CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY THIS BOOK IS ONE OF A COLLECTION MADE BY BENNO LOEWY 1854-1919 AND BEQUEATHED TO CORNELL UNIVERSITY Cornell University Library BX1770 .D49 Devil in the church, his segt\^^^^^ ex 3 1924 029 407 479 olin Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029407479 In Memory- of Our Lamented President, A Devoted Ghristian and Faithful Afi nilu'T oi' American Patriotic Secret Societies. A PLEA FOR PATRIOTISM AND THE PROTESTANT RELIGION The Devil in the Church HIS SECRET WORKS EXPOSED His Snares Laid to Destroy Our Public Schools A History of Romanism for Nineteen Hundred Years ; Its Opposition to Our Public School System and Effect Upon Our People and Government. INCLUDING AN ACCOUNT OF PRIESTLY MISRULE IN THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS AS MADE PUBLIC BY THE U. S. GOVERNMENT. The Wide Difference Between the Popish Religion and Christianity. COPYRIGHTED 1902. AMERICAN PUBLISHING COMPANY, PATRIOTIC AND POPULAR BOOKS AND BIBLES, < BEAVER Springs, Pa. The Devil In The Church His Secret Works Exposed ANB HIS SNARES LAID TO DESTROY OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS. TEN COMPLETE BOOKS IN ONE VOLUME. L The Crimes of Priests. ^^ ^'i''"i 11. The Confessions of Nuns. "' "^ IIL The Wicked Lives of the Popes. IV. Horrors of the Inquisition. V. Sham Miracles, Image Worshippers and Other Roman CathoHc Fallacies. VI. Awful Deeds of Priests in the Philippine Islands. VII. Romanism An Avowed Enemy of Our Public Schools. VIII. Auricular Confession the Devil's Invention. IX. Rome's Opposition to American Secret Societies. X. The Evil Influence of Roman Catholicism Upon Our Country. 500 PAGES, 128 ILLUSTRATIONS. PRICE, $1.50, POSTPAID TO ANY ADDRESS. Agents Wanted for our large line of Patriotic and Popular Books and Teachers' and Family Bibles of All Kinds. American Putslishing Company BEAVER SPRIINGS, PA. THIS BOOK IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED TO THE American Protestant Ministers and Church Members. American Protestant Association. American Protective Association. American Order of Foresters. Ancient Order United Workmen. Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. Christian Endeavor Members. Daughters of America. Daughters of American Revolution. Daughters of the Forest. Daughters of Liberty. Daughters of Rebekah. Epworth League Members. Grand Army of Republic. Free and Accepted Masons. Independent Order of Americans. Independent Order of Odd Fellows. Junior Order United American Mechanics. Knights of the Golden Eagle. Knights of Honor. Knights of Malta. Knights of Pythias. Loyal Orange Institution of America. Luther League Members. Modern Woodmen of America. Order of True Americans. Patriotic Order Sons of America. Royal Arcanum. United American Mechanics. And All True Christians and American Patriots Who Believe that the Church and State should be Kept Separate For- ever. GOD'S WORD NEVER CHAinGES, YEi' ni^wrMo APPEARS NEW TO US. Kind friend, after carefully reading this book through, turn again to the following Scripture passages and you will be sur- prised at the new light and understanding you will get from them. "For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transform- ing themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be trans- formed as the ministers of righteousness ; whose end shall be according to their works." — 2 Cor. 11 :I3-I5- "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour." —I Peter 5 :8. "And there shall be, like people, like priest : and I will pun- ish them for their ways." — Hosea 4:9. "Her prophets are light and treacherous persons : her priests have polluted the sanctuary: they have done violence to the law." — Zep. 3 -.4. "For the priest's lips should keep knowledge and they should seek the law at his mouth: for he is the messenger of the lyord of hosts. But ye are departed out of the way; ye have caused many to stumble at the law; ye have corrupted the covenant of Levi, saith the Lord of hosts." — Mai. 2 -.j-S. "For both prophet and priest are profane ; yea, in my house have I found their wickedness, saith the Lord."^Jer. 23:11. "The priest and the prophet have erred through strong drink, they are swallowed up of wine, they are out of the way through strong drink; they err in vision, they stumble in judg- ment." — Isaiah 28 ly. "Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them." — Job i :6. "The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means : and my people love to have it so : and what will ye do in the end thereof?" — Jer. 5:31. "Yet let no man strive, nor reprove another : for thy people are as they that strive with the priest." — Hosea 4:4. AUTHORITIES CONSULTED. This work has been carefully compiled from nearly loo books and newspapers, recognized as standard and authoritive litera- ture on the subject. It contains the cream of the writings of authors of Anti-Romanist works and to secure the information contained herein by reading the books mentioned would require years of constant study. In compiling this work the following books and newspapers, belonging to our private library, have beeia consulted : American Citizen, The. American Public Schools, The. America or Rome, Which? Archbishop's Dilemma, The. Archbishop or Romanism in the United States, The. Assassination of Lincoln, The. Auricular Confession and Popis'h Nunneries. Battle of the Boyne. Christ on the Throne of Power and Anti-Christ. Clerical Celibacy. Cloven Foot, The. Converted Catholic, The. Convent Horror, The. Convent Life Unveiled, Confessions of a Nun. Crimes of a Pope. Cruel Persecutions of the Protestants in the Kingdom of France. D'Aubigne's History of the Refonnation. Dawn of the Reformation in Europe, The. Dens' Moral Theology. Devil in Robes, The. English Martyrology. Ethics of Americanism. Evenings With the Romanists. vEvolution of the Devil, The. Fifty Years in the Church of Rome. Fifteen Years Behind the Curtains. Fight With Rome, The. Foreign Conspiracy Against the United States. From the Roman Catholic Altar to the Protestant Pulpit. Great Red Dragon, or the Master Key' to Popery. History of the Confessional. History of the Reformation in the Time of Calvin. History of the Inquisition. History of Popery. History of the Vaudois. How to Win Romanists. Illustrations of Popery, Inquisition in America, The. Jesuits, The. Lectures on Romanism. Life of Alexander Borgia, The. Life of a Spanish Monk. Luther in Rome. Maria Monk. Martyr Scenes of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth • Centuries. Merry Tales of the Monks. Monk, The. Mystery of Iniquity, The. Mystery of Iniquity Unveiled, The. Nun of Kenmare, Th£. Our True Friend. Papal Tax Book, The, Papal Idolatry. Papacy, The. Paul and Julia. Persecutions at Madeira, The. Platina's Lives of tRe Popes. Popery As It Was and As It Is. Popery the linn of Sin. Priest and Nun. Priest, the Woman and the Confessional, The. Reasons^Whj' I Am a Christian and Not a Eo^ mamst. Romanism As It Is. Romanism and the Reformation, Romanism and the Republic. Roman Conflict, The. Romanism Incompatible with Republican Institu- tions. Rome the Efiemy of Our Civil and ReligioiB imr- stitutions. Romish Horse-Leech. Rosamond's Narrative. Rum, Rags and Religion. Secrets of Auricular Confession Exposed. Secret Instructions of the Jesuits, Shall Liberty Die? or Patriots to the Front. Sister Augustine, An Old Catholic. Sister Lucy and Her Awful Disclosures. Six Years in Italy. Solid for Mulhooly. Spirit of Popery, The. Testimony of An Escaped Novice. ' Trial of Anti-Christ. U. S. Senate Document, No, 190. Vatican Decrees, The. Vaticanism Unmasked. Washington in the Lap of Rome. • Westward, Ho ! White's Evidence. Whv Priests Should Wed. Why Priests Don't Wed. William of Orange. CONTENTS. BOOK I.— THE CRIMES OF PRIESTS. Page. The Priest, Purgatory and the Poor Widow's Cow 21 How a Priest Secured a Fine Roast Dinner 28 *riests Cause Bible to be Burned in New York State 30 Many Victims Among Schoolmistresses, : 31 ■How a Priest Kept His Vow 3.5 Confession of a Priest at the Point of Death 36 Money! Money! Money! 39 Bloody Fight in Church Between Two Priests, 40 The Priest Who Had a Wife 43 Numerous Dead Bodies of Infants Found Near a Nunnery 44 Young Lady Spirited Away by a Priest, 45 ■ Festivities in a Parsonage .- 45 Drunken Priest Plays Blind Man's Buft 49 Worshipping the Beast, 51 ■Priest Baptizes Infants — Mother Abbess Murders Them 52 3lome Treading Morality Under Her Feet, 52 J>riests Hold High Carnival 54 One Hundred Thousand Families Ruined in One Year 66 Priests Murdering Their Own Parents .56 Bishops and "Priests Ha^ Plenty of lU-Gotten Gold, '67 Priests Cause Millions to Go Wrong, 59 The Priest a Plague 60 The Daily Life of -a Young Priest 60 ■Celibacy a Great Curse 63 The Shameful Pit of Impurity 63 The Vatican a Residence for Women, 64 American Homes Imperilled, 64 A Married Priesthood and Pure Christian- Homes, 64 Plain Reasons Why Priests Should Wed 65 A Catholic Priest Plays the Part of Satan and is Shot and Killed 68 Taxation or Damnation 69 'Beauties of the Papal System, 70 a3ennis and the Priest — a Dialogue 70 The Wealthy Spaniard and the Priest, , 75 A Priest's Leve for His Members 75 Who a Priest Is, 76 bating Pictures in Poland, 77 The Romish View of Martin Luther, 78 How Pat Got His Brother Out of Purgatory, 78 The New York Relic Returns to Duty, 78 'S'ennsylvania Bishop Blessing the Hickory Sticks 79 BOOK II.— TEE CONFESSIONS OF NUNS. Maria Monk's Awful Exposures of the Black Nunnery 84 The Perils of Girls 86 Out of the CofBn Into Shame 89 The Mother Superior Tells Why Priests Cannot Sin, 91 SHow Infants Were Murdered 92 ©emons in the Forms of Men, 92 The Convent in Its True Light 94 Manufacturing Religious Lies, 95 The Burial Place for Infants, 95 How Priests Can Enter Nunneries 95 No Room for the Bible in that Convent 96 .An Underground Passageway, 96 Murder of a Beautiful Woman in a Nunnery 97 The Testimony of an Escaped Nun 102 A Sister's Treachery 103 A Nun's Daily Life, 104 Convent Life a Hell Upon Earth 107 Kun Imprisoned in a Dungeon for Twenty-one Years 118 A Sister's Fate 114 A Frightful Occurrence in a Convent 116 Convent Life Inducements, 115 How One Convent Was Closed 116 Nunneries Should be Investigated 117 The Black Veil 117 Open the Convents 118 CONTENTS. 13 Page. Jfo Heaven There 119 The Imprisoned Nun 121 BOOK in.— THE WICKED LIVES Olf THE POPES. Some qf the Most Unholy Men the World Has Ever Known 124 Pope John VIII., 124 SergiuB III 126 Pope John X 126 Pope John XI 127 Popes Guilty of Numerous Crimes 129 An Awful Picture of the Popedom 132 Monsters in the Pontifical Chair 133 Nineteen Centuries of Roman Catholic Popish History 135 Hildebrand 139 Pius IX 156 Leo XIII., 158 BOOK IV.— HORRORS OF THE IKQUISITIOX. The Inquisitors and Their Practices, 161 The Trial of a Friar of St. Jerome 164 Sentence Given Against Lawrence Castro, 164 The Inquisition a Purgatory on Earth 166 Rich Jews Made Good Victims 166 The Burning of John Huss, 167 Another Method of Torture 172 Cut to Death by the "Pendulum," 173 The Power of the Inquisitors, 173 Dead Bodies of Murdered Protestants Only Half Buried 174 "The Smell of a Rotten Protestant is Good," 177 The Number of Victims of the Inquisition 177 How Delicate Women Have Become Daring Persecutors, 178 The Ten'ible Work of the Inquisition, 178 BOOK v.— SHAM MIRACLES, IMAGE WORSHIPPERS AND OTHER ROMAN CATHO- LIC FALLACIES. Roman Catholicism is no religion 181 Shameful Use of Relics 181 St. Anne's Bone Raises Twenty Thousand Dollars, 185 The Priest on the Donkey 186 Priest Crosses a River on a Dry Pathway 188 Never Confessed to the Same Priest Twice, 189 Money Can Buy Anything, 189 Many Instances of the Uses to Which Relics are Put 190 The Fearful Delusion Caused by Relics, 197 "Saved More Souls with Indulgences Than St. Paul with His Sermons," 198 Terrible Blasphemy Against God 201 "The Sins of Protestants Will Not Be Forgiven Throughout All Eternity," 206 Purgatory Eight Degrees, Hell Only Four Degrees, 206 The Soul Appears in the Figure of a Mouse 210 How Rome Condemned Galileo, the Astronomer 212 "All Protestants Are Doomed," ; 214 Image Worship 214 Oath Taken by Roman Catholics 215 Eleven Thousand Relics in a Single Church 217 ♦•Wonderful" Miracles 217 Sailed on the Sea on His Cloak 217 A Bottle of the Blood of Christ 218 Priest Took Seven Devils From a Man, 218 Satan Pleased with the Worshippers of Pictures and Images, 219 The Origin of Image Worship, 219 Great Fun at Children's Confessions, 222 Married His Own Sister 224 Nine Startling Consequences of the Dogma of Trinsubstantiation 226 A Priest Tells How Romish Miracles Are Wrought 236 The God of Rome Eaten by a Rat, 238 Romanism Fears Christian Sunday Schools, 245 Woe Unto Heretics (Protestants) 246 A Church Drunk With the Blood of the Saints 249 Bomish Trinkets in Parochial Schools 249 What Happened to the Lady's Lap Dog 249 How Priests Evade the Rules, 251 Why Romanists Object to the Bible 251 The Monk Had to Take His Own Medicine 252 Poisoned by Eating His God 252 Popery as a Powerful System, 253 How Voltaire Became an Atheist 254 14 CONTENTS. Page. Romanism on the Rampage, \ . . . 26'1 What American Protestants May Expect, 25r> A Bishop's Curae Against the Press, .» 25.3 Why Romanists Changed the Ten Commandments, 256 An Oath Taken Before a Civil Magistrate Not Binding, 257 "No Protestants Can Go to Heaven," 257 Thorns and Thistles Preferred to Lutherans, 257 License for Committing Sins, 258 A Long Ladder to Meet God, 25S How Luther Overcame the Pope, 259 The Difference Between the True Church of Christ and the Church of Borne, 25i> The Awful Fate of Roman Catholics Who Dare Become Protestants, 261 Litany, ^ 261 Rev. T. DeWitt Talmage on Romanism, 262 A Metho'dist Preacher's Advice to the Pope, 263 Hermann, the Great Magician, Exposes Romish Miracles, 264 A Penance the Old Lady Could Not Perform, 266 The Masterpiece of the Devil, 260 The Difference Between /Purgatory and Paradise, ' 267 One Hundred Reasons Why I Left the Roman Catholic Church, hy an ex-Priest, 270 BOOK VI.— AWFUL DEEDS OF PRIESTS IN THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. Romish Rule in the Philippines, 282 Pay Grave Rent or Have Your Bones Dug Up, 282 Penny Chromos Sold by Priests at Twelve Dollars, 282 The Natives Give a Murderous Priest His Just Dues, 282 Stealing Millions from the People and State, 282 How a School Teacher Lost His Job, 282 Interview with Senor Don Felipe Calderon, 2S5 Priests Who Came from the Lowest Class of Society, 285 Punished for Indecent Expressions in the Presence of Ladies, 285 The Rule for a Priest to Have a Mistress and Children, 28S A *'Poor** Priest Worth Forty Thousand Dollars, 285 Holy Priests aa Rare as a Snow Bird in Summer, 285 A Fanatical Catholic People to Deal With , 285 Interview With Jose Roderigues Infante 292 One Priest Nearly Got a Whole Community Into Jail 298 Could Live Forever by Being Baptized by a Priest 292 To Swell the Taxes They Robbed the Cradle and the Grave, 292 Immorality of the Priests Was General, 2S2 Priests Delighted in Witnessing Tortures of Men in Prison, 292 Interview With Senor Nozario Constantino, 299 Priests Assume the Cloak of Religion to Gain a Living, 299 Wives Taken Away from Their Husbands by Priests, 299 A General Hatred of the Priests Exists Among the People, 299 A Skeleton in a Closet Revealed, 299 Interview With Maximo Viola, ; 303 A Physician's Interesting Disclosures of Life Among the People and Priests, 303 Priests Controlling the Elections, 303 The Torments of Hell and Consequences of An Evil Life, 303 Corpses Allowed to Rot When Fees Were Missing, 303 Never Saw a Pure Priest, 303 Pedro Surano Laktraw, 311 A Teacher Harshly Treated for Being a Freemason, 311 A Priest Living With Two Sisters, 311 Removal of a Pure Christian Minister, 311 Interview With Ambrosia Flores, 315 The Priest a Veritable God, 315 Woe to the Man Who Possessed a Handsome Wife or Daughter, 315 Interview With H. Phelps Whitmarsh, 317 Priests Oppressed and Robbed the People 317 Used Women and Daughters as They Pleased , 317 Priests Gambling in Convents With Members of Their Own Church, 317 Evidence of Plorentino Torres, 321 Not the Salvation of Souls, but the Accumulation of Wealth the Priests' Object, 321 Kept the People in Ignorance as Much as Possible, 321 Priests a Great Hindrance to Civilization and Progress 321 Innocent People Outraged Through Detective Work of the Priests, 321 Jose Ros 824 How a Priest Treated a Poor Man Who Could Not Pay His Rent, 324 A Poor Widow and Her Children's Punishment, 324 Franco Gonzales, 325 Why This Priest Gambled, '. 325 Priest Beats a Man With a Rattan, 325 Kiss the Priest's Hands or Be Slapped, 325 Two Secret Stairways at a Oonvent\ 325 Priests Had No Respect for the Sanctity of the Church, 325 CONTENTS. 15 Page. Testimony of Headmen and Leading Residents, 327 Jose Temple, 328 Priests the Corrupters of Youth, 328 One Good Priest to Ninety-nine Bad Ones, . . . ., 32S Pees for Marriages, Christenings and Burials, 328 Priests Having More Power Than the Governors, 328 Horrible Treatment of a Young Man Who Was "Branded," 323 Priests Advocating Giving Bread With One Hand and Rattan Beatings With the Other, ; 323 Many Methods of Torture Which Must Have Been Invented by a * Thousand Demons, 328 Protestant Ministers Badly Needed, 32S The Free School System Would Be a Great Blessing, '.'. 328 Wonderful P'ilipino Prayer, 334 Answers to the Interrogatories 337 Priest Orders Husband Out of His Own House, 337 Jgnoble Treatment of a Respected Widow, 337 People Had to Submit Like Meek Lambs, 337 Freemasons Shot as Traitors 337 Acquiring Riches the Priests' Sole Aim, 337 BOOK VU.— ROMANISM AN AVOWED ENEMY OF OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS. Public Schools Not Subjected to Civil Power, 343 Pits of Destruction, 343 A Threat Against Our Public School System, 344 Obey, or Be in Danger of Eternal Damnation, 345 The Little School House on the Hillside, 346 President Garfield on the Dangers of Romanism, 34S Contents of a Roman Catholic Text Book, 348 State Education a Damnable Heresy, 350 Will We Forget the Work Done by Our Fathers? 352 Servility of the Romish Press, 352 The Voice of Statesmen 353 Voice of the Romish Press, 353 Protestantism is the Power of To-day, 354 Voice of the Cardinals, 355 Voice of the Popes, 355 Infidelity Preferable to Protestantism 356 Public Schools a National Fraud, 358 Public Money for Sectarian Schools, 358 Education a Dangerous Heresy, 358 Voice of the Romish Priests, 359 The Necessity of Keeping Up Our Public School System, 359 Terrible Tale Told by Our Prisons and Jails, 360 Priests Protest Against Opening Public Schools and County Institutes With Prayer, ' 360 The Little Red School House, 360 A Call to Action, 361 Awake, Ye Sons of Freedom ! 363 BOOK VIII.— AURICULAR CONFESSION THE DEVIL'S INVENTION. Origin of Auricular Confession, 364 Some of the Awful Results of this Practice, 365 Human Monsters in the Confessional Box, 370 The Danger of Handling Inflammable Material, 374 Auricular Confession and Priestly Absolution 375 Power of the Confessional, ■ 378 How a Telephone Gave Away Secrets of the Confessional, 379 The Difference Between the Ballot Box and the Confessional, 379 The Hole in the Wall, 380 The Confessional, 382 BOOK IX.— ROME'S OPPOSITION TO AMERICAN SECRET SOCIETIES. The Opposition of Rome to Patriotic Secret Societies, 384 Masonry and Jesuitry, 384 The Jesuits Getting Their Deserts, 385 Attendance at a Romish Secret Society's Ball 385 The Pope's Secret Societies 386 Banishment and Imprisonment of a Patriotic Secret Society Man, 386 The Pope Condemns the Knights of Pythias, 387 The Pope Declares Freemasons to be Instrimients of Satan, 387 A Dying Odd Fellow and a Priest, 388 Inhuman Tortures of a Man AVho Refused to Divulge the Secrets of Freemasonry, 389 Four Years a Prisoner for Refusing to Disclose Lodge Secrets 391 Knights of Malta Take a Bold Stand Against Romanism 391 i6 CONTENTS. Page. The Eomish View of American Secret Societies, 392 How Roman Catholics Boycotted a Secret Society's Fair, 392 The Pope Classes Freemasons and Jews With Anarchists 393 How Roman Catholic Nuns Disposed of the Dead Body of a G. A. E. Man 393 Food Refused to a Starving Secret So'oiety Man 395 Horrible Treatment of a Mason's Widow by a Priest, 396 Patriotic Societies, Beware of Snakes, 398 Patriotic Discourse to the Members of the Junior Order United American Me- chanics, 399 In Rome's Secrecy Lies Her Strength, 401 The Great Value of American Secret Societies 401 Roman Catholic Priests Can Never be True Americans 404 The Priest's Oath 404 Oath of the Clan-na-Gael, 40S Oath of a Ribbon Man, 406 The Jesuitical Oath 406 Protestants the Offspring of the Devil, 411 A Father's Ingratitude toward Freemasons 412 The Order of United American Mechanics 412 Origin and Growth of the Patriotic Order Sons of America 414 What is Pythianism 414 Patriotic Orders, Be Careful ! 415 A Queer Odd Fellows' Lodge in a Cave 415 How a Secret Society Man's Wife Found Out the Passwords, . . , 415 BOOK X.— THE EVIL INFLUENCE OF ROMAN CATHOLIQISM UPON OUR COUNTRY. Why True Roman Catholics Cannot Become True Patriotic American Citizens, 418 Liberty and Romanism Cannot Live Together, 422 Warning to Americans 423 Plans for Overthrowing Our Government, 424 Destroying American Institutions, 424 Rome's Large Number of Criminals, 426 Rome Relies for Her Success on Foreigners, -. . . . 427 Blind-Folding the People 429 To Bring the Dark Ages Upon Us Again, 429 Romanism the Popular Religion of Criminals, 430 Parson Brownlow's Philosophy, 430 Immigration Our Damnation 431 The Roman Catholic Church Greater Than Our Government, 431 General Lafayette's Declaration 431 For God or the Devil 432 Religious Freedom at An End, 432 No Murder to Kill Certain Persons, 432 Proud Boasts of Roman Catholics, 432 Who Did the Deserting During the Civil War? 434 The Conditions in Philadelphia, 434 Rome's Responsibility for the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, 43(j The Real Cause of the Civil War, 445 President Lincoln Could Not Cross the Jordan, 447 Plain Evidence Against Lincoln's Assassins 448 Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley Murdered by Assassins of Roman Catholic Faith, 452 Princes Bound to Kiss the Pope's Feet r-. 453 Licentiousness Licensed, 453 Sabbath Breaking 453 Drunkenness, .- 454 Gambling 454 Illegitimacy 454 An lugult to the Protestant People of America, 454 Archbishop Ireland's Bold Claims, 455 The Priest and the Railway Conductor 456 Enough Scripture to Poison a Parish, 456 Protestants Will be Damned Anyhow, 468 Is America the Road to Hell? 458 "We Buy, But Never Sell," 458 Where the Sabbath is a Day of Revelry 459 Fifty-seven Millions of Protestants in this Country Going to Hell 459 How Nuns Were Prevented from Seeing a Congressman 459 The Church of Rome Against the American Constitution 460 Rome's Plan to Take Possession of Illinois and the Fertile Prairie States 461 President Roosevelt Preaches 465 The Curse of Immigration : 466 When Vices Will be Good and Virtues Bad 466 Catholics First and Citizens Next, 466 America the Hope of Rome, 466 The Pope's Great Wealth 466 Christians Should Make Greater Efforts to Save Romanists 466 Romanism is to be Destroyed, Not Redeemed 467 tlovj to Convert Romanists , 469 LIST OP ILLUSTRATIONS. 17 ' Page. Shall thG Bible be Our Guide? 469 How Protestants Should Treat Roman Catholics, ..'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'. 470 How a Roman Catholic Priest Became Converted to Christianity '.'.'. 471 Admiral Dewey's Testimony aj. We Should Not Think ];;;; %\ The American Catechism— A Manual of Patriotism, ".'.'...'.'.'."' 475 The Bible Must Stay in Our Public Schools 484 Catholic Mischief Makers ! . . JgJ Digging the Grave of Protestantism, .............'.'. 487 A Catholic Priest Acknowledges the Decay of His Church '.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'. 487 Ihe Confession of a Roman Catholic Friar 4S9 A Dead Christ, 491 Poison to Catholicism ...!.......'...........!., 492 The Power of Priests over Womankind, 492 What Protestants Shall Fear 492 Very Much Mixed, 492 The Papal Howl— "Let Us Alone," .......'.'. 494 I Wish I Was a Foreigner, .. . 495 The Eagle Screams, '.'.'.','. 496 Vote as You've Been Praying ' 497 The Pope's Plan '.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'... m LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. McKinley Memorial Frontispiece Adoration of the Pope, i3g At a Popish Masquerade Ball 320 Auto de Fe Introduced, The, . 228 Barbarities Exercised Against the Waldenses 449 Beating a Man in Prison, 493 Benediction of a New Cross, 4?S Benediction of a Standard 428 Benediction of a Warrior, 428 Benediction of the Foundation, 428 Benediction of the Ground Where a Church is to be Built, 428 Bishop Making the Alphabet with Ashes 428 Bishop Making the Sign of the Cross at the Church Door 428 Bishop of Pennsylvania Blessing the Hickory Sticks, The, 80 Bitter Persecutions of Protestants in the Fifteenth Century 194 Building in Which President McKinley Was Made a Mason, 400 . Burial of a Protestant During the Time of the Popish Persecution 449 Burning of John Huss, the Martyr, The 171 Burning of Lawrence at Colchester, The 269 ■ Burning of Protestants Latimer and Ridley 443 Children Tom to Pieces by Papists 463 Christian Religion is Founded Upon the Solid Rock of Truth 260 Cleanse the Heart, 61 Confiteor, or Confession 61 Consecration of An Image 428 Corner of Masonic Lodge Room, Showing Portrait of Lafayette, 407 • Corner of Masonic Lodge Room, Showing Portrait of Washington, 40S Coronation of the Pope 438 Corpse of the Dead Pope Exposed, The 438 Council Condemning the Pope of Rome, A 131 . Cranmer's Martyrdom, Thomas 433 • Cruelties in Ireland 449 Cutting Off the Golden Tresses, Before Taking the Veil 122 Dead Bodies of Murdered Protestants Only Half Buried, 174 Dismission, The 844 Dominus Vobiscum, 61 Feast for the Priests, A, ; 457 Festivities in a Parsonage 47 Filipino Graveyard 284 Heads Blown Off With Powder 463 Her First Night in a Convent 108 Incensing of the Cross 244 Inhuman Tortures of John Coustos for Refusing to Divulge Lodge Secrets, The, 390 Introitc, The 61 Keys Presented to the Pope, The 438 King Edward VII., 410 Kyrie Eleeson 61 Last Prayers, The , 244 Lord's Praj'er, etc.. The 244 Man and Nun Condemned, A, ^ 449 1 8 LIST OF ILL USTRA TIONS. Page. Man and Woman Condemned by the Inquisition, A, 449 Man and Woman Condemned in their Death Dresses, 449 Manila Cathedral, The, 308 Mausoleum, 438 Maria Monk's Awful Experience, 90 Massacre of Protestants in the Sixteenth Century, 420 Monuments of the Popes at Rome, 142 Murder of La Belle Maria by a Canadian Priest, 87 Never Let This Snake Encircle Our National Government, 425 Never Let Uncle Sam Fall Asleep 486 Nun of Kenmare, The, 67 Nuns Begging Money from Business and Professional Men 39T Qbiation of the Host 61 Obnoxious Obstruction, An, 341 Obsequies of the Dead Pope, 438 Opening the Holy Gate By the Pope, 433 Passing in Procession Before the Pope on Palm Sunday 18Y Perfuming a Bell, 428 Pope Leo XIII 159 Post Communion ) ' ' 244 Prayer for Faithful Living 61 Priest Adoring the Host, , 244 Priest at the Side of the Altar, i 61 Priest Baptizes Infant— Mother Abbess Strangles It, .1 53 Priest Breaking the Host, .*. 244 Priest Commencing Mass, 61 Priest Covers the Chalice, 61 Priest Covers the Host and Chalice, 244 Priest Eats the Host, 244 Priest Elevates Chalice, ., 244 Priest Exhorts to Pray, \ 61 Priest Goes to the Altar, 61 Priest Kissing the Altar, 61 Priest Makes Absolution, 244 Priest Pronounces Blessing, 244 Priest Puts Part of the Host in Chalice, 244 Priest Reads the Epistle, 61 Priest Reads the Gospel, 61 Priest Reads the Preface, 61 Priest Saying Memento 244 Priest Selmont Burning the Holv Bible, ., 32 Priest Signs the Host With the Cross, 214 Priest Smiting His Breast, 244 Priest Uncovers fBe Chalice, 61 Priest Washes Plis Hands 61 Priest Who Gambled to Support His "Wife," A, 326 Priest's Confession of Sin, 244 Priests Refused this Corpse Burial, 308 Procession of Criminals at the Auto de Fe., 449 Procession of the Pope, 438 Prostrating at the Pope's Feet, 438 Protect Young America from Two Cobras, Jesuitism and Treason, 357 Roman Catholic Barbarity D\u*ing the Times of the Inquisition, . . ., 179 Roman Catholic Nuns Attempt to Force a Grand Army Man to Accept their Religion, 394 Roman Catholics About to Bum the Protestant Preacher Philpot, 294 Roman Catholics Arrest Galileo, the Astronomer, 213 Rome's Attack on American Schools, 362 Romanists Burying Protestants Alive, 200 Romish Masquerade Supper, A, 333 Romish View of a Room in Purgatory, The, 209 Secrets Revealed in the Confessional, 369 Seven Stars Inn, The, 416 Signing the Declaration of Independence, 498 Standard of the Inquisition ^of Spain, 449 . Standard of the Inquisition of ■ Goa, 449 Storming of Beziers, 449 Thomas Wildey, the Founder of Odd Fellowship, 413 Tortures of the Waldenses in 1655, 278 Trial of John Romeo by the Officers of the Inquisition, 165 Two Fighting Priests in Church, 41 Two Kinds of "Mothers," 25 Two Views of a Nun, ; 99 Uncle Sam Drawing a Line Between the Church and State 351 Vain Eifori;8 of Early Popish Cohorts to Destroy Liberty and the Freedom of the Printing Press, 47G Vaudoia Women Buried Alive, 463 Woman on Her Death Bed Sends Away Insulting Priest 468 Will You Stand by the "Little School House," 347 "You Are a Monsterl" 373 Introduction. FAITHFUL MINISTERS OF THE GOSPEL AND MEMBERS OF THE TRUE CHRISTIAN CHURCH!— Read this book : The atmosphere of Hght, honesty, truth, sin- cerity and hoHiiess in which you Hve makes it almost impossible for you to realize the dark mysteries of idolatry, immorality, degrading slavery, hatred of the Word of God, superstitious, ridiculous and humiliating ceremonies that are constantly prac- ticed in the church of Rome. You will learn why Roman Catholicism should not be classed as a Christian religion, as so many Protestant people who are not acquainted with the true facts, are in the habit of doing. You will find in the pages of this work an account of the terrible sufferings of the martyrs of the Reformation, to whom we are indebted for keep- ing alive the Word of God and spreading the glorious Pro- testant religion. HONEST AND LIBERTY LOVING PEOPLE OF THE ' UNITED STATES !— Read this book, and you will find that Rome is the sworn, the absolutely irreconcilable and deadly enemy of your schools, your institutions, your so dearly bought rights and liberties. Even while we are penning these lines, during the year of our Lord, 1902, the Pope at Rome is making every efifort to secure official recognition at the hands of the United States Government, but, thank God! he has not suc- ceeded, and may the church and state be kept separate for- ever. Read this book and you will understand that Romanism and Liberty cannot live on the same ground. This has been declared by the Popes hundreds of, times, and the Popes and Romish Church are infallible ! MEMBERS OF THE PATRIOTIC SECRET SOCIE- TIES OF AMERICA !— Read this book, and you will not only understand Romanism as you never did, but you will find many new reasons to be more than ever vigilant, fearless and devot- ed, even to death, in the discharge of the sacred duties imposed upon you by your love for your country, your brethren and your God ! A crafty and cruel enemy, from over the seas, is at work among us with its destructive forces sowing tares among the wheat, and unless the patriotic American secret societies shall arise from their indifference and call a halt on the tide of for- eign immigration, making our beloved country the dumping ground for the filth and anarchists of the old country, nearly all of them being of the Roman Catholic faith and profession, what terrible harvests of bitterness we must reap ! PRIESTS AND PEOPLE OF ROME!— We have no hatred in our hearts for you, but we hope and pray that by the grace and goodness of God you will find in these pages how you are cruelly deceived by your traditions and those in author- ity over you, and that you will accept the Church of Christ as the only true means of salvation. You will see that you can- not be saved by your ceremonies, masses, confessions, purga- tory, indulgences, fastings, etc., but only through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Salvation can be secured without money and without price. Salvation is a gift ! Eternal life is a gift ! Forgiveness of sin is a gift ! Christ is a gift ! Why not accept Him? One single soul is worth more than the whole world, and if this book is the means of winning but one Roman Cath- olic to the true Christian religion we will feel richly repaid. THE COMPILER. I. THE CRIMES OF PRIESTS. THE PRIEST, PTJRGATOEY, AND THE POOR WIDOW'S COW. Father Chiniquy, when a boy, came home from a CathoHc school for a vacation and says : "I arrived at home on the 17th of July, 1821, and spent the afternoon and evening till late by my father's side. With what pleasure did he see me working difficult problems in algebra, and even in geometry ! for under my teacher, Mr. Jones, I had really made rapid progress in those branches. More than once I had noticed tears of joy in my father's eyes when, taking my slate, he saw that my calculations were correct. He also ex- amined me in grammar. "What an admirable teacher this Mr. Jones must be," he would say, "to have advanced a child so much in the short space of fourteen months I" How sweet to me, but how short, were those hours of hap- piness passed between my good mother and father ! We had family worship. I read the fifteenth chapter of Luke, the re- turn of the prodigal son. My mother then sang a hymn of joy and gratitude, and I went to bed with my heart full of hap- piness to take the sweetest sleep of my life. But, O God! what an awful awakening, thou hadst prepared for me ! At about four o'clock in the morning heart-rending screams fell upon rny ear. I recognized my mother's voice. "What is the matter, dear motheif ?" "Oh, my dear child, you have ho more a father! He is .dead!" ' " ;' ' .' •■ In saying these words she lost consciousness and fell on the floor! While, a friend who had passed the ^hight \yith us gave her proper c^re, I h^stpfird to-mflMfrrhtd.^--'l |)rg|§g(i him" to 9 22 THB DEVIL IN THE CHURCH: my heart, I kissed him, I covered him with my tears, I moved his head, I pressed his hands, I tried to Hft him up on his pil- low ; I could not believe that he was dead ! It seemed to me that even if dead he would come back to life — that God could not thus take my father away from me at the very moment when I had come back to him after so long an absence! I knelt to pray to God for the life of my father. But my cries and tears were Useles's. He was dead ! He was already cold as ice! Two days after he was buried. My mother was so over- whelmed with grief that she could not follow the funeral pro- cession. I remained with her as her only earthly support. Poor mother ! How many tears thou hast shed ! What sobs came from thine afflicted heart in, those days of supreme grief ! Though I was then very young, I could understand the greatness of ouf loss, and I mingled my tears with those of my mother. What pen can portray what takes place in the heart of a woman when God takes suddenly her husband away in the prime of his life, and leaves her alone, plunged in misery, with three small children, two of whom are even too young to know their loss! How long are the hours of the day for the poor widow who is left alone, and without means, among strangers ! How painful the sleepless night to the heart which has lost everything ! How empty a house is left by the eternal absence of him who was its master, support, and father! Every object in the house and every step she takes remind her of her loss and sinks the sword deeper which pierces her heart. Oh, how bitter are the tears which flow from' her eyes when her young- est child, who as yet does not understand the mystery of death, throws himself into her arms and says : "Mamma, where is papa? Why does he not come back? I am lonely!" My poor mother passed through those heart-rending trials. I heard her sobs during the long hours of the day, and also during the longer hours of the night. Many times have I seen her fall upon her knees to implore God to be merciful to her and to her three unhappy orphans. I could do nothing then to comfort her, but love her, pray and weep with her ! HIS SECRET WORKS EXPOSED. 23 Only a few days had elapsed after the burial of my father when I saw Mr. Courtois, the parish priest, coming to our house (he who had tried to take away our Bible from us). He had the reputation of being rich, and as we were poor and un- happy since my father's death, my first thought was that he had come to comfort and to help us. I could see that my mother had the same hopes. She welcomed him as an angel from heaven. The least gleam of hope is so sweet to one who is unhappy ! From his very first words, however, I could see that our hopes were not to be realized. He tried to be sympathetic, and even said something about the confidence we should have in God, especially in times of trial; but his words were cold and dry. Turning to me, he said: "Do you continue to read the Bible, my little boy?" "Yes, sir," answered I, with a voice trembling with anxiety, for I feared he would make another effoj^ to take away that treasure, and I had no longer a father to defend it. Then addressing my mother, he said: "Madam, I told you that it was not right for you or your chjld to read that book." My mother cast down her eyes, and answered only by the tears which ran down her cheeks. That) question was followed by a long silence, and the priest then continued: "Madam, there is something due for the prayers which have been sung, and the services which you requested to be offered for the repose of your husband's soul. I will be very much obliged to you if you will pay me that little debt." "Mr. Courtois," answered my mother, "my husband left me nothing but debts. I have only the work of my own hands to procure a living for ray three children, the eldest of whom is before you. For these little orphans' sake, if not for mine, do not take from us the little that is left." "But, madam, you do not reflect. Your husband died sud- denly and without any preparation; he is therefore in the flam?s of purgatory. Jf you want him to be (ieUvere4j you Z4 THB DEVIL IN THE CHURCH: ' must "necessarily unite your personal sacrifices to the prayers of the Church and the masses which we offer." "As I said, my husband has left me absolutely without means, and it is impossible for me to give you any money," replied my mother. "But, madam, your husband was for a long time the only notary of Mai i3ay. He surely must have made much money. I can scarcely think that he has left you without any means to help him now that his desolation ^nd sufferings are far greater than yours." "My husband did, indeed, coin much money, but he spent still more. Thanks to God, we have not been in want while he lived. But lately he got this house built, and what is still due on it makes me fear that I will lose it. He also bought a piece of land not long ago, only half of which is paid, and I will, therefore, probably not be able to keep it. Hence I may soon, with my orphans, be deprived of everything that is left us. In the meantime I hope, sir, that you are not a man to take away from us our last piece of bread." "But, madam, the rhasses offered for the rest of your hus- band's soul must be paid," answered the priest. My mother covered her face with her handkerchief and wept. After a long silence, my mother raised her eyes, red- dened with tears, and said : "Sir, you see that cow in the mea- dow, not far from our house? Her milk, and the butter made from it form the principal part of my children's food. I hope you will not take her away from us. If, however, such a sac- rifice must be made to deliver my husband's soul from purga- tory, take her as payment for the masses to be offered to ex- tinguish those devouring flames." The priest instantly arose, saying, "Very well, madam," and went out. Our eyes anxiously followed him ; but instead of walking towards the little gate which was in front of the house, he directed his steps towards the meadow, and drove the cow before him in the direction of his home. At that sight I screamed with despair: "O, my mother! he is taking our cow away ! What will become of us ?" 1 J^or4 Waiw l^a^4>givei}- hs that s|)l^p4i4 govy '\ylien it was y.iiiii i ,Lii.ijtij 26 THB DBVIL IN THB CHURCH: three months old. Her mother had been brought from Scot- land, ajnd belonged to one of the best breeds of that country. I fed her with my own hands, and had often shared my bread with her. I loved her as a child always loves an animal which he has brought up himself. She seemed to understand and love me also. From whatever distance she could see me, she would run to me to receive my caresses, and whatever else T might have to give her. My mother herself milked her; and her rich milk was such delicious and substantial food for us. We all felt so happy, at breakfast and supper, each with a cup- ful of that pure and refreshing milk ! My mother also cried out with grief as she saw the priest taking away the only means which heaven had left her to feed her children. Throwing myself into her arms, I asked her: "Why have you given away our cow ? What will become of us ? We shall surely die of hunger." "Dear child," she answered, "I did not think the priest would be so cruel as to take away the last resource which God had left us. Ah! if I had believed him to be so unmerciful I would never have spoken to him as I did. As you say, my dear child, what will become of us? But have you not often read to me in your Bible that God is the father of the widow and the orphan? We sha.ll pray to that God who is willing to, be your father and mine. He will listen to us, and see our tears. Let us kneel down and ask of Him to be merciful to us, and to give us back the support of which the priest has de- prived us." We both knelt down. She took my right hand with her left, and, lifting the other hand towards heaven, she offered a prayer to the God of mercies' for her poor children such as I have never since heard. He words were often choked with her sobs. But when she could not speak with her voice, she spoke with her burning looks raised to heaven, and with her uplifted hand. I also prayed to God with her, and repeated her words, which were broken by my sobs. When her prayer was ended, she remained for a long time pale and trembling. Cold sweat was flowing on her face, and HIS SECRET WORKS EXPOSED. 27 she fell on the floor. I thought she was going to die. I ran for cold water, which I gave her, saying : "Dear mother ! O, do not leave me alone upon earth!" After drinking a few drops she felt better, and taking my hand, she put it to her trembling lips ; then drawing me near her, and pressing me to her bosom, she said: "Dear child, if you ever become a priest, I ask of you never to be so hard-hearted towards poor widows as are the priests of to-day." While she said these words, I felt her burning tears fall upon my cheek. The memory of these tears has never left me. I felt them constantly during the twenty-five years I spent in preaching the inconceivable superstitions of Rome. I was not better, naturally, than many of the other priests. I believed, as they did, the impious fables of purgatory; and as well as they (I confess it to my shame), if I refused to take, or if I gave back the money to the poor, I accepted the money which the rich gave me for the masses I said to extinguish the flames of that fabulous place. But the remembrance of my mother's words and tears has kept me from being so cruel and unmerciful towards the poor widows as Romish priests are, for the most part, obliged to be. When my heart, depraved by the false and impious doctrines of Rome, was tempted to take money from widows and or- phans, under pretense of my long prayers, I then heard the voice of my mother, from the depth of her sepulchre, saying: "My dear child, do not be cruel towards poor widows and or- phans, as are the priests of to-day." If, during the days of my priesthood at Quebec, at Beauport and Kamarouska, I have given almost all that I had to feed and clothe the poor, especially the widows and orphans, it was not owing to my being better than others, but it was because my mother had spoken to me with words never to be forgotten. The Lord, I believe, had put into my mother's mouth those words, so simple but so full of elocjucnce and beauty, as one of His great mercies to me. Those tears the hand of Rome has never been able to wipe off; those word;- of my mother the sophisms of Popery could not make me forget. How long, O Lord, shall that insolent enemy of the gospel. 28 THE DEVIL IN THE CHURCH: the Church of Rome, be' permitted to fatten herself upon the tears of the widow and of the orphan by means of that cruel and "impious invention of paganism — purgatory? Wilt thou be merciful unto so many nations which are still the victims of that great imposture^ Oh, do remove the veil which covers the eyes of the priests and people of Rome, as thou hast re- moved it from mine ! Make them to understand that their hopes of purification must not rest on these fabulous fires, but only on the blood of the Lamb shed on Calvary to save the world." HOW A PBIEST SECUBED A EINE BOAST DINNEB. This excellent and most respected Father Chiniquy, now a true minister of Christ, also tells of another instance of priestly infamy quite as appalling as the one here recited- He says that as he was walking the road, in company with another priest they "met a poor man who looked more like one out of the grave, than a living man; he was covered with rags, and his pale and trembling lips indicated that he was reduced to the last degree of human misery.^ Taking ofi his hat, he said to Rev. Mr. Primeau, with a trembling voice, 'You know, Mr. le Cure, that my poor wife died, and was buried ten days ago, but I was too poor to have a funeral service sung the day she was buried, and I fear she is in purgatory, for almost every night I see her in my dreams, wrapped up in burning flames. She cries to me for help, and asks me to have a high mass sung for the rest of her soul. I come to ask you to be so kind as to sing that high mass for her.' " 'Of course," answered the curate, 'your wife is in the flames of purgatory, and suffers there the most unspeakable tortures, which can be relieved only by the offering of the holy sacrifice of the mass. Give me five dollars and I will sing that mass to-morrow morning.' The poor man declared his utter inabil- ity to pay, and the priest replied: 'If you cannot pay, you can- not have any mass sung. You know it is the rule.' The poor man again declared, 'in a most touching way,' his great poverty and utter inability to pay, and said : 'I canmot Jeave my poor wife in the flames of purgatory ; if you cannot sing a high mass, HIS SECRET WORKS EXPOSEb. r^ will you please to say five low masses to rescue her soul from those burning flames?' "The priest turned toward him and said: 'Yes, I can say five masses to take the soul of your wife out of purgatory ; but give me five shillings, for you know the price of low mass is one shilling.' The poor man answered : 'I can no more give one dollar than I can give five. I have not a cent and my three poor little children are as naked and starving as myself.' " 'Well ! well !' answered the curate, 'when I passed your house this morning I saw two beautiful sucking pigs. Give me one of them, and I will say your five low masses.' " Father Chiniquy says that a day or two after this incident he was invited to take dinner with this priest in company with several other priests, and as he sat at the table: "The first dish was a sucking pig, roasted with an art and a perfection that I had never seen; it looked like a piece of gold, and its smell would have brought water to the lips of the most peni- tent anchorite." Chiniquy says he was very hungry, and very fond of roasted pig, and so — "I could not conceal that it was with real pleasure I saw the curate cutting a beautiful piece from the shoulder and offering it to me. I was too hungry to be over-patient. I was carrying to my mouth the tempting and succulent mouthful, when, suddenly, the remembrance of the poor man's sucking pig came to my mind. I laid the piece on my plate with painful anxiety, looked at the curate, and said: 'Will you allow me to put to you a question about this dish?' Having been answered in the affirmative, Mr. Chin- iquy said : 'Is this the sucking pig of the poor man of yester- day?' With a convulsive fit of laughter, he replied : 'Yes; it is, just it. If we cannot take away the soul of the poor woman out of the flames of purgatory, we will, at all events, eat a fine sucking pig.' "The other thirteen priests filled the room with laughter to show their appreciation of their host's wit. "However, their laughter was not of long duration. With a feeling of shame and uncontrollable indignation, I pushed away my plate with such force, that it crossed the table, and nearly fell on the floor, saying, with a sentiment of disgus* 30 THB DBVIL IN THE CHURCH: which no pen can describe: 'I would rather starve to death than to eat of that execrable food ; I see, in it the tears of the poor man; I see the blood of his starving children; it is the price of a soul. No ! no ! gentlemen, do not touch it. You know, Mr. Curate, how 30,000 priests and monks were slaugh- tered in France in the bloody days of 1792. It was for such iniquities as this that God Almighty visited the Church in France. The same future awaits us here in Canada, the very day that people shall awaken from their slumbers and see that, instead of being ministers of Christ, we are vile traders of souls, under the mask of religion.' " These last words of Mr. Chiniquy most fitly and truthfully characterize the Romish priesthood throughout the world ; they are "vile traders of souls, under the mask of religion." PBIESTS CAUSE BIBLES TO BE BURNED IN NEW YORK STATE. It is not so long ago that the priests of Rome made bonfires of Bibles. This has been done even in our own country where this holy book is so free, and so much revered. Dr. Dowling, in his "History of Romanism" gives an account of the public burning of Bibles, no longer ago than October 27, 1844, in Champlain, in the State of New York. He says: "The fol- lowing account of this sacrilegious outrage is from an official statement of facts, signed by four respectable citizens appoint- ed as a committee for that purpose." Their statement is as follows : "About the middle of October, a Mr. Selmont, a mis- sionary of the Jesuits, with one or more associates, came to Corlean, in this town, where the Catholic Church is located, and as they say in their own account given of their visit, by the direction of the bishop of Montreal. On their arrival they commenced a protracted meeting which lasted several weeks, and great numbers of Catholics from this and other towms at- tended day after day. After the meeting had progressed sev- eral days, and the way was prepared for it, an order was issued requiring all who had Bibles, or Testaments, to bring them to the priest, or lay them at the feet of the missionaries. The requirement was generally complied with, and day after day Bibles and Testaments were carried in, and after a sufficient HIS SECRET WORKS EXPOSED. 