?ErER C. YORKE 
 
 : \ 
 
Glass _iiX12X0 
 
 Book JL_ 
 
 Copyright )^° 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSm 
 
THE GHOSTS 
 OF BIGOTRY 
 
 SIXJ.ECXURES BY 
 
 REV. pi^cr^ORKE, D. D. 
 
 Second Edition 
 
 SAN FRAiN CISCO: 
 
 THE TEXT BOOK PUBLISHING CO. 
 
 641 STEVENSON STREET 
 
 1913 
 
■> 
 
 % 
 
 
 Imprimatur 
 
 )£ PATBITIUS G. EIOEDAN, D. D. 
 
 Archiepiscopus Sti. Francisci 
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1913 
 
 By P. C. YOEKE 
 In the office of Librarian of Congress. Washington, D. C. 
 
 APR 27 1914 
 
 /. 
 
 ©CI.A371579 
 
.1 
 
 i^ 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Lecture Page 
 
 I. —Ghosts in General .... 7 
 II. — The Gunpowder Plot ... 55 
 
 III.— The Popish Plot 120 
 
 IV.— The Gordon Riots . . . .169 
 V. — The Ecclesiastical Titles 
 
 Bill 219 
 
 VI.— Anti - Catholic Movements 
 
 in North America . . .271 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 «5 
 
 THE following lectures are an at- 
 tempt to give in popular form the 
 main features of the treatment meted 
 out to the Catholic Church in England 
 and America by English Protestantism. 
 They were written after a four years' cam- 
 paign against the A. P. A. in California 
 had ended in the break-up and disappear- 
 ance of that organization. The Catholic 
 Truth Society of San Francisco published 
 them in pamphlet form under the title 
 ^^Ghosts." The plates, however, were de- 
 stroyed in the fire of 1906, and, as there 
 have been many calls for them since that 
 time, they are now reprinted in a more 
 permanent form. Experience showed that 
 the original title did not sufficiently indi- 
 cate their scope, so they are renamed ^'The 
 Ghosts of Bigotry." 
 
 Oakland, CaL 
 St Matthew's Day, IQI2. 
 
THE GHOSTS OF 
 BIGOTRY 
 
 I.-GHOSTS IN GENERAL. 
 
 WITH this series of lectures we 
 inaugurate the work of a Catholic 
 Truth Society. A Catholic Truth 
 Society is an organized effort to spread the 
 truth concerning the Catholic Church, 
 both among Catholics and non-Catholics. 
 It is in religion what in politics is called 
 "a campaign of education." We Catholics 
 believe we have the truth. We believe we 
 have those teachings which God deemed 
 best for the instruction of mankind. We 
 believe we have those doctrines, to teach 
 which He sent His only Son from heaven. 
 We believe, therefore, we possess that truth 
 which is necessary for humanity and is 
 able to satisfy all the needs of humanity. 
 If our belief is real, we must wish to 
 spread this truth. If we love our kind, if 
 
The Preaching Office of the Church. 
 
 we wish them well, if we would give them 
 comfort, hope, peace, we must bum with 
 the desire to tell them the good tidings 
 which alone can satisfy their souls. 
 
 For this purpose was the Church estab- 
 lished, and with the commission, ^Treach 
 the Gospel to every creature," she has gone 
 up and down the world. This is not the 
 place to speak of her unceasing and mani- 
 fold activity. She preaches from her pul- 
 pits Sunday after Sunday. Her churches, 
 day by day, are silent invitations to the 
 passers-by to lift up their hearts. She 
 preaches in her works of charity and benef- 
 icence. She preaches in the lives of her 
 members, the lives of the thousands of sim- 
 ple and lowly God-fearing men and 
 women who bear her name; in the lives 
 of her sisters and priests who stand fearless 
 before the plague or the yellow fever and 
 go down to death rather than permit a 
 single soul to appear before its Maker 
 without the healing of the Sacraments and 
 the strength of the Body of Christ. 
 
 In those ways, and in a thousand others, 
 
 8 
 
Her Methods Change With the Times. 
 
 the Church is ever preaching the Gospel. 
 Since her Founder's death there is no age 
 which has not rung with her deeds ; there 
 is no land which has not been full of her 
 labors. You may ask, therefore, What is 
 the need of this new crusade? What is the 
 need of this organized effort to spread 
 Catholic truth? Are not the ancient ways 
 sufficient? Why should we train our feet 
 to new paths? 
 
 Our answer is: Our crusade is no 
 new venture, but that it is an ancient 
 method adapted to modern needs. This 
 world of ours is like the great ocean— 
 ever in a state of change. The changes 
 themselves, it is true, are few, but they 
 are ever returning one on the heels of 
 the other. The tides of this month are 
 like the tides of last month. The storm of 
 a week ago is like the storms of years gone 
 by. Wave is like unto wave, and calm is 
 indistinguishable from calm. Yet wave 
 and tide, calm and storm create the un- 
 ceasing change that makes the ocean the 
 image of instability. 
 
The Message Is Always the Same. 
 
 It is even so among men. There is 
 nothing new under the sun, said the wise 
 man, and what has been, the same shall be. 
 Political changes, commercial changes, 
 changes of opinion, in manners, in dress, 
 all have a small orbit and are constantly 
 returning. But amidst all those changes 
 the word of God stands unchanged and un- 
 changeable. The Church which has the 
 commission of preaching remains unmoved 
 amidst the vicissitudes of times and things. 
 In that she shows most like to God. Thou 
 in the beginning, O Lord, didst found the 
 earth, and the heavens are the work of Thy 
 hands. They shall perish but Thou shalt 
 continue; and they shall all grow old as 
 a garment, and as a vesture shalt Thou 
 change them and they shall be changed. 
 But Thou art the self same and Thy years 
 shall not fail. 
 
 But though the unchanging word which 
 the unchanging Church preaches to the 
 world is always and at all times one, the 
 manner in which it is presented to the 
 ever-changing peoples must be manifold. 
 
 10 
 
She Preaches One Way in Catholic Lands. 
 
 The Church must meet man on his own 
 level and speak to him in a language which 
 his heart can understand. If he will not 
 listen to the truth when presented to him 
 in one way, the Church must cast about 
 until she finds a way which will be accept- 
 able. Her methods, therefore, will differ 
 from time to time and from country to 
 country. In Catholic lands, and among 
 Catholic peoples, the solemn round of 
 praise and sacrifice by which her year is 
 sanctified is a perpetual instruction for her 
 children. They grow up in a Catholic 
 atmosphere, and, unconsciously, as they 
 learn their mother tongue they learn their 
 mother religion. The pictured saints that 
 look down upon them from window and 
 niche and wall in their churches become 
 their teachers, and the practices of private 
 and public life knit into their bones the 
 faith of their fathers. 
 
 It is otherwise in countries which are 
 not Catholic. There everything tends to 
 draw them away from the Church, and to 
 obscure her teaching. Hence she cannot 
 
 II 
 
She Uses Other Means With Non-Catholics. 
 
 rest content with what we may call the 
 dead weight of public opinion, for public 
 opinion is against her; she cannot rest 
 content with the mere internal force of 
 Catholic life, because Catholic life is 
 chilled and weakened in an uncongenial 
 clime. Therefore, she must return to her 
 ancient methods, when the world was all 
 before her, a harvest yet unreaped. She 
 must return to the constant and uninter- 
 rupted proclamation of her mission. She 
 must become again a prophet crying in the 
 wilderness, ^Trepare ye the way of the 
 Lord." She must become again a witness 
 going out to all the people, and giving tes- 
 timony to the truth as revealed by Christ 
 Jesus. 
 
 Such is the condition of the Church in 
 this country. We are growing great in 
 everything which makes for material 
 power; but we are growing weak in every- 
 thing v/hich makes for moral power. If 
 I should say that the American people is 
 an irreligious people I should be circulat- 
 ing a calumny. If I should say that the 
 
 12 
 
She Must Preach to the American People. 
 
 American people is rapidly becoming a 
 churchless and creedless people I should 
 be saying what all admit. How long a 
 churchless and a creedless people can re- 
 main at heart a religious or a moral people 
 is another question. Suffice it to say, that 
 history records no example of a lasting 
 case. Either truth or superstition, in some 
 form, must prevail. If Moses remains too 
 long on the mountain the people will make 
 them the golden calf. 
 
 Catholics believe that they have the 
 whole truth which Christ revealed. They 
 believe that the American people needs 
 this truth, for, as Archbishop Spalding 
 used to say, ^^A great nation needs a great 
 religion." The question, therefore, which 
 confronts us is. How is the American 
 people to be reached? We have special 
 facilities in our favor, we have special dif- 
 ficulties to overcome. To take advantage 
 of- those facilities, to provide against those 
 difficulties, is the Church's task. The sit- 
 uation is novel; it is not new. Like the 
 prudent householder, she has in her store 
 
 13 
 
She Must Reach Them By the Old Methods. 
 
 new things and old. She is now where 
 she was in the third century — face to face 
 with a mighty civilization which was 
 hungry for God, and yet distrusted the 
 messenger of God. 
 
 In those days the Church relied on the 
 preaching of the Word of Truth. She had 
 then, as now, the same Sacrifice, the same 
 Sacraments, but she hid them away from 
 the gaze of the pagans. She jealously ex- 
 cluded the unbaptized from her churches, 
 for her rites were the bread that the chil- 
 dren of the household alone might share. 
 But if the unbeliever might not come to 
 her, she went to the unbeliever. She 
 preached to him of God and of the Christ 
 and of the necessity of a revelation. 
 
 The same must be our plan now. For 
 all practical purposes we might as well 
 have in force the ancient rule which al- 
 lowed none but Catholics to enter our 
 churches during divine service. How few 
 they are who come from among our sepa- 
 rated brethren to see for themselves and 
 to hear what we have to say, only those 
 
 14 
 
Because We Have Again the Old Conditions. 
 
 know who, Sunday after Sunday, look on 
 the same familiar faces in the pews. 
 Therefore, if they do not come to us we 
 must go to them. If the truth of God is 
 worth anything, it is at least worth this 
 trouble from those who value it. 
 
 Such is the first reason for* a Catholic 
 Truth Society. The world has changed, 
 but the change is only a return of old con- 
 ditions. The means which were successful 
 in the first spring shall be successful in the 
 second spring. The Church is the same, 
 the truth is the same — only the methods of 
 presenting that truth are altered with the 
 times. 
 
 Perhaps one of the most salient features 
 of the organized effort to spread Catholic 
 truth, known as the Catholic Truth So- 
 ciety, is that it is an organization of the 
 laity. In Catholic theology the task of 
 preaching the Gospel was laid upon the 
 Apostles, and by the Apostles given to their 
 successors. St. Paul sums up the teaching 
 of the Church in the pertinent queries, 
 ^'How shall they call on Him in whom 
 
 15 
 
The Mission of the Catholic Laity. 
 
 they have not believed? Or, how shall they 
 believe in Him of whom they have not 
 heard? And how shall they hear without 
 a preacher? And how shall they preach 
 unless they be sent?" Therefore, the Bish- 
 ops, as the successors of the Apostles, in 
 their own -dioceses, and the Pope, as the 
 successor of the chief of the Apostles, in 
 the whole world, are the divinely ordained 
 preachers of the Gospel, .and they commit 
 that charge to those whom they judge fit. 
 But this oversight does not mean that there 
 is not on each of us the obligation of 
 making our religion known. It means 
 that we are not to set up altar against altar, 
 and that all things should be done in 
 seemly fashion and with one mind. Hence 
 on the laity, too, rests the duty of giving 
 a reason for the faith that is in them. And 
 when the laity are organized, as in this 
 Catholic Truth Society, by the Archbishop 
 of the diocese, who, and who alone, is re- 
 sponsible for the teaching of the faith pure 
 and undefiled, there is no break with the 
 
 i6 
 
Their Opportunities of Spreading the Truth. 
 
 traditions of the Church, nothing opposed 
 to Catholic habits of thought. 
 
 As I have said, our times have their 
 own advantages and their own draw- 
 backs. It is to make use of one of those 
 advantages that the Catholic Truth So- 
 ciety organized the Catholic laity. In 
 this country men of all creeds meet on 
 the common basis of their citizenship. 
 In the ordinary walks of life Catholic 
 and non-Catholic are thrown into close 
 contact. They discuss every question in 
 the heavens above, in the earth beneath and 
 in the waters under the earth. Not the 
 least infrequent of those discussions is on 
 the subject of religion. Non-Catholics 
 who would not think of entering a Cath- 
 olic church or of speaking to a Catholic 
 priest will eagerly question the Catholic 
 laity concerning the teaching and practices 
 of the Catholic Church. Such an oppor- 
 tunity should not be lost. If any one 
 should know about the Catholic Church 
 surely Catholics should. It is not good 
 taste to force religious subjects into a 
 
 17 
 
How Newman Wished the Laity to Act. 
 
 conversation, but it is not good policy to 
 be silent when your Church is under dis- 
 cussion. Nearly fifty years ago, in a time 
 of great excitement in England on the sub- 
 ject of the Catholic Church, John Henry 
 Newman wrote words which are true of 
 Catholics, especially in these times and in 
 our own country. He said: 
 
 There is a time for silence, and a 
 time to speak; the time for speaking 
 is come. What I desiderate in Cath- 
 olics is the gift of bringing out what 
 their religion is; it is one of those 
 ^^better gifts" of which the Apostle 
 bids you be ^^zealous." You must not 
 hide your talent in a napkin, or your 
 light under a bushel. I want a laity 
 not arrogant, not rash in speech, not 
 disputatious, but men who know their 
 religion, who enter into it, who know 
 just where they stand; who know 
 what they hold and what they do not, 
 who know their creed so well that 
 they can give an account of it, who 
 know so much of history that they can 
 defend it. I want an intelligent, well- 
 instructed laity; I am not denying that 
 
 i8 
 
The Laity the Measure of Catholic Spirit. 
 
 you are such already, but I mean to 
 be severe, and, as some say, exorbi- 
 tant in my demands; I wish you to 
 enlarge your knowledge, to cultivate 
 your reason, to get an insight into the 
 relation of truth to truth, to learn to 
 view things as they are, to understand 
 how faith and reason stand to each 
 other, what are the bases and prin- 
 ciples of Catholicism, and where lie 
 the main inconsistencies and absurd- 
 ities of the Protestant theory. I have 
 no apprehension you will be the worse 
 Catholics for familiarity with these 
 subjects, provided you cherish a vivid 
 sense of God above and keep in mind 
 that you have souls to be saved. In all 
 times the laity have been the measure 
 of the Catholic spirit — they saved the 
 Irish Church three centuries ago, and 
 they betrayed the Church in England. 
 Our rulers were true — our people were 
 cowards. You ought to be able to 
 bring out what you feel and what you 
 mean as well as to feel and mean it; 
 to expose to the comprehension of 
 others the fictions and fallacies of your 
 opponents, and to explain the charges 
 brought against the Church, to the sat- 
 
 19 - 
 
His Lesson on the Need of Self-Reliance. 
 
 isfaction, not, indeed, of bigots, but of 
 men of sense of whatever cast of 
 opinion. And one immediate efifect of 
 your being able to do all this will be 
 your gaining the proper confidence in 
 self, which is so necessary for you. 
 You will then not have the temptation 
 to rely on others, to court political 
 parties or particular men; they will 
 rather have to court you. You will 
 no longer be dispirited or irritated (if 
 such is at present the case) at finding 
 difficulties in your way, of being called 
 names, in not being believed, in being 
 treated with injustice. You will fall 
 back upon yourselves; you will be 
 calm, you will be patient. Ignorance 
 is the root of all littleness ; he who can 
 realize the law of moral conflicts, and 
 the incoherence of falsehood, and the 
 issue of perplexities, and the presence 
 of the Judge, becomes, from the very 
 necessity of the case, philosophical, 
 long-sufifering and magnanimous. — 
 ^^ Present Position of Catholics in Eng- 
 land/' Led. IX, No. 4. 
 
 The Catholic Truth Society cannot 
 create such a laity, but it can organize it 
 
 20 
 
The Mission of the Printing Press. 
 
 and encourage it. Then, there is a second 
 advantage, as great in its way, if not 
 greater. The American people reads. 
 Perhaps its reading is not deep, but it is 
 wide; moreover, it is impartial. The peo- 
 ple will read anything that is readable, no 
 matter what it treats about. Every fad, 
 every humbug, every political measure, 
 every social dream has its expounders, 
 has its readers — why not the old Church 
 that gave printing to the world? We 
 hardly realize what a powerful engine the 
 printing press is. The Church has never 
 despised it; from the beginning she em- 
 ployed it. She employs it now, but in our 
 country not enough. To help in some 
 way to spread Catholic Truth among the 
 people by means of Catholic literature, 
 this, too, is the end of the Catholic Truth 
 Society. 
 
 Such are some of the advantages which 
 will favor the work of the Catholic 
 Truth Society. There are, however, dis- 
 advantages against which we must strive — 
 
 21 
 
Americans Ready to Hear All Claims* 
 
 and this brings me to the subject proper 
 of this lecture, ^^Ghosts in General." 
 
 When the prophet of a new political 
 measure comes before the people, men 
 are willing to take him for what he is 
 and discuss his arguments for what they are 
 worth. They are willing to examine the 
 case as he sets it forth and, although they 
 may not agree with him, they give the 
 measure a fair hearing and accept or reject 
 it on its merits. They extend this courtesy 
 to every one who comes before them and 
 claims to have something worth talking 
 about. A new medicine or a new ma- 
 chine, a discovery in morals or a discovery 
 in religion— all claim an attentive audi- 
 ence, and they get what they claim. But 
 there is one society which comes before 
 American non-Catholics and appeals to 
 them in vain. The Catholic Church is in the 
 midst of them-^a fact too potent to be de- 
 nied, an energy too strong to be ignored. 
 She makes lofty claims to their attention. 
 In a world of clashing and conflicting sects 
 she declares that she holds the truth once 
 
 22 
 
Except Those Put Forth By the Church. 
 
 delivered to the saints. To those who are 
 tossed about by every wind of doctrine she 
 offers the shelter and security of the Rock 
 of Peter. To those who are perplexed with 
 the riddle of existence she holds out the 
 key that unlocks all mysteries. In an age 
 of doubt she stands for faith. In a land 
 given up, above all lands, to things ma- 
 terial, she is the witness of the Unseen. 
 Closer and closer her children throng 
 round her. Deeper and deeper, day by 
 day, grows their devotion to her. As 
 she walks through the land, glorious ca- 
 thedrals, great churches, schools, colleges 
 and universities, hospitals and asylums 
 spring up where her feet have trod. And 
 all this comes to pass not from State aid 
 but from, the munificence of the poor. The 
 ages of faith are renewed and the widow's 
 cruse of oil is not diminished. 
 
 Yet, in spite of all her claims, of all her 
 offers, of all her deeds, she cannot obtain 
 a hearing from the non-Catholic body of 
 American citizens. Any other society can 
 be put on trial and can be assured of a fair 
 
 23 
 
Because to Some She Is a Dead Issue. 
 
 verdict — her case is already judged. Even 
 those who claim to be tolerant and 
 broad-minded, and have convinced them- 
 selves that they are tolerant and broad- 
 minded, put her aside with a contemptuous 
 shrug. ^^Catholicity is a dead issue," they 
 say, ^^a worn-out superstition. Civilization 
 has tried the Church and found her want- 
 ing. She may have had her uses among 
 the barbarians of a thousand years ago, 
 or among the barbarians of to-day, but we 
 have outgrown her tutelage. What mes- 
 sage can she have for this age? None. 
 Impossible! Absurd!" And they close 
 their ears lest they may hear, and they 
 turn to the betterment of the condition of 
 decayed dogs, or to a scientific examination 
 of mediumistic slate writing, or to the 
 Buddhists or to the Theosophists, or to any 
 clue, no matter how faint, that promises 
 to lead them to spiritual truth, and they 
 refuse to hear her voice who alone has 
 the tidings of salvation. 
 
 There are others who, when they hear 
 her claims, shudder at the very name. "Is 
 
 24 
 
To Others She Is the Mystery of Iniquity. 
 
 she not Antichrist? Is she not the mystery 
 of iniquity? Is she not the scarlet woman 
 drunk with the blood of the saints? To 
 listen to her would bring a curse upon us 
 and ours. She is like that heathen Circe 
 whose voice steals away the senses of men. 
 Let us therefore stop our ears lest we be 
 destroyed. We have seen the fate of this 
 one and that one who dallied with the 
 temptation and fell into her snares. 
 They left the brightness and liberty of 
 Protestantism, and went into the dark- 
 ness and slavery of Rome. They were be- 
 witched. No man in his sane senses could 
 have done it. Therefore they are insane. 
 Let us keep away from her. Let us never 
 look upon her face. Let us never listen to 
 her voice. She is an accursed thing, even 
 as our fathers told us, and our only safety 
 is to fly when she draws near." 
 
 There are others who hear her chal- 
 lenge and answer it back boldly. ^We 
 know you of old," they say, ^^friend of ty- 
 rants and enemy of the people. History 
 tells how you have always been on the side 
 
 25 
 
To Others She Is the Ancient Enemy. 
 
 of wrong, never on the side of right. Here 
 in this free republic, by some mysterious 
 chicanery, you have gathered around you 
 the ignorant and the vicious. You have 
 only one purpose. You would destroy our 
 liberties, overturn our schools, and erect on 
 the ruins of the capitol the throne of your 
 Pope. We have no need to listen to you 
 or to examine )^our claims. The report of 
 you has come down to us from our fathers 
 who went out of you and were saved. 
 Your blighting influence is on every land. 
 Compare Spain with England, compare 
 Portugal vv^ith Germany, compare Mexico 
 with these United States. Here your aim 
 is to bring back the darkness of the Middle 
 Ages. Therefore, by trickery and fraud 
 you have got possession of all the political 
 offices; you have your Jesuits in the Cab- 
 inet; your secret societies are armed and 
 drilling, you are only waiting for the op- 
 portune moment to crush out Protestantism 
 and Liberty together. Listen to you! Hear 
 your case! Let there be no truce with 
 
 26 
 
Newman Paints the Prejudiced Man.. 
 
 treason. Let there be no compromise with 
 dishonor." 
 
 If, by any chance, the case of the Cath- 
 olic Church is set forth in public, and they 
 cannot help but listen, think you that they 
 lay aside their prejudice? Newman de- 
 scribed the state of affairs in 1851. His 
 description is true of 1897. You, your- 
 selves are acquainted with the facts. Judge 
 then the accuracy of the description : 
 
 However, we will suppose the prej- 
 udiced man in a specially good humor, 
 when you set about undeceiving him 
 on some point on which he misstates 
 the Catholic faith. He is determined 
 to be candor and fairness itself and to 
 do full justice to your argument. So 
 you begin with your explanation : You 
 assure him he misconceives your doc- 
 trines; he has got a wrong view of 
 facts. You appeal to original authori- 
 ties, and show him how shamefully 
 they have been misquoted; you appeal 
 to history, and prove it has been 
 garbled. Nothing is wanted to your 
 representation; it is triumphant. He 
 is silent for' a moment, then he begins 
 
 27 
 
The General Anti-Catholic Temper. 
 
 with a sentiment, ^ What clever fellows 
 these Catholic are!" he says, ^'I defy 
 you to catch them tripping; they have 
 a way out of everything. I thought 
 we had you, but I fairly own I am 
 beaten. This is how the Jesuits get 
 on; always educated, subtle, well up 
 in their books — a Protestant has no 
 chance with them." You see, you have 
 not advanced a step in convincing him. 
 
 So, while the meanest and poorest have 
 the right to come before the bar of pub- 
 lic opinion and demand a fair hearing, 
 the greatest Church in the world, the 
 Mother Church of Christendom, no 
 sooner appears in judgment than the 
 voices are raised, "Away with her! 
 Crucify her! Crucify her!" That I 
 am not exaggerating, your own experi- 
 ence bears witness. I do not mean to 
 classify the whole non-Catholic world 
 under the head of the vulgar ranters who 
 a few years ago disgraced the name of 
 Protestant. But I do mean that all have 
 that temper of mind which renders them 
 averse to examining the claims of Cath- 
 
 28 
 
Stimulated By Old and New Charges. 
 
 olicity. With the illiterate, the calumnies 
 that we sell for money permission to com- 
 mit sin; that we are idolators; that priests 
 are all bad and nuns all wicked; that mur- 
 der and adultery and lying are favorite 
 pastimes of ours; that we are guilty of 
 fraud in our dealings with the people, and 
 that we grow fat on the credulity of the 
 ignorant — with the illiterate, I say, these 
 calumnies take, and stand in the place of 
 argument. With others, the charges that 
 the priests are in politics, that we have 
 designs on the school fund, that we put 
 none but Catholics into office, are sufficient. 
 With others, the belief that history tells 
 how we were bloodthirsty and cruel in the 
 past, and how we would be bloodthirsty 
 and cruel now if we had the power, is both 
 law and Gospel. With still others, the con- 
 viction that we are a survival of the un- 
 fittest, that we are an anomaly in the nine- 
 teenth century, that enlightenment must 
 slay us — makes them indifferent to our rea- 
 soning. And so on — for a thousand argu- 
 ments or one — through every walk of life, 
 
 29 
 
The Haunted House and Its Ghosts. 
 
 through every class of society, but the re- 
 sult is the same. Ignore the Church if you 
 can, fight her if you dare, speak well of 
 her if you must, but never, under any cir- 
 cumstance, permit yourself to believe that 
 she may be^ true and that her claims are 
 worthy of examination by men of sense. 
 
 Have you ever heard of a haunted 
 house? perhaps you have seen one. No- 
 body can tell what it is that distinguishes 
 it from other deserted houses, yet even 
 under the broad daylight it has an air of 
 mystery and peculiar desolation. The win- 
 dows are broken, grass is growing in the 
 walks, the paint is peeling off the wood- 
 work, the walls are discolored with mold, 
 the trees about grow wild and into 
 strange and fantastic shapes. Rumor runs 
 that unearthly noises have been heard at 
 the dead hour of night — shrieks and the 
 clanking of chains. When friends are 
 gathered round the fire, when jest and 
 laughter follow fast, you may tell the story 
 of the haunted house, and meet with incre- 
 dulity ; but pass it in the night alone, when 
 
 30 
 
But No Ghost Can Outlast the Dawn. 
 
 the trees nod and beckon in the wind, 
 when the broken windows rattle in their 
 frames, when the boards creak — no one 
 knows why — and the bats whizz in and out 
 of the deserted rooms — and there are few 
 who will not at least whistle to keep up 
 their courage. Why they are afraid none 
 can tell. Why the house should be haunted 
 there is no authentic reason. No one ever 
 came nearer to the Ghost than the man 
 whose brother-in-law's wife's grandfather 
 was related to the man that saw the man 
 that saw the Ghost. Yet the house is 
 haunted; every one says so; every one is 
 right. Have naught to do v/ith it. 
 
 Terrible, however, as Ghosts may be in 
 the witching hours of night, when grave- 
 yards yawn, not one of them can bear the 
 light of day. As soon as the dawn is grey 
 in the sky the most pertinacious must flit 
 away. Says the melancholy Dane: 
 
 I have heard, 
 The cock, that is the trumpet to the 
 morn, 
 
 31 
 
The Ghosts of Anti-Catholic Bigotry. 
 
 Doth with his lofty and shrill sound- 
 ing throat 
 
 Awake the god of day; and, at hi§ 
 warning, 
 
 Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air, 
 
 The extravagant and erring spirit hies 
 to his confine. 
 
 You may see now why I have entitled 
 this lecture "Ghosts in General." To 
 those who do not belong to her commun- 
 ion, the Catholic Church is like some 
 haunted house. Dark and bloody deeds 
 are done within its walls. Strange cowled 
 figures, known as inquisitors, stretch the 
 Protestant upon the rack and then give 
 his tortured limbs to the tenderer mercies 
 of the faggot and the stake. Popes, Jesuits, 
 monks, cardinals, nuns, stalk through its 
 rooms; shrieks and groans are mingled 
 with unholy revelry and blasphemy against 
 the Most High. The pious Protestant 
 stops his ears and flies from the accursed 
 spot. But when the sun rises all these ghosts 
 hie them away. If the terrors of his mid- 
 night experience will permit him he may 
 
 32 
 
Newman Describes the Flitting of the Ghosts. 
 
 now examine the house from garret to cel- 
 lar. But unfortunately he will not. He 
 knows enough about the house — catch him 
 going there again! If he did, as Newman 
 says: 
 
 The spectres of tyranny, hypocrisy 
 and fraud would flit away with the 
 morning light. There would be no 
 more dread of being burned alive by 
 Papists, or of the gutters overflowing 
 with Protestant blood. Dungeons, 
 racks, pulleys and quicklime would be 
 like the leavings of a yesterday's revel. 
 Nor would the political aims and plots 
 and intrigues, so readily imputed to 
 us, seem more substantial, and though 
 I suppose there is lying and littleness 
 and over-reaching and rivalry to be 
 found among us as among other sons 
 of Adam, yet the notion that we mo- 
 nopolized these vile qualities or had 
 more than our share of them would 
 be an exploded superstition. This, in- 
 deed, would be a short and easy way 
 not of making Protestants Catholics 
 but of reversing their ridiculous 
 dreams about us — I mean if they 
 actually saw what they so interminably 
 argue about. 
 
 33 
 
The Origin of the Anti-Catholic Ghosts. 
 
 The question naturally arises, Whence 
 those Ghosts? Some Ghosts, you know, 
 arise by a kind of spontaneous generation. 
 They come into being on the principle of 
 giving a dog a bad name. Let a house be 
 shut up, let it be untenanted for a long 
 time, let rats hold high revelry in it, and 
 soon the Ghosts appear. Other Ghosts are 
 the creations of mischievous boys or of 
 evil, designing men. But they all have this 
 quality: you must keep away from them if 
 you would believe in them. Once let the 
 clear light of truth shine upon them and 
 they vanish into air. 
 
 This is the object of this series of lec- 
 tures — to study the origin of the anti-Cath- 
 olic Ghosts. We shall see that some of 
 them are the creation of evil men for evil 
 purposes. We shall see that some of them 
 are the spontaneous productions of disor- 
 dered imaginations and hereditary igno- 
 rance. We shall first study the general 
 sources whence these delusions spring, and 
 we shall take up, one by one, some of the 
 great historic Ghosts, bring them into the 
 
 34 
 
The Master's Promise of Persecution. 
 
 white light of truth, and, as they vanish 
 away in accordance with the law of their 
 nature, we may discover the hidden 
 springs, the wires, the ropes, the pulleys 
 that made them seem so lifelike and so 
 terrible when they stalked abroad among 
 a credulous generation. 
 
 The history of human credulity is not 
 pleasant reading. We agree readily 
 enough with the exclamation of the fairy, 
 ^What fools these mortals be!" But when 
 we examine the long catalogue of fooleries, 
 and read how often and how grossly and 
 how multifariously men have made fools 
 of themselves we begin to be ashamed of 
 our human nature. But in dealing with 
 the Christian religion men have surpassed 
 all records on all other subjects. The 
 Founder of that religion warned His dis- 
 ciples that such was to be their fate: 
 ^^Blessed are ye when men shall hate you 
 and revile you and persecute you and say 
 all manner of evil against you falsely for 
 My sake. Rejoice and be glad, for your 
 reward is very great in heaven." In His 
 
 35 
 
The Pagan Calumnies About Christians. 
 
 own person that same Divine Founder suf- 
 fered the evils which He foretold. He 
 was accused of disloyalty, He was ac- 
 cused of stirring up sedition, He was 
 accused of plotting the overthrow of the 
 institutions of His country. Hardly had 
 His religion begun to take form than these 
 and other calumnies were hurled at it. 
 When Nero, the Roman emperor, was ac- 
 cused of burning Rome he was able to 
 divert suspicion from himself by laying 
 the crime at the door of the Christians. 
 Nothing was too wild, too revolting to be 
 believed about them. For three hundred 
 years they were held up to the patri- 
 otic Romans as enemies of the gods and 
 enemies of their country. It was said that 
 they were consumed with a deadly hatred 
 of all mankind, that they fled the light, 
 that they carried out their rites in caverns. 
 They were accused by learned and sober 
 writers of feasting on human flesh. Some 
 inkling of the doctrine of the Real Pres- 
 ence in the Eucharist had reached the pa- 
 gan mind, and such was the interpretation 
 
 .^6 
 
The Protestant Calumnies About Catholics. 
 
 put Upon it. A young child, it was said, 
 was brought into the Christian assemblies. 
 It w^as covered with flour and then stabbed 
 to death with a knife. The Christians 
 drank its blood and ate its flesh. Such a 
 calumny may seem to you too absurd for 
 credence, yet it was believed. And, strange 
 to say, it has survived through all those 
 centuries, so little does human nature 
 change. It is still common enough among 
 anti-Catholic lecturers of the baser sort 
 who are continually harping on the babies' 
 bones found in convent cellars and convent 
 sewers. But it is one and the same old 
 Ghost that stirred the Romans to frenzy 
 and made the amphitheatre ring with the 
 cry, ^The Christians to the lions!''* 
 
 It is a peculiar characteristic of those 
 Ghosts, that not only are they Ghosts but 
 they are dirty Ghosts. In the old Roman 
 times it was charged by the Pagans that 
 the Christian assemblies were scenes of de- 
 bauchery and of crimes that are not named 
 without a shudder. The very same calum- 
 nies are uttered against the Church to-day 
 
 37 
 
A Witness to the Continuity of the Church. 
 
 — were uttered from this platform and 
 against you who have lived your lives in 
 this town. 
 
 As the Catholic Church is the Church of 
 Christ, as she is the Church of the Cata- 
 combs and of the Martyrs, it is not sur- 
 prising that this continuity of calumny 
 should bear witness to the continuity of her 
 existence. If she has the inheritance of the 
 disciples' glory she must have the inherit- 
 ance of the disciples' trials. For this if 
 for no other reason we should expect that 
 the great institution founded by Him who 
 was set for a sign to be spoken against 
 should be gainsaid. But there are special 
 reasons why the Catholic Church should 
 be spoken against by our non-Catholic 
 brethren in this country, and why they 
 should have a breed of Ghosts all their 
 own to people the haunted house. 
 
 The population of this land is made up 
 of men from every race and country. The 
 earlier colonists, however, came from the 
 British Islands, and they have impressed 
 their language and their laws upon the 
 
 38 
 
The Religion of the Colonists English. 
 
 whole nation. Only one of the original 
 colonies was in the beginning Catholic, 
 and, as you know, the presecuted Protes- 
 tants who found a refuge from intolerance 
 in Maryland turned on their hosts and pro- 
 scribed the Catholic faith within its bor- 
 ders. Before the War of Independence 
 the thirteen colonies were practically 
 Protestant. Their Protestantism was not 
 all of the same variety, but the varieties 
 agreed in one thing, that immediately or 
 mediately they came from England. The 
 Puritans and Cavaliers were English born, 
 the Presbyterians were either from Scot- 
 land or the north of Ireland. The re- 
 ligion, therefore, of the colonists, like their 
 language, was English. 
 
 Leaving out the Lutherans, the main 
 stream of American Protestantism de- 
 scends from this source. By American 
 Protestantism I mean not only the sects 
 like the Congregationalists, Unitarians, 
 Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, and so 
 on, but the far more numerous body of 
 non-Catholics who march under no eccle- 
 
 39 
 
How Protestantism Came Into England. 
 
 siastical banner but agree in this, that 
 they are not Catholics. American Protes- 
 tantism, therefore, has two heirlooms — the 
 English language and the English tradition 
 about the Catholic Church. 
 
 Up to the reign of Henry VIII England 
 had been a Catholic country. That mon- 
 arch threw off the supremacy of the Pope 
 because the Pope refused him a divorce. 
 In his reign and in the reign of his son 
 the process of de-Catholicizing England 
 went on. It was checked for a while under 
 Mary, but was renewed under Elizabeth 
 and completed under James. The process 
 therefore lasted for over a hundred years. 
 Though it was accelerated by massacres, 
 by murder, by the stake, the rack and the 
 gibbet, by fine, imprisonment, confiscation 
 and banishment, it was still a slow process. 
 It is not easy to rob a people of the faith 
 which their fathers before them had 
 professed for nearly a thousand years. 
 
 We often wonder when we read the his- 
 tory of those times how it was done. The 
 common Protestant theory is that there was 
 
 40 
 
By Base Methods and Baser Men. 
 
 a great awakening of the human mind and 
 that the benighted Catholics saw the light 
 of the Gospel for the first time and flocked 
 around it. We know that the common 
 Protestant theory is wrong. The move- 
 ment from beginning to end was a polit- 
 ical movement. In the reign of Henry 
 VIII it was directed against the Pope be- 
 cause the Pope would not pander to 
 Henry's lust. In no other article of faith 
 would he allow dissent, and he burned the 
 poor Lutheran who denied the Real Pres- 
 ence in the Blessed Sacrament as cheer- 
 fully as he beheaded his Lord Chancellor 
 who denied the royal headship of the 
 Church. In Mary's time the Parliament 
 acknowledged the supremacy of the Pope; 
 in Elizabeth's time the Parliament repu- 
 diated it. Macaulay's words concerning 
 the persons who introduced the Reforma- 
 tion into England are severe, yet Macaulay 
 was a Protestant of the Protestants: 
 
 A king whose character may be best 
 described by saying that he was des- 
 potism itself personified, unprincipled 
 
 41 
 
In the Long Run Protestantism Triumphed. 
 
 ministers, a rapacious aristocracy, a 
 servile Parliament, such were the in- 
 struments by which England was de- 
 livered from the yoke of Rome. The 
 work which had been begun by, 
 Henry, the murderer of his wives, was 
 continued by Somerset, the murderer 
 of his brother, and completed by Eliz- 
 abeth, the murderer of her guest. . . 
 Of those who had any important share 
 in bringing the Reformation about, 
 Ridley was perhaps the only person 
 who did not consider it as a mere 
 political job. — Essay on Hallam. 
 
 But the Protestant movement in England, 
 such as it was, was a success. It was the 
 religion of the court, and therefore became 
 a passport to royal favor and political pre- 
 ferment. It became the synonym for all 
 that was cultured, for all that was 
 powerful. It was no advantage to the 
 Catholics to protest that they, too, were 
 loyal, to muster in thousands around their 
 queen when the Armada threatened Eng- 
 land. The Protestant party determined 
 that they were to be disloyal, and as dis- 
 
 42 
 
Catholics Stigmatized as Traitors and Fools. 
 
 loyal they were branded by act of Parlia- 
 ment, by popular rumor, by the tradition of 
 literature. It was of no avail for learned 
 men to write in the defense of the old 
 Church — their books were burned by the 
 common hangman, and they, too, if the 
 powers that were got their hands on them, 
 suffered the fate of their books. It was of 
 no avail to speak of the services of the 
 ancient religion; the ancient religion was 
 declared to be a thing of mummeries 
 and superstitions, and straightway, in the 
 mouths of courtiers, in the mouths of the 
 leaders of fashion, a thing of mummeries 
 and superstitions it became. It was of no 
 avail to point to the fact that the bulk of 
 the people clung to the ancient faith; what 
 were the people without leaders? There- 
 fore, take their leaders, banish some be- 
 yond the seas, clap others into prison and 
 chop their heads off as traitors, and, be- 
 hold, the people, like sheep without a shep- 
 herd, are scattered on every hill. So it 
 was in England — the politicians decreed 
 that the old religion should go, and go it 
 
 43 
 
Persecution Made the New Religion Secure. 
 
 did. They called its professors ignorant, 
 and ignorant they became. They called 
 its defenders disloyal, and disloyal they 
 were. Let Papist be a name of re- 
 proach; let Mary, the Catholic, be 
 '^Bloody Mary;" let Elizabeth, the Prot- 
 estant, be ^^Good Queen Bess;" let Jesuit- 
 ical mean dishonorable and tricky; let 
 monk stand for bigot; let Catholic be an- 
 other name for superstitious and reaction- 
 ary, and let the great Church which civil- 
 ized the world be the mother of abomina- 
 tions. As it was decreed, so it was done. 
 Those politicians did their work well. 
 They made England a Protestant country 
 by making Protestant a word of blessing 
 and Catholic a word of reproach. The 
 tradition which they founded was handed 
 down from father to son. If a chance 
 Catholic should protest — for two centuries 
 and a half — the laws took care that his pro- 
 test should not be heard. Now that he can 
 be heard, the dead weight of the tradition 
 continues the work of the penal laws. 
 Therefore it is that the Catholic Church 
 
 44 
 
The English Tradition Imported to America. 
 
 is refused the hearing which our Ameri- 
 can people give to every other system. 
 The traditions of England were carried 
 over to this land, and here they grew 
 and thrived. The necessities of our 
 war for Independence made us toler- 
 ant, but the old leaven was still in the 
 new lump. Catholics were few and far 
 between. The old prejudice was propa- 
 gated in Sunday school and in public 
 school, in the pulpit, in the history, in the 
 novel, in conversation, in the manners of 
 the people. Catholicism was something 
 outlandish, strange, suspicious, disloyal. 
 That Catholics had horns and that their 
 priests had cloven hoofs was an article of 
 faith in some localities; in all localities 
 Catholicism was an evil to be dreaded, a 
 superstition to be set aside as unworthy 
 of the contemplation of serious men. 
 
