pointed out the existence in Germany in Italy, and in London, of directing-lodges 
 unknown to the mass of Masons, and in which Jews are in the majority. " At 
 London, where is foimd the home of the revolution under the Grand Master. 
 Palmerston, there exists two Jewish lodges which never permit Christians to pass 
 their threshold. It is there that all the threads and all the elements of the 
 revolution are reunited which are hatched in the Christian lodges." Fiuther, 
 M. Demousseaux cites the opinion (p. 368) of a Protestant statesman in the 
 service of a great German Power, who wrote to him in December, 1865, " at the 
 outbreak of the revolution of 1845 I found myself in relation with a Jew who by 
 vanity betrayed the secret of the secret societies to which he was associated, and 
 who informed me eight or ten days in advance, of all the revolutions which were 
 
LORD PALMERSTON. 05 
 
 the centre of Europe, under the house of Brandenburg ; next to 
 weaken Austrian dominion ; then to annihihite the temporal 
 sovereignty of the Pope, by the formation of a United 
 Kingdom of Italy under the provisional government of the house 
 of Savoy; and lastly, to form of the discontented Polish, 
 Hungarian, and Slavonian populations, an independent kingdom 
 between Austria and Kussia. 
 
 After an interval during which these plans were hatched, 
 Palmerston returned to office in 1846, and then the influence of 
 England was seen at work, in the many revolutions which broke 
 out in Europe within eighteen months afterwards. If these 
 partly failed, they eventuated at least in giving a Masonic Euler 
 to France in the person of the Carbonaro, Louis Napoleon. With 
 him Palmerston instantly joined the fortunes of England, and 
 with him he plotted for the realization of his Masonic 
 ideas to the very end of his career. Now here comes a most 
 important event, proving beyond question the determination of 
 Palmerston to sacrifice his country to the designs of the sect he 
 ruled. The Conservative feeling in England shrank from 
 acknowledging I-ouis Napoleon or approving of his coup d'etat. 
 The country began to grow afraid of revolutionists, crowned or" 
 uncrowned. This feeling was shared by the Sovereign, by the 
 Cabinet, and by the Parliament, so far that Lord Derby was able 
 to move a vote of censure on the Government, because of the 
 foreign policy of Lord Palmerston. For Palmerston, confiding in 
 the secret strength he wielded, and which was not without its 
 influence in England herself, threw every consideration of loyalty, 
 duty, and honour overboard, and without consulting his Queen 
 or his colleagues, he sent, as Foreign Secretary, the recognition of 
 
 to break out upon every point of Europe. I owe to him the iminovable con- 
 viction tliat all these grand movements of 'oppressed people' &c., &c., are 
 managed by a half-a-dozen individuals who give their advice to the secret societies 
 of the entire of Europe." 
 
 Henry Misley, a great authority also, wrote to Pere Deschamps, "I know the 
 world a little, and I know that in all that ' grand future ' which is being pre- 
 pared, there are not more than fom' or five persons who hold the cards. A great 
 niunber think they hold them, but they deceive themselves." 
 
96 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 England to Louis Napoleon. He committed England to the 
 Empire, and the other nations of Europe had to follow suit. 
 
 On this point, Chambers's Encyclopaedia, Art. " Palmerston,'' 
 has the following notice : — "In December, 1852, the public was 
 startled at the news that Palmerston was no longer a member 
 of the Eussell Cabinet. He had expressed his approbation of the 
 coup d'etat of Louis Napoleon (gave England's official acknow- 
 ledgment of the perpetration) without consulting either the 
 Premier or the Queen ; and as explanations were refused, Her 
 Majesty exercised her constitutional right of dismissing her 
 minister." Palmerston had also audaciously interpolated 
 despatches signed by the Queen. He acted in fact as he pleased. 
 He had the agents of his dark realm in almost every Masonic 
 lodge in England. The Press at home and abroad, under 
 Masonic influences, applauded his policy. The sect so acted that 
 his measures were productive of immediate success. His manner, 
 his bonhomie^ his very vices fascinated the multitude. He 
 won the confidence of the trading classes, and held the Conser- 
 vatives at bay. Dismissed by the Sovereign, he soon returned 
 into power her master, and from that day to the day of his death 
 ruled England and the world in the interests of the Atheistic 
 Kevolution, of which he thought himself the master spirit.' 
 
 1 INIr. F. Hugh O'DonneU, the able M.P. for Dimgarvan, contributed to the 
 pages of the Dublin Freeman s Journal a most useful and interesting paper which 
 showed on his part a careful study of the works of Monsgr. Segm* and other 
 continental authorities on Freemasonry, In this, he says, regarding his own 
 recollections of contemporary events : — " It is now many years since I heard from 
 my lamented master and friend, the Rev. Sir Christopher Bellew, of the Society 
 of Jesus, these impressive words. Speaking of the tireless machinations and 
 ubiquitous influence of Lord Palmerston against the temporal independence of 
 the Popes, Sir Christopher Bellew said : — 
 
 " Lord Palmerston is much more than a hostile statesman. He woidd never 
 have such influence on the Continent if he were only an English Cabinet ]\Iinister. 
 But he is a Freemason and one of the highest and greatest of Freemasons. It is 
 he who sends what is called the Patriarchal Voice through the lodges of Em-ope. 
 And to obtain that rank he must have given the most extreme proofs of his 
 insatiable hatred to the Catholic Church." 
 
 "Another illustration of the manner in which European events are moved by 
 hidden currents was given me by the late Major-General Burnaby, M.P., a quiet 
 and amiable soldier, who, though to all appearance one of the most miobtrusive 
 of men, was employed in some of the most delicate and important work of 
 British policy in the East. General Burnaby was commissioned to obtain and 
 
WAR OF TITE INTELLECTUAL PARTY, 97 
 
 In a few moments we shall see the truth of this when con- 
 sidermg the political action of the sect he led, but first it will be 
 necessary to glance at what the Church and Christianity 
 generally had to suffer in his day by the — 
 
 XVIIL 
 
 War of the Intellectual Party. 
 During what may be called the reign of Palmerston, the 
 war of the intellectual party against Christianity, intensified in 
 the dark counsels of the Alta Vendita, became accentuated and 
 general throughout Europe. It chiefly lay in the propagandism 
 of immorality, luxury, and naturalism amongst all classes of 
 society, and then in the spread of Atheistic and revolutionary 
 ideas. During the time of Palmerston's influence not one iota of 
 the advices of the Alta Vendita was permitted to be wasted. 
 Wherever, therefore, it was possible to advance the programme 
 mapped out in the " Permanent Instruction," in the letter of 
 Piccolo Tigre^ and in the advices of Vindex, that was done with 
 effect. We see, therefore, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, 
 America, and the rest of the world, deluged with immoral 
 novels, immodest prints, pictures, and statues, and every 
 legislature invited to legalise a system of prostitution, under 
 
 preserve the names and addresses of all the Italian members of the foreign legion 
 enlisted for the British service in the Crimean War. This was in 1855 and 1856. 
 After the war these men, mostly reckless and unscrupulous characters — "fearful 
 scoimdrels " General Burnaby called them — dispersed to their native provinces, 
 but the clue to find them again was in General Bm-naby's hands, and when a 
 couple of years later Cavoirr and Palmerston, in conjimction with the Masonic 
 lodges, considered the moment opportune to let loose the Italian Revolution, the 
 list of the Italian foreign legion was commmiicated to the Sardinian Government 
 and was placed in the hands of the Garibaldiau Directory, who at once sought 
 out most of the men. In this way several hmidreds of " fearful scoundrels," 
 who had learned military skill and discipline under the British flag, were supplied 
 to Garibaldi to form the corps of his celebrated " Army of Emancipation " in 
 the two Sicilies and the Roman States. While the British chplomatists at Turin 
 and Naples carried on, under cover of their character as envoys, the dangerous 
 portion of the Carbonarist conspii^acy, the taxpayers of Great Britain contributed 
 iu this manner to raise and train an army destined to confiscate the possessions of 
 the Religious Orders and the Church in Italy, and, in its remoter operation, to 
 assail, and, if possible, destroy the world-wide mission of the IIolv Propaganda 
 itself. 
 
 H 
 
98 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 pretence of expediency, which gave security to sinners, and 
 a kind of recognized status to degraded women. We 
 find, wherever Masonry could effect it, these bad influences 
 brought to bear upon the universities, the army, the navy, the 
 training schools, the civil service, and upon the whole 
 population. " Make corrupt hearts and you will have no more 
 Catholics," said Vindex, and faithfully, and with effect, the secret 
 societies of. Europe have followed that advice. Hence, in Finance 
 under the Empire, Paris, bad enough before, became a very 
 pandemonium of vice ; and Italy just in proportion to the con- 
 quests of the Revolution, became systematic^ally corrupted on 
 the very lines laid down by the Alta Yendita. 
 
 Next, laws subversive of Christian morality were caused 
 to be passed in every State, on, of course, the most plausible 
 pretexts. These laws were, first, that of divorce, then, the abolition 
 of impediments to marriage, such as consanguinity, order, and 
 relationship, union with a deceased wife's sister, etc. Well the 
 infidels knew that in proportion as nations fell away from 
 the holy restraints of the Church, and as the sanctity and 
 inviolability of the marriage bond became weakened, the more 
 Atheism would enter into the human family. 
 
 Moreover, the few institutions of a public, Christian nature 
 yet remaining in Christian States were to be removed one after 
 another on some skilfully devised, plausible plea. The Sabbath 
 .which in the Old as well as in the New Dispensation, proved so 
 great an advantage to religion and to man — to nations as well as 
 to individuals — was marked out for desecration. The leniency of 
 the Church which permitted certain necessary works on Sunday, 
 was taken advantage of, and the day adroitly turned into 
 one of common trading in all the great towns of Catholic Conti- 
 nental Europe. The Infidels, owing to a previous determination 
 arrived at in the lodges, clamoured for permission to open museums 
 and places of public amusement on the days sacred to the services 
 of religion, in order to distract the population from the hearing 
 of Mass and the worship of God. Not that they cared for the 
 
WAR OF THE INTELLECTUAL PARTY. 99 
 
 unfortunate working man. If tlie Sabbath ceased to-morrow, he 
 would be the slave on Sunday that they leave him to be during 
 the rest of the week. The one day of rest would be torn from the 
 labouring population, and their lot drawn nearer than before 
 to that absolute slavery which always did exist, and would 
 exist again, under every form of Idolatry and Infidelity. Pending 
 the reduction of men to Socialism, the secret conclave directing 
 the whole mass of organized Atheism has therefore taken 
 care that in order to withdraw the working man from 
 attending divine worship and the hearing of the Word of God, 
 theatres, cafes, pleasure gardens, drinking saloons, and other 
 still worse means of popular enjoyment shall ])e made to exert 
 the utmost influence on him upon that day. This sad influence 
 is beginning to be felt amongst ourselves. Then, besides the 
 suppression of State recognition to religion, chaplains to the 
 army, the navy, the hospitals, the prisons, etc., were to be with- 
 drawn on the plea of expense or of being unnecessary. Courts 
 of justice, and public assemblies were to be deprived of every 
 Christian symbol. This was to be done on the plea of religion 
 being too sacred to be permitted to enter into such places. In 
 courts, in society, at dinners, etc., Christian habits, like that of 
 grace before meals, etc., or any social recognition of God's 
 presence, were to be scouted -as not in good taste. The company 
 of ecclesiastics was to be shunned, and a hundred other able 
 means were devised to efface the Christian aspect of the nations 
 until they presented an appearance more devoid of religion 
 than that of the very pagans. 
 
 But of all the attacks made by Infidels during the reign 
 of Palmerston, that upon primary, middle-class, and superior 
 education was the most marked, the most - determined, and 
 decidedly, when successful, the most disastrous. 
 
 We must remember that from the commencement of the 
 war of Atheism on Christianity, under Voltaire and the Encyclo- 
 paedists, this means of doing mischief was the one most advocated 
 by the chief leaders. They then accumulated immense sums to 
 
100 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 diffuse their own bad literature amongst every class. Under 
 the Empire, the most disastrous blow struck by the Arch-Mason 
 1 alleyrand was the formation of a monopoly of education for 
 Infidelity in the foundation of the Paris University. But it 
 was left for the Atheistic plotters of this century to perfect 
 the plan of wresting the education of every class and sex of the 
 coming generations of men from out of the hands of the Church, 
 and the influence of Christianity. 
 
 This plan was elaborated as early, I think, as 1826, by 
 intellectual Masonry, About that time appeared a dialogue 
 between Quinet and Eugene Sue, in which after the manner of the 
 letter of Vindex to Nubius the whole programme of the now 
 progressing education war was sketched out. In this the 
 hopes which Masonry had from Protestantism in countries where 
 the population was mixed, were clearly expressed. The jealousy 
 of rival sects was to be excited, and when they could not agree, 
 then the State was to be induced to do away with all kinds of 
 religion "just for peace sake," and establish schools on a purely 
 secular basis, entirely removed from " clerical control," and handed 
 over to lay teachers, whom in time Atheism could find means to 
 " control " most surely. But in purely Catholic countries, where 
 such an argument as the differences of sects could not be adduced, 
 then the cry was to be against clerical versus lay teaching. 
 Eeligious teachers were to be banished by the strong hand, as 
 at present in France, and afterwards it could be said that lay 
 teachers were not competent or willing to give religious 
 instruction, and so that, too, in time, could be made to disappear.^ 
 
 ^ The late celebrated MonsignorDupanloup published, in 1875, an invaluable 
 little treatise, in which he gave, from the expressions of the most eminent 
 Masons in France and elsewhere, from the resolutions taken in principal lodges, 
 and from the opinions of their chief literary organs, proofs that what i? here 
 stated is correct. The following extracts regarding education wiU show what 
 Masonry has been doing in regard to that most vital question. Monsignor 
 Dupanloup says: — " In the great lodge called the " Rose of Perfect Silence," it 
 was proposed at one time for the consideration of the brethren : — " Ought religious 
 education be suppressed?" This was answered as follows : — " Without any doubt 
 " the principle of supernatural authority, that is faith in God, takes from a man 
 " his dignity ; is useless for the discipline of children, and there is also in it, the 
 " danger of tlae abandonment of all morality " . , " The respect, specially due 
 
WAR OF THE INTELLECTUAL TARTY. 101 
 
 We may here call to mind the fact that it was while Lord 
 Palmerston directed Masomy as Monarch, and English policy as 
 Minister, that secularism was insidiously attempted to be intro- 
 duced into higher education in Ireland by Queen's Colleges, and 
 into primary education by certain acts of the Board of National 
 Education. The fidelity of the Irish Episcopacy and the ever 
 vigilant watchfulness of the Holy See, disconcerted both plans, 
 or neutralized them to a great extent. Attempts of a like kind 
 are being made in England, There, by degrees, board schools with 
 almost unlimited assistance from taxes have been first made legal, 
 
 " to the child, prohibits the teaching to him of doctrines, which distiirb his 
 " reason." 
 
 To show the reason of the activity of the Masons, all the world over, for 
 the diffusion of irreligioi;s education, it will be sufficient to quote the view of the 
 the Monde Ma^onniqtie on tlie subject. It says, in its issue of May 1st, 1865, 
 "An immense field is open to our acti-^ity. Ignorance and superstition weigh 
 " upon the world. Let us seek to create schools, professorial chairs, libraries." 
 Impelled by the general movement thus infused into the body, the Masonic 
 (French) Convention of 1870, came unanimously to the following decision : — 
 " The Masonry of France associates itself to the forces at work in the country 
 " to render education gratuitous, obligatory, and laic." 
 
 We have all heard how far Belgium has gone in pursuit of these Masonic 
 aims at Infidel education. At one of the principal festivals of the Belgian 
 Freemasons a certain brother Boulard exclaimed, amidst miiversal applause, 
 "When ministers shall come to announce to the country that they intend to 
 regulate the education of the people I will cry aloud, " to me a Mason, to me 
 alone the question of education must be left ; to me the teaching ; to me the 
 examination ; to me the solution." 
 
 Monsgr. Dupanloup also attacked the Masonic project of having professional 
 schools for young girls, such as are now advocated in the Australian colonies and 
 elsewhere in English-speaking comitries. At the time, the movement was but 
 just being initiated in France, but it could not deceive him. In a pamphlet, to 
 which all the Bishops of France adhered, and which was therefore called the Alarm 
 of the Episcopate, he showed clearly that these schools had two faces : — on one of 
 which was written " Professional Instruction for Girls," and on the otlier, 
 " Away with Christianity in life and death." "Without woman," said Brother 
 Albert Leroy, at an International Congress of Masons, at Paris, in 1867, " all the 
 men united can do nothing " — nothing to effectually de-Christianize the world. 
 
 The French " Education League " had the same object. At the time it was 
 introduced, the lodges were busy with getting up a statue to Voltaire. And the 
 Monde Ma(onm(]ue, speaking of both, said in April, 1867 : — 
 
 " May the Education League and the statue of Brother Voltaire find in all 
 " the lodges the most lively sympathy. We could not have two subscriptions 
 " more in harmony ; Voltaire, that is the destruction of prejudices and supersti- 
 " tions : the Education League, that is the building up of a new society 
 '• founded solely upon science and upon instruction. All our brethren imdorstand 
 " the matter in this manner." 
 
 It is needless to remark here that by " superstition " the Monde Ma^onniqiie 
 means religion, and, by " science and instruction," these acquirements, not only 
 without, but du'ectly hostile to religion. This newspaper constantly teaches 
 
102 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 nnd then encouraged most adroitly. The Church schools have 
 been systematically discouraged, and hav^e now reached the point 
 of danger. This has been effected, first, by the Masonry of 
 Palmerston in the high places, and, secondly, by the Masonry 
 of England generally, not in actual league and knowingly, with 
 the dark direction I speak of, but unknowingly influenced by its 
 well-devised cries for the spread of light, for the diffusion of 
 education amongst the masses, for the banishment of rehgious 
 discord, etc. It was, of course, never mentioned, that all the 
 advantages cried up could be obtained, together with the still 
 greater advantage of a Christian education, producing a future 
 Christian population. It was sedulously kept out of sight that 
 the people who would be certain to use board schools, were those 
 who never went themselves to any church, and who would never 
 
 that all religions are so many darknesses, that Masonry is the light ; that God, 
 the soul, the life to coine, are nothing but suppositions and fantasies, and that, as 
 a consequence, a man ought to be reared up independent of every kind of 
 Christianity. Therefore, it adds, "All masons ought to adhere in mass to tiie league 
 of instruction, and the lodijcs ought to study in the peace of their temples the best 
 means to render it efficacious. In fact the Education League and JNlasonry are 
 declared to be identical by Brother Mace, who, at a general banquet, drank : — 
 " To the entrance of all Masons into the League. To the entrance into Masonry 
 of all those who form part of the League." " To the trimuph of the light, the 
 watchword common to the League and to Masonry." 
 
 In fine, the author of a history of Freemasonry, and one evidently well uj) in 
 its aims, Brother Goffin, writes as follows : — 
 
 " Whenever Masonry accords the entrance into its temple to a Hebrew, to a 
 Mahometan, to a Catholic, or to a Protestant, that is done on the condition that 
 he becomes a new man, that he abjures all his past errors, that he rejects the super- 
 stitions in ivhich he ivas cradled from his youth. AVithout all this what has he to do 
 in our Masonic assemblies?" 
 
 But as we have seen the great aim of the Alta Vendita, was to corrupt 
 woman, " As we cannot suppress her," said Vindex to Nubius, " let us corrupt 
 her with the Church." The method best adapted for this was to alienate tier from 
 religion by an infidel education. The Freemasons, no doubt, obtained from tlie 
 higher grades the word of command, and, accordingly, proceeded to force, every- 
 where, the establishment of superior schools for young girls where they might 
 be surely deprived of their religion and their morality. In the " Lodge of Benefi- 
 " cence and Progress," at Boulogne, on the 19th of July, 1867, "Massol" thus 
 spoke : " By means of instruction, women will become able to shake off the 
 " clerical yoke, and to liberate themselves from the superstitions which impede 
 " them from occupying themselves with an education in harmony with the spirit 
 " of the age." To give one proof only of this, where is the English, German, or 
 American woman, who to the two religious questions which her own children 
 can propose to her: " Who made the world?" "Do we continue to live after 
 " death ?" would dare to answer that she knew nothing and that no one knew 
 anything about it. Well, then, this boldness the instructed French woman will 
 possess. 
 
WAR OF THE INTELLECTUAL PARTY. 103 
 
 tliink of. giving religious instruction of any kind to their 
 children. Nothing'can shoAvthe power of Freemasonry in a stronger 
 light than the stupor it was able cast over the men who make laws 
 in both Houses of the English Parliament, and who were thus 
 hoodwinked into training up men fitted to take position, 
 wealth, and bread itself, from themselves and their children ; 
 to subject, in another generation, the moneyed classes of Eng- 
 land to the lot that befell other blinded " moneyed people " in 
 France during the last century. In England, the Freemasons 
 had, unfortunately, the Dissenters as allies. Hatred for church 
 schools caused the latter to make common cause with Atheists 
 against God, but the destruction of the Church of England — they 
 do not hope for the destruction of the vigorous Catholic 
 Church of the country — will never compensate even Socinians 
 for a spirit of instructed irreligion in England — a spirit which, 
 in a genei'ation, will be able and only too willing to attempt 
 Atheistic levelling for its own advantage, and certainly not for 
 the benefit of wealthy Dissenters, or Dissenters having anything 
 at all to lose. 
 
 The same influences of Atheism were potent, and for the 
 same reasons, in all our Australian legislatures. There the influence 
 of continental Freemasonry is stronger than at home, and con- 
 servative influences which neutralize Atheistic movements of too 
 democratic a nature in England and Scotland, are weaker. 
 Hence, in all our Australian Parliaments, Acts are passed with but 
 a feeble resistance from the Church party, abolishing religious 
 education of every kind, and making all the education of the 
 country ** secular', compulsory, and free." That is, without 
 religion, enforced upon every class, and at the general expense 
 of the State. Hence, after paying the taxation in full, the 
 Catholic and the conscientious Christian of the Church of 
 England, have to sustain in all those colonies their own system of 
 education, and this, while paying for the other system, and while 
 bearing the additional burden of the competition of State 
 schools, richly and completely endowed with every possible 
 requisite and luxury out of the general taxes 
 
104 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 A filial feature in the education-war of Atheism against the 
 Church especially, and against Christianity of every kind, is the 
 attempted higher education without religion of young girls. The 
 expense which they have induced every legislature to undertake 
 for this purpose is amazing ; and how the nations tolerate that 
 expense is equally amazing. It is but carrying out to the letter 
 the advice of Vindex : — ''If we cannot suppress woman, let us 
 corrupt her together with the Church." For this purpose those 
 infamous hot-beds of foul vice, "lodges of adopfion," lodges for 
 woman, and lodges " androgynes," — lodges for libertine Masons 
 and women — were established by the lUuminati of France in the 
 last century. For the same purpose schools for the higher 
 education of young girls are now devised. This we know by the 
 open avowal of leading Masons. They were introduced into 
 France, Belgium, Italy, and Germany for the purpose of 
 withdrawing young girls of the middle and upper classes 
 from the blessed, safe control of nuns in convents, and of 
 leading them to positive Atheism by infidel masters and infidel 
 associates. This design of the lodges is succeeding in its 
 mission of terrible mischief ; but, thank God, not amongst the 
 daughters of respectable Christians of any kind, who value the 
 chastity, the honour, or the future happiness here and hereafter of 
 that sex of their children, who need most care and delicacy in 
 educating. 
 
 In the extract from the permaneut instruction of the Alta 
 Vendiia, you have already seen how astutely the Atheists compas- 
 sed the corruption of youth in Universities. It is since notorious 
 that in all high schools over which they have been able to obtain 
 infiuence, the students have been deprived of religion, taught to 
 mock and hate it, allured to vicious courses, and have been placed 
 under professors without religion or morality. How can we be 
 surprised if the Universities of the Continent have become the 
 hot-beds of vice, revolution, and Atheism ? When Masonry 
 governs, as in France, Italy, and Germany, moreover, the only 
 way for youth to obtain a livelihood on entering upon life is by 
 
THE WAR PARTY UNDER PALMERSTON. 105 
 
 being affiliated to Masonry ; and the only way to secure advance- 
 ment is to be devoted to the principles, the intrigues, and the 
 interests of the sect. 
 
 The continuous efforts of Masonry, aided by an immoral and 
 Atheistic literature, by a corrupt public opinion, by a zealous 
 Propagandisni of contempt for the Church, for her ministers and 
 her ministrations, and by a sleepless, able Directory devoted to 
 the furtherance of every evil end, are enough, in all reason, to 
 ruin Christianity if that were not Divine, But, in addition to 
 its intellectual efforts, Masonry has had from the beginning 
 another powerful means of destroying the existing social and 
 Christian order of the world in the interests of Atheism. We 
 shall see what this is by a glance at the action of 
 
 XIX. 
 
 The War Party under Palmerston. 
 Father Deschamps, on the authority of Eckert and 
 Mislay, gives an interesting description of all that Freemasonry, 
 under the direction of Lord Palmerston, attempted and effected 
 after the failure of the revolutionary movements, conducted by the 
 party of action, under Mazzini, in 1848. These were fomented 
 to a large extent by British diplomacy and secret service money 
 manipulated by Lord Palmerston. Under his guidance and 
 assistance, Mazzini had organized all his revolutionary sects. 
 Young Italy, Young Poland, Young Europe, and the rest sprang 
 as much from the one as from the other. But after years of 
 close union, Mazzini, who was probably hated by Palmerston, and 
 dreaded as the murderer of Nubius, began to wane in influence. 
 He and his party felt, of course, the inevitable effects of failure ; 
 and the leader subsided without, however, losing any 
 of his utility for the sect. Napoleon III. appears to have 
 supplanted him in the esteem of Palmerston, and would, if he 
 dared, not follow the Carbonari. Mazzini accordingly hated 
 Napoleon III. with a deadly hatred, which he lived to be able 
 to gratify signally w^hen Palmerston was no more. As he was 
 
106 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 the principal means of raising Palmerston to power in the 
 Alta Venclita^ so, after Palmerston had passed away, he intro- 
 duced another great statesman to the high conductors, if not 
 into the high conduct itself, of the whole conspiracy ; and caused 
 a fatal blow to be given to France and to the dynasty of 
 Napoleon. Meanwhile, from 1849 to the end of the life of 
 Palmerston, the designs formed by the high council of secret 
 Atheism, were carried out with a perfection, a vigour, and a 
 success never previously known in their history. Nothing was 
 precipitated ; yet everything marched rapidly to realization. The 
 plan of Palmerston — or the plan of the deadly council which 
 plotted under him — was to separate the two great conservative 
 empires of Russia and Austria, while, at the same time, dealing 
 a deadly blow at both. It was easy for Palmerston to make 
 England see the utility of weakening Russia, which threatened 
 her Indian possessions. France could be made join in the fray, by 
 her ruler, and the powerful Masonic influence at his command : 
 Therefore, the Russian campaign of 1852. But it was necessary 
 for this war to keep Prussia and Austria quiet. Prussia was 
 bribed by a promise to get, in time, the Empire of United 
 Germany. Austria was frightened by the resolution of 
 England and France to bring war to the Danube, and so form 
 a projected Kingdom in Poland and Hungary. The joint 
 power of England, France, and Turkey could easily, then, with 
 the aid of the populations interested, form the new kingdom, 
 and so effectually curb Russia and Austria. But it was of more 
 importance for the designs of the sect upon the temporal power 
 of the Pope, and upon Austria herself, to separate the Empires. 
 Palmerston succeeded with Austria, who withdrew from her 
 alliance with Russia. The forces, therefore, of England and 
 France, were ordered from the Danube to the barren Crimea, as 
 payment for her neutrality. This bribe proved the ruin ot 
 Austrian influence. As soon as Russia was separated from her, 
 and weakened beyond the power of assisting her, if she would, 
 France, countenanced by England, dealt a deadly blow at 
 
THE WAR PARTY UNDER PALMERSTON. 107 
 
 Austrian rule in Italy, united Italy, and placed the temporal 
 power of the Pope in the last stage of decay. On the 
 other hand, Prussia was permitted to deal a blow soon after 
 at Austria. This finished the prestige of the latter as the 
 leading power in Germany, and confined her to her original 
 territory, with the loss of Venice, her remaining Italian 
 province. After this war, Palmerston passed away, and Mazzini 
 came, once more, into authority in the sect. Ke remembered his 
 grudge against Napoleon, and at once used his influence with the 
 high direction of Masonry to abandon France and assist Germany ; 
 and,onthe promise of Bismarck — a promise fulfilled by the May laws 
 — that Germany should persecute the Church as it Avas persecuted 
 in Italy, Masonry went over to Germany, and Masons urged on 
 Napoleon to that insane expedition which ended in placing 
 Germany as the arbiter of Europe, and France and the 
 dynasty of Napoleon in ruins. In the authorities I have quoted 
 for you, there is abundant proof that Masonry, just as it had 
 assisted the French Eevolution and Napoleon I., now assisted 
 the Germans. It placed treason on the side of the French, and 
 sold in fact the unfortunate country and her unscrupulous ruler. 
 Mazzini forced Italy not to assist Napoleon, and was gratified to 
 find before his death, that the liar and traitor, who, in the hope 
 of getting assistance he did not get from Masonry, had dealt his 
 last blow at the Vicar of Christ, and placed Rome and the 
 remnant of the States of the Church in the hands of the King of 
 Italy, had lost the throne and gained the unenviable character of 
 a coward and a fool. 
 
 This is necessarily but a brief glance at the programme, which 
 Atheism has both planned and carried out since the rule of 
 Palmerston commenced. Wherever it prevailed, the worst form 
 of persecution of the Church at once began to rage. In 
 Sardinia, as soon as it obtained hold of the King and 
 Government, the designs of the French Revolution were at once 
 carried out against religion The State itself employed the 
 horrible and impure contrivances of the Alta Vendita for the 
 
108 WAR OF ANTICHRIST AVITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 corruption and demoralisation of every class of the people. The 
 flood gates of hell were opened. Education was at once made 
 completely secular. Religious teachers were banished. The goods 
 of the religious orders were confiscated. Their convents, their land, 
 their very churches were sold, and they themselves were forced 
 to starve on a miserable pension, while a succession was rigorously 
 prohibited. All recognition of the spiritual power of Bishops 
 was put an end to. The priesthood was systematically despised 
 and degraded. The whole ministry of the Church was harassed 
 in a hundred vexatious ways. Taxes of a crushing character 
 were levied on the administration of the sacraments, on masses, 
 and on the slender incomes of the parish clergy. Matrimony was 
 made secular, divorce legalised, the privileges of the clerical state 
 abrogated. Worse than all, the leva or conscription was rigorously 
 enforced. Candidates for the priesthood at the most trying season 
 of their career, were compelled to join the army for a number 
 of years, and exposed to all the snares which the Alta Vendita 
 had astutely prepared to destroy their purity, and with it, of 
 course, their vocations ; " make vicious hearts, and you will have 
 no more Catholics." Besides these measures made and pro- 
 vided by public authority, every favour of the State, its power 
 of giving honours, patronage and place, was constantly denied 
 to Catholics. To get any situation of value in the army, navy, 
 civil service, police, revenue, on the railways, in the telegraph 
 offices, to be a physician to the smallest municipality, to be 
 employed almost anywhere, it was necessary to be a Freemason, 
 or to have powerful Masonic influence. The press, the larger 
 mercantile firms, important manufactories, depending as such 
 institutions mostly do on State patronage and interest, were 
 also in the hands of the Sectaries. To Catholics was left the lot 
 of slaves. If permitted to exist at all, it was as the hewers of 
 wood and the drawers of water. The lands which those amongst 
 them held, who did not forsake religion, were taxed to an un- 
 bearable extent. The condition of the faithful Catholic peasants 
 became wretched from the load of fiscal burdens placed upon 
 
THE WAR PARTY UNDER TALMERSTON. 100 
 
 them. The triumph of Atheism could not be more complete, so 
 far as having all that the world could give on its side, and 
 leaving to the Church scarcely more than covered her Divine 
 Founder upon the Cross. 
 
 Bismarck, though assisted in his wars against France by the 
 brave Catholic soldiers of the Rhine, and of tlie Fatherland 
 generally, no sooner had his rival crushed, and his victory 
 secured, than he hastened to pay to Freemasonry his promised 
 persecution of the Church. Tlie Freemasons in the German 
 Parliament, and the Ministers of the sect, aided him to prepare 
 measures against the Catholic religion as drastic as those in 
 operation in Italy, even worse in many respects. The religious 
 orders of men and women were rigorously suppressed or banished, 
 as a first instalment. Then fell Catholic education to make way 
 for an Infidel propagandism. Next came harassing decrees 
 against the clergy by which Bishops were banished or imprisoned 
 and parishes were deprived in hundreds of their priests. All 
 the bad, immoral influences, invented and propagated by the 
 sectaries, were permitted to run riot in the land. A schism was 
 attempted in the Church. Ecclesiastical education was corrupted 
 in the very bud, and all but the existence of Catholics was 
 proscribed. 
 
 Wherever we find the dark sect triumphant we find tlie 
 same results. In the Republics of South America, where 
 Freemasonry holds the highest places, the condition of the Church 
 is that of normal persecution and vexation of every kind. It 
 has been so for many years in Spain and Portugal, in Switzerland, 
 and to whatever extent Freemasons can accomplish it, in Belgium 
 and in Austria. I need not say what it has been in France since 
 the Freemason Parliament and Government have come into 
 power. The dark Directory succeeding Wieshaupt, the Alta 
 Veiidita, and Palmerston, sits in Paris and in Berlin almost 
 openly, and prepares at leisure its measures, which are nothing 
 short of, first, the speedy weakening of the Church, and then, I 
 am certain, a bloody attempt at her extermination. If it goes 
 
1 1 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 on slower than it did during the French Revolution, it is in order 
 to go on surer. Past experience too, and the determinations of the 
 sect already arrived at, show but too clearly that a single final 
 consummation is kept steadily in view. The impure assassins 
 who conduct the conspiracy have had no scruple to imbrue their 
 hands in the blood of Christians in the past, and they never 
 will have a scruple to do so, whenever there is hope of success. 
 In fact, from what I have seen and studied on the Continent, 
 an attempt at this ultimate means of getting rid at least of 
 the clergy and principal lay leo,ders amongst Catholics, might 
 take place in France and even in Italy at any moment. In 
 France, some new measure of persecution is introduced every day. 
 The Concordat is broken openly. The honour of the country 
 is despised. Sul)ventions belonging by contract to the clergy are 
 withdrawn. The insolence of the Atheistical Government, 
 relying on the strength of the army and on the unaccountable 
 apathy or cowardice of the French Catholic laity, progresses so 
 fast, that no act of the Eevolution of '89 or of the Commune, 
 can be thought improbable within the present decade ; and Italy 
 would be sure to follow any example set by France in this or in 
 any other method of exterminating the Church. 
 
 There are sure signs in all the countries where the Atheistic 
 Revolution has made decided progress, that this final catastrophe 
 is planned already, and that its instruments are in course of 
 preparation. These instruments are something the same as were 
 devised by the illuminated lodges, when the power of the French 
 Revolution began to pass from the National Assembly to the 
 clubs. The clubs were the open and ultimate expression of the 
 destructive, anti- Christianity of Atheism ; and when the lodges 
 reached so far, there was no further need for secrecy. That which 
 in the jargon of the sect is called ^' the object of the labour of 
 ages," was attained. Man was without God or Faith, King or 
 Law. He had reached the level aimed at by the Commune, 
 which is itself the ultimate end of all Masonry, and all that 
 secret Atheistic plotting which, since the rise of Atheism, has 
 filled the world. 
 
THE INTERNATIONAL, THE NIHILISTS, THE BLACK HAND, ETC. Ill 
 
 In our day, if Masonry does not found Jacobite or otlier 
 clubs, it originates and cherishes movements fully as satanic and 
 as dangerous. Communism, just like Carbonarism, is but a 
 form of the illuminated Masonry of Weishaupt. " Our end," 
 said the Alta Vendita, "is that of Voltaire and the French 
 Revolution." Names and methods are varied, but that end is 
 ever the same. The clubs at the period of the French Revolution 
 were, after all, local. Masonry now endeavours to generalise 
 their principles and their powers of destructive activity on a 
 vastly more extended scale. We therefore no longer hear of 
 Jacobins or Girondins, but we hear of movements destined to be 
 for all countries what the Jacobins and the Girondins were for 
 Paris and for France. As surely, and for the same purpose, as 
 the clubs proceeded from the lodges in 1789, so, in this latter 
 half of the nineteenth century, the lodges send out upon the 
 whole civilised world, for the very same intent, the terrible 
 Socialist organizations, all founded upon the lines of Communism, 
 and called, according to 'the exigencies of time, place, and con- 
 dition, the association of the brethren of 
 
 XX. 
 
 The International, The Nihilists, The Black Hand, etc. 
 
 I am well aware that there are multitudes in Freemasonry 
 — even in the most "advanced" Freemasonry of Italy and 
 France — who have no real wish to see the principles of these 
 anarchists predominate. Those, for instance, who in advocating 
 the theories of Voltaire, and embracing for their realisation the 
 organization of Weishaupt, saw only a means to get for them- 
 selves honours, power, and riches, which they could never 
 otherwise obtain but by Freemasonry, would be well pleased 
 enough to advance no further, once the good things they loved 
 had been gained. " Nousvoulons^ Messieurs,'^ said Thiers, " la 
 rejmbligue, mais la repuhlique conservatrice.'^ lie and his 
 desired, of course, to have the Republic which gave them all this 
 
112 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 world had to bestow, at the expense of former possessors. 
 They desired also the destruction of a religion which crossed 
 their corrupt inclinations, and which was suspected of sympathy for 
 the state of things which Masonry had supplanted. But they had 
 ^no notion, if they could help it, to descend again to the level of 
 the masses from which they had sprung. In Italy, for instance, 
 this class of Freemasons have had supreme power in their hands 
 for over a quarter of a century. Thay obtained it by professing 
 the strongest sympathy for the down-trodden millions whom 
 they called slaves. They stated that these slaves — the bulk 
 of the Italian people in the country and in the cities — were no 
 better than tax-paying machines, the dupes and drudges of their 
 political tyrants. Victor Emmanuel, when he wanted, as he said, 
 " to liberate them from political tyrants," declared that a cry 
 came to him from the " enslaved Italy," composed of these down- 
 trodden, unregenerated millions. He and his Freemasons and 
 Carbonari — the party of direction and the party of action — 
 therefore drove the native princes of the people from their 
 thrones, and seized upon the supreme sway throughout the 
 Italian peninsula. Were the millions of " slaves " served by the 
 change ? The whole property of the Church was seized upon. 
 Were the burdens of taxation lightened ? Very far from it. 
 The change simply put hungry Freemasons, and chiefly those 
 of Piedmont, in possession of the Church lands and revenues. 
 It dispossessed many ancient Catholic proprietors, in order to put 
 Freemasons in their stead. But Avith what consequence to the 
 vast mass of the people, to the peasantry and the working popu- 
 lation — some twenty-four out of the twenty-six millions of the 
 Italian people ? The consequence is this, that after a quarter of 
 a century of vaunted " regenerated Masonic rule," during which 
 *'the liberators" were at perfect liberty to confer any blessings 
 they pleased upon the people as such, the same people are at 
 this moment more miserable than at any past period of their 
 history, at least since Catholicity became predominant as the 
 
THE INTERNATIONAL, THE NIHILISTS, THE BLACK HAND, ETC. 113 
 
 religion of the country. If their natural princes ever •' whipped 
 them with whips/' for the good of the state, Freemasonry, under 
 the House of Savoy, slashes them with scorpions, for the good of 
 the fraternity. To keep power in the hands of the Atheists 
 an army, ten times greater, and ten times more costly than i- 
 before, has to be supported by the " liberated " people. A 
 worthless but ruinously expensive navy has been created and 
 must be kept by the same unfortunate " regenerated " people. 
 These poor people, " regenerated and liberated," must mon the 
 fleets and supply the rank and file of the army and navy ; they 
 must give their sons, at the most useful period of their lives, to 
 the " service " of Masonic " United Italy." But the officials 
 in both army and navy — and their number is legion — supported 
 by the taxes of the people, are Freemasons or the sons of Free- 
 masons. They vegetate in absolute uselessness, so far as the 
 development of the country is concerned, living in comparative 
 luxury upon its scanty resources. The civil service, like the 
 army and navy, is swelled with " government billets," out of all 
 proportion to the wants of the people. It is filled with Free- 
 masons. It is a paradise of Freemasons, where Piedraontese 
 patriots, who have intrigued with Cavour or fought under 
 Garibaldi, enjoy otium cum dignitate at the expense of the hard 
 earnings of a people very poor at any time, but by the present 
 " regenerated " regime made more wretched and miserable than 
 any Christian peasantry — not even excepting the peasantry of 
 Ireland — on the face of the earth. 
 
 The consequence of the " liberation " wrought by the 
 Freemasons in Italy is this : They clamoured for representative 
 institutions. All their revolutions were made under the pretext 
 that these were not granted — and the mass of the Italian people — 
 seven-eighths of them — are as yet unenfranchised, after a quarter 
 of a century of Masonic supremacy in the land. The Masons 
 represented the lot of the poor man as insupportable, under the 
 native princes. But under themselves the poor man's condition, 
 instead of being ameliorated, has been made unspeakably worse. 
 