31 number was collected they were burned. By the confession of Selmont there^were several burnings, but only one in public. On the 27th of October, as given in testimony at the public meeting held there, Selmont, who was a prominent man in all the movements, brought out from the residence of the priest, which is near the church, as many Bibles as he could carry in his arms at three times, and placed them in a pile in the open yard,' and then set fire to them, and burned them to ashes. This was done in the open day, and in the presence of many spectators." MANY VICTIMS AMONG SCHOOLMISTRESSES. "The Nun of Kenmare" says : Sometimes, too often, it is the schoolmistress who is the victim, and I speak of what I know. It was my infinitely sad lot to have been asked by an English bishop, and by an English cardinal, to take charge of a mission where the priest had ruined four of his schoolmis- tresses, one after the other. His last victim had a child whom she could not support, and so her pitiful story came out. The priest was not sent into banishment, as would have been done if he had committed any sin "against the Church," or offended his bishop. As he had only sinned against God, he was simply re- moved from one diocese to another, where he retained his rank and his honors. If such things are done in the green tree, what has been done in the dry? If such deeds as these are done, and even condoned in England to-day, what will be done in England when the church has the power to shield evildoers ? And I have reason to know that this is not an uncommon case. I have heard the sad tale of many girls, teachers, who under the absolute control of the priest, have been led on step by step to evil, and no hand was stretched out to save them, because none dared to interfere with the priest who led them to ruin. I have heard their weary story of shame and sin, and how they were consoled and silenced in the confessional; for with the infatuation of the Roman Catholic tea<;hing they would, even in their misery, seek absolution from the very au- thors of their shame. Could the horrors of Pagan rites af- ford more terrible instances of depravity ? And all this is hap- "^% {HF i"^^ "^'"^ *^v' ' ^^^ Priest Selmont Burning the Holy Bible. "" HIS SBCRBT WORKS EXPOSED. 33 periing in England, and in America, of to-day, and all must be hidden atl the peril of the ruined woman, because the sinner is a "priest," and because the "Church" teaches, by example and custom, that it is a far greater sin to accuse a priest of sin, than to sin with a priest. I know that it will be said indignantly by Roman Catholics that the Church does not sanction these evils, but what use of denials, when facts are all the other way ? No one can pos- sibly be intimate with Roman Catholics in private life without knowing how they fear and silence the least word of scandal where a priest is concerned. A church which finds it neces- sary to hide, or deny evil which is well known to exist, must rest on a very insecure foundation, and it is a curious circum- stance, that while Roman Catholics will talk quite freely about priests who are guilty of intemperance, and seem to think it a matter of very little consequence, they will shrink with hor- ror from connecting the name of a priest with immorality. Yet one sin is most assuredly the parent of the other. I might fill volumes if I related the many instances which I have known of priests who drank to excess, and still remained honored members of the Church. More than one bishop and priest are at present in lunatic asylums in the United States, who have been the victims of this crime and of still greater crimes. I do not ask that my word shall be taken for these statements. It is not so long since that the whole world was made aware of the moral condition of one diocese in America by the highest possible authority in the diocese, the bishop him- self.,^ The Republican of June 29th, 1887, printed a letter from Bishop , of the Roman Catholic diocese of , which was brought out in court, and was never intended for publication; but it reveals a sad state of afifairs. In June, 1887, the bishop had placed a German priest over an Irish congrega- tion. The Irish people were indignant at this proceeding, and, as we shall show later, from Roman Catholic sources, there is no small fear on the part of certain American ecclesiastics lest there should be an opefi rupture between the German a}j4:J|-js]i dgfpefit m the Komm CathgHc pfiufch in tlif Uoit^^ 34 THU DEVIL IN THE CHURCH: States, where the Church is far from being in the condition of rehgious harmony which the rulers of the Papacy would hke the world to suppose. At last a gentleman interfered in the interests of peace, and the bishop was obliged, or at least thought it wise to justify himself. His defense was that the priests of his diocese were such a drunken lot that he was compelled to supply the parish as he did. He then gives a list by name of twenty-two priests who were received into his diocese from 1869 to 1876, but whom he was compelled to dismiss on account of immorality and drunkenness. Some of them are described as "constantly drunk;" one is "now going around from city to city a drunken wreck." The bishop wrote : "The constant shameful public and sacrilegious drunkenness of the three last-mentioned priests who were by my side at the cathedral determined me to put them and their kind out of my jurisdiction. One, after repeated drunkenness, went on a spree for a week in my house ; while in my house broke out at night,^ got into a house of a disreputable woman in his drunk- enness, and was thrown out into the street, picked up drunk, recognized, and taken into a house and made sober, and put into a carriage and taken back to my house. That evening two others were told by me to prepare for the proper celebra- tion of the feast of the Patronage of for Easter Sunday. On Saturday night they stayed up all night drinking, carousing, and shouting. One fell down, blackened and almost broke his face in falling. Of course the two sacrilegious priests said mass the next day ; and one went into the pulpit and preached with his blacked and bruised face to the people of the cathedral. This was on the Feast of the Patron of the Diocese and of the Universal Church. It was time for me to begin a reforma- tion." From personal knowledge of several dioceses I must add that this state of things is far from uncommon. In the west- ern States of America the conditions of life are freer, and priests are more careless in their public conduct. I can only say that the very same condition of things, I have reason to ]5f Jjeye, exi?t§ In pther places, but hi44?n from the pul^lip view. HIS SECRET WORKS EXPOSED. 35 Since my arrival in America priests have often come to beg from me while they were in a state of intoxication, saying, that they came because it was well known I never refused a priest anything. This was true until I found out how my kindness was imposed upon. A priest who had treated both myself and the sisters most shameful in England, was sent with a high char- acter to America by his bishop, who wanted to get rid of him, and he also came to beg from me. I know that there are priests who are living by their wits in every part of the world, the wretched victims of drink and immorality, diseased beyond description, and supported by the poorest of the people, who have a superstitious respect for a priest, no matter how de- graded. I have seen a priest drunk at the altar ; I have seen a priest who had been guilty of the ruin of four of his school teachers removed to another diocese, but only to be welcomed there and never the worse thought of for his sins, or the scandal he gave, pubHc as it was. But if one dared to speak of it pubhcly, that indeed was a crime too terrible for forgiveness. I have seen a priest in Kenmare lay himself full length on a convent lounge and put his head in the lap of a sister who was sitting on it and who dared not condemn the outrage, because of the position which the priest held. She could only express her unutterable disgust and loathing of his drunken famihari- ties by her expression of contempt and hatred, and by not pay- ing the very least attention to him as he lay there. I do not say that such scenes are common in convents, but I know thar such things are not altogether uncommon. HOW A PRIEST KEPT HIS VOW. Dr. Peter Bernes, secular priest, belonging to the parish church of the blessed Mary Magdalene (as they do call her), being 32 years of age, and 'dangerously ill, made a vow to the glorious saint, that if he should recover from that sickness, he would retire into a Carthusian convent. He recovered, and accordingly, renouncing his benefice and the world, he took the Carthusian habit, in the convent of the Conception, three miles from Saragossa, For the space of three years he gave Sd THB DBVIL IN THE CHURCH: proofs of virtue and singular conformity with the statutes of the order. His strict life was so crowned with disciplines and mortifications, that the prior gave out, in the city, that he was a saint on earth. I went to see him with the father prior's con- sent, and indeed I thought there was something extraordinary in his countenance, and in his words ; and I had taken him my- self for a man ready to work miracles. Many people went to see him, and among the crowd a young woman, acquainted with him before he took the habit, who, unknown to the strict friars, got into his chamber, and there she was kept by the pious father eighteen months. In that time the prior used to visit the chamber, but the Senora was kept in the bed-chamber, till at last the prior went one night to consult him upon some business, and hearing a child cry, asked him what was the mat- ter; and though my friend Bernes endeavored to conceal the case, the prior found it out; and she, owning the thing, was turned out with the child, and the father was confined forever. And this was his virtue, fasting and abstinence from flesh, &c. coMrrEssiON of a pbiest at the point of death. "Since God Almighty is pleased to visit me with this sick- ness, I ought to make good use of the time I have to live, and desire you to help me with your prayers, and to take the trou- ble to write some substantial points of my confession, that you may perform, after my death, whatever I think may enable me in some measure to discharge my duty towards God and men. When I was ordained priest, I made a general confession of all my sins from my youth to that time ; and I wish I could now be as true a penitent as I was at that time ; but I hope, though I fear too late, that God will hear the prayer of my heart. I have served my parish sixteen years, and all my care has been to discover the tempers and inclinations of my parish- ioners, and I have been as happy in this world as unhappy be- fore my Saviour. I have in ready money fifteen thousand pis- toles, and I have given away more than six thousand. I ha4 no patrimony, and my living is worth but four hundred pistoles a year. By this you may easily know, that my money is unia\y- fVilly |otten, ^^ I s)i3.Utell you, if Goral power, of the ambition of the pontificate, and from it come the blood-stains that disgrace the Eternal City. PBIESTS HOLD HIGH CAEHIVAL. Father Chiniquy says, "I went to St. Mary's University two hours ahead of time. Never did I see such a band of jolly fel- lows, their dissipation and laughter, their exchange of witty, and too often unbecoming expressions; the tremendous noise they made in addressing each other at a distance. Their Hello, Patrick!' 'Hello, Murphy!' 'Hello, O'Brien!' 'How do you do?' 'How is Bridget?' 'Marguerite still with you?' and the answer, 'Yes, yes! She will not leave me;' or, 'No, no! The crazy girl is gone,' were invariably followed by outbursts of .laughter. Though niiie-tenths of them were evidently under the influence of intoxicating drinks, not one of them could be said to be drunk. But the strong odor of alcohol, mixed with the smoke of cigars, soon poisoned the air and made it suffo- cating. I had withdrawn into a corner alone in order to ob- serve everything. What stranger in entering this large hall, would have suspected that these men were about to begin one of the most solemn and sacred actions of a priest of Jesus Christ? With the exception of five or six, they looked more like a band of carousing raftsmen than priests. About an hour before the opening of the exercises I saw one of the priests with hat in hand, accompanied by two of the fattest and most florid of the band, going to every one, collecting money; and with the utmost liberality and pleasure each one threw his bank bills into the hat. I supposed that this collection was to pay our board during the retreat and I prepared fifteen dollars 1 HIS SBCRBT WORKS EXPOSED. 55 was to give. When they came near me, the big hat was liter- ally filled with five and ten dollar bills. Before handing my money to them, I asked, 'What is the object of that collection?' 'Ah, ah !' they answered with a hearty laugh, is it possible that you do not know it yet ? Don't you know that when we are so crowded as we will be here this week the rooms are apt to be- come too warm and we get thirsty ? then a little drop to cool the throat and quench the thirst is needed ?' " They insisted on obtaining drink. Father Chiniquy remon- strated. They had their way. Five hundred dollars were spent for intoxicating liquors. The drinking began about nine o'clock, after sermons, meditations, and confessions. Some were handing the bottles from bed to bed, while others were carrying them to those at a distance, — at first with the least noise possible, but half an hour had not elapsed before the al- cohol was beginning to unloose their tongues and upset the brain. Then the witty stories were followed by the most in- decent and shameful I'ecitals. Then the songs followed by the barking of dogs, and the croaking of frogs, and the howling of wolves, in a word, the cries of all kinds of beasts, often mixed with the most lascivious songs, the most infamous anecdotes, flying from bed to bed, from room to room, until one or two o'clock in the morning. One night three priests were taken with delirium tremens almost at the same time. For three days Father Chiniquy stood it and then in disgust went to Bishop Spaulding and O'Reagan with his complaints. It was then declared that the first night six prostitutes dressed as gentlemen, and on a subsequent night twelve, came' to the uni- versity after dark, and went directed by signals to those who had invited them. Policemen reported the condition of afifairs to the bishop. He replied, "Do you think I am going to come down from my dignity of bishop to hear the reports of degraded police- meft or vile spies ? Shall I become the spy of my priests ? If they want to go to hell let them go. I am not more obliged or more able than God himself to stop them. Does God stop them? Does he punish them? No. Well, you cannot ex- 56 THB DBVIL IN THB CHURCH: pect from me more zeal, more power than in our common God." "Thirteen priests had been taken to the police station from houses of ill-fame where they were rioting and fighting." In these extracts, we can see the education received by the priests. It is not strange that they practiced what they learned in the retreat, when they reached the world outside. ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND FAMILIES EUINED IN ONE YEAK. The Romish priests were the great agents inciting the French Papists to exterminate the Huguenots. After Henry Til deserted the league, they incessantly resounded the cry of war, and blood, and death. In one year only, it is stated, that 100,000 famihes were ruined, and during the contest 500,000 Papists were murdered. The Crusaders of the league were so infuriated and bewitched, that when they could plunder or even carry away the head of their father, brother, relative, or neighbor, if he did not belong to the league, it was considered the most acceptable work of God; and the Romish priests taught the blinded people that the more robberies they perpe- trated, the more rapes they committed, and the more murders they executed, the greater would be their reward in heaven. — Satyre Menippe, Vol. 2, page 444; and Vol. 3, pages 274, 275. PKIESTS MURDERING THEIR OWN PARENTS. In the Memoires de la Ligue, Tom. 3, page 388, are detailed those facts in reference to the irreligion and the profligacy of the Roman priests and their minions, who form the confeder- acy called the Leaguers. Where was ever more sacrilege, more rapes, and blasphemies than among the troops of the league. They even obliged the priests to enact their supei'- stitious mummery, and christen calves, sheep, chickens, and give them the names of different fish that they might eat them in L,ent. They violated women and girls of every age %nd condition ; robbed the mass house altars, and murdered their own parents and relatives, as their ordinary employment. "The mass and religion were in their mouths, but atheism in their hearts and actions." "To violate all laws divine and htmian HIS SBCRBT WORKS EXPOSED. 57 is the infallible mj^ and true charactei- of a Papist zealot." — D'Aubigne Hist. Univers. Tom. i ; Lib. 2 ; Chap 26. — Journal de Henry HI, page 121. — Satyre Menippe, Vol. 3, page 335. BISHOPS AND PRIESTS HAVE PLENTT Or ILL-GOTTEN GOLD. The Irish priest is always calling out for union between the priest and the people, a union according to his view, like that of the wolf and the lamb, or of the tiger and the kid. An Irish- American priest once stated in my hearing that the Irish priest was a greater obstacle to Ireland's happiness, a more positive hindrance to her prosperity, a more deadly enemy to her peo- ple, than that very much-abused individual, the Irish landlord. The truth of this arraignment of Ireland's priesthood by one of their cloth, a gentleman high in the confidence of the Romanist bishops of America, I could not realize until I had visited Ire- land myself. Let me here incidentally remark that the justice of his serious charge upon the priestly "patriots" is fully borne out by the reports of a Roman envoy, the late Cardinal Persico, who, by special appointment of the Pope, visited Ireland a few years ago to report on its social and religious condition. "There are in Ireland, with a Roman Catholic population of three and a quarter millions, twenty-five Episcopal Sees in com- munion with Rome. The twenty-five Irish bishops, not count- ing auxiliaries and coadjutors, received an average of ^5,000, or $25,000 a year. True it is that they have no fixed salaries, but their average revenue, received from parochial incomes, dispensation moneys, and gifts from clergy and laity is rather above than below this amount. In Belgium six millions of Roman Cathohcs are served by five bishops, paid liberal, but much smaller salaries by the public, yet no one has ever heard the Belgian bishops calling for an increase of salary, or the Belgian people for an increase of bishops. Oh, long sufifering, poverty-stricken Ireland, thou art surely the prelates' paradise. No wonder the priests call for union between the priests and people. There are in Ireland about one thousand parish priests and administrators' parishes. The average salary of these easy-going and well-fed gentlemen, may, at a very modest esti- mate indeed, be set down at one thousand pounds (or five thou- 58 THE, DBVIL IN THE CtiURCH: sand dollars) per annum. Lest any one t\^hk I exaggerate in this -regard, let me mention that a priest in charge of a parish frequently exacts as high a fee as five hundred dollars for per- forming the marria,ge ceremony. He often gets a higher fig- ure, for by a weU contrived priestly trick, it is made a matter of rivalry among the poor people as to which shall give the largest sum to "his reverence" on the occasion of a daughter's marriage. Baptisms and funerals are also fruitful sources of income to the Irish priesthood. The highest ambition of an Irish farmer is to have a son a priest. It not only gives the family a higher standing, but is a certain means of making the family well off in worldly goods. "The 'souls in purgatory' are at all times in requisition to fill the priest's exchequer. Several months of close observa- tion confirms my belief that a more greedy, rapacious, selfish body of men cannot be found in this world of ours than the priesthood of Ireland. As the Irish priest is not an exemplar in the matter of sobriety, neither is he a paragon of morality. His so-called vows of celibacy is often the cover for wrong doing of the most shameful character. Numerous instances of such criminality were related to me by strict and devout Irish Roman Catholics, but the victims of lecherous priests, and the friends of those victims fear to bring those men to justice, lest God's curse might fall upon them — a delusion assiduously nur- tured and strengthened by the priests themselves. The streets of Ireland's towns and villages swarm with beggars, while the coffers of bishops and priests are bursting with ill-gotten gold. "The great friend and backer of the priest in every parish is usually the rumseller. His house is frequented, his table pat- ronized by the priestly visitor. This is to be especially noticed if the rumseller happens to have one or two pretty daughters, and the daughters of Erin, it must be said, are very handsome; indeed, Romanism and rum go hand in hand, as well in Ireland as in America, to darken homes, destroy fami- lies and decimate whole communities. I know of one village of six hundred souls, in the south of Ireland, with thirty-six rumselling establishments, and another place with three thou- sand people with eighty-eight. In the cities of Cork, Water- HIS SnCRBT WORKS BXPOSBD. 59 ford, and Limerick, the number of death-dealing agencies reaches away up into the hundreds. Drunkenness prevails on every side and the priest fears to offend his friend, the saloon- keeper, by exposing and denouncing the nefarious methods of his traffic." PRIESTS CAUSE MILLIONS TO GO WRONG. A million of women, and more than a million of girls, are asked questions by over two hundred thousand priests, which, if taken upon the lips of any so-called Christian minister in the presence of wife and daughter, would debar him from his pul- pit, place on 'his reputation an ineffaceable stain, and, if per- sisted in, would lead to banishment if not to summary punish- ment. Why should priests in America be permitted to say and do what other religious teachers would not be tolerated in doing? Is there any reason why there should be one standard for Romanists, and another for Christians, Jews, or infidels? Have Romish priests a right to invade virtue, trample on jus- tice, degrade womanhood, and despoil her of all that makes Hfe valuable? Many are fond of reckoning Roman Catholics as a part of the Christian world. Let such demand that the priests marry, and get out of the house as a marplot, and enter it only as a religious teacher. Could they do so, it would revo- lutionize society, give the husband his place as the head of his household, and bar the path to almost universal licentious- ness. The theory that a woman may obey the priest, and, without sin, be to him all he desires, and that she can never be called to account to God for any actions she may have perform- ed to please him, compels millions to go wrong. On a Sabbath afternoon, in Music Hall, a converted nun handed in this request : "Pray for my poor, benighted relations who are yet in the bonds of iniquity and the gall of bitterness. My poor little niece, who is now in Boston, out of work, was put into a convent when three years of age, and has been since then the mother of two children before she was nineteen years of age, one living and one dead. She was living with a priest when these children were born; is now turned out upon the world, without work, without a home, and can neither read nor 6o fH^ bnvit IN THE, CtiUkCH: write." This is but 'a specimen of hundreds of letters which reveal the extent of this iniquity, about which the American people know so little and care less. The priest is in the way. I THE PRIEST A PLAGUE. As confessor, the priest possesses the secret of a woman's soul. "He knows every half-formed hope, every dim desire, every thwarted feeling. The priest, as spiritual director, ani- mates that woman with his own ideas, moves her with his own will, fashions her according to his own fancy. And this priest is doomed to celibacy. He is a man, but is bound to pluck from his heart the feelings of a man. If he is without fault, he makes desperate use of his' power over those confiding in him. If he is sincerely devout, he has to struggle with his passions, and there is a perilous chance of his being defeated in that struggle. And even should he come off victorious, still the mischief done is incalculably irreparable. The woman's virtue has been preserved by an accident, by a power extran- eous to herself. She was wax in her spiritual director's hands ; she has ceased to be a person, and is become a thing. The priest is the cause of all this, and is a plague." THE DAILY LIFE OF A YOUNG PRIEST. The Unmarried Confessor has been set forth by Paul Cour- ier in words that ought to be read and pondered. "What a life, what a condition, is that of our priests! Love is forbidden them, — marriages, especially ; women are given up to them. They may not have one of their own, and yet live familiarly with all, nay, in confidential, intimate privity of their hidden actions, of all their thoughts. An innocent girl first hears the priest under her mother's wing; he then calls her to him, speaks alone with her, and is the first to talk of sin to her before she can have known it. When instructed, she marries ; when married, he still confesses and governs her. He has pre- ceded the husband in her affections, and will always maintain himself in them. What she would not venture to confide to her mother, or confess to her husband, he, a priest, must know « WB^ 3^S SIM ^ KBbBS^B HSg^^m y^^feMM a. pjl^j^i^^p Sw^^l^'^ hlCfrJJK^SSi s s^S^ i§s j>>3^'a]| ii . T^tjg IW ■a m^^^ i^^^^p "^^it T i 'i ' ^ I^^JL ^n 1 oi fbnjafa J^S^I 1 ^^ ^^ 0?l| 1 Hij^^^ 5^^H^ ^ilim i \V\u^^^ ^ll^iJfi ^JJJgJH ^ ^^^^^^ ^rai^^^p ^^^^S« 'n B^^a^Bp HEJgifc-n?r~ ""^IwB^S ^^^.^ ^^^nc ^Wil ", B^ -41 — "JS M ^ ^^^ ^s^fe^ MiS m i J ^^^^^w] fTfT M %' ^^e^^^S^i L J pK 3 m 1^ ci mim\ 1 iifSI |y|\ /■)« ■s^H-^Siissr^ ^1 3 10 M 11' ^ ^^ a> tafeMi 62 THH DHVIL IN THE CHURCH: it, ask it, hears it, and yet shall not be her lover. How could he, indeed? Is he not tonsured? He hears whispered in his ear, by a young woman, her faults, her passions, desires, weak- nesses, receives her sighs without feeling agitated, and he is five and twenty ! "To confess a woman ! I imagine what it is. At the end of a church a species of closet, or sentry-box, is erected against the wall, where the priest awaits, in the evening after vespers, his young penitent whom he loves, and who knows it; love cannot be concealed from the beloved person. You will stop me there, — his character of priest, his education, his vows, — I reply that there is no vow which holds good ; that every village cure, just come from the seminary, healthy, robust, and vigor- ous, doubtless loves one of his parishioners. It cannot be otherwise, and if you contest this, I will say more still ; and that is, that he loves them all, — those, at least, of his own age ; but he prefers one, who appears to him, if not more beautiful than the others, more modest and wiser, and whom he would marry; he would make her a virtuous, pious wife, if it were not for the Pope. He sees her daily, and meets her at church or else- where, and, sitting opposite her in the winter evenings, he imbibes, imprudent man! the poison of her eyes. "Now I ask you, when he hears that one coming the next day, and approaching the confessional, and when he recognizes her footsteps, and can say, it is she, what is passing in the mind of the poor confessor? Honesty, duty, mere resolutions, are here of little use without peculiarly heavenly grace. I will suppose him a saint ; unable to fly he apparently groans, sighs, recommends himself to God ; but, if he is only a man, he shud- ders, desires, and already, unwillingly, without knowing it, per- haps, he hopes. She arrives, kneels down at his knees before him whose heart leaps and palpitates. You are young, sir, or you have been so ; between ourselves, what do you think of such a situation for ybur daughter or your wife, and such a man? Alone most of the time, and having these walls, these vaulted roofs, as sole witnesses, they talk — of what ? alas ! of all that is not innocent. They talk, or rather murmur in low HIS SECRET WORKS EXPOSED. 63 voice; and their lips approach each other, and their breaths mingle. This lasts for an hour or more, and is often renewed. "Do you think I invent? This scene takes place such as I describe it; is renewed daily by thousands of young priests, with as many young girls whom they love, because they are men; whom they confess in this manner, because they are priests ; and whom they do not marry, because the Pope is op- posed to it. CELIBACY A GREAT CTJBSE. In turning thought to the history of the fight for the celibacy of the priesthood of the Roman-CathoHc Church, one is im- pressed with the truth that what is unwritten and is known only to God, and is remembered by him, is far more terrible and atrocious than what is written. Up to the present time no one has dared to put into English the truth concerning celibacy. It blackens the page of history, it degrades people, curses the home, and spreads its blight over every hope and aspiration of those who rest under its shadow, or are afflicted by its pres- ence. Celibacy is in direct antagonism to the teachings of the word of God. That ought to be sufficient with people who believe that the word of God is a lamp to our feet, and a light to our pathway. "A bishop," says Paul, "must be blameless, the husband of one wife." In the Douay version is this note on the words, "the husband of one .wife:" The meaning is, "that no one should be admitted to the holy orders of bishop, priest, or deacon, who had been married more than once." Then, sure- ly, it is not the meaning that a bishop, priest, or deacon should never 'be married. Peter led about a wife. For more than threfe centuries every pastor of the Church was allowed to marry. THE SHAMEFUL PIT OF IMPURITY. It is not strange that priests are asking, "Would we not be more chaste and pure by living with our lawful wives, than by daily exposing ourselves in the confessional in the company of women whose presence will irresistibly drag us into the shameful pit of impurity?" 64 THB DEVIL IN THB CHURCH: THE VATICAN A RESIDENCE EOR WOaiEN. "Few priests have the self-denial to live without female com- panionship. Indeed, the census-paper, officially filed in the Vatican and returned in January, 1882, stated the population of the palace to be five hundred, of which one-third were wo- men. While of course it does not follow that the relations between these women and the grave dignitaries of the papal court may not be perfectly virtuous, still, considering the age at which ordination is permitted, it would be expecting too much of human nature to believe that in at least a large num-. ber of cases among parish priests, the companionship is not as fertile of sin as we have seen it in every previous age since the ecclesiastic has been deprived of the natural institution of marriage." "The 'niece' or other female inmates of the par- sonage, throughout Catholic Europe is looked upon as a mat- ter of course by the parishioners, while the prelates, content if public scandal be avoided, affect to regard the arrangement as harmless." AMERICAN HOMES IMPERILLED. America is the land of homes. What blesses them, helps everybody. What curses them, injures everybody- It is be- cause the homes of millions are invaded and imperilled by the conduct of priests, that attention should be called to some of the many reasons why priests should wed. Because Roman Catholic priests, minions of a foreign oath-bound despotism, are doing their utmost not to build up the repubhc in the faith of our fathers, but to sap the foundations they laid, and de- spoil the people of their legitimate hopes, storm-signals should be raised, and warnings must be sounded out from pulpit, press- room and platform as never before. A MARRIED PRIESTHOOD AND PURE CHRISTIAN HOMES. Let every American insist upon a married priesthood, and for a pure Christian home. Let the husband become the head of the home, with no shadow of a priest coming between him and his house hold, and the cloud that darkens the path of Ro- manists will be chased away, and millions will find their way HIS SBCRBT WORKS EXPOSED. 65 back to the halcyon days of Ambrose, before the shadow of the sceptre of Hildebrand darkened the world. Then confi- dence shall take the place of suspicion, and the priesthood of the Romish Church shall join with the ministry of evangelical denominations in seeking an ennobling civilization for the land we love, and the God we serve. PLAIN REASONS WHY PRIESTS SHOTJLB WED. "The Nun of Kenmare" in her book, "Life Inside the Church of Rome," says : I have been convinced for many years that the celibacy of the Roman CathoHc clergy is the source of nearly all the moral evil in the Roman Church. If this unchristian observance was abolished, the moral tone of the whole Church of Rome would at once be raised and purified. The enforced celibacy of the Roman priesthood has been, and is at present, the fruitful source of much crime. It has been fraught with the greatest moral danger to Rome, while the doctrine of the infallibility of the Church has proved the greatest spiritual danger. The enforced celibacy of priest- hood would long since have been abolished if it was not found to be necessary for the support of the Church, no matter what the moral evil which it causes. The laity would long since have risen against it, and have forbidden it, if the Roman Cath- olic Church had not kept them in such ignorance of scripture and of history. Where shall we find a Roman Catholic, no matter how well educated, who is conversant with the teach- ing of the Scripture? Where shall we find a Roman Catholic who knows anything of the history of the celibacy in the Ro- man Church? As for the Scripture, the fact that St. Peter was a married man and our Divine Lord had so special an interest in his fam- ily as to have made the healing of his mother-in-law one of his recorded miracles, should be itself sufficient for every Chris- tian. We have in this an evidence which cannot be disputed, that vows of celibacy are not of the Divine institution for the Christian priesthood; and Rome acts wisely in keeping as far as possible the Bible from her followers, lest they should as- 66 THE DBVIL IN THE CHURCH: certain for themselves even the one fact, that he who they claim to be the first infallible head of their Church was a mar- ried man. Aji unmarried clergy might be a support to the Church in time of persecution. A married clergy, for whom special coun- sel is given in the Gospel, is the normal condition of the Church, and intended to be an example and a strength to the Church in times of peace. Where is the priest who dares to preach on the words of St. Paul to Timothy, in which he so expressly states the duties of the Christian priesthood as re- gards their wives? How any Church calling itself Christian could forbid the marriage of its clergy, which the Scriptures and especially the instructions of St. Paul in regard to the family life of ministers of the Gospel teach, is a mystery of the perversity of human nature, and like all attempts to be wiser than God, it is ended in disastrous failure. The bishop, says St. Paul, "must be blameless, the husband of one wife." What word could be plainer ? And then the plain practical inference is drawn to make edification to be derived from marriage yet more clear. "For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the Church of God?" (I. Timothy., III., 5). Words cannot express more clearly or more wisely the duties of a Christian minister, and we shall see presently how this enforced unchristian law of cehbacy has acted, just as the Scriptures imply it would act. The priest of the Church of Rome, not having a household of his own to rule, has "not known how to rule the Church of God." Instead of becom- ing the father of his people, he is the tyrant of his people. It was not long before I left the Church of Rome that a priest high in the Roman Church of New York said to me, "The bishops tyrannize over us, and we in turn tyrannize over the people." He spoke these words in all sober truth, and in sad earnestness. And those who knew anything of the inside life of the Roman Church at the present day, know but too well the truth of these words, while the past history of the Roman Church is simply one long cry for power at the expense of the Gospel truth. Let us look at the position of the unmarried priest. He is The Kun of Kenmare. 68 THB DBVIL IN THE, CHURCH: a man with all the God-given passions of a man. The first in- stinct of man is to propagate his species. To this end God has given him the desire to do so. A gift of infinite love, the results of which are the highest benefit to the human race. This was God's precept in the Jewish dispensation, approved in the Christian dispensation, and sanctified in it to a degree un- known before Apostolic days. The priest, being a man, has these God-given instincts. He desires to propagate his spe- cies, but he is told that to do this by marriage is to commit a deadly sin. How awful is this case ! God has given him cer- tain instincts, lawful, Divine, because God-given, and man says, "Thou shalt not profit by them. I, the human head of the Church, forbid you to do what God, the Founder of the Church, has permitted you to do." For, let.it be well noted, even the Roman Church has not ventured to say that this for- bidding to marry is a Divine command. No, it is a command only of the "Church," which claims a right and — oh, the pity of it! — is allowed power, through the folly and sin of man, to do exactly what God has forbidden to be done. When priests shall wed, they will become the head of homes. Noble women will share their heart love and their toil. They will exchange impurity for purity; a woman without a name, without a place of respectful regard, for the wife of a pastor, who in the Church is a helpmeet as in the home she is a part- ner. fA CATHOLIC PBIEST PLAYS THE PART OP SATAN AND IS SHOT ANB KILLED. The following item, bearing the date of Zaragoza, July 17, 1877, and signed by Rev. Thomas L. Gulick, is taken from the Illustrated Christian Weekly, of New York, dated August 18, 1877:- The following incident which occurred a few days ago in the town of Cervera, not far from Zaragoza and up the river Ebro, vividly illustrates one phase of the present religious condition of Spain. We know the story to be true by letters received from those in the village who are personally acquainted with the facts. HIS SECRET WORKS EXPOSED. 69 A rich man well known in the province of Aragon for his advanced opinions, refused on his death-bed to accept any- priestly aid, notwithstanding the entreaties of his family and the advice of his friends. There was a moment, however, when it was thought the patient had modified his determina- tion. The priest of the parish presented himself by the side of the dying man, but finding that he persisted in his refusal, retired, saying aloud to those who were present, that after the death of the reprobate the devil would come in person to take charge of the body and conduct him to hell. Two days after the family were watching by the corpse when the door of the room suddenly opened, and a monster clothed in scarlet, smelling of sulphur and dragging a hairy tail, pre- sented himself before the mourners who fled in terror. Hear- ing their screams, a man-servant who was in the next room seized a revolver and ran to the rescue. It is reported that he stood terrified at the sight of his majesty, but like death at hell-gate, thinking it was better to kill than be killed, he fired three shots at the flaming terror. Forthwith the friends of the deceased found themselves face to face with the sacristan of the parish with three wounds in his body and the foam of death on his lips. The next day he died. The authorities took four priests into custody but it is not likely they will suffer any serious penalty. Whatever his crime, it ia seldom that a priest is brought to punishment hke other criminals. About eight years ago a very similar tragedy with a sequel took place in another part of the province. What is to be thought of the character of men who can on occasion resort to such means to gain their ends ? ' TAXATION OR DAMNATION. The priest is the Pope's tax collector. He taxes the Roman- ist when he is born, taxes him in his cradle; taxes him when he is sprinkled; taxes him when he is confirmed; taxes him when he is absolved ; taxes him on his sick bed ; taxes him in his coffin ; taxes him in purgatory — in fact, taxes him for all he is worth. It is taxation or darnnation — pay up or be shut up-^ in purgatory, 5 70 ' THE DBVIL IN THB CHURCH: BEAUTIES OF THE PAPAL SYSTEM. Romanism will never be improved until the Devil is con- verted. A fat priest and a lean Pat reveal the beauties of the papal system. When we vote for Rome to stay in power we vote for the schoolhouse to go. Romanism is like the Mammouth Cave in Kentucky — the deeper in you go the darker it gets. The priest who makes his ear a cess-poll of iniquity at the confessional box soon becomes tainted with what is received. The Bible only records one instance where man went and confessed his sins to the priest, and Judas had sense enough left to go out and hang himself after he did so. DENNIS AND THE PRIEST. A Dialogue. "Good morning? Dennis." "Good morning? your Reverence." "What is this they say of you, Dennis ? I am told you have been to hear the preaching of the soupers" [Protestants]. You have been told the truth, your Reverence." "And how could you dare to go and hsten to heretics?" "Pleas your Reverence, God is not a heretic ! and it is the Word of God, the Bible, that they read." "Ay, — the Bible explained by a minister." "No, your Reverence; the Bible explained by itself; for when it is without assistance from any other quarter; and in the very act of reading it, we allow it to speak." "But, after all, the minister preaches ; and he insists on your believing what he preaches?" "No, your Reverence; the minister tells us not to beheve on his word, but when we go home to take the Bible and ex- amine whether it contradicts or confirms what he has deHvered from the pulpit." "But, don't you see that this is a mere sham ; and that you, the common people, cannot examine the Holy Scriptures, so HIS SECRET WORKS EXPOSED. 71 as to judge whether they confirm or contradict what the preacher says?" "At that rate, your Reverence, St. Luke made fools of the common people ; for the preacher pointed out to us a passage in the Bible which mentions that the Bereans compared the preaching of the Apostle Paul with the Holy Scriptures; and more than that, St. Luke commends them for doing so." (Acts xvii. II.) "Admirable, Mr. Dennis ! you are quite a Doctor in Divinity ! You know as much as a whole Synod of Bishops ! Your deci- sions will be equal to those of a General Council !" "No, your Reverence; I make no pretensions to judge for other persons ; but I take the liberty of judging for myself. God inspired the Bible ; I read His inspired Word, and that is all." "But you are not able to understand it." "The proof that I can is, that I really do understand it. I understand very well an almanac made by an ordinary man. Why should I not understand the Bible, which has God for its author ? Cannot God express what he means as well as a mere mortal? Besides, the Bible, speaking of itself, says that it is 'a light.' " (Ps. cxix. 105.) "Dennis, you are obstinate and conceited." "Your Reverence, if he is an obstinate man who never changes his opinion, it is you who are obstinate ; but as for me, I found myself in a bad road and changed for a better, that is all. I have never pretended to be infallible." "You are very conceited to think that you know so much more than others." "Others are not very humble in thinking that they know more than God ; but it is to God and not to my fellow men that I hold myself responsible." "I must tell you that if you go on reasoning in this way, I shall not admit you to confession." "I confess myself." "Not to me, at all events !" "No ; but to God." "To God?" 72 THB DBVIL IN THE CHURCH: "Yes ; to God, who declares in the Bible that, 'if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.' " (i John i. 9.) "The church will not marry you !" "I will get married elsewhere." "The Church will not bury you !" "I shall not trouble myself about my dead body, if I save my soul." "You will be excommunicated !" "No matter, if I am received by God." "No prayers will be offered for you !" "I shall pray for myself." "No masses will be said to release you from Purgatory !" "They would be of no use ; for I reckon on going to Para- dise." "To Paradise, do you." "Yes ; to Paradise." "How do you know that?" "Why, thus : I read in the Bible that the thief when hanging on a cross at the right hand of Jesus, after having confessed his sins to Jesus Christ, who is God, said to him, 'Lord, remember me!' 'And Jesus said unto him. Verily I say unto thee. To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise.' (Luke xxiii. 41-43). If, then, a penitent malefactor could be pardoned by believing on Jesus Christ, I cannot see why, if I repent, and trust in the same Saviour, I may not equally obtain salvation ; and the proof that my hope is well founded lies in what I have read in the same blessed book, that 'God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.' (John iii. 16). But as I make a part of the world here spoken of, it follows, that if I believe, I shall be saved." "But while you are waiting to go to Paradise, you must live in this world, and I tell you plainly, that you will lose your liveli- hood by joining these heretics. No one will have anything to do with you." "I trust in Him who gives us 'day by day our daily bread;' HIS SBCRBT WORKS EXPOSED. 73 and if God be for me, what can all those do who are against me?" "You will be a laughing stock to everybody." "And what will that signify? Was not Jesus Christ mocked and set at nought?" "Everybody will shut their doors against you!" "Jesus Christ had not where to lay his head." "You will be called an apostate !" "Was not St. Paul the greatest of apostates at his conver- sion ?" "Everybody will take pleasure in refusing to do you a kind- ness!" "The world persecuted the Master, and therefore may well persecute His disciples ; and the more I am persecuted for my faith, the more I shall feel that I am truly a disciple of Jesus Christ." "Well ! we shall see how long you will hold out ! First of all, no one will give you any work." "And what next?" "No one will admit you under their roof." "And what next?" "No one will receive you into their society." "So then the whole world will conspire against me ?" "Certainly!" "And who will be at the head of the conspiracy?" "-Who.! who! what does that signify?" "At all events, whoever he may be, you may tell him that he is not a Christian, for Christ commands us to forgive ofifences, while this man indulges revenge. Jesus commands men to love one another, and this man appears quite disposed to hate me. Should he happen to be a priest, you may tell him that his prototypes were the members of the Sanhedrim, who, through hatred, condemned Jesus to death. Should he be an Ultramontane, you may tell him that I am astonished at noth- ing done by him and by those who invented the Inquisition. Lastly, should it be yourself, be assured that your vengeful spirit is to me the best proof that you are not in the truth. Christ said, 'Forgive,' and you take vengeance. Christ said. 74 THE DBVIL IN THE CHURCH: 'Teach all nations,' and you refuse even to let them read the Bible. Christ said, 'Freely ye have received, freely give' (Matt. X. 8), and you sell, — not, indeed, the Gospel, for that you'con- ceal, — but you sell your masses, your prayers, your dispensa- tions, your rosaries, your tapers, your indulgences, your bap- tisms, your interments; but as for me, I apply to that God who gives heaven gratuitously." "Gratuitously!" "Yes, gratuitously ! and this it is that vexes you ! For when a blessing is bestowed gratuitously, the concurrence of those who sell is not wanted. Yes, gratuitously! this one word is ruinous to all your schemes. God gives, and you sell. God pardons, and you punish. God loves and you hate. How can you expect that we should not go to God, or wonder that we do not come to you? But act toward me just as you please; I have learnt not to fear those who can kill the b®dy; but only to fear those who can destroy the soul ; in other words I stand in no awe of you." "You are an insolent fellow." "I am not; but I have the courage to speak the truth." "You are impious." "I have been so, while bending the knee before images of wood or stone ; but I have ceased to be so, since I believed in the living God, and trusted only in my Saviour." •^ "You are a miserable wretch." "Yes, a miserable sinner ; but a penitent and humble sinner, I trust, whom God has pardoned." "You will always be a ." "What 1 shall be, I do not know, but I know what I wish to be. I wish for the future to live in purity, because it was pre- cisely my sins that crucified the Saviour. I wish to be sincere, just and charitable, because Jesus has been so good as to give me everything. Allow me to tell you what kind of person I am. When persons love me I love them in return ; when they do me a favor I wish to return it twofold ; the more generous others are towards me, the more grateful I feel. Well! and has not God been generous to me more than I have words to express? He has granted me pardon, and heaven, and eter- HIS SBCRBT WORKS EXPOSED. 