 So the tradition continued even to our 
 own day. The increasing numbers of Cath- 
 olics may have modified its virulence in 
 some respects ; in others the growth of the 
 Church has intensified it. While English 
 
 45 
 
Long Quarrel Between Ireland and England. 
 
 speaking Protestantism in this country is of 
 English descent immediately or mediately, 
 the earliest and the main stream of English 
 speaking Catholicism had its origin in Ire- 
 land. Now between England and Ireland 
 the quarrel of centuries has left hard and 
 bitter feelings. In the end England proved 
 the luckier and she ground the sister island 
 beneath her heel. She ravaged the land 
 from end to end. She drove out the lead- 
 ers of the people. She strove for a hun- 
 dred years to force her new religion upon 
 them, she made a nation that, if left 
 alone, would be considered prosperous and 
 learned, ^^the most distressful country that 
 ever yet was seen." 
 
 When men act with one another in the 
 way England acted with Ireland, they 
 must give some reason to themselves and 
 others for their action. So England ex- 
 plained to the world why it was necessary 
 to plunder Ireland so often and to harry 
 her people and to reduce her periodically 
 to starvation. Of course, the explanation 
 must not hurt England. All the fault 
 
 46 
 
The English Tradition About Ireland. 
 
 must be laid at the doors of the mere 
 Irishry. They were little more than sav- 
 ages, treacherous, cruel, dishonest, given 
 to shooting the virtuous English from be- 
 hind hedges, and, under all circumstances, 
 ^^agin the government." They were un- 
 fitted for self-rule — watch their eter- 
 nal squabbling, though their squabbling 
 is but mild compared to that in which 
 the politicians of other lands indulge. 
 They are lazy and improvident. It is true 
 we have deliberately killed their manufac- 
 tures and permitted landlordism . to rob 
 them of their earnings twice a year — still, 
 what can you do with people who live in 
 thatched cabins and burn turf? Then 
 their priests own them. They are the de- 
 graded servants of the hierarchy. If they 
 would only turn Protestant, we should be 
 inclined to pity them; but the best we can 
 do for Papists is to exterminate them; 
 send them, by the sword of Cromwell in 
 one century, to hell or to Connacht; send 
 them, by the bitter famine in another cen- 
 tury, to the workhouse or to America. 
 
 47 
 
The Great Irish Migration to the States. 
 
 This was the story England told the 
 world, and the English colonists carried 
 it to this new land. The Irishman was 
 some kind of an inferior creature born to 
 be the hewer of wood and the drawer of 
 water to the Anglo-Saxon. He was some- 
 thing half man and half monkey; some- 
 times amusing, always contemptible. Then 
 he worshipped the Pope, paid to have his 
 sins forgiven, hated the Bible and there- 
 fore could neither read nor write, but was 
 in all things degraded and to be despised. 
 
 Hence, when in the first half of the 
 century the great Irish immigration set 
 towards these shores we had so many 
 outbreaks of anti-Catholic fanaticism. 
 The old Ghosts came up out of their 
 graves and went up and down the dark 
 places of the land. Lodges were founded, 
 meetings were held, oaths were sworn to 
 protect the country from the Pope, the 
 Devil and the Irish. 
 
 You see, then, that two of England's 
 traditions, the tradition about the Catholic 
 and the tradition about the Irish, met in 
 
 48 
 
The New Ghosts of Bigotry in America. 
 
 this country to form a very obnoxious and 
 terrible Ghost. It is true that where the 
 new comers were brought in close contact 
 with the old residents of the land the 
 Ghost was speedily laid. Personal friend- 
 ships, business connections, intermarriage, 
 conversions, all tended to exorcise the 
 evil spirit. But it would be untrue to say 
 that it does not still exist. The tradition 
 still runs at times in a subterranean cur- 
 rent, but given a favorable opportunity it 
 comes to the surface and sweeps thousands 
 with it. 
 
 You, yourselves, can judge if I speak 
 the truth. If any one should say that the 
 Episcopalians or the Baptists or the Meth- 
 odists were storing arms in the basement 
 of their churches, and were getting ready 
 to massacre all who did not believe with 
 them, no one would credit it. Say that 
 the Catholic churches are arsenals and 
 that the Catholics are preparing to mur- 
 der Protestants, and the story is believed. 
 No authority is asked for this truth; no 
 authority is given. No one thinks of ex- 
 
 49 
 
The Preponderance of Irish Office Holders. 
 
 amining the churches to find out for him- 
 self. The tale is in complete accord with 
 the Protestant tradition. It agrees with 
 what Protestants were told in their youth; 
 with what they read in their histories. The 
 Catholics were always cruel, always blood- 
 thirsty. The Ethiopian does not change 
 his skin or the leopard his spots. 
 
 Again, if any one should say that Pres- 
 byterians have all the political offices 
 worth having, no one would believe it. 
 At least there would be some examination 
 of the records; some search for facts. 
 But say the Catholics hold all the offices, 
 and then rattle off a list of Irish names 
 as proof of your assertion, and the fiction 
 is swallowed. Men will not take the 
 trouble to find out what is the proportion 
 of Catholic office holders to non-Catholic 
 office holders, or the proportion of the 
 Catholic population to the non-Catholic 
 population. No; they believe at once 
 that the Pope's Irish have captured the 
 works. They have always heard that the 
 Bishops and priests and Jesuits were cun- 
 
 50 
 
Protestant and Catholic Countries Compared* 
 
 ning fellows, and that the Catholics have 
 by such cunning been foisted into public 
 offices, is all of a piece with their infor- 
 mation. 
 
 Let any platform speaker get up and 
 characterize all Catholic countries as ig- 
 norant and unprogressive; no one is sur- 
 prised. It is just what they expected. Let 
 any magazine writer stigmatize the Mid- 
 dle Ages as bloody and intolerant — every 
 one remembers the adjectives he uses as 
 old familiar friends — is it not so written 
 in our school histories? Let a Catholic 
 protest against such histories, and straight- 
 way he has designs on our public schools. 
 Let him attempt to correct the popular 
 notions about his fathers in the faith, and 
 he is asked does he think he can throw 
 dust in the eyes of the enlightened Ameri- 
 can public at this end of the nineteenth 
 century? 
 
 But you can supply illustrations from 
 your own experience far better than I. 
 These are the Ghosts which we must send 
 flitting back to the shades from which 
 
 51 
 
The Real Meaning of Catholic Truth. 
 
 they emerged, by the cold, white light of 
 truth. This is the work of a Catholic 
 Truth Society. And on the very thresh- 
 old we shall meet one of those suspicious 
 spectres. Why a Catholic Truth Society? 
 Why Catholic Truth? Truth has no re- 
 ligion. Protestant Truth is as good as 
 Catholic Truth. What, then, must this 
 Catholic Truth be but a wicked perver- 
 sion of history to deceive us into surren- 
 dering our glorious heritage of the Bible? 
 We shall not quarrel about a word. Truth 
 is of no religion. Catholic Truth means 
 only the truth about Catholics. We care 
 not from what source it comes; truth is 
 as welcome from the Protestant as from 
 the Catholic. All we want is the truth, 
 and all we want is that our non-Catholic 
 brethren should examine what we have to 
 say. We do not expect to make them all 
 Catholics by our crusade. That work be- 
 longs solely to Him who holds in His 
 hands the hearts of men and sweetly dis- 
 poses all things as He wills. We have 
 but one object, and that is to bring men 
 
 52 
 
We Ask Only Fair Play and No Favor. 
 
 to see realities, not Ghosts. We wish 
 them to see with their eyes, and to hear 
 with their ears, and to handle with their 
 hands, and to say if we are the traitors, 
 the sots, the scoundrels, the ignoramuses, 
 that the great Protestant tradition repre- 
 sents us to be. We ask them to give the 
 Catholic Church the American privilege 
 of fair play and to hear the side of the 
 accused before passing judgment. This 
 is not an unreasonable request, and should 
 not be denied us. And it shall not. False- 
 •hood has had its day, and mayhap a long 
 day, but its longest day must have an end. 
 .No lie is eternal. Sooner or later the 
 truth must prevail. To have some share 
 in securing the triumph of truth is the 
 aim of a Catholic Truth Society. The 
 signs of the times are clear that the tri- 
 umph cannot be long delayed. The 
 Church is free. She is not compelled to 
 hide in catacombs or in garrets. She 
 walks in the midst of men, and, though 
 her enemies may cast dirt at her and 
 slander her and gnash their teeth at her, 
 
 S3 
 
We Are Confident of the Triumph of Truth. 
 
 they cannot deceive men forever. Man's 
 heart was made for truth. The scales of 
 the tradition shall some day fall from the 
 eyes of our brethren, and then shall they see 
 the beauty of the Church of God even as 
 the prophet saw her when her feet were 
 fresh on the hills of eternity. ^Who is she 
 that Cometh forth as the morning rising, 
 fair as the moon, beautiful as the sun, 
 terrible as an army set in battle array?" 
 
 54 
 
II -THE GUNPOWDER PLOT. 
 
 IN July, of 1775, George Washing- 
 ton took command of the American 
 troops before Boston. Though they 
 had shown their mettle at Bunker Hill, 
 they were still raw levies and sadly in 
 need of military discipline. To inculcate 
 discipline, to procure supplies and to 
 guide the military operations over a vast 
 extent of territory, was the task Wash- 
 ington set himself to accomplish in the 
 second half of the year 1775. He suc- 
 ceeded, and his success meant independ- 
 ence. 
 
 One of his general orders dealing with 
 discipline has an interest for Catholics. In 
 New England the 5th of November was 
 known as ^Tope's day." A figure repre- 
 senting the Pope was carried through the 
 streets in mock procession and burned. In 
 1775, when November came round, the 
 New England soldiers before Boston were 
 
 55 
 
George Washington and Pope's Day. 
 
 preparing for the usual celebration. Wash- 
 ington heard of it and issued an order, in 
 which he said: 
 
 As the Commander-in-chief has 
 been apprised of a design formed for 
 the observance of that ridiculous and 
 childish custom of burning the effigy 
 of the Pope, he cannot help express- 
 ing his surprise that there should be 
 officers and soldiers in this army so 
 devoid of common sense as not to 
 see the impropriety of such a step. 
 It is so monstrous as not to be suffered 
 or excused; indeed, instead of offering 
 the most remote insult, it is our duty 
 to address public thanks to our Cath- 
 olic brethren, as to them we are in- 
 debted for every late success over the 
 common enemy in Canada. 
 
 By those words was laid forever one 
 of the most terrible and bloodthirsty 
 Ghosts of the great Protestant tradition. It 
 was an English Ghost, which had been 
 brought over by the Puritans to these 
 shores. It was a Ghost which had been 
 
 ';6 
 
An English Ghost Brought by Puritans. 
 
 evoked by English political needs to di- 
 vide the English people and to rivet on 
 their necks a tyranny, the most abject 
 known in history. It was a Ghost which 
 made intolerance possible, and secured, 
 at least for a time, the triumph of 
 the ^^divine right of kings to govern 
 wrong." It was but fitting that a new 
 nation, which had grown tired of kings, 
 and was destined to become an exem- 
 plar of religious liberty to all peoples, 
 should at the very beginning of its strug- 
 gle for freedom put to flight forever that 
 obnoxious spectre. And it is among the 
 proudest boasts of Catholics that a libel 
 on their loyalty was so early in our his- 
 tory refuted forever by one who knew 
 how to fit noble words to noble actions — 
 George Washington. 
 
 The day known in New England as 
 Pope's day is known in Old England as 
 Guy Fawkes' day. When we say a man 
 ^^dresses like a guy," or when we speak 
 of ^^guying" a person, in the sense of mak- 
 ing him ridiculous, we are paying tribute 
 
 57 
 
Guy Fawkes and the Church of England. 
 
 to Guy Fawkes and the effigy which was 
 solemnly burned on the 5th of November. 
 In the Established Church of England 
 the day was a holiday, and was marked 
 on the Calendar of the Book of Common 
 Prayer as the ^Tapists' Conspiracy." The 
 Anglican clergy were commanded to give 
 warning to the people on the Sunday be- 
 fore ^^for the due observance of said day." 
 For the feast ^^a special form of prayer 
 with thanksgiving" was provided. The 
 wording of the petitions offered to Al- 
 mighty God w^as fearful and wonderful. 
 It was stated in them that the King, the 
 royal family, the nobility, clergy and 
 commons were, ^^by Popish treachery, ap- 
 pointed as sheep to the slaughter, in a 
 most barbarous and savage manner be- 
 yond the examples of former ages." They 
 also contain many pleasant and comfort- 
 able expressions about *Topish tyranny," 
 ^^the secret contrivance and hellish malice 
 of Popish conspirators," "cruel and blood- 
 thirsty Papists," "enemies that delight in 
 blood," and much more to the same effect, 
 
 58 
 
A Holiday to Demolish the Pope. 
 
 very edifying to the pious Protestant wor- 
 shipper and very conducive to tolerant 
 and charitable feelings toward his Catho- 
 lic brother. In order that nothing might 
 be lost of the meaning of this service a 
 sermon was preached, in which Rome's 
 Red Hand was held up to public execra- 
 tion. Of course, in the Anglican Church, 
 as among our own preachers, there were 
 some who had the Pope for breakfast, 
 dinner and supper; but, as among us, they 
 were not very numerous or of much influ- 
 ence. But on the 5th of November every 
 clergyman, moderate and extreme, broad 
 and narrow, high and low, tolerant and in- 
 tolerant, good, bad and indifferent, got 
 into his pulpit and demolished Popery 
 with all its works and pomps. In the 
 evening there were popular sports and 
 an effigy known as Guy Fawkes was pa- 
 raded through the streets and burned with 
 every circumstance of righteous disap- 
 proval. To be sure, the small boy was 
 the chief beneficiary of such proceedings. 
 The firecracker habit, which we associate 
 
 59 
 
Because Protestantism Had Been Saved. 
 
 with the Fourth of July, was by young 
 Britons associated with the 5th of No- 
 vember. Naturally, the small boy had not 
 the slightest idea of what it was all about. 
 It was not at all clear in his mind whether 
 Guy Fawkes was the Pope or the devil; 
 but the common opinion was that he was 
 a Papist of some kind, and the difference 
 between the devil and a Papist was en- 
 tirely too small to notice. 
 
 When the small boy grew up and was 
 able to understand sermons, he learned 
 that the celebration was a solemn national 
 thanksgiving for a great deliverance. The 
 liberties of England and the pure faith 
 of Protestantism had been miraculously 
 preserved from the Papists, who, as the 
 prayer had it, ^^turn religion into rebellion 
 and faith into faction." He would be told 
 that those Papists were wicked and blood- 
 thirsty, and were consumed with a deadly 
 hate of Protestants in general and of Brit- 
 ish Protestants in particular. In fact, 
 many years ago they conspired to blow up 
 the King, lords and commons with gun- 
 
 60 
 
From Hellish Machinations of Papists. 
 
 powder. In this conspiracy they were all 
 concerned, from the Pope down to the 
 peasant. Moreover, there was neither 
 rhyme nor reason for their attempt. They 
 had received no provocation, but were 
 driven to the bloody design through ^^pure 
 cussedness." Besides, in doing so they 
 were only acting according to the princi- 
 ples of their religion, which tells them 
 that it is no sin to murder a heretic. In- 
 deed, in the eyes of Catholics it is a most 
 meritorious act to overthrow a Protestant 
 government simply because it is Protes- 
 tant. The attempt failed because God had 
 the King of England in His especial keep- 
 ing. Therefore, all loyal Protestants ob- 
 serve the day as a day of thanksgiving. 
 In the morning the parsons blow up the 
 Pope in the pulpit, and in the evening the 
 small boys blow up Guy Fawkes in the 
 market place to the inspiring and patriotic 
 refrain: 
 
 Remember, remember 
 The Fifth of November. 
 
 6i 
 
The Common Account of Gunpowder Plot. 
 
 If we turn now to the text books of 
 history in common use among us, we shall 
 find the following account of the trans- 
 action which made the 5th of November 
 memorable. For instance, let us take the 
 paragraph devoted to the subject in that 
 notoriously sectarian book, ^^Myers' His- 
 tory," which, in contravention of the law^s 
 of California, is used in so many of our 
 public schools: 
 
 The Gunpowder Plot (1605). — I^ 
 the third year of James' reign was 
 unearthed one of the most fiendish 
 plots imaginable. This was nothing 
 less than a plot to blow up with gun- 
 powder the Parliament building, upon 
 the opening day of the session, when 
 King, lords and commons would 
 all be present, and thus destroy at a 
 singrle blow everv branch of the Eng- 
 lish government. This conspiracy, 
 known as the Gunpowder Plot, was 
 entered into by some Roman Catho- 
 lics, because they were disappointed 
 in the course which the king had 
 taken as regards their religion. The 
 
 62 
 
As Given in Ordinary School Histories. 
 
 leader of the conspiracy was Guy 
 Fawkes. Thirty-six barrels of gun- 
 powder were secreted in the cellars 
 beneath the chamber occupied by the 
 lords, and then the conspirators quietly 
 awaited the assembling of Parliament. 
 The timely discovery of the plot was 
 brought about by means of a letter of 
 warning from one of the conspirators 
 to a Catholic lord (his brother-in- 
 law), begging him to absent himself 
 from the opening of Parliament. 
 ^'God and man," ran the mysterious 
 message, ^^have concurred to punish 
 the wickedness of this time; . . . 
 for, though there be no appearance of 
 any stir, yet, I say, they will receive 
 a terrible blow this Parliament, and 
 yet they shall not see who hurts 
 them." The closing lines of the letter 
 awakened a suspicion as to the nature 
 of the plot; the vaults beneath the 
 Parliament House were searched, and 
 the terrible secret was discovered. 
 Fawkes, who was keeping watch of 
 the cellar, was arrested, and after 
 being put on the rack, was executed. 
 His chief accomplices were also 
 seized and punished. The alarm ere- 
 
 63 
 
The Accession of James to the Throne. 
 
 ated by the terrible plot led Parlia^ 
 ment to enact some very severe laws 
 against the Roman Catholics. 
 
 This is substantially the orthodox 5th 
 of November account of the conspiracy, 
 though told more by innuendo than by 
 direct statement. As the paragraph is 
 very general it may be well to go a little 
 more into detail in order to get a clear 
 idea of the plot and of its results. 
 
 In March of 1603 Queen Elizabeth 
 died. She was succeeded by James, the 
 son of Mary, Queen of Scots. He was 
 James VI. of Scotland, but is commonly 
 known as James I. of England. His 
 mother had been murdered by Queen 
 Elizabeth, and died protesting that she 
 suffered because of the Catholic faith 
 which she professed. Her son had been 
 raised a Protestant by the Scottish Lords. 
 The 5th of November, 1605, was a Tues- 
 day and had been appointed for the open- 
 ing of Parliament. It is the custom of the 
 English legislature to meet, on the first 
 
 64 
 
Discovery of Powder—Arrest of Fawkes. 
 
 day of the session, in one room, the House 
 of Lords, to hear the speech from the 
 throne. In King James' time that speech 
 was delivered by the monarch in person. 
 On the morning of this first Tuesday in 
 November, 1605, the city of London was 
 stirred to its center. The streets rang with 
 the news that a diabolical plot had been 
 discovered in the course of the night In 
 a cellar beneath the House of Lords an 
 immense quantity of gunpowder had been 
 found. In the cellar a man, who gave the 
 name of Johnson, had been arrested. 
 When he saw that the game was up, he 
 frankly acknowledged that he was there 
 to fire the magazine while the King was 
 addressing Parliament, and, with one 
 blow, destroy the government. When 
 questioned, he doggedly refused to say who 
 were his accomplices, or whether he had 
 any. 
 
 On examination it was found that John- 
 son's real name was Guy Fawkes, and that 
 the cellar had been hired by one Thomas 
 Percy, a Catholic gentleman and a connec- 
 
 6s 
 
The Flight of the Plotters and Their Death. 
 
 tion of the Earl of Northumberland. It 
 also came to light that Percy, with sev- 
 eral others, had fled from London on 
 Monday, and news arrived from the inte- 
 rior shires that they were attempting to in- 
 stigate a rebellion against the crown. The 
 sheriffs of the various counties through 
 which they passed raised men immediately 
 and pursued them. On Friday, Novem- 
 ber 8th, they were brought to bay. Four 
 were killed or mortally wounded, and the 
 others were brought to London and lodged 
 in the Tower. 
 
 On the day of the discovery of the plot, 
 Parliament met and immediately set about 
 considering measures designed to insure 
 the more effectual execution of the penal 
 laws against Catholics. On the Saturday 
 of the same week, November 9th, King 
 James made a speech to Parliament, in 
 which he said that the plot was the direct 
 result of Catholic principles, for the Pa- 
 pacy, according to him, was ^^the true mys- 
 tery of iniquity." He also expressed his 
 opinion that ^^these designs were not 
 
 66 
 
The King Ascribes Plot to Catholics. 
 
 formed by a few," that ^^the whole legion 
 of Catholics were consulted," that ^^the 
 priests were to pacify their consciences, 
 and the Pope confirm a general absolution 
 for this glorious deed." Immediately after 
 the speech Parliament was prorogued until 
 January. 
 
 In the meantime the prisoners were ex- 
 amined by the government officials, and 
 torture was freely used to force them to 
 confess. You know what torture means. 
 The unwilling witness was bound upon 
 the rack, his limbs were stretched until the 
 bones were dislocated and the muscles 
 strained. Red-hot irons seared the quiver- 
 ing flesh and red-hot pincers tore the nails 
 out by the roots. We have the King's di- 
 rections concerning Guy Fawkes — ^^If he 
 will not othervvdse confess, the gentler tor- 
 tures are to be first used unto him, and so 
 gradually come to the worst. And so God 
 speed your good work." 
 
 On January 15, 1606, a proclamation ap- 
 peared offering a reward for the capture 
 of three Jesuit priests, John Gerard, 
 
 67 
 
How the Holiday Was Established. 
 
 Henry Garnet and Oswald Greenway, and 
 stating that it had been proved that they 
 were particularly implicated in the treason. 
 On the 2ist of January, Parliament re- 
 assembled and took up the work of the 
 Penal Laws. Four days later an act was 
 passed providing for the observance of the 
 anniversary of the discovery of the plot. 
 In that act the guilt of the crime was laid 
 upon ^^many malignant and devilish pa- 
 pists, Jesuits and seminary priests, much 
 envying the true and free possession of the 
 Gospel by the nation, under the greatest, 
 most learned and most religious monarch 
 who had ever occupied the throne.'' 
 
 On January 27th eight of the prisoners 
 were put on trial. The indictment charged 
 that the plot was contrived by Garnet, Ger- 
 ard, Greenway and other Jesuits, to whose 
 traitorous persuasions the prisoners at the 
 bar had wickedly yielded. They were all 
 found guilty, and four were executed on 
 January 30th, and the others on January 
 31st. 
 
 68 
 
Arrest and Execution of the Jesuits. 
 
 On the day the first batch suffered, 
 Father Garnet was captured. His hiding 
 place had been known for nine days pre- 
 viously, but the authorities waited till the 
 chief conspirators were out of the way 
 before taking him. With him was arrested 
 Father Oldcorne, another Jesuit, who was 
 never charged with knowledge of the plot. 
 Garnet was examined as many as twenty- 
 three times before the Council, in the hope 
 of incriminating him. But no proofs were 
 ever forthcoming that he was guilty of 
 any complicity. He was brought to trial 
 on March 28th, and on May 3d he was 
 hanged. Father Oldcorne was also put to 
 death on the charge of having aided and 
 abetted Garnet in his attempt to escape. In 
 government publications the Gunpowder 
 conspirators were from that time de- 
 scribed as ^^Garnet, a Jesuit, and his con- 
 federates." 
 
 You see, therefore, that from the very 
 beginning the Gunpowder Plot was 
 treated by the government as the work 
 of the Catholic Church. It was char- 
 
 69 
 
The Triumph of the Protestant Interests. 
 
 acterized as flowing from Catholic prin- 
 ciples and as backed by the priests. If 
 it were the attempt of a few wild and 
 turbulent men, little importance could be 
 attached to it But if it could be shown 
 to be a Catholic plot, approved by 
 the Catholic authorities, it immediately 
 assumed immense proportions. Hence, 
 you see that from the very moment of its 
 discovery it was laid at the door of the 
 Papists. Before the conspirators could be 
 examined it was attributed to the priests, 
 and in the act of Parliament by which the 
 religious thanksgiving was established the 
 opinion was set forth in unequivocal lan- 
 guage that the whole design was caused 
 simply and solely by hatred of the Protes- 
 tant religion. The result was the destruction 
 of all hopes of toleration entertained by 
 the Catholics. The old laws were enforced 
 with new severity, fresh laws were enacted. 
 The Protestant politicians, or that part of 
 them represented by the government, were 
 triumphant. A Ghost had been created, 
 which after two centuries and a half still 
 
 70 
 
Our Knowledge of the Facts One-Sided. 
 
 scares Protestants away from the Catholic 
 Church. The charge of disloyalty was 
 fixed upon Catholics, and the very word 
 Jesuit was entered in our dictionaries as a 
 synonym for treason, craft and all iniquity. 
 It is a very suggestive fact that our 
 knowledge of the trial and of the de- 
 signs of the conspirators comes to us 
 from one source. In those days there 
 were no enterprising newspapers to con- 
 duct investigations on their own responsi- 
 bility and to spread an account of the pro- 
 ceedings in court broadcast among the peo- 
 ple. We are dependent entirely on the 
 government officials for what we know. 
 Even in our days, and with all our oppor- 
 tunities, it would not be entirely safe to 
 take for granted all that the law officers 
 of the State might assert. It is not an un- 
 common allegation in our sensational trials 
 that the police have been more anxious to 
 convict a prisoner than to discover the 
 truth. If such allegations can be made, and 
 by men of reputation, in this free country 
 where the light beats so fiercely on all pub- 
 
 71 
 
The Official Account of the Plot. 
 
 lie proceedings, we can well imagine what 
 may have been done in the secrecy of the 
 torture chamber in a hasty trial at a time 
 when all documents were controlled by the 
 prosecution — ^w^hen the prosecution meant 
 a government determined to make political 
 capital out of the guilt of the accused. 
 
 From the official history we learn the 
 following account of the progress of the 
 plot: James I. came to the throne in 1603. 
 Elizabeth had harried the Catholics until 
 the very last, and only two months before 
 she died a proclamation ordered all Cath- 
 olic ecclesiastics to leave the country, under 
 pain of death. With the accession of 
 James the Catholics hoped that at least the 
 memory of his mother would restrain his 
 hand. They did not petition him for free- 
 dom of worship, as we understand it — all 
 they asked was permission to have their 
 worship at least in private houses, if not 
 with approbation yet without molestation. 
 Now, at that time, every Catholic who did 
 not attend the Protestant church was fined 
 twenty pounds a month. As money then 
 
 72 
 
The Reimposition of Catholic Fines. 
 
 was at least ten times as valuable as now, a 
 Catholic whose conscientious convictions 
 would not permit him to take part in the 
 Anglican service had to pay $1000 a month 
 for his refusal. The answer which James 
 gave to the Catholic petition was a promise 
 not to exact those fines. Though only half 
 a loaf, it was better than no bread, and the 
 Catholics were tolerablv content because 
 they were relieved from an imposition 
 which was surely reducing them all to 
 beggary. The king's promise was ob- 
 served until the following year. Then, like 
 a bolt from the clear sky, came a proclama- 
 tion banishing all priests beyond the seas. 
 The order went forth that the fines for 
 non-attendance were to be collected at once. 
 Not only were those fines to be exacted in 
 the future, but the back dues, which, ac- 
 cording to the King's word, had been prac- 
 tically remitted, were now demanded in a 
 lump. 
 
 When King James came down from 
 Scotland he brought with him his Scotch 
 Lords. They were a hungry crowd, and the 
 
 73 
 
Farmed Out to the Scotch Nobles. 
 
 feeling between the. English and the 
 Scotch, at no time good, was now more 
 bitter than ever. This feeling was shared 
 by Protestants as well as Catholics, and has 
 lasted with much of its ancient virulence 
 even to this day. Those needy adventurers 
 from the North saw a gold mine in the 
 Catholics. James actually farmed out the 
 Englishmen who refused to go to the Prot- 
 estant church to his Scotch followers, 
 granting them liberty, to use his own 
 words, ^^to make profit of them." Is it any 
 wonder that when Guv Fawkes was under 
 examination before the King and his Coun- 
 cil he replied to a Scotch nobleman who 
 asked him what he intended to do with all 
 the gunpowder, ^^To blow the Scotch beg- 
 gars back to their native mountains." 
 
 Now, it was said that as soon as James 
 broke his promise certain daring and reck- 
 less Catholics of good family conspired to 
 get revenge. In 1604 Robert Catesby pro- 
 posed a plan to John Wright and Thomas 
 Winter to blow up their persecutors. Guy 
 Fawkes, who had seen service in the Neth- 
 
 74 
 
The Plotters Hire a House Near Palace. 
 
 erlands, was brought over as a man likely 
 to be of service. To those four, three 
 others, among whom was Percy, were 
 added later, making the original number 
 of the conspirators. 
 
 About the middle of December, 1604, 
 the conspirators are said to have com- 
 menced operations. The place where the 
 Lords met was a chamber in a house about 
 fifty feet from the river Thames. Under 
 the chamber was a room commonly called 
 a cellar, but which was in reality a large 
 room on the ground floor on a level with 
 the street. This room was usually rented 
 out. Betw^een the Parliament house and 
 the river were several lodging or tenement 
 houses. One of these houses was leased 
 by Percy in May, and in December it is 
 said that the conspirators began to dig a 
 tunnel from the cellar of this house in 
 under the house of Parliament. It was the 
 intention to run the mine directly under 
 the Peers' chamber and to place therein 
 sufficient gunpowder to effect their pur- 
 pose. They began their work on Decem- 
 
 75 
 
Begin Tunnel Under House of Lords. 
 
 ber nth, and by Christmas they had 
 reached the foundations of the Parliament 
 house. The earth which was taken from 
 the tunnel was said to be hidden under the 
 turf in an adjoining garden, and they pro- 
 tected the tunnel as they went with framed 
 timbers. After the Christmas holidays 
 they began their work on the foundations, 
 which they found "very hard to beat 
 through." . From the beginning of Jan- 
 uary, 1605, to the middle of March they 
 worked at the foundations but were able 
 to get only half way. One morning as 
 they were digging they heard a rushing 
 noise in the cellar or room above their 
 heads. Fearing they were discovered they 
 sent Fawkes to investigate. He found 
 that the noise proceeded from the moving 
 of a store of coal which one Bright was 
 selling out. Fawkes carefully surveyed the 
 place and remarking that it was immedi- 
 ately under the Peers' chamber considered 
 that it was just the place to fire the mine. 
 Accordingly he told Percy, who went and 
 hired it. The tunnel was now abandoned 
 
 76 
 
Find a Cellar and Store Powder. 
 
 and the powder was transferred to the 
 cellar. The barrels were covered with 
 firewood, and the conspirators dispersed 
 to await the assembling of Parliament, 
 seven months afterward. 
 
 During this interval the money of the 
 conspirators ran low and it became neces- 
 sary to initiate certain Catholic gentlemen 
 of fortune into the plot. One of these, 
 Francis Tresham, was brother-in-law of 
 Lord Monteagle, a Catholic peer, who 
 would attend the opening of Parliament. 
 
 On the 26th of October, ten days be- 
 fore the famous 5th of November, Lord 
 Monteagle received an anonymous letter 
 in which he was warned "to devise some 
 excuse to shift your attendance at this Par- 
 liament; for God and man hath concurred 
 to punish the wickedness of this time." 
 Monteagle took the letter to Salisbury, 
 who was then what we would now call 
 Prime Minister. Salisbury kept the letter 
 for several days, and finally, about the 
 end of the month, he showed it to King 
 James. James interpreted it to mean that 
 
Letter Warning Lord Monteagle. 
 
 it was proposed to blow up Parliament 
 wnth gunpowder. The act of Parliament 
 which established the 5th of November as 
 a holiday, says that the treason ^Vould 
 have turned to utter ruin of this whole 
 kingdom had it not pleased Almighty God 
 by inspiring the King's most excellent maj- 
 esty with a divine spirit to discover some 
 dark phrases in a letter." Still nothing 
 was done by the government until the 
 night of the 4th of November, when a 
 guard was sent to search the room under 
 the Lords' chamber, and there Guy 
 Fawkes was found and the gunpowder, as 
 I have already described. 
 
 This is the story of the origin of the 
 plot as given in the evidence published 
 by the government, which evidence is our 
 sole source of information. It is an ex- 
 traordinary story and deserves careful 
 examination. Of course, within the limits 
 of a lecture like this it would be weari- 
 some and confusing to go minutely into 
 the evidence. But there are certain 
 broad features of the transaction which 
 
 78 
 
Loyalty a Virtue, But With Limits. 
 
 deserve notice, and to present them will 
 not, I hope, be too severe a strain on your 
 attention. 
 
 In the first place, then, you will remem- 
 ber that when Parliament was forming 
 the great Ghost which was to frighten 
 future ages, the guilt of the plot was laid 
 at the door of the Catholics. Popes, 
 priests, Jesuits and all, were at the bottom 
 of it, and they had no reason in the world 
 except an ungodly hatred of the Protestant 
 religion. 
 
 Now, I am far from justifying such a 
 crime as the Gunpowder Plot, but I am 
 just as far from justifying King James and 
 his ministers. Loyalty is a virtue incul- 
 cated by the Church, but loyalty has its 
 limits. A government exists for the bene- 
 fit of the governed, not for the benefit of 
 the governors. To a good government, 
 or even to a half decent government, we 
 are bound by the law of God to be obedi- 
 ent, not because we are afraid of the gov- 
 ernment, but because of God's law. To a 
 bad government no man is bound to be 
 
 79 
 
Plots and Rebellions in Sixteenth Century. 
 
 loyal. On that doctrine the fathers of the 
 United States took their stand, and on that 
 doctrine every American citizen stands 
 with them. 
 
 In the days of James I. things were far 
 different from what they are now. There 
 was no popular government in the proper 
 sense of the term. Parliament met and 
 began to show some signs of political 
 freedom ; but Parliament was still a crea- 
 tion of rotten boroughs and had not in 
 the early years of King James' reign re- 
 covered from the despotism of Henry 
 VIII. and Elizabeth. In our times politi- 
 cal changes are effected by a campaign 
 among the people and a victory at the 
 ballot box; in James' time political 
 changes were effected by plots and rebel- 
 lions. In the time of Queen Mary of 
 England the English Protestants had 
 risen twice, but unsuccessfully. In 
 the time of Queen Mary of Scotland 
 the Presbyterians were in a condition 
 of chronic rebellion and succeeded. The 
 conspirators might well have called to 
 
 80 
 
Persecutions Under Bloody Elizabeth. 
 
 James' memory the fact that his father 
 had perished in a successful gunpowder 
 plot engineered by the leaders of the 
 Scotch Presbyterians. Hence when wx 
 read of rebellion in those days we must 
 judge of it according to the standard of 
 those days, and instead of condemning it 
 in the abstract and merely as rebellion, 
 let us ask ourselves, was there any provo- 
 cation for it? 
 
 As we have seen, the great Protestant 
 tradition had it that there was no reason 
 whatever except the ingrained disloyalty 
 of Catholics towards a Protestant govern- 
 ment. Let us see what are the facts. 
 
 When Elizabeth came to the throne 
 after the death of her sister, Mary, in 
 1558, or nearly half a century before the 
 Gunpowder plot, she began to root out the 
 old relisfion with fire and sword. Since 
 the days when the might of the Roman 
 Empire was warring with the infant 
 Church there was never such a persecu- 
 tion. During the whole of Elizabeth's 
 reign the rack seldom stood idle and the 
 
 81 
 
Newman Describes the Martyrs' Pains. 
 
 ax was glutted with blood. All priests 
 were comprehended under a general sen- 
 tence of death, and those who aided them 
 were felons, whose end was the halter or 
 imprisonment for life. To wear an Agnus 
 Dei, a little piece of wax stamped with 
 the figure of a lamb to remind us of the 
 Lamb of God who taketh away the sins 
 of the V\^orld, was punishable by outlawry, 
 forfeiture of all goods and chattels to the 
 Queen and imprisonment for life. 
 
 Nor has this prohibition been at 
 all times an empty menace. The pos- 
 session of an Agnus Dei was the fore- 
 most charge in the indictment brought 
 against the first of our Martyrs 
 among Missionary priests in the reign 
 of bloody Elizabeth. ^^As soon as the 
 Sheriff came into the chamber," say 
 the Acts of the martyrdom of Cuth- 
 bert Maine, ^^he took Mr. Maine by 
 the bosom and said to him, What art 
 thou? He answered, I am a man. 
 Whereat the Sheriff, being very hot, 
 asked if he had a coat of mail under 
 his doublet; and so unbuttoned it 
 and found an Agnus Dei case about 
 
 82 
 
Racked, Hanged, Cut Down, Emboweled. 
 
 his neck, which he took from him, 
 and called him traitor, rebel, with 
 many other opprobrious names.'' 
 Maine was hanged, cut down alive, 
 falling from a great height, and then 
 quartered. He was the first fruit of 
 a sanguinary persecution which lasted 
 a hundred years. John Wilson, while 
 they tore out his heart, said, ^^I for- 
 give the Queen, and all that are the 
 
 - cause of my death." Edward Cam- 
 pion was cruelly torn and rent upon 
 the rack at divers times. ^^Before 
 he went to the rack he used to fall 
 down at the rack-house door, upon 
 both knees, to commend himself to 
 God's m.ercy; and upon the rack 
 he called continuously upon God, 
 repeating often the holy name of 
 Jesus. His keeper asked him the 
 next day how he felt his hands 
 and feet, he answered, ^Not ill, be- 
 cause not at all.' He was hanged 
 and emboweled at Tyburn." Ralph 
 Sherwin came next; the hangman 
 taking hold of him with his bloody 
 
 . hands which had been busy with the 
 bowels of the martyred priest who 
 preceded him, said to him, thinking 
 
 83 
 
Needles Thrust Under His Nails. 
 
 to terrify him, ^^Come, Sherwin, take 
 thou also thy wages." But the holy 
 man, nothing dismayed, embraced 
 him with a cheerful countenance, and 
 reverently kissed the blood that stuck 
 to his hands; at which the people 
 were much moved. He had been 
 twice racked, and now he was dealt 
 with as his brother before him. 
 Thom.as Sherwood, after six months' 
 imprisonment in a dark and filthy 
 hole, was hanged, cut down alive, dis- 
 membered, boweled and quartered. 
 Alexander Brian had needles thrust 
 under his nails, was torn upon the 
 rack, hanged and beheaded. George 
 Haydock was suffered to hang but a 
 very little while, when the Sheriff or- 
 dered the rope to be cut, and the 
 whole butchery to be performed upon 
 him while he was alive and perfectly 
 sensible. John Finch was dragged 
 through the streets, his head beating 
 all the way upon the stones ; was then 
 thrust in a dark and fetid dungeon, 
 with no bed but the damp floor; was 
 fed sparingly, and on nothing but 
 oxen's liver. Here he was left first 
 for weeks, then for months; till at 
 
 84 
 
Laity Persecuted as Well as Priests. 
 
 length he was hanged, and his quar- 
 ters sent to the four chief towns of 
 Lancashire. Richard White, being 
 cut down alive, pronounced the sa- 
 cred name of Jesus twice, while the 
 hangman had his hands in his bowels. 
 James Claxton was first put into the 
 little ease, that is, a place where he 
 could neither stand, lie, nor sit; there 
 he was for three days fed on bread 
 and water. Then he was put into 
 the mill to grind ; then he was hanged 
 up by the hands, till the blood sprang 
 forth at his finger ends; at length 
 he was hanged, dying at the age of 
 twenty-one years. — Newman s Present 
 Position of Catholics. 
 