1 1 4 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 He is positively, at present, ground down, in every little town oi 
 Italy, by insupportable exactions. His former burdens are 
 increased four- fold — in many cases, ten-fold. To find money 
 for all the extravagances of Freemason rule — to make fortunes 
 for the top-sawyers, and comfortable places for the rank and file 
 of the sect, a system of taxation, the most elaborate, severe, and 
 searching ever yet invented to crush a nation, has been devised. 
 The peasant's rent is raised by Masonic greed whenever a Mason 
 becomes a proprietor, as is often the case with regard to con- 
 fiscated church lands. Land taxes cause the rents to rise 
 everywhere. The tenant must bear them. Then every article of 
 the produce of his little rented holding is taxed as he approaches 
 the city gates to sell it. At home his pig is taxed, his dog, if he 
 can keep one, his fowl, his house, his fire-place, his window light, 
 his scanty earnings, titulo servizio, all are specially, and for the 
 poor, heavily taxed. The consequence of this is, that few Italian 
 peasants can, since Italy became " United," drink the wine 
 they produce, or eat the wheat they grow. Flesh meat, once 
 in common use, is now as rare with them, as it used to be with 
 the peasantry in Ireland. Milk or butter they hardly ever taste. 
 Their food, often sadly insufiicient, is reduced to pizzt, a kind 
 of cake made of Maize or Indian meal ; and vegetables, or fruit, 
 when in season. Their drink is plain water. They are happy 
 when they can mingle with it a little vinaccio, a liquid made 
 after the grapes are pressed, and the wine drawn ofi", by pouring 
 water on the refuse. Their homes are cheerless and miserable, 
 their children left to live in ignorance, without schooling, 
 employed in coarse labour, and clothed in rags. The Grand 
 Duke of Tuscany had by wise and generous regulations placed 
 hundreds, yea, even thousands of these peasants, happy as 
 independent farmers on their own land. The crushing load of 
 taxation has caused these to disappear, and their little holdings 
 have been scld by auction to pay taxes, and have passed, of 
 course, into the hands of speculators, generally Freemasons, who, 
 when they become landlords, vie with the worst of their class, 
 
THE INTERNATIONAL, THE NIHILISTS, THE BLACK HAND, ETC. 115 
 
 in Ireland, in greed, In the States of the Church, where the 
 careful, most Christian, and compassionate spirit and legislation 
 of the Vicar of Christ prevailed, the peasantry ate their own 
 bread, drank their own wine, and were decently, nay even 
 picturesquely clad, as all travellers know, before the " liberation " 
 of the Masonic Piedmontese. Not a family was without a little 
 hoard of savings for the age of the old, and for the provision and 
 placing in life of the young. Now, gaunt misery, even starvation, 
 is the characteristic of these populations, after only some fifteen 
 years of Masonic rule. The vast revenues of the Church are 
 gone, none know whither. The nation is none the better of them, 
 and the populace, in their dire poverty, can no longer go to the 
 convent-gate, where before the poor never asked for l)read in 
 vain. The religious^ deprived of their possessions, and severely 
 repressed, have no longer food to give. They are fast disappear- 
 ing, and the people already experience that the promises of 
 Freemasonry, like the promises of its real author, are but apples 
 of ashes, given but to lure, to deceive, and to destroy. 
 
 But to return. The Freemasonry of France and other 
 Continental nations, which has done so much to give effect to the 
 principles of Voltaire and Weishaupt, wishes decidedly not to go 
 beyond the role played by the Freemasonry of Italy. But 
 in France, as in Italy, an inexorable power is behind them, 
 pushing them on, and also fanatically determined to push them 
 off the scene when the time is ripe for doing so. This, the 
 Freemasons of Italy well know ; this, the men now in power in 
 France feel. But if they move against the current coming upon 
 them from the depths of Freemasonry, woe to them. The knife 
 of the assassin is ready. The sentence of death is there, which 
 they are too often told to remember, and which has before now 
 reached the very foremost men of the sect who refused, or feared, 
 for motives good or bad, to advance, or to advance as quickly 
 as the hidden chiefs of the Revolution desired and decreed. It 
 '' removed " Nuhius in the days of Mazzini. It " removed " 
 Gambetta before our eyes. It aimed frequently at Napoleon III., 
 
1 1 6 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 and would, most assuredly, have struck home, but its aim 
 was only to terrify him that so he as a Carbonaro may be 
 made to do its work soon and eiFectively. Masonry obtained 
 its end, and Napoleon marched to the Italian war, and to his 
 doom. 
 
 It is this invisible power ; this secret, sleepless, fanatical 
 Directory, which causes the solidarity, most evidently 
 subsisting between Freemasonry in its many degrees and aspects 
 and the various parties of anarchists which now arise everywhere 
 in Europe. In the last century kings, princes, nobles, took up 
 Masonry. It swept them all away before that century closed. 
 In the beginning and progress of this century the Baurgeoine 
 took it up with still greater zest, and made it all their own. 
 They for a long time would not tolerate such a thing as a poor 
 Mason. Poverty was their enemy. What has come to pass ? 
 The Bourgeoisie at this moment are the peculiar enemy of the 
 class of workmen who have invaded ^' Black " or " Illuminated " 
 Masonry, and made it at last completely theirs. The 
 Bourgeoisie are now called upon by the Socialists to be true to 
 the real levelling principles of the brotherhood — to practise as 
 well as preach "liberty, equality, and fraternity"; to divide 
 their possessions with the working men — to descend to that 
 elysium of Masonry, the level of the Commune — or die. 
 
 It is passing strange how Masonry, being what it is, has 
 always managed to get a princely or noble leader for every one 
 of its distinct onward movements against princes, property, and 
 society. It had Egalite to lead the movement against the 
 throne of France in the last century. It had the Duke of 
 Brunswick, Frederick II., and Joseph 11. , to assist. In this 
 century we see it ornamented by Louis Philip, Napoleon III., 
 Victor Emmanuel and others as figure-heads ; and then, Nubius 
 and Palmerston both won from the leaders of the Conservative 
 nobility, were its real chiefs. Now, when it appears in its worst 
 possible form, it is championed by no less a personage than a 
 Russian Prince, of high Imeage, a representative of the wealthiest, 
 
THE INTERNATIONAL, THE NIHILISTS, TUE BLACK HAND. ETC. 117 
 
 most exclusive, and perhaps richest aristocracy in the world. 
 We find that in all cases of seduction like this, the promise of a 
 mighty leadership has been the bait by which the valuable dupe 
 has been caught by the sectaries. The advice of Piccolo Tigre for 
 the seduction of princes has thus never been without its effect. 
 
 These new anarchical societies are not mere hap-hazard 
 associations. They are most ably organized. There is, for 
 instance, in the International, three degrees, or rather distinct 
 societies, the one, however, led by the other. First come the 
 International Brethren. These know no country but the 
 Revolution ; no other enemy but " re-action." They refuse all 
 conciliation or compromise, and they regard every movement as 
 " reactionary " the moment it ceases to have for its object, 
 directly or indirectly, the triumph of the principles of the 
 French Revolution. They cannot go to any tribunal other than 
 a jury of themselves, and must assist each other, lawfully or 
 otherwise, to the " very limits of the possible." No one is 
 admitted who has not the firmness, fidelity, intelligence, and 
 energy considered sufficient by the chiefs, to carry out as well 
 as to accept the programme of the Revolution. They may leave 
 the body, but if they do, they are put under the strictest 
 surveillance, and any violation of the secret or indiscretion, 
 damaging to the cause, is punished inexorably by death. They 
 are not permitted to join any other society, secret or otherwise, 
 or to take any public appointment without permission from their 
 local committee ; and then they must make known all secrets 
 which could directly or indirectly serve the International cause. 
 
 The second class of Internationalists are the National 
 Brethren. These are local socialists, and are not permitted even 
 to suspect the existence of the International Brethren, who move 
 among them and guide them in virtue of higher degree. They 
 figure in the meetings of the society, and constitute the grand 
 army of insurrection ; they are, without knowing it, completely 
 directed by the others. Both classes are formed strictly upon 
 the lines laid down by Weishaupt. 
 
1 1 8 WAR or ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 The third class comprises all manner of workmen's societies. 
 With these tbe two first mingle, and direct to the profit of the 
 Eevolution. The death penalty for indiscretion or treason is 
 common in every degree. 
 
 The Black Hand and the Nihilists, are directed by the same 
 secret agency, to violence and intrigue. Amongst them, but 
 unknown to most of them, are the men of the higher degrees, who, 
 in dark concert, easily guide the others as they please. They 
 administer oaths, plan assassinations, urge on to action, and 
 terrorize a whole country, leaving the rank and file who execute 
 these things to their fate. It is unnecessary to dwell longer upon 
 these sectaries, well known by the outrages they perpetrate. 
 
 These terrible societies are unquestionably connected with, 
 and governed by, the dark directory, which now, as at all times 
 since the days of Weishaupt, rules the secret societies of the 
 world. Mahommedanism permitted the assassins gathered under 
 the " old man of the mountain," to assist in spreading the faith 
 of Islam by terrorising over its Christian enemies. For a like 
 purpose, whenever it judges it opportune, the dark Alia Vendita 
 employs the assassins wholesale and retail of the secret societies. 
 It believes it can control when it pleases these ruthless enemies 
 of the human race. In this, as Nuhius found out, it is far 
 mistaken. But the encouragement of murderers as a " skirmish- 
 ing" party of the Cosmopolitan Revolution remains since the days 
 of Weishaupt — a policy kept steadily in view. To-day, that party 
 is used against some power such as that of the Popes, or the petty 
 princes of Italy. Great powers like England, in the belief that 
 the mischief will stop in Italy, rejoice in the results attained by 
 assassination. To-morrow it suits the policy of the A Ita Vendita to 
 make a blow at aristocracy in England, at despotism in Russia, at 
 monarchy in Spain ; and at once we find Invincibles formed from 
 the advanced amongst the Fenians ; Nihilists and the Black 
 Hand from the ultras of the Carbonari ; and Young Russia, 
 ready to use dynamite and the knife and the revolver, reckless 
 of every consequence, for the ends of the secret directory with 
 
THE INTERNATIONAL, THE NiniLISTS, TEE BLACK HAND, ETC. 119 
 
 which the diplomacy of the workl has now to count. The 
 professional lectures on the use and manufacture of dynamite 
 given to Nihilists in Paris, the numbers of them gathered 
 together in that capital, the retreat afforded there to the known 
 murderers of the Emperor Alexander, excited little comment in 
 England. If referred to at all in the Press, it was not with that 
 vigorous abhorrence which such proceedings should create. 
 Often a chuckle of satisfaction has been indulged in by some at 
 the fiict. The utterances of the * ' advanced " members of the 
 Masonic Intellectual party in the French Senate excusing 
 Nihilists, were quoted with a kind of " faint damnation " 
 equivalent to praise. I have no doubt but in Russia a similar 
 kind of tender treatment is given to the Fenian dynamitards 
 employed by O'Donovan Rossa. So long as the leadmg nations 
 in Europe do not see in these anarchists and desperate miscreants 
 the irreconcilable enemies of the human race, Paris, completely 
 as it is Masonic, will afford them a shelter ; and when French 
 tribunals fine or imprison them, it will be as in Italy with a 
 tenderness still further exhibited in gaols. The salvation of 
 Europe depends upon a manly abhorrence of secret societies of 
 every description, and the pulling up root and branch from 
 human society of the sect of the Freemasons whose " illuminated " 
 plottings have caused the mischief so far, and which if not 
 vigorously repressed by a decided union of Christian nations 
 will yet occasion far more. Deus fecit nationes sanahiles. 
 The nations can be saved. But if they are to be saved, it 
 must be by a return to Christianity and to public Christian usages; 
 by eradicating Atheism and its socialistic doctrines as crimes 
 against the majesty of God and ihe well-being of individual men 
 and nations ; by rigorously prohibiting every form of secret 
 society for any purpose whatever ; by shutting tlie mouth 
 of the blasphemer ; by controlling the voice of the scoffer and 
 the impure in the Press and in every other public expression ; 
 by insisting on the vigorous. Christian education of children; and, if 
 they can have the wisdom of doing it, by opening their ears to the 
 warning voice of the Vicar of Jesus Christ. It is not an expression 
 
1 20 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 of Irish discontent finding a vent in dynamite which England 
 has most to fear from anarchy. Its value to the Eevolution is 
 the knowledge it gives to those millions whom English education- 
 methods are depriving of faith in God, of the use of a terrible 
 engine against order, property, and the very existence of the 
 country as such. The dark directory of Socialism is powerful, 
 wise, and determined. It laughs at Ireland and her wrongs. 
 It hates, and ever will hate, the Irish people for their fidelity to 
 the Catholic faith. But it seizes upon those subjects which 
 Irish discontent in America affords, to make them teach the 
 millions everywhere the power of dynamite, and the knife, and 
 the revolver, against the comparatively few who hold property. 
 This is the real secret of dynamite outrages in England, in 
 Eussia, and all the world over ; and I fear we are but upon the 
 threshold of a social convulsion which will try every nation 
 where the wiles of the secret societies have obtained, through 
 the hate of senseless Christian sectaries, the power for Atheism 
 to dominate over the rising generation, and deprive it of 
 Christian faith, and the fear and the love of God. I hope these 
 my forebodings may not be realized, but I fear that even before 
 another decade passes, Socialism Avill attempt a convulsion of the 
 Avhole world equal to that of France in 1789 ; and that 
 convulsion I fear this country shall not escape. Our only 
 chance lies in a return to God ; of which, alas, there are as 
 yet but little signs amongst those who hold power amongst us. 
 I mean of course a return to the public Christianity of the past. 
 To this pass Freemasonry has brought the world and itself. 
 Its hidden Directory no outsider can know. Events may after- 
 wards reveal who they were. Few can tell who is or is not 
 within that dark conclave of lost but able men. There is no 
 staying the onward progress of the tide which bears on the 
 millions in their meshes, to ruin. The only thing we can hope to 
 do, is to save ourselves from being deceived by their wiles. 
 This, thank God, we may and will do. We can, at least, in com- 
 pliance with the advice of our Holy Father, open the eyes of our 
 own people, of our young men especially, to the nature and 
 
FREEMASONRY WITH OURSELVES. 121 
 
 atrocity of the evil, that seeing, they may avoid the snare 
 hiid for them by Atheism. To do this Avith greater effect 
 we shall now, for awhile, consider the danger as it appears 
 amongst ourselves. We shall also see what relation it has with 
 its kind in other countries ; and so we shall take a brief survey of 
 
 XXL 
 
 Freemasonry with Ourselves. 
 
 We hear from every side a great deal regarding the 
 difference said to exist between Freemasonry as it has remained 
 in the United Kingdom, and as it has developed itself on the 
 Continent of Europe since its introduction there chiefly, 
 we must remember, by British Jacobites, in the last century. 
 It is argued, that the Illuminism of Wieshaupt, or that of Saint 
 Martin, did not cross the Channel to any great extent ; and that, 
 on the whole, the lodges of England, Ireland, and Scotland 
 remained loyal to Monarchy and to religion. There is much 
 truth in all this. The Conservative character of the mass of 
 English Freemasons, and the fact, that amongst them were 
 found the real governors and possessors of the country, made it 
 impossible that such ?Tien could conspire against their own 
 selves. But, as I have already shown, the fact that British 
 lodges have always had intercourse with the lodges of the 
 Continent,^ makes it equally impossible that some, at least, of the 
 theories of the latter should not have got into the lodges at this 
 side of the water. I believe it is owing mainly to this influence 
 
 1 A curious proof of this fact is preserved in the records of Dublin Castle, 
 where, upon a retimi of the members and officers of Freemasonry, as it is with us, 
 having been asked for by the Government, the names of the delegates from the 
 Irish Lodges to various continental national Grand Lodges were given. I do not 
 place much value upon the fact as a means to connect British Freemasoniy with 
 its kind on the Continent, because the REAL SECRET was, as a nde, kept from 
 British and Irish Masons. But the intercourse had an immense effect in causing 
 the vanguard cries of the Continental lodges to find a fatal support from British 
 Masons in and out of Parliament. These delegates brought back high somiding 
 theories about "education" without " denominationalism," etc., etc., but they 
 were never trusted with the ultimate designs of the Continental directoryto destroy 
 the Throne, the Constitution, and lastly, the very property of British INlasons. 
 These designs are commimicated only to reliable individuals, who know full 
 well the REAL SECRET of the sect — and keep it. 
 
122 WAR or ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 over British Freemasons, that so many revolutionary movements 
 have found favour with our legislators, who are, when they are 
 not Catholics, generally of the craft. It was through it, that the 
 fatal foreign policy of Lord Palmerston obtained such support, 
 even against the conviction and instincts of the best and most 
 farseeing statesmen of the country, as, for instance, the late 
 Lord Derby. It was through it, certainly, that the cry for 
 secular education was welcomed amongst us ; that divorce 
 and ''liberal" marriage laws came into force, and that attacks 
 were permitted upon the sanctity of the Sabbath and other 
 Christian institutions. 
 
 Speaking on this latter subject, I must say, that one change 
 in the habits of the people of England, and Scotland, too, struck 
 me very forcibly on my return to the United Kingdom after 
 a long absence. When, some twenty-three years ago, I last 
 visited these Islands, it was a pleasure — and when one thought 
 of the desecration of the Sabbath on the Continent, it was a 
 pride — to witness the state of the streets of our great cities on 
 Sundays. The shops were as shut up as at midnight. Every 
 thoroughfare manifested a religious quiet, which reverentially and 
 most emphatically proclaimed the reign of God in the country. 
 On my return, I found that a new departure from good, old, holy 
 customs had commenced, which to me looked anything but an 
 improvement. I found in London and elsewhere, a multitude of 
 shops with shutters removed, and goods displayed in the most 
 tempting profusion, marked for sale, and distracting the 
 passers-by even more than they could do on a week-day. A 
 contrivance to keep within the law was introduced in many 
 cases. It was a kind of iron-rail door-way, which left the full 
 inside of the shop or store visible ; so that, to all intents and 
 purposes, the interior was within the turn of a key of being as 
 much in the way of business as shops of the same kind in Paris. 
 What prevented business being done, and clerks and assistants 
 being forced to labour as vigorously on the Sabbath as on any 
 other day ? The law alone. This, a breath might destroy ; and 
 
FREEMASONRY WITH OURSELVES. 123 
 
 piil)lic opinion, already accustomed to the sight of shop ^'indows 
 open on Sundays, woukl easily become reconciled to the turn of 
 the key in the iron door. At first this would be only for a few 
 hours, of course ; but after Avards, just as in Paris, for ever. No 
 doubt, a large percentage of good, religious shopkeepers avoid 
 this scandal ; and I hope the public of our cities will make 
 out these, and patronize them in preference to others, who 
 put the thin end of the wedge of destruction into our observance 
 of the Christian sanctity of the Sabbath — an observance which, 
 in the midst of a world falling fast from God, sustains that great, 
 divine institution ; and, besides giving time to worship God, 
 protects the liberties of the poor, and prevents them from again 
 becoming slaves. The doing away by degrees of the " Lord's 
 Day" is a favourite aim of Atheism; and it is by resisting 
 this aim — by resisting all its aims on morality and religion — that 
 we can hope to sustain the Christianity and the religious 
 character of this country and its people.^ 
 
 ^The Alta Vendita and the intellectual party in Masonry have for a long time 
 endeavonred to revive practices which Christianity did away with, and which were 
 distinctly Pagan. Amongst others they have made every exertion to destroy the 
 Christian respect for the dead, and every respect for the dead which kept alive in 
 the living the belief in the immortality of the soul. Death is with man, a powerful 
 means to keep alive in him a wholesome fear of his Creator, and respect for" 
 religion. Spiritual writers, following the advice of the Holy Ghost in the 
 Scriptures, " Remember thy last end and thou shalt never sin,'' always place 
 before Christians the thought of death as the most wholesome lesson in the 
 spiritual life. The demon from the beginning tried to do away with this salutary 
 thought as the most opposed to liis designs. When Eve feared to eat the 
 forbidden fruit it was because of the terror with which death inspired her. The devil 
 lied in telling her " No, ye shall not die the death." She believed the liar and the 
 mm-derer. His followers in the secret societies established by him, and which he 
 keeps in such unity of aim and action, second his desire to the utmost by doing 
 away with whatever may keep alive in man the thoughts of his last end and of a 
 future resurrection, and, of course, of judgment. Weishaupt taught his disciples 
 to look upon suicide as a praiseworthy means of flymg the horrors of death and 
 present inconvenience. Cremation, instantly destroying the terrors of corruption 
 — the death's head and cross bones — the worst featiu-es in mortality, as exhibited in 
 a corpse, is therefore largely advocated by the secret societies on plausibly de\'ised 
 sanitary, aesthetic, and economical grounds. But it is a pagan practice, opposed 
 to that followed ever since the creation of the world by all that had the know- 
 ledge of the true God in the Primeval, Jewish, and Christian dispensations. The 
 Revolution in Italy has established at Rome, Milan, and Naples means of cremating 
 bodies, and advanced Freemasons, like Garibakh, have in their wills, directed that 
 their bodies shoidd be cremated. A little reflection, however, will show that 
 neither for rich nor poor, for sanitary, for economical or any other reasons can 
 cremation be advocated in preference to buiial. For besides the fact that the 
 
124 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 But granting that British lodges remain unaffected 
 by Atheism and Anti-Christianity which, as we have seen? 
 influence the whole mass of Continental Freemasonry, 
 would they on that account be innocent ? Could a conscientious 
 man of any Christian denomination join them ? The question 
 is, of course, decided for Catholics. The Church forbids 
 her children to be members of British or any Freemasonry under 
 penalty of excommunication. The reasons which have led 
 the Church to make a law so stringent and so serious 
 must have been very grave. We have seen some at least of 
 these reasons ; and it is certainly with a full knowledge of facts 
 that she has decreed the same penalties against such of 
 her children as join the English lodges as she has against 
 those who join the lodges of the Continent. Then, though 
 parsons have become "chaplains" to lodges, Anglicans 
 generally have shown no sympathy with the Freemasonry of 
 England. I am not aware that Protestant denominations 
 assume, or that their members grant them, the power of 
 making laws which could bind in conscience. If they did 
 possess such power, many of them, I have no doubt, would 
 
 earth which is always the best, safest, and readiest solvent for corruption, may be 
 had everywhere in abiuidance, and at a safe enough distance from cities if so 
 desired, there is the fact before us that the Roman poor and slaves, were thrown 
 into pits to save expense ; while cremation, where practised by the rich, led to 
 most extravagant expenses and excesses. Christians, when they find plausibly 
 given, interesting notices of cremation in journals of any kind, may be quite sure 
 that the writer who writes them is influenced by the secret sect, and these scribes 
 are found everywhere and find means to ventilate their ideas — misuspected by the 
 proprietors — sometimes into journals professedly Catholic. They are advocating, 
 it is thought, a harmless sanitary arrangement not condemned by the Church ; 
 but they are doing all the while, consciously or imconsciously, the work of the 
 secret Atheistic sect. As it is with cremation, so it is with the eating of horse- 
 flesh and other apparently harmless practices advocated by the sectaries solely 
 because in practice or in theory, discoimtenanced by, or not practised by, 
 Christians. When in these days, a distinctive anti-Christian custom is seen 
 advocated without any urgent reason, in the press, now almost entirely in the 
 hands of members of the sect, and generally Jewish members. Christians may fear 
 that the cloven foot is in the matter. The cold water, the ridicule, the contempt 
 thrown upon religious observances, the attempt to rob them of their pm-ely 
 Christian character, are other methods employed by the sects to loosen the influence 
 of Christianity. In opposition to these, Christian people should carefidly study to 
 keep the joy of Christmas, the penitential fasts, the sanctity of Holy Week, the 
 splendoiu- of Easter, the feasts of God's holy Mother and of the saints — to fill 
 themselves, in one word, with the Christian spirit of the Ages of Faith. 
 
FREEMASONRY WITH OURSELVES. 125 
 
 forbid Freemasonry, as dangerous and evil in itself. But it needs 
 not a law from man to guide one in determining what is clearly- 
 prohibited by reason and revelation. Now that which is called 
 harmless Freemasonry with us, is, besides the evident danger to 
 which it is exposed, of being made what it has become in the 
 rest of the world, both sacrilegious and dangerous. If it be only a 
 society for brotherly intercourse and mutual help, where can be 
 the necessity of taking for such purposes, a number of oaths of the 
 most frightful character ? I shall with your permission quote some 
 of these oaths — the most ordinary ones taken by every English 
 Freemason who advances to tlie first three degrees of the Craft. 
 Oaths flir more blasphemous and terrible are taken in the 
 higher degrees both in England and on the Continent. I shall 
 also give you the passwords, grips, and signs for these three 
 main degrees. You can then judge of the nature of the travesty 
 that is made of the name of God for purposes utterly puerile, if 
 not meant to cover such real and deadly secresy as that of 
 Continental Masonry. 
 
 The first of these oaths is administered to the candidate 
 who wishes to become an apprentice. He is divested of all 
 money and metal. His right arm, left breast and left knee are 
 bare. His right heel is slipshod. He is blindfolded, and a rope 
 called a " cable tow," adapted for hanging, is placed round his 
 neck. A sword is pointed to his breast, and in this manner he 
 is placed kneeling before the Master of the Lodge, in whose 
 presence he takes the following oath, his hand placed on a Bible : 
 
 "I, N. N., in the presence of the great Architect of 
 "the Universe, and of this warranted, worthy and ^vorshipful 
 " Lodge of free and accepted Masons, regularly assembled and 
 '' properly dedicated, of my own free will and accord, do hereby 
 " and hereon, most solemnly and sincerely swear, that I will 
 "always hail, conceal, and never reveal, any part or parts, 
 "point or points, of the secrets and mysteries of, or belonging 
 " to, free and accepted Masons in masonry, which have been, 
 " shall now, or hereafter may be, communicated to me, unless it 
 
126 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 " be to a true and lawful brother or brothers, and not even to 
 " him or them, till after due trial, strict examination, or sure 
 " information from a well-known brother, that he or they are 
 " wortliy of that confidence, or in the body of a just, perfect, 
 " and regular lodge of accepted Freemasons. I further solemnly 
 " promise, that I will not write those secrets, print, carve, 
 "engrave, or otherwise them delineate, or cause or suffer them 
 "to be done so by others, if in my power to prevent it, on 
 " anything movable or immovable under the canopy of heaven, 
 " whereby or whereon any letter, character or figure, or the 
 " least trace of a letter, character or figure may become legible 
 " or intelligible to myself, or to anyone in the world, so that our 
 " secrets, arts, and hidden mysteries, may improperly become 
 "known through my unworthiness. These several points I 
 " solemnly swear to observe, without evasion, equivocation, or 
 " mental reservation of any kind, under no less a penalty, on 
 " the violation of any of them, than to have my throat cut across, 
 " my tongue torn out by the root, and my body buried in the 
 " sand of the sea at low water mark^ or a cable's length from 
 " the shore, where the tide regularly ebbs and flows twice in 
 " the twenty-four hours, or the more efficient punishment of 
 " being branded as a wilfully perjured individual, void of all 
 " moral worth, and unfit to be received in this warranted lodge, 
 " or in any other warranted lodge, or society of Masons, who 
 " prize honour and virtue above all the external advantages 
 " of rank and fortune : So help me, God, and keep me steadfast 
 " in this my great and solemn obligation of an Entered 
 " Apprentice Freemason. 
 
 " W. M. — What you have repeated may be considered a 
 " sacred promise as a pledge of your fidelity, and to render it a 
 '' solemn obligation, I will thank you to seal it with your lips on 
 " the volume of the sacred law." {Kisses the Bible.) 
 
 When the above oath is duly taken, the " sign " is given. 
 This, for an Apprentice, consists of a gesture made by drawing 
 the hand smartly across the throat and dropping it to the side. 
 
FREEMASONRY WITH OURSELVES. 127 
 
 This gesture has reference to the penalty attached to breaking 
 tlie oath. The grip is also a penal sign. It consists of a distinct 
 pressure of the top of the right hond thumb to the first joint 
 fi'oni the wrist of the right hand forefinger, grasping the finger 
 with the hand. The pass-word is BoAZ, and is given letter by letter. 
 There are a number of quaint ceremonial charges and 
 lectures which may be seen by consulting any of the Manuals of 
 Freemasonry, and which are perfectly given in a treatise by one 
 Carlile, an Atheist, who undertook for the benefit of Infidelity to 
 divulge the whole of the mere ceremonial secrecy of English 
 Freemasons, in order to advance the real secret of it all, namely, 
 Pantheism or Atheism, and hatred for every form of Christianity. 
 The English Freemasons made too much of the ceremonies and 
 too little of Atheism, and hence the design of real Infidelity to 
 get the '^ real secret " into English lodges by expelling the 
 pretended one. 
 
 The oath of the second degree, that of Fellow-Craft, is as 
 follows ; — 
 
 " I, IN". N., in the presence of the Grand Geometrician ot 
 ^' the Universe, and in this worshipful and warranted Lodge of 
 " Fellow- Craft Masons, duly constituted, regularly assembled, 
 " and properly dedicated, of my own free will and accord, do 
 " hereby and hereon most solemnly promise and swear that I 
 '^ will always hail, conceal, and never reveal any or either of the 
 '' secrets or mysteries of, or belonging to, the second degree of 
 " Freemasonry, known by the name of the Fellow-Craft ; to 
 " him who is but an Entered Apprentice, no more than I would 
 " either of them to the uninitiated or the popular world who are 
 •" not Masons. I further solemnly pledge myself to act as a 
 '' true and faithful craftsman, obey signs, and maintain the 
 " principles inculcated in the fu-st degree. All these points I 
 " most solemnly swear to obey, without evasion, equivocation, or 
 '' mental reservation of any kind, under no less a penalty, on 
 "the violation of any of them, in addition to my former 
 '^obligation, than to have my left breast cut open, my heart torn 
 
128 WAE OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 '^ therefrom, and given to the ravenous birds of the air, or the 
 '' devouring beasts of the field, as a prey : So help me Almighty 
 " God, and keep me steadfast in this my great and solemn 
 "obligation of a Fellow-Craft Mason." 
 
 After taking this oath with all formality, the Fellow-Craft 
 is entrusted with the sign, grip and pass-word by the Master, 
 who thus addresses him : — 
 
 " You, having taken the solemn obligation of a Fellow-Craft 
 " Freemason, I shall proceed to entrust you with the secrets of 
 •' the degree. You will advance towards me as at your initiation. 
 " Now take another pace with your left foot, bringing the right 
 '' heel into its hollow, as before. That is the second regular 
 '' step in Freemasonry, and it is in this position that the secrets 
 " of the degree are communicated. They consist, as in the 
 " former instance, of a sign^ token, and word ; with this difference 
 " that the sign is of a three-fold nature. The first part of a 
 "threefold sign is called the sign of fidelity, emblematically to 
 " shield the repository of your secrets from the attacks of the 
 " cowan. {The sign is made by pressing the right hand on the 
 " left breast^ extending the thumb perpendicularly to form a 
 " square.) The second part is called the hailing sign, and is 
 *' given by throwing the left hand up in this manner {horizontal 
 ^^ from the shoulder to the elbov-^ and perpendicular from the 
 ' ' elbow to the ends of the fingers, with the thumb and forefinger 
 '"'forming a square.) The third part is called the penal sign, 
 " and is given by drawing the hand across the breasts and 
 " dropping it to the side. This is in allusion to the penalty of 
 "your obligation, implying that as a man of honour, and a 
 " Fellow-Craft, you would rather have your heart torn from your 
 " breast, than to improperly divulge the secrets of this degree. 
 "The grip, or token, is given by a distinct pressure of the 
 " thumb on the second joint of the hand or that of the middle 
 "finger. This demands a word; a word to be given and 
 " received with the same strict caution as the one in the former 
 " degree, either by letters or syllables. The word is Jachin. 
 
FREEMASONRY WITH OUKSELYES. 129 
 
 "As in the course of the evening you will be called on for this 
 "" word, the Senior Deacon will now dictate the answers you will 
 " have to give." 
 
 The next oath is that of the highest substantial degree in 
 old Freemasonry, namely, that of Master. Attention is specially 
 to be paid to the words "or at my own option." 
 
 " I, N. N., in the presence of the Most High, and of 
 '^this worthy and worshipful lodge, duly constituted, regularly 
 '^ assembled, and properly dedicated, of my own free will and 
 " accord, do hereby and hereon, most solemnly promise and 
 " swear, that I will always hail, conceal, and never reveal, any 
 " or either of the secrets or mysteries of, or belonging to, the 
 " degree of a Master Mason, to anyone in the world, unless it 
 " be to him or them to whom the same may justly and lawfully 
 " belong ; and not even to him or them, until after due trials, 
 " strict examination, or full conviction, that he or they are 
 " worthy of that confidence, or in the bosom of a Master Mason's 
 " Lodge. I further most solemnly engage, that I Avill keep the 
 " secrets of the Third Degree froju him who is but a Fellow-Craft 
 " Mason, with the same strict caution as I will those of the Second 
 " Degree from him who is but an Entered Apprentice Freemason : 
 "the same or either of them, from anyone in the known world, 
 " unless to true and lawful Brother Masons. 1 further solemnly 
 " engage myself, to advance to the pedestal of the square and 
 '• compasses, to answer and obey all lawful signs and summonses 
 "■ sent to me from a Master Mason's Lodge, if within the length 
 " of my cable-tow, and to plead no excuse except sickness, or the 
 " pressing emergency of my own private or public avocations. 
 " I furthermore solemnly pledge myself, to maintain and support 
 " the five points of fellowship, in act as well as in word ; that my 
 " hand given to a Mason shall be the sure pledge of brotherhood ; 
 that my foot shall traverse through danger and difficulties, to 
 unite with his in forming a column of mutual defence and 
 ^' safety ; that the posture of my daily supplications shall remind 
 me of his wants, and dispose my heart to succour his distresses 
 
 K 
 
 u 
 
 a 
 
130 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 " and relieve his necessities, as far as may fairly be done without 
 " detriment to myself or connexions ; that my breast shall be 
 " the sacred repository of his secrets, when delivered to me as 
 " such ; murder, treason, felony, and all other offences contrary 
 " to the law of God, or the ordinances of the realm, being at all 
 " times most especially excepted or at my own option : and 
 " finally, that I will support a Master Mason's character in his 
 '^ absence as well as I would if he were present. I will not 
 " revile him myself, nor knowingly suffer others to do so ; but 
 "will boldly repel the slanderer of his good name, and strictly 
 " respect the chastity of those that are most dear to him, in the 
 " persons of his wife, sister, or his child : and that I will not 
 " knowingly have unlawful carnal connexion with either of them. 
 ''I furthermore solemnly vow and declare, that I will not 
 " defraud a Brother Master Mason, or see him defrauded of the 
 "most trifling amount, without giving him due and timely 
 *' notice thereof ; that I will also prefer a Brother Master Mason 
 " in all my dealings, and recommend him to others as much as 
 " lies in my power, so long as he shall continue to act honourably, 
 "honestly and faithfully towards me and others. All these 
 " several points I promise to observe, without equivocation or 
 " mental reservation of any kind, under no less a penalty, on the 
 " violation of any of them, than to have my body severed in two, 
 " my bowels torn thereout, and burned to ashes in the centre, 
 " and those ashes scattered before the four cardinal points of 
 " heaven, so that no trace or remembrance of me shall be left 
 " among men, particularly among Master Masons : So help me 
 " God, and keep me steadfast in this grand and solemn obligation, 
 *■ being that of a Master Mason," 
 
 '' A long ceremony, in which the newly-made Master is made 
 "to sham a dead man and to be raised to life by the Master, 
 " grasping, or rather clawing his hand or wrist, by putting his 
 " right foot to his foot, his knee to his knee, bringing up the 
 " right breast to his breast, and with his hand over the back. 
 '' This is practised in Masonry as the five points of Fellowship." 
 
FREEMASONRY WITH OURSELVES. 131 
 
 Then the Master gives the signs, grip, and pass- word, saying : 
 '^ Of the signs, the first and second are casual, the third is 
 " penal. The first casual sign is called the sign of horror, and 
 " is given from the Fellow-Craft's hailing sign, by dropping the 
 " left hand and elevating the right, as if to screen the eyes from 
 " a painful sight, at the same time throwing the head over the 
 " right shoulder, as a remove or turning away from that sight. 
 "It alludes to the finding of our murdered Master Hiram by the 
 " twelve Fellow-Crafts. The second casual sign is called the 
 " sign of sympathy or sorrow, and is given by bending the head 
 " a little forward, and by striking the right hand gently on the 
 '' forehead. The third is called the penal sign, because it alludes 
 "■ to the penalty of your obligation, and is given by drawing the 
 *' hand across the centre of the body, dropping it to the side, 
 " and then raising it again to place the point of the thumb on 
 " the navel. It implies that, as a man of honour, and a Master 
 " Mason, you Avould rather be severed in two than improperly 
 " divulge the secrets of this Degree. The grip or token is the 
 "first of the five points of felloAvship. The five points of 
 " fellowship are : first, a grip with the right hand of each other's 
 " wrist, with the points of the fingers : second, right foot parallel 
 " with right foot on the inside : third, right knee to right knee : 
 " fourth, right breast to right breast : fifth, hand over shoulder, 
 " supporting the back. It is in this position, and this only, 
 " except in open lodge, and then but in a whisper, that the 
 " word is given. It is Mahabone or Macbenacii. The former 
 " is the ancient, the latter the modern word." 
 
 I have here given an idea of the principal ceremonies used 
 in making English Freemasons. I could not in the space I 
 have allotted to myself, enter, as I would wish to do, upon 
 other features of its ridiculous rites and observances, many of 
 which' in still higher degrees, get a gradually opening. Atheistic 
 and most anti-Christian interpretation. But it will sufiice for 
 my purpose to bring one fact under your observation. In the 
 ceremonies accompanying initiations, many charges are made to 
 
1 32 WAR or ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 the candidates and lectures and catechisings are given. In these, 
 in the highest degrees, the real secret is gradually divulged in a 
 manner apparently the most simple. For instance in the degree 
 of the Knights Adepts of the Eagle or the Sun, the Master in 
 his charge describing the Bible, Compass, and Square, says : — 
 
 " By the Bible, you are to understand that it is the only 
 " law you ought to follow. It is that which Adam received at 
 " his creation, and which the Almighty engraved in his heart. 
 " This law is callednatural law, and shows positively that there 
 •' is but one God^ and to adore only him without any sub-division 
 '' or interpolation. The Compass gives you the fliculty of 
 "judging for yourself, that whatever God has created is well, 
 " and he is the sovereign author of everything. Existing in 
 " himself, nothing is either good or evil, because we understand 
 " by this expression, an action done which is excellent in itself, 
 " is relative, and submits to the human understanding, judging 
 '' to know the value and price of such action, and that God, with 
 " whom everything is possible, communicates nothing of his will 
 '^ but such as his great goodness pleases ; and everything in the 
 " universe is governed as he has decreed it with justice, being 
 '• able to compare it with the attributes of the Divinity. I 
 '^ equally say, that in himself there is no evil, because he has 
 " made everything with exactness, and that everything exists 
 ''^according to his will ; consequently, as it ought to he. The 
 " distance between good and evil, with the Divinity, cannot be* 
 " more justly and clearly compared than by a circle formed with 
 " a compass : from the points being reunited there is formed an 
 " entire circumference ; and when any point in particular 
 '^ equally approaches or equally separates from its pointy it is 
 '' only a faint resemblance of the distance between good and 
 " evil, which we compare by the points of a compass forming a 
 " circle, which circle., when completed, is God ! " 
 
 From this it will be clear, to what the so-called veneration 
 for the Bible and for religion comes to, at last, in all Freemasonry. 
 From apparent agreement with Christianity it ends in Atheism. 
 
FREEMASONRY AVITU OURSELVES. 133 
 
 In the essentially Jewish symbolism of Masonry, the Trinity 
 is ignored from the commencement, and God reduced to a Grand 
 Architect. The mention of Christ is carefully avoided. By 
 degrees the Bible is not revelation at all — only the laws written 
 on the heart of every man by the one God — the one God, yet, 
 however, somewhat respected. But in a little while, we find the 
 '' one God " reduced to very small dimensions indeed. You may 
 judge for yourself by the Compass that God exists in himself, 
 " therefore " — though it is hard here to see the therefore — 
 " nothing is either good or evil." Here is a blow at the moral 
 law. Finally, " God " spoken of with such respect in all the 
 going before degrees is reduced to a nonentity ''^ which circle 
 " wlien completed is God.'' This is a perfect introduction on 
 Weishaupt's lines to Weishaupt's Pantheism. 
 
 But the theories of Masonry however developed, do less 
 practical mischief than the conduct it fosters. The English, 
 happily for themselves, are, in many useful respects, an eminently 
 inconsistent people. The gentry amongst them can join 
 Freemasonry and yet keep, in the most illogical manner possible, 
 their very diluted form of Christianity. It has been otherwise 
 with the more reasoning Continental Masons. They either 
 abandon the Craft or abandon their Christianity. But the 
 morality inculcated by Freemasonry has done immense damage 
 in English-speaking countries nevertheless. The very oath 
 binding a Master Mason to respect the chastity of certain near 
 relations of another Master Mason, insinuates a wide field for 
 licence ; and Masons, even in England, have never been the most 
 moral of men. It leads them, we too well know, to the neglect of 
 home duties, and it leads them to an unjust persecution of outsiders, 
 for the benefit of Craftsmen — a matter more than once com- 
 plained of as injurious in trade, politics, and social life. I need 
 not call to youi' mind what mischief — what foul murder — it has 
 led to in America. I prefer to let Carlile, the Infidel apologist 
 of dark Masonry, speak on this point. He says : — 
 
 "My exposure of Freemasonry in 1825 led to its exposure 
 
134 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 '' in the United States of America ; and a Mason there of the 
 " name of William Morgan, having announced his intention to 
 " assist in the work of exposure, was kidnapped under pretended 
 " forms and warrants of law, by his brother Masons, removed from 
 " the State of New York to the borders of Canada, near the falls of 
 ''Niagara, and there most barbarously murdered. This happened 
 " in 1826. The States have been for many years much excited 
 ^' upon the subject ; a regular warfare has arisen between Masons 
 " and anti-Masons ;— societies of anti-Masons have been formed; 
 '' newspapers and magazines started ; and many pamphlets and 
 " volumes, with much correspondence, published ; so that, before 
 '' the Slavery Question was pressed among them, all parties had 
 " merged into Masons and anti-Masons. Several persons were 
 *' punished for the abduction of Morgan ; but the murderers were 
 *' sheltered by Masonic Lodges, and rescued from justice. This 
 "was quite enough to show that Masonry, as consisting of a 
 "secret association, or an association with secret oaths and 
 " ceremonies, is a political and social evil." 
 
 " While writing this, I have been informed that individual 
 " members of Orange Lodges have smiled at the dissolution of 
 " their Lodges, with the observation, tliat precisely the same 
 " association can be carried on under the name of Masonry. This 
 " is an evil that secret associations admit. No form of anythino- of 
 " the kind, when secret, can protect itself from abuses • and 
 " this is a strong reason why Masonic associations should get rid 
 '•of their unnecessary oaths, revise their constitutions, and throw 
 " themselves open to public inspection and report. There is 
 " enough that may be made respectable in Masonry, in the 
 "present state of mind and customs, to admit of scrutinising 
 " publicity." 
 