75 nity. Thus my heart bounds with joy, and I am ready to do all that God requires of me; but what he requires of me is most delightful. It is to love him and to love my brethren, — to love even you, Reverend Sir." "I, do not want your love." "I shall not the less pray for you." ,^ "I do not want your prayers." "See the difference between us, your Reverence. I love you, and you hate me. I ofifer you my prayers, you refuse me yours. But Jesus Christ has said, 'By their fruits ye shall know them: do men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles?' (Matt. vii. 16). Judge now. Reverend Sir ! which of us, you or I, is the disciple of Jesus Christ !" THE WEALTHY SPANIABD AND THE PRIEST. Daniel Webster was once arguing a case in which the validity of a will was in controversy, the contest l^eing between the heirs of the testator and a certain church, to which, it was contended, the testator, unduly influenced by its clergyman, had in his last hours devised the most of his property. Webster claimed that the testator was then too feeble in mind to make a valid will, and in the course of his argument he related this incident : A wealthy Spaniard, when on his death bed, was visited by a cer- tain friar, and in solemn form was thus interrogated: "Is it your last will and testament that your estate in Andalusia shall be given to Holy Mother Church?" The dying man replied, "Yes." "Is it your last will and testament," proceeded the friar, "that your estate in Castile shall be given to Holy Mother Church ?" The answer was "Yes." And thus the eager eccle- siastic went on until the testator's son, who was standing by, anxious lest his dying parent should will away his entire prop- erty, angrily interposed, "Father, is it your last will and testa- ment that I should take your gold-headed cane and drive this friar out of the chamber?" "Yes," was the still affirmative reply. A PBIEST'S LOVE FOR HIS MEMBERS. Burlington, New Jersey, May 10. — There was a scene in St. Paul's Roman Catholic Church, in this city this morning. It 76 THE DEVIL IN THE CHURCH: was the twenty-fifth anniversary of the ordination of the Rev. Fr. Tracey, the pastor of the church. The priest has not been on good terms with some members of his flock for many rponths, and in the course of his anniversary address became highly excited. "I will grind to the dust," he shouted, 'the rotten-hearted devils of the congregation, and hold up their wretched charac- ters to the light of day. While I am not as great a man as Moses I have just as much authority over my people." WHO A PRIEST IS. "There is in every parish a man who has no family, but who belongs to every family, a man who is called upon to act in the capacity of witness, counsel or agent in all the most important acts of civil life ; aiman without whom none can enter the world or go out of it, who takes the child from the bosom of its mother and leaves it only at the tomb ; who blesses or conse- crates the crib, the bed of death and the bier ; a man that little children love and fear and venerate ; whom even unknown per- sons address as 'Father;' at the feet of whom and in whose keeping all classes of people come to deposit their most secret thoughts, their most hidden sins ; a man who is by profession the consoler and the healer of all the miseries of soul: and body; through whom the rich and the poor are united ; at whose door they knock by turns, the one to deposit his secret alms, the one to receive it without being made to blush because of his need ; the man who, being himself of no social rank, belong* to all indiscriminately — to the inferior ranks of society by the un- ostentatious life he leads, and often by humble birth awd parent- age ; to the upper class by education, often by superior talents and by the sublime sentiments his religion inspires and com- mands; a man who knows everything, who has the right to everything, from whose hallowed lips words of divine wisdom are received by all with the authority of an oracle and with entire submission of faith and judgment — this man is the priest." — Church Progress. This is the description of a Roman Catholic priest by Roman Catholics themselves. The priest, instead of having a family HIS SECRET WORKS EXPOSED. 77 of his own, "belongs to every family," claiming more intimate relation than the lawful husband and father. He acts as "coun- sel or agent in all the most important acts of civil life ; a man without whom none can enter the world or go out of it !" Ac- cording to this, none have a right to be born without permis- sion from a priest, "who takes the child from the bosom of its mother and leaves it only at the tomb." This is a frank con- fession that a priest has more rights and privileges in every family than a husband or father. He claims the right to know "the most secret thought" and "the most hidden sins" of every person, and claims to be the "healer of all miseries of soul and body." In fact, the most infamous, drunken priest claims to be "a man who knows everything (and) who has a right to everything." "This is a priest" of Rome. Such are some of the infamous and polluting claims made by every Roman Catholic priest. And, yet, there are professed free born citizens of America who surrender themselves and families to the polluting control of the priesthood. EATING PICTURES IN POLAND. A correspondent of the London "Christian" of May 9, 1901, says that one of the newest enterprises of the Roman Church in Poland is that of selling miniature pictures of the Virgin Mary, stamp size, for one kreuzer (half" a cent) each, to be swallowed at prayer times in order to secure special blessings. The Bishop of Przemysle, Galicia, says in a pamphlet bearing his seal and signature: "We have been informed of many marvelous effects of grace and blessings through the eating of the pictures of the Mother of God, Maria de Campo Cavallo. We recommend that it be done in the house and not in the church." This continued devotion to the Virgin on the part of the Polish people is all the more remarkable, as their country, when it was torn in pieces, was under her special protection, she having been proclaimed Queen of Poland. One would have supposed that in the case of a patriotic people like the Poles, her inability or unwillingness to protect her dominions and the inhabitants who had placed themselves under her rule, would have created dissatisfaction with her. 78 THB DBVIL IN THB CHURCH: THE ROMISH VIEW OF MARTIN LTJTHER. A devoted Roman Catholic lady used to tell this story to her children: "Martin Luther was so bad a man that, before he died, the fires of hell burned within him. They burned so fiercely that he would shriek and scream with anguish because of their flame and heat. He used to be put in a tub of water, and the water, in a few moments, would boil around him, be- cause of the fires of hell that were in him." HOW PAT GOT HIS BROTHER OUT OP PURGATORY. An Irishman once related this story explaining how he got rid of paying more money to get his fighting brother out of Purgatory. The Priest had come to him again and again to get his brother out. "He is almost out, but not quite." At last Pat got tired and said, "Well, now, tell how far is he out?" "Head and shoulders and one arm," repHed the Priest. "Which arm ?" inquired Pat. "The right arm," replied the Priest. "You are sura it is the right arm?" inquired Pat. "Yes," said the Priest. "Then I will risk him. If Bill has his right arm clear, he will soon be out all right, and I will not give any more money." THE NEW YORK "RELIC" RETURNS TO DUTY. The priests at the Church of St. Jean Baptiste oh East Seventy-sixth street, in this city, brought their so-called "relic" (purporting to be part of the left forearm of St. Anne) upstairs out of (the cellar, and put it in a new shrine, which had been refitted by a wealthy lady. Archbishop Corrigan blessed the shrine, and afterward recited "prayers and benedictions and sprinkled holy water," according to the New York "Tribune," July i8, 1901. The report thus describes the | "veneration of the rehc :" "The throng numbered nearly 3,000 people, filling the crypt of the church and the' street outside. Nearly half were suffer- ing from physical ills. There were many who used crutches or canes. Others, supported by friends, patiently waited in the His snCkEf WORKS BXPOSED. 79 crush to touch their lips to the relic. Some had brought sick babies to the rel;c, and many blind persons were present. "The pilgrims knelt at the altar rail, and a priest, passing along the row and bearing the relic, gave each one an oppor- tunity to kiss the glass which shields the bone. Then he touch- ed it to the forehead and eyes, or to the part of the body af- fected, and passed on to the next person. "A priest explained that it was not expected that the miracu- lous efficacy of the relic would be shown until the spiritual work 9f the novena had advanced further. In a few days the priests will begin to hear confessions. It is those who attain to a state of grace by being shriven of their sins, the priest said, who would receive, according to their faith, the blessings and healing powers of the relic, and the benefits obtained for them by the intercession of St. Anne and the Virgin Mary." PENNSYLVANIA BISHOP BLESSING THE HICKOBY STICKS. Ex-priest William Hogan, in his book, "A Synopsis of Popery," says: "The Bible, as you are aware, is a forbidden book in the Romish church. I remember when acting as Popish priest, in Philadelphia, having ventured to suggest to the very Rev. Mr. De Barth, then acting as vicar-general of that diocese, the advantages of educating the poor, and circulating the Bible among them. He scouted at the idea, as heretical, and lodged a written complaint against me, before the arch- bishop of Baltimore, then the Romish metropolitan. I was reprimanded verbally, through the aforesaid De Barth. He was too crafty to send it in writing ; the Papists were not then strong enough to forbid, openly, the reading of the Bible. It was then too soon to seal up the fountain of eternal life in this free country. The most sympathizing Protestants could scarcely believe then, that in less than thirty years. Papists would not only dare forbid it to be read, by their own people, and in their own schools, as they did the other day in New York. What are we coming to, Americans ? Your ancestors have come to this country, with no recommendations but holy lives ; with no fortune but their pious hearts and strong arms ; with no treasure but the word of God. o td 09 w o tq' HIS SBCRBT WORKS BXPOSBD. 8i Will you now permit Papists to cast those Bibles out of your schools, to burn them on the public streets, as they have done in the State of New York, under the inspection of Popish priests, as proved on the oath of several respectable witnesses ? That priest, however, did no more than every priest and bishop would do, did he deem it expedient ; and here, fellow-citizens, let me assure you, that same power which authorizes that priest, or any other priest, to burn your Bibles, also authorizes him to burn every heretic or Protestant in this country. "The , same power which authorizes them to officiate as priests, empowers them to destroy heretics, whenever it is ex- pedient ; and is ready to absolve them from the commission of this foul dead. Saint Thomas Aquinas, in his second book, chapter the 3d, page 58, says : "Heretics may justly be killed." But you will answer, there is no danger of this. They can never acquire the power to enact any laws in this country which would sanction such a doctrine. How sadly mistaken you are ! How lamentably unacquainted with the secret springs or ma- chinery of Popery! I regret that circumstances oblige me so often to introduce my own name, but it cannot be well avoided, for the purpose of explainihg certain Popish transactions in the United States. While I was a Romish priest in Philadelphia, and soon after my differences with the archbishop of Baltimore, in relation to the introduction of the Bible, a consultation was held between the Popish priests in the diocese of Philadelphia, and it was secretly resolved by them, that the best mode of checking Hogan's heresy, as they were pleased to term my ad- vocating the reading of the Bible, was to take possession of the church in which I officiated, in the name of the Pope. They accordingly wrote to his HOLINESS, humbly praying this MAN-GOD to send them out a bishop, and to give him, and his successors in office, a lease of St. Mary's church, in Phila- delphia, and all the appurtenances thereunto belonging. Ac- cordingly his ROYAL HOLINESS the Pope sent them a bishop with the aforesaid lease. I was immediately ordered out of the church; and having refused to depart, unless the trustees thought proper to remove me, this emissary of the Pope, only a few days or weeks in this country, had me indicted 82 THE DEVIL IN THB CHURCH: and imprisoned for disturbing public worship, or in other words, officiating in St. Mary's church, even with the full and undivided consent of the trustees. But the bishop's legal right was questioned; the case was brought before the supreme court of Pennsylvania, Chief Jus- tice Tighlman presiding. I was discharged from bail and cus- tody, and the rights of the trustees, under their charter from the State, sustained. But the priests and bishops were not content with this decision. They put their heads once more together, and fancied that they discovered another mode by which they could rob the people of their rights, and defeat the intentions of the donors of the property of St. Mary's church ; and what was their plan, think you, fellow-citizens? The bishop called a meeting of all the priests and leading Catholics in the diocese. Every lay member was ordered to bring with him a hickory stick. The meeting was held in the church of St. Joseph ; and at the hour of twelve at night, the Romish bishop of the diocese of Pennsylvania, an Irishman, not more than a few months in the country, attended in his ponti- ficals, told the multitude who were there assembled to lay down their sticks in one pile, in order that he might bless them for their use. This was done as a matter of course. The bishop said mass, sprinkled holy water upon the sticks, blessed them, and this done, the whole party bound themselves by a solemn vow never to cease until they elected a legislature in Pennsylvania that would annul the charter of St. Mary's church; and, as an American citizen, I blush to state the fact, they succeeded. The charter was annulled by an act of the legislature, and property, worth over a million dollars, would have passed into the hands of the Pope and his agents, were there not a provision in the constitution of that State empower- ing the supreme court to decide upon the constitutionality of the acts of the legislature. We brought the question of the constitutionality of the act, which annulled the charter, before the court. Justice Tighlman still presiding. The court decided in the negative, otherwise the trustees and myself would have been defeated; I should HIS SECRBT WORKS EXPOSED. 83 have been fined and imprisoned, and they ousted out of their trust. I This, I believe, was the first attempt the Pope has made to estabhsh his temporal power in this country ; and- it is a source of consolation to me, dearer almost than existence itself, to be the first to meet this Holy Bull. If I have not strangled him and trampled him to death, I have, at least, the comfort of see- ing his horns so blunted, that his bellowings have been, ever since, comparatively harmless. But there seems a recupera- tive power in the Beast. He is again attempting to plant his foot upon our soil, and establish his, temporal power amongst us; and how is he trying to accomplish this, fellow-citizens? The Papists have united themselves together as a body, head- ed by their priests, and resolved to carry, through the ballot box, what they cannot otherwise accomplish, at least for the present. Popish priests have all become politicians; they publicly preach peace, good order, and obedience to the "powers that be," but they tell the people in the confessional, to disregard those instructions, and stop at nothing which may promote the interests of the church. II. THE CONFESSIONS OF NVNS. MARIA MONK'S AWFUL EXPOSURES OF THE BLACK NtrNNERY. It was in 1836 that the story of Maria Monk broke upon the world. A refugee from the Black Nunnery of Montreal, Can- ada, had found shelter in the almshouse of New York, where the Bible came to her. That Bible -introduced her to the one Mediator, Jesus Christ. He pleaded her cause not only before the Father, but before man. He entered her soul, and gave her power to become a child of God. The Holy Spirit, her Comforter, became a helper, introduced her to the chaplain, to friends, and to the brotherhood of man. Error opposed the truth. Rome was powerful. People and the press under her control fought the helpless woman. Maria Monk had only the voice of the wronged and suffering, who confessed to hav- ing lived a life with priests, full of shame and sorrow. It be- came fashionable to reject her testimony. Few gave her story welcome. But it is impossible to kill out the truth. Her story is finding corroboration. It deserves study. She became a Roman Catholic because she knew no better, and was taught no better. She was without religious instruction at home. All the education she ever obtained was procured in a school kept by a Protestant when she was six or seven years of age, where she remained several months, and learned to read and write, and arithmetic as far as division. "All the progress I ever made," she said, "in those branches, was gained in that school, as I have never improved in any of them since." A good commentary on the schools in convents is thus furnished, where, as a novice, she remained five years, and learned nothing of science or of letters. When ten years of age she W3g sent to the nunnery. She relates her gxperi^ HIS SBCRBT WORKS EXPOSED. 85 ence. She was then a Protestant. On Notre Dame street she came to the gate of the establishment. Opening it, with her young companions, she walked some distance along the side of the building until she came to the door. A bell was rung, the door was opened, and she passed to the schoolroom. On entering, the superior met her, and said, "First of all you must dip your fingers into the holy water, cross yourself, say a short prayer." This was required of Protestant and Cath- olic children; as in the nunnery school in Biddeford, Me., the children repeat the prayers, and as they go out say, "There is only one holy and Catholic Church." The time was given, not to study, but to needlework, which was performed with much skill. The nuns had no very regular parts assigned to them in the management of the schools. They were rather rough and unpolished in their manners, of- ten exclaiming, "It is a lie!" Their writing was quite poor, and it was not uncommon for them to put a capital letter in the middle of a word (and yet Protestants praise their schools). "The only book on geography which we studied was a cate- chism on geography, from which we learned by heart a few questions and answers. We were sometimes referred to a map, but it was only to point out Montreal, or Quebec, or some other prominent name ; while we had no instruction be- yond." In Montreal were three nunneries : 1. The Congregational Nunnery, devoted to the education of girls. 2. The Black Nunnery, professedly for the sick and the poor. 3. The Grey Nunnery, with apartments for insane persons and foundlings. "In all these convents there are certain apartments into which strangers can gain admittance, but others from which they are always excluded. The nuns are regarded with much respect. When a novice takes the veil, she is supposed to re- tire from the temptations and troubles of this world, into a state of holy seclusion, where, by prayer, self-mortification, and good deeds, she prepares herself for heaven. Sometimes the superior of a convent obtains the character of working mir- 6 86 THU DBVIL IN THB CHURCH: acles, and when such an one dies, it is published through the country and crowds throng the convent, who think indulgences are to be derived from bits of clothes or things she has pos- sessed; and many have sent articles to be touched to her bed or chair, in which a degree of virtue is thought to remain. Some of the priests of the seminary often visited the nunnery, and both catechised and talked with us on religion. The su- perior of the Black Nunnery adjoining came in, and enlarged on the advantages we enjoyed in having such teachers and dropped something now and then relating to her own convent, calculated to make us entertain the highest ideas of it, and to make us sometimes think of the possibility of getting into it." "Among the instructions of the priests, some of the most pointed were those directed against the Protestant Bible. They often enlarged upon the evil tendency of that book, and told us that but for it many a soul now condemned to hell, and sufifering eternal punishment, might have been in happiness. They could not say anything in its favor; for that would be speaking in their opinion against religion and against God. In the catechism taught the children are these questions : Question. "Why did not God make all the commandments?" Answer. "Because man is not strong enough to keep them." Q. "Why are not men to read the New Testament?" A. "Because the mind of man is too limited and weak to un- derstand what God has written." "These questions are not in the common catechism, but all the children in the Congregational Nunnery were taught them, and many more not found in these books." THE PERILS OE GIRLS. "In this nunnery was a girl thirteen years of age whom the priest tried to persuade he could not sin, because he was a priest, and that anything he did to her would sanctify her. Doubtful how to act, she related the conversation to her mother, who expressed neither anger nor disapprobation, but only en- joined it upon her not to speak of it, and remarked to her, as priests were not like men, but holy, and sent to instruct and save us, whatever they did was right." "Other children were Murder of La Belle Maria by a Canadian Priest. 88 THB DBVIL IN THE CHURCH: treated in the same manner. It was not long before I became used to such language, and m;^ views of right and wrong were shaken by it." "A young squaw, called La Belle Maria, had been seen going to confession at the house of a priest, who lived a little out of the village. L,a Belle Maria was afterwards missed, and her body found in the river. A knife was also found, covered with blood, bearing the priest's name. Great indignation was ex- cited among the Indians, and the priest immediately absconded and was never heard from. A note was found on his table, ad- dressed to him, telling him to fly if he was guilty." "These stories struck me with surprise at first, but gradually I began to feel differently, even supposing them true, and to look upon the priests as men incapable of sin; and it was not until the priests became more bold, and were indecent in their ques- tions and even in their conduct in the sacristy, that I saw them in their true Hght. "This subject, I believe, is not understood nor suspected among the Protestants ; and it is not my intention to speak of it vei'y particularly, because it is impossible to do so without say- ing things both shameful and demoralizing." ' "I will only say here, that when quite a child I heard from the mouth of priests at confession what I cannot repeat with treatment corresponding; and several females in Canada have assured me that they have repeatedly, and, indeed, regularly, been required to inswer the same and similar questions, many of which present to the mind deeds the most iniquitous and corrupted heart could hardly invent." After I had been in the Congregational Nunnery about two years I left it ; but having many and severe trials to endure at home, and as my Catholic acquaintances had often spoken to me in favor of their faith, I was inclined to believe it true, al- though I knew little of any religion." While out of the nun- nery she married, gave birth to a child, and was deserted by her husband. She said, "I saw nothing of religion. If I had, I beheve I should never have thought of becoming a nun." Here is a lesson which should not be forgotten; thousands around us are waiting to be led to Christ; they are out of Rome and are unsaved. HIS SBCRBT WORKS EXPOSED. 89 OUT 01" THE COEriN INTO SHAME. Maria entered the Black Nunnery, so called from the color of the dresses worn by the nuns. After having been in the convent as a novice for the proper time, she took the veil. Be- fore doing so she was ornamented for the ceremony, and was clothed in a rich dress, belonging to the convent, which was used on such occasions, and placed not far from the altar in the chapel, in the view of a number of spectators who had assem- bled, in number about forty. "Being well prepared with a long training and frequent rehearsals for what I was to per- form, I stood waiting in my long flowing dress for the ap- pearance of they bishop. He soon presented himself, entering by a door behind the altar. I then turning to the superior, threw myself prostrate at her feet, according to my instruc- tions, repeating what I had done at rehearsals, and made a movement as if to kiss her feet. I then kneeled before the holy sacrament, a large round wafer held by the bishop between his forefinger and thumb, and made my vows. "This wafer I had been taught to regard with the utmost veneration as the real body of Jesus Christ, the presence of which made the vows uttered before it binding in the most solemn manner. ' ' "After taking the vows, I proceeded to a small apartment behind the altar, accompanied by four nuns, where was a coffin prepared with my nun name upon it, — Saint Eustace. "My companions lifted it by four handles attached to it, while I threw ofif my dress and put on that of a nun, and then we all returned to the chapel. I proceeded first, and was followed by the four nuns, the bishop naming a number of worldly pleas- ures in rapid succession, in reply to which I as rapidly repeated. 'I renounce,' 'I renounce.' The coffin was then placed in front of the altar, and I advanced to place myself in it. The coffin was to be deposited, after the ceremony, in an out-house, to be preserved until my death, when it was to receive my corpse. I stepped in, extended myself, and lay still. A pillow had been placed at the head of the coffin to support my head in a com- fortable position. A large, thick, black cloth was then spread over me, and the chanting of Latin hymns immediately com- H \1 Maria Monk's Awful Experience— Out of tlie Coffin into Shame. HIS SnCRBT WORKS BXPOSUD. 91 menced. My thoughts were not the most pleasing during the time I lay in that situation. The pall had a strong smell of in- cense, which proved to be almost suffocating. I recollected of hearipg of a nun thus placed, who, on the removal of the covering, was found dead." This was not exhilarating. "When I was uncovered, I arose, stepped out of my coffin, and kneeled. Other ceremonies then followed. These over, I pro- ceeded from the chapel, and returned to the superior's room followed by the other nuns, who walked two by two in their customary manner, with their hands folded on their breasts and their eyes cast down upon the floor. The nun who was to be my companion in the future then walked at the head of the procession. On reaching the superior's door they all left me, and I entered alone, and found her with the bishop and two priests. The superior now informed me, that, having taken the black veil, it only remained that I should swear the three oaths cus- tomary on becoming a nun, and that some explanation would be necessary from her. I was now, she told me, to have ac- cess to every part of the edifice, even to the cellar where two of the sisters were imprisoned, for causes which she did not mention ; I must be informed that one of my great duties was to oblige the priests in all things, and this I soon learned, to my utter astonishment and horror, was to live in the practice of criminal intercourse with them. I expressed some of the feelings which this announcement excited in me, which came upon me like a flash of lightning; but the only effect was to set her to arguing with me in favor of the crime, representing it as virtue, acceptable to God and honorable to me." THE MOTHER STTPEBIOK, TELLS WHY PRIESTS CANNOT SIN. The reason for carnal indulgence with priests is thus set forth :— "The priests," she said, "were not situated Hke other men, being forbidden to marry ; while they lived secluded, laborious, and self-denying lives for our salvation. They might indeed be considered saviors, as without their services we could not obtain pardon of sin, and must go to hell. Now it was our 92 THE DBVIL IN THE CHURCH: solemn duty, on withdrawing from this world, to consecrate our lives to religion, to practice every species of self-denial. We could not become too humble, nor mortify our feelings too far; this was to be done by opposing them, and acting contrary to them ; and what she proposed was therefore pleas- ing in the sight of God. I now felt how foolish I had been to place myself in the power of such persons as were around me." "From what she said, I could draw no other conclusions, but that I was required to act like the most abandoned of beings, and that all my future associates were to be habitually guilty of the most heinous and detestable of crimes. When I re- peated my expressions of surprise and hotror, she told me that such feelings were very common at first, and that many other nuns had expressed themselves as I did, who had long since changed their minds. She even said, that on her entrance into the nunnery she had felt like me. Priests, she insisted, could not sin. It was a thing impossible ; every thing they did and wished was of course right. She hoped I would see the rea- sonableness and duty of the oaths I was to take, and be faith- ful to them." HOW INFANTS WERE MURDERED. "She gave me another piece of information which excited other feelings in me, scarcely less dreadful. Infants were sometimes born in the convent; but they were baptized and immediately strangled. This secured their everlasting happi- ness; for the baptism purified them from all sinfulness, and being sent out of the world before they had any time to do anything wrong, they were at once admitted into heaven. 'How happy,' she exclaimed, are those who secure immortal happiness to such little beings ! Their little souls would thank those who killed their bodies if they had it in their power.' " DEMONS IN THE FORMS OF MEN. The Mount Benedict Convent, in Charleston, has been burn- ed down because of enormities practiced within its curtained walls. Before the convent was carried to Charleston, not a lit- HIS SBCRBT WORKS BXPOSBD. 93 tie scandal had fallen upon it, in public estimation, by the re- ported conduct of a priest and nun, who it was understood, had carried into practice St. Liguori's convenient doctrine of the Church concerning angelic intercourse. The book is un- fit to be translated anywhere this side of pandemonium; but the substance of the doctrine as far as it can possibly be set forth, is that demons are able to assume forms of men (of priests, for instance) from air and to attach to other elements the similitude of flesh and palpableness, and a kind of heat of the human body, and in this shape indulge desires; that a natural birth may be the result, in which the child will resem- ble the man whose form the demon assumed to effect this pur- pose, although the man so represented was entirely innocent and in "a quiet sleep" when it happened. It is related that as late as 1781 a nun was publicly burnt to death, in the Inquisi- tion at Seville, in Spain, for having this pretended connection. It was in Boston in 1830 this doctrine was welcomed, and un- der its cover liberties were enjoyed in a convent built to edu- cate Protestants. At this time Boston bowed the knee to Rome to an extent little understood at the present, and the revelations of Maria Monk were rejected with scorn as being unworthy of credence. After that, in 1845, came the expos- ures of William Hogan, a lawyer of eminence, a man who had been chaplain of the House of Representatives in the Legisla- ture in Albany, and a priest of one of the most popular Roman- Catholic churches in Philadelphia; and he told how "the mother abbess took the nostrils of the infant between her con- secrated" thumb and fingers and in the name of the infallible Church, consigned it to the care of' the Almighty, "claiming that the strangling and putting to death of infants is a com- mon every-day crime in popish nunneries." The fact is, Maria Monk only averages up to the revelations of horrible iniquities practiced in Europe and in America. The way infants were murdered in the Black Nunnery is thus described by Maria Monk : "The priest puts oil upon the heads of the infants, as is the custom before baptism. When he had baptized the children, they were taken one after an- other, by one of the old nuns, in the presence of all ; she press- 94 THE DBVIL IN THB CHURCH: ed her hand upon the mouth and nose of the first so tight that it could not breathe, and in a few minutes when the hand was removed it was dead. She then took another, and treated it in the same manner. No sound was heard, and both the chil- dren were corpses. The greatest indifference was shown by alli present during this operation ; for all, as I well knew, were accustomed to such scenes. The Httle bodies were then taken into the cellar, thrown into the pit, and covered with a quanti- ty of lime." Afterwards she saw, without doubt, her own children treated in the same manner. "No attempt was made to keep any of the inmates in ignorance of the murder of chil- dren." THE CONVENT IN ITS TKTJE LIGHT. Maria Monk declares that, after she witnessed the murder of the infants, "the convent stood out in its true Hght. She saw the nuns, lady superior and all, associating with base, prof- ligate men who were admitted into the nunnery whenever pas- sion impelled them in that direction, where they were allowed to indulge in the greatest crimes, which they and others called virtues. "After having listened for some time to the superior alone, a number of nuns were admitted and took a free part in the conversation. They concurred in everything which she had told me, and repeated without any signs of shame or com- punction things which criminated themselves. I must acknowl- edge the truth, and declare that all this had an effect upon my mind. I questioned whether I might not be in the wrong, and felt as if their reasoning might have some just foundation. I had been for several years under the tuition of Catholics, and was ignorant of the Scriptures, and pnaccustomed to the so- ciety, example and conversation of Protestants; I had not heard any appeal to the Bible as authority, but had been taught both by precept and example to receive as truth everything said by the priests. I had not heard their authority ques- tioned, nor anything said of any other standard of faith but their declaration. I had long been familiar with the corrupt and licentious expressions which some of them used at con- fessions, and believed that other women were also. All HIS SBCRBT WORKS EXPOSED. 95 around me insisted that my doubts proved only my own ignor- ance and sinfulness ; that they knew by experience they would soon give place to true knowledge and an advance in religion, and I felt something like indecision." MANUFACTURING BELIGIOUS LIES. Will the American people consent to these establishments remaining in our cities, poisoning the streams of social influ- ence, and making religion the cover for prostitution of the vilest and most bestial kind? "The nuns were taught to dissemble, and they who could manufacture a good religious he to deceive friends and par- ents were praised. Over and over again, they were taught that the priests under the direct sanction of God could not sin. Of course, then, it could not be wrong to comply with any of their requests, because they could not demand anything but what was right." I THE BURIAL PLACE FOR INFANTS. The burial place for infants is thus described : "It was in the cellar. The earth appeared as if mixed with some whitish substance, which was found to be lime, — the secret burying- place of slain babies. Here, then, I was in a place which I had considered as the nearest imitation of heaven to be found on earth, among society where deeds were constantly perpe- trated which I had believed to be most criminal, and had now found the place in which harmless infants were unfeelingly thrown out of sight, after being murdered." HOW PRIESTS CAN ENTER NUNNERIES. "Among the first instructions I received from the superior were such as prepared me to admit priests into the nunnery from the street at irregular hours. It is no secret that priests enter and go out as they choose ; but if they were to be watch- ed by any person in St. Paul's street all day long, no irregular- 96 THH DBVIL IN THB CHURCH: ity might be suspected, and they might be supposed to visit the convent for the performance of religious ceremonies merely. "But if a person were near the gate about midnight, he might sometimes form a different opinion; for when a stray priest is shut out of the seminary, or is otherwise put in need of seeking a lodging, he is always sure of being admitted into the Black Nunnery." "Nobody but a priest can even ring the bell at the sick-room door, much less can any but a priest gain admittance. The pull of the bell is entirely concealed somewhere on the outside of the gate." "He makes himself known as a priest by a peculiar kind of hissing sound made by the tongue against the teeth while they are kept closed and the lips open. The nun within, who delays to open the door until informed what kind of an applicant is there, immediately recognizes the signal, and replies with two inarticulate sounds, such as are often used instead of 'yes,' with the mouth closed. The superior seemed to consider this part of my instructions quite important, and taught me the signals. A priest in the nunnery was permitted to go where he pleased." NO Room POE THE BIBLE IN THAT CONVENT. "I never saw a Bible in the convent from the day I entered as a novice until I made my escape. The Catholic New Testa- ment, called 'the Evangel,' was used, and extracts read to us about three or four times a year. "The superior directed the reader what passages to select, but we never had it in our own hands to read what we pleased. I often heard the Protestant Bible spoken of in bitter terms as a most dangerous book, and one which never ought to be in the hands of common people. I AN UNDERGROUND PASSAGEWAY. From the Black Nunnery to the Congregational Nunnery is a secret underground passage, so that the nuns and priests can go from one to the other. HIS SECRET WORKS EXPOSED. 97 MUKDER OP A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN IN A NUNNERY. "It was about five months after I had taken the black veil," said Maria Monk, "when the superior sent for me and several other nuns to come to her room. The weather was cool; it was an October day. We found the bishop and some priests with her; and speaking in an unusual tone of fierceness and authority, she said, 'Go to the room for the examination of conscience, and drag St. Frances upstairs.' Nothing more was necessary than this unusual command, with the tone and manner which accompanied it, to excite in me the most gloomy anticipations. It did not strike me as so strange that St. Frances should be in the room to which the superior directed us. It was an apartment to which we were often sent to pre- pare for the communion, and to which we involuntarily went whenever we felt the compunction which our ignorance of duty and the misinstructions we received inclined us to seek relief from self-reproach. Indeed, I had seen her there a lit- tle before. What terrified me was, first, the superior's angry manner; second, the expression she used, being a French term, whose peculiar use I had learnt in the convent, and whose meaning is rather softened when translated into 'drag;' third, the place to which we were directed to take the interesting young nun, and the persons assembled there, as I supposed, to condemn her. My fears were such concerning the fate that awaited her, and my horror at the idea that she was in some way to be sacrificed, that I would have given anything to be allowed to stay where I was. But I feared the consequences of disobeying the superior, and proceeded with the rest to- wards the room for the examination of conscience. "The room to which we were to proceed from that was in the second story, and the place of many a scene of a shameful nature. It is sufficient for me to say that things had occurred there which made me regard the place with the greatest dis- gust. "St. Frances had appeared melancholy for some time. I well knew that she had cause for she had been repeatedly sub- ject to trials which I need not name, — our common lot. "When we had reached the room which we had been bidden 98 THU DBVIL IN THB CHURCH: to seek, I entered the door, my companions standing behind me, as the place was so small as hardly to hold five persons at a time. The young nun was standing alone, near the middle of the room. She was probably twenty years of age, with light hair, blue eyes, and a very fair complexion." Think of it. She resembled in appearance one that was the light' of a boyhood home 1 well knew- She was some one's child, and by her devotion io Christ, resistance to crime, and loyalty to virtue, must have been worthy of love. She }iad been true to the highest instincts of an immortal nature, and for this was to die. The narrative, proceeds : "I spoke to her in a compassion- ate voice, but at the same time with such a decided manner that she comprehended my full meaning, — 'St. Frances, we are sent for you.' "Several others spoke kindly to her, but two addressed her very harshly. The poor creature turned around with a look of meekness, and without expressing any unwillingness or fear, without even speaking a v/ord, resigned herself to our hands. The tears came into my eyes. I had not a moment's doubt that she considered her fate as sealed, and was already beyond the fear of death. She was conducted or rather hurried to the staircase, which was nearby, and then seized by her limbs and clothes, and in fact almost dragged upstairs, in the sense the superior had intended. I laid my own hands upon her, — I took hold of her, too, — more gently, indeed, than some of the rest; yet I encouraged and assisted them in carrying her. I could not avoid it. My refusal would not have saved her, nor prevented her being carried up; it would only have ex- posed me to some severe punishment, as I believed some of my companions would have seized the first opportunity to complain of me. "All the way up the staircase St. Frances spoke not a word, nor made the slightest resistance. When we entered with her the room to which she was ordered, my heart sank within me. The bishop, the lady superior, and five priests were assem- bled for her trial. When we had brought our prisoner before them. Father Richards began to question her ; she made ready PI 13 M ^ o o O W bo a 1 o fM loo THB DEVIL IN THE CHURCH: but calm replies. I cannot pretend to give a connected ac- count of what ensued ; my feelings were wrought up to such a pitch, that I knew not what I did, or what to do. I was un- der a terrible apprehension that if I betrayed the feelings which almost overcame me I should fall under the displeasure of the cold-blooded persecutors of my poor innocent sister; and this fear on the one hand with the distress I felt for her on the other, rendered me almost frantic. As soon as I entered the room, I had stepped into a corner on the left of the entrance, where I might partly support myself by leaning against the wall between the door and the window. This support was all that prevented me from falling to the floor; for the con- fusion of my thoughts was so great, that only a few of the words I heard spoken on either side made any lasting impres- sion upon me. I felt as if I was struck with some insupport- able blow; and death would not have been more frightful to me. I am inclined to the belief that Father Richards wished to shield the poor prisoner from the severity of her fate, by drawing from her expressions that might bear a favorable con- struction. He asked her, among other things, if she was not sorry for what she had been overheard to say (for she had been betrayed by one of the nuns), and if she would not prefer con- finement in the cells to the punishment which was threatened her. But the bishop soon interrupted him, and it was easy to perceive that he considered her fate as sealed, and was deter- mined that she should not escape. In reply to some of the questions put to her, she was silent ; to others I heard her voice reply that she did not repent a word she had uttered, though they had been reported by some of the nuns, who had heard them ; that she still wished to escape from the convent ; and that she had firmly resolved to resist every attempt to com'pel her to the commission of crimes she detested. She added that she would rather die, than cause the murder of harmless babies. 'THAT IS ENOUGH, FINISH HER!' said the bishop. Two nuns instantly fell upon the young wo- man and in obedience to instructions and directions given by the lady superior, prepared to execute her sentence. She still maintained all the calmness and submission of a lamb. HIS SECRET WORKS EXPOSED. loi "Some of those who took part in this transaction, I believe were as unwilling as myself; but of others I can safely say that I believe they delighted in it. Their conduct certainly exhibited a most bloodthirsty spirit. But above all others present, and above all human fiends I ever saw, I think St. Hippolyte was the most diabolical. She engaged in the hard task with all alacrity, and assumed from choice the most re- volting parts to be performed She seized a gag, forced it into the mouth of the poor nun. and when it was fixed between her extended jaws so as to keep them open at their greatest possible distance, took hold of the straps fastened at each end of the stick, crossed them behind the helpless head of the vic- tim, and diew them tight through the loop prepared as a fas- tening. "The bed which had always stood in one part of the room still remained there; though the screen that had usually been placed before it, and was made of thick muslin, with only a crevice through which a person behind might look out, had been folded up on its hinges in the form of a W, and placed in a corner. On the bed the prisoner was laid, with her face up- ward, and then bound with cords so that she could not move. In an instant another bed was thrown upon her; one of the priests sprung like a fury first upon it and stamped upon it with all his force. He was speedily followed by the nuns un- til there were as many upon the bed as could find room, and all did what they could, not only to smother but to bruise her. "Some stood up and jumped upon the poor girl with their feet, some with their knees, and others in different ways seem- ed to seek how they might beat the breath out of her body and mangle it, without coming in direct contact with it, or see- ing the effects of their violence During this time, my feelings were almost too strong to be endured. I felt stupefied and scarcely was conscious of what I did, still fear for myself re- mained in a sufficient degree to induce me to some exertion, and I attempted to talk to those who stood next, partly that I might have an excuse for turning away from the dreadful scene. "After the elapse of fifteen or twenty minutes, and when it I02 THE DEVIL IN THE CHURCH: was presumed that the sufferer had been smothered and crushed to death, the priest and the nuns ceased to trample upon her, and stepped from the bed. All was motionless and silent beneath it." "They then began to laugh at such inhuman thoughts as occurred to some of them, rallying each other in the most un- feeHng manner, and ridiculing me for the feelings which I in vain endeavored to conceal. They alluded to the resignation of our murdered companion, and one of them tauntingly said, 'She would have made a good Catholic martyr !' After spend- ing some moments in such conversation, one of them asked if the corpse should be removed. The superior said it had bet- ter remain a little while. After waiting some time longer, the feather-bed was taken off, the cords unloosed, and the body taken by the nuns and dragged downstairs. I was informed that it was taken into the cellar, and thrown unceremoniously into the hole, covered with a great quantity of lime, and af- terwards sprinkled with a liquid of the properties and name of which I am ignorant." What is there in this transaction that would prevent its rep- etition in every nunnery in the land? In the terrible stories of the Inquisition, there is the same horrible spirit. Behold the helplessness of the victim, the' cruelty of her persecutors, and the bondage of those who assisted in doing the terrible deed. THE TESTIMONY OF AN ESCAPED NUN. Miss Josephine M. Bunkley, the escaped novice, tells of the morals of St. Joseph's, in Maryland. This is her language: "Infractions of moral duty and departures from rectitude are the legitimate consequences of the system from which they spring, and whatever errors are committed by the sisters are justly chargeable to the reverend guides who teach them that it is not a mortal sin for a religieuse to yield to the solicita- tion of the priest." "My recollections of my novitiate at St. Joseph's will ever be associated with a feeling of contempt and abhorrence for those men, who use their advantage of rank and position to the basest ends; and with deep thankfulness for my escape from insidious snares. It was a -contemplation HIS SECRET WORKS EXPOSED. 103 of the peril to which I was exposed that first suggested the idea of escape. I could have borne toil, privation, and bodily mal- treatment, as the consequence of my own rashness and ill-ad- vised impetuosity; but the future wore too dark and terrible an aspect, that I should resign myself to its horrors." "A priest who had been engaged in exercising his pastoral functions at St. Joseph's was about to depart. All the sisters went to the room singly to receive the benediction. When my turn came, I went in, with downcast eyes and clasped hands as required, and knelt to receive the expected benediction. But instead of the pressure of the hand upon my head, I felt the impression of a kiss upon my forehead. Startled and con- fused by a salutation so unexpected and inappropriate, I stag- gered to my feet, ejaculated, almost unconsciously, the words, 'O Father !' but before I could recover my composure, seizing my wrist with his left hand, and encircling my waist with his right arm, he drew me towards him, and imprinted several kisses on my face before I was able to break from his revolt- ing embrace. Yet I, was compelled, from prudential fears of the consequences, to be silent respecting his insulting treat- ment. What could I do? To whom could I go for redress and protection? If I had gone to the superior, I would have been denounced as a base calumniator of the holy Father, and punished for the offense. To fly was my only hope." A SISTEE'S TREACHEBY. In Baltimore, Rev. John W. Williams, D. D., pastor of the First Baptist Church, asked me if I had seen a Mrs. J. C. Workman, a worthy member of his church. I replied I had not seen her, but had letters from her. Her story was given me. She said : "I was convinced that Romanism as a religion was a failure. It gave me no peace or comfort. I went and heard Dr. Williams preach Christ as the Saviour. The sermon met rtiy soul's want. I gave myself to Christ and united with the First Baptist Church. After awhile my sister called upon me, and knowing that I was fond of children, asked me to ac- company her in a carriage to Mt. Hope, a kind of an insane asylum, and yet a place where children are also cared for. 104 THB DEVIL IN THB CHURCH: "When there we passed into a room. In a moment she withdrew and I found myself locked into a ward of an insane asylum without any commitment, or any reason for this treat- ment, except that I had given up Romanism and united with a Baptist Church. For two years I was treated to all kinds of inquisitorial torment in the hopes of driving me to insanity. I was put into a straight-jacket, held by four nuns under a pump, where water was pumped into my mouth until the blood flowed from my nose. At last after two years, I chanced to see an acquaintance in the ward, and writing on a cuff I gave to her the story how I was held a captive. Friends sup- posed me dead, as it was so given out. She gave the case to a lawyer who got out a writ of habeas corpus and rescued me from this living death." If this can happen to one sane wo- man what safety is there to any one whom Rome may chance to hate?" A NUN'S DAILY LIFE. By the constitution of their order, so many days are ap- pointed in which all the nuns are obliged to confess, from the Mother Abbess to the very wheeler ; i. e., the nun that turns the wheel near the door, through which they give and receive everything they want. They have a father confessor and a father companion, who live next to the convent, and have a small grate in the wall of their chamber, which answers to the upper cloister or gallery of the convent. The confessor hath care of the souls of the convent, and he is obliged to say mass every day, hear confessions, administer the sacraments, and visit the sick nuns. There are several narrow closets in the church, with a small iron grate : One side answers to the clois- ter, and the other to the church. So the nun being on the in- side and the confessor on the outside, they hear one another. There is a large grate facing the great altar, and the holes of it are a quarter of a yard square ; but that grate is double ; that is, one within and another without, and the distance between both is more than a half yard. And beside these, there is another grate for relations, and benefactors of the community, which grate is single, and consists of very thin iron bars: the holes of such a grate are nearly a quarter and a half yard square. In HIS SBCRBT WORKS EXPOSED. 