 But the clergy were not the only suf- 
 ferers. It was death to reconcile any one 
 to the Catholic Church; it was outlawry 
 to hear Mass, to receive the Sacraments, to 
 educate children as Catholics, to wear or 
 possess rosaries or crosses. To refuse to 
 acknowledge the Queen's spiritual pri- 
 macy or to attend the Protestant services 
 was punished with fine and imprisonment. 
 In the twentieth year of Elizabeth's reign 
 
 85 
 
Rich and Poor Equally Plundered. 
 
 we read of a certain Elinore Brome, wife 
 of Sir Christopher Brome, who was con- 
 victed of a felony and punished as a felon 
 for wearing an Agnus Dei sent to her by 
 her sister. In 1596 the prisons of York 
 were filled with those who refused to 
 consider Elizabeth the head of the 
 Church, and eleven were executed, three 
 priests and eight laymen. 
 
 The fines were levied unsparingly both 
 on the rich and the poor. At first non- 
 attendance at Protestant service was pun- 
 ished by a fine of one shilling a Sunday, 
 but it was soon raised, as I have already 
 said, to twenty pounds a month. After- 
 wards men were made to pay ten pounds 
 for their Catholic wives, ten pounds for 
 their children and ten pounds for their 
 servants, and, in order to squeeze them 
 to the last drop, thirteen months were 
 counted in the year. Those who were un- 
 able to pay were stripped of their goods. 
 Coverlets and blankets were taken from 
 the beds in the cottages, nay, the very 
 beds themselves, the furniture, the cloth 
 
 86 
 
Homes Broken Into Day and Night. 
 
 the people had spun for the winter cloth- 
 ing for their children, were seized. The 
 food that was cooking on the fire was 
 poured away, and the pot or pan was 
 carried off by the Queen's officers. In one 
 list of those who refused to go to the 
 Protestant services, 2,000 names are writ- 
 ten, and of those all but fifty were of the 
 middle class and the poor. In one year, 
 in the city of York alone, 1,000 were in- 
 dicted; in Lancashire, 600; in various 
 other counties over 6,000. In Hereford 
 409 families were reduced to beggary. 
 Those whose means permitted fled over 
 seas, but the vast majority were compelled 
 by circumstances to remain at home and 
 either suffer beggary, imprisonment and 
 even death, or else sell their souls. 
 
 Add to this that the privacy of the home 
 was liable to be broken at any time of the 
 day or night by the officers of the law, 
 who w^ere empowered to make search for 
 objectionable persons or for superstitious 
 objects. These officers of the law were 
 notorious scoundrels, who made a living 
 
 87 
 
Whole Villages Sacked and Spoiled. 
 
 by plundering Catholics. The doors 
 were burst open, the sick dragged out of 
 their beds, the beds ripped to pieces, the 
 flooring torn up, the walls pierced, locks 
 forced, closets, drawers, coffers, rifled. 
 Scarcely a night passed, we have it on con- 
 temporary authority, even in the neighbor- 
 hood of London, but soldiers and catch- 
 poles broke into quiet men's houses and 
 stole everything they could lay their hands 
 on and carried off the unfortunate Cath- 
 olic householder to prison unless a bribe 
 large enough were forthcoming. 
 
 The monotony of assaults on individuals 
 was varied by raids on a more extensive 
 scale. Whole villages were suddenly sur- 
 rounded and sacked. The Catholics fled 
 to the woods, and the Protestant preachers 
 who usually led such ^^drives" plundered 
 at their own sweet will. Death itself was 
 a relief when compared with imprison- 
 ment. The jails were filthy holes, full of 
 vermin and disease. Out of fifty-eight 
 persons at one time imprisoned by the 
 
 88 
 
Provocation Enough for Powder Plot. 
 
 Archbishop of York for refusing the test 
 oath, forty died in prison. 
 
 I recall those things not to create bad 
 feeling. Thank God those times are past 
 and gone. I present you with this faint 
 picture of the reality so that yon may 
 answer for yourselves the question: Sup- 
 pose all the Catholics did conspire to blow 
 up the King, did they not have provoca- 
 tion? Would it be any wonder if a small 
 knot of men, suffering from such laws as 
 those, would be driven by their despair 
 to the wild justice of revenge? It is neces- 
 sary to invoke the supposition that it was 
 hatred of the Protestant faith and of the 
 liberty of the Gospel which nerved the 
 conspirators to that daring which is the 
 last refuge of the wretched. Of course 
 the design was terrible, was diabolical, if 
 you w^ill. Let those who wish to dwell 
 on the appalling results of the explosion 
 do so if they please: but it is only com- 
 mon justice to dwell also on the provoca- 
 tion. The persecution was more diaboli- 
 cal, more terrible than the plot, because 
 
 89 
 
We Do Not Praise and We Do Not Blame. 
 
 there was no reason whatsoever, except 
 greed and politics, for the persecution; as 
 incentives to the plot were the mangled 
 limbs of the martyrs, the father rotting in 
 the dungeon, the wife and children starv- 
 ing in the beggared home. If it were 
 true that all the Catholics had conspired 
 to end their oppression by one dread 
 blow, let those who have no sympathy for 
 the injured, let those who have no indig- 
 nation against wrong, let the enemies of 
 justice and the friends of tyrants blame 
 them — ^we cannot praise them, but neither 
 do we blame. 
 
 But is it true that the Catholics of Eng- 
 land had a part in the conspiracy? From 
 the very beginning the government strained 
 every nerve to connect the plot with 
 the whole Catholic body. Although there 
 was absolutely no evidence forthcoming, 
 the public utterances of the King and his 
 ministers stamped it as the Papist conspir- 
 acy. The tradition was founded, the 
 Ghost walked abroad. But lies cannot last 
 forever. Even those who believe in the 
 
 90 
 
Gardiner Exculpates Catholic Body. 
 
 reality of the plot attribute it to a hand- 
 ful of hotheads. In the very latest book 
 published on the subject, *What Gun- 
 powder Plot Was," the author, Professor 
 Gardiner, a Protestant, speaks the follow- 
 ing weighty words : 
 
 No candid persons, indeed, can feel 
 surprise that any English Roman 
 Catholic, especially a Roman Catho- 
 lic priest, should feel anxious to wipe 
 away the reproach which the plot has 
 brought upon those who share his 
 faith. Not merely were his spiritual 
 predecessors subjected to a persecu- 
 tion borne with the noblest and least 
 self-assertive constancy, simply in con- 
 sequence of what is now known to 
 all historical students to have been 
 the entirely false charge that the plot 
 emanated from, or was approved by 
 the English Roman Catholics as a 
 body, but this false belief prevailed 
 so widely that it must have hindered, 
 to no slight extent, the spread of that 
 organization which he regards as hav- 
 ing been set forth by divine institu- 
 tion for the salvation of mankind. 
 
 91 
 
The Charge That the Priests Approved. 
 
 This opinion, from one of the most 
 eminent of English historians, should 
 sweep away forever the charge that the 
 plot was the work of the Catholic com- 
 munity. It is a clear, frank acknowledg- 
 ment that, though the Catholics were so 
 sorely tried, they were guiltless of the 
 charge so pertinaciously brought against 
 them. What George Washington accom- 
 plished for America let us hope that the 
 words of Professor Gardiner shall accom- 
 plish for the whole English-speaking 
 world. 
 
 But there remains a further charge, that 
 if the body of English Catholics did not 
 approve of the plot, at least their spiritual 
 advisers did. You will remember that 
 after the discovery both King and Parlia- 
 ment attributed it to the priests. The 
 preamble to the Act establishing the 5th 
 of November as a holiday declares that 
 it was the work of many malignant and 
 devilish Papists, Jesuits and seminary 
 priests. One Jesuit, Father Garnet, was 
 found guilty and executed; another Jesuit 
 
 92 
 
The Seminary Priests and the Jesuits. 
 
 suffered the death penalty for attempting 
 to help his brother in religion to escape. 
 
 To understand the terms used here, it 
 may be well to state that in Elizabeth's 
 time the old Catholic clergy of England 
 began to die out. The Catholic Bishops 
 had been imprisoned, and there was no 
 one to take the place of the disappearing 
 pastors. Of course, it was absolutely im- 
 possible, because of the persecution, to 
 train up priests in England, so Cardinal 
 Allen, an Englishman, established a sem- 
 inary or college at Douay, to which young 
 Englishmen might repair. When they 
 were ordained they returned to England, 
 carrying their lives in their hands. The 
 Jesuit Order, which had been founded in 
 1540, now began to attract some of the 
 English scholars who had been driven 
 from Oxford. They, too, came back to 
 their native land. The Douay priests 
 were known as missionary or seminary 
 priests, and together with the Jesuits they 
 went up and down the country, encourag- 
 ing the weak, firing the zeal of the con- 
 
 93 
 
The Charge Against the Three Jesuits. 
 
 stant and restoring thousands who had 
 fallen away. Their success made them 
 objects of the special hatred of the Protes- 
 tant party, and this is the reason for the 
 anxiety shown by the government to con- 
 nect them with the Gunpowder Plot. 
 
 As we have already seen, three Jesuit 
 priests — Gerard, Garnet and Greenway — 
 were denounced in a proclamation as 
 ^^peculiar practicers" in the treason. One 
 of them. Garnet, was caught and exe- 
 cuted. The conspirators were said to 
 have bound themselves by a solemn oath 
 to carry out their design. Afterward, to 
 make their vow more solemn, they re- 
 ceived Holy Communion. At the trial, 
 Coke, the Attorney-General, told the jury 
 that this oath was administered by Father 
 Gerard. If this were true the guilt of 
 the Jesuits would be beyond question. 
 Coke held the confessions extorted from 
 the prisoners on the rack, and therefore 
 pretended to speak by the book. Fortu- 
 nately the text used by Coke has come 
 down to us. It is Fawkes' description of 
 
 94 
 
Attorney-General Suppresses Evidence. 
 
 the beginning of the conspiracy. It states 
 that the original plotters met in a room 
 apart and took the oath. They then went 
 into another room, where they heard Mass 
 and received the sacrament from Father 
 Gerard. Then followed the words, "But 
 he saith that Gerard was not acquainted 
 with their purpose." 
 
 As I have said, we have a copy of the 
 confession used by the Attorney-General. 
 The government's plan was, by hook or 
 by crook, to incriminate the Jesuits. We 
 find, by an examination of the manuscript, 
 that when Coke came to the statement, 
 "Gerard was not acquainted with their 
 purpose," he marked it off with red ink 
 and wrote on the margin, "Thus far," as a 
 sign that the evidence which would clear 
 the priest should not be read. This is 
 only one specimen of the wholesale and 
 systematic falsification of the evidence 
 which the government committed in order 
 to make a case. 
 
 Two days after the plot was discovered, 
 the archpriest of the English Catholics 
 
 9S 
 
Catholic Authorities Condemn Plot. 
 
 published an address to his co-religion- 
 ists, in which he speaks of the conspiracy 
 as ^^an intolerable, uncharitable, scandal- 
 ous and desperate fact," '^a detestable de- 
 vice"; he declared that ^Vithout most 
 grievous offense of God and Holy Church, 
 private violent attempts cannot be thought 
 of, much less aided or maintained by 
 Catholics." 
 
 More than this, we know that in 1604 
 James was in communication with the 
 Pope. As you remember, there was high 
 hope that when James came to the throne 
 he would at least give toleration to the 
 Catholics. The communications with 
 Rome were on this subject and had for 
 their object some sort of a mutual accom- 
 modation. The negotiations came to noth- 
 ing in the end, but they had this one re- 
 sult that strict letters were sent to the 
 Jesuits and missionary priests warning 
 them to discountenance all disloyal prac- 
 tices and to prevent, as far as they could, 
 disturbances against the government. This 
 policy was kept up even when the penal 
 
 96 
 
What Was the True Inwardness of the Plot? 
 
 laws were put in force again, the policy 
 of the Catholics being expressed in the 
 words of the archpriest, that ^^our quiet 
 behavior may procure a mitigation of our 
 troubles.'' 
 
 But the tiger had tasted blood. Little 
 did the heads of the Catholic Church in 
 England know of the wickedness of those 
 who would exterminate their religion. We 
 have seen that the vast body of the Eng- 
 lish Catholics had no connection with the 
 plot; we have seen that the missionary 
 priests and Jesuits were guiltless. We now 
 come to the most interesting question of 
 all, ^What was the true inwardness of the 
 plot itself?" 
 
 Elizabeth was the last of her house. 
 When she died the family of Henry 
 VIII. came to an end. . The question of 
 her successor, therefore, was one of great 
 anxiety to the politicians who held power 
 under her. In those days the notion of 
 hereditary succession was not as clear as 
 now. It was complicated by Acts of Par- 
 liament excluding various families from 
 
 97 
 
Elizabeth and the Protestant Interest. 
 
 the crown, and the will of the preceding 
 sovereign counted for much in the choice- 
 During Elizabeth's time her own title was 
 questioned. She was the daughter of Anne 
 Boleyn, born during the life of Henry's 
 first wife, Catherine of Arragon. The di- 
 vorce of Henry from Catherine was pro- 
 nounced by the Reformers; if she wished 
 to uphold her legitimacy she should uphold 
 the Reformation. On her accession, there- 
 fore, she surrounded herself with the Prot- 
 estant politicians and strove in every way 
 she could to crush out Catholicism. 
 
 The most formidable competitor for the 
 crown during Elizabeth's reign was Mary, 
 Queen of Scots. If Elizabeth were illegiti- 
 mate, Mary was the rightful queen. She, 
 however, was an ardent Catholic; the 
 whole Protestant party was united against 
 her. When Elizabeth at last got Mary in 
 her power she put an end to her preten- 
 sions by sending her to the block. 
 
 It is a curious fact that in those times 
 we hear much of plots, conspiracies and 
 treason. One of the commonest devices of 
 
 98 
 
How Mary's Death Was Brought About. 
 
 the government was to set its agents creat- 
 ing a plot and then at the proper hour 
 discover it. For a long time Elizabeth 
 shrank from the crime of murdering her 
 cousin, the Scottish Queen, Her minis- 
 ters, however, knew hovv^ to overcome her 
 scruples. A plot was contrived into which 
 several young Catholics were inveigled. 
 The object of the plot was to kill Eliza- 
 beth, and to seat Mary on the English 
 throne. Now we know that the ministers 
 were Vv^ell acquainted with this plot. All 
 the letters between the conspirators passed 
 through their hands. At the moment they 
 judged opportune the plot was discovered 
 and the papers laid before Elizabeth. The 
 result was Mary's death. During the rest 
 of the reign we are constantly hearing of 
 plots. Of them an acute French writer 
 remarked that no matter by whom they 
 were concocted, they all had this in com- 
 mon, they were extremely beneficial to 
 those against whom they were directed. 
 
 The chief minister during the closing 
 years of Elizabeth was Robert Cecil, Lord 
 
 99 
 
The Candidates for the English Crown. 
 
 Salisbury. He was of the Protestant in- 
 terest, was very bitter toward Catholics, 
 and depended for his power on keeping 
 the Protestant party in office. His char- 
 acter has been described bv historians 
 with a singular unanimity. He was a man 
 utterly devoid of truth or morality. While 
 the minister of Elizabeth, he was secretly 
 intriguing with James, and while the 
 minister of James he was in receipt ot a 
 pension from the King of Spain for be- 
 traying State secrets. 
 
 The candidates for the crown at the 
 death of Elizabeth were the son of the 
 King of Spain, Arabella Stuart, and 
 James, King of Scotland. The Spanish 
 claim was favored by the extreme Catho- 
 lics; Arabella Stuart's claim was favored 
 by the extreme Protestants, But the vast 
 body of the Catholics had the national 
 antipathy to Spain and hoped that the son 
 of Mary Queen of Scots would at least 
 tolerate his mother's religion. Salisbury, 
 though of the Protestant interest, was not 
 favorable to the claims of Arabella Stuart. 
 
 100 
 
James of Scotland a Compromise. 
 
 Her friends, especially the famous Sir 
 Walter Raleigh, were his enemies, and his 
 one object in life was to keep his own 
 place secure. Therefore it was that long 
 before Elizabeth's death he entered into 
 correspondence with James, and when his 
 time came he was able to swing his party 
 into line for the King of Scots. James 
 was therefore a compromise candidate, 
 and the Catholics naturally looked to him 
 for some relief from the penal laws. When 
 he ascended the throne he began to show 
 some signs of tolerance, and in reply to a 
 Catholic deputation he promised to remit 
 the fines for non-attendance at the Protes- 
 tant service. 
 
 Having thus secured the ^^machine," 
 Salisbury turned the machinery to make 
 his own position secure. His government 
 was a government of spies and informers. 
 If we wish to get a good idea of it, let 
 us look to the English methods still prac- 
 ticed in Ireland. Informers abound. Not 
 only do they get into secret societies to 
 betray them, but they establish secret so- 
 
 lOI 
 
Salisbury and the Catholic Growth. 
 
 cieties in order to have something to be- 
 tray. That Salisbury was an adept in this 
 system of statecraft all historians acknow- 
 ledge. We are, therefore, not surprised 
 to read that a plot to dethrone King 
 James was discovered in 1603, the year of 
 the King's accession. Raleigh was found 
 guilty of complicit}^, and his subsequent 
 imprisonment rendered him harmless to 
 Salisbury. 
 
 But the Catholic party remained; and 
 the Catholic party was increasing by leaps 
 and bounds. The result of the promise 
 made by James to remit the fines was 
 startling. In one year ten thousand Prot- 
 estants returned to the old faith, out of 
 which they had been harried in Eliza- 
 beth's reign. The situation vv^as becoming 
 desperate. If conversions should continue 
 at this rate, the place which Salisbury 
 had built up for himself on the foundation 
 of Protestantism would soon fall to the 
 ground. Unless the growth of Catholi- 
 cism could be stopped, Salisbury's ambi- 
 tion was doomed. To prevent this alarm- 
 
 102 
 
Turns James Against the Puritans. 
 
 ing defection in the ranks of Protestantism 
 now became the aim of a man who knew 
 no scruple when his personal aims were to 
 be attained. 
 
 The first lever he used was the Puri- 
 tans. As you know, Protestantism is not 
 one coherent system of religion. Its basis 
 is denial of or protest against Catholicism. 
 But all Protestants do not deny the same 
 doctrines or the same number of doctrines. 
 Some deny one, some two, some three, and 
 so on until you reach those who deny all. 
 As it is to-day, so it was in the days of 
 King James. There were two great par- 
 ties among the Protestants, some protest- 
 ing against more and some protesting 
 against less. The section which protested 
 against more was known as the Puritan 
 party. They did not believe in ceremonies, 
 or in surplices, or in making the Sign of 
 the Cross, or in a fixed form of prayer, 
 or in church government by Bishops. 
 James had a special hatred for the Puri- 
 tans. He declared that since he was a 
 child they had made his life miserable; 
 
 103 
 
Demands Same Measures for Catholics. 
 
 he expressed his opinion of their aversion 
 to the episcopacy in the words, ^^No 
 Bishop, no king," and it was more than 
 suspected that their preferences lay not 
 with him, but with the other claimant, Ara- 
 bella Stuart. 
 
 It was easy, therefore, to turn the King 
 against the Puritans and to induce him to 
 execute the laws which demanded con- 
 formity with the Established Church. No 
 sooner had he done so than Salisbury took 
 advantage of the fact to remind him that 
 he should be just and demand from Catho- 
 lics what he asked from Puritans. So well 
 did the minister press his point, that in 
 1604 w^s issued the proclamation banish- 
 ing the priests, and soon the collection of 
 fines gave the King an easy method of 
 recompensing his Scottish followers. But, 
 Salisbury was not satisfied with this step. 
 The Catholics were numerous; some of the 
 great noblemen favored them. One espe- 
 cially, the Earl of Northumberland, was 
 Salisbury's rival. The King might change 
 his mind. A new policy would mean new 
 
 104 
 
The Dramatic Discovery of Powder. 
 
 advisers. It was necessary to clinch the 
 matter, once for all. Turn back the Cath- 
 olic tide, and the fortunes of the house of 
 Cecil would be secure. When, therefore, 
 we ask the question. What was the true 
 inwardness of the Gunpowder Plot, there 
 is a strong antecedent probability that a 
 scheme which was of such benefit to Salis- 
 bury may not have been concocted with- 
 out Salisbury's superintendence. 
 
 And, indeed, when we come to examine 
 the story, we are met with some extraor- 
 dinary questions. 
 
 The discovery of the plot was dramatic. 
 The night before Parliament met the gun- 
 powder was found. The people were told 
 that only a special providence had saved 
 the government. So secretly had the Pa- 
 pists worked that their design had all but 
 succeeded. 
 
 This dramatic situation was intensified 
 by the story of the mine. If they had 
 been able to carry out their first designs, 
 nothing could have saved Parliament 
 from utter destruction. Yet, if it is ever 
 
 105 
 
No One Ever Saw the Alleged Tunnel. 
 
 possible to prove a negative, if any evi- 
 dence can show that a certain thing never 
 happened, we have conclusive evidence 
 that the whole story of the mine is a 
 fraud. 
 
 Suppose that at the time of the anti- 
 Catholic meetings in this hall, some Cath- 
 olics had hired rooms across the street and 
 attempted to run a tunnel under this tem- 
 ple to blow up the beetle-browed. Sup- 
 pose their design was discovered. Are 
 there police enough in this town to keep 
 back the crowds who would want to 
 see that tunnel and carry away something 
 as a relic? Human nature in London at 
 the beginning of the seventeenth century 
 and human nature in San Francisco at the 
 end of the nineteenth, are the same. Yet, 
 strange to say, no one ever saw the tunnel 
 which the Gunpowder conspirators are 
 said to have constructed. No one ever 
 saw any trace of it. The walls of the 
 Parliament house were burrowed half 
 through; when the old Parliament house 
 was pulled down in 1823 there was not a 
 
 106 
 
The Many Engineering Difficulties. 
 
 sign of such burrowing. One man, indeed, 
 has put it on record that he discovered 
 the place where the conspirators were 
 working, but, unfortunately, he puts it on 
 the wrong side of the house. Besides, the 
 earth which was dug out of the mine is 
 another difficulty. Where did it all go? 
 The government report says it was hidden 
 under the turf in a small garden adjoining; 
 but. the government report is absurd. If 
 you remark the immense amount of stuff 
 that comes out of even a small excavation, 
 you can understand the absurdity of the at- 
 tempt to hide it away under the turf of a 
 small lawn. Add to this that none of the 
 conspirators was an engineer, that to dig 
 a tunnel through soft soil is a most dan- 
 gerous operation; that the place in which 
 they worked was a public place, with peo- 
 ple passing at all hours of the day and 
 night; that for weeks they Vv^ere hammer- 
 ing away at a nine-foot wall under a room 
 which was open to the public and was 
 used as a coal shed, and that, during 
 all that time, no one heard them, or sus- 
 
 107 
 
The Improbabilities of the Cellar. 
 
 pected anything wrong. You might as 
 well attempt to make a tunnel across Fifth 
 street into the United States Mint, and 
 work at the foundations from January to 
 March, without being discovered, as do 
 what Guv Fawkes and his fellows were 
 said to have done. A corps of skilled en- 
 gineers might attempt it, but that men, 
 who never handled pick or shovel, could 
 accomplish it, is simply incredible. 
 
 The second plan is still more extraordi- 
 nary. The cellar, as it is called, bore the 
 same relation to the House of Lords as 
 do the stores under this temple to this hall. 
 It was level with the street, and it was 
 open to the public. We are asked to be- 
 lieve that the conspirators were able to 
 bring thirty barrels of gunpowder into 
 this room secretly and leave them there 
 for seven months, with no protection but 
 a covering of bundles of firewood; that 
 they separated in March, some going to 
 take the waters at Bath, some to visit 
 friends, without leaving a single soul to 
 watch the place ; that they came back just 
 
 1 08 
 
The Government a Government of Spies. 
 
 in time for the opening of Parliament and 
 found everything undisturbed; and this, 
 remember, not in a basement in an out of 
 the way place, but on the very ground 
 floor of a royal palace, around which 
 dwelt hundreds of officials, and in a room 
 which was absolutely open to the public. 
 We are asked to swallow all this, and, no 
 matter how willing we may be, there are 
 certain things which pass the powers of 
 human credulity. 
 
 All this is supposed to have happened 
 under the very nose of a government the 
 most suspicious in Europe. Had we not 
 unimpeachable testimony to the fact, we 
 could hardlv credit how extensive and 
 how thoroughly organized its spy system 
 was. It had emissaries in every court on 
 the continent, and it is an established fact 
 that even in Rome itself it was able to get 
 the documents sent out to the English 
 Catholics before those to whom they were 
 addressed ever laid eyes on them. Add to 
 this, that the chief conspirators were 
 known to the government as lawless and 
 
 109 
 
Salisbury Knew of the Plot Already. 
 
 turbulent men. Several of them had been 
 arrested in Elizabeth's time as likely to 
 give trouble, and others had been con- 
 cerned in the riots known as Essex's re- 
 bellion. Percy, who hired the cellar, was 
 particularly distinguished for his reckless- 
 ness, and it is known that at the time of 
 the plot he was a bigamist, having one 
 wife in one county and another wife in 
 another. 
 
 Bearing these facts in mind, let us now 
 turn our attention to the story of the dis- 
 covery. The common account has it, that 
 one of the conspirators sent a letter to his 
 brother-in-law warning him to remain 
 away from the opening of Parliament. 
 This was ten days before the date set for 
 that ceremony/. At first, it is said, Salis- 
 bury made little of the document, but 
 that some days afterward the miraculous 
 penetration of the monarch, who was 
 known as the ^Visest fool in Christen- 
 dom," discovered that it referred to an 
 attempt to blow up the government with 
 gunpowder. 
 
 no 
 
Was in Communication With Plotters. 
 
 Now, it is as certain as anything can be 
 that eighteen months before the discovery 
 the government knew what was going on. 
 This we know on the authority of the 
 government itself. Again, among the 
 State papers we find almost every month 
 up to the date of the plot references to a 
 design soon to be carried out. When, how- 
 ever, we discover that Percy was seen com- 
 ing out of Salisbury's house at two o'clock 
 in the morning, while the plot was still in 
 progress, and that Catesby, who was the 
 prime mover in the affair, went to the 
 same house several nights before the dis- 
 covery, and was always brought privately 
 in at a back door, and that Lord Mont- 
 eagle, who received the alleged warning, 
 knew that he was to receive the letter, it 
 is not easy to resist the conclusion, sub- 
 stantiated by Salisbury's own son, that the 
 whole plot was a contrivance of the chief 
 minister to advance his own ends. 
 
 This conclusion becomes irresistible 
 when we consider the fate of the conspira- 
 tors. It is an old axiom that dead men 
 
 III 
 
Why the Earlier Plotters Were Killed. 
 
 tell no tales. It was not an uncommon 
 thing in those days, "the game being se- 
 cured, to hang the spaniel that caught it'^ 
 Now, when the conspirators fled into the 
 interior counties they had no followers 
 and no firearms. It was quite easy for 
 the law to secure them, all alive. Yet it 
 somehow happened that Percy, Catesby 
 and two others who were in the plot from 
 the beginning, and who could have 
 given most information concerning it; 
 were shot down, and it also happened 
 that the man who killed Percy and Cates- 
 by received for his service a pension of 
 five dollars a day for life. The two were 
 unarmed; he shot at them from behind a 
 tree; by killing them he silenced the two 
 most important witnesses in the case. If 
 we cannot set down his munificent reward 
 to his bravery, we can set it down to his 
 skill in ridding Salisbury of those who 
 might have said too much. 
 
 Such are the chief features of this great 
 Gunpowder Plot. We have seen that, even 
 were the traditional story true, the Catho- 
 
 112 
 
The Plot Made Salisbury Secure. 
 
 lies had provocation that human nature 
 could hardly bear. We have seen that, in 
 spite of al], they remained quiet hoping 
 for better times. We have heard the 
 words of one of the most eminent living 
 historians, an Englishman and Protestant, 
 acquitting them of all complicity in it. 
 We have seen how the evidence shows 
 that the Catholic clergy were entirely in- 
 nocent, and we have seen, too, that what 
 we know of the inner history of the times 
 points to the conclusion that the whole 
 scheme, if not devised by Salisbury from 
 the beginning, was fostered by him and 
 used w^ith diabolical skill to the consoli- 
 dation of his political fortunes. 
 
 For the Gunpowder Plot was a success. 
 It made Salisbury the most popular man 
 in England and annihilated his most for- 
 midable rival, the Earl of Northumber- 
 land. It was the death blow of Catholi- 
 cism. To quote Mr. Jardine, a Protestant 
 writer: 
 
 The political consequences of this 
 transaction are extremely important 
 
 113 
 
Confirmed James in Protestantism. 
 
 and interesting. It fixed the timid 
 and wavering mind of the king in his 
 adherence to the Protestant party, in 
 opposition to the Roman Catholics; 
 and the universal horror, which was 
 naturally excited, not only in Eng- 
 land, but throughout Europe, by so 
 barbarous an attempt, was artfully 
 converted into an engine of suppres- 
 sion of the Roman Catholic Church; 
 so that the ministers of James L, hav- 
 ing procured the reluctant acquies- 
 cence of the king, and the cordial 
 assent of public opinion, were enabled 
 to continue in full force the severe 
 laws previously passed against the 
 Papists, and to enact others of no less 
 rigor and injustice. 
 
 These new laws bore upon the English 
 Catholic layman in every relation of life, 
 in every profession, in every occupation. 
 They deprived him of the right of acting 
 as an executor of a will or as a guardian 
 of a child. They forbade him to know 
 law lest he might defend his rights; they 
 forbade him to know medicine lest he 
 might heal his sick. He was forbidden to 
 
 114 
 
What the New Penal Laws Were. 
 
 reside within ten miles of the city of Lon- 
 don; he was prohibited from going five 
 miles away from his own house unless he 
 had permission from four Justices of the 
 Peace. His home might be broken into 
 at any hour of the day or night, his 
 horses and arms seized, his books and 
 furniture burned. The government be- 
 gan to make profit of him as soon as he 
 was born and thev did not cease even 
 when he was laid in his grave. For every 
 child, not baptized by the Protestant min- 
 ister, the parents were fined in the sum 
 of one hundred pounds; for every corpse, 
 not buried in a Protestant graveyard, the 
 heirs were fined in the sum of twenty 
 pounds. Besides these, the exaction of 
 fines for non-attendance at Protestant serv- 
 ice, went merrily on, and the persecution 
 of the ministers of religion filled the land 
 with blood. 
 
 While the penal laws, the hanging of 
 priests, the beggaring of Catholics with 
 fines, the turning back of the stream of 
 conversions, all contributed to the destrue- 
 ns 
 
Anti-Catholic Opinion Stereotyped. 
 
 tion of Catholicism, yet the gravest dam- 
 age done the ancient religion was by the 
 plot itself. We have seen how at once 
 it was used to affix a stigma of treason and 
 cruelty on the whole Church. The popu- 
 lar histories said little about the conspira- 
 tors themselves, but they said much about 
 Rome. Those popular histories made pop- 
 ular opinion. The Ghost walked abroad. 
 It was a bloody Ghost and the grandfather 
 of all the other Ghosts. From the days of 
 James L, the Catholic faith became asso- 
 ciated in the English mind with all in- 
 iquity. It was an institution hating Prot- 
 estants with a deadly hatred and sticking 
 at nothing in its desire to exterminate 
 them. Jesuit became a name of reproach; 
 priest a w^ord of mockery. For over two 
 centuries, year after year, the 5th of No- 
 vember stamped those falsehoods deeper 
 in the English mind. But, thank God, 
 the night is past and the dawn is grey 
 in the sky. The Ghost can walk no longer. 
 Men are now recognizing that even were 
 the whole account as given by the gov- 
 
 116 
 
Conclusions From the Evidence We Have. 
 
 ernment true, the Catholic body cannot 
 be held accountable for the wild deeds of 
 a few who were goaded beyond endur- 
 ance. Scholars are searching patiently 
 among the records of the past, deciphering 
 the crabbed writing of those crabbed pol- 
 iticians, and slowly but surely unravelling 
 the tangled skein. It may be that we 
 shall never know the whole truth con- 
 cerning the Gunpowder Plot, but these 
 things are put beyond the reach of criti- 
 cism. First, the official account that has 
 come down to us is falsified in substantial 
 matters. Secondly, the plot was known to 
 Salisbury long before the Monteagle let- 
 ter, and at no time was the King or the 
 Parliament in danger of destruction. 
 Thirdly, the plot was fostered by Salis- 
 bury's tools for the purpose of entrapping 
 the clergy, if possible, into its meshes, in 
 order to excite public opinion against the 
 Church. Fourthly, it is more than prob- 
 able that the plot itself was, in the first 
 instance, conceived and set on foot by 
 Salisbury himself, to contrive the destruc- 
 
 117 
 
A Short Triumph; Swift Retribution. 
 
 tion of his one remaining rival and to 
 consolidate his power by ruining the pros- 
 pects of the Catholics. 
 
 He was successful. Protestantism tri- 
 umphed, but not the Protestantism which 
 he represented. Puritanism came like a 
 flood on the nation, and in that flood the 
 monarchy itself went down. The country 
 was rent and ravaged with civil war and 
 the blood of Protestant, shed by Protestant, 
 was mingled with the Catholic blood 
 which their fathers spilled. Charles I., 
 the son of James, went to the block, and 
 the last stand made for his craven grand- 
 son, James 11. , was made by those Papists 
 whom the grandfather had stigmatized as 
 naturally disloyal. 
 
 So time brings its revenge. Those days 
 are past and gone; but they have their 
 lesson for us. They should evoke in our 
 minds, not sentiments of resentment, but 
 sentiments of toleration. Religion was de- 
 based then to further a politician's ambi- 
 tion, as religion may be used now. Let 
 us be instructed by the past. In this 
 
 ii8 
 
Church Needs Only Truth and Freedom. 
 
 countty we have set religion in an invio- 
 lable sanctaarsT and we have drawn round 
 her the magic line that no unhallowed 
 foot may cross. She is the Ark of the 
 Covenant in the care of those whom she 
 has chosen; let no unhallowed hand be 
 laid on her. We Catholics have suffered 
 most from the prostitution of religion to 
 politics; we, therefore, should be the most 
 determined to preserve religion free. 
 Give us fair play in the present and give 
 us fair play in the past. We are not 
 ashamed of our record. All we ask is the 
 truth. Let its clear and steady beam 
 pierce the past. And as it illuminates 
 those unfamiliar regions we shall see the 
 figure of the grand old Church standing 
 majestic, bathed in light, and without 
 spot or wrinkle; while in the outer dark- 
 ness are the gibbering Ghosts, whose power 
 to injure has forever passed away. 
 
 119 
 
III.-THE POPISH PLOT. 
 
 YOU may have noticed how, from time 
 to time, in this city, and in other 
 cities of the Union, some spirit 
 has moved preachers of various denomina- 
 tions to denounce the Pope. A sermon is 
 delivered, in which the alleged iniquities 
 of Rome are described in lurid colors; 
 the doctrines of Catholicism are held up 
 to public reprobation; the amazing growth 
 of Popery is set forth as a menace to our 
 free institutions, and it is confidently pre- 
 dicted that, unless the power of the 
 Church is in some manner curbed, the 
 future of this country is freighted with 
 desolation and woe. It has also been re- 
 marked that, after the said preachers have 
 delivered themselves of their lamentations 
 for successive Sundays, something happens 
 that make their congregations very desir- 
 ous to get rid of them. It may be that 
 there is a special providence which takes 
 
 120 
 
Using the Anti-Catholic Sentiment. 
 
 care of the congregations, and removes 
 from the midst of them men whose mission 
 it is to stir up strife. It may be that the 
 tolerant spirit of our separated brethren 
 revolts from the unfounded denunciation 
 of men and women whose only crime is 
 that they are in communion with the old 
 Church, which saw the beginning of all 
 other churches. But, generally, there is 
 another reason. It will be usually found, 
 on examination, that the anti-Catholic 
 preacher has long been a candidate for 
 dismissal. It is only when he finds that 
 he is loosing his hold upon his flock, that 
 he thinks of reviving his popularity by 
 attacking Rome. A young preacher is 
 said to have consulted one of his elders 
 in the profession as to the best means of 
 stirring up his congregation to renewed 
 interest. "My son," said the experienced 
 minister in reply, "My son, go for the 
 Papists." 
 
 When a congregation is deeply anti- 
 Catholic, such advice produces momentary 
 success. The members naturally rally 
 
 121 
 
The People Dearly Love a Grievance. 
 
 round the man who voices their suspicions 
 and supplies arguments to their preju- 
 dice. In rallying round him they, for a 
 time, lose sight of his unfitness and forget 
 their grievance against him in the face of 
 their greater grievance against the object 
 of his attack. 
 
 This is as true of politics as it is of 
 religion. There is hardly a community 
 which has not a special antipathy. In 
 some places it may be a sentiment against 
 a certain race; in some places it may be 
 a feeling against a certain corporation; in 
 most places it is a decided dislike to a 
 high rate of taxation. It is common ex- 
 perience that unscrupulous politicians try 
 to ride into power by catering to such 
 antipathies. They put themselves at the 
 head of the opposition, and, by a vigorous 
 denunciation of the object of popular dis- 
 approval, they blind the eyes of the people 
 to their personal unfitness. 
 
 As Protestantism is in its nature a 
 protest against Catholicism, a strongly 
 Protestant nation will be strongly anti- 
 
 122 
 
Politicians Find the Pope Serviceable. 
 
 Papal. Hence, though the politician may 
 have no religion whatsoever, he will find 
 it to his advantage to appeal to the anti- 
 Catholic spirit. If the leaders of one party 
 wish to smirch their opponents it is an 
 easy plan to raise the cry that they are in 
 league with the Pope. If the accused 
 wish to repel the charge they must outdo 
 their adversaries in their repudiation of 
 Popery. If one party seeks to gain credit 
 by taking harsh measures against Catho- 
 lics, the other party will go it one better 
 and take harsher measures still. If a poli- 
 tician blunders in the civil or political 
 affairs of the country an easy method of 
 turning public attention from his mistakes 
 is to raise the cry of danger from Rome. 
 It is true that those devices are successful 
 only where the anti-Papal feeling is very 
 strong and the Catholics very few. The 
 motto of the old Roman empire was to 
 crush the strong and spare the weak. The 
 motto of your politician is to despise the 
 weak and to worship the strong. 
 