 The question of the death of Morgan, and other unhappy 
 incidents in the history of Freemasonry in the United States, are 
 very fully treated by Father Miiller, C.SS.R. Yet, strange to say, 
 notwithstanding anti-Masonic societies being formed extensively 
 in the Great Republic, and the horror created by the murder of 
 
FREEMASONRY WITH OURSELVES. 135 
 
 Morgan, there is no part of the world where Masonry flourishes 
 more than in America. I believe it will yet become the greatest 
 enemy of the free institutions of that country. I am willing to 
 admit, however, that Freemasonry has, thank God, made little 
 progress amongst Catholics in Ireland, or Catholics of Irish birth 
 or blood anywhere. This is true, and the same may be said of 
 millions of Protestants who have not joined Masonry. But the 
 evil is amongst us for all that, and it is necessary that we 
 should know what it is and how it manifests itself. 
 
 We know too, that besides the movements which Masonry 
 has been called upon to serve by means of Masonic organs, 
 and resolutions inspired by Atheism, and advocated by its 
 hidderi friends scattered through British lodges, there have been 
 at all times, at least in London, some lodges affiliated to 
 Continental lodges, and doing the work of Weishaupt. Of this 
 class were several lodges of foreigners and Jews, which existed in 
 London contemporaneously with Lord Palmerston, and which 
 aided him in the government and direction of the secret societies 
 of the world, and in the Infidel Revolution which was carried on 
 during his reign with such ability and success. In the works of 
 Deschamps, a detailed account will be found of several of these 
 high temples of iniquity and deadly, anti-Christian intrigue. 
 But, besides, Masonry of any description — and every description, 
 for reasons already stated, even the most apparently harmless, is 
 positively bad — bad, because of its oaths, because of its associa- 
 tions, and because of its un-Christian character, there were 
 other societies formed on the lines of Illuminated Masonry under 
 various names in Great Britain, and especially in Ireland, of 
 which I deem it my duty while treating of the subject to speak 
 as plainly as I possibly can. The most notable amongst these is — 
 
136 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 Fenianism. 
 
 From the establishment of Illuminated Masonry, its 
 Supreme Council never lost sight of a discontented population 
 in any part of the earth. Aspiring to universal rule, it carefully 
 took cognizance of every national or social movement among the 
 masses, which gave promise of advancing its aims. It was thus 
 it succeeded with the operative and peasant population of France, 
 so as to accomplish the first and every subsequent revolution in that 
 country. The letters of the Alta Vendita and of Piccolo Tigre 
 especially, have carefully had in view the corruption of the 
 masses of working men, so as to de- Christianize them adroitly, 
 and fit and fashion them into revolutionists. Now amongst all 
 the peoples of the earth, those who most impeded Atheistic 
 designs, were the Catholics of Ireland. Forced to leave their 
 country in millions, they brought to Scotland, to England, to the 
 United States, to Canada, to the West Indies, to our growing 
 Colonies — all empires in germ — of Australia, and as soldiers of 
 England, to India, Africa and China, the strongest existing faith in 
 that very religion, which Atheistic Freemasonry so much desires 
 to destroy. It would be impossible to imagine, that the dark 
 Directories of the Illuminati did not take careful account of this 
 population. And they did. In the years preceding 1798, they 
 had emissaries, like those sent subsequently amongst the Catholic 
 Carbonari of Naples, active amongst the ranks of the United 
 Irishmen. France, then completely under the control of the 
 Illuminati, sent aid which she sorely wanted at home, at the 
 instigation of these very emissaries, to found an Irish Eepublic, of 
 course on the Atheistic lines, upon which all the Republics then 
 founded by her arms, were established. That expedition ended 
 in failure ; but organisations on the lines of Freemasonry con- 
 tinued for many years afterwards to distract Ireland. As in 
 Italy, the Illuminati had taught the peasantry of Ireland how to 
 conspire in secret, oatli b(jund, and, of course, often murderous, 
 
FENIANISM. 137 
 
 but always hopeless, league against their oppressors. These 
 societies never accomplished one atom of good for Ireland. They 
 did much mischief. But what cared the hidden enemies of 
 religion for the real happiness of the Irish ? Their gain con- 
 sisted in placing antagonism between the faithful pastors of the 
 people and the members of those secret societies of Eibbonmen, 
 Molly Maguires, and other such associations, organized by 
 designing and, generally, traitorous scoundrels. In 1848, there 
 was something like a tendency in Ireland to imitate the secret 
 revolutionary movements established on the Continent by Mazzini. 
 We had a Young Ireland Organization. That was not initiated 
 as a secret society. Neither was the Society of United Irishmen 
 at first. But the open United Irishmen led to the secret society ; 
 and so very easily might the Young Ireland movement of 1848, 
 if it had not been prematurely brought to a conclusion. As it 
 was, it led, without its leaders desiring it — indeed against the 
 will of many of them — to the deepest, most cunningly devised, 
 widespread, and mischievous, secret organization into which 
 heedless young Irishmen have been ever yet entrapped. This 
 was the Fenian Secret Society. 
 
 We can speak of the action of the originators of this move- 
 ment as connected with the worst form of Atheistic, Continental, 
 secret-society organization ; for they boasted of having gone over 
 to France •' to study " the plans elaborated by the most aban- 
 doned revolutionists in that country. For my own part, I believe 
 that these hot-headed young men, as they were at the time, 
 never took the initiative themselves, but were entrapped into this 
 course of action by agents of the designing Directory of the 
 Atheistic movement, at that moment presided over by Lord 
 Palmerston himself. That the association of the Fenians should 
 be created and afterwards sacrificed to England, would be but in 
 keeping with the traditions of the Alta Vendita, in whose place 
 Lord Palmerston and his council stood. We read in the life of 
 the celebrated JSfuhius, the monarch who preceded Palmerston, 
 that he often betraved into the hands of the Pontifical Govern- 
 
1 38 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 meiit some lodges of the Carbonari under his own rule, for the 
 purpose of screening himself and of punishing these very lodges. 
 If he found a lodge indiscreet, or possessing amongst its members 
 too much religion to be tractable enough to follow the Infidel 
 movement, he betrayed it. He told the Government how to find 
 it out; where it had its arms concealed ; who were its members; 
 and what were their misdeeds. They were accordingly taken 
 red-handed, tried, and executed. Nubius got rid of a difiicult body, 
 for whom he felt nothing but contempt ; and his position at Rome 
 was rendered secure to gnaw, as he himself expressed it, at the 
 foundations of that Pontifical power, which thought that any 
 connection, such a respectable nobleman as he was, might have 
 with assassins, could be only in reality for the good of religion and 
 the government, to which by station, education, and even class- 
 interest he was allied. Palmerston, too, if he wanted a blind to 
 lead his colleagues astray, could, in the knowledge to be obtained 
 of Fenian plots in Ireland and America, have a ready 
 excuse for his well-known, constant iutercouse with the heads of 
 the Revolution of the world What scruple would he have, any 
 more than his predecessor, Nubius, in urging on a few men whom 
 he despised, to revolution ; and then using means to strangle their 
 efforts and themselves if n(^cessary. It was good policy in the 
 sight of some at least of his colleagues, to manifest Ireland as 
 revolutionary, especially when such a man as Palmerston had 
 all the threads of the conspiracy which aimed at the revolution 
 in his hand. They knew that he knew where to send his spies, 
 and thwart at the opportune moment the whole movement. He 
 could cause insurrections to be made in the most insane manner, 
 as to time and place, just as they were made, and cover the 
 conspirators with easy defeat and ridicule. 
 
 However this may be, the Fenian movement after being 
 nursed in America, appeared in Ireland, as a society founded 
 upon lines not very unlike those of the Carbonari of Italy. 
 It was Illuminated Freemasonry with, of course, another name, 
 in order not to avert the pious Catholic men it meant to seduce 
 
FENIANISM. 139 
 
 and destroy from its ranks. But being what it was, it could 
 not long conceal its innate, determined hostility to the Catholic 
 religion ; and it proved itself in Treland, and wherever it took 
 a hold of the people in the three kingdoms, one of the most 
 formidable enemies to the souls of the Irish people that had ever 
 appeared. 
 
 When I say this, do not imagine that I mean for a single 
 moment to infer, that many of those who joined it, held or knew 
 its views. If all I have hitherto stated proves anything, it is this : 
 The nature of the infernal conspiracy which we are considering 
 is essentially hypocritical. It comes as Freemasonry comes, 
 with a lie in its mouth. It comes under false pretences always. 
 So it came to Italy under the name of Carbonarism. It came 
 not only professing the purest Catholic religion, but abso- 
 lutely made the saying of prayers, the frequentation of the 
 sacraments, the open confession of the Faith, and devotion to 
 the Vicar of Christ, a matter of obligation. I do not believe 
 that Fenianism came to Ireland with so many pious professions. 
 But it came in the guise of patriotism, which in Ireland, for 
 many centuries, was so bound up with religion, that in the minds 
 of the peasantry, one became inseparably connected with the 
 other. The friend of one was looked upon as the friend of the other; 
 and the enemy of the one was regarded as the enemy of the other. 
 Hence, in the minds of the Irish, in my own boyhood, the French 
 who came over under Hoche, were regarded as Catholic. The 
 Irish would have it, that France was then as it was when the 
 "wild geese" went over to fight for the Bourbons, a Catholic 
 nation. The truth was, of course, quite the other way ; but so 
 long were the Irish people accustomed to regard the French as 
 Catholic, that they still cherished the delusion, and would hear 
 or believe nothing to the contrary. It was enough, therefore, for 
 Fenianism to appear in the guise of a national movement meant 
 to free the country from Protestant England, that it should with- 
 out question be looked upon as — at least in the first instance — 
 essentially Catholic. Nevertheless, after its leaders had gone to 
 
140 WAR OF ANIICIIRIST WITH THE CHURCH, 
 
 Paris to study the methods of the French and Italian Carbonari, 
 and returned to create circles and centres on the plan of the 
 Vendite of the Italians, they showed a large amount of the 
 Infidel spirit of the men they found in France, and determined 
 to spread it in Ireland. They well knew that the Catholic 
 clergy would be sure to oppose and denounce them as would 
 every wise and really patriotic man in the country. The 
 utter impossibility of any military movement which could 
 be made by any available number of destitute Irish peasantry, 
 succeeding at the time, was in itself reason enough why 
 men of any humanity, not to speak at all of the clergy, 
 should endeavour to dissuade the people from the mad enterprise 
 of the Fenians. Every good and experienced Irishman ; Smith 
 O'Brien ; the editors of the Nation ; and others did so ; yet strange 
 to say, the leaders of the disastrous movement, the Irish, and the 
 American organizers, were permitted by the English Government, 
 at least so long as Lord Palmerston lived, to act almost as they 
 pleased in Ireland. The Government knew, that while impotent 
 to injure England, these agitators and conspirators were doing 
 the work which English anti-Catholic hate desired to do, more 
 effectively than any delusion, or bribe, or persecution which 
 heresy had been able to invent. They were undermining the 
 Faith of the people and destroying secretly but surely that love 
 and respect for the clergy which had distinguished the country 
 ever since the days of St. Patrick. A paper edited by one of 
 these men, was circulated for at least two years in the homes 
 of nearly all the population. It contained, to be sure, much 
 incitement to revolution ; but it contained also that which in 
 Lord Palmerston' s eyes compensated for the kind of revolution 
 Fenians could make a tJiousand fold — it contained the most able, 
 virulent, and subtle attacks upon the clergy. This paper 
 remained undisturbed until Palmerston passed away, and affairs in 
 America made Fenianism a real danger for his successors in 
 office. Its issues contained letters written in its own office, 
 but purporting to come from various country parishes, calumniating 
 
FENIANISM. 141 
 
 many of the most venerable of the priests of the people. Men 
 who so loved their flocks as to sacrifice all for them during the 
 famine years — men who had lived with them fi-om youth 
 to old age, were now so artfully assailed as foes of their country's 
 liberation, that the people maddened and deluded by such attacks, 
 passed them on the road without the usual loving salutation 
 Catholics in Ireland give to and receive from their priests. The 
 secret sect backed up the action of the newspaper. Its leaders 
 got the " word of command " for that purpose, and had to be 
 obeyed. Matters proceeded daily from bad to worse, until at 
 last Divine Providence manifested clearly the deadly designs 
 against religion underlying the Fenian movement, and the people 
 of Ireland recoiled from it and were saved. 
 
 And then it was hard to keep, even the leaders themselves, 
 bad to the end. At death, few of them like to face the God 
 tliey have outraged, without reconciliation. But in life these 
 men, like the informers with whom they are so often in alliance, 
 do desperate things to deceive first, and then, for a passing 
 interest, to ruin their unfortunate dupes afterwards. For my 
 own part, I am of opinion that the man Avho deludes a number of 
 brave young hearts to rush into a murderous enterprise, hopeless 
 from the outset, is as dangerous as the man who seduces men to 
 become assassins and then sacrifices their lives to save his own 
 neck from the halter. At most there is but the difference of 
 degree in the guilt and malignity of the leaders who urged on 
 impetuous youth to such risings as those of the snowstorms in 
 1867, and of the scoundrel who planned assassination, entrapped 
 and excited the same kind of youth to execute it, and then swore 
 their lives away to save himself from his justly deserved doom. I 
 am led to this conclusion inevitably from the account given of the 
 Fenian rising, by one of the purest Irish patriots of this century, 
 one just gone amidst the tears of his fellow-countrymen, with stain- 
 less name, and a career of glorious labour, to his eternal reward. 
 Mr. Alexander M. Sullivan in his interesting " Story of Ireland " 
 says : 
 
142 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH, 
 
 " There was up to the last a fatuous amount of delusion 
 '^ maintained by the ' Head Centre ' on this side of the Atlantic, 
 " James Stephens, a man of marvellous subtlety and wondrous 
 " powers of plausible imposition ; crafty, cunning, and quite un- 
 " scrupulous as to the employment of means to an end. However, 
 " the army ready to hand in America, if not utilized at once, 
 " would soon be melted away and gone, like the snows of past 
 "winters. So in the middle of 1865 it was resolved to take 
 " the field in the approaching autumn. 
 
 " It is hard to contemplate this decision or declaration, 
 " without deeming it either insincere or wicked on the part of 
 " the leader or leaders, who at the moment knew the real 
 " condition of affairs in Ireland. That the enrolled members, 
 " howsoever few, would respond when called upon, was certain 
 " at any time ; for the Irish are not cowards ; the men Avho 
 "joined this desperate enterprise were sure to prove themselves 
 " courageous, if not either prudent or wise. But the pretence of 
 " the revolutionary chief, that there was a force able to afford the 
 " merest chance of success, was too utterly false not to be 
 " plainly criminal. 
 
 " Towards the close of 1865 came almost contempora- 
 " neously the Government swoop on the Irish Revolutionary 
 " executive, and the deposition — after solemn judicial trial, as 
 " prescribed by the laws of the society — of O'Mahony, the 
 " American ' Head Centre,' for crimes and offences alleged to 
 " be worse than mere imbecility, and the election in his stead of 
 " Colonel William R. Roberts, an Irish American merchant of 
 " high standing and honourable character, whose fortune had 
 " always generously aided Irish patriotic, charitable, or religious 
 " purposes. The deposed official^ however, did not submit to 
 " the application of the society rules. He set up a rival 
 " association, a course in which he was supported by the 
 " Irish Head Centre ; and a painful scene of factious and 
 " acrimonious, contention between the two parties thus 
 "antagonised, caused the English Government to hope — nay, 
 
FENIANISM. 143 
 
 '' for a moment, fully to believe — that the disappearance of 
 
 " both must soon follow." 
 
 Mr. A. M. Sullivan, after speaking of the history of the 
 
 Fenian movement in America, continues : — 
 
 " This brief episode at Ridge way was for the confederated 
 Irish the one gleam to lighten the page of their history for 
 1866. That page was otherwise darkened' and blotted by a 
 record of humiliating and disgraceful exposures in connection 
 with the Irish Head Centre. In autumn of that year he 
 proceeded to America, and finding his authority repudiated 
 and his integrity doubted, he resorted to a course which it 
 Avould be difficult to characterize too strongly. By way of 
 attracting a following to his own standard, and obtaining a 
 flush of money, he publicly announced that in the winter 
 months close at hand, and before the new year dawned, he 
 would (sealing his undertaking with an awful invocation of 
 the Most High) be in Ireland, leading the long-promised 
 insurrection. Had this been a mere ' intention ' which might 
 be ' disappointed,' it was still manifestly criminal thus to 
 announce to the British government, unless, indeed, his resources 
 in hand were so enormous as to render England's preparations 
 a matter of indifference. But it was not as an ' intention ' he 
 announced it and swore to it. He threatened with the most 
 serious personal consequences any and every man soever, who 
 might dare to express a doubt that the event would come off 
 as he swore. The few months remaining of the year flew by ; 
 his intimate adherents spread the rumour that he had sailed 
 for the scene of action, and in Ireland the news occasioned 
 almost a panic. One day, towards the close of December 
 however, all New York rang with the exposure that Stephens 
 had never quitted for Ireland, but was hiding from his own 
 enraged followers in Brooklyn. The scenes that ensued were 
 such as may well be omitted from these pages. In that bitter 
 hour thousands of honest impulsive, and self-sacrificing Irish- 
 men endured the anguish of discovering that they had been 
 
144 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 " deceived as never had men been before ; that an idol worshipped 
 " with phrenzied devotion was, after all, a thing of clay." 
 
 The plottings of the " Head Centre," however, were not at 
 an end. Mr. A. M. Sullivan continues : — 
 
 " In Ireland, where Stephens had been most implicitly 
 believed in, the news of this collapse — which reached early in 
 1867 — filled the circles with keen humiliation. The more 
 dispassionate wisely rejoiced that he had not attempted to keep 
 a promise, the maknig of which was in itself a crime ; but the 
 desire to wipe out the reproach supposed to be cast on the 
 whole enrolment by his public defection became so overpowering, 
 that a rising was arranged to come off simultaneously all over 
 Ireland on the 5th March, 1867. 
 
 " Of all the insensate attempts at revolution recorded in 
 history, this one assuredly was preeminent. The most extra- 
 vagant of the ancient Fenian tales supplies nothing more 
 absurd. The inmates of a lunatic asylum could scarcely have 
 produced a more impossible scheme. The one redeeming 
 feature in the whole proceeding was the conduct of the hapless 
 men who engaged in it. Firstly, their courage in responding 
 to such a summons at all, unarmed and unaided as they were. 
 Secondly, their intense religious feeling. On the days imme- 
 diately preceding the 5tli March, the Catholic churches were 
 crowded by the youth of the country, making spiritual prepara- 
 tions for what they believed would be a struggle in which 
 many would Ml and few survive. Thirdly, their noble humanity 
 to the prisoners whom they captured, their scrupulous regard 
 for private property, and their earnest anxiety to carry on their 
 struggle without infraction in aught of the laws and rules of 
 honourable warfare. 
 
 " In the vicinity of Dublin, and in Tipperary, Cork, and 
 Limerick counties, attacks were made on the police stations, 
 several of which were captured by or surrendered to the 
 insurgents. But a circumstance as singular as any recorded 
 in history intervened to suppress the movement more effectually 
 
 'W 
 
FENIANISM. 145 
 
 " than the armies and fleets of England ten times told could do 
 " On the next night following the rising — the Gtli ]\Iarcli — tliere 
 " commenced a snowstorm which will long be remembered in 
 " Ireland, as it was probably without precedent in our annals. 
 " For twelve days and nights without intermission, a tempest of 
 *' snow and sleet raged over the land, piling snow to the depth 
 " of yards on all the mountains, streets, and highways. The plan 
 '' of the insurrection evidently had for its chief feature desultory 
 " warfare in the mountain districts, but this intervention of the 
 " elements utterly frustrated the project, and saved Ireland from 
 '' the horrors of a protracted struggle." 
 
 Who that reads over this brief history of the contest between 
 the Fenian leaders and the priesthood of Ireland, may not see 
 the wisdom and goodness of the religious guides of the people, 
 and the reckless cruelty and callousness of the secret society 
 seducers ? It was a life-and-death struggle. The true friends of 
 the people could not look on and see them led to ruin of soul and 
 body. They knew by a Light from on high, more certain than 
 any that guides ships from danger, the real nature of the 
 secret conspiracy that laid its meshes to deceive, to ruin, and to 
 betray. They raised the warning voice, and for this were 
 secretly assailed, maligned, circumvented, and even threatened 
 in body, in life, in means, and in character. But the minister 
 of God is not to be deterred by any such menaces. He that in 
 the penal days braved the dungeon and the halter for them, and 
 who every day braves pestilence, want, and death if necessary 
 for their sakes, who is of them and with them from the cradle 
 to the grave, whose only interest is their interest, has surely 
 more claims upon their love and allegiance than any con- 
 spirator. We learn wisdom from the end of all the secret- 
 society seducers — men first seduced themselves, and who then 
 try to seduce others. But surely the Irish people and the young 
 men of Ireland especially, have had experience enough of the 
 wUole lot of them. All seduce them into fiital courses under 
 pretence of benefiting Ireland. Nearly all sell and betray them. 
 
 L 
 
146 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 All profit — if profit their wretched gain can be called — by the 
 folly of our too fervid, too generous, too confiding youth. 
 
 Some of these same seducers are found, I am informed, plying 
 their deadly trade amongst Irish working men in the large 
 manufacturing districts of England and Scotland. For aught I 
 know they may be found in this very city or its neighbourhood. 
 They certainly are no friends of the Irish working man or of 
 his family. Hopeless and criminal as were the Fenian con- 
 spiracies, the attempts of these openly lecturing, or worse still, 
 secretly agitating, secret-society seducers, are much worse. 
 At best they are idlers who, instead of devoting themselves to 
 honest toil, find it more congenial and easy to live upon the 
 ''subscriptions" of poor working men, who give to these oily- 
 tongued vagabonds a portion of their hard earnings " to liberate 
 Ireland." God help us! To liberate Ireland by means of 
 such heartless schemers, who would be only too happy to 
 sell Ireland and their dupes into the bargain, for a wonderfully 
 small consideration. It is well if these dangerous prowlers do 
 not do worse and "swear in" some incautious, hot-headed, simple 
 boys into societies which are seen to eventually brinsf the prison 
 plank-bed if not the halter. The Irish working man in England, 
 in Scotland, or in America, has no worse enemy than these 
 itinerant agitators who perambulate the country, creating 
 excitement at one time, and encouraging secret-society practices 
 at another. They render the condition of the Irish working 
 man often intolerable. They lead him from home and to tlie 
 public house. They encourage him in the worst possible habits 
 for himself and his little fiimily. They drag him from his God, 
 from his religion, and often to his ruin. The best way, believe 
 me, for the Irish working-man to serve Ireland in this country 
 is to keep strictly sober, to mind his employment, to attend well 
 to the Catholic education of his children, to live frugally, to 
 practise economy, to become a respectable member of society. 
 He will then have a voice and a voice that will be heard in the 
 land, and when he comes to use the franchise he will benefit his 
 
THE SAD ENDING OF CONSPIRATORS. 147 
 
 fellows, and do something real and tangible in the Parliament 
 of England, to serve Ireland. The victim of the secret society 
 agitators is kept in liis vices and drunkeimess. He is never 
 religions. He lives in rags and wretchedness, and dies in the 
 workhouse or in the gaol. 
 
 xxin. 
 
 The sad ending of Conspirators. 
 
 Nor can there be a spectacle presented by histojy more 
 sad than the fate of the unfortunate Fenian leaders. The Irish 
 who have died directly for their faith in the dungeon, 
 on the rack, or upon the gibbet, have had the crowning 
 consolation of martyrdom and the bright light of heaven when 
 their sufferings were over. Those who fell victims of extermination, 
 of hunger, want, and exile, might, at least indirectly, trace their 
 sorrows to the same cause — grand, unalterable fidelity to the 
 Church of God. The martyr's hope lit up their lives. The joy 
 they had even in famine, even in death, no man could take from 
 them. From their perishing bodies came forth the radiance of 
 immortality. Their souls, naturally, the noblest souls, the most 
 gitted, the very purest, given by God to this earth, conquered 
 the very world that scorned and crucified them, with Him they 
 loved and feared not to follow. They endured the pangs of 
 starvation, cold and rags just as they did the gaol, the fever- 
 ship, and the gallows, with a sublime, godlike fortitude. Godlike, 
 for it came from God indeed. Who ever heard' of one of these 
 millions of slowly- tormented victims seeking death by suicide — 
 the remedy of the disbeliever? Who ever knew of one of them 
 to seek to lengthen life by means which a section now condones, 
 indeed half praises, in the case of the no more than equally tried 
 man-slayers and cannibals in a shipwreck ? Who that 
 remembers tlie dread years of the great famine of '47 and '48 
 does not know of thousands and of tens of thousands of Irishmen 
 and Irishwomen, aye, of Irish little children, that then laid down 
 their lives in horrible agonies, sooner than receive from a hellish 
 
148 WAR OF ANTICHRIST AVITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 so-called " charity " the food, clothing, and patronage that would 
 enable them to live in comfort, — a "charity" which callous 
 proselytizers offered everywhere at the price of one single act of 
 apostasy — at the price of even eating meat on a Friday in 
 contempt of God's Church ? I myself have known of such 
 cases. And I have seen this. I have seen downright honest 
 pity manifested by these same starving but noble people of G-od 
 for the rich man who lived in wealthy splendour, and then died 
 in a great liouse near them, when they knew that by want of the 
 Faith he ought to have, his life was without hope and his eternity 
 without God. Never since the days of Christ did a whole 
 people realize more vividly or act more truly upon the teaching 
 conveyed in the parable of the rich man lost and Lazarus saved. 
 The long eternity of hell, the Avant of the drop of water, never 
 to be obtained, the eternal contempt and the eternal pain 
 awaiting the sumptuously-living sinner, was no myth. It came 
 from the mouth of Him who had the knowledge of the fact, 
 because he was the Creator and the Judge. As vividly came 
 the vision of their own bright, peaceful, wealthy rest, figured by 
 the lot of Lazarus reposing in a bosom far brighter, far sAveeter 
 than that of Abraham — in the Heart of Jesus Christ, in the 
 beautiful vision of God, in the embrace of Mary, the loved 
 Mother of Ireland — and so these millions passed peacefully 
 through the dark valley of famine, until, worn and weary, their 
 bodies sank like the rain drops, forgotten, beneath the green 
 sward of Erin, and their souls passed for ever to the joy of the 
 blest. How different is the case of the few apostates amongst 
 them who sold their faith ! Who may not tell of the agony 
 of mind, the desolation, the suicides of these ? But next to 
 them in melancholiness is the fate of the Irishman who first 
 begins to listen to the seducer of the secret society, and 
 afterwards becomes himself a seducer, a leader, perhaps a traitor, 
 in the deadly, secret conspiracy to ruin religion, to destroy God. 
 His career is often this : At first a hopeful, young, ambitious 
 student of his country's history, he begins to feel indignation at 
 
THE SAD ENDING OF CONSriRATORS. 149 
 
 her wrongs, and wishes to right them. In a fatal hour he meets 
 the tempter. He is sworn into the terrihle sect. He gets a 
 command, an importance in the organization. He is youthful, 
 but the season of life wherein to make an honest livelihood passes 
 rapidly in intrigue. He knows that the course into which he has 
 Mien is bad, is injurious to religion, but he hopes to repent. Alas ! 
 little by little his conscience, his Faith passes from him. The 
 day comes surely when he realizes his sad position, and knows 
 the advice of the Church to be right. But having lived his best 
 days to conspire, he now must " conspire to live," and inured 
 to bad habits, he is at last ready for anything. Like the wretch 
 who preys upon the little left to the Irish emigrant, now as a 
 guide, now as a broker in New York or Liverpool, he, too, will 
 wrench by every means fraud can devise the hard earnings of 
 the poor, under pretence of injuring England, if not of liberating 
 Ireland. He will stop at nothing, and so the existing conspirator 
 is made. He has no further scruple to join if he can the 
 worst class of the Atheistic and Socialist plotters of Paris. He 
 herds with them. And this is strange, for while the Irish 
 conspirator may be as able to plot mischief as the worst of the 
 miscreants with whom he associates in France, he differs from 
 them in this, that in the secret of his soul he never loses 
 his Faith. They know this well, and they watch him, use him, 
 but never fully trust him. Many a broken Irish' heart the 
 children of the Revolution in Paris have made already. Many 
 a one of those Irish victims wish again for the days of his boyish 
 innocence and blessed faith. A life wasted, hopes blasted, 
 happiness departed, a cheerless, neglected, old age, are little 
 recompense for the free-thought and free-act which a 
 system of Atheism and irreligion, never really believed in, con- 
 ferred upon any Catholic Irishman. 
 
150 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 The Triumph of Irish Faith. 
 
 The secret society onslaught on the attachment of the 
 people of Ireland to their spiritual guides and to their ancient 
 faith was treacherous, deadly, and long-continued. But, 
 thank heaven ! the Church in Ireland, has survived the 
 shock, terrible though it was. My own Archbishop — at present, 
 happily for Australia, placed by the Holy Father over 
 that extensive portion of the vineyard — a Prelate who knows 
 the Ireland of history better, I would say, than any living mnn, 
 and the Ireland of the pi-esent day, as well, certainly, 
 assured me that nevei' since the days of St. Patrick was the 
 Faith stronger in the country than at the present moment. 
 The frequentation of the sacraaients was at no past period more 
 general — if ever as general. Pious Confraternities spread 
 their blessed influence everywhere. Temperance is progressing. 
 The clergy, numerous and well supported by the people, 
 enlighten all by the purity, self-denial, and laboriousness of 
 theii' lives. They visit their people in every home, no matter 
 how poor, in every cabin, in every garret. They are, as ever, of 
 and with the people. Their little means are freely given to every 
 want of education and religion, and, as far as these means can go, to 
 the poor. This is a condition of things that must continue to 
 bind the priests to the people, and the whole Church of Ireland 
 to God. These holy pastors, whom every tie of nature, affection, 
 and duty, bind to the Irish people, are the guides who have 
 been with them for ages. Numerous, intelligent, learned, 
 patriotic in the highest degree, sons of the saints, they alone 
 can lead God's people aright. They have done so, and sad must 
 be the hour when miserable adventurers, seeking their own gains, 
 can so delude a nation as to seduce them from the side of God's 
 anointed, to what did prove, and must ever prove, if pursued by 
 the Irish people against the loving and intelligent advice of the 
 Irish priests, " a mockery, a delusion, and a snare." The time 
 
THE TRIUMPH OF IRISH FAITH. 151 
 
 is come, however, when using their own intelligence Irishmen 
 will everywhere be able to resist the wiles and temptations of 
 the secret society seducer, and think for themselves. The leaders, 
 the fathers who have never deceived them, whose advices are 
 always given for their best advantage, who suffered and died 
 for them in the past, and are ready to do so in the present and 
 in the future, are the clergy of Ireland, led l)y the Bishops of 
 Ireland, and all follownig the infallible teachings of the Vicar of 
 Jesus Christ. God grant that this guidance may never fail ; 
 that the day may never dawn when it will not be heeded ; and 
 that the race of wretched men who have so often in the past 
 ensnared generous-hearted, Catholic Irishmen in Ireland, in 
 Great Britain, in America, and elsewhere, may end for ever. 
 From such false agents and fi-om the machinations of all enemies 
 to Irish Faith, we well may pray, God Save Ireland ! 
 
 I have no doubt whatever, but this our prayer will be 
 heard. We only want a knowledge of the evil to avoid it. Even 
 from what I have said this evening — and I have only stated 
 plain, unvarnished facts — it must be evident that all secret 
 societies and societies aiming at bad and irreligious ends are no 
 other than deadly Illuminated Freemasonry. Let them be called 
 by whatever name, they are a part of the system of secret 
 revolutionary fraud, invented and cast upon the earth by Satan 
 to compass the ruin of souls, and the destruction of the reign of 
 Jesus Christ. They are of the same kind as the Black Hand in 
 Spain, as the Commune of Paris, as the Nihilism that now 
 dominates in Eussia. With such associations the children of 
 God have only one duty to discharge. It is : so for from giving 
 them any countenance or support, to oppose them by every 
 means possible. I believe their strength has spent its force 
 in Ireland. It only remains that the Irish abroad, who 
 have crossed the seas to find a home, an honest living, and an 
 honourable fortune if they can in this and in other lands, 
 should, as I have just advised, stand on their guard against 
 emissaries who, under pretexts as seductive as those used by 
 
152 WAR OF ANTICHEIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 the Fenian leaders to lead our countrymen to ruin, or by 
 that degraded seducer of brave, but heedless and passionate 
 young men, Carey, to drag his victims to murder and the gallows, 
 may come to whisper words of conspiracy and lead fir astray. 
 The Catholic who hears the invitation from any quarter, were it 
 from an angel from heaven, were it from a priest of God — 
 fallen as that angel or priest should be to be al:)le to give it — let 
 him beware. It is a devil that speaks to him as sure as it was a 
 devil that spoke to his mother Eve in the Garden of Eden. Let 
 him renounce that devil and his tools and his works. Let him 
 ask aid from on High — Good Counsel from God through the 
 prayers of God's Virgin Mother, and he will triumph. He 
 will stand firm on the side of G^d, and one day be rewarded at 
 His Eight Hand with the most glorious triumph that can be 
 given to man to witness — the triumph of Christ coming in His 
 Majesty to judge the living and the dead. 
 
 All that secret organization of which we have been speaking 
 so much, is being framed by Satan and his emissaries for one end 
 long foreseen — that is, to form, and that before very many 
 years, the vast kingdom of Antichrist, which already spreads its 
 ramifications over the whole earth. It is, you see, determined 
 to leave no people, or nation, or tribe, or tongue, unsubjected to 
 its infiuence. It seeks now the semi-civilized empires of Asia 
 by means of Masonic France, and other European Masonic 
 influences. It plants in Africa the germs of a European domin- 
 ation, which must speedily subject to its authority the dark sons 
 of Ham. I believe, so far as I can judge, it will soon send its 
 telegraphs and its railways careering through that ancient 
 Continent. Placing itself "above all that is worshipped or 
 called God," it will in its pride and hate obliterate the 
 politheism of these countries to make room for its own Atheism; 
 and that which Christianity has been hitherto unable to effect 
 iu destroying the false gods of the heathen, it will effect, in order 
 to plant its own dark non credo instead. It will thus one day 
 be able to call to the standard of whoever is to be its last, long- 
 
THE TRIUMril OF IRISH FAITH. 153 
 
 foretold leader, countless millions to battle with the elect of 
 God. It may be — I believe it will be — checked, if but for a 
 few years, to afford time for the Church of Christ to manifest 
 her glory once more, and to gather in her strength for the final 
 combat. But that it will advance to that combat is revealed to 
 us. Children of Ireland what a glorious place is reserved for 
 you when that struggle does come! From the beginning you have 
 been its opponents. When it cried — away with Christ — away 
 with Christ's Vicar — let him be crucified — let his temporal and 
 spiritual power be obliterated — and when, in the nations of 
 Catholic Europe, and of the world, it raised its cries of secularism, 
 of infidel education, of ruin to the Christian family and every 
 Catholic institution, who of all the people of God most withstood 
 it ? Who best, from slender resources, in all the lands where 
 English is spoken, supported the Vicar of Christ and every 
 Catholic principle ? In their island home, during these very 
 saddest days, from the period of the great famine till tliis hour, 
 the Irish people, scattered in their millions over this country 
 and England ; over all the rising nations of great America : and 
 the infant empires growing daily to maturity in Australia and 
 New Zealand, and other islands of the Southern, the Indian, and 
 the Pacific Oceans; by the coasts of Malabar and Coromandel; in 
 the Colonies of Southern Africa ; in the islands of the Caribbean 
 Sea; amidst the decaying Christianity of Buenos Ayres; in 
 Canada : and all the other lands of the earth which give the best 
 promise to Atheistic machinations, the Irish people lifted up the 
 Cross of Christ, and sustained, by the sweat of their brow, the 
 strong, vigorous reality of the Catholic religion. They gave their 
 daughters to the cloister, their sons to the sanctuary, their all to 
 the cause of God. Freemasons thundered and intrigued in the 
 legislatures round about them. Emissaries from the secret sects 
 assailed them in the press, on the platform, everywhere. 
 Fidelity to their religious principles was often visited with 
 political, commercial, and even social ostracism. Eidicule and 
 abuse rained in turn for their fidelity upon them. But the Faith 
 
154 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 of St. Patrick and the hope of God's bright kingdom, the smile 
 and the prayer of Mary in Heaven, were able to defeat and baffle 
 all. In serried ranks with the pastors they had themselves 
 brought forth, and nourished, and educated, and kept, they stood 
 amidst the deluge of deception, allurement, and intrigue about 
 them, firm as their own loved, distant land amidst the billows of 
 the ocean, and went on advancing the mighty work of building 
 up the Church which other nations were pulling down, until their 
 very enemies paused, and wondered, and admired. And often 
 too when these enemies saw in the lands which the Irish had 
 evangelized, the Cross of the Catholic Church arise and pierce the 
 heavens, where it had never been seen before, or had been pro- 
 scribed for generations, they cried out that Catholicity was 
 immortal — was divine ! It comes, for instance, by the Irish into 
 this land, just as it was before the storm banished it, the same 
 as their fathers once saw it. And they say rightly, " so that 
 Church is now and so will it be for ever." Masonic Anti- 
 Christianity will advance and do more damage than ever heresy 
 effected. It will one day sweep the sects of heresy and the 
 temples of idols utterly away; bat it too will have its defeat, and 
 in time must yield to Christ and to His cause the greatest triumph. 
 Its union of all men in one vast republic ; its bringing together 
 of every people and nation ; its destruction of every form of 
 religion to make way for its sect ; its advance in science, in 
 education, in national progress, all Avill serve one day to place 
 the Son of Mary supreme — to realize the prophecy made to 
 His Mother : " And he shall be great, and be called the Son of 
 the Most High, and the Lord God shall give him the tin-one of 
 David His father, and He shall reign in the house of Jacob for 
 ever, and of His kinsjdom there shall never be an end." 
 
 I say that when this consummation comes, as come it surely 
 must, few nations shall have a more glorious record than the people 
 of what is cidled "poor Ireland." Few nations shall have done 
 more to prepare for the final combat, or shall have manifested to a 
 greater extent in Christian heroism the last and most terrible 
 
CATHOLIC ORGANIZATION. 155 
 
 trial. No nation whatever shall show a grander roll call of 
 martyrs, confessors, virgins, and sonls saved, than the land and 
 the race evangelized by St. Patrick, whose sacred name already 
 adorns the most glorious and promising churches now 
 existing in the world. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 Catholic Organization. 
 
 In conclusion, it is proper that I should say a word to you 
 upon the attitude of the Church, at the pi'esent moment, in the 
 face of the forces of the Organized Atheism of the world. That 
 organization has now arrived at the perfection of its dark wisdom, 
 and is making rapid strides to the most complete and universal 
 exercise of its power. It has succeeded. Through it the 
 Church is despoiled. The Vicar of Christ is a prisoner, and has 
 been so for over fourteen years. The religious orders are virtually 
 suppressed in nearly every country of Europe. Freemasonry is 
 supreme in the governments of France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, 
 Switzerland, and works its will in nearly all the republics of 
 Southern America. It rules Germany, terrifies liussia, distracts 
 Belgium, and secretly gnaws at the heart of Austria. Every- 
 where it advances with rapid strides both in its secret 
 movements against Catholicity and the Christian religion 
 generally^ and in open persecution according to the measure of its 
 opportunity and power. No hope, humanly speaking, appears 
 on the horizon to warrant us at this moment to look for a 
 change for the better. But God has promised never to desert 
 His Church. That promise never can be broken. When the 
 darkest hour comes, it is not for Catholics to look for dissolution, 
 but for life and hope. The crisis in the conflicts of Christianity 
 is the hour of victory. This has been realized more than once 
 since the combat began between Atheistic Masonry and the 
 Church. What hour could be darker than that which saw Pius 
 VI. taken prisoner to France in the white heat of its Revolution, 
 
156 WAR OF ANTICriRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 and dying abandoned and forsaken in the dungeons by the 
 Rhone ? The Temporal Power after an uninterrupted peace of 
 nearly four centuries, during which the disturbances common to 
 it in the middle ages, had absolutely ceased, passed at a blow 
 and apparently for ever. Eome's treasures of art and religion were 
 carried in triumph to grace the capital of Infidelity, or scattered 
 throughout the earth. The Cross and Keys were without a 
 defender, and the tricolour floated in triumph over the palace of 
 the Popes. The crisis had arrived when God's promise should be 
 realized. In the twinkling of an eye, a strange force, under a 
 strange commander, Suwarrow, descends like lightning upon 
 Italy. The power of the Revolution passes like an uneasy 
 morning's dream. Rome belongs to the Pope^ and Pius VII. sits 
 calmly, as if nothing happened, upon the throne of his banished, 
 I may add, martyred predecessor. Another event more strange 
 occurs. The temporal power falls again, and the legions of the 
 strongest potentate Europe had seen since the days of the Ctesars 
 holds it as the heritage of his only son. The Pope is 
 once more a prisoner — for years a persecuted circumvented 
 prisoner. Napoleon mocks at his feebleness, and laughs at his 
 predictions. The temporal power of the Popes was, he says, but 
 never will be. The condition of the world is changed — the 
 Empire returned. Is it so ? The crisis has come for the hundredth 
 time. The very cardinals are taken from the side of the Pontiff. 
 He is alone in the power of his base tormentor as much as 
 St. Peter on Montorio was in the power of Nero. Things cannot be 
 darker. The light must dawn ; and it does. In a month, God's 
 elements blast the power of the tyrant ; and while millions applaud 
 the return of the Pontiff to the Chair of St. Peter and to his 
 power at Rome, Napoleon passes to his solitary dungeon in the 
 midst of the waters, to ruminate on the verification which in his 
 case, as in the case of every persecutor of the Church, attends the 
 predictions of Peter. In our day, the Atheistic Conspiracy is 
 as determined as ever to destroy, but it is wiser. Slowly it has 
 surrounded God's Vicar. It has taken care so to master the 
 
CATHOLIC ORGANIZATION. 157 
 
 councils of every European country that help, to him, when 
 it assails, may be impossible. Under pretence of guaranteeing 
 his independence, it has stolen from him everything. His 
 trustiest servants are torn from his side, stripped, despoiled^ 
 degraded, scattered. His resources have been astutely lessened 
 to the lowest possible point. A prisoner of the Infidels, as much 
 as Pius VI. or Pius VII. in the strongholds of France, under the 
 appearance of being free, he is really bound hand and foot and 
 rendered completely impotent. His power is cancelled under 
 pretext that his city is necessary to the uniiication of Italy. 
 No other city will suit Italian jealousies as the capital of the 
 new nation. And who will sacrifice the welfare of the new 
 nation to the wants of the Pope ? Astuteness is now the 
 characteristic of the Eevolution, determined and callous as 
 ever. But hope again appears. To the persecutions of Pius IX., 
 many and grievous as they were, God opposed a Pontiff simple as 
 a dove in the snares of the spoiler. He took away from the 
 ruffian hands of Masonry its only real argument. But now when 
 all is gone, help appears in the person of another Pontiff, whose 
 greatest characteristic is wisdom, and whose wisdom, slowly 
 but surely, is telling upon the nations. No Pontiff has been more 
 firm in maintaining the rights of the Holy See, violently wrested 
 as he found them, by the force and upon the pretexts used by 
 Freemasonry. Despoiled of everything, he has, nevertheless, 
 drawn together the scattered strength of the Church. 
 Commencing with the foundation of all Christianity, its teaching, 
 he has caused philosophy to be so purified, and so based on sound 
 principles, as to be in reality a true handmaid to theology and 
 a deadly foe to rationalistic, Atheistic, and infidel theories of 
 whatever kind. He has caused the teachings of St. Thomas to 
 assume more than at any past period, their supremacy in Cluistian 
 schools. He has mastered the difficult, tangled web of European 
 diplomacy. He has found out the true wants of Christian 
 peoples. He has satisfied them : and then, finally, by his immortal 
 Bull, Humanum Genus, he has dealt a death blow to the 
 
158 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 progress of Freemasonry, and elevated into a system the means 
 by which the guides of God's people are for the future, to save 
 these people from the evils of our days. 
 