105 all those grates the nuns confess their sins; for, on a solemn day, they send for ten or twelve confessors; otherwise they could not confess the fourth part of them, for there are in some monasteries no nuns, in others 80, in others 40, but this last is a small number. The nuns' father confessor hath but little trouble with the young nuns, for they generally send, for a confessor who is a stranger to them, so that his trouble is with the old ones, who have no business at the grate. These trouble their confessor almost every day with many ridiculous trifles, and will keep the poor man two hours at the grate, telling him how many times they have spit in the church, how many flies they have killed, how many times they have flown into a passion with their lap dogs, and other nonsensical, ridiculous things like these ; and the reason is because they have nothing to do, no- body goes to visit them nor cares for them ; so sometimes they choose to be spies for the young nuns, when they are at the grate with their gallants ; and for fear of their Mother Abbess, they place some of the old nuns before the door of the parlor, to watch the Mother Abbess, and to give them timely notice of her coming; and the poor old nuns perform this office with a great deal of pleasure, faithfulness, and some profit, too. But I shall not say more of them, confining myself wholly to the way of living among the young nuns. Many gentlemen send their daughters to the nunnery when they are some five, some six, some eight years old, under the care of some nun of their relations, or else some old nun of their acquaintance; and there they get education till they are fifteen years old. The tutoress takes a great deal of care not to let them go to the grate, nor converse with men all the while, to prevent in them the knowledge and love of the world. They are caressed by all the nuns, and thinking it will be always so, they are very well pleased with their confinement. They have only liberty to go to the grate to their parents or rela- tions, and always accompanied with the old mother tutoress. And when they are fifteen years old, which is the age fixed by the constitution of all the orders, they receive the habit of a nun, and being the year of novitiate, which is the year of trial io6 THE DEVIL IN THE CHURCH: to see whether they can go through all the hardships, fastings, disciplines, prayers, hours of divine service, obedience, pov- erty, chastity, and penances practiced in the monastery. But the prioress or abbess, and the rest of the professed nuns, do dispense with, and excuse the novices from all the severities, for fear that the novices should be dissatisfied with, and leave the convent. And in this they are very much in the wrong; for, besides that they do not observe the precepts of their mon- astical rule, they deceive the poor, ignorant, inexperienced young novices, who, after their profession and vows of perpe- tuity, do heartily repent they had been so much indulged. Thus the novices, flattered in the ye^r of novitiate, and think- ing they will be so all their life time, when the year is expired, make profession, and swear to observe chastity, obedience, and poverty, during their lives, and clausura, i. e., confinement; obliging themselves, by it, never to go out of the monastery. After the profession is made, they begin to feel the severity and hardships of the monastical life; for one is made a door- keeper, another turner of the wheel, to receive and deliver by it all the nuns' messages; another bell nun, that is to call the nuns, when any one comes to visit them; another baker; an- other bookkeeper of all the rents and expenses, and the like; and in the performance of all these employments, they must expend a great deal of their own money. After this they have liberty to go to the grate, and talk with gentlemen, priests and friars, who only go there as a gallant goes to see his mistress. So when the young nuns begin to have a notion of the pleas- ures of the world, and how they have been deceived, they are heartily sorry ; but too late, for there is no remedy. And mind- ing nothing but to satisfy their passions as well as they can, they abandon themselves to all sorts of wickedness and amor- ous intrigues. There is another sort of nuns, whom the people call las for- cadas, the forced nuns; i. e., those who have made a false step in the world, and cannot find husbands, on account of their crimes being public. Those are despised and ill used by their parents and relations, till they choose to go to the nunnery. So by this it is easily known what sort of nuns they will make. HIS SECRET WORKS EXPOSED. 107 Now as to spending their time. They get up at six in the morning and go to prayers, and to hear mass till seven. From seven till ten, they work or go to breakfast, either in their chambers, or in the common hall. At ten they go to the great mass, till eleven. After it they go to dinner. After dinner, they may divert themselves till two. At two they go to pray- ers, for a quarter of an hour, or (if they sing vespers) for half an hour; and afterwards they are free till the next morning. So every one is waiting for her devoto; that is, a gallant, or spiritual husband, as they call him. When it is dark, evenings, they send away the devotos, and the doors are locked up ; so they go to their own chamber to write a billet, or letter to the spiritual husband, which they send in the morning to them, and get an answer; and though they see one another almost every day, for all that, they must write to one another every morning. And these letters of love, they call the recreation of the spirit for the time the devotos are absent from them. Every day they must give one another an account of whatever thing they have done since the last visit; and indeed there are warmer expressions of love and jealousy between the nun and the devoto, than between the real wife and husband CONVENT LIFE A HELL UPON EARTH. There are many Protestants, and even Protestant ministers, who delude themselves into saying — "O, the Roman Catholic Church is diflferent from what it once was; it has greatly im- proved, so we have nothing to apprehend from its growth." We will quote Father Hogan's reply to this. He says : "I tell you Americans, that you are mistaken in your inference. Priests, nuns and confessors are the same now that they were then, all over the world. Many of you have visited Paris, and do you not there see, at the present day, a lying-in hospital at- tached to every nunnery in the city? The same is to be seen in Madrid, and the principal cities of Spain. I have seen them myself in Mexico and in the city of Dublin, Ireland. And what is the object of these hospitals? It is chiefly to provide for the illicit offspring of priests and nuns, and such other unmarried females as the priests can seduce through the confessional. Her First Night in a Convent. HIS SECRET WORKS EXPOSED. 109 But it may be said there are no lying-inrhospitals attached to nunneries in this country. True, there are not; but I say, of my own knowledge, and from my own experience through the confessionals, that it would be well if there were ; there would be fewer abortions ; there would be fewer infants strangled and murdered. It is not generally known to Americans that the crime of producing abortion — a crime which our laws pro- nounce to be a felony — is a common, every day crime in Popish nunneries. It is not known to Americans, but let it henceforth be known to them, that strangling and putting to death infants is common in nunneries throughout this country." This is the testimony of scores of priests and nuns who have left the Church of Rome. Mrs. Margaret L. Sheppard, who was an inmate of Arno's^ Court Convent, Bristol, England, and who is well known in this country as a most useful, eloquent lecturer, endorsed by scores of Protestant ministers and some of the very best peo- ple in the land, says, in a book now before me : "Oh, how many sad heart-breaking stories could the walls of the convent Arno's Court reveal if they were but able to speak ! How some priests who now walk with uplifted heads would shrink away from the gaze of their fellowmen, if their dark and evil deeds were known! And how unnecessary would such penitential nunneries be, if it were not for a licentious and lecherous priesthood ! These holy celibates, who are wolves in sheep's clothing, and who, under the cassock, carry a heart full of cor- ruption ; who know no pity when seeking to lure a young and innocent girl into sin — ah, how easy the church makes it for such lepers by placing the victim in a house of penance, and the child born of sin into one of the foundling hospitals under the care of the Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul. '^ do not hesitate to say," says this escaped nun, "that eighty per cent, of the children in these institutions are the ille- gitimate offsprings of Roman Catholic priests; and Protest- ants sometimes vie with each other in giving large donations to support these foundling hospitals. "I have often been asked whether nunneries are places where Roman Catholic priests commit immorality with the I lo THB DEVIL IN THE CHURCH: Sisters. All I can say is, that vv^hen a woman enters such an institution and takes her vow of obedience, she is told that she must do whatever is requested of her. She must sink her individuality into that of her spiritual superiors ; and should she be told to do anything that is against her conscience, then she is told that the moral obligation of the sin rests upon the one who told her under obedience to commit it, and that all she has to do is to be OBEDIENT ! Should she hesitate, then her life becomes a perfect hell upon earth. For her there i§ no womanly sympathy. She is told that any intercourse between herself and the priest is similar in character to the shadowing of the Holy Spirit in the Virgin Mary, and that the body of the priest is sanctified, that it is her duty to submit to him, for the union thus effected is blessed of God, and is 'Holy.' It is usual for a Sister to go into retreat for one day when expect- ing a visit from these 'holy fathers.' Having acquainted the Reverend Mother of the date of the proposed visit, she gives the Sister permission to absent herself from the duties of the day. The priest arrives; he is shown into the retreat parlor; and no matter how long he remains there, no one will disturb him. He is supposed to be talking with his penitent on the welfare of her soul. Could any one look through the door they would find the confessor with his arms around the fair penitent, or, perhaps, in a far more compromising position. Does my reader ask whether the Sister is willirjg to submit to these embraces ? I answer that, in fifteen out of twenty cases, No! But she is there helpless; the priest has seen her, taken a fancy to her, and, willing or not, he compels her to allow him to satisfy his passion. Oh, God ! Great God ! when I think of this SYSTEM, this SYSTEM born of the devil, nurtured in hell, and realize that under the cloak of religion it is stealing away our liberties, entering in|o our homes, ruining our pure womanhood, despoiling childish purity, defiling everything with which it comes in contact, then in spite of all that has been said and done against me it seems as if I cannot remain quiet. But closing my eyes and ears to every other thing, I have to stand up, and cry out, and warn the people of this and HIS SECRET WORKS EXPOSED. m other lands of the great danger threatening us. Convent life is a hell upon earth, it is a blot on any land." Sufficient has been said to prove that "convent life is a hell upon earth." But the evidence of this fact has not just now- been presented ; it has been before the world for ages and cen- turies. Prophets and apostles, inspired of God, many cen- turies ago predicted the coming of Antichrist. Many figures, symbols, and names have been employed to designate and de- scribe this great foe of God and man. We are now regarding her as she is described by the Apostle John, as the "Mother of harlots, and abominations of the earth." No system of iniquity that has ever arisen to curse the world has so completely and exactly corresponded to the prophetic description as the apos- tate Church of Rome. The dreadful "Beast" that came up "out of the bottomless pit" has reached the shores of this fair land, and is to-day blighting, and withering, and cursing, and defiling everything with which it comes in contact. Again and again the attention of the rulers and people of these United States has been called to the convents and nuh- neries that are so numerous in our free country, and that are a disgrace to our American civilization. Almost times without number evidence has been presented that these convents and nunneries are houses of prostitution and dens of moral un- cleanness. As such they should be raided by the police like other disorderly houses. The Constitution of the United Sta.tes provides that no one shall be deprived of his liberty except for crime, nor "without due process of law," and yet th^re are nearly ninety thousand helpless women and girls confined within the gloomy walls of these prisons, called convents and nunneries, placed beyond the protection of our laws, and are held in bondage in violation of their constitutional rights. These many thousands of wo- men and young girls are pining away in unutterable misery and grief ; separated from fond fathers, and mothers, and brothers, and sisters, and all that is dear to them on earth. We will give a simple, but very pathetic fact from Mrs. Margaret L. Shep- pard's book — "My Life in the Convent" — as a Specimen of multitudes of similar cases. It appears that a young nun was 112 THB DBVIL IN THE CHURCH: dying of consumption and was in great distress of mind, feel- ing sure that she would have to spend a long time in purgatory. " 'I know,' she said, 'that I shall have a long purgatory.' She shuddered as she spoke. 'And oh ! I do hope the dear Sisters will remember me in their prayers and communion.' "Dear Sister Madaline," I said at last, "purgatory is better than hell ; and our Blessed Lady will intercede for you." " 'Yes, dear Sister Magdalene Adelaide,' she said, 'you are right ; but oh ! I cannot help the shudder that passes through me as I think of the sufifering I shall be in for years, after all the mortifications I have practiced here, the discipline I have applied to myself, the days I have abstained from food, the pray- ers I have offered, the tears I have shed; and now that death approaches, there is no prospect before me but a long term of purgatorial punishment. Besides, the punishment will be all the greater since I have given way to unnatural thought.' "And what, may I ask, do you call an unnatural thought? " 'Sister Magdalene Adelaide, come close to me.' "I rose from my chair and knelt down beside her. " 'Dear Sister, I have endeavored to bear my cross,' she com- menced, speaking with difficulty; 'but oh! Sister, I dread the end. I have much to expiate, and oh !' she continued, her voice now choked with sobs, 'if I could only have my mother with me ; if I could only hear her voice once more ; it is so long since I have seen her. I have asked for any letter that may have come, but they tell me none has arrived, and oh ! I don't think my mother has quite forgotten me.' Presently she said, 'I know it is wrong to grieve so much ; but oh, I am so weak !' "Presently I heard her murmur, and, Hstening, I heard her whisper, 'My feet! oh, my feet'!' I arose from my chair and removed the sheet, with the intention of rubbing her limbs; as I did so her feet were disclosed. A thrill of horror passed through my being as I looked at them ; for they were all cut, festered and bruised. A fearful suspicion took possession of me, and stooping down, I picked up her shoes. On examina- tion I discovered in them pieces of broken glass. A thrill akin to horror ran through my whole frame. I held the shoes in my hands and looked at the pale, suffering face of Madaline as HIS SECRET WORKS EXPOSED. 113 she lay on her bed ; and as I write this evening, the whole scene rises before me. There she lay; the sin of her past life being that she, too, had been deceived at the altars of Rome, a victim of priestly solicitation in the confessional. Even as she lay there in the last stages of consumption, traces of what had at one time been a beautiful face were clearly discernible. What had she not suffered for years ! And yet she was young — hard- ly twenty-five years old. "Oh, Madaline, poor, wounded, betrayed one! Who can wonder, as you lay there with the fever of consumption run- ning and coursing through your veins, that in spite of all the teachings and practices of self-denial in the convent life in which you had lived so many years, yet, when the hour of death drew nigh, and your soul was hovering on the borders of an unknown eternity, your thoughts went back once more to the old home scenes, and you longed, as only a child can, for the sight of your mother's face, the sound of your mother's voice, and the touch of the cool, soothing hand of your mother on your fevered brow? They tried to crush down the natural love that God placed in your heart for your mother, but they could not." It is the pride and boast of the American people that in no country in the world are women so respected, and honored, and, protected as with us ; but where is the manhood and chiv- alry of American fathers and brothers, who will permit ninety thousand women to be held in bondage behind prison walls for the gratification of the licentious priests of Rome, without even so much as an earnest protest at the ballot-box against the monstrous outrage? Why do American statesmen seem indififerent to these foreign institutions, whose existence in this land is an afifront to justice and an insult to the very spirit of our free institutions? Is it not because the priests of Rome control so many voters? NUN IMPRISONED IN A DUNGEON FOR TWENTY-ONE YEARS. Barbara Ubryk, a sister of the Carmelite Convent at Cracow, Poland, who was walled in a dungeon eight feet long and six wide, in complete darkness for twenty-one years, by the con- 114 THB DEVIL IN THE CHURCH: fessor and superioress of the convent, deserves a' place in this terrible pronouncement against the barbarous opportunities placed at the disposal of the evil inclined of Romish wolves in sheep's clothing. This convent horror was made known through the instru- mentality of a letter directed to the Court of Correction. It reads as follows: There is in the Carmelite Convent, close by the botanical gardens of the North Suburb, a nun, Barbara Ubryk by name, who prays you, in the love of God to set her free ! She regu- larly entered the convent, after serving her novitiate, in 1846. In 1848, because she refused to give up her person to Father Calenski, she brought upon herself his hate and she was thrust into a half underground cell, next\the privy sink of the con- vent. The cell window was then walled up with bricks and cemented by Father Calenski and the lady superioress, Mother Josepha. No aperture being left to it but a narrow slit near the top of the wall, about six inches long and two inches wide. The wall is so thick that no light ever comes in through this slit, and no fresh air. The door has always been kept, night and day, bolted, only being opened once every other day to allow a crust of bread, or a dish of mouldy potatoes, and a mug of water to be put into the cell. There is nothing in this cell of horror but a little straw ; no bed, chair or table ; not even a stool. The scanty clothes she had on when she was first put in the dungeon had been completely worn out and rotted away years ago- A SISTER'S FATE. "I have a sister, amiable and good in an inferior degree. At the age of twenty she left an infirm mother to the care of ser- vants and strangers, and shut herself up in a convent, where she was not allowed to see even the nearest relations. With a deh- cate frame, requiring every indulgence to support it in health, she embraced a rule which denied her the comforts of the low- est class of society. A course woolen frock fretted her skin; her feet had no covering but that of shoes, opened at the toes, that they might expose them to the cold of a brick floor; a couch of bare planks was her bed, and an unfurnished cell her HIS SECRET WORKS EXPOSED. 115 dwelling. Disease soon filled her conscience with fears; and I had often to endure the torture of witnessing her agonies at the confessional. I left her when I quitted Spain, dying much too slowly for her only chance of relief. I wept bitterly for her loss two years after, yet I could not be so cruel as to wish her alive." A TBIGHTFUL OCCTIKBENCE IN A CONVENT., At a convent in the north of Italy a fearful catastrophe oc- curred some years ago. A father determined to compel his daughter to take the veil, to which she was strongly disinclined ; but as she was treated with great brutality at home, she at length consented ; yet no longer had she pronounced her vows than she requested a private interview with him at the grate of the convent ; and being left alone with him, killed herself be- fore his eyes, and cursed him with her last breath. This, how- ever, is but one of the many narratives of horror which are well authenticated in connection with a seclusion so unnatural and injurious. All idea of escape is carefully excluded. In Italy the bond- age of a convent is rarely broken through. And why? A woman who persisted in returning to the world would be visit- ed with the severest reprehensions ; her family considering themselves dishonored would refuse to receive her ; her friends and acquaintances would scarcely associate with her ; the finger of scorn would point to her; she must take the vows or die. Nor should the fact be overlooked, that, according to her su- perstitious teachers, she would by so doing endanger her sal- vation, or render it impossible. Fear supplies a powerful mo- tive to even a hated incarceration, and often the only one. CONVENT LIFE INDUCEMENTS. It will be naturally asked after such an enunmeration, which might be much extended, what is the great inducement to this prison-like life ? To this it may be replied, that the chief rea- son avowed, is derived from the imagination that such a course is meritorious in the sight of God. Vain and delusive, indeed, is such a hope. They who have beHeved in God are to be 1 16 THB DEVIL IN THB CHURCH: "careful to maintain good works ;" but of these a life of quie- tude or endurance in a convent is not likely to be productive. For works to be good, they must be right in principle, and spring from love to God ; and though there may be cases where this is exhibited in such circumstances, it is assuredly not ow- ing to any human device^, for "the love of God is shed abroad in our heart by the Holy Ghost which is given us." There is abundant reason, however, to think that this is but rarely pos- sessed by the inmates of convents, of whom it may generally be said that "they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that be- Heveth." "Without faith it is impossible to please God." In the exercise of this principle the whole trust of the soul is- fixed in Christ ; and in direct contrast to it is the conduct of all who look for the enjoyment of the Divine favor to their own doings and sufferings. HOW ONE CONVENT WAS CLOSED. The New York Staats Zeitung, November 8, 1894, says: "Silvia Palmieri, a Neapolitan girl, was sent to Saints Joseph and Theresa Convent to be educated. The mother superior, Theresa Ferrante, seventy years of age, promised the parents- of the girl that when she finished her education she could leave the convent or remain there and take the veil. But when the girl's parents called to take her home they were met by the mother superior, who told them that their daughter was very happy and wished to remain in the convent and bid farewell to- the outside world, and did not desire to see her parents. They begged for a few moments' interview with their daughter, but were refused. They then appealed to the District Attorney and Police Commissioner, whp with a number of police went to the convent and forced an entrance. When they entered, instead of finding a happy young girl, they found her in tears, and she begged the officers to take her away from the convent. She said she had been seduced by gentlemen from Naples who visited the convent by consent of the mother superior, and to HIS SECRET WORKS EXPOSED. 117 ascertain whether the girl's story was true or not a physician was called in to make an examination, and he stated that the girl spoke the truth. Upon these statements the mother su- perior was placed under arrest, Father Rasto, the father con- fessor, was dismissed, and the other girls were sent to their homes and the convent was closed. There is great excite- ment in Naples over the disclosure of this horrible affair, and all the papers have taken it up. This same convent was raided and cleaned out four years ago." NUNNEBrES SHOULD BE INVESTIGATED. The conduct of priests in nunneries ought to be investigated. Nunneries should be examined, and every nun should be per- mitted to see a representative of the State alone, and apart from the surveillance of her keepers or companions, once a year. Because this was insisted on in Germany, the convent system was abandoned. It might be so here. THE BLACK VEIL. "One more unfortunate," Just in her bloiom, ' "Rashly importunate," Gone to her doom! Foolish delusion — 'Mid priestly confusion, She hopes, in seclusion, For Christ as her groom! Here on the brink of it Pause ye, and think of it — Canvass the truth: Beauty and youth Given to priest control! Cut from protection Of law and affection, Of friends and community- The priest's opportunity! God save her soul! Ii8 THB DBVIL IN THE CHURCH: See! the pale creature. In every feature ' Betrays her insanity, Bordering on vanity, Fanned by the priest; Void of humanity — In her insanity Wedding the Beast! Why does the world abide Such moral suicide, Black as the veil? A vile superstition Exacts the commission Of deeds of contrition Which turn the cheek pale. Gods! what a sight for men Civilized called, Who should be appalled At such a den! No one to know What she'll undergo But those who deceive her! Fareth she well or ill, She must endure it till , Death shall relieve her. -Progressive Thinker. OPEN THE CONVElirTS. To-day on these shores where no bondmen can be, Where fetters must burst and the slave be set free. Are prisons of darkness all over the land, Their keepers unseen, and their doings unscann'd; Where haply the innocent pine in despair, And cannot escape to the light and the air. Btit worn by the vigil, the scourge and the fast. Rot into the grave, their sole refuge, at last. ' Or haply — for darkness is full of such deeds, Where stern Superstition with Cruelty breeds — The abbess may live, and the priest may be found Who rule as twin tyrants that Golgotha ground; HIS SECRET WORKS EXPOSED. 119 And woe to the nuns disobedient then To the tempers of women and passions of men, Where anything foul can be done in the dark, Unstruck by Truth's spearpoint's electrical spark! — What! Isn't this libellous, — false from the first?^ Protestant bigotry's slander at worst? — It may be- — it must be — we hope for the best — But — open your Convents\ — this, this be the test! We gladly would find they are homes of delight Where hearts are all happy and faces all right, Each abbess a mother, with daughters who love Their gloom as a foretaste of glory above! Yes — let in the light — let us hear the glad truth That priest never snared the fair maid or rich youth — That neither the nun nor the monk can be slaves, Unless they so will it themselves, to their graves; Let us know they are free to depart or remain Unbound by that life-long tyrannical chain; Let us see for ourselves that no treasons are there. But — everything open, all right and all fair! If still supervision is warned from the gate, And prisoners alone are seen through the grate. If all that we prize in an honest man's home Is secretly crushed through the priestcraft of Rome — Well — nunneries heretofore have been torn down. When people suspected the cowl and the gown; And monkeries — witness St. Alban's and Froude — Had better keep clear of the rage of the crowd! — — Tupper. NO HEAVEN THERE. This is no heaven! And yet they told me that all heaven was here. This life the foretaste of a life more dear; That all beyond this convent cell Was but a fairer hell; That all was ecstacy and song within. That all without was tempest, gloom, and sin. Ah me, it is not so. This is no heaven, I know! 120 THB DEVIL IN THE CHURCH: This is not rest! And yet they told me that all rest was here, Within these walls the med'cine and the cheer For broken hearts; that all without Was trembling, weariness and doubt; Strong in life's flood to shelter and to save; This the still mountain lake, Which minds can never shake. Ah me, it is not so, This is not rest, I know! This is not light! And yet they told me that all light was here. Light of the holier sphere; That through this lattice seen, Clearer and more serene, The clear stars ever shone. Shining for me alone; And the bright -moon more bright. Seen in the lone blue night ' By ever-watchful eyes, The sun of convent skies. Ah me, it is not so, This is not light, I know! This is not love! And yet they told me that all love was here. Sweetening the silent atmosphere; All green, without a faded leaf. All smooth, without a fret, or cross or grief, Fresh as young May, Yet calm as autumn's softest day; No balm like convent air, No hues of paradise so fair! A jealous, peevish, hating world beyond, Within, live's loveliest bond; Envy and discord in the haunts of men. Here, Eden's harmony again. Ah, me, it is not so, Here is no love, I know! Here is no balm For stricken" hearts; no calm For fevered souls; no cure For minds diseased. The impure HIS SECRET WORKS EXPOSED. 121 Become impurer in this stagnate air; My cell becomes my tempter and my snare, And vainer dreams than e'er I dreamed before, Crowd in at its low doors; And have I fled, my God, from Thee, From thy glad love and liberty, And left the road where blessings fell like light, For self-made by-paths shaded o'er with night? Oh! lead me back, my God, To the forsaken road. Life's common beat that there. Even in the midst of toil and care, I may find Thee, And in thy love, be free. — H. Bonar. THE IMPRISONED NTJN. An English Foem; But Just as Applicable to the TTnited States. Cut off her golden tresses; take her from hearth and home, Bury her in a convent, under the seal of Rome; Place her within a dungeon, far from a mother's care. Let her not see the glad sunshine, nor breathe heaven's free fresh air. Place her behind a grating, to mumble a penance there. Let her not know her sister's kiss, nor join their evening prayer; Chant to the saints and Virgin, let a priest her gaoler be, That she may not hear of Jesus, and His salvation free. And trusting her sleek confessor, let her enter his fatal lair, To be shorn of her bright young tresses, and shorn of her virtue there; Sad, ruined, and forsaken, with withered, wasted cheek. She sits by the iron grating, in a grief no words can speak. As she thinks of her happy childhood, when she bent at her mother's knee, And heard the sweet voice of Jesus, ''Ye weary, come to me." Then lifting her glance to heaven, with tearful, wistful eyes. Like the poor thief repentant, "Remember me!" she cries. And straight from the highest heaven, from Him who saves the lost, Came peace with fullest pardon to that heart so tempest-tossed; In the joy of sin forgiven she dreams once more of home. Ere her maiden heart had been beguiled by the wily priests of Rome. % 4. km P-?- P Cutting • OfE the Golden Tresses Before Taking the Veil. HIS SBCRBT WORKS EXPOSED. 123 She dreams of the bright home-circle: once more she is a girl, With unstaine4 brow and laughing lip, with dancing golden curl; A sister's kiss of love she feels, she hears her mother's voice As she reads once more the Shepherd's words, "Rejoice with me, rejoice!'" Like a sobbing infant sleeping upon its mother's breast, H^r weary, happy spirit, sped away to endless rest; Her double prison trembled, convent and mortal clay. As the angel escort bore her home to Christ and cloudless day. And when again at even-tide the shadows fall around. The gaoler-priest shall pass that way, but she'll not hear the sound. Escaped from the fowler's snaring, from convent, bolt and key, , She is present with her Savior, blessed, redeemed, and free. Nor yet the golden morning; when it peepeth in that cell, Shall wake the silent sleeper, whose lips no tales shall tell; And e'en the .angels drop a tear on that placid, marble face, ^ Whose chiselled lines of sorrow deep mingle with peerless grace. Look on her, father! mother! Can ye read the story there? The story of her hidden grief, her bitter shame and care? Is this the jewel that was yours, now blighted, withered, banned? Oh, guard the jewels that remain from that cursed confessor's hand. What means this tramp of the gaoler-priest on England's once fair ground? And why do England's daughters weep when he goes his warder round? What mean these gloomy, grated walls, this bolt and lock and key? < Rise, England, in the strength of God and set those prisoners free. III. THE WICKED LIVES OF THE POPES SOME or THE MOST UNHOLY MEN THE WORLD HAS EVER KNOWN. Every truly magnanimous man must shrink from wantonly, or unnecessarily, exposing the moral frailties and delinquen- cies of his fellow mortals, but the cause of truth sometimes demands that this be done, and as the Church of Rome puts forth the presumptuous claim of being "the only true church, out of which there is no salvation," and as her popes claim di- vine attributes and powers, and have committed to them the keys of heaven and hell, as the holy successors of the Apostles of Christ, they ought to be able to show that all the popes, from Peter to Leo XIII. had been very holy men. This must be admitted. But if it can be shown that the popes of Rome, instead of having been the most holy of men, have been the most unholy and immoral men the world has ever known, then it will necessarily follow that all the claims of the Romish Church are based on deception and falsehood. We shall be compelled to confine ourselves to but a few names out of the many. POPE JOHN VIII. was enriched with a great number of costly presents by the Emperor, Charles the Bald, in return for the service of the pope in causing him to be elected Emperor. Upon the death of Louis II. a fierce and bloody contention for the empire en- sued among the descendants of Charlemagne. Through the favor of the pope, however, Charles, the grandson of Charle- HIS SECRET WORKS EXPOSED. 125 magne, was successful. Advancing to Rome, at the invitation of the pontiff, he vi^as crowned by him with great solemnity, in the Church of St. Peter, on Christinas day, 875, the same day on which his celebrated ancestor had been crowned in the same place seventy-five years before, by Pope Leo III. It is worthy of remark that the artful pope spoke of his coronation as giving a right to the empire, thus insinuating that he had the power of controlling the empire, and from this time for- ward the popes claimed the right of confirming the election of the emperor. In a sentence pronounced by Pope John upon a certain bishop, Formosus, is the following expression : "He has conspired with his accomplices against the safety of the re- pubHc, and our beloved son Charles, WHOM WE HAVE CHOSEN, and consecrated emperor." This pope was a mon- ster of cruelty and blood. He approved and commended the horrible and inhuman conduct of Athanasius, Bishop of Naples, who put out the eyes of his own brother Sergius, of the same city, and sent him in that state to the pope, to answer to the charge of rebellion against the Holy See. He applied to the unnatural Athanasius the words of the Saviour, "he that loveth father or mother" (the pope added 'brother') more than me, is not worthy of me," and promised to send him, as a reward for his horrible cruelty, a handsome present. It soon appeared, however, that th* bishop had more regard to himself than to the Pope in this unnatural transaction, for he soon seized on his brother's vacant duke- dom, and in his turn was excommunicated by the Pope. When afterwards the bishop sent to implore absolution of the Pope, the bloodthirsty pontiff sent him a reply that the only terms upon which he would grant him absolution were that he should deliver up to his vengeance several men, of whose names he sent him a Hst, and that he should cut the throats of the rest of the Pope's Saracen enemies in the presence of his legate. Such was the cruel spirit of this "holy" successor of the apos- tles — this link in the unbroken chain of the apostolic succes- sion! 126 THB DEVIL IN THE CHURCH: SEBGIUS III. The tenth century is spoken of in history as "the midnight of the human mind." Near the beginning of this century three notorious and abandoned prostitutes were in almost su- preme control of Rome, viz. : Theodora, and her two daugh- ters, Marozia and Theodora. This shameful state of things was the result of the unbounded influence of the Tuscan party in Rome, and the adulterous relations of these wicked women with the heads of that party. Morozia cohabited with Adel- bert, one of the powerful counts of Tuscany, and had a son by him named Alberic. Pope Sergius II., who was raised to the papacy in 904, also cohabited with this woman, and by his holi- ness she had another son, named John, who afterwards ascend- ed the papal throne, through the influence of his licentious mother. Baronius, himself a Roman Catholic historian, con- fesses that Pope Sergius was the slave of every vice and the most wicked of men. Platina, also a Roman Catholic writer, declares that Pope Sergius rescinded the acts of Pope For- mosus, and compelled those whom he had ordained, to be re- ordained, caused his dead body to be dragged from the sepul- chre, and beheaded, as though he were alive, and then cast into the Tiber! POPE JOHN X. was the paramour of the harlot, Theodora. While a deacon of the church at Ravenna, he used frequently to visit Rome, and possessing a comely person, as we are told by Ivuitprand, a contemporary historian, being seen by Theodora, she fell passionately in love with him, and engaged him in a criminal intrigue. He was afterwards chosen bishop of Ravenna, and upon the death of Pope Lando, in 914, this shameless woman, for the purpose of facihtating her adulterous intercourse with her favorite paramour, "as she could not hve at the distance of two hundred miles from her lover," had influence enough to cause him to be raised to the papal throne. Mosheim says, the paramour of Pope John was the eldest harlot Theodora, but his translator. Dr. Machine, agrees with the Romish his- HIS SECRET WORKS EXPOSED. 127 torian, Flenry (who admits these disgraceful facts), in the more probable theory that it was the younger Theodora, the sister of Marozia. POPE JOHN XI. was a bastard son of his holiness, Pope Sergius III., who, as we have seen, was one of the favorite lovers of the notorious Marozia. The death of Pope Stephen, in 931, presented to the ambition of Marozia, says Mosheim, an object worthy of its grasp, and accordingly she raised to the papal dignity John XL, who was the fruit of her lawless amours with one of the pretended successors of St. Peter, whose adulterous commerce gave an infallible guide to the Roman Church ! But we might write volumes on the vile characters that have occupied the papal chair, and, indeed, volumes have been written on this subject. Suffice it then to simply quote a paragraph or two from the pages of Rev. Albert Barnes, in his "Notes." "Pope Vagilius that waded to the pontifical throne through -the blood of his predecessor. Pope Marcellinius, sacrificed to idols. Con- cerning Pope Honorius, the Council of Constantinople de- creed : "We have caused Honorius, the late Pope of old Rome, to be accursed; for that in all things he followed the mind of Sergius the heretic, and confirmed his wicked doc- trines." The Council of Basil thus condemned Pope Eugeni- us : "We condemn and depose Pope Eugenius, a despiser of holy canons ; a disturber of the peace and unity of the Church of God; a notorious offender of the whole universal church; a Simonist, a perjurer ; a man incorrigible ; a schismatic ; a man fallen from the faith, a wilful heretic." Pope John II. was publicly charged at Rome with incest; Pope John XIII. usurp- ed the pontificate, spent his time in hunting, in lasciviousness and monstrous forms of vice. He fled from the trial to which he was summoned, and was stabbed, being taken in an act of adultery. Pope Sixtus IV. Hcensed brothels at Rome. Pope Alexander VI. was, as a Roman Catholic "historian says, "one of the greatest and most horrible monsters in nature that could scandalize the papal chair. His beastly morals, his im- mense ambition, his insatiable avarice, his detestable cruelty, his furious lusts and monstrous incest with his daughter Lu- 128 THE DEVIL IN THE CHURCH: cretia, are at large described by Guicciardini Cianconius, and other authentic papal historians. Of the Popes, Platina, a Roman Catholic, says: The chair of St. Peter was usurped, rather than possessed by monsters of wickedness, ambition and bribery. They left no wickedness unpracticed." Surely there has never lived a succession of men so wicked, or to whom the appellative, "the man of sin," could be so appropri- ately applied as to the Popes of Rome. "The man of sin" is also "the son of perdition." Rev. Al- bert Barnes says of this epithet : "This is the same appella- tion which the Saviour bestowed on Judas. It may mean either that he would be the cause of ruin to others, or that he would himself be devoted to destruction. The phrase, which ever interpretation be adopted, is used to denote one of emi- nent wickedness." It is certain that in both senses it is emi- nently true of the papacy; for that the apostolic church has been the destroyer of millions, and is herself to be destroyed. We shall see in a future chapter that "the beast" spoken of in Revelations XVII: 8-11, is the same Little Horn, and it is there said that he "shall go into perdition." Now these are not "Protestant lies," as priests and bishops of Rome at the present day declare, they are historical facts acknowledged by the most eminent Roman Catholics, annalists and historians, as we have seen. The following remarkable acknowledgment is from the Cardinal Bronius, one of the most powerful cham- pions of popery, in reference to these events : "O ! what was then the fate of the holy Roman Church ! How filthy, when the vilest and most powerful prostitutes ruled in the court of Rome! by whose arbitrary sway dioceses were made and un- made, bishops were consecrated, and — which is inexpressibly horrible to be mentioned— FALSE POPES, THEIR PARA'- MOURS, were thrust into the chair of St. Peter, who, in being numbered as Popes, serve no purpose but to fill up the cat- alogues of the Popes of Rome, for who can say that persons thrust into the popedom by harlots of this sort were legitimate Popes of Rome? In this manner LUST, supported by secu- lar power, excited to frenzy, in the rage for domination, RULED IN ALL THINGS." And yet, these "monsters of HIS SECRET WORKS EXPOSED. 129 wickedness" are recognized, and some .of them even worship- ped, as the holy and infallible vicars of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the "holy successors of the apostles." What an infamous fraud ! The writers of the Romish Church attempt to reconcile the crimes of the bishops and popes with their high claims to holi- ness. Among other childish and illogical arguments some of them make the distinction between the man and the pope. As men they sin; but as popes they are holy. Which recalls the reply of an humble gardener to his employer, who was an arch- bishop. The archbishop being vexed on account of the de- struction of some favorite plants, scolded the poor gardener, and in doing so "swore like a trooper." Noticing the surprise of the trembling workman, the archbishop said, "You seem to be shocked to hear an archbishop swear ; but you know, John, I do not swear as an archbishop; I swear only as a man." "May I ask your excellency," said the gardener, "when the MAN goes to the devil, what will become of the archbishop?" POPES GtriLTY OF NXJMEBOTJS CRIMES. "Rome does not keep faith with history as it is handed down to her and marked, out for her by her own annals." And what is the reason? The reason is, that Romanism cannot and dare not face her own history. This is true in every essential particular relating to the Church. For instance : almost every doctrine or dogma outside of immediate Christian biblical doc- trine, almost every dogma of the Roman Catholic Church is exploded by history; as for example, the papacy, infallibility, temporal power, purgatory. All these are wholly unsubstan- tial in the light of history. Take all the assumptions of the papacy of Rome, which depend on the allegation that Peter was the first Bishop of Rome. Now, from the very best evi- dence that I can get on both sides, Peter was never in Rome, and that has been the opinion of many of the most learned theologians and historiahs. In a debate in Rome some years ago, after free Italy took possession and made debate possible, all the weight of argument and all the truth of history was on the side of the beHef that Peter was never in Rome. That the 130 THB DEVIL IN THE CHURCH: office of Bishop was held by him is without one bit of proof. The Bible says nothing about it, nor does tradition for a hun- dred years, nor do the fathers who came directly after the apostles. All tradition points the other way. Take another Romish dogma: We have in the papacy the figment of the apostolic succession. They think that Peter was in Rome and was the first Bishop, and handed down his power to his suc- cessors ; but to whom they do not know. Roman Catholic historians cannot agree, for their lives, on who the next four Popes after Peter are. There is no concord of opinion. I have here a book (Edgar's "Variations of Popery,") which quotes one hundred and seventy and more of the leading writ- ers, historians and fathers of the Roman Catholic Church, and the summation of their teaching is, that they do not know who the first four Popes were after Peter, who never was a Pope ! Where is your unbroken apostolical succession? Nowhere. There is no such thing in history. And now further. In this apostolic succession there are many Popes, of some of whom it is altogether uncertain whether they were legally Popes or not. There are at least four periods where there were two Popes at once, and how they did curse each other ! I never heard or read such curs- ing, except as between Popes. You remember what a gift at that Pius IX. had. Well, from the first, — and that is one reason why we know Peter was never a Pope, — from the first, these Popes had used the most diabolical language towards one another when there happened to be two of them. And on two separate occasions there were three Popes. Now which of the three was Pope, when all claimed to be? They were all cursing, — if that is any mark of a Pope, — every man of them anathematizing and denouncing the other. At the time known as the great schism, occurring from and after 1378, there was a period of seventy years in which the air was blue with their mutual anathemas, and the apostolic succession was wholly unsettled. Now, you remember that these Popes were all infallible. I affirm to you that, by the authority of Roman CathoHc historians, many of these Popes were guilty of the most infamous crimes, and that the Councils of the Roman 132 THB DEVIL IN THB CHURCH: Catholic Church itself have characterized many of the Popes in language so dreadful that it is hardly fit to be read before any audience. What did the Council at Constance say con- cerning John XXIIL, who was a Pope of Rome? I will read as much as I dare to you. "The Council seeing no other al- ternative, resolved to depose John for immorality. The Sacred Synod of Constance, in the twelfth session, convicted His Holi- ness of schism, heresy, incorrigibleness, simony, impiety, im- modesty, unchastity, fornication, adultery, incest, rape, piracy, lying, robbery, murder, perjury and infidelity." This was John XXni., Pope of Rome; and that is what the Council of Con- stance said of him, the very same Council that burnt John Huss and Jerome of Prague. Nor was he an exception either; for what do they say concerning another of the Popes ? Benedict Vni., the Council convicted of "schism, heresy, error, per- tinacity, incorrigibility, and perjury." At the same time, the Popes had their opinion of the Councils, too, as you will find; for the Council of Basil incurred the displeasure of Eugenius, who was the Pope at that time ; and you ought to know what an infallible Pope thought of that infallible Council. This assem- bly he called "block heads, fools, mad men, barbarians, wild beasts, malignants, wretches, vagabonds, renegades, apostates, rebels, monsters, criminals, a conspiracy, an innovation, a de- formity, a conventicle, distinguished only for its temerity, sac- rilege, audacity, machinations, impiety, tyranny, ignorance, irregularity, fury, madness, and the dissemination of falsehood, error, scandal, poison, pestilence, desolation, unrighteousness and iniquity." That is what he said. If the Pope told the truth, the Council was indeed a fearful set of villains; if he told a he, he was a fearful villain himself. AN AWETTL PICTURE OF THB POPEDOM. Can Romanism appeal to history for sanction of papal infal- Hbility? Shall I have time to tell you of the monsters of in- iquity that some of these Popes were? "But the Roman Cath- olic hierarchs of the middle and succeeding ages exhibited _ a m,elancholy change. Their lives displayed all the variations of impiety, malevolence, inhumanity, ambition, debauchery, HIS SECRET WORKS EXPQSED. 