 123 
 
The Results of the Gunpowder Plot. 
 
 As we saw in the last lecture, the death- 
 blow to Catholicism in England was dealt 
 by the Gunpowder Plot. That terrible 
 charge was laid at the door of the Catho- 
 lics of England. The government ac- 
 counts of the conspiracy formed public 
 opinion; and the government accounts 
 were framed for the purpose of defaming 
 the Church. The annual celebration of 
 the day in the Establishment perpetu- 
 ated the calumny and deepened the public 
 hatred of Papists. The sentiment of loy- 
 alty, the sentiment of humanity were en- 
 listed against bloody fanatics who knew 
 no ruth when the interest of their church 
 was at stake. When Catholics would 
 speak in their own defense the prison 
 doors yawned for them and the rack stood 
 ready to answer their arguments. The 
 fines were reducing them to beggary and 
 their numbers were constantly lessened by 
 the defections of those to whom the merci- 
 less persecution was too hard for flesh and 
 blood to bear. 
 
 The result was that Catholics became 
 
 124 
 
Made the Popular Idea of Papist. 
 
 few and far between. They formed a 
 small fraction of the population and their 
 abodes were in the remote counties. A 
 new generation grew up, which knew of 
 Papists only by repute. The oft repeated 
 history of the Gunpowder Plot, with its 
 conspirators and Jesuits and priests, plan- 
 ning the destruction of the country formed 
 the popular idea of the Catholic. Is it 
 any wonder that Protestant England 
 looked upon Popery as the mystery of 
 iniquity, and was ready to believe any 
 tale, no matter how incredible, about the 
 followers of the Pope? 
 
 It is a curious fact that the ultimate re- 
 sult of the Gunpowder Plot was a series 
 of calamities for the dynasty in whose 
 interest it was concocted. You know that 
 in King James' reign the power of the 
 Puritans, or the extreme party among the 
 Protestants, began to grow. James was 
 succeeded by his son, Charles I. In his 
 reign Puritanism came into conflict first 
 with the Established Church, and after- 
 ward with the King. In both conflicts 
 
 125 
 
The Triumph of the Puritan Party. 
 
 Puritanism was triumphant. The Episco- 
 palian character of the Anglican Estab- 
 lishment was changed into Presbyterian- 
 ism and the son of James I. was brought 
 to the scafifold. While it is true that the 
 arbitrary imposition of taxes was the cause 
 of the revolution, it is also true that the 
 revolution was made possible by the na- 
 tional hatred of Popery. The Puritans 
 accused the Bishops of being Papists in 
 disguise, and the King, who had married 
 a Catholic Princess, was suspected of the 
 same superstition. The Puritan revolu- 
 tion was religious as well as civil, and its 
 chief strength came from that dread of 
 Catholicism which the ministers of James 
 I. had made a national tradition, and 
 the politicians of the Puritan party knew 
 well how to use. When the struggle be- 
 tween Charles and his Parliament was 
 submitted to the arbitrament of war, the 
 extreme Protestants took the field against 
 the King. After a cruel struggle the 
 Puritans were triumphant, and less than 
 half a century after the first famous 5th 
 
 126 
 
The Inevitable Break In Its Ranks. 
 
 of November, Charles I. was executed by 
 the victorious revolutionists. 
 
 The triumph of Puritanism accelerated 
 the action of a tendency common to all 
 Protestant sects, namely the tendency to 
 division. While all the Puritans were 
 hostile to church government by Bishops, 
 some were hostile to church government 
 altogether. The Presbyterians protested 
 against Episcopacy, but in its place they 
 substituted a government by synods or 
 other assemblies far more centralized and 
 far more despotic. The Independents 
 held that each congregation was separate 
 and independent. To-day we call the In- 
 dependents, Congregationalists. The party 
 which triumphed in England was not the 
 Presbyterian faction, but the Independent 
 faction. At the head of a powerful army 
 Cromwell maintained the supremacy of 
 his sect. England had exchanged the 
 royal despotism for a military despotism. 
 When Cromwell died the supremacy of 
 the Independents came to an end. Twenty 
 years had passed away since the struggle 
 
 127 
 
The Restoration of King Charles 11. 
 
 with Parliament began. Civil war had 
 scourged the nation and Puritanism had 
 disgusted the mass of the people with its 
 hypocrisy and its sourness. The royalists 
 and the Presbyterians combined forces and 
 in 1660 Charles II. was restored to the 
 throne of bis father. 
 
 With his accession begins the history of 
 modern politics. Up to this date the gov- 
 ernment of England had been a personal 
 government. The likes and dislikes of 
 the King made and unmade ministers. 
 Henceforward the government is a gov- 
 ernment by Parliament. Although in the- 
 ory the King still retained supreme au- 
 thority and the choice of his advisers, 
 those advisers became more and more the 
 creatures of a majority in the legislature. 
 Parliament was not then a democratic 
 assembly representing the people. The 
 franchise was limited and the seats were 
 filled with the nominees of the great 
 houses, of the country squires and of the 
 wealthy merchants of the cities. Govern- 
 ment by party began. As in this country 
 
 128 
 
Rise of Modem Political Parties. 
 
 we have two great parties, Democrats 
 and Republicans, so in England they have 
 two great parties, Whigs and Tories. They 
 took their rise in the reign of Charles II., 
 and English political history since then is 
 made up of their struggles for power. 
 
 As we have seen, the quarrel between 
 Charles and his Parliament was practically 
 a struggle between the Established Church 
 and Puritanism. The Cavalier stood for 
 the system of religion set up by Elizabeth, 
 and, when the Roundhead triumphed, he 
 abolished Episcopacy and prohibited the 
 use of the Book of Common Prayer. The 
 same measure which the Episcopalians 
 had meted out to the Catholics, was now 
 measured out to- themselves. Between the 
 different factions of the Puritans the same 
 intolerance reigned. The Presbyterian 
 hated the Independent, and the Baptist, 
 who now comes into notice, was loved by 
 neither. But all, Presbyterian and Bap- 
 tist, Congregationalist and Episcopalian, 
 hated the Pope. Then was seen the phe- 
 nomenon so often repeated even to our 
 
 129 
 
The Intolerance of Protestant Sects. 
 
 own day. The Protestant sects may wran- 
 gle among themselves and may persecute 
 one another even to the effusion of blood; 
 but once whisper the word Catholic in 
 their ears and they forget their differ- 
 ences and spring to arms against the 
 common enemy. Cromwell, who was the 
 leader of the Independents, has left a name 
 which is a synonym for bigotry, cruelty 
 and hypocrisy. He drenched Ireland with 
 Catholic blood, and, even to this day, his 
 atrocious deeds are not recalled without a 
 shudder. 
 
 When, therefore, Charles II. faced his 
 people for the first time, he faced a nation 
 tired of civil war, weary of military des- 
 potism, yet divided into factions, the one 
 intolerant of the other. The Catholics, 
 who were few in number, had naturally 
 taken the side of the King in the civil war, 
 on the principle that of two evils they 
 should choose the lesser. The majority of 
 the people, disgusted with Puritanism, 
 looked with favor on the Established 
 Church ; the Puritans, divided into at least 
 
 130 
 
Puritans Driven From the Establishment. 
 
 three hostile denominations, feared the 
 vengeance of their former victims. To 
 calm their apprehensions, Charles had, be- 
 fore his landing, published a declaration 
 in which he promised liberty to tender 
 consciences in matters of religion. This 
 declaration gave general satisfaction and 
 the Catholics began to hope that the night 
 of the persecution was passing away and 
 that they might be allowed to worship 
 their God in peace. 
 
 The first Parliament of Charles II. met 
 in 1661. A wave of loyalty had spread 
 over the country. The reaction against 
 Puritanism was at its height. With the 
 exception of a small handful all the mem- 
 bers were fanatically devoted to the King 
 and to the Established Church. At once 
 the Puritans began to feel their vengeance. 
 By the corporation act they were excluded 
 from municipal office and by the act of 
 uniformity they were excluded from the 
 Established Church. 
 
 Relying on the promise of the King, 
 both the Protestant dissenters and the 
 
 III 
 
The Court Party and the Country Party. 
 
 Catholics petitioned for relief. ^Tut not 
 your trust in princes," is an old and true 
 saying. Charles was more solicitous of 
 his crown than of his good word. He was 
 afraid to cross the intolerant temper of 
 his Parliament and the promise of toler- 
 ance, like so many other promises, was 
 broken almost as soon as made. 
 
 The legislature, which in the beginning 
 was so loyal to the King, now began to 
 suffer the inevitable reaction. It divided 
 into two parties, one in favor of the po- 
 litical measures adopted by the court and 
 the other opposed to them and to the 
 King's ministers. The former or court 
 party was known later in the reign as the 
 Tory party and the members of the latter 
 were nicknamed Whigs. At that time 
 France, under the rule of Louis XIV., 
 was the most powerful nation in Europe. 
 During his exile Charles had lived on 
 the charity of the French Court, as his 
 mother was of the Roval House of France. 
 Naturally, when he came to the throne 
 his sympathies turned to the nation which 
 
 132 
 
Charles II. a Pensioner of France. 
 
 had befriended him. He entered into a 
 close alliance with Louis XIV. and sur- 
 rendered to him the town of Dunkirk 
 for the sum of four hundred thousand 
 pounds. The enmity between France and 
 England had been of long standing. Dun- 
 kirk was the last of the great possessions 
 which the English Kings once held on 
 the continent. Its sale, therefore, hurt the 
 national pride and the country or Whig 
 party grew more and more embittered 
 against the King and his ministers. 
 
 To strengthen their position the Whigs 
 began to raise the cry of ^^No Popery." 
 France was a Catholic nation. Charles 
 had married a Catholic princess of Por- 
 tugal. If they could persuade the country 
 that there was an insidious design to ex- 
 tirpate the Protestant religion, they could 
 even coerce the King. But the Tories 
 were able to play that game too. If the 
 Whigs were loud in their denunciations 
 of Popery, the Tories could be louder. 
 If the country party could introduce new 
 and more severe measures of repression, 
 
 133 
 
He Desires to Grant General Toleration. 
 
 the Tories could take those measures, add 
 to them and make them their own. Thus 
 early in their history began that policy 
 which was described in our times by say- 
 ing that the Tories found the Whigs in 
 bathing and ran away with their clothes. 
 
 Though the promise of tolerance had 
 been broken, both the Puritans and the 
 Catholics still continued to remind the 
 King of his engagement. Charles was a 
 man of abandoned morals, and that he had 
 any religious sentiments whatsoever is a 
 matter of doubt. Nominally he was a 
 Protestant; but like so many in his day 
 and in our day, the word meant merely an 
 indifference to all religious forms. Hence, 
 he had no personal animosity against any 
 sect or belief, and it is quite probable that 
 if he had his way he would have granted 
 universal toleration. But universal toler- 
 ation was far from the thoughts of the 
 people. It was an idea too tender for 
 those harsh times. Now, it had been held 
 by the crown lawyers that to dispense 
 with the operation of penal laws was one 
 
 134 
 
The Whigs Raise the Cry of No Popery. 
 
 of the prerogatives of the sovereign. To- 
 ward the end of 1662, Charles published 
 a declaration in which he announced his 
 intention to apply to Parliament for an 
 act enabling him to "exercise with more 
 universal satisfaction the power of dis- 
 pensing." He added that he had no doubt 
 that the Parliament would support him, as 
 he was bound by his solemn promise to 
 grant some relief to those who suffered 
 for conscience sake. 
 
 The country party saw its opportunity. 
 The No-Popery Ghost stalked abroad. It 
 was declared that the King had little 
 concern for the oppressed Protestants, he 
 only wished to relieve the Papists. Ru- 
 mors were spread that he was a Catho- 
 lic at heart, and that Jesuits and priests 
 were making converts all through Eng- 
 land. Popery was on the increase and if 
 the Protestants of England did not look 
 to it they might soon find themselves sub- 
 ject to the Pope. 
 
 The court or the Tory party was not 
 to be outdone by the Whigs. When Par- 
 
 i3_5 
 
The Tories' Cry Louder Than the Whigs\ 
 
 liament met, Charles opened it with the 
 usual speech, and dished his opponents by 
 demanding the enactment of new laws to 
 check the progress of Popery. Tories and 
 Whigs vied with one another in carrying 
 out his recommendation. Even a bill to 
 relieve the dissenters or Puritans and mak- 
 ing special exception of the "Popish reli- 
 gion," was defeated, and both parties pre- 
 sented an address to the King asking for 
 a proclamation; and the Parliament again 
 manifested its devotion to the true and re- 
 formed faith by another address, calling 
 on the King "to put in execution all the 
 penal laws against Catholics, dissenters 
 and sectaries of every description.'* 
 
 But this sweeping and sanguinary pro- 
 vision did not appease the bigotry of the 
 Established Church. Year by year the 
 political measures adopted by Charles and 
 his ministers kept alive the spirit of hos- 
 tility between the country party and the 
 court; and both parties, when their policy 
 was called in question, took refuge behind 
 the No-Popery Ghost. In 1666 London 
 
 136 
 
The Great Fire of London, 1666. 
 
 was ravaged by a great fire, which de- 
 stroyed tw^o thirds of the city. The houses 
 were mostly built of wood, the streets were 
 narrow, and, as in the great Chicago fire, 
 a violent storm spread the flames. But 
 those natural causes did not satisfy the 
 temper of the time. The opponents of the 
 court declared that it was a punishment 
 from God on the immorality of the King 
 and his ministers; the court party retorted 
 that it was a punishment from God on 
 the wickedness of the Puritan rebellion. 
 Both parties, however, soon found a com- 
 mon scapegoat. The fire was the work of 
 the Papists. To quote from the words of 
 Lecky : 
 
 Panic-stricken by the rapid prog- 
 ress of the flames, half-maddened by 
 terror and by despair, the people at 
 once attributed it to deliberate incen- 
 diarism. The Dutch and French 
 were the first objects of their suspi- 
 cion, but soon after the Papists were 
 included, and were dragged in multi- 
 tudes to prison. A Portuguese who, 
 according to the custom of his coun- 
 
Ascribed to the Malice of the Papists. 
 
 try, picked up a piece of bread that 
 was lying on the ground and placed 
 it on the ledge projecting from the 
 nearest house, was seized upon the 
 charge of throwing fireballs. Among 
 the crowd of terrified prisoners was 
 a poor Frenchman, whose brain ap- 
 pears to have been turned by the terror 
 and excitement of the scene, and who 
 confessed himself the author of the 
 fire. He appears to have been simply 
 a monomaniac, and the judges openly 
 declared their utter disbelief in his 
 disjointed and. unsupported story; but 
 in the temper in which men then were, 
 he was condemned, and the King did 
 not dare to arrest his execution. Nor 
 was the panic suffered to pass awaj. 
 Although a Parliamentary committee, 
 after the strictest inquiry, could find 
 nothing whatsoever implicating the 
 Catholics (who, indeed, could have 
 gained nothing by the crime), it was 
 determined in the most solemn and 
 authoritative manner, to brand them 
 as its perpetrators. The Monument, 
 erected in memorial of the Catastro- 
 phe in one of the most crowded thor- 
 oughfares of London, bore two Latin 
 
 138 
 
The Monument Commemorating the Fire. 
 
 inscriptions, commemorating the re- 
 building of the city, and the Mayors 
 by whose care the Monument was 
 erected. The third inscription was in 
 English, that all might read it, and it 
 was to the effect that ^^This pillar was 
 set up in perpetual remembrance of 
 the most dreadful burning of this an- 
 cient city, begun and carried on by 
 the treachery and malice of the Pop- 
 ish faction, in the beginning of Sep- 
 tember in the year of our Lord 1666, 
 in order to the carrying on their hor- 
 rid plot for extirpating the Protestant 
 religion and old English liberty and 
 introducing Popery and slavery." In 
 the reign of James II. this scandalous 
 inscription was taken away, but it was 
 restored at the Revolution and was not 
 finally removed till 1831. Another 
 and very similar inscription was 
 placed in Pudding Lane, on the spot 
 where the fire began, and remained 
 there till the middle of the last cen- 
 tury, when it was removed on account 
 of the crowds who gathered to read 
 it. — Lecky^s England in the Seven- 
 teenth Century, Ch. ii. 
 
 When Rome was burned, Nero was able 
 
 139 
 
It Also Made Popular Opinion. 
 
 to throw the guilt on the Christians. 
 When London was burned, the Protestants 
 were able to throw the guilt on the Cath- 
 olics. For neither charge was there a 
 particle of evidence, but the result was in 
 both cases persecution. The monument 
 stood in the midst of London, the capital 
 of the country. To the thousands and 
 thousands who passed by, it trumpeted 
 forth its lying charge. Generation after 
 generation grew up under its shadow, and, 
 from its teaching, learned to hate the 
 Catholic name. Like the celebration of 
 the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot, 
 it made popular opinion. Is it any won- 
 der that the Protestant tradition should be 
 so strongly anti-Catholic? Is it any won- 
 der that those, whose youth was fed on 
 that tradition, should be ready to believe 
 anything, no matter how extraordinary, 
 against it? Though the charge was base- 
 less, though it was instigated by sordid 
 motives of political gain, though the edu- 
 cated must have known its untruth — what 
 did the people know? Their teachers 
 
 140 
 
And Helped to Preserve Protestantism. 
 
 were the effigies of Guy Fawkes and the 
 monument of the great fire. Those were 
 the Ghosts which haunted their dreams. 
 Those were the preservatives of Protes- 
 tantism in that land — 
 
 Where London's column pointing to 
 
 the skies, 
 Like a tall bully, lifts its head and 
 
 lies. 
 
 But there is worse to come. Since 
 Charles' accession his chief minister had 
 been Sir Edward Hyde, afterwards Earl 
 of Clarendon. Like all men who hold 
 power for any length of time, he had many 
 enemies. For years they strove against 
 him and at last they accomplished his 
 downfall. The brother of the King was 
 James, Duke of York. As Charles had no 
 legitimate issue, James was the heir pre- 
 sumptive to the throne. He had married 
 Hyde's daughter, and the statesmen who 
 had accomplished the chief minister's 
 downfall feared the vengeance of the 
 Duke. They had come into power the 
 year after the great fire, and their constant 
 
 141 
 
The Conversion of James, Duke of York. 
 
 endeavor thenceforward was to exclude 
 James from the crown. 
 
 In 1668 James gave them an oppor- 
 tunity which they were not slow to use. 
 He was converted to the Catholic Church. 
 He knew the danger to which this change 
 of creed would expose him and he hoped 
 to be permitted to attend the service of the 
 Established Church in public, while he 
 was privately in communion with the 
 Catholic Church. To his surprise he 
 learned that such double-dealing would 
 be a sin against God's law, and to his 
 credit, be it said, he took his resolution 
 at once. He avowed himself a Catholic 
 and w^as ready to stand the consequences. 
 
 It would be too tedious to follow the 
 crooked politics of the times and to trace 
 the various measures by which the oppo- 
 nents of James worked their will. Suf- 
 fice to say that in 1672 the country was at 
 war w^ith Holland, and the savage laws 
 against the dissenters kept the nation in 
 turmoil. Charles resolved to use his dis- 
 pensing power and published a declara- 
 
 142 
 
The Enactment of the Test Oath. 
 
 tion suspending the operation of the penal 
 laws in the case of dissenters. When Par- 
 liament met in the following year the No- 
 Popery cry was raised. Charles was com- 
 pelled to withdraw the declaration. The 
 opponents of the Duke of York now urged 
 on the war against him. A law was 
 passed known as the Test Act, by which 
 all persons holding any public office un- 
 der the crown, were compelled to receive 
 the sacrament of the Church of England, 
 and to abjure the doctrine of Transub- 
 stantiation. The result was that the Duke 
 of York resigned his position as Lord 
 High Admiral, and was practically re- 
 tired to private life. 
 
 Soon after this the King quarreled 
 with his ministers. The ablest of them 
 and the most unscrupulous, was the Earl 
 of Shaftesburv. His character is so black 
 that it is hard to believe that human na- 
 ture could be so vile. Yet as Macaulay 
 says: "The charges against him rest on 
 evidence not to be invalidated by any ar- 
 guments which human wit can devise. 
 
 143 
 
Shaftesbury Exploits No-Popery. 
 
 When Shaftesbury was dismissed he 
 threw himself with all his energy into the 
 party opposed to the court. As usual, the 
 weapon employed was the No-Popery cry. 
 He began to fan the panic by tales of a 
 Papist rising in London, and of a coming 
 Irish revolt with a French army to back 
 it. He declared that he had earned the 
 special hatred of the Catholics and that 
 his life was in danger. They had formed 
 a conspiracy, he said, to cut his throat, and 
 to put himself in security he took lodg- 
 ings in London with a Baptist preacher, 
 and announced to the citizens that he 
 trusted for his safety to their vigilance 
 and fidelity. When Parliament opened 
 Shaftesbury had organized the country 
 party, and measure after measure was in- 
 troduced, aiming at the exclusion of the 
 Duke of York from the crown. Those 
 measures were defeated by the proroguing 
 of Parliament, but the public was ex- 
 cited and alarmed by the charges and 
 counter-charges that had been made. 
 
 Shaftesbury's zeal had been directed 
 
 144 
 
The Tories Meet Him On His Own Ground. 
 
 against the court party, and the success of 
 the country party was owing to the dex- 
 terity with which he employed the cry of 
 No Popery. Charles resolved to meet him 
 on his own ground and with his own 
 weapons. He made Danby his chief min- 
 ister, and in a short time Danby out- 
 heroded Herod. A proclamation speedily 
 appeared again banishing priests, provid- 
 ing pains and penalties for such as should 
 attend Mass and forbidding Papists to 
 come near the royal court. But Shaftesbury 
 was not to be put down by such measures. 
 *Xet the Treasurer cry as loud as he 
 pleases against Popery," he said, *'I will 
 cry a note louder." He was as good as 
 his word; to his account must be laid the 
 torrents of innocent blood which were 
 soon to be shed. 
 
 For eighteen years, the bugbear of 
 Popery had been used by politicians. 
 Parliament never met without deploring 
 its increase and demanding new laws 
 against it. Unpopular ministers strove to 
 save their credit by denouncing it; popu- 
 
 145 
 
Result of Constant No-Popery Cry. 
 
 lar ministers strengthened their credit by 
 posing as its opponents. No one knew bet- 
 ter than those politicians that their fears 
 were groundless and their demands with- 
 out cause. But because they knew that 
 Catholics were few and far between, and 
 that Protestants were many and bigoted, 
 they were the more ready to play on the 
 popular credulity. You may imagine 
 what the result must have been. The 
 frightened people saw Jesuits in every 
 corner and priests lurking behind every 
 door. The great fire of London had been 
 attributed solemnly to the followers of 
 the Pope, and the fiendish cruelty which 
 could have been guilty of such an act 
 would be guilty of any act. When Shaftes- 
 bury, therefore, ^^cried a note louder,'^ 
 he found ears already expectant and at- 
 tuned to the cry. 
 
 In the August of 1678, tidings of a ter- 
 rible plot were spread through England. 
 The author was one Titus Oates. He 
 was the son of a ribbon weaver, and dur- 
 ing the government of Cromwell had offi- 
 
 146 
 
The Career of the Notorious Titus Oates. 
 
 ciated as a Baptist preacher. After the 
 Restoration he became a clergyman in the 
 Episcopalian Church and had filled sev- 
 eral clerical positions. From all of them 
 he had been driven by his misconduct, 
 and report accused him of the most in- 
 famous crimes. At last, reduced to a con- 
 dition of extreme destitution, he applied 
 for assistance to an Anglican rector in 
 London named Dr. Tonge. This gentle- 
 man had Popery on the brain, and every 
 quarter he issued a publication v^arning 
 the country against the Jesuits. As, how- 
 ever, he had nothing but general charges 
 to go upon, he considered that it would be 
 a good scheme to send a spy into the 
 enemy's country. Accordingly, it was ar- 
 ranged that Gates should feign himself 
 a convert to Catholicism and should ask 
 for admission into the Jesuit Order. He 
 went to the college of the Jesuits at Val- 
 ladolid, in Spain, in 1677, but his habits 
 were so bad that, after a trial of five 
 months, he was expelled. He returned 
 to his patron, Tonge, and they decided that 
 
 147 
 
The Plot Is Declared to Charles 11. 
 
 as he had been so unsuccessful in Spain, 
 he might try St. Omer. Here he was re- 
 ceived for a while, but his infamous char- 
 acter was soon apparent and he was again 
 expelled. He came back to Tonge in 
 1678, and between them they decided that 
 as real secrets could not be discovered, 
 a fictitious plot would serve as well. 
 
 Having arranged their plan of cam- 
 paign they took a man named Kirkby 
 into their confidence and explained to 
 him the details of a portentous plot which 
 was being matured by the Papists. On 
 the 13th of August Kirkby approached 
 Charles as he was walking in the Park, 
 and begged of him not to separate him- 
 self from the company because his life 
 was in danger. This alarming intelli- 
 gence led to an interview in the afternoon 
 with Dr. Tonge. The doctor explained 
 that a narrative of a plot had been left 
 under his door by some person unknown, 
 but that he thought he had a clue by 
 which he could discover his informant. 
 The King did not seem to be seriously 
 
 148 
 
The Jesuits Were to Seize England. 
 
 alarmed, and in September, Oates went 
 before a well known magistrate, Sir Ed- 
 mondbury Godfrey, and made affidavit 
 as to the truth of his disclosures. In the 
 same m_onth Oates was called before the 
 Privy Council, and there he detailed the 
 following marvellous narrative. 
 
 He said that he had been received into 
 the Jesuit order and had so far won the 
 confidence of his superiors that he was 
 intrusted with the most delicate and im- 
 portant missions. From the letters which 
 he had read and from their confidences re- 
 posed in him he had learned the details 
 of a plot which was being concocted. The 
 Pope had entrusted the government of 
 England to the Jesuits and they had de- 
 termined to restore the Catholic religion 
 by bloodshed and rebellion. Their plan 
 of operations comprised Ireland and Scot- 
 land. In the former country they were 
 organizing a great massacre of Protestants, 
 and in the latter they were disguised as 
 Presbyterian ministers and were preaching 
 rebellion against Episcopacy. They were 
 
 149 
 
All Protestants to Be Massacred. 
 
 in no want of moneyj but on the contrary- 
 had immense sums at their disposal. In 
 England they had appointed Catholics to 
 the chief offices of the State and Church. 
 In 1666 they had burned down London 
 and they were now planning to set fire 
 to the shipping in the Thames. At a given 
 signal all the Catholics were to rise and 
 massacre their Protestant neighbors. All 
 the leading statesmen and divines were 
 to be murdered. Various schemes were 
 formed to kill the King. At a grand meet- 
 ing of the Jesuits, held in April in Lon- 
 don, three sets of assassins had been pro- 
 vided, two Jesuit lay brothers, two Ben- 
 edictine monks and four Irishmen, cap- 
 tained by a man named Fogarty. If 
 James would not consent to his brother's 
 death, he too should be killed. More- 
 over, the Pope had issued a Bull, ap- 
 pointing certain individuals to the digni- 
 ties of the Church of England, because 
 he believed that on the death of the King 
 the Catholic religion would rise to its 
 former ascendancy. 
 
 150 
 
Coleman's Letters Used as Evidence. 
 
 The plot might have died here were 
 it not for the work of the politicians dur- 
 ing the past eighteen years. They had 
 prepared the public mind for treasons, 
 stratagems, spoils, and here indeed were 
 horrors beyond the disordered imagina- 
 tion of a madman. In fact, the more 
 diabolical the contrivance appeared the 
 better it fitted in with the popular idea of 
 the Jesuits. The politicians at once took 
 it up. Shaftesbury made it his own. Two 
 events which then happened were dex- 
 terously turned to strengthen the popular 
 delusion and were interpreted as corrob- 
 orative of Oates' narrative. 
 
 Among those accused by Oates as being 
 privy to the plot, was one Coleman, who 
 had been secretary to the Duchess of 
 York. His papers were seized, and 
 among them were found several letters 
 which he had written to friends in France. 
 He was a convert from Protestantism, and 
 certain expressions in his correspondence 
 bore on the growing hopes of Catholics. 
 The sentiments of Charles were supposed 
 
 151 
 
Death of Sir Edmondbury Godfrey. 
 
 to be favorable to Catholicism; James, 
 the heir presumptive, was a convert, and 
 Coleman, like many an enthusiast since, 
 spoke confidently about the conversion of 
 his native land. Immediately this lan- 
 guage was seized upon as a proof of the 
 plot. The conversion of England could 
 be nothing else than the conversion by 
 murder and massacre which the Jesuits 
 had planned. The letters won credit for 
 the perjuries of Oates, which credit was 
 changed into certainty when the news 
 ran through the frenzied populace that 
 Sir Edmondbury Godfrey, the magistrate 
 before whom Oates had made his depo- 
 sition, was found dead in a field near 
 London, with a sword driven through his 
 heart. 
 
 At once the word went forth that it was 
 the work of the Jesuits. They were try- 
 ing to stifle the plot. Godfrey was known 
 to be a friend of the Catholics; in fact, 
 he was on terms of intimacy with Cole- 
 man, and when Oates made his deposition 
 implicating Coleman, he had given the ac- 
 
 152 
 
Papists Accused of Murdering Him. 
 
 cused the first warning of the charge. 
 What motive the Catholics could have in 
 assassinating him does not appear. His 
 father had committed suicide, and the at- 
 titude in which he was found was evi- 
 dence that the wound was self-inflicted. 
 But suicide it was not to be ; the coroner's 
 jury returned the verdict that he was 
 murdered by the Papists, and the whole 
 city looked upon him as the first martyr 
 in the Protestant cause. 
 
 Then from the Protestant pulpits rose 
 the cry of vengeance. The chief among 
 the clergy, men such as Sancroft, Burnet, 
 Tillitson, Stillingfleet, declared the reality 
 of the plot and called for the severest 
 laws against Catholics. Godfrey's body 
 was brought into the city and laid in state 
 in his own house. The populace were 
 invited to view the mangled remains of 
 the Protestant martyr. The sight drove 
 them. mad. A general massacre, the burn- 
 ing of the city, the blowing up of the 
 royal palace, were hourly expected. Af- 
 ter ten days a public funeral brought the 
 
 153 
 
Spectacular Funeral Stirs the City. 
 
 excitement to a climax. Seventy-two cler- 
 gymen walked before the corpse and more 
 than a thousand gentlemen in mourning 
 followed. The whole city turned out. 
 The preacher who delivered the sermon 
 appeared in the pulpit between two big 
 brawny men to protect him against the 
 designs of the Papists. The sermon 
 proved conclusively that Godfrey fell a 
 victim to the • Jesuits because of his at- 
 tachment to the Protestant religion, and 
 the people swore over his grave to bring 
 the murderers to justice. 
 
 In the meantime Parliament met and 
 immediately began to investigate the plot. 
 Shaftesbury was the leader in the inves- 
 tigations. All his former charges were 
 now verified. It is certain he knew the 
 plot was a fraud; it is certain he knew 
 that because of it innocent blood would 
 be shed like water; but truth and justice 
 and humanity were nothing to him in his 
 greed for power. Gates and Tonge were 
 called before the two houses and the 
 members listened in horror and astonish- 
 
 154 
 
Parliament Adds to the Excitement. 
 
 ment to their blood-curdling tales — tales 
 which daily grew more bloody. Resolu- 
 tions were passed, placing guards in the 
 cellars under the House of Parliament, 
 lest the Jesuits might attempt a second 
 Gunpowder Plot, and conjuring Charles 
 to have his meals prepared by none but 
 orthodox cooks. Five Catholic peers were 
 sent to the Tower and two thousand Cath- 
 olics thrown into prison. A proclamation 
 ordered that all Catholics should at once 
 depart the city. London soon had the 
 aspect of a town besieged. The militia 
 remained all night under arms. Materials 
 were collected to barricade the great thor- 
 oughfares, cannons were planted, patrols 
 marched and no citizen dared to venture 
 from his house unless he were armed with 
 what was known as the "Protestant flail,'' 
 a small flail loaded with lead, to brain 
 the Popish assassins. Shaftesbury forced 
 a bill through the legislature which ex- 
 cluded all Catholics from a seat in Par- 
 liament. The exclusion remained good 
 for a century and a half. It was no use 
 
 I5S 
 
Titus Oates the Hero of the Hour. 
 
 that some in authority attempted to cast 
 doubt on the reality of the plot. Parlia- 
 ment silenced all cavil by passing a joint 
 resolution that ^^there had been, and still 
 was, a damnable and hellish plot, con- 
 trived and carried on by the Popish re- 
 cusants, for the assassinating and murder- 
 ing the King, and for subverting the 
 government and destroying the Protestant 
 religion." 
 
 Oates was now the hero of the hour. He 
 was applauded by every one and called 
 the savior of the nation. Parliament rec- 
 ommended him to the King, he was 
 lodged in the palace, protected by guards 
 and given a pension of $6,000 a year. "In 
 a few weeks he had been raised from 
 penury and obscurity to opulence, to 
 power, which made him the dread of 
 princes and nobles, and to notoriety such 
 as has for low and bad minds all the at- 
 tractions of glory." Up to this his tale 
 had stood on his bare word. No one had 
 come forward to substantiate his charges 
 against the many whom he had accused. 
 
 156 
 
Other Informers Make Their Appearance. 
 
 By the law at least two witnesses were 
 necessary to establish a charge of treason. 
 But the success of Gates had its natural 
 consequences. Informers began to spring 
 up on all sides; the slums of London dis- 
 gorged a multitude of false witnesses ready 
 to swear away the lives of Catholics. One 
 William Bedloe, who had been a stable 
 boy in the household of a Catholic peer, 
 came forward as a candidate for a reward 
 of $2,500, offered for the discovery of 
 Godfrey's murderers. His memory im- 
 proved with practice, and he soon dis- 
 covered that he knew a multitude of Jesu- 
 its, priests, popes, monks, nuns, friars, who 
 were all working in the great Popish plot. 
 An army of 10,000 men was to land in 
 Yorkshire, another army of 30,000 friars 
 and pilgrims was to sail from Spain, 
 40,000 armed cut-throats were secretly or- 
 ganized in the kingdom, and at a given 
 time were to massacre the Protestants, 
 and there was not a Catholic in England 
 of quality or credit, who had not re- 
 ceived information of the plot and been 
 
 157 
 
The Queen Herself Accused. 
 
 sworn on the Sacrament, to lend it his aid 
 and keep it secret. 
 
 Oates was not to be outdone by Bedloe 
 and he appeared before the King with 
 another tale. He had seen a letter in 
 which the Queen's physician had stated 
 that she had given her consent to the 
 King's death. Himself had overheard 
 her utter the same sentiments. Bedloe if 
 he could not surpass this story corrobo- 
 rated it. He too had heard the queen agree 
 to the killing of Charles. He actually 
 delivered his deposition in writing at the 
 bar of the House of Commons, and Oates 
 followed with the charge: ^^I, Titus 
 Oates, accuse Catherine, Queen of Eng- 
 land, of high treason." 
 
 A dispute between the two houses put 
 an end to this extraordinary charge, but 
 the courts of the realm were busy with 
 the rest of the accused. To read the rec- 
 ords of that time is like reading the re- 
 cords of pandemonium. The judges, the 
 juries, the populace were leagued by hate 
 and terror against the supposed traitors. 
 
 158 
 
Victims Hurried to the Scaffold. 
 
 The informers swore to the most improb- 
 able tales, contradicted one another and 
 themselves, but the judges overlooked their 
 manifest perjury, the juries required no 
 more evidence against a man once they 
 found he was a Catholic, and if any wit- 
 nesses dared to appear in favor of the ac- 
 cused, the populace nearly tore them to 
 pieces. 
 
 The first victim was Coleman. Oates 
 and Bedloe swore that he was implicated 
 in the plot, though it was conclusively 
 shown that they had never seen him be- 
 fore. He went to the scaffold in Decem- 
 ber, 1678, protesting his innocence. 
 
 Stayley, a Catholic banker, was accused 
 by one Carstairs, a Scotch adventurer, of 
 high treason. Burnet, one of the London 
 preachers, knew Carstairs, and knew him 
 to be a scoundrel of the deepest dye. He 
 went to the Lord Chancellor and told him 
 that the informer was unworthy of credit; 
 but Jones, the attorney-general, was present, 
 and turning fiercely on him, demanded 
 why he dared defame the King's wit- 
 
 159 
 
Duke of York Leaves the Kingdom. 
 
 ness? Burnet shrank from the frown of 
 power, and left the unfortunate Catholic 
 to his fate. Stayley was found guilty and 
 suffered the death of a traitor. 
 
 Three Jesuits, Ireland, Grove and Pick- 
 ering, were next tried. Gates and Bedloe 
 swore against them, and, of course, they 
 were found guilty and died on the scaf- 
 fold, protesting their innocence. 
 
 Next, three servants of the Queen, two 
 Catholics and one Protestant, were put 
 on trial for the murder of Godfrey. The 
 evidence given against them was full of 
 the most glaring inconsistencies, yet the 
 jury found a verdict against them and the 
 three were put to death. 
 
 The old Parliament w^as dissolved dur- 
 ing the excitement of the plot and the new 
 Parliament met, breathing slaughter against 
 Popery. So terrible was the excitement 
 that the Duke of York withdrew to Bel- 
 gium in March, 1679, the month the legis- 
 lature assembled. Informers and arrests 
 were multiplied, and the jails were filled 
 with the victims of perjury. Both houses 
 
 160 
 
Attempts to Exclude Him From Throne. 
 
 again declared that there ^^had existed and 
 did exist a horrid and treasonable con- 
 spiracy contrived by those of the Popish 
 religion for the murdering of the King, 
 the subverting of Protestantism, and the 
 ruin of the ancient government of the 
 kingdom." Following the example of the 
 contrivers of the Gunpowder Plot this note 
 was prefixed to the form of public prayer 
 appointed to be read on the day of the 
 national fast. Articles of impeachment 
 were drawn up against the Catholic Lords 
 in which they were charged that '4n union 
 with Cardinal Howard, the Provincial of 
 the Jesuits, and a number of persons, they 
 had conspired to imprison, depose and 
 murder the King, and reduce the king- 
 dom under the tyranny of the Pope." This 
 was followed by the introduction of a 
 bill excluding the duke from the throne 
 on the ground of his religion. The bill 
 failed in the Lords by a narrow vote and 
 Parliament was prorogued. But the trials 
 still went on. Five Jesuit Fathers — Whit- 
 bread, Fenwick, Harcourt, Gavan and 
 
 i6i 
 
Judges and Juries Hurry on Convictions. 
 
 Turner were placed at the bar on June 13, 
 1679, to answer for their share in the plot. 
 Oates, Bedloe and a whole host of in- 
 formers appeared against them, the chief 
 justice delivered his charge with his usual 
 partiality and the jury without hesitation 
 returned a verdict of guilty. 
 
 The following day Langhorne, a Catho- 
 lic lawyer who had acted as business man 
 for the English Jesuits, was put on trial. 
 He was a good lawyer and there was con- 
 siderable fear among the defenders of the 
 Protestant faith that he might get off. 
 Up to his trial he had been kept in soli- 
 tary confinement; the moment he appeared 
 the crowd received him with jeers and 
 hisses, his witnesses were abused and beat- 
 en, his objections to the evidence of the 
 informers were overruled by the court, 
 and when the jury brought in the usual 
 verdict of guilty, the hall rang with cheers. 
 