 According to my humble ability, I have endeavoured as best 
 
 I could, this evening, to carry out the first part of the instruction 
 
 of Our Sovereign Lord, Leo XIIL, who is for me and for over 
 
 two hundred millions like me, as much 'a Monarch, as if he reigned 
 
 in the Quirinal instead of Humbert IL That is, I have 
 
 endeavoured to show you what Secret Association was, and is, and 
 
 ever will be, till the end. I am persuaded, that if the evils of 
 
 secret society plotting have succeeded so far, it is mainly, because 
 
 from one reason or another, the mask was permitted to be worn 
 
 by Freemasonry. Voices were raised, I know here and there, now 
 
 and again, against it, and against Secret Societies of every kind ; 
 
 but they were either not heard at all, or, if heard, were very 
 
 soon forgotten. The utmost efforts of Freemasonry of every 
 
 kind were exerted to keep itself hidden, and that it had power 
 
 to remain hidden is looked upon by Monsignor Segur, and Mon- 
 
 signor Ketteler, and others, as one of the most remarkable 
 
 evidences of its real power. It had and still has means to silence 
 
 all who may proceed against it. It murdered, as we have seen, 
 
 in this very century, a free citizen of America, who attempted to 
 
 write a book in which only the least part of its secrets — its 
 
 absurd ceremonial, its grips, pass-words and oaths, were 
 
 revealed to •■' the profane." It threatened and used the dagger, 
 
 or calumny, or bribery, or whatever suited against those 
 
 who attempted to expose it. Exposure is its death — the 
 
 death at least of its influence over its intended dupes amongst 
 
 Catholics. Therefore, comes the word of command to us all, 
 
 from the great Vicar of Christ — " Tear the mask from off 
 
 Freemasonry;" and consequently, it becomes a plain duty, a duty 
 
 not to be performed in any desultory manner, but in season and 
 
 out of season, to expose Freemasonry. The Supreme Pontiff, 
 
 despoiled though he be, will find in the generous devotion of the 
 
 children of the Church who fear no power of man or demon in 
 
CATHOLIC ORGANIZATION. 159 
 
 the discharge of duty, not one but ten liundred thousand 
 voices ready for the task. Thank God ! the hibours of devoted, 
 Christian men — bisliops, priests, and learned hiymen — have 
 resulted in enabling us to know the real character of Masonry, 
 and enabling us to ^'tear the mask " off the horrible thing with 
 ease. Nor is this confined to the Continent or to ecclesiastics. 
 The work has been nobly inaugurated already in our midst by 
 Mr. O'Donnell, M.Y., and I trust will be continued by him and by 
 many more. The religious orders Avill, in the solitude of tlieir 
 cells, make a special study of the machinations of the terrible 
 sects, the secular clergy in their Colleges and home retreats, and 
 above all, the Catholic press Avill not cease to expose the malig- 
 nant hydra in constantly recurriLg references and discoveries. 
 The whole host of God is needed to march and to act 
 against the foe in the manner indicated by our Ploly Father ; 
 for the question is one of the salvation of the world, of the spread 
 of the Gospel, of the happiness of families and individuals, of civil 
 society, and of man. Surely upon such a movement the bene- 
 diction of Heaven will descend. The means to obtain that divine 
 blessing are also pointed out by the Holy Father. He says to 
 those whom it concerns, " unite the Catholic people in good 
 societies and pious confraternities." He indicates, specially, the 
 Third Order of Saint Francis and the confi'aternity which 
 practices the recital of the Holy Kosary. Father Anderledy, 
 the newly appointed General of the Society of Jesus, who plainly 
 says he speaks as he does with the knowledge and desire of 
 the Holy Father, asks the Fathers of his Society to renew the holy 
 habit of uniting those committed to their care in societies formed 
 to honour Our Lady. Behold, then, the true remedy for the ills 
 that fall upon the world. That world is rushing wildly, madly, 
 away from religion and true happiness. Who, under God, can be 
 conceived more powerful to restore it to reason than Mary the 
 Virgin Mother of God, who amongst many other holy titles, is 
 honoured by the Church as the special dispenser of the 
 invaluable gift of Good Counsel, agift She so wonderfully displayed 
 
160 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 ill Her holy life, and which She obtains for God's people by Her 
 powerful intercession. She too is called upon in the liturgy of 
 the Church, to be glad and to rejoice, for that She alone has 
 destroyed all heresies throughout the whole world. Her power 
 destroyed them singly in the past, and doubtless will also 
 destroy their united force and malignity, as exhibited in Free- 
 masonry and its kindred secret societies, in the future. Societies 
 in honour of God's Mother cannot be too widely established. 
 All should be under Her benign protection, as is the Catholic 
 Young Men's Society of Edinburgh. But there is one branch 
 society of this Catholic Institute which I cannot help singling 
 out for special praise. It is the — 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 Catholic Total Abstinence Society. 
 
 No society can be conceived better adapted to keep working 
 men from those bad associations which we have been considering, 
 or more calculated to bring every blessing to individuals, and 
 above all to homes. The public house, the drinking saloon, the 
 music hall, the obscure "shebeen," wherever, in one word, drink 
 is sold, is the ante-chamber of the secret society for men, and 
 ruin both of men and w^omen. On this point permit me to be 
 plain with you, my Catholic fellow-countrymen, as 1 may call you — 
 for 1 find that the majority, indeed the mass of the Catholic 
 congregations in Edinburgh, as well as in Glasgow, in Manchester, 
 in Leeds, in Birmingham, and in all the large towns of England 
 and Scotland, are, men and women, mainly, if not entu'ely,of Irish 
 l)irth or Irish blood, the children of Irish parents. It is, the 
 world knows, from you that the faith has come to Great Britain, 
 l)y the providence of God in this nineteenth century. In the 
 Highlands, I am told, there are some twelve thousand genuine 
 Scotch Catholics. In the Lowlands it is doubtful whether so 
 many genuine Scotch Catholics can be found ; but the number 
 of Catholics in Scotland is a quarter of a million, and the excess 
 comes from the Irish, whose migration has made the Church. 
 
CATHOLIC TOTAL ABSTINENCE SOCIETY. 161 
 
 I believe the proportion in England, notwithstanding the con- 
 version of so many by reason and grace, and the holding out of 
 several old families, is still greater in favour of the Irish element. 
 From the converts and the good old Catholic fxmilies come 
 many blest with vocations for the Priesthood, who devote their 
 lives with great zeal to the service of the race which forms the 
 majority — the mass of the Church. Now I praise that mass, to 
 w^hich I myself belong, when it deserves to be praised ; but you 
 Avill allow me the liberty of a friend to blame a portion of it 
 when it deserves blame, God, Who knows nW hearts, knows 
 that I desire to do the blaming as a friend. I praise you for 
 what I see you do. The Churches, the Cathedrals — magnificent 
 in many cases as both are — the Schools, the Houses of the 
 Teaching Orders^ are mainly the work of your hands. The 
 Priesthood that has been brought to minister everywhere, and 
 the active Orders of men and women who teach, are kept in 
 the very largest measure, by you. Notwithstanding all your 
 burdens, your poverty, and your local wants — great everywhere — 
 you give with a willingness unequalled by any other race, to 
 every good work. Of you, at home and abroad, generous, 
 faithful people, it may be said, that you realize to the very letter 
 the truth that it is better to give than to receive. And what a 
 blessing do you not in return receive in this land, when you 
 remain ftiithful to the teachings of that religion for which God 
 has enabled you to do so much ! There is not a city I have 
 visited that I do not find some amongst you, who came to this 
 country as poor as the rest, already risen to affluence and ease, 
 sometimes to public and honourable position amongst their 
 fellow-citizens differing from them more widely in religion than 
 in race. There is no place where I have not been consoled 
 with the signs of substantial prosperity amongst you. Pleasant 
 it is for me, when visiting the many educational establishments 
 now, thank God, so plentifully diffused over the face of the 
 country, to find your sons in the Colleges, your daughters in 
 the Convents, and to know that not a few of them dedicate 
 
 M 
 
162 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 themselves to the highest service of God. These prove the 
 happy, holy homes which blessed them with true parental love 
 and care, and cast round their childhood the influences of 
 religion. I have at this moment before my mind's-eye the 
 death of an Irish mother who passed to eternity, since I com- 
 menced my present journey, consoled by having her death-bed 
 surrounded by children every one of whom were holy, and 
 several of whom had the happiness of being either Eeligious or 
 Priests. This valiant Catholic mother came to one of the great 
 cities of England the wife of an Irish working-man. She had 
 her reward surely in this life as well as in the next. In your 
 own midst, thgre are instances of the honest prosperity which 
 blesses the sober, well-conducted, though poor man, who comes 
 to this country to make an honest livelihood. If he be but 
 faithful to his religion, his life is always happy. His end is 
 always holy. His children " rise up and call him blessed." He 
 is a blessing to the Church and to this country. I could easily 
 prolong this picture ; but I must speak plainly upon another. 
 I have seen even in this city hundreds of little children, as I 
 passed yesterday, Sunday, through your streets ; many of them 
 were Catholics, certainly. Poor children ! they saluted me 
 reverently. They were, I found, sent — for the law happily forces 
 that — to the Catholic School. That was the reason why the light 
 of Faith was in their little eyes, which brightened at the sight ol 
 a Priest ; but alas ! the sign of hunger was upon the cheeks 
 and upon the almost naked limbs of many of them, without 
 shoes, without stockings, and in rags. I have seen children 
 too, many of whom I know to be Catholic and Irish, selling 
 newspapers in the streets on weekdays, and preparing, boys 
 and girls, for careers I shudder to contemplate, after a very few 
 years. On yesterday I- had evidence of the cause of their sad 
 state. I saw men and women, the fathers and mothers of these 
 children, crowding round public-houses, openly intoxicated, and 
 in consequent wretchedness upon the streets. I know of course 
 that a large proportion of these were not Irish, but I know also 
 
CATHOLIC TOTAL ABSTINENCE SOCIETY. 16 
 
 9 
 
 from inquiries I made, that a large proportion was. These were 
 the degraded, abominable parents Avho reduced their own little 
 ones to the sad condition in which the Avhole world could see 
 them. I do not suppose that in a respectable gathering like this 
 such drunkards are found, but I allude to the matter in the 
 hope that my words r.nd opinions may, through you who are 
 here, come to them ; that they may know, that while I praise my 
 beloved fellow country people for what they have done so nobly 
 and so well for the ^vorks of religion, I have no words strong 
 enough to reprobate the conduct of those who give themselves to 
 drink in this country, at all. I say, at all. For to commence 
 with — where, I ask, is the working man to be found, or the 
 working man's wife, who, having undertaken the care and respon- 
 sibility (>f the present and the future of the numerous family it 
 is generally their lot to have, can afibrd to spend earnings which 
 belong to their children, on the pernicious and expensive luxury 
 of drink? A working man needs every fraction he can earn by 
 his labour for the education and maintenance of his children, for 
 the rainy day, for the season of sickness, for an honest inde- 
 pendence in his old age. He cannot be honest to his children, 
 or to himself; he cannot advance religion, education, or the 
 cause of God, if he drinks. When' a working man loses his 
 employiuent, when he sickens, when he gets into trouble, we 
 invariably find drink at the bottom of it. There is nothing that 
 one can praise in the man who practises this vice. He is mean, 
 and he is cruelly dishonest always. He driirks the shoes off his 
 children's feet, the clothes off theu* backs, the bit from out their 
 mouths, the bed from under them, the home from over them, 
 and sends them upon society, boys degraded, and guis so lost 
 that I cannot contemplate the picture. It is therefore that good 
 Pastors like Cardinal Manning, who (because of his numerous Irish 
 flock, regards himself in London as an Irish Bishop) have under- 
 taken a life and death crusade against this devil that preys upon 
 the vitals of their most choice and devoted people. It is therelore 
 that Cardinal MacCabe and others have made so many personal 
 
1 64 WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH. 
 
 efforts to uproot this vice. My own Archbishop, for many years, 
 while Bishop of Ossory, in Ireland, practised total abstinence, 
 in order to give his people an example. He is determined to 
 make the same sacrifice in the new and vastly more extended 
 field of labour which the Vicar of Christ has committed to his 
 care at the Antipodes. I have great faith in such acts of self- 
 denial coming from such quarters. When those of the flock 
 who need restraint see the pastors placed over them by God 
 make such sacrifices for their salvation, there cannot, it seems to 
 me, be much doubt about the issue. What they can do, what 
 such men as the late Mr. A. M. Sullivan and others have done, 
 without any constraining necessity, others, who owe such restraint 
 to themselves and their families, can do. For the mere temporal 
 well-being of every working man, and every working man's 
 family, I would be glad to see every such man a total abstainer. 
 But when I consider the evils to which the eternal salvation of 
 the Irish working man, in these countries especially, is exposed 
 by the habit of drinking, I can find no words strong enough to 
 express my anxiety to see him give up intoxicating drinks 
 absolutely and for ever. The sacrifice is small, the gain enormous. 
 God grant that all whom my words may reach — all Irish 
 Catholics — may think with me on this point. Should that be so 
 the consequences would be indeed consoling. The Church of 
 God might well rejoice. The days of secret societies would for 
 the Irish end for ever, and for a certainty they would carrv out 
 to its fulness the glorious destiny given them of planting the 
 Faith all the world over, and resisting to the bitter end the 
 wiles, the deceits, and finally the last and most terrible onset of 
 Antichrist against God, His Church, and Christian civilization 
 throughout the world. 
 
THE 
 
 SPOLIATION OF THE PROPAGANDA 
 
 ^ %tctxivt 
 
 DELIVERED IN EDINBURGH 
 
 BY 
 
 MONSIGNOR GHOKGE F. DILLON, D.D. 
 
 MISSIONARY APOSTOLIC, SYDNEY'. 
 
 DUBLIN 
 M. H. GILL & SON, 50 UPPEE SACKVILLE STEEET. 
 
 LONDON AND NEW YORK: BUKNS AND GATES. 
 
 1885. 
 
iailjil <©bstat : 
 
 W. FORTUNE, 
 
 Censor Theologies Deputatus, 
 
 Coll. Om . Sanctorum. 
 
 Die Hi. Mensis Mail, \%'6'^. 
 
 Impiimatur : 
 
 Die iv. Mensis Mali, 1885, 
 
 GU. CAN. J. WALSH, D.D., 
 
 Vic. Cap. Dublinietuis. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The following Lecture on the Spoliation of the Propa- 
 ganda is given to the I'eadcr almost rerbatim as it was 
 delivered. It contains, however, in e.rfnino, a translation 
 of a vaUiable document furnished by Monsignor C'onrado, 
 Hector of the Urban College, from the archives of the 
 Sacred Congregation. Some other documents, referred 
 to when speaking, are, for convenience-sake, embodied in 
 the text. Every fact stated has been carefully authenticated ; 
 and the lecturer will be amply rewarded for his pains if 
 the simple .statement he has given serves to make his 
 readers fully acquainted with a great wrong done to one 
 of the most beneficent Christian institutions in the world 
 by the greed and Anti-Christian hate of the Infidel 
 Revolution. / 
 
 All Hallows College, 
 Ajml, 188.5. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 I.— STATE OF THE QUESTION. 
 
 Hostility of organized Atheism to the Vicar of Christ, shown since the 
 French Revohitiou — Eecuperative Power of the Papac}- — Action of the 
 Italian Freemasons — Destruction of the Temporal Power — Suppression 
 of Religious Corporations — Illusory "Guarantee Laws" — Forced Con- 
 version of Church Lands into "Yinculated" Italian Bonds — Con- 
 sequences — The Propaganda — Its Means and Destination — Difference 
 between its Funds and the Funds of other Corporations — Its Funds 
 respected by Victor Emanuel — Action of the Italian Ministry after His 
 Death — Decree to convert the Estates of Propaganda into " Vinculated " 
 Italian Bonds — Violation of International Eights in this forced Conversion. 
 — Wrong done to British Catholics by it — Causes why British Statesmen 
 have not insisted on our rights — Ignorance of the Origin, Nature and 
 Purposes of the Propaganda Property — Necessity of Catholics being well 
 informed on this point, in order to be able to show the nature of the 
 wrong they suffer to their non-Catholic Fellow-citizens and non-Catholic 
 Statesmen. 
 
 11. —THE PEOPAGANDA FEOM THE BEGINNING. 
 
 What is the Propaganda ? — The Propaganda in the Days of St. Peter 
 —St. Paul the First "Prefect " — The Propaganda as carried on afterwards 
 by the Popes — Resources for this work supplied even in the ages of 
 Persecution — Testimony of Monsignor Dupanloup — Conversions in the 
 days of Constantiue aided by the Popes— Palladius and St. Patrick sent 
 by Popes to Ireland and Britain — Missions Organized by ^t Leo the 
 Great— St. Valentinus and St. Severinus — St. Gregory the Great and the 
 Conversion of the Angles— Consequences — Conversions wrought by Irish 
 Missionary Saints and by Saints from Britain, always authorized, directed 
 and assisted by the Popes— Sts. Cyril and ^Methodius— Pope Sylvester II. 
 and the Hungarians — Conversion of Northern Europe the direct work of 
 the Popes — New Missionary Fields opened by the Discoveries of 
 Columbus and Vasco di Gama assiduously cultivated by the Popes— In- 
 crease of Missionary Zeal on their part consequent on the Apostasv of 
 many Nations at the Reformation— The Works of Gregory XIII. — 
 
V CONTENTS. 
 
 Necessity for Organized Assistance causes the Formation of the Sacred 
 Congregation of the Propaganda under Gregory XV. — The Bull of 
 Formation— Powers and Duties of the Propaganda— The Appwiti com- 
 menting thereupon — Its Staff. 
 
 III.— THE URBAN COLLEGE. 
 
 Foundation of the College eomnienced hy Monsignor John Baptist 
 Vives in the Pontificate of Urban VIII. — Acts and Beneficence of the 
 Pontiff — The Offices of the Sacred Congregation of the Propaganda 
 formed in the Palace of Vives in the Piazza di Spagna — Foundations for 
 Students by Vives in the Urban College — Foundations by Cardinal Antonio 
 Barberini — Notice of the Foundation of the College by the Hector, Monsig- 
 nor Conrado, taken from the iVi'chives of the Propaganda — Foundations 
 from 1637 to 1883 — Nationalities represented in the Urban College — 
 Proportion of the Irish from the beginning — Privileges granted to Irish 
 Students — Ahmmi of other Missionary Colleges Taught Gratuitously in 
 the Propaganda Schools. 
 
 IV.— THE LIBEAEY. 
 
 Its Contents — Books in Languages -whose Literatures vrere formed by 
 Propaganda Missionaries — Oriental Literature — Propaganda Linguists — 
 Professors Ciasca., Ferrata, Cardinal Howard. 
 
 v.— THE FEINTING OFFICE. 
 
 The Vatican Printing Office — The Polyglot Press of Propaganda — 
 Utility for the Spread of the Faith amongst Barbarous Peoples and 
 amidst the various Oriental Eites. 
 
 VL— EESOUECES OF THE PROPAGANDA. 
 
 Their Origin — Donations of Popes — The Cardinals' Rings — Legacies 
 — Careful Management — Gratuitous Services — Exemption from Taxes 
 under the Popes — Devotion of the Officials Employed — Hard "Work and 
 Small Pay — Instances- Monsignor Agliardi — The Cardinal Prefect, Sec- 
 retary^ and iNIinutanti — Spiritual Advantages, the Chief Reward — Distin- 
 guished Men connected with its present Management. 
 
 VII.— WOEK OF THE PEOPAGANDA. 
 
 Nature and Commencement of its "Work — Its Care of the Oriental 
 Christians — Successes— Its Work for India, China, Japan and other 
 Asiatic Nations — For America — Its Zeal for the Conversion of Scotland 
 
I 
 
 CONTENTS. vi 
 
 and other European Nations lapsed into heresy — Consequences — Its 
 Work for Irehand and the Irish People everywhere — Its "Work in 
 England — Its Administration in the Domain committed to its Keeping. 
 
 VIII.— THE PERSECUTION OF THE PPvOPAOANDA. 
 
 Persecution from the French Eepublic and Empire under Napoleon — 
 The Students Driven from the Urban College — From Monte Citorio — 
 Return with the Pontiff — Other Missionary Colleges Reopen — Persecu- 
 tion in our Days from the Italian Freemasons in Power — Extract from 
 the London Tablet — The Appunli on the Situation — "Going to Law with 
 the Devil and the Court ,in Hell" — Advantage to the Freemasons more 
 Imaginary than Real — The Rights of Foreigners deeply interested 
 cannot be taken away by an Italian Tribunal acting ultra vires — Injury to 
 British Catholics. 
 
 IX.— THE PRESENT STATE OF THE CASE. 
 
 Who Endowed the Propaganda ? — Wrong Done to the Founders — 
 Wrong Done to an Irishman, Father Michael Doyle — The Premier's 
 Reply to Mr. O'Donnell, M.P.— Is Father Doyle's Money a "Sub- 
 scription ? " — Other British Donors to Propaganda Robbed by the forced 
 Conversion of the Funds of Propaganda— A Comparison — The Wrong 
 Done to poor Oriental Catholics — The Wrong as Great to British 
 Catholics — Tiie Funds of the Propaganda given for the Administration 
 of the Catholic Church in every portion of the Dominions of Her 
 Majesty, Queen Victoria — If Confiscated, British Catholics forced 
 to make iip the Loss — The United States Government forces the 
 Italians to respect American Catholic Rights less clear than the 
 Rights of British Catholics — The Case of the Proposed Sale by the 
 Italians of the Nortli American College — Peremptory Demand of the 
 United States instantly Respected — Confusion of English Residents in 
 Rome — Certainty of our non-Catholic Fellow Citizens sympathizing with 
 our Wrongs, if rightly informed, as we would in theirs. 
 
 X.— MEASURES TO I^IEET THE DIFFICULTY. ' 
 
 Necessity of fully informing our Rulers and the Nation of the Wrong' 
 done us in the forced Conversion of the Propaganda Funds — The Fallacy 
 of Hopes in Italy being Realized by England- — Italy's ultimate Policy 
 unfavourable to England — Opinion on the Question by the late Mr, 
 A. M. Sullivan. 
 
SPOLIATION OF THE PROriGANDA. 
 
 STATE OF THE QUESTION, 
 
 Having treated, as fully as I could in one lecture, of the 
 nature of that secret and powerfully organized Atheism, 
 which now for over a century has waged a fierce and 
 sleepless war with the Church of Jesus Christ, and which 
 means not only to destroy that Church but every form of 
 Christianity and Christian civilization, I come this evening 
 to speak, according to my promise, of a special feature in 
 that war ; namely, its intense hostility to the Vicar of Jesus 
 Christ, and its determination to deprive him of every 
 human means of exercising his divine mission with the 
 view of thus preventing the government of the Church 
 and the extension of the Kingdom of Christ in the world. 
 This feature in the Anti-Christian war of Freemasonry and 
 its attendant sects, has, as we have seen, been manifest 
 from the very commencement. Scarcely had its adepts 
 obtained power at the period of the first French Revolution, 
 when they aimed and dealt, too, a deadly blow at the 
 temporal power of the Pope, hoping thereby to cripple and 
 eventually to terminate his spiritual ministrations. The 
 blow was repeated under Napoleon, attempted frequently 
 after the Eevolution of July 1830, and again dealt wdth 
 the effect of banishing the Pontilf from his See by the 
 Italian Conspirators of 1848. The Papacy, however, with 
 that perennial elasticity which marks its history since the 
 
2 SPOLIATION OF THE PROPAGANDA. 
 
 days of St. Peter, returned to Rome, and made good in a 
 short time the evils which its absence had created. The 
 Revohition seeing this, seems to have no longer determined 
 to drive Christ's Vicar from the Vatican ; but, while 
 permitting him to remain there, practically a prisoner, to 
 deprive him of every means necessary or useful for the 
 exercise of his ministry for the benefit of the millions 
 committed to his keeping by God. Power having come 
 into the hands of the Freemasons of Italy, by means which 
 I shall glance at further on, they have taken, step by step, 
 possession of his temporal kingdom, until finally, in 
 violation of every right, human and divine, they seized 
 forcil^ly upon the City of Rome, and confiscated to their 
 own purposes even its religious treasures. They promised 
 at the time to respect such Institutions and persons in 
 that City as all Catholics knew to be necessary for the 
 government of the Church spread not only in Italy, but 
 throughout the whole earth. For instance, though by 
 law, the Religious Orders were suppressed in Piedmont, 
 in the rest of Italy, and in some other countries fallen 
 unfortunately into the power of the Atheistic secret 
 sectaries, they were not suppressed with us, nor, geographi- 
 cally speaking, in the greater part of the world. Now, the 
 Pope is sole Superior of all Religious Orders in the 
 Catholic Church. They are all instituted to serve him 
 specially and devotedly, and they depend directly upon him. 
 None know this better than the Italian Freemasons, who 
 forcibly took possession of Rome. They declared that 
 though in the rest of Italy, Religious Orders and other 
 Catholic Institutions were by law suppressed, yet even 
 these and everything else needed by the Supreme Pontiff" 
 for the government of the Universal Church, should be 
 sacredly respected by them in Rome. We know how 
 
STATE OF THE QUESTION. 3 
 
 they have kept this promise so far as the governing 
 staff of the Kehgious Orders were concerned. They 
 respected the Generals and their assistants by casting 
 them out from their convents upon the streets. They took 
 possession of these convents for secular purposes. They 
 confiscated the whole revenues of the religious, and denied 
 to the successors of the same religious the miserable 
 pensions granted to those whom they brutally and igno- 
 miniously expelled. But we were told that this was to be 
 done only to the religious, and that the rest of the Insti- 
 tutions of Kome necessary for the service of the Pontiff, 
 for his dignity, and, above all, for the government of the 
 Church, should be most scrupulously respected. His person 
 was to be as much honoured, and to be as inviolable as that 
 of the King. The one residence left him in Kome was 
 to obtain the privilege of extra-territoriality, and his 
 means were to be protected on the pledged faith and 
 honour of the Italian King and Parliament. We know how 
 the honour decreed by law to the Supreme Pontiff was 
 respected by the Government, in the miserable insults offered 
 by a body of hired ruffians being permitted, if not more 
 than permitted, to outrage the venerated remains of Pius IX. 
 on their passage at night from St. Peter's to the Basilica of 
 San Lorenzo. The Pope refused, of course, the ostentatious 
 pension his plunderers voted him in lieu of the spoliation 
 of his States. But this gain did not satisfy them. They 
 proceeded, whenever they could, to violate or make null their 
 own laws of guarantee in his regard ; and they succeeded 
 For instance, they made a law by which the real property of 
 the Church should be all sold and converted into the bonds of 
 the new Italian Government. These bonds, at best, are only 
 worth whatever the solvency of the Italian Government may 
 be rated at, upon the markets of Eiirope. But the Church was 
 
4 SPOLIATION OF THE PEOPAGANDA. 
 
 not to be permitted to have the advantage of ordinary bond- 
 holders. These latter could sell out their bonds at market 
 value. The Church was not permitted to do this. The 
 bonds purchased by the sale of her farms and houses were 
 made a debt of the Italian Government, it is true — but a State 
 debt due to the Chmxh only — a debt apart, which could be 
 dealt with at pleasure, and regarding which any dealing the 
 Italian Parliament might think well to apply, could not in 
 any sense affect the solvency of the nation in the markets 
 of Europe. Regarding the payment of these bonds the 
 Church has to depend absolutely upon the word of a body 
 of men who have broken faith with her constantly, and 
 whose promises were made, only to be broken at the first 
 favourable moment. ISTo man, therefore, values much the 
 security of the money of the Church, depending upon the 
 will of the Italian Masonic Parliament, for the payment 
 of interest. 
 
 Now, amongst other necessary Institutions, the 
 Pope had, for several centuries, in Rome, a well known 
 and most beneficial corporation, endowed by the piety of 
 the Pontiffs, and of Churchmen and pious laymen of every 
 rank and nationality in the world. Its funds were destined 
 not for Italy, but for us, and for the Catholics of every 
 English-speaking land, and for the maintenance of the 
 Faith and the extension of Christianity and civilization in 
 all parts of the world, where as yet these blessings had not 
 penetrated. If any funds could be secured from the grasp 
 of the Masonic Italian Government, those funds ought. If 
 any fidelity was to be kept in the observance of the laws 
 which guaranteed the independence and free exercise of 
 the universal spiritual mission of the Supreme Pontiff', it 
 should be shown, by respecting scrupulously the funds of 
 this institution. The very worst of the Italians, on enter- 
 
STATE OF THE QUESTION. 5 
 
 ing Eome, protested loudly that the guarantees were real, 
 and they pointed out the inviolable condition of the Propa- 
 ganda as an instance of how sacredly these guarantees 
 were regarded. There might be some confusion of ideas 
 regarding the property of the religious orders in Rome, 
 but regarding the Pro2)aganda there could not be that 
 confusion. They continued to point it out for years, to every 
 stranger, as a proof of their fidelity. Victor Emmanuelj bad 
 enough, in all conscience, respected it. In his lifetime it 
 could not be touched. That would prove too flagrant a 
 violation, even for him, of the guarantees given by himself 
 and his Parliament. But the moment he passed away, the 
 mean, sordid cupidity of the governing sect in Italy mani- 
 fested itself, and an attempt was made, almost before the 
 dead King was cold, to subject the real estate of the 
 Propaganda to that law of conversion to which the property 
 of every Italian ecclesiastical corporation was subjected. 
 
 Two millions sterling Avas too much to remain 
 unmolested by the Italian "Left" in power. It was too 
 much for their weak fidelity to principle. It meant the 
 sale of desirable lands which those sectaries who made 
 *'an honest penny" somehow, by the change of affairs in 
 the country, wanted to buy. It meant the addition to the 
 not overstocked exchequer of the country, of money which 
 Ministers could disjDose of as they best knew how. It 
 meant, finally, a profit to the revenue of thirty per cent, on 
 the sale — a profit taken by various machinations of the 
 Italian Fiscal laws for the benefit of the " Department of 
 Finance." It meant the reduction of that great Institution 
 to the condition in which the finances of the smallest 
 Italian Diocesan, or other Chapter, is reduced by the forced 
 sale of its real estate and the conversion of its money into 
 " ^inculated " Italian Government bonds — bonds that 
 
6 SPOLIATION OF THE PROPAGANDA. 
 
 cannot be sold, and may be any day discarded by the 
 Italian Parliament. 
 
 This, in brief, is the condition to which the estates of 
 the Catholic Propaganda have been reduced by the action 
 of the Italian Government. It is a veritable spoliation 
 which not only reduces the actual revenue of the Institution 
 to a great extent, but which imperils the very existence 
 of the rest of that revenue. Now this confiscation would 
 be bad enough, if it were only a violation of pledges 
 solemnly made to the Supreme Pontiff. But it is worse. 
 It is a violation of international right, and no people in the 
 world are more concerned in the maintenance of that 
 international right than the Roman Catholic subjects of 
 Her Majesty Queen Victoria. We are in fact the principal 
 sufferers in this act of spoliation, for not only are our 
 religious rights, most justly acquired, interfered with, but 
 the making good of the damage which the Freemasons of 
 Italy have done the Institution, will practically fall on our 
 shoulders. The Propaganda for us means the actual 
 exercise of the authority of the Vicar of Christ in our 
 regard. By means of its funds it has carried out and 
 borne the whole expense of the care and government of 
 the Church in our midst for over two hundred years. It 
 has done much for our ancestors, as we shall see. It has 
 done much more for ourselves. We cannot do without it, 
 so far as we. are concerned, and then neither can we be, 
 nor are we, insensible to that which it does for others. 
 For us — for the Catholics of the world — the Propaganda 
 is all that which the whole circle of richly endowed, 
 zealously advanced " Missionary Societies," " Bible 
 Societies," and " Evangelical Societies," are for the 
 Protestant world. Our honour is connected with its 
 maintenance, and we cannot without a supremo struggle 
 
STATE OF THE QUESTION. . 7 
 
 permit it to perish. Nor shall we. But there is no reason 
 that we should have to do this if our Government be willina" 
 to protect our interest, and if that Government has not taken 
 any steps to protect us, I am perfectly sure it is because they 
 have not comprehended the wrong that is done us. In fact, 
 the Propaganda has discharged its onerous duties so noise- 
 lessly by the side of the Vicar of Christ, that we ourselves 
 came to look upon the beneficent effects, which we experi- 
 enced from it, as we look upon the light of the sun or the air 
 about us. We did not advert to the means which piety 
 had, in the past, placed at its disposal, and of which we 
 and our fathers received the fruits. It is the loss which 
 causes us to know, to the full, the value of the benefit — a 
 benefit, I say, so great, and so much a matter of course to 
 us, that even we ourselves remained ignorant of the sources 
 from wdiich it was derived. When, then, even amongst 
 ourselves there is not a full knowledge of what its history, 
 nature, and the nature of its resources now endangered, are, 
 how can we expect that our statesmen, who are not Catholics, 
 can know these things? It is, therefore, to enlighten them 
 as well as ourselves ; to inform, in fact, our fellow citizens 
 of every denomination, of the great international wrong- 
 done to us, and thereby awaken true sympathy and co-oj^er- 
 ation, that I have undertaken the task of entering, this 
 evening, as fully as the time at my disposal will permit, 
 into the whole question of the spoliation of the Propaganda — 
 into the nature and history of that noble institution doomed 
 to perish by local greed, it is true, but still more by the 
 anti- Christian hate and jDolicy of those ruthless sectaries 
 whose one aim is to destroy — root and branch — everything 
 not only that advances, but that even fosters Christianity in 
 the slightest degree. Their hate is not less for Pro- 
 testantism than for CathoHcity. Their aim is to eradicate the 
 
8 SPOLIATION OF THE PKOPAGANDA. 
 
 very Cliristian idea from the minds and the hearts of man- 
 kind. Now all this we shall proceed to see by a consider- 
 ation, first, of the history and natm^e of the sacred Institution, 
 and, secondly, by a review of the means taken to destroy it. 
 From both, to-night, I am sure, all here, will come to the 
 conclusion that it is a clear duty of om^ own Government 
 to take some action for the preservation of the rights of 
 British Catholics, and that in any case it is a sacred obliga- 
 tion on the part of Catholics in every land, but especially in 
 countries benefited by its ministrations, not to let the great 
 work of the Propaganda perish. 
 
THE PROPAGANDA FROM THE BEGINNING. 9 
 
 11. 
 
 THE PROPAGANDA FROM THE BEGINNING. 
 
 The Sacred CongTegation known as that of the Propaganda 
 Fide, is formed, at present, Kke all the other Congregations 
 of Rome, of a number of Cardinals, Prelates and officials, 
 presided over by a Cardinal Prefect. They form a Corporate 
 Body, and their duty is to conduct what we might call the 
 foreign department in the vast administration of the Vicar 
 of Christ. 
 
 At one period, at the very commencement, the 
 Propaganda was conducted in person by St. Peter and his 
 successors. It remained during nearly the whole of the 
 first Po]:)e's lifetime his own principal occupation. He had 
 to convert both Jews and Gentiles before he had a Church 
 of any great extent to rule. He had, however, it must be 
 confessed, a very excellent "Prefect of the Propaganda" 
 in St. Paul, who carried out the work the Sacred Con^re- 
 gation now sees to, both by himself and his numerous 
 companions and disciples. St. Paul died a Bishop of no 
 particular locality — he was, so to speak, very like many of 
 his successors and his present one. Cardinal Simeoni, an 
 episcopus in partihus mfidelium. He did great and lasting 
 work, but on his death the successors of St. Peter had to 
 find out other means to carry on the evangelization of the 
 world. And they succeeded wonderfully from that day to 
 this. We see them ruling with admirable wisdom, sanctity, 
 and authority the vast empire left them mainly by the 
 exertions of St. Peter and St. Paul ; never forgetting the 
 peculiar labours of the one or the other. The evangelization 
 of the nations as well the government and teaching of the 
 Church was never omitted bv any one of them. From 
 
10 SPOLIATION OF THE PROPAGANDA. 
 
 their side, principally, went forth those crowds of holy men 
 who continued to prosecute the work of the evangelization 
 of the world, until from the extreme limits of this then 
 British Province, to the sands of the Great African Desert, 
 and from the Pillars of Hercules to the frontiers of Persia, 
 the persecuting Roman Empire had the followers of Christ 
 in the army, in the navy, in every department, and even in 
 the Courts of the terrible, anti-Christian Emperors them- 
 selves. They caused Christians to fill the towns, and 
 spread at last to the remotest villages of the Empire, and 
 then to be found far beyond its borders. And when the 
 whole East and West, after ten terrific struggles, at last 
 embraced the Cross, the successors of St. Peter with 
 renewed zeal and increased resources attempted the evan- 
 gelization of all then known, barbarous nations. 
 
 I say increased resources, for even in these times of 
 persecution the Roman Pontiffs were not destitute of 
 temporal means. The generous piety of the faithful 
 recognised their immense responsibility, and supplied the 
 means which heartless infidelity now strives to deprive 
 them of The Roman Pontiff, even when compelled to lay 
 hidden in the Catacombs, was the father of the orphan, 
 and of the widow, and of the poor. From the cr}^3ts of the 
 Catacombs, as well as, afterwards, from the portals of the 
 Vatican, he sent forth a never ceasing stream of apostolic 
 men who at his bidding, and with his blessing, and with 
 his authority, went forth to the very ends of the earth for 
 the evangelization of the heathen, and the consolation of 
 the people of God. 
 
 On this point you will allow me to quote a passage 
 from the writings of a great French Prelate, Monsigneur 
 Dupanloup, whom our present Holy Father has character- 
 ised as " the glory and the consolation of France " in his 
 
THE PROPAGANDA FROM THE BEGINNING. 11 
 
 day. No one who recollects his history will doubt for a 
 moment the weight of his authority. He says : 
 
 " Mother and Mistress of all Churches, the Church of 
 *' Rome was from that time what she ought to be, viz., the 
 " richest, the most powerful, and also the most generous 
 " in her gifts. The Faithful throughout the world vene- 
 " rated her as the centre of Catholicity ; and lavished their 
 " wealth upon her, together with their obedience and their 
 " love. They did not wish the head of their religion and 
 *' the Vicar of Jesus Christ to be unequal to the immense 
 ** calls of his spiritual administration ; they wished the 
 " Pope to have sufficient to meet all the requirements of 
 *' the universal mission which had been confided to him, 
 *' the enormous disbursements that he was obliged to make 
 " for the welfare of so many people confided to his care, 
 " and also for the nations which were still infidel, to whom 
 ** it was his duty to send the light of faith, by bishops, 
 " priests, deacons, and apostolic missionaries. Hence the 
 " riches of the Roman Church from the time of the per- 
 " secutions ; hence the considerable possessions which she 
 *' enjoyed a long time before Constantine ; hence also the 
 " generous liberalities which she lavished upon the world, 
 " as Eusebius tells us, for the maintenance of a large 
 " number of the clergy, of widows and of orphans, and of the 
 "poor as well as for the propagation of the faith, and the 
 " foundation of Christianity in the most distant countries. 
 " Eusebius cites Syria and Arabia, and our own histories 
 " add the Gauls and the Spains to these countries. This 
 " was not all ; it was necessary that while buried still in 
 " the Catacombs, the Papacy should maintain apostolic 
 " notaries to keep the acts of the martyrs, and to be ever 
 " ready to reply to the questions for consultation almost 
 " daily addressed by all the Churches, whilst at the same 
 
12 SPOLIATION OF THE PROPAGANDA. 
 
 *' time, the Roman Climx-h was sending nnmbers of ships 
 " across the sea laden with alms. Such was even before 
 " the peace of the Church, the temporal power with which 
 " the faith of Christians surrounded the Apostolic See, and 
 " of which the charity of the Popes made so noble a use 
 "for the Avelfare of nations, ISIonuments and the most 
 " celebrated facts teach us that the Roman Church, in 
 " order to supply so many wants, not only possessed 
 "vessels of gold and silver and a great number of move- 
 " able goods, but also, considerable capital. The Pagans 
 " sometimes respected, sometimes carried off, these pos- 
 " sessions. Constantine ordered, says Eusebius, that 
 " restitution should be made to the clergy of the houses, the 
 *"' possessions, fields, gardens, and oilier goods of ivhich they 
 ^'had been unjustly depriTed. What a strange thing ! that 
 " Paganism should recognise that the Church had a right 
 " to property, and yet this is in the present day contested 
 "by nations which call themselves Christian."* 
 
 With the resources here so eloquently indicated, the 
 Popes, even in the earliest ages, provided for the evangeli- 
 zation of the most distant nations. Indeed, we scarcely 
 meet with a single Pontificate, not illustrated with this 
 blessed characteristic of the Apostolic ministry — a charac- 
 teristic which became more marked as time rolled on. Just 
 as the Church had attained its first triumph, the Pope, who 
 had most to do with the conversion of Constantine, and 
 with the splendid works of that Monarch for religion, was 
 consoled by the conversion of the Il^erians near the Black 
 Sea, and of the Abyssinians beyond the distant, southern 
 confines of ancient Egy]^)t. The Popes aided the terribly 
 tried Christians of Persia, under the long persecutions of 
 
 *lIonsigneur Dupanloup, Bishop of Orleans, on ths "Temporal Sovereignty of the 
 Popes." Paris, 1849. 
 