133 gluttony, sensuality, deism and theism. Gregory the Great seems to have led the way in the career of villainy. This well- known pontiff has been characterized as worse than his prede- cessors, and better than his successors, or, in other terms as the last good and the first bad Pope. The flood-gates of mor- al dissolution appeared, in the tenth century, to have been set wide open, inundations of all impurity poured on a Christian world through the channel of the Roman Catholic hierarchs. Awful and melancholy indeed is the picture of the popedom at this era, drawn as it has been by its warmest friends) Pla- tina, Petavius, Luitprand, Genebrard, Bronius, Hermann, Bar- clay, Binius, Giannone, Vignier, Labbe, and DuPin. (Edgar's "Variations of Popery," pp. 108-9.) "Fifty Popes," says Genebrard, "in one hundred and fifty years, from John VIII. to Leo IX., entirely degenerated from the sanctity of their ancestors and were apostolical. Forty pon- tiffs reigned in the tenth century. The successor in each in- stance, seems demoralized even beyond his predecessor." Ba- ronius, a famous Roman Catholic historian, in his annals of the tenth century seems to labor for language to express the de- generacy of the Popes, and the fearful deformity of the pope- dom. MONSTERS IN THE PONTIFICAL CHAIK. "Many shocking monsters," he says, "intruded into the pon- tifical chair, who were guilty of murder, assassination, simony, dissipation, tyranny, sacrilege, perjury, and all kinds of mis- creancy." "The Church," says Giannone, "was then in a shocking disorder, in a state of iniquity." The greatest of the Popes was Gregory VII., known as Hildebrand. Now con- cerning Gregory VII. we have an opinion, and we have a de- claration from Roman Catholics of the highest standing in those times, that he was elected through force and bribery and without the concurrence of the emperor or clergy. He obtained his supremacy, in the general opinion, by gross si- mony; but he had the hardihood to pretend that his dignity was intruded on him against his will. The Councils of Worms and Brescia depicted his character with great precision. The Council of Worms, comprehending forty-six of the German 9 134 ^^^ DBVIL IN THB CHURCH: prelacy, met in 1076, and preferred numerous imputations against Gregory. This synod found his holiness guilty of usurpation, simony, apostasy, treason, schism, heresy, chican- ery, dissimulation, fornication, adultery and perjury. His hol- iness, in the sentence of the German prelacy, preferred harlots to women of character, and adultery and incest to just and holy matrimony. The Council of Brescia, which was com- posed of thirty bishops, and many princes from Italy, Prance and Germany, called Gregory a fornicator, an imposter, an as- sassin, a violator of the canons, a disseminator of discord, a disturber. He had sown scandal among friends, dissensions among the peaceful, and separation among the married. The Brescian fathers then declared his holiness guilty of bribery, usurpation, simony, sacrilege, vain-glory, ambition, obstinacy, perverseness, sorcery, divination, necromancy, schism, heresy, infidelity, assassination and perjury." These are the words of Councils of the Roman Catholic Church concerning the character of the greatest Pope — unless Innocent III. disputes that eminence with him — that ever sat in the papal chair in Rome. Boniface III. was as bad or worse. Sixtus IV. in 1471, just before the discovery of America, is characterized in terms as horrible. Of one of the Popes it is said, he was con- victed of forty crimes. Alexander VL, Pope of Rome, was a Borgia, and the very name is associated with the wickedest of wickedness. If ever there was a monster on earth who was guilty of every imagin- able crime that could belong to a person who had disgraced human nature by the vilest uses, Alexander VI. was one of those men. Now my friends, I will give you a morsel that is more re- markable than anything yet said. I hold in my hand a mod- ern history, which I suppose the Romish Church intends to put in the place of Swinton's. This modern history was written by Peter Fredet, D. D., and was published by J. Murphy & Co., of New York, in the year 1886. On the 511th page of this history I find the following declaration about these Popes: "It is true, a few among them gave great scandal to the Chris- tian world in their private character and conduct ; but it ought HIS SECRET WORKS EXPOSED. 135 to be remembered at the same time, that, through a special protection of Divine Providence, the irregularity of these lives did not interfere with their public duty, from which they never departed. The beneficial influence of sacred jurisdic- tion does not depend on the private virtue of the persons in- vested with it ; but on their divine mission and appointment to feed the Christian flock. Nor did Christ promise personal sanctity to its chief pastors; but gave to them authority to teach and govern the faithful." That is Roman Catholic his- tory. Monstrous ! Monstrous ! ! The Popes, who, by Ro- man Catholic authority, are characterized in terms that carry with them utmost condemnation, are declared by a Roman Catholic historian, in 1886, to be so corrected in their admin- istration that it makes no difference how they live ! They are equally infallible, whatever their vices and crimes! NIITETEEN CENTURIES OF ROMAN CATHOLIC POPISH HISTORY. Century I. The names of the bishops of Rome succeeding Peter stand thus: Linus, Cletus, Clement. Of these three Linus and Clement are mentioned in St. Paul's epistles. We incline to the view that Linus was a British name and that he was a Brit- ish prince, converted through St. Paul while in Rome. Dur- ing this century Christianity spread with great rapidity throughout the bounds of the Roman empire and as far west as Spain, Gaul, Britain, and Ireland. Century II. During this century appear as writers, Polycarp, Papias, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Hermes, and Hermas, some of whom died martyrs. In this century the persecutions of Trajan, An- toninus, Aurelius, and Commodus swept over the Church. For the first time mention is made by Papias of St. Peter being in Rome. As yet there is no allusion to his primacy or pontificate. 136 THB DEVIL IN THE CHURCH: Century III. In this century six persecutions swept over the Church, from Severus to Diocletian. Thousands suffered martyrdom, but the Word of God was not bound. Century IV. In this century persecution ceased. Constantine, the em- peror, becomes Christian, calls a general council at Nice. The Pope does not preside. Before the century closes the Church is in transition towards paganism. Century V. Among the bishops of Rome Zozimus stands pre-eminent for heresy and vacillation. During this period, under the la- bors of St Patrick, Columba, and their disciples, Ireland, Scot- land, and England, were, to a large extent, converted to Chris- tianity. Century VI. Up to this time there is little said about Peter's primacy or pontificate. The two centuries before were remarkable for heresies, this for schisms. Century VII. Gregory the Great heads the list of Popes for this century, noted as the author of the Gregorian Chant, the founder of the Romish mission to England, and the bishop who declared that "whosoever would receive the title of universal bishop" would proclaim by that act, that he was the forerunner of anti- christ. A few years later Boniface III. received the title which the Popes claim ever since. During this period Mohamme- danism arose. ' Century VIII. This century was noted for the controversy about image worship, in which the emperor and the Popes took part, the one against and the others for; while the Saracens began to make war on the empire and the Church in the East, destroy- ing images as they went, Under Adrian I. the Isodore decre- HIS SECRET WORKS EXPOSED. 137 tals were first forged and brought to light to convince Char- lemagne that Constantine had conferred the sovereignty of Rome, and the supremacy of the Church on the Popes. In this century Charles Martel rolled back the Saracenic invasion, and Pepin and Charlemagne defeated the Lombards, conferred their estates on the Church, and the sovereignty on the Popes. Century IX. During the close of the last and beginning of this century Christianity was forced upon several pagan tribes, who were conquered by Charlemagne. Some historians place the fe- male Pope, Joan, as next to Leo IV., while others deny her ex- istence altogether. The profligacy of the Popes gave rise to the story. The infallibihty of the Popes of this age did not prevent them from abusing the names and remains of their predecessors, for sometimes the relatives of the deceased Pope carry away treasures from the palace before the breath left the reigning pontifif. Formosa was scarcely dead, when his suc- cessor, Stephen VII. had his remains dragged from the tomb and deposed from the pontificate. The head was cut off, the body disrobed, and cast into the Tiber. Century X. Two links in the chain of succession of this century appear broken in connection with the names of Benedict and John. Never did history present so large a class of criminals in suc- cession as the Popes of the tenth century. Between rebellious nobles and licentious women, the Popes of that age were like mere puppets, handed up and down the papal throne. Benedict IV., attempting to interfere in the conflicts of the Italian feudal chiefs, was put to death; Leo V. died in a dun- geon; Christopher perished after a reign of a few months; Theodora, a Roman lady of fortune, had one of her paramours put upon the papal throne under the name of Sergius III. ; Sergius subsequently lived in licentious intercourse with mother and daughter. He fell by violence to make room for new favorites; Anastasius III. and Lando arose to the papal throne through the influence of these women, soon to go down 138 THE DBVIL IN THE CHURCH: in shame and death; another lover of Theodora ascended the papal throne as John X., who perished through the jealousy of Marozia, the daughter of Theodora the Second; Leo VI. and Stephen VIII., raised to the papal throne through Marozia, were within two years put out of the way by poison and dagger ; in A. D. 931 she had her own son, Octavian, by Sergius III., raised to the papal throne as John XL, who died shortly after in prison and of poison. The next four Popes leave nothing but their names to posterity. The two, Theodora and Maro- zia, with their paramours and sins, passed on to eternity, when, in 956, A. D., a grandson of Marozia, ascended the papal throne as John XII., who exceeded all that ever went before in licentiousness and vice. On his mistresses he squandered much of the gold of the palace and the churches. Female pilgrims visiting the shrines of the saints in Rome were ruined in Lateran Palace. This Pope was killed in the act of adultery by the injured husband of his paramour. Leo VIII. was raised to the papal throne by Otho, emperor of Germany, but the Romans rejected him and elected Benedict V. Thus two Popes reigned at the same time until the emperor banished Benedict, and Leo died shortly after, and John XIII. was raised to power, who introduced the baptism of bells. This is history made and recorded by Catholic historians. Century XI. Sylvester II., who stands at the head of the Popes of this century, whose former name was Gerbert, and one of the greatest scholars of the age, said a few years before that "The Popes were antichrists, sitting in the temple of God." Yet, when Sylvester reached the papal throne, he was unable to re- form its abuses. The year A. D. 1000 came, and many sup- posed the end of the world was come. A general terror reign- ed over Europe; thousands gave their estates to the Church and fled into the monasteries to prepare for eternity. The wheels of commerce stood still, men forsook their office and business to retire to monastic life until the new year dawned with a new hope and a new millennium The next three Popes passed scarcely noticed in history. HIS SECRET WORKS EXPOSED. 139 Benedict VIII., a boy of twelve years, was raised to the throne by the Counts of Tusckim, became more noted for all kinds of profligacy and vice than even John XII. He plunged into every species of debauchery and crime, and to his licentious- ness he added cruelty, so that the Roman people banished him from the city. HILDEBKAND. A monk of low origin, but of great energy, accompanied Gregory VI. in his exile, entered the monastery of Cluni, and soon became its abbot to await a higher call and greater power. Clement Damascus and five other Popes followed in quick suc- cession to the grave, some of them living only a few months after their election, and two of them, Alexander and Honorius, rival Popes, for six years. Leo and Alexander were mere tools in Hildebrand's hands. Alexander died, and the cardinals as- sembled for the election of a new Pope. Hildebrand was chosen and crowned with great solemnity Gregory VII. The real an- tichrist was now on the throne of power. He set out to en- force celibacy on all the clergy, so as to chain them to the wheels of his throne and to erect the hierarchy into a universal empire over all kingdoms, of which himself and his successors should be the visible head, whose laws were to be above all laws, and whose decrees were to be to all kings, rulers, and subjects as the voice of God. Gradually he sought to spread these views, through his bishops and clergy, in various parts of Christendom. He had favored, when cardinal, the conquest of England by William of Normandy. Now the Normans of England and France are his friends. He aimed at a uniformity of ritual for all the Churches, and a unity of action by all the priesthood. He foresaw the difficulty between Henry VI., of Germany, and his vassal subjects, and threw himself into the struggle, resolving to humble the emperor, and thus teach all rulers that they were subject to him. The Pope assembled a synod at Rome, to which he cited the emperor to appear un- der penalty of excommunication. The emperor refused, and was excommunicated, and the empire was laid under interdict. The interdict -shut up all churches, arrested all church ser- vices and sacraments, so that the people were left to die with- I40 THB DEVIL IN THB CHURCH: out what they considered the means of salvation. Henry, find- ing himself deserted and his empire offered to another, set out in the depth of winter to do homage to the Pope at the castle of Canossa, the home of the Countess Matilda, with whom the Pope was on such intimate terms that the morality of the countess stands in doubt. She willed him and the Church nearly all her vast estates in Italy. For three days did Henry, in a white woolen shirt, do penace on his knees in the deep snow in the castle yard before the Pope would admit him to his presence. And when the Pope lifted the interdict it was done with such harsh conditions that the monarch never for- got the insult. The Pope's cruel treatment of the emperor aroused the sympathies of the people for their ruler. Scarce- ly had he left the castle until he returned with a host of Italian soldiers to lay siege to the Pope, but the countess assisted the Pope in his flight, who did not tarry until he reached Rome. Thither the emperor pursued Gregory, who, when he found the Romans opened the gate of the city, shut himself up in the Castle of St. Angelo, while the emperor, the clergy, and no- bles raised Guibert, archbishop of Ravenna, to the pontificate under the name of Clement III. Shortly after, abandoned by the Roman citizens Gregory VII, died in exile at Salerno, breathing out with his last breath anathemas against the em- peror and his adherents. Popes Victor III. and Urban II., who followed, endeavored to carry out Hildebrand's plans in reference to supremacy over the Church and the world. The priests were no longer allowed to marry, and the next two centuries will show the clergy more immoral than even the Pope of the century before. Under Urban II., Peter the Her- mit went through Europe preaching against the outrages in- flicted upon the pilgrims, and the crusades against the Turks were undertaken, while it filled Europe with excitement, to re- cover the holy city out of the hands of the infidels. Indul- gences were now offered by the Pope to all who would join the crusade. Century XII. Paschal, who stands at the head of this list and century, con- tinued the war with the emperor by acting as another Ahitho- HIS SECRET WORKS EXPOSED. 141 phel in stirring up the son to revolt against the aged father. The rebellion was successful, and the aged monarch went down to the grave with a broken heart, while his son, as Henry V„ when seated on the throne, renewed the conflict with the Popes in which Paschal fled and was dishonored for his perfidy. At the death of Honorius two Popes were elected by rival fac- tions, Innocent II. and Anacletus II., who continued in the warfare for their respective rights eight years, when the lat- ter died, leaving the former in possession of the pontificate. During this century St. Bernard, Abelard, and Arnold of Bres- cit, made quite a sensation by the boldness of their views in teaching. A second crusade was undertaken with perhaps more disastrous results than the first. In A. D. 1154 Nicholas Breakspeare, the first and last Eng- lishman, who reached the papal throne, under the name of Adrian IV., attempted to follow in the steps of Hildebrand, and compel the emperor, Frederick Barossa, to hold his stir- rups while he mounted his horse. It was he who authorized Henry II. of England, to conquer Ireland and reduce the last of the ancient Churches to the See of Rome. Of course, if the act was infallible, it is rebellion for Irish Catholics to revolt against the English throne and the English Pope. On the death of Adrian two Popes were elected, Alexander III. and Victor III. The former reigned most of his time in France, until the latter gave way. Alexander was the Pope that re- newed the conflict with the Emperor Barbarossa, and ceased not until he laid his foot on the neck of the emperor, saying to him : "Thou shalt tread upon the adder and Hon." He it was who compelled the kings of England and France to hold his bridle, as vassals of the papal government, while he rode through the streets of Rome. Century XIII. The Pope at the head of this list and century. Innocent III., was a worthy successor of Hildebrand in ambition and cruelty. It was he who founded the Inquisition and started the fifth crusade against the Waldenses. In this time two priests, bribed by the Saracens, went through France and raised a chil- HIS SECRET WORKS EXPOSED. 143 dren's crusade to invade the holy land. About thirty thous- and children and young people were led from France to Italy, where they embarked for Palestine, but were taken to Egypt and sold into slavery among the Saracens. It was he who put the king of France under the interdict and made him leave his lawful wife. It was he that excommunicated King John, of England, and turned the English king into a vassal and the kingdom into a fief, of the pontificate. In his time arose the mendicant friars, and the fires of the Inquisition were kindled to burn heretics The strife between the Popes and the em- perors of Germany passed on, and successive Popes followed Innocent in their crimes and cruelties. Then arose the Guelph and Ghibelline factions, deluging Europe with blood, the Guelph alHed to the Pope and the Ghibelline to the emperor. Alexander IV., Urban IV., and Martin IV. closed this century with a record as bloody tyrants. The emperor died, and his two sons, Manfred and Conradin, were slain in the wars the Popes had incited. Celestine, a hermit, was • called to the pontificate, and returned to the solitudes of the cave after a reign of five months, tired of the pomp and glitter of the pa- pacy. Century XIV. Boniface, at the head of the Popes of this century, stands fair as a worthy successor of Hildebrand. Through his arnbi- tion he claimed to be a successor of Caesar, to pull down or set up kings as he pleased, and bestow kingdoms on whom he would. The Popes had not ceased their conflict with the em- perors of Germany until they had the last of them slain on the scaffold. The French, kings became the antagonists of the papacy. Philip the Fair was now kiijg of France, and was ex- communicated by the Pope. The king sent an army to arrest him. He was taken prisoner, but allowed to return to Rome, where he died in frenzy, refusing food and sleep. Allowing no one to witness his death-agony, he shut himself up in his room. The attendants, bursting into his room, found him dead, with the crozier in his hands and the foam on his mouth. From him the papacy dates its decline. The influence of the French kings began now to sway the 144 ^-^^ DBVIL IN THB CHURCH: Curia in the election of the Popes. Hence, from Benedict XI. to Gregory XL, all the Popes sat in Avignon, in France, instead of Rome. For seventy years they were absent from the sup- posed seat of St. Peter, and this period, in Romish writers, is called the Babylonish Captivity. Under Clement V. the Knights Templar were massacred and their order disbanded. Shortly after he died in immense wealth. As the corpse lay in state the servants rush into the apartments searching for treasure, when they accidentally set fire to the furniture and palace in their haste to get gold. It was with difficulty the palace was saved and the body of the Pope preserved. John XXII. exceeded his predecessor in the greed of wealth. Benedict XII., who followed, looked like a paragon of purity compared to his predecessors. Toward the end of the century the writings of Petrarch, Dante, Boccaccio, and Wicliff and Chaucer, of England, began to have their ef- fect in arousing the people against the vices of the papacy, and prepared the way for the Reformation. Century XV. At the death of Gregory XIL, of the last century, there be- gan a strife among the cardinals for national representatives in the papacy. As several of them were French, they chose Clement VII., while the Italians chose Urban VI. Urban was proud and tyrannical, and had several of his own cardinals put to death. He also fulminated excommunication against Clem- ent, in Avignon, while Clement anathematized Urban. France, Savoy, Naples espoused the cause of Clement, the rest of Eu- rope that of Urban. From Benedict XIII. to John XXIII. , the conflict continued for more than fifty years between the rival Popes, cursing each other as earnestly as ever their suc- cessors cursed heretics since. In 1409 a general council was called at Pisa. The council deposed the two Popes, Gregory and Benedict, and elected a third Pope under the name of Alexander V. Gregory retired to Germany, Benedict to Spain and Alexander to Rome, each issuing bulls against the other. Alexander was poisoned by a cardinal who proved his next suc- cessor as John XXIII. , who became a worthy successor of HIS SECRET WORKS EXPOSED. 145 John XII. in licentiousness and vice. Another council was called by the emperor Sigismund, to meet in Constance A. D. 1414, to settle the difficulty of the Pope's succession. The council deposed the three Popes and elected a fourth under the name of Martin V., and thus ended the schism of the Popes, which lasted fifty years. As for a line of unbroken succession, it was lost long before. Having settled the schism of the Popes, the council next summoned Huss before it to answer for his doctrines. Huss refused to come unless the emperor, Sigismund, would give him a safe passage there and back. The emperor promised, and Huss appeared to defend his doc- trines and charge the clergy with vice and false doctrine. They drowned his voice in uproar, for it is said that, as many prosti- tutes followed the council to Constance as were members of it, and that the morals of the city were polluted by it for years after. As well might Huss stand before this council as Ste- phen before the Sanhedrim. They condemned him unheard. The martyr was stripped of his vestments and crowned with a paper cap, on which were painted devils and the inscription. Arch-heretic. He replied, "his Master wore a crown of thorns." On the 6th of July, 141 5, he was chained to the stake; it was his forty-second birthday. As they kindled the flames around him he said : "They know not what they do." Jerome, his friend and disciple, followed shortly after, and went to receive the martyr crown. The new Pope and council pur- sued the followers of Huss with fire and sword. They rose in defense of their lives, and in repeated battles the armies of the perjured emperor and persecuting Pope were defeated. Almost a century passed before the Hussites were subdued. Eugenius IV. and Nicholas V. followed Martin. During the pontificate of Nicholas, Constantinople was taken by the Turks. The successor of Nicholas was Alphonso Borgia, un- der the name of Calixtus HI., a Spaniard, who was the uncle, some say the father, of Roderic Borgia, who heads the lists of Popes for the sixteenth century. Pius II. was a man of bril- hancy and letters, and Paul II., who followed, was full of greed and ambition. Sixtus IV. stopped at no crime to carry his purposes. It was he who planned the assassination of the I46 THE DEVIL IN THE CHURCH: Medici at Florence. For two years he had all Northern Italy in war, and died regretting he' had to leave it in peace. Inno- cent VIII. closes this century's list of the Popes. He was a man so thoroughly debauched in life that he waded in filth and infamy. One of his natural sons was married to a daughter of the Medici, and a son of Lorenzo de Medici entered the car- dinalate as a boy of thirteen. Innocent, in the midst of his debaucheries, attempted the extirpation of the Waldenses by sending against them the armies of France. The inhabitants of the valleys fled to the mountains and caves. Three thous- and persons, among whom were four hundred infants in their mothers' arms, perished by suffocation. Others were dashed from the tops of the rocks. Century XVI. In 1492 Roderick Borgia, the supposed son of Pope Cahx- tus III., ascended the papal throne as Alexander VI. of world- wide fame for all manner of vices and crimes, so gre^at as almost to surpass human conception. "If murder, incest, adultery, re- lentless cruelty," says the historian, "never met before in a sin- gle individual, in the life of this Pope they all find a place, and that with frequent repetition. In his character we find at last the extreme limit of papal depravity, and in his history we seem to fathom the lowest abyss of human baseness." Besides his private vices his public crimes were great. To satisfy his greed of ambition he increased the sale of indulgences. To bestow wealth on his illegitimate children he caused several of the Roman nobility to be slain, in some instances whole fami- lies exterminated, that the estates might go to his children when he should die in the papacy. To suppress the reform movement under Savonarola he had the monk burned to death in the streets of Florence and his ashes cast into the Arno. He had a large number of illegitimate children, but L,ucrezia and Cezar Borgia appeared to inherit more of the father's vices. Cezar was his favorite son, whom he raised to the car- dinalate. Cezar murdered his own brother and had his body thrown into the Tiber. Two of Lucrezia's husbands he had assassinated, one of them in his sister's presence. His own HIS SBCRBT WORKS BXPOSBD. 147 cardinalship he gave up in order to marry, and several cardin- als he poisoned in order to get their riches. The same course he a4opted virith several of the Roman nobility, whom he had to put out of the way in order to possess their estates. He was a handsome man, of slender form, but a fiend incarnate. He and his father had arranged to invite the cardinals to a banquet to poison some of them and possess their estates. A bottle of poisoned wine was laid aside for this purpose. Through mistake it was given the father and son first by one of the servants. That night Alexander VI. died, and Cezar Borgia, the son, barely recovered. Julius II., the warrior Pope, ascended the throne and took back from Cezar much of his ill-gotten wealth. Lucrezia died in misery, and Cezar, her brother, died of his vices and debaucheries shortly after. Ju- lius was a man of fine taste as well as a warrior. He gathered around him Bramante, Raphael, Michael Angelo, and laid the foundation of St. Peter's in Rome, which his successor, Leo X., carried forward. Leo was a Medici, brought up in his child- hood amid paintings and statuary in the palaces and gardens of Florence. The family were the great patrons of these arts. To these Leo added a fondness for literature and music. He lavished out wealth on the arts and the building of the most costly temple of religion — St. Peter's. His life was one of ease, pleasure, and skepticism. It was impossible for the Church to reform through its head and hierarchy. Reformation must come from above and without. Leo soon ran out of funds in building St. Peter's. Indulgences were issued and sold by thousands. Agents who had a per cent, on the sales through- out Christendom used all kinds of arguments and motives to induce the people to buy. The efifect was a greater increase of immorality. Luther, an Augustine monk, attacked the indul- gences and the vices of the Church. Leo issued a bull of ex- communication against him. Luther defied the Pope, called him an Antichrist, Rome Babylon, and burned his bull. Leo summoned the monk to appear before him at Rome. Luther refused, and was hid in the castle of Wartburg, where he translated the Bible into the natural tongue and set the na- tion to reading the Word of the. Lord. The Reformation be- 148 THE DBVIL IN THE CHURCH: gan, nations and churches came out from Rome, and Leo pass- ed on to eternity leaving the Church rent in twain. Adrian VI., a Dutchman, was his successor. The contrast was great between Leo and Adrian in appearance, taste and manner of Hfe. Adrian was simple, severe, and had no taste for the fine arts. Adrian fulminated his bulls against Luther and the Re- formation. The reformers went on with their work, and thou- sands rallied to their pulpits. Whole nations and provinces went like a wave on the river of life. All Europe was excited. From Adrian to Innocent IX. the Popes took an active part to crush the Reformation. They commenced "the thirty years' war," and ceased not until Protestantism stood forth indepen- dent and established. Under the pontificate of Clement VII. England renounced the Pope's supremacy and separated from Rome. Paul III., his successor, re-established the Inquisition, and sent the Jesuits on their mission. To secure the friend- ship of the two mightiest potentates of Europe, Charles V. and Francis I., he engaged to give his grandson in marriage to the daughter of the emperor, and his granddaughter to the rela- tive of the king of France. His own illegitimate son, Pierre Luigi, received the government of Novara, and became as dis- tinguished in cruelty as his father, the pontifif, was in vice. The Farnese palace still stands as a monument of Paul III. and his illegitimate offspring, the Farnese family. Julius III. followed Paul III., and was like Leo X. in his tastes and habits. Marcellus 11. was an austere and reforming Pope, but only lived twenty-two days after his election. The cruel and proud Car- dinal Caraffe ascended the papal throne as Paul IV. The first few years of his life were spent in pohtical intrigues, and bloody wars between the emperor and the king of France. Failing in these he turned his attention to crushing the Reformation by the tortures of the Inquisition. He died in misery after see- ing whole nations, as Sweden, Denmark, and Norway, become Protestant. Pius IV. followed Paul IV. in the pontificate. He was a contrast to his predecessor, and lived a voluptuous life. He brotight the sittings of the Council of Trent to a close, and immortalized his name in a creed that presented the Church before the world as the mother and mistress of all HIS SECRET WORKS EXPOSED. 149 churches, and the incarnation of the ancient paganism. He died in the midst of h'is pleasures, and was followed by Pius V., who, before his election to the papacy, was inquisitor general. And now, in the chair of antichrist, he proceeds to carry out his diabolical persecutions for the extirpation of heretics. Pius V. re-established the Inquisition in Portugal, Spain, Italy, and wherever he could. Thousands perished in autos-da-fe mas- sacre which he had planned. He excommunicated Queen Elizabeth and cursed her nation. Gregory XIII. followed Pius V. He was a man of easy manners and licentious habits, wishing to advance his illegitimate son to opulence. The Jes- uits, who were in power, resisted. Led by his society, he soon became a noted persecutor. The massacre of St. Bartholo- mew was planned, and on the 24th of August executed. Sev- enty thousand French Protestants perished. And while the wails of widow and orphan went up to heaven from France, Gregory was celebrating festivities and Te Deums in Rome to commemorate the event. This antichrist, sitting in the tem- ple of God, had a metal struck with his own image on one side, and a slaughtering angel on the other. The latter part of Gregory's life was spent in turmoil and blood. Sixtus V. fol- lowed, a bold genius and a daring administrator. He punish- ed crime, persecuted heretics, and patronized the arts and sci- ences, blessed the Spanish Armada, and lived to see it destroy- ed by God and English sailors. He attempted to drain the Pontine marshes round Rome, but failed to cleanse the moral malaria and filth of the Church. He revived the age of super- stition by the revival of miracles and pilgrimages, and, to some extent, united the broken and dislocated papacy. The last three Popes of this century. Urban VII.., Gregory XIV., and Innocent IX., lived but a short time, and were unable to carry out the plans of the conclave. Century XVII. Clement VIII. ascended the papal throne in 1572. One of the most disgraceful acts of his life was his cruelty to the fam- ily of Cenci. The Pope that seized on Ferara saw the ad- vantage of seizing on the large estates of the Cenci, by the 10 I50 THB DBVIL IN THE CHURCH: extermination of the family. This is the secret of the romance of the beautiful Beatrice de Cenci. Count Francesco Cenci, in 1585, was the head of the family, a man of fine form, but of passions ungovernable, and a heart depraved, the very incarnation of evil. He looked like a sec- ond edition of Cezar Borgia, as he hesitated at no crime that stood in his way. His first wife was the Princess Santa Croce, whom he poisoned to make way to marry the beautiful Lu- crezia. Having married him she soon found him the basest of men and the greatest of tyrants. He had four sons and two daughters, the youngest of whom was Beatrice, the most beau- tiful girl in Rome at the time. The cruelties of the father to the children led the family, including the stepmother, to peti- tion the Pope for a mitigation of their sufferings. The Pope refused, but commanded them to obey their father. This led the count to treat his children with still greater cruelty. His daughter Marguerite was given by the Pope in marriage to Signor Gabreilli. Christoforo and Racco, two of his sons, were assassinated, it is supposed, at the father's instigation. Lucrezia, believing that the man whom she espoused as a hus- band had a criminal design on the beautiful Beatrice, to save the daughter she sent a petition to the Pope to give her in marriage to Guerra, a young nobleman who was deeply at- tached to Beatrice. The father detected the petition on the way, and moved his entire family to a castle fortress in the solitudes of the Apennines. Here the fiendish father increas- ed that , cruel treatment to his family uninterrupted. The beautiful Beatrice he immured and tortured in the dungeon where her shrieks of terror were heard by the family aitd ser- vants who could give no relief. Wearied with the cruelty of the father the eldest son and stepmother conceived the idea of killing him. Bernardo and Beatrice, the two youngest children, did not consent, but were aware of the plot. Olypio, an assassin, and Marzio, a soldier, were hired to do the deed. The count had some time before failed to seduce but murdered a beautiful girl, the betrothed of Marzio. The last vowed to be avenged of the count — the time had come. The count was murdered one night in his sleep by Olypio and Marzio, and HIS SBCRBT WORKS EXPOSED. 151 the family was seized as suspected accomplices. They were put to the torture by repeated applications of the wheel, the pulley and the rack of the Inquisition. Unable to stand the torture Giacomo, Bernardo, and Lucrezia confessed, but no torture could induce Beatrice to confess. The judge gave up her case to the Pope. Clement believing that the extreme beauty of the sufiferer had excited the pity of the judge, gave her into the hands of another, the cruel Luciani, who boasted that he could make her confess. A variety of tortures were applied, which only produced shrieks of the sufiferer amid the vaults of the dungeon, to be followed by swoons, out of which she was brought by cordials, only to be again tortured as the sinking sensitive nature of the sufferer could bear ; but all was of no use. The torture capillorum was applied, by which the long and beautiful tresses of her hair were twisted into a cord and attached to a rope let down from the ceiling, the whole weight of the body was relifted, and the beautiful form swung to and fro in agony; but there was no confession. In the meantime hard cords were twisted around the fingers as if to dislocate the joints. The taxilla was next applied; her feet were bared and placed on heated blocks of wood. After this scorching process was applied the girl exclaimed, "Oh, cease this martyrdom, and I will confess anything." A new plan was adopted to get the girl to confess ; it was represented that if she confessed, the whole family, with herself, would be spar- ed. The last torture was appHed in their presence, and they begged her to confess for their sake. "Be it as you wish, I am content to die if it will save you." The judge hastened to the Pope to tell him of Beatrice's confession. This was what he wanted in order to possess their estates ; he ordered the whole family to be executed. As the prisoners were moving to the place of execution they passed by the Cenci palace; the wife and children of Giacomo came down the marble steps to the prisoners. "My children ! my children !" exclaimed Giacomo. He flew to embrace them — which the guards would not allow him. "Dogs," cried the people, "give him his children." His wife fainted on the palace steps, and Giacomo took a last fare- well of his family. The young Count Guerra, Beatrice's lover, 152 THB DBVIL IN THE CHURCH: now dashed into the crowd followed by a band of soldiers, with flashing sabers, rescued Beatrice, placed her in a carriage, and was driving ofif, when overpowered, and she was taken back for execution. A pardon came for Bernardo, the boy brother, who was also doomed with the rest. He was compelled to as- cend the scaffold to witness the execution of the family. Lu- crezia laid her head upon the block and it was severed from the body. Giacomo stood up and confessed to the people that his young brother and sister were innocent. Beatrice was yet at prayer. Seeing the standard move she asked, "Is my mother dead?" She was answered in the affirmative. Then she said, "Let us go; Lord, thou hast called me, I obey the summons willingly.'^ Approaching her brother, she said, "Grieve not for me, we shall be happy in heaven." She then kissed Bernardo, ascended the steps, and laid her head on the block. All was as the silence of death, the vast concourse was in tears, the arm and ax of the executioner were uplifted, he paused as if over- awed, another moment the ax fell, and the executioner lifted the beautiful head and face to the gaze of the people ; the body quivered, the spirit had fled. Near the statue of St. Paul were placed three biers with four lighted torches for each; the bodies were strewn with flowers and watered with the tears of thousands who came to look at the beautiful face and form of Beatrice. While in prison Guido Reni painted her likeness to preserve for posterity; her golden hair, blue eyes, pensive sorrow, but almost angelic features, give the form and face a likeness not to be forgotten. Like another Ahab, Clement prepared to take possession of the vineyards and estates of the Cenci, part of which only were left with the palace, which still stands to the descendant of the Cenci. We return to the history of the Popes. Leo XL, a Medici, followed by Clement VIIL, but only lived twenty-six days after his election. Paul V. followed as a prudent, able, and efficient Pope. In his day the Jansenists arose and seemed to breathe some evangelical life into the Church in France. Under the pontificate of Gregory XV. a large part of Hungary, Bohemia, and Moravia were recovered to Rome by fire and sword. Ur- ban VIIL succeeded Gregory. Pie was a stern man, not easy HIS SnCRBT WORKS EXPOSED. 153 to be turned from his own opinions. Jealous of the emperor's encroaches on Italy, he set the French and the Protestants against him, joined the league which commenced the thirty 1 years' war in Europe, resulting in the more complete estab- lishment of Protestantism. It was under Urban that the iChurch attacked the doctrine of Galileo, and by this infallible Pope was the astronomer condemned to the Inquisition. In- nocent X. followed, adopting the custom of his predecessor. Cardinal Chigi followed as Alexander VII., a man of integrity and morality. To him succeeded Cardinal Rospigliosi as Clem- ent IX., who, although he shut out his relatives from office, enriched them with the wealth of the Church. The Rospigli- osi palace stands as a monument of the greatness of the fam- ily. At this time the wealthy houses established in Rome by successive pontiffs became the ruling aristocracy of the papal states. From henceforth the cardinals, Popes, and govern- ment of the papacy come through them chiefly ; and the wealth flowing from the Church throughout the world to the papacy finds its outlet through this channel. Clement IX. was suc- ceeded by Clement X., who lived only a few months. Bene- detto Odescalchi entered Rome as a warrior with sword and pistol in his hand, bvit was prevailed on by one of the cardinals to devote himself to the Church; he accepted the advice, and soon rose from priest to cardinal, and, on the death of Clement, was elected Pope as Innocent XI. He was one of the most peculiar Popes that ever ascended the throne. With zeal he entered all his duties, endeavoring to reform the abuses of the Church. Through his influence the persecutions of the Jan- senists ceased. It was even said that Innocent secretly aided William of Orange in his invasion of England, on account of his animosity to Louis XIV., whose vice and pride he could not bear. Alexander VIII. was the minister of Innocent, whom he fol- lowed on the papal throne, and in his opposition to Louis XIV. He was about eighty when elected, lived but a short time; yet his character was afifable, easy and kind. Innocent XII. fol- lowed Alexander in his opposition to Louis, and strenuously endeavored to reform the abuses of the papacy in Rome. He 154 ^^^ DEVIL IN THB CHURCH: died in A. D. 1700, exhibiting, on the whole, an, upright char- acter. Century XVIII. Contrary to the usual course of the last two. Popes, Clement XL sided with Louis XIV. and the Jesuits in his persecutions of the Jansenists and the political movements of the French kingdom, and shared in his humiliation and disgrace by the allied armies under Marlborough. Innocent XIII. followed Clement; his pontificate was not marked by any distinguished event. He gave place to Benedict XIII. Benedict was large- hearted and liberal, frugal and industrious. He once entertain- ed the thought of uniting all Christendom, Catholic, Greek, and Protestant, in one communion; but the spirit and times were not favorable. He died in 1730. Clement XII. reigned during the next decade. His pontificate was marked by the introduction of state lotteries and low finances. Benedict XIV., who followed, was a scholar judicious and wise in his ad- ministration, steering through the difficulties that beset it with wisdom and prudence. In his reign the Jesuits were threat- ened in Portugal, and the Jansenists arose to power. Clement XIII. was a Venetian by birth and an ascetic in rehgion. His spirit and manner belonged to the twelfth instead of the eigh- teenth century. He endeavored to restore the papacy to its former greatness, but sank it lower than he found it. Clement XIV. jwas a man of prudence, piety, and virtue. Scarcely was he seated on the throne when the governments of France, Spain, and Portugal demanded the suppression of the Jesuits by a bull of the Pope. He at last issued it, and shortly after died — supposed to have been poisoned by the Jesuits. The conclave were not satisfied with the pontificate of the last Pope, and chose Pius VI. to carry out their plans. Pius VI. was a fine-looking man, and at once set about the improvement of Rome and the ascendancy of the Church. He was pleasant, cheerful, like Leo X., fond of magnificence, art, and splendor. Sad events and humiliations awaited him. The French Revo- lution burst forth with fearful fury, and swept before it the monarchy, Church, and aristocracy. French arms invaded Italy, the Pope appealed to Austria; Austria was defeated by HIS SECRET WORKS EXPOSED. 155 French arms and the Pope was taken prisoner, and Rome was entered by the French. A Roman repubhc was estabHshed, and the Pope dethroned, was brought as a prisoner to Florence, thence to Briancon, at last to Valence, where he died, in the eighty-second year of his age. The papacy was under an eclipse, all Europe was convulsed, and the eighteenth century closed over the horrors of the French Revolution ! Century XIX. The clouds that gathered round the setting sun of the last century grew darker with the opening of the new. Pius VIL, the new Pope, was destined to greater humiliation than his predecessor. In fact, the throne of the papacy was rocking when Pius VII. ascended it. Soon after he was summoned by Napoleon to crown him in Paris as emperor. The aged Pope was forced to comply, and in the service of the coronation he was used as an appendage to the pageant instead of a sov- ereign pontiff to bestow authority. Eight years later the Pope was dragged as a prisoner to France, and Rome was made a part of the empire, in the reverses that followed Napoleon, Protestant powers restored the Pope to his throne, and he re- stored the Jesuits to the power in the Church and in Christen- dom, which prepared the way for a reaction against the papacy and the utter destruction of its sovereignty forever! The Italians wished for a more liberal government; Pius thought it too liberal already, and soon commenced his political perse- cutions which embittered the people in 1823. He died; Leo XII. succeeded as a man of fine presence and polished man- ners, but, it is said, licentious character. He commenced his administration by persecuting the Jews and confining them to the Ghetto ; he moved the machinery of the government against all liberal leaders, and set the Jesuits and Inquisition to work on poHtical offenders. The prisons of Rome were crowded, and the dungeons echoed with the groans of the sufiferers. He published bulls against Bible societies, and ruled with a despot's rod until 1829, when he died and was succeeded by Pius VIII., who was Pope less than two years, followed by Gregory XVI. in 1 83 1. Gregory followed the steps of Leo XII. in cruelty 156 THB DEVIL IN THE CHURCH: and oppression. He exceeded him in licentiousness, making his barber a noble, and the barber's wife, it is said, his mis- tress. A large party now was rising, who wished to make Italy one united kingdom with a more liberal government. The people rose in their might, and would have accomplished it, but the Pope appealed to Austria, and the emperor poured in troops to crush the revolt. Gregory followed the suppression of the revolt by casting all that were suspected into prison; confiscations and executions followed until Rome groaned un- der the pontifical government, which was now exclusively in the hands of priests. In the midst of these revolts Gregory died in 1846, and Cardinal Mastai Ferretti was elected Pope as PITJS IX. Pius IX. ascended the papal throne in 1846 with high expec- tations by the people and flattering promises of reform by him- self. He published an act of amnesty for political ofifenders, but the reforms promised he was slow to fulfil. In 1848, a revolution arose in France, which hurled Louis Philippe from his throne, and shook the thrones of Europe, All Italy was agitated; for awhile the Pope supposed there would be a con- federation of Italian states, of which he would be the pontifical sovereign. Charles Albert, the liberal king of Sardinia, raised the standard of a liberal government, thousands flocked to it, but soon the Austrian army swept down on Italy, over through the Sardinians, but could not crush the spirit of liberty. Dis- satisfied with the results, the ^ Italian people demanded of the Pope a more liberal government. He refused; his minister was assassinated. The ministry scattered, the Pope fled, and Rome was proclaimed a republic, Louis Napoleon, who was the chosen President of the French repubHc, overthrew it and changed its form to the empire, a French army invaded Italy ■ and took Rome. The republic went down and the Pope came back to ascend once more the papal throne, guarded from its own people by French bayonets. It was a foreign and a priest- ly despotism. Charles Albert died and Victor Emmanuel, his son, became king of Sardinia,, with a liberal government that contrasted with that of the Pope. The confessional became HIS SECRET WORKS EXPOSED. 