 Still the mob was not satisfied. The 
 persecution spread through the kingdom. 
 Proclamations stared from the walls, of- 
 fering ten pounds reward for the discovery 
 
 162 
 
The Fury Spreads Through Kingdom. 
 
 of any Papist within the royal residence, 
 fifty pounds for the discovery of any 
 money or land belonging to priests. The 
 fines of twenty pounds a month for ab- 
 sence from the Protestant church were re- 
 inforced, and twenty-four priests were sen- 
 tenced to death. They were brought to 
 London and interrogated by Shaftesbury 
 as to their connection with the plot. Not 
 one admitted any knowledge of it, not 
 one could be seduced to turn informer. 
 The delay did not please the House of 
 Commons. The members called aloud for 
 the priests^ blood. They were sent back 
 to their former prisons. Some v/ere re- 
 prieved for a time, and others executed at 
 various parts of the kingdom, among them 
 two who had passed their eightieth year. 
 But the reaction was now beginning. At 
 the trial of the Queen's physician, the in- 
 formers perjured themselves so flagrantly 
 that the prosecution broke down. People 
 began to ask themselves, after a year of 
 delirium, could such things be true? 
 Shaftesbury saw the trend of public opin- 
 
 163 
 
Shaftesbury Fans the Flames. 
 
 ion. The measure for which he had 
 worked and planned was still unaccom- 
 plished. James was not excluded from 
 the crown. It was necessary to revive in- 
 terest in the plot. He therefore planned 
 a great demonstration in London to rouse 
 the people. On the seventeenth of No- 
 vember, 1679, the anniversary of the ac- 
 cession of Queen Elizabeth, an immense 
 procession was formed. First came a 
 bell-man, walking slowly and exclaiming 
 solemnly: ^^Remember Mr. Justice God- 
 frey." Next came a man, dressed as a 
 Jesuit, bearing a dead body. Then fol- 
 lowed nuns, monks, priests, bishops, car- 
 dinals and, last of all, the Pope, with his 
 arch-counsellor, the devil. The parade 
 marched through the streets of London bv 
 torchlight, and was viewed by 200,000 per- 
 sons, who swore eternal hatred to Popery 
 and called for vengeance on the Papists. 
 At Temple Bar the Pope and his at- 
 tendants were burned, to the delight of the 
 multitude, who were thus wonderfully 
 comforted, convinced of the truth of the 
 
 164 
 
New Victims Are Sacrificed. 
 
 plot, and strengthened in the principles 
 of the Protestant religion. 
 
 It is no wonder therefore that new plots 
 were being discovered every day; some 
 were in London, some were in Yorkshire. 
 Men manifestly innocent were hanged on 
 the testimony of the most infamous 
 wretches. James, who had returned to 
 the kingdom was prosecuted as a Catholic, 
 and when the Parliament met in 1680 an 
 informer named Dangerfield appeared be- 
 fore the house and accused the Duke of 
 York of instigating him to the murder of 
 the King. He was followed by a troop 
 of new witnesses who testified that a new 
 plot was being hatched to murder Oates, 
 Bedloe, Shaftesbury and all who had ex- 
 posed the old one. The excitement was 
 renewed. The exclusion bill passed the 
 Commons but was defeated in the Lords. 
 In revenge the promoters of the plot 
 brought up the impeachment of the Cath- 
 olic peers. They were afraid to attack all 
 at once so they selected Lord Stafford, the 
 oldest and the most helpless. He was ad- 
 
 165 
 
The Ven. Oliver Plunket the Last Martyr. 
 
 judged guilty on the same perjured tes- 
 timony and he went to the scaffold forgiv- 
 ing his enemies. He was the last English 
 victim of the plot. The last victim was an 
 Irishman, Oliver Plunket, Archbishop of 
 Armagh. He was accused of managing 
 the Irish department of the plot. He was 
 brought over to England, deprived of wit- 
 nesses, and condemned, simply because of 
 his religion. On the first of July, 1681, 
 he was hanged at Tyburn. Before he was 
 dead the hangman cut him down, tore 
 him open, and burned his bowels before 
 his face. 
 
 This was the last effort of those who 
 were interested in sustaining the vitality 
 of the plot. Political events moved rap- 
 idly, Shaftesbury fell from power and 
 fled. The Tory party rallied round the 
 King. There was no longer any political 
 capital to be made by pushing the No- 
 Popery cry further for a time. Oates 
 was convicted of libel and thrown into 
 prison. In the reign of James 11. he was 
 tried for perjury, condemned and sen- 
 
 166 
 
The Reaction! Shaftesbury Flies. 
 
 tenced to be whipped from Tyburn to 
 Newgate and from Newgate to Tyburn, 
 and to be imprisoned during the rest of 
 his natural life. When the new anti- 
 popery cry brought in William of Or- 
 ange, in 1689, Oates was set free and 
 given a small pension. He officiated as a 
 Baptist preacher for some time and died 
 in obscurity, in 1705. 
 
 Such is a brief and inadequate account 
 of the great Popish plot. It is a sad and 
 disgraceful story. The plot grew out of 
 religious hatred dexterously excited by 
 politicians and dexterously played on by 
 impostors. The plot passed away, and 
 men of sense knew from the beginning to 
 the end, it was a diabolical fraud. Not 
 so the people. Their fears, it is true, 
 passed away, but they imagined they had 
 been saved by their own vigilance. They 
 believed the "Tall Bully" which told them 
 that the Papists had burned the city; they 
 honored Titus Oates who had saved it 
 from being burned again. Thus the second 
 Ghost continued the work of the first, and 
 
 167 
 
The Effects of Plot on Catholics. 
 
 Gunpowder Plot and Popish Plot became 
 the two buttresses of British Protestantism. 
 
 1 68 
 
IV -THE GORDON RIOTS. 
 
 IT is an article of faith among our sep- 
 arated brethren that the Protestant 
 Reformation marks the beginning of 
 modern liberty, religious and civil. We 
 are told that before the time of Martin 
 Luther the whole world was delivered over 
 to ignorance, superstition and slavery. On 
 every occasion the preachers insist on the 
 belief that all the freedom we now enjoy 
 comes to us from the religious revolution 
 of the sixteenth centurv. Then the Bible 
 was opened. Then the human intellect 
 came out of its dark prison house. Then 
 faith was made free. Then conscience 
 was emancipated. Then was the first im- 
 petus given to that movement of progress, 
 which for three centuries and more has 
 been carrying the human race onward and 
 upward. These sentiments are re-echoed 
 in the newspapers; are set down as in- 
 contestable facts in our text books, and 
 
 169 
 
Protestant Claims to Progress and Liberty. 
 
 are embodied in our very methods of 
 speech. A reformation is the amendment 
 or bettering of what has become corrupt; 
 therefore, the revolt of Luther against 
 Rome must be the Reformation. The 
 Catholic Church was the patron of ig- 
 norance; therefore the Middle Ages, which 
 were the ages of faith, must be called the 
 Dark Ages, and if anything strikes us as 
 superstitious, narrow or reactionary, we 
 brand it as mediaeval. That Protestantism 
 means progress and light and liberty, is 
 to the generality of non-Catholics what 
 to the Mahometans is the war cry, ^There 
 is no God but God, and Mahomet is His 
 prophet." 
 
 We have, during the past lectures, been 
 trying this opinion by historical facts. We 
 have seen that Protestantism was intro- 
 duced into England as a political measure. 
 We have seen that it has been perpetuated 
 by cruelty and fraud. From the very be- 
 ginning it has been not only bolstered 
 up by the influence of a government, but, 
 also, it has been forced upon a people by 
 
 170 
 
Belied By Long Record of Persecutions. 
 
 fines, imprisonment and death. Any doc- 
 trine or opinion, religious or other, should 
 be able to make its own way. The 
 human intellect is the supreme judge of 
 reasoning, and any opinion, which is 
 afraid of reason, is not fit to live. Left 
 to itself, it will take refuge among the ig- 
 norant, or die out altogether. Faith should 
 be free. A faith which cannot commend 
 itself to human judgments, is not intended 
 for human hearts. Protestantism, if we 
 are to^'judge it by its words, stands on this 
 platform. It has delivered humanity, say 
 its admirers, from the tyranny of Church 
 and priest, and it sets its devotee face to 
 face with God to hear with his own ears 
 whatsoever the Lord may speak. As a 
 matter of fact, Protestantism has never 
 dared to live up to its professions. It has 
 never dared to allow those whom it could 
 influence, to consider the question of reli- 
 gion with unbiased mind. I have recounted 
 for you, and I have still to recount, a 
 long and hateful series of laws by which 
 men were forced into Protestantism un- 
 
 171 
 
English Protestantism Rooted in Fraud. 
 
 der the penalty of beggary, of exile, of 
 perpetual imprisonment, of death. By 
 those methods was the Protestant army re- 
 cruited. By those methods was religion 
 ^^reformed." By those methods were the 
 slaves of Rome dragooned into freedom. 
 O blessed apostles of the new and the 
 pure religion, the Rack, the Dungeon and 
 the Block! 
 
 No opinion is worth following which is 
 supported by prejudice and untruth. 
 When two opinions clash, that one which 
 takes refuge in misrepresentation, in slan- 
 der, in fraud is evidently conscious of its 
 own weakness. The lectures which have 
 been already delivered prove at whose 
 door must be laid the charge of false- 
 witness. By a series of gigantic impositions 
 the people of England were persuaded 
 that Popery meant treason, meant cru- 
 elty, meant slavery. They were grounded 
 and rooted in Protestantism by forgery 
 and fraud. The Gunpowder Plot, the 
 Fire of London, the Titus Gates Plot 
 were all used to bring the Catholic re- 
 
 172 
 
Because It Cannot Stand Test of Truth. 
 
 ligion into hatred and contempt. Is there 
 anyone living now who will say that those 
 events gave any foundation for the vast 
 structure of calumny erected on them? 
 Is there anyone now who will not ac- 
 knowledge that unprincipled men by 
 those unholy means blinded the eyes of 
 the people, and closed their ears and 
 hardened their hearts against the Catho- 
 lic Church? Yet those men knew the 
 strength and weakness of Protestantism. 
 They knew the strength and weakness of 
 the English people. They knew the 
 strength and weakness of Catholicism. 
 If, therefore, they could not afford to com- 
 bat us by argument; if they were com- 
 pelled to introduce their creed by force; 
 if they made its permanence secure by 
 prejudice they thereby confess that their 
 creed cannot stand the test of argument, 
 in a free field and before an unprejudiced 
 people. 
 
 No conclusion is trustworthy which 
 has not been tried by enemy as well 
 as friend; no traditions have a claim 
 
 173 
 
Afraid of Comparison With the Church. 
 
 upon us which shrink from criticism 
 and dare not look a rival in the face. 
 Now this is precisely the weak point 
 of Protestantism in this country. It 
 is jealous of being questioned; it re- 
 sents argument; it flies to State pro- 
 tection; it is afraid of the sun; it for- 
 bids competition. How can you de- 
 tect the sham, but by comparing it 
 with the true? Your artificial flow- 
 ers have the softness and brilliancy 
 of nature, till you bring in the living 
 article, fresh from the garden; you 
 detect the counterfeit coin by ringing 
 it with the genuine. So is it in reli- 
 gion. Protestantism is at best but a 
 fine piece of wax-work, which does 
 not look dead, only because it is not 
 confronted by that Church which 
 really breathes and lives. The living 
 Church is the test and the confuta- 
 tion of all false churches; therefore 
 get rid of her at all hazards; tread 
 her down, gag her, dress her like a 
 felon, starve her, bruise her features, 
 if you would keep up your mumbo- 
 jumbo in its place of pride. By no 
 manner of means give her fair play; 
 you dare not. The dazzling bright- 
 
 174 
 
Which It Designedly Misrepresents. 
 
 ness of her glance, the sanctity beam- 
 ing from her countenance, the melody 
 of her voice, the grace of her move- 
 ments will be too much for you. 
 Blacken her, make her Cinderella in 
 the ashes; do not hear a word she 
 says. Do not look on her, but daub 
 her in your own way; keep up the 
 good old sign-post representation of 
 her. Let her be a lion-rampant, a 
 griffin, a wivern, or a salamander. 
 She shall be red or black; she shall 
 be always absurd, always imbecile, 
 always malicious, always tyrannical. 
 The lion shall not draw the lion, 
 but the man shall draw him. She 
 shall always be worsted in the war- 
 fare with Protestantism; ever un- 
 horsed and disarmed, ever running 
 away, ever prostrated, ever smashed 
 and pounded, ever dying, ever dead ; 
 and the only wonder is that she has 
 to be killed so often, and the life so 
 often to be trodden out of her, and 
 her priests and doctors to be so often 
 put down, and her monks and nuns 
 to be exposed so often, and such vast 
 sums to be subscribed by Protestants, 
 and such great societies to be kept 
 
 175 
 
The Accession of James IL to the Throne. 
 
 Up, and such millions of tracts to be 
 written, and such persecuting Acts to 
 be passed by Parliament, in order 
 thoroughly, and once for all, and for 
 the very last time, and for ever and 
 ever, to annihilate her once more. — 
 Newman, Present Position of Cath- 
 olics , I, 7. 
 
 In 1685, Charles II. died, and was suc- 
 ceeded by his brother, James IL James 
 was a Catholic, and naturally he wished 
 to obtain toleration for himself and his 
 coreligionists. But this was more than 
 the Protestants of England could stand. 
 They had not excluded him from the 
 succession because he was growing old, 
 and his heir, Mary, was a Protestant. He 
 would be, at most, in power for a few 
 years. But when they found that his wife 
 had borne him a son, and that he openly 
 avowed his intention to secure liberty of 
 conscience to all men forever, they forgot 
 all their theories about loyalty and invited 
 a foreign prince, at the head of a foreign 
 army, to destroy their own government. 
 
 176 
 
Deposed By the Protestant Factions. 
 
 James was deserted by his own daughters, 
 whose Protestant ambition prevailed 
 against the ties of nature; the crown was 
 given to William of Orange and his wife, 
 Mary, and thus England was saved once 
 more from Popery and slavery. 
 
 It is a very instructive fact that Prot- 
 estant preachers find that the country is in 
 danger from Catholics because Catholics 
 owe allegiance, as they claim, to a foreign 
 power. This argument was used against 
 the Church in the days of Henry VIII., 
 in the days of Elizabeth, and is used in 
 our day. It is an argument, which ap- 
 peals to our patriotism because our first 
 duty in civil affairs is to our own gov- 
 ernment. It is our privilege to lay down 
 our lives for the integrity of the father- 
 land, and, if we wish to change the gov- 
 ernment, that change should be made by 
 our own hands. 
 
 Yet, wherever Protestantism found that 
 its power to persecute Catholicism was 
 passing away, it never scrupled to call in 
 foreign aid. In France the Huguenots 
 
 177 
 
New Penal Laws Under William. 
 
 delivered over their fortresses to England, 
 the hereditary enemy of their country. 
 In England the Puritans accomplished 
 one revolution by importing an army from 
 Scotland; they accomplished a second rev- 
 olution by importing an army from Hol- 
 land, and they perpetuated that revolu- 
 tion by importing a king from Germany, 
 The Protestant party has had one fixed 
 idea, and that is to keep the Catholic 
 Church under. To accomplish that pur- 
 pose, no domestic treason has been too 
 cruel, no civil treason too black. To 
 keep Protestants in power, the daughter 
 was willing to sell her father and the pol- 
 iticians were ready to betray their native 
 land. 
 
 The triumph of Protestantism by the ac- 
 cession of William of Orange, was marked 
 by a new outbreak of persecution. In 
 addition to the ancient laws, new acts 
 were passed for the purpose of ending 
 Catholicism once and forever. The say- 
 ing of Mass was made an offense pun- 
 ishable by perpetual imprisonment. The 
 
 178 
 
Continued Under Succeeding Sovereigns. 
 
 same penalty was provided for a Catho- 
 lic who should teach school. The informer^ 
 who should convict a priest of saying 
 Mass, received a reward of one hundred 
 pounds. An equal amount was given to 
 the informer who should convict any per- 
 son of sending a child beyond the sea to 
 be educated in Papacy. Every Catholic 
 forfeited his estate to his nearest Protes- 
 tant relative, and, moreover, he was dis- 
 abled by the same law from purchasing 
 lands in the kingdom or of making profit 
 out of the same. 
 
 The reigns of Anne and of George I., 
 George II. and George III. added new 
 enactments. Those laws were designed 
 to make it impossible for a Catholic to 
 escape the persecution, and, as late as 1760, 
 a new penal statute subjected them to a 
 double assessment of the land tax. 
 
 In order to explain the wonderful vi- 
 tality of a creed which was able to survive 
 so cruel a trial, it has been said that the 
 laws were not enforced. But this state- 
 ment is not true. The pecuniary rewards 
 
 179 
 
Enforced Both Against Clergy and Laity. 
 
 promised to informers stimulated their 
 vigilance and a long series of persecutions, 
 whose records are found in the English 
 courts, show that the zeal against Popery 
 never slept. 
 
 Speaking in 1780 at Bristol upon the 
 subject of the penal laws introduced in 
 the reign of William of Orange, Edmund 
 Burke said: 
 
 From that time every person of the 
 Catholic communion, lay and eccle- 
 siastic, has been obliged to fly from 
 the face of day. The clergy, concealed 
 in garrets of private houses, or 
 obliged to take a shelter under the 
 privileges of foreign ministers, offi- 
 ciated as their servants, and under 
 their protection. The whole body of 
 the Catholics, condemned to beggary 
 and to ignorance in their native land, 
 have been obliged to learn the princi- 
 ples of letters, at the hazard of all 
 their other principles, from the char- 
 ity of your enemies. They have been 
 taxed to their ruin at the pleasure of 
 necessitous and profligate relations, 
 and according to . their measure and 
 
 180 
 
Edmund Burke^s Testimony. 
 
 profligacy. Examples of this are 
 many and affecting. Some of them 
 are known by a friend, who stands 
 near me in this hall. It is but six or 
 seven years since a clergyman of the 
 name of Malony, a man of morals, 
 neither guilty nor accused of anything 
 noxious to the State, was condemned 
 to perpetual imprisonment for exercis- 
 ing the functions of his religion; and, 
 after lying in jail two or three years, 
 was relieved, by the mercy of gov- 
 ernment, from perpetual imprison- 
 ment on condition of perpetual ban- 
 ishment. 
 
 A brother of the Earl of Shrews- 
 bury, a Talbot, a name respectable in 
 this country, whilst its glory is any part 
 of its concern, was hauled to the bar 
 of Old Bailey, among common felons, 
 and only escaped the same doom, 
 either by some error in the process, 
 or that the wretch, who brought him 
 there, could not correctly describe his 
 person; I now forget which. In 
 short, the persecution would never 
 have relented for a moment if the 
 judges, superseding the strict rule of 
 their artificial duty by the higher 
 
 i8i 
 
Great Change in English Opinion. 
 
 obligation of their conscience, did not 
 constantly throw every difficulty in 
 the way of such informers. But so 
 ineffectual is the power of legal eva- 
 sion against legal iniquity, that it was 
 but the other day that a lady of con- 
 dition, beyond the middle of life, was 
 on the point of being stripped of her 
 whole fortune by a near relation, to 
 whom she had been a friend and ben» 
 ef actor; and she must have been to- 
 tally ruined, without a power of re- 
 dress or mitigation from the courts of 
 law, had not the legislature itself 
 rushed in, and, by a special act of 
 Parliament, rescued her from the in- 
 justice of its own statutes. — Speech 
 at Bristol, 1780, Edmund Burke. 
 
 From this extract it will be seen that 
 in the interval between 1760 and 1780 a 
 change for the better had happened in the 
 case of Catholics. A great statesman is 
 able to address his constituents and plead 
 the cause of men who twenty years before 
 were still the object of new restrictions. 
 A change there was, a great change and 
 the cause of it was — America. The shot 
 
 182 
 
Caused By the War of Independence. 
 
 that was fired at Lexington had echoed 
 round the world. We are accustomed to 
 think that our War of Independence had 
 for its beneficiaries only the thirteen col- 
 onies. AH the sons of men have been 
 the beneficiaries of that struggle for lib- 
 erty and none more so than the Catholics 
 who groaned so long under the tyranny 
 of British Protestantism. 
 
 As you may have remarked in these lec- 
 tures, the measures passed against the Cath- 
 olic Church were the fruit of security not 
 of dread. As Burke well says, the Catho- 
 lics of England were but a handful of 
 people enough to torment, but not enough 
 to fear; the Catholics of Ireland, how- 
 ever, numbered nearly two millions. 
 While England was mistress of the seas 
 she might afford to tyrannize with im- 
 punity. But there was a revolution in 
 her affairs which made it prudent to be 
 just. In October, 1777, Burgoyne sur- 
 rendered to the American forces at Sara- 
 toga. When the news reached Europe it 
 had a decisive effect on the fortunes of 
 
 183 
 
The First Measure of Relief. 
 
 America. In February, 1778, France ac- 
 knowledged the independence of the States 
 and concluded treaties of alliance and 
 commerce with the young republic. Eng- 
 land was filled with gloom. On every 
 side she was confronted with enemies. 
 The danger of an invasion grew more 
 imminent every day. It was resolved to 
 conciliate the Catholics when it was dan- 
 gerous to persecute them. In May, 1778, 
 a relief bill was rushed through both 
 houses of Parliament. In the lower house 
 no one opposed it; in the upper house a 
 Protestant bishop with many professions 
 of liberality spoke against it; but he 
 naively admitted that there were ^^particu- 
 lar circumstances which might make delay 
 inconvenient." 
 
 The relief of 1778 was not a very large 
 or tolerant measure. It merely repealed 
 the statute of William of Orange, of which 
 we have already spoken. That statute 
 subjected Catholic priests and school mas- 
 ters to perpetual imprisonment, and gave 
 the property of a Catholic to his nearest 
 
 184 
 
Not Extended to Scotland. 
 
 Protestant relative. This is all that was 
 repealed. All the other penal laws re- 
 mained on the statute book. Catholics 
 were still subject to the pains and pen- 
 alties and disabilities of the rest of the 
 penal code. Not for another half century 
 were those galling provisions swept away, 
 and they were swept away only when a 
 united Ireland, with O'Connell at its head, 
 compelled their abolition. 
 
 Small, however, as the boon was, it 
 served to raise the hopes of Catholics. 
 The tide of persecution had reached its 
 flood, the ebb had now begun. Revolu- 
 tions do not go backward. Political ne- 
 cessity had made a breach in the wall of 
 bigotry; soon the whole structure of in- 
 tolerance would come rushing down in 
 ruin. 
 
 But the Ghosts which had stalked for 
 two centuries, were not to be so easily 
 laid. The Act of 1778 had not been ex- 
 tended to Scotland. It was proposed, how- 
 ever, to give the Scotch Catholics the same 
 measure of relief, but the Presbyterians 
 
 i8s 
 
Presbyterian Opposition to Toleration. 
 
 rose up against the very thought of toler- 
 ating the Papists. The press and the pulpit 
 stormed against the proposed concession. 
 The synods met and passed fiery resolu- 
 tions against antichrist. A solemn fast was 
 proclaimed in Glasgow, and on the i8th 
 of October, 1778, a mob attacked a house 
 where a few Catholics were assembled, 
 and dispersed them by pelting them with 
 mud and stones. On the following Feb- 
 ruary the fanatics plundered and burned 
 a house where occasionally Mass was said. 
 In Edinburgh another mob was summoned 
 by public proclamation to "pull down a 
 pillar of popery," to wit, a house used 
 for Catholic services. After performing 
 this pious operation they attacked the 
 famous historian, Dr. Robertson, because 
 they considered he had leanings towards 
 the Papists. The military, however, inter- 
 fered and order was restored. 
 
 Then began the Great Protestant Asso- 
 ciation. The American Protective Asso- 
 ciation is but an alias of the American 
 Protestant Association, and the American 
 
 186 
 
The Great Protestant Association. 
 
 Protestant Association is the lineal de- 
 scendant of the Great Protestant Associa- 
 tion of 1779. That Association was es- 
 tablished for the purpose of preserving 
 the ferocious penal laws against Catholics 
 in Scotland, and for repealing the relieif 
 measure of 1778, in England. The mem- 
 bers took an obligation not to buy or sell, 
 borrow or lend, or have any of the or- 
 dinary intercourse of society with Catho- 
 lics. They threatened to proceed against 
 all Protestants who refused to join them 
 in those measures as if they were Papists, 
 and the violent attempts they had made 
 against liberal non-Catholics showed that 
 they were in earnest. 
 
 The Protestant Association spread from 
 Scotland into England and soon the coun- 
 try was in a blaze. Everywhere the 
 preachers stirred up their congregations 
 to mutiny. The "Dangers of Popery'' 
 formed their theme, a theme well calcu- 
 lated to fire the Protestant blood. A mad- 
 man known as Lord George Gordon was 
 made president of the Association. Ad- 
 
 187 
 
Captained by Lord George Gordon. 
 
 vertisements were put up all over the cities 
 and mysterious handbills were distributed 
 in every house and littered every street. 
 The excitement rose to fever heat and if 
 the Pope himself had marched in proces- 
 sion through the gates of London the pop- 
 ulace could not have been more stirred. 
 
 Whenever in our day there is an agita- 
 tion against the Church the Methodist 
 ministers are the loudest in their cry. They 
 deliver eloquent sermons on our civil and 
 religious liberty and they profess no de- 
 sire except to preserve the heritage handed 
 down from the fathers. They see in 
 Rome the deadly enemy of all toleration 
 and they attack Rome on the plea that 
 freedom must be preserved. 
 
 A knowledge of history would recom- 
 mend to those gentlemen a judicious mod- 
 esty. An acquaintance with the sentiments 
 and career of the founder of their denom- 
 ination would suggest to them the pru- 
 dence of "singing low." No doubt John 
 Wesley is held in veneration by those who 
 follow his teachings; to Catholics he is 
 
 1 88 
 
And Championed by John Wesley. 
 
 one of the last of the persecutors. To his 
 influence may be attributed the surprising 
 growth of the Protestant Association, for 
 just as his spiritual successors in this town 
 acted as propagandists of the A. P. A. 
 did Wesley for the Protestant Association. 
 His pen was ever ready to spread its in- 
 tolerant principles and to defend it when 
 attacked. 
 
 Unfortunately for his reputation, we 
 have on record letters which he wrote 
 advocating the persecution of Catholics. 
 One dated January 12, 1780, holds "that no 
 government, not Roman Catholic, ought 
 to tolerate men of the Roman Catholic 
 persuasion," and, again, "they ought not 
 to be tolerated by any government, Prot- 
 estant, Mahometan, or Pagan." 
 
 In a pamphlet or tract entitled "A De- 
 fence of the Protestant Association," John 
 Wesley tells us of the dangers which have 
 moved him to write : 
 
 However unconcerned the present 
 generation may be, and unapprehen- 
 sive of danger from the amazing 
 
 189 
 
The Founder of Methodism a Bigot. 
 
 growth of Popery; how calmly soever 
 they may behold the erection of Pop- 
 ish chapels, hear of Popish schools 
 being opened, and see the Popish 
 books publicly advertised, they are 
 to be informed that our ancestors, 
 whose wisdom and firmness have trans- 
 mitted to us those religious and civil 
 liberties which we now enjoy, had 
 very different conceptions of this mat- 
 ter; and had they acted with that 
 coldness, indifference and stupidity 
 which seems to have seized the pres- 
 ent age, we had now been sunk into 
 the most abject state of misery and 
 slavery, under an arbitrary prince 
 and Popish government. 
 
 What a wonderful opinion Wesley had 
 of Catholicism may be judged by this ex- 
 tract. The ministers of that religion had 
 just been released from the menace of 
 perpetual imprisonment, and the professors 
 of it were secured merely in the possession 
 of their estates, yet Protestantism was in 
 danger. All the old penal laws were still 
 in force, yet Popery had given evidences 
 of an ^^amazing growth." Under such a 
 
 190 
 
Would Exterminate Catholicism. 
 
 condition of affairs Catholicism could win 
 converts, not by earthly motives, for the 
 Catholic was still an outlaw, but by pure 
 conviction. How does John Wesley pro- 
 pose to meet it? If he were conscious of 
 the goodness of his cause, he would meet 
 the arguments of the old religion by bet- 
 ter arguments. But, no. He appealed to 
 Caesar and the sword. Restore the penal 
 laws. Burn down Popish chapels, close 
 Popish schools, exterminate Popish books, 
 and then the reformed religion, accord- 
 ing to John Wesley, shall prevail against 
 Popery — and not till then. 
 
 During May, 1780, Lord George Gor- 
 don was haranguing the excited Protes- 
 tants of London about the Pope. Lord 
 George was the youngest son of the Duke 
 of Gordon and was at this time about 
 thirty years of age. There can be no doubt 
 that he was crazy and his morals were 
 as muddled as his brains. He was very 
 tall, very thin and very bilious. He had 
 high cheek bones and long lank red hair. 
 He was dressed in trousers of a red tartan 
 
 191 
 
Lord George Gordon a Madman. 
 
 plaid, a black velvet coat and spectacles. 
 It v^as his firm belief that George III. 
 was a Catholic, and in 1780 he opened 
 operations on that unlucky monarch by 
 securing an audience and reading at him 
 a long Irish Protestant pamphlet on the 
 errors of Popery. Horace Walpole says 
 he began to read it at midday and had not 
 finished at nightfall. 
 
 Among the extreme Protestants his pop- 
 ularity was unbounded. His rantings were 
 considered inspired and he was looked 
 upon as a heaven-sent defender of the 
 reformed faith, a male Joan of Arc, set 
 up by Providence to save Great Britain 
 once again from "Popery, Brass Money 
 and Wooden Shoes." In all those agita- 
 tions it is noticeable that the collection of 
 money is considered an outward and visi- 
 ble sign of the true evangelical faith. It 
 is here we meet for the first time our friend 
 the Little Red Schoolhouse. You will 
 find in Dickens' novel, "Barnaby Rudge,'' 
 a full description of the patriotic edifice 
 
 192 
 
The Original of the Little Red Schoolhouse. 
 
 used by the Protestant Association for the 
 collection of subscriptions: 
 
 Mrs. Varden looked at a box upon 
 the mantel-shelf, painted in imitation 
 of a very red brick dwelling house, 
 with a yellow roof; having at top a 
 chimney, down which voluntary sub- 
 scribers dropped their silver, gold or 
 pence, into the parlor; and on the door 
 the counterfeit presentment of a brass 
 plate, whereon was legibly inscribed, 
 "Protestant Association" — and looking 
 at it said that it was to her a source 
 of poignant misery to think that Var- 
 den never had, of all his substance, 
 dropped anything into that temple, 
 save once in secret — as she afterwards 
 discovered — two fragments of tobacco- 
 pipe, which she hoped would not be 
 set down to his last account That 
 Dolly, she was grieved to say, was no 
 less backw^ard in her contributions, 
 better loving, as it seemed, to purchase 
 ribbons and such gauds, than to en- 
 courage the great cause then in such 
 heavy tribulation; and that she did 
 entreat her (her father she much 
 feared could not be moved) not to de- 
 
 193 
 
Monster Petition Against Catholics. 
 
 spise, but imitate, the bright example 
 of Miss Miggs, who flung her wages, 
 as it were, into the very countenance 
 of the Pope, and bruised his features 
 with her quarter's money. — Dickens' 
 Barnahy Rudge, Chap. xlt. 
 
 The Protestant Association was prepar- 
 ing a monster petition to Parliament 
 against the Catholics. At a great meeting 
 Lord George Gordon announced that he 
 would present the petition to the House 
 of Commons on June 2nd. He said, how- 
 ever, that unless 20,000 men were ready 
 to accompany him, he would not go. It 
 was agreed that the members of the As- 
 sociation should meet at a certain point 
 and then march to the House of Parlia- 
 ment. 
 
 On Friday, June 2nd, from 50,000 to 
 100,000 men gathered in St. George's 
 Fields, Southwark. They wore blue cock- 
 ades in their hats as a ^ign of their fidelity 
 to the principles of Protestantism. About 
 ten o'clock Lord George Gordon made a 
 speech to the multitude, and, preceded by 
 the great petition containing 120,000 sig- 
 
 194 
 
Mob Storms Houses of Parliament. 
 
 natures, mostly marks, they advanced to- 
 ward Westminster. The government had 
 taken no precautions whatsoever. At that 
 time police had not been invented and a 
 few old watchmen alone represented the 
 majesty of the law. The mob was able, 
 without opposition, to take possession of 
 the avenues of approach to the house, of 
 the stairs, and of the division lobbies. 
 When the members arrived they had to 
 fight their way through a howling mass of 
 humanity. Every member, who was not 
 known to be opposed to Catholics, was 
 nearly torn to pieces. Lord Mansfield, 
 the great jurist, was most unpopular be- 
 cause he had directed a jury to acquit a 
 Catholic priest, who had been charged 
 with the monstrous crime of saying Mass. 
 When his carriage arrived, the windows 
 were broken, the old gentleman was 
 howled at as a "notorious Papist." The 
 Bishop of Lincoln had his carriage 
 smashed to pieces. He fled into a neigh- 
 boring house and escaped over the roof 
 in a woman's dress. The Duke of Nor- 
 
 195 
 
Lords and Commons Maltreated. 
 
 thumberland came in his carriage accom- 
 panied by his secretary. The secretary 
 was dressed in black and the moment the 
 mob saw him they raised the cry, ^^A 
 Jesuit, a Jesuit!" The Duke was dragged 
 out, rolled on the ground, and some zeal- 
 ous defender of the Bible, no doubt ac- 
 tuated by a desire to show disapprobation 
 of Jesuits and Popery, stole his watch and 
 purse. 
 
 The House of Lords had in the mean- 
 time begun to transact business when word 
 came that Lord Boston was in the hands 
 of the mob and was being killed. It was 
 suggested that the peers as a body should 
 sally out to rescue him but more prudent 
 counsels prevailed. "At this instant," said 
 a contemporary writer, ^4t is hardly possi- 
 ble to conceive a more grotesque appear- 
 ance than the House of Lords presented. 
 Some of their lordships with their hair 
 about their shoulders, others smutted with 
 dirt, most of them as pale as the ghost in 
 Hamlet, and all of them standing up in 
 their places and speaking at once." After 
 
 196 
 
Lord George Gordon Presents Petition. 
 
 half an hour Lord Boston staggered in, 
 half dead, his clothes in rags. The mob 
 had taken him for a Catholic and were 
 about to mark him as one for ever and 
 ever by cutting the sign of the cross on 
 his forehead. He had, however, managed 
 to get speech with them and having 
 started a violent controversy among them 
 whether or no the Pope was antichrist 
 he escaped while they were settling the 
 momentous question. 
 
 The Commoners suffered as much as 
 the Lords. They too were kicked, cuffed 
 and beaten and they reached the Chamber 
 with their clothes torn in ribbons and 
 covered with mud and filth. Lord George 
 presented the petition but no division 
 could be taken on it because the lobbies 
 were occupied by the mob who pounded 
 on the doors, shouting "No Popery." 
 Every now and again Lord George would 
 address them from the gallery and tell 
 them what was going on inside the house. 
 "There is Mr. Burke, the member for 
 Bristol, speaking against you." "Do you 
 
 197 
 
Parliament Refuses to Consider Petition. 
 
 know that Lord North calls you a mob?" 
 The demeanor of the petitioners now be- 
 came so threatening that the prime minis- 
 ter sent for the military and Colonel Mur- 
 ray, Lord George's cousin, said, ^^My Lord 
 George, do you really mean to bring your 
 rascally adherents into the House of Com- 
 mons? If you do, the first man that en- 
 ters, I will plunge my sword not into his 
 body but into yours." This speech fright- 
 ened the noble defender of the realm 
 against the Pope, and ^^he retired to the 
 dining room where he fell asleep, listen- 
 ing to the moral exhortations of the chap- 
 lain." His departure had a soothing ef- 
 fect on the mob and when the military ap- 
 peared the people dispersed. The lobbies 
 now being cleared, the house divided on 
 Lord George's motion to consider the pe- 
 tition at once. The motion was rejected 
 by a vote of 194 to 8 and the matter was 
 put over to the following Tuesday. 
 
 Though the mob had retired from the 
 Parliament House at the appearance of 
 the military, it had not abandoned its 
 
 198 
 
Mob Burns Down Catholic Chapels. 
 
 purpose of protecting the Protestant re- 
 ligion. At that time the foreign ambassa- 
 dors from Catholic Powers had their own 
 chapels attached to their embassies. This 
 was a privilege allowed by the law of 
 nations, and could not be taken away by 
 the penal laws. The Catholics were in 
 the habit of attending those places to hear 
 Mass, and their location was well known 
 to the mob. Accordingly, after they left 
 the House of Parliament, those brave and 
 patriotic champions of a pure gospel made 
 for the Sardinian and Bavarian chapels. 
 The furniture was dragged into the street 
 and piled into a great bonfire. The chap- 
 els themselves were burned to the ground. 
 Fire engines were sent for, but the mob 
 prevented their use. When all was over, 
 a detachment of soldiers arrived and made 
 a few arrests. 
 
 Saturday and Sunday the town was ap- 
 parently quiet; but on Sunday night the 
 rioting began again. The Lord Mayor 
 locked himself up in the Mansion House 
 and the general government did nothing. 
 
 199 
 
Government Apathetic; Mob Rule. 
 
 The Catholics were accustomed to wor- 
 ship in upper rooms and out of the way 
 places. In Moorfields there was a colony 
 of Irish laborers, and to this quarter of 
 the town the rioters directed their atten- 
 tion. All the Catholic houses were plun- 
 dered and burned; and whenever the mob 
 came across vestments, altars or taberna- 
 cles, a great bonfire was made, in which 
 they were solemnly consumed for the 
 greater glory of God and the exaltation of 
 the reformed faith. 
 
 On Monday afternoon the Privy Coun- 
 cil met and offered a reward for the dis- 
 covery of the rioters; but still no measures 
 were taken to meet force by force. As 
 yet, only Catholics had suffered, and there 
 was no particular need of repressing too 
 firmly the exuberant piety of a British 
 mob. But the flame began to spread. On 
 Tuesday two other Catholic chapels were 
 discovered and burned. The incendiaries, 
 to show their devotion to their champion 
 against antichrist, carried the furniture 
 and ornaments of the chapels to the street 
 
 200 
 
Houses of Liberal Protestants Attacked. 
 
 before Lord George's house, and there 
 gave them to the flames. 
 
 The mover of the relief bill of 1778 
 was Sir Geojrge Savile. He was a zealous 
 Protestant, but his liberality made him 
 worse than a Papist. The rioters now 
 attacked his house, carried it by storm 
 and plundered it. Lord George Gordon 
 and the heads of the Protestant Associa- 
 tion, who had remained silent while Cath- 
 olics were the sole object of the rioters' 
 fury, issued a notice disavowing the riots 
 in the name of the Association. Burke, 
 who favored tolerance, was compelled to 
 take refuge in the house of General Bur- 
 goyne. At six o'clock Tuesday evening 
 Parliament met. The soldiers were drawn 
 up to protect the members and to overawe 
 the mob. The question of the petition came 
 up before the Commons. Burke made, 
 what he considered the best speech of his 
 life, on the subject, and, in the course of 
 it, he spoke of "that base gang called 
 the Protestant Association." The motion 
 was carried to consider the petition when 
 
 201 
 
Newgate Set on Fire; Prisoners Freed. 
 
 the riots had subsided. This angered the 
 rioters still more and they went off to at- 
 tack the Prime Minister's house on Down- 
 ing street, but they found soldiers before 
 them. 
 
 Then began the worst period of the 
 riots. On Tuesday night, as Gibbon, the 
 historian, says, the mob ^^held the town; 
 forty thousand Puritans, such as they 
 might be in the time of Cromwell, had 
 started out of their graves." Rumors went 
 round that a Papist invasion was immi- 
 nent, that the Pope was coming over, that 
 the Inquisition was to be set up. The 
 rioters, who had been arrested, were con- 
 fined in Newgate, and toward Newgate 
 the mob directed their steps. It was a 
 prison of immense strength and had lately 
 been rebuilt at great cost. The governor 
 refused to open the gates and his house 
 was set on fire. Soon the whole place was 
 in flames, and the shouts of the rioters 
 were answered by the screams of prison- 
 ers afraid of being burned alive. At last 
 a breach was effected, and three hundred 
 
 202 
 
Chief Justice Mansfield's House Sacked. 
 
 common thieves and felons and four men, 
 condemned to death, were set free. The 
 mob carried the prisoners on their shoul- 
 ders through the streets and hailed them as 
 heroes in the great cause. 
 