THE rrvOPAGANDA FROM THE BEGINNING. 13 
 
 Sapor and his successors, just as Leo XITI. aids the 
 persecuted Christians of China as I speak. We know of 
 the sohcitude of St. Celestine in selecting and sending Palla- 
 dius, a dignitary of the Eoman Curia, to convert the Irish 
 and Picts. Then came the mighty Mission of St. Patrick, 
 received at Rome from the same Holy Pontiff, and solemnly 
 confirmed by his successor. Soon after, St. Leo the Great 
 sent St. Valentinus, to carry the glad tidings of Pedemption 
 to those tribes once so formidable to Roman power, who 
 inhabited the forests bordering on the Danube and the 
 Rhine. St. Severinus, authorized by the same authority, 
 Avas contemporaneously carrying the faith to Panormia and 
 Norica, The Rhetians and the faithful Tyrolese received, 
 through the solicitude of Pope Leo, the grace of the faitli, 
 also from St. Severinus. Besides those absolute and 
 direct conversions, by saints from the very side of the 
 Roman Pontiff, every national conversion made, was helped 
 on, and had to be watched over, by his fatherly, evangelical 
 care. The conversion of Clovis and the Franks, and other 
 barbarians ; the destruction of Arianism amidst the fierce 
 tribes who embraced that heresy, and brought it with 
 them on their conquests ; the care of the Faith amongst 
 the ever-fickle Catholics in the East ; the ecclesiastical 
 formation of new realms, gained over by the Apostles 
 despatched for the purpose, constantly exercised the zeal 
 of the Sovereign Pontiffs in those days. Who does not 
 know the love and care manifested by St. Gregory the 
 Great for the desolate Anglo Saxon ancestors of the 
 people now inhabiting England, and so strangely in many 
 instances forgetful, or worse than forgetful, of the debt of 
 gratitude they owe the Popes ? It w^as not so with the 
 ancient Catholics of that land. The intercourse betw^een 
 them and then far off Rome, was greater than it is 
 
14 SPOLIATION OF THE PROPAGANDA. 
 
 to-day, with all our modern appliances for swift 
 and easy travelling. But then, not as now, it was love 
 of God and not of travel,'that brought the crowds of Anglo- 
 Saxon pilgrims to Rome. They loved to see Christ's Vicar, 
 to visit the tombs of the Apostles and Martyrs, and to 
 manifest the gratitude of their nation at the Shrine of the 
 real Apostle of England, Pope St. Gregory the Great. The 
 same Pontiff was as zealous and as successful in converting 
 all that remained of the Donatist heretics in Africa as in 
 evangelizing the people of Britain. The care of his succes- 
 sors for the vast conversions wrought by the multitude of 
 Irish missionary saints amongst the Pagans during the early 
 middle ages, and of missionary saints like St. Boniface and 
 St. Willibrord, who came from England, is just as remark- 
 able. The connection of the Popes with SS. Cyril and 
 Methodius, the Apostles of the Bulgarians, the Moravians, 
 and the Bohemians, has been recently brought very promi- 
 nently before the world of our day, by our present Holy 
 Father who has just built a church to honour their memory, 
 over the remains of St. Cyril, one of the two, who died in 
 Rome. Pope St. Nicholas the Great and Pope John VIII. 
 sent bishops, priests, and ample assistance to the same 
 evangelic labourers, who are the Apostles and civilizers not 
 only of the nations before mentioned, but also of Moravia, 
 Silesia, Bosnia, Circassia, Russia, Dalmatia, Panoramia, 
 Dacia, Carinthia and several neighbouring nations. Under 
 Pope Sylvester II. the great warlike nation of the Hunga- 
 rians became converted by the zeal of their truly apostolic 
 King, St. Stephen ; and to this day the crown sent by the 
 Pope to that Monarch, is used in the coronation of the 
 Kings of Hungary (now the Emperors of Austria), who 
 retain with just pride the privilege to have the Cross borne 
 before them, and to take the title of Apostolic Majesty, 
 
THE PROPAGANDA FROM THE BEGINNING. 15 
 
 both given by the Pope. With every conversion which 
 afterwards took place in the North of Europe or elsewhere, 
 the Popes had the same intimate connection, and their 
 Apostolic zeal never flagged until a still wider field than 
 ever opened out for it by the discovery of America, and the 
 coming of that unfortunate torrent of heresy and schism 
 from which all our present religious misfortunes flow, and 
 which is known under the name of the Reformation. 
 
 The Popes of this period dealt with the duties brought 
 upon them by one and the other of these momentous events, 
 as became their traditions and their obligations. The vast 
 fields opened up for Missionary zeal by the discoveries of 
 Columbus and Vasco di Gama were soon occupied by their 
 care. It w^as, after all, but a phase in the kind of evangeli- 
 zation which their predecessors had carried on in one part 
 or another of the world, since the days of St. Peter and 
 St. Paul. 
 
 More difficult far became the task of repairing the 
 injury done to many countries by the ravage occasioned by 
 many reformers of many minds and many degrees of hatred 
 for Catholicity. Wars followed fast upon doctrinal differ- 
 ences. The face of whole kingdoms changed. Radical 
 political changes grew apace. The work of the conversion 
 of England, Scotland, Prussia, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, 
 and several minor German States had to be commenced 
 over again, with the difference that heresy was a far more 
 redoubtable opponent than Paganism of any kind. It was 
 a system of various-phased negations constantly changing, 
 never knowing its own Christian belief, and satisfied only 
 upon some f)oints which it refused to hold in common with 
 the Church of God. Its systems, all made by men, accord- 
 ing to caprice, or logical necessity springing from error, 
 differed one from the other fully as much as all differed from 
 
16 SPOLIATION OF THE PROPAGANDA. 
 
 the Catholic faith of as^es. The reasoninq* to be used airainst 
 one sect would not suit against another. On points of 
 the most vital importance all held opposite views. Some 
 would have it that Christ was God, and others that He. was 
 not. Some held for Grace and others for pure Pelagianism. 
 Some admitted the Real Presence, and others regarded 
 that doctrine as idolatrous. One party held out for more 
 or less sacramental efficacy, and others denied it, in part 
 or entirely. So the babel went on, in nothing united save 
 in hatred and opposition to the one, stable, changeless 
 truth of the old religion. In Ireland, in France, in 
 Germany, wars took place between fellow-countrymen on 
 points of doctrine. In England and other countries the 
 party in opposition to Catholicity found out, as they 
 thought, not only that the religion of their forefathers 
 for generations was wrong, but they further considered it 
 to be their duty to deprive such of their fellow-citizens as 
 continued to hold the old Faith, of goods, of liberty, of civil 
 status, and even of life itself. Almost everywhere in 
 Europe, confusion and anger reigned in those sadly 
 troubled times. 
 
 None experienced more difficulty in dealing with the 
 perplexing responsibilities arising from the Reformation 
 than the Roman Pontiffs. The business of the Holy See 
 increased to an enormous extent. Several new Congre- 
 gations had to be formed by the action of the Council 
 of Trent alone. Every department of Church adminis- 
 tration had to be remodelled. New Orders arose provi- 
 dentially to meet the needs of the times. These had to be 
 guided and watched over. Contemporaneously with the 
 religious troubles in Europe, new fields for Missionary 
 enterprise were opened up in America, in Asia, in Africa, 
 oven in some of the Isles of the Pacific. Mahometanism, 
 
TilE rK01*AGANDA FIIOM THE BEGINNING. 17 
 
 instead of subsiding, began to grow more menacing. 
 England, Scotland, and most of the Northern Kingdoms 
 of Europe ceased to be Catholic. The fires of the sanctuary 
 Avere completely quenched in Denmark, Prussia, Sweden, 
 Norway and several German Principalities. Ireland 
 sustained the full pressure of the power of England to 
 force her — though, thank God, in vain — to abjure the 
 Faith. Prance was in a state of civil war on account of 
 religion. Switzerland was divided, Hungary, Poland, and 
 Bohemia wavered. The work of real Reformation in 
 purely Catholic countries; the repression of attempts at 
 schism from Avithout and disorder from within; occupied 
 the common Father of the Faithful unceasingly. It Avas 
 Avhen the difficulties of his position increased to such an 
 extent^ that it Avas morally impossible for him to attend 
 any longer, personally, to everything required for the 
 purpose of spreading the Faith, that he at last called in 
 the assistance of a special Congregation to assist him in a 
 Avork Avhich his predecessors had at all periods of their 
 preAdous history discharged by themselves alone. 
 
 Gregory XIII. filled the Chair of St, Peter at the 
 period Avlien the Avork of the evangelization of the 
 nations pressed lieaAiest. He may be said to have 
 employed himself solely in that Avork. For the Avants of 
 the Germans and Hungarians he had, out of his OAvn re- 
 sources, founded and perpetually endoAved a magnificent 
 College Avliich still subsists in Rome. He formed the 
 English College for the resuscitation of the Faith in Britain ; 
 the Polish College for the Poles ; and for the vast missions 
 then evangelized by the zeal of the ncAvly formed Society 
 of Jesus, he built and endoAved the magnificent Roman 
 College of the Gesu, Avherein he placed no less than three 
 hundred cells for students and twenty auditories for 
 
 B 
 
18 SPOLIATION OF THE PKOPAGANDA. . 
 
 instruction. Out of this went the men whose eloquence 
 resounded along the banks of the Rhine, and whose holy 
 lives, boundless zeal and great learning won back millions 
 in the German Fatherland to the Faith. Thence, too, went 
 forth the men who penetrated into the heart of the old 
 civilization of China, to the East and West Indies, and to 
 the fastnesses and virgin forests of the newly-discovered 
 tribes of America. Gregory XIII. embraced in his zeal 
 the East as well as the West. He founded in Rome 
 Colleges for the Greeks, and for the Maronites of Mount 
 Libanus. Nor did he forget, in his care for far off nations, 
 the claims of his o^vn See. The Jews of Ghetto and 
 the youth of Rome have to thank his great heart for 
 permanent means established for their care and education. 
 He was the patron of physical science as well as of sacred 
 studies ; and to him, to Gregory XIII. , Hugo Buoncom- 
 pagno, the modern world is indebted for the reformation 
 of the Calendar on a basis more correct than that attempted 
 before him by a man more famous, but not so great in 
 works of real utility, Julius C?esar, the first of the rulers 
 of Imperial Rome. 
 
 The work of what may be called the Foreign Missions 
 Increased to such overwhelming proportions through the 
 snhghtened Christian zeal of thisgreat Pope, that he found 
 himself compelled to call in the assistance of a few 
 Cardinals, and to commit to their vigilance the duty of 
 watching over the Propagation of the Faith. These 
 Cardinals could be scarcely called a Congregation. They 
 were more a kind of committee of vigilance to keep the 
 Pope posted in what should be effected by the centre of 
 unity for the evangelization of the world. But the idea had 
 its origin in the necessity which forced the Pontiff to call 
 them together at all, and it soon produced its fruit. The 
 
Tin: PROPACANDA FK(),M THK BEGINNINC. 19 
 
 successors of Gregory Avere forced to advert to it from the 
 impossibility of dealing Avith every case ; and at last 
 Gregory XV., of the famous Bologncse family, of the 
 Ludovisi, determined to found a real, formal, Sacred Con- 
 gregation, for the work which we may call the Foreign 
 Office of the Church. He not only established it, but con- 
 ferred the most ample powers upon it, and gave it large 
 means to commence that beneficent action, which was soon 
 everywhere felt in the immense regions over which it 
 exercised the paternal solicitude of the Vicar of Christ. 
 
 Gregory XV. founded the Sacred Congregation of the 
 Propaganda by a Bull bearing date July 22nd, 1622. 
 In this he clearly made known, that his intention was to 
 establish a department of Church administration and action 
 which should assiduously attend to the important duty, 
 hitherto discharged by his predecessors alone, without 
 special organized assistance, of extending the Faith in 
 countries where it did not exist, and of restoring it in places 
 where it may have been lost or injured. The duty of the 
 Congregation was, according to the words of this Bull, 
 "to study diligently, that those sheep miserably wandering 
 " away should again return to the Fold of Christ, and 
 " acknowledge the Lord and the Shepherd of the Flock, 
 " to devise the best means by which, through the influence 
 " of Divine grace, they may cease to wander through the 
 " endless pasturages of infidelity and heresy, drinking the 
 " deadly waters of pestilence, and be placed in the pasturage 
 " of true faith and salutary doctrine, and be brought to the 
 " fountains of the water of life." 
 
 The Ajypimti or Memoranda published by the Sacred 
 Congregation recently, in reference to the definite sentence 
 of the Italian Masonic Court of Appeal, to which it applied 
 for relief against the action of the Government, state : — 
 
20 SPOLIATION OF THE PROPAGANDA. 
 
 "For this end, he (Gregory XV.) wished to depute in 
 " his name a Congregation of Cardinals, who unitedly 
 " should exercise the greater portion of the Apostolic 
 " Ministry, that most noble office, which, up to that time, 
 " his predecessors had discharged by themselves and 
 " without the ministry of others." 
 
 The Appimti, afterwards, quote other passages of the 
 Bull of Gregory XV., who thus continues : — 
 
 "For even although by the pastoral vigilance, 
 " assistance, study, and exertions of the R-oman Pontiffs, 
 " our predecessors, of happy memory, it was provided that 
 " so many harvests should not be in want of labourers in 
 "the past, and our successors can also do the same, we 
 " have thought it well to commit to the special solicitude 
 " of a certain numl^er of our venerable brethren, Cardinals 
 " of the Holy Roman Church, this particular business, as 
 " by the tenor of these presents we do commit and do give 
 " over to them. Desiring that, congregated together, and 
 "using also the assistance of certain prelates of the Roman 
 " Court, religious men, and a secretary (as we ourselves 
 " have desired, and named them for the first time), they 
 " should consult together, and watch over so great a matter 
 " together with us, and in the best possible manner that it 
 " can be done, attend to a work so holy and so exceedingly 
 ' pleasing to the Divine Majesty. For the more convenient 
 "discharge of which duty let them hold congregations 
 " every month — once before us, and twice at least in the 
 "house of the senior Cardinal amongst themselves — and 
 " there learn and treat of all and every affair appertaining 
 " to the Propagation of the Faith throughout the world. 
 " Let them refer the graver affairs which they shall have 
 " treated in the above-mentioned house to Us, but other 
 "matters let them decide and despatch by themselves, 
 
THE P110PAGA>;!)A FlIO?,! THE BEGINNING. 1^1 
 
 *' according to their own prudence. Let them superintend all 
 " missions for preaching and teaching the Gospel and the 
 *' Catholic doctrine, and constitute and change the necessary 
 ''Ministers. For We, by Apostolic authority, concede and 
 "imj^art, by the tenor of these presents, full, free, and 
 " ample faculty, authority, and power of doing, carrying on, 
 " treating, acting, and executing both the above-named, as 
 " well as all and every other matter, even if such should be 
 " a matter which requires a specific and express mention." 
 " But, in order that a business of such moment, in 
 " which great expenses are necessarily contracted by the 
 "happy commutation of temporal with spiritual things, 
 '' may not be retarded by any impediment, and may proceed 
 " more easily and speedily, bej^ond that Avliich we have 
 " already ordered to be supplied from our private means, 
 " and that which is given by the liberality of the pious 
 *' faithful, and that aid which for the future we confide, will 
 " not be wanting, as the affair is our own and that of this 
 " Holy See, we contribute to this work certain revenues for 
 " ever from our Apostolic resources." 
 
 The Ajjj^imti commenting on this, say : — 
 " The Pontiff", then, constituting the Propaganda the 
 " organic means for discharging the Apsotolate amongst the 
 " infidel and heterodox, ever fixed to it a sublime ministry 
 " which was a substantial part of the spiritual sovereignty 
 " received for the government of the Church ; and that 
 " to such great extent, that regarding it with respect to 
 ' the territory over which it exercises jurisdiction, it can be 
 " said, without fear of error, that, in four at least out of the 
 " five parts of the world, the government of the Church is 
 " held and administered by the Propaganda. The power is 
 " so great and so unreserved, that all and every matter apper- 
 " taining to the propagation of the Faith in the universal 
 
22 SPOLIATION OF THE PROPAGANDA. 
 
 " world, is confided to it by the Vicars of Christ, to the 
 " exclusion of any other organ whatsoever, and this with 
 " such solemnity, that Urban VIII., on the 2nd of August, 
 " 1634, and Innocent X. on the 3rd of July, 1652, ordered 
 " that the authentic decrees of the Propaganda should have 
 " the force of Apostolic Constitutions." 
 
 In this way the Congregation started into existence. 
 
 The number of Cardinals, which in the beginning was 
 fixed at thirteen, has been since, from time to time, increased. 
 A Prefect was appointed over them as over other congrega- 
 tions, and subsequently a Cardinal was appointed specially 
 over the finance department. A secretary — subsequently 
 two, one for the Eastern branch, and one for the Western — 
 and writers were added, together with many consulters 
 taken from the foremost religious and secular ecclesiastics 
 residing in Pome. The whole formed a distinct Corporation 
 capable of sueing and being sued. It at once commenced 
 the work confided to it ; and the world has, from that day 
 to this, experienced the benefits of its zealous and always 
 prudent administration. The whole Church, except in the 
 purely Catholic kingdoms of Europe, passed under its con- 
 trol ; and its ministry has become not only valuable, but, in 
 fact, absolutely necessary for the due exercise of the solici- 
 tude of the Vicar of Christ in such an immense area of the 
 world committed to his keeping. 
 
 In the Bull by which Gregory XV. instituted the 
 Sacred Congregation, we find it clearly laid down that it 
 should be all this. Moreover, the help which he anticipated 
 from the faithful, came almost immediately. This appears 
 specially in the foundation of the celebrated seminary now 
 known as- — 
 
TI[K rilBAN COLLEGE. 23 
 
 III. 
 
 THE URBAN COLLEGE. 
 
 Through the zeal of John Baptist Vives, one of its consult- 
 ing prelates, the Sacred Congregation came into possession 
 of the necessary property and the buildings which are now 
 occupied by offices attached to Propaganda and by a college 
 for the education of missionaries destined to carry out its 
 principal aim in evangelizing the nations. The immediate 
 successor of Gregory XV. was the celebrated Urban VIII., 
 a member of the illustrious Barberini fjimilv. This areat 
 Pontiff" earnestly resumed the work of his predecessor in the 
 matter of the Sacred Congregation of the Propaganda Fide. 
 To him, Monsgr. John Baptist Vives, acting, as Moroni tells 
 us, under the direction of his own confessor, Michael 
 Ghisheri, of the Order of Tlieatines, offered his place in the 
 Piazza di Spagna. This residence previously belonged to 
 Cardinal Ferratini, from whom the street called Via 
 Fratina, wdiich at present leads dii'ectly from the Corso to 
 the Propaganda, takes its name. Urban VIII. gladly 
 accepted the offer; and with further aid from Vives, estab- 
 lished the famous college to which he gave his own name — a 
 name it bears to this day — Collegio Urbano de Propa- 
 ganda Fide. Moroni thus speaks of this gift : — "Matters 
 " progressed so far that Monsignor Vives decided to devote 
 " all he had to this purpose (the foundation of the college), 
 " and he employed Father Ghislieri to draw up a plan for 
 " changing his palace into such a college. With these 
 " admirable sentiments the Prelate Vives made an offer of 
 "■ the Palace to Urban VIII. (Barheriiii). This illustrious 
 " Pontiff" being animated with the livehest interest for the 
 " augmentation of the Catholic religion and for the greater 
 
-4: SPOLIATION OF THE PROPAGANDA. 
 
 " glory of God, approved of the gift of the good Prelate, 
 " and with the authority of the Bull ' Tmmortalis Dei ' given 
 ''on the Kalends of August, 1627, canonically instituted in 
 " the same palace an Apostolic College or Seminary for 
 " youths of every nation who should be promoted to orders 
 '' after one year, and afterwards to the Priesthood, and he 
 'placed the College under the invocation and patronage of 
 " SS. Peter and Paul. He put it moreover under the 
 " protection of the Apostolic See, and under the rule and 
 " laws which he and his successors should be pleased to 
 "make for its government. He assigned to it perpetually 
 "the oblation of the well-deserving Vives, consisting of 
 "one hundred and three places on the mountain and other 
 " estates, yielding yearly about seven hundred scudi in 
 "rent, besides other revenues which that Prelate left it at 
 "death. On the principal facade of the building was 
 "placed the following inscription : — 
 
 " Collegium de Propaganda Fide Per Universum 
 
 Orbem. 
 "And afterwards the same Urban VIII. caused to 
 " be substituted for this another, which was placed beneath 
 "his own arms, and still subsists, and which runs as 
 " follows : — 
 
 " Collegium Urbanum de Propoganda Fide." 
 The palace of Monsignor Vives was greatly improved 
 by Urban VIII. , who employed the celebrated Bernini to 
 construct the offices of the Comimtisteria, or finance 
 department, on the ground floor ; the Segretaria, or 
 business portion, on the first floor ; and the Siamperia, or 
 printing office, on the upj^er floor. Alexander VIL, 
 the next successor but one of Urban VIII., carried the 
 buildings on towards the Church of St. Andrea dei Frati. 
 He also built the beautiful College Chapel in the form in 
 
THE URBAN COLLEGE. 25 
 
 wliieli it is to be found to-day. He employed in both 
 works the rival of Bernini, Francesco Borromini. Leo XII. 
 removed the printing offices to the ground floor, at the end 
 of the building ; and in the part where these were placed 
 before, he formed apartments for the Cardinal Prefect, so 
 that the latter might be always on the spot for watching 
 over the many important interests of the Congregation. 
 On the highest story were also provided the apartments of 
 the Secretary of the Pro23aganda, and the famous INIuseum 
 connected with the Institution. 
 
 Besides the gift of the site and the Palace, Monsigiior 
 Vives provided also ten places in the College for students 
 destined to carry the Gospel wherever the Sacred Congre- 
 gation might send them. Almost at the same time with this 
 gift, came another valual^le donation from Cardinal Antonio 
 Barberini, the brother of Urban VIII. This was the 
 perpetual foundation of twelve places for as many students, 
 who should be taken in the proportion of two from each 
 one of the Persian, Georgian, Coptic^ Nestorian, Jacobite, 
 and INIelchite rites or nations. The zealous Cardinal, 
 elevated the number of students to three of each nation, 
 soon afterwards, making eighteen in all, of his own founda- 
 tion. And from that to this, these far-off peoples have been 
 supplied with a constant stream of well-educated pastors 
 from the centre of Christendom by the zeal of this good 
 Prince of the Church, who was in his lifetime also one of 
 the Cardinals attached to the Sacred Congregation of the 
 Propaganda. His zeal did not finish here. Before his 
 death, Moroni tells us, that he founded thirteen places in 
 the Urban College for the nations of Ethiopia, Abyssinia, 
 and Brackmania. Wise regulations were in all cases laid 
 down for the giving of these places, and for the discharge 
 of the obligations of those who profited by them. Urban 
 
26 SPOLIATION OF THE PKOPAGANDA. 
 
 VIII. attached this College perpetually to the Sacred Con- 
 gregation of the Propaganda, and Innocent X. increased it 
 by the funds and the alumni of a small Maronite College 
 previously established in Bologna. So the College con- 
 tinued to advance in its sphere of Church utility ; and with 
 it arose and progressed institutions necessary for its own 
 work and for the work of the Sacred Congregation, which, 
 Avith pinidence and zeal, continued to direct the whole of 
 the missionary responsibility of the Holy See from the 
 days of Gregory XV. to those of Leo XIII. 
 
 I will here quote for you a remarkable document 
 furnished me by Monsignor Conrado, the present, erudite, 
 zealous, and greatly beloved Eector of the Propaganda 
 College. It is interesting, and manifests the sources 
 from which the educational funds of the C'ollege were 
 derived. Translated from the original Italian, it is as 
 follows : — 
 
 NOTICE OF THE TJEBAN COLLEGE, TAKEN FROM THE 
 ARCHIVES OF THE PROPAGANDA. 
 
 Befoee commencing to speak of the institution of the Urban College, 
 from whence have gone forth so many personages illustrious for the pro- 
 fundity of their knowledge, for the sanctity of their lives, and for their zeal 
 for religion, it is necessary to give an idea of the origin of the Sacred 
 Congregation destined for the propagation of the Faith. Because, however 
 divided one from the other, these two pious establishmeuts were in the 
 beginning, the College owes its existence, certainly, to the Sacred Congrega- 
 tion. The immortal Gregory XV., called to the consideration of the duties 
 of the supreme authority of the Church, saw amongst the very first that of 
 carrying the Gospel light amidst the darkness of the Gentiles, that of 
 uniting in the bond of charity those who lived disjoined from it, and that 
 of bringing back to the true belief those who found themselves immersed 
 in error ; he, therefore, in the second year of his pontificate, instituted this 
 Sacred Congregation, to which he confided the propagation of the Faith 
 throughout the universe. It was composed of thirteen Cardinals, two 
 Prelates, and one religious <klla Scala. The Cardinals met together for the 
 first time on the 6th of December, 1622. In this first meeting the Cardinal 
 Ludovisi having mentioned the motive of its creation, asked his collegues 
 to manifest openly their sentiments regarding the best manner of propaga- 
 
THE URBAN COLLEGE. 27 
 
 ting the Faith. It was resolved that all the Nuncios of the Holy See should 
 be written to, in order that they should send information regarding the 
 state of religion in the provinces and kingdoms committed to them ; also, 
 that the heads of Eeligious Orders should receive instructions to send 
 accounts of the state of the missions conducted by them amongst heretics 
 and infidels. And first of all it was resolved that the Bishop of Cozentino 
 should be written to for the papers which he held in charge regarding the 
 propagation of the Faith in the time of Clement VIII. 
 
 The Bull of the erection, the revenues necessary, the purchase of a palace 
 which should be an asylum for the converted, the residence for the alumni 
 destined for the service of the missions, and the material foundation of the 
 Congregation itself, were also matters of deliberation in that first session. 
 Monsignor Yives of Valencia in Spain, Ambassador of Isabella, the 
 illustrious Infanta of Spain and Governor of the Belgian Provinces, a 
 personage of singular piety, offered for the purposes of the Congregation 
 the Ferratina Palace, where even at present the most eminent Cardinals 
 meet to decide upon religious questions which arise in different parts of the 
 world. On the 4th of February following, the second Congregation was 
 held. The principal things then considered were the faculties, the relations 
 to be made to the Pope after each Congregation, and the manner by which 
 a revenue might be created for that pious establishment. Amongst other pro- 
 jects the Cardinal of Saint Susannah proposed the application of the Cardinal's 
 rings. This project was pleasing to all, and the Pope by inserting it in his 
 Bull approved of it, and it still subsists. The same Gregory, at the canoniza- 
 tion of Saint Ignatius and Saint Isidore, gave two thousand five hundred 
 golden crowns ; also when he prescribed that the Congregation should meet 
 once a month before the Pope he offered ten thousand scudi. Nor did this 
 limit his pious liberality, since other acts are found of his munificence. 
 
 The Bishops of Christendom also received impulses to collect alms for the 
 promotion of this holy work in the Lenten times. A certain obligation, it 
 appears, arose, since by reason of the pious contributions, great acquirements 
 were made for the work. In consequence, regulations were drawn up regard- 
 ing the administration. Two Cardinals, with the Cardinal's Secretary, were 
 elected every year to superintend the temporal interests of the Congregation. 
 Fmally, there was besides instituted a special judge, an agent, and a notary. 
 Matters thus progressed until, on the 8th July, Gregory XV. passed to a better 
 life. The Cardinal Barberini succeeded him, and took the name of Urban VIII. 
 On the 4th September the first Congregation was held under the new Pontiff. 
 Urban VIII. by his Bull, ImmortaUs, ordained the erection of the Congregation 
 on the 1st of August, 1627. The spirit of the Bull is as follows : — The holy 
 Pontiff first mentions the grave burden which he feels in the government of the 
 Universal Church. He mentions the supplication of Monsigr. Vives, by which 
 the intended College is reduced to some form, and by which the latter gives his 
 palace and all its annexes, together with all the rest of his goods, with the 
 reserve of the use only during his natural life. He institutes the College on 
 the condition that if it does not become a reality during his own pontificate ; it 
 should obtain it in that of his successors. He speaks of the instance of Monsigr. 
 
29, SPOLIATION OF THE PIIOPAGAXDA. 
 
 Vives, and the confimiation accorded with the condition expressed in the 
 instrument. He then institutes after the acceptation of the donation, after the 
 confirmation of the conditions, and after the making good of any defects, the 
 Pontifical College or Apostolic Seminary, under the invocation of SS. Peter and 
 Paul, by the name of the Urban College, for the defence and Propagation of 
 the Faith, called the Propaganda. (By the form of the Bull, iV^e nova, of the 
 13th of March, 1640, it is forbidden to every college or seminary to take that 
 designation.) He orders that the alumni from the secular state can be 
 taken from every nation. They should be of sound maxims, of pure 
 morals, and of sound piety. They should serve throughout their whole lives, 
 encounter dangers, sufferings, and, if need be, martyrdom. He assigns the 
 dotation for the maintenance of the econome, of the rector, of the masters, and 
 of the students, deputing as administrators three Canons of the three patri- 
 archal basilicas, at the death of whom he reserves to himself the nomination of 
 their successors, to be taken from that basilica to which the deceased belonged. 
 He accords to these ample faculties to elect and remove rectors, economes, 
 officials, and masters ; to make rules and give orders conformable to the canons 
 and apostolic constitutions ; to change these, to correct them and interpret them. 
 He exempts all the individuals of the College from every jurisdiction of the 
 vicar, senator, conservator, and rector of studies, as well as from whatsoever 
 tax whether of land or sea. He takes the college under his own immediate 
 protection and awards to it every privilege conceded to the German, 
 English or Greek Colleges. He inhibits any one from molesting either the 
 college or the officials. He wishes that no one should regard as defective, 
 tight against, suspend, call in judgment for vice of nullity or intention, 
 Avhomsoever should be there found residing, and declares null all that which 
 could be attempted, knowingly or unknowingly, against his constitution. 
 He orders the Bishops of Ostia, the Vicar, and the Auditor of the Apostolic 
 Camera to execute this Bull, so that no one under whatsoever pretext could 
 molest it. He threatens censures and the secular arm against its contra- 
 veners. He finally terminates his Bull with the most ample derogatory forms. 
 The College remained divided from the Sacred Congregation until 1641. 
 But on the 16th of lln.y of that year the same Urban VIII. gave another 
 Bull — Romanus Pontifex. In this he revoked and annulled the faculties 
 given to the three Canons of the Patriarchal basilicas. He unites the 
 College to the Sacred Congregation, but leaving the adminstration, govern- 
 ment and direction of it to the Cardinal of St. Onefrius "having taken 
 counsel, as we hope," says the Bull, " with the Congregation of the before- 
 mentioned Cardinals, and with the approbation of the Eoman Pontiff in affairs 
 of greater importance." 
 
 FOUND ATI OXS FOE STUDENTS. 
 
 The first foundation for students was made by Monsgr. Vives for the 
 alumni, priests or secular clergyman of whatever nation destined for the 
 Propagation of the Faith througiiout the universe. 
 
 The second foundation was made by Cardinal Antonio Barberini with the 
 ju3 patro7iatus reserved, so far as nomination was concerned, to his family. 
 
Till-: uiinAN C()Lij:(iE. 29 
 
 This wus destined for six nations, each one of which ouj^ht to supply two 
 students. These nations were the Georgian, Persian, Chaldean, Melchite, 
 Jacobite and Copt. Urban VIII. gave a JiuW^Altitudo Divini — erecting these 
 foundations, on the 1st of April, 1G37. In this he subjected the alumni to the 
 rule of the College, and to the oath conceding to them all the privileges, 
 faculties and exemptions already enjoyed by the other collegians. 
 
 The third foundation Wfis also by the same Cardinal Barberini. It was for 
 seven Ethiopians or Abyssinians, and for ex-Brahmins in Eastern India. 
 Urban VIII. gave a Bull erecting these in 1639 — Onorosa pastoralis Officii. 
 In this he added that if young men could not be found in one of these nation.s 
 they should bo taken from the others; and if in neither, they should be taken 
 from the Armenians in this order, that they should be first those of Poland, 
 then those of Constantinople, then from Tartary, Pericop, Georgia and 
 Armenia the Greater, and Armenia the Less, and finally from Persia. The 
 examination of these also belonged to the family of the Barberini. These 
 students were also placed under the same oath, privileges, etc., as the others. 
 The dotation was assigned for maintaining them, the protector and his faculties. 
 As a crown to such great beneficence the same Cardinal gave in 1646 to the 
 Sacred Congregation the houses which constitute the Island of the College 
 valued at 56,233 scudi. In order to bring the fabric to its present form the 
 same Sacred Congregation spent 96,496 scudi. He died the same year, and left 
 heir to all his estate the Sacred Congregation, to which he also left 1000 scudi 
 of pension which he had from certain episcopal sees. 
 
 In 1701 Monsgr. Scanegatti, Bishop of Avellino, left the Sacred Congrega- 
 tion his heir, with the obligation of maintaining five students, reduced to four 
 in 1733. 
 
 In 1704 Cardinal Barberini founded a new place to be added to the others of 
 his house. 
 
 In 1708 Clement XI. gave 4000 scudi for the maintenance of a student. 
 
 In 1715 an Albanian Catholic gave to the Sacred Congregation an offering of 
 1600 scudi for the education of an alumnus^ with the right of alternative 
 nomination. 
 
 In 1719 Cardinal di Adda left the Sacred Congregation his heir, with the 
 obligation of maintaining as many students as it could support by his income. 
 All these being free, the Sacred Congregation assigned one to the Basilian and 
 one to each, of the four Irish Archbishops. But so far as it concerned the 
 Irish, in 1726, the Sacred Congregation, having been requested if these places 
 were conceded perpetually, replied affirmatively, until the Sacred Congregation 
 shoidd decide otherwise. It is to be here borne in mind that in this cor.- 
 cession there is a derogation from a decree of 1644, which laid down that no 
 students should be received from nations which had colleges either in Pome or 
 outside of Pome. 
 
 In 1743 the Sacred Congregation, with 100 LL. M. M., given by John 
 Dominic Spinola, assigned two places to the Bulgarians and one to the Servians, 
 as was found in the College of Fermo, re-united to the Urban College in 1746. 
 
 There were also two supernumerary, one Swedish, and another Algerine. 
 The post maintained by Cardinal Albani, the second by Cardinal San Clemen te. 
 
30 SPOLIATION OF THE PROPAGANDA. 
 
 The piety of the Emperor Charles YI., in order to provide for the spiritual 
 ■welfare of the Greek Wallachians of Transylvania, in the year 1736, ordered 
 that the chamber of that province should pay annually the sum of 432 scudi 
 for the purpose of maintaining three alumni in this College. This assignment 
 was accepted and confirmed by the Pope. The first alumnun was Monsgr. 
 Avon, afterwards Bishop of . Biaritz. To this bishop was afterwards assigned 
 certain funds with the obligation of maintaining twenty alumni in the pro- 
 vince, and to pay for the support of the three to the Propaganda. In the end 
 negotiations were opened in order to diminish such expense, but the issue of 
 them is unknown. 
 
 In 1772 two Scotch foundations were instituted, with funds given by Car- 
 dinal di Burnis, and coming from the legacy Montesisto of the codex. 
 
 1772. In the College the monks sent by the Patriarch of Cilicia were 
 received. 
 
 1754. The Chaldeans of Mossul obtained two places. For ten years the 
 alumni were reduced to thirty-four. 
 
 By the reunion of the College of Fermo, and by the places having been 
 brought up to the ancient number, the alumini were sixty-four in 1759. Of 
 these foundations some are of free oollation, and others oi the jus pair onat us of 
 the Barberini family. The Monsignor Secretary presents to the said family 
 the students, and they forward the diplomas. They cannot, however, be 
 admitted without the previous approbation of the Sacred Congregation. In 
 the absence of ecclesiastics, even a lady — as was done by Cornelia Costanza — 
 can use the right acquired. For the rest, that illustrious family beiug rendered so 
 well meriting of the College, it enjoys the right to have a copy of all the works 
 which issue from its printing office. In what pertains to the admission of the 
 students, no one can be received if he has not been previously admitted by 
 the Sacred Congregation. Therefore, Bishops and Vicars-Apostolic do not 
 use arbitrary means in sending them, as happened on other ocuaiions. 
 
 But if they do not receive them from the Sacred Congregation, the Congre- 
 gation is bound to accept them for compassion, and with its own loss. 
 
 The alumni ought to be sound, without defect of body, of good disposition 
 and morals, of Catholic family, civil, and with the credit of having goods of 
 fortune, sufficient to pay the expenses of the voyage to Europe. 
 
 There are the following recent foundations : — Six places were founded by 
 Father Michael Doyle, of Dublin, an ex-student, about the year 1850. 
 
 Foundations for Scotland by the Cardinal of York, who left for that purpose 
 the Eoman suburban tenement called the Loazzo. 
 
 On the 25th of June, 1853, Don Armando Heljen, ex-alumnus, left two 
 foundations to the Propaganda for Belgium. 
 
 One was left in 1879 for the Diocese of Port Main, in the United States. 
 
 One place was founded by Monsignor O'Bryen, for America, in 1883. 
 
 Dr. Backhouse also left, for Sandhurst in Australia, as much as will 
 perhaps sustain three students. He was an Alumnus of Propaganda, and left 
 considerable means for the benefit of the diocese in which he laboured long and 
 successfully, and of which he was the first Vicar-Qeueral. 
 
THE uniLV>N culle(;e. 31 
 
 From the College here described, thousands of apos- 
 tolic men have gone forth to distant lands, and not a few 
 of these have won the crown of martyrdom. Tlie visitor 
 to Rome now meets with representatives of every race 
 under heaven who come to that Urban Colleii:e for an 
 ecclesiastical education to fit them for the ministry in their 
 several nations. Amidst the various bands of young 
 students bearing the Propaganda uniform he sees the Red 
 Indian of the American Forests, the dark son of Central 
 Africa, the islander of the Southern Seas, the young China- 
 man destined for one of the provinces of his Emperor's 
 Celestial Kingdom, the native of Corea, the child of the 
 Arabian Desert, the soft-featured Circassian, the swarthy 
 Syrian, and occasionally a fair-haired son of Albion ; but 
 never can he miss from the camerate of the Propaganda 
 the tall, muscular forms of that wonderful Celtic race, 
 which from the very opening of the Urban College, has 
 never ceased to form a part, and even a great part of its 
 aluiiini. The Irish come to it from their island home, 
 although no less than three distinctive colleges for their 
 nation exist in Rome. A mitigation in their favour was 
 made in a rule permitting no nation which had a special 
 College of its own in Rome to send alumni to the Propa- 
 ganda. Notwithstanding this rule the four Archbishops 
 of Ireland obtained places for students. And then the 
 same missionary race sent alumni as Irish as the Irish at 
 home, from America, Canada, Australia, India, and other 
 lands which the vast migrations of its people had evangel- 
 ised. No polyglot exhibition of the many which have been 
 given in the Propaganda has ever been wanting in Irish 
 names — a proof in itself of the wonderful extent and in- 
 fluence of Irish faith in the missionary labours of the 
 Church. The number of Irish Propaganda students who 
 
•32 SPOLIATION OF THE PROPAGANDA. 
 
 have rendered distinguished services to rehgion in foreign 
 lands is very great ; and since the formation of the Church 
 in North America, the number of the sons of Irishmen, 
 educated also in Propaganda, who have there attained con- 
 siderable eminence, is specially remarkable. It may be 
 also well to state that the schools of the Propaganda, 
 directed by the Sacred Congregation, and under the 
 immediate superintendence of the Cardinal Prefect, are 
 attended by the alumni of several Roman missionary 
 Colleges, amongst which I may number the Irish College 
 students, and those of the Greek, Armenian, and North 
 and South American Colleges. They are all taught gra- 
 tuitously ; and their Colleges, as well as other Missionary 
 Colleges not taught in the Propaganda Schools, share in 
 the solicitude of the Sacred Congregation, which watches 
 over every concern of a missionary character in the city 
 and in the world — in urbe et in orhe. 
 
 Besides the Urban College, and the great schools for 
 sacred science there are other departments taught within 
 the precincts of the Propaganda Palace, most interesting, 
 not only to the Catholic, but to the learned of every 
 nation. Foremost amonerst these comes 
 
THE LIBRARY. 33 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE LIBRAKY. 
 
 Qn this are collected rare books in every known and 
 spoken language, and in languages >Yhose literatures were 
 formed by the labours of Catholic Missionaries only. Of 
 the latter class are Avorks in the very difficult dialects of 
 innumerable Indian tribes, whose tongues had to be 
 learned, reduced to grammar, and made permanent by the 
 labour of the devoted men, who went to carry the light 
 of the Gospel, and with it brought, as Catholic Missionaries 
 have ever done, the light also of true civilization. 
 Through this means the Maori of New Zealand, the 
 natives of Fiji, and Samoa, and of Tonga-Taboo, can read 
 and write, and be brought into civilized contact with the 
 white man. Eastern literature gives to this library a 
 value still more extraordinary. In it learned men of 
 every rite into which Eastern Christianity is divided, have 
 left the wealth of their researches, during two centuries. 
 These not only illustrate the history of their several 
 nations, but throw an inestimable light upon biblical and 
 archaeological knowledge. The study of the Oriental lan- 
 guages is one which for obvious reasons the Propaganda 
 has never omitted to foster. And at the present 
 moment its professors are acknowledged to be 
 amongst the foremost in Europe in this valuable depart- 
 ment of linguistic science. I believe that since the time 
 of Cardinal Mezzofanti, no greater Oriental scholar has 
 appeared than Professor Ciasca of the Propaganda. He 
 is being fast approached by Professor Fen^ata, brother 
 
 of the late Papal Nuncio to Switzerland. The linguistic 
 
 c 
 
34 SPOLIATION OF THE PROPAGANDA. 
 
 capabilities of our own Cardinal Howard are of a high 
 order, and he occupies a distinguished j^lace amongst his 
 brother Cardinals who form the special council of the 
 Oriental Department of the Propaganda. 
 