157 a political engine, where priest extorted from the women the political crimes of their husbands and fathers — a spy was in every family, a man's foes were those of his own household. At midnight men were arrested in their beds and dragged be- fore the Inquisition, the dungeons of which echoed with the groans of the sufferers. The prisons were full of Rome's sons ; upon the scafifold their blood was shed. The whole city and states of the Church groaned under the oppression. Such was this sacerdotal government where priests ruled and lay- men had no voice. The Neapolitan government, with those of Parma, Lucca, and Modena, vied with that of the Pope in cruelty. Austria in Italy exceeded these. The jealousies of Francis Joseph and Louis Napoleon led to an Italian war. The battles of Magenta and Solferino broke the yoke of Austria in Italy. The Austro-Prussian war cut off the empire from the Church, and threw the Pope into the arms of the French for defense. The Jesuits were called in to aid the Pope, and soon began to shape the government on the Ultramontane plan. The Dogma of the Imftiaculate Conception was proclaimed by the Pope, who began to play with the infallibility. A bull of the Pope re-established the Catholic Hierarchy in England, contrary to the laws of the realm, and priests became active pol- iticians in Ireland, Canada, and Europe, fomenting revolt against Protestant governments and pubHc schools. Yet the power of the papacy was wanting ; Italian Catholics were restive under the pontifical and the Neapolitan governments, which became a tyranny that neither they nor their fathers were able to bear. While the Sardinian king kept faith with his people, the former governments betrayed their promises, and repud- iated their vows. All Italy was ripe for revolt. Garibaldi went down to Naples, and around him gathered all Sicily. The Bourbon king fled and Lucca, Parma, Modena, and Sicily join- ed the Sardinian king, who became king of Italy, with Cavour and Garibaldi as distinguished minister and soldier, in the government and army. The pontifical states were only left with Rome to the Pope, guarded by French soldiers. The Jesuits persuaded the Pope he was infallible. He also called a council to declare it. On the i8th of July, 1870, the dogma 158 THB DBVIL IN THB CHURCH: was proclaimed. With-it there went out the proclamation of war against Protestant Prussia by France and the Jesuits. On the 2d of September the French were defeated at Sedan, and Napoleon made prisoner. French troops left Rome never to return, and the troops of Victor Emmanuel marched in to take last possession. All Rome and Italy proclaimed Victor Em- manuel as king of Rome atid Italy, and the European govern- ments acknowledged the fact and recognized the king. In one day went down forever the oldest and most despotic government in the world and Pius IX., the first of infallible Popes, became the last of sovereign pontiffs! The year of 1878 opened with remarkable events. The fall of Turkey was scarcely announced, when Victor Emmanuel after a few days' sickness died in Rome on the 9th of January. All Italy mourn- ed at his tomb ; he was buried in the Pantheon. On his death- bed the Pope sent him his benediction. His son Humbert was proclaimed king^ and announced that he would follow his fa?- ther's policy. On the 7th of February the Pope breathed his last, in the eighty-sixth year of his age and thirty-third year of his pontificate. He was a man of pure morals, noble im- pulses, and kind heart, nothwithstanding his foolish pride in in- fallibility. He had fallen on evil times into the hands of the Jesuits, and was severely tried by the political calamities that fell upon his throne and kingdom. LEO XIII. A short time before the late Pope's death Cardinal Pecci was appointed Camerlengo, which office controls the papacy between the death of one Pope and the election of the other. On the 20th of February he was elected Pope as Leo XIII., and crowned in the Sistine Chapel on the morning of March 3d. The services were rather private, as some disturbance was threatened by the populace, and the dislike of the Ultra- montanes. Some of the Pope's Swiss guards have since re- volted, and many of them have been dismissed. Cardinal Go- achim Pecci was born of a noble family, on the 2d of March, 1810, at Carpeneto, Italy, and early gave promise of high qual- ifications for the ministry of the Church. He was sent as a Pope Leo XIII. i6o THE DBVIL IN THE CHURCH: delegate by Gregory XVI. to put down brigandage in Spoleto and Perugia. Having accomplished this mission, he was made Archbishop of Perugia, and sent as nuncio to the king of the Belgians, where he became a great favorite. On returning to Rome it was expected he would have been made cardinal, but Antonelli, his rival, stood in his way. Although he received the honor some years later, yet he was kept away from the councils of the Vatican, until his rival died, when he was made Camerlengo, which paved the way for his election. The name of Leo which he had chosen indicates his policy is more of the lion than the lamb, although it is said he is a man of sincere piety and liberal views, and opposed to the Ultramontanes, and wishes to bring his government more in harmony with the Italian and European governments. It is said that in all his addresses he has as yet made no reference to his predecessor, and does not believe in mariolatry as Pius IX. did. IV. HORRORS OF THE INQUISITION THE INQXIISITOKS AND THEIR PRACTICES. In the time of King Ferdinand the Fifth, and Queen Isa- bella, the mixture of Jews, Moors, and Christians was so great, the relapses of the new converts so frequent, and the corrup- tions in matters of religion so barefaced in all sorts and con- ditions of people, that the cardinal of Spain thought the in- troduction of the inquisition could be the only way of stopping the course of wickedness and vice; so as the sole remedy to cure the irrehgious practices of those times, the inquisition was estabHshed in the year 147 1, in the court, and many other dominions of Spain. The cardinal's design in giving birth to this tribunal, was only to suppress heresies, and chastise many horrible crimes committed against religion, viz. : Blasphemy, sodomy, polyg- amy, sorcery, sacrilege, and many others, which are also pun- ished in these kingdoms by the prerogative court, but not by making use of so barbarous means as the inquisition does. The design of the cardinal was not blamable, being in itself good, and approved by all the serious and devout people of that time, but the performance of it was not so, as will appear by and by. The inquisitors have a despotic power to command every living soul; and no excuse is to be given, nor contradiction to be m'ade, to their orders; nay, the people have not liberty to speak nor complain in their misfortunes, and therefore there is a proverb which says "Con la inquisition chiton" — "Do not meddle with the inquisition;" or, "as to the inquisition say nothing." This will be better understood by the following ac- count of the method they make use of for the taking up and arresting the people, which is thus : i62 THB DEVIL IN THE CHURCH: When the inquisitors receive information against anybody, which is always in private, and with such secrecy that none can know who the informer is (for all the informations are given in the night), they send their officers to the house of the accused, most commonly at midnight, and in a coach, — they knock at the door (and then all the family are in bed) and when somebody asks from the window who is there, the officers say the holy inquisition. At this word, he that answered, with- out any delay, or noise, or even the liberty of giving timely no- tice to the master of the house, comes down to open the door. I say, without liberty of giving timely notice, for when the in- quisitors send the officers they are sure, by the spies, that the person is within, and if they do not find the accused, they take up the whole family, and carry them to the inquisition ; so the answerer is with good reason afraid of making any delay in opening the street door. Then they go upstairs and arrest the accused without telling a word, or hearing a word from any of the family; and with great silence putting him into the coach, they drive to the holy prison. If the neighbors by chance hear the noise of the coach, they dare not go to the window, for it is well known that no other coach but that of the inquisition is abroad at that time of the night; nay, they are so much afraid, that they dare not even ask the next morning their neighbors anything about it, for those that talk of anything that the inquisition does, are liable to undergo the same punishment, and this may be the night following. So if the accused be the daughter, son, or father, &c., and some friends or relations go in the morning to see the family, and ask the occasion of their tears and grief, they answer that their daughter was stolen away the night be- fore, or the son, or the father or mother (whoever the prisoner be), did not come home the night before, and that they sus- pect he was murdered, &c. This answer they give, because they cannot tell the truth without exposing themselves to the same misfortune ; and not only this, but they cannot go to the inquisition to inquire for the prisoner, for they would be con- fined for that alone. So all the comfort the family can have in such a case, is to imagine that the prisoner is in China, or HIS SECRET WORKS EXPOSED. 163 in the remotest part of the world, or in hell. This is the rea- son why nobody knows the persons that are in the inquisition till the sentence is pubhshed and executed, except those priests and friars summoned to hear the trial. If the trial is to be made publicly, in the hall of the holy of- fice, the inquisitors summon two priests out of every parish church, and two regular priests out of every convent, all the qualificators and familiares that are in the city ; the sherifif, and all the under officers ; the secretary, and three inquisitors. All the aforesaid meet at the common hall on the day appointed for the trial at ten in the morning. The hall is hung in black, without any windows, or light, but what comes through the door. At the front there is an image of our Saviour on the cross, under a black velvet canopy, and six candlesticks with six thick yellow wax candles on the altar's table. On one side there is a pulpit, with another candle, where the secretary reads the crimes; three chairs for the three inquisitors, and round about the hall, seats and chairs for the summoned priests, friars, familiares, and other officers. When the inquisitors are come in, an under officer crieth out. Silence, silence, silence, the holy fathers are coming; — - and from that very time till all is over, nobody speaks nor spits ; and the thought of the place puts everybody under respect, fear, and attention. The holy fathers, with their hats on their heads, and serious countenances go, and kneeling down before the altar, the first inquisitor begins to give out, Veni Creator Spiritus, Mentus tuorum visita, &c. And the congregation sing the rest, and the collect being said by him also, everybody sits down. The secretary then goes up to the pulpit, and the holy father rings a small silver bell, which is the signal for bringing in the criminal. What is done afterwards will be known by the following trial and instances, at which I was present, being one of the youngest priests of the cathedral, and therefore obliged to go to those dismal tragedies, in which, the first thing; after the criminal comes in and kneels down before the inquisitors, he receives a severe, bitter correc- tion from the inquisitor, who measures it according to the na- 1 64 THE DBVIL IN THE CHURCH: ture of the crimes committed by the criminal; of all which, to the best of my memory, I will give an account in the first trial. THE TBIAX OF A FRIAR OF ST. JEROME, ORGANIST OF THE CONVENT IN SARAGOSSA. All the summoned persons being together in the hall, the prisoner and a young boy were brought out; and after the first inquisitor had finished his bitter correction, the secretary read the examinations and sentence, as follows : Whereas, information were made, and by evidences proved, that Fr. Joseph Peralta has committed the crime of sodomy, with the present John Romeo, his disciple, which the said Ro- meo himself, owned upon interrogatories of the holy inquisi- tors; they having an unfeigned regard for the order of St. Jerome, do declare and condemn the said Fr. Joseph Peralta to a two years' confinement in his own convent, but that he may assist at the divine service, and celebrate mass. Item, for an example to other like sinners, the holy fathers declare that the said John is to be whipped through the public streets of the town, and receive at every corner, as it is a custom, five lashes; and, that he shall wear a coroza, i. e., a sort of a mitre on his head, feathered all over, as a mark of his crime. Which sentence is to be executed on Friday next, without any appeal. After the secretary had done, Don Pedro Guerrero did ask Fr. Joseph whether he had anything to say against the sen- tence or not? And he answering no, the prisoners were car- ried back to their prisons, and the company were dismissed. Observe the equity of the inquisitors in this case : The boy was but fourteen years of age, under the power of Fr. Joseph, and he was charged with the penalty and punishment Fr. Joseph did deserve. The poor boy was whipped according to the sentence and died the next day. SENTENCE GIVEN AGAINST LAWRENCE CASTRO, GOLDSMITH OF SARAGOSSA. Lawrence Castro was the most famous and wealthy gold- smith in the city, and as he went one day to carry a piece of plate to Don Pedro Guerrero, before he paid him, he bade him go and see the house with one of his domestic servants, which II i66 THE DEVIL IN THE CHURCH: he did, and seeing nothing but doors of iron, and hearing noth- ing but lamentations of the people within ; having returned to the inquisitor's apartment, Don Pedro asked him, "Lawrence, how do you like, this place ?" To which Lawrence said, "I do not like it at all, for it seems to me the very hell upon earth." This innocent, but true answer, was the only occasion of his misfortune ; for he was immediately sent into one of the hellish prisons, and at the same time many ofificers went to his house to seize upon everything, and that day he appeared at the bar, ,and his sentence was read. He was condemned to be whipped through the streets, to be marked on his shoulders with a burning iron, and to be sent forever to the galleys; but the good, honest, unfortunate man died that very day ; all his crime being only to say, that the holy office did seem to him hell on earth. At the same time a lady of good fortune was whipped be- cause she said in company "I do not know whether the Pope is a man or woman, and I hear wonderful things of him every day, and I imagine he must be an animal very rare." For these words she lost honor, fortune and life, for she died six days after the execution of her sentence; and thus the holy fathers punish trifling things, and leave unpunished horrible crimes. THE INQUISITION A PTJUGATOBY ON EARTH. The Roman Catholics believe there is a purgatory, and that the souls suffer more pains in it than in hell. But I think the inquisition is the only purgatory on earth, and the holy fa- thers are the judges and executioners in it. The reader may form a dreadful idea of the barbarity of that tribunal, by what I have already said, but I am sure it will never come up to what it is in reality, for it passeth all understanding, not as the peace of God, but as the war of the devil. HIGH JEWS MADE GOOD VICTIMS. Let us except from this rule the rich Jews, for the poor are in no fear of being confined there ; they are the rich alone that suffer in that place, not for the crime of Judaism (though this HIS SECRET WORKS EXPOSED. 167 is the color of the pretense), but the crime of having riches. Francisco Alfaro, a Jew, and a very rich one, was kept in the inquisition of Seville four years, and after he had lost alLhe had in the world, was discharged out of it with a small correction; this was to encourage him to trade again and get more riches, which he did in four years' time. Then he was put again in the holy office, with the loss of his goods and money. And after three years imprisonment he was discharged, and ordered to wear for six months the mark of San-Benito,, i. e., a iMCture of a man in the middle of the fire of hell, which he was to wear before his breast publicly. But Alfaro a few days later left the city of Seville, and seeing a pig without the gate, he hung thb San-Benito on the pig's neck, and made his escape. I saw this Jew in Lisbon, and he told me the story himself, adding, "Now I am a poor Jew, I tell everybody so, and though the in- quisition is more severe here than in Spain, nobody takes no- tice of me. I am sure they would confine me forever, if I had as much riches as I had in SevilFe." Really, the holy office is more cruel and inhuman in Portugal than in Spain, for I never saw any publicly burnt in my own country, and I saw in Lis- bon seven at once, four young women and three men; two young women were burnt alive and an old man, and the others were strangled first. THE BTJBNING OF JOHN HT7SS. John Huss, of Bohemia, was born in 1373. While a young man he was greatly influenced by reading the writings of John Wickliiife, who had translated the Bible into the English lan- guage, and in his writings had solemnly denounced the prof- ligacy and wickedness of the Romish priests. , After Huss had been ordained a priest of Rome he dared to study the Holy Scriptures, and was so evangehcal in his preaching and so faithful in rebuking the worldliness and time- serving and wickedness of the priests and bishops that he in- curred their enmity, and they stirred' up a bitter persecution against him. This noble and persecuted man felt the best for him to retire for awhile to his native village, and while there he wrote a letter to his flock, from which we quote the follow- i68 THE DEVIL IN THB' CHURCH: ing words, which show the noble and true character of the man : "Learn beloved," says he, "that if I withdraw from the midst of you, it is to follow the precept and example of Jesus Christ, in order not to give room to the ill-minded to draw on themselves eternal condemnation, and in order not to be to the pious a cause of affliction and persecution. I have retired also through an apprehension that impious priests might con- tinue for a longer time to prohibit the preaching of the word of God among you; but I have not quitted you to deny the Divine truth, for which, with God's assistance, I am willing to die." In another letter in alluding to the example of Christ, he says : "He came to the aid of us miserable sinners, support- ing hunger, thirst, cold, heat, watching and fatigue. When giving us his Divine instructions he suffered weighty sorrows, and grave insults from the priests and scribes, to such a point that they called him a blasphemer, and declared that he had a devil; asserting that he whom they had excommunicated as a heretic, and whom they had driven from their city and cruci- fied as an accursed one, could not be God. If, then, Christ had to support such things— he who cured all kinds of diseases by his mere word, without any recompense on earth — who drove out devils, raised the dead, and taught God's holy word — who did no harm to any one, who committed no sin, and who suffered every indignity from the priests, simply because he laid open their wickedness, ,why should we be astonished at the present day that the ministers of anti-christ, who are far more covetous, far more debauched, more cruel, and more cunning than the Pharisees, should persecute the servants of God, overwhelm them with indignity, curse, excommunicate, imprison, and kill them?" It would be interesting to narrate the particulars of the great contest of John Huss with the er- rors of the Romish Church, and even with the Pope himself, whom he denounced as an antichrist, but, however, reluctantly, we must pass over these and simply recite as briefly as possible the steps that Jed this noble man of God to the stake, to burn for Jesus, and the truth. When the Council of Constance as- sembled, in 1414, John Huss was summoned before it. Huss received what was called a safe conduct from the Emperor HIS SHCRET WORKS BXPOSBD. 169 Sigismund. This document pledged the honor of the Em- peror for his safe return. But as "no faith is to be kept with heretics," this document was violated by the advice of the bishops and cardinals, at the Council, covering with disgrace all concerned in this infamous transaction. In one of his last letters to his friends Huss writes : "I am departing, my breth- ren, with a safe conduct from the King to meet my numerous, and mortal enemies. * * * j confide altogether in my all powerful God. I trust that he will listen to your ardent pray- ers ; that He infuse his prudence and his wisdom into my mind, so that I may resist them ; and that he will accord me his Holy Spirit to fortify me in his truth so that I may face, with cour- age, temptations, prison, and, if necessary, a cruel death." In shameful violation of a safe conduct of the emperor, on the arrival of Huss he was placed under arrest by order of the Pope and cardinals, and committed to a loathsome prison. When tidings of this reached Prague, the city became greatly excited. A number of protests were at once signed. Several barons and powerful noblemen wrote pressing letters to the emperor reminding him of the safe conduct which Huss had received from Sigismund himself. They said to the emperor, "John Huss departed with full confidence in the guarantee given him in your majesty's letter. Nevertheless, we under- stand he has been seized on, and cast into prison, without hav- ing been convicted or heard. Everyone here, barons or princes, rich or poor, has been astonished to hear of this event. Each man here has asked his neighbor how the Holy Father could so shamefully have violated the sanctity of the law, the plain rules of justice, and finally, your majesty's safe conduct; how, in fact, he could have thrown into prison, without a cause, a just and innocent man." In violation of every principle of right, and truth, and hon- or, and decency, this godly man, and brave and noble re- former was sentenced to be burned at the stake. When sen- tence had been passed upon him, Huss fell on his knees, and said, "Lord Jesus, pardon my enemies ! Thou knowest they have falsely accused me, and that they have had recourse to false testimony and vile calumnies against me; pardon them 170 THE DBVIL IN THB CHURCH: from thine infinite mercy!" Having stripped him, with every mark of insult, of his priestly robes, they placed on his head a sort of a crown, or mitre, on which were painted frightful fig- ures of demons, with the inscription "The Arch-Heretic," and when he was thus arrayed the prelates devoted his soul to the devil. John Huss, however, recommended his soul to God, and said aloud, "I wear with joy this crown of opprobrium, for the love of Him who wore a crown of thorns." Having obtained permission to say a few words to his keep- ers, he thanked them for all the kindness they had shown him. "My brethren," said he, "learn that I firmly believe in my Sa- viour. It is in his name that I sufifer, and this very day I shall go and reign with him." The executioners then bound his body with thongs, with which he was firmly tied to the stake driven deep in the ground. His head was held close to the stake by a chain smeared with soot. Before the fire was kin- dled, the Elector Palatine, accompanied by Count d'Oppen- heim, marshall of the empire, came up to him and again urged him to recant. But he, lifting his eyes to heaven, said with a loud voice, — "I call Qod to witness that I have never either taught or written what these false witnessed have laid to my charge ; my sermons, my books, my writings have all been done with the sole view of rescuing souls from the tyranny of sin, and therefore, most joyfully will I confirm with my blood the truth which I have taught, written and preached ; which is con- firmed by the divine laws and the holy fathers." The Elector and Marshall then withdrew, and a fire was set to the pile. "Jesus, Son of the living God, have mercy on me," cried this noble martyr. He prayed, and sung a hymn in the midst of the fire, but soon after, the wind having risen, his voice was drowned by the roaring of the flames. His head and lips were seen moving some time longer as if still in prayer, and then his blood-washed spirit went up to be welcomed by the redeemed in heaven. "His Habits were burned with him," says the his- torian, "and the executioners tore in pieces the remains of his body and then threw them back into the funeral pile, until the fire had absolutely consumed everything; the ashes were then collected together and thrown into the Rhine, and as it was o 1-5 bo a 'a P5 172 THB DEVIL IN THE CHURCH: said of Wickliffe, so may it be said of the holy martyr of Bo- hemia, that the dispersion of his ashes in the river and in the ocean, is an emblem of the subsequent dissemination of these truths, for the sake of which he braved a martyr's sufferings and wore a martyr's crown." ANOTHEK METHOD OP TORTURE. Limberch gives an account of Isaac Orobio de Castro, who had been denounced as a Jew to the inquisition at Madrid. The inquisitor had him put into a linen garment, and almost squeez- ed him to death. When near dying from the pressure, he was suddenly released which caused as much anguish as the press- ure. He then had small cords tied around his thumbs, and so swelled the extremities as to cause the blood to spurt from his nails. As he still refused to confess the crime of which he was accused, he was put on a bench against the wall, in which were fastened iron pulleys with ropes. The ropes were fasten- ed to his arms, legs, and around his body, and then drawn to cause exquisite pain. The bench was then knocked from under him to cause the weight of the body to draw the knots closer and increase the agony. He was then tortured on his shins, by instruments made of two upright pieces of wood, and five cross-bars sharpened somewhat like a ladder. The ex- ecutioner, by' a particular motion, struck his shins with these instruments five blows each way. He fainted, but recovering, the executioner tied two ropes around Orobio's wrists, and put ropes over his back, and then placed his feet against the wall and fell backwards, so that the ropes penetrated the prisoner's bones. This was done three times. After the second the phy- sician was consulted as to whether the victim could bear an- other; he decided that he could, and it was again inflicted. He was sent to his cell, and his wounds were not healed for sev- enty days. He did not confess under the torture, and was condemned to wear the San-Benito for two years and then to perpetual banishment. He died before his penance expired, in Amsterdam, in 1707. HIS SECRET WORKS EXPOSED. 173 CTJT TO DEATH BY THE "PENDTTLUBI." Llorente states that when the inquisition was opened in Spain, in 1820, twenty, prisoners were found who did not know the name of the city in which they were; not one knew per- fectly the nature of the crime of which he was accused. One of these prisoners had been doomed to sufifer death the fol- lowing day. His execution was to have been by the "pendu- lum." The condemned, by this process, is fastened on his back, in a groove, to a table; suspended above him is a pen- dulum* with a sharp edge, and so constructed as to become sharper every itioment. The victim saw this coming nearer every moment ; at length it cut the skin of his nose and grad- ually cut on, until life was extinct. This was the invention of the inquisitors to dispose of their victims at a time when they were afraid to celebrate their auto de fe. This mode of put- ting to death may be used wherever the Romish Church has dungeons. Who will say this or similar modes of torture have not been practiced in the subterranean vaults of the Roman Catholic churches in the United States to-day? THE POWER OE THE INQUISITORS. From the Directory for the Inquisitors. Part III. Question 32. "An inquisitor may force the governors of cities to swear that they will defend the Church against her- etics." — Page 560. Question 43. "Inquisitors may proceed against the dead, who before or after their death were reported to them as guilty of heretical depravity." — Page 570. Question 56. "Inquisitors may proceed to execute theif of- fice with an armed force." — Page 583. Question 57. "Inquisitors, to seize heretics or their fa- vourers, may demand the aid of the civil authority." — Page 585. Question 62. "Inquisitors may coerce witnesses to swear that they will testify to the truth, and should frequently ex- amine them."^ — ^Page 600. Question 65. "Inquisitors may lawfully admit perjured per- 174 ^^^ DBVIl IN THE CHURCH: sons to testify and act in cases concerning the faith." — Page 605. Question 66. "Inquisitors may lawfully receive infamous persons, and criminals, or servants against their masters, both to act and give evidence in causes respecting the faith." — Page 606. Question 68. "An inquisitor must not admit a heretic to tes- tify in a cause of faith against or for a believer."^ — Page 611. Question 69. "Inquisitors may allow heretics to witness against heretics, but not for them." — Page 612. Question y;}. "Inquisitors may torture witnesses to obtain the truth, and punish them if they have given false evidence." — Page 622. Question 74. "Inquisitors may cite and coerce the attend- ance of witnesses, and also persons charged with heretical de- pravity in different dioceses." — Page 626. Question 93. "Penitent heretics may be condemned to per- petual imprisonment." — Page 641. Question 108. "Inquisit^ars may provide for their own ex- penditures, and the salaries of their officers, from the prop- erty of heretics." — Page 652. Question no. "Prelates or inquisitors may confiscate the property of impenitent heretics, or of persons relapsed." — Page 662. DEAD BODIES OF MURDERED PROTESTANTS ONLY HAXE BTTRIED. The Roman Catholics, with the Pope, say and firmly be- lieve that no man can be saved out of their communion; and so they reckon as enemies of their faith all those that are of a different opinion ; and we may be sure that the Protestants or heretics (as they call them) are their irreconcilable enemies. They pray publicly for the extirpation of the heretics, Turks, and infidels in the mass; and they do really believe they are bound in conscience to make use of all sorts of means, let them be ever so base, inhuman, and barbarous, for the mur- dering of them. This is the doctrine of the Church of Rome, which the priests and confessors do take care to sow in the Dead Bodies of Murdered Protestants Only Half Buried. 1 76 THB DBVIL IN THB CHURCH: Roman Catholics ; and by their advice, the hatred, malice, and aversion is raised to a great height against the heretics, as you shall know by the following instances. First, in the last war between Charles the Third and Philip the Fifth, the Protestants confederate with Charles did suffer very much by the country people. Those encouraged by the priests and confessors of Philip's part, thinking that if any Christian could kill a heretic, he should do God service, did murder in private many soldiers, both English and Dutch. I saw, and I do speak now before God and the world, in a town called Ficentes de Ebro, several arms and legs out of the ground in the field, and inquiring the reason why those corpses were buried in the field (a thing indeed not unusual there), I was answered, that those were the corpses of some English heretics, murdered by the patrons or landlords, who had killed them to show their zeal for their religion, and an old maxim among them : De los Enemigos los menos : let us have as few enemies as we can. Fourteen English private men were the night before in their beds, and buried in the field, and I myself reckoned all of them ; and I suppose many others were murdered whom I did not see, though I heard of it. The murderers make no scruple of it, but, out of bravery and zeal for their religion, tell it to the father confessor, not as a sin, but as a famous action done by them in favor of their faith. So great is the hatred and aversion the Catholics have against the Protestants and all enemies of their religion. We could confirm the truth of this proposition with the cruelty of the late king of France against the poor Huguenots, whom we now call refugees. This is well known to everybody, there- fore I leave Lewis and his counsellors where they are in the other world, where it is to be feared they endure more torments than the banished refugees in this present one. So, to con- clude what I have to say upon the head or title of this bull, I may positively affirm that the Pope's design in granting it is, first, out of interest; secondly, to encourage the common peo- ple to make war, and to root up all the people that are not of his communion, or to increase, this way, if he can, his revenues, or the treasure of the Church. HIS SECRET WORKS EXPOSED. "THE SMELL OE A ROTTEN PROTESTANT IS GOOD." 177 History tells of the murder of thirty thousand Protestants by the order of Catherine de Medicis of France, who pretended to grant the Huguenots an advantageous peace, and, to ce- ment it, proposed a marriage of her daughter to Henry, the young king of Navarre, a Protestant. The heads of the Pro- testants were all invited to the palace to attend the wedding on St. Bartholomew's Day ; and in the midst of the festivities the great bell of the palace struck, the concerted signal for the butchery of all Protestant guests. No warnings were given, no opportunities to escape were ofifered; but Admiral Coligni, the guest of Charles IX., the king, was killed in the palace, his head was severed from his body, every indignity was heaped upon the body, and at last, while hanging feet upward until the bloated carcass, festering and rottening, filled with the pois- onous effluvia, Charles IX. and his mother rode beneath it, and exclaimed, "The smell of a rotten Protestant is good." No parallel in history ! THE NUMBER OE VICTIMS OE THE INQUISITION. The Inquisition lasted from the 13th to the 19th century; indeed, it still exists where Rome has the power ! Lorente, one of tne last saretims of the Inquisition, gives a list of those who in Spain suffered death and other punishments from 1452 to 181 1. He tells us that 31,788 were burned, 174,111 died in prison, and 287,522 suffered other punishments. In 1209 Pope Innocent III. proclaimed a crusade against the Albigenses, which lasted for eighteen years. The terrible war of the Huss- ites lasted for over fifteen years ; the persecutions of the Hu- guenots from 1472 to 1598. JohnHuss was burned in ^Con- stance in 1415. Jerome of Prague met the same fate in 1616, and Savanarola was burned in 1598. Michael Servetus was burned in Geneva at the instigation of John Calvin, because he denied the doctrine of the Trinity. At the massacre of St. Bartholomew, in 1572, about 30,000 Protestants were killed in Paris alone, and more than 100,000 in France. 178 THE DEVIL IN THE CHURCH: HOW DELICATE WOMEN HAVE BECOME DARHiTG PEBSECU- TOBS. If the United States should be so unfortunate as to fall un- der the control of Rome, the Inquisition would be introduced in this country, as it has been in every popish country on earth. Free America, just yet, is not ready for such a tribunal. The tortures which the Roman Inquisitors and Priests de- vised, to inflict their malignant rage upon the Christians whom they sacrificed to satisfy their Lord God the Pope, to disclose the diabolical character of Romanism, such as that it would be in the United States of America, if the Roman Priesthood swayed. The poisonous spirit and principles of Popery stifle all nat- ural tenderness, and spoil the most amiable dispositions; for gentle and delicate women, "timorous things who start at feathers and fly from insects," when animated by the demon ,of Popery, have become daring persecutors, exulting in carnage, and surveying with delight streams of Christian blood and piles of naked mangled bodies, or inhaling with greediness the smoke of the Auto da Fa, and the effluvia of a roasting Her- etic; thus demonstrating, that they who are intoxicated with the golden cup of Rome's iilthiness and abominations, and be- witched by the sorceries of her enchanted wine, having iml^bed a vindictive and treacherous spirit, not less sanguinary than the scarlet and purple tincture, in which is arrayed the "MYS- TERY; BABYLON THE GREAT; MOTHER OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH!" THE TEBEIBLE WORK OP THE INQUISITION. It is well known that for centuries the "Holy" and "In- falHble" Pope of Rome, though sweet and humble servants of the meek and lowly Jesus, delighted in persecuting and tortur- ing and murdering the noblest and holiest on earth, because, glorying in the liberty of Christ's pure Gospel they refuse to have their consciences and their souls bound by the fetters of Popish superstitions and falsehoods. The Little Horn was to be a persecuting power, and this has always been the charac- Eoman Catholic Barbarity During the Times of the Inquisition. i8o THE DBVIL IN THE CHURCH: teristic of the Church of Rome, and this brands her unmistake- ably as the anti-Christ. If anything could have "worn out the saints of the Most High," and banished evangehcal rehgion from the face of the earth, it would have been the persecutions of the Papal power. In the year' of 1208, a crusade was pro- claimed by Pope Innocent — very innocent ! — against the Waldenses and Albigenses, in which a million people perished. "From the beginning of the Order of the Jesuits in 1540 to 1580, nine hundred thousand were destroyed. One hundred and fifty thousand were destroyed by the Inquisition in thirty years. In the low countries fifty thousand persons were hanged, burned, beheaded, drowned, and buried alive for the crime of heresy, within the space of thirty-eight years from the edict of Charles V. to the peace of Cambreres in 1557. V. SHAM MIRACLES, IMAGE WOR SHIPPERS, AND OTHER ROMAN CATHOLIC FALLACIES. KOMAN CATHOLOCISM IS NO RELIGION. The theory that Romanism is a Religion is to be fought. It is quite common to concede to Roman CathoHcs the same right to their religion as it concedes to Episcopalians, Metho- dists, Baptists and others, so long as it is in harmony with the spirit of the constitution, but when it is found planning the destruction of the nation, then the right to fight it to the bitter end is claimed. This is as far as politicians perhaps can go. Here is where the Pauline Propaganda begins. It is felt to be a duty to oppose the Roman Catholic religion because of what it is and does. It is a system that destroys millions of souls. They are as much lost in Rome as if they made no pretension to religion. To them, in some way or other, the truth is to be proclaimed, believing that if they come .to know the truth, the truth shall make them free. Says Dr. Joseph Parker, of Lon- don, "a man has a perfect right to be a Roman Catholic;" to this the Pauline Propaganda dissents. A man has no right to lie against God, or believe a lie, or even to be damned. Be- cause he has no right, he is condemned in sin and the wrath ot God abides on him. \ SHAICErUL USE OF RELICS. Fleury, the celebrated Romish historian, in his Ecclesiastical History, relates that on one occasion, in the year 386, St. Am- brose being about to consecrate a church at Milan, was pre- i82 THB DUVIL IN THE CHURCH: vented by the fact that he had no relics of martyrs to deposit in the altars, when "immediately his heart burned within him," as he declared, "in presage of what was to happen." The his- torian proceeds to tell us that God revealed to him in a dream, the place where the bodies of St. Gervasius and St. Protasius were to be found. "Having discovered their sepulchres, two skeletons were discovered,' of more than ordinary size, all their bones entire, a quantity of blood about, and their heads separated from their bodies. They arrayed the bodies, putting every bone in its proper place and covered them with cloths and laid them on litters. In this manner thev were carried, towards evening, to the Basilica of St. Fausta, where vigils were celebrated all night. That day and the next, there was a great concourse of people, and then the old man recollected that "they had formerly heard the names of these martyrs, and had read the inscriptions on their tombs." This is the first mention we can find of these "lying wonders" of the Romish Church in the line" of relics, which at length became so numer- ous, and so profitable to "the holy church, out of which there is no salvation." In 1848, a gentleman, who signed himself "Kirwan," and generally understood to be a Presbyterian clergyman, who had once been a Roman Catholic, wrote a series of "Letters to Archbishop Hughes of New York," in which he gave his rea- sons for not returning to the Romish Church, in which he says : "The arms, legs, fingers and toes of saints are greatly mul- tiplied. There are eight arms of St. Matthew, three of St. John, and almost any number of St. Thomas a-Becket. There are in the church of Lateran, the ark made by Moses in the wilderness, the rod of Moses, and the table on which the last supper was instituted by our Lord. The table entire is at Rome; but there are many pieces of it in other places. On the altar of the Lateran are the heads of Peter and Paul entire ; but there are pieces of them in Bilboa greatly honored by the monks. St. Peter's church is blessed by the cross of the peni- tent thief ; with the lantern of Judas ; with the dice used in cast- ing lots by the soldiers for the garments of our Saviour; with the tail of Balaam's ass; and with the axe, saw, and hammer, HIS SBCRBT WORKS EXPOSED. 183 of St. Joseph. Different churches are enriched with pieces of the wood of the cross; were the pieces all brought together they would make a hundred crosses. In one church is some of the manna of the wilderness ; in another some blossoms from Aaron's rod ; in another an arm of St. Simon ; in another a pic- ture of the Virgin painted by Luke; in another one of her combs ; in another the combs of the apostles, but httle used ; in another a part of the body of St. Lazarus, that smells ; in an- other part of the Gospel of Mark, in his own handwriting; in another the finger of St. Ann, the Virgin's sister; in another St. Patrick's stick, with which he drove the venomous reptiles from Ireland; in another some of St. Joseph's breath caught by an angel in a vial ; in another a piece of the rope with which Judas hung himself; in another some of the Virgin's hair; in another some of her milk. And the monks once showed among their reHcs the spear and shield with which Michael encounter- ed the dragon of Revelation ; and some relic-monger had a feather from the wing of the Holy Spirit when taking the form of a dove he abode upon Christ at his baptism ! "I will not, I cannot, here dwell on the awful abuses of your doctrine- of relics; on the robbery of all kinds of graves in Pal- estine, and the hawking of pilfered bones all over Europe; on the selling of old wood, sufficient to warm a small town through the winter as pieces of the cross; on the selling of hands and feet of particular saints, until the proof is positive that some of them had as many hands as Briareus, and as many feet of the cradling worm we call the centipede. I turn from the abuses to the doctrine. "Now, sir, where is the origin of your doctrine of relics? Can you find a trace of it in the New Testament? Will you, for a moment, compare the sham miracles wrought at the tombs of some of your saints, with that wrought by the bones of a prophet of Israel? 'WiU you dare to say that the curing of a sore throat by a dead man's hand is to be placed in the same ground with miraculous cures of the apostles ? I venerate the names, I would even decorate the tombs, of the good, but what virtue is there in a bone from the body of Peter or Paul? or in a slip of wood from the cross, or in a strand of rope with which 1 84 THB DBVIL IN THE CHURCH: Judas hung himself, or in some hairs from the tail of the beast which Balaam whipped? "If relics ever performed miracles why don't they perform some now? Is the virtue of all your old bones exhausted? Where is the holy coat of Treves? Where are now the pil- grims to the bones of Becket? Where is your shop in New York for the sale of old teeth, and holy fingers, and holy bones, taken from the graves of the saints? Sir, the whole matter is one of the vilest impositions ever practiced upon the credulity of man. I do not charge you with believing a word of it, I could almost as soon believe in the virtue of the paring of toe nails of some of your saints as admit that a man of your high sense could believe in these things." This letter of Kirwan to the Archbishop will give us some idea to the extent to which the papacy carries this fraudulent and infamous business, by which they knowingly and wilfully rob the people. Writers who have made the subject of Romish relics a matter of special study, give us much interesting infor- mation in regard thereto. They tell us that the body of the Apostle Bartholomew is declared in the Roman Brieviary and Martyrology to have been translated from Benevento to Rome by the Emperor Otto III., and is alleged to be entire. It is attested by bulls of Alexander III. and Sixtus V. But the Church of Benevento alleges that the entire body of Bartholo- mew is there still, and produces bulls to that effect from Leo IX., Stephen IX., Benedict XII., and Urban V. (all infallible, you know), the earliest of which popes reigned fifty years after the death of Otto III. Here then are two entire bodies of this one Apostle but Monte Casino claims the possession of a large part of the body, and so does Reims. But besides these, there are three heads of this same Apostle ; one at Naples ; one for- merly at Reichman, and a third at Toulouse; two 'crowns of the head at Frankfort and Prague; part of a skull at Maes- tricht ; a jaw at Steinfield ; part of a jaw at Prague ; two jaws at Cologne, and a lower jaw at Murbach; an arm and a hand at Gersiac; a second arm with the flesh at Bethune; a third arm at Amalfi ; a large part of a fourth arm at Foppens ; a fifth arm, and part of a sixth at Cologne ; a seventh arm at Andechs ; an HIS SBCRET WORKS EXPOSBD. 185 eighth arm at Ebers ; three large leg or arm bones at Prague ; part of an arm at Brussels, and other large portions of the body, not reckoning trifles like skin, teeth, and hair, in twenty- other places. Three dififerent places claim to possess the head of John the Baptist. A gentleman, making a tour of Italy, declares that while examining the relics in an Italian city, he was shown the head of John the Baptist. He said to the monk who was ex- hibiting them, "How is this ; I was shown the head of John the Baptist two days ago in another city." "O," said the monk, "that is all right; the head you saw there is the head of John when he was a young man ; but this is his head that was cut ofif by King Herod." It is only in recent years that so strange an exhibition as the translation and procession of such relics has been made a public spectacle in the United States of America; but these heathen performances and other Pagan acts of the Roman Catholic Church are becoming more public and prominent as that apos- tate church increases in political power by the^great immigra- tion of superstitious and ignorant papists from foreign lands, who so soon become voters without becoming Americans. The first of these heathenish ceremonies on the United States soil took place in Hoboken, N. J., directly opposite New York City, in the year of 1856, on the first day of June. This cere- mony was described, and the bishop's speech reported in the public newspapers on the following day. ST. ANNE'S BONE RAISES TWENTY THOUSAND DOLLARS. Some years ago, a Romish Church in New York City being very anxious to "raise the wind," imported from somewhere the arm bone of St. Anne, the mother of the Virgin Mary. Archbishop Corrigan, of New York, says that at least twenty- five thousand people visited this old bone. Thousands of su- perstitious people paid their money for the privilege of kiss- ing the box in which the old bone is kept. New York news- papers contained almost daily accounts of the crowds that at- tended the fortunate Church, of the marvelous cures efifected by the useful old bone. The names and addresses of many who i86 THE DEVIL IN THE, CHURCH: were cured were printed ; but when reporters and others called at the houses specified, to see the lucky persons who had been miraculously cured by this old bone, the persons could never be seen. They always happened to be- "out," or "engaged." But the Church that got up this exhibition did a good thing for itself, clearing in a little while, it is said, more than $20,000. And this fraud and deception, and robbery of the people went on for weeks right under the eyes of the police as they deserved to have been, and not one of the robbers was indicted or ar- rested, while many a poor man, out of employment, and driven almost to despair on account of his starving wife and children was put in jail for stealing the value of a loaf of bread. But then it is not lawful to interfere with reHgion you know ! And St. Anne's old bone is still on its travels from place to place, working miracles, and filling the priests' pockets. THE PRIEST ON THE DONKEY. I will not deprive the public of another superstitious cere- mony of the Romish priests, which is very diverting, and by which their ignorance will be more exposed to the world; and this is practiced on the Sunday before Easter, which is called Dominica Palmarum, in which the church commemor- ates the triumphant entry of Jesus Christ into Jerusalem, sit- ting on an ass, the people spreading their clothes and branches of olive trees on the ground; so in imitation of this triumph, they do the same in some churches, and convents. The circumstance of one being representative of Jesus, on an ass, I never saw practiced in Saragossa, and I was quite un- acquainted with it till I went to Alvalate, a town that belongs to the archbishop in temporalibus and spiritualibus, whither I was obliged to retire with his grace, in his precipitate flight from King Charles' army, for fear of being taken prisoner of state. We were there at the Franciscan convent on that Sun- day, and the archbishop being invited to the ceremony of the religious triumph, I went with him to see it, which was per- formed in the following manner : All the friars being in the body of the church, the guardian placing his grace at the right hand, the procession began, every Passing m Procession Before the Pope on Palm Sunday. 1 88 THE DEVIL IN THE CHURCH: friar having a branch of ohve trees in his hand, which was blessed by the Rev. Father Guardian; so the cross going be- fore, the procession went out of the church to a large yard before it. But, what did we see at the door of the church, but a fat friar, dressed like a Nazarene, on a clever ass, two friars holding the stirrups, and another pulling the ass by the bridle. The representative of Jesus Christ took place before the arch- bishop. The ass was an he one, though not so fat as the friar, but the ceremony of throwing branches and clothes before him, being quite strahge to him, he began to start and caper, and at last threw down the heavy load of the friar. The ass ran away, leaving the reverend on the ground, with one arm broken. This unusual ceremony was so pleasing to us all, that his grace, notwithstanding his deep melancholy, laughed heartily at it. The ass was brought back, another friar, mak- ing the representative, put an end to this ass-like ceremony. But the ignorance and superstition begins now; when the ceremony was over, a novice took the ass by the bridle, and began to walk in the cloister, and every friar ma.de a reverence, passing by, and the people kneeling down before him, said, O happy ass ! But his grace, displeased at so great a supersti- • tion, spoke to the guardian, and desired him not to suffer the friars to give such an example to the ignorant people, as to adore the ass. The guardian was a pleasant man, and seeing the archbishop so melancholy, only to make him laugh, told his grace that it ^^as impossible for him to obey his grace with- out removing all his friars to another convent, and bring a new community. "Why so?" said his grace. "Because," re- plied the guardian, " all my friars are he asses." "And you the guardian of them," answered his grace. Thus priests and friars excite the people to adore images. PRIEST CROSSES A RIVER OE WATER ON A DRY PATHWAY. "I heard a pleasant story, reported in town, from a faithful person, who assured me he saw, himself, a friar come out of the refectory, at 8 at night, and as he came out of the convent's gate, the moon shining that night, and the shadow of the house being in the middle of the street, the merry friar thinking that HIS SECRET WORKS EXPOSED. 