 That same evening another jail was 
 broken open and the house of the Chief 
 Justice, Lord Mansfield, was plundered 
 and burned. The mob cursed him for a 
 Papist, and he had barely time to escape 
 by the back door. The house was com- 
 pletely demolished and thousands of val- 
 uable books and priceless manuscripts went 
 up in flames. The rioters got drunk, as 
 usual, and many were crushed to death or 
 roasted in the ruins. 
 
 On Wednesday the riots were at their 
 height. ^'Terrible rumors flew round the 
 town; the lunatics were to be let out of 
 Bedlam, the lions out of the Tower, and, 
 worst of all, 70,000 Scotch Protestants out 
 of Scotland." Of course, business was en- 
 tirely suspended, the shops were shut, and, 
 as a sign that the householder was a true 
 Protestant, "no Popery" was chalked on 
 
 203 
 
Thirty-six Fires Burning at Same Time. 
 
 every doon Two attacks were made on 
 the Bank of England, but the rioters were 
 beaten off. As many as thirty-six great 
 fires were seen burning at the one time. 
 Happily the atmosphere remained still. 
 If a wind had arisen, nothing could have 
 saved the city from destruction. Horri- 
 ble scenes took place at the burning of the 
 distillery kept by a Mr. Langdale, a 
 Catholic. The contents of the great vaults 
 were poured into the street and caught 
 fire. The drunken mob, aye, even women 
 and children, were seen rolling in the 
 flames and lapping up the liquid fire. 
 
 The gutters of the street and every 
 crack and fissure in the stones ran 
 with scorching spirit, which, being 
 dammed up by busy hands, overflowed 
 the road and pavement and formed a 
 great pool into which the people drop- 
 ped down dead by dozens. They lay 
 in heaps all around this fearful pond, 
 husbands and wives, fathers and sons, 
 mothers and daughters, women with 
 children in their arms and babies at 
 their breast, and drank until they died. 
 
 204 
 
Rioters Loot Distillery and Die in Flames. 
 
 While some stooped, with their lips 
 to the brink, and never raised their 
 heads again, others sprang up from 
 their fiery draught and danced, half 
 in a mad triumph and half in the 
 agony of suffocation, until they fell 
 and steeped their corpses in the li- 
 quor that had killed them. Nor was 
 even this the worst or most appalling 
 kind of death that happened on this 
 fatal night. From the burning cel- 
 lars, where they drank out of hats, 
 pails, buckets, tubs and shoes, some 
 men were drawn, alive, but alight 
 from head to foot; who, in their un- 
 endurable anguish and suffering, mak- 
 ing for anything that had the look of 
 water, rolled, hissed in this hideous 
 lake, and splashed up the liquid fire, 
 which lapped up all it met with as 
 it ran along the surface, and spared 
 neither the living nor the dead. On 
 this last night of the great riots — for 
 the last night it was — the wretched 
 victims of a senseless outcry became 
 themselves the dust and ashes of the 
 flames they had kindled, and strewed 
 the public streets of London. — Bar- 
 naby Rudge, Chap. Ixviit. 
 
 205 
 
Government Calls Out the Soldiers. 
 
 Up to this the government appeared to 
 be paralyzed. Means were at hand in- 
 deed to quell the disturbance but nothing 
 was done. While the Catholic chapels 
 were burning the soldiers looked on with 
 loaded muskets in their hands and huzzaed 
 with the mob. But by Wednesday it was 
 clearly seen that unless the government 
 should intervene London would soon be 
 only a name. The advisers of the King 
 were in hopeless confusion. They were 
 afraid to order the soldiers to fire before 
 the Riot Act had been read. George 
 III., however, solved the difficulty. 
 ^*There shall be," he said, "at all events 
 one magistrate in the kingdom who will 
 do his duty." The soldiers were called 
 out and the mob was checked. They had 
 no firearms and could make but little 
 resistance to the troops. Many were shot 
 down, many threw themselves into the 
 Thames. The soldiers' bayonets ran with 
 blood, and all that dreadful night citi- 
 zens lay awake listening to the shooting 
 and the shrieks of the rioters. The official 
 
 206 
 
Mob Routed; Lord George Arrested. 
 
 returns calculated that two hundred were 
 killed and two hundred and fifty wounded, 
 but the destruction of life must have been 
 much greater. When the burned houses 
 were rebuilt it was not an uncommon 
 thing to come upon the remains of man- 
 gled bodies. Many of the dead and 
 wounded were taken away secretly by their 
 friends. A thousand fatalities would be a 
 moderate estimate of the results of this agi- 
 tation to prevent the growth of Popery, 
 and to preserve the Protestant religion. 
 
 This display of force served to end the 
 riots. On Thursday the town was quiet 
 and on Friday business was resumed as be- 
 fore. On that sam.e day Lord George 
 Gordon was arrested and sent to the 
 Tower. The Lord Mayor of London v/as 
 tried and convicted of gross neglect. But 
 the no-Popery spirit had not been ex- 
 tinguished by the terrible excesses of its 
 representatives. The most absurd rumors 
 were circulated about the increase in the 
 number of Papists and their presence in 
 the court. It was said that the royal 
 
 207 
 
Parliament Affected By No Popery. 
 
 family patronized Catholics extensively 
 and the Lord Chamberlain was forced to 
 insert such advertisements in the papers 
 as this: ^We are authorized to assure 
 the public that Mr. Bicknell, His Maj- 
 esty's hosier, is as true and faithful a 
 Protestant as any in His Majesty's do- 
 minions. We likev^ise have the best au- 
 thority for saying that His Majesty's wine- 
 merchants are Protestants." 
 
 When Parliament met after the riots, 
 the great Protestant Petition was taken up 
 in the Commons. Though the Legislature 
 had shown dignity and firmness in re- 
 fusing to act under the terrorism of the 
 mob, there is no doubt that the no-Popery 
 craze also affected them. Sir George 
 Savile, who had introduced the original 
 toleration act, brought in a bill to guard 
 against Catholic conversions. No Catholic 
 was to keep a school or to have a Prot- 
 estant apprentice. The bill passed the 
 Commons, but was thrown out in the 
 Lords. 
 
 The consideration of the Petition drew 
 
 208 
 
Fox and Burke Speak in Vain for Toleration. 
 
 forth a series of resolutions, insisting upon 
 the retention of the law of 1778, but mak- 
 ing a concession to the Protestant spirit 
 by insisting also on the criminality of 
 making conversions to Catholicism. It 
 was on this occasion that Fox made his 
 great speech in favor of toleration. The 
 ideas of America were in the air. Men 
 were beginning to see the futility of pun- 
 ishing those whose only crime was that 
 they would not be hypocrites. It was the 
 omen of a happier day, that the House 
 of Commons could ring with such gen- 
 erous sentiments. But Fox and Burke 
 were ahead of their time. It is not a 
 century and a quarter since they stood 
 among English Protestants as the pioneers 
 of toleration. They died without seeing 
 the results of their labor. Nigh fifty 
 years had to pass before their dreams 
 were realized. Bigotry dies hard. Tol- 
 erance is a plant of slow growth. The 
 thoughts of men are widened with the 
 process of the suns; but oh, how slight 
 
 209 
 
Trial and Acquittal of Lord George Gordon. 
 
 is the widening! How leaden are the feet 
 of progress! 
 
 But to return to the rioters. In July 
 a special commission sat to try them. By 
 the end of the month 135 had been found 
 guilty. Twenty-one were hanged, some of 
 whom were bovs under fourteen. Lord 
 George Gordon was put on trial for trea- 
 son in 1 78 1. During the trial he had a 
 large Bible open before him all the time 
 and was very angry because the court re- 
 fused to let him read four chapters of 
 the Prophet Zacharias in self defense. The 
 jury brought in a verdict of acquittal and 
 public thanksgivings were offered up in 
 many churches for his delivery, while the 
 Scotch Presbyterians subscribed five hun- 
 dred pounds to pay his legal expenses. 
 
 Lord George's career after this period 
 was very remarkable. He was excom- 
 municated by the Protestant Archbishop 
 of Canterbury for refusing to give evi- 
 dence in an ecclesiastical case. This was 
 a sad recompense for his labors in pre- 
 serving his country from the Pope, but it 
 
 210 
 
His Subsequent Career; Becomes a Jew. 
 
 only shows that churches, like republics, 
 can be ungrateful. About 1786 he became 
 a Jew, and called himself the Right Hon. 
 Israel Bar Abraham George Gordon. He 
 was as crotchety in his new creed as he 
 was in his old. He wore a long beard, 
 and he refused to speak to any Jew who 
 did not sport the same appendage. In 
 1787 he was convicted of libel, but before 
 sentence was passed he fled to Amsterdam. 
 The honest Dutch burghers did not know 
 what to do with him, so they sent him 
 back to England. In 1788 he was brought 
 up for judgment and was committed to 
 Newgate. After five years' imprisonment, 
 he died in 1793. 
 
 It w^as the unanimous opinion of his en- 
 lightened contemporaries, and it is the 
 unanimous opinion of historians, that Lord 
 George Gordon was a lunatic. His ac- 
 tions, his speeches, show that he was stark 
 mad. If he lived in our day, he would 
 be considered a fit subject for an insane 
 asylum. Indeed, there are many in such 
 institutions now not half as mad as Lord 
 
 211 
 
Imprisoned Because of Influence With Mob. 
 
 George was. There can be little doubt 
 that the long sentence which was given 
 him, was given merely to keep him under 
 restraint. There was a well grounded 
 fear that at any time he might put himself 
 at the head of another mob. Indeed, the 
 people looked upon him with superstitious 
 reverence, as one who had fought the good 
 fight in the defense of the Protestant cause ; 
 and notwithstanding the horrors and 
 butchery of the riot, there were not want- 
 ing evidence that ardent Protestant spirits 
 were ready to rally round their ancient 
 leader and burn a few more Catholic 
 chapels. 
 
 It is a poor compliment to the English 
 people, or to any people, to state that they 
 could be swayed to rebellion and blood- 
 shed at the dictate of a madman. Yet I but 
 speak the truth, and before we rush in 
 to condemn let us listen to the story of 
 our own Ghost and see what has been 
 done in our own land. There is no sen- 
 timent which so destroys human reason, 
 eliminates common sense and uproots natu- 
 
 212 
 
As Blindly Fanatical as Turks. 
 
 ral affection as religious bigotry. Be- 
 tween the fanaticism of the Turk, who 
 rushes on the Christian confident of a 
 place in Paradise, and the fanaticism of 
 the British Protestant of the last century 
 who fell, dead drunk, under the leader- 
 ship of George Gordon, there is absolutely 
 no difference. 
 
 Certainly the work of the Ghosts was 
 well done. For over two centuries the 
 old faith had been made a byword and a 
 hissing. Seven generations of English- 
 men had grown up, and each generation 
 had outstripped its predecessor in its ter- 
 ror of the Pope. The ^^ncrease of Pop- 
 ery" haunted it by night and day. Even 
 though the vast machinery of the law 
 was in unceasing operation searching out 
 Papists, beggaring them, imprisoning them, 
 banishing them beyond seas, sending them 
 to the block. Protestantism could not rest 
 secure. There was blood upon its hands, 
 and like the murderer it knew no rest 
 in slumber. Hideous dreams, fantastic 
 ghosts, peopled its imagination, and every 
 
 213 
 
Protestants and the Reformed Calendar. 
 
 now and again it sprang into fury and 
 sought to exterminate the objects of its 
 hate. 
 
 It is hard nowadays to realize the extent 
 and the strength of this blind terror of 
 Popery. You know that the calendar, or 
 our method of reckoning time, is a very 
 complicated arrangement. As the sun in 
 its course round the earth consumes a frac- 
 tion more than three hundred and sixty- 
 five days, our reckoning of three hundred 
 and sixty-five days to the year is not accu- 
 rate. As the fraction is very small it was 
 not noticed at first, but in the course of cen- 
 turies it became so great that it amounted 
 to more than a week. In 1582 Pope Greg- 
 ory XIII. reformed the calendar, and in- 
 troduced the system which obtains among 
 us to-day. The Catholic countries adopted 
 the change; but the Protestant nations, 
 which are, according to their own notions, 
 in the van of progress, clung to the anti- 
 quated calendar, because the new style 
 was the work of a Pope. England did not 
 come into line until 1751. By that time 
 
 214 
 
"Give Us Back Our Eleven Days." 
 
 the error had amounted to eleven days, and 
 it was necessary to suppress them, nom- 
 inally, in September, 1752. The pious 
 British Protestants were, in the first place, 
 scandalized that a Protestant government 
 should sanction a Popish invention, and, 
 in the second place, they were convinced 
 that in some way or other the Pope had 
 got hold of the missing days and was ap- 
 plying them to his own nefarious purposes. 
 The mob rose in its wrath, surrounded the 
 ministers' houses, and split the air with 
 the demand, ''Give us back our eleven 
 days." 
 
 It is not, therefore, surprising that a peo- 
 ple so impregnated with the anti-Popish 
 spirit should be responsive even to the 
 wild harangues of a ''lunatic apostle.'' It 
 shows the power of prejudice, the power of 
 tradition, the power of calumny. Neither 
 in the days of the Gunpowder Plot, nor 
 in the days of the Fire of London, nor in 
 the days of Titus Gates, nor in the days 
 of George Gordon was there the slightest 
 reason for the Protestant terror. The pop- 
 
 215 
 
Catholic* Weak and Long-Suffering. 
 
 ular fear was engendered by Ghosts. It 
 was fed on whispers and rumors and vague 
 alarms. Even if Catholics wished to in- 
 jure their Protestant neighbors, it does not 
 appear that they had it in their power 
 to do so. They were few and scattered, 
 and without leaders. Indeed, it has always 
 seemed to. me that the Catholics of Eng- 
 land were too loyal and law-abiding. If 
 they had been more self-assertive; if, when 
 they numbered a large proportion of the 
 population, as they did in the time of 
 James, they had defended their conscien- 
 tious rights with the sword, they might 
 have fared better — they could not have 
 fared worse. But they chose the path of 
 quiet suffering, and walked in it with stead- 
 fast feet. In this they did not show that 
 they lacked courage; because it takes a 
 higher degree of courage to suffer pa- 
 tiently and serenely and steadfastly through 
 long years than to risk everything on one 
 wild dash. We can hardly understand the 
 long martyrdom of our brethren in the 
 faith during the time I have been describ- 
 
 216 
 
The Experience of Bishop Challoner. 
 
 ins:. Ill the Gordon riots we have the 
 record of that venerable prelate, Dr. Chal- 
 loner, whose works are still read among us. 
 His name was in special detestation with 
 the rioters, and they announced their deter- 
 mination to murder him^. He was ninety 
 years of age, and moved from hiding place 
 to hiding place, with the mob upon his 
 track. In a little room, on his knees, with 
 tears streaming from his eyes — tears not 
 for himself, but for his harassed flock — the 
 aged Bishop prayed while through the 
 streets the mob surged. He is but a figure 
 of the thousands who suffered in those dark 
 days — thousands of men and women of 
 whom the world was not worthy. 
 
 For us those days have their lesson. Not 
 only do they bring out what is the main 
 object of these lectures — the baselessness of 
 the clamor against Catholics, and the 
 sources from which modern Protestant 
 prejudices spring — but they afford us an 
 object lesson of the hideousness of bigotry 
 and of the manner in which it should be 
 met. Bigotry is a bully. It is cruel to 
 
 217 
 
Bigotry Bold is Bigotry Bloodthirsty. 
 
 the defenseless and the weak. It dares not 
 attack those who can strike back. The 
 cringing air, the suppliant knee, the silent 
 mouth make bigotry bold, and bigotry bold 
 is bigotry bloodthirsty. But a determina- 
 tion to defend our rights to the end, with- 
 out encroaching on the rights of others, 
 and a plain expression of our determination 
 so to do, will in every case secure us from 
 its malevolence. It is not necessary to be 
 aggressive; it is not necessary to put our- 
 selves in the way of bigotry; it is wrong to 
 insult our neighbors' conscientious convic- 
 tions, but it is necessary to stand by our 
 rights when any one attacks them, and it 
 is right to defend our own conscien- 
 tious convictions when they are called in 
 question. 
 
 218 
 
V -THE ECCLESIASTICAL 
 TITLES BILL. 
 
 WE ARE coming to the end of this 
 series of lectures. It may be use- 
 ful, therefore, to take a back- 
 ward glance and see what we set out to 
 study and what are the results of our inves- 
 tigations. You will remember that I said in 
 the beginning that our subject would be 
 the great Protestant Tradition. Tradi- 
 tion means something handed down, and 
 we undertook to examine the popular 
 notion about Catholicism, which for three 
 hundred years has been handed down 
 from Protestant father to Protestant son. 
 As the main stem of American Protestant- 
 ism is of English origin, it was necessary 
 to study this tradition as manifested in 
 England. Hence, we have been dealing 
 exclusively with English history. We 
 found that, both here and across the 
 water, the tradition was a fact. The 
 Catholic Church comes before the world 
 
 219 
 
The Power of the Protestant Tradition. 
 
 and makes certain claims. All she asks 
 is that those outside her pale should ex- 
 amine those claims. She asks for no 
 favor from them. She wishes to be 
 judged by the same rule of right reason 
 that they apply to the other transactions 
 of life. If her claims do not approve 
 themselves to sincere inquirers she has 
 nothing more to say. She makes only the 
 one demand — that the inquirers will in- 
 quire, and not pass her by with contempt. 
 Here it is she meets with the great 
 Protestant Tradition. Men and women 
 who will inquire into every subject, from 
 the Single Tax to Theosophy, will not 
 inquire into the claims of the Church. It 
 is a settled fact with them that these 
 claims have been examined and found 
 wanting. This is the Protestant Tradi- 
 tion. There is no use studying this ex- 
 ploded superstition. Some of them turn 
 on lier in anger, and denounce her as a 
 curse. They have no reason but the Tra- 
 dition. So they heard their fathers say, 
 and so say they. Others pass her by with 
 
 220 
 
Based Upon Misrepresentation. 
 
 a contemptuous smile — she is finished; 
 the last word has been said in her case; 
 she has no longer any standing in court; 
 let the dead bury their dead. Neither has 
 this class any reason for its opinion but 
 the great Tradition — so it is written; so 
 it must be.- 
 
 We went a step further, and inquired 
 how it is possible that men should be able 
 to hate or ignore an institution which we 
 believe has been founded by Christ to 
 bring the tidings of salvation to all the 
 world. Then we found that those men 
 hate or ignore, not the Church, but a 
 Ghost which they take to be the Church. 
 Some see a hideous and cruel specter. 
 They hate it, and they fear it. They will 
 not 2:0 near it or examine it. If thev did 
 they would soon find that it is a phantom 
 of prejudiced minds. Others see a weak, 
 jabbering, imbecile Ghost, a very scare- 
 crow, beneath the notice of grown men. 
 Neither will they examine for themselves. 
 If they did they would learn that this 
 Ghost, too, is the offspring of ignorance. 
 
 221 
 
Produced for Political Ends. 
 
 Then we advanced another step, and 
 we asked, What is the origin of these 
 Ghosts? Why is it that, to English-speak- 
 ing Protestants the Catholic Church 
 should be something to be hated or some- 
 thing to be despised? Why should 
 Protestants refuse so pertinaciously to ex- 
 amine her claims? Why should they 
 turn away their faces so steadily from 
 the light of her eyes? We found the ori- 
 gin of these Ghosts in the facts of Eng- 
 lish political history during the past three 
 hundred years. We saw how they were 
 created by skillful politicians, and how 
 they were used to impress on the English 
 people the charge that Catholics were 
 disloyal and bloodthirsty. We saw how, 
 from year to year, and from century to 
 century, that charge was reiterated in the 
 pulpit, on the platform, from public 
 monument, by act of Parliament, by royal 
 speech. We saw how Catholics were 
 slowly, but surely, exterminated. The 
 Protestant Tradition had it all its own 
 wav. The Catholic could not answer 
 
 222 
 
The Downfall of the Penal System. 
 
 back. Should he attempt to defend his 
 name, he did so at the peril of life and 
 limb. Thus the Tradition became an in- 
 stitution of the country not to be doubted 
 or disturbed. Thus Catholics were made 
 a feeble folk, whose silence and feebleness 
 were attributed not to the strong, repress- 
 ive hand of a persecuting government, 
 but to the consciousness that they could 
 not defend the absurd doctrines they were 
 credited with believing, nor disprove the 
 scandalous charges that were laid to their 
 account. 
 
 In the last lecture we saw that necessity 
 had made a change in the English policy 
 toward Catholicism. As long as England 
 had no great interests outside her own 
 shores, she might be able to deal with 
 domestic disaffection with a strong hand. 
 But the American War taught her the 
 necessity of conciliating her own citizens. 
 The American War produced the French 
 War, the Spanish War, and, to use the 
 words of Fox, ^^armed forty-two thou- 
 sand men in Ireland with the arguments 
 
 223 
 
The Relief Measures of 1791. 
 
 carried on the points of forty-two thou- 
 sand bayonets." In 1791 an Act was 
 passed which removed some of the most 
 obnoxious features of the Penal Laws. 
 An oath of allegiance was framed, and 
 those who took it were exempt from ^^the 
 penalties for hearing or saying Mass or 
 perform.ing any religious service in their 
 places of worship, or for being a priest or 
 member of a religious order, or for enter- 
 ing any such order, provided that such 
 places of Catholic worship are duly cer- 
 tified to the Justices of the Peace at 
 Quarter Sessions; provided, also, that 
 such places have not steeples and bells, 
 and that such ecclesiastics shall not wear 
 their vestments or habits out of their 
 churches, or in a private house where not 
 more than five persons are assembled." 
 All the' other pains and penalties were in 
 force. The Catholics were excluded from 
 political life, they were forbidden to en- 
 dow a school or college for the education 
 of their children, they were subjected to 
 a double imposition of the land tax. 
 
 224 
 
Catholic Emancipation Won By O'Connell. 
 
 Catholic soldiers were compelled to at- 
 tend Protestant services, and if Catholics 
 wished to get married they had to go be- 
 fore a Protestant preacher. It was, there- 
 fore, well written as late as the year 1828, 
 ^'Catholics are only known to the Consti- 
 tution for the purpose of pains and penal- 
 ties. We are worse than aliens in our 
 native land, inasmuch as an alien is under 
 the protection of equal laws, which we 
 are not.'^ 
 
 That Catholics would be restored to 
 political equality with Protestants there 
 was little hope, if such restoration de- 
 pended on the English Catholics. They 
 were few, and without influence. But a 
 great power had been growing up in Ire- 
 land. The Irish Catholic population was 
 increasing by leaps and bounds. The two 
 millions of the time of Edmund Burke 
 had grown to six millions. God at last 
 had raised up a leader to marshal those 
 millions into a solid phalanx before 
 which no government could stand. In 
 1829 ^^^ British ministry introduced the 
 
 225 
 
Forced Through by Fear of Civil War. 
 
 Emancipation Act, and defended their 
 course not on the ground of tolerance or 
 of justice, but on the ground that if Eman- 
 cipation were refused the country must 
 face civil war. 
 
 For the deliverance, therefore, from the 
 Penal Laws the Catholics have no one to 
 thank but themselves. As long as it was 
 possible to withhold justice from them, 
 justice was withheld. Only when they 
 became too strong to be kept in slavery 
 were their chains stricken of¥. The relief 
 was given ungracefully and grudgingly 
 when it would be dangerous to refuse. 
 They have, therefore, no debt of gratitude 
 to the English Parliament or to the Eng- 
 lish politicians. They got their rights 
 when thev were able to take them. 
 
 This is true of the Catholics of Ireland; 
 but unfortunately it is not true of the 
 Catholics of England. I have already 
 called your attention to the disappearance 
 of English Catholicism. At the beginning 
 of this century there were not in all Eng- 
 land and Wales seventy thousand people 
 
 226 
 
The Low Estate of Catholics in England. 
 
 professing that faith. They had no influ- 
 ence — social or political — and excepting 
 a few old families they had no wealth. 
 They were trained by centuries of perse- 
 cution to shun public notice, thinking 
 themselves fortunate if they were allowed 
 to live. There was no Catholic literature, 
 there were few priests, the services of the 
 Church were conducted in hired rooms 
 or in mean buildings called chapels. 
 Cardinal Newman, with his matchless 
 felicity, described the condition of the 
 Catholic community at the opening of 
 this century in that wonderful sermon 
 known as the ^^Second Spring": 
 
 One and all of us can bear witness 
 to the fact of the utter contempt into 
 which Catholicism had fallen by the 
 time that we were born. You, alas, 
 know it far better than I can know it; 
 but it may not be out of place if by one 
 or two tokens, as by the strokes of a 
 pencil, I bear witness to you from 
 without of what you can witness much 
 more truly from within. No longer 
 the Catholic Church in the country; 
 
 227 
 
Described by Newman in Second Spring. 
 
 nay, no longer, I may say, a Catholic 
 community, but a few adherents of the 
 Old Religion, moving silently and sor- 
 rowfully about, as memorials of what 
 had been. ^The Roman Catholics" — 
 not a sect, not even an interest, as men 
 conceived of it; not a body, however 
 small, representative of the Great 
 Communion abroad, but a mere hand- 
 ful of individuals, who might be 
 counted, like the pebbles and detritus 
 of the great deluge, and who, forsooth, 
 merely happened to retain a creed 
 which, in its day, indeed, was the pro- 
 fession of a Church. Here a set of 
 poor Irishmen, coming or going at 
 harvest time, or a colony of them 
 lodged in a miserable quarter of the 
 vast metropolis. There, perhaps an 
 elderly person, seen walking in the 
 streets, grave and solitary, and strange, 
 though noble in bearing, and said to 
 be of good family, and a ^^Roman 
 Catholic." An old-fashioned house of 
 gloomy appearance, closed in with 
 high walls, with an iron gate, and 
 yews, and the report attaching to it 
 that ^^Roman Catholics" lived there; 
 but who they were or what they did, 
 
 228 
 
As Seen From Protestant Viewpoint. 
 
 or what was meant by calling them 
 ^^Roman Catholics" no one could 
 tell — though it had an unpleasant 
 sound, and told of form and supersti- 
 tion. And then, perhaps, as we went 
 to and fro, looking with a boy's cu- 
 rious eyes through the great city, we 
 might come to-day upon some Mora- 
 vian chapel, or Quakers' meeting- 
 house, and to-morrow on a chapel of 
 the Roman Catholics ; but nothing was 
 to be gathered from it, except that 
 there were lights burning there, and 
 some boys, in white, swinging censers ; 
 and what it all meant could only be 
 learned from books, from Protestant 
 histories and sermons, and they did 
 not report well of ^^the Roman Cath- 
 olics," but, on the contrary, deposed 
 that they had once had power and 
 had abused it. And then, again, we 
 might on one occasion hear it pointed 
 out by some literary man, as the re- 
 sult of his careful investigation, and 
 as a recondite point of information, 
 which few knew, that there was this 
 difference between the Roman Cath- 
 olics of England and the Roman 
 Catholics of Ireland, that the latter 
 
 229 
 
Utterly Feeble and Contemptible. 
 
 had Bishops, and the former were 
 governed by four officials called 
 Vicars Apostolic. Such was about 
 the sort of knowledge of Christianity 
 by the heathen of old time, who perse- 
 cuted its adherents from the face of 
 the earth, and then called them a gens 
 lucifugaj 2i people who shunned the 
 light of day. Such were the Catho- 
 lics in England — found in corners, 
 and alleys, and cellars, and the house- 
 tops, or in the recesses of the country; 
 cut off from the populous world 
 around them, and dimly seen, as if 
 through a mist or in twilight, as 
 ghosts flitting to and fro, by the high 
 Protestants, the lords of the earth. 
 At length, so feeble did they become, 
 so utterly contemptible, that contempt 
 gave birth to pity; and the more gen- 
 erous of their tyrants actually began 
 to wish to bestow on them some favor, 
 under the notion that their opinions 
 were simply too absurd ever to spread 
 again, and that they, themselves, were 
 they but raised in civil importance, 
 would soon unlearn and be ashamed of 
 them. And thus, out of mere kind- 
 ness to us, they began to vilify our 
 
 230 
 
The Church Begins to Revive in England, 
 
 doctrines to the Protestant world, 
 that so our very idiocy, or our secret 
 unbelief, might be our plea for mercy, 
 — Newman, ^^The Second Spring/^ 
 
 Emancipation had given the Catholic 
 Church liberty, and that is all she needs. 
 Unlike those sects which depend for their 
 permanence on the support of the civil 
 power, she is able to stand alone. She 
 could now come into the light and speak 
 for herself. She could set forth her doc- 
 trines, defend them, dispel calumny and 
 misrepresentation, and present her claims 
 to the English-speaking world. Of course 
 the power of the Tradition made itself 
 felt. There were few who listened to 
 her, but those who did listen soon learned 
 to recognize the voice of God's messen- 
 ger. Little by little the leaven began to 
 work in the lump. Little by little men 
 saw that she was a living organization 
 with a mission not to be despised. Her 
 children rallied round her, as faithful in 
 the days of freedom as they had been in 
 the days of adversity. As yet they were 
 
 231 
 
The Divisions of English Protestantism. 
 
 but a little flock; but two movements now 
 began which were destined to bring thou- 
 sands to her fold and to make her, as she 
 had been of old, the joyful mother of 
 children. 
 
 The first of these movements began m 
 the bosom of the Established Church it- 
 self. You may remember that I described 
 to you tvs^o parties which existed among 
 the English Protestants from the very be- 
 ginning of Protestantism. As Protestant- 
 ism means a protest against the Old Faith, 
 it is only natural that there should be de- 
 grees in that protest. Some rejected more 
 doctrines than the others. Thus, the Pres- 
 byterians reject government by Bishops, 
 and the Congregationalists reject govern- 
 ment by Presbyteries. We thus have in 
 English Protestantism two great wings or 
 parties, commonly known as High Church 
 and Low Church. In the time of Charles 
 IT. the Puritans, or the Extreme Low 
 Churchmen, were forced out of the Es- 
 tablishment, and formed the dissenting 
 sects, or, as we call them now, Baptists, 
 
 232 
 
Triumph of the Low Church Party. 
 
 Presbyterians and Congregationalists. Still, 
 only the extremists left the Establish- 
 ment, and the body of the Anglican 
 cl^^gy were thoroughly opposed to any- 
 thing savoring of Catholicism, even 
 though they did submit to government by 
 Bishops. 
 
 Of course you understand that in the 
 English Church the government appoints 
 the Bishops, When the members of a 
 government are of Low Church procliv- 
 ities it is only natural that they should 
 appoint Low Church Bishops. This was 
 the practice followed after the revolution 
 of 1688, and we learn from Protestant 
 authority that those Bishops were more 
 intent on their own advancement than on 
 the betterment of the spiritual condition 
 of their flocks : 
 
 A large number of the prelates 
 were mere Whig partisans, with no 
 higher aim than that of their own 
 promotion. ... A Welsh Bishop 
 avowed that he had seen his dio- 
 cese but once. ... A shrewd, 
 if prejudiced, observer brands the 
 
 233 
 
Utter Decadence of Anglican Church* 
 
 English clergy of the day as the most 
 lifeless in Europe, ^'the most remiss 
 of their labors in private and the least 
 severe in their lives." There was a 
 revolt against religion and against 
 churches in both the extremes of Eng- 
 lish society. In the higher circles of 
 society ^'every one laughs," said Mon- 
 tesquieu, on his visit to England, ''ii 
 one talks of religion." Of the promi- 
 nent statesmen of the time, the greater 
 part were unbelievers in any form of 
 Christianity, and distinguished for the 
 grossness and immorality of their 
 lives. . • . At the other end of 
 the social scale lay the masses of the 
 poor. They were ignorant and brutal 
 to a degree which it is hard to con- 
 ceive, for the increase of population 
 which followed on the growth of 
 towns and the development of com- 
 merce had been met by no effort for 
 their religious or educational im- 
 provement. Not a new parish had 
 been created. Schools there were none, 
 save the grammar schools of Edward 
 and Elizabeth, and some newly es- 
 tablished ^^circulating schools" in 
 Wales, for religious education. The 
 
 234 
 
Debased Conditions of Public Morals. 
 
 rural peasantry, who were fast being 
 reduced to pauperism by the abuse of 
 the Poor Laws were left without 
 much moral or religious support of 
 any sort. ^^We saw only one Bible in 
 the parish of Cheddar," said Hannah 
 More, at a far later time, ^'and that 
 was used to prop a flower pot." With- 
 in the towns, things were worse. 
 There was no effective police, and in 
 great outbreaks the mob of London 
 or Birmingham burnt houses, flung 
 open prisons, and sacked and pillaged 
 at their will. The criminal class 
 gathered numbers and boldness in the 
 face of ruthless laws, which only tes- 
 tified to the terror of society — laws 
 which made it a capital crime to cut 
 down a cherry tree, and which strung 
 up twenty young thieves of a morning 
 in front of Newgate ; while the intro- 
 duction of gin gave a new impetus to 
 drunkenness ; in the streets of London 
 at one time gin shops invited every 
 passer-by to get drunk for a penny or 
 dead drunk for tv\^opence, — ''Green's 
 Short History of the English People/' 
 Chap. X. 
 
 The first attempt to remedy this sad 
 
 235 
 
The Movement Under the Wesleys. 
 
 State of affairs was made by the Wesleys. 
 John Wesley was a clergyman in the Es- 
 tablished Church, and, to the end, he did 
 not wish to break with it. His movement, 
 however, was on extreme Low Church 
 lines, and soon the Methodists became a 
 separate sect. But they had broken the 
 torpor of the Establishment, and by the 
 beginning of the present century signs 
 were not wanting that many of the 
 thoughtful and earnest men of that com- 
 munion were seriously considering their 
 relations both to their own church and to 
 the other churches into which Christen- 
 dom is divided. 
 
 Oxford is one of the great English uni- 
 versities. Founded in Catholic times, and 
 endowed by a Catholic generosity, it be- 
 came, after the Reformation, thoroughly 
 Protestant. A large proportion of the 
 clergymen of the Established Church re- 
 ceived their training in its colleges, and 
 the most scholarly men in Anglican Or- 
 ders occupied its fellowships and pro- 
 fessorial chairs. In the eighteenth cen- 
 
 236 
 
The Oxford Men and the Historic Church. 
 
 tury Methodism took its rise in Oxford, 
 and in the nineteenth century another re- 
 ligious movement, the very opposite of 
 Methodism, found its origin there. 
 
 The Church is a historical fact. She 
 was founded by Christ and she has come 
 down all the centuries to our day. In 
 breaking away from Rome the Protes- 
 tants had justified their schism on the plea 
 that Rome had departed from the sim- 
 plicity of the Apostles. The extreme 
 Protestants held that nothing should be 
 believed or practiced for which there was 
 not clear warrant in the Bible. The less 
 extreme Protestants, or xA^nglicans, held 
 that the belief and practice of the Church 
 in the first four or five centuries should 
 be the rule and guide of the Church now. 
 The new movement arose from a his- 
 torical study of those centuries. It was 
 not a popular movement; it was, on the 
 contrary, begun among the fellows and 
 professors, and had its chief strength 
 among men of learning. From their read- 
 ing they reconstructed the Church as it 
 
 237 
 
The High Church Theory; Ritualism. 
 
 Stood in the early ages, and they compared 
 it with the body to which they belonged. 
 They found that Anglicanism had degen- 
 erated into a mere department of the Eng- 
 lish civil service, without knowledge of 
 what she believed, and without power to 
 teach it. They saw the ancient Church, 
 full of life and vigor, with a creed which 
 was inculcated authoritatively and with- 
 out equivocation. They believed that their 
 Church was the lineal successor of this 
 ancient Church. They thought that the 
 Reformation had been only a reforma- 
 tion — not the introduction of a new re- 
 ligion. They had no love for Rome. 
 She was filled with abominations, though 
 they confessed that, equally with England 
 and Russia, she was a branch of the one 
 great Catholic Church. They called 
 themselves Catholics, but, as they said, 
 not Roman Catholics. They spurned the 
 title Protestant and spoke with bitterness 
 of the Reformers. They wished to re- 
 store the old ideals, to teach the old doc- 
 trines, to bring back the old practices. 
 
 238 
 
Puseyites; Tractarians; Oxford Movement. 
 
 They did not want the Pope. It was an 
 essential portion of their theory that their 
 Church was independent. But, short of 
 the Pope, they would be Catholics. From 
 their elaborate ritual they were called 
 Ritualists; from ons of their great lead- 
 ers, Dr. Pusey, they were called Pusey- 
 ites. From the fact that they began 
 their agitation by the publication of a 
 series of Tracts of the Times, they were 
 called Tractarians, and the whole move- 
 ment is commonly spoken of as the Ox- 
 ford Movement. 
 
 The greatest of all the Tractarians was 
 John Henry Newman. His piety, his 
 learning, his power of expression made 
 him the soul of the party. He was sin- 
 cere in his belief that the Anglican 
 Church was the Church of Christ, and 
 for ten years, from 1833 to 1843, he 
 labored as few men can labor to advance 
 her cause. From the beginning Catholics 
 who were watching the movement pro- 
 phesied where it would end. They saw 
 with the instinct of the faith that once 
 
 239 
 
John Henry Newman Their Leader. 
 
 the idea of a teaching Church took pos- 
 session of the minds of those generous 
 and devoted men logic would lead 
 them to the one Fold. Newman, how- 
 ever, believed most firmly in the divine 
 character of Anglicanism until a rude 
 shock showed him that she was Protes- 
 tant to the core. One of the tracts 
 known as Tract 90 tried to prove 
 that the chief Catholic doctrines are not 
 inconsistent with .the Anglican formula 
 of faith known as the Thirty-nine Arti- 
 cles. The authorities of the Establish- 
 ment took the alarm. They knew they 
 were Protestants, and they did not want 
 any one to turn them into Catholics by 
 sleight of hand. They condemned the 
 tract, and Newman began to see that the 
 church he loved so well was not the 
 same as that glorious old Church of the 
 first centuries of which history tells. But 
 the vision came slowly. For four long 
 and weary years the conviction was grow- 
 ing: on him that the Church of Rome 
 was the Church of the Fathers. The 
 
 240 
 
His Conversion a Blow to the Establishment. 
 
 conviction v^^as unwelcome; he fought 
 against it. He was forty-four years of 
 age, and all his friendships were in the 
 English Church, and his affectionate na- 
 ture clung to the University as a child to 
 its mother. Rome, too, he had been taught 
 was filled with abominations, and he had 
 spoken bitterly against her. For four 
 years the conflict went on. At last the 
 light shone upon him and he who had 
 prayed so many years before *^Lead, 
 Kindly Light," arose and followed the 
 light. It led him from his father's house, 
 from his own people, but it led him into 
 the one Fold and to the feet of Him 
 who is the true Shepherd of our souls. 
 
 Newman became a Catholic in 1845, 
 and the sensation was immense. Disraeli 
 said that his secession from Anglicanism 
 ^^dealt a blow to the Church of England, 
 under which she still reels." The Oxford 
 Movement was having its logical results. 
 Some of the most distinguished clergymen 
 in England laid down their benefices and 
 became Catholics. Between 1842 and 
 
 241 
 
The Irish Immigration Into England. 
 
 1856 over two hundred ministers, besides 
 many laymen, had left the Establishment; 
 by 1867 the total number of notable con- 
 verts had risen nearly to nine hundred. 
 