 It is well known that a great part of the value of the 
 Projoaganda library depends upon another department of 
 that great institution which is foremost, if not unique, in its 
 kind in Europe. This is the famous Propaganda Stamperia 
 or\ 
 
THE PRINTING OFFICE. 35 
 
 V. 
 
 THE PRINTING OFFICE. 
 
 This magnificant department of Pontifical munificence, 
 enlightenment, and care, at first arose in Home, soon after 
 the art of printing was invented. The Vatican Printing 
 Press which preceded, it, is one of the oldest and most 
 prolific in Europe. By its means, Gregory XIII. , who, as 
 we have seen, commenced the formation of the Propaganda, 
 diff'used tens of thousands of catechisms in every known 
 tongue throughout the world. But it was not until the 
 Propaganda came into full working order as a distinct 
 department, that the now famous Polyglot Press was 
 established and became, then and since, the first institution 
 of the kind possessed by any corporation or nation in the 
 world. 
 
 By the zeal and ability of its officials, many of whom 
 were priests, type was founded in all the known characters 
 of Europe, Asia, and Africa. The numerous ancient 
 liturgies of the East were printed in their original 
 characters for the benefit of the various rites using them ; 
 and uncivilized tongues were provided with a literature by 
 which Missionaries might teach the truths of Faith, 
 and advance their co-religionists or neophytes in the path 
 of the truest progress. In this way the gross ignorance 
 which had, by the action of schism, heresy, and the con- 
 quests of the Mahommedans, fallen upon the ancient 
 Christian lands and peoples of the once great Eastern Roman 
 Empire, was taken away, and a new light, not only ol 
 orthodox Christianity, but of knowledge and civilization, 
 diffused, where superstition and darkness had for centuries 
 
36 SPOLIATION OF THE PKOPAGANDA. 
 
 prevailed. By this means a literature was given to the un- 
 letteredtribes in North and South America, and Missionaries 
 were enabled, even before setting out for these uncultivated 
 people, to learn the languages in Avhich they were to preach 
 and minister to them. By this means the literatures of 
 China, India, and Japan were made familiar to European 
 scholars ; and by this means, too, Catholics condemned by 
 penal legislation to ignorance — as were our Catholic fore- 
 fathers in these three kingdoms — ^^\vere supplied with the 
 means of education. 
 
RESOURCES OF THE PROPAGANDA. 37 
 
 VL 
 
 RESOURCES OF THE PROPAGANDA. 
 
 The various works connected with the Propaganda, of 
 course, imphed great expenses, and necessitated the pos- 
 session of large revenues fixed and well-secured. The care 
 of the Popes and the generosity of the faithful supplied 
 funds which went far, for there is not to be found 
 an establishment of its extent in the world managed at all 
 times with such scrupulous economy and care. Many 
 emulated the generosity of Monsignor Vives and of Cardinal 
 Barberini. Others left to the general purposes of the Pro- 
 pagation of the Faith large legacies — sometimes even their 
 whole inheritance. Besides that which Gregory XV. 
 bestowed upon it, and which Urban VIII. increased, 
 Innocent XII. gave the Institution 150,000 crowns in gold, 
 and Clement XII. gave it 70,000. From its first foundation, 
 all future Cardinals were by a decree of the Pope bound to 
 procure from it their Cardinal's ring, and to pay for this 
 ring a large donation, varying from £400 to double that 
 sum. This forms a most valual^le and perpetual source of 
 revenue. Other sources opened continually. The generosity 
 awakened by the two Pontiffs avIio were mainly instru- 
 mental in founding it, descended to their successors, and 
 spread throughout the entire Church, so that it may bo 
 well said that no institution ever existed which has been 
 more popular with Catholics, nor more unceasingly popular, 
 than the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of 
 the Faith. 
 
 And it deserved to be so, not only because of the 
 sacred objects to which it has devoted its unwearied 
 
38 SPOLIATION OF THE PROPAGANDA. 
 
 labours, but also because of that extreme economy which 
 has characterised its management from the beginning to 
 this hour. A very strong proof of the genuine excellence 
 of this economy lies in the fact that the Cardinals and 
 Prelates who willed it, either all, or a large portion of their 
 means were members of its management — a management 
 of great labour, for which the funds of the Propaganda 
 never paid them anything. All connected with its care, 
 except the absolutely necessary officials, gave to it the 
 whole of their services gratuitously. These knew well the 
 nature of the work which the sacred Institution did, and the 
 urgency of the wants it supplied. When, therefore, such 
 men have selected it from amongst the many objects 
 which Rome presents for Catholic zeal as the most 
 worthy and the most carefully conducted of all, we may 
 judge of the supreme excellency of its claims. Then the 
 whole of the work which it requires from the other 
 Congregations of Rome must be done gratuitously. 
 The Bulls for its numerous Bishops must be expedited, its 
 cases of conscience, coming, as they do, from all parts of 
 the earth, must be solved, its dispensations of every kind 
 granted, its rubrical, ceremonial, and technical difficulties 
 must be settled, its honours must be bestowed by every 
 department of Church government under the Pope, 
 without one farthing of cost to itself or to its innumerable 
 clients. Then, it was completely exempt, as we have 
 seen, from every kind of tax, for matters whether coming 
 by land or sea, and was freed from municipal burdens, under 
 the Pontificial Government. Its superior management 
 cost nothing, and for its work, secretaries and under- 
 secretaries, writers and teachers, gave their labours for less 
 than that paid by any other Institution in Rome. This 
 they do out of pure devotion to religion and the hope 
 
RESOURCES OF THE Pltoi'AOANDA. 39 
 
 of spiritual reward. In proof of this 1 will relate an 
 anecdote of one of its employes — Monsignor Agliardi, 
 at present Archbishop Delegate of the Holy See to 
 British India. This able ecclesiastic devoted his life until 
 well beyond fifty years of age to the severest labours 
 of the Institution. He was one of the overworked minutanti 
 or under secretaries, and in addition acted as Professor 
 of Moral Theology to the students of the Urban College. 
 I believe no more able, learned, or laborious ecclesiastic lived 
 in Rome. He worked as all the minutanti must do, in season 
 and out of season. The Propaganda official is a drudge who 
 seldom knows or looks for a holiday. When every other 
 office in Rome is closed for the terrible Roman, fever-giving 
 months, the Cardinal, the Secretary, and the minutanti 
 are still at their desks. Rome serves all the world> and at 
 the Propaganda all the world is served^ Now the particular 
 official I speak of, left a high and lucrative position in liis 
 native diocese for the work of the Propaganda ; and though 
 his duties placed him in constant correspondence with the 
 Church spread over Asia, and I may say over the islands of 
 the Southern and Indian Ocean, he was paid a great deal 
 less than would satisfv the humblest curate in anv English- 
 speaking country. He could at any moment leave this 
 ])Osition and obtain dignity and comparative ease. But for 
 him, as for the rest of his brethren in harness, the work of 
 the Sacred Congregation had a strong fascination. They 
 seem somehow to thrive on hard work, and if not killed 
 soon by it, to get so used to it, that they cannot do without 
 it. The good Cardinal who now so worthily presides over 
 the whole work of the great institution, has gone through all 
 its grades, from the Minutant^'s desk to that of the Cardinal 
 Prefect. All who visit Rome on business to the Propa- 
 eranda are astonished to find him alwavs at their 
 
40 SPOLIATION OF THE PROPAGANDA. 
 
 service, from early morning to near midnight. It is so 
 with the Secretary, who is also an esteemed official of 
 the Institute. Their work is, no doubt, a deeply interesting 
 and a most res23onsible one. But there is, I found, a 
 far more powerful motive for attachment to this hard labour 
 for long years and small pay. It is that the officials 
 of the Propaganda, of every class, participate in every 
 good work performed in the world committed by the 
 Vicar of Christ to their care. They enjoy very many indul- 
 gences and are enriched with innumerable spiritual 
 privileges. This I found to be the secret of Archbishop 
 Agiiardi's long years of contented, severe, and ill-paid 
 labour. When we see other men immure themselves in 
 Cisterican and Carthusian cloisters, we can realise the 
 reason of so much devotion, but not till then. The work 
 of the Propaganda is necessary for the greatest ends of 
 God's service. Its officers are certain they are serving the 
 servants of God, the mart}Ts of China, Corea, and Japan, 
 the labourers in every part of the Lord's extended vineyard. 
 I speak of Monsignor Agiiardi, because he has left the Insti- 
 tution, and is now emjjloyed as Papal Delegate in the 
 great Mission of India. But there are others as devotedly 
 performing such duties as his in the Propaganda. There is 
 no lack of attention, and I believe that all, both Bishops 
 and Priests, who have ever had occasion to visit the Insti- 
 tution, will say that they have been forcibly struck with 
 the genuine goodness, prudence, learning, and general 
 superiority of the officials employed in every department of 
 that Sacred Institution. 
 
 It happens, by the care of the Popes, that only the 
 very first men in the Apostolic College are appointed 
 Prefects over the Propaganda. The men who occupied 
 the position in this century alone will prove this. I 
 
KESOURCES OF THE rilOPAGANDA. 41 
 
 have never seen the late ilhistrious Cardinal Barnabo, but 
 his fame still lives in all the Churches. Before him lived the 
 saintly Cardinal Fransoni, and he was preceded by one 
 who was taken from the position of Prefect to ascend the 
 throne of Peter in some of the most difficult days that have 
 tested a Pope's peculiar worth in this most trying century. 
 The present illustrious man who governs the Propaganda 
 was its Secretary in the days of Cardinal Barnabo. 
 He was taken from that position to discharge most 
 difficult diplomatic duties in Spain, and was afterwards 
 Secretary of State to Pius IX.-, in succession to the 
 late celebrated Cardinal Antonelli. In fact, his present 
 Hohness looks often to the officials of the Propaganda for his 
 diplomatic agents in places where rare tact, knowledge, and 
 sanctitv of life combined, are necessary ; and this has been 
 manifested within the present year in the missions confided 
 to Monsignors Agliardi and Chiavoni in India and South 
 America, respectively. Monsignor Vanutelli, who repre- 
 sented the Pope at the coronation of the Czar, and is now 
 engaged in the difficult nunciature of Lisbon, may be also 
 said to be a member of the Propaganda, in the service of 
 which he discharged the duties of Archiepiscopal Legate 
 at Constantinople. 
 
 Havino' now glanced at the nature and historv of this 
 Institution, we shall take a rapid survey of the work it has 
 done, and is doing, for the world. 
 
42 SPOLIATION OF THE PROPAGANDA. 
 
 VII. 
 
 WOPtK OF THE PROPAGANDA. 
 
 At the very first meeting of the Cardinals, held by 
 order of Gregory XV., to settle upon the means of forming 
 the Sacred Congregation of the Propaganda,, it was resolved 
 that the heads of all the religious orders should be written 
 to for statistics relative to the state of the missions con- 
 fided to their subjects in every part of the world. It was 
 further resolved that the papers of the Provisional Congre- 
 gation called together by Gregory XIII. should be obtained 
 from the Bishop-Secretary. These two acts established the 
 identity of the Sacred Congregation with the vast work 
 carried on by the Roman Pontiff's for the spread of the 
 Faith in preceding ages, and especially with the work of 
 those Cardinals called in to assist Gregory XIII. The 
 new Congregation set instantly to work at the immense 
 amount of labour placed upon its members. Its responsi- 
 bility was very great; It had to look to the East and to 
 the West. The Church in the lands once Catholic, now 
 committed to its keeping, was everywhere in ruins. Four- 
 fifths of the population of the earth wandered still " in 
 darkness and in the shadow of death " outside the narrow 
 boundaries of Christendom. The interior of Africa re- 
 mained a closed book to the European, and within it 
 millions groaned in slavery under rulers who deemed it a 
 sacred duty to offer human victims in thousands annually 
 to idols. Budha and Vishnu held half the human race 
 captive. Savage hordes wandered over the steppes of 
 Asia, through the forests of America, and peopled the 
 innumerable islands of the Pacific with races almost as 
 
WORK OF THE PROPAGANDA. 43 
 
 destitute of the knowledge " of a God in this world " as 
 the lower animals upon which they subsisted. Where a 
 semi-civihzation created caste-prejudice, as in India, or 
 refined materiahsm, as in China, mankind in its masses 
 descended into depths of degradation still lower and more 
 worthy of commiseration than the wald tribes in savage 
 life. There was no mercy. The weak " went to the w\all." 
 Little children were slaughtered without pity, the poor were 
 regarded as the accursed of God, and the helpless were 
 trampled upon without hesitation or remorse. Islam had 
 extended its ravages over the fair Christian States which 
 once extended from the Pillars of Hercules to the Red Sea, 
 and from thence through Syria to the waters of the 
 Bosphorus. It was supreme in Persia, and spread its 
 Crescent over all the lands from the crests of the ranges 
 of Thibet to the Chersonesus. It had fixed its seat 
 in the city of Constantine, and its SAvay was undisputed 
 throughout the Balkan Peninsula^ and in the Isles of 
 Greece and of the Levant. 
 
 One of the first duties of the new Sacred Congregation 
 was to look after those Christian peoples who yet retained 
 any vestige of Christianity in the nations subjected by 
 Islam. They had become timid and abject slaves under 
 the persecuting lash of their masters. It w^as difficult for 
 missionaries to reach them at all, and then there was 
 another difficulty to be met with before Catholic mission- 
 aries could minister to them. 
 
 The Orientals were generally schismatics of various 
 rites and nations, imbued with a fanatical hatred for the 
 Church from wdiich their fathers had seceded. Great zeal 
 was therefore needed amongst these sects. The Mission- 
 aries of the Propaganda had to make their converts either 
 from Islam, which imnished what it called apostasy, with 
 
44 SPOLIATION OF THE PROPAGANDA. 
 
 terrible severity, or from Christians made vile by 
 ignorance and slavery in the lands of their ruthless 
 conquerors. Yet the grace of God j^revailed to a wonderful 
 extent, and innumerable souls were reconciled and be- 
 came Catholic. 
 
 The Aimenians, the Maronites, the Melchites, the 
 Copts, the Nestorians themselves, sometimes abandoned in 
 a body, their errors and schisms, or individually passed 
 over to communion with the Holy See-. In consequence, 
 to-day, we have a Eoman Catholic Archbishop in Athens, 
 another at Naxos ; and Catholic Bishops, Priests and 
 flocks at Skio, Pinos, Andros, Santoria and Lyra, and 
 other places in schismatical modern Greece. In the Turkish 
 Empire in Europe and Asia, there are no less than sixty- 
 six dioceses of various grades at present, not including 
 those in formation, which amount to thirteen, under Vicars 
 or Prefects Apostolic. The great Christian Community 
 of the Armenians have also, by the constant care of the 
 Propaganda, been kept in large measure from schism, and 
 in the graces which spring from union with the Church. 
 Incredible pains have been taken for the spread of the 
 Faith in Egji^t, Nubia, and the old Christian State of 
 Abyssinia. Apostolic prefectures have been established 
 in the remotest regions of Africa ; and the spread of French 
 and other European influences in Algeria and Tunis 
 promises to renew the Faith of the great St. Augustine in 
 the once fertile Christian Provinces which he enlightened 
 by word and pen when he ruled the famous See of Hippo. 
 A special congregation of Cardinals under the Cardinal 
 Prefect devote themselves to the numerous, difficult, and 
 important questions which arise from this department 
 of the work of the Propaganda. Under it are also two 
 flourishing Colleges — one for the Greeks, and the other for 
 
WORK OF THE PROPAGANDA. 45 
 
 the Armenians — Avliich latter was founded by Leo XIII. 
 under the able and zealous presidency of the late Cardinal 
 Hassan. 
 
 Further to the East, the Sacred Congregation directed 
 during the period which has passed from the opening- 
 efforts of St. Francis Xavier in India and Japan, to 
 our o^vn days, the missionary enterprise of the Church. 
 Under its care, Jesuits, Dominicans, and Franciscans 
 penetrated to China, and worked the wondervS we read 
 of during the long reign of Kang-he, and later on of 
 Keen-lung. Innumerable and bloody were the persecutions 
 its Missionaries had to suffer there, as well as in Corea, 
 Thibet, Cochin-China, and other nations bordering upon 
 the Celestial Empire. The Propaganda, besides, looked 
 with ceaseless solicitude upon the changing fortunes of the 
 missions in India, and nourished them amidst the wars and 
 diplomatic arrangements which transferred power from 
 Portugal and France to Great Britain, or to her East India 
 Company of traders. In America it never ceased to follow 
 the tracks of the red man in his forests, and those of the 
 poor negro in his slavery. The history of Indian tribes from 
 Canada to Patagonia, is the history of its Missionaries, of 
 their labours, travels, and martyrdom. It sent witli 
 equal zeal its Apostolic men to the islands of the 
 Southern Seas, as these became known by the exertions 
 of successive explorers. And in those vast regions, where 
 barbarous or uncivilized man yet walks in the darkness of 
 paganism and idolajtory, it never ceased its exertions until 
 now its bishops may be numbered by the hundred, its 
 priests by the thousand, and its converts liy millions. In 
 all, it spread the knowledge of Christ; and or]-)lian- 
 ages, hospitals, schools, and other pious institutions, con- 
 ducted bv Catholic brotherhoods and sisterhoods of various 
 
46 SPOLIATION OF THE PROPAGANDA. 
 
 forms, now give to the pagan a knowledge of the earnest 
 zeal and devotion of genuine Christianity. 
 
 But interesting, as this account is, of its labours — how 
 easy and pleasing it would be to prolong the record if time 
 permitted ! — it is not more interesting than that of the work 
 done by the Sacred Congregation for the salvation of the 
 nations which lapsed into heresy at the period of the 
 Reformation, and for the Faith in this country, and in 
 every land that speaks our language. 
 
 If the Faith has again penetrated into Norway, Sweden, 
 Denmark, Iceland, and those Northern regions whence it 
 was long banished by a vigilant and persecuting heresy, it 
 is owing entirely to the zeal of the Pi\)paganda ; and we 
 have only to recall the history of the Church in England, 
 Ireland, and Scotland, to know how sleepless was its care 
 of our fathers exposed to such long continued persecution in 
 the three kingdoms. Up to 1700, the law of the land pro- 
 hibited a Catholic priest to put his foot into Scotland. Yet 
 the few Scotch Catholic clans of the Highlands and the still 
 more scattered Catholic families of the Lowlands, were 
 never wholly without the ministrations of religion or the 
 means of a Christian education. We have only to look at 
 the annals of these dreary but sadly interesting times, to 
 know that it was the care and the funds of the Sacred 
 Congregation that kept both priest and schoolmaster in 
 this country and so kept the Faith alive and in progress, 
 until at length it needed a Superior over the missions, and 
 at last, a Bishop, to take charge of the gradually increasing- 
 flock. The increase consequent upon the influx of Irish 
 immigrants who swelled the Church to the proportions of 
 greatness, continued to occupy the zealous attention of 
 the Propaganda, until at length the moment came when 
 our present Holy Father was enabled to restore to the 
 
"WOKK OF THE ritOPAGANDA. 47 
 
 land evangelized by Columba and Aidan, its ancient 
 Hierarchy. 
 
 Ireland occupied so distinct a portion of the care of 
 Propaganda, that I have been frequently led to think 
 the Sacred Congregation was chiefly, if not entirel}', 
 occupied with her concerns, And Ireland indeed deserved 
 it all, for she has proved to be amongst all nations, far the 
 most faithful daughter of the Holy See. Since the days 
 of the terrible peace which followed the long struggle of 
 Hugh O'Neill and O'Donnell for her freedom, and her 
 ancient Faith, the Propaganda applied its whole energies 
 to cure the woes of the Catholics of the country, to minister 
 to them and preserve their Faith, Not only during the 
 brief interval of national triumph secured by the Confeder- 
 ation of Kilkenny, when enormous assistance was given to 
 Ireland through the Legate, Cardinal Rinuccini, but before 
 and after that transient gleam of sunshine on the Church in 
 Ireland, the assistance given to the country by thePropaganda 
 was ceaseless. It took care that in Rome and out of Rome, 
 in many Colleges and Convents, her Clergy should be 
 educated gratuitously. It gave large and well sustained 
 grants for education, the nature of which has been shown 
 by my own Archbishop, who was himself at one time 
 Professor of Hebrew at the Urban Colleoe, and had access to 
 authentic documents proving that point, which, as an 
 Irishman, so much interested him.* 
 
 His uncle. Cardinal Cullen, who besides lieing for 
 many years Rector of the Irish College in Rome, was also 
 for a period Rector of the Urban College of the Propaganda 
 has more than once evidenced the same. The Propaganda, 
 besides, found funds for the support as well as for the 
 
 ^' At the end {page 73) will he found a brief statement ofi this matter. 
 
 ,. 
 
48 SPOLIATION OF THE PROPAGANDA. 
 
 education of the Clergy. And Ireland, I believe, is the 
 only country which, having Colleges of her own, both in 
 Rome and in other countries, obtained a right to a certain 
 number of students in the Urban College. Of this number, 
 at various seasons, were many of the most distinguished 
 ecclesiastics of the Irish Church. Cardinal Cullen was a 
 Propagandist, and so was the late Delegate Apostolic to 
 Canada, of whom the Irish Church and Rome herself had 
 such high hopes, Monsignor George Conroy, Bishop of 
 Ardagh and Clonmacnois, 
 
 In England, the history of its Church since the death 
 of Elizabeth, is inseparably bound up with the Propaganda. 
 The unwearied care which it bestowed upon that Church 
 rendered so desolate by the action of the rulers — not, 
 we must always remember, of the people— surrounding 
 Elizabeth and James, is worthy of all attention. It never 
 ceased that care from the appointment of the first single 
 Bishop till it saw the ordinary Hierarchy of the country 
 restored to something like its pristine glory. I need not 
 say, that with the same care it followed the children of 
 Ireland, who went forth to found the Churches of the 
 United States, of British Canada, of Australia, and the 
 other dependencies of Great Britain. Even at the present 
 moment the Church in those regions, is not only equal to 
 what she had been in the foremost Catholic States of Europe, 
 but the wonderful zeal, energy, and generosity of her 
 children, compensate for what Catholicity loses in older 
 States, through the action of the Infidel Revolution. 
 
 But besides the continued works of zeal which the Pro- 
 paganda has never ceased to foster since its foundation, there 
 is another work which it carries on just as ceaselessly. The 
 Church needs not only to be founded, but when founded in 
 any locality or nation, it has to be administered and cared for. 
 
WORK OF THE PROPAGANDA. 49 
 
 This forms no small portion of the labour of the Propaganda. 
 The zeal of its missionaries in many lands, the providential 
 increase of the faithful in others, the self-arising return in 
 response to the invitation and grace of God, in the cases 
 of individuals everywhere within the borders of its jurisdic- 
 tion, has rendered its work in our own days far beyond 
 what it was at the commencement, or for many years 
 afterwards. If we only consider the one duty of selecting 
 the Bishops for the various dioceses in these Islands, in 
 Canada, the United States, and Australia, we may form 
 some idea of this work. We know how frequently priests 
 and people are much exercised with ourselves regarding 
 these appointments. Conflicting interests get at Avork. 
 Public and private affairs are efl^ected. Interminable 
 correspondence arises, for grave issues are at stake. All 
 this work must be settled by the Propaganda before it is 
 presented for final solution to the Vicar of Christ, with 
 whom of course rests the ultimate responsibility. Now, 
 peoples of whose affairs we know absolutely nothing, have 
 interests as dear to them, to be solved in the same way by 
 the Propaganda. The Sees which concern them spread 
 from the rising to the setting of the Sun. Then come 
 questions affecting religious orders, in general and in detail. 
 Everywhere there are important interests to be settled or 
 conciliated ; for it is wonderful how pious people can see 
 the glory of God and the good of souls in directions so 
 very opposite one to the other ; and the more sincere and 
 holy the parties on either side are, the more sure are they 
 to be obstinate, for reasons of the most conscientious kind. 
 If the Propaganda was not there with the patience and 
 experience it possesses, and with the power of the Supreme 
 Pontiff" at its back, there would be no settlement for such 
 disputes as sometimes arise between the most sincere, 
 
 D 
 
50 SPOLIATION OF THE PROPAGANDA. 
 
 devoted, and best intentioned peoples in the world. For 
 what else but an authority that cannot be disputed could 
 settle issues between people obstinate for conscience 
 sake, and only too happy to endure jnartyrdom for con- 
 viction. Such people in our midst, who are not Catholics, 
 break up the little section of Protestantism to which 
 they l^elong into still smaller fragments, whenever they 
 happen to be much exercised by opposite religious views ; 
 and hence we see over one church door the " Free Kirk," 
 and over another " Kirk of Scotland." Indeed a certain 
 good soul who became very solicitous for my own salvation 
 invited me in a passenger car to join the Church of Our 
 Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, established in a subur]:) 
 of London, in the year of Grace 1884. ''Annual sub- 
 scription £1, to be paid quarterly in advance." As I 
 already belonged to a Church of that title established in 
 an uj^per room in Jerusalem in the year of Grace 33, 
 I declined the invitation. It was, I suppose, a miniature 
 " Free Kirk " which differed and broke off from some 
 other, there being no one to settle the difference. But all 
 differences in the Catholic Church are settled by an 
 authority from which there is no appeal, and that authority 
 is exercised for four-fifths of this world, materially sjieaking, 
 by the Sacred Congregation of the Propaganda, with a 
 patience, skill, and knowledge which no words of mine 
 could adequately express. 
 
 And here you will permit me to quote what I wrote 
 on this subject upon another occasion on the Propa- 
 ganda : — ■ 
 
 Over the minutest as well as the gravest concerns of the immense 
 expanse of its jurisdiction, the Propaganda has always watched with a 
 sleepless vigilance. Sustaining, with an instinct and a power that must 
 be surely largely infused by the Holy Ghost, the divine principle of 
 
WORK OF THE PROPAGANDA. 51 
 
 authority, it has never been blind to the slightest manifestation of its 
 abuse. The humblest missionary, the humblest cliild wronged anywhere 
 in the vast extent of its care, is cei'tain to receive from its ollicials a just 
 and a paternal hearing, and, if wronged, is certain of redress. There is 
 not, and there never was on this earth, a tribunal more just, more patient, 
 morekind to all committed to its keeping. Then, too, it watches over 
 the interest of souls with constant assiduity. The most difficult questions 
 are daily submitted to its judgment, and find invariably a solution which 
 cannot be given except where the Vicar of Christ reigns and rules. 
 
 1 
 
52 SPOLIATION OF THE TROPAGANDA. 
 
 YIII. 
 
 THE PERSECUTIONS OF THE PROPAGANDA. 
 
 From all that we have seen of the designs of Atheism on 
 last Monday evening, we cannot be surprised that such an 
 institution as the Propaganda should be one of the princi- 
 pal objects of its hatred. And so it has been ever since 
 Atheism, through the organization of Freemasonary, has 
 had any power to persecute. It was amongst the very first 
 of the institutions of Rome which the French revolutionists 
 attacked in the last century. Napoleon, too, so far as in 
 him lay, destroyed the whole of the work of the Sacred 
 Congregation de Propaganda Fide. He took possession 
 of the offices and buildings. He smashed the type formed 
 for spreading the Gospel through the whole earth. He 
 carried off to Paris the rarest and most valuable articles 
 found in the museum and library. He suppressed the 
 famous Urban College with a lie in his mouth, namely, that 
 it was useless ; and in his day, children from every nation 
 under the sun were seen in the city of the Popes no longer. 
 He suppressed and plundered the whole circle of great 
 Missionary Colleges, which the zeal of tbe Popes had 
 founded for the many nations needing light. He did 
 simply what mischief he could do, and when the return of 
 the Pope restored the work of the Sacred Congregation in 
 part, he, on his second coming, showed himself no less an 
 Antichrist against the spread, at least, of the Faith. The 
 students whom the first coming of the French had scattered, 
 returned soon after the restoration of the Pope, and 
 settled at Monte Citorio. But in 1809, Napoleon, having a 
 second time taken Rome, at once suppressed that second 
 
THE TERSECUTIONS OF THE PUOPAGANDA. -53 
 
 College ; and to obliterate the inemoiy of the beiietieent 
 work of the Sacred Congregation, he destroyed the 
 materials of the very type destined to civilize the barbarous 
 nations of the world by literature as well as by the Gospel. 
 
 The tyrant's fall in 1814, however, not only liberated 
 the aged, suffering Vicar of Christ from the talons of the 
 heartless Freemasons, but also let the work of the Missions 
 of the Catholic Church take their ordinary course under 
 the renewed zeal and care of the Cardinals of tlie Propa- 
 ganda. In 1817, the students returned to their old 
 home ; and soon after, the various dependent National 
 Missionary Colleges re-opened under the zeal and fatherly 
 care of the Popes. Under the Pontificate of Gregory XVI: 
 the Institution had not only its Colleges, but all its mighty 
 energies at work, as if no revolution had passed over the 
 sacred city. It continued with unabated energy to spread 
 the Gospel as before, and daily to open out new fields of 
 missionary enterprise. But when the Freemasons again 
 got hold of Rome, all who know that the Freemasonry 
 of our day is as malignant as that of the time of 
 Napoleon, knew that the days of the Propaganda, so 
 far as Freemasonry could affect it, were numbered. 
 
 To give you an idea of what it now suffers I shall 
 quote from the Tahlet the exact state of the case : — 
 
 " The landed property of Propaganda, in value about eigHteen million 
 lire, has for a long time attracted the attention of the Italian Govern- 
 ment. As far back as 1873 a law was passed forbidding land to be held 
 in mortmain ; but it was not until Victok Emmanuel was dead that the 
 Giunta Liquiddtrice thought of applying it to Propaganda. Early in 1880 
 the Giunta resolved that the international character of the property of 
 Propaganda should protect it no longer, and accordingly offered the whole 
 of its lands for sale. Legal proceedings were then commenced, and have 
 been carried on with varying success from that time till now. Beaten in the 
 Court of Cassation, the Giunta appealed, with -well-founded confidence, 
 
54 SPOLIATION OF THE PROPAGANDA. 
 
 to the Supreme Court, and now it is finally decided that the Congrega- 
 tion is for ever incapable of holding real property in Italy. If this were 
 all, it might seem that we had been over hasty in describing as confisca- 
 tion what in reality is only a forced conversion. But confiscation is the 
 only word which rightly fits the appropriation to itself by the/Govern- 
 ment of more than half the property to be dealt with. If the lands were 
 merely sold, the gain to the Government would not be apparent, and 
 action would probably nevei- have been taken, though Propaganda might 
 well complain that Italian bonds were poor securities when taken in ex- 
 change for Italian farms. But it has been arranged that a tax of no less 
 than thirty per cent, shall be charged upon the whole amount of the pro- 
 perty doomed t6 conversion. Again, there is a transfer duty of four per 
 cent., and six per cent, for laud tax, making in all forty per cent. 
 Then, for the benefit of the Government Ecclesiastical Fund — what- 
 ever that may be — there is yet another duty, a progressive tax, be- 
 ginning at fifteen per cent, on 10,000 francs revenue, and going up to 
 forty per cent, on larger sums. The result of this scarcely-disguised 
 spoliation is to strike a blow at the Church, the full force of which can 
 hardly yet be measured." 
 
 The A2)pu)iti, already referred to, vainly striving to 
 obtain justice, thus speaks : — 
 
 " If the Government, therefore, does not wish to show clearly to all 
 that the pretended guarantees guarantee nothing, as is evident from other 
 sources, it must abstain from limiting in any fashion the free possession 
 of those means which are destined to the exercise of its great office. But 
 whatever its aggressions are, and whatever device it may adopt to oppress 
 the Holy See, it is well it should be known that the Apostolate among 
 the infidels is a natural and a divine right, and, at the same time, a bind- 
 ing duty of the Pontifi', for the exercise of which he needs absolutely to 
 have at hand the pecuniary means free from the supervision of the State. 
 
 " Tlie Appunti meet the argument that there is no injury done by the 
 forced conversion, as follows : ' But it may be urged that the freedom of 
 the ministry entrusted to the Propaganda incurs no loss by the sale of its 
 estate, seeing that it has the free disposal of the amount inscribed in the 
 Gra7i Lihro. Now, let us repeat it again, does not the payment of this 
 income depend entirely on the good will and the solvency of the Italian 
 Government ? If it were to fail, many large and necessary missionary 
 establishments would suffer ; and, what is more important, the very centre 
 from which emanates tiie action for diffusing the Gospel throughout the 
 world, would be so weakened as to be unable to supply its most ordinary 
 undertakings.' 
 
THE PERSECUTIONS OF THE PKOrAGANDA. 55 
 
 "The Aj}p unit then shows what the nature of the extraordinar}' expenses 
 of tlie Propaganda are: ' Besides tlie ordinary expenses, which are many and 
 very heavy, the Propaganda has continually to come to the aid of the ex- 
 traordinary' needs of the various missions. Taking only, for instance, the 
 decade from 1860 to 1870, a good two millions of capital were consumed 
 in extraordinary grants ; and if these had failed, besides other evils, the 
 Constantinople mission would have died out, for whose rescue it Was 
 necessary to expend over a million and a half. AVith these funds were 
 saved large numbers of Christians during the recent famines in China and 
 Tonquin ; and recently, after the sale, pendente lite, of Propaganda pro- 
 perty by the Royal Commissioners, if extraordinary resources had not 
 been obtained from abroad, no aid could have been given to the missions 
 in Egypt, Central Africa, the Christian communities of India, China, and 
 Oceania, tried by terrible disasters." 
 
 The above remonstrance would be simply laughed at 
 by the party in power in Italy if it were not supported by 
 force from without. Indeed the only concern the Italian 
 Government showed was lest Catholics outside Italy 
 should insist on their clear rights to the possession of the 
 funds of the Projiaganda. The Infidel inner circle, of 
 which I spoke so much to you last Monday evening, have 
 long determined on the destruction of the Propaganda 
 ami all its missionary work. Antichrist has no greater 
 enemy. The destruction of the Temporal Power, the 
 disbanding of the religious orders, the whole system of 
 disentegration and persecution to which they determined 
 to subject the Church and the Vicar of Christ, would be 
 useless so long as the Propaganda remained at its work, 
 sustaining and propagating Christianity — and earnest, 
 fervent Christianitv, too— in the world. 
 
 Next, therefore, to the spoliation of the Holy 
 Father's temporal dominions and the spoliation and 
 suppression of the Religious Orders, there was nothing the 
 Freemasons in power now in Italy desired more than the 
 suppression of the Propaganda. But the necessity of 
 
56 SPOLIATION OF THE PROPAGANDA. 
 
 going somewhat moderately and cautiously to work, in 
 order the more efficaciously to succeed, has forced 
 the Italian Freemasons to proceed with the suppression 
 of the Propaganda in the circuitous, stealthy manner 
 sketched out at the commencement. They liaA-e 
 succeeded in causing the Executive of the Sacred 
 Congregation to go to law with them in the Masonic 
 Courts of Italy — " going to law with the devil and 
 the court held in hell." Somehow, an intermediate 
 sentence was given in favour of the Institution. 
 But how little the Freemasons in power valued this, was 
 manifested by the fact, that before the appeal made by 
 themselves against that sentence was decided, they actually 
 disposed of some of the real property of the Institution. 
 The whole thing appears tO me to have been no more than 
 the merest farce. They knew what the final result of the 
 law proceedhigs would l^e. All they required was that the 
 Church should acknowledge a local tribunal by contending 
 with them, instead of appealing at once to the world against 
 a flagrant act of injustice attempted against international 
 right. Governments then wishing to shelve a difficulty 
 with the Italian Ministry, could allege that it was an 
 internal Italian question, admitted to be so by the 
 aggrieved parties, who appealed to local tribunals, Vvith 
 which, of course, externs could not interfere. 
 
 So at least the question has been dealt with by our own 
 Government ; but most unjustly. If the Cardinals of the 
 Propaganda contended for the rights of the Institution 
 before the tribunals of Italy, that contention, no matter how 
 it may have eventuated, could not affect the parties in- 
 terested in the right. And who are the parties interested 
 in the funds of the Propaganda. Is it the Italian people ? 
 Decidedly not. There is not a people in the world who are 
 
THE TERSECUTIOXS OF THE PROPAGANDA. 57 
 
 less interested in the funds and in the woi'k of the Propa- 
 ganda than the Itahan people. In fact, the founders and 
 the endowers of the Propaganda founded and endowed it, 
 on the condition implied by their acts, and expressed by 
 the very terms of the endoAvment, that their money should 
 be applied for the benefit of those who should not live in 
 Italy. The inheritors of these funds are foreigners to 
 Italy, and amongst these foreigners there are no people 
 more wronged by the action of the de facto Italian 
 Government, than the Catholic subjects of Her Brittanic 
 Majesty. 
 
58 SPOLIATION OF THE I'EOPAGANDA. 
 
 IX. 
 
 THE PRESENT STATE OF THE CASE. 
 
 We shall see this by considering its foundation. Who, 
 then, first founded the Propaganda ? The man who 
 gave the ground upon which it stands, and the palace 
 in which its v/ork is carried on, was not an Italian. His 
 money did not come from Italy. He was a Spaniard, and 
 the representative at Rome of the Sovereign of the 
 Netherlands. He formed the foundation of the whole 
 institution, and all subsequent lands and moneys given to 
 it were to carry out his intentions. His money was taken, 
 and his intentions were solemnly guaranteed by the legiti- 
 mate Sovereign of Rome at the period. They have been 
 respected for two hundred and sixty years. I ask, can it 
 be right now for the Italian Government to take his 
 money, to sell his lands and houses, to put the proceeds of 
 his funds into its own vinculated, uncertain bonds, and in 
 the process steal the half of the proceeds. This seems to 
 me such a gross 2)erversion of international right, that I 
 believe if Spain was not dominated over by the same sect 
 of Freemasons as rule Italy, she Avould force the Italian 
 Ministry and King Humbert to disgorge the property left 
 by Monsignor John Baptist Vives for the Propagation of 
 the Catholic Faith. 
 
 The injustice of the forced sale of the houses, lands, 
 and rents left hj a Spaniard for the extension of the 
 Gospel, in trust to Italy, is only equalled by a like act of 
 injustice done in the case of an Irishman, and a Priest of 
 the City of Dublin, Father Michael Doyle, of the Church 
 of SS, Michael and John, Arran Quay. Believing that 
 
THE PKESENT STATE UF THE CASE. 59 
 
 his 2)oor country would be benefited by having a certain 
 number of its priests trained in the Urban CoUege, he 
 made an agreement with the authorities in Eome to give 
 them a sum of money amounting to no less than £5,000 
 sterling, for the perpetual education of Irish-born 
 missionary priests for Ireland. This was in the year 
 1825. His money was taken, and well invested by the 
 Cardinals of the Propaganda ; and since, several most 
 useful and distinguished Irish priests have been educated 
 on the proceeds. Here is surely, if ever there was, an 
 international arrangement lawfully and equitably con- 
 cluded. But what do the Italians do ? They take this 
 dead British subject's money and the increase Avhich 
 belongs to it. They sell out the property bought for it. 
 They put half the j^roceeds in their pocket, and the rest 
 they leave in " vinculated" Italian bonds, to be disowned 
 whenever the time comes to reduce or do away with 
 income from that source in Italy. 
 
 I am certain that Mr. Gladstone, whose just and 
 generous mind recoils from deceit of any kind, especially in 
 purely commercial matters, would never have said that the 
 Propaganda was an internal institution of Italy subject to 
 Italian laAvs, if he duly considered the nature of these two 
 cases of John Baptist Vives of Spain, and Father Michael 
 Doyle, of Arran Quay, in the good City of Dublin. I 
 believe he has not heard of them, for I remember Mr. 
 Gladstone to have made a remark in reply, I think, 
 to Mr. O'Donnell, that the general Italian character of 
 the Propaganda, as he called it, could not be effected 
 by a charitable "subscription." Now, surely no man 
 calls an ordinary commercial agreement a " subscription." 
 Father Doyle goes to the Cardinal Prefect of the Propa- 
 ganda and makes a bargain with him for the perpetual 
 
00 SPOLIATION OF THE PKOPAOANDA. 
 
 education of a certain number of liis countrymen — by the 
 way he stipulated that some of them should be his relatives, 
 — and the Cardinal Prefect takes his money. The 
 Sovereign of Rome fiats the contract. That honest 
 Sovereign carries it out to the letter. But the Italians 
 come in who are not honest ; they steal one-half of Father 
 Doyle's money ; they put the other half in Italian " vin- 
 culations." The result is that Father Doyle's countrymen 
 and relations cannot be educated. They — British subjects 
 as they are — are simply robbed. And can it be believed 
 by the generation that thinks nothing of many millions 
 for the relief of a British subject in Khartoum, that when 
 our Government is asked to make a gentle remonstrance 
 to the Freemasons who have stolen Father Doyle's hard 
 earnings it answers : — ■" We really cannot interfere. The 
 Italians are our very good friends. And as to the money 
 of Father Doyle, why that was only a ' subscription I' " 
 
 The case of Father Doyle is far from being the only 
 case. To my knowledge, another ecclesiastic, now living, 
 gave £1,000 for the education of a student in the Urban 
 College. He meant most assuredly that his money should 
 be spent for the one purpose he intended. When it comes 
 out that £450 of his thousand has gone into the pocket of 
 King Humbert and Co., and that £550 has been "vin- 
 culated " prior to being SAvalloAved in the same way, will his 
 Government in England turn round and tell him, " Oh, you 
 only gave a subscription !" If Mr. Gladstone put his fortune 
 into United States Bonds for the benefit of his family, and 
 that the Government of the United States imt half that 
 fortune in its pocket and the rest into " vinculated " bonds 
 of the same value as the vinculated Church bonds of Italy, 
 how would our admirable Premier be pleased if told that 
 his contract was only a " subscription ^ " It is exactly such 
 
THE PRESENT STATE OF THE CASK. 61 
 
 " subscriptions " that the Freemasons of Italy have stolen 
 by manipulating the moneys of Britisli subjects. Is 
 En^^land afraid or powerless to demand redress ? If so, 
 Tempora mutantur et nos mutanmr in ill'is indeed ! 
 