189 the light of the moon, in the other half part of the street, was water, he took off his shoes and stockings, and so walked till he reached the shadow; and being asked by his friend the meaning of such extravagant folly, the friar cried out, a mir- acle, a miracle! The gentleman thought that the friar was mad; but he cried the more, a miracle! a miracle! — Where is the miracle? (the people that came to the windows asked him;) I came this minute through this river, (said he) and I did not wet the soles of my feet ; and then he desired the neighbors to come and be witnesses of the miracle. In such a condition the honor of the advocate of that day did put the reverend friars ; and this and the like efifects such festivals occasion, both in the members of the convents and corporations." NEVER CONFESSED TO THE SAME PRIEST TWICE. A friend of mine, when recently visiting Burges, had much conversation with the laquais-de-place, whom he emplojed to show him the objects of interest in the city and neighborhood. He found that this man was pursuing a very profligate course ; when the following dialogue took place: "Are you a Roman Catholic?" "Yes, certainly I am." "Do you then ever go to confession?" "Oh, yes." "But you do not confess to the priest what you have acknowledged to me." "To be sure I do; how else could I get absolution?" "I should suppose you could not obtain it a second time." "Oh, yes, I always do ; for there are several hundred priests in this city and neighbor- hood, and I never confess to the same priest twice." MONEY CAN BUY ANYTHING. In the elegant Cathedral of Namur a money-box may be ob- served set apart? for its benefit, and which an inscription on it describes to be for the reception of the offerings of those who eat meat in Lent. And what said Claude D'Espence, a cele- brated Parisian divine of the Romish Church? "Provided money can be extorted, every thing prohibited is permitted. There is almost nothing forbidden that is not dispensed with for money; so that, as Horace said of his age, the greatest igo THB DBV.il in the CHURCH: crime that a man can commit is to be poor. There are some crimes which persons may commit for money ; while absolution from all of "them, after they have been committed, may be bought." MANY INSTANCES OF THE USES TO WHICH RELICS ARE PUT. In this county of Monaghan, Ireland, there is a well, said to have been consecrated by St. Patrick, near which is a small heap of stones, surmounted by a large one, having on it the print of his knee, and over all a stone cross, said to be erected there by himself; and at the distance of forty-nine paces there is an alder tree, which is afifirmed to have sprung up immediate- ly on his blessing the ground. The pilgrims who come hither first kneel at the north side of the well, salute St. Patrick, and say fifteen paters and one creed. They rise up, bow to him, walk thrice around the well, and drink of the water each time at the place where they began. From thence they go to the heap of stones, bow to the cross, kiss the print of St. Patrick's knee, and put one of their knees into it. They then go thrice around the heap on their knees, always kissing this stone ; when they come to it they rise up, bow to it, and walk thrice around bowing to the stone whenever they come before it, and the last time they kiss it. They go from the heap of stones to the alder tree, beginning at the west side by bowing to it, then going thrice around they bow to it from the east to west, and then say fifteen paters and one creed. When any of the neighbors have their cattle sick, some of the water of this well is used in ex- pectation of a cure — a strange and almost incredible folly, which is, however, of frequent occurrence. But the most remarkable superstition of this kind appears in the pilgrimage of immense numbers of persons to St. Patrick's Purgatory, which is in an island situated in the midst of a lake in the county of Donegal. As soon as they come in sight of it they take off their shoes and stockings, uncover their heads, and walk with their beads in one hand, and sometimes with a cross in the other, to the lake side, from whence at the charge of six pence each, they are ferried over. They then go to the prior, and ask his blessing; and afterwards to St. Patrick's HIS SBCRBT WORKS EXPOSED. 191 altar, where, on their knees, they say one pater, one ave, and one creed, at the close of which they rise and enter the chapel, where they recite three paters, three aves, and one creed. Be- ginning now at a corner of the chapel, they walk around it and St. Patrick's altar seven times, saying ten ave-marias and one pater every circuit. And the first and last they kiss the cross before the chapel, and at the last touch it with their shoulders. They then visit the penitential beds, on which seven saints are said to have slept, and each of which is a collection of hard stones ; they go around each of these thrice, while three paters, three aves, and one creed are said, and then kneeling, they re- cite the like number. Each bed is now separately entered, and going around it thrice in the inside they say three paters, three aves, and one creed; at the close of which they kneel and re- peat three more of each. Leaving these beds, they go into the water, and thrice around some sacred stones, saying five paters, five aves, and one creed; after that they go further into the water to another stone, and say one pater, one ave, and one creed, with their hands lifted up ; from thence they return to the chapel, where they repeat the Lady's Psalter, consisting, according to some, of fifty aves and five paters, or according to others, of a hundred and fifty aves and five paters ; and thus they finish one station, which must be performed every day, about sun-rise, noon, and sun-set, bread and water only being allowed the pilgrims. On the ninth day they are put by the prior into St. Patrick's cave, where they are closely shut up for twenty-four hours, are bound to say there as many prayers as on the preceding days, and are denied all kinds of refreshments. On the tenth day they are released, when they proceed immediately into the water to wash themselves, and more particularly the head. During these ceremonies mass is celebrated several times a day, and a sermon is daily preached in the Irish language. Con- fession must be made to a priest before the stations are begun, and some pilgrims do it much oftener, paying six pence each time. In all their perambulations a staff, with a cross at the end, is carried. If any cannot perform this penance themselves, a license 192 THE DUVIL IN THE CHURCH: may be obtained from the prior for another to do it for them; the proxy is paid for this service, and it is considered as avail- able as that of the original party. On the return of the pil- grims, they are treated by all the common people with great veneration; they generally kneel down and ask their blessing. Here again is the influence of the totally unscriptura:l doctrine of human merit ; the deluded creatures who have gone through the penances described, fancy they have gained it; and those who meet them on their way, equally superstitious, suppose that their words convey some peculiar virtue. A superstitious reverence is paid by pilgrims to what are called relics, the remains of the bodies or clothes of saints or martyrs, and the instruments by which they were put to death, which being devoutly preserved in honor to their memory, or kissed, revered, and sometimes carried in procession- Charle- magne is declared to have been a great collector of relics, and to have obtained some of the most important from Jerusalem itself, from his having become master, as emperor of the West, not only of the holy sepulchre, but of many other sacred places and treasures, for which he was indebted to the king of Persia ; while many precious relics are said to have been presents to him from the Greek emperors at Constantinople. Receiving them from every part of the globe, from a dread of his arms, or attachment to his religion, he distributed them among the various churches he found, reserving the chief of them for his favorite of Notre Dame, at Aix la Chapelle. The visitors who wish to behold them are soon introduced to the sacristan, who orders two candles to be lighted, though the room may not be at the time so dark as absolutely to require their aid. The relics are divided into two classes; the great and small. The former are in a large silvergilt shrine, in the form of a gothic tomb, richly sculptured, and adorned, it is said, with precious stones. On its being opened, the relics are exhibited for a fortnight, every seven years, to crowds of de- votees, who joyously receive fragments of the old silks in which they have been wrapped. They are affirmed to be — the large cloth which received the body of John the Baptist after being beheaded; the, swaddling clothes in which Christ was attired in HIS SHCRBT WORKS BXPOSBD. 193 the manger of Bethlehem; and as the most precious of the whole, the linen which the Redeemer wore on the cross, bear- ing upon it the traces of his blood ! The small relics, carried around the city once a year, are de- posited in various shrines and cases. They are said to be the skull and two other bones of Charlemagne ; a tooth of St. Cath- erine; some hair of John the Baptist; a link of the chain of Peter when in prison ; a morsel of the arm of Simeon, in which he held the infant Saviour ; Christ's leathern girdle ; a piece of the cord with which his hands were bound on the cross ; a piece of the sponge with which his lips were moistened; a spine of the crown of thorns which was placed on his head ; and, omit- ting a few relics of humbler pretensions, one or two pieces of the true cross ! At the back of the high altar of the church at Kreutzberg, there is a wide and superb marble stair case, leading down to the front of the edifice. So sacred is this professedly esteemed, that visitors are not allowed to walk on it, but are obliged to descend by its side. What, then, is the claim set up for? That it belonged to Pilate's judgment hall, was trodden by the Re- deemer after he was scourged, and that after being taken from Jerusalem to Rome, it was brought hither! Little circular pieces of brass let into the stone, representing a number of drops of blood clotted together, are pointed out, and for these it is to be regarded with peculiar veneration. Here the influence of the Pope appears. It is he who, war- rants the supernatural state of incorruption of the body of one saint, and traces, it is supposed, with unerring certainty, some straggling limb to another ! He, alone, has also the undoubted power of virtually furnishing the members of the Romish Church with the relics of the most ancient or unknown patri- archs and martyrs, by declaring the' fragments of any skeleton from the catacombs to be a part of the body in request. This is called christening relics. The persuasion that bones which have passed through this process, are as good as those of a favorite saint to whom they are attributed, is general in Spain, and probably common to all Romanists. In early ages we find the origin of a widely extended, and to Bitter Persecutions of Protestants in the Fifteenth. Century. HIS SECRET WORKS EXPOSED. 195 the Church of Rome, a profitable superstition. Thus, a hole was made in the coffins of forty martyrs at Constantinople, from an opinion that whatever touched them, derived from so doing extraordinary benefits. An ancient custom also pre- vailed among the Christians of assembling at the burial places of martyrs, to commemorate them, and to perform Divine wor- ship there. Under the dominion of Constantine the Great, stately churches were erected over sepulchres ; religious ser- vices performed over them were thought to have a peculiar sanctity and virtue ; hence the practice afterwards obtained of depositing relics of saints and martyrs under the altars of churches. St. Ambrose would not consecrate a church because it had none; and the council of Constantinople in Trullo, de- creed that those altars under which no relics were found, should be demolished. So excessive, indeed, became the rage for procuring relics, that the emperor, Theodosius the Great, passed a law in 386, forbidding the people to dig up the bodies of the martyrs, and to traffic in their relics. The necessity of relics in a church is pleaded for in the pres- ent day. In the sanctuary, as it is called, of every Roman Cath- olic chapel, as we have seen, appears the altar, which, in Eng- land, is of wood, stone, or marble ; but there must be, at least, a square slab of the latter in the centre, on which, to use the Papists' phrase, "the sacrifice may be ofifered." Its corners bear the intials of the saint or angel to which it is dedicated, or else those of the Virgin or the Saviour; and in it it is said there must be deposited a portion of the blood, bones, or other relics of saints. The process adopted in this case is not a little singular. The initials are always deeply engraved in the marble, and the bones, or other relics, being reduced to powder, are mixed with what is considered to be the blood, and then poured into the incisions, where they become hard. It is believed that the. slabs are brought from Rome, and that the relics are de- posited under the directions of the Pope ; but every one under- goes the ceremony of consecration, and when set in its ap- pointed place is covered with a hnen cloth, adored with fringes, ribbons, and lace. The influx of travellers in early times into the eastern pro- 1 96 THB DB VI L IN THB ' CH URCH : vinces, in order to frequent the places which Christ and his dis- ciples had honored with their presence, that with their bones and other remains they might exert what was deemed a valu- able influence, led, of course, to a great amount of fraud and imposture. The craft, dexterity and knavery of the Greeks found a rich prey in the credulity of the Latin relic-hunters. The latter paid considerable sums for legs and arms, skulls and jaw-bones, many of which were pagan, and some not human, and other things which were supposed to belong to distin- guished members of the early Church ; and thus they came into possession of relics shown with much ostentation at the pres- ent day. Of imposition, in such cases, many instances might be given. Luther says, he had seen an image of Mary with her child, in the monastery at Isenach. When a wealthy person came thither to pray to it, the child turned away its face to its mother, as if it refused to listen and had to seek Mary's help. But if the applicant gave liberally to the monastery the child turned to him again; and if he promised to give more, it showed itself very friendly and loving, and stretched out its arms over him in the form of a cross. But how was this mir- acle wrought? By human mechanism. The image was made hollow within, and prepared with hooks, lines, and screws, and behind it stood a person who moved it according to the efifect it was wished to produce. One of the military who recounted his campaigns in the Spanish war relates, that his company being quartered one night in a chapel for shelter, they observed a large image ; in it they discovered a small door, by which a man might be admit- ted into the body of the figure from the vestry, and strings were hanging down by which the eyes might be moved. Just as they had done amusing themselves with the juggling trick, the priests arrived, and hastened to take down the image, cov- ering it with a cloth, and carrying it on a bier, professing to re- move it lest it should be profaned by the near approach of her- etics! Their real motive is evident; they wished to conceal the base artifice, but they came too late. There is another tale of the same kind. A Dutchman con- HIS SECRET WORKS EXPOSED. 197 fessing to a priest at Rome, promised by an oath, to keep secret whatever the priest should impart to him till he came into Ger- many; on which he received a leg of the ass on which Christ rode into Jerusalem, very neatly bound up in a cloth, with these words, "This is the holy relic on which the Lord Christ did corporeally sit, and with his sacred legs touched this ass's leg !" Greatly pleased with the gift, the Dutchman carried the relic into Germany, and when he came on the borders, boasted of his possession in the presence of four of his companions, at the same time showing it to them. But each of the four had also promised the same secrecy, and received the same gift; they inquired, therefore, with astonishment, whether the ass on which Christ rode had five legs? The question might as properly have been, whether it had fifty or five hundred, for doubtless such reHcs were given just as long as there were such applicants. THE FEARFXTL DELUSION CAUSED BY E.ELICS. The following are exhibited at the church of St. John, at Rome, on Holy Thursday : The heads of St. Peter and St. Paul, incased in silver busts, set with jewels; a lock of the Vir- gin Mary's hair, and a piece of her petticoat; a robe of the Saviour's sprinkled with his blood ; some drops of his blood in a small vial; some of the water which flowed from the wound in his side ; some of the sponge raised to his lips ; the table at which our Lord ate the last supper — which could only have held the twelve apostles by miracle, as it seems impossible for more than two persons to sit at it; a piece of stone of the sep- ulchre on which the angel sat; and the very porphyry pillar from which the cock crowed after Peter denied Christ. "I thought all these sufficiently marvelous," says the narrator, "but what was my surprise to find the rods of Moses and Aaron ! Though how they got them nobody knows — and two pieces of the wood of the real ark of the covenant !" The absurdity of such pretensions might excite a smile were it not for the flagrant wickedness by which they are often ac- companied. Thus an account of the relics of Charlemagne is still sold at Aix-la-Chapelle, under the authority of the vicar- 13 ig8 THB DEVIL IN THE CHURCH: general. It not only describes them, but argues their genuine- ness, and contains the form of words annually employed in an- nouncing the four great relics to the people, with the prayers that are to be offered during their exhibition ; one of which is for the Pope and his cardinals, the king of Prussia, the arch- bishop of Cologne, the city and authorities of the place in which they are shown, the pilgrims by whom they are visited, and the souls of the departed. Still further, it teaches that the presence and contemplation of these relics are a pledge of the special favor and intercession of those for whose use they were consecrated, or with whose persons they were once identified; and they are actually pronounced to be the source of all happi- ness, welfare and prosperity to the city, having, notwithstand- ing the devastation of the Normans, and the troubles occasion- ed by the heretics, its occupancy by enemies, and its having been repeatedly destroyed by fire, never been taken away or fallen under the power of adversaries. Such facts as these are really confounding; it is difificult to give any adequate expression to our disgust and horror. Oil, holy-water, and relics, bones, bits of wood or cloth, and other scraps of trumpery, stands in the place of God. In them is the power by which evil may be averted and good enjoyed ! Fear- ful is such delusion, tremendous the criminality it involves. "SAVED MORE SOULS WITH INDULGENCES THAN ST. PAUL WITH HIS SERMONS." "Indulgences," says Tetsel, "are the most precious and sub- Hme of God's gifts. This cross (pointing to the red cross) has as much efficacy as the cross of Jesus Christ. Draw near, and I will give you letters duly sealed, by which even the sins you desire to commit shall be all forgiven you. "I would not exchange my privileges for those of St. Paul in heaven, for I have saved -more souls with my indulgences than he with his sermons. "There is no sin so great that the indulgence cannot remit it, and if any one should ravish the Holy Virgin, Mother of God, (which is doubtless impossible) let him only pay largely and it shall be forgiven him. HIS SnCRET WORKS EXPOSED. 199 "Even repentance is not indispensible. "But more than this, indulgences save not the living alone, they also save the dead. "Ye priests, ye nobles, ye tradesmen, ye wives, ye maidens, and ye young men, hearken to your departed parents and friends who cry to you frpm the bottomless abyss : 'We are en- during horrible torment. A small alms would deliver us, you can give it and you will not.' "The very moment," cried Tetsel, "that the money clinks against the bottom of the chest, the soul escapes from purga- tory, and flies free to heaven. "O senseless people, and almost like beasts, who do not com- prehend the grace so richly afforded ! This day heaven is on all sides open. Do you now refuse to enter? When then do you intend to come in ? This day you may redeem many souls. Dull, and heedless man, with ten groshens you can deliver your father from purgatory, but you are so ungrateful that you will not rescue him. In the day of judgment my conscience will be clear, but you will be punished the more severely for neglecting so great a salvation. I protest that although you should have only one coat, you ought to strip if off and sell it, to purchase this grace. Our Lord God no longer deals with us as God. He has given all power to the Pope. Bring your money! Bring. money! Bring money!" Luther said, "He uttered this cry with such a dreadful bellowing that one might have thought that some wild bull was rushing among the peo- ple, and goring with his horns!" For particular sins Tetsel had a, private scale. Polygamy cost six ducats; sacrilege and perjury nine ducats ; murder, eight ; witchcraft, two. Samson, who carried on in Switzerland the same traffic as Tetsel in Germany, had rather a different scale. He charged for infanticide, four livres tournois ; for a paricide or fratricide, one ducat. It would be interesting to pursue this subject further, but space will not permit. In England and the United States, the priests of Rome seek to cast dust in the eyes of Protestants by trying to explain away the more repulsive aspects of the system of indulgences, while compelled to acknowledge that- Romanists Burj'ing Protestants Alive. HIS SECRET WORKS EXPOSED. 201 the system still exists. As God alone can remit either the guilt or penalty of sin, the Pope, in granting indulgences, stands forth, branded by Almighty God as the great blasphemer, and Antichrist. TEKRIBLE BLASPHEMY AGAINST GOD. There is a very ponderous volume entitled "Corpus Juris Canonici, emendatum et notis illustratum, Gregorii XIII. Pont. Max. Jussu editum. Cum licentia." To that digest of the entire canons of pontifical laws, is prefixed the ratification of the Pope, Gregorius Papa XIII. — "Ad futuram rei memor-^ iam." Which volume, that Pope proclaimed, he commanded to be published for the convenience of all the Papists through- out the w^orld, that all the Roman Priests may know their duty to the Pontiff; and urging all secular authorities to enforce his assumed power and prerogatives. It should be remembered that not one jot or tittle of the whole farrago of impiety and despotism has ever been denied or rescinded; and that the whole is uniformly taught by every Roman priest to his votaries, and constantly exacted in all places and periods, when it can be done with the certainty of success. The following condensed catalogue of the Papal usurpations, depicts the very image of Antichrist,, as "exalted in the Temple of God, above all that is called God, and that is worshipped." The references are minutely given, so that all persons can verify the truth of the quotations without difficulty. I. It standeth upon necessity of salvation, for every human creature to be subject unto the Pope of Rome. — Boniface VIII. Extravag. de Majorit. et Obedient. Cap. Unam. 6. The Papacy is the holy and apostolic mother-church of all other churches of Christ ; from whose rules no persons should deviate ; but like as the Son of God came to do the will of his Father, so must you do the will of your mother the Church, the head whereof is Rome : and if any persons shall err from the said church, let them be admonished, or else their names be taken, to be known that they swerve from. the Romish cus- toms. — lyUcius, Dist. 24. Quest, i. Cap. Recta. — Calixtus, Dist. 12. Cap. Non decet. — Innocent, Dist. 11. Cap. Quis. 202 THB DBVIL IN THE CHURCH: 13. The Pope's power is not of man but from God, who hath appointed him Master and Governor over the universal Church. It is his office, therefore, to look upon every mortal sin of all men; whereby all criminal offenses of kings and others are subject to his censure; so that all persons, at any time and in every case, either before or after trial and sentence, may appeal to the Pope. — Innocent III. De judiciis. Cap. Novit. — Mar- cellus, Caus. 2. Quest. 6. Cap. Ad Romanam. 16. Be it known to all men, that Rome is the Prince and Head of all nations ; the Mother of faith ; the cardinal foundation whereupon all churches do depend, as the door upon its hinges ; the first of all seats, without spot or blemish ; the Lady, Mistress, and Instructor of all churches ; and a glass and spec- tacle to all men to be followed in everything which the Roman Pontiff observes and ordains. — Caus. 2. Quest. 7. 18. Whosoever speaketh against the papacy is a heretic, a Pagan, a witch, an Idolater, and an Infidel. — Nicholas, Dist. 22. Cap. Omnes. — Gregory, Dist. 81. Cap. Si qui. 21. The Pope is Head of the Church of Rome, as a king is over his judges; for he is Peter's Vicar and Successor; Vicar ••of Christ; Rector and Director of the Universal Church; Chief Magistrate of the whole world ; Head and chief of the Aposto- lic Church; Universal Pope and Diocesan; Most mighty Priest ; living law on the earth, having all laws in his breast ; bearing not the place of man only; neither God nor man, but between both, the admiration of the universe; having both swords of temporal and spiritual jurisdiction ; and so far sur- mounting the authority of the Emperor, that of his own power alone, without a council, the Pope has authority to depose the Emperor, and transfer his dominions. — Bulla Donationis, Dist. 96. Cap. Constantin. — Paschalis, Dist. 63. Cap. Ego. — Clement V. Cap. Romani; Glossa. — Boniface VIII. Sixt. Decret. Cap. Ubi. — Boniface, Prohem. Cap. Sacrosancta. — Anacletus, Dist. 22. Cap. Sarosancta. — Boniface IV. Sixt. Decret. Cap. 4. Glossa. — Hilarius, Dist. 25. Quest, i. Nulli. — Sixt. Decret. Cap. Ad. Arbitris. Glossa. — Boniface Sixt. Decret. De Const. Cap. Licet. — Innocent HI. De Trans. HIS SECRET WORKS EXPOSED. ' 203 Cap. Quanto. — Prohem. Clement. Glossa. "Papa Stupor Mun- di. Nee Deus, nee homo, quasi neuter es inter utrumque." — Bontiface Extravag. De Majorit. et. Obed. Cap. Unam. Dist. 22. Cap. Omnes. — Sixt. Decret. De Senten. et Re Cap. Ad Apostoli; and the Glossa. 22. What power or potentate in all the world is comparable to me, who have authority to bind and loose both in heaven and on earth; who have power both of heavenly and tem- poral things ; to whom Emperors and Kings are inferior, as lead is inferior to gold? for the necks of kings and princes bend under his knees, and are happy to kiss his hands. — Nich- olas Dist. 22. Cap. Omnes. — Glossa. — Gelasius, Dist. 96. Cap. Duo. Cap. Illud. 23. If the Pope has power to bind and loose in Heaven, how much more to loose Empires, Kingdoms, Dukedoms, and whatsoever else mortal man may have, and to give them where he will; and if he have authority over Angels, who be Gover- nors of Princes, what then may he not do upon their inferiors and servants? — Gregory VII. — Platina. 24. The power of the Pope is greater than Angels in juris- diction ; in administration of the Sacraments ; in knowledge ; and in reward. Does he not command the Angels to absolve the soul out of Purgatory, and carry it into the glory of Para- dise? — Antoninus, Pars. 3. Summae majoris. Bulla demen- tis. 38. The power of the keys is given to the Pope immediately from Christ. "Sy the jurisdiction of which keys of binding and loosing, and dominion, the fullness of Papal power is so great, that even Emperors and all others are subjects to the Pope, and ought to submit their acts to him. — Dist. 19. Cap. Si Ro- manorum. — Gab. Biel. Lib. 4. — Dist. 19. Petrus de Palude. — Dist. 95. Cap. Imperator. 43. The Pope is the Vicar of Jesus Christ throughout the whole world, in the stead of the living God. He hath that do- minion and lordship which Christ, when he was upon earth, would not assume; that is, the universal jurisdiction of all things, both spiritual and temporal; which double jurisdiction was signified by the two swords in the gospel, and by the offer- 204 ^-^S DBVIL IN TUB CHURCH: ing of the wise men, who offered not only incense, to signify the spiritual dominion, but also gold, to point out the temporal dominion as belonging to Christ and his Vicar the Pope. We read that "the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof;" and Christ said, "all power is given to me in heaven and earth" — so it may be affirmed, that the Vicar of Christ hath power over all things Celestial, Terrestial, and Infernal. That power he re- ceived immediately from Christ; but all others take power di- rectly from Peter and the Pope. Those who say that the Pope hath dominion only over spiritual things in the world, are like the Councillors of the kings of Syria, I Kings 20 123 : "Their gods are gods of the hills, therefore they were stronger than we; but let us fight against them in the plain, and we shall be stronger than they." Thus evil councillors now, through their pestiferous flattery, deceive kings and princes; maintaining that Popes and Prelates are gods of mountains, that is, of spir- itual things, but they are not gods of valleys, that is, they have no dominion over temporal things, and therefore let us fight with them in the valleys for the power of the temporal posses- sions, so we shall prevail over them. But what saith the sentence of God to them? I Kings 20:28: "Because the Syr- ians have said, the Lord is God of the hills, but he is not God of the Valleys, therefore will I deliver all this great multitude into your hands, and you shall know that I am the Lord." What can be more effectually spoken to set forth the Majesty of the papal jurisdiction which was received immediately from the Lord? — Dreido, de Eccles. Scriptur. et dogmat. — Pevel. cont. Luther. — Eckius in Enchir. — Gratianus Decret. — Gerson de Eccles. Protestate. — Hugo Cardinal, in Postilla. — ^Johan. Cremata de Ecclesia summa. — Lanfrac cont. Wicliff. — Ock- am. Dialog. Pars. i. Lib. 5. 46. The Pope is to be presumed to be always good and holy ; and though he be not holy, and be destitute of merit, yet the merits of Peter, his predecessor, are sufficient for him, who hath bequeathed a perpetual inheritance of merits and dowry of innocence to his posterity ; so that although the Pope should be guilty of homicide, adultery, and all other sins, he may be excused, by the murders of Samson, the thefts of the He- HIS SECRET WORKS EXPOSED. 205 brews, and the adultery of Jacob.— Hugo, Dist. 40. Cap. Non nos; Glossa.— Caus. 12 Quest. 3. Cap. Absis. And if any Priest shall be found embracing a woman, it must be expound- ed that he doeth it to bless her ! 47. The Pope hath all dignities and all power of all patri- archs. In his primacy, he is Abel. In government, ai'k of Noah. In Patriarchdom, Abraham. In order, Melchisedec. In dignity, Aaron. In authority, Moses. In seat judicial, Sam- uel. In zeal, Elijah. In meekness, David. In power, Peter. In unction, Christ ! The power of the Pope is greater than all the saints ; what he confirms none should alter ; he favors whom he pleases ; he can take from one and give to another ; and all persons ought to eschew his enemies. — Caus. 11. Quest. 3. Cap. Si inimicus; Glossa. 48. All the Earth is the Pope's diocese; he has the authority of the King of all kings over their subjects. — Caus. 11. Quest. 3. Cap. Si inimicus ; Glossa. • 49. The Pope is all in all and above all ; so that God himself and the Pope, the Vicar of God, are but one consistory; for he is able to do almost that God can do, Clave non errante, with- out error. — Hostiensis, Cap. Quanto de translat. preb. — Bap- tist. Summa Casuum. 56. Thus the Pope hath all power in Earth, Purgatory, Hell and Heaven, to bind, loose, command, permit, elect, confirm, depose, dispense, do, and undo — therefore, it is concluded, commanded, declared, and pronounced, to stand upon neces- sity of salvation, for every human creature to be subject to the Pontifif of Rome. — Sixt. Decret. Cap. Felicis ; Glossa. — Boni- face VIII. Extravag. De Majorit. et Obed. Cap. Unam Sanctam. The summary exhibits a mere, outline of the impiety and despotism which are embodied in all the authorized Papal documents and writers. All the modern rescripts which have been promulgated by the Roman court, inculcate the same un- holy assumption ; although the language is more equivocal, and the poison is concealed by the very perfection of Jesuitical artifice. 2o6 THB DEVIL IN THE CHURCH: "THE SINS OF PROTESTANTS WILL NOT BE FORGIVEN THROTjaHOUT ALL ETERNITY." Stephen Keenan, in his "Controversial Catechism," approv- ed by a cardinal, says : "Q. Must all who wish to be saved die united to the Catholic Church? "A. All those who wish to be saved must die united to the Catholic Church, for out of her there is no salvation. "Q. Have Protestants any faith in Christ? "A. They never had. "Q. Why not? "A. Because there never Hved such a Christ as they imagine and believe in. "Q. In what kind of a Christ do they believe? "A. In such a one whom they can make a liar, with impun- ity; whose doctrine they can interpret as they please, and who does not care what a man believes, providing he is an honest man before the public. "Q. Will such a faith, in such a Christ, s,ave Protestants ? "A. No sensible man will assert such an absurdity. "Q. What will Christ say to them on the day of judgment? "A. I know you .not, because you never knew me. "Q. Are Protestants willing to confess their sins to a Catho- lic priest, who alone has power from Christ to forgive sins? 'Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven.' "A. No; for they generally have an utter aversion to con- fession, and therefore their sins will not be forgiven through- out all eternity. "Q. What follows from this? "A. That they die in their sins and are damned." PURGATORY, EIGHT DEGREES; HELL, ONLY E0X7R DEGREES. "I cannot give a real account of Purgatory, but I will tell all I know of the practices and doctrines of the Romish priests and friars, in relation to that imaginary place, which indeed must be of vast extent and almost infinite capacity, if, as the priests give out, there are as many apartments in it as conditions and ranks of people in the world among Roman Catholics. HIS SECRET WORKS EXPOSED. 207 The intenseness of the fire m purgatory is calculated by them, which they say is eight degrees, and that of hell only four degrees. But there is a great difference between these two fires, in this, viz : That of purgatory (though more in- tense, active consuming and devouring) is but for a time, of which the souls may be freed by the suffrages of masses ; but that of hell is forever. In both places, they say, the souls are tormented, and deprived of the glorious sight of God, but the souls in purgatory (though they endure a great deal more than those in hell) have certain hopes of seeing God sometime or other, and that hope is enough to make them to be called the blessed souls. Pope Adrian the Third, confessed that there was no mention of purgatory in Scripture, or in the writings of the holy fath- ers ; but notwithstanding this, the council of Trent has settled the doctrine of purgatory without alleging any one passage of the Holy Scripture, and gave so much liberty to priests and friars by it, that they build in that fiery palace, apartments for kings, princes, grandees, noblemen, merchants and tradesmen, for ladies of quality, for gentlemen and tradesmen's wives, and for poor, common people. These are the eight apartments which answer to the eight degrees of intensus ignis, i. e. intense fire; and they make the people beheve, that the poor people only endure the last degree; the second being greater, is for gentlewomen and tradesmen's wives, and so on to the eighth degree, which being the greatest of all, is reserved for kings. By this .wicked doctrine they get gradually masses from all sorts and conditions of people, in proportion to their greatness. But as the poor cannot give so many masses as the great, the lowest chamber of purgatory is always crowded with reduced souls of those unfortunately fortunate people, for they say to them, that the providence of God has ordered every thing to the ease of his creatures, and that forseeing that the poor peo- ple could not aiiord the same number of masses that the rich could, his infinite goodness had placed them in a place of less suffering in purgatory. But it is a remarkable thing, that many poor, silly trades- men's wives, desirous of honor in the next world, ask the friars 2o8 THB DHVIL IN THE CHURCH: , whether the souls of their fathers, mothers,) or sisters, can be removed from the second apartment (reckoning from tlie low- est) to the third, thinking by it, that though the third degt'ee of fire is greater than the second, yet the soul would be better pleased in the company of ladies of quality; but the worst is, that the friar makes such women believe, that he may do it very easily, if they give the same price for a mass the ladies of quality give. I knew a shoemaker's wife,-very ignorant, proud, and full of punctilios of honor, who went to a Franciscan friar, and told him that she desired to know whether her own father's soul was in purgatory or not, and in what apartment- The friar asked her how many masses she could spare for it; she said two; and the friar answered, your father's soul is among the beggars. Upon hearing this the poor woman began to cry, and desired the friar to put him, if possible, in the fourth apart- ment, and she would pay him for it; and the quantum being settled, the friar promised to place him there next day; so the poor woman gives out ever since that her father was a rich merchant, for it was revealed to her, that his soul is among the merchants in purgatory. Now what can we say, but that the Pope is the chief Gover- nor of that vast place, and priests and friars the quarter-mast- ers that billet the souls according to their own fancies, and have the power, and give for money the king's apartment to the soul of a shoemaker, and that of a lady of quality to her wash- er-woman. But mind, reader, how chaste the friars are in procuring a separate place for ladies in purgatory; they suit this doctrine to the temper of a people whom they believe to be extremely jealous, and really not without ground of them, and so no soul of a woman can be placed among men. Many serious people are well pleased with this Christian caution ; but those that are .given to pleasure do not like it at all; and I knew a pleasant young collegian, who went to a friar and told him : Father, I own I love the fair sex ; and I believe my soul will always retain that inclination. I am told that no man's soul can be in com- pany with ladies, and it is a dismal thing for me to think, that I must go there, (but as for hell, I am in no danger of it, thanks The Eomish View of a Room in Piircatory. 2IO THE DBVIL IN THE CHURCH: to the Pope,) where I shall never see any more women, which will prove the greatest of torments to my soul; so I have re- solved to agree with your reverence beforehand, upon this point. I have a bill of ten pistoles upon Peter la Vinna Ban- quer, and if you can assure me, either to send me straight to heaven when I die, or to the ladies' apartment in purgatory, you shall have the bill ; and if you cannot, I must submit to the will of God, like a good Christian. The friar seeing the bill, which he thought ready money, told him that he could do either of the two, and that he himself might choose which of the two places he pleased. But father (said the collegian) the case is, that I love Donna Teresa Spinola, but she does not love me, and I do not believe that I can expect any favor from her in this world, so I would know whether she is to go before me to pur- gatory or not. O ! that is very certain (said the friar). I choose then (said the collegian) the ladies apartment, and here is the bill, if you give me a certificate under your hand, that the thing shall be so; but the friar refusing to give him any authentic certificate, the collegian laughed at him, and made satirical verses upon him, which were printed, and which I read. I knew the friar, too, who being mocked pubHcly, was obliged to remove from his convent to another country. THE SOTJL APPEARS IN THE EIGUKE OF A HOUSE. "When some ignorant people pay for a mass, and are willing to know whether the soul for which the mass is said, is, after the mass, delivered out of purgatory ; the friar makes them be- lieve that the soul will appear in the figure of a mouse within the tabernacle of the altar, if it is not out of it, and then it is a sign that the soul wants more masses; and if the mouse does not appear, the soul is in heaven. So when the mass is over, he goes to the tabernacle backwards, where is a little door with a crystal, and lets the people look through it. But, O pitiful thing! They see a mouse which the friars keep, (perhaps for this purpose) and so the poor sots give more money for more masses, till they see the mouse no more. They have a revela- tion readv at hand, to say, that such a devout person was told HIS SECRET WORKS EXPOSED. 211 by an angel, that the soul for which the mass is said, was to appear in the figure of a mouse in the saurario or tabernacle. Many other priests and friars do positively affirm, and we see many instances of it forged by them in printed books, that , when they consecrate the host, the little boy Jesus doth appear to them in the host, and that is a sign that the soul is out of purgatory. There is a fine picture of St. Anthony de Paula, with the host in his hand, and the little Jesus is in the host, be- cause that divine boy frequently appeared to him when he said mass, as the history of his life gives an account. But at the same time, they say, that no layman can see the boy Jesus, be- cause it is not permitted to any man but to priests to see so heavenly a sight ; and by that means they give out what sort of stories they please, without any fear of ever being found in a lie. Let me ask you, now, what history will give us in defense of the doctrine of purgatory through which Rome wrings, from superstition, countless millions of money. I have here a letter from the late chaplain of the American legation in Rome, who has given close attention to the study, and who writes also in regard to indulgences. After stating that "the Pope can give a living man indulgences of his sins," we have, the following citations, which are of very great interest: "The doctrine of purgatory was declared to be an article of faith in the Roman Church, by the Council of Florence, only in the year 1439." (That is, up to that time, for 1450 years nearly, either purga- tory was undiscovered, or the souls of Catholics and every- body else went to it, and nobody knew it 1 And are they there yet?) "In the latter part of the fifteenth century. Pope Alexander VI. was the first to declare that indulgences deHvered souls from purgatory." (In the latter part of the fifteenth century, you see!) Cardinal Cajetan, before whom Luther was summon- ed, said in a tract on indulgences : "We have no certain knowl- edge in regards to the origin of indulgences ; and we possess in writing no authority on this subject, nor in Holy Scripture, nor in the writings of the ancient fathers, nor of the Greek and Latin doctors." Cardinal Fisher, in confuting Luther, said: 212 The devil in the church : "As to indulgences, it is uncertain by whom they were insti- tuted; and as to purgatory, no mention is made of it by the ancients ; so that behef in indulgences and in purgatory has not been necessary to the primitive Church." Take away purga- tory, and no one will need indulgences, or seek them. Purga- tory and indulgences are all a modern invention ; and when you come to study and read history, you will find that the Roman Catholic dogmatic system cannot stand in the face of history for a day or an hour. HOW ROME CONDEMNED GALILEO, THE ASTRONOMEB. The Roman Catholic Church does not merely object to the Bible, and to history; but it also objects to science, it objects to literature, it objects to every department of knowledge that is contrary to its pretensions; and that objection is carried so far, that the curse of excommunication is pronounced on any who shall dare to have books which they have proscribed, and shall presume to study books which they have denounced. You will be interested at the citation of one sample of how their policy worked in a matter of science and scientific investiga- tion. On the fifth day of May, 1616, The Sacred Congrega- tion of the Index denounced and forbade the Copernican theory that the earth moves round the sun. They denounce it as a heresy; cursed those that taught it, anathematized those that printed it, and threatened those that believed it. There has been a great deal of wriggHng of this act, but truth is strong; and when the Roman Catholic Church grapples with the truth of history, history is ultimately sure to win in the con- flict. Later, in 1620, they denounced Copernicus by name. Then they, denounced Galileo, and arrested him, and threat- ened him, and imprisoned him, and made him afifiirm that the earth did not move around the sun; and when he said it, he muttered under his bireath, "But it does move." Galileo's book appeared in 1632, and was condemned in 1634. That edict of the Roman Catholic Church left the Copernican theory on the list of forbidden books in the Index Expurgatorius un- til 1835. Every man, therefore, who dared, up to 1835, to be- lieve that the earth moved round the sun, or dared to teach it Kiniian Catholics Arrest Galileo, the Astronomer, for Affirming' that the Earth Moved Around the Sun. 14^ 2 14 THE DBVIL IN THE CHURCH: or print it, or who had a book in his house or in his possession which stated it, — every such man was excommunicated and damned by the Pope of Rome and The Sacred Congregation. Do you propose to take your science from an authority like that ? Yet if in the pubHc scliools the movement of the earth round the sun had been taught any time before 1835, Roman- ists would have objected just as strongly to this Copernican theory that the earth moved round the sun as they object to Swinton's History; and I suppose that some cowards would have let them forbid the book in the public schools. I do not believe we are ready to have our text-books assorted by such scientists. In 1835, from the Index Expurgatorius, (of which, fortunately, I happen to have through the kindness of a friend two copies), and without a word of apology, the books on the Copernican theory, for the first time in two centuries were omitted from the list of forbidden publications. "ALL PEOTESTANTS ARE DOOMED." The following is quoted from page 145 of the "Full Cate- chism of the Catholic Religion," published with the approba- tion of Cardinal Wiseman : "Every one is obliged, under the pain of eternal damnation, to become a member of the Catholic Church; to believe her doctrines; to use her means of grace; and to submit to her authority." And this most bigoted and shameful doctrine is taught in all their schools and churches. Their teaching everywhere is that out of their church there is "no salvation." All Protestants, being "heretics," are doomed, they say, to "eternal damnation." Is not this the most abom- inable bigotry? IMAGE WORSHIP. When Romanists are charged with worshipping images, saints, the Virgin Mary, &c., and believing that their priests can forgive sins ; opposing the reading of the Scriptures ; and with other errors, it is not uncommon for them to deny the truth of the accusation, and treat it as an unfounded slander. We have thought, therefore, that a short but comprehensive view of their faith, as epitomized by themselves, and supported HIS SECRET WORKS EXPOSED . *2i5 by extracts from their standard writings, while it comported with the objects of this volume,' would prove highly instructive and interesting to is readers. The following summary, it will be perceived, is in the form of an oath. It was set forth by Pope Pius IV., and comprises the substance of the decrees of the Council of Trent. Our readers will here discover, that one grand difiference between Protestants and Catholics is, that while the former receive the Bible as the only divine rule of faith, the latter acknowl- edge the acts of councils, the traditions of the Church, &c., as of inspired authority. And as those acts and traditions are not unfrequently opposed to the word of God, — yea, are most monstrously erroneous and wicked — some may account for the fact, that the Romish priesthood, where they have the pow- er to prevent it, will not sufifer the people to possess or read the Bible. J^t requires nothing under the divine blessing, but a universal knowledge of the Holy Scriptures to overthrow every fabric of superstition, idolatry, and tyranny. OATH TAKEN BY ROMAN CATHOLICS. After reciting the Nicene creed, the oath proceeds — • "I most firmly admit and embrace the apostolical and eccle.