 While this movement gave much pres- 
 tige to the Church, the numbers, as com- 
 pared v^ith the Anglican population, were 
 inconsiderable. But in the forties began 
 another movement which was destined to 
 treble the Catholic strength in fifty years. 
 In 1845 the population of Ireland was 
 over eight millions, but the great famine 
 soon came, and the people fled from 
 their native' land. The vast majority came 
 to America, but over half a million 
 settled in the English towns. They 
 brought their religion with them, and soon 
 the English priests and English chapels 
 became too small for their increasing num- 
 bers. Their own priests came at their call 
 and the unfailing generosity of the race 
 provided means for stately churches. 
 
 It is often thought by those outside the 
 Church that Catholics are naturally clan- 
 nish. In this country we are accused of 
 
 242 
 
Race Prejudice and Race Hatred. 
 
 combining, irrespective of party politics, 
 in favor of Catholic candidates. If this 
 were true it would be a most extraordin- 
 ary phenomenon. Race prejudice and 
 race hatred lie very deep in human 
 nature. The Catholic Frenchman has ne 
 particular love for the Catholic German, 
 and when both Ireland and England were 
 Catholic nations the struggle between 
 them raged as fiercely as to-day. When 
 the Catholic Irish poured into England 
 the English Catholics did not regard 
 them with a friendly eye. They were on 
 opposite sides in politics, and it is said 
 that once, when some prominent Catholics 
 of the old Tory families opposed some 
 measure of O'Connell's the great Liber- 
 ator declared, with a sigh, ^^God forgive 
 me for emancipating them.'' 
 
 Such things must be, because such is 
 human nature. But the Catholic Church 
 guards against their evil effects by keep- 
 ing politics and race hatred out of her 
 sanctuar}^ She is true to the ideal of the 
 Fatherhood of God and Brotherhood of 
 
 243 
 
Irish and English Work Together for Church. 
 
 Man. Inside the doors of her churches 
 partisan politics must never enter; her 
 pulpits are sacred to the word of God, and 
 must not be defiled by the petty ambitions 
 of man. Rich and poor, gentle and sim- 
 ple, Whig and Tory, Republican and 
 Democrat, red man and black man, white 
 man and yellow, kneel before her altars, 
 and all are equal — God is their Father, 
 and they are brethren of Christ Jesus. 
 
 So it was that even though the old race 
 feeling might exist, Irish Catholic and 
 English Catholic joined hands in building 
 up the walls of Jerusalem. The little 
 chapels were changed into beautiful 
 churches, and like her Saviour rising from 
 the tomb the Catholic Church appeared 
 before the English people glorious and 
 immortal— the Milk White Hind oft 
 doomed to death though fated not to die. 
 
 The result of the Irish immigration and 
 of the Oxford Movement was such an ex- 
 tension of the Catholic organization that 
 the old methods were inadequate for the 
 new needs. The normal government ol 
 
 244 
 
The Organization of the Hierarchy. 
 
 the Church is by Bishops. The Apostle 
 of old went to a town and there preached 
 the faith. While he remained there he 
 was the teaching Church ; all that came to 
 him were his disciples. When he passed 
 to another place he choose some one to 
 carry on his office of teaching and ruling. 
 That successor was known as a Bishop, 
 and he was the ruler of that particular 
 flock. In course of time every consider- 
 able city had a Bishop. All were prac- 
 tically equal, and at the head of them was 
 the Chief of the Apostles, St. Peter. 
 When he died his successors took his place 
 and thus we have the present system of 
 government by means of the Pope and 
 the Bishops. The city in which the Bishop 
 dwelt was called his See or Seat. The 
 territory surrounding that city is known 
 as a Diocese. Several dioceses are grouped 
 into a Province, and the Bishop of the 
 chief dioceses is known as an Archbishop 
 or Metropolitan. In Catholic times Eng- 
 land consisted of two provinces, Canter- 
 bury and York, and some twenty dio- 
 
 245 
 
How the English Hierarchy Died Out. 
 
 ceses. In the time of Elizabeth the Cath- 
 olic Bishops were dispossessed of their 
 Sees, and Protestant ministers were made 
 Bishops by act of Parliament. Of course 
 they were not Bishops in the true sense 
 of the word, neither did they claim to be. 
 Elizabeth, who was given to violent lan- 
 guage, used to swear at them when they 
 would not do her bidding, and remind 
 them that as she had made them so also 
 she could unmake them. Thus it came 
 to pass that the old hierarchy disappeared 
 in 1584 with the death of the last Bishop 
 of Lincoln. For a period of nearly forty 
 years, owing to the bitterness of the per- 
 secution, the Catholics were left without 
 a shepherd, until 1623, when a Vicar- 
 Apostolic was appointed. A Vicar-Apos- 
 tolic is a substitute for a Bishop. It is a 
 temporary form of government, and bears 
 about the same relation to Episcopal gov- 
 ernment that a territory does to a state. In 
 1688 four vicars were appointed, and the 
 number was raised to eight in 1840. 
 With the growth of the Church came 
 
 246 
 
The Pope Restores the English Hierarchy. 
 
 the natural desire to have the normal form 
 of Church government. The old sees, it 
 is true, were gone, but the same power 
 that made them in the days of Augustine 
 might make new sees now. From 1840 
 onward the matter was agitated among the 
 English Catholics. In the year 1850 
 Pius IX. acceded to their wishes and re- 
 stored the hierarchy. Westminster was 
 made an Archbishopric, with twelve other 
 dioceses. The first Archbishop, Dr. Wise- 
 man, received the Cardinal's hat, and by 
 a letter dated ^^Out of the Flaminian Gate 
 of Rome" he announced the joyful news to 
 his coreligionists. 
 
 Of course this was a purely ecclesias- 
 tical act and dealt solely with the internal 
 administration of the Catholic Chur-ch. 
 The Pope had nothing to say to the Es- 
 tablishment, and he said nothing. But 
 the politicians were at hand to make cap- 
 ital out of it. Lord John Russell was in a 
 very bad temper. You remember that, in 
 the Established Church, Bishops are ap- 
 pointed by the government. The nomi- 
 
 247 
 
Lord John Russell's Durham Letter* 
 
 nees of Lord John Russell were not 
 thought well of b)^ the Tractarians, and 
 they had expressed their opinions openly, 
 both about the new Bishops and the min- 
 ister who made them. Lord John Russell 
 was anxious to get even, and, in the 
 Pope's Bull re-establishing the hierarchy 
 he saw his opportunity. The eve of the 
 celebration of Guy Fawkes' Day he pub- 
 lished an open letter to the Anglican 
 Bishop of Durham. In it he evoked the 
 ancient Ghosts, and spoke of ^^the inso- 
 lent and insidious aggression of the Pope 
 upon our Protestantism." His severest 
 condemnation, however, was reserved for 
 the Tractarians, whom he accused of do- 
 ing the work of Rome within the Estab- 
 lishment and of leading their flocks "step 
 by step to the very verge of the precipice." 
 The time of the letter was well chosen. 
 The 5th of November is the grand Car- 
 nival of the Ghosts. Lord John Russell's 
 letter started the incantation, and the 
 clergy of the Establishment took it up. 
 The people were stirred to their depths. 
 
 248 
 
Wild Outbreak Against the Church. 
 
 The greatest of the English newspapers 
 and the worst, the London Times, thun- 
 dered against Rome. At a meeting of the 
 vestry at Exeter, the gallant vestrymen 
 expressed their sentiments as follows: 
 ^^Resolved, That the meeting defies the 
 Pope and the devil; and that they also 
 repudiate all bishops, deans, canons, 
 priests or deacons who have the least 
 tendency to Puseyism." 
 
 Instead of Guy Fawkes, the Pope, Car- 
 dinal Wiseman and the new Bishops 
 were committed to the flames. The follow- 
 ing extracts from local newspapers may 
 give a faint idea of the proceedings: 
 
 At Salisbury, on Wednesday, the 
 efiigies of His Holiness the Pope, Car- 
 dinal Wiseman, and the twelve Bish- 
 ops were completed. Friday evening 
 about 5 p. m.. Castle street was so 
 densely crowded that no one could 
 pass to the upper end of it. Shortly 
 after, some hundreds of torches were 
 lighted, which then exhibited a forest 
 of heads. About half-past six His 
 Holiness was brought out, amid the 
 
 249 
 
Examples of Protestant Piety. 
 
 cheering of the populace. The pro- 
 cession being formed, proceeded in 
 the following order: Torch-bearers, 
 brass band, torch-bearers, His Holi- 
 ness in full pontificals, seated in a 
 huge chair; torch-bearers, Bishops, 
 three abreast; torch-bearers. Cardi- 
 nal \¥iseman, etc., etc. Within the 
 precincts of the close the national an- 
 them was played amid deafening 
 cheers. At this time the scene was 
 very imposing. The procession hav- 
 ing paraded the city, the effigies were 
 taken to the Green Croft, where, over 
 a large number of faggots and barrels 
 of tar, a huge platform was erected 
 of timber; the effigies were placed 
 thereon, and a volley of rockets sent 
 up. The band played the doxology, 
 and deafening cheers followed. A 
 light being applied to the combusti- 
 bles below, the flames rose to the plat- 
 form; hundreds of fireworks were, 
 then hurled at the effigies. Then fol- 
 lowed the morning hymn and the 
 national anthem, in which thousands 
 joined. 
 
 At Ware on Tuesday week His 
 Holiness, Pio Nono, was burnt in 
 
 250 
 
And Hatred of the Cardinal and the Pope. 
 
 effigy, on an eminence overlooking the 
 town. The figure was dressed in full 
 pontificals, with the triple crown on its 
 head, and the addition of a large pair 
 of ram's horns. In the wagon was a 
 donkey to represent His Excellency 
 the Cardinal-Archbishop of West- 
 minster. After solemnly parading the 
 streets, the effigy was escorted by a 
 large concourse of people to JMusley 
 Hill, where it was solemnly suspended 
 by the neck on a gallows erected over 
 a huge pile of faggot-wood and tar 
 barrels, and then burned amid the 
 roars and execrations of the multi- 
 tude. 
 
 At Peckham the Pope was burned 
 in effigy on Peckham Common. A van 
 drawn by four horses drew up front- 
 ing a house on the Green, from which 
 emerged some dozen men, armed with 
 various weapons, each leading a man 
 attired in the surplice of a Romish 
 clergyman, the latter being tumbled 
 into the vehicle amid the shouts of 
 several thousand persons. The next 
 brought out were two athletic fellows, 
 one attired as a Cardinal and the. 
 other as his chaplain. A few yards 
 
 251 
 
Why Protestantism Cleaves to the State. 
 
 in advance stood an Herculean fellow 
 bearing a burlesque effigy of the Pope 
 and having in his hand what pur- 
 ported to be the late memorable Bull. 
 The procession proceeded towards 
 Camberwell followed at least by 
 10,000 persons. It was hailed in its 
 progress through the various streets 
 wi^h the loudest acclamations, and 
 cries of "No Popery!" "Hurrah for 
 the Queen!" "No foreign priesthood!" 
 etc., etc. 
 
 Those demonstrations did not hurt any 
 one and they pleased the free born Briton. 
 But more dangerous measures were pre- 
 paring. It is often brought as a charge 
 against the Catholic Church that she seeks 
 a union with the State. It is said, es- 
 pecially in America, that Catholics are 
 plotting to procure an establishment of re- 
 ligion. Nothing could be farther from the 
 truth. The Church, it is true, does not 
 wish to be at war with the State, because 
 such hostility is opposed to the interest of 
 the people; but at the same time she will 
 never consent to become a mere depart- 
 
 252 
 
Demands of Preachers for Persecution. 
 
 ment of the State. She has her own sphere 
 in the spiritual world, and she derives her 
 power not from the State but from her 
 Founder. Now, on the contrary, an exam- 
 ination of historical facts will show us that 
 the sects which are so ready to accuse us 
 of invoking State aid, are themselves the 
 first to call in the temporal arm when they 
 consider their privileges in danger. Hence 
 all those societies for disfranchising Cath- 
 olics; hence all those persecuting laws in 
 the past, and all these propositions for in- 
 vidious legislation now; hence mob vio- 
 lence; hence those appeals to legislatures, 
 to governments, to ministers of State. 
 
 True to its instincts, the Established 
 Church of England immediately demanded 
 repressive measures. The power of Par- 
 liament was invoked. The clergy of 
 Middlesex lifted up their voices and 
 called for aid: 
 
 We, therefore, feel it our bounden 
 duty at this unprecedented crisis to 
 protest against this usurpation of au- 
 thority by a foreign prelate, and to 
 
 253 
 
From the Highest Anglican Clerics. 
 
 invite the co-operation of our lay 
 brethren in prevailing on Her Majes- 
 ty's government, and if necessary on 
 the legislature, to adopt such meas- 
 ures as shall cause this schismatic and 
 intrusive step to be retraced, and to 
 prevent those evil consequences to our 
 national institutions which it must 
 otherwise produce. 
 
 The Archdeacon of London had no 
 scruple, in the middle of the nineteenth 
 century, of advocating a return to the pe- 
 nal enactments of William of Orange. He 
 said in an address to the clergy: 
 
 If these evils are to be avoided it 
 must be, under God's blessing, by a 
 combination scarcely less powerful 
 and united than that which, in 1688, 
 prevented James U. from carrying 
 into effect his wishes for the conver- 
 sion of England to Popery. That our 
 Bishops will, both in and out of Par- 
 liament, do their duty in endeavoring 
 to deliver our Protestant country 
 from Papal aggression we cannot 
 doubt 
 
 The London Times, encouraged by the 
 
 254 
 
And Most Powerful Organs of Press. 
 
 outcry, prophesied that the new hierarchy 
 would soon be ended. Commenting on a 
 pastoral letter of Dr. UUathorne, one of 
 the new Bishops, it said: 
 
 Let Dr. Ullathorne imagine, if he 
 can, on the faith of history, which he 
 dare not quote, that the foundations 
 of his episcopal chair will only be 
 consolidated by the interference of the 
 State. We tell him that the days of 
 his episcopate are numbered, and that 
 it is not because his chair is built up- 
 on a rock, but merely because his 
 appointment has been adroitly made 
 during the recess of Parliament, that 
 he is in the enjoyment of that seat, 
 the foundations of which he dreams 
 are eternal; and that, though it be 
 not in the power of our Legislature 
 to prevent him from having been the 
 first Roman Catholic Bishop of Bir- 
 mingham, it will, most assuredly, be 
 their will, and completely in their 
 power, to provide that he shall be the 
 last. 
 
 It is no wonder that such editorials as 
 that should fire the Anglican preachers to 
 
 255 
 
Death the Only Remedy for Confession. 
 
 frenzy. One got into his pulpit and 
 howled : 
 
 I would make it a capital offense to 
 administer the Confession in this 
 country. Transportation would not 
 satisfy me, for that would merely 
 transfer the evil from one part of the 
 world to the other. Capital punish- 
 m'ent alone would satisfy me. Death 
 alone would prevent the evil. That is 
 my sober conviction. 
 
 And so the storm raged. Newman has 
 described it so humorously and yet so truly 
 that I cannot help quoting his words: 
 
 Heresy, and skepticism, and infi- 
 delity, and fanaticism, may challenge 
 the Establishment in vain; but fling 
 upon the gale the faintest whisper of 
 Catholicism, and it recognizes by in- 
 stinct the presence of its connatural 
 foe. Forthwith, as during the last 
 year, the atmosphere is tremulous 
 with agitation, and discharges its vi- 
 brations far and wide. A movement 
 is in birth which has no natural crisis 
 or resolution. Spontaneously the bells 
 of the steeples begin to sound. Not 
 
 256 
 
Newman Describes the Agitation. 
 
 by an act of volition, but by a sort of 
 mechanical impulse, bishop and dean, 
 archdeacon and canon, rector and cu- 
 rate, one after another, each on his 
 high tower, ojff they set swinging and 
 booming, toiling and chiming, with 
 nervous intenseness, and thickening 
 emotion, and deepening volume, the 
 old ding-dong which has scared town 
 and country this weary time; tolling 
 and chiming away, jingling and clam- 
 oring and ringing the changes on their 
 poor half-dozen notes, all about ^^the 
 Popish aggression," ^^insolent and in- 
 sidious," "insidious and insolent," "in- 
 solent and atrocious," "atrocious and 
 insolent," "atrocious, insolent and un- 
 grateful," "ungrateful, insolent and 
 atrocious," "foul and offensive," "pes- 
 tilent and horrid," "subtle and un- 
 holy," "audacious and revolting," 
 "contemptible and shameless," "ma- 
 lignant," "frightful," "mad," "mere- 
 tricious," — bobs (I think the ringers 
 call them), bobs, and bobs-royal, and 
 triple-bobs-majors, and grandsires — 
 to the extent of their compass and the 
 fuJl ring of their metal, in honor of 
 Queen Bess, and to the confusion of 
 
 257 
 
The Ecclesiastical Titles Act. 
 
 the Holy Father and the Princes of 
 the Church. — ''Present Position of 
 Catholics/^ a. 
 
 But the fanatics were not to have It all 
 their own way. The days had passed when 
 Catholics could be abused and then hanged 
 if they dared answer back. The Catholic 
 leaders were able to defend themselves in 
 print, and the increase in the Catholic 
 population in the large cities made it im- 
 politic for the pious mob to repeat the 
 scenes of the Gordon Riot. The Tract- 
 arians, too, were not afraid to speak out, 
 and soon Lord John Russell was convinced 
 he had made a mistake. It was well 
 known that he was very anxious to find a 
 w^ay out of the difficulty, and one of the 
 comic journals of the time pictured him 
 as a little boy who had chalked ^^No 
 Popery" on Cardinal Wiseman's door and 
 was running away afraid of being caught 
 
 But it was now too late to back down, 
 and when Parliament met in February, 
 1851, a bill was introduced making it ille- 
 gal for Catholic priests to assume eccle- 
 
 258 
 
Killed by Courage of John McHale, 
 
 siastical titles in the United Kingdom. It 
 was called the Ecclesiasticals Titles Bill, 
 and became a law in July. One of the 
 strongest speeches made against it came 
 from Gladstone, who said ^^It is hostile to 
 the institutions of the country, more es- 
 pecially to its established religion, be- 
 cause it would teach us to rely on other 
 support than that of the spiritual strength 
 and vitality which alone can give it vigor.''' 
 
 The Act made it unlawful for any Cath- 
 olic Bishop to take the name of a place in 
 Great Britain as his title. Scarcely was it 
 passed when John McHale wrote a public 
 letter to the Prime Minister, signing him- 
 self John, Archbishop of Tuam. The let- 
 ter killed the Act. It was never put in 
 force, and, in 1871, was quietly repealed. 
 Thus was laid the Ghost of a Name. 
 
 But throughout the country the agita- 
 tion continued. We know, by experience^ 
 what such an agitation means. The 
 preachers abuse the Pope and the Church; 
 fallen wretches, known as ex-priests, are 
 trotted around to retail their filth to the 
 
 259 
 
Newman and the ex-Priest Achilli. 
 
 extreme Protestants, who are willing to 
 believe anything vile. Such an agitation 
 raged in England in 1850 and 1851. Then, 
 as now, there were feeble-minded Catho- 
 lics, who deprecated all noise and tumult, 
 and who thought that the Pope would have 
 done better to let well enough alone. They 
 had been so long in chains that the iron 
 had entered into their souls. 
 
 But manlier councils prevailed in Eng- 
 land. Newman had become a priest after 
 his conversion, and was living in Birming- 
 ham. In the height of the agitation he 
 delivered those wonderful lectures, entitled 
 ^The Present Position of Catholics in 
 England." In them he described the great 
 Protestant Tradition and tore the veil from 
 the ignorance and the prejudice which are 
 the life of the Protestant idea of Catholics. 
 In one of his lectures he dealt with a cer- 
 tain Achilli, an Italian ex-priest, who 
 was touring the country exposing the 
 iniquities of Rome. Achilli was a man of 
 infamous life, and Newman used him as 
 an illustration of the sources from which 
 
 260 
 
Cost in Damages by Prejudiced Court. 
 
 the Protestant Tradition derives its knowl- 
 edge of the Catholic faith. In a passage, 
 which is a masterpiece of invective, he de- 
 scribed Achilli's career. Achilli brought 
 an action for libel. Newman produced a 
 cloud of witnesses and proved all his 
 charges; but he was dealing with a British 
 Protestant jury, in a season of anti-Catholic 
 excitement. The Chief Justice, Lord 
 Campbell, delivered a most unfair charge, 
 and the jury brought in a verdict that the 
 libel had not been justified. The general 
 impression, even of non-Catholics, was that 
 gross injustice was done to Newman. 
 Achilli disappeared, and the costs of the 
 trial, which amounted to over $60,000, 
 were paid by a public subscription, taken 
 up all over the world. But the agitation 
 was killed. The ex-priest business was 
 ruined. The sunlight had touched the 
 Ghost, and lo, it was no more. 
 
 I have now traced the history of the 
 Catholic Church in England from the days 
 of the Reformation to our own time. We 
 have seen the growth of the English 
 
 261 
 
The Infallibility of the Pope. 
 
 Protestant Tradition and we are watching 
 its decay. The Ecclesiastical Titles Bill 
 was the last legal attempt to restrain the 
 free exercise of the Catholic religion. 
 
 But there was one other agitation against 
 the Church, which, for the sake of com- 
 pleteness, deserves attention. You know 
 the Church is a society, and, as a society, 
 she must have a government and a consti- 
 tution. That government and that consti- 
 tution were given her by Jesus Christ Him- 
 self. Now it often happens, as here in the 
 United States, the question of the meaning 
 of the Constitution comes up : Is such and 
 such a provision constitutional? Those 
 questions go through the courts, and are 
 finally settled by our Supreme Court. In 
 the Church the question arises : Is such and 
 such doctrine revealed by Christ? This 
 question may be discussed for a time, but 
 is finally settled by the Supreme Court, 
 namely, the Pope. The decision is not 
 only final, but infallible, because the Holy 
 Ghost is always with the Church to guard 
 it from error. 
 
 262 
 
Gladstone and the Irish University. 
 
 Catholics had always explicitly held 
 that the Church — that is to say, the whole 
 society, made up of head and body — was in- 
 fallible when deciding a question of faith 
 and morals. They had implicitly believed 
 that the head of the Church enjoyed this 
 privilege when speaking as the supreme 
 teacher of Christendom. This latter ques- 
 tion, however, began to be discussed, and it 
 became necessary to define it explicitly. 
 Therefore, the whole Church met in the 
 Vatican Council of 1870, and promulgated 
 the decision that in matters of faith and 
 morals the official teaching of the Pope 
 was infallible. 
 
 This added no new doctrine to the old 
 faith; no more than a decision of our Su- 
 preme Court adds a new article to our 
 Constitution. As it dealt not with politics, 
 not with history, not with science, not with 
 art, but with religion, no one could im- 
 agine that it would be considered a menace 
 to the British Constitution. But all things 
 are possible to the disappointed politician. 
 Gladstone had deserved well of the Cath- 
 
 263 
 
Hh Letter on the Vatican Decrees. 
 
 olic community and of the Irish people. 
 He had spoken against the Ecclesiastical 
 Titles Bill and had disestablished the 
 Protestant Church in Ireland. However, 
 like many more men he was obstinate, and 
 thought he knew better than the Irish what 
 was good for them. One of the chief griev- 
 ances of that country was the university 
 question. The Protestants had two uni- 
 versities, well endowed, and the Catholics 
 had none. Gladstone determined to rem- 
 edy that grievance. Now it stands to rea- 
 son that if a statesman wishes to provide a 
 university for Catholics he should consult 
 the wishes of Catholics. This Gladstone 
 unfortunately would not do, and the result 
 was that the Irish Bishops were compelled 
 to reject his scheme. As a consequence he 
 was defeated in Parliament, and went out 
 of office. 
 
 In 1874 he created a sensation by pub- 
 lishing a pamphlet entitled, "The Vatican 
 Decrees in Their Bearing on Civil Alle- 
 giance." In this pamphlet he contended 
 that Catholics could not be good citizens, 
 
 264 
 
His Withdrawal of the Accusation. 
 
 because of their belief in the infallibility 
 of the Pope. No fewer than twenty-one 
 pamphlets were published in reply, and in 
 a second booklet he practically withdrew 
 his accusation: 
 
 I cannot but say that the immedi- 
 ate purpose of my appeal has been 
 attained, in so far that the loyalty of 
 our Roman Catholic fellow subjects 
 in the mass remains untainted and 
 secure. 
 
 Thus passed the last of the Ghosts. In 
 the short time since emancipation the 
 Catholic Church has shown that she is 
 able to hold her own. She met those who 
 calumniated her, boldly, and she demon- 
 strated that she was not afraid of inves- 
 tigation. This is the result of free discus- 
 sion. We may not convince those who 
 are opposed to us, but we can remove prej- 
 udices and misconceptions. When men 
 look into our eyes and hear our voice they 
 cannot believe us the bloodthirsty and cruel 
 tyrants which the Protestant Tradition 
 pictures us to be. Thus though they may 
 
 265 
 
Influence of the Oxford Movement. 
 
 Still remain in their own creed they are 
 tolerant of ours. No designing politician 
 can convince them that we are plotting 
 against their rights. They know us. They 
 can ask us to our faces. They can come 
 into our churches and examine our institu- 
 tions from garret to cellar, and they can 
 judge for themselves. Such has been the 
 effect of toleration in England. Of course 
 its work is not complete. Bigotry and 
 credulity still live; but bigotry is a beaten 
 cause, and the bigots know it. 
 
 Another reason for the passing of the 
 Ghosts is to be found in the success of 
 the Oxford Movement, even within the 
 
 Establishment. Formerlv a small minor- 
 
 •J 
 
 ity, the ritualists are now in the majority. 
 They are teaching the old Catholic doc- 
 trines to the people, and as the Catholic 
 doctrines spread, hostility to Catholicism 
 is dying out. In half a century the Angli- 
 can Church has sprung back three hun- 
 dred years. She is now nearly in the same 
 position, as regards doctrine, as she was in 
 the reign of Henry VIII., when nothing 
 
 266 
 
A Steady Stream of Conversions. 
 
 separated her from Rome but the headship 
 of the Pope. 
 
 That the Anglican Church, as a Church, 
 will return to the unity of Christendom is, 
 of course, more than any man can say. 
 When we consider what she was in the be- 
 ginning of the century, and what she is 
 now, anything is possible. But she is a 
 great nursery of conversions. When men 
 embrace Catholic teaching they must be 
 logical. They are led to the Pope. A 
 steady stream of conversions has set toward 
 the Catholic Church, and in England 
 alone as many as a thousand are received 
 into the one Fold each month. 
 
 This brings me to the end of the English 
 Ghosts. At the next lecture we will ex- 
 amine the historv of our own Ghosts. It 
 has been hard and unpleasant to rake up 
 those old memories. It is not a grateful 
 task to relate the mistakes of the past, but 
 from them we learn how to avoid similar 
 mistakes now. We accuse no one now liv- 
 ing of the responsibility for those mistakes. 
 When Catholics recount the persecution 
 
 267 
 
Catholics Should Study Their Creed. 
 
 of their fathers in the faith by the Protes- 
 tants they do not accuse their Protestant 
 brethren of being desirous to repeat those 
 atrocities, and they are justly indignant 
 when some preacher reciting the story of 
 the persecution of Protestants by Catholics 
 declares that all Catholics would burn, 
 roast and hang heretics now if they got the 
 chance. 
 
 We have examined the history of those 
 times for a special purpose, namely, to 
 find out how the suspicion and distrust 
 of Catholicism which we find among Eng- 
 lish speaking Protestants originated. We 
 find that suspicion and distrust were fed on 
 Ghosts. We find that causeless hatred of 
 the Church was inculcated for political 
 reasons among the English people, and we 
 have read the sad, though at times ludi- 
 crous effects produced by that dread. To 
 the Catholic this study brings home the 
 truth that his religion is something worth 
 knowing and worth defending. He is face 
 to face with three centuries of misrepresen- 
 tation, and the tradition of three centuries 
 
 268 
 
Because It Has Been So Misrepresented. 
 
 is not dissipated in a day. To the non- 
 Catholic the only appeal we make is: 
 Examine. In these lectures I have not 
 explained Catholic doctrine; I have not 
 offered arguments for Catholic dogma. I 
 have simply tried to find out why it is that 
 Protestants are afraid of the Catholic 
 Church and why they will not inquire into 
 her claims. I have tried to show by the 
 facts of history how Catholicism was car- 
 icatured for three centuries and denied fair 
 play. 1 have tried to explain how our non- 
 Catholic brethren see Ghosts instead of 
 reality. In speaking of those times I may 
 have used harsh language, but no harsher 
 than good Protestants themselves are ac- 
 customed to use. In speaking of our sep- 
 arated brethren to-day, I hope I have used 
 no expression which would give reasonable 
 grounds for offense. To those, of course, 
 who are going to be offended with cause 
 or without it, I have no apology to offer. 
 But to those who believe in truth, who be- 
 lieve that God gave them their reason to 
 find out His will, I say: Inquire. Study 
 
 269 
 
Ask of Protestants Only to Inquire. 
 
 our claims. Understand our doctrine. Hear 
 what we have to say for ourselves. Do 
 not depend on second-hand information, 
 but find out for vourself. This is all we 
 ask, and this we believe will be sufficient. 
 
 270 
 
VI -ANTI^CATHOLIC MOVE- 
 MENTS IN NORTH AMERICA. 
 
 THE object of the Catholic Truth 
 Society is to set forth the teachings 
 and history of the Catholic Church 
 from the Catholic standpoint. As we may 
 be reasonably supposed to know best what 
 our teachings mean, it is only right that 
 those who wish to examine our teachings 
 should learn them from us. It is also a 
 true and tried maxim that one story is good 
 until another is told; therefore, those who 
 have all their lives been hearing our his- 
 tory as recorded by Protestants, should, in 
 order to form a correct judgment, listen to 
 w^hat we have to say for our own deeds and 
 for the deeds of our forefathers in the 
 faith. 
 
 We find, however, when we approach 
 non-Catholics, that they have already 
 strong prejudices concerning the Church 
 and her teachings. Such prejudices are in- 
 evitable. We should not fear them were 
 
 271 
 
English Import Hatred of Popery. 
 
 they not accompanied by an indisposition 
 to hear us, and a deep-rooted aversion to 
 examine our claims. In order to under- 
 stand the nature of this aversion, we have 
 been studying the history of England in as 
 far as it relates to Catholics during the past 
 three hundred years. As the original col- 
 onies which formed this republic were 
 mainly of English origin, such study was 
 necessary. We found that during that 
 period Catholicism was systematically mis- 
 represented to the English people. We 
 found that all manner of slanders and cal- 
 umny was circulated against us. We found 
 how the Ghosts had their origin, and we 
 learned how thoroughly their work was 
 done. 
 
 When men change their country they do 
 not change their temper. The English col- 
 onists brought to these shores the dread 
 and hatred of Popery which they had 
 learned at home. It is now our task in this, 
 the last lecture of the series, to study the 
 fate of the Ghosts in this country. To 
 accomplis.h it in anything like a proper 
 
 272 
 
Colonies Either Prelatist or Puritan. 
 
 manner would require as many lectures 
 as have been already delivered. I intend 
 now to treat the subject lightly and briefly. 
 It will be the duty of the Catholic Truth 
 Society in future lectures, tracts and pam- 
 phlets to deal more extensively with hap- 
 penings which are of the greatest interest 
 to us because they bear on our character 
 as citizens and because they explain the 
 nature and cause of that prejudice, to 
 counteract which the Catholic Truth 
 Society has been established. 
 
 The seventeenth century saw the settle- 
 ment of the original thirteen colonies, 
 with the exception of Georgia. You re- 
 member that I have described the division 
 of English Protestantism into two great 
 parties or factions — the extreme Protes- 
 tants, or the Puritans, and the moderate 
 Protestants, or the Episcopalians. Speak- 
 ing generally, the Puritans settled along 
 the Northern seaboard, while the Estab- 
 lished Church was planted in the South. 
 All New England was Puritan; Virginia 
 was strongly Episcopalian. 
 
 273 
 
Peculiar Ideas of Religious Liberty. 
 
 It would be an unnecessary and un- 
 grateful task to dilate on the intolerance 
 of the Puritan and Cavalier. The Puri- 
 tans had been persecuted by the State 
 Church in England, and they went into the 
 wilderness to found a commonwealth 
 where they could enjoy freedom of wor- 
 ship. They speedily showed, however, that 
 they meant freedom for themselves and for 
 their own worship alone. Hardly had they 
 landed, when they exiled Episcopalians 
 w^ho worshipped according to the Book of 
 Common Prayer. Not so long afterward 
 Roger Williams was banished because of 
 his tolerant sentiments. Mrs. Anne 
 Hutchinson, the mother of all the New 
 England Women Righters, was declared 
 unfit for the society of Christians. The 
 unfortunate Quakers were sentenced, after 
 the first conviction, to lose one ear; after 
 a second conviction, to lose the other ear, 
 and after the third conviction to have the 
 tongue bored with a red-hot iron. At 
 last, despairing of silencing them, the 
 Puritans ordered them to leave the colony 
 
 274 
 
French Colonists and Jesuit Missions. 
 
 under penalty of death. Several, including 
 a woman, were hanged. 
 
 Encouraged by such laws and such ex- 
 amples it is not surprising that Catholics 
 gave New England a wide berth. There 
 was none to be found in any of the colo- 
 nies in that part of the world, and it might 
 be supposed that the Ghosts would fall 
 into innocuous desuetude. But no. North 
 and west of New England were the 
 French; the French were Catholics, and 
 as often as not England was at war with 
 France. Among the Indian tribes the 
 Jesuits and other religious orders were la- 
 boring with a zeal which is to this day the 
 wonder of the world. They crossed des- 
 erts, overcame the mountains, paddled in 
 their birch canoes on unnamed rivers, in 
 cold and hunger and nakedness they 
 sought souls. They lived as the Indians 
 lived and they died with their converts. 
 Some of them returned to Europe and 
 showed scarred and mutilated stumps 
 where hands had once been, as their testi- 
 mony to the faith. They were men of peace, 
 
 275 
 
Jesuits Charged With Stirring Up Indians. 
 
 not men of war. Yet when the political 
 needs of the French government stirred 
 up the Indians against the English, just as 
 the political needs of the English govern- 
 ment stirred up the Indians against the 
 French, the cry went up that the Jesuits 
 were at the bottom of it. The cry was 
 false. The great American historians of 
 Protestant belief acknowledge that the 
 missionaries always stood for peace and 
 colonial neutrality. But the cry served the 
 purpose. The Puritan pulpits resounded 
 with the old slogan against Rome^ and the 
 young Americans who had never seen a 
 Catholic, or read a Catholic book, or 
 heard of a Catholic dogma were educated 
 in the orthodox belief of the Ghosts. In 
 Old England the Ghost was a Jesuit be- 
 hind the Gunpowder Plotters — in New 
 England the Ghost was a Jesuit behind a 
 painted Indian with scalping knife and 
 tomahawk. 
 
 Virginia was the typical southern col- 
 ony. It was Royalist to the core, and the 
 Established Church of England was also 
 
 276 
 
Virginia a Preserve for Anglicans. 
 
 the Established Church of Virginia. In 
 its foundation "the exclusion of Roman 
 Catholics had been avowed as a special 
 object, and the statutes of its legislature 
 as well as the commands of the sovereign 
 aimed at a perpetual religious uniform- 
 ity." All the oaths and laws with which 
 Catholics were plagued in the old country- 
 obtained in the new. Catholics, however, 
 were not alone. The same measure of per- 
 secution and disability which the Puritans 
 meted to the Episcopalians in Massachu- 
 setts, the Episcopalians meted to the Puri- 
 tans in Virginia. The whole State was 
 parceled out into parishes, and a tax on to- 
 bacco levied for the support of the min- 
 ister. A fine of the same currency was 
 imposed on all who would not attend the 
 Anglican church on Sunday. 
 
 As the persecuted Puritans had looked 
 to the land beyond the sea as an asylum 
 from the intolerance of their Protestant 
 brethren, so the persecuted Catholics 
 sought a refuge from the bigotry of Puri- 
 tan and Episcopalian alike. Sir George 
 
 277 
 
Lord Baltimore Pioneer of Religious Liberty, 
 
 Calvert was raised in the Anglican 
 Church, but a study of the grounds of the 
 Reformation brought him back to the faith 
 of his fathers. This was in 1617, a time 
 when no worldly prospects invited such a 
 step. In accordance with the Penal Laws, 
 he at once resigned his political offices; 
 but James I., who respected him highly, 
 elevated him to the Irish peerage under 
 the title of Lord Baltimore. The sad condi- 
 tion of his coreligionists in England ap- 
 pealed to him, and he cast about for a plan 
 of relief. Seeing no hope at home he 
 turned his thoughts to America, and in 
 1622 he obtained a patent for Newfound- 
 land. There he planted a colony and 
 called it Avalon, in memory of the spot 
 where Christianity had been introduced 
 into Britain. In this colony he established 
 full religious toleration, and provided 
 priests for the Catholics and a preacher for 
 the Protestants. But the enterprise did not 
 succeed. The preacher complained to the 
 home government that Lord Baltimore al- 
 lowed Mass to be said, the climate was too 
 
 278 
 
Charter for Colony of Maryland. 
 
 inhospitable, and the French were hostile. 
 The attempt was abandoned. Lord Balti- 
 more took as many of the colonists as 
 would follow him and sailed for Virginia. 
 Here, however, he was refused hospitality. 
 The authorities knew he was a Catholic; 
 they tendered him the Oath of Supremacy, 
 which they knew he could not take, and 
 thus the father of religious toleration on 
 this continent was denied the ordinary 
 courtesies of humanity from those whose 
 coreligionists he had treated as fairly as 
 the members of the household of his own 
 faith. Returning to England he applied 
 for the country lying north of the Potomac, 
 as a site for a colony. The application was 
 granted, but before the necessary formali- 
 ties were finished he died. Of him Ban- 
 croft says : 
 
 Calvert deserves to be ranked 
 among the most wise and benevolent 
 lawgivers of all ages. He was the 
 first in the history of the Christian 
 world to seek for religious security 
 and peace by the practice of justice 
 
 279 
 
Toleration in Practice From Beginning. 
 
 and not by the exercise of power; to 
 plan the establishment of popular in- 
 stitutions, with the enjoyment of lib- 
 erty of conscience; to advance the 
 career of civilization by recognizing 
 the rightful equality of all Christian 
 sects. The asylum of Papists was the 
 spot where, in a remote corner of the 
 world, on the banks of rivers which, 
 as yet, had hardly been explored, the 
 mild forbearance of a proprietary 
 adopted religious freedom as the basis 
 of the state. 
 
 His son, the second Lord Baltimore, 
 received the charter, which was one of the 
 most liberal ever issued by the British 
 Crown. The new colony was to be called 
 Maryland. The Lord Proprietor was 
 invested with all legislative and executive 
 power. 
 
 In 1633 two vessels, called the Ark and 
 the Dove, left England for Maryland. 
 They arrived at the mouth of the Potomac, 
 March 25, 1634. Warned by his father's 
 troubles with the preacher in Newfound- 
 land, Lord Baltimore informed the colo- 
 
 280 
 
opposition From Bigots in Virginia. 
 
 nists that he did not intend to supply them 
 with clergymen. Two Jesuits went with 
 the expedition as gentlemen adventurers 
 and took their chances with the others. 
 There were a few Protestants in the com- 
 pany, but no preacher. The vast majority 
 was Catholic. 
 
 The foundation of a Catholic State so 
 close to Virginia roused the bigots of that 
 province. The Jesuits were on their bor- 
 ders, and the country was not safe. 
 Though the Catholics of Maryland gave 
 every man freedom of worship, Virginia 
 could not profit by the example, and in 
 1 641 a special law was passed which pro- 
 hibited any Papist from holding office 
 under the penalty of a thousand pounds of 
 tobacco. 
 