 And then, not only such money as that of Vives 
 and Father Doyle, but all the money the Propaganda 
 ever got was given for the lienefit of countries Avhich 
 were outside Italy. The magnificent gifts of Cardinal 
 Barberini, whose revenues, by the way, came from Church 
 sources outside, as well as inside of Italy, were given for 
 the benefit of the Eastern nations, whose various rites I 
 have already referred to. Have these poor people not a 
 right to the benefit of his legacy now, as well as at any 
 past period ? Does tlieix' weakness make the right 
 anything the less ? Twenty-three priests are educated 
 for them at the present moment. When the estates which 
 does this blessed work are sold for a song by Italian 
 Freemasons to other Italian Freemasons — Freemasons 
 alone are likely to buy them — and when half the proceeds 
 are pocketted by the men in power, and the other half 
 goes into " vinculated " Italian bonds, how will it fare with 
 the poor Churches of the Orientals, dependent for educated 
 Priests upon the grand charity of the Propaganda ? Surely 
 the ruthless horde of barbarians who have laid violent 
 hands upon the States of the Church must be devoid of all 
 shame, of all honour, of all manhood, when they descend to 
 such mean sacrilege. I think a man would prefer, if he 
 were a man, to command a troop of banditti than a 
 Ministry and a Parliament capable of staining themselves 
 with such mean, such cowardly, such heartless theft. 
 
 Now, if Melchites and Circassians, Copts and 
 Maronites, are thus pillaged by the spoliation of the 
 Propaganda, so to a far larger extent are the subjects of 
 
62 SPOLIATION OF THE PROPAGANDA. 
 
 Her Most Gracious Majesty, Queen Victoria. And how? 
 The funds of the Propaganda were given principally for 
 the benefit of her Catholic subjects in Ireland, in Great 
 Britain, in Canada, in Australia, in the vast extent of 
 India, in the West Indian Islands, in the Army, in the 
 Navy, in the great military stations, and wherever, in fact, 
 she has subjects. 
 
 In all this vast expanse of territory, the government 
 and care of the Catholic Church is carried on by the 
 Propagan(;;la. Not only are many of the clergy educated 
 for these countries in its Urban and other subservient 
 Colleges, but the whole education of the Clergy is looked 
 after, the Bishops and Archbishops are selected, the 
 Dioceses are regulated. Orphanages, Convents, Hospitals, 
 Schools, and Institutions of beneficence are created and 
 superintended by it. The whole work of the Catholic 
 Church, in one word, is done through its instrumentality 
 alone, in all the dominions of Her Britannic Majesty. 
 
 Now, if the existing funds of this institution are taken, 
 the Catholic subjects of Her Majesty must supply others, 
 and the action of the Italian Government in takincr these 
 funds, consequently, puts a heavy burden on the subjects 
 of Her Majesty, which they ought not to be asked to bear, 
 in order simply to put money into the Italian Treasury. 
 
 They ought not be asked to bear such a burden, 
 because they have a strict right in justice to the funds of 
 the Propaganda, which, even when they were not given by 
 British subjects or by other than Italian subjects or Princes, 
 were always absolutely given for the intention that the 
 Propaganda may be able to do the work, of which the 
 administration of the Catholic Church in the dominions of 
 Her Majesty forms an integral portion. 
 
 It is evident, then, that no matter who gave the funds 
 
THE PRESENT STATE OF THE CASE. 63 
 
 of tlio Propaganda, they were given lawfully and justly 
 and according to the existing laws of Italy at the period, 
 for our benefit. We received that benefit uninterruptedly 
 for over two hundred years, and it is monstrous that we 
 should be now deprived of a long existing, acknoAvledgod 
 right, by the violation of a clear international obligation 
 on the part of the Italian Government. 
 
 Now to show that what I here state is perfectly just, a 
 striking exemplification was given by one matter connected 
 intimately with the spoliation I speak of. After the final 
 sentence was pronounced by an Italian Masonic Court, the 
 Italian Government proceeded, as a first step, to sell a 
 College dependent upon the Proj^aganda. It happened, hoAv- 
 ever, that this College did not belong to Copts or Maronites 
 who had no Government to assert their rights, or to Catholic 
 subjects of Her jNIajesty Avho might be told about " sul> 
 scrij^tions." It belonged to a people who, when abroad, 
 knoAV that they have a country ready to defend them 
 against whoever may choose to rob them, insult them, or 
 injure them. This College was possessed by the Catholics 
 of a country called the United States of America — a 
 country Avhich happens to be pretty well knoAvn to the 
 Italian Government. It is a Republic, supposed to be very 
 Protestant, for it sends missionaries, largely supplied with 
 Bibles and coppers for the "conversion" of poor people in 
 the slums of some large toAvns in Italy. The Italian 
 Masonic Government, who laugh at the anti-Catholic 
 fanaticism of the English and American nations, thought, 
 therefore, that it could deal with the Catholic subjects of 
 the United States just as it might with the Catholic 
 subjects of England. It considered that the bigotry of 
 the zealous Methodism of New York and Massachusets 
 would be only too glad to hear that tlie resources 
 
64 SPOLIATION OF THE PROPAGANDA. 
 
 of " Babylon " were being swallowed up by the Free- 
 masons of Italy. Accordingly the walls of Rome were 
 plastered with large placards announcing the sale of 
 the North American College. Now, if the Italians 
 had ever a vight to sell any property belonging to the 
 Propaganda, it was this College. It was a free gift 
 on the part of Pius IX., for which no consideration 
 whatever had been asked from the American Catholic 
 people or Bishops. It was given only a few years 
 previously, and had been before a Convent for reli- 
 gious. Moreover, the Pope never gave the fee-simple of 
 the premises to the American Catholics, That remained 
 vested absolutely in the Propaganda. The house was 
 therefore as much the property of the Sacred Congregation 
 as that which it received by legal transfer from Monsignor 
 John B.aptist Vives. In attempting its sale, the Italian 
 Government thought rightly that no more favourable point 
 could be seized upon by which to manifest their "right to 
 do wrong" to the property of the Propaganda. The 
 Catholics of America had given "no consideration." There 
 was no deed of transfer to them. That had been asked and 
 refused by the Pope. The buildings were only a few years 
 previously the property of the Papal Government, which 
 the Freemasons supplanted. It was a test case, indeed. 
 Let us see how it ended ? 
 
 The moment the Cardinal Archbishop of New York 
 heard that the College of his Catholic fellow-countrymen 
 was about being touched by the Italians, he despatched his 
 zealous and able Coadjutor at once to Washington with a 
 letter to, the Government of his country. That Govern- 
 ment, Protestant as it was, at once recognised that a right 
 lawfully acquired — though without consideration or sub- 
 scription, or deed of transfer — of • American Catholic 
 
THE PRESENT STATE OF THE CASE. 65 
 
 citizens was about being violated. Did tliey talk about 
 ''Italian laws" or " subscrij)tions," or "Italian internal 
 aftairs not concerning outsiders ?" Did they seek, subter- 
 fuge, evasion, or delay for the purpose of making necessary 
 inquiries ? Far from it. Instantly there flashed across 
 the Atlantic to the United States Embassy at the 
 Quirinal, instructions to tell the Italian Government that it 
 would touch the interests which American citizens had 
 acquired in Rome at its peril, and demanding instant 
 cessation of the sale of the North American College. 
 There was no further parley about the matter. The 
 jMinistry of King Humbert knew that Uncle Sam had 
 ironclads, and could make his arm felt upon Italian ports 
 and in Italian waters. And what was the consequence ? 
 Well ! Such American citizens as were then in Rome had 
 the satisfaction of knowing that they had a country. They 
 had the satisfaction of seeing, one hour after the ultimatum 
 of the United States Government was received, a number 
 of employes of the Italian Government running about the 
 streets with ladders and water buckets and carefully 
 rubbing away from the walls every vestige of the placards 
 which announced the sale of the Catholic North American 
 College of the Propaganda. The College remains, and 
 will continue to remain unmolested, for the Americans 
 have a Government not afraid of Italy. 
 
 In the face of this fact I assure you that we British 
 subjects then in Rome felt and looked very small indeed. 
 The Propaganda, we knew, belonged to us by rights as 
 sacred certainly, as the portion of it exclusively appertaining 
 to North America belonged to the United States. It was 
 handed over for our benefit by legal deeds of transfer. It 
 was ours. It had absolutely nothing to do with Italy. 
 It had everthing to do with us. It was always so con- 
 
 E 
 
66 SPOLIATION OF THE PEOPAGANDA. 
 
 sidered by the Popes. Outside its own limits it has 
 positively no jurisdiction in Rome or in any part of Italy. 
 Its funds were contributed for us and to us, and to that 
 portion of the world — always outside Italy — committed to 
 its care. Its spoliation was clearly, even if none of our 
 money was in it, a violation of our most justly acquired 
 legitimate rights, unquestioned and in action for 
 generations. 
 
 We expected some effort would be made by our rulers 
 for us. We expected some representations, more gentle, 
 perhaps, than those made by the President of the proud 
 Union, but, as we thought, with some reason, not less 
 efficacious, would be made by our Government. We 
 confidently predicted that such would be the case. But we 
 were bitterly disapj^ointed. Our bishops in a body made 
 representations far more energetic and explicit than 
 Cardinal M'Closky or his Coadjutor made to Washington ; 
 but nothing came of them. The Catholics of the United 
 States had a country. We felt that we had a country but 
 in name, which for one reason or another treated us as 
 stepchildren or outcasts, or worse and more humiliating 
 still, was impotent to help us in our need. 
 
 Yet I believe that this policy of the Ministry would 
 not, if the case were fully understood, be endorsed by our 
 non-Catholic fellow-citizens. I am sure a very large pro- 
 portion of them would deem the complete inaction of the 
 Government, not wise, or sound policy — certainly not the 
 I)olicy of the British Lion that used to be, in cases of the 
 violation of the rights of British citizens, so potent once. 
 I am sure they will feel for and with us when they come 
 to understand that it is a question of unjustifiable inter- 
 ference w^ith rights lawfully acquired by British subjects in 
 a foreign nation which are interfered with by that nation. 
 
THE PRESENT STATE OF THE CASE. (57 
 
 I am sure of this from the feehng which woiikl, I know, 
 possess myself, if, for instance, the Government of France, 
 or any other Government, induced any body of my Pro- 
 testant fellow-countrymen to acquire in France legitimate 
 interests for their religious necessities, and that upon the 
 coming into power in that same country of another form 
 of Government, monarchical or republican, such incoming- 
 government should have confiscated the rights so acquired 
 by my fellow-countrymen. If, for instance, the Wesleyans 
 of England established a training-school for health or other 
 reasons, say in the south of France. If they were per- 
 mitted to do so by the law^ful government of that country. 
 If the funds of that institution were recruited from 
 Wesleyans in England, in the United States and all the 
 world over. If the Wesleyans had the free use of that 
 sanatorium for a number of years, and depended upon it 
 for the training of their choice ministers, and for the 
 management of their aftairs. If their Moderator happened 
 to be a Frenchman, and needed such an institution for the 
 government of their body. If they could not dispense with 
 it without serious loss and money outlay ; and all this 
 because the new Government of France had decided that 
 such establishment should perish. If in pursuance of this 
 law such Government proceeded, as France did actually at 
 the Revolution, to confiscate all religious rights, and 
 amongst the rest the legitimately acquired rights of English 
 Wesleyans, I know that I would expect that the most 
 strenuous eff'orts of the rulers of England should never 
 cease until France was taught that while she might jilunder 
 the interests of Frenchmen as long as Frenchmen let 
 her, she should desist from such a course when the question 
 came of plundering the rights of English citizens lawfully 
 and Deacefully acquired. I am certain there is not a 
 
68 SPOLIATION OF THE PROPAGANDA. 
 
 Catholic ill the land who would not feel aggrieved at 
 the injury thus inflicted on his unoffending fellow-citizens, 
 and who would not move with them until the wrong 
 insolently inflicted in defiance of international rights was 
 redressed. 
 
MEASUllES TO MEET THE DIFFICULTY. 09 
 
 X. 
 
 MEASURES TO MEET THE DIFFICULTY. 
 
 Speaking of these, I am yet sanguine that our rulers 
 will open their eyes to see the grievance which Catholic 
 British subjects suffer in the spoliation of the Propaganda. 
 For my part I cannot altogether blame the Ministry. I 
 think we have not pressed the matter upon them 
 sufficiently, and they need, and, indeed, invite this kind of 
 pressure. I know, too, that they are much disinclined to 
 disoblige Italy, which the great Whig leader. Lord 
 Palmerston, formed, though, as we have seen last Monday 
 evening, for motives very much other than the real good 
 of England. Still English Statesmen have had proof 
 enough of what they may expect from " United Italy " since 
 its formation. And I am persuadedj notwithstanding- 
 seeming favourable symptoms regarding Eg}][3tian affairs, 
 that England is destined to experience still more of the 
 nature of Italian Masonic "gratitude." I think I know 
 the feelings of the party now ruling in Italy; It is perfectly 
 intolerant of English domination in the Mediterranean, and 
 would, if it could, give a blow to her rule in Malta, in 
 Cyprus, in Gibraltar, and in Egypt to-morrow. Masonic 
 Italy is best kept in order by wholesome fear, and had 
 Eno:land shown a bold front in favour of the riij^hts of 
 British subjects involved in the spoliation of the Propa- 
 ganda, she would have obtained, I firmly believe, much 
 more from the respect her conduct would inspire than she 
 will ever get from the love of Piedmont ese Freemasons. 
 There is also something in the blessing of God which 
 follows the doing of the right thing for the oppressed, and 
 
70 SPOLIATION OF THE PROPAGANDA. 
 
 perhaps much more will be soon lost to the nation by the 
 want of this blessing in the conduct of Egyptian affairs than 
 ever could be gained by siding with the heartless violation 
 of British international rights by the Freemasons, now 
 working their unholy will upon the city and the property 
 of the Popes. 
 
 On this subject I had in London lately a long conver- 
 sation with a great and good Catholic Irish Statesman, 
 Mr. A. M. Sullivan. He was, of course, acquainted 
 with the fact of the spoliation of the Propaganda, but he 
 onl}^ knew in part the nature of the injustice. When I 
 laid that fully before him he suggested that I should 
 deliver such a lecture as I have given this evening upon it, 
 and he promised to take the chair at that lecture, and to 
 speak also himself upon the matter, as he of all living- 
 Irishmen could best do. He had, I must say, great faith 
 in the justice and spirit of fair play characteristic of Mr, 
 Gladstone, and he believed that if the great Premier were 
 properly approached by the Irish Parliamentary Party, he 
 would use his influence to have the injustice done to us by 
 the Italian Freemasons removed. He thought it, perhaps, 
 difficult to get back lands already sold, but he also thought 
 that the men in j^ower in Italy would surely yield to the 
 pressure of England and liberate the vinculated bonds, 
 thus at least saving us a portion of our property. Fie 
 thought the case of Father Michael Doyle, one which no 
 Government could refuse to recognise, while that of the 
 other donors to the same institution, whether Spanish or 
 of any other nation, was equally strong. I grieve that this 
 good man is gone from our midst Avhilst the injustice I 
 complain of, and which he would willingly have removed, 
 lives on ; but I feel myself bound to give utterance not 
 only to my own but to his sentiments, however feebly, 
 
MEASURES TO xMEET THE DIFFICULTY. 71 
 
 regarding the merits of a case for redress, altbougli in 
 itself it is all-powerful. 
 
 Our duty is to seek this redress if only to save our 
 national honour. But come what may, I believe that all 
 who have heard what I have stated this evenincj will a^ree 
 that it is our duty to save at any cost an institution so 
 valuable and so necessary to us. By it, we reach and save 
 the Heathen. By it, we comfort the sadly oppressed 
 Oriental Catholic, still groaning under the oppression of 
 the Mahometan. By it, Ave carry on the vast machinery of 
 the Church of God in three-fourths of the entire world. As 
 Catholics, we can never permit Italian Freemasonry to 
 destroy it. We must sustain it ; and how can we ? Lately, 
 on hearing the news of its Spoliation, an Italian noble, 
 faithful to the traditions of his princely house, gave us an 
 example. He left it several thousand ^^ounds which the 
 Italian Freemasons tried to prevent the Propaganda 
 receiving, but failed. It is for us who benefit by the 
 Institution to follow so noble an example. It is a way 
 by which everyone blessed with worldly wealth may make 
 a most useful protest against the Spoliation, and at the 
 same time contribute to the continuation of the work of the 
 Sacred Congregation. It can find for twenty times the 
 wealth it had at any time, immense fields, yet unexplored 
 by the Christian Missionary. I do say that no one ought 
 permit a shilling to go where an Italian Freemason can 
 manage to steal it, but money for the Propaganda can be 
 left in trust to one's Bishop or Archbishop, as the case may 
 be, and, as the testator may direct, that money can be 
 applied either in a lump sum, or still better, as principal, 
 producing interest, for the purposes of the Propaganda. It 
 will then go surely and safely to its destination. I indicate 
 this as one way by which God's people mav help a work 
 
72 SPOLIATION OF THE PROPAGANDA. 
 
 vSO worthy. There are many other ways which the gene- 
 rosity of the faithful will easily discover. But there is one 
 unfailing means which all, even the very poorest, can 
 employ to assist the great Institution in the day of its 
 need. That is by fervently praying to God, through the 
 intercession of His Blessed, Immaculate, Virgin Mother, 
 that the pride of the infidel may cease, and that the elect 
 of the Lord may be liberated ; that counsel, and love, and 
 strength may reign amongst the faithful of Christ ; and 
 that surrounding His Vicar in a spirit of filial unity, 
 they may show an unbroken, intelligent front to the foe, 
 and so sustain the grandest cause ever given by God to 
 man to support on earth — the cause of Christian Faith 
 and Civilization, now imperilled by the most deadly 
 enemies of the Cross that have ever appeared in this 
 world. 
 
NOTE. 73 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 The following statement is taken from the second 
 edition of the Persecutions Suffered hy the Catholics of 
 Ireland Under the Rule of Cromwell and the Puritans, by 
 the Most Rev. Patrick Francis Moran, D.D., Archbishop 
 of Sydney. Dublin : 1884. Appendix ii., p. 464 : — 
 
 The many links that for ceatm'ies have united Ireland with the 
 Holy See are familiar to our Irish readers. Even during the persecu- 
 tion of Elizabeth we find our country engaging Eome's special care. 
 Pro-nuncios were despatched to her shores, to guard and defend the 
 interests of the Catholic faith ; her children, who rose in arms to 
 assert her rights, received from Rome not only words of encourage- 
 ment but funds to aid their cause; and when her clergy were persecuted 
 and imprisoned, the Holy Father not only stretched out to them an 
 assisting hand, but by repeated briefs solicited the mediation of foreign 
 princes, that the rigour of the persecution might be relaxed, and the 
 captives restored to liberty.* 
 
 During the period of which we treated in the preceding pages, at the 
 very commencement of the struggle of the Confederates, the saintly 
 Searampo was sent to encourage them, and guide them by his counsels. 
 Later still, we find the Nuncio Rinuccini sent on a like mission, besides 
 being the bearer of ample subsidies. At every stage of their momentous 
 proceedings, letters were sent from Rome to the French and Spanish 
 monarchs, as well as to the minor princes of Germany and Italy, exhorting 
 them to lend their aid to the Irish nation ; whilst other letters were 
 from time to time transmitted to the bishops and confederate leaders, 
 rejoicing with them in their triumph, condoling in their afilictions, 
 healing their dissensions, and exhorting them to union and constancy in 
 the cause of justice and religion. 
 
 It would be easy to give further instances of the solicitude of the 
 Holy See for its faithful children ; and to record the many letters of 
 exhortation and encouragement which were addressed to the citizens of 
 Dublin, and others, during their long struggles and sufi'erings in the 
 
 * Several of these invaluable documents may be seen in the Spicilegium Ossoriense, 
 vol. ii. x, 
 
74 SPOLIATION OF THE PROPAGANDA. 
 
 cause of religion and theii* king ; but we reserve them for another occa- 
 sion, not wishing to extend this note to too great a length. 
 
 We shall merely state for the present that during the interval of 
 Cromwell's triumph, we find the assistance of the Holy See bountifullv 
 given to the banished clergy and people ; and immediately after the 
 restoration, letters were again addressed to all the Catholic powers, 
 praying them " to commission their respective ambassadors at the English 
 Court to defend and protect the interest of the poor Catholics of Ireland, 
 and especially of the priests who were imprisoned for the faith in many 
 parts of that kingdom.* 
 
 Thirty years later, when the sword of persecution was again unsheathed 
 against the Irish Catholics, the Pope was still their unflinching advocate. 
 Eemittances were j^early sent from Rome to the Court of St. Germain 
 for the relief of the Irish exiles, whilst additional aid was bountifully 
 supplied to the banished and persecuted members of the Hierarchy. In 
 the Vatican archives we find it registered that 72,000 francs were then 
 annually supplied by Eome for the support of the Irish secular clergy 
 and laity ; on the 15th of July, 1698, we find an additional remittance of 
 23,655 livresfor the religious who were banished from Ireland. Instruc- 
 tions were, moreover, sent to the Nuncios in the foreign Courts to give 
 every protection and aid to the Irish Catholics ; and even a jubilee was 
 proclaimed in Italy to solicit the prayers and alms of iJie faithful of that 
 country for our suffering people. In the month of January, 1699, we 
 meet with a list of 27,632 livres received from the Holy Father, and 
 distributed to various Irish ecclesiastics who had lately taken refuge in 
 France and Belgium. In the month of February there is another list of 
 11,832 livres similarly distributed; and in March, as we learn from a 
 letter of the Nuncio in Paris to Cardinal Spada (dated 9th March, 
 1699), 53,000 livres were sent by the Pope to St. Germain, and distri- 
 buted by King James to " the Irish ecclesiastics then sent into exile." 
 There is another list dated from St. Germain, 29th March, 1699, which 
 we give entire. Its details must be peculiarly interesting to our readers : — 
 
 " To Mr. Magennis, Superior to the College des Lombards . 1,200 
 To do. do. to be distributed amongst the Irish 
 
 Missioners 1,200 
 
 To Mr. Nolan, Superior of another Irish Community in Paris 
 
 for the support of the poor students in his community . 1,000 
 
 To Mr. O'Donnell for the Irish nuns in Ipres .... 1,000 
 
 » "Affinche vogliano incaricare i loro ambasciadori e ministri nella corte 
 d'lnghilterra di diffendere e proteggere gl'mteresei dei poveri Cattolici d'Irlanda, e 
 particolarmente dei sacerdoti carcerati per la fede in diverse parti del regno." — Acts 
 of Sac. Conff., 22 May, 16fi2. 
 
NOTE. 75 
 
 To the almoner of the Queen for the use of the Community 
 
 of poor Irish girls at St. Germain 500 
 
 To Father Nash, an Irish Franciscan, for some members of 
 
 his Order 41 
 
 To various other religious 99 
 
 To the confessor of the Queen for a young ecclesiastical 
 
 student 150 
 
 To Mr. Burke, chaplain to the Queen, for an Irish Carmelite . 60 
 
 Set apart for four missioners coming from Ireland . . . 600 
 
 To a poor Irish officer who has a wife and six children . . 150 
 
 In all, six thousand scudi." 
 
 Again, on the 8th of June, 1699, the secretary of the king, writing 
 from St. Germain, acknowledges the receipt, from the Holy Father, 
 " of 37,500 livres to be distributed amongst his subjects, persecuted for 
 their faith." 
 
 AVhen, about the middle of the eighteenth century, the enemies of 
 Catholicity had recourse to new arts to assail the time-honoured faith 
 of our nation, and sought to poison the sources of instruction of our 
 Catholic youth, the Holy See was again ready, not only with its 
 exhortations and counsels, but also with its pecuniary aid to support 
 Catholic poor-schools through the country, and from that time to the 
 close of the century, when the Pope was momentarily deprived of his 
 states and driven into exile, 1,000 Roman crowns were annually trans- 
 mitted to our bishops for that pm-pose. 
 
 Thus were the Eoman Pontiffs at every period the fathers of our 
 country, the guardians of our persecuted people, the support of our 
 exiled clergy. "The blessings of faith were transmitted to us by the 
 Popes, not only as the successors of St. Peter, but as sovereigns of 
 Eome ; and when an opportunity is given Catholic Ireland of making 
 them some return, it would be strange, indeed, if she did not gratefully 
 remember the services rendered in her hour of distress."* 
 
 * Rev. D. M.''Carthy's Recollections on Irish Church Historij, vol. i., p. 320. 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 THE 
 
 VUiGIN MOTHER OF GOOD COUNSEL, 
 
 A H ISTORY 
 
 OF THE ANCIENT SANCTUARY OF OUR LADY OF GOOD COUNSEL IN 
 GENAZZANO, AND OF THE WONDERFUL APPARITION AND MIRACU- 
 LOUS TRANSLATION OF HER SACRED IMAGE FROM SCUTARI 
 IN ALBANIA TO GENAZZANO IN 1W7. 
 
 With an APPENDIX on the MIRACULOUS CRUCIFIX, SAN PIO, 
 ROMAN ECCLESIASTICAL EDUCATION, Etc. 
 
 BY 
 
 MONSIGNOR GEORGE F. DILLON, D.D., 
 
 MISSIONARY APOSTOLIC. 
 
 (A VISITOR FEOM SYDNEY TO THE SHEINE.) 
 
 Large Edition, Printed at the Propaganda Press, Pome, Imperial 
 8vo, nearly 700 pages, in fine type, beautifully bound in cloth. 
 (The ordinary edition (price 12s. 6d.) is all sold out.) 
 Ditto, fine paper edition in superior binding (only a few 
 
 left) ... ••• ... ••• ••' ••• ••• ••• los. 
 
 Ditto, in Morocco, rich (suitable as presentation copies) ... 30s. 
 
 The large demand for the above has caused the author to prepare a 
 New Edition in a more popular form. This will be shortly published 
 by M. H. GILL & SON, Dublin, and will be sold, handsomely bound 
 in cloth, at 5s. 
 
 LONDON: BURNS & GATES, ORCHARD STREET. 
 
 DUBLIN : M. H. GILL & SON, SACKYILLE STREET. 
 
 NEW YORK : BURNS & GATES. 
 
 The ivlioh lyrofiis arising from the sale of both these works, as zvell as the 
 profits from the present tvoric on the War of Antichrist tvith the Church, ^'c, 
 have been given over hj the Author to the Right Hev, Monsignor Kirlg, D.D., 
 Bishop of Lita, Rector of the Irish College, Rome, for the bencft of the suffering 
 Nuns in Italg, now despoiled of all their propcrtg by the existing Italian 
 Government. For some account of the sufferings of these afflicted servants 
 of God, see end of present notice, page 13. 
 
The Autlior lias beea lionouved with tlie following letters from His 
 Holiness Pope Leo XIII., and from Cardinal Simeoni, Prefect of the 
 Sacred Congregation of the Propaganda : — 
 
 Our Most Holy Lord Leo XIII. received the copy of the vohime presented 
 by you, in which you give in tlie Eno-lish language the history of the ancient 
 Sanctuary of the Virgin Mother of God, situated in the town of Genazzano, 
 in the diocese of Palestrina, and which is venerated with the greatest piety by 
 the faithful and by the constant concourse of devout pilgrims. As in this 
 work the Holy Father perceives not only the evidence of your filial duty but 
 also the affection of religious piety by which you study to advance the honour 
 of God's Mother, he deems your counsel and service acceptable and pleasing, 
 and desires that by this my letter yon should receive a pledge of his paternal 
 love and commendation. The Supreme Pontiff moreover hopes that the 
 salutary fruits wliich at this time are so much to be desired, may respond to 
 your wishes, and that those who read your writings may be moved to imploro 
 the protection of the Mother of God for the Church which, amidst the many 
 adversities by which it is oppressed, places the utmost confidence in Her. 
 Finally, granting your prayer. Our Most Holy Lord, in testimony of his 
 paternal benevolence and in presage of all celestial graces, most lovingly in 
 the Lord imparts to you the Apostolic Benediction. 
 
 While I rejoice to convey to you these tidings I willingly take the occasion 
 offered me of professing to yon the sincere esteem by which from my heart 
 J am 
 
 Your devoted Servant, 
 
 Charles No cell a, 
 Secretary for Latin Letters to 
 Our Most Holy Lord Leo 
 XIIL 
 Rome, May 2Tth. 1SS4. 
 
 Eome, May 17th, 1S84. 
 Office of the Sacred Congi-egation of the Propaganda Fide. 
 
 I have received with particular satisfaction the book entitled. The Virgin 
 Mother of Good Counsel, etc., which you, Avhile constrained to repose for 
 some time in order to re-establish your health impaired by your missionary 
 labours, have written during your sojourn in Eoine. 
 
 It is in every way Avorthy of a good ecclesiastic and of a zealous missionary 
 to cultivate love for Most Holy Mary and to propagate devotion to Her, and 
 as you have laboured for these ends by writing the history of one of the most 
 celebrated Sanctuaries of Italy, I must rejoice with you in the result, and I 
 hope that I shall have the pleasure of seeing your holy intentions happily 
 crowned with success. 
 
 You have also added in an appendix to your work wise observations ujion 
 Ihe Roman education of the clergy, and have referred opportunely to the 
 institution of the Propaganda and its salutary influence over the entire world. 
 This also has proved to me the excellent spirit with which you are animated, 
 and I feel assured that the sentiments which you numifest will always serve to 
 render yet closer the bonds which iniite the faithful of all countries to the 
 Roman See, tin; Mother and Mistress of all Churches. 
 
 Finally, I return you thanks for the gift which you have made me of this 
 your admirable work, and I pray the Lord, through the intercession of the 
 Blessed Virgin, whom you have desired to honour by its means, to grant you 
 His choicest benedictions. 
 
 Mo,?t affectionately yours, 
 
 John Cardinal Simeoni, 
 Prefect of the S. C. of the Propaganda. 
 
 For Monsignor the Secretary, 
 
 Ant. Aoliaudi, Minutantc. 
 
A large number of tlie Arclil)i.sliop8, Bishops, Digni- 
 taries, and Supericn-s of Keligious Orders in England, 
 Ireland, Scotland, America, and Anstralia, have also, 
 sinc(^ the publication of the work, warndy congratulated 
 the Author on its ap])earanee, aii<l ])r()nn's{Ml to extend its 
 circulation. 
 
 Notices and IveYiews of it appeared also in many 
 newspapers, periodicals, and reviews, amongst which were 
 the following 
 
 <?!) 
 
 From " The Freeman's Journal," Januayy KSth, 1885. 
 
 Tins (lee])ly interosting work, wliich we mentionod rpccntly, claims sppcial 
 attention by more than its ntility as an aid to one of the most important, con- 
 solatory, and beautiful of Catholic devotions, and its authority as a learned and 
 masterly contribution to the history of the Church, sent forth wilh the approval 
 and the benediction of great prelates, and for a purpose in which Ireland is 
 destined to have a conspicuous share. It is a delightful work from a purely 
 literary point of view. The author, whose whole heart and soul are in his sub- 
 ject, has so studied it, so informed himself with the spirit of the time and place, 
 entered so thoroughly into the life of the people whoso great treasure is the 
 miraculous picture of Our Lady of Good Counsel, and whose richest endowment 
 is the ever-growing devotion of the ancient sanctuary that is so eloquent a 
 witness before men against the spirit of the world, that the reader accompanies 
 liim as he might walk by the side of an accomplished expositor thi-ough a 
 picture-gallery, seeing not only the works of art that clothe the walls, but the 
 artist spirit that inspired them. 
 
 To make known as widely as possible the wonderful history of the ancient 
 sanctuary at Genazzano ; to spread the etficacious devotion to Our Lady of 
 Good Counsel, of which it is the seat and centre; to make his fellow-Catholics 
 in Ireland, in England, and in the Australian Colonies, which are the scenes of 
 his own labours (Monsignor Dillon describes himself as " a visitor from Sydney 
 to the Shrine "), aware of the faith and fervour that still survive in Italy, 
 under a system which he describes in a comprehensive sentence — such are the 
 objects of the author's laborious and admirably executed task. He came to 
 Italy to find rest and recreation after twenty years of missionary labour in 
 Australia, and he was prepared " to see a great decay of religion in a nation 
 where the most formidable atheism the world has ever seen was, with supremo 
 political power in its hands, astutely planning the eradication of Christianity 
 from the social, political, and even individual life of the people." What did he 
 see? A nation, nine-tenths of whom are earnest, practical Catholics, who 
 " oppose to all attempts upon their religion a passive but determined resistance, 
 which no effort of the infidels has been able to shake. In general, family lifi' 
 amongst them equals the purity and innocence of the farm homes of Ireland. 
 They live, in truth, by faith. But above all, that which, in the eyes of the 
 writer, most distinguishes them is their intense and universal devotion to the 
 Virgin Mother of God." 
 
 The twenty-third chapter of this work, which is an exp(isition of the devo- 
 tion of the Italian people, is full of pathetic interest and of edification, as well 
 as being an eminently picturesque sketch ; but it is not upon this aspect of 
 Monsignor Dillon's book, "' sijniputiai''' though it be, that we ouglit to dwell 
 in the brief space which we may claim wherein to direct the att(>ntion of the 
 reader to a great store of knowledge and beauty. It is to his history of the 
 famous Shrine of Our Lady of Good Counsel at Genazzano, with its introductory 
 chapters upon the nature and origin of the devotion, the translation of the 
 
 •I 
 
Miraculous Image, and the " Pious Union," in which the Irish Augusiinians in 
 Eome are deeply interested; to his vi^ad and pictorial sketch of Latium, whence 
 tradition has it, that from the summit of its mountain, where the church and 
 village of Castel San Pietro now stand, the Prince of the Apostles took his first 
 view of mighty Rome ; to his marvellous account of the change from paganism 
 to Christianity, and the reasons that exist for believing the modern Genazzano 
 to be the actual historic scene of the too-famous games annually carried on bj'' 
 ordinance published in the " Calendar of Palestrina," which may now bo 
 insjaected at the Vidoni Palace in Rome; of Christian Genazzano, in 1467, and 
 the miraculous translation of the Image of Our Lady from Albania to the 
 Shrine where it still remains an object of the deepest veneration to the inhabit- 
 ants, and of incessant and innumerable pilgrimages from all parts of Italy. 
 Proofs of the apparition of the picture, and subsequently of its translation, ai-e 
 largely supplied by Mousignor Dillon, and although it is not " of faith " that 
 the beautiful and consolatory history is to be received unhesitatingly, we do 
 not think it can fail to convey assurance to the minds of all who are inside the 
 Church, who have "tasted of the graciousness of God," who being of the 
 Household of Faith are accustomed to its divine administration in all things, 
 and in ways which, however wonderful, are not " hard " to the " little children'' 
 of the Kingdom, though to the wisest of outsiders they be " foolishness," as 
 was Jesus Christ to the learned Greeks when preached to them by St. Paul. 
 
 The author's description of the picture — copied innumerable times, yet never 
 reproduced — is very beautiful, and deeply affecting. We can but urge our 
 readers to acquaint themselves \^dth it, and with the details of the active, vital, 
 and vitalising devotion of which the sacred Shrine at Genazzano is the centre. 
 The book which records these things is a rich contribution to general knowledge 
 of Italy and its people as well, and we hope that the great desire of its author 
 may be realised by the spread throughout Catholic Ireland, tried, tortured, 
 persecuted, and tempted, even as Italy, but like her, faithful still, of that same 
 beautiful devotiou. The Mother of God reigns over the Island of Saints as 
 over the Land of the Popes ; let the people of the one join with the people of 
 the other in giving her increased honour, and resorting to her with fi-esh confi- 
 dence in the communion of the " Pious Union," which invokes " Our Lady of 
 Good Counsel," at that marvellous meeting-place of souls, the Shrine of the 
 Miraculous Image of Genazzano. ^. 
 
 '. From '' The Tablet," Augitsf 30///, 1884. 
 
 This interesting and remarkable volume has already been noticed in our Roman 
 correspondence. Since then the Holy Father has been pleased to approve of it 
 in a special letter to the aiithor. Cardinal Simeoni, prefect of the Propaganda, 
 by whose permission the book was printed at the famous Polyglot Htidn^icrin 
 of that Sacred Congregation, calls the work in another warmly commendatory 
 letter " admirable." It is moreover dedicated by permission to Cardinal Mar- 
 tinelli, Prefect of the Index ; and, as we gather from the dedication itself, is the 
 only work which that saintly and learned Cardinal permitted to be so dedicated. 
 The theologians deputed to examine it on behalf of .the Master of the Sacred 
 Apostolic Palace, were Dr. Martinelli, Regent of the Studies of the Irish Augus- 
 tinians and Consultor to the Congregation of Rites, and Mousignor Carbery, at 
 present Bishop of Hamilton in Canada, then Assistant General of the Dominican 
 Order in Rome. These learned theologians not only gave it the usual nihil 
 ohstdt, but speak in laudatory terms of its contents. The work, therefore, 
 comes before the Catholic public well guaranteed as to the safety and soundness 
 of its doctrine. We believe the erudite author did well to have it so fortified. 
 It treats largely, not merely of the supernatural, but of the supernatural 
 witli which English-siseaking Catholics are not generally acquainted, and, there- 
 fore, in many instances not inclined toreceive without considerable preparation. 
 A history of Loreto, or of any sanctuary which circumstances have rendered 
 familiar, would meet with loss difficult}'. But mii-aculous events, which, how- 
 ever well known to others, are new to us, require to be told with care. Living 
 in an atmosph' re unfriendlv to the miraculous because it is Protestant, and 
 
 4 
 
tostiic to all ttat concerns tlie supernatural, since it has become impregnated 
 with modern naturalism, wo bcconl(^ cautions, if not suspicious of everything 
 new to us. Wc laugh, indeed, at the philosophy which, while disdainfully 
 rejecting all miraculous occurrences as absurd, ends in accepting with childish 
 cn'dulity the ludicrous absurdities of mediums and spirit rappers. But avc go 
 often into the extreme of caution in receiving such supernatural facts as are 
 continually repeated in the inward life of the Chiu'ch. Where the atmosphere 
 is Avholly Catholic, belief in the existence of miracles is not so difHcult. They 
 are tested, like other facts, and if favourably recognised by ecclesiastical 
 authorityare admitted. Inthis way our forefathers received withouthesitationthe 
 s*:atement of St. Simon Stock, their countrjuuan, regarding his reception of the 
 fcapular as from the hands of the Mother of God ; and, in the hope of obtaining 
 miraculous favours, millions of them made pilgrimages, not only to the shrine of 
 St. Thomas and other national sanctuaries, but passed beyond the seas to visit 
 the tombs of the apostles in Eome, and the great sanctuaries of Mary there and 
 elsewhere. They were, perhaps, the most remarkable people for pilgrimages 
 during the ages of faith. It is a very beautiful manifestation of the kind of 
 devotion they so much loved, that Mgr. Dillon brings now under the notice of 
 English-speaking Catholics everywhere. The sanctuary of which he writes is, 
 as Cardinal Simeoni terms it, " one (>f the most celebrated in Italy." It is, as 
 the Holy Father states in his letter to the author, " venerated with the greatest 
 piety by the faithful and by the constant concourse of devout pilgrims." More- 
 over, the peculiar and beautiful devotion to the Mother of God, of which it is 
 the source, may be spread everywhere. The wonders worked at the shrine ai-e 
 even surpassed by those which have been wrought through copies of the original 
 in Italy and other countries. It was a copy of it that was so loved and so 
 tenaciously held to old age by St. Liguori. It was a copy from which Our Lady 
 spoke so frequently and fondly to St. Aloysius at Madrid. It was a copy which 
 saved Genoa and restored Calabria to fervour. The image, whether in the 
 original or in well executed copies, has certainly great devotional power over 
 all beholders. It increases fervour, and powerfully excites the petitioner to 
 confidence in seeking graces through Mary, especially the gift which may be 
 said to contain all others, and which is so much needed in our days, the gift of 
 good counsel. 
 
 The history before us is a very exhaustive one, both of the shrine and the 
 devotion. In his Introduction the author says of the latter : 
 
 " It sprang up, as will be seen, almost at the same time with the rise of 
 Christianity upon the ruins of Paganism in the Eoman Empire. The very spot 
 Avliere the beautiful Image of Marj"- and Jesus now reposes, was once the scene 
 »)f the foulest rites of idol worship in honour of Venus. There, every April for 
 centuries, came from far and near the men and the women of Latium for the 
 Robigal Games. There, year after year they abandoned themselves to all the 
 abominations not only tolerated, but prescribed, by the Pagan Jus Pontificiam 
 of the Romans. No civilised nation of antiquity that Ave know of, had rites 
 more demoralising than these proud masters of the world ; and nowhere, not 
 even in the Flavian Amphitheatre, do the same rites seem to have been carried 
 to greater excess, than near the site of the present temple of the Madonna in 
 the borough of Genazzano, where, when the worship of idols had given place 
 to that of the one true God, the statue of the foulest Goddess of heathendom 
 fell to make way for the Shrine and the sway of the Purest of God's creatures, 
 His Virgin Mother. It was meet and, no doubt, was so arranged by a merciful 
 and wise Providence, that the mother and synonyme of a vice which, with other 
 dark and sorrowful characters, has folly emphatically stamped upon it, should 
 be succeeded, when faith shed its light upon Latiuiu, by the Mother and S>tio- 
 nyme of purity and supernal wisdom, the Mother ' of fair love' and of • holy 
 hope,' of consolation and of Counsel." 
 
 He continues : 
 
 "To make the contrast here indicated more clear, the writer has thought it 
 of use to give a sketch of the history and locality of Genazzano. This cannot 
 fail from its classical as well as Christian recollections to interest the English- 
 speaking visitor to Rome, who can got but scant, and, in a Catholic sense, almost 
 no reliable information from the guide-books published in his language ; and, 
 
 O 
 
to enalble the reader at a distance to realise tlie full meaning of the dc^votion, it 
 is necessary. It will serve to show to all, that, though confined to one locality, 
 the devotion existed from a very early period. When God willed its extension 
 it was by means of a most striking and significant miracle. A beautifnl image 
 of His Mother holding the Divine infant in her sacred arms, passed from aland 
 jnst taken by the Turks to the very spot where the Virgin Mother of Good 
 Counsel had been honoured for over a thousand years. The translation of this 
 image was effected without human interference and amidst many prodigies. It 
 naturally created a wide-spread and deep impression at the time. On a festival, 
 it appeared amidst a multitude in the public square, and rested near the wall of 
 the church where it still remains. The fervour it created amongst the people 
 of God, the graces, the consolations, and the miraculous favours obtained at its 
 shrine, continue to this day. It has thus become the fountain of devotion to 
 the Mother of Good Counsel for all the faithful of Christ, in all the lands which 
 own the sway of His Vicar on eai-th." 
 