- siastical traditions, and all other observances and constitutions of the same church (i. e., the Romish Church). Also, I admit sacred Scripture, according to the sense which has been held and is held by HOLY MOTHER CHURCH, to whom it be- longs to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the sa- cred Scriptures; nor will I ever receive or interpret it (Scrip- ture) except according to the unanimous consent of the Fa- thers. "I also profess that there are truly and properly, seven sac- raments of the new law, instituted by our Lord Jesus Christ, and necessary, though not for each singly, yet for the whole human race, viz. : Baptism, Confirmation, the Eucharist, Pen- ance, Extreme Unction, Orders and Matrimony ; and that they confer grace ; and that, of these, baptism, confirmation and or- ders cannot be reiterated without sacrilege. I also receive and admit the received and approved rites of the Catholic Church, 2i6 THB DEVIL IN THE CHURCH: in the solemn administration of all the above mentioned sac- riaments. "I embrace. and receive all and each of those things, virhich, in the Holy Council of Trent, have been defined and declared concerning original sin and justification. "I, in like manner, profess, that in the Mass is offered to God a true, proper, and propitiary sacrifice for the living and the dead ; and that, in the most holy sacraments of the Euchar- ist, there is truly, really and substantially, the BODY AND BLOOD, TOGETHER WITH THE SOUL AND DIVIN- ITY OE OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST; and that there is made the change of the whole substance of the bread into the body, and the whole substance of the wine into the blood, which change the Cathohc Church calls the Transubstantiation. I confess, also, that under each kind alone, the whole and en- tire Christ and the true sacrament is taken. ^ "I firmly hold that there is a Purgatory, and that the souls there detained, are helped by the suffrages of the faithful : — ■ Likewise, the Saints reigning together with Christ, are to be venerated and invoked, and that they offer prayers to God for us ; and that their reliques are to be venerated. I most firmly assert that the images of Christ, and of the Mother of God, ever, virgin; and also of the other saints, are to be held and retained, and a due honor and veneration is to be granted thepi. "I affirm ■ also, that the power of indulgences was left by Christ in his church, and that the use of them is in the highest degree salutary to Christian people. "I acknowledge the holy Catholic and Apostolic Romish Church to be the mother and MISTRESS OF ALL CHURCHES ; and I promise and swear true obedience to the Roman Pontiff, successor of the blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles, and Vicar of Jesus Christ. "Also, all other things, handed down, defined, and declared by the sacred canons and general councils, and chiefly liv the most holy of Trent, I undoubtedly receive and profess, and, at the same time, all things contrary, and all heresies whatever condemned, rejected, and anathematized, I, in like manner, HIS secrMt works exposed. 217 condemn, reject, and anathematize. And this true CathoHc faith, OUT OF WHICH NO ONE CAN HAVE SALVA- TION, which at present I voluntarily profess and truly hold, I, the said A. B., promise, vow, and swear, that I will hold and confess the same entire and inviolate, to the last breath of my Hfe, most constantly, God being my helper; and that I will take care as far as lies in me, that the same shall be held, taught, and preached by my subjects, or by those, the care of whom pertains to me by my ofifice. So God help me and these holy gospels of God." ELEVEN- THOtrSAND BELICS IN A SINGLE CHURCH. Many of the churches are most abundantly supplied with relics of a similar character — there is one in Spain, I under- stand, which possesses eleven, thousand, among which are sev- eral of our Saviour ; a sacred hair of his most holy head is pre- served in a vase — several pieces of his cross — thirteen thorns of his crown — and a piece of the manger in which he was born. There are many relics also of the Virgin Mary — three or four pieces of one of her garments — a relic of the handkerchief with which she wiped her eyes at the foot of the cross, &c.. "WONDERETJL" MIRACLES. "I must describe to you, my dear brother, some of the fa- mous miracles performed by the saints, images, relics, &c. They are really wonderful. No saint, it seems, can be admitted into the calendar, whatever may have been the sanctity of his life, unless it can be testified that he has wrought miracles. "The tales of visions, apparitions, and miracles which are kept in circulation, and which are, in fact, necessary to uphold such a system of spiritual tyranny as the Popish religion is, among a superstitious and ignorant peopld are so absurd and monstrous, it would seem scarcely possible they should gain any credence at all. SAILED ON THE SEA ON HIS CLOAK. "St. Francis Xavier turned a sufficient quantity of salt water into fresh water to save the lives of five hundred travellers, 2i8 THE DEVIL, IN THE CHURCH: who were dying of thirst, enough being left to allow a large exportation to different parts of the world, where it performed astonishing cures. St. Raymond de Pennafort laid his cloak on the sea, and sailed thereon from Majorca to Barcelona, a distance of a hundred and sixty miles, in six hours. A BOTTLE OP THE BLOOD OF CHRIST. "At Mantua, I am told, there may be seen a bottle of the real blood of Christ. It was dug up a number of years since in a box containing a paper with an account of the circum- stances of its deposit. It seems one Longinus, a Roman cen- turion, who was present at the crucifixion of Christ, became converted and afterwards left Judea for Mantua, carrying with him this vial of blood; he buried the sacred relic, and was so thoughtful as to enclose in it an envelope, stating all these facts. It is very remarkable that the writing, the box, the bottle, the blood and all should be perfectly fresh as it was when found, after lying in the ground sixteen centuries ! ! ! PBIEST TOOK SEVEN DEVILS EROM A MAN. "A certain friar had preached a sermon during Lent, upon the state of man mentioned in Scripture possessed with seven devils, with so much eloquence and unction, that a simple coun- tryman who heard him, went home, and became convmced that these seven devils had got possession of him. The idea haunted his mind, and subjected him to the most dreadful ter- rors, till, unable to bear his suffering, he unbosomed himself to his ghostly father and asked his- counsel. The father, who had some smattering of science, bethought himself at last of a way to rid the honest man of his devils. He told him it would be necessary to combat with the devils .singly ; and on the day appointed, when the poor man came with a sum of money to serve as a bait for the devil — without which, the good father had forewarned him, no devil could be dislodged — he bound a chain, connected with an electrical machine in an adjoining chamber, round his body, lest, as he said, the devil should fly away with him — and having warned him that the shock would be terrible when the devil went out of him, he left him HIS SECRET WORKS EXPOSED. 219 praying devoutly before an image of the Madonna, and after some time gave him a pretty smart shock, at which the poor wretch feU insensible on the floor from terror. As soon, how- ever, as he had recovered, he protested that he had seen the devil fly away out of 'his mouth, breathing^ blue flames and sulphur, and that he felt himself greatly relieved. Seven elec- trical shocks, at due intervals, having extracted seven sums of money from him, together with the seven devils, the man was cured, and a great miracle performed !" SATAU PLEASED WITH THE WORSHIPPERS OP PICTURES AND IMAGES. The worship of images is undoubtedly "after the working of Satan;" for this arch adversary of God well knows that no greater insult could be offered the Almighty than to trample under foot his holy law against graven images; and he well knew that to induce man to worship pictures and images un- der pretense of worshipping their Maker would most effect- ually tend to banish real worship, and spiritual religion from the earth. THE ORIGIN OE IMAGE WORSHIP. In 754 during the pontificate of Stephen II, the Emperor Constantine V., who had succeeded his father, Leo III., con- vened at a council at Hiera, opposite Constantinople, consist- ing of 338 bishops, the largest number that had ever yet as- sembled in one general council. This numerous body of bishops, with one voice condemned the use and worship of im- ages as a custom borrowed from idolatrous nations, and en- tirely contrary to the purer ages of the Church. On the na- ture of the heresy they expressed themselves in the following language : "Jesus Christ hath delivered us froni idolatry, and ha"th taught us to adore him in spirit and in truth. But the devil, not being able to endure the beauty of the Church, hath insensibly brought back idolatry, under the appearance of Christianity, persuading men to worship the creature and to take for God a work to which they gave the name of Jesus Christ." This great council also declared that "NO IMAGES ARE TO BE WORSHIPPED. That to worship them or 220 THE DEVIL IN THE. CHURCH: any other creature, is robbing God of the honor that is due to him alone, and relapsing into idolatry." And so say ali true Christians. It must be borne in mind, just here, that Paul speaks of "that wicked," whose coming is "after, or according to the working of Satan," and here is an assembly of 338 bishops of the Church, solemnly declaring that "the d^vil, not being able to endure the beauty of the Church, hath insensibly brought back idolatry;" clearly proving that the Church of Rome is "the man of sin, the son of perdition, whose coming is after the working of Satan." And this will be still more fully proved if we state a few facts in regard to an infamous woman, whom the historians inform us was the principal agent in establish- ing the worship of images throughout the empire. That wo- man was the Empress Irene. Upon the death of Emperor Constantine V., in the year 775, he was succeeded by his son, Leo IV., who adopted the senti- ments of his father and grandfather, and imitated their zeal in the extirpation of idolatry out of the Christian Church. The wife of Leo was this Irene, of whom we have spoken, a woman who has rendered her name infamous in the annals of crime. In 780, her husband who had opposed her attempts to intro- duce the worship of images into the very palace, suddenly died, as supposed, in consequence of poison administered by the di- rection of his heartless and wicked queen. Her husband be- ing dead, her youthful son became emperor by the name of Constantine VI. Inspired by a desire to occupy the throne herself, she caused him to be arrested and his eyes to be put out, to render him in- capable of reigning, which, according to the testimony of The- ophanes, was done with so much cruelty that he immediately expired. Gibbon doubts whether immediate death was the re- sult; but he describes in vivid language the horrid cruelty of the unnatural mother. He says : "In the mind of Irene, am- bition had stifled every sentiment of humanity and nature, and it was decreed in her bloody council that Constantine should be rendered incapable of the throne ; as if they meant to execute a mortal sentence. The most bigoted orthodoxy had justly HIS SBCRBT WORKS EXPOSED. 221 execrated the unnatui-al mother, who may not easily be par- alleled in the history of crime." Such was the cruel and ' odious character of this Empress Irene, who eventually succeeded in establishing image worship throughout the empire, and yet in consequence of this service she rendered to idolatry, Popish writers represent her as a pat- tern of piety, and even justify the horrible tortures and death which she inflicted on her son. The following are the words of Cardinal Baronius justifying this cruel and unnatural crime : "Snares," says he, "were laid this year for the Emperor Con- stantine, by his mother Irene, which he fell into the year fol- lowing, and was deprived at the same time of his eyes and of his life. An execrable crime, indeed, had she not been prompt- ed to it by zeal for justice. On that consideration she even deserved to be commended for what she did." (!!) Again, Baronius says : "As Irene was supposed to have done what she did" — that is, tortured and murdered her own son — "for the sake of the (Roman Catholic) religion, and love of justice, she was still thought by men of great sanctity, worthy of praise and commendation." This extract from a Popish cardinal, and one of the most celebrated writers of that communion, needs no comment. Well might Paul say of- this system of wicked- ness and blasphemy, "Whose coming is after the working of Satan." In 794 this wicked woman sent word to Pope Adrian in- forming him of her intention to convene a council in support of image worship, and Adrian in his reply expressed his great joy at the prospect of the restoration of the holy images to their place in the churches from which they had so long been banished. This famous council was assembled at Nice in 787. The number of bishops present and taking part in this council was 350, and the result of their deliberations was, as might have been expected, in favor of idolatry. It was decreed — ac- cordingly to the Romish historian, Platina — that holy images of the cross should be consecrated, and put on the sacred ves- sels and vestments, and on walls and boards, in private and public ways. And especially, that there should be erected images of the Lord God, our Saviour Jesus Christ, our blessed 222 THB DHVIL IN THB CHURCH: Lady, the mother of God, of venerable angels and of all the saints. And that whosoever should presume to think or teach otherwise, or to throw away any painted books, or the figure of the cross, or any image or picture, or any genuine relics of the martyrs, they should, if bishops or clergymen, be deposed, or if monks or laymen, be excommunicated. They then pro- nounced anathemas against all who should apply what the Scriptures say against idols to the holy images, or call them idols, or wilfully communicate with those who rejected and de- spised them, adding according to custom, "Long live Constan- tine and Irene,^his mother — damnation to all heretics — damna- tion to the council that roared against venerable images — the Holy Trinity hath deposed them." GEEAT HUN AT CHILDKEN'S CONFESSIONS. The Catholic Church has in every city, in every parish, in every town and village, a Lent preacher; and there is but one difiference among them, viz. : That some preachers preach every day in Lent ; some three sermons a week ; some two, on Wednesdays and Sundays, and some only on Sundays, and the holy days that happen to fall in Lent. The preacher of the parish pitches upon one day of the week, most commonly in the' middle of Lent, to hear the children's confessions, and gives notice to the congregation the Sunday before, that every father of a family may send his children, both boys and girls, to church on the day appointed, in the afternoon. The mothers dress their children the best they can that day, and give them the ofifering money for the expiation of their sins. That af- ternoon is a holy day in the parish, not by precept, but by cus- tom, for no parishioner, either old or young, man or woman, misseth to go and hear the children's confessions. For it is reckoned, among them, a greater diversion than a comedy, as you may judge by the following account. The day appointed, the children repair to church at three of the clock, where the preacher is waiting for them with a long reed in his hand, and when all are together (sometimes 150 in number, and sometimes less,) the reverend father placeth them in the circle round himself, and then kneeling down (the chil- HIS SECRET WORKS EXPOSED. 223 dren also doing the same), makes the sign of the cross and says a short prayer. This done, he exorteth the children to hide XTO sin from him, but to tell him all they have committed. Then he sti'ikes, with his reed, the child whom he designs to confess the first, and asks him the following questions : Confessor. How long is it since you last confessed? Boy. Father, a whole year, or the last Lent. Conf. And how many sins have you committed from that time till now? Boy. Two dozen. Now the confessor asks round about. Conf. And you? Boy. A thousand and ten. Another will say a bag full of small lies, and ten big sins ; and so one after another answers, and tells many childish things. Conf. But pray, you say that you have committed ten big sins, tell me how big? Boy. As big as a tree. Conf. But tell me the sins. Boy. There is one sin I committed, which I dare not tell your reverence before all the people ; for somebody here pres- ent will kill me, if he heareth me. Con. Well, come out of the circle, and tell it me. They both go out, and with a loud voice, he tells him, that such a day he stole a nest of sparrows from a tree of another boy's, and that if he knew it, he would kill him. Then both come again into the circle, and the father asks other boys and girls so many ridiculous questions, and the children answer him so many pleasant, innocent things, that the congregation laughs all the while. One will say, that his sins are red, another that one of his sins is white, one black, and one green, and in these trifling questions they spend two hours' time. When the congregation is weary of laughing, the confessor gives the children a correction, and bids them not to sin any more, for a black boy takes along with him the wicked children. Then he asks the offering, and after he has got all from them, gives them the penance for their sins. To one he says, I give you for penance, to eat a sweet cake; to another, not to go to 224 ^^^ DBVIL IN. THE CHURCH: school the day following; to another, to desire his mother to buy him a new hat, and such things as these ; and pronouncing the words of absolution, he dismisseth the congregation with Amen, so be it, every year. MARRIED HIS OWU SISTER. I was in Lisbon ten years ago, and a Spanish gentleman, whose surname was Gonzalez, came to lodge in the same house where I was for awhile before; and as we, after supper, were talking of the Pope's supremacy and power, he told me that he himself was a living witness of the Pope's authority on oath ; and, asking him how, he gave me the following account. "I was born in Granada," said he, "of honest and rich, though not noble parents, who gave me the best education they could in that city. I was not twenty years of age when my father and mother died, both within the space of six months. They left me all they had in the world, recommending to me, in their testameilt, to take care of my sister Dorothea, and to pro- vide for her. She was the only sister I had, and at that time in the eighteenth year of her age. From our youth we had tenderly loved one another ; and upon her account, quitting my studies, I gave myself up to her company. This tender broth- erly love produced in my heart at last another sort of love for her; and though I never showed her my passion, I was a suf- ferer by it. I was ashamed within myself to see that I could not master nor overcome this irregular inclination; and per- ceiving that the persisting in it would prove the ruin of my soul, and my sister's too, I finally resolved to quit the country for awhile, to see whether I could dissipate this passion, and banish out of my heart this burning and consuming fire; and after having settled my aflairs, and put my sister under the care of an aunt, I took my leave of her, who, being surprised at this unexpected news, s4ie upon her knees begged me to tell the reason that moved me to quit the country ; and, after telling her that I had no reason, but only a mind and desire to travel two or three years, and that I begged of her not to marry any person in the world, until my return home, I left her and went to Rome. By letters of recommendation, hj money, and my HIS SECRET WORKS EXPOSED. 225 careful comportment, I got myself in a little time into the favor and house of Cardinal A. I. Two years I spent in his service at my own expense, and his kindness to me was so exceedingly great, that I was not only his companion, but his favorite and confidant. All this while, I was so raving and in so deep a melancholy, that his eminence pressed upon me to tell him the reason. I told him that my distemper had no remedy ; but he still insisted the more to know my distemper. At last, I told him the love I had for my sister, and that it being impossible she should be my wife, my distemper had no remedy. To this he said nothing, but the day following went to the sacred pal- ace, and meeting in the Pope's antechamber Cardinal P. I., he asked him whether the Pope could dispense with the natural and divine impediment between brother and sister to be mar- ried; and, as Cardinal P. I. said that the Pope could not, my protector began a loud and bitter dispute with him, alleging reasons by which the Pope could do it. The Pope, hearing the noise, came out of his chamber, and asked what was the matter. , He was told it, and flying into an uncommon passion, said the Pope may do everything, I do dispense with it, and left them with these words. The protector took testimony of the Pope's declaration, and went to the notary and drew a publis instrument of the dispensation, and, coming home, gave it to me, and said, though I shall be deprived of your good services and company, I am very glad that I serve you in this to your heart's desire and satisfaction. Take this dispensation, and go whenever you please to marry your sister. I left Rome, and came home, and after I had rested from the fatigue of so long a journey, I went to present the dispensation to the bishop, and to get his license; but he told me that he could not re- ceive the dispensation, nor give such a license; I acquainted my protector with this, and immediately an excommunication was despatched against the bishop, for having disobeyed the Pope, and- commanding him to pay a thousand pistoles for the treasure of the Church, and to marry me himself; so, I was married by the bishop, and at this time I have five children by my wife and sister." 226 THE DEVIL IN THE CHURCH: From these accounts, Christian reader, you may judge of that Pope's temper and ambition. NINE STARTLING CONSEQUENCES OF THE DOGMA OE TRAN- STJBSTANTIATION. On the day of my ordination to the priesthood, I had to be- lieve, with all the priests of Rome, that it was within the lim- its of my powers to go into all the bakeries of Quebec, and change all the loaves and biscuits in that old city, into the body, blood, soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, by pro- nouncing over them the five words : HOC EST ENIM COR- PUS MEUM. Nothing would have remained of these loaves and biscuits but the smell, the color, the taste. 2. Every bishop and priest of the cities of New York and Boston, Chicago, Montreal, Paris and London, etc., firmly be- lieves and teaches that he has the power to turn all the loaves of their cities, of their dioceses, nay, of the whole world, into the body, blood, soul and divinity of our Saviour Jesus Christ. And, though they have never yet found it advisable to do that wonderful miracle, they consider, and say, that to entertain any doubt about the power to perform that marvel, is as crim- inal as to entertain any doubt about the existence of God. 3. When in the Seminary of Nicolet, I heard, several times, our superior, the Rev. Mr. Riabault, tell us that a French priest having been condemned to death in Paris, when dragged to the scaffold had, through revenge, consecrated and changed into Jesus Christ all the loaves of the bakeries of that great city which were along the streets through which he had to pass ; and though our learned superior condemned that action in strongest terms, yet he told us that the consecration was valid, and that the loaves were really changed into the body, blood, soul and divinity of the Saviour of the world. And I was bound to believe it under pain of eternal damnation. 4. Before my ordination I had been obliged to learn by heart, in one of the most sacred books of the Church of Rome fMis- sale Romanism, p. 63), the following statement: "If, after the , consecration, the consecrated bread disappear, taken away by the wind, or through any miracle ; or dragged away by an ani- HIS SECRET WORKS EXPOSED. 227 mal, let the priest take a new bread, consecrate it, and continue his mass." And at page 57 I had learned, "If a fly or spider fall into the chalice, after the consecration, let the priest take and eat it, if he does not feel an insurmountable repugnance ; but if he can- not swallow it, let him wash it and burn it and throw the ashes into the sacrarium." 5. In the month of January, 1834, I heard the following fact from the Rev: Mr. Paquette, curate of St. Gervais, at a grand dinner which he had given to the neighboring priests : "When young, I was the vicar of a curate who could eat as much as two of us, and drink as much as four. He w^s tall and strong, and he has left the dark marks of his hard fists on the nose of more than one of his beloved sheep; for his anger was really terrible after he drank his bottle of wine. "One day, after a sumptuous dinner, he was called to carry the good God (Le Bon Dieu) to a dying man. It was mid- winter. The cold was intense. The wind was blowing hard. There was at least five or six feet of snow, and the roads were almost impassable. It was really a serious matter to travel nine miles on such a day, but there was no help. The mes- senger was one of the first marguilliers (elders) who was very pressing, and the dying man was one of the first citizens of the place. The curate, after a few grumblings, drank a tumbler of good Jamaica with his marguillier as a preventative against the cold, went to church, took the good God (Le Bon Dieu), and threw himself into the sleigh, wrapped as well as possible in his large bufifalo robes. "Though there were two horses, one before the other, to drag the sleigh, the journey was a long and tedious one, which was made still worse by an unlucky circumstance. They were met I half-way by another traveller coming from the opposite direction. The road was too narrow to allow the two sleighs and horses to remain easily on firm ground when passing by each other, and it would have required a good deal of skill and patience in driving the horses to prevent them from falling into the soft snow. It is well known that when once horses are !■* <*~^-~~\f <1& 1 ,*«<: "'.^--"w J. ,;-•,«'. ''#*?^ a o -a o o I -s 6 HIS SECRET WORKS EXPOSED. 229 sunk into five or six feet of snow, the more they struggle the deeper they sink. "The marguillier, who was carrying the 'good god' with the cure, naturally hoped to have the privilege of keeping the mid- dle of the road and escaping the danger of getting his horses wounded, and his sleigh broken. He cried to the other trav- eler, in a high tone of authority : 'Traveler ! let me have the road. Turn your horses into the snow ! Make haste, I am in a hurry. I carry the good god !' "Unfortunately the traveler was a heretic, who cared much more for his horses than for the 'good god.' He- answered : " 'Le Diable emporte ton Bon Dieu avant que je ne casse le con de mon cheval!' 'The devil take your god before I con- sent to break the neck of my horse. If your god has not taughi )-ou the rules of law and of common sense, I will give you a free lecture on that matter,' and jumping out of his sleigh, he took the reins of the front horse of the marguillier to help to walk on the side of the road, and keep the half of it for himself. "But the marguillier, who was naturally a very impatient and fearless man, had drank too much with my curate, before he left the parsonage, to keep cool, as he ought to have done. He also jumped out of his sleigh, ran to the stranger, took his cra- vat in his left hand and raised his right one to strike him in the face. "Unfortunately for him, the heretic seemed to have foreseen all this. He had left his overcoat in the sleigh and was more ready for the conflict than his assailant. He was also a real giant in size and strength. As quick as lightning his right and left fists fell like iron masses on the face of the poor marguil- lier, and threw him on his back in the soft snow, where he al- most disappeared. "Till then the curate had been a silent spectator; but the sight and the cries of his friend, whom the stranger was pom- melling without mercy, made him lose his patience. Taking the little silk bag which contained the 'good god' from about his neck, where it was tied, he put it on the seat of the sleigh, and said: 'Dear good god! Please remain neutral; I must 15 230 THU DBVIL IN THE CHURCH: help my marguillier ! Take no part in this conflict, and I will punish that infamous Protestant as he deserves.' "But the unfortunate marguillier was entirely put hors de combat before the curate could go to his help. His face was horribly cut — three teeth were broken — the lower jaw dislo- cated, and the eyes were so terribly damaged that it took sev- eral days before he could see anything. "When the heretic saw the priest coming to renew the bat- tle, he threw down his other coat to be freer in his movements. The curate had not been so wise. Relying too much on his herculean strength, covered with his heavy overcoat, on which was his white surplice, he threw himself on the stranger, like a big rock which falls from the mountain and rolls upon the- oak below. "Both of these combatants were real giants, and the first blows must have been terrible on both sides. But the 'in- famous heretic' probably had not drank so much as my curate before leaving home, or perhaps he was more expert in the ex- change of these bloody jokes. The battle was long and the blood flowed pretty freely on both sides. The cries of the combats might have been heard at a long distance, were it not for the roaring of the wind, which at that instant was blowing a hurricane. "The storm, the cries, the blows, the blood, the surplice and the overcoat of the priest torn to rags, the shirt of the stranger reddened with gore, made such a terrible spectacle, that in the end the horses of the marguillier, though well-trained animals, took fright and threw themselves into the snow, turned their backs to the storm and made for home. They dragged the fragments of the upset sleigh a pretty long distance, and ar- rived at the door of their stable with only some diminutive parts of the harness. "The 'good god' had evidently heard the prayer of my curate, and he had remained neutral ; at all events he had taken the part of his priest, for he lost the day, and the infamous Protestant remained master of the battlefield. "The curate had to help his marguillier out of the snow in which he was buried, and where he had lain like a slaughtered HIS SECRET WORKS EXPOSED. 231 ox. Both had to walk, or rather crawl, nearly a half a mile in snow to their knees, before they could reach the nearest farm- house, where they arrived when it was dark. "But the worst is not told. You remember when my curate had put the box containing the 'good god' on the seat of the sleigh, before going to fight. The horses had dragged the aieigh a certain distance, upset and smashed it. The little silk bag, with the silver box and precious contents, was lost in the snow, and though several hundred people had looked for it, several days at different times, it could not be found. It was only late in the month of June, that a little boy, seeing some rags in the mud of the ditch along the highway, lifted them and a little silver box fell out. Suspecting that it was what the people had looked for so many days during the last winter, he took it to the parsonage. ' "I was there when it was opened ; we had the hope that the 'good god' would be found pretty intact, but we were doomed to be disappointed. The good god was entirely melted away. L,e Bon Dieu etait fondu !" During the recital of that spicy story, which was told in the most amusing and comical way, the priests had drunk freely and laughed heartily. But when the conclusion came: '"Le Bon Dieu etait fondu !" The good god was melted away !" There was a burst of laughter such as I never heard — the priests striking the floor with their feet, and the table with their hands, filled the house with the cries, "The good god melted away !" "The good god melted away 1" "Le Bon Dieu est fondu !" "Le Bon Dieu est fondu !" Yes, the god of Rome, dragged away by a drunken priest, and real- ly melted away in the muddy ditch. This glorious fact was pro- claimed by his own priests in the midst of convulsive laughter, and at the tables covered with scores of bottles just emptied by them! 6. About the middle of March, 1839, ^ ^^^ o"^ o^ the most unfortunate days of my Roman Catholic priestly life. At about two o'clock in the afternoon, a poor Irishman had come in haste from beyond the high mountains, between Lake^ Beau- port an4 th? rivef Morency, to ask me to go to anoint a dying 232 THE DBVIL IN THB CHURCH: woman. It took me about ten minutes to run to the church, put the "good god" in the little silver box, shut the whole in my vest pocket and jump into the Irishman's rough sleigh. The roads were exceedingly bad, and we had to go very slowly. At 7 p. m. we were yet more than three miles from the sick woman's house. It was very dark, and the horse was so ex- hausted that it was impossible to go any further through the gloomy forest. I determined to pass the night at a poor Irish cabin which was near the road. I knocked at the door, asked hospitality, and was welcomed with that warm-hearted demon- stration of respect which the Roman Catholic Irishman knows, better than any other man, how to pay to his priests. The shanty, twenty-four feet long by sixteen wide, was built with round logs, between which a liberal supply of clay instead of mortar had been thrown, to prevent the wind and cold from entering. Six fat, though not absolutely well-washed, healthy boys and girls, half-naked, presented themselves around their good parents as the living witnesses that this cabin, in spite of its ugly appearance, was really a happy home for its dwellers. Besides the eight human beings sheltered beneath that hos- pitable roof, I saw, at one end, a magnificent cow with her newborn calf, and two fine pigs. These two last boarders were separated from the rest of the family only by a branch partition two or three feet high. "Please, your reverence," said the good woman, after she had prepared our supper, "excuse our poverty, but be sure that we feel happy and much honored to have you in our hum- ble dwelling for the night. My only regret is that we have only potatoes, milk and butter to give you for your supper. In these back woods, tea, sugar and wheat flour are unknown lux- uries." 1 I thanked that good woman for her hospitality, and caused her to rejoice not a little by assuring her that good potatoes, fresh butter and milk were the best delicacies which could be offered to me in any place. I sat at the table and ate one of the most delicious suppers of my life. The potatoes were ex- ceedingly well-cooked, the butter, cream and milk of the best HIS SECRET WORKS EXPOSED. 233 quality, and my appetite was not a little sharpened by the long journey over the steep mountains. I had not told these good people, nor even my driver, that I had "Le Bon Dieu," the good god, with me in my vest pocket. It wouM have made them too uneasy, and would have added too much to my other difficulties. When the time of sleeping arrived, I went to bed with all my clothing and slept well ; for I was very tired by the tedious and broken roads from Beau- port to these distant mountains. Next morning, before breakfast and the dawn of day, I was up, and as soon as we had a glimpse of light to see our way, I left for the house of the sick woman, after offering a silent prayer. I had not traveled a quarter of a mile when I put my hand into my vest pocket, and to my indescribable dismay, I found that the little silver box containing the "good god" was miss- ing. A cold sweat ran through my frame. I told iny driver to stop and turn back immediately, that I had lost something which might be found in the bed where I had slept. It did not take five minutes to retrace our way. On opening the door I found the poor woman and her hus- band almost beside themselves, and distressed beyond measure. They were pale and trembling as criminals who expected to be condemned. "Did you not find a little silver box after I left?" I said. "O, my God 1" answered the desolate woman, "Yes, I have found it, but would to God I had never seen it. There it is." "But why do you regret finding it, when I am too happy to find it here safe in your hands?" I replied. "Ah ! your reverence, you do not know what a terrible mis- fortune has just happened to me not more than a half a minute before you knocked at the door." "What misfortune can have fallen upon you in so short a time," I asked. "Well, please your reverence, open the little box and you will understand me." I opened it, but the "good god" was not in it ! ! Looking into 234 ^^^ DBVIL IN THE CHURCH: the face of the poor distressed woman, I asked her, "What does this mean ? It is empty !" "It means," answered she, "that I am the most unfortunate of women ! Not more than five minutes after you had left the house, I went to your bed and found that Httle box. Not knowing what it was, I showed it to my children and to my husband. I asked him to open it, but he refused to do it. I then turned it on every side, trying to guess what it could con- tain; till the devil tempted me so much that I determined to open it. I came to this corner, where this pale lamp is used to remain on that little shelf, and I opened it. But, O, my God, I do not dare to tell the rest." At these words she fell on the floor in a fit of nervous ex- citement — her cries were piercing, her mouth was foaming. She was cruelly tearing her hair with her own hands. The shrieks and lamentations of the children were so distressing that I could hardly prevent myself from crying also. After a few moments of the most agonizing anxiety, seeing that the poor woman was becoming calm, I addressed myself to the husband, and said: "Please give me the explanation of these strange things?" He could hardly speak at first, but as I was very pressing, he told me with a trembling voice : "Please your reverence ; look into that vessel that the children use, and you will perhaps understand our desolation! When my wife opened the little silver box, she did not observe the vessel was there, just be- neath her hands. In opening, what was in the silver box fell into the vase and sank ! We were all filled with consternation when you knocked at the door and entered." I felt struck with such an unspeakable horror at the thought that the body, blood, soul and divinity of my Saviour, Jesus Christ, was there, sunk into that vase, that I remained speech- less, and for a long time did not know what to do. At first it came to my mind to plunge my hands into the vase and try to get my Saviour out of that sepulchre of ignominy. But I could not muster courage to do so. At last I requested the poor desolate family to dig a hole three feet deep in the ground, and deposit it, with its contents, HIS SECRET WORKS EXPOSED. 235 and I left the house, after I had forbidden them from ever say- ing a word about that awful cal^amity. 7. In one of the most sacred books of the laws and regula- tions of the Church of Rome (Missale Romanism) we read, page 58, "If the priest after the communion vomit, and that in the vomited matter the consecrated bread appears, let him swallow what he has vomited. But if he feels too much' repug- nance to swallow it, let him separate the body of Christ (the consecrated bread) from the vomited matter, till it be entirely corrupted, and then throw it into the sacrarium. 8. When a priest of Rome, I was bound, with all the Roman Catholics, to believe that Christ had taken His own body, with his own hand to His mouth ! and that he had eaten Himself, not in a spiritual, but in a substantial, material way ! After eat- ing himself, he had given himself to each one of his apostles, who then ate him also ! ! 9. Before closing this chapter, let the reader allow me to ask him, if the world in its darkest ages of paganism has ever wit- nessed such a system of idolatry, so debasing, impious, ridicu- lous and diabolical in its consequences as the Church of Rome teaches in the dogma of transubstantiation ! When, with the light of the gospel in hand, the Christian goes into those horrible recesses of superstition, folly and im- piety, he can hardly believe what his eyes see and his ears hear. It seems impossible that men can consent to worship a god whom the rats can eat!! A god who can be dragged away and lost in a muddy ditch by a drunken priest! A god who can be eaten, vomited, and eaten again by those who are cour- ageous enough to eat again what they have vomited ! ! The religion of Rome is not a religion; it is the mockery, the destruction, the ignominious caricature of religion. The Church of Rome, as a public fact, is nothing but accomplish- ment of the awful prophecy: "Because they receive not the love of the truth that they might be saved, God shall send them strong delusions that they might believe a lie." (2 Thess., 2: lO-II.) 236 THE DBVIL IN THE CHURCH: A PBIEST TELLS HOW BOMISH MIBACLES AKE BROUGHT. A Roman Catholic priest who was a relative to Father Chin- iquy, at that time also a priest, once said to him : "My dear cousin, you are the first one to whom I speak in this way. I do it because, first : I consider you a man of in- telligence, and hope you will understand me. Secondly: Be- cause you are my cousin. Were you one of those idiotic priests, real block heads, who form the clergy of to-day; or, were you a stranger to me, I would let you go your way, and believe in those ridiculous, degrading superstitions of our poor ignorant and blind people, but I know you from your infancy, and I have known your father, who was one of my dearest friends; the blood which flows in your veins, passes thousands of times every day through my heart. You are very young and I very old. It is a duty of honor and conscience in me to re- veal to you a thing which I have thought better to keep till now, a secret between God and myself. I have been here more than thirty years, and though our country is constantly filled with the noise of the great and small miracles wrought in my church, every day, I am ready to swear before God, and to prove to any man of common sense, that not a single miracle has been wrought in my church since I have come here. Every one of the facts given to the Canadian people as miraculous cures, are sheer impositions, deceptions, the work of either fools, or the work of skilful impostors and hypocrites, whether priests or layman. Believe me, my dear cousin, I have studied carefully the history of all those crutches. Ninety-nine out of a hundred have been left by poor, lazy beggars, who, at first, thought with good reason that, by walking from door to door with one or two crutches, they would create more sympathy and bring more into their purses ; for how many will indignant- ly turn out of doors a lazy, strong and healthful beggar, who will feel great compassion, and give largely to a man who is crippled, unable to work, and forced to drag himself painfully on crutches? Those crutches are, then, passports from door to door. They are the very keys to open both the hearts and purses. But the day comes when that beggar has bought a pretty good farm with his stolen alms; or when he is really HIS SECRET WORKS EXPOSED. 237 tired, disgusted with his crutches and wants to get rid of them ! How can lie do that without compromising himself? "By a miracle ! Then he will sometimes travel again hun- dreds of miles from door to door, begging as usual, but this time he asks the prayers of the whole family, saying, 'I am going to the 'good St. Anne du Nord' to ask her to cure my leg (or legs). I hope she will cure me, as she has cured so many others ; I have great confidence in her power !" "Each one gives twice, nay, ten times as much as before to the poor cripple, making him promise that if he is cured, he will come back and show himself, that they may bless the good St. Anne with him. When he arrives here, he gives me some- times one, sometimes five dollars, to say mass for him. I take the money, for I would be a fool to refuse it when I know that his purse has been so well filled. During the celebration of mass, when he receives the communion, I hear generally, a great noise, cries of joy. A miracle! A miracle!! The crutches are thrown on the floor, and the cripple walks as well as you or I ! And the last act of that religious comedy is the most lucrative one, for he fulfils his promise of stopping at every house he has ever been seen with his crutches. He nar- rates how he was miraculously cured, how his feet and legs be- came suddenly all right. Tears of joy and admiration fiow from every eye. The last cent of that family is generally given to the imposter, who soon grows rich at the expense of his dupes. This is the plain, but true story, of ninety-nine out of every hundred of the cures wrought in my church. The hundredth is upon people as honest, but pardon me the expression, as blind and superstitious as you are; they are really cured, for they were really sick. But their cures are the natural effects of the great efforts of the will. It is the result of a happy com- bination of natural causes which work together on the frame, and kill the pain, expell the disease and restore to health, just as I was cured of a most horrible toothache, some years ago. In the paroxysm, I went to the dentist and requested him to extract the affected tooth. Hardly had his knife and other sur- gical instruments come before my eyes than the pain disap- peared. I quietly took my hat and left, bidding a hearty 'good- 238 THE DBVIL IN THE CHURCH: by' to the dentist who laughed at me every time we met to his heart's content. "One of the weakest points of our rehgion is in the ridicu- lous, I venture to say, diabolical miracles, performed and be- lieved every day among us, with the so-called relics and bones of the saints. "But, don't you know that, for the most part, these relics are nothing but chickens' or sheeps' bones. And what would you say, were I to tell you of what I know of the daily miracu- lous impostures of the scapulars, holy water, chaplets and met- als of every kind. Were I a Pope, I would throw all these mummeries, which come from paganism, to the bottom of the sea, and would present to the eyes of the sinners nothing but Christ and Him crucified as the object of their faith, invoca- tion and hope, for this life and the next, just as the Apostle Paul, Peter and James do in their Epistles." THE GOD OF BOMB EATEN BY A BAT. Has God given us ears to hear, eyes to see, and intelligence to understand? The Pope says, no ! But the Son of God says, yes. One of the most severe rebukes of our Saviour to His disciples, was for their not paying sufficient attention to what their eyes had seen, their ears heard, and their intelligence per- ceived. "Perceive ye not yet, neither understand? Have ye your heart yet hardened? Having eyes, see ye not^ having ears, hear ye not? and do not ye remember?" — (Mark viii: 17, 18.) This solemn appeal of our Saviour to our common sense is the most complete demolition of the' whole fabric of Rome. The day that a man ceases to believe that God would give us our senses and our intelligence to ruin and deceive us, but that they were given to guide us, he is lost to the Church of Rome. The Pope knows it; hence the innumerable encyclicals, laws, and regulations by which the Roman Catholics are warned not to trust the testimony of their ears, eyes, or intelligence. "Shut your eyes," says the Pope to his priests and people; "I will keep mine open, and I will see for you. Shut your ears, for it is most dangerous for you to hear what is said in the HIS SECRET WORKS EXPOSED. 239 world. I will keep my ears opened, and will tell you what you must know. Remember that to trust your own intelligence, in the research of truth, and the knowledge of the Word of God, is sure perdition. If you want to know anything, come to me : I am the only sure infallible fountain of truth," saith the Pope. And this stupendous imposture is accepted by the people and the priests of Rome with a mysterious facility, and retained with a most desolatirig tenacity. It is to them what the iron ring is to the nose of the ox, when a rope is once tied to it. The poor animal loses its self-control. Its natural strength and energies will avail it nothing; it must go left or right at the will of the one who holds the end of the rope. Father Chiniquy says: "Reader, please fiave no contempt for the unfortunate priests and people of Rome, but pity them, when you see them walking in the way into which intelligent beings ought not to take a step. They cannot help it. The ring of the ox is at their nose, and the Pope holds the end of the rope. Had it not been for that ring, I would not have been long at the feet of the wafer god of the Pope. Let me tell you of one of the shining rays of truth, which were evidently sent by our merciful God, with a mighty power, to open my eyes. But I could not follow it ; the iron ring was at my nose ; and the Pope was holding the end of the rope. This was after I had been put at the head of the magnificent parish of Beauport, in the spring of 1840. There was living at "La jeune Lorette," an old retired priest, who was blind. He was born in France, where he had been condemned to death, under the Reign of Terror. Escaped from the guillotine, he had fled to Canada, where the bishop of Quebec had put him in the elevated post of Chaplain of the Ursuline Nunnery. He had a fine voice, was a good musician, and had some preten- sions to the title of poet. Having composed a good number of church hymns, he had been called "Pere Cantique," but his real name was "Pere Daule." His faith and piety were of the most exalted character among the Roman Catholics; though these did not prevent him from being one of the most amiable and jovial men I ever saw. But his blue eyes, sweet as the eyes of 240 THB DHVIl IN TUB CHURCH: the dove ; his fine yellow hair, falling on his shoulders as a gold- en fleece; his white, rosy cheeks, and his constantly smiling lips, had been too much for the tender hearts of the good nuns. It was not a secret that "Pere Cantique," when young, had made several interesting conquests in a monastery. There was no wonder at that. Indeed, how could that young and inex- perienced butterfly escape damaging his golden wings, at the numberless burning lamps of the fair virgins ? But the mantle of charity had been put on the wounds which the old warrior had received on that formidable battlefield, from which even the Davids, Samsons, Solomons, and many others, had escaped only after being mortally wounded. To help the poor, blind priest, the curates around Quebec used to keep him by turn in their parsonages, and give him the care and marks of respect due to his old age. After the Rev. Mr. Roy, curate of Charlesbourg, had kept him for five or six weeks, I had him taken to my parsonage. It was in the month of May — a month entirely consecrated to the Virgin Mary, to whom Father Daule was a most devoted priest.. His zeal was really inexhaustible, when trying to prove to us how Mary was the surest foundation of the hope and salvation of sinners; how she was constantly appeasing the just wrath of her son Jesus, who, were it not for his love and respect to her, would have, long since, crushed us down. The Councils of Rome have forbidden their blind priests to say their mass ; but on account of high piety, he had got from the Pope the privilege of celebrating the short mass of the Vir- gin, which he knew perfectly by heart. One morning, when the old priest was at the altar, saying the mass, and I was in the vestry, hearing the confessions of the people, the young servant boy came to me in haste, and said, "Father Daule calls you ; please come quick." Fearing something wrong had happened to my old friend, I lost no time, and ran to him. I found him nervously tapping the altar with his two hands, as in an anxious search for some very precious thing. When very near to him, I said : "What do you want?" He answered with a shriek of distress: "The good god has disappeared from the altar. He is lost! (J' ai HIS SECRET WORKS EXPOSED. 241 perdu le Bon Dieu. II est disparu de dessus 1' autel!") Hoping that he was mistaken, and that he had only thrown away the good god, "Le Bon Dieu," on the floor, by some accident, I lool