 The troubles in England between the 
 King and the Parliament had their effects 
 in Maryland. In 1646 the colony was in- 
 vaded from Virginia and the Jesuits were 
 thrown into irons and sent to London. 
 Not a priest was left in the land. The 
 following year, however, the Lord Pro- 
 
 281 
 
Formal Toleration Law of 1649. 
 
 prietor re-established his authority. Up 
 to this, toleration was the practice of the 
 colony. The doings of the Virginians and 
 the increasing numbers of the Protestants 
 showed the Catholics the necessity of mak- 
 ing some legal provision for themselves. 
 They had striven to do, rather than to talk. 
 They had not uttered many high-sounding 
 phrases about liberty of conscience, but 
 they had given liberty of conscience. The 
 persecuted Puritans of Virginia and the 
 persecuted Prelatists from Massachusetts 
 found at their hands a welcome and equal 
 rights. But signs were not wanting that 
 bigotry might prove stronger than grati- 
 tude, and the Catholics determined to 
 place on the statute book, as an everlast- 
 ing memorial, their determination to up- 
 hold toleration. This was the law of 1649, 
 the day star of religious freedom on this 
 continent, the measure by which, in after 
 time, a great nation, made up of many 
 peoples and many faiths, was to solve a 
 question which had filled Christendom 
 with misery and blood. 
 
 282 
 
Destroyed Under William of Orange. 
 
 But the bigots were not to be deterred 
 from their work by legislative enactments. 
 After the establishment of the Common- 
 wealth, the Commissioners therefor en- 
 tered Maryland and called an assembly 
 from which all Catholics were excluded. 
 The Protestants who sat in that assembly 
 were beneficiaries of the Catholics. They 
 had been given freedom of worship when 
 Catholics were in the majority; yet now 
 when they had power they passed a law 
 that ^^none who profess and exercise the 
 Popish, commonly called the Roman Cath- 
 olic, religion can be protected in this 
 province by the laws of England, but are 
 to be restrained from the exercise thereof." 
 
 In England, however. Lord Baltimore, 
 the proprietor, had sufficient influence to 
 have the acts of the Commission set aside 
 and his own authority re-established. The 
 Toleration Law of 1649 therefore went 
 into force once more, and Maryland en- 
 joyed religious liberty until the deposition 
 of Jam.es IL and the accession of William 
 of Orange. As in England this event be- 
 
 283 
 
Persecution of Catholics in Maryland. 
 
 gan a new period of persecution, so in 
 America it marked the end of toleration. 
 Here, for the first time, as far as I have 
 been able to discover, we meet v^ith the 
 magic words, ^Trotestant Association/' 
 The bigots of Maryland banded themselves 
 into an association ^^for the defense of the 
 Protestant religion," and in an address to 
 King William denounced the influence of 
 Jesuits, the prevalence of Popish idolatry, 
 the connivance by the government at 
 murders of Protestants, and the danger 
 from plots with the French and Indians. 
 William of Orange seized the opportu- 
 nity thus offered him. Baltimore was de- 
 prived of his rights. Maryland was made 
 a Royal Colony. Catholics were disfran- 
 chised. The Episcopalian sect was set up 
 as the Established Church of Maryland. 
 The colony was divided into parishes. All 
 the people were taxed for the building 
 of Episcopalian churches, which were 
 nearly always empty, and for the support 
 of Episcopalian preachers, who were 
 nearly always full. In 1697 a pestilence 
 
 284 
 
Persecution in Other Colonies. 
 
 passed through the land. Then, as now, 
 the Catholic priests braved the terrors of 
 disease and death to minister to the 
 stricken. An Episcopalian preacher de- 
 manded that the legislature should inter- 
 fere to restrain such Popish presumption. 
 
 During the eighteenth century, new and 
 more ferocious laws were added. Burden 
 after burden was heaped upon the Catho- 
 lics, until, at last, only twenty-five years 
 before our Revolution, they were driven 
 in despair to appeal to the British throne. 
 All this was done in the first asylum of 
 religious liberty, done to those who had 
 founded that asylum; done by men who 
 boasted of their enlightened creed and 
 their freedom from the superstitions of 
 Rome. 
 
 In the other colonies the accession of 
 William of Orange was also the signal for 
 the outbreak of persecution. Of course 
 there were no Catholics in New England 
 and none in the Carolinas or Georgia; but 
 in New York the ancient Ghosts held high 
 revelry. In 1700 an Act was passed im- 
 
 285 
 
Especially Virulent in New York. 
 
 prisoning or banishing all priests, dis- 
 franchising Catholics and sentencing to 
 death any priest who escaped from prison. 
 To harbor a priest was to incur a fine of 
 two hundred and fifty pounds and stand in 
 the pillory three days. The preamble to 
 this Act recited that, ^^Whereas, divers 
 Jesuits, priests and Popish missionaries 
 have of late come, and for some time have 
 had their residence in remote parts of the 
 province, who, by their wicked and subtle 
 insinuations, industriously labor to de- 
 bauch, seduce and withdraw the Indians 
 from due obedience to His Most Sacred 
 Majesty, and to excite and stir them to se- 
 dition, rebellion and open hostility against 
 His Majesty's government, etc." It was 
 the same old Ghost that had terrified 
 England so long. It was as successful now 
 in terrifying the colonists. In 1741 a few 
 negro slaves made a sedition in New 
 York, and the rumors flew fast that a con- 
 spiracy was on foot to massacre the whites 
 and burn the city. An unfortunate Episco- 
 palian clergyman was accused of being a 
 
 286 
 
The Foundation of Pennsylvania. 
 
 Jesuit in disguise, was arrested, tried, con- 
 victed and hanged. There is no doubt that 
 he was what he claimed to be — a Protes- 
 tant preacher — but such was the popular 
 excitement that the jury took only fifteen 
 minutes to find him guilty of being a 
 Catholic. 
 
 In this dreary waste of intolerance there 
 was one place where Catholics and Protes- 
 tants found peace. In 1682 William Penn 
 had founded the Colony of Pennsylvania. 
 He belonged to the Quaker community. 
 Those inoffensive people had suffered se- 
 verely from Puritan and Prelatist alike. 
 Penn built this new State on the founda- 
 tions of religious liberty, and it is the 
 glory of the Quakers that while to the 
 north and to the south of them bigotry 
 reigned unchecked, within their borders 
 men's consciences were free. It is true 
 there were ill-disposed men in Pennsylva- 
 nia who complained to the home govern- 
 ment of the tolerance of the colony, but 
 Penn's influence was strong enough to set 
 them at nought. The protection which 
 
 287 
 
The Treaty of Paris and the Quebec Act. 
 
 Lord Baltimore's colonists had given to 
 the Quaker exiles from Massachusetts and 
 Virginia was nobly repaid by the Quakers 
 of Pennsylvania. 
 
 By the Treaty of Paris, in 1763, France 
 surrendered Canada to the British 
 Crown. It was stipulated that the people 
 should enjoy the use of the French lan- 
 guage and French laws and that their re- 
 ligion should not be molested. Now, west 
 of the English colonies and between the 
 Ohio and the Mississippi was a vast stretch 
 of country known then as the Northwest 
 Territory, and now occupied by the States 
 of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and 
 Wisconsin. All this land was claimed by 
 the older States under their charters. 
 When those charters were given no one 
 had any idea of the width of the continent, 
 and the grants usually ran from ocean to 
 ocean. In accordance with the Treaty of 
 Paris the English Parliament enacted a 
 law in 1774 known as the Quebec Act. By 
 that Act the privileges of the Canadians 
 were established and the Northwest Terri- 
 
 288 
 
First American Congress Protests. 
 
 tory was placed under the government of 
 Quebec. The Act raised a storm both in 
 England and in the Colonies. Already 
 the troubles with the government were 
 beginning, and the First American Con- 
 gress had convened in Philadelphia. 
 Among the grievances of the Colonies the 
 Quebec Act was set forth, and in an ad- 
 dress to the people of Great Britain, Sep- 
 tember, 1774, the representatives said: 
 "We think that the legislature of Great 
 Britain is not authorized by the Constitu- 
 tion to establish a religion fraught with 
 sanguinary and impious tenets, and to 
 erect an arbitrary form of government in 
 any quarter of the globe. By this the Do- 
 minion of Canada is extended, modeled 
 and governed, as that, being disunited 
 from us, detached from our interests by 
 civil as well as religious prejudices, that 
 by their numbers are daily swelling with 
 Catholic emigrants from Europe, they 
 might become formidable to us, and on 
 occasion be fit instruments in the hands of 
 power to reduce the ancient free Protes- 
 
 289 
 
War With England Destroys Bigotry. 
 
 tant colonies to the same state of slavery 
 with themselves." The author of the ad- 
 dress was John Jay, a lawyer, with whom 
 anti-Catholicism was a mania. A similar 
 address was sent to the colonies, and it 
 seemed as if the growing struggle for in- 
 dependence were to be disgraced by big- 
 otry. But God ruled otherwise. The time 
 had come when the designs of Lord Balti- 
 more were to find fruition, and the mus- 
 tard seed planted by Catholic hands and 
 watered by Catholic tears was to grow 
 into a mighty tree, offering shelter to the 
 persecuted of every land. 
 
 Events rapidly drove the colonists to a 
 complete break with England. "If we 
 do not hang together," said one of the 
 signers of the Declaration of Independ- 
 ence, "we shall all hang separately." The 
 common cause, the common enthusiasm, 
 broke down the barriers of religious intol- 
 erance. Catholics and Protestants stood 
 shoulder to shoulder against English tyr- 
 anny, and between men who stand 
 shoulder to shoulder for freedom, no 
 
 290 
 
Influence of Irish in Revolution. 
 
 Ghosts can come. The topic of religious 
 liberty soon became a common subject of 
 discussion. Many of the States caught 
 the new spirit, and their Constitutions, 
 adopted after the Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence, removed former restrictions on 
 Catholics and admitted them to citizenship. 
 The kindly feeling toward Catholics 
 was intensified by the aid received from 
 Catholic sources during the war. In 1776 
 the House of Lords appointed a committee 
 to inquire into the American War. Jo- 
 seph Galloway, an officer in high com- 
 mand on the Royalist side, testified that 
 one-half the troops in the service of Con- 
 gress were natives of Ireland, one-fourth 
 natives of England and Scotland, and one- 
 fourth natives of America. Before the 
 same committee, Major-General Robert- 
 son stated that he had been informed by 
 General Lee that half the rebel army came 
 from Ireland. Of course I do not claim 
 that all the Irish were Catholics. Still, 
 making all the allowances necessary, the 
 number of Catholics must have been very 
 
 291 
 
Influence of Catholic Nations. 
 
 large. Archbishop Carroll was able to 
 say in a public letter concerning his co- 
 religionists : ^Their blood flowed as 
 freely, in proportion to their numbers, to 
 cement the fabric of independence as that 
 of any of their fellow-citizens. They con- 
 curred with perhaps greater unanimity 
 than any other body of men, in recom- 
 mending and promoting that government 
 from whose influence America anticipates 
 all the blessings of justice, peace, plenty, 
 good order, civil and religious liberty." 
 The early struggles of America were 
 aided by two Catholic countries, France 
 and Spain. Catholic officers came from 
 Ireland, France and Poland, and offered 
 their swords on the altar of liberty. The 
 first diplomatic circle was made up of rep- 
 resentatives from Catholic powers, and on 
 great national occasions solemn Church 
 services, attended by the ambassadors, the 
 Federal authorities, and high military of- 
 ficers familiarized the people with the 
 Catholic liturgy. French fleets and 
 French regiments brought chaplains with 
 
 292 
 
Benedict Arnold on No Popery. 
 
 them, and the Puritans of Massachusetts 
 learned with surprise that priests did not 
 wear horns, and the Prelatists of Virginia 
 were disabused of their solemn conviction 
 that Jesuits had cloven hoofs and forked 
 tails. The Tories, or the friends of Eng- 
 land, used this toleration of Catholics as 
 an argument against the popular move- 
 ment. In 1780, the traitor, Benedict Ar- 
 nold, issued a proclamation to the Conti- 
 nental Army, in which he strove to raise 
 the no-Popery Ghost: 
 
 Should the parent nation cease her 
 exertions to deliver you, what security 
 remains to you for the enjoyment of 
 the consolations of that religion for 
 which your fathers braved the ocean, 
 the heathen and the wilderness? Do 
 you know that the eye that guides this 
 pen lately saw your mean and profli- 
 gate Congress at Mass for the soul of 
 a Roman Catholic in Purgatory, and 
 participating in the rites of a Church, 
 against whose anti-Christian corrup- 
 tion your pious ancestors would have 
 witnessed with their blood? 
 
 293 
 
The Commission to French Canada. 
 
 It was too late then to stir hatred be- 
 tween men who had tried their friendship 
 on the battlefield. In another direction, 
 however, the English government was 
 more successful. You will remember that 
 in 1773 Canada was ceded by France to 
 the British Crown. In 1774 the Quebec 
 Act guaranteed the Canadians their re- 
 ligious privileges. This concession called 
 forth the wrath of the bigots, and the ad- 
 dress written by John Jay spoke harshly of 
 the Canadians and their faith. In 1776 
 the Congress, seeing that the struggle was 
 to be one of life or death, strove to enlist 
 the Canadians in the American cause. 
 Three Commissioners were appointed to 
 proceed to Canada — Benjamin Franklin, 
 Samuel Chase and Charles Carroll of Car- 
 rollton. Congress invited Father John 
 Carroll, the Jesuit, to join them. When 
 they arrived in Canada they found that 
 bigotry had blocked their way. The Eng- 
 lish government had taken Jay's address, 
 translated it into French, and spread it 
 broadcast. This, they said, represents the 
 
 294 
 
Failed Because of Bigoted Protest. 
 
 true spirit of the Colonies — if you join 
 them they will turn on you and extirpate 
 your religion as they did in Maryland. 
 The circular did its work. The Canadians 
 were suspicious of the Commissioners. 
 The intolerance of John Jay destroyed all 
 hope in Canada of a union with the Colo- 
 nies. That the Dominion is not to-day an 
 integral part of the United States is due 
 to the narrowness and intolerance of those 
 who, in the supreme hour of a nation's 
 struggle, could not refrain from the watch- 
 words of bigotry. 
 
 Still the spirit of liberty was so strong 
 among the Canadians that, though their 
 leaders stood suspiciously aloof, individuals 
 flocked to the American army. Two regi- 
 ments, known as Congress Own, were 
 made up of the French Canadian volun- 
 teers. They had a Catholic chaplain, duly 
 commissioned by Congress. The Catholic 
 Indians from Maine, the Catholic Penob- 
 scots, all converts of French or Canadian 
 priests, joined the cause of the Colonies. 
 All the Catholic clergy in the boundaries 
 
 295 
 
Charles Carroll on Toleration. 
 
 of the thirteen original States were on the 
 side of liberty. In 1778 England at- 
 tempted to form a Catholic regiment, and 
 appointed Father Farmer of Philadelphia 
 chaplain. The Catholics were not forth- 
 coming, the priest refused to lend the in- 
 fluence of his name and office, and the 
 Catholic regiment never materialized. 
 
 Indeed, the Catholics looked to the 
 great national struggle as their only hope 
 for toleration. Charles Carroll of Car- 
 rollton, who, by his signature to the Dec- 
 laration of Independence, pledged his for- 
 tune to the cause, wrote at the end of his 
 long life concerning the motives which 
 then animated him: 
 
 When I signed the Declaration of 
 Independence I had in view not only 
 our independence of England, but the 
 toleration of all sects professing the 
 Christian religion, and communicat- 
 ing to them all equal rights. Happily 
 this wise and salutary measure has 
 taken place for eradicating religious 
 feuds and persecution, and become a 
 useful lesson to all governments. Re- 
 
 296 
 
Religious Liberty in Constitution. 
 
 fleeting, as you must, on the disabili- 
 ties, I may truly say on the proscrip- 
 tion, of the Roman Catholics in Mary- 
 land, you will not be surprised that I 
 had much at heart this grand design 
 founded on mutual charity, the basis 
 of our holy religion. 
 
 When the time came to establish the 
 Constitution under which we now live, 
 John Carroll was awake to the necessity 
 of securing to Catholics their rights under 
 the Federal Government. He drew up a 
 memorial to Congress on the subject, and 
 Washington used his influence to further 
 the plan. The differences in religion be- 
 tween the various States, and their mutual 
 jealousies, contributed not a little to se- 
 cure the clause which provides that "no 
 religious test shall ever be required as a 
 qualification for any office or public trust 
 under the United States," as well as the 
 First x\mendment, to the effect that "Con- 
 gress shall make no law respecting an es- 
 tablishment of religion or prohibiting the 
 free exercise thereof." 
 
 297 
 
Spread of Toleration in States. 
 
 When the Constitution was submitted to 
 the States the absence of a test was com- 
 mented on in several quarters; but the 
 growing spirit of liberality overruled these 
 objections. Little by little the various 
 States erased intolerant provisions from 
 their own Constitutions. ^ In New York a 
 test oath excluded Catholics from office 
 up to 1806. In Connecticut and Massa- 
 chusetts, Protestantism was the established 
 religion, and taxes were levied for its 
 support in Connecticut up to 18 16, and in 
 Massachusetts up to 1836. In North Car- 
 olina only those who were willing to swear 
 to the truth of Protestantism could hold 
 office until 1836; a similar provision ob- 
 tained in New Jersey until 1844, and it 
 is but twenty years since New Hampshire 
 was sufficiently penetrated with the Amer- 
 ican spirit to allow Catholics to aspire to 
 public office. 
 
 Speaking generally, however, the Rev- 
 olution left the Church free. She could 
 now gather her children into congregations 
 and speak to them without fear. . True, 
 
 298 
 
Catholic Address to Washington. 
 
 they were few and scattered. Bishop Car- 
 roll put their number at 25,000. The total 
 population was about 3,000,000. But few 
 as they were, they had great hopes. The 
 Church once more was at liberty to fulfill 
 her mission to teach the peoples. The win- 
 ter was past, the rain was over and gone; 
 the flowers appeared on the earth, the time 
 of pruning was come, and the voice of the 
 turtle was heard in the land. When Wash- 
 ington was elected President, the Catho- 
 lics presented him with an address in 
 which they said: 
 
 This prospect of national prosper- 
 ity is peculiarly pleasing to us on 
 another account, because, whilst our 
 country preserves her freedom and in- 
 dependence, we shall have a well- 
 founded title to claim from her jus- 
 tice, the equal rights of citizenship, 
 as the price of our blood spilt under 
 your eyes, and of our common exer- 
 tions for her defense, under your 
 auspicious conduct — rights rendered 
 more dear to us by the remembrance 
 of former hardships. When we pray 
 
 299 
 
Washington's Acknowledgment of Address. 
 
 for the preservation of them, where 
 they have been granted — and expect 
 the full extension of them from the 
 justice of those States v^hich still 
 restrict them — when we solicit the 
 protection of heaven over our com- 
 mon country, we neither omit, nor can 
 omit, recommending your preserva- 
 tion to the singular care of Divine 
 Providence. 
 
 To this Washington replied: 
 
 As mankind becomes more liberal, 
 they will be more apt to allow that all 
 those who conduct themselves as 
 worthy members of the community 
 are equally entitled to the protection 
 of the civil government. I hope ever 
 to see America among the foremost 
 nations in examples of justice and lib- 
 erality. And I presume that your 
 fellow citizens will not forget the 
 patriotic part which you took in the 
 accomplishment of their Revolution 
 and the establishment of your gov- 
 ernment; or the important assistance 
 which they received from a nation in 
 which the Roman Catholic faith is 
 orofessed. 
 
 300 
 
The Increase of Catholic Immigration. 
 
 During the closing years of the 
 eighteenth century and the first thirty 
 years of the nineteenth century, we hear 
 very little about the Ghosts. The nation 
 was too busy. She had extended her out- 
 posts to the Mississippi. Within a period 
 of nine years, from 1812 to 1821, seven 
 States had been admitted to the Union. 
 
 Up to 1820 there was practically no 
 influx from over the water, but the dis- 
 tress which followed the close of the Na- 
 poleonic wars sent thousands to America 
 to seek new homes. Among the new- 
 comers Catholics were numerous. Cath- 
 olic churches and convents sprang up in 
 places where Catholics, within the mem- 
 ory of many, had been under severe dis- 
 abilities. The vast majority of those Cath- 
 olics were Irish, and the prejudice against 
 their faith was strengthened by the preju- 
 dice against their race. Said the Bishop 
 of Charleston: 
 
 England has, unfortunately, too 
 well succeeded in linking contumely 
 to the Irish name in all her colonies; 
 
 301 
 
Irish Catholics Slandered by English. 
 
 and though the United States have 
 cast away the yoke under which she 
 held them, many other causes have 
 combined to continue against the 
 Irish Catholics, more or less, to the 
 present day the sneer of the super- 
 cilious, the contempt of the conceited, 
 and the dull prosing of those who 
 imagine themselves wise. That 
 which more than a century of fashion 
 has made habitual is not to be over- 
 come in a year; and to any Irish 
 Catholic who has dwelt in this coun- 
 try during one-fourth of the period 
 of my sojourn it will be painfully 
 evident that, although the evil is 
 slowly diminishing its influence is not 
 confined to the American or to the 
 anti-Catholic. When a race is once 
 degraded, no matter how unjustly, 
 it is a weakness of our nature that, 
 however we mav be identified with 
 them upon some points, we are desir- 
 ous of showing that the similitude is 
 not complete. You may be an Irish- 
 man, but not a Catholic; you may be 
 a Catholic, but not Irish. It is clear 
 you are not an Irish Catholic in 
 either case. But when the great ma- 
 
 302 
 
The Orangemen Take Up No Popery Cry. 
 
 jority of Catholics in the United 
 States were either Irish or of Irish 
 descent, the force of the prejudice 
 against the Irish Catholic bore 
 against the Catholic religion, and the 
 influence of this prejudice has been 
 far more mischievous than is gener- 
 ally believed. — Bishop England's 
 Works, vol. in, p. S^3' 
 
 The increase in immigration between 
 1820 and 1830 naturally stirred up the 
 anti-foreign feeling which appears to be 
 common to all races of men. This feeling 
 took an anti-Catholic direction through 
 the circumstances of the times. Catholic 
 emancipation, which was conceded by the 
 British Parliament in 1829, had been pre- 
 ceded by a long and bitter controversy. 
 All the opponents of toleration had re- 
 vived the old Ghosts to frighten the Brit- 
 ish public, and Catholics were painted in 
 the blackest colors. All this controversy 
 found an echo in America. The Orange- 
 men who had been formed to maintain the 
 Protestant ascendancy, in immigrating 
 here brought their lodges with them. The 
 
 303 
 
Mobs in Boston and New York. 
 
 toleration which had marked so many of 
 the Protestant preachers at the Revolution 
 gave way to an insane dread of Popery. 
 Catholics, and Irish Catholics at that, 
 were spreading their religion everywhere^ 
 and did not show the slightest desire to 
 accept Martin Luther and the blessed 
 Reformation. 
 
 As early as 1829 the houses of Catholics 
 on Broad street, Boston, had been attacked 
 by a mob; but beyond breaking a few win- 
 dows no damage was done. In 1831 St. 
 Mary's Church, in Sheriff street, New 
 York, was attacked and burned by incen- 
 diaries. In the same year the Orangemen 
 had taken the name of the American Prot- 
 estant Association and were actively en- 
 gaged In publishing and propagating all 
 manner of calumnies against the Church. 
 They found a receptive soil. The most 
 extraordinary and improbable tales were 
 believed, and the days of Titus Oates 
 appeared to have come again. 
 
 As New England had been the most 
 Protestant of all the Colonies, the agitation 
 
 304 
 
Burning of Charleston Convent. 
 
 came to a head there soonest. An Ursu- 
 line Convent had been established at 
 Charlestown, and the Sisters soon had a 
 flourishing school. Their success excited 
 the ire of the Rev. Lyman Beecher, a Con- 
 gregationalist clergyman, and many and 
 bitter were the sermons he preached 
 against the Church. The vilest accusations 
 were made against the Sisters — and be- 
 lieved. In 1834 ^^^ ^^ ^^^ inmates, in a 
 fit of delirium brought on by overstudy, 
 left the institution and went to a neigh- 
 bor's house. A medical examination 
 showed that she was deranged, but after 
 some time she was induced to return to the 
 convent. Immediately rumors were spread 
 that she was detained in the institution 
 against her will. The preachers delivered 
 inflammatory sermons — Beecher preached 
 as many as three sermons on one Sunday 
 on the iniquities of the Catholics and 
 convents. Meetings were held, and a 
 brave mob set forth in the darkness of the 
 night to attack a few defenseless women 
 and children. The doors were brjken in, 
 
 30s 
 
Puritans Protect the Marauders. 
 
 and the Sisters and their pupils driven 
 forth from their home. Barrels of liquor 
 were brought to excite the piety and pa- 
 triotism of the mob. They ransacked the 
 house, smashed the furniture, made a great 
 heap of everything combustible in the 
 rooms, set fire to it, and with shouts of 
 exultation cast into the blaze, as a peace 
 offering to the devil they worshipped, a 
 Catholic Bible. They did not desist from 
 their work until the convent was burned 
 to the ground, and then they turned to the 
 graves of the dead, wrested the plates from 
 the coffins, and left the mouldering 
 remains of their tenants exposed to view. 
 The perpetrators of the outrage were 
 known, and a prosecution was begun 
 against them, but the State let the matter 
 go by default. No witnesses were called, 
 and the scoundrels were declared not 
 guilty. The Massachusetts Legislature re- 
 fused to give compensation to those who 
 had trusted to the State for protection, and 
 for many a long day the blackened walls 
 of the Charlestown Convent stood as a 
 
 306 
 
The Imposture of Maria Monk. 
 
 monument to the malice of bigotry, to the 
 intolerance of the preachers, to the power 
 of the Ghosts and to the cowardice and 
 hypocrisy of the Puritan politicians who 
 looked on with folded arms while the dam- 
 age was doing, who bewailed it with croc- 
 odile tears when it was accomplished, and 
 who, afraid of their enlightened constit- 
 uents, refused to vote that compensation to 
 which by the laws of God and man the 
 injured were entitled. 
 
 Two years afterwards there appeared 
 in New York one of the most successful 
 impostures ever planned. A common 
 woman named Maria Monk, and a disso- 
 lute preacher, the Rev. J. J. Slocum, con- 
 cocted a book entitled "Awful Disclosures 
 of Maria Monk." She had been sent by 
 her mother to the Magdalen Asylum in 
 Montreal, but she had escaped therefrom 
 and returned to her life of shame. The 
 book purported to be an account of the 
 life of the Sisters in the famous hospital 
 in Montreal known as the Hotel Dieu, 
 and charged the nuns with immorality, 
 
 307 
 
Denounced by Committee of Protestants. 
 
 harshness, cruelty and murder. The book 
 was published by the Harpers in 1836, and 
 had an immense sale. The preachers had 
 been continuously pitching into Popery for 
 six years and more, and this was a godsend. 
 It was read more widely, perhaps, than 
 any book ever before published in Amer- 
 ica, and thousands took it as Gospel. A 
 committee of Protestants went to Montreal, 
 book in hand, and examined the Hotel 
 Dieu, and the description of that building 
 given by Maria Monk showed she had 
 never seen it. William L. Stone, editor of 
 the Commercial Advertiser, and a man 
 strongly prejudiced against Catholics, also 
 visited Montreal, explored the Hotel Dieu 
 from garret to cellar, and published his 
 opinion on the book. 
 
 The result is the most thorough 
 conviction that Maria Monk is an 
 arrant impostor — that she nevei was 
 a nun, and never was within the walls 
 of the Hotel Dieu — and consequently 
 that her disclosures are wholly and 
 unequivocally, from beginning to end, 
 untrue — either the vagaries of a dis- 
 
 308 
 
But Believed Implicitly by Rank and File. 
 
 tempered brain, or a series of calum- 
 nies, unequalled in the depravity of 
 their invention and unsurpassed in 
 their enormitv. There are those, I 
 am well aware, who will not adopt 
 this conclusion, though one should 
 arise from the dead and attest it — 
 even though Noah, Daniel and Job 
 were to speak from the slumber of 
 ages and confirm it. 
 
 Maria Monk's book was thoroughly re- 
 futed, but the fanatics clung to it still. 
 Maria Monk's mother made solemn oath 
 that the abandoned preacher, her daugh- 
 ter's paramour, had attempted to bribe her 
 to support the imposture; but what was 
 her oath against a spicy story about priests 
 and nuns? The conspirators themselves 
 quarreled over the spoils, and more than 
 one of them admitted the falsehood of the 
 whole book. It was shown that the awful 
 disclosures were copied, word for word, 
 from an anti-Popery tract published in 
 1 78 1, entitled "The Gates of Hell Opened, 
 or a Development of the Secrets of Nun- 
 neries," but still the disclosures were de- 
 
 309 
 
The Period of the Microbe of Bigotry, 
 
 voured. Even to this day Maria Monk's 
 book is sold on your bookstalls, and was 
 recommended during the A. P. A. agita- 
 tion as suitable reading for devout and 
 patriotic Protestants. Such is the vitality 
 of a lie, such the credulity of intolerance. 
 
 The microbe of bigotry has a period, 
 like the microbe of yellow fever or chol- 
 era. From 1830 to the Civil War, every 
 ten years saw an outbreak of fanaticism. 
 In 1834 w^ ^^^ *h^ burning of the 
 Charlestown convent; in 1844 we had the 
 native American riots; in 1854 we had 
 the Know-Nothing riots. As yet, we have 
 considered only the ancient Ghosts, which 
 flourished in England, and which were 
 imported here. In the forties we meet 
 with a new Ghost, which had its origin 
 on this continent, and which is in very 
 truth Our Own Ghost. 
 
 The school system of this country is not 
 the work of one man, of one time or of one 
 State. It is a gradual growth, and dififers 
 in character and efiiciency from State to 
 State, from county to county, and from 
 
 310 
 
The Rise of the Public School System. 
 
 town to town. Originally, as started in 
 Massachusetts, it was what we call now a 
 parochial school system. Religion was in- 
 culcated, and as the colony of Massachu- 
 setts was Protestant that religion was 
 Protestantism. In a community where all 
 think alike in matters of faith a public 
 school system may very well be a religious 
 system; but in a community where there 
 are various religions it is manifestly not 
 fair to tax the adherents of one creed in 
 order that another creed may be taught 
 their children. It is certainly not right 
 to make Catholics pay for the teaching 
 of Protestantism,, and it would be a mon- 
 strous thing to take the children of 
 Protestant parents and raise them Cath- 
 olics. 
 
 Before the great immigration began 
 this country was overwhelmingly Protes- 
 tant. The school system, such as it was, 
 was dominated by Protestantism. When 
 the children of the Catholic immigrants 
 began to frequent the schools they were 
 compelled to read the Protestant Bible 
 
 3" 
 
Originally Protestant Schools. 
 
 and to read Protestant prayers. Such a 
 violation of the rights of conscience was 
 not to be endured without a protest. The 
 Catholic parents protested, but their pro- 
 tests were in vain. As late as 1859, ^^ 
 Eliot School, Boston, a Catholic boy was 
 ordered to repeat the Ten Commandments 
 in the Protestant form. He refused, and 
 was flogged by the teacher on both hands 
 for thirty minutes, the brute declaring 
 that he would whip the child until he con- 
 sented. A suit for assault and battery fol- 
 lowed, but the judge held that the teacher 
 was within his rights in attempting to 
 hammer Popery out of the poor little boy. 
 The schools of Philadelphia were mod- 
 eled on the same plan as the schools of 
 Massachusetts. The Protestant Bible was 
 read to the children, and naturally the 
 Catholic parents complained of this as an 
 abridgment of the rights of conscience. 
 In 1844, Bishop Kenrick petitioned the 
 School Board to allow the Catholic chil- 
 dren to use the Catholic Bible. He did 
 not ask that the Protestant Bible be ex- 
 
 312 
 
Anti-Catholic Riots in Philadelphia. 
 
 eluded; he simply asked that the Cath- 
 olics be permitted to adopt the version 
 which their Church sanctioned. 
 
 The petition was misrepresented, and 
 misrepresented designedly. The cry went 
 forth that the Catholics wanted to drive 
 the Bible from the schools. The preachers, 
 as usual, took up the cry, and the Ghosts of 
 the Little Red Schoolhouse and of Rome's 
 Red Hand scared the sober Quakers. The 
 Orangemen of Philadelphia — all foreign- 
 ers — were the backbone of the Native 
 American Party. They got up a great 
 meeting to denounce the Pope, and they 
 also took care to get up a riot. This 
 has always been a familiar trick of no- 
 Popery mobs. We have had some speci- 
 mens of it in this city, and we know the 
 dexterity with which they can create a 
 disturbance among their own '^plug- 
 uglies" and then saddle the blame on the 
 Papists. In Philadelphia this trick was 
 tried with success. The mob began an 
 attack on the houses occupied by Catho- 
 lics. Naturally the Catholics defended 
 
 313 
 
Churches and Convents Burned. 
 
 their property, and some of the rioters 
 were justly killed. Next the cry was, ^^To 
 the nunnery!" A rush was made for 
 the house occupied by the Sisters of Char- 
 ity; but a volley from a few defenders 
 drove the scoundrelly cowards off. Bishop 
 Kenrick then published a card to his peo- 
 ple urging his flock to keep the peace. 
 This was the worst thing he could have 
 done, because it emboldened the rioters, 
 who w^ere assured of the connivance of the 
 civil authorities and who feared nothing 
 but to face men. The next day the rioters 
 began again. St. Michael's Church and 
 the priest's residence were set on fire; then 
 St. Augustine's Church was burned. In 
 the afternoon the home of the Sisters, 
 who in the days of the cholera had at- 
 tended Protestant and Catholic alike, was 
 given to the flames. 
 
 All this happened in May, 1844, in 
 Philadelphia. A similar campaign had 
 been fought out in New York with a dif- 
 ferent captain, and a far different ending. 
 There was a school law in force in the 
 
 314 
 
John Hughes and the New York Schools. 
 
 State of New York since the beginning 
 of the century, but it had not been ex- 
 tended to the city. From 1812 the private 
 schools received a portion of the school 
 fund, and of course the Catholic schools 
 among others. A private society, however, 
 known as the Public School Society, had 
 been growing up, and had gradually ab- 
 sorbed all the school funds. This society 
 was a Protestant society, and its text books 
 were so grossly offensive that Catholic 
 children could not conscientiously attend 
 the schools. In 1840 the Catholics peti- 
 tioned for a return to the old system. Of 
 course, at once the preachers were alert 
 to oppose any concession to fair play. 
 After an exciting debate before the Com- 
 mon Council, in which John Hughes, the 
 Bishop of New York, set forth the Cath- 
 olic claims, the petition was rejected. The 
 Catholics, however, carried the matter be- 
 fore the legislature. The Public School 
 Society was abolished and the neutral 
 State system was extended to the city. 
 This was the state of affairs in New York 
 
Advises Catholics to Defend Their Homes. 
 
 when the riots happened in Philadelphia. 
 The Native American Party had elected 
 as Mayor one of the Harpers, the pub- 
 lishers of Maria Monk's book. It was 
 planned to get up a great meeting to wel- 
 come delegates from the Philadelphia 
 rioters, and then, under the usual pretext, 
 start a row and attack the Catholic 
 churches. When the Catholics came to 
 Bishop Hughes for advice he asked a law- 
 yer, ^^Does the law of New York provide 
 compensation for damage done by rioters?" 
 The lawyer replied that it did not. 
 ^Then," he said, ^^the law intends that citi- 
 zens should defend their own property." 
 An issue of the Catholic paper appeared 
 immediately, containing a proclamation to 
 Catholics: 
 
 If, as it has already appeared in 
 Philadelphia, it should be a part of 
 Native Americanism to attack the 
 houses and churches of Catholics, then 
 it behooves Catholics, in case all other 
 protection fail, to defend both with 
 their lives. In this they will not be 
 acting against, but for the law. In 
 
 316 
 
The Rise of the Know Nothing Party. 
 
 no case let them suffer an outrage on 
 their property without repelling the 
 aggression at all hazards. 
 
 The warning was sufficient The Na- 
 tive Americans knew their man. John 
 Hughes would stand no nonsense. The 
 meeting was never held. The delegates 
 from the Philadelphia thugs never ap- 
 peared. There were no riots in New 
 York. 
 
 The next agitation against the Church 
 began in the fifties. In 1852 a secret, 
 oath-bound association was founded, 
 which spread over the country like wild- 
 fire. When questioned as to its nature, 
 its members answered, ^^I don't know," 
 hence their popular and appropriate title 
 of Know Nothings. It purported to be a 
 nativistic movement, but it was in reality 
 the old American Protestant Association, 
 receiving its impetus from imported pa- 
 triots. As usual, its cause was championed 
 by the preachers, and by a number of ex- 
 priests who had been exiled, because of 
 political troubles in Italy, such as Guis- 
 
 317 
 
Usual Results of Arson and Murder. 
 
 tiniani and Gavazzi, companions of the 
 infamous Achilli, whom Newman at this 
 time was flaying in Birmingham. A fa- 
 natic who called himself the Angel Ga- 
 briel added to the turmoil. He began in 
 the streets of Boston, holding forth against 
 popes, priests, nuns and Catholics gener- 
 ally. Arson and murder followed his foot- 
 s.teps. In May, 1854, the mob attacked 
 the Catholics at Chelsea, and burned a 
 church. In June a Catholic church was 
 burned at Coburg. In July another was 
 blown up with gunpowder at Dorchester, 
 on the fourth, and on the fifth the church 
 of Bath was destroyed; the priest. Father 
 Bapst, was tarred and feathered, and re- 
 ceived such injuries that he never recov- 
 ered. In the same year the Know Noth- 
 ings were successful at the election in 
 Massachusetts, and a bill was passed 
 through the legislature in 1855 providing 
 for the inspection of convents. The legis- 
 lative blackguards who went to perform 
 the work in one convent behaved so shame- 
 fully that public opinion was aroused, and 
 
 318 
 
Massacre of Catholics in Louisville. 
 
 the act was repealed. In the same year 
 desperate rioting occurred in Louisville, 
 Kentucky, where the Know Nothings at- 
 tempted to prevent Catholics from going 
 to the polls. Nearly a hundred Catholics 
 were shot down, and over twenty houses 
 were burned. Louisville never recovered 
 from that Bloody Monday, as it was 
 called. The current of immigration 
 passed it by and it was left to Know 
 Nothingism and stagnation. 
 
 The end of the anti-Catholic agitation 
 was at hand. The great struggle between 
 the North and South was looming up. 
 In 1856 the party was swept out of exist- 
 ence in the North. It lingered in the 
 South, but greater issues killed it there, 
 too. The cry of unpatriotism made 
 against the Catholics and the Irish was 
 drowned in their answer to Lincoln's call 
 for volunteers, and in the tramp of their 
 regiments marching to the front. The war 
 brought Catholics and Protestants close 
 together, as they had been brought close 
 together in the days of the Revolution 
 
 319 
 
The Ghosts Laid for a Time by Civil War. 
 
 and Our Own Ghost was laid in blood. 
 It was only when the memory of that con- 
 flict was dying out and a new generation 
 had grown to manhood that the Ghosts 
 again walked abroad. By the time of the 
 great Columbus celebrations of 1892 the 
 twenty years term of the microbe of bigotry 
 had been completed and the clamor of the 
 A. P. A. filled the land. The history of 
 that movement is too familiar to the Ameri- 
 can people to need recounting. Like the 
 Know-Nothing Ghost of the fifties it too 
 was laid by war. 
 
 320 
 
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