 In fulfilment of the promise; made in this extract, the author has given some 
 very interesting chapters on Latium, Genazzano, Pagan and Christian, and 
 upon Albania, the land from which the miraculous image was miraculously 
 translated, and its last great King, George Castriota, or, as he is better known 
 by his Turkish appellation, iScanderberg. The following description of the 
 physical features of Latium will give an idea of the author's style in treating of 
 these subjects : 
 
 " All this expanse of country may be seen on a clear day from the Tiber's 
 bank outside Eome, or better, from the dome of St. Peter's. Thrilling memories 
 of the past ai'e connected with almost every spot of it. Taking a central stand, 
 say, on the summit of Mount Artimisio, a hundred scenes of world-wdde celebrity 
 at once come under view. In Velletri at your feet, Augustus the first Eomau 
 Emperor was born. Near it is Civita Lavinia, the ancient Lanu\dum, the site 
 of the great temple of Juno, the birthplace of Milo, of Antoninus Pius, of 
 Marcus Aurelius, of Commodus, and, in more modern times, of Mark Antony 
 Colonna, the hero of Lcpanto. Far in the opposite direction is seen Anagni, the 
 ancient capital of the Ernici, which gave to the Christian world four Popes, 
 amongst whom tow^ers the majestic figure of Innocent the Third. Between 
 these two points, the eye passes over Cori, Segni, 8acro Porto, the valley of the 
 Sacco — the Latin A'alley — Artena, and other places famous in the early warfare 
 of the Latin tribes. In front the long sea coast is visible, from the Circaean 
 Promontoi'y still protecting Antium, at in'esont I'urto d\i)i?:io, from the miasma 
 of the Pontine Marshes, to Ostia at the Tiber's mouth. Dotting the dark bosom 
 of the hills beneath, are seen Genzano, Ariccia, Albano, Castel Gandolfo, Fras- 
 cati, and other celebrated suburban retreats of the Rome of to-day as well as 
 of the Rome of antiquity. 
 
 '' Turning to the Sabines, Palestrina, the ancient Praeneste, is seen standing 
 out upon the mid-declivity of its mountain. Near it are Zagarolo, Gallicauo, 
 and then a wide plain encirling the hills which run towards Tivoli. Higher uj) 
 than Artemisio, is the summit of the Alban range, Monte Cavo, where stood that 
 great altar of Jupiter to which all Latium 3'early repaired for sacrifice and 
 prayer. A monastery in the keeping of the Passionate Fathers now takes the 
 place of the Pagan temple and altar. It was built, strange to say, by the 
 Cardinal of York, the last of the Stuart Princes, who had much love for the 
 fine scenery of these hills upon which his bishopric was situated. 
 
 " The memories connected with almost every mile of this territory makes it 
 one of the most interesting in the world. But there is much more to be said of 
 it. There is not on the earth a couuti-y of the same extent more beautiful to 
 look upon. 
 
 " The traveller leaving Rome does not first realise this. The flat campagna 
 which expands before him on leaving any of the southern gates of the city, 
 looks dreary and uninviting enough Avhen not diversified by some interesting- 
 ruin. This dreariness becomes all the more intense when the imagination 
 travels back to the period when the vast plain bloomed like a garden under the 
 assiduous care of the hiisbandman." 
 
 After giving a history of the miraculous apparition and translation of the 
 baci'cd image, the author gives several chapters in proof of the facts he bi'ings 
 
 (5 
 
forward. He speaks of the miracles recorded and witnessed by himself, of the 
 devotion of the Popes iuid distin,2:uish(sl persons noting the pilgrimages to the 
 shrine made by Urban VIII. and Pius IX., and the continuous pojjular pilgri- 
 mages ; of the indulgences granted ; of the Pious Union established by 
 Benedict XIY., and of which that celebrated Pontiff' was the first member; of 
 the proper mass and office granted in 1770 ; of the Church of Santa Maria ; and, 
 in order to dispd certain illusions not always confined to Protestants, regarding 
 Italy and the devotion to Our Lady, he has added two very valuable; chapters 
 on the faith of the Italian people and on the Catholic worship and invocation of 
 Mary. An Appendix treats of several important matters, amongst which is a 
 chapter on the "' Value of a Roman Ecclesiastical Education," written evidently 
 with the view to aid the establishment of an Australian college in Pome ; and 
 as Cardinal f^imeoni expresses it, he has here also opportunely touched upon the 
 recent spoliation of the Propaganda by the Itsdian Government. 
 
 We but follow the i-xample of the Holy Father and the Cardinal Prefect of 
 the Propaganda in congratulating the author upon the production of this use- 
 ful and interesting Avork. It establishes on a sold basis the beautiful devotion 
 to Our Lady which it aims at extending. It is well printed, and considering 
 the difficulties of correcting the press when dealing with compositors not 
 acquainted with the language they put in type, unusually free from errors. We 
 are glad to learn that the author means to bring out a more concise and popular 
 work on the same subject. But no such work could well appear in our language 
 unless the documentary evidence given in this volume had preceded it. The 
 book is well bound, and on the whole a pleasing and valuable addition to our 
 Catholic literature. 
 
 From "The New York Fkeeman's Journal am) Catholic 
 Eegister," JJecemho' 20, 1884. 
 
 "Wk live in a time when an histori<;al or scientific " fact " will be received witli 
 interest, provided that nothing of the supernatural is claimed for it. It may 
 rest on slight liuman authority, but so long as no divine authority is quoted, 
 it is taken for granted. But let the word " miraculous '" occur in the recital of 
 it, and the supercilious reader turns away from the subject in disgust. The 
 evidence of trustworthy witnesses, unbroken traditions, voluminous records, 
 are as nothing. The man thoroughly impregnated with the miasma of the 
 century would rather doubt the testimony of his own senses than believe in a 
 miracle. 
 
 Henri Lasserre's wonderful records of the miracles at Lourdes, well sup- 
 ported as they are by the testimony of experts in the case of Louise Lateau, 
 art; simply ignored by adepts in " modern thought," who distrust their favorite 
 methods when they tend to prove a miracle. 
 
 Esj)ecially Catholics in Englisli-speaking countries start back distrustfully 
 at the line that materialistic teaching draws between the natural and the 
 supernatural. People who say "Credo" with all their hearts are unworthy 
 of the gift of Eaith if they need a miracle to keep them firm ; but it is no proof 
 of the firmness of their Faith to decline to consider any corroboration of it, 
 and while accepting the miracles recorded in Sacred Scripture in a perfunctory 
 manner, to look with distrust on all modern miracles. This distrust is not 
 always so much incredulity as it is the revolt of a falsely-formed state of mind 
 against any widening of the bounds of Faith. It is an illogical, a prejudiced 
 state of mind, l»rought about by tiie modern sophistry which has contiived to 
 associate Faith with ignorance. 
 
 A remarkable exhaustive and erudite work by the llev. Dr. George F. 
 Dillon, of Sydney, Australia, on the ancient sanctuary of Our Lady of Good 
 Counsel, in Genazzano, has been recently issued from the press of the Projia- 
 ganda Fide at Rome. We have favourably alluded to it before". It is the record 
 of a miracle, incrusted with a most valuable mass of historical learning, care- 
 fully wrought out and arranged by a loving hand, entirely devoted to the 
 service of Our Lady of Good Counsel. Dr. Dillon has produced, writing in the 
 
 7 
 
very shadow of tte sanctuary of Genazzano, a volume whicli includes the whole 
 history, sacred and profane, of the shrine of Our Lady of Good Counsel, besides 
 a hundred details, the fruit of untiring research, which leave nothing to be 
 said. Dr. Dillon's volume of nearly seven hundred pages covers the ground 
 fully. 
 
 Dr. Dillon hopes to assist in spreading devotion to Our Lady of Good 
 Counsel, which is so fervently l^ept up in Italy. " This devotion," Dr. Dillon 
 says, " aims at obtaining all that the gift of Good Counsel gives through the 
 intercession of Mary, the Immaculate Virgin Mother of God, to Whom the 
 Infallible Spouse of Christ attributes the very words of the Holy Ghost, ' In Me 
 is Counsel.' " This devotion is now beginning to be made kno■\^^l in English- 
 sjieaking countries. And in no time has the gift of the Holy Ghost been more 
 needed in all countries than in the present. 
 
 Near the city of Rome, in ancient Latium, on a spot where the lascivious 
 rites of the Eoman worship of Venus were performed, where the masters of the 
 world indulged in nameless excesses in honour of their goddess, a shrine to the 
 Immaculate Virgin has risen. Dr. Dillon gives an interesting historj' of Genaz- 
 zano. The famous Prsenestiue roses that once bloomed in honour of Venus 
 now deck the shrine of the Purest of God's creatures. Dr. Dillon sharply points 
 out this contrast. 
 
 To Genazzano, whose inhabitants, having been delirious in their worship of 
 the devil, but who Avere now fervent worshippers of God, there passed one day 
 a lovely image of the Mother of God holding the Saviour of the world in her 
 arms. Scutari in Albania had just been taken by the Turks, in 1167. From 
 thence to Genazzano in broad daylight jjassed the fresco, to be Avelcomed by a 
 population which for nearly ten centuries had honoured the Mother of God. 
 Its appearance on the public square Avas Avitnessed by crowds of people, for it 
 came on a festival. Heavenly singing and Avonderful light folloAved it. "In its 
 passage from Scutari to Genazzano," Avrites Dr. Dillon, " it AA'as folloAved over 
 land and sea by tA\'o trustworthy witnesses, Avho after\A'ards lived and died and 
 left families in Latium." Italy made itself into a huge pilgrimage to visit it. 
 Pope Paul II. instituted an inquiry not more than tAVO months after its appear- 
 ance. Sixtus IV., Avho succeeded him, A\'as ardently devoted to the Virgin 
 Mother of Good Counsel. Miracle after miracle was wrought at her shrine. 
 Copies and pictures of the Sacred Image have Avrought miracles. St. Alphonsus 
 Avas devoted to the Virgin Mother of Good Counsel, and her picture is usually 
 reproduced in his laortraits. Dr. Dillon tell us "that picture of Our Lady, 
 Avhich spoke so lovingly to the angelic youth, St. Aloysius Gonzaga, was a 
 copy." Other copies haA^e Avorked wonderful prodigies in Rome, Naples, Genoa, 
 Lucca, Frosinone, San Benedetto Ullano, and numbers of cities in Italy and 
 Germany. 
 
 When the Sacred Image fled from Scutari to Genazzano, the cross seemed to 
 be flying from the crescent in the East. Scanderbeg — King George Castriota, 
 of Albiinia, protector of the shrine of Our Lady of Good Counsel — had heroic- 
 ally driven back the invading and unsjieakable host. At his death, the Turks 
 broke in like the ocean through a frail dyke. Italy Avas threatened. The Pope 
 kept the Moslems at bay; but Europe seemed lost Avhen St. Pius V., intensely 
 devoted to the Virgin Mother of Good Counsel, called Colonna, Lord of Genaz- 
 zano, to command his fleet. The Turk Avas all-j)0Tv-erful ; but then came the 
 crushing victory of Lexianto, gained by the Mother of God for her clients. 
 Later, Sobieski triumphed at Vienna, and the baleful fire of the crescent paled 
 before the halo that surrounded the Virgin Mother of Good Counsel. 
 
 Dr. Dillon points out the more subtle Islam that noAV threatens, not only 
 Europe, but the Avorld. The neAV enemy cannot be met Avith material Aveapons ; 
 a Scanderbcrg, a Colonna, a Don John of Austria, a Sobieski, Avould be power- 
 less against tlie new enemy. It does not come, barbaric and blood-stained, but 
 pleasant to the sense, gentle, refined, ajsthotic. It is modern culture, Liberal 
 Catholicism, unbelief — all those forms of modern thought and sensuousness so 
 subtly ojiposed to Christianity. Surely yve need the help of the Virgin Mother 
 of Good Counsel now more than ever ! 
 
 " In addition," Avrites Dr. Dillon, " to the millions of Catholics Avho live in 
 comparative spiritual security in faithful Ireland, and the millions of Catholics 
 
 8 
 
now in Great Britaii, the wrilor has special reasons to think, most of all, of those 
 other millions who leave Catholic homes for a life among strangers, the majority 
 of whom (lifter from them in religion, in distant lands such as America and the 
 principal English-speaking colonies. Twenty yeai-s' experience in Australia 
 lias convinced hiui that a greater and more constant devotion is now more than 
 over needed to keep the faith alive in themselves and in their children. They 
 have to encounter all the perils which come from the infidel movements now 
 supreme over the vital question of primary education in the United States, in 
 Australia, and almost -everj'when! in English-speaking countries. In England, 
 and even in Ireland, a strong efforii is made to go with the universal current 
 against religion upon this and other most important subjects. Then in new 
 counti'ies, more than in old ones, the tendency is very great to contract mixed 
 marriages, to frequent dangerous associations and reunions, and to lose the ring 
 and vigour of sound faith by concession to the prevailing spirit of a worldliness 
 invariably anti-Catholic." 
 
 From "The Catholic Times and Catholic Opinion," 
 
 Sq'tcmhcr 2Gf/i, 1884. 
 
 ExGLlSH-SPEAKiNG Cafholics, as a rule, know little of the devotion to Our 
 Lady of Good Counsel and amongst them it will probably be a matter of sur- 
 prise that a book of importance could be written on the subject. But if, to 
 use the well-known phrase addressed to Augustine, they " take and read," we 
 feel assured all will be convinced that the subject was eminently worthy of 
 being treated for the benefit of English-speaking Catholics, and that, in point 
 of fact, the author is a writer who can invest any subject with paramount 
 interest. Mgr. Dillon first visited Italy in the Spring of last year, with the 
 view of recruiting his health which was impaired after twenty years of mission- 
 arj^ labours in Australia. That he derived great pleasure from his visit to the 
 Ansonian land, that fertile nurse of great men, we have testimony sufficient in 
 Avhat he has Avritten ; but if the labour of writing an elaborate work such as 
 this since the spring of last year, was, in his case, consistent with the spending 
 of holidays for the benefit of health, we must conclude that he is endowed with 
 ability far above the ordinary kind, and a wonderful facility of composition. 
 He travelled much through Italy, and ever with the resolution to judge fairly 
 and to treasure all the information he could gather concerning men and man- 
 ners in the Peninsula. His observations prove that in the course of his short 
 experience ho laid up a great store of information. What he did see he 
 describes in graphic language ; it taught him that at least nine-tenths of the 
 Italians are practical Catholics, that they are far from being in sympathy with 
 the opponents of Catholicism, and that they not only recognise the Pope as 
 their spiritual ruler, but that they Avould hail with joy the restitution of his 
 temporal sovereignty. They do not exert their power in political affairs, but 
 to all attempts upon their religion they offer a determined and passive resist- 
 ance. Mgr. Dillon pays a tribute to the purity of their domestic life. He 
 assures us that, in general, family life amongst them equals the purity and inno- 
 cence of the farm-houses of Ireland. From their intense and universal devotion 
 to the Blessed Virgin he derived much edification, and his knowledge of the 
 many favours conferred upon them in consequence of their devotion to Our 
 Lady of Good Counsel induced him to compare the present work giving an 
 account of her shrine at Genazzano, and the miraculous translation of her 
 Sacred image from Scutari in Albania to Genazzano. When this extraordinary 
 event occurred, the Crescent had supplanted the Cross in the East, and the 
 heroic Scanderbeg, who had received help and counsel at the shrine of this 
 very image in Albania, had passed away. Then " Mary caused the miraculous 
 image to break away from the Avails of her temple in Scutari and to pass to 
 Latium." The writer examines critically the proofs of the translation of the 
 image and of its apparition amongst a multitude of people on the occasion of 
 a public festival ; and the preservation of Europe from the hordes of Turks 
 Avho poured down upon it and Avere crushed at Le^^anto at the Avails of Vienna, 
 he sees the influence of the Mother of Good Counsel. Of the supernatural re- 
 sults of devotion at the sh]-ine at Genazzano ho has had the most reliable and 
 
 9 
 
convincing testimony. No one ever, lie informs us, went to that shrine less 
 credulous than he was ; but in the sight of the miracles wrought before his 
 eyes and carefully examined and pi-oved, he could only say that the hand of 
 God is not shortened, and that niiracles wrought through the intercession 
 of His Mother Avill never cease. There is in Mgr. Dillon's work an immense 
 amount of what may be called collateral information. Interesting historical 
 incidents are brought to mind, customs are carefully noted, and landscapes are 
 depicted with a master hand. A chapiter is devoted to au explanation, intended 
 for non-Catholics, of the worship which Catholics pay to the Blessed Virgin. 
 .... Mgr. Dillon, by making known to English-speaking Catholics a de- 
 votion so largely' practised and so fruitful in Italy, has done a service which 
 will, it is to be hoped, prove of permanent utility ; and he has, at the same 
 time, brought together a store of most important information respecting 
 Rome, the centre of the Catholic world,. and the Italian people, whose character 
 is the subject of so many contradictory statements. There is great beauty in 
 his style ; throughout the book is to be found ample proof that in narrative 
 and descriptions he has a facile pen, and that he has at command a rich voca- 
 bulary. Every sentence is vigorous and graceful. 
 
 From the "Weekly Register." /(rz/z/^^/y yd, 1885. 
 
 MoNSIGNOR DILLO^^, who describes himself simply as a visitor from Sydney 
 to the shrine of Our Lady at Genazzano, has devoted a goodly volume to an 
 account of his experiences in Italy, and especially to a descrij^tion of that 
 famous place of pilgrimage. Not the history of the miraculous image only, 
 but of almost everything that has any possible connection with it is painted 
 by his pen. The book thus covers a very wide field ; but Monsignor Dillon 
 writes mainl J' with the object of introducing to English speaking Catholics a 
 devotion which is very popular on some parts of the Continent. 
 
 The representation of Our Lady at this shrine is a fresco, painted long 
 ages ago, but when and in what country none can tell. It has remained in 
 the place where it now is for four hunded and sixteen years ; and how many 
 centuries it existed before is unknown. It first came into public notice during 
 that great struggle between the Crescent and the Cross, when the eastern 
 empire was overthrown. The heroic Rcanderbeg, King of Albania, in whose 
 country Scutari with its shrine and image lay, was enabled to resist the 
 advancing arms of Islam and drive back Mahomet II., the captor of Constanti- 
 nople, from the walls of his little caj)ital. Eor twenty years he saved his 
 country and Christendom ; and, when he died, his ashes were not cold before 
 the Turks swept over the land and passed to the Adriatic. It was then that 
 the miraculous translation of the image from Scutari to Genazzano took place ; 
 and fVom that date Italy presented an impregnable barrier to the infidel. A 
 second Scauderbeg arose in the person of Colonna, Lord of Genazzano whom 
 Pius v., in an hour of supreme danger, called to the defence of Christendom. 
 At Lepanto, Colonna, as Admiral of the Pope's fleet, and Don John of Austria, 
 together representing the two outposts of Christian Europe, struck such a 
 decisive blow that the Turks were driven from the waters, which they have 
 never since regained. From that day to the present time the shrine has had 
 varied fortunes. Many miraculous cures took place, and pilgrimages were 
 attracted from all parts of Italy and the Continent. In course of time a new 
 church was built, and was enriched by the devotion of pilgrims with precious 
 gifts of gold, silver, and gems. The wealth of the shrine before long excited 
 the cupidity of spoilers, audit was stripped to feed the ambition of Napoleon. 
 But it was left to the agents of Victor Emmanuel to drive the inmates of the 
 convent from their home and to confiscate the monastic revenues ; and though 
 afterwards the I'cligious were permitteil, through fear of popular disaffection, 
 to occupy part of the old conventual liuildings, they were allowed to do so 
 only as tenants paying rent. The Church of Genazzano has lately been 
 ri;stored to somewhat of its ancient glory, and now glows with beautiful 
 marbles and frescoes. 
 
 Monsignor Dillon had abundant o])portuuities of mixing with the peo])le 
 of the country, and studying thei]- feelings and convictions. He tells us that 
 he thinks no pepolc could be more devoted to their religion than tliey. His 
 
 10 
 
impression was that tlio Lulk of the people in the Eonian States wouhl irhully 
 receive back the temporal government of the Pontiff. Heavy burdens of 
 taxation and conscription have followed in the steps of the new regime. It is, 
 he thinks, by means of hired mobs and newspaper rorrespondents that pid)lic 
 opinion in England and France is misled. The Italian peoi)lt' liavc obtained 
 the reputation of being formal in their religion, but Monsigiun- Dillon shows 
 that though they are fond of the beautiful ceremonies of the Church their 
 religion is far from being confined to externals. 
 
 " Long hours before tlie English visitors leave their hotel beds thi- Italian 
 population in cities and villages are up and stirring, and up and stirring, too, 
 simply because of religion. As early as half-past four, even on winter morn- 
 ings, the Church of Santa Maria in Genazzano is crowded by a congregation 
 of people who desire to hear Mass before going to their daily labour. With, 
 thousands in every city Mass is not confined to the Sunday. The devout attend 
 it every day. The works of St. Liguori, Avhicli are very connnon, lead souit; 
 millions in Italj- to practice without ostentation meditation, visits to the Most 
 Holy Sacrament, and works even of the highest perfection.'' 
 
 The volume, which was printed at the Propaganda in Rome, and contains 
 four illustrations, will doubtless become a classic on the subject which 
 Monsignor Dillon has so happily taken in hand. 
 
 From "The Ave Maria," Indiana, U. S., Xoreiubcr 1, 1884. 
 
 A MOST attractive volume. The learned author begins at the very origin of the 
 town of Genazzano, traces its history through the times when it was the scene 
 of the infamous orgies of heathen worship, to the blessed dawn of Christianity, 
 which purified and consecrated its polluted walls and groves ; and then through 
 the vicissitudes which followed the decline of the Roman Empire in Italy, 
 interesting alike to the arclueologist, the historian, and the poet. But most 
 interesting among all events that have occurred in that favoured spot is the 
 coming of the miraculous painting from Scutari to the church rebuilt by the 
 devotion of a poor widow, Avho lacked the means to complete the good work 
 she had begun, but whose faith and piety were rewarded by this signal assist- 
 ance from Heaven. Full particulars of the miracle are given, and a detailed 
 narrative of the event, illustrated by drawings, of the ruined church in Scutari 
 whence the picture — a fresco painted on the wall — was convej'ed by angelic 
 hands, after tlu; final capture of Albania by the Turks. The sworn testimony 
 of witnesses, copied from the records, follows, and a family tree of the principal 
 Albanian witness, whose descendants now reside in Genazzano, is given. Then 
 follows as perfect an account as could be found of the miracles since Avrought 
 at the shrine, the records of which were imperfectly kept, both on account of 
 their great frequency ;uid the expense of the formalities which ecclesiastical 
 law requires for the verification of supernatural events, and also on account of 
 the troubled state of the country, and the frequent robberies committed in the 
 name of secular authority. These miracles are extremely interesting, especially 
 one that occurred under the very eye of the author of the present work — the 
 cure of blindness and epileptic fits in a young girl who had been given up by 
 the physicians. They extend from the middle of the fifteenth century to the 
 l)resent time— -over four hundred years of constant divine interposition. Follow- 
 ing, we find accounts of various miraculous copies of the original picture of 
 Our Lady of Good Counsel, piously venerated in different localities. The 
 volume itself is enriched with engraved copies of the painting, the beauty of 
 whose execution is what might be expected from the Italian artists. Succeed- 
 ing chapters give an account of the devotion of nuiiiy distinguished Popes 
 and many learned and pious men to this remarkable shrine ; of the pilgrimages 
 that are constantly made to it; of the apostles of this devotion, and in jiarti- 
 cular of Canon IJacci and Don Stephen Andrea Rodota ; of the Pioper Mass 
 and Ofhce granted as the most distinguished mark of ecclesiastical approbation ; 
 of the indulgences attached to the devotion ; of the rise, progress, and present 
 prosperity of the confraternity known as the Pious Union ; of the present state 
 of the church and sanctuary itself of Our Lady of Good Counsel : and of the 
 devotion of the Italian people. A concluding chapter gives a full and dogmatic 
 account of the veneration due and paid by the Catholic Church to the Blessed 
 Virgin, with the blessings that have attended its practice. 
 
 11 
 
Trom " The Irish Ecclesiastical Record," October, 1884. 
 
 Detotiox to our " Mother of Good Counsel " is not without being cultivated 
 in these countries, but it is cultivated to a far less extent than it ought to be. 
 " Good Counsel " is one of the attributes that strikes us as specially becoming 
 in her whom we salute as the " Yirgo Sapiens," and to whom the Church 
 applies the words of the Holy Ghost "in me is Counsel." Besides, we feel 
 assured that it is an attribute that is calculated to call forth in a very special 
 Avay the devotion of the faithful, who are so trustful in the protection and 
 .c-uidance of the Mother of God, particularly in times of doubt and difficulty. 
 Yet the picture of the " Virgin Mother of Good Counsel " — and it is indeed a 
 very distinctive and devotional picture — is not often met with in our churches 
 or oratories, nor is the invocation of the Blessed Virgin under this sweet title 
 so frequently on our lips as the many other ejaculations that are so famiHar to 
 us from childhood onwards. The real cause, however, of this omission is to be 
 traced to the fact that the people generally had no knowledge of the devotion 
 to the Mother of God under this special form : at least we had no full history 
 of its origin and wonderful development in other countries. This want, we 
 are happy to say, is now admii-ably met by Monsignor Dillon's beautiful book. 
 
 Among the-shrines of the Blessed Virgin, there is none, perhaps, so ancient, 
 and fcAV more famous for its miracles, the number of its pilgrims, and the 
 extraordinary manifestation of piety to be witnessed there from year to year, 
 than the shrine of the " Virgin Mother of Good Counsel." This famous shrine 
 is at Genazzano, a picturesquely situated little town, in the Sabine Eanges, 
 some thirty miles from Eome, near Palestrina, the old Praeneste capital of 
 Latium. Here our Mother of Good Counsel has been honoured under this 
 beautiful title from the earliest times, indeed from those far off times Avhen the 
 deserted pagan temples round Eome were taken up by the Christians, and the 
 abominations of idolatry replaced by the pure worship of the true God. We 
 are told that the first sanctuary of our Lady of Good Counsel at Genazzano had 
 been a temple of Venus. 
 
 In course of time God manifested His pleasure at the great honour paid to 
 His Mother at Genazzano by a miracle of a kind which reminds us forcibly of 
 that other renowned sanctuary, the holy House of Loretto. In the year 14(37, 
 a beautiful picture of the Virgin, holding in her arms the Divine Infant, 
 passed miraculously from Albania when seized by the Turks, to the shrine at 
 Genazzano. This picture is preserved with jealous care, and we have been told 
 by friends, who were present on the occasion of the annual Feast when the 
 picture is uncovered, that the piety of the people was such as to make even 
 one who had witnessed the enthusiasnr of the pilgrims at Lourdes, to marvel. 
 
 But we must send our readers to Monsignor Dillon's highly interesting 
 book for a full history of our Lady's Shrine at Genazzano. The work is so 
 complete and of so useful a character as to merit the high commendation of 
 Cardinal Simeoni ; and even the Pope himself has sent to the Eight Eev. 
 autlior, with his blessing, a letter of praise and thanks. 
 
 If we may venture to make a suggestion to the Eight Eev. author, we 
 would say to him to complete his splendid service in spreading devoting to our 
 Virgin Mother of Good Counsel by publishing in due course a small popular 
 Manual, embodying in a concise form the history of this venerable and famous 
 shrine, with prayers and suitable devotions. Thus he Avill establish a very 
 sfrong claim to the reward he speaks of so earnestly and lovingly, "Qui 
 elucidant me, vitam aeternam habebunt." 
 
 From "The Dublin Review," Odohcr, 1884. 
 
 In a very handsome vohnne of over 600 pages, printed with extreme clearness 
 and wonderful correctness at the Propaganda Press in Eome, Monsignor 
 Dillon, of Sydney, sets forth with great detail and with j)ious warmth the 
 history of the miraculous image of Our Lady at Genezzano. Many of our 
 readers will liuow that this widely venerated effigy is said to have appeared 
 suddenly on the wall of an luifinished church at Genezzano, now more than 
 four centuries ago, A short time afterwards there came to the sanctuary two 
 
 12 
 
strangers from Albania, who declared that tlio imago was no other than ono 
 which had been venerated from time immouiorial in Scutari (not Scutari on 
 the Bosphorus, but 1 ho Albanian town), and which had disappeared precisely 
 at the time they left their native land. This double tradition ^Nlonsignor 
 Dillon undertakes to substantiate. That there is a celebrated Madonna at 
 Genezzano, and that many graces and nuraculous favours have been received 
 there, no Catholic would think of disputing. And whoever goes carefidly 
 through this elaborate work, will easily convince himself that there was a 
 miraculous apparition in 1467 ... As to the sacred image itself, as now 
 venerated, it is a fresco, i)aintod (if it be painted) on thin hard mortar, as if it 
 had been detached from the surface of the wall. It is stated by those who 
 have seen it to be still altogether detached from any wall or backing. Its 
 existence in this state for upwards of 400 years is by itself a wonderful fact. 
 Representations of the sacred image are not uncommon, and there are probably 
 few who have not looked on the most characteristic face of Mar}', and on the 
 Divine Infant, lovingly leaning His cheek against hers, with one little arm 
 round her neck and the hand of the other grasjiing her robe at the throat. 
 .... Genezzano is not far from Rome, in a land rich with Cliristian 
 shrines and memories of the jiast. "NVe cannot doubt that this charming book, 
 wi-itten with the leisure of an antiquarian and the piety of a true Catholic, will 
 not only send many pilgrims to Our Lady of Good Counsel, but will increase 
 her glory and promote devotion to her in all English-speaking lauds. 
 
 SUFFERINGS OF THE NUNS OF ITALY. 
 
 Catholics are already aware that by the laws of Italy the whole 
 property, real and personal, of all religious orders, both of men and women, 
 was confiscated in that country. A very small pension, heavily taxed 
 and not always satisfactorily paid, was allowed to the older members — 
 the younger ones getting nothing, or next to nothing — perhaps two-pence 
 a day to live upon. For this the Grovernment took their lands, tlieir funds, 
 their house property, their Convent buildings, their very churches, ceme- 
 teries and all the furniture, sacred and secular, they possessed. They 
 were disbanded, prevented from receiving novices, or, as religious orders, 
 even educating children. Sometimes public feeling forced their persecutors 
 to give them a few rooms in their old homes, or to huddle several com- 
 munities into one large barrack. In cases where a part of their Convent 
 only was allowed them, the rest was used as Grovernment offices, or very 
 o-enerally for soldiers' barracks. It thus became a kind of living death 
 for these poor religious. They mostly, however, held together with wonder- 
 ful tenacity, and as the old inmates died out tlie j^ounger ones, with but 
 a few half-pence a day to live on, grew on in years and weakness and 
 want. Many of these — indeed all the choir sisters — brought fortunes, 
 which were placed in the common funds of their several institutions, and 
 so found and taken by the mean-spirited Freemasons now in power in Italy. 
 The consequence is that these poor nuns, long absent from the thoughts 
 of relatives, die in great numbers and in much want. The present work 
 and that on Our Lady of Good Counsel have been given over by the author 
 for their relief. He has just received the following letter from Monsignor 
 Kirby, who lays out, with every care and judguient, all he can get 
 together for the benefit of these suffering spouses of Christ. 
 
 "I received the alms you kindly forwarded from tlieir Lordships the 
 Bishop of Leeds and the Bishops of Aberdeen and Dunkeld, in aid of the poor 
 nuns in the Papal States. May God reward them for theii' charity. 
 
 *' But what shall Isay, my dear Monsignore, for your own generous offerings 
 for these suffering Spouses of Jesus Christ 'i Through your assistance I have 
 been able to j-elieve many holy suffering communities in Frascati, Yiterbo, 
 
 13 
 
Foligno, Assissi, Monte Falco, and other localities, not forgetting the nuns 
 jon specially mentioned for relief in Rome. They suffer terrible privations, 
 bnt their charity and patience would do honour to the early Christians. They 
 pray constantly and earnestly for those who assist them in their bitter 
 need. . . ." 
 
 Still more touching descriptions of the destitution of these j^oor servants of 
 God may be obtained from the iJirin Salrafore of Rome, which devotes many 
 of its columns to the service of the collection made in favour of the despoiled 
 nuns. 
 
 The followiug items, taken from a current number of that journal, 
 
 will give an idea of the need existing. The Editor says : — 
 
 " On the 7th of March we received the following letter from a venerable 
 religious, who has the care of a parish and of a monastery : — ' The letters you 
 sent me have arrived, as so many angels of comfort, with your charity. The 
 Mother Abbess did not know what to do in the future. 8he had to withdraw 
 the one plate of nourishment hitherto given daily to the religious. My heart is 
 afflicted, because I know that if they have not food the choir cannot be sustained, 
 and already some of them are prostrated, from weakness of the stomach, in 
 need of ordinary food." The day after the Prioress of a Dominican Convent 
 writes : — ' Our misfortunes are at their height, and it seems that everything 
 conspires against iis. The very old and helpless sisters must be deprived of 
 the lay sisters' help, whom we took into the religious life, but Avho must now 
 leave us for want of food. The aged will have to die for mere want of neces- 
 saries. We do not ask the Government for anything to maintain laj sisters, 
 but these are now not even permitted to us. For charity pray to God tliat 
 some may be moved to pity us.' Four days ago a Benedictine Superioress thus 
 commenced her letter to us :— ' The day before yesterday, having shed many 
 tears before the Image of Most Holy Mary, beseeching Her to send me some 
 help, because I had at last arrived at extreme necessity, your letter arrived with 
 alms. Ah, so groat was my joy, that before opening it I carried it before the 
 sacred Image to thank Our Lady, and have called the nuns, who did the same. 
 My Father, believe me, that in order to exist together, we suffer much want 
 indeed.' Five days after another Superioress writes to us: — 'The moment I 
 received your most valued letter, I exclaimed, Oh, my dear St. Joseph, how 
 much I thank you wbo hast given to that good Father the inspiration to hel)i 
 me in my preseut agony. I cannot describe to you the sorrowful condition in 
 which I find myself. As many farthings as you have sent me, I pray that they 
 may become so many pi-ecious graces, which may fill Avith benediction tlie 
 families who give such blessed help to us i)oor abandoned religious.' " 
 
 Not long after another Superioress wrote : — 
 
 " Do you then discharge our duty to the kind and pious benefactors v/ho do 
 not forget the suffering spouses of Our Lord in times when so many hate and 
 illtreat them, and seek new means to render them, if that were possible, 
 unhappy. But that can never happen, because it is our greatest felicity to be 
 liated liy the enemies of Jesus Christ. At prest^nt we are prohibited to i-eceive 
 young-fady boarders, who, by their payments for education, might help us not 
 a little in our misery. But we confide in the good, generous hearts who come 
 to our assistance.'' 
 
 On the 1 7th of May, from the ends of Italy, the following letter came 
 to us: — 
 
 " On Tuesday I received, as a consoling angel, your letter with the bounti- 
 ful alms it contained. What my joy was on that day I cannot tell you. I 
 seemed like one confounded to such an extent that my nuns tmderstood that 
 some extraordinary grace had been given me by our gi'eat Patriarch St. Joseph. 
 When I told them what had been given they Avere in jubilee at it, and I can- 
 not tell you how many prayers and fervent communions will be offered, and 
 luvve indeed been offered already to God for those who have been so kind to 
 
 14 
 
US. oil, 111}'' FalLev, if you but know wlial luy sorrow liail been tliaf day. An 
 iinpliicable creditor pressed me, and T liad not on lliat day one loaf of biead to 
 take the hnnger away from my poor community. My Father, I cannot tell 
 you -what terrible houi's I passed. During certain days I felt as if a knife had 
 ])ierced my heart. I wept scalding- tears, and almost lost confidence. Ali, 
 Father, do not forget us, foi- charity sake, I beseech you, witli idl my heart."' 
 
 A few days after this (for we take the letters at haphazard as they 
 come to our hand) wo received anothei-, wliich thus commeuces : — 
 
 " Oh, my Father, how much am I obliged to you. You have called me to 
 life again. I went to ask the Archangel Raphael to bo mindful of us, poor 
 deserted sisters, and the holy Archangel heard me I Wherefore may God be 
 l)lessed, and thanks without end for your charity and that of our benefactors. 
 8ee how Avanting in discretion I am, my Father, the more you ai-e mindful of 
 us, the most distressed of all. I do not wish to be importunate. Thai would not 
 be well. But our misery surpasses perhaps the juisery of other convents. All 
 my poor lay sisters are h^ng barefooted, and I cannot get them shoes, for I 
 have no means to buy leather. "We, the choir sisters, wear clogs of wood, 
 which, when once made, last very long ; but our poor lay sisters work vei-y 
 hard, and wear away their clothing very much.'' 
 
 Another letter comes from a Benedictine Abbess in Tuscany. She 
 says :— 
 
 " Reflecting on our sad circumstances, and knowing by experience your 
 charitable he.xrt, I have at last determined to ask you for some charity, for the 
 love of Jesus. We are twenty-five in community, without a morsel of bread 
 in our house, and deprived absolutely of the means to obtain it ; the Lord 
 having permitted that we should be abandoned by all, because we are all in 
 great "distress and tribulation. Your Reverence by these words may mider- 
 stand my internal affliction and the nature of the sword that pierces my 
 heart." 
 
 Hei'e is a letter from a holy Prioress of Augustinian nuns, driven out 
 of their convent and obliged to rent a house : — 
 
 '• I reply, with deep gratitude, to your precious letter, and thank yon 
 infinitely for the alms sent in it. I thank the Giver of evciy good, and after 
 Him all'those who havC' concurred to aid us, and you Avho are the head of the 
 o-ood Avork, so full of charity, as is that of assisting us poor creatures reduced 
 to extreme necessity. For as this necessity is all the more increased as Ave, most 
 unfortunate, have been driven out of our convent, and Avith sorrow and fright, 
 have been olaliged to rent this poor house at a sum beyond the possibility of 
 our being able to pay. May Jesus, our Spouse, be blessed for all these mis- 
 fortunes. There remains to us one only consolation. It is that daily Ave have 
 the holy Mass in a little chapel, and we can remain with Jesus in the Eucharist. 
 Where Jesus is there is nothing that Ave can desire. They have at length taken 
 our convent from us, but of Jesus no one can depriA'C us.'' 
 
 Another Superioress writes : — 
 
 " I am ahvays more and moi-e confirmed in the belief that your reverence 
 is inspired by God. Three days jiassed and I had not a farthing to buy 
 bi-ead for my poor conuuunity. But 1 had recourse to our sAveet Mother 
 Mary Avith loving confidence, that she Avould give nu; the means of keeping 
 life in my poor daughters. I Avept Avith emotion and exclaimed, '• l>lessed 
 is he Avho confides in the Lord." 
 
 Another letter, dated 24th of last October, is as foUoAVS : — 
 
 " My Father, how grateful I am. I found inyself at the height di 
 misery," but seeing your gift my heart bounded with joy. Oh, I can at 
 least give a little to my dearest daughters Avho, poor children, for the most 
 part, are infirm and Avcak in ston'.ach because of ]^)^\<x abstinence from 
 
nourishing food oi' drink of any kind ! But how can I help them ? I 
 cannot get boarders, and benefactors there are none, because our relatives 
 have to think of their own families. My only resource is your charity. 
 You dry my tears, You console my heart in so many and such great 
 necessities." 
 
 A Superioress of Tuscanj-, after Laving recommended a sick sister 
 whom she called, "an angel of innocence and of goodness, and on 
 the point of taking wing for paradise," and having received some 
 assistance, writes: — 
 
 "Jesus watches over His spouses. This moi'ning I received your 
 oflPering for the sick sister, which the great charity of your reverence sent 
 me. I am confused in seeing myself so benefited without any merit. The 
 sick sister reu^ains alive, always the victim of her beloved Spouse Jesus. 
 She wastes away as wax before the fire. She suffers with heroic virtue, and 
 wishes that your reverence would bless her in order to have greater strength 
 to suffer more and more in union with Jesus crucified, whom she has always 
 before her eyes, and continually kisses. I do not know how to describe her 
 satisfaction at tlie charity shown her, nor to tell you her gratitude. I will 
 tell you only that with all her heart she says to you, ' May Jesus reward him 
 together with the benefactors.' She is young, only twenty-four years of age, 
 and is in the monastery three years and three months. The Lord has placed 
 this beautiful flower (she is called Rose) in His garden, and He will take it 
 at His pleasure. It seems that we are not worthy to possess it." 
 
 The number of the Divin Salvaiore, from which the above extracts are 
 taken, has been selected almost at random from a file of that excellent 
 journal. The editor very feelingly ends the record as follows : — 
 
 "We repeat that these few extracts from letters are given solely as a 
 sample of numberless other letters of the same class, which might form 
 many volumes. Ah, how many pages, besides, would be necessary if we 
 should have to narrate the sufierings and the secret martyrdoms endured, 
 during, now more than twenty years, by so many thousands of Italian 
 religious ladies for the sublime love of that Crucified Grod, to whom they 
 were and are consecrated. But such pages are written in characters of 
 gold only in the book of eternal life, and from this book it is not given to 
 us to cop3\ Let it suffice to know that these admirable creatures so 
 intensely hated by the world of the sectaries (Freemasons, etc.,) because 
 guilty of being models of virtue, flowers of purity, doves of innocence, 
 beings more of heaven than of earth, have won, and still win by their 
 undaunted perseverance, a most glorious victory over this world, enemy 
 as it is, of the Name and the Cross of Christ." 
 
 10 
 
 I 8 5 3 I 8 
 
k'i 
 
 RETURN CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT 1 ^ ^ 6 J 
 
 TO— ^ 202 Main Library 
 
 LOAN PERIOD 1 
 HOME USE 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 6 
 
 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS 
 
 Renewals and Recharges may be made 4 days prior to the due date. 
 
 Books may be Renewed by calling 642-3405. 
 
 DUE AS STAMPED BELOW 
 
 NOV 1 1 19^4 Q f^ 
 
 m 
 
 m 
 
 ^Ee 
 
 \1 ? QQ3 
 
 r-n 
 
 ^ ^ 
 
 
 -r 
 CI 
 
 3r> 
 
 ? P 
 
 3J 
 
 "h — ^ 
 
 TZ3" 
 
 RtC.ClRC. a i 0^1995 
 
 ":! 1 3-99; 
 
 REC.CIRC. FEB 2 
 
 11995 
 
 FORM NO. DD6 
 
 (R3728sl0)476— A.-3U 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY 
 BERKELEY, CA 94720 
 
 Berkeley 
 
 ®s 
 
RKfLEY LI 
 
 BRARIES 
 
 <^00fisaT?33